As someone who grew up with and loved and adored The Land Before Time (1988) and experienced quite a few of its sequels, too, it's amazing how similar the Ice Age series became to it as well - meaning sequels wise. Though in my opinion, Ice Age (2002) is leaps and bounds better than Land Before Time (1988) though I do deeply love BOTH of their original movies.
Both The Land Before Time and Ice Age (2002)'s original movies are gritty and dark, with a sense of "realism" grounding their events with migrations underpinning the journeys of the original narratives and with a greater xenofictional factor since in IA1, the Ice Age megafauna are treated like majestic creatures who growl and rumble (see Manny and Diego mostly) like they might've done so and with the threat of humans being a major conflict factor within IA1 itself with Manny's choice to return baby Roshan despite the knowledge that in doing so, the child has a chance to become a hunter one day.
However, just like its predecessor The Land Before Time, when it came for Ice Age to get continuations, the realistic underpinnings of IA1 were thrown out the window as its series went Lighter and Softer, just like Land Before Time before it.
And yes, in one of The Land Before Time's many direct-to-DVD/VHS sequels, aliens and an asteroid and end of the world themes (like Ice Age's much reviled IA5) become major plot points!
The Land Before Time sequel where Littlefoot reunites with his father involves Longnecks pushing back the sky to save everyone (because of a solar eclipse which was treated in-universe as an "end of the world" event) and the Stone of Cold Fire teased alien dinosaurs. .-. It was around those sequels that I put away keeping up with the TLBT sequels though when I was young I enjoyed them and it saddens me the Ice Age sequels followed the same route.
My hopes for the Ice Age sequels, even as a young (12/13 year old) child was that they'd buck the trend and remain dark and xenofictional and not devolve into silly Lighter and Softer-ness and Dense and Wackier plots like The Land Before Time did years before. In short, the Ice Age sequels deserved better - they deserved to not basically become a modern, theatrically-released "Land Before Time" sequels-redux!
why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead
Hmmm I've seen a lot of crow and raven people in fantasy settings but sci-fi 'uplift' premises tend to focus on dolphins and chimps and other reasonable targets.
Want a sci-fi story that's set long after some unwise scientist CRISPRed a be-much-smarter tweak into at least two species each of corvids and cephalopods.
so we've got established society of crows, who absolutely picked up human languages fast and use them routinely to interact with human beings, and maybe don't have citizenship in human countries where they reside because they have their own political units that aren't based on terrain, but they are recognized as people by law
(but like, i want to emphasize they are crows that are physically the same as crows have always been)
and the much more mysterious and retiring underwater society of the octopuses.
If you guys have an hour or two to kill, I highly recommend these two videos by Cardinal West on the Xenofiction genre. I have a far greater appreciation and understanding of the genre and it’s sub-categories thanks to him and his videos. These and his other xenofiction video essays are all so well written and entertaining and such a great resource for people wanting to get into reading or writing the genre.
New Letterboxd list.
hold on a fucking second. delaware is a state?? i thought it was a river? or is the river more important than the state? why don't i know this? (i should mention i don't like in america, i'm just confused)
there is delaware (state) and delaware (river)
both are equally strange
the state is a tiny little cryptid thing
the rive is a monster that spans new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware. also washington crossed it once and that was like kinda a big deal i guess. like crossing the rubicon in rome.
the state tries to me more important with its “im the first state!!!” bs (seriously its even on the fucking license plates) but we all know. its the river.
Ok, so, as most know hobbits LOVE mushrooms, but what if they love ALL mushrooms, even the poisonous ones. What if a hobbit’s body is able to handle more of the poison and it doesn’t affect them at all. And they love it!
Watching lion xenofiction and, why the most are literally copycats of the other? There's a lot of interesting things on lions life just to make the same thing over and over. And some of the "realistic behaviour" is not really realistic, is just a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes.
Just, Holy hell, i heard the entire story of the Mapogo lions coalition and why anybody writtes an story based on it? It's perfect, is HOLY SHIT like a xenofiction story actually happened. These lion coalitions have a LOT of potential to writte an story about it.
I’ll be honest, whenever a work of speculative fiction (fanmade or otherwise) goes out of its way to describe an intelligent species with bizarre and complicated reproductive biology, the first question that invariably pops into my head is: “How do these critters masturbate?”