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Post by Flamestorm! on Dec 8, 2011 12:55:01 GMT -8
Name: Flamestorm
Prefix Meaning: She's ginger. As she's grown it's also come to suit her courage.
Suffix Meaning: She can kick up a bit of a storm when she wants to (and when she doesn't)! She's loud, overly dramatic, a good fighter, and has some very controversial opinions. And it sounds cool with 'Flame', which is equally important.
Age: 23 moons
Rank: Warrior
Clan: NightClan
Description: She's a small, green-eyed ginger tabby. Her pelt is a riot of stripes and spots and specks of pale ginger, deep red and every shade in between. She is long-legged and not the most elegant cat in the world. She is wiry and slim, and holds herself in a way that conveys an impression of extreme haughtiness. She walks with a coldly dignified limp, as if daring you to comment on the dark, puckered scar that crosses her front left foot. This alters her fighting style considerably, and makes her an atrocious hunter; 'stealth' is meaningless to her. She's incapable of it. She holds her head very high, but avoids your eyes in a disconcerting way unless she wants to intimidate you or convince you of a point she really believes in, in which case she meets your eyes and stares you down with a very sharp glare. She hates doing it, though; she doesn't like eye contact. Her bearing is missing all the social signals and body language cats usually have; she doesn't raise or lower her tail according to rank, or smile when you compliment her, or raise or lower her head according to how confident she is. She just appears slightly awkward and emotionless most of the time, which is a little... odd. If she was human, she'd have Asperger's Syndrome; she also fails to spot those same signals in you.
And now for the smaller details, the ones that truly make each of us unique. Her front right leg is midnight black up to the knee, where it ends with a mix of jagged black and ginger streaks - hence her referring wryly to her 'good black paw', as opposed to her right front paw, which is the one with the scar and the cause of her limp. She tends to have a slightly distant look in her green eyes, since she tends to be wondering about the mysteries of the universe, most of the time; however, when her blood is up and she's focused or angry, they are sharp and intelligent. Her claws are longer than most, sharp and hooked. She has a long tail ringed all around with stripes of the two lightest and darkest colours in her pelt - a deep russety shade and a light sandy golden-ginger. The tip of her tail is black, like her right front paw, as is the tip of her left ear, which is tufted with black. On her rear left paw, there is a tuft of white fur between two of her claws. Her whiskers are short and white and her nose is dark and ringed around with the same deep black as her good black paw and left ear. Overall? She is a small, wiry, pretty much normal-looking, brightly-pelted, green-eyed, limping, black-pawed, stripy-tailed warrior. Perhaps not a usual look for a warrior of NightClan; but then again, nothing about her is really usual for any Clan.
Personality: (I'm afraid I'm using 'she' all through this. At the time of writing I'm just trying to get it up and don't know her name yet.)
She is not your usual NightClan warrior, that's for sure; and that is possibly the only definitive statement that can be made about her. She is a deep, complex and somewhat frustrating cat, and difficult to describe precisely or concisely.
She is a cat of ferociously driving ambition. Her disability has never held her back, though it means she favours a fighting style very different to that of your typical NightClan cat; it is flowing, using her opponent's weight against her, similar to the Twoleg art of judo. Her ambitions are not unfounded. She is a very bright cat, if not the most socially graced; if she were human, she'd be an almost perfect example of Asperger's Syndrome. Despite this, she is bright and very tactically gifted, with a mind like quicksilver. Her mentor always commented on her strategical competence and they worked on it very hard together, perhaps neglecting her hunting skills, which are atrocious. She is also very, very confident. She promised herself a long time ago that she would be the greatest cat NightClan has ever known, no matter how long it takes, no matter what happens. Perhaps this is something that most every apprentice promises, in youthful naivety and loyal fervour; but unlike most others, she has never grown up and never let go of this dream. It is her reason to live. Unless you can be great, unless you can be remembered when you die, she considers life simply not worth living. She knows you get one chance, one only, and she intends to spend hers on fire and dreams.
This leads her to be a perfectionist, always expecting far too much of both herself and others. She has a barely disguised contempt for those who don't feel, as she does, that anything below perfect is unacceptable; when she is working with other warriors and they are satisfied with the result, if she does not feel the result is satisfactory, she is likely to blow up on them. This means she tends to either work alone or be in charge, whether it's a hunting patrol or a special mission; she cannot handle being an underling and is barely competent at being an equal. Due to her mental differences, she is incapable of picking up on the social signals that define hierarchy and rank, and when somebody is offended, and when a joke is funny. She doesn't notice when other cats are mad at her or offended or only joking, and as such is often seen as a prickly, difficult and complicated character. At her heart she is quite simple; though it would be quite inaccurate to say that she just wants people to like her (this is far down on her list of priorities), it is certainly her only social aim. She highly dislikes being seen as prickly and complicated, but can't really help it; she will often say something that she feels is polite or even complimentary, only to discover that actually it was inappropriate or impolite.
When she can overcome her social difficulties, she is a talented cat, extremely bright for all her terrible hunting skills and nonexistent stealth, and with people she knows well or trusts she can easily achieve very much. It is for these reasons she dreams of being a leader, amongst others; she feels that the only way she can achieve her potential is to one day become leader, and then she will be able to use her intelligence, and won't have to worry about her social difficulties with rank and offending people. Of course, actually achieving this aim may be a tad more difficult than she realises.
She cares very much about knowledge. It is important to her to understand concepts, ideas and theories, and to seek truth and understanding. She has to fully understand a thing and gather all the information possible before she feels comfortable putting it into practice. She has a desire for clarity which shows in everything; she hates discussing something without having all the information laid out on the table before her. This can be frustrating for others, but in a military sense, it can be a strength. If and when chosen to lead fighting patrols, she never forgets to scout and account for terrain, and suchlike; and she always listens to those with information.
Her mind logically fits her experiences into a larger, logical structure. All of her knowledge comes together to form as complete a whole as she can make, and she's a good problem-solver. She is not particularly interested in doing things; she gets much more excited about concepts and ideas, and as a highly introverted individual, spends much of her time playing with theories in his head. The only time she is willing to apply this is when making battle plans; and on the few occasions she plucks up the courage to voice her ideas, and get somebody to listen to them despite her being only a warrior - not even a senior one - they are generally genius.
She becomes bored very easily with anything she fully understands. Once she has played with an idea until she understands it, it no longer holds any interest; it's over, finished, boring. Once she has got the sense of triumph which comes from finally understanding something, it has nothing left to offer. In fact, most of the ideas and concepts which are her favourite to think about are things she can never quite understand; complex ideas, or ones that nobody can prove, such as philosophic concepts. She is drawn to push and stretch his mind, as simple, easy ideas hold no interest for him.
This can lead other cats to see her as rather odd. While other cats sit in groups and talk about rabbits or the weather, she sits on her own and ponders the nature of evil, or whether StarClan really do exist (she herself has never had a dream, and so has no evidence whatsoever), or whether there is a comprehensive theory that can explain everything, and if so, what. Cats who intrude upon her thoughts at these times are likely to be treated, unless they pull rank and make her stop, to a lecture about some philosophical concept or idea. This does not, in general, lead people to like her. She has only a few close friends, typically of an introvert.
She also doesn't care much about being good at things. Once she has understood how to do something, there's nothing left for her to be interested in. A matter of practising or learning more figures to become an expert is not interesting, not fun. She is driven to understand; once she understands it, she's satisfied. She is not interested in being an expert at anything, except maybe fighting and tactics. This means that many could, rightly, call her a dabbler. It is one of her weaknesses and also one of her strengths. It is unusual for an introvert to seek such breadth of knowledge, as opposed to depth; but though this seems to be the case on the surface, it is not. A true introvert, she seeks to fully and completely understand a topic before she moves on from it; and she has only two areas of real skill (fighting and tactics), three if you count musing on the universe (or maybe multiverse, she's not sure) - most people don't. Apart from that, all the other things she takes up are merely hobbies, amusements. She understands them enough to have the 'big picture', the patterns; she is simply not interested in practise, expertise or detail upon detail, fact and figure upon fact and figure.
She enjoys the concept of psychology, though the science is not really known much about in the Clans. She likes speculating about how others will feel about something; because of her mental differences, other people and their opinions will always be a mystery to her, and therefore something she enjoys pondering (though not whilst being shouted at by seven cats at once for accidentally saying something offensive). She is capable of understanding several points of view on something.... she's just not so capable of understanding other people's feelings or interpretative their body language and facial impressions.
Because she tends to think so deeply, she has happened upon most controversial topics at some point or other in her mental wanderings, and as such tends to have very strong, well-thought-out views on everything. She has very strong beliefs and principles, and those who disagree with her will find themselves on the receiving end of some very cutting words and possibly a huge temper explosion. In her youth she had a huge temper, which she still struggles to control; she mostly has it in her grip these days, but just occasionally she blows up and on those occasions it is wise to stay away from her, because she likes to claw whatever is around. Mostly this is tree trunks, since she tries to do it outside of camps. If you're around, it could become your pelt. Both she and you would regret this, and since she doesn't really think very clearly when she's in the middle of a temper explosion, you'll probably win and then she'll get hurt and never like you ever again. This is one of her biggest flaws.
She has a bit of a quest to understand herself; she's very introspective and philosophic, and is accustomed to analysing her own reactions and opinions, wanting to know Who She Is, and also ways that she could improve himself.
She can be over-critical, and arrogant. In fact, forget 'can be'; she is over-critical and arrogant and perfectionist and superior, about virtually all aspects of life. Excepting hunting, which even she must admit she is terrible at. She strives for clarity and when somebody gets something wrong she is driven to correct them and restore the state of truth and order. She often believes (wrongly, or at least debatable-y) that she herself is the only one capable of reaching/restoring such a state; because other people often disagree with what she sees as Right and True, she labels them as immoral or stupid, and she, as far as she is concerned, is therefore the only one who knows anything, though she would never presume to know everything. Just more than everybody else. Of course.
As you might be able to tell by this point, not many cats like her. She has a few close friends and is not interested in acquiring any more, especially if it involves changing herself. Even changing herself in positive ways.
While she may not care much about being good or an expert at things, it's important for her to be competent. If she decides to learn something, then it's very important to her that she reaches a skill level where she can avoid stupid or basic errors. Except in hunting, which she excuses herself from being good at on account of her leg. She believes mistakes that others make are expected - after all, as far as she's concerned, nobody else is quite as smart as her - and she is willing (and positively compelled) to point them out and criticise them. However, if she herself makes a mistake, that shows her to herself as incompetent. She hates to think of herself as inadequate, or not good enough, or inferior in some way to anybody else, if only in things that she cares about. So as soon as she decides to achieve something, she has a drive to become competent, but beyond that she simply doesn't care. Becoming proficient, or an expert, requires practise and time and this is boring. Hence we come back again to her being a dabbler, perhaps because she so obviously is.
One of her most central attributes is her independence. She puts a great deal of emphasis on being a unique individual, different from others. She views the rest of the Clan as being too alike and interdependent, and not individual or unique enough; to her, being a trend-follower is a sign of a weak, stupid mind. She can be extremely contemptuous (and this contempt is thinly disguised, though she tries her best) of people who simply follow their Clan line in everything. She herself likes to have opinions of her own, and to the Dark Forest with what her Clan leader thinks of it.
She is very, very independent. She can't and won't accept help from anyone or anything; she sees herself as being weak for doing so, and can't abide that feeling. She does things and tries to achieve for the sense of pride and confidence of having done it, and if somebody else helped her do it it isn't quite the same. She hates other people trying to help her or comfort her when she's upset, and is often - unintentionally - quite sharp-tongued with cats who try, leading her to make more enemies than she'd like.
Going back to her dabbling nature (yes, I am wandering all over the place with this personality; my deepest apologies for any confusion). If she's interested in something, she must be competent in it. However, there are quite a few things which, quite simply, don't interest her at all. When others are competent in those things, or assume that they are important and that she should therefore be competent in them, she applies the word 'irrelevant'. That's her excuse, her defence, and the way she justifies things to herself- she could not bear the thought that she was in some way inadequate.
She does not care much about others' opinions. All facts get filtered through her brain and fitted into the grand scheme of things in her head. Even if somebody claims to be an 'expert', she couldn't care less; if she agrees with their opinions she'll take on board what they said, if not, then not. All opinions must make sense to her or she will discard them. She likes to see herself as an independent judger, the clarity bringer, the knower. All others, and their opinions, are irrelevant. This applies to everybody (even his leader), which gets her into more than a little bit of trouble.
However, once somebody has proved him or her self to be sensible, smart, brave, friendly, trustworthy and philosophical, and capable of putting up with her random ramblings on the nature of evil and the existence of StarClan and authoritarianism... she is willing to respect them and even befriend them; in fact, if she perceives somebody to have all these qualities, she will make a positive effort to befriend them. It is difficult to earn her trust; she is very arrogant and is difficult to please or befriend. However, once somebody has gained her support, she is an incredibly loyal friend. She will support you and listen to you. She is extremely protective of her friends and is determined to do her best for them. To her close friends, she shows a completely different side to the prickly, difficult, arrogant cat that most of the Clan know; loyal, generous, kind, honest, patient and helpful. The only problem is actually becoming her close friend in the first place. Earning her trust and liking and respect is a long, difficult and painstaking procedure that most cats simply can't be bothered to undertake, not for the prickly, difficult cat that most people see.
She respects only four things in life; strength, dreams, intelligence and talent. Strength is the core of all other good things about a person; determination is simply the strength to keep going; kindness and honour is simply the strength to do the right thing; physical fitness results only from the determination and strength to keep training despite hardship. She respects dreamers, people like herself with ambition and fire and spirit (unless of course they lack the other three attributes, in which case she labels them presumptuous). She respects intelligence above all; she thinks it's the most important defining aspect of a person, whether they are smart or stupid, logical or intuitive, creative and resourceful or textbook and predictable. Lastly, she respects talent because, well, it's talent. Without talent, strength, and intelligence, you are less than nothing to her; somebody to be pitied and patronised. With those things, she will view you as worthy, and a possible friend. With dreams and fire and spirit, she will also respect you and definitely try and befriend you.
She is also rather stubborn. If she is pushed into doing something, she will automatically resist, even if that thing makes sense and in ordinary circumstances she would agree with doing it. Others sometimes label her as arguing just for the sake of arguing, but the actual reason is that any action she takes must be filtered through her knowledge and experience, as aforementioned. She has to reach a decision independently, using her own intelligence- the only intelligence she trusts. And because she is so objective, critical and introverted, she must withdraw and think about it for her analysing mind to do its work. If she is given no time to think about something or pressured into an action she will feel rushed and uneasy because she has not made the decision using her own intelligence. If her leader orders her to do something, she won't do it until she's filtered it and decided it makes sense. (This, along with other things, gets her into a fair amount of trouble). And as her intelligence is the only thing she trusts, once she has made her decision, she sticks to it unless new information comes to light. Hence, she is very stubborn.
The best way to get her to do something is to present it as a choice and allow her to think about it, so that she feels calm and confident about the decision she makes. Ultimately it has to be her own decision and if it is not, she will resist. If it is, she is content. This too shows her individualism (though more than her individualistic sides, she aims to lead; she simply isn't particularly liked, so never gets the chance to show how good she would be if she was put in charge of a patrol, so chafes at the bit wishing she'd be given more responsibility and hating being just a warrior. If anybody is the next Tigerstar, it's her; ambitious and chafing at the bit, though currently her loyalty holds her back from this, despite not being well-liked.)
She believes that knowledge is very important, and strives to understand everything. Not knowing something is a personal weakness to be eradicated. All mistakes can be avoided.
To know is everything, but to do is less necessary. This can make her seem lazy and aloof, but it is merely because she is satisfied knowing that she could do something, if she wished- she doesn't need to actually do it to be happy. (The exception, of course, is being a hero, being remembered in history, but this is the only one.)
She doesn't like to keep pondering things or working on topics once she has understood them, but she very much enjoys problem-solving. She loves tactics and fighting, seeing every different situation as a different problem to be solved. She is a very analytical and logical thinker, and at the same time is capable of creativity and thinking out of the box. Despite finding any kind of social grace difficult to achieve, she is definitely a good thinker.
She can, however, sometimes overestimate her own capabilities, and is more than a little arrogant. Because she is competent in the fields she cares about and all others are classed as irrelevant, she sees himself as able to do anything. Of course, this isn't true.
She takes her beliefs, principles and interests very seriously. If she cares about something, she CARES about it.
She is very honest and direct when explaining these things to others, as she feels a drive for clarity, and to bring that clarity to others. She detests lies or facades, especially the people who tell them / put them on. She also hates them because she finds it difficult to tell when somebody is pulling her leg, due to her lack of social skills, and therefore has often been tricked into doing or saying something stupid by somebody lying to her. For these reasons, she hates dishonesty; seeing it as dishonourable trickery and completely immoral and wrong. She would not dream of telling a lie about something she cares about - truth and clarity are important to her. However, she couldn't care less about lying to her leader about what she was doing on that hunting patrol (daydreaming, as it happens, but she can't tell her seniors that, can she?). She's also rather good at it. Due to her mental differences, she gives none of the small signals that other people give as to emotion or truthfulness. In social situations, this makes her seem prickly and hard to read (just as she cannot read others); when lying, it works to her advantage.
She is a very serious person. She's almost immune to jabs or criticism, since because she takes everything so seriously, anybody who makes a jab at her will find themselves being subjected to a long lecture, using her impeccable logic, as she explains and defends herself with extreme seriousness and exactness, wielding each word like a weapon. This tends to disarm people who criticise her, who expect her to become angry and say something stupid. However, if somebody mocks her or says something she finds insulting or offensive, she will blow her top and start mindlessly clawing things. At this point it is wise to move to a safe distance (and if you're a mean bully, you then proceed to laugh at her; if not, good for you, keep it up).
When being criticised fairly, on the other hand, she will most certainly become angry, but she can keep herself from blowing her top, and then her knowledge and logic drives her to explain exactly why she is right and the mocker or insulter is wrong and, in fact, stupid. Her defence will almost always contain a subtle but cutting insult, mostly because she cannot hide the fact that she believes her opponent to be stupid (don't be silly, she thinks everybody is stupid) - after all, not only did he disagree with her, but he voiced it and disturbed the clarity and truth of her world. Sometimes these confrontations develop into physical ones, which is fine by her.
One of the few things she is willing to pursue to true expertise is fighting. She is a fighter until her last breath. Because of her old injury, she favours a highly unusual fighting style, but it works fine. She enjoys it, loves the adrenaline rush and the feeling of pushing herself to succeed in a competition against her opponent.
Of course, if it turns into a debate, she's fine with that too. One of her greatest strengths is her ability to wield words. She is a very good speaker, both in terms of speeches (not that a relatively junior warrior gets much opportunity to give those) and arguments and debates, and she loves words. She uses words with cutting precision and her logic is usually very good. However, if she lets herself go, she can be extremely destructive and hurtful with her words, and this can lose her friends. She has to watch herself when she gets worked up, lest she say something that she will not regret at all - after all, if she didn't believe it she wouldn't say it; she loves truth - but will offend lots and lots of people. Of course, this could happen at any time due to her mental differences, but the likelihood is much higher when she is annoyed.
She tends to be somebody who focuses on the bigger picture, on possibilities, on patterns, and on connections; not facts and figures. While she hates not knowing things, she prefers playing with theories and ideas; concrete facts are easily understood and then become boring. She takes in information using his intuition and intelligence, not by looking around and actively sensing. She sees everything in terms of possibilities and is always thinking about the future.
When she is making conversation, her intuitive nature can annoy others. When discussing things, she often says very controversial or speculative things, and this can annoy or offends others. She is always very serious about what she says and often doesn't care that most everybody will disagree with her opinions, or that voicing them will cause an uproar; in fact, she suspects that some deep part of her secretly enjoys seeing groups fall apart in anarchy and yelling when she says something very controversial. While she doesn't try to be offensive, she has given up trying to be polite; her mental differences make her almost incapable of it.
She loves to show others the smart, intuitive side of her. She likes to be seen as perhaps a little eccentric, but forward-thinking, perceptive, smart and creative. She would prefer to be thought of as a in-charge sort of person, but is wary of being seen as presumptuous; most junior warriors do not secretly think that they are cleverer than their leader, nor do most junior warriors have serious ambitions about becoming leader.
She has a lot of big dreams, and those dreams are always individualistic. If she's going to be noticed, she wants to be centre stage. If not, she'd prefer to withdraw, and be the outsider, analysing and criticising. If she is interested in something, she must take one of these two positions; the analysing outsider or the leader. If she's not interested in something, she just doesn't care, occasionally observing but not much else. With her, it is always all or nothing. She hates half-efforts, just as much as she hates the restrictions of working in a team.
Another thing about her is her strange sense of humour. She can dream up jokes about almost anything and is always ready with a quip, that is, if there's anybody around to voice it to who she can bear the thought of talking to. Think Monty Python and you'll have her sense of humour in a nutshell. However, her humour can be a little... unusual, and others don't often easily understand it. She's a dreadful teller of jokes; she thinks of them, but she cannot deliver them as she is a complete social disaster. When speaking out loud, she pays too much attention to detail and not enough on how she is being received, so cannot easily convey his humour to others. This also leads her to go on... and on... and on... and on... and on about a topic, ad nauseam, because she is incapable of telling when her listener is bored out of their mind, and is convinced they are too stupid to get the point with just one explanation.
She hates having her life planned, and is a spontaneous person. She prefers to be flexible and react to the situation she finds herself in rather than going in with an already thought-out plan, seeing the latter option as too rigid and wasting time while you think up the plans. This applies to her battle tactics to; her fighting style is all counters and balance attacks and pawlocks, barely any strikes or first-attacks at all, and her strategy tends to be based around her opponents and her terrain and what the opponent is currently doing, not on a previously-thought-up battle strategy.
She does not like to subordinate to others at all; everything he does must be his decision and passed through his decision-making systems in his brain. Moreover, it seriously offends her sense of pride. It can make her seem stubborn and disobedient, but it's just her way... okay, her way is stubborn and disobedient and arrogant and perhaps somewhat presumptuous, though there's no arguing that she's not smart; she is, very much so, she's just very aware of it and very, very proud. Unbending. She doesn't have a problem with helping others, but she's got to pass it through decision-making processes and make her own decision about it first. She has to feel in control. She will not submit or be ordered around. This, understandably, gets her into trouble. (I think I'm beginning to see a theme her; the way she thinks tends to get her into serious trouble).
She is quite mistrusting of others and very sceptical about everything. She is constantly questioning everything and very analytical and curious. When she does trust somebody, it's either because they've 'proved themselves' to her by behaving with sound logic and kindness, or her intuition is telling her they're OK.
She does put quite a lot of stock in her intuition. One of her flaws is that she can make 'lightning judgements' about people based on her intuition about them; judgements that are often proved wrong and are usually over-critical.
She is, however, capable of thinking on her feet; it's one of the things she loves best. She is a react-to-the-situation kind of person, not a go-in-with-a-well-developed-plan kind of person, though she can do the latter averagely well if she's forced to. She does most of her eloquent talking completely ad lib.
Other cats are definitely a problem for her. As aforementioned, she's a bit of a social disaster. On one hand, cats and psychology fascinate her; because not everybody acts according to the same logical thought processes she does, she cannot understand other cats, and as such they are one of those unfathomable mysteries that she likes so much to speculate about. However, because she cannot understand them, she often fears them or is cautious around them, not knowing how others will act. She stays away from social situations as much as possible. If warriors are gathering in a group to chat about whatever, she will not join them; she may want to, if they are talking politics or something vaguely intelligent and interesting, but she is usually too nervous.
Hence, becoming friends with her is not usually a fast process. She hates making the first move and tends to only reach out a hand of friendship once somebody else has shown that they are willing to be friends. Because she does not understand other people or how they will act, she has no way of knowing whether her offer of friendship will be accepted or rebuked, and she fears the humiliation of somebody deciding that no, they don't want to be her friend, she's too weird.
So she tends to only become friends with people who want to become friends with her, badly, and make an actual effort to do so. Because of her social ineptness, she tends not really to always know how to act, so copies the other person. A cheerful cat will let her relax and be cheerful herself, knowing the situation calls for cheerfulness; a serious cat will end up having a serious conversation with him; and so on and so forth. Often, she will spend half a conversation trying to gauge the mood of the situation and what she should be doing. Once she works out what is required of her, she feels a sense of relief, settling down into whichever 'self' she chooses to present at that particular moment. Until then she's wavering and often feels unsure of herself and the situation. For other cats, it is instinctual to lay flat your ears when annoyed, or lower your tail around higher-ranked cats, or smile when given compliments; for her, it is more difficult. She has to make a conscious effort to watch those around her and figure out what she is supposed to be doing in the situation. This is another reason why she dreams of being a leader one day; so that she will just be able to say 'you do this, you do that, you do the other, have a nice day everybody', rather than constantly having to interpret all the instructions and advice and social signals he gets (or fails to notice) from other cats.
Even when friends with somebody, she is a reserved, private cat. She never really sees herself as fitting in with a situation, just showing the appropriate face for it. She is very capable of doing this; she can almost be completely different people between the warrior's den, the training grounds, the battlefield, a conversation with somebody higher ranked than her, a conversation with an apprentice... This isn't because she wants to lie about herself, as such, or hide what she feels; more than she's socially inept and so develops different 'modes' to cope with social situations, since her 'normal' mode is unable to do so.
She fears what people would say if they knew the secret her who she never shows, not even to her friends; fiercely ambitious, scarily protective of her values, fanatical about her narrow and, um, different interpretation of the warrior code, unflinchingly brave, contemptuous of the stupid or talentless or 'too ordinary', grudgingly respectful of those with equal talents, spiteful and petty, and with a grudge to bear against cats in general for having such a complicated social system that not only makes her confused, but which doesn't put her at the top of the ranking system, and forces her to obey others (which she hates).
When she does decide to talk to people, she much prefers one-to-one conversation. When she's dealing with a group of people, she feels overwhelmed with having to deal with all of them at once; watching for the nuances of tone and body language which all too often she misses, listening to their words, following the conversation, finding a place to speak, not interrupting anybody, not giving offence... why do social skills have to be so ridiculously complicated? When she's discussing something with just one person, she can analyse them and fall into the correct 'mode' with a sigh of relief that she now understands what she should be doing. In a large group, she cannot do that for everybody at once, so feels uncomfortable. She's very sensitive to whether she's being listened to; she sees her opinions as important, because she's clever. If a very extroverted person is dominating the group, she doesn't feel she'll be listened to and withdraws to sulk, instantly judging the dominant extrovert to be a brute or fool. If she does talk, she needs to be listened to. If she isn't, she gets very annoyed, thinking that the others in the group are ignoring him because they think she is stupid. She then gets very annoyed because she's assumed that the others think she's stupid and she takes that as an insult. She will withdraw and sulk, and contribute nothing to the group, whether it's a border patrol or hunting patrol or group that's been asked to think up ideas for such-and-such.
For this reason, she tends to have immense problems getting people to listen to her clever plans and ideas and strategies, meaning that due to her non-existent social skills, her intelligence goes unvalued. On the rare occasion she does manage to get herself heard without coming across badly, she is a very clever and creative person. Once she is sure that the people in her group are listening to her and conducive to her ideas and influence, she can shine.
She jumps to conclusions a lot. She prefers going in without a plan and thinking on her feet, which she's great at (she gets most of her best ideas ad lib), but the bad side of this is that she makes snap decisions, often based on her intuition. This can lead her to make stupid mistakes, which she hates making, and so will become frustrated and think illogically, making her more frustrated, making her more illogical, making her more frustrated, and so on; it's a vicious cycle which ends in her either regaining control with some help from others or losing her temper and breaking something. It can also mean she makes snap judgements of people based on her intuition, which she then refuses to admit are wrong, because she trusts her own mind more than anybody else's.
She respects very few people, regarding most others as too like each other, too reliant on their friends for everything, too obedient or not innovative enough. She can be quite arrogant in this respect. However, those who she sees as individualistic, creative, innovative and free-thinking will instantly gain her respect and liking. She respects and values vision and people with it are her role models and friends. Those without it, she often pities or has contempt for.
Everything she experiences or finds out about is analysed according to her logical systems and past experiences. She often can be heard saying, "Oh, this reminds me so much of..." as she values her past very much, and is a naturally quite wistful-for-the-past person. While she is a pessimist in the present, seeing the bad and seeking to improve it, she is an optimist about the past, remembering the good times and often seeking to bring them back around. She can live in the past/her own mind somewhat and often has to be reminded to deal with the here and the now. Her excellent memory helps with reminiscing.
She is not a very observant person at all, however, about the present. When she walks through a room or down a street, she will not take notice of what is in the room, or who is coming towards her in the street; if asked to recall such details later, she will usually reply, "I didn't take notice of that- it was irrelevant at the time," rather than admit she was unobservant and therefore admit a flaw in herself, something her pride makes it hard for her to do. She can generally see the big picture, and her intuition means she often has a good 'feel' for the atmosphere of a moment, but she doesn't recognise or remember details of the external world. Things she is already interested in or looking out for, she will see, but she overlooks most other things. Often, something important or of interest has to be pointed out to her by somebody else before she notices it- and while this is merely a flaw like any other most of the time, if one day the thing she overlooked was an badger behind a bush or a fox's eyes glinting in a dark hole, she could very easily end up dead. Generally the only things she can be relied upon to always notice are, firstly, anything in a battle - she watches battles closely and if the enemy are faltering or the Clan too far spread out she's the first to know, even if she's too nervous about being seen as presumptuous to tell her leader so - and secondly, the sky. She loves sunsets and pretty clouds and stars, loves the sky in general, and though her memories are often blurry, she will remember what she was looking AT, and the sky, in immense detail and perfect clarity.
When she goes places, she's never really concerned about the details of things; more about the atmosphere of a place. She loves places with distinctive atmosphere; the cool stream in the shady forest, the bustling noon camp under the hot sun, the military atmosphere of a patrol waiting at the border. She always subconsciously connects the mood of a place with her memories, and she will often be heard to comment that two completely different places are very similar- because to her, they have a similar ambience. She will tend not to remember the details of a place or sight, but the mood or atmosphere is always remembered lovingly. Her favourite places are invariably places that she can be alone with the atmosphere in. Though other cats being there and what they are doing will change the atmosphere, she tends not to remember the cats unless they are her friends or enemies- they are details and therefore, to her, irrelevant.
The places she belongs most centrally to are the melancholic, rugged, edges of society. While she loves the peace of the territory, the bustling business of the camp, the aggressive energy of the training ground... the places that call to her most centrally are wild expanses of unconquered snow, soaring mountain ranges, deep forests, and so on. They are wild and free, as she is; alone as she is; and they have a mood which appeals to her inner self. They also present a challenge, and there has never been anything she has loved more than a challenge. As such, if you want to find her, the best place to go looking is on the very outskirts of the territory or even outside of it. Really, she should have been a Tribe cat; then again, she would have rebelled strongly against their order and obedience.
Frivolity is not in her vocabulary. Her interests are wide-ranging and she takes them very seriously, no matter how silly they might seem. She loves to collect and anything she can get hold of is seen as the start of a potential collection of things, whether a brightly coloured feather or an interesting stone. The objects in her collections are not important, however; it is merely the feelings of nostalgia they hold, and the memories or values they represent. She keeps them in holes away from camps and takes them out when nobody else is around; she takes the (probably correct) view that others would just think she is weird.
She regards feelings and emotions with a slight suspicion. Though she often feels very strongly about things, anything she doesn't feel herself, right here right now, is labelled weird in her mind. She thinks that falling in love is like something out of one of the horror stories younger cats tell to scare kits; some mysterious thing that takes over your brain (her one true sanctuary that she herself rules), makes you think illogically (destroying one of her most basic values, logic), and worst, there's nothing you can do to prevent it happening. One of her greatest fears is falling in love; she will not allow it to happen to her. She does not have a mate and does not want one. Any tom who tries is going to end up on the receiving end of a temper tantrum.
She subjects her own emotions to continual analysis and thought. She hates the thought that she would be irrational and so when she feels anger, or happiness, or sadness, she tends to analyse it and think about it. In the case of sadness, this will often lead to her dwelling on what is making her sad, making the situation worse and worse and worse in her mind. She is definitely a pessimist.
She is often over-critical and unsympathetic, even patronising, to cats who are feeling strong emotions she doesn't identify with, regarding them as weak for having let their emotion get the better of them. On the other hand, if she does identify with the emotion, she is often very sympathetic and warm, but frustrated by a feeling that because of her social ineptness, she cannot communicate to other cats how she feels; whether it is sympathy or friendship or agreement or hatred or confusion. She can be seen as a loner; but she could also be seen as terribly alone.
If she tries to console or comfort others, she will try and give logical solutions to the negative feelings, not understanding that cold logic is not very comforting to somebody who is feeling very sad about a death of a family member or suchlike. When people are upset, she is never quite sure what to do with herself; she does not know how to comfort or help the person and feels helpless, annoyed that the emotional person is remaining upset despite her logical, rational solution. She is likely to flee the situation and leave it to others. This means that despite her fierce loyalty and desperate protectiveness of her friends, she can often abandon them in their hour of need, feeling useless and frustrated by her inability to help them. On the other hand, if their hour of need involves needing to fight off a badger or outwit a fox or logically solve a problem, she's more than happy to oblige, and will probably enjoy all three of the examples I gave.
She does not like doing things that she thinks she cannot do, as explained earlier, because she hates making mistakes. So she doesn't like dealing with emotional situations, such as giving people bad news or initiating a friendship, because she knows she is not good at these things and hates and fears failure. She also tends to be very confident about most things, convinced she will win and thus, she will try her best and go at things with a fierce, reckless enthusiasm (perhaps even sometimes a little too reckless; she can be overconfident, or jump in feet first and leave her head behind when her thorough, analytical logic can't keep up with her excitement or enthusiasm for the situation). But if she thinks she cannot do something, she will not even try and nothing anybody says will make any difference. So, on some occasions, she gives up without even trying. Mostly these are social occasions; having cracked a joke and another cat not have laughed, she might believe she is incapable of befriending them, so not even try, for fear of failure and embarrassment.
She tends not to be afraid of logical things. Foxes and badgers and enemy cats aren't scary because they do logical things like attack cats or defend their dens. They, or at least their patterns of action, can be understood without too much trouble. Anything that she can understand can be dealt with using her understanding and logic. That which she can't understand or defeat with logic is scary, because her defence is logic, so anything which is illogical, she is helpless against. She fears feelings and irrationality and failure. She doesn't fear much else.
She has never been scared of fighting; she positively enjoys it! She loves the thrill of battle and her unique fighting style throws many off. Her limp means that many people underestimate her and that works to her advantage. She loves the physical and mental challenge of fighting and battle tactics.
Being helpless is her second biggest fear. Once her logic is defeated, she has nothing else to back it up, because her feeling, emotional side is so suppressed and undeveloped. She would rather die than be a prisoner of another Clan.
Her greatest fear, however, is ideas she himself comes up with. her vivid imagination is capable of coming up with very, very scary things- things which can be extremely different from real life, irrational, and terrifying. Because they are illogical, they are scary; she hates her mind for producing them, but has no defence against them. Whilst in the day she fears very little, at night, whilst trying to get to sleep, her subconscious torments her with the images of all the horrible things her mind comes up with. She hates it, but she has no defence. A bramble that hangs over a den entrance, a clump of wilting flowers, the swoop of an owl outside; all become utterly terrifying when pounced upon by her vivid imagination and blown up into the horrible products of her imagination. She suffers from terrible nightmares, another reason that she questions StarClan's existence, though she is not an actual unbeliever... she is just unsure.
Because her emotions are so undeveloped, she has little defence or experience with fear, and her own imagination can rampage through her mind. Her logic has little defence; thinking up 'what I would do if the horrible monsters really did come and attack me' only confirms the idea that horrible monsters exist. Logically, she knows that horrible monsters do not exist and that she is being stupid, but her logic is powerless against her own imagination. In the evening, whilst lying in her nest and trying to get to sleep, she is most often found just lying there until well after moonhigh, shivering with fear.
She has quite a narrow, harsh interpretation of the warrior code and she follows it with a fanatical loyalty. She is ferociously defensive and loyal to her Clan; though she is somewhat contemptuous of most of her Clanmates, and disrespectful of authority, she loves the ideals behind her Clan, and the warrior code.
She has a whole lot of weaknesses. She is naive, reckless, arrogant, forgetful, scatterbrained, a perfectionist, stubborn, sometimes-ruthless, depressed, bitter, bossy, and rather childish.
She is really naive, and seems to have little to no idea of the way the world actually works. While she understands battle tactics and philosophy perfectly, she hasn't much of a clue about an awful lot of things.
This includes romance. She just hasn't got a clue. She doesn't know what flirting is, let alone understand how to flirt. She thinks kissing is yucky (to be honest, her RPer agrees) and just generally hasn't got a clue.
She may be good at tactical planning, but she often kind of forgets to do it. While when she knows there is a battle coming she usually plans it extensively, if an enemy appears in front of her she usually just charges at them, she doesn't stop to think whether, say, there's a trap in the way, or if it's an ambush. In that way, she is reckless; she also sometimes says, "Look before you leap? Pah. Looking wastes valuable time." She is also reckless in that she tends to just blurt out what she thinks, rather than stopping to think whether it will offend somebody or get her in trouble. Quite often, it does offend somebody.
She is rather arrogant; while she tries hard not to overestimate her own abilities (okay, maybe sometimes she fails), she often treats people with contempt when she realises they can't quite keep up with her train of thought. She almost never takes advice, and firmly believes that she is nearly always right. She's arrogant in a I'm-right-and-you're-not-because-I-rock way, not necessarily in the kind of way she overestimates her abilities. She doesn't; she wouldn't, say, be stupid enough to think she could take on a whole Clan single-handed, or anything involving that kind of arrogance. So don't expect her to do anything quite that reckless, though she certainly does have a tendency to do very stupid things despite being very clever.
She also, while defending her rights fiercely, sometimes forgets that other people have rights, too. If you ask her, she will always reply- completely truthfully- that she thinks everybody has equal rights (unless you're evil, in which case she thinks you forfeit all of your rights, including your right to live). It's just that sometimes in the heat of the moment, she's so busy standing up for herself and her friends and her beliefs that she forgets others have rights and beliefs, too.
She is forgetful and scatterbrained; she can never remember where she put such-and-such object or whether she's hunted yet today or who she's supposed to be hunting with. This can annoy the cats around her as well as giving the impression of her as a bumbling idiot. Her mind may be as sharp as a knife blade but that doesn't mean she can remember what fresh-kill she ate yesterday! It tends to be that she is so busy unravelling the mysteries of the universe that she forgets to remember practical things. She once walked into a tree because she was composing a poem in her head and not looking where she was going!
She is a perfectionist, and this fits in with her arrogance; she is always correcting others for their mistakes, and usually ends up believing she could have done everything better herself, because she gets so easily annoyed when something is not exactly right or how she wants it. She also gets frustrated easily with herself, as well as others, if she can't do something well. She hates doing things wrong or imperfectly, and she is so used to being good at the few (actually, only three) things she does- fighting, problem-solving and philosophy- that when she starts something new and is bad at it, she is likely to give up because she gets very frustrated because she's bad at it. She will not even try if she thinks she can't do it.
At the complete other end of the spectrum, she can also sometimes be stubborn. While she tends to give up when she starts new stuff and is bad at it because she gets frustrated by her mistakes, if she is arguing a point, she will go to the edge of the world and back to win the argument. When she has decided to commit to something, she gives no ground and takes no prisoners. While this determination can be useful, more often it's a weakness, because she simply does not know when to draw the line. Even if something is completely stupid and pointless and likely to get her killed, in her recklessness and stubbornness, once she has decided to do it, there's no turning back for her unless you drag her away kicking and screaming.
Going back to the 'takes no prisoners', she can also be slightly ruthless. She is naturally a kind, caring person, even if she does think everybody else is vaguely stupid. She tends to value people's lives and try and preserve them, especially her Clanmates or friends - out of her sense of fierce, defensive loyalty. But if she has to make a decision which involves cats dying, she will make that decision with cold ruthlessness, because that's her nature. She will try and do the right thing, but if the right thing is something most people would shy away from, she doesn't have quibbles. She is extremely decisive.
She is more than a little bitter, feeling she is living on the wrong planet; everybody expects her to understand a complicated net of 'social signals', nobody appreciates her 'genius', and she has to do what her Clan leader tells her to.
She is so convinced she's right and others aren't that often she gets very bossy.
She can be childish and petty, and gets het up about the silliest things sometimes.
She is a fighter to her very heart. She cannot understand why anybody would even consider a quiet life; after all, how boring do you get? She believes the best way to live her life, to the full, is as a warrior and a fighting warrior at that. Fighting for the causes she believes in, defending each breath she draws in and every step she takes. She loves the adrenaline and unpredictability of such a life; and above all, she loves the honour, and the way that when you live a life like that, all your actions matter. You're fighting for life and death and Clan and honour and glory here.
Having said that, she does enjoy the few tranquil moments she allows herself. But when she does, it's because she is thinking. She doesn't like quietly chatting or lying in the sun. If she's not having fun or fulfilling some important honourable/moral duty or doing philosophical thinking whilst doing something, it's completely pointless and boring to boot.
She is determined, and stubborn, and loyal. Once she picks a cause, she sticks to it like glue- whether it's entirely smart or not.
Above all, she is a warrior. Grasp that, and you will grasp much of her personality.
She is more than a bit of a firebrand. She is always new and innovative and thinks very much outside the box. She is creative and controversial and she doesn't care if others disagree with her. She is eloquent whilst winning people to her cause and if people hate her she'll either completely not notice or hate them back with the pure hatred only ever felt by the extremely childish or those like her, who truly believe in everything they say. She is a forward-thinker and a moral philosopher. She cares about right and wrong and she is anything but selfish. She is brave. She is often found offensive by others, whether because she was deliberately offending somebody she doesn't like or accidentally saying something social-disaster-ish, and she is presumptuous and prickly and over-ambitious.
You can see her as a prickly, defensive, proud, arrogant, presumptuous, over-ambitious, lying, wily, stuck-up, spiteful, unobservant, little bleeep; or you can see her as a brave, loyal, honourable, sweet, misunderstood, unappreciated genius. You can neither hate her for her flaws nor love her for her strengths; but the two together, undeniably, make her.
History: She was born into NightClan, to two NightClan warriors named Icetooth and Greypelt. From the moment of her birth it was abundantly clear that she was different. Unusually for a NightClan cat, her pelt is a riot of different shades of ginger, from a dark russety red stripe on her tail to a pale gingery-gold patch on her belly. It took her forever to open her eyes - she was almost four moons before she decided she could be bothered to look at other cats. Once she had, she did something else very unusual - she shut them again and went to sleep. She was filled with no dying curiosity to go and meet other cats and look at brambles. While her two sisters explored the camp and went hyper, she contented herself with lying in the den.
Her curiosity was of a different kind. When she was four moons old, a few days after opening her eyes, she surprised her mother with a very adult question - "Mother, why do we have the warrior code?"
Her mother struggled to answer and left it to her father, who sat down with her and explained about honour, and courage, and gave her - from an extraordinary early age - her strong (if a little unusual) set of values.
She was five moons before she decided to leave her state of young philosophical pondering and leave her nice, warm den and mother-who-she-can-ask-questions-of to explore the camp. She was a little overwhelmed with all the cats - so many other cats! and so she sort of skirted around the edge of camp, hiding behind brambles if somebody looked like they were going to come over and talk to her. Eventually she worked up the courage to talk to a few cats other than her own close family, and she managed to - in just those few short conversations - create a reputation for herself as absolutely, stunningly weird. After all, not only did she not seem to use body language or social signals at all, or notice them, but her conversation was extremely un-kit-like. (continued in reply)
Picture: i.imm.io/cKU0.png (credit; got the pic off Google Images, edited) NOT a good picture, doesn't show the pelt well, but best I can get... Her pelt colour varies a lot more than that.
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Again, well done, it's not every day we get such depth and detail in character descriptions!
I have a bad habit of going on.... and on.... and on.... and on.... and on, when I'm writing bios 
Don't worry, if I ever bring my secondary characters here, they won't be quite that long. She's my primary character and I've had her for ages, I must have written her profile about fifty times by now and every time I add a bit or change a bit, so it just got longer.... and longer... and then I melded her with one of my human characters to give myself a bit of a change, so it pretty much doubled in length right there... and I ended up going over the character limit, which I've actually never done before XD.