Man Yells At Fish

Any tips on how to design reproductive/family life for long lived species? If they could live for 1000 years, family might be extremely complicated because of the possibility of siblings born 700 years apart, having great great etc... grandchilden before your sibling is born. Vocabulary? How about fertility age? Could 700 years could be considered too old to reproduce? How about dynamics on age differences between partners? Anything else? (No interspecies at this time)

Tex: What’s their perspective of time? Does their environment change more rapidly than they do? It would be a little different for an elf in Middle Earth than, say, a vampire in New York City.

Regardless of a species’ window of child-bearing years and years of childhood itself, how their own biology is perceived is influenced by their environment and experiences. Would someone of your species have children 700 years apart? Would that be a long time between children for them, or a typical span where it’s normal to have one child nearly every thousand years?

A human who has a child at 25 might not have a child at 45, even if they’re physically able to do so. I imagine a similar decision-making process might be involved no matter the species, particularly if your species is capable of doing anything about it - that does bring in another nod to enculturation. Is it even considered appropriate to have children 700 years apart? If so, what would be considered the social advantages?

Do they have a religion that prioritizes reproducing often and whenever possible? Do they not? What would be the rationalization behind either dictation?

What if your species, because it is long-lived, has names for children born at certain stages of life? Would that change family dynamics? If so, how so? What about how timing of birth affecting who they’re socially permitted to become romantically or sexually involved with? What would be the rationale behind those sorts of norms?

The “talking animals that have culture/societies” genre of books

(Edited the original post to include the bigger list)

also like, idk how to tell y'all this but…

dehumanizing *anyone* is bad. it doesn’t matter if they’re “the oppressor” or they have societal power over you. if you get to a point where you look at *anyone* and you don’t see a human being with thoughts and feelings and internal motivations, if you get to a point where you look at an individual person and see

“the oppressor” or someone that you feel 100% completely comfortable doing violence against without hesitation or consideration…

that’s actually bad. Social justice is not and should never be about trying to figure out who it’s okay to do violence against. Nor is it about “flipping the tables”.

Huh, I wouldn’t say that animals that live in groups make better protags than solitary animals, it’s more like the average writer doesn’t really go that far out of their comfort zone even when writing xenofiction.

I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.

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

How I Play and Interpret Kenku

How I Play and Interpret Kenku

The kenku in the Dungeons and Dragons game are fun and interesting. I’ve put a lot of thought in to how the kenku curse manifests and how I play the details of how it works. I haven’t done a lot of research into the background of the characters, this is all personal headcanon. I understand the kenku’s curse not to just be on their ability to literally speak, but to clearly or intentionally…

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@bananaruntz i think what sucks the most about it with xenofiction in particular is that when you have characters that are simultaneously nonhuman and anthropomorphic, it creates this issue where you're forced to accept any misogyny at face value and assume that it's just scientific accuracy, because nature CAN be notoriously unfair. it can't be denied that the females of many species get the shorter end of the stick, but way too many xenofiction authors seem to operate on the idea that this is innately true for the entire animal kingdom when it's just not. even if you are writing about a species where male animals generally dominate the hierarchy, that still shouldn't preclude you from being able to write well-rounded female characters, especially ones that aren't bound by suspiciously human misogynistic tropes.

xenofiction presents so so so many fascinating opportunities to really examine things like sexism and identity and biological determinism but it feels like no one has properly taken advantage of that yet. i am being so fucking serious when i say that xenofiction desperately needs a queer, trans, feminist upheaval.