#gannetstar

Names: Gannetstar (leader name), Gannettalon (warrior name), Gannet (birth name)

Current Affiliation: The Dark Forest, formerly belonging to SplashClan

Past Affiliation: None, former rogue

Gender: Demigirl (she/they)

Sexuality: Pansexual

Age: 172 months at death (14 years; born 79 months before SplashClan's founding)

Nine Lives: Whorlnip (protection), Jaggedpath (clear judgement), Shrewkit (adventure), Snaptangle (sympathy), Leafpaw (mentoring), Unnamed elder (persitence), Speckletoe (unity), Vixenswoop (devotion), Mintshade (leadership through the darkest times)

Deputies: Brackenshade (months 0-91; retired), Lightspots (months 91-93; succeeded as leader)

Cause of Death(s):

Life One - died from a broken bone + various injuries recieved from a dog attack (month 84)

Life Two - bitten by a venomous snake (month 92)

Remaining Lives - succumbed to old age (month 93)

Description-

brown ticked tabby-and-white cat with long fur and eyes of sunlit ice; has a scarred tail from when Lightspots challenged her and a bite wound from a fight with a gray fox

Traits: Bloodthirsty and a good speaker (leader)

Role: Leader (formerly a warrior)

Relationships

Adoptive Mother and Mentor: Mintshade

Former Mates: Striker and Snapfern (broken up with both; became mates with Snapfern in month 47)

Kits: Tornrun, Icywhisker, and Jellyfishspeckle (with Striker; born in month 13) + Patchouliprickle (with Snapfern; born in month 67)

Apprentices: Sagepeak (months 0-6), Quietpaw (months 65-68), and Patchouliprickle (months 73-78)

Romantic Feelings: Snapfern and Lightstar

Platonic Love: Snapfern, Lightgale, Thunderisle, Brackenshade, Lightstar, Tornrun, Jellyfishspeckle

Admiration: Lightgale

Security: Snapfern, Brackenshade

Reliance: Brackenshade

Detailed Biography

Gannet was born as a rogue but doesn’t remember much from her early life, though they’re unsure if that’s because of how young she was of if she had unknowingly blocked the traumatic memories out. When Gannet was only a few months old, her mother died, leaving her all alone. She nearly died of starvation before she was found and rescued by an older rogue named Mint. Mint took her in and from then on raised them as if she was her own kit. Throughout Gannet’s life, Mint trained them to survive just as she had under the philosophy that “no other cats matter, protect yourself and only yourself.” 

Years later, after Gannet had already grown up, the two continued to live together for protection. Though they were better off together, things still weren’t perfect and winters were always harsh. During one winter they discovered the clan cats and decided to stick around for protection and easier food. As time passed they relalized that there was a clear leader for each of the four clans except for one, SplashClan. Mint and Gannet decided to step up, deciding to permanently join the clans as Mintshade and Gannettalon in hopes that they could take leadership of SplashClan themselves. Eventually, Mintshade’s age got the better of her and she stepped down to become an elder, advising Gannettalon from the side in order to have the best chance to become leader.

Eventually, the BloodClan-affiliated rogues were chased out and with Rootmask’s dying words he chose the new leaders of the four clans; Tawnystar of DeadClan, Curlstar of HeatherClan, Amberstar of HazeClan, and Gannetstar of SplashClan. Gannetstar went on to receive her nine lives, one of which being from Mintshade herself for “leadership through the darkest times.” They later elected Brackenshade as their deputy as he was a young but fierce and abrasive cat who would grant her the approval of her clanmates. He was also picked with a darker motive in mind, at the time he was the youngest warrior in the clan and clearly respected Gannetstar's judgement and authority as leader, meaning he wouldn't oppose her. Desperate for more approval from their clanmates, Gannetstar gave themselves an apprentice so she could appear as a responsible, rule-following leader. Sagepaw was the apprentice she chose but they didn’t do much work in training him aside from what was required of her due to her lack of care and how overwhelmed they were as leader initially. 

Gannetstar had only gotten where she was because of Mintshade’s guidance and without her, they felt as though they had no idea what they were doing. Many times they tried to reach out to StarClan to talk to Mintshade but she was cut off from StarClan due to them disaproving of her as leader. Gannetstar questioned her ability to lead the clan and needed something to prove her worth not only to her clanmates, but to herself. This eventually came in the long-running conflict between SplashClan and HazeClan. It started out small, as nothing more than a prey and border dispute but Amberstar’s anger towards the situation frustrated Gannetstar. She couldn’t understand the HazeClan leader’s anger and she felt the urge to take the situation into their own paws, killing Amberstar herself. Of course, this never ended up happening as she was too desperate to prove herself and gain the approval of her clan.

Thunderisle and her own apprentice, Sagepeak were made warriors however later this same month he died while out on patrol and ultimately Gannetstar never realized how much he wanted her to notice him. It was during this time when they met Striker, a rogue who had belonged to one of the BloodClan-affiliated rogue groups that had been occupying the clan territories before. She fell in love with Striker and the two began to secretly meet at SplashClan’s border. As time passed between them however, Gannetstar grew continuously bored of Striker as she found something more entertaining. In their dreams, Gannetstar began to visit the dark forest and would continue to train there throughout her life. 

In the end, Gannetstar found out they were expecting kits and cut off her relationship with Striker, abandoning him and telling him to never come back. Though she was excited to have kits, they didn’t like the idea of having to care for them for very long, hoping she could apprentice them at four months instead of six. Thankfully though, Brackenshade told her not to do that. Eventually, Gannetstar’s three kits were born, Tornkit, Icykit, and Jellyfishkit. She loved her kits but it was clear from the beginning that they were going to pick favorites. She spent more time with Jellyfishkit than the others and this did not go unnoticed by Tornkit and Icykit. 

Eventually, Gannetstar’s kits are apprenticed and she was able to leave the nursery but they were back to feeling terrible about leadership. She had been trained her entire life to only care about herself, to only put effort into making sure that she survives, and now she was alone in leading an entire clan of cats. She made her kits warriors way earlier than she should have and only two months later she learned terrible news. One day, her daughter, Jellyfishspeckle went on patrol but didn’t return. Jellyfishspeckle had been taken away by twolegs. Gannetstar, after having already been under a lot of stress, broke down as a result of their daughter being taken away. They encouraged fights on border patrols and even began picking fights with cats from her own clan. Lightspots at one point stepped up to confront her about this and she took to physically punishing him with the help of Snapfern, a cat who’s allegiance to not only SplashClan, but herself, she was questioning. The three cats were left injured by the fight but in the end Gannetstar felt as though they could trust Snapfern more. 

Gannetstar began to feel as if they were going crazy and she began to feel numb with pain, both from the loss of Jellyfishspeckle and her tail injury. Over the next few months she failed to recover, struggling to fight off the infection in their wound and this only worstened when her other daughter, Icywhisker, died as well. Though she recovered from her injury shortly afterward, she could harldy react to her daughter’s death due to her numbness. Months later, Gannetstar even repeated what she had done to Lightspots to Clovefreckle after he similarly spoke out against them, though thankfully it wasn’t as harsh. Gannetstar’s trust in their clanmates began to dwindle and she soon sought out Snapfern to spy on the cats of SplashClan for her. Eventually, her trust in Snapfern became so great that she confessed to Snapfern about their own romantic feelings towards her. Snapfern agreed, sharing Gannetstar’s feelings and the two became mates. 

Over the next few months, things between SplashClan and HazeClan became worse and worse and Gannetstar even began to ask the other clans to form an alliance but in the end, neither HeatherClan or DeadClan were willing to help. As tensions rose things only became worse for Gannetstar with the death of her son, Tornrun. Though she didn’t play favorites with Tornrun, preferring Jellyfishspeckle, Tornrun had been the only one of her kits that still remained in SplashClan. It was only a few months after this when finally, Jellyfishspeckle returned to SplashClan. Though Gannetstar should’ve been happy, they weren’t the same cat they were when Jellyfishspeckle had been taken away and apart of them began to blame their daughter for abandoning their clan in a time of need and felt as though she was cursed, somehow causing the deaths of Icywhisker and Tornrun just as she left the clan and returned. The pain of Tornrun’s death and Jellyfishspeckle’s return finally caused Gannetstar to break and officially declare war on HazeClan. The war lasted seven months and four cats died however SplashClan was the clear loser of the war. Ever since Gannetstar had been leader, they had been searching for the perfect opportunity to prove her worth as leader and in the end they failed, they failed terribly. 

During the war, Gannetstar decided to distract themselves by taking on their second apprentice, choosing the kit, Quietpaw for that position. Gannetstar was a bit more involved with Quietpaw’s training than she was with Sagepeak's since this time she had willingly taken him as an apprentice, but things ended up just as badly. Under Gannetstar’s training, Quietpaw was trained to exhaustion every single day and was hardly recognizable as his former self not long after becoming an apprentice. Similarly to Sagepeak, Quietpaw wanted to make Gannetstar proud of him and he would do anything to make that happen. At one point after the war had ended, a bunch of HazeClan apprentices began to bully Quietpaw from across the border. She encouraged Quietpaw to fight back, even if he was clearly outnumbered. Quietpaw made it out of this encounter, but was mildly hurt and Gannetstar praised him for this. Quietpaw’s apprenticeship came to a sudden end in leafbare. He was so painfully hungry from there being a lack of prey that he attemted to calm his hunger by eating some red berries he found, these ended up being death berries. Though Quietpaw died, Gannetstar didn’t seem to care much. 

Before Quietpaw had died, her and Snapfern’s son, Patchoulitkit was born. When Gannetstar wasn’t too busy training Quietpaw, they would spend time with Snapfern as she was the only one who they felt could bring them comfort. As a result, Patchoulikit didn’t get to spend a lot of time with his parents and began to look up to and chase after Gannetstar for their attention. Gannetstar decided to mentor their son herself. Though the clan spoke out against this, Gannetstar didn’t care. They spent the most time and care training Patchoulipaw compared to Sagepeak and Quietpaw, influencing him to use violence over words and to make impulsive decisions. Just like she did with her previous kits, she made him a warrior early, granting him the name Patchouliprickle. He took after Gannetstar’s bloodthirsty nature but died too quick to acomplish anything. 

Patchouliprickle, Snapfern, and many other SplashClan cats disappeared into the night and wound up in StarClan, their cause of death unknown. Gannetstar was left devistated and broken by their loss. Only three months after this, Gannetstar lost her very first life to an injury they had recieved months prior from a dog attack. Shortly after, she decided to move on from Snapfern but in the end they never took another mate. Throughout the rest of their life, Gannetstar seemed to become more and more lost in their own mind and their previously shown agitation and aggression towards others, even in their own clan, grew and grew. She later lost her second life to a venomous snake bite before slowly beginning to lose her remaining seven lives to old age throughout the 93rd month of SplashClan’s existence. As they lay dying, Gannetstar laughed in her deputy, Lightspot’s face and told him-

“Hah! I’m glad you of all cats are becoming the next leader. There isn’t another fool alive who i’d be more willing to see cursed with the role of leader.”

Gannetstar, having already entered the Dark Forest in their life, was brought there in death and realized that she would’ve been able to influence the cats below. She began to scheme and soon figured out her plan. If they turned the young cats against the clans, she could turn them to her side, destroying SplashClan in the process and proving that all along the idea of ‘clans’ were cursed to fail. Ever since their death, they’ve reached out to many of SplashClan’s younger cats and brought them to train in the Dark Forest, some even becoming loyal to her already.

Fun Facts

Gannetflight was named after Gannetstar by her mother, Emberfreckle who's one of the most involved and loyal dark forest trainees.

Gannetstar's original in-game warrior name was Gannethorse but this was changed to Gannettalon later on since it made more sense and wasn't as goofy

Their favorite food is frog but they also liked rabbit and shrews

Their character song is Ain’t It Fun by Paramore

Gannetstar’s voice claim is Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil: Village (voiced by Maggie Robertson)

Dark Forest Events

The first cat Gannetstar influenced to begin training in the dark forest as Sparkstep. They contacted him in his dream only a month after she had died.

Gannetstar feels regret for some of their actions, though it's unclear which ones

Gannetstar considered walking in Old Deuteronomyplume's dreams but decided against it, realizing they wouldn't have accepted her proposal to train

From the dark forest, Gannetstar never contacted Lightstar but always kept an eye on him, smiling slyly how much he likely hated being leader at such an old age and how it was herself who put him there

They considered bringing Brackenshade's son, Brightsnap into the dark forest but decided against it, knowing Brackenshade had likely taught him too many negative things about Gannetstar to want to accept

Gannetstar indirectly killed Brightsnap, Rippletuft, Littlebat, and Sardinefuzz. She had instructed some of the HeatherClan dark forest trainnes to attack them on patrol in order to specifically kill Sardinefuzz, the current deputy of SplashClan so Emberfreckle, a prominent dark forest trainee could potentially be chosen as his replacement.

Gannetstar feels distain and malice towards Hailtorrent, a high ranking dark forest trainee from SplashClan becuase they believes that he has the capability to turn against her and completely destroy her plans

Throughout Snailshell's apprenticeship, Gannetstar continued to whisper in his ear as they couldn't fully walk in his dreams due to his connection to StarClan. In the end thankfully, he was able to block Gannetstar out.

Mudember, Emberfreckle's son was one of the cats Gannetstar had an eye on birth but in the end it's likely she was never able to contact him due to his stronger than average connection to StarClan.

Gannetstar had their eyes on Brackenshade's son, Laurelstep from kithood but it's unclear if he was ever reached out to