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princeofdoomCross posted from Waterfall.social
I really should figure out how the cat youkai write things when necessary. Most of the older cats who learned how to write would have been living among the Heian court at some point, so I'm leaning toward something more like hiragana. But to complicate that, they have some sounds not found in Japanese, so they would either not spell things exactly as they sound, or would have symbols that derive from other sources. Plus, they would need both a version they write with brush and ink as well as one they "write" by scratching.
And to complicate things further, some younger cats (2 or less centuries old but older than 70 for sure, at the time of my story) would have been around in the Warring States period and may even have been recognized as samurai. This would mean they would have been expected to know and write kanji as well. So this would add a layer of kanji use over the use of whatever writing the cats make for themselves.
Under cut is a note about cat youkai, gender and gender make up in the story this is for:
Unlike Japanese culture at the time my story is set, cat youkai are matriarchal, but recognize that males are the ones who will have the easiest time interacting and dealing with humans. The reasons they are matriarchal is in part that, on average, male and female cat youkai are equally strong, and females are quite a bit more common. I currently have 5 male cat youkai, one of whom died before the story starts, one is comic relief, one is married to the clan head, and one is a minor character who is related to the clan head through her sister, who runs another clan.
(Originally the clan my main characters are part of WAS headed by a male cat Matasuke, but to seek an alliance with a bigger, more established clan he married the current leader, Makoto, the younger sister of the bigger clan's leader.)
So out of 4 main characters, 3 of which are cats, only one of those cats is male. And I plan to default to female unless there's good reason to do otherwise for any further cat characters. (And I'm more likely to include some non-binary cats who default to female around humans than I am to add more males.)
I really should figure out how the cat youkai write things when necessary. Most of the older cats who learned how to write would have been living among the Heian court at some point, so I'm leaning toward something more like hiragana. But to complicate that, they have some sounds not found in Japanese, so they would either not spell things exactly as they sound, or would have symbols that derive from other sources. Plus, they would need both a version they write with brush and ink as well as one they "write" by scratching.
And to complicate things further, some younger cats (2 or less centuries old but older than 70 for sure, at the time of my story) would have been around in the Warring States period and may even have been recognized as samurai. This would mean they would have been expected to know and write kanji as well. So this would add a layer of kanji use over the use of whatever writing the cats make for themselves.
Under cut is a note about cat youkai, gender and gender make up in the story this is for:
Unlike Japanese culture at the time my story is set, cat youkai are matriarchal, but recognize that males are the ones who will have the easiest time interacting and dealing with humans. The reasons they are matriarchal is in part that, on average, male and female cat youkai are equally strong, and females are quite a bit more common. I currently have 5 male cat youkai, one of whom died before the story starts, one is comic relief, one is married to the clan head, and one is a minor character who is related to the clan head through her sister, who runs another clan.
(Originally the clan my main characters are part of WAS headed by a male cat Matasuke, but to seek an alliance with a bigger, more established clan he married the current leader, Makoto, the younger sister of the bigger clan's leader.)
So out of 4 main characters, 3 of which are cats, only one of those cats is male. And I plan to default to female unless there's good reason to do otherwise for any further cat characters. (And I'm more likely to include some non-binary cats who default to female around humans than I am to add more males.)
