Counterpoints to As Many Roleplay Guides as Possible (WIP)

[Disgustedorite]

Alternative title: Dorite is your rule lawyer.

Note, this thread is not a guide on how to break the actual site rules regarding roleplay content. Though I disagree with some of them, breaking them will get you banned, so don't do that. Rather, this thread is about breaking "rules" stated in guides such as Macmanus' thread, The Unspoken Rules: Roleplay Tips (in fact, the entire Warrior Cats section of that thread was kinda the inspiration for this one). In general, threads like that can make a good guide for playing completely by the books, but roleplay is a form of creative expression, and these rules become very limiting when applied to anything that breaks the mold. My goal with this thread is to present examples of exceptions and justifications for breaking as many of the rules found in player-made guides as possible.

What this thread will not be covering:

• Style guides - These are about making the posts look pretty, not about the characters or story content!
• General etiquette (ie. rules against god mode, power play, etc) - These are about not restricting the freedom of other roleplayers; the best I might be able to do is argue that a particular event is not actually an example of those rules being broken (for example, I believe having a dice roll system does not qualify as power playing), but it still would not fit very well within this thread.
• Actual site rules - Yeah, breaking those will get you banned. I can't really do anything about that.

Table of Contents:
Warrior Cats

I take suggestions for guides to cover! For fandom roleplay guides I can't promise to be useful if I am unfamiliar with the source material, but for everything else, I'll try to fit it in.

[Disgustedorite]

Since a Warrior Cats thing inspired this thread, Warrior Cats is where we shall start. Small disclaimer, I have not read Warrior Cats in a long time; please tell me if I make a mistake!

I will be covering and giving alternative perspectives on the advice and restrictions on Warrior Cats roleplay stated in the following guides:

• The Unspoken Rules: Roleplay Tips
• warrior cat name and character review v.3
• || In Depth Guide to Naming Warrior cats ||

These guides give generally good advice, but they include some "don'ts", which I will suggest reasons to instead "do". Note that for many of these I am making the assumption that non-canon clans are in use.

Note, some of these don'ts that I've attempted to justify are pretty wild and may not work in most warriors roleplay groups nor in ones that play by strictly the books. When I said I'm making counterpoints to as many as possible, I really meant it--I literally wrote up a justification for Godkit. Use your own judgement before deciding to use these.

General stuff

- If you invented the clan, PLAY THE LEADER. As stated above, the Leader knows the Clan, the territory, and the sociology better than anyone else, so it should be played by the user who has the same knowledge.

This is generally good for getting the roleplay off the ground, but eventually, it will go on so long that your leader will run out of lives and kick the bucket. It's good to be prepared to keep leading the roleplay without playing the leader, and if you can do that when the leader dies, you can probably do that without ever playing the leader at all, if you happen to find you prefer managing without being a leader in-character. You could also primarily control the actions of StarClan instead of playing the leader, which might give you more (or at least a different set of) freedom of control in-character.

-When inventing a clan, mix it up a little: A random clan living in a random place gets boring: How about cats with wings, a clan on the move that does not have/want a permanent home, a clan with a currently evil leader, or a clan of something other than feral house cats?

This is the exact thing that inspired this thread. I agree that mixing things up a little can keep things interesting, but not only is there nothing wrong with just wanting a mundane random clan in a random location, a "random location" can actually have tons of implications for how the clan lives, what they eat, what names they use, what threats they face, and what herbs they make use of for medicine, all of which mix things up just as much as, if not even more than, giving the cats wings, making them nomads, having an evil leader, or not using cats. For example, feral cats in Australia or New Zealand will have an almost completely different set of wild animals to interact with and will also face a more active threat from twolegs trying to control their population so that they don't eat the local species to extinction. Just about anywhere that isn't just a North American or European temperate woodland or grassland will bring at least a few surprises like that to the table; a random location is absolutely a valid way to mix things up.

January 2024 edit: As i was going through my notes I thought of more on the subject of random locations. While I don't know much about later arcs, I do know that in earlier books, the terminology the cats use, and that they come up with as they find new things as they do in New Prophesy, is deeply intertwined with how they interact with their environment. This means that a random location can add even more dimension to the changes it makes, even affecting how the cats talk.

-A normal kit cannot beat a normal Warrior

Not in combat, certainly, unless the Warrior is humoring the kit. However, a lanky kit may be more nimble than some Warriors and be able to beat them at something involving agility. A kit beating a Warrior at something unexpected could also be used for fun character moments and humor in small doses; everyone's heard at least one story of a little kid managing to humiliate an adult by outsmarting them or beating them at their own game.

Coincidentally, since I last read Warriors, a kit has apparently beaten a Warrior in a fight in canon, though I have the impression it was no normal kit.

Unbanning Names

I will not be covering anything that's already been justified in The Unspoken Rules: Roleplay Tips (unless I have an additional justification I'd like to add), as there's no need to do so. However, I am pulling many of the banned names I am covering from that list.

Prefix Named Strictly After the Cat's Personality: And how would the mother know this? I mean, she can tell if the kit is loud or quiet, big or small, pushy to other kits or more timid, but don't give your cat the prefix Rabbit or Hare only because she is a fast runner, Squirrel because she's a good climber, Badger because she fights like one, Fire or Sharp because of her claws. She was named before she could run or climb or fight or unsheathe her claws.

Justified by canon (renames), most examples given actually do have potential exceptions, and it could have to do with the mother's personality.

Renames are established to be a thing in Warrior Cats canon, therefore they can be used to have a personality prefix. Further, all of the animal examples can still be used for kits as a personality thing based on superficial resemblance--rabbit or hare for a kit that's alarmingly quick even just at crawling, squirrel for a kit that is just clambering all over things, badger for a kit that's pushy. Also, kittens in real life can unsheathe their claws from a fairly young age; I don't remember the Warriors books enough to know if this is something that's canonically different about cats in that universe, though. It's also possible for a mother to want her kits to sound cool and give them preemptive names (imagine being able to say you're Razorflame's mom to some cat who hasn't actually met Razorflame!); I don't recommend doing this for every cat, but ironic names with that justification can be pretty fun.

Gemstones: I agree that Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Diamond etc. have no place in Warrior cat naming. These are very well known as gemstones, not colours. Copper, Gold, Silver, Ebony, and Pearl, however, are also known as colours. Even though the former gemstones mentioned can be colours, their colours in relation to cats makes no sense (Cats cannot be ruby, sapphire, emerald, or diamond. However, they can be golden (diluted ginger), copper (russet) pearl (light grey or cream) and ebony (black). For ebony, some people use the excuse of the ebony tree, although this is only applicable where ebony trees are located, like with Orchid, Cherry, Maple, etc.

Can be justified by setting. If the clan is located somewhere where mineral-bearing rocks are in the process of eroding away, exposing crystals that would normally be deep underground, they can easily be aware of them. I've been to a place where literal actual diamonds were being collected right off the ground, no spelunking needed, because of this exact scenario.

Ocean: Unless you have an oceanside or noncanon clan, I agree with this. A clan who lives near the ocean may know what the ocean is called, but the canon clans just happen to not know what it is.

Can be justified by setting, as is even stated in the original post; I'm not sure why Mac highlighted this one in red, I'd have made this one blue with the exact same text.

Seasons other than Fall and Spring: Autumn, Winter, and Summer do not work, due to cats not knowing what they are. However, Spring and Fall are both also verbs.

And now we reach my first weird justification. This is a bit iffy, but hear me out. Within the Warrior Cats universe, cats are explicitly sophont; just like humans, they have culture, language, and a collective imagination. Therefore, just like humans, cats should be able to learn new words from other cats. Kittypets in particular may know these words from mirroring their owners, a known behavior in real house cats. It's possible for a kittypet to introduce these words to Clan cats in a chance encounter, and perhaps one of them thinks "Wow, 'autumn' is such a nice concise single word for leaf-fall, which is my favorite season. I could name a kit after this." It might take some convincing to get the rest of the Clan to accept a name that came from kittypets, but it isn't impossible. Boom, you now have a justified Autumnkit.

Enchanted, Wish, Dream, Sparkle, Glimmer, etc.: Don’t. Although Shine, Shining, and Bright aren’t so bad, and are much more realistic than Sparkle or Wish and sound nicer than Glimmer. Glimmer has been used in cannon, as have Shine, Shining, and Bright.

Do. These are words that cats know and which can potentially be used to describe a cat's appearance, and it is reasonable that the mother might be so enchanted with the beauty of life that she gives her kits beautiful names for that reason too. Not sounding good isn't really an in-universe counter to using a particular name.

Star, Paw, Kit: Starstar, Pawpaw, Kitkit

Kit as a prefix is very unlikely to happen, but I could see it maybe being used as part of a rename. However, Star and Paw are not impossible. All it takes is two cats having a simultaneous brain fart, and it could spark a fun in-character debate about giving kits names like that. A Pawkit would probably get renamed pretty fast, though I could see a Starkit getting an "Eh, what are the chances she'll actually become leader?" and lasting until someone in another clan hears about it and the debate starts back up. Basically, this is a "probably don't" for long-term names but could be used for a bit of fun during a peaceful lul in the story.

Ghost, Spirit: I’m pretty sure Starclan cats aren’t referred to as ghosts. They are just Starclan cats. Regardless, don’t. Unlike with Moon and Sun, this would be offensive.

Spirit-/-spirit: Calling a kit Spirit- is akin to calling them Star- or Moon-. It's useless because it describes absolutely nothing about the kit themselves, and naming a cat after something considered sacred is extreme taboo, because it's putting the cat on a pedestal they don't belong even close to. That, and even if it was to mean something related to their belief system or personality, they don't get a name like that at birth and it isn't at all worth a rename.

I'll start with spirit, which is easier to counter. Spirit is also a personality trait (you can "have spirit"); therefore, it works as a suffix.

Apparently, "ghost" has become an in-canon term since I last read Warrior Cats (and since the quoted guides were made as well). As "ghost" is still not used for cats in StarClan, it is not offensive to StarClan. A fictional clan which has not had experience with canon ghosts could learn of the human concept of ghosts by chance (directly or indirectly) from kittypets, interpret it as something different (perhaps a creature which torments twolegs?), and use "ghost" in a name based on that understanding. It's flimsy, but it could work.

Angel, Demon, Devil, God: Warriors don’t know what these are.

This is another thing that they could potentially learn from kittypets, similar to season names, though it would require more complicated and specific circumstances. You may have seen videos of "muslim cats" using miniature prayer mats as part of mirroring behavior; a kittypet learning about human religion is not out of the question, it's just a matter of justifying a kittypet telling the clan what a god is and the clan not brushing it off as a "twoleg thing" to not bother themselves with. Though the Warrior Code states that warriors must reject the soft life of a kittypet, I could see a mother justifying the name of a creature that she learned about from kittypets with the creatures not themselves being akin to kittypets. Could also be used for a lighter segment where miscommunication results in a hilariously bad/offensive name for a kit ("Godkit" being used like it's "Lionkit"). If you can get the cats to learn what these are, go for it.

Death: Don’t.

This can be used as a rename. It can be cruel, like "Deathsmell", or intimidating, like "Deathstrike". It has the added bonus of being able to potentially have a cat named Deathstar, which is objectively cool.

Green: The only logical reason to name a cat this is after eye colours, which we shouldn’t do.

Renames, mother notices how green the plants around her are, the kit manages to get covered in grass stains like 2 minutes after birth...

Fancier Words, like Aqua or Lunar: These don't seem to be in the cat's vocabulary or dialogue, so I am iffy about them.

These are adjectives and are not particularly fancy. Your alternatives are Waterykit and Moonykit, respectively.

Echo-/-echo: Echo- is an unaccepted name, primarily due to its unreliability. Echo-, to my knowledge, is mostly used to describe a cat that looks similar to a dead one, which, honestly, is pretty ruttin' unfair and cruel. The name Echo- says, "You look like some other cat, so we're going to name you for that. No, you don't get to grow into your own person, you look to much like whatever cat we named you for. You're not special enough to have your own name."

Though this one is already covered in Mac's post, I would like to add my own contribution for a reason this might be used as a suffix. An echo is a reflected sound; one could make an argument that a cat who has excellent memory and can repeat exactly what they heard with stunning accuracy can be named -echo in reference to this ability. Also, an unfair and cruel name has interesting character implications anyway, imo.

Soul-/-soul: Basically the same mess as -spirit. Just don't do it.

As a suffix it could be used as a personality thing, much like -heart.

Names that reference the eyes: Eye names don't work, mostly because it's a huge risk. Cats don't open their eyes until they're three weeks old ( AND YOUR CAT'S MOTHER WILL NOT WAIT THAT LONG EVER, THE CLAN WILL NOT ALLOW IT SO DON'T EVEN TRY THAT ON ME FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING ), and they're blue for a while, before changing colors. You can never guarantee that the eyes will be one color or the other. Plus, that's a very small part of the body to name someone for, don't you think? ( Excluding, of course, names that refer to missing or otherwise damaged eyes. )

Could theoretically be done if the mother is separated from the clan for whatever reason for that long, and it could be done for a non-clan cat which joins the clan later. Cats also have fairly large eyes in proportion to their faces (even more so than humans), and a particularly striking eye color (like, popping out against their fur color) wouldn't seem so tiny, would it?

Flame-: Flames are insignificant compared to a fire, which is larger and much more obvious. There's no need for a second prefix having to do with fire.

What if there's already a Firekit, or the mother wants to avoid naming her flame-colored kit after an existing Fire-, or she just thinks Flamekit sounds better?

-flame/-fire/-blaze: -fire can easily be considered a negative suffix. A fire is something that destroys, kills, and ruins, and it implies an overly-aggressive, wild and fierce cat who destroys everyone and everything they come across. Someone named after a fire is someone that is probably not a desirable cat to have in a Clan. While you can excuse it as a prefix on the grounds that it's to describe the pelt, rather than the cat itself, that's what the prefix is for.

Is a warrior who is fierce in combat and able to quickly take down multiple opponents really a bad thing, or are they a useful asset to the clan? It wouldn't be very common, but I could see it happening under that justification.

Amber-: The term for the color comes from the ore itself, which is found in rocks and not out in English grasslands. I know it sounds pretty, but it's like Jet-; if the cats aren't seeing them, they won't use the color names.

Amber is not an ore, it is tree resin. Though fossil amber is unlikely to be found by feral cats unless the setting is especially rich in amber (similar to the gemstone example), it can also sometimes form from living trees, which they are more likely to be aware of.

Don't have a suffix in which the first letter is the same as the last letter of the prefix. Or for the matter a similar sound, it makes the name flow oddly and can make the name harder to pronounce.
Examples.
Swifttail
Sparrowwhisker
Gorsesplash

I agree that Gorsesplash is awkward to say, but this is because of the E in the middle. For the other two examples, one can pronounce it with the repeated letters merged and it's still understandable (swif-tail still sounds like swift tail, sparro-whisker still sounds like sparrow whisker; coincidentally, this way of reading compound words is also part of the origin of my username). This is how I personally read them. Anyway, this is a matter of taste; some people thinking it's awkward to say doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Miscellaneous

These come from various categories that only had 1 or 2 don'ts that didn't fall under either "don't break general etiquette" or "give your character depth".

Loyal- So here's the thing with loyalty: it's a basic requirement to be a warrior. It's actually a necessity, otherwise you have no right to be in a Clan. Please please please do not mention it in a review sheet, because it's a default thing, much like being a decent human being. You don't get brownie points for being loyal to the death.

Context: This was from a segment on cat personality traits.

Loyalty by obligation is a given unless stated otherwise, yes. However, I would argue that including "loyal" suggests that there is more than just the degree of loyalty that is expected. For example, being loyal to your friends or family is a very different thing from being loyal to your country, is it not? And a clan is basically just a tiny city-state of cats. Loyalty to friends may become more important in a non-canon scenario with larger clans, as well.