I Keep Trying To Phrase A Post As Like A Helpful Tip For People Who Like Worldbuilding But. I Have To

This thread about anti-indigenous racism in xenofiction is well worth a read (and some reflection).

I know I’m being an insufferable worldbuilding nerd here, but my basic metric for evaluating media with very inhuman protagonists is “how easily can one offer a complete and coherent account of this media’s plot without ever mentioning the fact that the protagonist is, for example, a talking car?”. The harder it is, the higher it scores.

You can only reblog this today.

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.

using non-human limbs to show a character’s expression is fantastic— fur bristling to show anger, big elf ears drooping to show sadness, tails swishing to show joy— but using non-human limbs as the only way to show a character’s expression is even better. a calm, stoic facade, their anger betrayed only by bristling fur. insisting they’re fine, but their ears are drooping. pretending they don’t care for hugs, but their tail is swishing madly.

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

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.

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I have realized that ironically, while the cat is one of the most known and loved animals/pets. The Wildcat still lingers in the shadows and is a very little noticed animal. Especially in the popular media.

We need more wild cat media, not just domestic cats, because those are all I see.

(And I'm referring to the "Felis silvestris", the others at least people can spot them).

And it seems that people have forgotten or do not realize that the cats we know are domestic animals, that have little or nothing to do in nature (I include stray/feral cats, because they are still domestic cats) and that their wild relative/ancestor exists and is still alive.

It's not like with dogs, there are dog media and there are wolf media, people know how to differentiate one from the other. But what about cats, can you locate any popular stories where wild cats are even in the wild (TRULY wild, not feral domesticated ones)?

And it's kind of sad, wild cats deserve to be noticed and recognized. Sadly many of them are in a vulnerable state and are disappearing.

I would like to see a xenofiction story with wild cats living their lives, hunting hares, taking on lynx, living in wild territory, doing things of their species that emphasize how they are different from their domesticated descendants.

Although I doubt that something like this will happen for a long time, it is one of those cases where you just have to say "If I don't do it, no one else will".