#something something really like grabbing animals at random yada yada putting them to aliens that are vastly dissimilar is really fun

[whatudottu]

The inner struggles of a worldbuilding nerd: “Just because an alien species looks similar to an Earth animal doesn’t mean they’ll function the exact same as them, especially if said species is sapient, and assuming such is pretty biased and Earth-centric” vs. “Haha giving alien species based on Earth animals biology and behaviors similar to their respective animal and exploring how said biology and behaviors might influence their society and culture go brrr”

That's why you go to a mental randomiser and pick the weirdest shit you can and pair it with your selected species; case in point, my talpaedans = armadillos + ants headcanons!

I have certainly fallen into the pitfall of 'base a series of headcanons of alien that resembles an Earth animal USING the animal as a guide' but I am no stranger to making things alien (another I have are orishan = clam + cockroach headcanons). Heck, if I either can't think of an animal or an idea I had for a more animalistic alien may end up treading on bad ground, I pull out a random sociological thing humans have done. I mean I can't think about vulpimancers without thinking about politics, both on Vulpin and outside of it, discussing local matters to international matters to straight up intergalactic matters and the ethics of Null Void imprisonment (you cannot tell me all the vulpimancers in there were even given a trial let alone a fair one).

It's good to start with a base that has happened before - convergent evolution and everything, very good template to work from - and you can pick and mix whatever the heck you want to make your alien, well... alien-! Either you randomise the heck out of it, you have a very specific idea that would help expand the worldbuilding, or you just want to orchestrate how you can logic something out and connect the dots later, it's really fun to just ramble the shit out of alien biology.

#ask #anonymous #xenobiology #worldbuilding #this time without a world directly attached lmao #i was literally thinking about some talpaedan headcanons today- and not just ant stuff #as well as andreas specifically but that would be explained in the post i'd think #petrosapiens my beloved i have made them quite reptilian but also partially buggy (exoskeletal and such) #also have got some cybertronian bug stuff but i'm not the first person to think of bug bots and also they're not animal-based aliens #i also have like a whole political history of vulpin from the introduction of the tortugan up until modern day that i have in dot points #not quite written to be a full ramble post but definitely got the points down ready for rambling #something something really like grabbing animals at random yada yada putting them to aliens that are vastly dissimilar is really fun