Cat Shit Gal

WE GOT EM

BUMBLESWEEP REAL

WE DID IT! SHE HAS DEFEATED ALEX DEWITT!

In spite of people trying to downplay the fact she is a domestic abuse victim treated as unreasonable and stupid for asking for help in a YA novel for young readers, not caring that both her abuser and her murderer are treated as good, worthwhile people by the narrative because they're all superficially written as cats, we did it!

BOTH characters in this poll were victims of egregious misogyny, and Alex DeWitt, inventor of the term fridging, was a worthy opponent. We respect her and the contributions to discussions about misogyny in media she's responsible for! It was a reasonable choice to vote for either option.

But we WON! We're doing it! People outside our fandom are seeing what happened to this character and acknowledging some of the awful things that WC does to its female characters, and ESPECIALLY to Bumble, possibly the greatest example of its hatred of women, fat people, and outsiders in the entire series. Thank you to EVERYONE who contributed to this round of the Canon Misogyny Tournament!!

And to everyone who thinks Bumble doesn't matter "because she's just a cat," WELL,

PROPAGANDA

@lydiacatfish @dsi-penguin @luminousbug

So I won't do that to Alex. She's a worthy opponent and the originator of the term "fridging." She existed only to serve Green Lantern's arc and has sparked a wide discussion on misogyny in media. That's meaningful and important. Do not take a single word of my argument as dismissing how badly Alex was treated.

Everything that happens to Bumble is in a popular series for young readers.

Warrior Cats is aimed at a tween audience; Yet, the downplaying or dismissal of domestic abuse, mockery of weight and "usefulness", and constant, graphic torment and slaughter of female characters is notorious in these books... and Bumble is one of the GREATEST examples of it.

She seeks asylum with her only friend, Turtle Tail, after fleeing physical assault from Tom, a man who had beaten them both. Turtle's new husband Gray Wing immediately seethes at seeing this battered woman because she's a fat foreigner who "stole his wife away" last winter (after treating her like shit), even balking at Bumble's request for safety because "her abuse has drained her confidence which would make her useless"

This is treated as a WISE thing, Gray Wing's defining character trait. Being "wise."

She is then publicly mocked by a crowd of cats, where she's interrogated with questions like, "What did you do to make him so mad?" and "Can't you just purr at your humans?" and "Why are you so fat?" before two cats interject, tell Bumble how disgusting and useless she is, and then push her away as she screams that she'll never forgive Turtle Tail for letting her be dragged back to Tom the Wifebeater.

This is treated as an unreasonable thing for Bumble to be mad at. That her only friend happily watched her be sent back to a man who is beating her bloody.

Bumble then spends weeks starving to death in the woods, alone, because she won't return to Tom. Clear Sky, a murderous tyrant who had already slaughtered a random native woman (Misty) to steal her territory, finds Bumble on his territory and...

Well.

Gray Wing and his cats learn of the murder of Misty because he left her brutalized corpse unburied, and come to look for her orphaned children. They find Bumble, slowly bleeding to death through many "slits down her belly and sides." A death of a thousand cuts. .

Clear Sky then appears, and Gray Wing begs him to explain what happened because this story is about Clear Sky actually being a good person all along. He then makes up a FANTASTIC lie on the spot that he just "cuffed her ear" and she passed out, so he left, and then a fox mauled her, so he came back, and then he left again just before they showed up, and now he's back for the third time. Gray Wing buys it immediately, praising how cool and amazing his brother is. You are meant to take this seriously.

Meanwhile, Bumble dies, and her death is treated as inevitable because she was too fat and useless to live. Gray Wing even gets another little dig in about how much he doesn't like the domestic abuse victim.

What matters about Bumble isn't that she spent the last days of her life in terrified agony. She "never could have lived out here" and her "tragic but unavoidable" death CHANGES THE WAY THAT GRAY WING'S CATS FEEL ABOUT HIS BROTHER, unfairly blamed for this SECOND murder of a woman he absolutely did. Because killing one woman for her land would have been fine!

(I have an in-depth post about these scenes if you'd like more context)

Later in the book Gray Wing even comforts Turtle Tail, assuring her that there's nothing they could have done and also his brother totally isn't responsible for killing TWO women.

(Clear Sky's woman-related body count ends in the main series with 2 fridged wives, 1 fridged platonic female ally, and 3 women killed in cold blood. He also regularly hits women who talk back to him, but not men. Turtle Tail also dies to make Gray Wing sad.)

Every single male character who had a hand in Bumble's mistreatment, from Tom the Wifebeater who tortured her and Turtle, to Clear Sky who beats her to death and blames her for being too weak to stay conscious through his physical assault, and beloved fandom favorite Gray Wing who allows her to get dragged back to her abuser out of jealousy that she was friends with his wife... is venerated and celebrated by these books.

Clear Sky in particular is said to have "not changed that much" after his sudden "redemption" in the next book because it turns out he only killed women because "he was scared." He continues to be violent, abusive, and manipulative, and he kills 3 more women and his first and only male victim (because by killing a husband it would indirectly hurt a woman). This blatant misogyny is never addressed.

Gray Wing's actions aren't seen as a problem at all, in fact he's allegedly "wise." All the characters in canon fall over themselves to note how wise and good he is.

ALL of them go to cat heaven. Even Tom the Wifebeater who according to authorial statements, now has a fleet of angel kitties "teaching him how to be nice" because he has a redemption death.

Did Bumble go to heaven? Who knows. The writers don't give a shit. Her last "appearance" is Tom the Wifebeater finding and disrespecting her grave, a fight breaking out where he "smothers Turtle Tail with his fat body" so Gray Wing can jump in and save her.

Not only is Bumble's life treated as lesser because she is a fat woman, but ALL female characters in Dawn of the Clans are treated as unreasonable, expendable objects. A combined SEVEN women are killed just to advance the stories of Clear Sky and Gray Wing-- SO MANY die that the writers are suddenly introduce random women from nowhere to breed with the male characters, to "reward" them with biological children.

So, PLEASE, VOTE BUMBLE, the worst victim of her canon's misogyny in the book series notorious for radioactive levels of it.

The next opening will be from Friday, October 20th at 18:00 to Sunday, October 22nd at 18:00 (Times in EDT)!

Pixel Cat's End is a virtual pet site where you collect and manage a village of cat-like creatures. You can dress them up, give them jobs, build and decorate their homes, and take them on tabletop-rpg-style adventures.

Come down and get yourself some small, round little kitty not-cats! Features:

The tiniest baby kittens you have ever seen in your entire life.

A very slow/casual-paced game that you can easily keep up with even if busy with work or school.

Say goodbye to the gender binary.

Giant (friendly) magical moose with hundreds of eyes, if that sweetens the deal for you.

Some future features:

Ascend your cats to their final form and give them antlers, wings, and spare eyes.

Mercats. Yes, you heard me. Mermaid kitties with little fishie tails and fluffy kitty pawsies. They will be yours.

Magical kitty cat powers (and terrible consequences for unlocking the secrets of the universe).

Wow Warrior Cats is actually acknowledging that Raggedstar was bad to Yellowfang

(Not the W these writers think it is, imo)

But we're meant to believe that the rest of StarClan was "holding out on a redemption that never came?" Excuse me?? The guys we JUST wrapped up an arc with that pointedly doesn't believe in that for Dark Forest cats??? What????

They just allowed YELLOWFANG to let the attempted murderer in? Just her? No one else was there like "idk gamgam thats a bit funny innit?"

Ah! Thank you!