#ganymedesclock

(cont) stands out to me because, well, you've done a great job explaining everything wrong with childhood innocence as a social construct, but on the other hand, I feel like there's something to be said about combatting the "denaturalized" attitude that's applied to many people. How do you thread that needle, combatting both the 'naturalized innocent child' and the 'unnaturalized monster' without feeding the other? I'd like to discuss. (2/2)

Hi! Thanks for reaching out over here. :) I love this question, because it gets at exactly what makes dealing with social constructs so difficult. It's impossible to not have them, and if we compare "childhood innocence" to like Puritan child devilry, then at least the former is better than the latter!

What I try to focus on is identifying the goals behind the constructs and then breaking down the ways the constructs fail to meet those goals. For really any social construct of childhood, the goal is to create systems that provide a "good" life for kids. Even the Puritans wanted that ... it's just that their idea of what would be "good" is, uh, different from mine.

The Romantic belief in childhood innocence, on the other hand, has some underlying goals that I can get behind: encourage children's curiosity and imaginations! Provide them with access to green spaces! Give them freedom to play! Assume generally good intentions, even if they don't yet have the knowledge base to understand or react to a situation like an adult would!

All good stuff, and hopefully goals that anyone can get behind. However, the construct itself is so wrapped up with white supremacy and heteropatriarchy that we immediately run into problems. Ways of being that go against those systems are seen as evidence of a lack of innocence, so whole swaths of kids get excluded from consideration in those aforementioned goals.

Beyond that, "innocence" gets so politicized and used against kids in ways that also impede those goals, especially when "innocence" is seen as something that can only be preserved through ignorance. Withholding knowledge from children doesn't actually provide a carefree and happy life; it creates conditions of anxiety and vulnerability (at best).

So when I'm talking to people about critiquing childhood innocence and I get resistance (as I often do), I try to emphasize that I'm not against those goals, and I'm not at all saying that I think kids are "guilty." It's just that when we focus on the material effects of the social construction, we can see that it's not actually benefiting real kids in the way that (ideally) most people would want it to.

Just in general, thanks for being there and I'm glad I was able to meet you

Thank you so much! And YES!!! I AGREE!!! Assistive and medical technology is amazing, and it's always helped me (especially during hospitalizations) to view them almost like comforting robotic guardians of some kind. They're always by your side, connected to you, and keeping a watchful eye on the readings of the most vital parts of you, a fragile organic human being. They're ready to sound an alarm the SECOND something is off, and it can feel like their only mission in life is to help others and keep people safe.

xO aaaa thank you! I've been having a lot of fun with the pedipalps.

It's both the challenge and fun part of making an alien species is figuring what the fuck does what. Thankfully, since a good portion of farlings are based off insects I'm not starting from scratch

Leon's name is of course the oldest, since his goes back to the old Cat Comixz days. Originally, Leon and Melody were names I was going to use for kids if I ever had them, though they ended up bestowed upon my delightful cat children instead.

Unfortunately since those were names I picked out back when I was in late middle school, I can't say for certain where they were originally inspired from. Best guess with Leon is his namesake being Leon from Kingdom Hearts. Not even the Final Fantasy game he's from, no, from Kingdom Hecking Hearts.

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I truly wish I had an interesting and deep line of reasoning behind Luca's name, but really the best I can offer is that when I was first coming up with the character, that name just immediately jumped into the forefront of my mind. It was just "okay here's this character concept LUCA HER NAME IS LUCA IS CANNOT BE ANYTHING ELSE." I probably owe Square Enix again for this one, since I'm pretty sure I first heard Luca as a name in Final Fantasy X... though in that game, it's the name of a city.

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Trinity's name is actually a relic from the Pre-Alpha version of KttFF. Basically, before I actually had any real concept for the story beyond "Leon ends up in the far future," the comic was going to be stuffed to the gills with references to sci-fi media. Probably not like clever or meaningful ones, just references for references sake.

I had to get down the genders of the Future Siblings first, but that took a weirdly long time; I was pretty confident about Ms Shepard (named after Commander Shepard from Mass Effect), but I was having trouble with the other sibling. (I'd like to pretend Trinity being trans was a Clever Nod I specifically planned out before the comic started, but that honestly just developed naturally along with her autism.)

Anyway the point is I eventually settled on The Other Sibling being a woman, and basically went down my list of Arbitrary References to make and figured, "Eh, Trinity (from the Matrix) is as good a name as any."

A special thanks to my friend @ganymedesclock for this! He drew Luca on her way to deliver coffee. Is it for Trinity or Ms Shepard? YOU GUYS MAKE THE CALL.

I absolutely LOVE the way he drew Luca here. The extra patches of light green on her outfit’s shoulders, the magnificent wings, the toe beans… Tragically, I decided early on to not give Tecktrins toe beans, BUT given the genetic variation they’re capable of, some of them must ABSOLUTELY have them.

like the scanner calls them basically all brawn no brains but the fate of the Degasi suggests they recognize 'one of their own' and react to avenge/defend it, and their circling behavior means they're basically taking their sweet time sizing you up before they attack. They have dexterous appendages that could be easily adapted to tool use.

...And now I have a stray plot bunny because this thought is running into "if the warpers talk to each other using sophisticated protocols the radios can pick up, they're undeniably sapient themselves and their behavior patterns attacking you reflect this" and just imagining like. a reaper leviathan beginning to develop telepathic communication, trying to eat a disoriented warper who's lost their connection to the others, warper cuts reaper's mouth to get it to back off, and they end up in a standoff that ends up a conversation.

I mean just imagining a reaper leviathan as an early-sapience protagonist is very funny to me. My mental image constructs a teenager who lucked out genetically and got big faster than her neighbors so she thinks she's hot shit but is understimulated due to lack of a challenge, but whose primary emotional cope for basically anything she can't rip to pieces is to just Yell At It until it realizes how big and scary she is and backs down.

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Oh my god you have no idea how much I'd adore an au like this. While I love the Architects as dearly as anyone, one of my biggest disappointments with Subnautica was that the intelligent species native to the planet got kind of left to the endgame/shuttled to the side, and then cut from the sequel when the main writer for Below Zero left. Like, I kind of get it, they wanted to have it be a big lead up in the og story and they had troubles in the next, but I want!!! More intelligent fish aliens!!! ESPECIALLY since the Sea Emperor has a concept of reincarnation, implying a philosophy and belief system that is unique to their species and doesn't require hands to maintain.

Though honestly, I think there's a solid enough baseline for that plotbunny already- Planet 4546B has recently undergone/was in the grips of a mass extinction event due to the bacteria plague, which means that there is not only a good deal of resource scarcity compared to the bountiful sea life that the ancestors of the current-day Reapers experience. Paired with that, the Sea Dragon Leviathans- known predators of the Reaper- have dwindled in number to only about three active individuals, which means that there's a lot more Reapers around to compete with. Assuming that intelligence is tied to adaptability, and that the Sea Emperors and Reapers share a common ancestor with the trait that formed into telepathy in the Emperor species, and you have a setup where natural selection is prioritizing Reaper leviathans who are not only mature strong enough and fast enough to outclass the other Reapers, but are also intelligent enough to outwit them. Size and quick maturity might have been a confounding factor in human evolution, but in terms of an egg-laying species, we can perhaps have them experience a longer incubation time, which results in a bigger hatchling. The increased size allows the baby to outcompete other juveniles, which in turn gives it the calories needed to help build that big brain that becomes a necessary tool once it becomes large enough to be seen as competition by adult Reapers. And as for the telepathy, being able to potentially settle territorial disputes and gather huntsmates, leading to less energy and risk wasted on members of the same species, and more being aimed at taking down more prey. It's a totally feasible fictitious evolution path, especially since the leviathans themselves are so mysterious

(Also, animals always tend to be more intelligent than people expect them to be. If the PDA was scanning for brain size in relation to muscle mass for the Reapers, its very well likely that it assumed intelligence based off of that, which we know from birds is not an accurate judgement.)

BUT ANYWAYS I'm also incredibly fond of this concept because ngl it also reminds me of how I write young dragons (especially from a specific tribe) where young female adolescents go through this big period of teenage badasseryhood where they essentially try to act like they're hot shit to try to intimidate potential rivals and test the waters to see which of the older females are starting to go soft so that they can go on ahead with their territory-claiming. For this specific Reaper, I can easily imagine a scenario where she's got an advantageous new mutation that lead to her outclassing her peers, but being in that awkward spot where she's just not quite big enough yet to challenge any of the older reapers, so she instead spends a good deal of time mucking about trying to work on looking Big and Scary, which involves a lot of tearing shit apart with her mandibles, roaring, and trying to stun prey into silence with her telepathy, which makes her Very Loud but also Very Good at Being Loud with her thoughts.

It would also be interesting to delve a little into Warper telepathy- the Architects bioengineered them into what they are now out of a probably-extinct species, and are thus likely responsible for giving them the ability to interact with computers and teleport, but since telepathy already existed in at least the Sea Emperors, the ability to communicate could either be natural to the species they modified, or implemented because they themselves did not think that they would be capable without being networked. What makes this so interesting, however, is that the Sea Emperor mentions that the Architects were incapable of hearing her (most likely because they were all networked; Al-an makes a very big deal about that, so they were probably closed off to outsiders and attuned only to other Architects), so it could be that the Warpers were ignoring this very loud new baby up until one got disconnected from the rest (perhaps due to mechanical failure?) and thus ONLY has Large Screaming Teenager to talk to. Which sets up a very interesting potential partnership between a very old, very exasperated, and very aware-of-vulnerability-Warper, and a very bored teenage Reaper who only knows violence and yelling, but is letting this particular Warper live because she's so bored out of her skull that the intrigue of helping them is better than tearing up the reef and getting tail-smacked by her elders for the nth time. Maybe the Warper can teach her how to use her telepathy better, and talk to her about the Architects and their purpose while they travel to find new parts to fix them with.

Honestly, I think that's fair- being intimidated by the large underwater creatures is intentional after all, and Reapers admittedly still scare the everloving shit out of me when I'm not prepared to deal with them (those roars hit some primal mammal instinct of 'WE ARE FUCKING UNDER ATTACK' and their faces are oddly human and angry to me), but all the creatures act so animal to me that my brain just automatically files away their attacks as 'curious creature mouthing at my ship' or 'idiot thinks I'm another fish and is being all territorial about it', which kind of nukes that fear of the unknown. Warpers are the only exception to that, which makes them kinda creepy, but they're also pussies that don't like taking a knife to the face which makes dealing with them teleporting you somewhat easier. Can't help you with the crabsquids though, those fucks went from 'creepy' to 'annoying as hell' real fast, and I have no idea how to make them stop blasting my ship

Honestly, I can see it! It would probably be a rather rare occurrence that happens only against powerful enemies capable of getting within range, but yeah I can totally see it. A tail-whip is a good means of catching an enemy off guard, its fast, and he's got enough power packed into that tiny body to put enough force into it to shove someone back to a comfortable fighting distance. It's kinda the PK equivalent to the mage-bonk that you'll sometimes get in soulsborne games when you get too close to a caster and they do some sort of stagger attack (like a smack with fists, a staff, or a book, or just a straight-up headbutt in the case of the burger king sorcerers in elden ring) to drive you back, then deliver a powerful soul spear at point-blank range. You don't expect it, so you get stunned, and then suddenly the cosmos are exploding all around you and you're back to square one again.

Also yeah lmao he'd totally hold back. I feel like anything that has irritated him enough to draw an actual fight out of him would likely have provoked him enough for him to want to make an example out of them, and tail-whipping them to death just doesn't have that sort of flair to it, even though he can probably strike with enough force to crack the carapace of a Higher Being and kill an unarmed mortal who gets in his way. I can also see him doing it in sparring with the Great Knights and Hollow sometimes, as it would be a good lesson to teach during battle, and would probably not trigger his feeding response like biting or clawing might during fights with the Great Knights. Less barbaric in his eyes too, because it's more akin to kicking someone's legs out from underneath them than just lunging at them with fangs and claws bared.