Trope Of The Week: Aliens Are Blue-Skinned Humans

What is Xenofiction?

I truly hate the word "unalive." There are so many other euphemisms that fictional Italian mobsters worked so hard to provide you with and you just ignore them.

CHAOS CONTROL!!

- for the Chaos Creators' Enemies to Allies Zine!

So, after watching a couple of videos about writing xenofiction.

Really rabbits are underappreciated animals in the aspect of how very exploitable their stories can be.

Yes, the most famous book in this genre has them as main characters and does a very good job of representing them correctly (Though not entirely, there are a couple of scientific flaws sprinkled in there but never mind). But the rest of the other rabbit stories out there are kind of uhhhhhhhh.

Because first we have the attempts to copy the first one, and well, they don't give too much by themselves. It's just reading the same thing but made up to look different and without all that sparkle.

And then we have the stories about rabbits that are already on the more traditional side. They are portrayed as calm, gentle, uwu cute or whatever, sometimes very shy, sometimes silly, they are present in the day, they mate like rabbits (ironic), everything kills them, etc. (well maybe some of them are not so bad). And let's not mention attributing the same behavior to all rabbits, no matter the species, it will be the same.

And well, that's not entirely how they work. They are animals that can be really complex in themselves, they are adaptable, variable, stop putting them in the same idea please.

If we are talking about European rabbits, why the hell do we only have stories that occur in areas where they were introduced? Why is there nothing about rabbits in their natural habitat, the Iberian Peninsula? Although it may not seem like it, there are many things that work differently there.

We have the "prince of a thousand enemies" although well, in reality many of those thousand enemies are not very interested in the predation of the rabbits because they were not used to them. That's why they managed to proliferate and become a long-term problem. (And let's mention when in Australia they introduced foxes to hunt the rabbits, but the foxes passed them by and preferred to go for the native fauna that was easier to catch and equally nutritive for them).

But, in their natural habitat, we even have animals that actively eats rabbits. There's also two species that literally LIVE off hunting rabbits, to the point that if these diminish they will too (The Iberian imperial eagle and the Iberian lynx). Just look at that potential with just that idea of predator-prey relationship. How the rabbits see these rabbit-killers and how they see their prey as their source of life.

(To give an example, and in parallel Canada lynx are almost entirely dependent on the American Hare in their diet, so much so, that if the hares disappear the lynx go with them. Not only that, but the hares are actually declining in population because of fear of the lynx. The lynx hunts them so much that the females reach a point where they even refuse to reproduce due to the stress of being hunted by the lynx. This does not happen with ANY other predator. Now transfer that to Europe and WOW).

And if we go to America, ok there are a couple of things with the common cottontail rabbit. But they ignore that there are over 28 species of rabbits throughout America, and even though they are related, each lives in a different environment and behaves differently.

We have rabbits that inhabit deserts and feed on cactus, others that live in cold mountain areas. And even rabbits that build burrows in the middle of swamps as a means of protection, these rabbits are basically aquatic. Why doesn't anyone notice this? Look at all that potential (and let alone the rest of the rabbits in other parts of the world).

A preamble to the live reading of Hunter’s Moon/The Foxes of Firstdark by Garry Kilworth

As a work within what I’m going to be calling the mythic subgenre of naturalist animal xenofiction (as coined by YouTube user Cardinal West on his excellent video detailing the history of the genre), mythic NAX for short, one of the primary appeals of a book such as Hunter’s Moon/The Foxes of Firstdark should lie in how the author incorporates real biology and behavior of the animals he’s writing about onto the fictional human-like society he’s constructing.

Thus, before we dive into the live reading on the blog, I thought it’d be good for us all to be more aware of actual fox behavior so that we may better appreciate the bits of real animal behavior incorporated into the text and recognize the artistic liberties taken by the author. I’m writing a short distillation of my preliminary research done on the following four webpages:

https://www.nwf.org/educational-resources/wildlife-guide/mammals/red-fox

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/red-fox

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/understand-fox-behaviour/

https://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/animals/article/red-fox-behaviour-the-social-hierarchy

Obviously, as a Warriors fan, I’m not too demanding about biological accuracy in my mythic NAX novels, but I still expect the authors to incorporate it in some way. The Erin Hunter team’s portrayal of a feral cat colony may not be completely accurate but it shows in places they are at least aware of the basics of how they operate.

I’m also not a biologist nor do I have any particular knowledge of foxes, so I’m doing all this preliminary research from scratch. Obviously, I’m not going to go super in depth or go into super academic sources. This is, afterall, being done for fun.

Distillation of my research unde the cut:

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Wildstar, Character Design, Female Objectification, Sexual Dimorphism and Biology in Video Games

We need to talk about the character designs in Wildstar.

We need to talk about the character designs in all science fiction and fantasy franchises that feature non-humans.

Wildstar is a science-fiction MMO currently in beta, developed by Carbine Studios. The general thrust of Wildstar is something along the lines of Firefly, Star Wars, and Ratchet & Clank; not exactly a grimdark sci-fi thriller. The mechanical features look interesting and the art style, in and of itself, is really vivid—but what they’re doing within the style?

Well.

The NDA dropped on a bunch of Wildstar content and character creation videos are up. You can watch them all, but here I’m just going to focus on the Granok, Draken, and Mechari.

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overslept

Sorry y'all but purity culture has genuinely made fandom so boring when you enjoy nuance and variety lol

Sometimes it just feels like everything is squeaky clean and sanitized, no conflict or complications, no character is really evil or are seen as broken and need to be fixed, they become better through the "power of love", every single one gets into a romantic relationship, have vanilla missionary procreative sex because all kink is bad and wrong, are put in a conservative lifestyle and marriage with a white picket fence and kids where nothing bad ever happens and everything is so wholesome and pure and must follow one life script

And yeah people have the freedom to do what they want and not liking it personally doesn't mean everyone should stop. But what really bothers me is there are people like me who feel the same and have very different darker complicated things they want to create but don't because anything considered too evil and dark is demonized and shut down. Then they're too afraid share in fear of backlash and it's really sad. So it's not being mad that the former exists and saying it should stop, it's being sad that the latter isn't allowed

And I do know people who used to explore and create for the latter but after backlash started only making the former and that's sad too. That includes many of your favorite artists that have now blocked me for creating things along the lines of what they did in the past. (Themes of violence and abuse in this case.) And many end up seeming really repressed and restricted as a result. It feels like there's a pressure for it and sometimes it feels forced. And because I don't want to do it it feels like I'm punished for it

But anyway yeah if you're an adult who enjoys evil and killing and violence, blood and gore, hurt and angst, complicated relationships, toxic fucked up characters, or are a sadistic freak like me who loves when terrible things and suffering and death happen in fiction then please, I invite you to join me as we travel to places in analysis and concepts that the surface of the fandom won't go lol

And before you can say something like "this is a kid's series and you're the problem for expecting and creating these things", aside from the ns4w and graphic blood and gore, all of these themes such as as violence, death, abuse, etc, has always existed in the official media already, so I think it should absolutely be okay to explore in fandom too and they have always been what's compelled me the most to create and I'm not the only one :P