#mothflight deserves so much better

[barksatyouu]

Daily reminder the "med cats shouldnt have kits" was a COLLECTIVE DECISION and NOT JUST A MOTH FLIGHT FAULT and STARCLAN ENCOURAGED HER

[thunders-warcats-stuff]

Leafpool Headcanons

Canon stuff

I think she was supposed to take after her aunt, Princess, and that's really cool, but unless you remember Firestar's siblings, you have to wonder where her pattern came from. She's a pretty good medicine cat, the first I've ever seen as wanting to be a medicine cat even if she recanted in favor of her feelings.

That rule is stupid. Do medicine cats have to give up their parents and siblings and friends as well? Make that the rule and I get why breaking it is such a crime. Pull the whole "you must give up all earthly things" thing that they have monks and other similar religious leaders do and I'll believe for a second that she deserved a trial. We didn't see Yellowfang or Bluestar get one. We didn't see Raggedstar get one for enabling Brokenstar. What the fuck, Erins?!

I wish her relationship with Crowfeather was more fleshed out. We got more of her oogling Mothwing and pages upon pages about how pretty the golden she-cat was but Crowfeather might as well have been a one-night-stand that she got pregnant from.

Like Bluestar.

Which makes it a lot more hypocritical that Bluestar and Yellowfang were at that "trial."

Goodness, StarClan is driving me up the wall.

The Erins did such a good job of portraying Mothwing through Leafpool's eyes that I'm actually not surprised there's a Mothpool fandom. It actually makes sense here. Leafpool didn't wake up one day and say the RiverClan medicine cat was pretty, she thought that gal was smokin from the get go. All the favors they've exchanged throughout the books could be because Mothwing doesn't believe in StarClan, but it's also a really good indicator that they're in love.

Lesbian medicine cats, WOOHOO!

Let these cats have feelings, Erin!

I really wish she had advocated for Jayfeather. I wish he wasn't forced into the medicine den by "destiny" (fuck you, Spottedleaf. And StarClan's warped version of Yellowfang.) He could have helped her out with herbs or interpreted a message but he didn't have to be a full-time medicine cat. He fought her every step of the way and it showed every single book.

Also: naming your son after the father he's not supposed to know he has is a major fuckup. Leafy, my girl, what are you doing?!

Speaking of major fuckups, are we just going to floss over the fact that Hollyleaf tried to kill her relative(aunt-turned-mother)? Yeah,it was a sign of her breakdown after she found out The Secret but damn, the words that spilled outta Leafpool's mouth made me wanna scoop her up. She and Squirrelflight inherited Sandstorm's tongue, for sure, because they are extremely good liars when desperate.

I think all of Squirrelflight's Hope was stupid so that's what I've got to say on that.

AU stuff

I wish she and Squirrelflight had the same pelt. Maybe a reddish brown. That'd be cool.

I think she and Crowfeather would have been better off as friends built up over time. Maybe he could help her navigate a relationship with Mothwing, but they never showed any true indication of wanting to be with each other. Crowfeather was getting over a broken heart and Leafpool was happy to go with it. Could they be friends? Absolutely. But as lovers... Either let them run away together or let them figure out they're not good for each other.

My personal AUs have Leafpool as a character who orients herself around others. She encourages cats. She heals them. She gives great advice. But taking for herself is foreign to her when she's spent so much time in service to others as a medicine cat.

Don't get me wrong, she's not subservient. She's just as feisty as her sister and in one of my fics she stands up to Firestar when he goes too far trying to keep Squirrel and Bramble from figuring out the message StarClan sent Bramble. She's a messenger for StarClan and she takes that seriously. But maybe she's a bit too serious about that.

Sorreltail remains a friend of hers. Leafy delivers everyone's kits but she coos extra hard over Sorreltail's.

She helps Brightheart and Cloudtail figure out what's up with their relationship. Cloudtail isn't in love with Daisy, he's ecstatic at the chance to prove that outsiders can make it in ThunderClan. He was given a lot of shit in the books so of course he would attach his success to Daisy and her kits. It's not something Brightheart picks up on because the Clan has always rallied around her and treated her well. But Leafpool knows stories that her father won't tell anyone. Mostly about his childhood and how he didn't fit in. It helps every now and then.

The medicine cats are more like co-workers than anything else. They're doctors and religious interpreters, so of course they'll side with each other over their Clans and turn to each other for advice. But their mileage varies. Cinderpelt, Little loud, Mudfur, and Barkface had different relationships with each other than their apprentices. So on and so forth.

In all of my fics, the "medicine cats can't have kits" rule is challenged. It's either abolished earlier than the first book because Mothflight's issues no longer apply, or spread to encompass all relatives and abolished later on because it proves to be a strain on mental health.

Leafpool tells her parents that she's pregnant in all iterations of my fics. Some of them, Squirrel tells Bramble. Some of them, Squirrel doesn't know and really does find them in the forest. She always suspects in those but surely her sister would never!

[kestrelblaze]

Cats I think Deserved Better

Basically the series is rife with cats that had interesting plot ideas/lines that got shafted by the Erin's and I've decided I wanted to list them more.

1. Leafpool

I had already made a post about her, but basically her entire character arc felt really squandered. She could have been used to show that the Code needed revision and some elements caused more harm then good, referencing former medicine cats that had kits as evidence along with the fact that having kits did not impact her ability at all.

They even could have used this to show Mothflight in Starclan realizing the code she made was inherently flawed and catered more to her than medicine cats as a whole.

2. Speckletail and Snowkit

If you don't remember them Speckletail was a queen during the first series and also the mother of the deaf Snowkit who was taken by a hawk during book 5: A Rising Storm and was used primarily as a plot device to show how far Bluestar had fallen.

A deaf character alone is wasted potential, but this gets really noticeable when you realize Speckletail had developed a way to to communicate with Snowkit (there being an implication that he wasn't completely deaf). If they kept dead Snowkit it would have been nice to see Speckletail come to terms with it instead of just being shoved off into the Elder's Den and forgotten.

3. Sootfur and Rainwhisker

Rainwhisker was my favorite side character for awhile, and being that they are implied to be the sons of Whitestorm, who was Firestar's first deputy, I felt they had a lot of wasted potential. We never had any scenes of them or their sister Sorreltail grieving over their parents, or talking about their POV of previous events and that always bothered me.

4. Stormfur and Brook

The Tribe as a whole is a missed opportunity to me, especially since its shown they arent that far from the clans and since their introduction they always have at least one book where the current PoV cat has to go deal with an issue. But to be more specific to these cats, I think Storm and Brook are more of a missed opportunity in terms of being Tribe cats that joined Thunderclan, mostly because Stormfur was originally a Riverclan cat and that after a few books with no use of them beyond being background characters they got sent back home.

It could have been an amazing way to bring attention back to Riverclan to have Stormfur go back and trying to reintegrate into his old clan, maybe him and Brook having to leave it for Thunderclan due to not fitting in to their particular clan again. The two in general had great ideas behind them, especially concerning Graystrip and Millie and they could have had some interesting interactions about Silverstream but....

5. Riverclan as a whole after TPB

As a whole, Riverclan heavily got the shaft after the cats moved territories. I blame this in part due to the borders shifting and Thunderclan sharing a border with Windclan and Shadowclan now but it is still glaringly obvious when you consider how much screen time they had in the beginning and how their part in the Alliances barely ever changes now.

6. Darktail, Onestar, and Sleekwhisker

Darktail was an amazing villain in aVoS, and he actually had an interesting backstory with Onestar that came.... out of absolutely nowhere. There was no hints to his existence and tbh it felt like an asspull (which it probably was tbh). Especially when you consider for him to exist he had to be born in the old territories, and the only logical time he could have been born without making him an elder would have been between book 6 and Firestar's Quest. Some more elaboration between him and Onestar would have been amazing, especially since Onestar really needed some development himself.

A way to do this in an amazing way would have been to make Heathertail a PoV character. She is heavily implied to be Onestar's daughter and thus Darktail's Half Sister and could have given us valuable insight into how Windclan was dealing with the Kin, giving us more hints to Darktail being Onestar's son, and fleshing out her romance with Breezepelt.

Add to this is his implied mate Sleekwhisker. Watching Darktail die, she could have easily been used to take up the mantle and become the overarching villain and leader of the Kin for the final 3 aVoS books instead of just... taking off. She would have made an excellent villain for how deranged she was and how the fandom already hated her, but instead she was a wasted potential. I am hoping in the theory that she took off because she was pregnant with Darktail's kits tho.

7. Hollyleaf

I know, dead horse here, but Hollyleaf in general was an amazing character and had so much potential. Her fanatical loyalty to the code could have been used in so many ways especially if she was given a power. A youtuber named Roseshard (I think) made the theory that her power should have been forcing cats around her to speak the truth when she questioned them and if you combine that with her fanatical loyalty to the code this could have made her a very compelling character.

If we kept it as is, her returning to the clan having matured in the caves was also a wasted opportunity, especially since she dies. I will admit this: Lionblaze should have died over Hollyleaf.

Now, I get what you are thinking: with Lionblaze's ability he couldnt, and Jayfeather is needed in his slot. From a narrative standpoint, it would have made a much better ending if Lionblaze put his ability to the real test and to save his clan took on the Dark Forest himself, a battle that would eventually end in his death but saving his clan (I'm not talking the whole of Dark Forest, just a big chunk of their warriors). Hollyleaf returning just to die did nothing for the narrative and after a full 5-6 books of Lionblaze and Jayfeather morning her it would have been better to keep her dead, or kill off someone else instead.

8. Twigbranch and Violetshine

Outside of Twigbranch having an amazing name and Violetshine basically being a teen mom and switching from Shadowclan to Skyclan (and them being Hawkwing's kits), can you tell me anything interesting they actually did in aVoS? I rest my case.

9. Ivypool and Dovewing

I know, both were POV cats but they felt so wasted.

I boil this down to having to share the spotlight with Lionblaze and Jayfeather tbh, especially in The Fourth Apprentice and Fading Echoes to the point we never got a feel of their characters. Both had really amazing qualities that were really easy to empathize with but the erins crudy writing in the series made it difficult to let them shine. Dovewing was a character who struggled to find her place in the world and focused on finding it through love, while hating her powers for making her different from her sister. Ivypool felt neglected and struggled to show she was just as capable as any other cat in the clan, getting only half the information to explain why her sister was more important.

To be honest, it would have been so much better if the books were rewritten so Dovewing was the sole narrator of The Fourth apprentice and Ivypook was the narrator of Fading Echos. Dovewing and Ivypool could switch in Sign of the Moon.

The fact the narration got split between them and Lionblaze and Jayfeather in each book really took a toll and left them underdeveloped.

10. Sandstorm

Sandstorm got a lot of screentime in the first series, but I will forever rage at the missed opportunity for Firestar to make her deputy. She showed all the qualities in the first series, and it's beyond obvious the only reason Brambleclaw was chosen was because of Protagonist Syndrome.

11. Goosefeather

Just Goosefeather.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Feel free to add more

[shinydmoon]

O.K.

Soo a few things first.

1. My first read though of warriors stopped like mid-end of TNP(the book that crow and leaf start feeling for eachother I believe). I was unaware of po3 spoilers at the time but was already well aware of said spoilers once I restarted my reading. It stopped at book 2 in po3 due to me not having the next book.

2. Read most except more recent special editions.(I think the ‘newist’ one I have read was mothflight.) But nothing past tnp in the timeline.

3. Didn’t ship any mates during my reading.(I now ship LeafMoth[just to have something better], IvyFern[fluffy], MothMitch[the issues can be addressed later], and maybe SparkLark?[just heard about it and sounds like some AUs are needed].

———Cut here———

Now all that was background info, of what you ask.

My stance on BrambleSquirrel, atleast what it has been till recently. So first reading the books I just though ‘ok’ for most couples because there wasn’t really much to say about them and hey the books need new cats to come from somewhere.

This was true of BrambleSquirrel, didn’t really care or mind them. Sure it was kinda forced and off putting but wasn’t that most warriors romance? Didn’t really like them together but not much to say. Finding out about Jay,Holly, and Lion. Bad for their bond but it was not really their fault, but still breaking up is and was understandable along with getting back together after some cooldown time.

Then comes vos, they have kits and it seems fine. But then there are parenting issues with BrambleStar and AlderHeart. Ok not good but it is more a reflection on his parenting then on his relationship with Squirrel. The spilting of Violet and Twig, a lot more then Bramble were in the wrong at that point.

Don’t really know much else about it till we come to now. Information on Squirrelflight’s hope is being posted and from the sound of it, my patience and willingness to disbelieve is gonna finally be reaching its end.

Abusive, manipulating and seeming to be all around unhealthy? Ya Thats it. Im done with this pair, someone write some better couple AUs. I know SquirrelShrew is around but as long as its not SquirrelAsh(atleast if it is have Ash get a character overhaul). Now Im on the fence on weither Bramble is a bad character, has just gotten bad writers recently, or was just in a bad situation. As in is Bramble only at fault or was their relationship just toxic for both of them. But for now I guess Bramble still deserves to have a better mate.

So to sum up. From the sound of it Bramble and Squirrel should have ether stayed Brokenup after the 3 or should have never been together at all.

Let me know if you want more information and or my opinion on other Warrior cats things.