Nix Reviews: Legends Of The Guardians: Owls Of Ga’Hoole

Also going to finally make a pinned post for all my stuff:

BOGLEECH - my tumblr blog is named after this website I created around 2002 and still update. Thousands of pages worth of content focusing on creature design as well as real biology. My review of the original Legend of Zelda monsters might be the most straightforward example of my articles. Links to some of the most popular content:

POKEMON REVIEW ARCHIVE: - I rate and review each and every single Pokemon, in Pokedex order, on its merits as a creature design. I also do so as someone whose favorite animals are all parasites.

DIGIMON REVIEW ARCHIVE - same, but more chaotic.

CREEPYPASTA COOKOFF ARCHIVE - for several years I hosted a yearly writing contest before it grew too big for me to keep up with. There are over a thousand user submitted horror, fantasy, sci fi and surrealist stories here emphasizing unconventional, original ideas you seldom see from the "creepypasta" community!

The original "MORTASHEEN" Monster Archive - since the early 2000's I've created and illustrated more than 800 creatures and counting for my own monster-catching world, now set for release as a tabletop RPG setting.

AWFUL HOSPITAL: SERIOUSLY THE WORST EVER (page one): an interactive comedy-horror-sci-fi webcomic I started in 2014 about a medical facility that could maybe be better.

Some of my other internet stuff:

PATREON - constant work makes my patreon updates inconsistent, but the content backlog goes back years with a huge amount of exclusive art and writing. I try to put up new exclusive stuff whenever I can.

ETSY - I design all sorts of original enamel pins like these, plus I sell zero-maintenance terrarium plants (just leave them in a jar!), original books and other things!

COLOR THE ABYSS (available on the above etsy!) - a 30 page educational deep sea coloring book! Includes a few famous favorites like giant isopods and hagfish, but mostly focuses on less popular, often much weirder animals.

UNBELIEVABLE BUGS - also regularly restocked in the etsy store, 30 of the strangest and most surprising arthropods most people have likely never heard of, illustrated by myself and @revretch, written for even the youngest kids to understand (but will likely teach you something new at any age)

My Itch.io and Ko-fi - both sell digital versions of my books, including some creepypasta collections and my first novel, "Return of the Living," about a world of entirely ghosts suddenly dealing with the appearance of ghost-hunting monsters.

TWITCH CHANNEL - I now try to stream something at least monthly, sometimes weekly when possible, from horror games to books and art.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL - archives my twitch streams and other little things.

INSTAGRAM - look at pictures of my huge weird collection of toys and Halloween collectibles

BLUESKY - I'm going to put mainly just updates to my stuff on here. SEE ALSO:

HUMANS-B-GONE - a science fiction animated series by my partner @revretch, about a world of kaiju-size, technologically advanced insects and arachnids to whom vertebrates like us are just pesky little "gubs." Also has a tumblr account @humansbgone

Sorry y'all but purity culture has genuinely made fandom so boring when you enjoy nuance and variety lol

Sometimes it just feels like everything is squeaky clean and sanitized, no conflict or complications, no character is really evil or are seen as broken and need to be fixed, they become better through the "power of love", every single one gets into a romantic relationship, have vanilla missionary procreative sex because all kink is bad and wrong, are put in a conservative lifestyle and marriage with a white picket fence and kids where nothing bad ever happens and everything is so wholesome and pure and must follow one life script

And yeah people have the freedom to do what they want and not liking it personally doesn't mean everyone should stop. But what really bothers me is there are people like me who feel the same and have very different darker complicated things they want to create but don't because anything considered too evil and dark is demonized and shut down. Then they're too afraid share in fear of backlash and it's really sad. So it's not being mad that the former exists and saying it should stop, it's being sad that the latter isn't allowed

And I do know people who used to explore and create for the latter but after backlash started only making the former and that's sad too. That includes many of your favorite artists that have now blocked me for creating things along the lines of what they did in the past. (Themes of violence and abuse in this case.) And many end up seeming really repressed and restricted as a result. It feels like there's a pressure for it and sometimes it feels forced. And because I don't want to do it it feels like I'm punished for it

But anyway yeah if you're an adult who enjoys evil and killing and violence, blood and gore, hurt and angst, complicated relationships, toxic fucked up characters, or are a sadistic freak like me who loves when terrible things and suffering and death happen in fiction then please, I invite you to join me as we travel to places in analysis and concepts that the surface of the fandom won't go lol

And before you can say something like "this is a kid's series and you're the problem for expecting and creating these things", aside from the ns4w and graphic blood and gore, all of these themes such as as violence, death, abuse, etc, has always existed in the official media already, so I think it should absolutely be okay to explore in fandom too and they have always been what's compelled me the most to create and I'm not the only one :P

We need more games where you play as animals.

Regular animals.

Cyborg animals.

Alien animals.

I don’t care. Just more animals please.

Ok but, imagine a xenofiction story where the main characters are "feral" domestic animals (that have run away from home to live in the wild for some reason), but instead of romanticizing their experience (demonizing captivity in the process) they show all the shit they have to deal with because they are not animals designed to live "free" and how there is no place for them in the nature anymore.

Or I don't know if there is already a story like that, btw.

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. 

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.

@bananaruntz i think what sucks the most about it with xenofiction in particular is that when you have characters that are simultaneously nonhuman and anthropomorphic, it creates this issue where you're forced to accept any misogyny at face value and assume that it's just scientific accuracy, because nature CAN be notoriously unfair. it can't be denied that the females of many species get the shorter end of the stick, but way too many xenofiction authors seem to operate on the idea that this is innately true for the entire animal kingdom when it's just not. even if you are writing about a species where male animals generally dominate the hierarchy, that still shouldn't preclude you from being able to write well-rounded female characters, especially ones that aren't bound by suspiciously human misogynistic tropes.

xenofiction presents so so so many fascinating opportunities to really examine things like sexism and identity and biological determinism but it feels like no one has properly taken advantage of that yet. i am being so fucking serious when i say that xenofiction desperately needs a queer, trans, feminist upheaval.