RE: Eye shapes/pupils
I happen to dislike mysterious/small eyes since they remind me of snake pupils, not cat pupils so I don't breed for them. I hate hate hate snakes! I also don't tend to buy the snake eyes as I dislike them but have on occasion as I wanted something else on the cat like a new trait or something. If you don't buy the snake eyes, it doesn't encourage the breeding of them.
Besides, it's ridiculously easy to make mysterious/small eyes so there is not even the challenge of doing it for a breeder. Even when you are not breeding for them, they happen a lot. I'd say a good 70%-90% of cats seem to have those traits hid even when not shown. If it was challenging I might like them. I do like super-recessives but that's because they are challenging.
To me, it's like the Emperor's New Clothes. I've talked to any number of people who don't like them either but breed them anyways to sell. It's up to people -- if enough people start buying curious/small ; mysterious/big and curious/big, then people will start counting the other traits as more important. And if people start mixing up the eyes some, they'd be surprised at all the different looks the same color eyes can have with the different pupils and how it can shift the cat personality. In general, curious/small and mysterious/big are cuter and makes the cat look like it has a sweeter disposition (the good hero vs the evil villains -- in comics, evil villains mostly have small pupils for a reason--it is convention that small pupils = evil in anime/comics; big pupils = innocent/good) and if you look at paintings and drawings of cats, the pupils more often are bigger because it looks aesthetically better. Halloween cats are an exception -- they tend to have mysterious/small pupils in paintings/drawings because they were originally drawn to be "evil"
I get why people like mysterious/small. If they start going to auctions early in learning breeding, they see 9Ts selling more. It's easy to count to 9 rather than figuring out how recessive/dominant the other traits are (which relates to how challenging they are to make). So they think 9T = lindens. And it does--sometimes. So it is positive reinforcement financially. And making money in kittycats can be very challenging.
"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this." Terry Pratchett
Der Kitty Mill
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