QC tells it like it is

[julesjones]

One of last week's Questionable Content strips spells out something that I only alluded to indirectly in Dolphin Dreams. I'd have been rather more explicit about it if I'd ever gotten around to writing the (with added het) sequel, because one of the reasons Simon acquires a shapeshifter girlfriend is that George and Patrick have much better manners than your typical male bottlenose...

Comments

[mishalak]

In a way it makes sense that they would have better manners, being sort of part human. Humans, for all our faults, seem to be pretty darn non-violent in comparison with other animals that are not herbivores. Or at least humans in modern settings are. I've read that the murder/death in war rate in tribal settings was atrocious even compared with modern hells like Venezuela or Iraq.

[julesjones]

They're part human, and they're strongly influenced by the human culture they have close contact with. So given a chance they'll deliberately override their animal instincts, and behave the way they've learnt from human contacts is the moral way to behave, even though their primary environment is the sea.

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

Could you unpack that statement some more? I admit I'm not getting at all what you are saying.

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the general randiness of bottlenoses, and of at least one female scientist reporting problems with a possessive male bottlenose, but I didn't realise they did this. Perhaps the main reason dolphins don't rule the planet is that they're far more interested in sex than being planetary overlords. ;)

[del-c.livejournal.com]

And chimpanzees have wars of extermination, and hunt monkeys so they can tear them apart and eat them. It's getting so even the animals aren't noble savages any more.

[julesjones]

As noted in the bottom panel of the strip linked to, male bottlenose dolphins can be unpleasant thugs, including things like a pair or group working together to cut a female out of the pod, then keeping her isolated without food until she lets them mate with her.

I knew about this when I was writing Dolphin Dreams, and there are references to it in the book, although it's not explicitly spelt out. The idea I had for a sequel starts out from George and Martin intervening to protect a shapeshifter woman who's being harassed, and offering her somewhere to stay for a day or two without expecting anything in return. And to one of the shapeshifters, Simon looks like a good partner -- she won't mind him being away a lot or having an open relationship, what matters is that he's reliable, honest, and considerate.

[julesjones]

There is a Reason why those "swim with the dolphins!" tours tell women not to get in the water with the dolphins if they're menstruating, although they don't generally say what the reason is, because it would spoil the image they're trying to create of the oh so cute dolphins.

One of the Interesting Facts I encountered while doing research for Dolphin Dreams is that dolphins have prehensile penises. So it's not as if they couldn't use a weapon, although they'd still need a monkey to build it for them.

[julesjones]

It does appear that if you have a brain big enough to think about stuff other than finding the next meal and not becoming someone else's next meal, you spend some of the spare cycles on thinking of new and better ways to be a dick.

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, not sure I knew about the prehensile bit (Cousteau's dolphin volume is currently hiding from me, as is my marine vertebrate anatomy) but that does indeed explain why they enjoy mooring lines so much. :)

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

It's not just the larger brained animals, The neurotic arab stallion is getting more inventive in his attempts to forcibly cuddle me.

[julesjones]

It would appear that testosterone poisoning is a common problem for anything complex enough to have testosterone in the first place.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I would suspect so. Although some of the geldings can be quite troublesome as well, but that's mostly directed towards mares rather than any passing mammal.