Original Post: Ember, December 28, 2017
Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a restful December. Here on the website we’ve been plenty busy welcoming in new members out-of-character and reckoning with the rise of a mysterious group called The Deliverance in-character. As well I sent out a member survey, we and are gearing up for the third annual New Year’s Gift Exchange this coming Monday, January 1st and for the site’s ninth birthday on January 16th. If you haven’t filled out the survey yet, you can find it HERE, and if you would like to sign-up as a last minute participant in the gift exchange, please message me as soon as possible.
Before we get to the main topic of this Monthly Meow, we have some housekeeping to do. First up, The Ancestry Project has been looking rather neglected as of late. If you have any cats you think might be connected to this massive family tree, you can double-check and add them. While cleaning up the pages earlier I noticed a bunch of unused characters on the pages and would appreciate it if you guys went through your character lists and post your unwanted characters as having left the clans or up for adoption. As well, I’m hoping to get a small handful of member-submitted Monthly Meows to publish this spring, so if you think you might have any interest in writing a Monthly Meow, check out this blog entry and PM me. Lastly, I’m currently working on three new guides, so keep an eye on the News Page.
This December’s Monthly Meow is another demographics overview. Previous demographics overviews were published in March 2017, November 2016, May 2016, December 2015, August 2015, December 2014, and March 2014. Please note that all the data for this demographics overview was gathered on December 15th and therefore doesn’t exactly represent the clans at the time this Monthly Meow was published.
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The first thing that struck me about this table is how much the clans have grown over the past few months, fully recovered from the dip in population we experienced earlier this year. As for the rest, I don’t find any of it particularly surprising. MoonClan is very large, as often seems to be the case when we get new members (probably because it is the most ThunderClan-like), while the very new EclipseClan is much smaller than the others.
The male-female ratio is roughly split, with a slight female majority (probably because we have a female member majority and members generally play characters of their own gender). It is interesting that EarthClan has a more dramatic female majority than the other clans, though this may be due to MoonClan and EclipseClan upholding more traditionally masculine traits while SunClan and EarthClan uphold more traditionally feminine traits. I decided to cut the “Other” category for gender in this demographics overview because as of December 15th, no characters clearly fit into this category. If we get more genderfluid or agender characters in the future, the column will come back.
The average age is also not very surprising. The average age usually hovers around three or four months, and it is expected that EclipseClan has the lowest average age (as it’s a growing clan with plenty of apprentices) and MoonClan is also comparatively low (new members flock there and create warriors, which are 3 months old when they are created.
The working cats to nonworking cat ratio is pretty variable, though usually the percentage of working cats is between the mid-70s to mid-80s. It’s possible we have more working cats than usual because most of the members from the recent new-member wave have been making warriors and holding off on kits, but this can’t explain the entire shift. If you guys have any possible explanations of why this might be, I’d love to hear your theories.
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Here is a graph of the clans’ populations since January of 2015, when I started recording the clan numbers. I like looking over this to get a general overview of how things have changed (in particular, it’s interesting to see the changing clan populations starting in April of this year), but these graphs are chaotic so I’ve limited them to the past year, below. The main take-away from these graphs is to show how the clan populations have recovered from last year’s dip, despite the 100-character drop in October.
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With these graphs of the clans population over just the past year, it’s easier to see what has been happening with specific populations. MoonClan has been the largest clan fairly consistently, while SunClan has remained fairly steady. The biggest changes are, unsurprisingly, in the former clans of NightClan and DawnClan, and in our new clans, EarthClan and EclipseClan. NightClan and DawnClan’s population both dropped dramatically when EarthClan was formed, with a roughly equal number of cats leaving the clans entirely rather than assimilating into EarthClan or joining the rebel clans. However, while DawnClan’s population slowly declined, NightClan was on an upward trend until the clan members formed EclipseClan, at which point the population doubled in the span of two months. In the future, I expect EclipseClan and EarthClan to catch up with the other clans, with SunClan taking up its traditional position as the least populous clan.
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Here's a histogram of the number of cats of each age group, separated by month. This roughly U- shaped graph is exactly what I expected to see, with the majority of characters existing as kits, apprentices, or young warriors, then declining in number until we reach the small pool of elders at 11 months.
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MoonClan generally follows the pattern above and doesn’t have any surprises—the large peak at 4 months reflects the number of members who have joined in the past month and made a handful of new MoonClan warriors.
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SunClan is a little more interesting than MoonClan due to the peak of apprentices at one month old, which seems to be in part due to a wave of new apprentices being created and in part due to previous litters going into apprentice training. SunClanners usually have the widest distribution of ages, as SunClan is favored by older members who have characters of a wider age range.
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EarthClan’s histogram isn’t shocking either, except perhaps for how few kits there are. That said, there are a handful of new queens, so I expect there to be more kits in the near future. Having four 10-month old cats and no elders is also interesting, but sometimes characters are in waves like that, especially when litters of siblings under the same owner are involved.
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EclipseClan’s graph is the least regular, but also unsurprising. It makes sense that they’d have a scattering of cats between the ages of five months and eleven months, as they were composed of a small number of former NightClanners until last month. In the past month, they’ve received a sudden upswing in the number of new warriors (accounting for the peak at 3 and 4 months) as well as a handful of new kits and apprentices (explaining the population block from zero months to two months.)
What do you guys think about the clan demographics? If you see something in these graphs that you find interesting and I didn’t touch on, or interpreted the numbers differently, please don’t hesitate to speak up! All of my observations here are from just glancing over the graphs, so I easily could have overlooked something meaningful or misinterpreted some of the numbers.
MoonClan
Apprentices:
Warkit, Blaringkit, Toadkit: Early January
Dapplekit, Piggykit, Runningkit, Badgerkit, Snakekit, Rosekit: Mid January
Redkit, Birchkit, Edelweisskit, Winter, Midnightkit, Cinderkit, Flarekit, Havenkit: Late January
Warriors:
Tornpaw, Cherrypaw, Echopaw, Duskpaw, Flypaw, Mottledpaw, Pearpaw, Splitpaw, Ripplingpaw, Orchardpaw, Dutchpaw, Everpaw: Early January
Lightpaw: Mid January
Applepaw, Molepaw, Bramblepaw: Late January
Elder: Mirrorfang
SunClan
Apprentices:
Sandkit, Endlesskit, Ternkit, Teakit: Early January
Violetkit, Fernkit, Quailkit: Mid January
Hollykit, Pinekit: Late January
Warriors:
Sunpaw, Eaglepaw, Dawnpaw, Rainingpaw, Horizonpaw, Skypaw, Grimpaw, Jackalpaw: Early January
Sunpaw, Pandapaw, Pumpkinpaw, Wildpaw, Hoofpaw, Applepaw, Caramelpaw, Comingpaw, Shadowpaw: Mid January
Imhotep: Late January
Med. Cat App.: Deathpaw (Early January)
Elders: Wanderingbear, Tazmainiantwister, Kingcobra
EarthClan
Apprentices:
Cutekit, Stormkit, Turtlekit, Tanglekit, Rowankit, Stonekit, Lightningkit: Early January
Shykit: Mid January
Black-kit, Frozenkit, Mysterykit, Mothkit, Dusk-kit, Stonekit, Acornkit, Bluekit: Late January
Warriors:
Lunapaw, Moonpaw, Jaypaw, Melonpaw, Thunderpaw, Wrathpaw, Tousledpaw, Loomingpaw, Twistedpaw, Flurrypaw: Early January
Dreampaw, Lilypaw, Gentlepaw, Stubpaw, Frostpaw, Doepaw: Mid January
Finchpaw, Lizardpaw, Earthpaw, Reedpaw: Late January
Elders: Malardcry, Rustfeather, Icerain, Shadowhawk
EclipseClan
Apprentices:
Hollowkit, Witheredkit, Mischeifkit, Hauntingkit, Ravenkit, Ghostlykit, Shadowkit: Mid January
Carrionkit, Apparion, Bepper, Avellino, Clarisse: Late January
Warriors:
Coolpaw, Larchpaw: Late January
Elders: Grackleflight
Deaths: Noisebreath
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