I Know I’m Being An Insufferable Worldbuilding Nerd Here, But My Basic Metric For Evaluating Media

i keep trying to phrase a post as like a helpful tip for people who like worldbuilding but. i have to be honest with myself. it is not a helpful tip because no one asked for it. i just want to rant about kinship terminologies.

Nix Reviews: Legends of the Guardians: Owls of Ga’Hoole

Summary: A young barn owl and his brother fall from their nest and are kidnapped and enslaved by Nazi in all but name owls. The barn owl befriends a similarly enslaved young elf owl and the two escape and befriend a young great grey owl and burrowing owl and set off to find a nigh mythical group of owl nights to stop the owl nazis. 

Based on the first three books of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky.

Rating: 6/10

Sexual Assult Drinking Game: N/A

(+) Holy fucking hell is this beautiful animated and designed. They deserved the award that they won.

-those fight scenes! Pure excellence

-the music fits very well

-Owl City has a song in it and frankly, I like puns

-I generally don’t like high fantasy but I loved this

- War is bad but under certain circumstances, the right thing to do is to fight

- White Tyto supremacists and slavery is bad

- Snakes are good guys

- the visual worldbuilding is just lovely

(-) dear gods the pacing. Way too fast.

- We do not get Twilight or Digger’s backstories and their characters are exaggerated

- Glyfie doesn’t get her time to shine since much of the St. Aggies stuff just isn’t in the movie

-Bats are bad guys

- The movie hits only the most important plot beats of the books outside of the fights and doesn’t linger long enough to let emotion settle in

-The film is set in Australia and not N. America

Overall: It’s a beautiful, absolutely lovely looking film. But you’d probably like it better if you didn’t read the books and don’t pay much attention to ecology stuff. The pacing really does the whole thing dirty and would have made a better mini-series than a film. I recommend it purely on the visuals.

Thought-to-speech technology that gets hacked by people who want text messages from their pets while they are at work, only to immediately regret it because their pets text them the dumbest things, and the only way to get any kind of a clear image of what's going on is texting the other pets for cross-reference.

Like you get a text from your dog going "END IS HERE DOOM IS COMING URGENT URGENT SEND TEXT G-D HAVE MERCY, HUMAN COME HOME IMMEDIATELY", (you have no idea why the text translator has decided that your dog is jewish, but that doesn't feel important enough to look into or change) and before you do, you text the cat like "what's going on?"

And the cat replies "sunshine is turned off, window is cold >:C" so okay that's a clue. You've got a monitor lizard that doesn't do much monitoring, but will reply with whatever the lizard is feeling right now if you text "?" first.

"hwrmbglhlr the earth rumbles are sexy", replies the lizard. Okay, so dog panic, no sunshine, and the lizard is sensing vibrations. Oh, there's a rain storm overhead. Fuck's sake.

As A Velociraptor Should Do

Wrote this for an English project, can't believe I forgot to post it here!

Summary: A velociraptor makes a daring escape from a research facility! Freedom is all hers, if she wants it.

Rating: E Length: 1500 words CW: blood mention, animal death (raptor goes hunting)

The smell of grass and wildflowers lingered for longer than Sierra expected. In spite of her artificial surroundings, the raptor knew the scent well; her researcher/caretaker liked fresh air while he worked, so long as Sierra was secure in her enclosure. This time, however, the smell of the outside world persisted even after Avi left the surrounding room. Sierra put the pieces together: the scent meant an open window, an open window meant a passage to outside, to the forest she’d seen only through glass, and the forest meant hunting, and freedom, and very clever ambushes. And without Avi to catch her before she bolted, that left only one obstacle between her and that sweet, unrestricted freedom.

Sierra knew how the door to her enclosure worked, after seeing Avi open it so many times. The handle, chest-height for him, was still too high for her biting range, even if she stretched up as tall as she could go. For a brief moment, she nearly chirped a loud help call, to try to get the human to open it for her, but the thought of having to evade him on the way to the window quashed that idea. Instead, Siera crouched, took aim, and leapt at the door, landing with a crash of talons on metal. Her claws hooked into the holes in the mesh, and she grabbed the handle in her jaws and yanked down. With a click, the door slowly swung open. Success.

After some effort to disentangle her claws from the door, Sierra once again stood on the floor of her enclosure. She ruffled her feathers, took a step out, and froze. Surely she wasn’t going to escape without her beloved stuffed raptor! Quick as she could, she turned, grabbed Nevada in her jaws, and dragged him away. The steady sound of fabric sliding on tile accompanied the rhythmic click of dino claws, as Sierra searched for the open window, following her nose. Finally, a gentle breeze wove through her feathers, and she found herself and Nevada in front of a small cabinet. It felt familiar to her, and when the raptor drew close enough to see the dent in the metal, Sierra recognized it with a wince.

It had been a few months earlier, just after finishing a round of measurements. Sierra had spotted a curious, bright red bug zipping around in front of her. Naturally, such things must be caught. However, no matter how sharp her turns or how quick her sprint, the strange insect evaded her grasp. Avi was helping, in his own way: he did not run much, himself, but with some tool in his hand, he pointed out to her where the bug was with enviable speed and precision. With her natural hunting skills and Avi’s guidance, she remained hot on its trail until it sped under the cabinet, and Sierra did not, instead slamming into the metal hard enough to dent it. The noise must have scared it off, because it was another month before she ever saw another of its kind. And at least Avi was always there to help whenever one did show up.

Recalling the thrill of the hunt invigorated Sierra; she crouched once again, clamped down firmly on her toy, and leapt at the top of the small cabinet… but came up short and fell back to the floor. Undeterred, the raptor issued a low, warning trill at the furniture and tried again. And again. After the third failure, she let go of Nevada for one last attempt. This time, without carrying around a large stuffed toy, she cleared the jump with ease. And at last, the window was right in front of her. Sierra spared a glance back down at the floor-bound doll, but soon turned away. Freedom, it seemed, held a hefty price. She felt the wind ruffle her feathers - real wind, not just the building’s ventilation - and hopped outside, flapping her arms to slow her descent.

Across the field stood a forest of deep green. Sierra’s mind filled with outrunning and outwitting foes, as well as cornering or baiting them with another raptor. Surely, she resolved, that was where she would begin that liberated life, far from tests and researchers. She walked slowly, revelling in the feel of grass under her feet. Suddenly, movement! A pair of mice picked their way through the field, apparently unaware of how easily Sierra could see them.

A rush of energy coursed through the dinosaur’s body as she stalked her newfound prey. Slowly, quietly, and with utmost focus, she crept nearer and nearer. The wrong blade of grass rustled, and the mice shot off, with Sierra in hot pursuit. With her head tucked down, her body cut through the air as her legs propelled her around the field. A well-timed lunge split up the mice, sending one back closer to the building; Sierra stayed steady on the other, but inwardly congratulated herself on the trick. If she had been hunting with a partner, that other mouse would have just become easy pickings!

At last, the mouse misstepped, or maybe simply grew tired. It hardly mattered to Sierra, who slammed a clawed foot down onto its little body. The raptor picked it up in her jaws and quickly gulped it down. She felt giddy. Her first hunt! And she could only get better. The forest was closer now, and drew closer still with each step. Soon, she would vanish from the view of that building, and truly begin her life as a free, wild dinosaur!

Just before the first trees, the ground dropped away at a sharp ledge. Sierra was not foolish enough to fall, but instead hesitated at the drop. She looked back at the building she had come from. Just one more jump, and she may never see it again. No more tests, no more wire mesh enclosure, no more stale air. The raptor crouched and readied her arms to manage her descent, but more thoughts came. No more sleeping next to Nevada. No more hunting those red bugs with Avi. The little dinosaur stood back up. No more Nevada. No more Avi. She took a step back, then shook her head, as though she could physically shake the thoughts out of it. Surely, she was not in for solitude, just something different. In fact…

Sierra took a deep breath,screeched a call into the woods, and waited for a response.

Nothing.

Just idle birdsong and the rustling of leaves and branches in the wind.

She drew in another breath, and chirped as loud as she could, calling any raptors for help. And again, in case they hadn’t heard the first time.

No response.

Sierra shivered, and her feathers stood on end. She hadn’t thought of this, when she dreamed of hunting, wild and free, that she might do it all alone. There was always a second or third raptor in her thoughts, to share food with, to protect and be protected by, to play with. The more she thought of it, the more she realized she disliked the idea of it. She knew what she would do, then. Nevada wasn’t technically alive, and Avi wasn’t a dinosaur, but they were both infinitely better than nothing. Sierra turned around; real raptors or no, she was going to live with her pack.

…right after she chased down that rabbit she just saw move.

One quick meal later, Sierra found herself staring up at the windowsill she had first leapt from. To her dismay, it was too high to jump onto, as she discovered with several failed attempts. Determined to break back into the place she had just escaped from, she looked along the wall, and soon found a lower windowsill. Even better, once she had leapt up and peered through the glass, she saw Avi sitting at some kind of machine.

Sierra chirped for help, then tapped her muzzle against the window. Avi looked her way, then turned back. An instant later, he whipped his head around again and stood up fast enough to knock his chair backwards. Avi ran over to the window, unlocked it, and pushed it open.

“Sierra, how did you get out?” he asked. Sierra ducked inside, hopped onto the floor, and trotted back to the research and testing area. Avi followed, trying to look her over. “Is that blood? Not yours, I hope.”

Paying little heed to the noises Avi made, the raptor quickly found Nevada where she had left him, grabbed him in her mouth again, and dragged him to Avi. He finally noticed the open window, closed it, scooped up Sierra and her toy, then carried her to a small basin with a water spout.

“I’m gonna have to get an actual lock now, huh,” Avi muttered as he watched Sierra splash herself clean.

Sierra responded to his sounds with a happy trill. It was settled, then: the next time she escaped, she’d have to take Avi with her.

This guy nails it right on the head.

Check out his content, folks! He does incredible work and it is criminal he has so few subscribers. 

For aspiring writers of Xenofiction, I IMPLORE you, do NOT write like this. Note Cardinal’s SAGE advice, read from the best writers (Subjective of course, but still) and take a leaf out of their books. 

“The female Utahraptor doesn’t have a name for herself. Her brain doesn’t operate with words, not even with silent, unspoken syllables. It works with images, colorful bursts of memory that make up a dreamlike history the brain constantly updates. Every day new experiences and new associations from her senses rearrange the symbolic registry. In her own brain the raptor identifies herself with the symbols she learned as a chick: ‘me… raptor… red.’ We can call her Raptor Red, because that’s how she labels herself in her own mental imagery.”

— -Raptor Red, Robert T. Bakker