Bisexual
pannikin
one day we will float like angels
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Post by pannikin on Mar 22, 2020 14:39:41 GMT -5
hello folks! i'm writing a fantasy series similar to warriors in some aspects (group of animals in the woods with their own society and government) and this is my question:
what are some things you like about the warriors books that you would like to see in a similar series? what are some things you dislike? be specific if possible.
the reason i'm putting this in this board is because i expect answers will likely be spoiler-heavy. i'd like to see what yall view as a "great plot point/event" or a "mistake" in the writing, because i know yall are (thankfully) very good at voicing your opinions and debating civilly on here.
this will help me greatly in the development of my story, and i also just wanna hear what you guys have to say. thanks in advance!!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2020 16:27:58 GMT -5
That sounds like a really cool idea I really like close family relationships in the series, sadly, it's not touched upon that often for non-main characters. I also really like the whole warriors, apprentice, etc thing, and how they level up and what not. However, I do think that it'd be cool if more things were incorporated, like maybe guards to guard the entrances to camp, and herb gatherers to help out the medicine cats, and just more jobs for them to do, rather than just being a warrior or a medicine cat. I don't like when characters are demonized to make another character look good, like, in the case of Bumblestripe and Tigerheart, I think a character should be able to look good on their own merits, without throwing a previously good character into the mud. I think it's kind of lame how romance has taken over ALL the plots, and there's all this relationship drama, like ugh, can't one main relationship be healthy without so many bumps in the road? Also, why does almost EVERY pairing start out with the two parts of the couple hating each other, or saving each others lives? I'm not a huge stickler on cat genetics, but it makes me smile when I see that they're actually genetically correct. Like, Berrynose having Daisy's fur color, and Tallstar having Palebird's. Did you know that male cats only get their color from their mother, and female cats get their color from both parents? Anyway, that's all I can think of ATM. Good luck with your series
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Post by halogen on Mar 22, 2020 16:46:57 GMT -5
Ok, I'm going to start with aspects I dislike and I will add the reverse later
The overuse of StarClan and destiny stuff in the books, particularly from the second series onward. All the StarClan intervention feels like a way to get the plot to go the way the authors want it to without earning it by having the characters actually realistically make those decisions. Make your plot more character-driven, if you want characters to do something give a good reason, don't just cheat and have destiny or a god or a dead person tell them to.
Similarly, the whole first series prophecy, and how it just has no purpose and affects the story in no ways, it only exists because it's cliche to include a prophecy and its existence makes Firestar feel less like someone relatable who has to work his way to his position and more like "special chosen onetm". Also, how over-the-top archetypical and important Firestar is made in general, he really doesn't need to be the best fighter and have a special relationship with StarClan and get the leader as his mentor etcetera etcetera for him to be someone to root for, in fact his more unique traits of compassion that doesn't fit with a normal Clan cat's life would shine through more if he wasn't given all of the archetypical hero traits and few flaws. If you make your protagonist too generic it can rob your enjoyment of their character and their successes, since it feels like it's not an individual you care for succeeding but just a heroic archetype who isn't real and always wins. Prophecies in general are overused, but if you want to use one make it one that is mysterious and adds to the mystery and power of the story, not one that is just like "the protagonist is special and will be a good guy and will save everyone"
The lack of cultural differentiation between the Clans in general, a lot of people have touched upon this.
The way each series arbitrarily has to be six books long rather than making them as long as makes sense for the story, leading to poorly paced arcs.
The way the POVs from a Clan perspective aren't determined based on who is actually involved in the story and who has the biggest stakes, but just by defaulting to ThunderClan. In fact, the whole concept of ThunderClan in general. The group who you choose to focus most on, if you are focusing most on one group, shouldn't be chosen because they are the morally purest, or the physically strongest, they should be chosen because they are the ones with the most stake in the story, even if that means they suffer or they fail or they aren't always the "good guy" in every conflict. What we get instead is dramatic conflicts happening in other Clans, and instead of the perspective of those most effective we are looking at it from the point of view of outsiders sitting high and dry while tut tutting about how much morally better they are than the others and being completely right about it, and being so strong and powerful that if they want to get what they want they just win with no sacrifice.
The tendency to make the villains fit a stereotype (you know the one, dark tabby tom with broad shoulders and amber eyes, obsessed with fighting and bloodshed, AMBITIOUS, whatever). It's much more interesting when you have villains who are. very different from each other, from aesthetics to philosophy to how sympathetic (or not sympathetic) they are to whether they have grand ambitions or are just petty and small, that's much more true to the real great variety in how humans (or anthropomorphic animals) can do horrible things. Especially because if you make all your villains fit one stereotype, it can seem like you are condemning that one thing in particular (like the way warriors seems to use "ambition" as a byword for being evil) rather than just acknowledging that sometimes whatever that is can lead to cruel acts. (Note that, though this doesn't strike me as a particular problem in warriors, you don't always have to have a villain, not every conflict has to ultimately stem from a malevolent being trying to cause it, it certainly doesn't in the real world - conflicts can be caused by society at large, or nature, or many people just being flawed but not evil, but in fantasy fiction it always seems to ultimately have to revolve around a villain).
Similarly, the tendency for all of the villains to be ultimately motivated by revenge. You can certainly have some villains like that but Warriors, like. a lot of other books, tends to overuse it, and it can sometimes even diminish a character (like Darktail, Sol, Mapleshade) when the reveal of their mysterious motives is that it was a all for revenge in stead of something more creative or more true to their initially portrayed personalities.
People have already talked about this a lot, but if you are making the series run a long time, the way that only the new characters are ever allowed to be vulnerable and have their lives at risk, while the old ones get infinite plot armor. Don't just make every recurring character invincible in the sequels and kill off all the interesting new ones because you needed someone disposable.
Similarly, the way everything ultimately revolves around Firestar and Tigerstar with their cliched good vs evil conflict, to the point where everyone even marginally related to them gets connected back to them constantly (If someone's related to Tigerstar, they will constantly remind you, even distant relatives of Firestar have a whole prophecy about it, and the way the conclusion of the whole POT/OOTS gets hijacked to make it all about Firestar and Tigerstar again rather than the newer characters). Similarly, the way the plot forced them into being arch enemies just to get the cliched conflict - Tigerstar is set up as caring about a lot of things, but by the fourth arc he's just all about Firestar, and we've thought we've spent twelve books in a sweeping plot but really its all about Tigerstara wanting to get at Firestar, a cat who wasn't even the one who killed him but he is the main hero from three arcs ago so he's Important.
The romance plots, and the fact that the medicine cat celibacy only exists to be broken as drama (unless the medicine cat is a minor character, in which case they stick to it). Its ok to have romances, but not every character has to be forced into one and their development should be at least proportional to the focus they get - if a romance like Leafpool x Crowfeather is going to be the linchpin of the whole next arc's plot, than it shouldn't be completely out of the left field (unless you intend to show how foolish the characters are and how shallow it is, which is fine, not everyone should have a perfect relationship, but that doesn't seem to be the Erins' intention entirely). And even a foolish romance can make sense from the characters' perspective.
In general, if a romance is going to have a lot of screen time it should be because it fits into the plot, that both characters are heavily involved in the plot and the plot develops their relationship, unlike with LionxCinder and DovexTiger where it's just filler and taking up screen time.
The lack of research into real cats - yes, they have their own society aand government, but if you are choosing to make a story about a type of animals in particular and not humans, you should use that, make them seem alien, and make them seem like cats (or whatever animal you are choosing) in as many ways as you can unless those aspects are necessary for the concept of the story to not be catlike. So, making them have a religion: ok, that's part of the premise. Making them diurnal - no point in that besides making them less catlike. Even making them monogamous and having romances is sketchy, it's just there to make them more "relatable" even though it's not necessary for the core concept. If you want your cast to be relatable and humanlike in every imaginable way, than they should be human. (That doesn't mean you should make your characters robots because they are not human, they should still be characters you can love and care for, just that if there's no good reason not to make them act like whatever species of animal they are, they should act like that species).
The whole OOTS sibling jealousy plot is very overdone, though at least they didn't go the ultra cliche route and make Ivypool become a villain (I've seen "good privileged sibling bs. evil jealous one without powers" a billion times, in general the whole plot device of a "special" hero and jealous rival feels like a way to demean the fans, basically saying "You feel this character is over the top? Well, that makes you like character x, and character x becomes EVIL because he is jealous while our special hero is GOOD". And the alternative where the rival ultimately realizes he's just worse than the hero isn't much better, because what is intended to be a lesson in humility comes off the opposite was long as the POV, the one the readers are supposed to relate to most, is the "special" character rather than a rival - instead of a lesson in humility it's a lesson of how you really are better than everyone else, and everyone who criticizes you is really just jealous. This is kind of how they treat Longtail - yes, it's all well and good that he learns not to be a racist bully and to respect Firestar, but Firestar is also supposed to learn not to treat him as a traitor for being friends with someone that almost no one in ThunderClan knew wasn't a hero, and yet given how the narrative gives Firestar everything and arbitrarily makes Longtail get blinded, has his best friend really turn out to be a traitor, and then kills him in a pointless and embarrassing way, it seems like it's saying that "judging is ok when you are the protagonist, in which case you really are better than everyone else.
The use of characters having ridiculously violent thoughts and worldview but not being treated by the narrative as being horribly flawed messes, just treated as archetypical heroes anyway. Like with Bramblestar, who seriously considers murdering Firestar just to gain power, and only disagrees with a coup because it's not traditional, but is treated as a pure hero. Or Lionblaze, whose violence is treated as a major flaw in POT, but by OOTS he's just seen as a pure and good action hero who never does the wrong thing, as if the above never happened. That doesn't mean you should make your protagonist flawless, just that if they have these major flaws you shouldn't go on treating them like standard good guys (unless they really atone for them). And of course if your characters' society has intentionally flawed parts of it (which it should, I don't want utopias or societies with moral standards that are exactly like 21st century whatever country you come from), the characters might not acknowledge it as flawed. In that case, you should write it in a way that doesn't treat the society's views as right, but also isn't heavy-handedly distancing yourself from this "inferior" society and loudly proclaiming how wrong it is - this can be a difficult balancing act, but it's important.
Characters fitting in one dimensional roles, and only the main characters having any complexity or intelligence. You are having characters like Jayfeather and Hollyleaf who are complicated and have deep thoughts about things surrounded by characters who are all "sweet angel she-cats", "lol idiot toms", and "patrol guys", and they are sitting there feeling oh so misunderstood but only because you have written a world where everyone but the protagonists really is that simple. Allow people to be intelligent and complicated in the background, and not treat them as stereotypically mindless sheep. You can still certainly have a society that is going about things the wrong way and a character who thinks differently, but don't make it always the protagonist who things differently and always the minor characters who have the standard, "boring" view of things, an for that matter don't make the protagonist who disagrees with their society always right!
Warriors sometimes puts too much focus on family.romance/soap opera type stuff in a plot that is nominally about something more epic, without tying the two together properly. TPOT could have been great if they tied together the overarching plot of the cats with a terrifying power, young and foolish and potentially heading towards tragedy with the ability to use their powers for good or evil, and the mystery of it and then tied it into the complication of their family drama and how it affected Hollyleaf, but instead they had the family plot completely take over for a book in what felt like a downgrade in the climax, and then brought back the powers plot but without the tragedy involved in it, since they have already outsourced the tragedy, and instead we got a typical plot of three cats with powers Just Because, who are Good Guys because the prophecy says so rather than having the potential to do anything, who are going to use their powers to beat up the Bad Guys. A story that focuses mainly on family drama can work if you are clear up front that that's what it's about, but when you think the story is about religion or a society falling apart or the wrath of nature and then you just get romance and family it can be frustrating and anticlimactic.
The way ShadowClan is handled - if you want a group to be the "bad guys" more often than not, that's fine, as long as you make it clear what flaws in their society are making them that way and how it is self-perpetuating, rather than it just seeming like events/the author are conspiring to throw all the villainous roles at them. I will talk about what they did well with ShadowClan in the next post, but it was certainly a poor decision in the first series when, instead of following the natural progression of the narrative of Nightstar overthrowing Brokenstar but being old and rejected by StarClan himself, and all of the difficulties and triumphs that might follow, they threw a plague at them and made them randomly accept Tigerstar just to reset their role back to the villains.
In a similar vein, solving societal problems you have set up with just one person who is a special chosen one or whatever is rather shallow, especially if that person, even if they are not a bad person per se, does not show the character that could ever make you buy they could ever singlehandedly solve such a problem, and the only reason they can is because the author spoils him. This is why so many people hated Tigerheart's role in AVOS. And if you are going to have one character in a horrible situation trying to make things better (Rowanstar) fail, and another one (Tigerstara) succeed at the same task, you'd better make sure that you properly establish the difference between these characters, that the difference really is as great as you make it out to be, and the one who succeeds isn't being favored by luck/the author's help (or if they are, it is acknowledged in-story they were just lucky and they are not treated as superior).
The overly melodramatic death scenes for important characters. Death is a brutal thing, and it feels like you are coddling your protagonists when they get to nobly face their deaths, survive improbably long and make improbably long speeches (Bluestar, Yellowfang, Cinderpelt, etc.) while minor characters get to die in horror and agony. It's ok to have some deaths where the characters have a chance to remain dignified and get some last words or whatever, but don't make that for major characters only, just make it so sometimes anyone, important character or not, hero or villain, gets to have a dramatic or dignified death, and sometimes they don't and that's just luck and not that the author is favoring some characters over others.
Concerning characters' redemptions - don't kill off a character just because they got redeemed and they don't "deserve" happiness after that (this is explicitly why they killed Hollyleaf according to the Last Hope special edition). If you are going to put the work into a redemption arc, you should follow through rather than killing off the character and making it a moot point. If you feel it wouldn't be fair for them to just get off easily, then you can let them face punishment, maybe your society ends up exiling them or putting them in prison or something and they accept that because they feel that's what they need to atone. If you want to kill off the redeemed character because them giving their lives for a cause is a selfless enough act to prove they are fully redeemed rather than just because they don't deserve to live or whatever, that can be fine, though, as long as the thing they are seeking redemption for actually relates to it. Like if the character messed up because they were cowardly in the past, or selfish, then having them sacrificing their life can fit very well as a redemption. But if it's someone like Hollyleaf who was always willing to die for her Clan and her pride in her identity as an honorable Clan cat was exactly the flaw she needed to make up for, it doesn't fit at all.
And I don't like how the series has to redeem every villain who has any sympathetic motive of traits whatsoever, or any motive that isn't "bloodlust and ambition and Tigerstar-ness". People don't always realize their flaws and become better people just because they are not total monsters, it is much more realistic when some very sympathetic villains stay very sympathetic villains and don't just become good guys.
Also, the way parents are handled. People seem to be allergic to parents for their young characters, but while at least Warriors isn't one of those series that just kills off parents left and right, it seems to usually write off parents as an afterthought, which is especially jarring in series like POT where suddenly everything is supposed to revolve around the main characters' generic and unexplored relationship with their mother. People often say they have to get rid of the parents to make their characters free to do things, but the warriors protagonists are not in any way being held back by their parents and it wouldn't hold them back if their relationships with their parents are explored in more depth. I would love to see more good (but not always perfect) parents of major characters whose relationships with their children are explored in depth. And parents who are unique, Warriors often seems to make mother in particular a generic "mom" archetype, and particularly in the first series these characters are unimportant and inconsequential while the female characters who are important aand respected (Bluestar, Yellowfang) are the ones who abandoned their children and suffer greatly for it - the message seems to be that being a mother makes you useless and boring and makes your whole identity being a mother, "nice" but not noble and respectable, but not having children will make your life miserable, so she-cats should just stay boring and useless while toms get to be noble and brave and still be fathers. So, yeah, make your characters' mothers unique, and keep your female characters unique when they become mothers, don't make them turn into "generic mom personality".
I'd also love to see older protagonists in general, not every protagonist (besides some super editions, and even that's only because they are established "nostalgic" characters that they just love keeping alive forever and throwing at us) has to be the equivalent of a teenager. Consider having an older character as the protagonist if that would fit the story more. And if you do have a young character, you don't have to throw in scenes of them as little kids with no relevance, you don't have to follow them from birth (a lot of the super editions suffer from having 100+ pages of kit hood scenes with no relevance).
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Post by vectoring34 on Mar 22, 2020 17:16:55 GMT -5
As I read Wings of Fire for comparison, some of the things present in that series both compare favorably and poorly to Warriors. Chief among these things would be;
Warriors Pros: The fight scenes. It's called "Warriors", and it lives up to it, all the fight scenes are well done and while we can quibble about how there should be more death, they don't shy from interesting fights that engage the reader's interest. A lot of other similar series drop the ball here and have bad fight scenes(or far too few). I'll take another swing at Wings of Fire here, where despite outwardly seeming like a series where you'd think there'd be more battles(with a continent spanning war featuring armies of thousands) the action scenes are woefully scant and often underwhelming. So if you take a lesson from Warriors, I'd say to not be shy about fight scenes if your plot calls for it.
Warriors Cons: You can focus a little more on friendships and not get so weirdly obsessed with blood as the clans. The books are very confused on their messaging regarding friends vs family, but I'd argue that regardless of where one lies here, friends of characters deserve a little more screentime. Sadly, this is largely missing since the first series. Also, curse all journey books, they are awful fillers and wastes of time.
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Post by halogen on Mar 22, 2020 21:45:27 GMT -5
Ok, now for some things I like about the series:
I like StarClan's portrayal in the first series, I think the religious aspects can be very interesting and the way they are portrayed in Firestar's nine lives scenes is very compelling and epic. I feel like StarClan at least has the potential to be more unique than most other animal series where there always has to be a god involved in the mythos, (one thing I was annoyed with in the warriors redux, which we have talked about at length on this forum before, is how they had to throw gods into it in addition to StarClan just because Watership Down did it or whatever, I thought it was much more unique to have the cats' ancestors but not gods. That said, I wish the series had more stories/legends included.
Particularly in the first series and DOTC, the way living in the forest is portrayed so vividly, including the dangers of nature - the floods, fire, etc, and in the first series they weren't afraid to have ThunderClan cats get killed by those threats and have brutal things happen (like Brightheart's injury, Moon Shadow's death, etc. I don't want animals living in nature to seem like they live in a soft utopia (though you should certainly show the beautiful, thrilling, happy, and meaningful parts of living in a natural environment, it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom either).
Speaking of Brightheart, it was honestly nice to see a character with a gruesome facial injury who did not end up being a villain. The constant stream of villains who are missing eyes or have deformed faces is tiring, cliche, and offensive for people who really do have that type of injury. That said, I wish Brightheart wouldn't have just done nothing after the first arc.
The first series was great at creating a sense of community in ThunderClan and giving arcs to even the minor characters, and at least conceptually there were some great ideas. Yellowfang had a good arc with finding happiness in ThunderClan and rewarding them with such loyalty and heroism, and with Bluestar it was interesting to see such a powerful leader sink into such a depression and be weighed down by the difficult decisions she had to make in the past (and not having it just be "the leader goes insane and then they are evil" that you see all the time), Cloudtail going from spoiled wannabe kitty pet to strong and kind warrior, etc.
Agree about the fight scenes. Though that said it would be nice to see characters who aren't that important be strong fighters rather than just defaulting to making the main character the strongest fighter ever and the main villain also the strongest fighter ever.
I think the political drama between the Clans in earlier arcs is super interesting, the shifting alliances are realistic and dramatic and I really prefer it to the current status quo of all the major battles being the Clans vs. some evil outsider or them all being good vs evil battles for the future of everyone (though you can certainly have those too), though even then in the first series it still fell into always forcing ShadowClan and RiverClan together as the bad guys and ThunderClan and WindClan together as the good guys (this was the plot of three out of the six books of the initial series, arguably four though ShadowClan and RiverClan weren't allied in a Dangerous Path). But you have to make sure to make a contentious political situation seem natural and not make it seem like forced drama, or every conflict being the morally perfect protagonists dealing with someone who decides to be a jerk for no real reason and it promptly gets forgotten. (I mean you can certainly sometimes have situations were one leader is acting stupidly and the other side is innocent, but that shouldn't be every single political conflict. The problem with the TPOT/OOTS conflicts is that they are almost all "Blackstar/Onestar/Leopardstar is stupidly mean, ThunderClan is morally upstanding but gets dragged into a battle or almost does, ThunderClan wins because they are overpowered without anything bad happening to them, everyone forgets that the other leader was so stupid and annoying and treats them as a good leader).
Like I implied earlier, I thought the idea behind the TPOT plot was good - the POVs had a great dynamic with each other (I like how warriors handles some of the sibling dynamics with the main characters, not so much the sets of two sisters who have endless drama, but the sets of three siblings like Lion/Jay/Holly or Dawn/Flame/Tiger), I would definitely love to have more stories with sibling dynamics and not just romance all the time. And I thought it was interesting how the powers were depicted as outright terrifying, because to a society that so worshipped StarClan, someone more powerful than them seemed monstrous. And the main characters' own arrogance and flaws made it very plausible it could be scary. I was disappointed how much they slowly dropped this out in favor of a typical "cats with powers are destined to be good guys and defeat the ultimate evil" plot, which made the protagonists' arrogance come off less as plot relevant and suspenseful (in terms of what they would do with their power) and more frustrating that we are supposed to see these guys as the heroes just because they were born with powers. The whole thing was very interesting when we were not supposed to see them as heroes by default.
About the parts that I appreciated about ShadowClan, I thought the idea of the rebellion in AVOS was very compelling and realistic - a situation where the Clan has never really atoned for the deeds of the past, and everyone but especially the young who didn't remember what their tyrannical past was really like, wanted to recreate it.
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Bisexual
pannikin
one day we will float like angels
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Post by pannikin on Mar 23, 2020 8:30:25 GMT -5
thank you guys, these answers are fantastic!! i've already been making a few changes to my plotline but now i know exactly where things need to happen. thanks so much!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2020 8:58:30 GMT -5
thank you guys, these answers are fantastic!! i've already been making a few changes to my plotline but now i know exactly where things need to happen. thanks so much! You're welcome Your profile picture is pretty cool btw
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Post by halogen on Mar 23, 2020 9:08:18 GMT -5
Like, Berrynose having Daisy's fur color, and Tallstar having Palebird's. Did you know that male cats only get their color from their mother, and female cats get their color from both parents? Anyway, that's all I can think of ATM. Good luck with your series Berrynose and Tallstar are indeed genetically accurate, but the inheritance of cat pelt genes doesn't quite work like you described. The part male cats only get from their mother is whether they are "red" (orange/cream) or "not red" (anything else), with tortoiseshell mothers potentially producing both, and pretty much only female cats are tortoiseshell. In Daisy's case, her cream color comes from both having the "red" allele and having the "dilute" allele of another gene. The dilute allele is recessive so she must have two copies of it in order to be cream and not red, if she had just one copy of it she would be red. The reason that Berrynose has to be cream and not either cream or red, when only the red gene (and not the dilute gene) is inherited only from the mother, is because both his parents are dilute - his father Smoky is a gray-and-white cat, and gray is also a dilute color that comes from the same dilute gene as cream does, just acting on a base color of black rather than red. Since both parents have two copies of the dilute allele, it is impossible for their kits, male or female, to be not dilute. Also, it would be genetically possible for Berrynose to be either just cream or cream and white, getting the white spots from his father, because white spotting is again inherited from both parents, not ever restricted to the mother like the red gene. This is because the red gene is on the X chromosome, and males only get an X chromosome from their mother, while every other coat-color relevant gene is on one of the other chromosomes, which everyone gets a copy of from both parents. (Berrynose's siblings are inaccurate by the way; Mousewhisker should be cream or cream and white for the reasons listed above, and Hazeltail, getting both the red and non-red genes, should be a dilute tortoiseshell/blue-cream, with or without white spots) As for Tallstar, he is genetically correct and it's nice that they didn't give him a red color from his father which he couldn't have inherited, but him being black and white like Palebird rather than just pure black was never a guarantee - he could have just as easily inherited the solid color from his father, even though he could never inherit the orange color from his father.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2020 9:20:47 GMT -5
Like, Berrynose having Daisy's fur color, and Tallstar having Palebird's. Did you know that male cats only get their color from their mother, and female cats get their color from both parents? Anyway, that's all I can think of ATM. Good luck with your series Berrynose and Tallstar are indeed genetically accurate, but the inheritance of cat pelt genes doesn't quite work like you described. The part male cats only get from their mother is whether they are "red" (orange/cream) or "not red" (anything else), with tortoiseshell mothers potentially producing both, and pretty much only female cats are tortoiseshell. In Daisy's case, her cream color comes from both having the "red" allele and having the "dilute" allele of another gene. The dilute allele is recessive so she must have two copies of it in order to be cream and not red, if she had just one copy of it she would be red. The reason that Berrynose has to be cream and not either cream or red, when only the red gene (and not the dilute gene) is inherited only from the mother, is because both his parents are dilute - his father Smoky is a gray-and-white cat, and gray is also a dilute color that comes from the same dilute gene as cream does, just acting on a base color of black rather than red. Since both parents have two copies of the dilute allele, it is impossible for their kits, male or female, to be not dilute. Also, it would be genetically possible for Berrynose to be either just cream or cream and white, getting the white spots from his father, because white spotting is again inherited from both parents, not ever restricted to the mother like the red gene. This is because the red gene is on the X chromosome, and males only get an X chromosome from their mother, while every other coat-color relevant gene is on one of the other chromosomes, which everyone gets a copy of from both parents. (Berrynose's siblings are inaccurate by the way; Mousewhisker should be cream or cream and white for the reasons listed above, and Hazeltail, getting both the red and non-red genes, should be a dilute tortoiseshell/blue-cream, with or without white spots) As for Tallstar, he is genetically correct and it's nice that they didn't give him a red color from his father which he couldn't have inherited, but him being black and white like Palebird rather than just pure black was never a guarantee - he could have just as easily inherited the solid color from his father, even though he could never inherit the orange color from his father. I know that, I was just putting it simply lol, thanks for explaining it in depth though Tallstar's sister, Finchkit, is also genetically incorrect, she should have been a tortoiseshell, rather than just a ginger cat. Also, Sparkpelt's kits, Finchkit is perfect, but Flamekit should have been a ginger cat..which would have fit his name better, but eh. I think Tawnypelt's kits are genetically correct for the most part. She's apparently a dilute tortoiseshell, which means she carries both the black and the red gene. Rowanstar was a ginger tabby, so Tigerheart is a black tabby, the black gene from his mother, the tabby gene from his father, Flametail is a ginger tabby, taking the red gene from his mother, and the tabby gene from his father. The only one who might not be genetically correct is Dawnpelt, the ginger part is correct, but I don't think she can be dilute without Rowanstar carrying the dilute gene, and neither of his parents are dilute. As for Dawnpelt's kits, they're all wrong lol.
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Post by halogen on Mar 23, 2020 9:24:56 GMT -5
Berrynose and Tallstar are indeed genetically accurate, but the inheritance of cat pelt genes doesn't quite work like you described. The part male cats only get from their mother is whether they are "red" (orange/cream) or "not red" (anything else), with tortoiseshell mothers potentially producing both, and pretty much only female cats are tortoiseshell. In Daisy's case, her cream color comes from both having the "red" allele and having the "dilute" allele of another gene. The dilute allele is recessive so she must have two copies of it in order to be cream and not red, if she had just one copy of it she would be red. The reason that Berrynose has to be cream and not either cream or red, when only the red gene (and not the dilute gene) is inherited only from the mother, is because both his parents are dilute - his father Smoky is a gray-and-white cat, and gray is also a dilute color that comes from the same dilute gene as cream does, just acting on a base color of black rather than red. Since both parents have two copies of the dilute allele, it is impossible for their kits, male or female, to be not dilute. Also, it would be genetically possible for Berrynose to be either just cream or cream and white, getting the white spots from his father, because white spotting is again inherited from both parents, not ever restricted to the mother like the red gene. This is because the red gene is on the X chromosome, and males only get an X chromosome from their mother, while every other coat-color relevant gene is on one of the other chromosomes, which everyone gets a copy of from both parents. (Berrynose's siblings are inaccurate by the way; Mousewhisker should be cream or cream and white for the reasons listed above, and Hazeltail, getting both the red and non-red genes, should be a dilute tortoiseshell/blue-cream, with or without white spots) As for Tallstar, he is genetically correct and it's nice that they didn't give him a red color from his father which he couldn't have inherited, but him being black and white like Palebird rather than just pure black was never a guarantee - he could have just as easily inherited the solid color from his father, even though he could never inherit the orange color from his father. I know that, I was just putting it simply lol, thanks for explaining it in depth though Tallstar's sister, Finchkit, is also genetically incorrect, she should have been a tortoiseshell, rather than just a ginger cat. Also, Sparkpelt's kits, Finchkit is perfect, but Flamekit should have been a ginger cat..which would have fit his name better, but eh. I think Tawnypelt's kits are genetically correct for the most part. She's apparently a dilute tortoiseshell, which means she carries both the black and the red gene. Rowanstar was a ginger tabby, so Tigerheart is a black tabby, the black gene from his mother, the tabby gene from his father, Flametail is a ginger tabby, taking the red gene from his mother, and the tabby gene from his father. The only one who might not be genetically correct is Dawnpelt, the ginger part is correct, but I don't think she can be dilute without Rowanstar carrying the dilute gene, and neither of his parents are dilute. As for Dawnpelt's kits, they're all wrong lol. I thought Tawnypelt is dilute, or at least she's sometimes described as that. And it's certainly plausible that Rowanstar could carry the allele.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2020 9:26:48 GMT -5
I know that, I was just putting it simply lol, thanks for explaining it in depth though Tallstar's sister, Finchkit, is also genetically incorrect, she should have been a tortoiseshell, rather than just a ginger cat. Also, Sparkpelt's kits, Finchkit is perfect, but Flamekit should have been a ginger cat..which would have fit his name better, but eh. I think Tawnypelt's kits are genetically correct for the most part. She's apparently a dilute tortoiseshell, which means she carries both the black and the red gene. Rowanstar was a ginger tabby, so Tigerheart is a black tabby, the black gene from his mother, the tabby gene from his father, Flametail is a ginger tabby, taking the red gene from his mother, and the tabby gene from his father. The only one who might not be genetically correct is Dawnpelt, the ginger part is correct, but I don't think she can be dilute without Rowanstar carrying the dilute gene, and neither of his parents are dilute. As for Dawnpelt's kits, they're all wrong lol. I thought Tawnypelt is dilute, or at least she's sometimes described as that. And it's certainly plausible that Rowanstar could carry the allele. Cool so all of hers could be correct. I think all of Tigerheart's kits are correct too. It's fun, determining which cats are genetically correct, and which aren't.
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