It’s about as retconned as Silverstream suddenly not being okay with Graystripe being with Millie despite encouraging the relationship and knowing they’d been together much longer than she had

i always thought firepaw's feelings for her were a representation of a common experience teenagers have where they have a crush on their teachers for a short period of time which is why the feelings being mutual is very creepy to me--

The biggest problem I have with Firestar "choosing Spottedleaf in Starclan" is the implication that he'd choose a highschool crush over his wife that he'd been with for like, literally 3/4 of his life! No one would do that, let alone angelic, can do no wrong even if he tries, goodboi Firestar!

At least Spottedleaf's iconic ability to smell really good will ultimately make the memories of her life as spotless as ever.

I actually really like the idea of Spottedleaf encouraging Fireheart to love Sandstorm, like that's actually really sweet.

I alwyas hated that. It just makes everything so messed up. In my AU I would make Firepaw have crush on her but then he grews out of it, and when they are both dead and in Starclan she teases him constantly that he had a crush on her when she was young and he's just so embarrassed by it.

Theory: she always disappears when he thinks about how nice she smells when she comes to him in dreams is because she's extremely uncomfortable with the idea of him having a crush on her.

Graypaw probably called Darkstripe old BECAUSE he’s his brother

I just realized that Spottedleaf in Into the Wild fulfills the "women in refrigerators" trope (a female character that is only there to suffer or die so that the male hero can have a tragic backstory/motivation to take action). I never liked Spottedleaf but this realization kinda infuriates me since it's another example of how poorly female characters are treated in Warriors.

To be honest I think it would have worked a lot better if Spottedleaf was more like a sisterly figure instead of romantic. The arc with Sandstorm would not have happened, we wouldn't have to think about adult Spottedleaf falling in love with apprentice Firepaw, AND it still would have made sense that he missed/dreamed about her so they still would be able to have a close relationship and I honestly think it would have made her death more impactful because I feel like people would have cared about their relationship more. But alas, I do not write the books so oh well.

I've always wondered what the prophecies begin arc would've been like if Redtail had been Fireheart's spirit guide. Then have Spottedleaf be Leafpool's guide. It would've added such a good air of mystery to StarClan. That perhaps warrior spirits can only speak to warriors and MediCat spirits can only talk to healers or leaders. I dunno I think anything would've been better than Spottedleaf pining after a living cat even after giving him his blessing he shouldn't have needed for Sandstorm.

I always viewed Spottedleaf’s post-death crush on Fire as linked to her angst over dying young. When she sees him she probably sees life the way she could have lived it, had she not been shackled to her responsibilities. I always doubted it had much to do with him specifically at all.

I wish Firepaw/heart's guide was Redtail. It makes much more sense thematically for a cat that was murdered to guide the living that want to find the truth behind his death. Why wouldn't he tell them upfront what happened can be easily ommited with some clever ideas and new Starclan cannon, maybe there's a time after death ghosts are still adjusting to the new realm they are in and for this reason lose some memories temporarily/have to learn some basic skills again? It would be a great introduction of HOW Starclan actually worked but it's clear 1st arc never wanted Starclan to be anything other than a mysterious force that no one can actually coprehend fully. If 1st arc was written today it would be completely different for sure

If there is any possibility for a mini talk video, I recommend Stormcloud since he is the last kitty pet to join thunderclan before warriors took a conservative turn.

Even as a kid, I never liked the feelings Spottedleaf "had" for Firestar. Sandstorm deserves better.

Personally, I got the idea that Firepaw had a crush on Spottedleaf, but that it wasn’t mutual. I always assumed that the reason she always came to being his prophecies was because StarClan identified his feelings, and knew he would pay the most attention to her omens because of that. I have no idea where they got the romance from on her end. It doesn’t make sense.

“Think for a moment about spottedleaf” Words never before uttered

Hate that Spottedleaf went from being a slightly older crush to an actual child predator and I'm so sick of the authors being gross

I will always hold that Mapleshade should have attacked LEAFPOOL during the Great Battle. Since she also had half-Clan kits and yet wasn’t exiled. Also Spottedleaf would die protecting Firestar’s daughter.

also if we consider spottedleaf's honest answer canon, that has some really troubling implications for there being a cycle of abuse/grooming, where she follows some of the feelings that thistleclaw had for her, and then acted on them in the form of openly pining for fireheart and reciprocating his feelings. its just a mess.

Broke: Spottedleaf was in love with firepaw Woke: Ravenpaw was in love with firepaw

honeslty Firestar, having a crush on Spottedleaf makes perfect sense when he was young. But I think their relationship should have been more of a big sister little brother relationship. Like when she was alive she viewed him like a child and then made sure to protect and tried to guide him in her afterlife. And tell him she cares about him but never loved him the way he had wished.

Somewhere i read someone saying: "If you can't find it in the books, then it isn't true. It doesn't matter if the authors talk about it in interviews or share exclusive insider information. If you cant find it in the actual core work and only in later extra content that you need to seek out, then the authors are not doing you justice as the reader." It wasn't about Warriors but I think it applies to all series. I don't mind when creators share hints or extra things, as long as you can find it in the original work. Maybe it wasn't completely in plain sight and now that you know more you can see it fully, but it has to actually have been there from the start.

Vicky's favourite thing to do is make characters in this series be gross out of nowhere. She wrote both Spottedleaf's Honest Answer AND Spottedleaf's Heart (A.K.A The novella that made Thistleclaw even worse of a person for literally no reason) edit: before you reply, yes i know thistleclaw was already bad. in my comment i said 'even worse' - vicky made him an even worse cat.

10:46 if anything it sounds like book 1 dead spottedleaf eventually realized fireheart was going to keep trying to contact her forever and ever if she didn’t distance herself and then when he finally started noticing another girl she came to his ceremony and went “yes, omg *please* keep doing the thing you’re doing right now in being interested in pursiung sandstorm”

From what I understand, cats touching noses with each other is just a friendly 'Hi, how are you' sort of greeting. So it honestly could have been just that when Spottedleaf does that with Fireheart the times that she does. But yeah, it would not be at all surprising to me if her being in love with him was retconned to be a thing.

Spottedleaf was just that hot baby sitter that fireheart will never forget

Spottedfire was poorly targeted fanservice Some fans liked the idea (or mistaked spotted for actually like fire) and then the erins decided to make it canon for the fans... except, those fans weren't the majority, really, or were young kids at the time who liked cute kitty love stories and drama At least, that's what I heard, and it'd make sense

I remember even as a kid reading through the books being really confused when they were stated to be romantic in the later books. To me they were just friends, and I saw Spottedleaf as much older and just being polite and Firepaw's side if anything just being a regular kid crush.

Yeah. People portraying Spottedleaf as some kind of child predator has always felt icky to me, _especially_ after Spottedleaf’s Heart.

As spottedleafs biggest fan i thank you for this video. one time to prove a point i name searched spottedleaf on an into the wild pdf and not once does she indicate any feelings towards firepaw

“Think for a moment about Spottedleaf,” is a sentence none of the Erins ever listened to.

as someone who thinks spottedleaf’s heart is redeemable through a rewrite rather than a “throw the whole novella in the garbage” person like a lot of wc rewriters are, it is SO important to me that spottedleaf was not attracted to firepaw. with the context of spotted’s heart, it raises SUCH a concerning implication about the cycle of abuse being perpetuated by a survivor, and firestar being so… like, strung along by it, for four whole arcs. especially since the text of spotteds heart is already so victim blamey towards spottedpaw. Oh Boy

actually crazy that they killed her and then just replaced her ghost with a completely different character with the same name

You know, this reminds me of the whole Frecklewish debacle: In both cases, we get unreliable narration coloured by a character's perspective (Fireheart's crush makes him read stuff into Spottedleaf's actions that isn't necessarily there, while Mapleshade projects her guilt onto Frecklewish), but later it gets taken at face value even by the authors themselves. While it's relatively harmless with Fireheart/Spottedleaf, it does set a worrying precedent. I think the writers need to make it clearer that viewpoint characters don't always have things 100% right - sometimes they're misinformed, make assumptions, or are outright deceptive.

The though of Spottedleaf being romantically interested in Firepaw when she was alive feels Extra Icky because it was kind of implied that she became a medicine cat to get away from Thistleclaw. I doubt that this crossed the writers' minds while writing the books, but it could easily be read that way.

Love the way you design spottedleaf, I do agree she is very pretty, so you encase that perfectly into the design.

Fireheart: wow she is so hot she is in love with me Spottedleaf: I am proud of my weird son. I've always wanted kids.

I would love a mini talking on Sandstorm, the implication that Firestar would choose SpottedLeaf over his actual mate and the mother of his children always rubbed me the wrong way and made me dislike Firestar as a whole for a time.

9:00 come to think of it firepaw/ravenpaw would make a much more compelling ship than spottedfire. they were already best friends, ravenpaw trusts firepaw with the truth even when it would be life threateningly dangerous to tell the wrong person, they basically cuddle after that, firepaw is very protective of ravenpaw and takes a massive risk to save him, ravenpaw helps fireheart out multiple times even when fireheart has to sneak out and risk getting caught to see him, theyre probably together in starclan now...

firepaw's obsession with spottedleaf was always so weird to me because you knew her for a few months at best and even so only spoke to her like a few times? why did he act like his wife got murdered that was basically a stranger. spottedfire is like the most forced "romance" i have ever seen by far like it's almost impressive how bland, generic and utterly forced into the story it is just for the sake of drama

The truth is that yes, firepaw is like: Ohh, how beautiful is spottedleaf :D and spottedleaf was like: Hehe H E R B S

Spottedleaf: claims her undying love for Firestar Leafpaw:Heeeellll….MUM! MUM DAD’S GONNA CHEAT ON YOU! A DEAD WOMAN WANTS TO MARRY HIM! Her starry mentor saying she was in love with HER DAD must have been so awkward

The idea of spottedleaf falling in love with fireheart/star after death could have worked and been cool if they actually ran with that narrative. They could have given them a scene of discussing the feelings with Firestar either putting his feelings to the side for Sandstorm or them deciding to be mates in starclan and deal with the fallout of it. It would either give a nice closure to it or allow the characters to be seen in a new light. Even from book one to two the situation is written so weird. Firepaw was clearly written to think she's pretty and with a possible crush, but then next book it's as though it's cemented in that he loves her and that comes off as weird when they've had no interaction to show that.

Spottedleaf: why the hell are you smelling my fur

“so this is is the power of bath and body works”💀💀😂

My problem was their romance, Firepaw is a literal child, Spottedleaf is 2-3 years old, I just don’t like it, and i don’t like firestar thirsting over a dead girl right in front of his wife

Fire'Paw: "Good-bye my sweet Spotted'Leaf.." Gray'Paw: "Why do you make everything about yoursel-" Fire'Paw: [ DEEP WHIFFF OF HER FUR ]

Can we just appreciate how freaking adorable Moon's Spottedleaf design is?

Spottedleaf has always been a character I wasn`t too interested in, maybe a bit annoying after her death since she appeared in almost *every* dream sequence afterwards. It is cool to see content on her, though!

as someone who loves spottedleaf, i always found it weird how a lot of people disregard almost every retcon EXCEPT this one. they treat them as retcons. but when they talk about spottedleaf's feelings they act like they've always been there.

“spottedleaf is hot“ - graypaw, and probably firepaw too.

I personally dont feel she was in love with him. Perhaps she grew to like and care about him but didn't she become a medicine cat to avoid relationship drama bc of Thistleclaw? She seemed to take her duty as medicine cat seriously too and I dont think she wouldve acted on any romantic feelongs had she developed them

I remember being creeped out but not by Spottedleaf. It was clear she didn’t return Firepaw/Fireheart’s crush and I was more so just creeped out that the writers kept making a character who was essentially a child constantly pine after a character who was considered an adult in the books

I honestly believe their relationship should have grown more platonic as the series went on. Like, Firepaw had a crush on Spottedleaf, but it's clearly for superficial reason (she's pretty, she shows him basic level kindness, etc.) and he doesn't actually get to know her until after she dies. He comes to genuinely love her as a person, but stops seeing her in a romantic light.

Totally irrelevant: Graypaw immediately shitting on Darkstripe and calling him old to Firepaw is peak younger sibling behavior

Side note- Spottedleaf lowkey flirting with Tigerclaw is so weird considering that she's.... technically his aunt?

I'd honestly prefer Ravenpaw to be in love with Firepaw than Spottedleaf

If there's another mini-talk video I think Sol would be a good idea, especially because of his backstory in SkyClan and the Stranger I think he'd be an interesting character to hear what you have to say about him

wow. i'm 24 and have been reading these books since i was 9 and this totally changed my feelings on (arc 1) spottedleaf - she's just a sweet, mischievous, hard working girl devoted to her clan, with so much potential for snarkiness. i love her. verified spottedleaf stan now. and i don't know why but in all these years i'd never considered the prospect that she developed feelings AFTER her death, when she saw what a capable and honourable leader he was becoming for the clan they both loved. i'll happily accept that. also the fact that bluestar's prophecy has existed as long as bumblestripe is... insane

Personally I'd love to see a mini talking about Littlecloud! His story just seems really interesting to me and he deserves some recognition

spottedleaf is genuinely such an interesting character who got hatebombed

I always kinda viewed spotted leaf as one of those school nurses that’s chill with highschool students. Not friends or particularly close, just chill enough to let you skip class in the nurses office if it’s empty, because they remember trying to skip class as a kid. And maybe gives you a mint is they have any.

I...honestly forgot she was ever treated as a romantic intrest for Firestar. I mainly remembered her as the nice medicine cat I wanted to train under, holy cow. Intresting video, very much agree with not liking her being a romantic intrest

In a Scourge reborn fic I did, Spottedleaf became a mother figure to Scourge and it was v cute to write

Hi moon! I really love your content and your artistic ability. I especially love your humor and your analysis. Thank you for posting this amazing content. It absolutely makes my day whenever I watch your channel!

Your analysises of the series are my favourite out of other warriors youtubers because you consistently refrence the actual books and the objective actions of the characters and events. Everyone interprets and and remebers the books differently, and has their own headcanons and opinions but yours are based on objective things that happened. I myself find myself remembering things that didnt happen, or totally misremembering events of the books until re reading them. Afterall the series is so long it can be hard to know if some thing happened in the series or if you just read it online somewhere.

The one thing the writers seem to really love to do is retcon the feelings of Starclan cats towards the living ones ,especially their lovers

Honestly I believe that Longtail x spotted leaf made for sense even though they barely talk, anyone else would make more sense or no one at all. But why do people ship a small child with a grown lady who literally just gave him herbs tbh

Warriors at it again with the lack of effort in copy-pasting quotes 💀 All they could have done was copy and paste the quote 😭 I love that you’re one of the few Warrior-tubers that calls out the things that should have been considered “fanon” the whole time.

I interpretted that spottedleaf developed feelings for firestar when she died, because she was missing out on being alive and had nothing better to other than be jealous that sandstorm and firestar were alive. I find it funny he has a sort of weird teenage crush on her though. I feel like it maybe made spottedleaf aware that she was dead and what she was missing out on?

moonkitti talking for 26 minutes?? we've been blessed!

Wohooo, new video!! Love listening to these while I’m animating 💕✨

“FirePaw loved her because she smelled good and was pretty”

Thinking about it now,I realize a decent bit of ickness that specifically retroactively effects the prophecies begin is a retcon,usually stemming from the new prophecy.

Idk but I constantly feel bad for Sandstorm Like, being a second option, the feeling of not being enough for the person you love and disappearing all her fierce personality, plus not giving her the opportunity of being together with another bTom that actually loves her Idk, it’s just sad

Complete tangent, but I've always really like the emphasis on smell in the books since smelling is the main way cats interact with the world, though I can see how it comes off as a bit weird. 😅

obsessed with sandstorm's looney toons expression at 14:30

If Spottedleaf wasn't an medicine cat and younger, She possibly could've become mates with Fireheart.

i can’t believe this is how i found out the dark crystal show got cancelled.

When Spottedleaf was alive, Firepaw's relationship with her is like a kid admitting to their babysitter they have a crush on her and her just being like, "ahah, okay, kid, go take your medicine and go to bed". Maybe that's why I always had issue with Spottedleaf. I came into the series pretty late, when they were already pushing the idea that she was in love with him and I was never quite comfortable with that as I read on. It seemed forced.

Man they be analyzing funny cat book as if it was a religious text and im all for it

i love your vids moonkitti, growing up on warriors you helped me come back informed! thank you for being so funny and nice :D

to be honest, when I was a young warriors' fan, I really liked Spottedleaf and to this day just can't bring myself to dislike her lmao

0:11 noisy boy strikes again

Hi moonkitti good night/morning I wanted to say I love your videos and I was wondering if you could consider doing a talking video on ThrushPelt or SunStar they are my two favorite characters and I would love to see them in a video

God why can't the Erin's just let this cat REST IN PEACE 💀💀💀💀

gotta love warriors-typical romance retcons. theyre the best. totally

Maybe you could talk about YellowFang sometime? I think there is lots to talk about regarding the writing in her super edition, her relationships with Raggedpelt, Brokenstar, Fireheart and Cinderpelt and her questionable characterisation in StarClan later on! I would like to hear your thoughts!

her catching feelings for him right off the bat is... extremely gross if she's of an age that would make dating an apprentice inappropriate. And plays off the whole "victims becoming abusers" thing without actually dissecting it, as is the standard for problematic warriors cat canon content

So they retconned this to not make Firestar creepy af...

So she goes from a potentially interesting character to the walking embodiment of a failed Bechdel test. Great

The way you voice fireheart always makes him sound like such an anime boy and I love iy

Spottedleaf’s story through all the books are just such a mess. I really wish that she was just Firestar’s friend and childhood crush. But since that sadly didn’t happen, this is how I think about it. (This comment mentions Spottedleaf’s Heart, so if that makes you uncomfortable just watch out) Spottedleaf notices Firepaw’s obvious crush on her, but chooses not to return the affection and continue the cycle of abuse that Thistleclaw started, even if she desperately wanted another go at love. Later, when she is killed, she chooses to hang around Firepaw, effectively living out her dreams of becoming a warrior through him. But as he reaches the same-ish age as her, she starts to see him as the mate she never had. Over the books she would become more obsessive and lonely (resulting in what we see in Spottedleafs Honest Answer) Then, when Spottedleaf is dying in The Darkest Hour, she would come to her senses and tell Firestar to go and love Sandstorm. But hey, what she says in the books when she dies is basically “oh woe is I, dear Firestar, for we can not be together eternally in death” I suppose when she “opens her mouth as if she’s trying to tell him something” could be her trying to tell him to go love Sandstorm. Just an idea :)

its almost like the whole issue with all relationships in warrior cats that i hate: both the cats innately know they will be a couple, its NEVER discussed directly, ever. the cats just end up together. i hate it sm

If redtail was sandstroms dad that makes spottedleaf her aunt

I love how you designed Spottedleaf in this! I believe it is new??? It is so cute!!!

I thought this way for years, glad to see I'm not crazy.

You should talk about leafstar. I love her a lot

spottedleaf lowkey my fav char in the whole series. this video was made for me.