BOUTTA CLEAR BEASTMEN AND THEOR GOOD NAMES YALL IVE BEEN SLANDERING THEM FOR FAR TOO LONG
So, as we've established, prey and predator beastmen had been allies and at odds—a dichotomous relationship considering this is essentially cannibalism (I swear I won't go into gruesome detail but it needs to be said) I'd say there was a point in history where there was many a bloodshed, wars, and even blood feuds bc history isn't always squeaky and clean when you consider murderous inclinations.
Beastmen of today aren't as viscous as their ancestors i swear, that doesn't mean they don't rock jaws for fun it just mean they're less inclined to eat your dead body.
Listen—I'm not trying to make Beastmen out to be purely driven by blood thirst but there are some dangerous implications when you consider the bite force of a hyena, like Ruggie could easily bite your hand off depending on his mood.
Which makes Rook scarier when you consider the fact that he literally terrifies Leona, Ruggie, and every other Beastmen in NRC—
This isn't about them tho! This is about how Beastmen evolved, and even their culture! I swear!
Prey beastmen developed Predator traits. Hear me out—"Survival of the fittest" is a statement that has been massively chopped and screwed, the original meaning went something like "a species that can adapts/fits the environment" I'm telling you rn, being considered a Prey Beastmen in Prehistoric times up to the Age of Gods was not a good time.
Bird Beastmen are still going through it to this day. Like their numbers were so low by the 15th century there was a universal law that decreed any Bird Beastmen, small, big, prey, predator were to be protected—like there were efforts put into increasing the Bird Beastmen population it was so bad.
Lemme clarify—Prey Beastmen is an umbrella term— Hawk Beastmen will still be considered Prey compared to a Tiger Beastmen, or hierarchical environments like Afterglow Savannah where Lions are considered top dog even though there are other animals like Hyenas, Jackals, African Wilddogs and the like roaming around or Zebras known for kicking Lions so hard their jaw han—you catch my drift?
Now that that's established let's get on to how Prey Beastmen developed other traits—
I'd say that P Beastmen weren't exactly prey like, they still had that Merfolk blood pumping through them giving them an advantage against any hungry bozo. But when they began to develop other traits they saw advantageous— don't let Zebras fool you bruh, there's a reason they haven't been domesticated yet. Rabbit ears are actually top notch when one isn't hornee on main—
No, Harpies are not Bird Beastmen—they have Rotten Divinity meaning they aren't exactly compatible with the human adjacent genes Bird B's have—
Which in lays a problem—those Merfolk now Beastmen who chose more Preda genes started getting real reckless— P Beastmen are not weak by any means i hope you know, and there was a lot of animosity that came from the assumption that they were weak bc they chose traits that were needed for their environment— Buffalo B's and their cousins adapted to the wild plains, Prairie B's adapted to their instincts of burrowing into the ground.
Need to mention that there are an abundance of animals to choose from, like all the Beastmen im listing have their animal counterpart but there comes a problem—
Preda B's are voluntary carnivores is what I'm saying—they don't have to eat meat but it is ideal. So, yeah, they could've justified killing P Beastmen, even said so outright.
But naw. They basically called them weaker and that they were meant to be eaten.
You can see how well that goes.
P Beastmen pushback against these untrue claims, like they can and will kick Preda Beastmen any day of the week—like the cheek, the gall, the gumption of these clowns.
Its all fun and games until it turns winter, those who chose beasts who are not meant for cold come crawling bro, hands and knees.
This becomes a start of an on and off relationship—who said a Preda Beastmen and P Beastmen couldn't breed?
Baby yeahhh!! We getting hybrids! Go give us the lion-zebra baby we've always wanted—the possibility of these hybrids, tribrids (yeah, Originals who???) Are low, but never zero.
I mean, there are time when the two genes would cancel each other out or there would be a favoring in the gene pool, if a Rabbit Beastmen's genes were stronger than the Wolf's by luck you'd find that the baby has rabbit ears, tail, but the teeth and mannerisms suggested otherwise—this might seem dry, but its like a human breeding an Alien and the child looks human but somethings off about the way they act.
But if its one thing I like to give in these lil thesis' its audacity—the hybrid might renounce (read: eat their parent) from the inside during pregnancy, orrr they eat them when they're older—see, the thing is, fucking each other actually doesn't solve anything when biases are already formed.
Which is where the evolution comes into play—since people wanna fuck so bad but not have their demon spawn kill them they'll just have to evolve—Prey Beastmen began to assimilate more Predator genes into their system (you don't wanna know, its super weird bc P Beastmen have more merfolk in them still, their at the cusp of settling into their evolutions prime time to assimilate more favorable traits, no? Think Splice.)
The changes are small, but overtime as the former Merfolk finally settle into their own as Beastmen those traits start to shine thru babyyyy. The playing field was always at least somewhat level but now that P Beastmen got their upgrade baby Preda's couldn't fix their lips to say shit— so then Preda hierarchies were formed which kickstarts a whole bunch of new bull.
I mean Predators clamoring to see whose stronger—like that sigma, alpha, beta bullshit i think there was a new Greek letter being claimed but I'm too scared to know I've moved past that a/b/o chapter in my life okay, anything a/b/o related will rob me of the little innocence I need to convince God I should atleast have a slice of cake before I get cast into hell.
Efforts to save bird type beastfolk because they had trouble adapting make so much sense
Also, also, some of what you said also work kinda into how I have that the beastfolk kids are actually damn terrified of Jubal since it doesn't matter that Hippos are a "Prey" animal, you don't fuck with Hippos
