CHAOS CONTROL!!

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:

Keep reading

If you guys have an hour or two to kill, I highly recommend these two videos by Cardinal West on the Xenofiction genre. I have a far greater appreciation and understanding of the genre and it’s sub-categories thanks to him and his videos. These and his other xenofiction video essays are all so well written and entertaining and such a great resource for people wanting to get into reading or writing the genre.

I've been watching some videos about xenofiction for... reasons... *glances at my recent writing projects* AHEM yeah and this guy mentioned something that... vaguely got me to understand my friends more.

I'm (unfortunately) friends with lots of people who think a lot of the things I'm interested in are "too weird" for them. They can't watch The Last Unicorn because they find the unicorn as well as the art style creepy. They can't watch Watership Down because they can't wrap their head around talking rabbits who haven't advanced to Wind in the Willows levels of society yet. Or maybe they can't watch or read animal xenofiction or consume anthro art whatsoever because animals don't talk or do those things and they think that it could have been as good with human characters. It's like their brain does all of these gymnastics that I haven't in all my life considered. I just liked these pieces of media as a kid because I thought they were... cool... I've never found it hard to understand that the rabbits in this story talk, even though they don't in real life. That objective/subjective concept has never crossed my mind whatsoever.

This guy talked about verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief. Verisimilitude is pretty much just continuity and rules in a story. Firebenders in The Last Airbender cannot bend water. Rabbits in Watership down can talk to each other, vaguely understand other animals, and cannot understand humans. They're fabricated rules of reality that exist within a narrative.

Suspension of disbelief is basically your capacity to understand and believe those fabricated rules. This can swing wildly in two directions. You can either be just wholely unconvinced of anything that doesn't follow normal rules of life or be totally gullible to the point of disregarding plot holes and crappy deux ex machina. I feel like I lean more toward disregarding plot holes lmao.

Not sure where I was going with this post but it felt sorta nice to hear another fan of xenofiction describe this... weird thing when you read a book or watch a movie that changes your life and you recommend it to a friend and their first reaction is "uh... how is she able to understand the wolf?" and that stuff is too weird for them to even consider picking up a masterpiece of art. I guess it makes me feel less like my friends are intentionally withholding understanding to be mean to me and more that this is just... how some people are and some people just seem incapable of understanding certain stories and media.

something i think about a lot is what if alien species have less biodiversity on their planets. like if they’ve got maybe 20, 25 species of bugs, total. so they come to earth and they’re like “whoa.” or they’ll like be like walking down the street and they’re like “ok what’s that” pointing at a st bernard and you’re like “oh that’s a dog” and they’re like “whoa, neat, i’ve heard about dogs.” 

and you walk for a while longer and then they point at a yorkie and they’re like “what’s that?” and you kind of have to be like “…that. that’s also a dog.” and they’re like “wait, really?” and you’re like “yeah.” and it takes them a while to absorb this but then you just keep walking.

and like you’re going for a while and somebody’s walking their bull terrier and you’re like trying to walk faster hoping your alien friend doesn’t see but no dice they’re like WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT and you’re like “that. that is a dog” and they let out an anguished wail

and like every time after that they see a weird four legged creature they’re like “that BETTER not be a goddamn dog” and half the time you gotta wince and be like “actually,” 

New Letterboxd list.

Watching lion xenofiction and, why the most are literally copycats of the other? There's a lot of interesting things on lions life just to make the same thing over and over. And some of the "realistic behaviour" is not really realistic, is just a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes.

Just, Holy hell, i heard the entire story of the Mapogo lions coalition and why anybody writtes an story based on it? It's perfect, is HOLY SHIT like a xenofiction story actually happened. These lion coalitions have a LOT of potential to writte an story about it.

Humans Are Weird: Growing Up

You know how must animals don’t look that different when they are infants to adults? Yeah, that. But then we get to animals such as insects and frogs. As you may (or may not) know, bugs start out as these worm-like things called larvae and when there’re adults, they become what we know them as. Same with frogs, but instead of being worm-like, they start as the fish-like tadpoles. What if the aliens we encounter work just like that? What if they start out as puffballs, worm-like, or something else and become a humanoid or something. And when we show them out young, they might be surprised (Assuming all life on their planet works that way).

So a xeno and a human male where in a bar talking about their species and looking at each other‘s photos.

Human: “And that’s my niece, Holly.” 

Xeno: “She’s pretty small for an adult.” “Never knew your kind can get so small.”

Human: “No, no, no, she’s still a baby.”

Xeno: “Really?”

Human: “Yes.”

Xeno: “Well, that’s interesting, I thought your kids looked way different.” “Just look at my kids.”

The xeno then showed a picture of two light green, round, fluffy orb-like cretures with no showed facial features.

Xeno: “These two are my children, aren’t they cute?”

The human then looks surprised. 

Human: “Ah… I guess…” “Can’t believe your kind looks like that.” 

Xeno: “I’m just as surprised as you are.” “Now can I show you more of ‘em?”

Human: “Sure, why not…?”

(Yeah, I know the “Xeno and human talking and stuff” part isn’t the best example of writing, but hey, I tried. Please give me feedback so I can improve.)

Sonic can do crimes and still be a hero. Sonic can be a dad and still be faithful to his selfish love of freedom. It fleshes him out, you see, makes him a more nuanced and realized character.

Why do the peoples draw mermaids with knee bends in their fishy tails