I couldn’t invent the giant clam but I sure as hell could make it better.

Realistically I don’t believe I, or any other person, have the ability to create a truly unique animal that is not influenced by characteristics that are already in someway present in nature. This is because I don’t think that we are capable of thought outside of personal experience, we have to rely instead upon what we know, and as such even a made up creature like a dragon isn’t truly original because it is based off of already existing elements of other living things. This being said I do believe that I could take the templates of several actual creatures that god or evolution or whatever you want has already created and make them better. For example take the giant clam which in all cases is a pretty lame animal, sure it is giant but that is about all it has got going for it. Now there are stories about how giant clams can supposedly eat people which in this reality isn’t true, but if I could do some creature tweaking you’d bet your ass that giant clams could eat people, in fact it would be the only thing they would eat. Other changes I’d make? Porcupines could shoot their quills like projectiles, whales could swim through the air, and sloths would hunt with laser eyes. So we can all agree that nature in the end is really the most original as far as creating goes but hell some things could use some spicing up. I mean seriously, sea cucumbers they are just boring, but give them wings and telepathic mind control and we have something fun to deal with. Also I wouldn’t be against the existence of any number of made up beings like gnomes and dragons, yeah I’d be down with that.

~ by Nathaniel on October 3, 2007.