hold on a fucking second. delaware is a state?? i thought it was a river? or is the river more important than the state? why don't i know this? (i should mention i don't like in america, i'm just confused)
there is delaware (state) and delaware (river)
both are equally strange
the state is a tiny little cryptid thing
the rive is a monster that spans new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware. also washington crossed it once and that was like kinda a big deal i guess. like crossing the rubicon in rome.
the state tries to me more important with its “im the first state!!!” bs (seriously its even on the fucking license plates) but we all know. its the river.
You, a lover of xenofiction/animal stories who is truly interested in proper research and natural representation, with projects of your own in mind.
Let me tell you, if you read this, that I love you and will be willing to sell my kidney in order to support you.
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?
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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Eve figuring out how to communicate with The Autumn Man. Magic can translate language quite well, but The Autumn Man has a hard time with mimicking, so speech doesn’t come naturally to him. But poking things? Sure, he can do that.
Hmmm I've seen a lot of crow and raven people in fantasy settings but sci-fi 'uplift' premises tend to focus on dolphins and chimps and other reasonable targets.
Want a sci-fi story that's set long after some unwise scientist CRISPRed a be-much-smarter tweak into at least two species each of corvids and cephalopods.
so we've got established society of crows, who absolutely picked up human languages fast and use them routinely to interact with human beings, and maybe don't have citizenship in human countries where they reside because they have their own political units that aren't based on terrain, but they are recognized as people by law
(but like, i want to emphasize they are crows that are physically the same as crows have always been)
and the much more mysterious and retiring underwater society of the octopuses.
I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.
why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead
[Canon: talking animals and fantasy monster (Fanfic Flamingo) Fanfic: humans! Humans everywhere!]
Thought-to-speech technology that gets hacked by people who want text messages from their pets while they are at work, only to immediately regret it because their pets text them the dumbest things, and the only way to get any kind of a clear image of what's going on is texting the other pets for cross-reference.
Like you get a text from your dog going "END IS HERE DOOM IS COMING URGENT URGENT SEND TEXT G-D HAVE MERCY, HUMAN COME HOME IMMEDIATELY", (you have no idea why the text translator has decided that your dog is jewish, but that doesn't feel important enough to look into or change) and before you do, you text the cat like "what's going on?"
And the cat replies "sunshine is turned off, window is cold >:C" so okay that's a clue. You've got a monitor lizard that doesn't do much monitoring, but will reply with whatever the lizard is feeling right now if you text "?" first.
"hwrmbglhlr the earth rumbles are sexy", replies the lizard. Okay, so dog panic, no sunshine, and the lizard is sensing vibrations. Oh, there's a rain storm overhead. Fuck's sake.
Ok, so, as most know hobbits LOVE mushrooms, but what if they love ALL mushrooms, even the poisonous ones. What if a hobbit’s body is able to handle more of the poison and it doesn’t affect them at all. And they love it!