darwin

⬇️ images: genderqueer lesbian flag (made by me), aroaspec flag (i just edited the arospec/aspec flags together), agender lesbian flag (for needle), girlthing

Spottedleaf going from irrelevant female character who died to make room for Yellowfang to suddenly a love interest to beating a dead wife to retconning her repeatedly then killing her off to avoid the narrative complications they created. And her only crime was being a woman who happened to speak to the male protagist a total of 3 times while alive, none of which were in an even remotely romantic context.

This is also seen very clearly with characters like Ferncloud, who was killed in the same book as Spottedleaf due to fan complaints of her "being useless" because she spent alot of time in the nursery. And as easy as it would be to try and blame a fandom largely full of children at the time for making those complaints, warrior cats itself is full of misogyny and those ideas can very easyily rub off onto young or casual readers who don’t have a deeper context. (ex. 2010s having large waves of hate and discourse towards Leafopool and Squirrelflight, both of whom are victims of their situations whether that be their relationships or their society)