Things I Learned From Vet: Personality Shines Through
"But we feed them the exact same amount!" - One cat is a bowstring and the other is a basketball.
Two cats who are littermates, live in the same house, and eat the same food, can still turn out as completely different creatures. Mr Lazy-Bones will plump up no matter what you do, and because of that he'll get all dandruffy because he can't reach his backside to groom it. Mr Anxiety-Face will run around constantly and wind up lean and mean, but maybe also pee all over the house and sneeze a lot, because he's always so worried about everything.
Two dogs who are the same breed, go through the same training, and interact with the same people, can still react very differently to new people. Ms Happy-Go-Lucky always runs up and sniffs and wags her tail, and Ms I-Don't-Trust-Anything always hangs back and trembles.
You can argue about nature vs nurture, I suppose. The nurture component is still there--it's why Mr Lazy-Bones has access to enough food to turn into a couch pillow, and why Ms Happy-Go-Lucky is comfortable with new places. But that nature component plays a strong role, too, and pet owners have to work extra hard to get Lazy-Bones to play more and I-Don't-Trust-Anything to be friendly with new people.
This concept bears remembering with characters, too. Two brothers from the same town, or even the same planet, aren't going to necessarily turn into the same types of people. On one hand I try to think about how the environment has shaped a character's past (have they been a lot of places? what is their education like? what negative experiences have they had?), but on the other, the character shapes their environment, too--you'll pick which college you want to go to, or which jobs to apply to. You don't always get that choice, but it's an interaction of personal and environmental factors every time.
Two cats who are littermates, live in the same house, and eat the same food, can still turn out as completely different creatures. Mr Lazy-Bones will plump up no matter what you do, and because of that he'll get all dandruffy because he can't reach his backside to groom it. Mr Anxiety-Face will run around constantly and wind up lean and mean, but maybe also pee all over the house and sneeze a lot, because he's always so worried about everything.
Two dogs who are the same breed, go through the same training, and interact with the same people, can still react very differently to new people. Ms Happy-Go-Lucky always runs up and sniffs and wags her tail, and Ms I-Don't-Trust-Anything always hangs back and trembles.
You can argue about nature vs nurture, I suppose. The nurture component is still there--it's why Mr Lazy-Bones has access to enough food to turn into a couch pillow, and why Ms Happy-Go-Lucky is comfortable with new places. But that nature component plays a strong role, too, and pet owners have to work extra hard to get Lazy-Bones to play more and I-Don't-Trust-Anything to be friendly with new people.
This concept bears remembering with characters, too. Two brothers from the same town, or even the same planet, aren't going to necessarily turn into the same types of people. On one hand I try to think about how the environment has shaped a character's past (have they been a lot of places? what is their education like? what negative experiences have they had?), but on the other, the character shapes their environment, too--you'll pick which college you want to go to, or which jobs to apply to. You don't always get that choice, but it's an interaction of personal and environmental factors every time.
Actually, about weight anyways, new studies show that the gut bacteria is the difference between fat and thin. Took the bacteria from a fat mouse and inoculated via focal transplants into a thin mouse and it got fat. But that still doesn't answer why 2 pets in the same environment and same food would have different gut bacteria
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