Zoanthropic cultures

Which is why I'll avoid stereotypes, I mentioned earlier that no two lion-men are alike, I would love to see someone make a stereotyoe out of that.

Uh...you really don’t see how it might be stereotypical to reduce the entirety of African culture down to “lions”? Or any culture down to a single animal? I mean, that’s literally the definition of a stereotype, and that’s without even considering the connotations of the animal in question.

At what point did I say the ENTIRE culture was comprised of lions? The beastmen are people who happen to live in those areas, the culture that exists there is the result of something other than them.

Listen, I’m not trying to stop you from writing anything. All I’m saying is be prepared for the criticism you’re going to receive, because something like this veers very close to problematic.

I'll be honest, I really don't care if someone gets offended or something like that. I'll be willing to take criticism if it's constructive.

“I don’t care if people get offended” isn’t a stance that’s going to do you any favors. All it does is betray a massive amount of insensitivity.

My suggestion would be to create an entirely fictional world, rather than using countries from Earth. This is probably the easiest way to avoid unfortunate implications, but you still need to handle the subject with a great deal of sensitivity. Things like this are very easy to mess up and send to a bad place.

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 24th 2019 at 3:38:02 AM

That's....literally what I am doing.

Umm...

What?

Look, you’ve had multiple people tell you that this concept has a very serious chance of being taken as borderline racist without some changes. If you’re willing to go ahead with it despite that that’s fine, but you should be aware how that will seem. “It’s racist and I don’t care” isn’t a great stance to take as a writer.

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 24th 2019 at 3:38:28 AM

Notice the use of the word "Analogous", they are NOT those countries. Inspired by them yes, but they aren't the same.

You do realize how that doesn’t change the racial implications one bit, right?

Don’t try to draw analogies between real countries and beastmen species, just work from a fictional template to avoid any unfortunate implications.

If you create new cultures for these races, including any linguistic, belief tropes and behavioral patterns, rather than borrowing from the human cultures that live in those regions, you'll be fine. Just be careful; as you can see, this path leads through a minefield.

I really don't see the problem here, all I am doing is making beastman that are appropriate to the locations they are found in. Lions in a savannah, tigers in a jungle, jackals in a desert, polar bears in an arctic area, there can't be racial implications if there's nothing to identify to.

Edit: Well of course there's brand new cultures and linguistics for the beastmen, it'd be boring otherwise.

Edited by sifsand on Oct 24th 2019 at 3:44:28 AM

Nice job moving the goalposts.

It’s the cultural aspect that’s the problem. If your polar bear beast men all dress and act like stereotypical Eskimos, that’s the issue, not having polar bear beastmen living in the arctic. You just have to make sure to avoid drawing close analogies to real-life cultures, especially with certain animals and cultures.

Edited by archonspeaks on Oct 24th 2019 at 3:48:13 AM

I've already adressed that issue and will infact not have the beastmen share a stereotypical culture portrayal. I made a mistake alright, geez.

@archon Stop bugging him, it's not productive.

@sif don't make it mono-culture. Included variations for various sub groups, factions, or regions even if it's minor details like food or color. Likewise, don't feel compelled to make weres from an area a certain type. There's no reason you can't have werelions AND were honey badgers from the same region.

Uhhhhhh, the victim would be "a nice chunk of the world's colonized non-white cultures" and the crime is "white folks conquering us and calling us subhumans, often going so far as to put us in human zoos, and characterizing us in literature as savages or people who need to be 'civilized.'"

Of course there are stories of animal shapeshifters, Baleful Polymorph curses, beast-men, and positive animal associations in many cultures. But the "POC are beasts and we need to exterminate/civilize them" connotation has forced its way into the narrative as well, and we won't get rid of it in just "a few years."

sifsand: Of course you don't mean to call the beast-men "inferior," and thank the gods that you're not having the cultures be SOLELY beast-men, but realize it's not just about you and your fun story.

If you post this on a public website, or send this to a beta-reader or editor, SOMEONE WILL TELL YOU that the visual trope of "beast-men connected to POC cultures" is fraught with Unfortunate Implications that may or may not dwarf your story.

Honestly, here's what I'm gonna tell you:

You're acting like a lot of other authors who accidentally fall into using stereotypes they didn't know about, get nicely warned about it by folks, and then assumed exactly what you did: "Writing is about having fun! And I'm not actually using those stereotypes, so nobody's gonna mind as long as they read the story!"

With that in mind, you clearly don't think the social issues with your idea are that big of a deal, so I'm not gonna bother anymore.

BUT DO NOT SAY THAT WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.

Edited by Sharysa on Oct 24th 2019 at 5:32:17 AM

Except like I just mentioned, these beastmen aren't meant to be connected to said cultures. I made a mistake associating them in the first place and won't do so when I actually get to writing them. Really, I should've just said the biome instead of the culture.

The biomes are still inevitably connected to real-life cultures because people still live in those regions, and their culture has adapted to the biomes. Unless you're willing to do a LOT of work in building cultures from scratch, you'll have to borrow SOME traits from existing cultures just to keep from going nuts.

I know, that's why the cultures present are inspired by real life ones. I said this from the start.

That’s the whole problem we’ve been pointing out to you.

And I was pointing out that all I needed were animal suggestions appropriate to the biome, that's ALL I was asking. Wish I'd never bothered now

Then please phrase your questions more carefully in the future- we don't mind helping each other out, but we can't read your mind.

Honestly, before this discussion turned to racial animal stereotypes, I was looking into answering your original question by just looking up the Wikipedia page for the geographical region in question and going to the "Flora and Fauna" section, as well as the local mythology. Seriously, don't discount Wikipedia as a starting point.

Does that help?

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Oct 24th 2019 at 11:51:04 AM

It does thank you, sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones. Felt like getting a boot to the head trying to get an answer without controversy here.

Yeah, I think you might have just needed to phrase it more clearly. Asking for beastmen analogies to human cultures is obviously going to attract criticism.

I'll keep that in mind, I have a problem with that sort of thing and I'm sorry for that. I apologize in advance.