#little baby me playing Lead the Clan on Scratch.mit is crying tears of joy over this silly little cat simulator

[softstuffs]

I now realize that last part is confusing w/o context oops

The Lighstar I refered to in the other post is actually a different character. Lightstar (senior) was the last, last, last leader.

She lead the clan for a pretty long time before dying of old age. She appointed Moonpatches deputy after Bellring retired to the elders den. Moonstar took over after her, then Brothstar who only reigned for ~12 moons, before losing all of her lives to starvation. Brothstar was actually Lighstar's daughter. One of them, anyway. She also had about a BILLION kits, nieces, nephews, and grandkits. Her great grandma was Leafstar, and her great great great grandma was Frostedstar! Yay nepotism! when i get the willpower to draw her family tree its going to be bonkers.

anyway Lightstar (junior) was named after Lightstar (senior) by his mother Darkfern. He was born during the great famine.

yeah when I updated Sparkclan to the prey update, it wasn't.. working correctly. So the cats weren't able to meet the needed prey threshold and started dying from starvation on mass. as in dozens of cats at a time. I didn't know you could add freshkill by editing the json file until I was in too deep. So in-universe this event was a devastating famine. The clan went from ~130 cats to 59

here's an example of what my moonskips looked like

that isn't even like half of the cats who died. all my favs died as well.

Lightstar had never had an apprentice. He was 17 moons old at the time and had very recently gotten his warrior name. But he was promoted because Brothstar had literally no other choice. All the other warriors were either actively starving into smithereens or bedridden with greencough. So Lightspeck got to become leader by forfeit! hoorah!

Brothstar died shortly into this so Lightspeck was thrown into the position with very little experience and even littler guidance since basically all the senior warriors and elders were dead.

He got the deputy position after Rivershell died and took over with Rustmane as his deputy. But Rustmane got mauled by dogs like 6 moons after that and then Flipleaf took her place. I swear the 1st deputy either lives to 130 and retire or they get torn to shreds by a meat grinder 2 moons after being appointed. No inbetween. But Flipleaf got into an accident that caused him to lose vision in his left eye. So Flipleaf retired, and Lighstar (junior) made Mudsmoke the deputy. Uh Flipleaf is now also dead. Died of an infection he got from a snake bite. All this going on while the clan is trying desperately to maintain a steady supply of food

Eventually, since the population of the clan fell so low, the needed prey vs. the amount of prey the cats could actually hunt per moon ratios equalized. because so many cats were dead lol

the aftermath left behind a bunch of young, traumatized 20 somethings and kits roaming around the camp trying to pick up the pieces.

Its been around ~60-70 moons since The Famine™ and the clan has recovered well enough. There's 239 living cats. 133 of them warriors, 8 mediators, and 18 medicine cats. But its very easy to notice scrolling through the pages that there's basically no elder cats. There's 6 elders total (9 if you count Sharpswipe, Big, And Jelly Jam, who are elder age but continue to work as mediators), and the 3 eldest medicine cats (Silvermoon, Mintbadger, and Floundershine), are ~140 moons, making 12, but the really old cats pushing 200 or more have vanished. Basically every cat older than 60 moons in this clan is an orphan. So like, only 5% of the clan was alive to experience Brothstar and Haystar's reign. And even then only a sliver of it. The famine kind of served as a soft reboot for Sparkclan. In my mind there is a clear divide between The Before Times and life after. It's peaceful now, but it also feels strange.

Lightstar (junior) has lost 3 lives. The first one is glitched and I don't remember what it was anymore but the other 2 are being attacked by a dog, and being STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?

I have 0 idea what's up with that. it does not bode well

his wife Lavenderbreeze and 3 of his stepkids died over the past year. so. that sucks i guess.

he's mentoring a new apprentice named Midgepaw at the moment. Trying to take his mind of things. The clan is fairly safe but accidents still happen.

Except Garlicbulb. Garlicbulb was murdered. by Silkstripe. I'm unclear as to why. I think Lightstar might just be cursed Crookedstar style

ssoooooo Lightstar jr. had him executed and now he's in the dark forest! hope it was worth it Silkstripe!

Uh anyways yeah there's 2 Lightstar's.

in light of sparkclan posting, heres a doodle of a lineage of cats from about ~100 moons ago that I drew back in like.. October. They're all long dead now but they have a special place in my heart.

Olga and her 5 kits, Owltalon, Whisperdusk, Ivorystone, Palmcreek, and Cavernbeetle. (in that order) She actually did end up getting grandkits through Ivorystone but I didn't draw them.