One of my favorite tricks for designing alien species/cultures is to take a real animal with an interesting lifecycle and think about what that biology would translate to if they had human intelligence
Example: silk moths as a base species
Because the moths themselves don’t eat and only live long enough to mate and then starve to death, the entire culture is made up of children and adolescents. The older children raise the younger ones, with families being made up of hatchmates from different years.
Because molts and eventual transformation into a short lived adult happen on a set schedule, families have a cycle— when your oldest set of siblings cocoon to become adults, you wait at the mating grounds and try to adopt their newborns after they pass. If that fails, you take any ‘orphans’ you can find.
Because death and birth are nearly simultaneous, they have a religion based around reincarnation, and infants with markings similar to a parent are often given their name. Claiming the offspring of a beloved family member is vitally important, because you want to be able to protect their soul and keep them close.
Because it’s hard to track the offspring of your male family members, there are sometimes major fights when a family sees an infant with familiar markings in another family’s clutch.
Between mating seasons, their culture is extremely food-oriented, because everyone is growing and silkworms eat nigh constantly. They spend most of their lives outdoors but sleep and shelter from bad weather in large family dwellings made from wood and the remains of the silk cocoons of prior generations.
everyone is really vibing with the silkworm aliens I see
enemies to lovers be like honey (derogatory) to honey (affectionate) and friends to lovers be like i love you (platonic) to i love you (romantic) and i am a complete sucker for both.
Teachers: Wikipedia is very unreliable *Hands out 25 year old textbooks instead*
Alrighty guys ,gals, and other genders and lack thereof I’m gonna teach ya a thing.
A lot of teachers will go on about not using wikipedia as a source.
“It’s bad,” they say. “I will deduct points if you do it.”
Well wikipedia is actually a great source of information and fuck what your teacher said, you absolutely can use it.
The key though is knowing
A.How to use it.
B. How to source it.
and
C. whether it is good info or trash.
NowFirst Lets look up something on wikipedia. Say your writing a paper on Gregor Mendel and Mendelian Inheritance.
So you zoom over to the Wikipedia page on Mendelian Inheritance.
Now there is a lot of information here. Not all of it is strictly necessary for that essay you are writing. So you read through and suddenly you see something that is good info for your essay.
Boy oh boy this information is useful. To bad your teacher said No Wikipedia Ever.
However there is a loophole.
It’s right there.
No. Go closer.
You see that little four? Its a citation number. Think of wikipedia as it’s own essay. It got it’s information from other sources out there. Just like you are trying to right now. And since there is a citation, it’s going to be listed at the end of the wikipedia article.
Look at citation number 4
Look at that you have your first citation. From Wikipedia.
And look. Do you see it. There is a link. It’s the blue words with the boxy arrow thingamajig.
That thing. Click it.
Why did you leave wikipedia you ask? Wikipedia is great. You have several sources from there. But There is more than what the put in to that wiki article. Those sources Wikipedia gave you are helpful. And now that you are at the source, you can utilize it.
But what if its a book that’s the source.
You can either head to your local library and see if they have it, order it, or avoid the book source. Online sources are just as valuable.
Also do not quote directly from the wikipedia. Quote from the source and then use quote citation.
And MLA citation. Use MLA citation. Since you are linked to the sources cite them. Not the wikipedia.
Your teacher will never know. And now you can finish that sweet essay you got planned.
You’re on your way to greatness.
For anybody not aware you can abuse the absolute fuck out of Wikipedia for any papers!
I’m an academic librarian and I 100% endorse this post
I am also an academic librarian and I 100% endorse this post. CITATIONS are important.
I am also an academic librarian who endorses this post. When you use Wikipedia like this, you are using it EXACTLY in the way it was meant to be used. Thank you, @greenhouse-nurse!
