It Is Time Once Again To Think About Par%l:

[Canon: talking animals and fantasy monster (Fanfic Flamingo) Fanfic: humans! Humans everywhere!]

waking up on a thursday be like

non-human trans characters who use different gender signifiers from us is sooo underrated. transfem bird person who thinks her colorful plumage means she cant pass only for every human she meets to be completely clueless. transmasc slime person who uses food dye to change themselves to bright orange, leading everyone they know to question how the hell slime gender works.

no fucking way

.

Ok but, imagine a xenofiction story where the main characters are "feral" domestic animals (that have run away from home to live in the wild for some reason), but instead of romanticizing their experience (demonizing captivity in the process) they show all the shit they have to deal with because they are not animals designed to live "free" and how there is no place for them in the nature anymore.

Or I don't know if there is already a story like that, btw.

Also going to finally make a pinned post for all my stuff:

BOGLEECH - my tumblr blog is named after this website I created around 2002 and still update. Thousands of pages worth of content focusing on creature design as well as real biology. My review of the original Legend of Zelda monsters might be the most straightforward example of my articles. Links to some of the most popular content:

POKEMON REVIEW ARCHIVE: - I rate and review each and every single Pokemon, in Pokedex order, on its merits as a creature design. I also do so as someone whose favorite animals are all parasites.

DIGIMON REVIEW ARCHIVE - same, but more chaotic.

CREEPYPASTA COOKOFF ARCHIVE - for several years I hosted a yearly writing contest before it grew too big for me to keep up with. There are over a thousand user submitted horror, fantasy, sci fi and surrealist stories here emphasizing unconventional, original ideas you seldom see from the "creepypasta" community!

The original "MORTASHEEN" Monster Archive - since the early 2000's I've created and illustrated more than 800 creatures and counting for my own monster-catching world, now set for release as a tabletop RPG setting.

AWFUL HOSPITAL: SERIOUSLY THE WORST EVER (page one): an interactive comedy-horror-sci-fi webcomic I started in 2014 about a medical facility that could maybe be better.

Some of my other internet stuff:

PATREON - constant work makes my patreon updates inconsistent, but the content backlog goes back years with a huge amount of exclusive art and writing. I try to put up new exclusive stuff whenever I can.

ETSY - I design all sorts of original enamel pins like these, plus I sell zero-maintenance terrarium plants (just leave them in a jar!), original books and other things!

COLOR THE ABYSS (available on the above etsy!) - a 30 page educational deep sea coloring book! Includes a few famous favorites like giant isopods and hagfish, but mostly focuses on less popular, often much weirder animals.

UNBELIEVABLE BUGS - also regularly restocked in the etsy store, 30 of the strangest and most surprising arthropods most people have likely never heard of, illustrated by myself and @revretch, written for even the youngest kids to understand (but will likely teach you something new at any age)

My Itch.io and Ko-fi - both sell digital versions of my books, including some creepypasta collections and my first novel, "Return of the Living," about a world of entirely ghosts suddenly dealing with the appearance of ghost-hunting monsters.

TWITCH CHANNEL - I now try to stream something at least monthly, sometimes weekly when possible, from horror games to books and art.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL - archives my twitch streams and other little things.

INSTAGRAM - look at pictures of my huge weird collection of toys and Halloween collectibles

BLUESKY - I'm going to put mainly just updates to my stuff on here. SEE ALSO:

HUMANS-B-GONE - a science fiction animated series by my partner @revretch, about a world of kaiju-size, technologically advanced insects and arachnids to whom vertebrates like us are just pesky little "gubs." Also has a tumblr account @humansbgone

@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.

non-human character: *moves their ears/wings/tail to indicate their emotional state and for emphasis when communicating*

me: