Should cats know about the timekeeping system IC?

[Zesha]

So, recently the question of whether the cats know about the timekeeping system in character came up. We feel this decision should be up to the members.

Should all the cats know about the names of the moon, and which moon they were born under? Should it just be kept OOC knowledge? Should some cats be familiar with the system while others have never heard of it? Leave an answer! I'm curious.

I will point something out though:
Cats have no idea what month it is. So it would be very hard for them to tell when there would be a blue moon, since to them, a full moon would just mark another month. This is the reason it has been OOC knowledge thus far. If anyone has a good idea as to how the cats can determine when each moon will be, that would be great. :)

[Samuel]

I'm on the fence about this so far. On the one hand, it could be interesting as I've brought up before to have something like a brave and strong cat attribute it to the wolf moon, or a cat who is a terrible hunter feeling like he is not living up to his hunter's moon birthright.

On the other hand, it could take away from the realism that I think this rp is kinda going for. I think I'll wait and see if others have anything to say before I cast my vote because I think both sides have good points.

[asilentbeast]

If I'm being honest I really like the idea of the cats being aware of the timekeeping system, but I also understand it's a pretty unrealistic expectation and I have no logical way to explain how they'd know.

[amulet]

I really like the idea of the cats knowing their moon signs!

I don't think it'd be completely unreasonable for the cats to keep track. If you think about how the Native Americans named the moons in the first place, it's because of things going on in nature at that time. For example, worm moon is when you start to see a lot of worms popping out of the ground, strawberry moon is when it's the best time to eat all the ripe strawberries, buck moon is when deer start growing new antlers. Even if a lot of these things aren't necessarily relevant to our cats (like the fact that they don't eat strawberries), they can still observe these events happening. It may even be "clues" as to what prey might be up to around that time, which is why it'd generally be good to know anyway.

It can be the kind of common knowledge that's passed down through generations from mothers to their kits, and all of cat society learns and accepts it. Almost like the warrior code is passed down to all the kits in the clans? Just more applicable to all cats everywhere. It's possible, right? I also think it'd be super cool that if there ever happened to be foreign cats introduced from REALLY far away, they'd have different names for their moon cycles based on what natural events occurred in their area of the world.

[Danielle]

Those are some good points. Most of the names for the moons come from cues in nature to signal it's time for it to change, and since the cats follow the moon cycle already it wouldn't be impossible for them to name them based on what's going on around them.

The main problem there, though, is that some of the things used to name moons aren't really found around the cats' territory, like wolves, bucks, sturgeons, and beavers. The cats might know what they are, but if they don't actually provide any clues to the seasonal changes they would probably change it to something that does. Another issue, like Zesha said, is that the blue moon is only told apart from the rest by the fact it's an extra moon in a single month in a calendar the cats don't use.

Those are the things I can see us having problems with if we decide to go with the cats knowing about the timekeeping system, though there might be someone with ideas on how to work around them.