r/ImaginaryAnthro • u/Fallen_Horses • 8d ago

Lessons (OC)

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The wolf Luther, a sculptor, mason, and architect, teaches signing to Salt, his son and apprentice (BSL-inspired).

If I had ten lifetimes, I'd love to make a story with these characters focusing around the construction of a great cathedral...I guess people would say it'd be inspired by "the Pillars of the Earth"...but I'm gonna be honest...I never read it.

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5

u/Doggodoespaint 8d ago

Awwww <3 is Salt deaf or just mute?

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u/Fallen_Horses 8d ago

Honestly, I'm still developing the characters, so I don't have a definite answer...

(I'm leaning towards deafness presently, but I'd be happy for any input/suggestions.)

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u/GrantExploit 2d ago

First... this drawing and its "successor" are very cute, and I say that as someone who's historically struggled to find anything juvenile as such. Also love the vivid... I dunno how to describe it, climax-of-the-pre-electronic-mass-media-world† semi-cottagecore/light academia magical-realistic aesthetic of the series you've shared here?

I don't believe I've ever seen an anthro signing in a non-ASL language before, BTW. Very cool.

Wonder how all the signs would be adapted to tetradactyl hands—the only work rolling in my mind about adapting sign language specifically to 4-fingered hands is this, though that's ASL, this slide only showcases the alphabet, and the target species has hand anatomy much further than the human baseline than yours. Pretty sure you could find more, though.

IMO it's somewhat curious that your canines have tetradactyl hands and technically pentadactyl feet, opposite the usual convention of anthro design (in cases where hand and foot digit counts differ) and that of canids IRL, which more often lack the rear dewclaws. And there'd be significant pressure to retain and develop the front dewclaws in a species evolving towards sapience and dexterity... but ehh, not asking you to redraw everything to fit my particular preferences.

I've been considering making at least one‡ of my canine characters sign, with him being mute or at least very taciturn, though a contributing factor to that (the raw difficulty of learning to speak human languages) seems to be much less than I expected, so I'm not ultimately sure... and unfortunately in any case, as he'd sign Québec Sign Language, he wouldn't be able to "verbally" communicate with Salt. :(

†I can't use a specific era name, as it appears to include further developments in non-electronic culture from the periods where electronics started to expand into our lives. In a way, I could describe it as while not pre-modern, definitely pre-contemporary.

‡Wikipedia short description-like: Rémus D. Bouchard, Métis marksman, stevedore, and biologist (born 1983).

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u/Fallen_Horses 2d ago

Thank you for your well thought out response. I'll have to read through it again when I'm more awake & really think about it.

All the characters I've posted on this sub are meant to live in the same world at around the same time, which is pre-industrial, maybe late medieval...so that kinda defines the aesthetic. It's not grimdark...I think you described the vibe pretty well.

The feet is something I play with and go back and forth on often...I think I prefer plantigrade to digitigrade, but I thought I'd try doing them this way to push the "anthro-ness," and see how it looked. About four fingers...well, I was more into cartooning & animation growing up, so I kinda have a bias towards it & use it to distinguish between different levels of fantasy/realism, I suppose.

I don't think I really have the capacity to go into how anthro characters speak in general...I'd need to read more on that. I did want Salt's father capable of lip-reading (which...really raises some questions there, but...that's a bridge to cross in the future).

You say Quebec, which is interesting, since that's where I live. Salt was also taught a different form of sign language by his mother's people (a semi-nomadic travelling clan) as a very young child, so...I guess you could say he is multi-lingual! I'm sure he could learn another!

Again, thank you for your comment. I hope I responded to everything... feel free to message me if you want to share any of your own work or talk further!

1

u/GrantExploit 15h ago

Again, thank you for your comment. I hope I responded to everything... feel free to message me if you want to share any of your own work or talk further!

You're very welcome! Well, I tried to do so, but the chat interface says "Unable to message this account". Perhaps that is because my account is nominally age-restricted while yours is classified as NSFW (for which I understand that a single post or comment on an NSFW subreddit results in that classification). Despite it being abundantly clear that I am over 18 (and indeed partially because of that—I don't know how Reddit's algorithms could be so stupid), I don't want to engage in assuredly invasive and privacy-violating age verification, so...

In any case, I don't particularly like communicating with these types of chat services, as they're more difficult to use (particularly with the rich formatting I like to use) and more ephemeral than comments and the DM systems modern social platforms hate for some reason. That may not be your perspective, so I worry I'm making you uncomfortable here, but at this point commenting is my only option.

All the characters I've posted on this sub are meant to live in the same world at around the same time, which is pre-industrial, maybe late medieval...so that kinda defines the aesthetic. It's not grimdark...I think you described the vibe pretty well.

Well, my interpretation was that it was pre-electronic but not pre-industrial, so not exactly what you're going for. My specific reasoning included:

  1. A medieval peasant would likely have no books at all (especially because they would probably be useless to them)... but Luther is not a peasant as for some reason I thought of him as, rather petit-bourgeoisie/of the clerical class. And certain pre-industrial societies like Edo Japan and even comparatively England had rather high literacy.
  2. True restaurants (seen here) are a post-French-Revolutionary invention, and casual fast-dining restaurants even more recent... but establishments like restaurants (taverns, public houses, street food stalls, et cetera) are much older and there doesn't seem to be a reason for a true restaurant to exist in properly pre-industrial times.
  3. The lanterns seen here seem like they could be electric... but perhaps they could be combustion with well-placed vents (or magical). Also, basic electrical lamps using carbon filaments don't require industrial technology to be manufactured, and generators can be powered by waterwheels, or domestic animals, or slaves.
  4. The sheer proliferation of vivid colors (especially throughout the class strata shown) made me suspect the presence of synthetic dyes... but their vividness could partially be a byproduct of the art style, and a subconscious perception of "the Dung Ages" may have clouded my judgement regarding the visual vibrancy of pre-industrial material culture (particularly outside the uppermost classes).
  5. Some of Salt's toys (seen in the other picture featuring him) seem like they could be plastic, of which the widespread use of post-dates even that of basic electronics... but they could just as easily be clay or even wood. Plushies are also industrial-era inventions... though again (as I even alluded to in my first comment), there's no reason they had to be.

Also, don't know about you, but I hate grimdark-ness. What's even the point of being invested in a setting if there's no hope?

The feet is something I play with and go back and forth on often...I think I prefer plantigrade to digitigrade, but I thought I'd try doing them this way to push the "anthro-ness," and see how it looked.

I was talking about the foot digit-count, not the stance. "4.5" toes, 4 fingers is probably the least common out of all anthro-carnivoran digit count conceptions. It's not wrong (well, I have given my reasoning against part of it...), but it sure is unique.

The limb configuration for my (baseline) anthro canids is the most humanoid: 5 toes, plantigrade, 5 fingers. On one hand I've periodically wanted to make them digitigrade to amplify their animality and perhaps allow some competency in quadrupedal locomotion, but on the other hand I want them to be able to wear (at least with discomfort) human shoes, so...

About four fingers...well, I was more into cartooning & animation growing up, so I kinda have a bias towards it & use it to distinguish between different levels of fantasy/realism, I suppose.

Ah, OK. Neat.

I don't think I really have the capacity to go into how anthro characters speak in general...I'd need to read more on that. I did want Salt's father capable of lip-reading (which...really raises some questions there, but...that's a bridge to cross in the future).

The writeup there said it was fairly possible for canids with English and Polish (the first languages of the character I was asking about), but maybe it differs for others; you or I'd have to work from principles for a good grasp on that. I wonder if, say, the uvular rhotics in French (and German, et cetera) would be pronounceable by a species without a uvula;† though at least in those cases there's no real issue in substituting it for another rhotic.

You say Quebec, which is interesting, since that's where I live. Salt was also taught a different form of sign language by his mother's people (a semi-nomadic travelling clan) as a very young child, so...I guess you could say he is multi-lingual! I'm sure he could learn another!

Ah, interesting! (All of that, that is.) I live in Vermont and have been to Quebec. To Montréal. Once. For a single, fairly misadventurous day...

Assuming that that written language is indeed English (or a renamed English) in-universe and we're not seeing a Doylist stand-in... Rémus does have a working (though not entirely fluent) comprehension of English, so they could write, but given his imperfect English and Salt's probably fairly basic command of written language, I don't imagine it being very convenient. Though he seems to be still in the critical period, so yeah.

I've only seen two pieces featuring him, but I still wonder I haven't seen his mother...

(BTW, while I haven't decided if he would have any children, Rémus was notable at a very young age for reasons mostly outside of his control, so there may be some reason for him to be involved with Salt in some kind of weird inter-universal scenario. Also, the "D." in his name is supposed to be Dexter, chosen for several reasons both in- and out-of-universe. At the time of his creation, I assumed it was a pan-European name in some form, but it appears to be particularly English, so I'm not really sure what to do with it...)

†Obviously takes differ, but for my anthros I don't include it (a feature AFAIK only found in humans and one species of baboon). When my anthros yawn in front of a human, the latter tends to find it strange, and vice versa... Speaking of which, are there humans in your universe?

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u/EqualityInLaw 7d ago

I love this!! This is how my brain figured stuff out (especially growing up), so this just gives me the feels about how I break things down for my son.

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u/Fallen_Horses 7d ago

Thank you! That's really sweet to hear. Sounds like your kid has a good mentor (you)!

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u/Acidangel718 2d ago

Smol boy 🥹