it's been long enough since 2021 that i can say something negative about security breach and you will know it's coming from a place of love: mazercise is fucking stupid and chica's attraction should have been the bakery expanded into a full creepy factory segment send post
do you have any tips on processing the absolute mess that is the family tree? Like, how does one put it into smaller bites for re-doing/adjusting? How does one even begin to rework it when it's such a confusing tangle?? I'm just so overwhelmed by the tree(s), and I've read the whole series (because I would love to re-work it, but FUCK).
I will be 100% earnest with you; reworking the tree from scratch as a single person is both difficult and time consuming. I have a penchant for it, and even I'm not completely done. I make my reduxed trees totally free to use so that others at least have a jumping-off point for your own "cleaner" Clans.
So my most helpful tip would probably be Don't. PLEASE take my trees and cut them, prune them, bonsai them, clean them up even more than I did, anything you'd like. I do not wish this fate on my worst enemy.
That said-- let's say you love pain as much as I do, or you just want to see how much work I put into these trees. I'll babble about my process.
This is my WIP file for the ShadowClan Family Tree. Consider this image a content warning for self-inflicted pain and suffering 💕
Uhhh and also; an ACTUAL, serious content warning. Because of the nature of them asking how to fix trees on their own, I have to talk a little about incest. It comes with the territory.
A few things to know before you start;
You will need a FUCK OFF MASSIVE monitor for this. Mine is an ASUS a little under 2 feet long-- I've tried doing this on my smaller, secondary monitor, and these trees just get too big to work on.
FamilyEcho will not cut it. You NEED an art program. You will have to do this by hand, because there is no lineage-drawing tool that can handle families this large and tangled.
You will need to decide your "rules" beforehand. How closely related are you allowing valid couples to be? Are you allowing Queen's Rights? Can you add OCs, and if so, how often?
On this point-- I have my Three Strict Rules, and do not use OCs. Because of this, I do a LOT of research beforehand and usually have the wiki open as I work on these. I'm always scouring for forgotten warriors to use for this.
There are going to be multiple drafts. You will not do this in one go. That does not mean you "failed" or you're "stuck," that's a good thing.
With all of that out of the way.
Usually, the first thing I do is pick a Clan to work on. There's over 1,000 cats in this series, so I break that up by picking one group at a time. Once I do that, I draw out the canon chart.
In this case, I've already drawn out all of the canon charts. River, Thunder, Shadow, Sky, Wind.
I call this a Diagnosis because I'm taking a look at what the problem is, so that I know what I'm fixing. In Shadow's case, it's a solid brick of inbreeding with a "missing generation" line. In ThunderClan's case, it's mostly a Robinwing x Fuzzypelt problem. Each Clan has its own unique issues.
Once you know the issue, step two, start drawing out what you want to do and keep. For example, let's say that you want to use the Ivy/Dove as Holly/Cinder kittens idea.
I generally try to start with the "modern" cats and work backwards, but it can also be helpful to just doodle out floating "branches" that you want to work in backwards.
You can see examples of those in my ShadowClan draft, up there, but I've zoomed in and circled them.
Don't be afraid to draw "notes" like this. You can just grab them and drag them around when something clicks!
Getting back to our "example" tree with Holly/Cinder Ivy/Dove, you might notice now that Lionblaze has no mate. Another thing I do when I see an immediate problem but don't have a solution in mind yet is use a little ? mark. You don't want to get hung up on deciding everything RIGHT away.
Now, this is where my 3 Strict Rules would come into play, in two ways! I'm sure you'll be able to spot them. For one, Lionblaze has waaaaay too many kids here who would go on to have kittens of their own, so I'd start breaking them up. For two, this tree makes Ivypool and Fernsong a first cousin pairing, something I don't allow.
You can fix this in any number of ways, and I'm sure there's someone out there shouting their preferred Lionblaze ships and Alt Fernsong Parents like they're the crowd on a game show, but for this demonstration I'm going to do this;
Here, I decided I didn't want to undo FernIvy, but I still want Fernsong to be Clanborn with two parents, so I have removed him from Lionblaze and given him unknown family. I've also taken Sorrelstripe and Spotfur, and moved them to a little spot on the side. I can now use them to patch up the little ? placeholders.
You'll also notice this is already becoming a mess. This is why you will need to redraw this a few times, for readability. The best tip I can give you for that is that families who only have one kit to carry on the lineage should go in a long line in the center, but otherwise, offspring who do not have kits should go between their siblings who do.
It's easier to visualize it imo, so here's what I mean;
The vast majority of the time I spend doing these is just "puzzlework." Trying to figure out a way to make line connections look good, making sure cats are far enough apart, trying to make "wishlist" stuff work.
Here's some insight to that with the big ShadowClan mess I showed at the beginning of this post;
And, mind you, this is Draft 3 of this tree. Those grayed-out parts of the first image were my first two. I wasn't satisfied enough with them, so I started from scratch several times!
I wish I could share some kind of good, simple process for this, but unfortunately I don't have one. It's just a lot of work, familiarity, creativity, and problem solving. I spend days, sometimes even weeks on these. My intention is that they can be a fandom resource that's easier to read than the website tree, less carelessly inbred with more thought given to immediate family units, AND more comprehensive.
In any case, I hope this was insightful, or these tips I share helped in some way!
I just bought some tape (for binding) but I want to test it out first to see if my skin reacts. So I applied a small bit on my forearm, near my hand. The tape is black. Now everytime I'm on my phone, there's this black shape where my wrist should be and every time I feel like Andrew fucking Minyard and his arm bands.
I've acquired a lil Golem and I'm absolutely going crazy over it
Oooh i love this thing so much.... Ooooohhh.....
It brings me absolute unfiltered glee and joy every time I lay my eyes on it how have I lived without it for so long oh my goodness oh my goodness the little critter.... Ooooh my clay little thing....... Ooooohhhhh my sweet child....... My kid....
