and how they always wuss out by saying "yeah uh childhood is really long"?

but mysteriously pregnancy length isn't mentioned, so it's assumed to be around human?

so

I'm imagining a setting in which elves reproduce slowly not, or not just, because it takes them so long from birth to reproductive age, but because they are pregnant for literally a decade

why? because idk reasons why do they live a thousand years? that reason

and this works out more or less well in peacetime, but in times of war and turmoil...elves generally try not to get pregnant at all, because war and volcanoes and so on move at the same speed for everyone

and that's a fucking LONG time to be not in perfect control of your body, not to mention a HUGE number of chances for something to go wrong

(fights, falls, hard riding, etc etc)

and like. humans miscarry REALLY easily, compared to other mammals

and a lot of that is well before a pregnancy gets noticed, but under stress, the body does have a strong tendency to jettison the energy-draining deadweight

elves are worse that way, if anything

they have 900 years of adulthood; there will be another chance

(do elves go through menopause? discuss)

these are good thoughts

fyeah i do like these thoughts

i was trying to answer a similar question for the fic im currently poking at but "does the version of humans that lives on this funny AU world reproduce at a different rate than normal humans" , while the ansewr is probably "yes", is also. like EXTREMELY far down on the list of things that actually matter in this fic,

If they've got a long gestation period and are as prone to early miscarriage as humans or worse, and also have a much longer reproductive life, that might even lead to like... attitudes toward early pregnancy that make them even less likely to carry to term?

like less "I want to know As Soon As Possible" and more "does the first trimester even really count as pregnancy"

Might tie in well with the "Common" take that longer lived races have much lower birthrates compared to humans. If everyone believes elves don't get pregnant often not because they're "less fertile" or whatever, it's just that they simply don't acknowledge it until much much later

Which is funny, to me

feeling like that Really Counts is honestly a pretty ahistorical attitude in general

"life begins at conception" is just not...a thing

fair enough

but also yeah the idea that you don't even announce it until fully halfway through could be fun

life used to begin at quickening, right? so it's not a baby you don't announce it until you feel the baby move

yeah that!

Me sitting here with my Thoughts because I have thoughts on this but for viera who are also long lived but children are rare and I want to know why

But if pregnancy lasts a decade I vpuld absolutely see elves not noticing in the early stages. How many people don't even realize they are until the second trimester anyway

DEFINITELY also true, if you're not actively Trying then it's very easy to not pay attention