#vote bumble

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,

We need a new word for what happened to Bumble. She wasn't even killed and put in a fridge to make a man upset, a man slaughtered her so that ANOTHER MAN could be upset that no one likes the woman-killer anymore

And then the NARRATIVE AGREES!!

Always good to see you around!

This vitriol has been super disappointing, y'know? I feel like I have to keep stressing that DC fans are valid, their frustrations with the comics are well-founded, and Bumble's opponents should also be acknowledged as victims of misogyny

And then we don't get that grace back! Doesn't matter that Warriors is a best-selling kids' series with REALLY harmful messages in it read by millions across the globe. Bumble's "just a cat" and we're "reading too much into it." As if that's not the same shit that gets said about misogyny in media broadly; "They're not real, comics are just for fun, you're reading too much into it"

Now people are like "Oh it was a mistake for WARRIOR CATS to be in this poll" because they're mad our "just a cat" is winning. Like it's not a tournament and that's the whole point. We've got people trying to say that Bumble can't even have misogyny happen to her because the human writers superficially made her a cat, as if she's not a fantasy character like every other fantasy character she's been up against.

If Moonkitti can singlehandedly turn the fandom around on Squirrelflight with Bramblestar Is Worse, then by hell or highwater I shall spread the Gospel of Bumble as though it were my mission. So help me, I will make the world KNOW.