Post by cryptid on Aug 5, 2020 3:34:56 GMT -6
[attr="class","appCONTAINER]
[attr="class","appHEADER"]pepperstorm
[attr="class","appTAG"]pepperstorm – tiny, green eyed black tom with a white dash on his chest and tail tip.
[attr="class","appIMAGE"]
[attr="class","appPADDING1"]
[attr="class","appTOPBOX"]
[attr="class","appTOPBOXBG"]
| 20 MOONS | CIS MALE | DEMISEXUAL / HOMOROMANTIC | THUNDERCLAN | WARRIOR |
[attr="class","appBGIMAGE"]
[attr="class","appCATEGORY"]TRAITS
[attr="class","appTRAITSBG"]
| + loyal + spirited + tenacious + talented tracker + determined | - prickly - confrontational - insecure - stubborn - sullen |
[attr="class","appCATEGORY"]PERSONALITY
[attr="class","appBAR"]
[attr="class","appFIELD"]
what he lacks in size, pepperstorm makes up for in sheer attitude. to start with he’s proud to a fault; this is a cat whose arrogance makes up half of his confrontational nature. pepperstorm wears his pride as much as a badge of honour as he does a shield, covering himself in a hot temper and a glass house of arrogance which mask the insecurities which bubble and hiss beneath the surface. his pride features both as a general attitude and related more specifically to his warrior skillset. a combination feature of a sheltered, spoiled kithood and the general bulletproof arrogance of youth, he’s not yet learned to take shots to his pride gracefully and is prone to sullen fits.
it’s not all entirely unfounded; he’s a talented tracker and a fairly keen hunter (through the application of similar skills). while he’s not the clan’s most proficient hunter and given his youth there’s almost certainly keener trackers than he, it’s enough to put a swagger too big for his slight size in his step and smugness in his tone. he’s also extremely tenacious, being part of what earned him his name, and when he sets his mind on something he does everything he can to achieve his goals.
pepperstorm’s insecurities are something he tries his hardest to contain and internalise. he hides them from those around him as best he can, brooding over them quietly until they boil up and spill out around him in defensive, angry outbursts. from his skills as a warrior, his place in the clan and the odd little family he’s managed to find himself a part of. he’s particularly insecure about how he stands in his father’s eyes, unable to live up to the weight of expectation put upon him when his mother died in labour. he’s not the warrior his parents dreamed of, certainly not the cat his father tried to raise him to be – so far as pepperstorm can see, he’s nothing is quite going as it should. this internalisation of his insecurities and his fears has left a somewhat angry cat. despite his best efforts, he finds it so much easier to lash out at others than to let them close. something he’ll need to work on if he wants to make friends.
of course, like anyone, pepperstorm isn’t all bad. this warrior is loyal to a fault once he deems a cat worth his notice: sure he’s still likely to pick fights and be overall insufferable, but it takes a marked turn from legitimately antagonistic to playfully fond. starclan forbid any other cat start a fight or get aggressive to a cat he’s claimed as his – pepperstorm isn’t one for physical violence, of the warrior skills fighting tends to be his weakest, but he’s certainly not short of verbal aggression. he’s also oddly supportive, all in his own particular way of course.
pepperstorm’s faith in his ancestors is a quiet thing, something which he considers to be a private matter between starclan and him. it’s not a deep sort of faith and it’s taken repeated beatings through his life, it’s a fragile thread, tentative and uneasy. he prays to starclan silently, with looks to the stars and an ache in his belly for his absent mother, he wants very little more than to know that there’s something up there but, for the moment, that certainty always stands a few foxlengths out of reach.
it’s not all entirely unfounded; he’s a talented tracker and a fairly keen hunter (through the application of similar skills). while he’s not the clan’s most proficient hunter and given his youth there’s almost certainly keener trackers than he, it’s enough to put a swagger too big for his slight size in his step and smugness in his tone. he’s also extremely tenacious, being part of what earned him his name, and when he sets his mind on something he does everything he can to achieve his goals.
pepperstorm’s insecurities are something he tries his hardest to contain and internalise. he hides them from those around him as best he can, brooding over them quietly until they boil up and spill out around him in defensive, angry outbursts. from his skills as a warrior, his place in the clan and the odd little family he’s managed to find himself a part of. he’s particularly insecure about how he stands in his father’s eyes, unable to live up to the weight of expectation put upon him when his mother died in labour. he’s not the warrior his parents dreamed of, certainly not the cat his father tried to raise him to be – so far as pepperstorm can see, he’s nothing is quite going as it should. this internalisation of his insecurities and his fears has left a somewhat angry cat. despite his best efforts, he finds it so much easier to lash out at others than to let them close. something he’ll need to work on if he wants to make friends.
of course, like anyone, pepperstorm isn’t all bad. this warrior is loyal to a fault once he deems a cat worth his notice: sure he’s still likely to pick fights and be overall insufferable, but it takes a marked turn from legitimately antagonistic to playfully fond. starclan forbid any other cat start a fight or get aggressive to a cat he’s claimed as his – pepperstorm isn’t one for physical violence, of the warrior skills fighting tends to be his weakest, but he’s certainly not short of verbal aggression. he’s also oddly supportive, all in his own particular way of course.
pepperstorm’s faith in his ancestors is a quiet thing, something which he considers to be a private matter between starclan and him. it’s not a deep sort of faith and it’s taken repeated beatings through his life, it’s a fragile thread, tentative and uneasy. he prays to starclan silently, with looks to the stars and an ache in his belly for his absent mother, he wants very little more than to know that there’s something up there but, for the moment, that certainty always stands a few foxlengths out of reach.
[attr="class","appCATEGORY"]HISTORY
[attr="class","appBAR"]
[attr="class","appFIELD"]
[ pepperkit • pepperpaw • pepperstorm ]
aspenfur and jayleaf partnered rather later in life than they would have liked, 70 moons for him and 62 for her. increased age did nothing to douse their affections, rather their experiences would make them truly appreciate each other more. both of them had seen enough pain, war and death to feel a deep gratitude to the universe which had finally pushed them together. yet no matter how fond they were, there was one thing that age didn’t help them with: both warriors desperately wanted kits of their own, that one final thing to complete their otherwise full lives. they tried for moons and moons until, finally, they managed to conceive.
from the start pregnancy was hard on 70 moon old aspenfur, she was restricted to camp early on and their medicine cat feared that the elderly queen might lose her kits. with concerted effort and no small amount of prayer to their ancestors, they got aspenfur almost entirely to term – but things were stacked against her. her son was as impetuous and stubborn in his birth as he would grow to be in life, coming too early. brave aspenfur could not be saved, losing her life as so many queens had before her, in blood and the giving of life. her kits, small and sickly, were not expected to live much longer. the first was born as still and lifeless as her late mother, the second a scrap of blood soaked black fur – impossibly small, the last a little brown tabby who made it to his first sunrise before his little chest fell for the final time.
losing his mate and two out of his three kits was devastating for jayleaf who seemed to compensate for the loss by hovering close by his remaining kit at all times. with his mate and kits buried (the kits privately named, something just for him and later for his remaining son) he took to being wherever little pepperkit was. the little scrap of black fluff was given over to a queen nursing her own kits, she provided milk while jayleaf provided a parental figure. terrified that little pepperkit too would cease to breathe, the elderly tom was almost always there, hovering about the nursery, barely sleeping in the moon which followed and doting on his only son. had he been a younger cat and had he lost less, some cat might have nudged him away but there is something particularly difficult in telling an old tom that he can’t be there to care for the last remnant of his family.
so it was that pepperkit survived: he was spoiled by his father, encouraged and indulged in most of his whims – even going so far as to being carried just outside the camp, much to the disapproval of his foster mother. as he grew he became a kit who was easy to consider a spoiled brat, he had no concept of being denied – how could he when he’d known nothing but indulgence all his young life? he aged and grew (albeit little and slowly), as healthy and strong as any kit though he never quite learned the basic robustness of most. he wasn’t one to play with other kits, instead screaming to the stars if another kit scuffed him and being coddled and soothed by his overly present father.
with his lack of resilience and over-indulged nature, jayleaf was certain that pepperkit would require a certain type of mentor. one who would coddle him, gently encouraging him and build him up – fate, as it happened had other plans in store. as he sat, staring up at ivystar on her rock, he was assigned to rowanmask. a warrior known for his laziness, who had avoided his responsibilities so entirely as to get his former apprentice re-assigned. however there was one factor in their favour; pepperpaw had never been told ‘no’ in his life and he wasn’t about to start by accepting brush offs from his evasive mentor.
for once, what pepperpaw wanted wasn’t at all spoiled or unreasonable. so he pushed back hard against his mentor’s lazy apathy. the two of them clashed like a pebble smashing against a stone cliff-face; with a bang a showering of sparks. rowanmask drove his apprentice mad, refusing to train him or simply up and disappearing entirely before dawn so that when his apprentice stormed into the warrior’s den looking for his useless mentor he found only an empty nest and, sometimes, rowanmask’s exasperated brother.
had the apprentice not been so painfully proud he might have gone to someone for help: ivystar or his father – maybe even ryecloud, to beg him to train him. yet that prickly, stubborn pride restricted his options and he was determined to make this stupid warrior training thing work: his father expected him to be incredible and the idea of disappointing jayleaf was more than he could bear. for all that he was spoiled, he loved his father more than anything in the world and wanted to shine in his eyes.
so he got used to life with rowanmask and he learned more than he realised: each morning he tracked his mentor from camp to whatever log or abandoned foxhole rowanmask had jammed himself into to avoid his tenacious apprentice. he honed the skill that would become his sharpest and he simply persisted, harassing him with snide insults and smartass retorts whenever they were together in camp to goad the (fairly easily) agitated warrior into motion. it became a routine of sorts and he discovered that, when push came to shove, he didn’t actually hate working with rowanmask.
he survived it all (by some miracle of starclan’s he supposes) and eventually he was named; standing before his clan as they hollered pepperstorm. he liked his name, a whirlwind of temper and untouchable pride. --storm; for his persistence and indomitable spirit... to this day he suspects that was just a fancy way of patting his back for his not murdering rowanmask in his sleep. after all rowanmask was, so far as pepperstorm was concerned, the laziest, most stubborn piece of work thunderclan had ever produced.
life as a warrior was by turns harder and easier than life an apprentice, on one paw he no longer had to wrangle rowanmask to get anything done. on the other paw it was a lot more pressure: there was more initiative left up to him when it came to deciding what to do and when to do it. the clan had to be fed, dens had to be reinforced before leafbare – if you weren’t on a patrol and you weren’t relaxing before or after working then you were expected to be doing something.
it took a few moons of patrols, hunts, and having more control over his time but life fell into a routine as he grew independent of both his father and former mentor though he remained close with both. closer, perhaps, than was advisable with the latter. on even footing, no longer relying on rowanmask for his progression in life he found his laziness funnier than he had. he found that it still fell to him, of course, when the useless lump was slacking on his duties but now he wasn’t alone – ryecloud and any number of other warriors were always on paw to help him heckle rowanmask onto a patrol. the former constant irritation, murderous thoughts and desire to stick burrs in his nest (which if he’d given in to this impulse once or twice, well, that was the cost of rowanmask’s apathy now wasn’t it) were, for the most part, gone. left behind were the insults and the sarcasm and, eventually, a little spark under his pelt when they bickered and fought.
from the start pregnancy was hard on 70 moon old aspenfur, she was restricted to camp early on and their medicine cat feared that the elderly queen might lose her kits. with concerted effort and no small amount of prayer to their ancestors, they got aspenfur almost entirely to term – but things were stacked against her. her son was as impetuous and stubborn in his birth as he would grow to be in life, coming too early. brave aspenfur could not be saved, losing her life as so many queens had before her, in blood and the giving of life. her kits, small and sickly, were not expected to live much longer. the first was born as still and lifeless as her late mother, the second a scrap of blood soaked black fur – impossibly small, the last a little brown tabby who made it to his first sunrise before his little chest fell for the final time.
losing his mate and two out of his three kits was devastating for jayleaf who seemed to compensate for the loss by hovering close by his remaining kit at all times. with his mate and kits buried (the kits privately named, something just for him and later for his remaining son) he took to being wherever little pepperkit was. the little scrap of black fluff was given over to a queen nursing her own kits, she provided milk while jayleaf provided a parental figure. terrified that little pepperkit too would cease to breathe, the elderly tom was almost always there, hovering about the nursery, barely sleeping in the moon which followed and doting on his only son. had he been a younger cat and had he lost less, some cat might have nudged him away but there is something particularly difficult in telling an old tom that he can’t be there to care for the last remnant of his family.
so it was that pepperkit survived: he was spoiled by his father, encouraged and indulged in most of his whims – even going so far as to being carried just outside the camp, much to the disapproval of his foster mother. as he grew he became a kit who was easy to consider a spoiled brat, he had no concept of being denied – how could he when he’d known nothing but indulgence all his young life? he aged and grew (albeit little and slowly), as healthy and strong as any kit though he never quite learned the basic robustness of most. he wasn’t one to play with other kits, instead screaming to the stars if another kit scuffed him and being coddled and soothed by his overly present father.
with his lack of resilience and over-indulged nature, jayleaf was certain that pepperkit would require a certain type of mentor. one who would coddle him, gently encouraging him and build him up – fate, as it happened had other plans in store. as he sat, staring up at ivystar on her rock, he was assigned to rowanmask. a warrior known for his laziness, who had avoided his responsibilities so entirely as to get his former apprentice re-assigned. however there was one factor in their favour; pepperpaw had never been told ‘no’ in his life and he wasn’t about to start by accepting brush offs from his evasive mentor.
for once, what pepperpaw wanted wasn’t at all spoiled or unreasonable. so he pushed back hard against his mentor’s lazy apathy. the two of them clashed like a pebble smashing against a stone cliff-face; with a bang a showering of sparks. rowanmask drove his apprentice mad, refusing to train him or simply up and disappearing entirely before dawn so that when his apprentice stormed into the warrior’s den looking for his useless mentor he found only an empty nest and, sometimes, rowanmask’s exasperated brother.
had the apprentice not been so painfully proud he might have gone to someone for help: ivystar or his father – maybe even ryecloud, to beg him to train him. yet that prickly, stubborn pride restricted his options and he was determined to make this stupid warrior training thing work: his father expected him to be incredible and the idea of disappointing jayleaf was more than he could bear. for all that he was spoiled, he loved his father more than anything in the world and wanted to shine in his eyes.
so he got used to life with rowanmask and he learned more than he realised: each morning he tracked his mentor from camp to whatever log or abandoned foxhole rowanmask had jammed himself into to avoid his tenacious apprentice. he honed the skill that would become his sharpest and he simply persisted, harassing him with snide insults and smartass retorts whenever they were together in camp to goad the (fairly easily) agitated warrior into motion. it became a routine of sorts and he discovered that, when push came to shove, he didn’t actually hate working with rowanmask.
he survived it all (by some miracle of starclan’s he supposes) and eventually he was named; standing before his clan as they hollered pepperstorm. he liked his name, a whirlwind of temper and untouchable pride. --storm; for his persistence and indomitable spirit... to this day he suspects that was just a fancy way of patting his back for his not murdering rowanmask in his sleep. after all rowanmask was, so far as pepperstorm was concerned, the laziest, most stubborn piece of work thunderclan had ever produced.
life as a warrior was by turns harder and easier than life an apprentice, on one paw he no longer had to wrangle rowanmask to get anything done. on the other paw it was a lot more pressure: there was more initiative left up to him when it came to deciding what to do and when to do it. the clan had to be fed, dens had to be reinforced before leafbare – if you weren’t on a patrol and you weren’t relaxing before or after working then you were expected to be doing something.
it took a few moons of patrols, hunts, and having more control over his time but life fell into a routine as he grew independent of both his father and former mentor though he remained close with both. closer, perhaps, than was advisable with the latter. on even footing, no longer relying on rowanmask for his progression in life he found his laziness funnier than he had. he found that it still fell to him, of course, when the useless lump was slacking on his duties but now he wasn’t alone – ryecloud and any number of other warriors were always on paw to help him heckle rowanmask onto a patrol. the former constant irritation, murderous thoughts and desire to stick burrs in his nest (which if he’d given in to this impulse once or twice, well, that was the cost of rowanmask’s apathy now wasn’t it) were, for the most part, gone. left behind were the insults and the sarcasm and, eventually, a little spark under his pelt when they bickered and fought.
[attr="class","appNAMEREASON"]
| PEPPER; for his dark fur. | STORM; for his determination, and tenacity. |
[attr="class","appOOC"]
| cryptid | |
| 25 | he/him |
| gmt +10 | pm or discord |
[attr="class","appOOCfield"] oh, through the wilderness you and i we're walking through the emptiness oh, my heart is a mess is it the only defense against the wilderness? cross my heart and hope to die taking this one step at a time got your back if you got mine one foot in front of the other. | |
