going to the star spoilers thread and seeing that icestar make owlnose of all cats deputy was certainly ..... something. who's the leading candidate for bb icestar's deputy?
This is actually going to depend a lot based on how I overhaul the politics of RiverClan. It is getting a MASSIVE shakeup, because BB!ASC is going to explore power vacuums.
Canon!RiverClan is full of "nobody" warriors who haven't been characterized, both because we've spent very little time with them historically AND because the writers made the choice to spend barely any time with them in this arc too. This is an issue.
Instead of how canon made it so that RiverClan couldn't find a leader so they all forgot how to do the chores they did their whole lives, THIS time, I'm going to show a bunch of highly qualified warriors breaking up into cliques and descending into in-fighting.
To do this, I have two objectives;
Revamp my RiverClan Family Tree a bit to base a finalized allegiance list on... plus pad it out some more so I can handle the mass exodus that will be happening at the end of the arc.
Characterize extra competitors for RiverClan's leadership, mostly from scratch, along with their key supporters.
Splashtail will be ending up on top through a mixture of imitating Curlfeather and utter luck. My plan is to portray him as someone others might think is manipulative and charismatic, when in reality, he's coasting off the waves of someone who had victory within reach and gave it all up to save her daughter.
(and tigerHeartstar's occupation will be the turning point, as Splashtail unites RiverClan against their common enemy to put himself in power. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT)
I also want to make ASC's attempted theme of "connecting to the past" more meaningful by drawing parallels to this and the Collapse of the River Kingdom.
In fact (been waiting a while to share THIS little idea!) I'm heavily considering that BB!ASC is the end of RiverClan as we know it, and from here on, it's the RiverClan Republic. Give it a slightly different ruling system and allow its culture to change significantly, like how I approach BB!SkyClan.
So... the short answer is that I don't have the pieces for the proper list of "candidates" yet, because a LOT more cats are gonna become eligable.
The parallel short answer is that if I had to pick NOW, it would be Minnowtail, who is going to be receiving her boyfriend Mousewhisker early in this arc and has a very long history with Icewing as an ex-DF trainee. Curious, bold, and insightful, she's someone they can trust as an organized deputy.
(Mousewhisker running across the border rom-com style because he's decided that the time is now to finally be with his secret lover of many years, only to arrive just after a major battle like "oh... is this a bad time?")