Cruisinforabruising101 - 0-o

I have realized that ironically, while the cat is one of the most known and loved animals/pets. The Wildcat still lingers in the shadows and is a very little noticed animal. Especially in the popular media.

We need more wild cat media, not just domestic cats, because those are all I see.

(And I'm referring to the "Felis silvestris", the others at least people can spot them).

And it seems that people have forgotten or do not realize that the cats we know are domestic animals, that have little or nothing to do in nature (I include stray/feral cats, because they are still domestic cats) and that their wild relative/ancestor exists and is still alive.

It's not like with dogs, there are dog media and there are wolf media, people know how to differentiate one from the other. But what about cats, can you locate any popular stories where wild cats are even in the wild (TRULY wild, not feral domesticated ones)?

And it's kind of sad, wild cats deserve to be noticed and recognized. Sadly many of them are in a vulnerable state and are disappearing.

I would like to see a xenofiction story with wild cats living their lives, hunting hares, taking on lynx, living in wild territory, doing things of their species that emphasize how they are different from their domesticated descendants.

Although I doubt that something like this will happen for a long time, it is one of those cases where you just have to say "If I don't do it, no one else will".

Ya know what I hate? How in Science Fiction if there are aliens and humans, then the humans are ultra super special for whatever reason. Like they can’t just be there they have to ether be the main focus or the only species that matters! Apparently people can’t relate to aliens unless they are inherently superior.

I know I’m being an insufferable worldbuilding nerd here, but my basic metric for evaluating media with very inhuman protagonists is “how easily can one offer a complete and coherent account of this media’s plot without ever mentioning the fact that the protagonist is, for example, a talking car?”. The harder it is, the higher it scores.

no piece of teen media has ever accurately depicted the quiet psychological warfare of bullying. bullies on TV are always dumb brutes and not the evil geniuses of emotional manipulation that they are in real life. being given a wedgie and having your lunch money stolen is nothing in comparison to a classmate quietly creating a taboo against speaking to you that they intend to enforce against all the other kids. it’s nothing like continuous cutting comments from people you thought were being nice to you. that way that the work of one kid can make you feel like every person on earth silently hates you and that you are dirty, disgusting, worthless, creepy and useless. that you can have friends but many of them will not speak to you at school for fear of the social consequences on their end. how that damage lasts in any social setting for the rest of your life

man yells at fish

You, a lover of xenofiction/animal stories who is truly interested in proper research and natural representation, with projects of your own in mind.

Let me tell you, if you read this, that I love you and will be willing to sell my kidney in order to support you.

Any tips on how to design reproductive/family life for long lived species? If they could live for 1000 years, family might be extremely complicated because of the possibility of siblings born 700 years apart, having great great etc... grandchilden before your sibling is born. Vocabulary? How about fertility age? Could 700 years could be considered too old to reproduce? How about dynamics on age differences between partners? Anything else? (No interspecies at this time)

Tex: What’s their perspective of time? Does their environment change more rapidly than they do? It would be a little different for an elf in Middle Earth than, say, a vampire in New York City.

Regardless of a species’ window of child-bearing years and years of childhood itself, how their own biology is perceived is influenced by their environment and experiences. Would someone of your species have children 700 years apart? Would that be a long time between children for them, or a typical span where it’s normal to have one child nearly every thousand years?

A human who has a child at 25 might not have a child at 45, even if they’re physically able to do so. I imagine a similar decision-making process might be involved no matter the species, particularly if your species is capable of doing anything about it - that does bring in another nod to enculturation. Is it even considered appropriate to have children 700 years apart? If so, what would be considered the social advantages?

Do they have a religion that prioritizes reproducing often and whenever possible? Do they not? What would be the rationalization behind either dictation?

What if your species, because it is long-lived, has names for children born at certain stages of life? Would that change family dynamics? If so, how so? What about how timing of birth affecting who they’re socially permitted to become romantically or sexually involved with? What would be the rationale behind those sorts of norms?

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.

The fundamental dilemma of trying to avoid humanocentric writing in fantasy and sci-fi settings is that, while the old Humans Are Special trope is undeniably humanocentric, so is the opposite.

If your non-human species are good at exactly the set of things that humans are good at, and they have their own stuff going on besides, they’re effectively “human+”. You’re still positioning humans as the baseline against which all others are measured.

Paradoxically, non-humanocentric writing demands that humans be special in some respects, since the alternative is treating humanity’s exact set of capabilities and aptitudes as the bar you need to be taller than in order to ride. The trick is that you have to make humans special without making them Special - and that’s not an easy trick to pull off!

“Why are non-human characters always your favourites?”