Every time I draw them I think about macn cheese…
Sundyne are more than a little different than their Drecu cousins, but they share some similar ways of emoting. Another shared trait is that social status often dictates how they emote, and in Sundyne this is doubly true. So, rather than showing the more extreme/exaggerated emotions they can make, these expressions shown are more characteristic of higher-ranking individuals. Things like pulling your lips back, widening your eyes/dilating pupils, or raising your eye membrane at the wrong person usually has consequences, especially the lower you go down the clan structure, so many tone it down to avoid conflict. Like Drecu, as much as they’d like you to believe it, the lesser/“lower” emoting isn’t “natural” to those of that rank and anyone can end up making any expression if pressed enough , but things like how their (often status specific) pheromones affect behavior puts things into a grayer area. Higher status in the clan is directly tied to reproductive status, and being active literally means you have access to chemical signals that others don’t, so your emotions are going to be different. A fun difference is their response to sadness or fear, which is affected by their past as carnivores who lived in tight-knit but much smaller groups than Drecu and spent more time solitary. Rather than a ‘disruptive’ sadness response like Drecu, where basically everyone can see it/you’re basically calling everyone’s attention with the stress pheremone/group activity or support can help, Sundyne feel compelled to be alone (where they’re less ‘vulnerable’) and large amount of people/even just one wrong person intruding can make things ten times worse. Same with fear, most of the time they trend towards the side of hissing/aggression rather than sending out anything to warn or alert others because they still have that instinct telling them they’re at the top of the food chain. Chemical Fear/warning signals and the shriek are for anything sufficiently scary where they think they need help (or are going to run away and we can deal with it later lol). Contrasting, both Dorest and Rox will put out chem/warning/alert signs at any perceived stressors to let the whole unit know as soon as possible.
I think I’ve mentioned this before but their shriek is very close to that of a cougar or bobcat. Very loud, very scary.
