The Essentials

Name: Ivynose
Prefix Meaning: Ivy- for her thick black tabby stripes.
Suffix Meaning: -nose for her natural talent in tracking
Sex: Female
Age: 21 moons
Sexuality: Bisexual
Rank: Warrior
Role: Birch Family
Adopt Thread: adopted with the permission of Aria!

The Body

Base Coat Color: Dark brown
Markings: Black tabby striping, white paws, white tail tip, white abobe her nose that wraps around to white throat and asymmetrical points above neck, white belly
Eye Color: Golden
Body Size and Build: Large and lanky
Fur Length and Texture: Feathery medium-long
Additional Physical Traits: Large ears, long legs, long feathery tail, long whiskers.
Health and Scars: Healthy.
Full Appearance Description: Large, with long legs and a long tail, Ivynose is lanky. Her confident gait isn't particularly loud in her declarations, but it's pretty obvious that she is extremely comfortable with herself and her abilities. She has medium-length fur, more on the shorter side than longer. It can be a little tufty in spots around her ears, legs, and tail, but it isn't so long that it can get snagged in branches. She has a dark brown coat, with black striping itself across her body. She has a little bite of white above her nose that wraps around to her white throat. The white throat extends down her belly. She has a white tail tip, along with white paws. The white on her throat wraps around her neck to asymmetrical points on either side. Her almond-shaped eyes are a bright golden shade.

The Identity

Positive Traits: Logical, loyal, thoughtful.
Neutral Traits: Serious, observant, skeptical
Negative Traits: Pessimistic, blunt, temperamental.

Full Trait Description: + Logical -- Ivynose likes to listen to all sides of an argument, and as a warrior she would often list the pros and cons to herself of each choice before coming to her own opinon. She enjoys debating, especially when it comes to nonsensical things. When it comes to the safety of her fellow clanmates and decisions regarding the Clan as a whole, she becomes serious and attempts to be as unbiased as possible. However, if she choses to take a side over another, she is sometimes seen as biased and is uncomfortable when they accuse her of it. Therefore she greatly prefers to come up with a compromise. If there can't be a compromise, she does her best to adapt to the situation. (skeptical derives from this aspect of her personality.)

+ Loyal -- Ivynose is extremely steadfast in her relationships. She is not one to cheat on her mate or be treacherous to the Clan. In fact, the very thought of doing so makes her ill. She likes to think of herself as steady as the ground beneath her feet, unable to be shaken much. She is so loyal, that if it comes to others trying to get information out of her, it'll be like trying to get a whale to listen to them.

+ Thoughtful -- When it comes to her family, Clanmates, and friends, Ivynose is willing to give an ear to listen to them. Whether they want to complain about their loss of prey while hunting or something more serious, she is willing to give advice from her own experience. If she does not understand a situation, she puts herself in their paws and ponders on what she would do before tentatively telling them what she would do in their paws. (observant comes from this aspect of her personality.)

- Pessimistic -- For her tentative belief in the Gods, Ivynose is surprisingly pessimistic. Even though she thinks through everything for a well-thought out response, she has a tendency to overcomplicate everything and she puts so much into it that she believes the worst will happen. Even in debates this happens, and others may get a little irritated by the way she puts too much stock in that things will go wrong. Her negative view can be somewhat penetrated by someone else's optimism, but she may end up bickering with them in the end. (serious is part of this aspect of her personality.)

- Blunt -- Ivynose prefers the truth to lying, but she does so in a way that it can be damaging or gets her into a mess of epic proportions. She isn't quite aware that she's hurting someone, as being lied to is an alien concept. She doesn't understand that some might want to be gentle with her information, as it just confuses her and makes her disconcerted. She can be very forward with her information, not really caring who hears it because it might be pertinent to that cat as well. Ivynose will get frustrated if someone tells her to be careful, she doesn't believe in babying others.

- Temperamental -- Able to be provoked easily, Ivynose can become irritated or frustrated at a mere word or simple situation. She'll take out those frustrations by being short with others until she calms down and apologizes. She always apologizes when she takes it out on others. Just as she's able to be agitated, she can become excited or anxious without effort. When excited she'll bounce around like a kit and crowing eagerly about something. When anxious, she'll fret and pace and constantly ask herself questions before answering them herself.

Loves: violets, sleeping in the sun, squirrel, leaffall, rain
Likes: debating, leafbare, climbing, making lists, thinking of new things to do, exploring
Dislikes: messy nests, pools of water, getting thorns stuck in her pelt, being interrupted, fish, falling
Hates: pollen, greenleaf, her father, getting sick/injured
Fears: drowning, bees, birds of prey
Secrets: that's for me to know and for you to find out.
Dreams: to be the best warrior she can possibly be, maybe to have a family of her own one day, literally dreams of the day that her father is expelled from the clan

Strengths: hunting, smelling, hearing, climbing
Normals: defense, jumping, attack, eyesight
Weaknesses: flexibility, stealth, speed, swimming

The Past

kithood

Ivykit and her siblings were born through Starwatcher and her mousedung of a father. The only she-cat among three brothers, as a kit she was often called 'runt' by her brothers as she wasn't as big or as strong as them. In fact, her mother stamped that behavior out as quick as possible, by scolding them furiously and putting them in time out. After moons of exhausting her children (Ivykit not excluded, much to her consternation), they managed to make respectful, determined, and helpful kits. Two moons into their lives, they were browbeaten into believing that familiar bonds were everything. Despite their mother's influence, their father barely paid any attention to his daughter, instead focusing it all on her brothers with unerring intensity. 

At approximately three moons old, Ivykit was wrestling with her brothers and chasing them around camp as they teased her playfully. Sometimes they got in trouble with the warriors and apprentices, but what kits didn't get in trouble? As a kit, Ivykit was confident and prideful. That lasted until she became an apprentice. At five moons, she formally met Owlpaw, an older apprentice that she disliked on sight. The moon before her apprentice ceremony, whenever they came face to face they would bicker and almost come to blows over debates. Not only did this happen with Owlpaw, but with her father when he decided that she should learn to act like a 'proper' she-cat.

apprenticehood

The very first day of being an apprentice, Ivypaw's mentor Lily- practically beat the first lesson of being a GlenClan cat into her. She learned very early on to drop her pride and get over it. She's still quite temperamental, but she manages it well by forcing herself to count to 10 and ask herself if she wants to really make a big deal out of things. The one thing she got from her mentor was her pessimism and blunt way of doing things. Lily- would tell her straight up if she was terrible at something, and give her an alternate way of doing things. Ivypaw's mother also told her the truth about a lot of things, though she usually hemmed and hawed about it. Her father.. well, they still fought on a regular basis.

Ivypaw's and Owlpaw's debates and bickering grew to an all-time high. It didn't help that her arguments with her fathers nearly came to blows with each other. Once, two of her brothers had to pull her back from bodily launching herself at him after an argument got out of hand and really hit home. Though this time now that she was an apprentice, she sparred with Owlpaw and went hunting with him often. Lily- and his own mentor forced them to interact to get along more, but it seemed to only get worse over time. Every time they sparred, Ivypaw learned something new about the other and he learned more about her. About four months after being an apprentice, Owlpaw became Owl-, joining the ___ Family and Ivypaw was soon left with a gap in her life. It was this separation that made her think about their relationship and over this, she wondered when their bickering had turned to teasing and fun times rather than be rivals. 

Even though she was close with her mother and siblings, she was entirely too aware of the space that Owl- left behind. The bickering with her father grew more intense. For a few days she floundered in training, but she got back to her paws and threw herself into training. Lily- worked hard on shaping Ivypaw to be a great she-cat and warrior, dragging her out in the middle of the night to do some midnight hunting or sparring. Over the course of her apprenticeship, Ivypaw got used to sleeping sleeping lightly and jumping to her paws at a moment's notice. It's not to say that she barely got any sleep (at first she did) but her internal clock adjusted and she can sleep fully for only a couple of hours before getting on her feet and working for the next sixteen hours before sleeping for another few hours again. Through this, the bickering levelled out some, as both felines were both too busy with their duties.

Near the end of her apprenticeship, Lily- gave Ivypaw the terms of her assessment. She would spend a week in the forest, circling around the territory in a clockwise direction inside Gnarled Forest, making her way through the rest of the territory and finally back to the camp, where she would meet up with her mentor. Suffice to say, she did well.

warriorhood

At twelve moons, Ivynose's name comes from her tracking ability and inability to accept lies to the Clan. Her father drew back from their arguments, at this point, regarding the she-cat coldly from a distance as Starwatcher had another litter. She joined the Birch family, partly because she strongly identified with their ideas, and partly because she didn't want to be in the same family as her father.  A few moons into her routine, Owl- took her out by the Weeping Grotto and asked her to be his mate. She was a little hesitant at first, as she wanted to get settled as a warrior first. She told him she was willing to wait awhile, but she wanted to get settled first. If he asked her in about a moon, she wouldn't say no if he would wait.

Though obviously disappointed, he agreed. The next six months, Ivynose settled smoothly into the life of a warrior. She grew closer to Owl-, drawing in a few other cats to their debates and giving the she-cat more to think about. She thoroughly enjoyed interacting with her clanmates, although she definitely ignored her father and he ignored her. About two months into their agreement, it seemed as if Owl- had gotten impatient with their pact. He started flirting with another she-cat, one of his other close friends. Ivynose seethed in jealousy for a good moon, slowly becoming short with Owl- until they were all but yelling at each other again. She was frustrated that he was seemingly breaking their promise to each other, that he was so impatient to find another she-cat to start a family. She was staggered when she confronted him after a moon of his flirting, as it turned out that he wanted to make her jealous so that they could become mates faster.

That made her absolutely infuriated, and she ended up sparring with the two several times and figuratively beating them into the dust until they got her point. If he had been so impatient, why didn't he tell her? He didn't need to go to such lengths to get her attention. Regardless, she agreed to be his mate. Ivytide was twenty-one moons at the end of this debacle. Nothing much happened between the two over the next moon, though she had told Owl- she didn't want kits quite yet. She was young and she wanted to enjoy being a warrior before having kits. Ivytide was not opposed to starting a family, but he would have to wait as a consequence of the stunt he pulled with his other friend.