#but the one in prehistoric planet was so well done

[laur-rants]

im workin on other stuff but look I drew my first ever azhdarchid by the way do you know how hard it is to spell azhdarchid i still don't know this is all a copy/paste on my part. anyway enjoy this goofy little guy. I love them.

[radiance1]

Prompt idea: inmortal teen looking Danny, jumping across different dimensions he lands in DC. He quickly become annoyed because the native heroes won't stop trying to adopt him.

Oh and it take some years to Danny to jump to another dimension

*Cracks knuckles*

Alright so this is extremely, very, late. But it shall be DONE!

So, let us start with some BACKGROUND.

Danny is an immortal teen, yes? So then, Danny has outlived every mortal he knows, as in Jack, Maddie, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, everyone.

So when the last person he loved and cared for died (your pick as to whom), he went into the ghost zone to explore to hopefully forget all the pain. He explored the zone, stopping by some of the ghosts he knows before finding a portal, to which he just says fuck it and dives in.

At first he didn't know where he was, but with some digging he came to the conclusion that it's a different dimension and is like neat. So he explores a lil, meets some people, drinks and eats some food.

Y'know, the usual tourist stuff.

So after a few years he had his fill of this new dimension, seeing everything there is to see and all. So he left, finding a conveniently open portal and then goes on to the next.

And the next.

And the next.

Until one portal, like any other. He pops into a new dimension and expects it to be like all the others, he already had things going on his mind about what it would be.

Perhaps old timey? Maybe Prehistoric even? Oooo, maybe it would be futuristic, those are always fun.

Except it was none of that, in this dimension people have powers and superheroes are actually real.

He was a bit surprised, but easily accepted it.

So there he was, just minding his own business outside of earth's atmosphere, eyeing up the planet to think about where he would visit first, he picked up a lot of languages in his travel, so he doesn't think he'll have a problem where he choses.

So he picks a certain spot to land, some city by the name of Metropolis, only to be met with two people.

A man with a red cape in blue and red spandex, and standing near him is a bat furry in black spandex.

Weird choice but alright, he doesn't judge.

It was when the former turned around- Superman if he remembered correctly, that he felt like he was punched in the gut.

He looked so much like him, so, so much that he thought he was standing- well, more so floating, right there in front of him.

"Dad?"

Danny noticed his mistake after he let it slip, there were some slight differences that his father didn't have, and well, his father is dead and all.

So what did he do to save himself from the embarrassment of mistaking some guy for his dead dad?

He's an adult- practically older than a lot of people actually, even if he looks like a kid. He is mature and will solve this and act accordingly.

He turned invisible and peaced out.

He's sure nothing won't come out of that frankly.

It was just a teeny, tiny slip up.

Something did come out of it, much to Danny's chagrin.

Now he's being followed by these superheroes everywhere for whatever reason and they won't leave him alone when he just wants to sight see.

In a dark and grim city because he was avoiding Metropolis?

Followed by some ninja furries in spandex. (Also what the fuck, why the hell are they so damn sneaky for he almost forgot they were following him-)

He went to New York.

Got found by this random lady who also wouldn't leave him alone.

He escaped to Central City and had a conversation with this guy in red spandex with a lightning bolt of his chest.

Honestly he had a pretty nice time but what is it with Superheroes and spandex?

He wanted to leave, but the portal isn't gonna open again for some undetermined amount of time.

...The universe really likes to fuck him over, don't it?

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Can I ask for a quick run down on what damage ark has done?

ark: survival evolved has countless prehistoric creatures inside of it that are not particularly well known. when people search for information on said critters, ark results are often the first to come up. the way the animals are portrayed in the game, in terms of physical appearance, are extremely inaccurate. designs from the game have been replicated and used by many people, including professionals (such as documentary makers), for their own designs, perpetuating that inaccurate idea. Heck, the Stephen Fry documentary has Ark dinos.

the inaccuracies aren't trivial, when we're depicting prehistoric animals people do not have a frame of reference to compare them to to understand what they were like. If you draw an elephant wrong, people can look up what an elephant looks like, or see one at the zoo. we don't have that for the dead.

Instead, you look up an image, and you see what's on google, which is often yet more inaccurate images. And suddenly, someone has a very skewed and incorrect view of prehistoric life

then on top of that, because the critters ark has aren't well known, sometimes ALL the results on google are just inaccurate depictions from ark

this has real consequences. as a docent, I had just as many people become extremely disappointed when I told them that ARK had it wrong as I did Jurassic World.

why does reality and accuracy matter? well

reality isn't going away, and we have to acknowledge that. you can't just create a new one. we have the one and only reality and its consequences to deal with. see: global warming happening literally right now

the idea that reality can be whatever you want it to be or that opinions matter when it comes to facts is exactly how politicians and other people who desire control manipulate people. see the "fake news" phenomenon

people ignoring reality and how it functions leads to a variety of extremely bad things, including cults, hate groups, and - once again - global fucking warming

as such, anything that makes it seem like reality is more murky than we know - such as filling a google images result section with inaccurate portrayals - makes people question the fact that reality is, actually, unmoveable

in this case, birds being living dinosaurs and dinosaurs being portrayed accurately is extremely important for people to know because it demonstrates that humans are not actually the "main character" of planet earth, and we have to stop acting like it (there is no main character)

why do we have to stop acting like it? well, for one, the extreme amounts of destruction we've caused on this planet. for two, because we can go extinct, we operate under the same rules as all life (one such rule is more diversity = more chances for survival), and we have to stop clowning around and arguing about shit that doesn't matter and actually focus on repairing the harm that we have done to the planet and to each other

so yeah. that's why accuracy in paleomedia matters.

because reality matters.

and reality isn't up for debate.

p. s. I don't care that it's a fictional game that says its fictional, if people are coming to me with misconceptions from a thing and thinking they're real, then that thing has fucked up. end of story. and I had *so many* ark fans come to me at the Field Museum. so many.

[la-imp]

AVATAR RECOM HEADCANONS - INTRO

Recoms!Deja Blu Unit - Science"Puke"! Reader

This is my first headcanon series and I am incredibly nervous because there are so many good ones out there already. I have read quite a few amazing headcanon series by various blogs who practically carry the whole Avatar Fanfic scene, which I am really grateful for! I know these sorts of scenarios have been done a lot by now, but I wanted to get one out and put my own spin on it. I hope to write more and update this series as well as take in requests, one-shots, etc, expanding on the characters as much as I can. I hope you enjoy! Avatar has consumed my life, lol...

Disclaimer: I do not own AVATAR, nor do I own its creative properties and original characters. I do, however, own the 'reader' character as well as other created figures that do not appear in the Avatar films, video games, or comic books. Characters involved: Miles Quaritch, Lyle Wainfleet, Alexander Ja, Mansk, Zdindarsk aka Z-Dog, Zhang, Lopez, Fike, Warren, Walker, Prager, Brown - mentions of Jake Sully

Plot Summary: The story takes place during the events of TWOW, right before the great reef battle. I won't spoil any crucial plot details (for those who haven't watched the movie yet), so I'll end it there. The reader is a militant medic with a biochemistry background, now assigned special care to ensure Project Phoenix's success. As their body chemistry is quite different and unique from that of humans, they require some help getting used to their new vessel. This is where you come in... and boy... you were not prepared for this. A bunch of Na'vi Human hybrids at the peak of their prime, fuelled by hormonal rage, primal instincts, and a knack for vengeance, they sure as hell turned your daily life topsy turvy. To them, you were nothing more than another science puke here to bore them out of their minds,  even though you had some military training as well. It is up to you to show them otherwise. To earn a place in their ranks.

Will (y/n) be able to handle this task or eventually fold like the others?

Warning(s): Cursing - Mild bullying - Negging - Foul language - Playful flirting

Content: SFW (Minors DNI) The reader is human and female. I plan to write specific headcanons for each individual character, but this was just a very long and detailed starter in order to get the ball rolling. Also this is not proof-read, so take this with a grain of salt. Happy reading! (also English is not my first language, so please bear with me) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hailing from a gentle background of academics and artists, you've decided to take a completely different route from what your family had destined for you. Going against their wishes and dissapointing a few members here and there was a price you were willing to pay in order to fulfill a lifelong dream. The prize of independence. Or perhaps you were tired of people telling you what you could and couldn't do. The idea of an adventure, exploring new worlds and galaxies, far far away from home was far more attractive than spending your years trying to fix a dying planet. But you also had a knack for helping and aiding those in need. Being a healer with a vast background of medicine and herbs only came natural to you. And as you graduated top of your class, you sought a new challenge. So you joined the space force. Military training was hard but you managed adquedately.  And as you finally becamea full-fledged medic, you signed a contract with the RDA to be shipped off to Pandora.

Save to say, the six years of light-year travel did take a toll on your body. It was often emphasized that dreams do not occur during cryo sleep. Yet, your case was the opposite. Over and over you saw visions of a lush, prehistoric forest that almost looked magical and foreign. Due to overpopulation and pollution, nature seized to exist altogether back on earth, so thinking of what this mythical Pandora may look like, sparked a fire in the pits of your stomach. You began to wonder if these dreams held any meaning to them... or if it was just your brain chemistry running haywire during the cryogenic sleep. The closer you got, the giddier you grew - excited and electrified at the idea of setting foot on one of the most precious planet known to man. Perhaps in the entire universe.

After your space shuttle finally docked at the RDA's space station, you were quickly briefed on your assignment by the announcers, guiding you to the nearest secretary. The secretary looked over her glasses and tossed you an illegible glare before sighing with a shake of her head, handing you your paperwork. "May God have mercy on you," she mumbled before calling for the next candidate. You took the papers hesitantly, brows furrowing in confusion before your eyes cast down on  on these said documents. Your eyes widened as your heart nearly sank. You were assigned to assist military Avatar personnel? You looked back up at the lady who was now grinning at you, a glint playing in her gaze. "Fresh meat for the grinder. It's a bit crass they decided to assign a small girl such as yourself to help these beasts," You slowly nodded, an awkward semi-smile forming on your lips, "I guess I like a challenge," you said, tone matching her sarcastic one. You have studied them for three years now, after all. You were prepared.

A few labcoats accompanied by a good portion of cleanroom suits were helping you find your way before passing you your exopack mask. It was the first time you'd ever seen one of those from up close. The concept of not being able to breathe the atmosphere was somewhat daunting. But it was something you had to get used to if you wanted to survive Pandora's 'Adapt or Die' rules. Wasting no time, you quickly strapped them on and secured the clasps, allowing the small piece of machinery to flood your nostrils with fresh oxygen. Impressed, you found it was much clearer and cleaner than that of Earth's... sadly enough.  You then remembered the comment from the secretary earlier on, echoing in your mind over and over again until it festered in the back of your subconscious. Anxiety began to take a hold of you, shaking your confidence ever so slightly.

Inhaling and exhaling deeply, you then issued a curt nod to your superiors who lastly gave you a clipboard, detailing all of your duties and rank among the Recom unit members. "Ready, greenhorn?" Dr. Vasquez piped up, drawing you from your trance. You blinked at him with a wide-eyed deer-caught-in-headlights look, lips parting, "Y-yeah." he chuckled in response to your nervousness before slapping a hand on your shoulder in confidence. "Don' worry, they may look very scary at first glance, but you will soon realize they are professionals just like us, alright?" You nodded, swallowing the lump down your throat before clamping the board beneath your armpit. "Alright then kiddo, let's rock'n'roll," he said with a smirk before punching in a security code to unlock the doors to the decompressors.

The air was filtered to fit the atmosphere of the recoms. Which was in turn, extremely toxic to humans. Unconscious in twenty seconds - dead in four minutes. The prospect didn't sound like very glamorous death. As the door opened, a hiss emitted from the pressure, giving way to the bright light of the sun peaking through the glass windows. Vasquez marched forward before beckoning you to join him. Upon entering, the energy of the room immediately shifted. It was almost palpable to the touch.

A good part of your confidence was chipped away once you laid your eyes on your future teammates. Breath nearly caught in your throat. To say they were tall was a big understatement. They were huge - as a matter of fact - larger than life! Nothing could've prepared you for this. Most of them stood at around ten feet and nearly scraped the ceilings if they hadn't been adjusted to meet their physiology. You continued to saunter forward, one tentative step at a time, eyes still glued to their physiques without so blinking an eye. Their bodies were even more strange, striking you with awe. Slender, graceful, svelte, yet powerful. The complexion was a deep cyan or darker powder blue, decorated in interesting patterns and luminescent dots, all accompanied by a long prehensile tail that idly swung from side to side, giving them a more animalistic edge. They were all broad-shouldered, even the women, as you scanned the room with all the blue-skinned individuals lurking about, their poise signifying a certain strength and fortitude that of a warrior. They could easily toss a person across the room and break every single bone in their body with one blow if they wished.

Eyes were striking like molten gold peering from the shadows, intensely following your every move. Their previous chatter immediately died down as their eyes glued to you and the other scientists. Vasquez took his position next to someone who seemed much more commanding and authoritive compared to the rest. He stood slightly taller and wore a khaki tanktop, exhibiting a set of toned, muscular arms placated on his hips. You caught a glimpse of his tattoo on his left arm. A black eagle. A remnant of his previous life? Or something to distinguish himself from the others, perhaps?

The way he walked with a certain swagger, taking a stance next to Vasquez, sharp yellow eyes peering into the hall, had you nearly choke on your own saliva. He was an intimidating man,  "As you all know, we are sent here to accomplish a mission that we couldn't last time. To hunt down and terminate the leader of the Na'vi insurgency, Jake Sully.  And in order to ensure our success, we have been assigned our personal medical officers who specialize in Na'vi physiology. They make sure none of us step out of line and patch us up during missions. Treat 'em with respect, ya hear? They are as much our responsbilities as we are theirs," his tone was a low, commanding drawl, hinting at his possible origin back from Earth. He also sounded a tad older than his bio stats suggested.

"Wait, we're going to have these science pukes tag along?" Someone groaned in the background.

Doctor Vasquez nudged you with his elbow before whispering something into your ear. So he was the colonel. Colonel Miles Quaritch. The leader of the first recombinant unit Deja Blu, the first Avatar squad produced by Project Phoenix. Vasquez then nodded and brought you and another male medical officer. Thankfully you weren't alone. And as you peeked into the crowd, practically feeling their eyes rake over your forms in a very scrutinizing manner, you wished there were more human scientists to accompany you. "Listen up Recoms," Vasquez announced, matching Quaritch's energy. Which you had noticed, was now glancing at you over his shoulder with a lazed stare. You quickly turned away, hating that all of their attention was on you now. Just great. "Those are your new medical officers," he gestured to both you and your counterpart, earning him a few whispers and hushed conversations between the Na'vi hybrids. The heavily tattooed individual grunted loudly, expressing a clear distaste at the fact.

You watched as the one with the camo cap began to chuckle before leaning over to the tattooed female with the mohawk, gossiping something into her ear. Your eyes narrowed at her, hoping to God they weren't talking shit about you. The male medic next to you semed quite nervous himself, almost glistening with a faint sheen of sweat whenever the light hit his complexion. Oh man... what a great start. "This here is Mr. Ryan," Vasquez said confidently and clamped a hand on his shoulder before pulling you to his side with a toothy grin, "And this is Miss (y/n). They're going to do a quick checkup on your vitals before we make land on Pandora. Their status reports will affect your mission. If you have any further questions regarding any of that, feel free to ask them. Good luck and have fun," he said before departing, giving you a two-finger salute before vanishing out the door.

For a moment, you wished he hadn't abandoned you so soon, but as you stood there, again with the hundred yard stare, you instantly began pulling out your clipboard, training your eyes on the papers rather than the giant soldiers around you. Quaritch cleared his throat before stepping forward, closing in on your proximity. The heat practically rolled off of him. Almost radioactive in a sense. "Right. Welcome to the crew," he said as a deep rumble of chuckles resonated within the hall. You flicked your attention back on them, seeing as their expressions turned from scrutiny to amusement. The one with the hat flicked his chin toward Ryan, "So you get to touch us all around?" Ryan nodded cautiously, "Yes, in a sense. We need to do some physical checkups to make sure your bodies haven't mutated or caught any diseases on the way here and-"

"So you're gonna be cupping my big blue balls, too?" he said, making an obscene gesture as the team burst out in synchronized laughter. Mr Ryan pursed his lips in frustration. You felt his pain, it was nearly palpable.

You were so not ready for this... "Shut your horny mouth, Ja!" one of the female recoms hollered, smacking him on the back of his head.

Judging by the 'joke', you came to the conclusion that they were full-blooded jarheads. You sighed before ticking something off your clipboard. "And what about her? Is she good with her small hands?" At this your eyebrows twitched before you began searching for the miscreant of this statement. Seeing as the one with the bandana had crooked a finger at you. "Man, she does look cute tho... tiny lil thing. What's good, mama?" their banter continued, slapping and fist bumping each other, having the time of their lives. What a fucking farce - you thought to yourself begrudgingly. The behavior reminded you of teenagers experiencing the surge of hormones for the first time. You couldn't believe Vasquez had vouched for their professionalism. Perhaps he was in on the joke as well. "Shut your pie holes. They're here to help, not entertain you, you fucking lowlifes. Treat'em with respect or I'll have your ass handed back to the infirmary, you get me?!" Quaritch's voice boomed, immediately silencing the lively chatter among his subordinates.

Looking over at the colonel, you saw his hardened, chiseled features directed toward you with an unreadable expression. His pointed ears were tucked back against his head as he issued you a small nod. You repaid him with the same respect and inclined your head in acknowledgment before moving on to your first patient. "Brown?" you said, louder than originally intended before you flicked your gaze around the room, searching for any response. "Steven Brown?" you repeated with a bit more clarity. The mohawk lady merely snorted with arms folded, watching you as you searched for your first victim. Suddenly a blue hand lifted, alerting you of your designated recom, seeing that he looked a little less grim and intimidating. Although equally large, he seemed a bit more approachable, in your eyes at least. With that being said, it wasn't exactly a joyride pushing and squeezing yourself through, as some of them actively made an effort of staying rooted to the spot, entertained at your slight struggle. You could have sworn hearing someone wolf whistle at you but you pushed those thoughts aside when you reached your destination.

He was slightly shorter than the rest, not that you could tell right away as he was seated on one of the benches slightly hunched over, his posture overly lax. Much like the others, he sported that classical short military haircut and fade. "Alright doc, whaddya got for me?" he drawled with a certain bite. You decided not to overanalyze everything, as you were already extremely nervous. You meanwhile scribbled down all of the data before setting the clipboard down, looking him in the eye. He remained there, sitting there in silence, monitoring you with a peculiar glint playing in his topaz irises. "Alright, Mr. Brown, could you please stretch out your right arm? I need to take some samples and check your haemogram if that is alright with you," you explained as you flashed him a polite smile while the convos in the background resumed.

Brown simply nodded and muttered a small 'sure thing' before complying with your wishes. Once he extended his appendage, you got a chance to examine it closely - realizing just how large and sinewy his arm was. The texture was interesting too, differing not much from human skin, save for the lack of arm hair. "Finding a vein shouldn't be a problem," you jest before pulling out a small device for blood sampling. It was not a syringe, but a highly advanced gadget that locked down on the skin cell before drawing a bit of blood. "Alright, just let me disinfect this real quick..." you continued before wiping the spot with a small disinfectant wipe, clearing it from any bacteria. The feeling of his skin was curious, smooth yet somehow rougher to the touch compared to human flesh. Pandora's rough climates had evolved them to become perfect survivors as even their skin was harder to penetrate.  Brown tilted his head to the side, ears swiveling curiously when you placed the blood-letting machinery against the crook of his arm. A small pinch broke through his flesh, extracting only a few tiny droplets. "There we go, that's about it-" Before you could continue, however, you caught Brown sending you a mischievous wink. "Didn't hurt at all, doc."

"Got what ya need, Miss (y/n) or... did I get that right?" you felt blood rush to your cheeks, heating your face altogether. They were trying to rile you up on purpose now... "(Y/N) right, but just call me by my first name. No need for being formal," hoping it would somewhat diffuse the awkward tension between you and the recoms. However, things did not go as planned when Brown's brows lifted for a short moment before his ears rotated in your direction, more attentive than before. "Well good to know, (y/n), looking forward to working with ya," your breathing became heavy to his deliberate teasing as he allowed himself to lean forward. You nearly jumped at his sudden intrusion "So (y/n), what does my blood test say?" just then the analysis was completed, giving you a clear stats report on his bloodwork.

"So far so good... bloodwork looks normal. Cholesterol is in the green and.... well..." His face faltered a bit, "What?" "be sure to consume fewer sugary drinks or sweets but other than that, you're fine. Wouldn't want you to be the first adipose soldier on Pandora," his features continued to crack "You calling me fat, doc?" he said before warming up to a smirk. You leaned away from him to avoid his sudden boldness. "Nah, just reminding you to be on your best behavior if you want to keep up with the rest, alright?" Brown scoffed with a shake of his head as you took your clipboard with you, writing down all of the info as well as checking a few boxes. "I'll get back to you later, just need to do the same with.... uh.. Wainfleet?" you asked, squinting your eyes to spot someone a bit taller and a tad bit more athletic looking. He lacked hair, like some of the others as he wiggled his fingers at you flirtatiously, a crooked smile plastered on his lips. "The one and only," you grunted in affirmation, feeling some of the dread returning before you headed over.

A sudden ticklish sensation and force tugged at the crook of your knee, having you to stumble and nearly fall flat on your face. Walker clicked her tongue with a roll of her eyes, "Come on Kevin, leave the poor girl alone already!" Quaritch's nostrils flared when he caught Brown fucking with you. A move of his tail that hooked around your leg in order to trip you. "You better secure that shit, Brown before I clip that thing off, capiche?" He growled, causing Brown to stiffen immediately. Eventually, he lowered his head and ears ".... yes sir... sorry,"

You managed to calm your thundering heart as you eyeballed Brown with a mix of irritation and embarrassment. What an asshole. Is that how it was going to be all the time? Good lord... how much you began to regret signing up for this particular unit. "Mr. Wainfleet?" you said softly, approaching the man cautiously as he eyed you up and down with that same grin on his face.

"Call me Lyle, sweetums. Only my mother calls me Mr. Wainfleet. So.... here to check the goods? Or maybe even get a feel?" Lyle chuckled before flexing his built physique, making you watch his biceps bulge and swell. The action made your throat dry out like the Sahara desert. Just what in the world have you gotten yourself into...

[vickysaurus]

If you’ve finished watching Prehistoric Planet, caught the dino bug, and want to watch more, well, I’ve got recommendations for some fantastic older Mesozoic documentaries and shows! I’m only gonna list my faves, but if you have good ones to add, feel free to do so!

Walking With Dinosaurs (1999)

The classic, the one I grew up with. A six episode miniseries that spans the entire Mesozoic, from the Triassic to the Cretaceous. Each episode focuses on a specific location and usually has one specific animal that’s more or less the main character, while also showing off others as they are encountered. The science and effects are 23 years old by now, so don’t expect much fluff or great CGI, but they used what they had very well. It helps a lot that the close-up shots are done using incredibly charming animatronics rather than CGI. The gorgeous music and Kenneth Branagh’s narration add a ton more personality to everything. You will cry about an Ornithocheirus at the end of his journey. There were three special bonus episodes released over the next few years that have Nigel Marven (more on him later) time travelling to see the dinosaurs in person. There are also two sequel series: Walking With Beasts and Walking With Monsters. WWM explores the Paleozoic but went through it too fast and suffers from some ‘Awesomebro-yness’ in my opinion but there’s not much else to turn to if you wanna see the Paleozoic unfortunately. WWB explores the Cenozoic and is every bit as good as WWD. When I had my recovery day after my third covid vaccine I put on all three in chronological order and just marathoned them and the various little aches didn’t bother me all day as I watched the history of the Earth from the Cambrian to the Quaternary.

Prehistoric Park (2006)

Time-travelling Nigel Marven returns from the Walking With Dinosaurs specials to bring back extinct animals to the present. As you might guess, it’s a bit more on the fictional side, but all the animals are really well done and scientific, as are the ecosystems they travel back to. The modern day parts are much more about actually properly running a zoo, including things like enrichment, proper animal care, and cranky zookeepers with a heart of gold becoming Ornithomimus parents than Jurassic Park type scenarios. Nigel doesn’t just get dinosaurs; he goes to the Cenozoic several times and even takes a trip to the Carboniferous for its giant arthropods. Recent enough that feathers are starting to appear on some dinosaurs, particularly the adorable Microraptors. Nigel is an absolute menace and I don’t know who gave him access to a time portal but i’m glad they did. The recent game Prehistoric Kingdom was strongly inspired by this one, to the point of having Nigel voice the tutorials and trailers. Features a friendly herd of Titanosaurs with a disregard for fences causing more havoc than any carnivores ever could.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001)

America’s answer to Walking With Dinosaurs. A single two-hour long documentary spanning the whole of Mesozoic America and really focussing on how the dinosaurs developed between its segments. The only time I ever remember seeing the Early Jurassic depicted, and the only one on this list to treat the end-Permian and end-Triassic extinctions and how important they were for dinosaur evolution. Though it does blame asteroids for them. Very good stuff, aside from a scene where Velociraptors continue eating their prey even as a forest fire sets them on fire. It’s very America-centric, but that’s no weakness. John Goodman makes for a surprisingly good narrator and throws in a sneaky Flintstones joke or two.

Dinosaur Revolution (2011)

This is a bit of an odd one, and it might or might not be your jam, but it certainly is mine. It is essentially a mashup between a dinosaur documentary and dinosaur Looney Tunes. Very silly slapstick segments focussing on specific dinosaurs with somewhat anthropomorphic behaviours get intercut with scientists explaining the latest of 2011 paleontology. The animation is a bit naff but the designs are really good and there’s a lot of feathers. It highlights behavioural traits like intelligence and parental care a lot. Two of its episodes cover pretty much the whole Mesozoic in no particular order, two episodes do Walking With Dinosaurs style covering of a single animal’s story in a single ecosystem. Shunosaurus eats mushrooms and has a bad trip. Lots of mammals go flying after getting thrown about. In a true Blackadder Goes Forth type pivot, the final episode of this very silly slapsticky show has the most haunting and tragic depiction of the K-Pg extinction I’ve ever seen.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Water Damage

Water Damage plays a thick and noisy variety of drone, favoring looooooong compositions that the band refers to as “Reels”; on Water Damage’s most recent LP, 2 Songs, you get two reels, subtitled “FUCK THIS” and “FUCK THAT” (band’s caps). All those verbal antics feel appealingly playful, but the music is deadly serious stuff — not surprising, given the players involved. Members of this septet also play in Austin-associated bands like USA/Mexico, Marriage and Spray Paint. As the band’s moniker suggests, the music is patient, persistent and often insidious. Here's some music the band has been listening to.

Travis Austin

Surface of the Earth — Surface of the Earth (1994/95, Reissued 2022 Thin Wrist Recordings)

New to me when it was reissued and the record I’ve played most since then. It feels as huge to me as it does microscopic — prehistoric as it does post-apocalyptic.

Jon Hassell — Aka/Darbari/Java: Magic Realism (1983, E.G. Records)

Start to finish, I don’t know of anything else that sounds like this — the hazy atmosphere and way the rhythms tumble. From the liner notes: “a ‘coffee-colored’ classical music for the future.” And the cover is by the same artist who did the cover for Bitches Brew.

Mike Kanin

Archie Shepp — Blasé (1969, BYG/Actuel)

I heard this one for the first time just this past year. I can’t believe I’ve missed it. By turns raw and beautiful, honest and evocative, what’s here transcends genre while highlighting Black experience and struggle. Incredible work.

George Dishner

Clipse — Hell Hath No Fury (2006, Star Trak / Re Up Gang Records)

The most engaging rap record in history as far as I’m concerned. Pusha, Malice, and the Neptunes peaked. Sonically HHNF is minimal and alien sounding, almost nonmusical at times. Lyrically, it’s bleak throughout and incredibly funny at times (some of the best punchlines ever recorded). At 12 songs and 48 minutes with only a few guests and skits, there is no fat whatsoever.

Remarc — Sound Murderer (2003, Planet Mu)

I’m always looking for cheap electronic records at every record store. Mid 1990s Jungle scores are the best. It’s a pretty narrow subgenre but one of my favorites. Remarc checks all my Jungle boxes — chaotic, lo-fi, dubby, rough. It’s devoid of any pretentious jazziness or techy soullessness. His formula is pretty basic — supreme mastery of The Amen and sick ragga Bass shit. This is a comp of some of his best stuff of the era when Jungle was at its best.

Nate Cross

Omertà — Collection Particulière (2022, Standard In-Fi, Zamzamrec)

Not to point out the obvious, but France is a huge influence for Water Damage. I’ve obsessively kept up with everything they’ve done and all their various related projects and their label Standard In-Fi. This is Omertà’s second LP; the group features members of France, Tanz Mein Herz, Societe Etrange and more. The album is a vibe, I can listen to it over and over. Really interesting to hear these folks do something more ‘song oriented’ instead of the normal long-form style in their other groups. Also, you can never go wrong with two bass players.

Bumblebee Unlimited — Sting Like a Bee (1979, RCA Victor)

Always been a huge disco nerd and Patrick Adams was a genius. This one-off LP and group was about as close to perfect as you can get and is a sort of bridge between disco and house music. So much glorious repetition on this album, and the bass lines are minimal brilliance. The chipmunk-esque vocals are ridiculous, but still work so well (similar to another 1979 disco gem — Bryan Adam’s “Let Me Take You Dancing”).

Jeff Piwonka

John Coltrane — Olé Coltrane (1961, Atlantic)

This is one of the first jazz albums I heard that had two bassists on it, Reggie Workman and Art Davis, Davis being a little lesser known I think and a really really amazing bassist. This whole album is great but the first side, 18 minutes of everyone going in and out, and there is space for the bassists to get weird with arco and pizzicato playing. I’ve known this album for a long time, but it’s been played a lot lately because both my 4-year-old and 16-month-old grab this record from the shelf all the time. It’s really strange actually, I put it in a different spot each time and they still grab this record very frequently, it’s a French pressing and Reggie Workman’s name is spelled “Reggie Wokrman” and Eric Dolphy is “George Lane.”

Greg Piwonka

Lungfish — Artificial Horizon (1998, Dischord)

Love this record, and the repetition is something that I often thought about as we were still figuring out Water Damage ideas. I feel like some of the newer songs that we are working on sound like extended Lungfish songs. Much of that has to do with the influence of this band on my drumming. There is a part toward the end of this interview where Daniel Higgs talks about experiencing repetition as a listener, and how there isn’t really a thing such as a repeated passage in time — that it’s unique every time… the listener is creating the pattern. That idea is foundational to me in relation to what we do as a band. Every time we play, I get lost and question how the pattern is even working.

Palace — West Palm Beach/Gulf Shores (1994, Drag City/Palace)

These two songs back-to-back are high on the list of my favorite things ever recorded. The mood here reminds me of all the rundown beach towns around the Gulf. The playing is great, it sounds like they just went in the studio and made it with very little effort. Many other recordings have that same vibe, Neil Young’s Zuma, Songs: Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme… this list could get long. I guess a technical term for that vibe is magic. I had not listened to this for a few years and returned to it recently and instantly loved it again.

[nostradamus0]

the miasaurus rex: king of my lizards

read on ao3

The Doctor has stood at the bedside of suffering before. He’s witnessed more deaths than he can count and confronted the fragility of life within almost everyone he’s ever loved, and carried that weight as guilt. 

Now, he sits at the foot of his daughter’s hospital bed and everything is fine. Her cries have long since quieted, her tears dried. There’s a bright purple bandaid on the side of her jaw to match the violet of her wrist cast, and she’s perfectly safe. A bit giggly from the painkillers, but safe and smiling—not even in any pain. Yet his leftover fear is still twitching in his fingers.

A marker lands on the blanket between his knees. Navy against the sky-blue blanket.

“If you’re not too busy brooding a hole through the wall, we could use some help.” 

He looks up and they’re staring at him: Mia with a fistful of markers and an expectant, closed-mouth smile, and Rose with a soft understanding in her eyes and an outstretched hand, beckoning him closer. Offering a distraction.

“We’re trying to recreate scenes from Prehistoric Planet, but our girl’s drawing hand is out of commission and anything more than a stick figure’s out of my league.”

(God, he loves her.)

“You know the dinosaurs, daddy,” Mia chirps, and his heart grows a few sizes at the soft whistle-y noise halfway through dinosaur—the little temporary lisp she’s had for a few days now after losing her first tooth. “You can draw them.” 

She reaches over to press the pile of markers into his hands, and he scooches closer to join them at the head of the bed, the three of them pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. Mia drops her temple against his bicep and pokes at the green marker. 

“That one,” she says. “The Tyrannosaurus Rex is green.” 

Unfortunately, most of what they’ve drawn so far is green, and he can’t tell what any of them are supposed to be, let alone which one is the T-Rex. He loves his wife beyond words, but she’s not exactly an artist. 

“That may be,” he tells their daughter, uncapping the pink marker and hunching over her cast, “but the Miasaurus Rex is pink.” 

She giggles and her arm shakes; he accidentally streaks ink across his own palm. When she settles, he starts to draw, doing his best to invent a new species of dinosaur out of pink marker lines, impossible to make smooth on the bumpy plaster. For a few, long moments, everything is quiet. And then—

“T-Rex: King of the Tyrant Lizards,” Mia whispers, her voice full of the kind of drama that only a six-year-old can effortlessly wield. (She’s become quite fascinated recently with the etymology of dinosaur names, which is even cuter than it sounds. In his completely objective opinion, of course.) “Mummy, what does my name mean?”

“‘Mine.’ It means ‘mine,’” Rose says, but she glances up at the Doctor from where she’s been weaving a small braid into Mia’s hair, and her eyes say ‘ours.’

“King of My Lizards?” Mia asks after a thoughtful pause, her eyebrows scrunching together. 

“That’s right, my sweet girl.” Rose finishes off the braid with a hair-tie from her wrist and tucks it behind her ear. “They’re all yours.”

“So much so, in fact, that no one else even knows about them,” the Doctor adds, capping the pink marker and reaching for the black, ready to give the very first Miasaurus Rex some eyes and a smile. The body, while clearly some type of dinosaur, is a bit wobbly and unsymmetrical, and one side of the head is significantly flatter than the other as though the poor creature had been dropped on its head. (Given the circumstances, he thinks, he’s done fairly well.)

“I’ll just have to grow up and find them, then,” Mia says, so decided and matter-of-fact that for a moment, it’s impossible not to believe that she’ll someday discover a dinosaur that never lived. 

The Doctor glances up from his in-progress invention of a species to meet his wife’s eyes, bright and warm, sharing in his awe that this brilliant little girl is theirs. They get to love her. They get to watch her grow and laugh and sit captivated by his stories of meeting real dinosaurs during his years of time and space. 

They chose her name because it means mine. But they sit all squished together in her hospital bed, creating a new dinosaur on her wrist cast and weaving braids into her loose hair and he thinks that no, ‘Mia’ does not mean mine. It means ours.

[5ivebyfive]

land of the lost brittana

[I wrote this for @jennamacaroni once upon a time for her bday when she requested Brittana and dinosaurs. It’s based off that old tv show Land of the Lost, and it’s crack-y. I forgot I even wrote it, but it was so much fun. Enjoy.]

(Rating: T)

This wasn’t what Santana had in mind when Brittany suggested they take a nice little road trip to a spa for their anniversary. She had envisioned a swanky hotel, massages, and lots of naked hot tub time with her girlfriend. Not some freaky, geeky, science-fiction show crap.

If she had been driving they would have avoided this entire situation.

Instead a freak storm hit, and they couldn’t see where they were going. The ground started to shake and rumble, and Santana was sure it was an earthquake. (She didn’t scream, and if anyone ever claims she did, she’ll deny it with every last breath.) Before Brittany could even pull over, the ground cracked before them, and it quickly began to split the earth apart. (Again, Santana did not scream.) Brittany had tried her best to steer out of it, but it was useless. Santana’s large SUV slid down through the gap in the road. Like a bad dream, or an equally bad science fiction tv show, they found themselves driving through some dark underground tunnel and emerging into another world.

A lost world.

A lost world of motherfucking dinosaurs.

Santana had been sure in that moment that she was dreaming and would wake up at any moment, but things only got worse. There wasn’t any civilization around them to speak of. Just lots of sand and sun, and it wasn’t the kind of sand and sun Santana actually liked. Everything was hot, dry, and just plain freaky. Loud birds screeched off in the distance. Once they stopped the car and climbed out of it they could hear other animals, and neither of them could really place what kind of animals they were hearing. Brittany seemed convinced they had somehow taken a wrong turn into the desert, but Santana reminded her that there was no desert in New York.

And that’s when they saw their first dinosaur.

Santana did scream that time. And who wouldn’t when faced with a giant prehistoric creature that wasn’t even supposed to exist anymore? She had scrambled back into the car, screaming at Brittany to follow, but Brittany only stood there staring. It took one loud cry from the…well, fuck it if Santana knows her dinosaurs. It was big and scary…and BIG. It took one screech to send Brittany flying into the car beside her. Brittany had hit the gas and spun the wheel, and she got them away from there as fast as she possibly could. For once Santana was grateful for Brittany’s penchant for speed.

It was a big chase like from a movie, and it was scary, and there was lots of screaming and yelling between the two women, but eventually they found a cave to drive into and hide in. Santana didn’t let them leave that cave until the next morning. She kept waiting to wake up, but it was all very real.

It had been a week since that day, and Santana was still waiting to wake up. She was tired, dirty, and grumpy. Brittany had taken action almost from day one. She started searching for better shelter, because for some reason hiding out in an SUV in a cave wasn’t good enough for her.

Santana found it perfectly safe. Well, at least as safe as two girls trapped in a strange land with dinosaurs could ask for. She knew they definitely weren’t in New York anymore. Not only had they landed in a desert, then had driven into a jungle. A legit jungle with vines and shit. Oh, and there were three moons. Santana didn’t know a whole lot about space – she tended to tune out when Brittany rambled too much – but she knew that planet Earth did not have three moons. The fact that Brittany couldn’t explain why they saw three moons did little to comfort her.

She knew she wasn’t being very helpful to Brittany, and sure she felt kinda bad, but she wasn’t done freaking out about their situation. She wanted to go home. She wanted to crawl into a big, comfy bed and sleep. She wanted a fucking McDonald’s Happy Meal. She wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

…even though Brittany did look pretty hot fixing a tree house in her bikini.

Yup, Brittany found a tree house. It was totally Swiss Family Robinson and shit. Santana had been stubbornly cooped up in the car when Brittany came running up all excited. Santana let her girlfriend drag her off through the jungle, and not too far from where they had settled was a big tree house high up in the trees. It was made of logs and vines, and it looked completely unsafe and dirty, but that didn’t stop Brittany from climbing up into it.

So Santana found herself sitting on the back of the open SUV, which Brittany had insisted they drive over to park beneath the tree house. And of course, because what kind of fucked up nightmare would it be otherwise, the car was low on gas. Santana gazed up at the tree house and watched while Brittany cleaned out the living space. She had found an old broom made from a tree branch and leaves and started sweeping. Dust, dirt, sticks and leaves fell from the tree house above, and Santana just sat there.

“Come on, Santana,” Brittany finally shouted down to her. She leaned against the not-so-secure looking railing of the tree house and sent her best pout down. “I know this stinks, but we have to make the best of it. And look!” She took a step back and held her hands out, palms up. “We found a house! How lucky is that?”

“Might be a trap,” Santana called up. “How do we know? We don’t know where we are! Or when we are!”

Brittany just sighed and went back to cleaning.

Okay, so yes, Santana felt super guilty, but she still didn’t want to accept the situation that they were in. She didn’t want to believe that it could be real. That there could be actual–

She let out her loudest shriek yet, and she had never moved so fast as she did to get up into that tree house. “Killer! Killer dinosaur! Britt-nyyyyyy!!” She got up the ladder and dove into the house part of the tree house. Brittany jumped and ran to the railing again to look down, and when she did she let out a sigh and relaxed.

“Honey…that’s just a little baby dinosaur…”

“I don’t care what you call it! It’s a killing machine!”

Brittany shook her head, a slight smile on her lips, and stepped back into the house. She walked through and found Santana sitting in a ball under the small wooden table. She crouched down and held a hand out. “C’mere.”

“No. Get us out of here! Take me home! Take me home now!!”

With a small frown on her lips Brittany pushed a chair out of the way and crawled under the table with Santana. She wrapped an arm around her girlfriend and almost immediately the smaller girl climbed into her lap. Brittany could barely sit up under the table, but she closed her arms around Santana and hugged her tightly.

“I know this is scary,” Brittany murmured softly against Santana’s cheek. “I wish I could just take you home, but…I can’t. I’m sorry that I can’t.” She kissed her skin. “But I’m gonna take care of you, okay? I’ll protect you from everything, and we’ll find a way to get home.”

“B-but…what if we don’t? What if we have to live here with these smelly monsters forever? What if-”

“At least we’re here together,” Brittany cut in to her ramblings. She kissed Santana’s cheek again. “We’ll be okay.”

Santana closed her eyes and relaxed against Brittany. While the words didn’t completely soothe her, they did help calm her. She kept quiet for a moment while she tried to slow her fast-beating heart, but then she nodded and opened her eyes. “Wh-what do you want me to do?” She asked in a small voice. She wanted to help. She didn’t want to be there, but she wanted to help Brittany.

Brittany smiled and climbed out from under the table. She pulled Santana with and kept hold of her hand. “Well. First, I want you to put on your bikini, then you’re gonna open that bottle of champagne we brought for the hotel room.”

“And…?”

“And we’re gonna sit right there in the sun and relax. And maybe make out a little.” Brittany grinned.

That brought more of a smile to Santana’s face, and her head shook. “Okay..”

“Good.” Brittany swatted her lightly on the ass. “Now go change. Your clothes are on the bed over there.”

“There’s a bed?”

“Mhmmm…”

Santana walked over to it and wrinkled her nose slightly. “It’s gross, Britt. I’m not sleeping on it, much less doing anything else.”

Brittany walked up behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist. She smirked as she rested her chin on Santana’s shoulder. “We’ve done it in worse places,” she reminded her. Brittany kissed her cheek again. “Now strip.”

****

After three glasses of champagne, Santana wasn’t minding the bed so much. They had started out sitting on the ‘porch’, but the sun became a little too much and they moved back inside. Brittany was currently sitting sideways on the bed so that her feet hung off and her back leaned to the wall. It was a small, single sized bed pressed into the corner of the room, but it was better than nothing. Santana sat perpendicular to Brittany so that her legs were stretched across Brittany’s lap, and her body leaned against Brittany’s.

“Feeling better?” Brittany asked.

“Mmm,” Santana replied with a hum.

That made Brittany giggle, and she took the glass from Santana’s hand to take a sip. She had packed two glasses, just in case, but after her second glass Santana had accidentally dropped it over the railing. Neither had a problem sharing their one remaining glass, but Santana pouted when Brittany took it. She wanted the champagne to herself. God only knew when they would get to drink again.

“Be nice and share,” Brittany admonished playfully.

Champagne always made Santana drunk fast, and it made her silly. It was one of the few drinks that she didn’t get weepy from. Brittany was always amused by Santana drunk on champagne, especially when she lost any remaining filter.

“Um, how ‘bout you be nice and put your hand in my suit.” Santana mumbled. She leaned closer and closed her lips over Brittany’s earlobe. Brittany laughed. “m’serious, Britt. Le’s forget where we are and gets our sexy on.”

Brittany’s eyes closed for a moment at the feel of Santana’s mouth on her, but she opened them again to look her girlfriend over slowly. She was hot. Super, super hot. Brittany ran her hand up Santana’s legs, her hip, and then up the tight plane of her stomach. She edged her fingers underneath the top of Santana’s bathing suit to grab onto one of her boobs.

Santana whined. “Wrong direction.”

“You didn’t say which part of your suit I should put my hand in,” Brittany reasoned. She lowered her head to kiss along Santana’s neck, and Santana stretched her head back to give her more room.

“B-but…”

“Don’t worry, my little Santana-saurus Rex…I’ll get there.” Brittany smirked as she bit down on Santana’s pulse point, and squeezed the warm flesh in her hand. The long moan in her ear turned her smirk into a grin, and she was sure she had effectively taken Santana’s mind off of where they were for the time being.

[heyclickadee]

Okay, while I’m waiting five years for this frame to render, here’s some thoughts I’ve been having about the whole practical effects vs digital effects debate.

See, on the one hand, I freaking love practical effects. Poorly done practical effects, well done practical effects, practical effects that haven’t aged well, practical effects that hold up and probably always will. Practical effects my beloved. There’s just something about having a thing actually be there, interacting with the light and the environment, having real weight, that I absolutely love. I absolutely want to see more of them in film.

On the other hand, I kind of bristle a bit when people argue that digital effects are easier, because…they’re really not. They’re cheaper a lot of the time, but that’s because the studios aren’t paying digital effects workers fairly. And they take up less space, of course, or maybe take up space differently. But they’re probably just as much work as the practical effects. You’re still having to come up with solutions to get things to look right, having to hit things with proverbial hammers until they behave, and definitely having to throw a whole bunch of math and art at a problem until it works. If there’s a cg dragon on screen, I promise that someone had to design that dragon, that someone else had to sculpt it (which isn’t less work even if it is happening on a computer), and then there’s the texturing and the rigging and probably coming up with solutions to get the rigging on the wings to work because dear lord is rigging the worst, and that’s besides animating, lighting, and compositing, and trying to get it to look like it belongs in a scene with everything else.

In fact, the reason why so many digital effects look iffy, especially on television, is because they’re a lot of work, but studios often won’t shell out the budget to allow the cg artists the time to do them properly. The cg animals in the cg Lion King look weirdly weightless and expressionless? Its not because cg is inherently bad (even though I think remaking The Lion King was inherently unnecessary, but that’s another story). It’s probably because the animators and riggers were either given the bad direction, or because they weren’t given the time to go back and refine the animation and give it the weight it needed and ended up having to rely on Maya (or whatever program they were using) to do a lot of the tweening, or something similar.

And there are also times when practical effects just will not work, sometimes because of safety or sometimes because cg is actually better suited for the situation. And there are even situations where audiences will assume an affect was digital, and then for it to turn out to be practical. So, for me, it’s not a debate over which kinds of effects are better. Its more about:

1. CG artists needing to be compensated fairly.

2. Studios and directors needing to not automatically default to cg effects.

3. Using the right kind of effect for the situation.

For example: The Dark Crystal: AOR needed to be puppetry and practical effects. A realistically rendered Dark Crystal universe would have been a complete disaster; that’s a fully built up from the ground fantasy universe that feels lived in because, in a way, it kind of is. They used digital effects here and there to touch things up or help with compositing (Lore, for example, is a puppet, but they used digital compositing to erase the puppeteers), and there’s a couple weird moments that are cg, but it’s the puppets and the practical effects that really shine. Alternatively—Prehistoric Planet. I’m sure there were practical effects used in some situations, but the animals in Prehistoric Planet needed to be cg, and realistically rendered cg, because the conceit of that series is that it’s a nature documentary. Now, do I also want to see a version of Prehistoric Planet that’s all puppets? Yep, but it would be a very different thing with a different result and feel.

So anyway, tl:dr: Digital effects and cg aren’t inherently bad; they do still require a lot of work; I think it should be less about getting rid of cg in favor of practical effects and more about knowing when to use cg, when to use practical effects, when to use various kinds and styles of animation, when to use everything together, depending on what kind of story you’re telling and what you’re trying to achieve instead of cg being the default.

And pay cg artists more.

[sepublic]

            I should add; I am not a fan of every Bayverse film doing the same “Transformers have been with us since the beginning” twist. Literally every movie did it again and again and it was just SUCH a clumsy, unintentionally hilarious wave of retcons and lazy writing. The Last Knight, the last and most infamous example of this, tried to justify this by having Earth be Unicron like in Prime…

         (That’s something I noticed; The films post-OG Bayverse trilogy tended to rip off major plot points introduced by continuities that took what the Bayverse did and actually did it well.)

         Well, Unicron isn’t Earth in the Nizziverse. Earth is Earth, and I want to reiterate that the beginning contact between Earth and Cybertron is the Allspark landing on the planet, some time in the past; Shortly followed by a crash-landing Megatron. That’s it. Looking through the later films, it occurred to me that with a bit of rewriting, you could still retain a lot of the general plot and story beats without having to retcon a previous, hidden history between Transformers and Earth, so that’s what I’ll do.

         The Primes never visited Earth; Optimus and Megatronus (AKA the Fallen) are the first visitors, and only ones in contemporary times. There was no Star Harvester built on Earth in ancient times, no Cybertronians contributing to ancient pyramids or stuff like that. The Pyramids of Giza and whatnot, 100% manmade and designed, through and through. Instead of having been built long ago, the Star Harvester is just built in the present-day by the Constructicons.

         Sentinel Prime, the Ark, the pillars? They crash in the present-day, and the space race had basically nothing to do with Cybertronians. I’m sure some people in Sector 7 were motivated to find the origins of the mysterious alien spaceship they found in the arctic, as well as the homeworld of the Transformers they’ve glimpsed on Earth; But otherwise, history is how it was presented.

         Aliens did not send terraforming bombs to prehistoric earth. That never happened. Humans learn of Transformium (if it’ll still be called that in the Nizziverse) by studying Transformers. The only ‘seeds’ involved in the plot occur in the present-day.

         The Last Knight… Well, a LOT of that film is going to be redone, probably moreso than the others; I’m not sure of the details right now, but I DO know from the start that I don’t want the Knights of Iacon to have been hiding on Earth, and especially nothing from the infamous WWII scene. And as mentioned earlier, Earth isn’t Unicron, it’s just another planet.

        There is no magical connection nor bond between Earth and Cybertron. It is by pure fate, coincidence, and transwarp chance that the Allspark crash-landed on this planet, with Megatron himself following after it. Transformers DID begin scouting out the planet after that, hiding amongst its populace as its own technology; But this was the same procedure they’ve done for countless other planets and civilizations. When Lockdown mocks Attinger for assuming Earth is the center of the universe (like so many other worlds the Cybertronians have invaded), he’s right.

[mrultra100]

Ultra’s Prehistoric Planet Reviews- Episode 1: Coasts

After so many years of agonizing waiting, we’re finally experiencing a docuseries that’s on the same scale as the original Walking with Dinosaurs, if said scale was exceeded already. Prehistoric Planet has gained so much hype before its release, with people freaking out in excitement like crazy (I should know, I’m one of them). And after watching the first episode on Apple TV + last night (Right as 12 am nonetheless), we can start with this lil’ review series I’d like to call Mr. Ultra’s Prehistoric Planet. While that wasn’t the most creative name for something like this, it’s at least catchy, right? Anyhoo, the main motto of this thing is to review all 5 PHP episodes, give them a good rundown about how good they are, go over each segment and the creatures that feature them, and label this package with my usual mind-numbing nonsense. For our first venture into the Maastrichtian era, bring your sunscreen and surfboards, because we’re gonna experience a swimming T. Rex, mosasaur cleaning stations, a trip to a pterosaur beach party, and even a glowing ammonite orgy! (Yes, that part is in there too, I’ll explain later). It’s now time to begin our journey with the Coasts. This review may contain spoilers for the episode, so don’t read this if you haven’t watched it.

Right off the bat, this episode was a very solid way to start the series. We get an live-action intro with David Attenborough where he talks about the lives of various Creatceous fauna like T. Rex. As usual, David is one of the best possible picks for the role of narrator here. His love and approach to nature, along with his 90+ year long career, makes him an incredible narrator. Not only are all of the models very well-made and accurate, but we also get quite a few new species making their primetime debut to the world of media. Not only is this the first ever appearance of Tuarangisaurus, but also Kaikaifilu (A relative to Tylosaurus, one of the most famous mosasaurs), and FOUR different pterosaur species (Barbaridactylus, Alcione, Tethydraco, and Phosphatodraco). Along with that, we also get scenes where more familiar beasties like Tyrannosaurus and Mosasaurus are depicted doing some new behavior not done in previous documentaries. It really helps this is down to further drive home the fact that these were actual animals, not monsters. The only flaw I can point out is the iconic pose of the T. Rex from the preview not being used. But to be fair, it had its own share of issues, like T.Rex living near the Tethys Sea. Even when it was receding, the Western Interior Seaway was still a thing when Papa Hank was around, so I’m cool with this segment changing. One more piece of info I wanna go over before we start covering the respective segments is how Hans Zimmer killed it in the musical department. Again, this is another legend of media we’re talking about, as the guy has made banger after banger for films like The Lion King, The Prince of Egypt, Rango, and even Muppet Treasure Island! (And no, I’m not making this up, his music actually appeared in a Muppet movie!). This man has a whole legacy behind his work, and I’m happy that PHP is now one of them.

The first segment of the episode (And of the whole show in general) shows a father Tyrannosaurus and his chicks swimming to an island in search of food. While good ol’ Papa Hank has no trouble swimming (As with almost all amniotes), trouble shows up a minute later in the form of a hungry Mosasaurus. While the massive father is safe, even within the giant sea lizard’s own turf, his chicks aren’t, with even a strangler even getting picked off and eaten by the Mosasaurus, highlighting how brutal nature can be, especially for a youngster. While he’s lost a single chick during his swim, the T. Rex and the rest of his brood manage to get onto the island, where they find the body of a dead protostegid turtle. The father Rex feeds on the carcass, while the chicks scramble to hunt for themselves, often playfully snacking on the baby turtles racing to the sea. And that sounds like a fun family activity (Terrorize and eat baby turtles while your father devours the corpse of one of their parents), well, at least to them.

We cut away from Hank and his family to focus on the pterosaurs of North Africa. Not only do we get our first look at Barbaridactylus (A creature that’ll be getting more screentime in the next episode), but also 3 other species; Tethydraco (A little-known relative to Pteranodon), Phosphatodraco (The first azdarchid to show up in this show), and the focus of this particular segment; Alcione. The chicks are left on a steep, rocky cliff by their parents, with many of the chicks having to fly over to the mainland for the first time. As many of you can expect, a majority of the chicks don’t make it, with both Barbaridactylus and Phosphatodraco gobbling them up on the air and ground respectively. While a few do eventually make it to the safety of the forest, that’s one helluva way to start off your life; go through a gauntlet as you jump off of a cliff while trying not to drown and get eaten by someone else.

Now cutting to the waters of New Zealand, we come face to face with a mother Tuarangisaurus and her calf. These relatives to the famous Elasmosaurus are the first creatures in the show to get more than 1 segment, with both of their segments in this very episode being covered in this part. In part 1, the mother and her calf (Along with many more of their kind) briefly visit a bay to swallow some gastroliths, while the mother sneaks off to get laid by one of the males. Imagine this from the calf’s perspective; You’re swimming around, looking for a few rocks to swallow to aid in your digestion and weighing you down, before you catch your mom doing the dirty with someone you never met.

Part 2 then shows the later-pregnant female struggling to keep up with the others, making her a clear target for a predatory Kaikaifilu. In order to save his mom from being killed and munched on, the older calf (And eventually the others) harass the mosasaur, biting and ramming into him. The plan works, and the Kaikaifilu swims off as the mother Tuarangisaurus gives birth.

Speaking of mosasaurs, we then cut to what’s possibility my favorite scene in the episode (And one of my favorite scenes in the show already); A Mosasaurus cleaning station. We all know how much of a powerful predator Mosasaurus is, Jurassic World’s kaijuequse Mosasaurus is proof of that. But, to see this absolute leviathan of the Maastrichtian depths getting all scrubbed up at a cleaning station is what dreams are made of. Unfortunately for the old male, a rival suddenly pops up and fights him for control of his territory. The resulting fight showcases the fierce power of these sea monsters, even moreso than the fight between the two Tylosaurus in Nat Geo’s Sea Monsters. At the end, our male wins and gets to keep his reef. Good for him, he honestly deserves his stretch of coral reef, along with the entourage of pycnodont fish and shrimp that help clean him. It’s a win-win for everyone! Well...except for the younger rival. He ain’t getting access to a free spa anytime soon.

And to end this review, 3 words; Discolight. Ammonite. Orgy. Yeah, I said that I’d get to this part, but considering how we already covered the second half of the Tuarangisaurus’ segment (Which was the last part of the episode), we’re ending this review with the ammonites, who take sex so seriously, it kills them. Off of the coast of North America, during a crescent moon, massive shoals of Scaphtid ammonites rise from the abyss to, ya guess it, bang each other like crazy! To do this, they wave their bioluminescent tentacles at each other, with them having to synchronize their glowing patterns to get the process right. Right after they all mated, the ammonites then crock. All of them. This is similar to how cephalopods alive today crock after making babies of their own. Also, gotta hand it to the team for adding in practical models. The use of dead ammonite props washing ashore makes this scene all the more real!

1 episode down, 4 more to go. Given how long this blasted thing was, this is certainly gonna take a while. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s review of Deserts! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get all of this water out of my head.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Bannykus vs Ambopteryx

Factfiles:

Bannykus wulatensis

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Half claw from Wulatehouqi

Time: 113 to 100 million years ago (Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous)

Location: Bayin-Gobi Formation, Inner Mongolia, China

If there’s one group of dinosaurs that has most recently gained more fame among casual dinosaur fans it’s probably alvarezsauridae, elevated to stardom by the Mononykus that captured everyone’s hearts in Prehistoric Planet. The bizarre group of single-clawed maniraptorans has been studied for a while, but their evolutionary origins have fairly mysterious until recently. How did that whole giant thumb claw thing happen??

Published in 2018 alongside more basal alvarezsaur Xiyunykus, Bannykus helps to fill in a gap in that evolutionary pathway! More specifically, they help to fill in a 70 million year long gap between the primitive Late Jurassic Haplocheirus and the very end of the Cretaceous! Notably, Bannykus has a larger thumb claw that the rest of its claws, but the other fingers are at least partially functional instead of just nubbins. It’s a lot easier to see how the later alvarezsaurids got to where they are from here! Next time you lose your mind over the Mononykus from Prehistoric Planet (which I do at least weekly), say a thank you to the lil guy with slightly less weird hands. Thumbs up to Bannykus!

Ambopteryx longibrachium

Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Both wings with long arms

Time: 163 million years ago (Callovian stage of the Middle Jurassic)

Location: Haifanggou Formation, China

Look, evolution has done a lot of weird stuff to dinosaurs. It put penguins underwater, and did whatever the hall mamenchisaurid necks are, and game lambeosaurs a built-in face trumpet. But I would argue there is one group that represents dinosaur evolution at its most unhinged, and that is scansoropterygidae.

Scansoriopterygids were generally considered “weird little tree dinosaurs” in the 2000s, with long fingers to pick grubs out of bark or something. Then Yi qi swept along in 2015 and revealed that those long fingers were actually supporting membranous bat wings. With an extra bony rod (the “styliform element”) sticking out of the wrist to help support it, because well if you’re a dinosaur evolving bat wings why bother being normal about it after that? Although really, the dinosaurs did it first so bats actually have dinosaur wings.

Yi was sensational, but it was also extremely weird and completely unique. Even other scansoriopterygids didn’t have wing membranes, so the whole bat thing was a bit up in the air. Or not up in the air, as the case may be. But then along comes Ambopteryx, published in 2019, packing another set of skin wings, and the vindication of Yi is complete! 

Ambopteryx preserves a styliform element and wing membrane, as well as a thick coat of feathers, and honestly out of a whole selection of dinosaurs I think these might be some of the most huggable in the lot. Obviously this whole wing membrane thing didn’t end up working out for them long term, but Ambopteryx is part of an incredible lineage that challenged what we thought was possible for dinosaurs!

DMM Round One Masterpost

[chaoskirin]

Prehistoric Planet--Review

God I love me some dinosaurs, and Prehistoric Planet didn’t disappoint. F*ck me if I’m giving Apple any money, though, so I got their free trial so I could watch it. That last statement has nothing to do with my review. Apple can just kiss my ass.

Anyway.

I’m not really a paleontologist, but I read most of the more interesting papers that come out about paleobiology, especially those about dinosaurs and sometimes plants. (Although I’m no Ellie Sattler, so the plants don’t interest me as much.) The point is, I’m pretty well-versed when it comes to dinosaur anatomy, agreed-upon appearance, and biology. So I can say for certain that the models are absolutely some of the most accurate ever portrayed in dinosaur media.

And where our current knowledge base failed, decent theoretical portrayal filled in the holes. We don’t know if other ceratopsians besides psittacosaurus had quills, but it’s a decent leap. Quills take a lot of evolutionary energy to create, which means they have a purpose, which means evolution isn’t going to drop them after a single species. It’s nice to see these details in the show.

I’m also so, so happy that none of the dinosaurs were shrink-wrapped, and actually looked like real animals. I like that the tyrannosaur adults had down-like feathers. I love the speculation when it came to sauropods and the fact that large bull animals definitely want to fight for mates. And I loved the pterasaur sex/gender breakdown based on modern sandpipers called ruffs, which have four different genders.

And while I love that the concentration was more on the everyday life of these dinosaurs--I don’t necessarily need to see scenes of predation for every carnivore depicted--it confused me that the show felt the need to constantly kill babies. It’s not necessarily an unrealistic thing. I passively study falcons in my spare time, and only about 1/3 of the babies make it to a year old, but if predation isn’t being depicted, why then kill so many babies?

And to be fair, two of the babies that were supposed to be dead actually made it out in the end, but this directorial choice was a little... odd? It’s not as if depictions of blood were banned. I can only imagine that it’s a fact of life that’s very rarely portrayed. Even so. Weird.

I would have also liked to see more speculative writing on the care and raising of chicks. Because it’s been proven that dinosaurs like maiasaura and oviraptor were fierce and protective parents (the latter even remaining on her nest of eggs as a possible volcanic eruption killed her and all her offspring) it would have been nice to see more of that. While the male T-rex in the first episode had his chicks in tow, there was no real interaction seen between them, and that continued with many other portrayals of offspring. It was odd to me that most pterosaurs were depicted as abandoning their young.

Concerning other speculative biology, it’s fair, and I’m glad the writers weren’t afraid to guess. It’s likely that many dinosaur species had adaptations and behavioral patterns that we can’t even guess at, because those things aren’t preserved in rock. But dreadnoughtus using air sacs for display and giving a really clever use to carnotaurus’ tiny arms was pretty reasonable. Usually speculation is only limited to the biology we absolutely know for sure. IE: tyrannosaurus had sharp teeth, so it ate meat. So it’s cool to see the writers using current-era adaptations to hypothesize what dinosaurs might have done or looked like.

I highly recommend grabbing a free week of AppleTV+ so you can watch the show. The depictions of dinosaurs are accurate and the speculative biology is fair.

Four stars. Only took one star off for the baby murder.

[getreadytosmash]

I've been thinking lately about how exactly the Smashers earn their cash and shit lately and these are the ideas I've been brainstorming, though all of them are pretty connected and at the same time so keep that in mind;

Hulk earns a paycheck from being an Avenger that supported him and Rick pretty well but...became a lot harder when he suddenly has an entire family of hulks to provide for.

The team also gets some paychecks from SHIELD in return for doing missions for them, this is kinda their main way since all of them can take on team missions or individual missions.

Then there's the other key way, Rick sells a lot of merch and generally it varies a lot. You got stickers, plushies, Devil themed stuff and clothing from all of the team. I'm leaving this one a bit general since there's a lot I could say tbh and more open for you to imagine?? aka im lazy

Rick also does some bonus content, u know how creators often will have on patreon and stuff, i guess these ones would be like,,,requests?? slightly more personal Q and As'? Hm,,,

Now the REAL cash cow is Samuel.

He makes a LOT of shit okay, like,,,,if you pay enough, you can request him to try out certain shit and like. He WILL do it, it's such a fucking open world and I LOVE the idea of what Tiktok or tumblr could pay Samuel to do, it's so chaotic and beloved.

U want working furry ears or a tail? He has you. Coding shit? he got u. Medical science thats a lil fucked up but where else can you get it because the government is a fucked system??? He HAS you.

Listen, when you have a muse who used to be a supervillain, it just makes sense that he does absolutely anything possible that lets me have so much fun.

Lingerie and sec toy stuff,,,is also a thing Samuel sells. Ya.

.......After watching prehistoic planet, I am making it canon; Samuel 10000% Gets a secret island and basically spends 8 months slowly creating habitats and as many prehistoric species as possible. It's madness. He's done something TERRIBLE and as long as no one knows, he's perfectly fine and will carry on adoring all his dinos and other species.

.....it takes a year before anyone finds out.

[blog-imtsupdates]

week 4

start concepting creature designs with previous critique in mind.

Rember i am going to use (sucessful) properties as inspiration to create a new and orignal design thats intersting.

with the use of refrences found on google (NON AI) i practiced more anatomy and this time some flat rendering to practice texturing like meat, mucles, feathers and fur

a Utah raptor, a not Golden retriever (horse + lemur and skinned animal insp), a not Border collie (pterosaur + fetus/raw chicken insp)

wanted to still give the Utah raptor a shot because they are incredible animals and i would love to make one with feathery coat and all but i suppose I'll do that in my free time.

for the not a bordercollie(black and white "dog") I took inspiration from creepy pastas like suggested, i looked to classics like "The Rake" and smiledog.jpg (the husky version) which scared me to death as a kid. Though those were more in the background, main influences came from "The Thing"(1982). i wante dit to be off but not so much to emidiatly tell its wrong, just a slight feeling of unease. i dislocated the neck and set it far too high up, extended the corners of its mouth too far back, gave it hand like paws and made it skinny. though i kept the body pretty dog like i felt like it was too clearly off especially the sharp eyes though collies often have very piercing light eyes.

after that i expanded on the idea with the golden retriever as i wanted a more family friendly looking dog, one you wouldnt expect to be a danger but again something being clearly off while still inviting. same inspirations of The Thing and smile dog.jpg (red version this time) and also "Annihilation"(2018) this time. The people yearn for body horror(recent spike in attention on franchises like "The thing" and "Fear and Hunger" body horror : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIkWHo1SJY a recent 50 minute video with 3.5 million views on fear and hunger)

i also thought about doing a nod to annalog horror but felt that that specific type of eyes would defeat my original intent of creating a whole new intersting creature not seen before. the eyes are over done as they are found in many analog projects such as "local 68", "The Walten files", "The Mandela Catalog" and "Smile tapes", its a cute nod but not fit in this context.

i chose a horse/canid mix skull to poke out from under the dogs skin as i felt it would be spooky. it looks cool but after finsing the concept i realized that horse, ungulate and dog/predatory mamal skulls are also a common trope in horror, think of Annihalation again and "The Ritual" as well as others that i cant recall at the moment. as well as the welsh tradition of Mari Lwyd

images of all of the mentioned properies abov e in that order: (these are still inspirations and refrences)

these are far from the only refrences used

putting that aside, i had given a second stage to the retriever instead of just having the dog stand up. though i still liked that idea, i decided to also make a second stage for the collie with the new information i had gathered from making the retriever. i wanted the new form to be stranger more thing like and less mamalian, just giving a bird tounge to a horse head didnt do the job. i took inspiration from pterasaurs as my friend had said that they thought they were so unsetteling and weird while watching "Prehistoric Planet". thier skulls are weird and almost alien and thier arms have odd proportions. i also took inspiration from the beasts from The Quiet Place again as they also have these odd body plans. i gave it the look of raw chicken or a fetus and eyes like those of a dead cow just to bump up the weird factor.

when show casing these the client suggested trying some other deisgns.

i was planning on refining the creature, he didnt really state what kind of "different stuff" he was looking for but kalina wanted to give designing a creature a shot so i would have time to refine these designs into one next week. Kalina is currently working on a design that is like the video that diego showed and also a design based on dutch mythology? We are already four weeks in, other groups had started development and we would need a lot more time to make a detailed sculpt and animate.

aditional cartoony dragon like creatures just to practice creature design, based on the descriptions of a snellygaster, an american cryptid (I made in the second week to fit the magic show theme from Kalina but it fits best here)

[blizz4rd1203]

which dinosaur would've done little dances to attract mates? like, that's a pretty big things birds do, yes? so would a dinosaur do it?

probably a little feathery one

As far as I know, any theropod could have. (There are many things I do not know) you have seen Prehistoric Planet? You remember the Carnotaurus? That guy might very well have. All the little feathery ones could have as well. I myself have theorized about dances that Velociraptor could have done with its tail, though I have very little proof to back me up.