name: snakestar (past names, snakekit to snakepaw to snakestrike)

Snakestrike is a beautiful name

reasoning: he and his brother (viperfoot) are matching, and his tabby stripes can resemble snake stripes. there isn't too much reasoning to be honest, he was just named a bit carelessly by the medicine cat in hopes that he'd become a great warrior.

No thoughts

age: roughly 15 moons at death

I've never seen a leader die at 3 moons over a year, but I have seen a kit be made leader, so not the weirdest

gender: male

No thoughts

personality: snakestar's very, very arrogant. he showed a natural talent for combat and fighting, and under the entire clan's praise, his ego flourished. he's also extremely ambitious and hardworking, willing to go extreme lengths to achieve what he wants and his goals.

Arrogant, egotistical, and ambitious character can definitely be the fun to write, but he doesn't seem to have many positive traits other than hardworking

appearance: gray tabby tom with amber-green eyes

Average, but I would've liked a lot more detail than the bare minimum

clan: shadowclan

A bit overused, but that's fine

rank: leader

Cliche and very, very unusual

mother: lilylight (calico she-cat with green eyes)

Again, would've liked a lot more detail, including fur-length, scars, ear size, etc/

father: icestrike (gray tabby tom with yellow eyes)

Same as the mother

sibling(s): viperfoot (large, gray tabby tom with yellow eyes) & mintberry (gray tabby she-cat with green eyes)

Same as the mother

Quick genetics interjection: Snakestar and Viperfoot would both be black tabbies with low amounts of white due to the fact that dilution is recessive and Lilylight would have to be a carrier for any of the kits to be dilute - Mintberry would be a torbie(tortoiseshell tabby) with at least level 2 white spotting - all the kits would have yellow eyes because yellow is dominant over green

mate: n/a

No thoughts

kit(s): n/a

No thoughts

backstory (i just wanted to mention that even though i'm using cannon clans, this is all completely made up and doesn't follow the warrior cats cannon storyline at all): riverclan and shadowclan are in a war over a prophecy, which involves snakestar and his siblings (unbeknownst to them). Oh, I'd love to know the prophecy snakestar's father dies in it, his mother, overwhelmed with grief, was extremely weak and dies almost instantly after giving birth. thus, the shadowclan medicine cat (clearfrost) volunteers to raise snakestar and his siblings.

however, clearfrost is an extremely cold, emotionless cat. she focuses the majority of her attention on snakestar's sister, mintberry, in hopes that mintberry will follow her in becoming a medicine cat. Why would she volunteer to raise all of them if she only cared about one of them? when he was a kit, snakestar searched for that missing affection in his brother, viperfoot, but once he became an apprentice, he found that in the adoring praise of shadowclan.

his mentor was a very young (but talented) tom named foxstorm, who everyone thought would be the next leader and snakepaw looked up to greatly. I always love when apprentices look up to their mentors, it makes for closer-knit relationships thus, he had a great influence on snakepaw's mindset without realizing it. he absolutely fueled snakepaw's ego, shaping the gray tabby tom to believe that he was better than his siblings, particularly viperpaw, who was very clumsy and struggling much more with apprentice training than snakepaw was. Did he fuel Snakepaw's ego on purpose or on accident?

as he grew, snakepaw started pulling away from viperpaw, thinking that his clumsiness was ruining his own reputation. Poor Viperpaw he also started thinking about someday becoming the leader of shadowclan, believing that foxstorm would become leader, and he could become foxstorm's deputy. I really do like that his vision of the future has his mentor in it, it's quite sweet

however, shortly after becoming a warrior, shadowclan's deputy died (though he was actually killed by the leader ivorystar because he was questioning her too much). Was Ivorystar regularly harsh/vicious toward cats who questioned or dispbeyed her? everyone thought ivorystar would choose foxstorm as her deputy but she picked snakestrike instead, mainly because he was young, inexperienced, and wouldn't challenge her (albeit unknown to him). Based on how much his ego and arrogance has been emphasized, it really does seem like he'd challenge her regularly everyone was expecting snakestrike to turn it down, as he'd only become a warrior a few days ago, hadn't had an apprentice, and must feel some loyalty to foxstorm, but he accepted.

everyone doubted him, of course, and to fix this, ivorystar allowed him to plan an attack on windclan, who was riverclan's ally in the war. the attack went successfully, boosting snakestrike's ego even further. however, that night, him and his siblings were kidnapped by rogues (because of the prophecy) and almost died. I would've liked more specifics than 'kidnapped and almost died' when they were rescued and returned to shadowclan safe, he realized how easy death was, and that he'd almost died before being able to become shadowclan's leader, a spot he thought he deserved more than anything.

so, he killed ivorystar. by pure luck, he'd taken her last life and became the leader of shadowclan. Little cliche

now that windclan had been chased out, Chased out? When? he had direct access to riverclan's border, and decided to attack them. this attack, however, backfired, and instead shadowclan was the one driven from their territory. they're forced up into the highstones, where snakestar is driven a little crazy at his failure, and ends up exiling several cats that question him or who he deems is a threat. His descent into desperation/insanity is very rushed and would've made more sense if it was slower, over the course of losing more battles/losing lives/almost dying

finally, half-mad, he somehow figures the prophecy out How? What helped him figure it out? and travels back to shadowclan's territory to fulfill it and regain his power. however, his siblings had done the same separately, His siblings have hardly been mentioned the whole time - were they even in ShadowClan during Snakestar's reign? and all three of them end up by the thunderpath with riverclan's leader, dapplestar, who was also after the prophecy. Does the location have anything to do with the prophecy or was it just random?

a fight breaks out Why? and dapplestar kills snakestar first, How did Dapplestar kill him if he had nine lives? fulfilling the prophecy's requirement that one of the three siblings must die. Probably would've had more impact if I knew what the prophecy was

extra: n/a

Final ruling: 6/10 - It's pretty good, but quite a few things need fleshing out and extended description