LOL sapient beings
Oct. 8th, 2010 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggAs a result of a couple of previous posts, I've been thinking about what factors in a fictional world make characters feel plausible to me. They may be post-humans, humans from a culture that doesn't map directly to any RL culture, or beings from a completely different species history, maybe even from a planet where the building blocks of life a different. What is it that makes one writer's space-faring, methane-breathing octopods more convincing than another writer's Earth-bound humans? And I realized that, for my personal taste, one thing that really works for me is having one character say/do/think/type something that makes another character of the same species facetentacle.
Most of the time, I don't like sweeping statements about human nature, and I'm even less likely to think well of sweeping statements applied to all possible cogitating creatures. But one thing I am comfortable extrapolating from my observations of RL Earth people is the possibility that, everywhere and everywhen throughout the multiverse, no matter the history (including evolutionary history) of the species and culture(s) involved, people make other people think/feel something roughly equivalent to WTF?! My brain is leaking!
Most of the time, I don't like sweeping statements about human nature, and I'm even less likely to think well of sweeping statements applied to all possible cogitating creatures. But one thing I am comfortable extrapolating from my observations of RL Earth people is the possibility that, everywhere and everywhen throughout the multiverse, no matter the history (including evolutionary history) of the species and culture(s) involved, people make other people think/feel something roughly equivalent to WTF?! My brain is leaking!