#Discussion Questions

[it-happened-once-in-a-meme]

Philosophic Vampire Discussion Questions

Warning: Vampire-related content including the usual things (blood, but not graphic description), mentions of addiction (not specified which)

What are some human traits that would make it easier for them once they're tramsformed into a vampire?

What are some that would make it more difficult?

Assuming that:

-vampires have to drink blood every now and then to function properly

->they can have big blood cravings

-they're vulnerable to religious things like holy water or christian artifacts (correct me on that, if it's not only christianity)

-vampires can grow very old/can only be killed very specifically

Examples:

Would having a strong sense of morals make being a vampire easier (being as nice to humans as possible->them not growing suspicious), or is a certain level of immorality neccessary?

Would being vegetarian before (for the animals, not just for the climate) be more helpful or difficult? Would the control over themselves help in holding back when they get the craving for human blood? Or would not wanting to drink blood make them too week? What degree of vegetarianism would be the best: from someone who just started to someone who's been vegetarian for very long?

Would being aromantic/asexual be of any help when it comes to craving human blood (which is often depicted as a sexual and/or romantic thing)?

Would knowing a lot about history help in finding new vampire friends, or would it make them angry to see someone act as if they knew more than them/were alive in that time?

Would having an addiction in the past make it more difficult because the more addictions someone's had, the more likely they are to become addicted to something else. Or could first-hand experience be useful because that person has already developed some distraction techniques?

Would being outgoing be of more help than being introverted? With being outgoing having the advantage of having an easier time approaching (& learning from) other vampires, who may already have centuries-old friendship, while being introverted would make it easier to protect humans from yourself, and keep out of vampire/other fantasy creature drama.

Would having human friends make being a vampire easier (having connections to humans, staying grounded), or more difficult (them passing away before you)? What amount would be best?

Is there an ideal age or point in life for a vampire transition?

Are there certain jobs that would make transitioning easier?

What kind of person would arose the least suspicion?

What are the (dis)advantages of being famous & rich prior to transitioning?

Do you have any recommendations of vampire media that go into some of these things (& that don't feature a minor x a very old vampire thing being presented as romantic/sexy)? 🤩

[discussion-questions]

1) This post is phrased in a very specific way. What does this phrasing imply? 2) What do they mean by “a time which didn’t end in 30 or 00″? 3) What does the use of “he was forced” instead of “he had” add to the post?

He was forced to begin or end an activity at a time which didn't end in 30 or 00

[housedyke]

The thing about Buffy is that it's been thoroughly established that she doesn't do casual sex. She rejects guys in high school who move too fast too soon, is devastated when she find out there isn't anything emotional between her and Parker, and makes no non-magical attempt to sleep with people she isn't in a relationship with

So option 1 is that she's decided Spike, of all people, will be the first time she has casual, no-feelings sex. Or, option 2, she knows they have some weird fucked up relationship but doesn't want to say it out loud

[ifwebefriends]

The post would not be as funny without the intentional capitalization and punctuation errors because these errors add to the informal, relaxed, casual tone of the post that make the reader more so feel like they are talking to a friend or amicable acquaintance. If the post had had proper capitalization and punctuation, it would have felt more formal and therefore would have mimicked the stressful nature of professional writing and communication, making the post generally less enjoyable to the average viewer.

The post makes a reference to Mojang’s 2011 indie sandbox video game Minecraft. In the game, there are various animals and creatures that can permanently “despawn” if the player character moves too far away from them. The name tag item is meant to prevent this from occurring, as it gives a creature a custom name, chosen by the player, to mark their existence and prevent them from despawning regardless of how far away the player character moves.

Considering the fact that tamed creatures in Minecraft do not require a name tag in order to prevent them from despawning, the boyfriend in question is most likely not a dog, cat, or parrot. The boyfriend could conceivably be any other creature in the game, from a villager to a zombie to a sheep. However, considering the popularity of the Endermen on this website as well as their humanoid-nature, I believe that the boyfriend is, in fact, an Enderman.

you didnt put a nametag on your boyfriend and he despawned. sorry.

[technically-human]

Confessional... things get complicated when you're a ghost.

@i-am-as-normal-as-you-are asked for, and this is a literal quote, "R!Edwin going to a confessional (full angst)" so yeah... full angst indeed.

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[uncle-fruity]

Discussion questions:

1. What does it mean to have bodily autonomy? Should a person have the right to do anything to their own body without limitations? Why or why not?

2. If there are limitations that need to be set, who should be allowed to set those limitations? What limitations would you put on someone else's bodily autonomy? Why?

3. How is the restriction of another person's personal decisions helpful? How is it harmful? If anyone, who do these restrictions benefit: the individual or the wider society? Does an individual have more responsibility to themselves or to society?

[readingcomprehensionist]

1. OP is discussing the trend among Taylor Swift fans of projecting queerness onto the pop icon. This is often done through the development of conspiracy theories that claim to provide evidence of her queerness, including her supposed relationships with other women (1, 2). Such fans (commonly self-described as ‘Gaylors’) will also frequently perform elaborate displays of mental gymnastics to explain why she has not yet publicly come out as queer (3).

2. OP is providing examples of pop stars who are openly queer. This is done to highlight the absurdity of projecting queerness onto a heterosexual celebrity, while actual queer pop stars go overlooked and under-appreciated.

3. The overall message of OPs original post is that there is an abundance of queer women in pop music, and that they can’t understand why a fan would go to such lengths to imagine a world where Taylor Swift is queer, rather than directing that energy towards supporting and enjoying actual queer women in music.

4. The issue that is occurring with several people in the notes and OPs list in the original post, is that many people are allegedly commenting that the sexualities of the listed pop stars are ones that do not exclude attraction to genders other than ‘woman’ (i.e., bisexuality, pansexuality). The most likely explanation for this issue is that the commenters misunderstood OPs original post in which they provide a list of “women who actually like women” to mean “women who only like women” or “women who are lesbians.” This could have been avoided by a careful reading of the original post before commenting (assuming a baseline understanding of the definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality).

5. There are multiple possible reasons as to why user ericrmalice may have believed OP was claiming that Taylor Swift is bisexual. A few of these possible explanations include, but are not limited to:

User ericrmalice may be one of the aforementioned ‘Gaylors’ who buys into conspiracy theories that “prove” Taylor Swift’s queerness. In this case, it is possible that ericrmalice may be so deeply invested in these beliefs that they automatically reject the notion of Taylor Swift being straight. Because the original post does not directly assert Taylor Swift’s heterosexuality, ericrmalice may have been operating under the assumption that “everyone knows Taylor Swift is bisexual,” or similar.

User ericrmalice may have been confused by the bisexual flag in OPs icon. This imagery may have subconsciously led ericrmalice to misremember the wording of the original post, or to assume that OP believed Taylor Swift is bisexual.

Based on the wording of user ericrmalice’s reply, it is possible they had spent a significant amount of time reading through the notes on the post before making their addition. In this case, I believe it is possible that their misinterpretation of the original post was influenced by other replies in the notes. It is also possible that the lapse in time between reading the original post and making their addition contributed to their misremembering details of the original post.

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[crimeronan]

i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

[rocketbirdie]

choose your fighter

[thatone-churro]

hang on. there’s no way we’re revitalizing “are [cishet] aro people queer” discourse. it is almost 20-fucking-24. no. say sike right now. you’re all fucking ridiculous. how are we not only not over this, but bringing it up for active discourse again. and acting like the things being said are common discussion and not. blatant aphobia. which is homophobia. it’s queerphobia. did we never fucking learn from the many “they want us to fight amongst ourselves because if we’re divided it’s easier to ruin us” type talks that everyone was making a while ago. or was that a phase too. what happened to “anything not heteronormative is what queer is. anything with romance/sex/gender that’s othered from what society deems the “norm” is what we are. we are a community of outcasts because the greater community doesn’t want us either way.” what the shit.

[discussion-questions]

[Image Description: The image is a tweet of a screenshot of a reddit post from r/Showerthoughts, which reads, “The moon is actually more useful than the sun, since the moon gives us light at night, when it’s dark. The sun only gives us light in the day, when it’s already bright.” The reddit post has -3 upvotes. End Image Description.] 1) What kinds of posts does r/Showerthoughs usually feature? Does this post align with those expectations? Why or why not? 2) The original post on reddit was reposted onto twitter and then again onto tumblr. Does this add to the humor of the post, or was it unintentional? We can see that the original post on reddit was not well received by the people on that site. Do you think this post would have performed better on other sites, if posted there earnestly? Why or why not? 3) Do you think the original poster was being satirical in their original post? Why or why not? Do you think people are laughing at or with the original poster of the reddit post? Why do you think this?

[bonefall]

"How big should a Clan territory be?"

For the dozens of people who have asked this over the last couple of years!

This question comes in a lot of forms; "How big are the Clan territories?" "How much space does one Clan need?" "How much land should I give my Clans to exist in?" The answer is a bit complicated, and depends on the type of land, what you're going for exactly, the setting, so on.

But, broadly, there's TWO particular factors at play here; How anthropomorphic you're portraying your warriors, and how productive the land is.

Factor 1: The Anthro Scale

I'm starting with this one because it could you the simpler answer. The Erins write Clan cats like humans in cat bodies, with massive social units and communal living. Realistic feral cats don't act like Clan cats. They are only semi-social, due to domestication.

See, a Clan cat will "share" territory between all of its members, and some Clans have canonically hit populations of over 50 individuals. Real feral colonies consist of "overlapping circles" of somewhere between 2 - 15 cats, most of them related females.

This is relevant because, even in densely populated areas with as much food as they can eat, truly feral colonies will have about 2 cats per 5 acres, capping out at about 15 members. Queens will hang out together and raise their kittens communally, but they will hunt and patrol in their own "circle." These boundaries are violently enforced against outside cats, especially if it's too crowded.

(Toms have circles 5x as big as a queen's, overlapping several territories. They're also considerably less social.)

So, if you wanted to incorporate some cat behavior into your Clan's mindset about how big their territory should be, while still being willing to sacrifice a bit of "realism" for groups over 15-ish members, simply take Clan population and multiply it by 2.5 acres.

30 cats = 75 acres. That's a little under 57 football fields, if you're American, or 50 football fields, if you're European.

Extra reading: How realistic cat territories work. Contains the numbers I'm referencing.

It's also very important to know; feral cat density is completely tied to food availability, the big numbers numbers are for cats whose needs are met. Cats are solitary hunters, and when they feel like they have to work for their food, they become VERY territorial. The density of cats in rural areas can be as low as 1 molly per 15 acres, even lower for toms, and they will leave if hunting is not easy.

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT FEED FERAL CATS. Please GOD they are SO invasive, please do not give colonies food, they still hunt when they're full so you just end up concentrating a ton of predators in one place. They are not warriors with a law against disrespecting food, they are just kitty cats with silly kitty instincts

I have a suspicion that most of the people who are asking the question aren't really looking for a "realistic cat" answer, though. We LOVE our big cat Clans with their complicated politics around here. You're probably wondering how much land you need to feed your population!

Factor 2: Land Productivity

The exact amount of space is going to vary a lot, because it's more about productivity of the land to sustain a prey population than it is raw size. Remember what we learned back in Warrior Bites: Dietary Needs; a 30-cat Clan will need approximately 3 pounds of meat (10,500 calories) per day, which is about 2 rabbits, or 105 mice.

Here's some visual examples of what I mean. This one (1) acre homestead...

Has 20 patches of high-value crops, plus an orchard, AND livestock pens. This territory alone could attract enough crows, mice, rats, rabbits, and sparrows to feed all those cats daily. That's not even counting the humans themselves, who may be friendly enough to the colony to toss them kibble occasionally.

(this is why cats domesticated themselves. Even without the free food from the humans, farms are extremely productive hunting grounds.)

Meanwhile, the Edmonton Mall, which is a whopping five (5) acres...

Would be utterly barren. Best food you're going to get out of this wasteland is the leftovers humans toss out, and maybe the rats and pigeons that scavenge as well. It's 5x the space, and yet, infinitely harder to feed the same amount of cats.

So, the most helpful bit of advice I'm gonna give you is this; DON'T ask yourself "how big should this territory be?" You're starting with the wrong question. Start with a real location, and think about how you'd find 3 pounds of meat a day in that area.

It will be a LOT easier to think about the logistics in those terms, and this will lead you to the waaay more productive (and fun) worldbuilding questions. Such as;

"Where would the good hunting spots be?"

"What kinds of animals would they be eating? What sorts of beasts can threaten them, here?"

"How many of these animals would my 30 cat Clan need to hunt a day to equal about 3 pounds?"

"Where would these animals be getting THEIR food?"

"Is there enough habitat in the area for the prey to breed and nest? If not, is there more land beyond the territory that the prey is coming from?"

"Where would infrastructure like dens, walls, and dirtplaces go? What would these be made of?"

"Are there any neat spots for the cats to casually hang out on?"

"What would make for a super cool arena for my climactic narrative boss fights?"

"Does this area have unique stage hazards that my cats would have to learn to deal with?"

"Which sorts of plants and herbs would they encounter?"

If your Clan is tool-using, like BB!Clans are, then you can ask even more advanced questions. Like, where you'd find kindle for fire, what objects you can use as crafting materials, and what might make for unique trade goods.

Think about other things related to your Clan's biome-- in a tundra or desert, there will be less for prey to eat, so the territory will be large to cope with the low density. If there's a major body of water, they might have a constant supply of aquatic prey from upstream. Hunting grounds might change based on the seasons.

Also remember not to underestimate how fast small animals breed, and how many of them there can be in one area. Even using low estimates, 1 female mouse has 6 pups, 7 x 6 = 42, 42 x 6 = 252, 252 x 6 = 1,452. It takes only 4 months for mouse population growth to get exponentially ridiculous.

Finally, remember that prey can vary. A well run Clan would be able to generally understand when they've been overhunting one particular species, and start shifting gears to lift the "pressure" off that population.

(In my cultural expansions series, this management task is assigned to one of the new roles-- the Head of Hunting.)

[imjustli]

"This person is obsessed with Etho" "that person is obsessed with Etho" "oh, don't forget so and so person is also obsessed with Etho"

Guys, they're all obsessed with Etho. We're all obsessed with Etho. Anyone that has ever watched a single Etho video is obsessed with Etho. He's an incredibly obsessable person. Everyone is obsessed with him. Peace and love on planet Ethogirl

[my-quirk-is-fred]

Twilight’s Yap session on Man vs Bear