Is this creativity or just lazy writing?

[Naruzeldamaster]

So in my current project I have a Race of Kitsune.
For the most part, they are very much the 'traditional' sort of Kitsune, ya know, devious lil tricksters that help/harm humans depending on their mood or how chaotic they are.

What I'm doing differently is that while they are a 'long life' species that would put most elves to shame. There's a catch.
It doesn't matter how powerful or wise they get, they never 'age' past a certain point, this is dependent on a lot of major factors. The biggest one being the point where their actual personality reaching it's 'maturity' state. Up until that point, they live like regular humans do.

At some point their internal clock just stops, flat out. It's like their body decides 'oh, this is how mature I'm getting' and that's the end of it. Their current leader is inspired by Himiko (the 'childlike empress' who lived forever) and she's basically a pre-teen, but she's got more knowledge and experience than most living examples of her species due to being 10 thousand years old. Her position forces her to be all formal and professional, but she'd really rather be a child/teenager and play human games. (like pac man and stuff XD)

I'm trying to think of a way to make this facet of them plot relevant without resorting to the whole 'oh 1 hundred years is like 10 human years' excuse. Personally I don't mind that excuse but it's a bit boring to me. It can and has been done well, but I always felt like that was a little silly. And honestly I don't mind if it's not plot important and just a neat detail. But the idea feels wasted if it's not somewhat relevant to the plot.

 

[Queshire]

Hmm.... if I expand out to immortality in general then there's a few routes I've seen that go with this sort of thing.

One of them paired the immortality with a healing factor that would try to heal them back to what the immortality considered their ideal state; basically the point where their internal clock stopped. The problem lies in anything which would mess with what the immortality considers the ideal state. One such immortal describes replacing her eyes with cybernetic ones in order to be able to see for the first time in her centuries long life only for the cybernetic eyes to get horrifically pushed out of her skull as her body tried to heal back to its original blind state.

Another one had an Immortal villain willing to bum around with the heroes and seeing if he could strike a peace with them because, pffft, he's Immortal. Worse comes to worse he can just wait for them to die of old age before continuing his schemes.

A third one prominently features Immortal main characters. One of the aspects of the story was the fact that while the characters were Immortal a lot of the stuff they wanted to protect was not. Sure they might live at the end of the day, but if they're left alone in the ruins of their home then that's still going to suck.

Finally one of the Discworld books features the head of the Time Monks who ages in cycles. When that character appears he's currently a baby though still has all the knowledge and wisdom of his multiple lifetimes. He still acts like a baby at times though. One of the other characters theorizes that he does so in order to amuse himself. There's not a lot you can do as a baby otherwise after all.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Hmm.... if I expand out to immortality in general then there's a few routes I've seen that go with this sort of thing.

One of them paired the immortality with a healing factor that would try to heal them back to what the immortality considered their ideal state; basically the point where their internal clock stopped. The problem lies in anything which would mess with what the immortality considers the ideal state. One such immortal describes replacing her eyes with cybernetic ones in order to be able to see for the first time in her centuries long life only for the cybernetic eyes to get horrifically pushed out of her skull as her body tried to heal back to its original blind state.

Another one had an Immortal villain willing to bum around with the heroes and seeing if he could strike a peace with them because, pffft, he's Immortal. Worse comes to worse he can just wait for them to die of old age before continuing his schemes.

A third one prominently features Immortal main characters. One of the aspects of the story was the fact that while the characters were Immortal a lot of the stuff they wanted to protect was not. Sure they might live at the end of the day, but if they're left alone in the ruins of their home then that's still going to suck.

Finally one of the Discworld books features the head of the Time Monks who ages in cycles. When that character appears he's currently a baby though still has all the knowledge and wisdom of his multiple lifetimes. He still acts like a baby at times though. One of the other characters theorizes that he does so in order to amuse himself. There's not a lot you can do as a baby otherwise after all.

Honkai Star Rail actually plays with that first route quite a bit. There's a place in game where there are 'long life' species (of varying life spans, but ultimately living far far longer than short life-ers) and there's various messed up things that can happen. A lot of them are relegated to NPC's though.

Like in one instance, there's a short life child hanging out with a long life child. The long life child is an 'adult' but the short life one doesn't get it.
Another instance (which is funny but also sad) is that there's a species that reincarnates every so often. There's this one named NPC that due to a genetic malfunction (yes the reincarnation is a genetic feature) reincarnates every month. She had realized that she'd never have any sense of normality so she just parties and works hard the whole time. The fact that you mention the thing with the blind person trying to 'fix' their eyes to have their body heal them back to their blind state, that one actually happens too. So I'm curious if that's where you got that from.

For my Kitsune race, many of them are indifferent/spiteful toward humans, mostly due to the far and away longer life spans. The ones that aren't, are either the malicious type (like the terribly cliche corrupt counsel of the royal highness, boring I know but I didn't feel like developing proper villains/antagonists for this story) or they're the protective type who bond with a few humans and decide to do what they can to keep them around as long as possible. Even the ones that grow fond of humans and like to protect them, well, they're still Kitsune at the end of the day. They like to play 'pranks' and stuff (and what is considered a 'prank' depends on the character and what they're capable of) but the non 'evil' ones generally try to avoid directly harming humans. Now, humans might do something stupid in order to retaliate against the prank, but at that point it's self defense.

 

[pmmg]

So in my current project I have a Race of Kitsune.
For the most part, they are very much the 'traditional' sort of Kitsune, ya know, devious lil tricksters that help/harm humans depending on their mood or how chaotic they are.

What I'm doing differently is that while they are a 'long life' species that would put most elves to shame. There's a catch.
It doesn't matter how powerful or wise they get, they never 'age' past a certain point, this is dependent on a lot of major factors. The biggest one being the point where their actual personality reaching it's 'maturity' state. Up until that point, they live like regular humans do.

At some point their internal clock just stops, flat out. It's like their body decides 'oh, this is how mature I'm getting' and that's the end of it. Their current leader is inspired by Himiko (the 'childlike empress' who lived forever) and she's basically a pre-teen, but she's got more knowledge and experience than most living examples of her species due to being 10 thousand years old. Her position forces her to be all formal and professional, but she'd really rather be a child/teenager and play human games. (like pac man and stuff XD)

I'm trying to think of a way to make this facet of them plot relevant without resorting to the whole 'oh 1 hundred years is like 10 human years' excuse. Personally I don't mind that excuse but it's a bit boring to me. It can and has been done well, but I always felt like that was a little silly. And honestly I don't mind if it's not plot important and just a neat detail. But the idea feels wasted if it's not somewhat relevant to the plot.

I dont get the last part of this. If they stopped aging, it would never be 100 is like 10 human years. It would always be every year is is one more than humans have.

Wouldn't it be tiring to never mature? There is a part of children the do yearn to be older.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I dont get the last part of this. If they stopped aging, it would never be 100 is like 10 human years. It would always be every year is is one more than humans have.

Wouldn't it be tiring to never mature? There is a part of children the do yearn to be older.

I mean more that their general personality doesn't 'get more mature' but they can still learn/grow as people. if that makes sense.
A kitsune who stopped 'aging' at their mid 30's will always have the personality quirks of someone at/around that age, but they can learn about their personality and how to keep things interesting. Most of them realize quickly how long they'll be alive and learn to deal with it in various ways. Some lean into it, some shy away from it or try to become different. But those 'base' traits will always be a part of their personality.

For example the Royal Princess, she stopped aging as a pre-teen. While she still does have many of the personality 'quirks' of someone in that age range, she's far more experienced and can act as formal/mature as she needs to, even if she'd honestly rather not if she could help it.

 

[pmmg]

I dont think there is much difference between a 30 year old brain and a 80 year old one. At that point the brain is already done developing. The only difference is experiences....which is not age related, its experience related.

I am still not sure why the 10 = 100 is relevant. If someone is locked in preteen brain, they will maintain bad logic, bad abstraction, and be bad at long term thinking. 10000 years of experience would make little difference to that. They would not be much more capable of knowing that sweets will spoil their dinner at 10000 as they were at 10. They would just be at the edge of getting that somethings are kind and somethings hurtful to others. But it would lack sophistication. I dont think she would have a brain that lends itself to skill stacking and good strategies.

But...its fiction.

Making is story relevant has more to do with story, than characterization. What is the question?

 

[Queshire]

Honkai Star Rail actually plays with that first route quite a bit. There's a place in game where there are 'long life' species (of varying life spans, but ultimately living far far longer than short life-ers) and there's various messed up things that can happen. A lot of them are relegated to NPC's though.

Like in one instance, there's a short life child hanging out with a long life child. The long life child is an 'adult' but the short life one doesn't get it.
Another instance (which is funny but also sad) is that there's a species that reincarnates every so often. There's this one named NPC that due to a genetic malfunction (yes the reincarnation is a genetic feature) reincarnates every month. She had realized that she'd never have any sense of normality so she just parties and works hard the whole time. The fact that you mention the thing with the blind person trying to 'fix' their eyes to have their body heal them back to their blind state, that one actually happens too. So I'm curious if that's where you got that from.

For my Kitsune race, many of them are indifferent/spiteful toward humans, mostly due to the far and away longer life spans. The ones that aren't, are either the malicious type (like the terribly cliche corrupt counsel of the royal highness, boring I know but I didn't feel like developing proper villains/antagonists for this story) or they're the protective type who bond with a few humans and decide to do what they can to keep them around as long as possible. Even the ones that grow fond of humans and like to protect them, well, they're still Kitsune at the end of the day. They like to play 'pranks' and stuff (and what is considered a 'prank' depends on the character and what they're capable of) but the non 'evil' ones generally try to avoid directly harming humans. Now, humans might do something stupid in order to retaliate against the prank, but at that point it's self defense.

Yep. I was thinking of the race from Star Rail.

 

[Finchbearer]

I think essentially it’s more palatable to read an MC who is younger and active, even if they are an immortal. Especially if there is a romantic subplot, most readers want to read about people young enough to have a family. That is the human condition.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read plenty of books with an MC who is older, but those stories have usually been in genres other than fantasy. A Gentleman in Moscow is a good example of an older MC with a (very minor) romantic subplot.

Pre-teen though? I’d prefer to read an 18+ character. There is an uneasy context to a pre-teen immortal.

 

[Queshire]

Something that I want to play around with sometime is the idea of a character that's immortal but does not have the physical space in their brain for all the memories that come from immortality. So you'd get a few decades of active memory with the rest in deep storage until the immortal character needs to dredge them up.

 

[Finchbearer]

Something that I want to play around with sometime is the idea of a character that's immortal but does not have the physical space in their brain for all the memories that come from immortality. So you'd get a few decades of active memory with the rest in deep storage until the immortal character needs to dredge them up.

This is true to life though right? Especially with those with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Earlier memories come up like the day they were made, yet they can’t remember what they just did.

 

[Queshire]

This is true to life though right? Especially with those with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Earlier memories come up like the day they were made, yet they can’t remember what they just did.

Well sure, but we're talking about magical kitsune here. True to life isn't a priority for me.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I think essentially it’s more palatable to read an MC who is younger and active, even if they are an immortal. Especially if there is a romantic subplot, most readers want to read about people young enough to have a family. That is the human condition.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read plenty of books with an MC who is older, but those stories have usually been in genres other than fantasy. A Gentleman in Moscow is a good example of an older MC with a (very minor) romantic subplot.

Pre-teen though? I’d prefer to read an 18+ character. There is an uneasy context to a pre-teen immortal.

The main character isn't the pre teen character though, sorry for any confusion. Though for the pre teen one, she was already wise beyond her years and showing leadership potential at that point which is why she stopped 'maturing' at that point. (even though yes, she has many 'quirks' of a pre teen, like being obsessed with video games, or being 'rewarded' with sweets for good performance in her duties as a leader etc) If you've seen the neverending story, this character is a lot like the childlike empress.

The female lead of my story is roughly 30 ish in appearance and personality. Even though she's much older (300 to be exact) she had already accepted that she'll have no sense of normality with humans so she just acts her 'age'. She honestly thinks it's kinda crazy to change parts of herself that won't change, though she does make efforts to learn/grow as a person. She also is making efforts to de-mystify Kitsune as a race, early in the story she tries to intimidate two humans by acting/sounding like a godly being. She quickly gets bored of the act (partially due to the two humans being too oblivious to be intimidated by it) and is openly annoyed that the one time she resorted to that trope that it didn't work. (though the reason it failed was cause she visited humans from the modern era and not so much the two minions of the male lead)

The kind of quirks I'm talking about being static are stuff like: 'oh, this person gets grumpy when they miss a meal' kind of stuff. (hopefully that makes sense, I was trying to think of how to word it) When it comes to more nuanced things, like say respecting others who are more skilled than them in their field (like how the female lead is in the same field as the male lead and they form a romantic rivalry of sorts) they can grow and learn. But at the end of the day their overall personality won't change much. The external stuff that is seen when just hanging around with them is static, but the internal stuff like developing a relationship with someone can change.

Yep. I was thinking of the race from Star Rail.

Oo do you play on US servers? We could be buddies lol
I was wondering why that example sounded so familiar so I thought I'd ask.

 

[Queshire]

Oo do you play on US servers? We could be buddies lol
I was wondering why that example sounded so familiar so I thought I'd ask.

Ugh, I want to start playing it again, but the grind...

 

[Finchbearer]

Well sure, but we're talking about magical kitsune here. True to life isn't a priority for me.

As in it’s potentially not going to come across as fantastical, with it being like how human brains work.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

As in it’s potentially not going to come across as fantastical, with it being like how human brains work.

I mean half of the protagonist's goal is to de mystify Kitsune people (as there are still humans who revere/warship them as deities) and get her people to stop being so high and mighty and get along with humans again.