Worldbuilding 2025 Omega
Greetings and storge! You know, it would be GREAT if I could have it, but as any queer person knows, that is a rare commodity for many of us. But hi, and welcome! Today is the annual end-of-year talk that Anne and I usually do. A bit early, but it is here!
(Anne:) It’s been an eventful one, hasn’t it?
(Vivian:) Tell me about it! I did not hope for this year to go as it has, but I am very pleased, both personally and blogwise
Evaluation
As per our annual Omega post, we will do an evaluation of the year! Anne, which post did you love the most?
What I loved the most
(Anne:) I think the post I loved the most was the one on Ethical Megacorps, namely TCCMC. As an adamant opposer of megacorps, it’s fun to be able to create one that manages to avoid what I see as all of the pitfalls of megacorps. Is TCCMC a little too perfect, a little too idealist, as I often tell Vivian her worlds are? Yeah, probably. A thousand things had to go right for TCCMC to come into existence, and then a million things more to keep it that way. But what’s the point of speculative fiction if not to ask “what if?”
(Vivian:) Yeah, one can say that definitely, but as you say, it is about what ifs, and I am quite sick of all the cynicism often, and our “Ethical X” series is, after all, all about how to make things often bad in a very positive manner. That is its charm! 🙂
As for me, the Tsxobjit queerness one is my favourite of the year. For many reasons, if I am honest. First one was that it was a fun, subtle way to hint at my own now open queerness, even if I hadn’t told on the website and blog yet. But the biggest reason it is my favourite is that it is queerness from the alien perspective, not the human perspective. Which is important to me because it drives me up the wall when people say “Oh, that’s queer!” when that is the NORM of that species/society. I don’t know about all the queers, but having it be the norm that is expected, or the only alternative be called “queer,” rubs me the wrong way.
What I learned the most from
(Vivian:) So what have I learned this year? Nothing, I already know everything there is to know; I am fully omniscient!
Jokies aside, I would say the blogpost I found I learned the most about would be From Character to Person. While I have quite a lot of opinions on it, Anne has a much greater experience in actual writing characters in stories that people enjoy, so I learned quite a bit from her writing that blogpost.
(Anne:) Thank you, Vivi! Awwww :) And yeah, to me, uh… So this is an embarrassing confession. Many of you know how much I love me a good revolution. But… I didn’t actually know what exactly was revolution or coup or what. So I learned the most from Vivian’s post on coups! And now I’m prepared for one of my own!
(Vivian:) Vivi is, funnily enough, a nickname many friends call me. My deadname did not have a nickname, so I find it endlessly charming 🙂
What I look forward to expanding
(Vivian:) Honestly, what I look forward to expanding in 2026 is a lot about gender. I am itching to write about that. Given my own journey, the amount I’ve had to learn and absorb is enormous, and to do it for scifi/fantasy… Well, you all know me, I cannot resist it.
(Anne:) Gotta say, I’m looking forward to Vivian expanding on that as well! I look forward to more of our ethical blogposts, mostly because I have no clue what we’ll do next! Maybe an ethical theocracy… Divine Dominion, anyone?
My hopes for next year
(Anne:) My biggest hope is that get back into writing more. You may have noticed the number of my posts tapering off, though Vivi and I still do our joint ones. But I’ll be back on top of things before you know it! I really want to do more with news.
(Vivian:) Extra Extra! Anne is being lazy yet again! 😜
(Anne:) SO MEAN!!!
(Vivian:) But you love me :3 I will be hounding her to get more into it. As for me, I would like to say that we would go back to a weekly schedule, but if I am honest, that is not going to happen any time soon. With my now much busier schedule since coming out, there just isn’t enough time to do it. But my hope is that we can maintain this schedule for the year and nothing comes in the way, which, speaking of…
The Hiatus
(Vivian:) Yeah, the big thing that happened this year: Anne’s and my enormous hiatus. It happened, it was not fun. Neither Anne nor I liked it, so don’t worry, it is not something we want to do again. It was primarily caused by our jobs and lives becoming too hectic to be able to have any spare energy for this blog that we love. And as you can imagine, quite a bit was, for me, related to my transition, too.
(Anne:) Yup, definitely not fun for either of us.
Practicum: Velothini
(Vivian:) And as per tradition holds it–because we are so conservative that traditions are everything! We are going to make a species that people can freely use, with some conditions.
Their name is Velothini, Singular is a Velothin, and plural is many Velothini. The adjective is Velonr
Planetary system
(Vivian:) How is their planetary system? Honestly, not that remarkable, a classical G star, with a bunch of planets, etc. The only remarkable thing, if one can call it that, is that they are the fourth planet from the star and toward the outer region of the habitable zone and have slightly higher CO2 content to compensate for the lower temperature.
Biology
(Vivian:) I can start us off here, too! For the Velothini, Anne and I decided to take a bit of inspiration from my Raixher species in that they are, in fact, a planimal species. What does that mean exactly? It means they are a hybrid of plants and animals, having some parts plant, some parts animal, an amalgamation of both, not fitting into either kingdom fully.
But, as is also per tradition, they are humanoid in nature, which I just happen to like. Partially because I want to show you can do interesting things even with a humanoid design instead of just…rigid foreheads.
Reproduction
(Anne:) I’ll take this one! I’m sure Vivi doesn’t want it at all– Uh… Vivi? runs away in terror
(Vivian:) GET BACK HERE YOU THIEF! 🔪
I do love me some weird reproductions; that is like my modus operandi for making aliens, because so much from a species' reproduction flows into all other aspects of its existence. Not entirely, but it has a huge impact on it.
Though this time, we are not going to go too crazy, it has internal fertilization. I know, scandalously boring, right? Penis in vagina and all that jazz. The thing that differentiates them here is the fact that they DON’T have only male and female as the large groups. They also have hermaphrodite members, too! It is about ⅓ of each one, so male-herm, herm-female, and male-female relationships are the norm for them.
Yes, intersex individuals do also exist because, of course, they do, but we’ll get into all the queerness in its own section. Of course, two queers like Anne and I do that!
Another part of their reproduction is that they are oviparous, meaning that they lay eggs. There is about a 2-month gestation period for the egg after fertilization, then another 8 months for the egg. And it is during this incubation period of the egg that the sex is determined. If the temperature is high, relatively speaking, it becomes a male, if it is cold, it becomes a female, and if it is lukewarm or in the middle, it becomes a herm. So you know, parents have a bit of control over the sex! Which can have some very bad ramifications…
Society
(Anne:) Not in this section, though! Let’s talk about the good. The Velondr people are generous almost to a fault and have several unusual practices in their social lives, all based on their unification event. Centuries ago, a plague struck their planet.
(Vivian:) And we are talking a BAD plague, imagine like Bubonic Plague, Ebola, and Smallpox effects and lethality with the virality of the common flu!
(Anne:) From most measures, over half of the population died in a relatively short period of time. They were saved, however, when mysterious people known only as “the Benefactors” came and helped. No one knows why, exactly, though the most agreed-upon theory is that some of the Benefactor species crashed and the Velothini helped them, and in exchange, the Benefactors helped them. Recent findings of a crash with unknown technology seem to support this.
Because of this common theory, kindness to strangers has been elevated to practically an art form. It’s common, when a person creates something or cooks or anything that produces goods, they create extra and take it around town, giving it only to those that they don’t know. Children are often found sneaking to neighbors with strangers so that they’re more likely to be given things.
(Vivian:) And no one knows where the mysterious benefactors went, either, or who they were. In space alien society, the Velothini are heard talking about them, and the stories tell of what the Benefactors looked like, but it fits no known species…
Now onto other stuff. A curious thing with the Velothini is that while they do have gender, it is COMPLETELY separated from sex altogether. It is to the point where children are raised genderless, and it is in fact between the ages of 7 through 12 that the gender is picked. The child explores the various genders that they have and gets to pick which one. And in the end, roughly around when puberty starts, a gender is picked by the child, and celebrations are in order!
Though some change it as they grow up, and that is fine too! More parties, right?
Religion
(Anne:) So we have a species saved from extinction by mysterious people from the sky… great fodder for religion, right? Well, no, actually not. The utter lack of information about the Benefactors didn’t elevate them to mystical godhood; it just makes them kinda cool for helping out like that. So the Velothini have no religion, and view them as odd, quaint things in other peoples.
(Vivian:) Well, they have some minor ones lingering around because you know how people are, but overall, they are irreligious. The fact that the Benefactors happened in early “modern” times, I’d say around the 1910s tech era or similar, probably helped it never develop into a religion, albeit we’ve all seen that there is no safe way to prevent a religion from spawning.
Government
(Vivian:) They are a democracy! That’s it, moving on! ...Fiiineee yeah we have more to this. It is a technocratic democracy where individuals have different amounts of votes to use that depend on one's education. You get 1 vote for every year you’ve studied. So most people have at a bare minimum of 12 votes, because standard education is 12 years. Yes, even childhood education counts! But Anne, what is the possible problem with this system?
(Anne:) 💰💰💰
(Vivian:) And you are right! Class and money become a problem then! Unless you are classy like me, then neither is a problem. So how do they combat this? In a few ways, they have, for starters, a UBI, Universal Basic Income, system in place, so if you just want to sit around every day studying for your entire life… You are free to do that! Honestly, it’d be rather boring if you asked me, and I love studying! But you are free to do so if that is what your heart wants. It is not a super comfortable life, but it is a livable life. You can eat more than noodles.
The second part is that education, at every level, is completely free of charge, including the literature! Which is not too surprising given they use it all digital and it costs nothing to send a file. So there are absolutely no barriers to education at every level. Does this mean that the class issue is gone? No, because let's be honest, it never will be. But it has reduced its influence to such a degree that the average person feels it is fair and just. The big lie and all.
(Anne:) The government itself is fairly standard once you get past the voting. It has mixed-member proportional representation, which is frankly just a more civilized way of doing things. Here, you can read more about it!
(Vivian:) Short explanation: You vote for your local representative, but at the same time, you vote for a party at large. And you have super districts, let’s say with 6 representatives in it, only 3 of those are voted for directly by the people, the remaining 3 are picked by party, to represent the party's vote distribution over the entire super district.
Family
(Anne:) The Velothini have unusual family structures due to how their relationships work, as you’ll see in a minute. While the majority of Velothini are monogamous, it’s not as much of a majority as on Earth, all thanks to the herms. You see, as Vivian will mention in a minute, herms enjoy sex with any or all sexes, so it’s common for them to be in multiple relationships with another herm and a man or woman. Rarely both, but it’s definitely not unheard of! And sometimes there are polygamous relationships with only those assigned male or female. Because it’s so widely accepted and even expected in some cases, everyone has it as an option without discrimination.
Even in polygamous situations, though, children still have two parents whom they consider to be “theirs.” Other adults form supportive roles in their lives, and everyone is expected to step in to help children, again owing to the emphasis placed on kindness to others, especially strangers. There is no stranger danger; instead, strangers are often the safest people for children if they need help.
So a complicated system with many moving parts, but there’s always a strong emphasis on helping others, especially strangers, and especially strangers in need.
Queerness
(Vivian:) Because a bunch of queers (Anne and Vivian) doing queer stuff is par for the course. But a thing that stands out for humans is that one special form of “bisexuality”, I am putting it in quotation marks because once I finish the sentence, you will hopefully see why I don’t consider it bisexuality, is actually considered within the norm and not queer. Which one is that? It is those of hermaphrodite sex! Because they enjoy sex with any other sex or gender, really they often do not care about the sex.
But for them, being “monosexual”, as they would call it, is a queer thing. Attracted to ONLY ONE gender? How odd! But some do that, and that is fine. For those born and assigned male or female, and tend to have a related gender, the norm is either being attracted to one, typically the “opposite” sex (and related gender(s)), or two (herm/”opposite”). But all three? Now that is queer! Also, would it be called trisexual then? Life is full of weird questions…
So yeah, those are the obvious ones we have there. We naturally have all other variants that come with it, pansexual, and all that. But if we did everything, we’d have to write multiple 900-page essays because we have over 11 infinitillion pages worth of human queerness, and we still haven’t covered all of it!
But one thing I will say, a queerness they do lack, is in fact transgender people. Not because people with different software aren’t born, but because “trans” is meaningless to them. They don’t assign a gender to their children, and growing up, any gender and expression is considered normal. So can you be trans then? Not really by the definitions used today. If only human society could be like this…
Relationships and romance
(Vivian:) Anne, your turn!
(Anne:) Oh! I nearly missed it! Good thing you told me! Well, we’ve actually covered a lot above, with the only thing missing being the important questions: how do they get a date, and how do they propose? Not surprisingly, for an advanced people, they use their equivalent of online dating. There are a surprising number in relationships with people from other species, though those relationships tend not to last. But as you can probably guess, strangers are much preferred. No little Bob and Bobbette being high school sweethearts! Nope, it’s stranger Bob with stranger Bobbette meeting on the cognisphere and arranging for a meetup in a city between their distant locations–but only after they spent considerable time getting to know each other!
Dating tends to be online as well, again due to distance, but proposals are almost always done in person. The topic of marriage usually comes up naturally in conversation, not formally, but they’ll still have a major ceremony followed by a party to mark their formal declaration of love. Sometimes, in a polyamorous situation, there will be multiple people celebrating either as a group getting engaged together or one person joining an established relationship. But a party there shall be! Have we mentioned they love parties? I don’t actually think we have… but boy do they!
Aside from those little details and the potential for polyamory, especially on the part of herms, love happens as usual. Two or more people meet, fall in love, and many choose to marry, but it’s by no means required; many choose to have children, but it’s by no means required. There are plenty of DINKs to be found. And for the Velathini, that’s perfectly okay.
Summa (species name)
(Vivian:) Originally, we had planned on making them more plant-like, because if you look up plant sexual morphology, it is VERY rich and interesting, but we couldn’t figure out a good way to do all that weirdness with a humanoid body.
Instead, we got this: slight focus on gender, education as a core part. Education being important in a species made by an educator? Surprising…
(Anne:) Make that two educators, definitely a shocker! We have some interest in how relationships and queerness work simply because herms are very different from humans, and it all comes together to make our wonderful Velothini. Plus, Velothini is just a cool-sounding word.
Copyleft
(Vivian:) As per tradition, we are doing copyleft for this species, the Velothini! What does it mean that Velothi are copylefted? It means you are free to use the species to your heart's content; you don’t even need to give credits! Albeit if you do give us credit, we will be grateful 💖
The one criterion is that any modifications, things created with them, etc, are also copylefted. So if you create a subculture for them, it is copylefted. Another nation of theirs? Copylefted. You get the idea! If you include them in your work, then the work itself, book, comic, etc, does not need to be copylefted because that is not Velothini alone.
(Anne:) Keep in mind that only the species is copylefted, and the language in this post is still copyrighted. If you want to use the exact words, feel free to ask! However, the ideas and species are copylefted, so go for it! I’d love to see what you do with it. If you share anything you’ve created with them, please let us know! You can get some free publicity as we’ll showcase it on our blog!
Summa Summarum
(Vivian:) So this is the end of the year, literally the last day. It was a rough year for us, despite the many victories. The blog continues to go on, and you all got the end-of-year species as we always do. I hope you all have a great new year! Happy New Year!
(Anne:) Much love to you all from the Stellima crew, and remember to be kind to strangers! You never know what good you might reap in return!
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Copyright ©️ 2025 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. The original idea of the Velothini species is Copylefted (ɔ) (as described above). However, all language or exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage. We’re almost always happy to give permission with credit. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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