#and I still really love dinosaurs and prehistoric life

[sharkieboi]

it may be the sleep deprivation talking but if I don’t get this job my friend is trying to help me get cause of Orange Jackass and the funding cuts and hiring freezes, I am going full tilt “fuck it” mode into getting into that PhD program I’ve been eyeing for at least five years at this point

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Meig's Official Paleontologist Review of Amber Isle

This game is so accessible. I tend to use cheaters/trainers a lot in most video games because I'm a Busy Adult Without Countless Hours To Spend Grinding In Video Games - but I don't need them in Amber Isle. They also don't exist for Amber Isle, but still - I'm not wishing I had them the whole time. It's especially "ADHD time blindness" friendly

THE CHARACTERS ARE SO CUTE HOLY FUCK they all have such interesting and unique personalities and they are just so precious. I must protect Kipper at all costs.

Yes, you're a shopkeeper, but you don't have to be a raging capitalist. In fact, in many ways, it's better for the game to undercharge people / pay more for things they sell you / give lots of gifts in order to bump up your friendship with the community; it's very easy to get money in the game and you really don't need to be stingy or go for huge profits in order to win

I LOVE THAT THEY ARE CALLED "PALEOFOLK". Not a single character is called a dinosaur that isn't a dinosaur, unlike other paleo games *cough paleo pines cough*. And because they aren't limiting themselves to the Mesozoic, there's a nice interesting variety of prehistoric critters for the characters.

It's so much fun that your character is also a Paleofolk and that there's so many options. I wish we could wear pants, but other than that...

The taxon balancing needs a *wee* bit of work. Since they can do the Paleozoic and Cenozoic, it's ironically too dinosaur-heavy; and those dinosaurs are a little biased and don't include anything more derived than Archaeopteryx, which is... a mistake. I recognize the devs had a challenge in picking the right charismatic fauna, but still. Honestly, this problem is easily solved: just add more paleofolk!

That said it is so nice to have a game with Maiasaura :3

The world is beautiful and so much fun to explore

The calendar is way too long. WAY too long. Has anyone actually gotten to year 2? Because I haven't. Also it's windy too much. The weather should be more varied.

I would love for info about different objects to come up when you're going through them so it's easier to make sure the items you're displaying are balanced and so you know what to recommend for different customer requests

The main quest is a little short, so it would be nice for more content to be added to it in the future. I'd also love to be able to have more adventures and activities when hanging out with paleofolk

Once again, a game without romance. Hooray! No pansexual crises!

PEPPER x CLOVER FOR LIFE. L. I. F. E.

Definitely worth playing. It is super fun and super cute. Check it out at @ambertailgames!

My Paleo Pines Review

My Roots of Pacha Review

[the-sassy-composer]

Really tired of streaming services making absolute banger animated TV shows for adults, never advertising them, then canceling then because no one watches them, so I'm taking it upon myself to share some of the ones I've watched recently with the hope other people will hear about them for the first time and give them a shot.

---

Blue Eye Samurai

"A master of the sword lives life in disguise while seeking revenge in Edo-period Japan."

Probably one of my favorite animated shows of all time. Mizu, arguably one of the best sword masters in this time period, goes on a quest to eliminate four white men living in Japan, one of which is Mizu's father. The show focuses heavily on how factors outside of your control, such as race and gender, impact how others view you and how you view yourself.

Watch if you are a fan of: Complicated characters/relationships, revenge quests, gore, complicated relationships with gender and race, and absolute badass characters.

Where to Watch: Netflix

Undone

"After 28-year-old Alma nearly dies in a car accident, she finds that she has a new relationship with time; she develops this newfound relationship to find out the truth about her father's death."

Undone focuses on difficult relationships with family, including how your parents can have profound effects on you even after they're gone, and how to deal with grief. That, plus the added chaos of being able to travel through time.

Watch if you are a fan of: character studies, shows dealing with grief, time travel, trying to rewrite fate.

Where to watch: Prime

Scavengers Reign

"The crew of a damaged deep space freighter are stranded on a beautiful but dangerous planet."

A mix between sci-fi and horror, this show focuses on the crew of a crashed spaceship. Each (living) crew member of the ship escaped in pods, scattering them across the planet. They must fight to survive and make their way back to their ship on a planet featuring some of the most fucked up creatures I've ever seen.

Watch if you like: sci-fi, isolationist horror, body horror, creature features

Where to watch: At the moment, Max. As of May 31st, Netflix. Max canceled the show (even though it has a 100% rating 🙃). Netflix may make a season 2 depending on how many people watch it in the first few weeks after it comes to Netflix.

Harley Quinn

"The newly single Harley Quinn sets off to make it on her own as the criminal queenpin in Gotham City."

Honestly I was feeling a bit burnt out on super hero shows, but this one felt like a breath of fresh air. It follows Harley as steps out from the shadow of the Joker, no longer being one of his henchmen and struggling to find her identity as a single, independent villain.

Watch if you like: Superhero/villain shows, stories that focus on blurred lines instead of a clear distinction between good and evil.

Where to Watch: Max

Primal

"At the dawn of evolution, a caveman and a dinosaur on the brink of extinction bond over unfortunate tragedies and become each other's only hope of survival in a treacherous world."

This show is super unique in that there's basically no dialogue, but it still finds a way to display an absolutely gutwrenching relationship between two parents of different species going through shared grief.

Watch if you like: Brutality, heavily visual story telling, prehistoric stories, and tales of overcoming.

Where to Watch: Hulu

Love Death and Robots

"This collection of animated short stories spans several genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy. World-class animation creators bring captivating stories to life in the form of a unique and visceral viewing experience. The animated anthology series includes tales that explore alternate histories, life for robots in a post-apocalyptic city and a plot for world domination by super-intelligent yogurt."

I love this show because you never have any clue what to expect. A siren living in a river falling for a deaf knight? An artist painting intergalactic art pieces? Three robots going on a field trip through the apocalypse to visit old human historical sites? You never know, but there's going to be love, death, and/or robots in it. Each episode varies wildly, so I'd recommend watching at least a few to get a taste for it, as some will resonate more strongly than others.

---

I'm sure there are lots more excellent animated shows, but these are all the ones I've watched in the past year or so. I'd love to see more recs in the tags, because I'm always down to watch more cool animations!

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

What do you think about incorporating paleoart into fantasy design? Personally I love it, I think that prehistoric creatures are great inspiration for all kinds of creatures. We have so much variety in extinct animals. I really love when people incorporate how dinosaurs look into dragon designs.

Do you have any examples of media or artists that do this? I would love more inspiration to draw from. But it's weirdly difficult to find examples of!

it's probably not what you had in mind, but genuinely the Dinotopia books do it best.

(image description: a vibrant and realistic painting of people parading through a city with dinosaurs. the main focus is a triceratops with golden horn caps and a red cloth draped over its back. end description)

this is literally just a fantasy setting full of dinosaurs. and to be fair, the dinosaur designs are now outdated compared to the modern understanding of how they might have looked. but the reason I think it works very well as fantasy design is because of how much it meshes into the world. you can look at any Dinotopia illustration and see how the dinosaurs are as deeply integrated into the world and cultures as the clothing people wear or the architecture around them. this is a fantasy world that asked dozens of questions about how people would use dinosaurs, how dinosaurs would fit in a bustling city, how a saddle for a brontosaurus would work, etc etc, and then went and answered all of those questions! and that, to me, is the most effective way to do fantasy worldbuilding.

so, sorry, it's not quite the same as pointing at a movie or book and saying "this dragon design uses stegosaurus tail spikes really well" lol. but genuinely, this is top tier. I would love to see an updated Dinotopia that uses more accurate dinosaur designs.

and yes, prehistoric animals, especially the big dinosaurs, are amazing inspiration and reference for dragons. We need more pterosaur dragons! this planet had actual giant flying reptiles and everyone is sleeping on them in favor of the crocodilian-horse-bat standard western dragon design, which i still adore but come on. we can branch out. we can do better.

anyway the tldr is this: you can make anything work in fantasy if you ask enough questions and then give them answers. the best fantasy designs are the best because they fit into the world they're made for and give it more life and truly affect the setting and story!

[reactionimagesdaily]

top 16 extinct animals. go

Tyrannosaurus Rex (I'm basic, they're badass, I'm planning on getting a tattoo of a Rex skeleton at some point)

Baryonyx (fossils found in the UK which meant a lot to younger me)

Woolly Mammoth (I still have a stuffed mammoth toy from my childhood and it's incredibly cute)

Deinosuchus (IDK how inaccurate the Prehistoric Park episode was, those things were the COOL AS FUCK)

Therizinosaurus (imagine having the largest claws in the fossil record and then eating leaves. immaculate trolling)

Titanoboa (I like snakes and this was a big fuckin snake so I like this on principle)

Anomolacaris (I can't believe it's only been 500 MYA, #neverforget)

Triceratops (HOW COULD YOU CALL THEM HORRID, THEY'RE GORGEOUS)

Diplodocus (One of my sister's first words was 'diplodocus' because she was born during the part of my life when I lived and breathed dinosaurs)

Utahraptor (the actual big dangerous raptors, not those frauds the Jurassic Park films call 'velociraptors')

Arthropleura (I don't know how to explain it but they just seem so chill, I'd love to hang out with one?)

Iguanodon (Wish the reasoning was deeper here but I really just like their thumb spikes)

Crassigyrinus (I love my horrible bitey little swamp creature that defies classification!!)

Troodon (maybe it's a low bar but this thing was still the smartest dinosaur (as far as we know) and that's baller)

Eryops (simultaneously a top dog and an underdog in its environment, it strikes me as a creature simple and yet effective) and finally... - -

Stegosaurus (for the fucking THAGOMIZERSSSS)

COOLEST SHIT EVER, CAN'T GET OVER THE FACT THAT WE ACTUALLY CALL THEM THAGOMIZERS, THANK YOU GARY LARSON

[heyclickadee]

This is a pointless rant, but I wish there were actual archaeology edutainment shows the same way that paleontology has with things like Prehistoric Planet and Walking With Dinosaurs or zoology has with Planet Earth and so many nature documentaries. I mean, no, things like that aren’t completely accurate, they’re compressed and simplified to be entertaining but they’re still trying to present a picture that’s representative of some kind of consensus. They’re still based on something.

Any tv program that brings up archaeology, though, it’s all pseudoarchaeology all the time. Ancient aliens and “alternative theories” and whatnot. The only show I’ve ever seen that even nodded in the direction of actual archaeology was Expedition Unknown, and it really did just nod (usually covering the same kind of sensationalist material as the ancient aliens type shows before going “yeah that’s bullshit but the real archaeology is way more interesting” at the conclusion of every episode, which was nice) for a while before going off in more and more of a pure treasure hunting direction as the show went on. And nothing else I’ve found even does so much as nod.

Just. Something that goes into actual methodology. Different theoretical frameworks. Typology. The ways even good methodologies can be used to support monstrous ideological frameworks or propaganda (for example: some of the most meticulously done fieldwork of the 1930’s was being done by, yes, nazi archaeologists. You can guess what they twisted their interpretations to support). Experimental archaeology. Hell, just that—a mythbusters style experimental archaeology series that tries to be fun without ever resorting to pseudoscience.

The reason I kind of want this is because the average person has very little understanding of how anyone in the premodern era lived. It was about ten years ago that my mom and I went to a traveling exhibit on Pompeii at a local museum, and she was flabbergasted at how, I don’t know, “modern” some of the artifacts were. And not the larger stuff: she didn’t think about anybody before about 1500 having plates or baskets or…clothes somehow. She knew intellectually that they must have, but it was different seeing it. It was hard for her to picture them just living life.

That’s something I used to run into a lot back when I studied and very, very briefly did archaeology. People in general have a tendency to see people from other times as fundamentally different, but they’re just us, displaced by time. And it would be nice to find an accessible way to show that.

The other reason I want something like that is because there’s sort of a misunderstanding of what archaeology is and why it’s important. You tell someone you’re an archaeologist and nine times out of ten they’re going to ask you what your favorite dinosaur is. And, I mean, I get it, dinosaurs are cool, I love dinosaurs, I was whatever the dinosaur equivalent of a horse girl was as a kid and never really grew out of it, I reblog dinosaur posts on here all the time and basically never talk about archaeology at all, but paleontology is a totally different field that does its own thing and archaeologists don’t study dinosaurs. And besides the whole public education aspect, I feel like people are more likely to support funding for researching something when they know that the science actually is. Or we’d hope.

I don’t know, I just would love for there to be a way to teach people about different bits of archaeology that was low effort and entertaining enough to compete with the flood of programs trying to convince everyone that ufos built Stonehenge.

[biirdtator]

I found you on YouTube in the comments section of that one North Pole dinosaur video. Your art is my 5th grade fever dream, and I f#cking love it.

thank you very kindly!! this ask made my day :,)

i’m so glad people like that drawing, it’s really motivated me to do a lot more dinosaur horror content. i have so many in my drafts lol. i promise i’m still working on them! the next one has to do with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, so to speak.

i’ve always loved dinosaurs and prehistoric life, and i love seeing how it’s bringing people back to their love for them too. that comment about it being a 5th grade fever dream got a good laugh out of me, but that’s also like, one of the biggest compliments i’ve gotten about my work lmao. thank you again so much!!

[darknebula85]

4/6/2024, Log of DARKNEBULA85, 3:37 PM...

Primal season 1 and 2...

What an amazing series, it's incredible how much it can convey without even saying a single word. Since I was little, I’ve always loved dinosaurs; in fact, my dream was to become a paleontologist (spoiler: I ended up being a chef XD), but to this day, these creatures still fascinate me. I have a ton of books and encyclopedias about dinosaurs, as well as a VHS documentary about them, and of course, I have dinosaur toys that I’ve kept since I was a child. I loved the series; it’s exactly what I was looking for—a survival, action, and dinosaur series. Recently, the entertainment media surrounding dinosaurs hasn’t appealed to me. I didn’t enjoy the latest Jurassic Park movies, and I also tried to watch the Ark series, but I didn’t like it. I stopped at episode 3 because it didn’t convince me. The last thing I watched that I did love was Prehistoric Planet, but that doesn’t count because it’s a documentary, and most dinosaur documentaries are fantastic. But with Primal, I finally found a true series that, in my opinion, portrays the prehistoric era very well (in terms of the environment and such, because being a series, it’s obviously very fantastical too). I really liked the artwork; there are moments that are literally wallpaper material, aesthetically it’s beautiful. And not only that, since it’s a series where they hardly speak, the sound is very important, and this show handles it very, very well—the footsteps on the ground, the breathing, the ambiance, it’s fantastic. On the other hand, if the first season is good, the second is 34 times better. Oh my, the second season is absurdly good. I suffered a lot with the whole beginning of the Vikings’ storyline; they didn’t seem bad to me but not good either, but in the end, I changed my mind when I saw they did practically the same thing as the Egyptians. And the Egyptian episodes were great. On another note, I was overjoyed with the birth of the babies. The only thing I would have liked is for the final fight to have been longer, but other than that, perfect. And now that a third season is in production, all that’s left is to wait. I liked it a lot, and my favorite episodes were 5, 9, 11, but my absolute favorite was the first episode of the second season. What a wonder, please, it reminded me so much of my second favorite movie of all time, Life of Pi, from the flying fish sequence to the shots of the boat in the middle of the sea. It was beautiful.

Edit 6:50 PM...

EXCUSE ME WHAAAAAAT!!!???? THAT THING IS MY FKNG CHILDHOOD BRO

[delyth-thomas-art]

Delyth Art Factoid

I sometimes like to sit and muse on things that were major "inspirations" in my art journey. And one that came to mind today is little me seeing on PBS's Dinosaurs - Flesh On The Bones, the sheer scale and awe of Rudolph Zallinger's “Age of Reptiles” mural for Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. Seeing the presenter climbing a ladder to point out various things of note.

These days I'm sure many will look at the artwork and chuckle at how inaccurate it is now. And not how influential it was on comics, films and toys of the time.

But to little kid me seeing such a huge art piece, not only being celebrated but that depicting Dinosaurs and other prehistoric life, well I was enthralled. I begged for a wall poster of it and would try to copy the dinosaurs on scraps of paper and card. Up to that point my view of celebrated art was portraits of people I knew nothing of in stuffy art galleries. (I was like 5, give me a break lol) I soon was getting my grubby mits on every illustrated book I could and hocky how to draw books. Even watching the Jurassic Park making of on loop to see them "designing dinosaurs". I feel this was when it really clicked for me art could be a job and that job could involve dinosaurs. Being a palaeontologist was still my number 1 at the time as a kid but I've never stopped drawing from that point.

Things like anime, graphic novels and games later came in to offer me even more inspiration and possibilities. But I can firmly say "Age of Reptiles" was the first piece of ART to move me on such a deep level.

What pieces of art moved you down your own creative paths? I'd love to know.

[pocket-lad]

What was Ian’s POV/thinking when he saw the T-rex was sticking its head into the tent of Sarah, Kelly, and Adelaide? (The three most important women in his life all in danger and out of reach!)

GOOD QUESTION!! Here's how I think it went down:

~

Ian wasn’t always the hero. He never was, and he never would be. Now more than ever, he had people who he cared about and who cared about him, and he supposed that made him act more heroic than usual. It was incredibly inconvenient, but he guessed he liked it. It was better than the alternative, anyway. And so really, that just made Ian Malcolm human.

A human who wasn’t used to exhibiting care, at that. Sometimes he screwed up. Sometimes he made the cowardly choice. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but it happened. In fact, he could classify now as one of those instances.

The telltale quakes were the first thing to alert him to the T-Rex’s presence. And then it was there, sticking its enormous, scaly snout in the tent where the only three people in his life who were worth a damn currently slept.

Everything froze. Ian wanted to say his mind told him to run over and help but his body made him freeze. Or maybe his body told him to run over and help but his mind made him freeze. Neither was true, though. Every single ounce of Ian’s being told him to freeze, because this wasn’t some bully he could go up to and punch in the jaw. This was an angry, prehistoric animal the size of a building that could kill him and everyone around him in an instant.

Ian’s mind instantly transported back to that day when he was nearly killed in an instant by the same kind of dinosaur. The terror coursing through his veins when he suddenly couldn’t feel his body, when he went completely airborne. The crash into the hut. The stabbing pain that shot up his leg and forced him to black out. The confusion of waking up in a dark, stormy world, not knowing if his best friend was dead or alive. Or if he would even survive.

Ian’s bum leg was a physical manifestation and constant reminder of the fear he felt that night. So it wasn’t any coincidence the pain flared up now, as he stared down a full Tyrannosaurus Rex looking to make a meal out of the three people he loved more than anything.

But these women were smart and capable. They’d know to hold still and they’d do everything right and they’d get themselves out because they were the smartest and most capable people he knew. Logically, there was nothing Ian could do to help them.

The terrified scream of an unknown man brought Ian back to his senses. After the initial scare subsided and the reality of the situation sunk in, he didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. But it was far too long. To his horror, nobody emerged from the tent yet, which meant he needed to get them out now. He chided himself for his hesitation as he ran in that direction, but another man distractedly plowed full force into him as he too tried to get away from the Rex, shoving Ian to the ground if it could buy him a spare few seconds.

Ian couldn’t get up. The running and shouting of dozens of men along with the raging storm disoriented him enough, but the T-Rex’s stomping and roaring sent him over the edge, his bearings completely lost. It was coming in his direction, so he took cover under a log and hoped for the best.

Time passed. Everything was a blur. The screaming subsided and the earthquakes disappeared. The world around him was completely devoid of human beings. He had to find them.

***

The world is an unpredictable, scary place. It's impossible to stay one step ahead of anything, and anyone who tried would be doing so in vain. Ian lived by those words, but he relentlessly turned that night over and over again in his mind. The clear image of Sarah, Adelaide, and Kelly all cornered in a fabric prison by such a monstrous creature, while exaggerated in his imagination, plagued him nonetheless.

Ian hated himself for his choices that day, subconscious or not. Everyone had trauma. He wasn’t special for his. He should have acted and he shouldn’t have justified himself through the competence of Sarah, Adelaide, and Kelly. Even if they did find their own way out in the end, just like he knew they would.

It was a miracle they all made it out relatively unscathed, and for that, Ian was incredibly grateful. But the dread that overcame him when the T-Rex found them and the panic that followed were feelings he’d never forget.

All of these self-loathing thoughts added up to an irritatingly unproductive mindset, so Ian did what he did best. He buried those thoughts deep in a vault in the back of his brain, locked them inside, and threw away the key.

[jumpywhumpywriter]

Another really dumb thought, but my first reaction to learning that Tanner sacrificed the Falkry part of him to blend in with humans (which I’m assuming also has to do with the wings getting cut off. Either way, I feel really bad for him and hope he does well/better) was that he’d probably make a really good boxer or something along those lines, assuming dude kept all the other traits (unnaturally strong and magic and all that).

Not sure if that’s somehow offensive or disheartening that that’s my first thought (I really don’t know and, again, overthinky), but I just think it would be kinda funny to just have your seemingly average looking human beat a mountain of a man in arm wrestling without breaking a sweat or something like that. In either case, assuming dude is fine for recreational violence (since I just remembered that most are pacifists or something), he’d be goated (again, if all other traits remain)

Idk, brain thoughts be like that

Hope you have a great day/night and take care of yourself and all that jazz :)

-idk

(Also very cool that you know a lot about nature stuff! Do you have a favorite fact you know?)

Don't worry, it's not offensive at all :)

And he does do better later on in the story. He acts as the "peacekeeper" of the whole ream, the only one holding them together sometimes.

And yes, he does still possess Falkry-level strength (though he does not have magic anymore -- the experiments that took his wings also disrupted his ability to access magic, so he can no longer use it like Shadow can)

Here's one of my favorite nature facts about an exotic bird species I love:

The Joatzin, also known as the reptile bird, skunk bird, or stinkbird, is a species of tropical bird found in swamps and mangroves of the Amazon and the Orinoco basins in South America. It is unique for having chicks that have claws on two of their wing digits which fall off later in life. Like literal feathered dinosaurs. It got the nickname “stinkbird” because of its ability to produce a foul odor when threatened.

You can see the wing-claws on the baby Hoatzin below, as well as what it looks like in adult form (I also included a short video snippet of what the baby looks like climbing with its wing claws)

They TOTALLY look like prehistoric creatures!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: What’s your favourite piece of classical music that you discovered through a film soundtrack?

What an interesting question to which I have had to really scratch my head and think a little. The main issue is that if you are, like me, one of those kids who was exposed to classical music and some of its canon from an early age then the question becomes harder to answer. Like many other children, I was taught to play musical instruments and have music lessons from about 6 years old onwards. Films, especially the more adult themed ones with a classical score, were something you discovered much later in your teens onwards. So I’m going to cheat a bit here and there. For example I can’t include Milos Forman’s classic movie ‘Amadeus’ because I was already familiar with a range of Mozart’s repertoire before watching it.

Predictably, I’m going have to start with Walt Disney’s classic film ‘Fantasia’ (1940).  This was perhaps the first film I was truly exposed to classical music in all its glory. It was Disney’s love letter to classical music and I can still watch it with child-like wonder at the magnificent music set to an incredible animation.

I’m pretty sure that Igor Stravinsky almost certainly wasn't thinking of dinosaurs when he wrote his ballet The Rite of Spring. But Walt Disney and his talented team of animators decided to tell the story of these prehistoric creatures using the dramatic, angular sounds of Stravinsky's masterpiece. And it's become one of the most famous sequences of the 1940s film.

The score was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and was narrated by composer Deems Taylor was awesome. As magnificent was the music that Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach, selections from The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas, Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 6) by Ludwig van Beethoven, and the “Dance of the Hours” by Amilcare Ponchielli, it was the last two pieces that left a real impression. Of course I’m talking about Night On Bald Mountain by Modest Moussorgsky, coupled with ‘Ave Maria’ by Franz Schubert.

I’m also going to add Léo Delibes’ Flower Duet (from the opera Lakmé). I used to hear this ad nauseam but not in a movie. This classic piece was the chosen soundtrack for the British Airways advertisement on television and in their departure lounges and flights. The ad - updated often - has been around in one form or another but with the same soundtrack since the 1980s. It was a huge feature of my childhood in the 90s. Whenever I boarded a flight in the Far East or South Asia or the Middle East to fly back home to Britain - because we lived overseas - you would hear this as you strapped yourself in to your seats.

As for my main list (in no particular order):

Second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No.7 from: The King’s Speech (2010)

The climactic scene where King George VI has to make his speech ‘unto the nations’ was made more powerful by this piece. Like King George VI and his personal battles with his voice, much speculation has taken place over what personal agony the musical piece reflects in Beethoven’s life, especially since sketches for the movement predate the symphony by several years.

One clue is that Beethoven, who conducted the premier in December of 1813 for the veterans of the Battle of Hanau, made an address to these veterans, saying: "We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us." There is every reason to believe that the deep emotion of this movement was founded on anything but what he said it was. His sentiment had existed long before 1813, as had the wars. Napoleon was being repelled, and the symphony is overall joyous.

However, Beethoven was not the kind of man to casually dismiss sacrifice, and the concert was dedicated to veterans. I believe that this movement celebrates those military veterans who made sacrifices for their nation, in much the same way King George VI was asking his subjects in Britain and the Commonwealth in the fight against evil menace of Nazism and Fascism.

Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and Requiem from: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

I hated it. I saw it as a teen and I thought something was wrong with the audio. I still hate the piece but at least I know who Ligeti is. It was way too avant garde for me back then and it remains so today. I think scratching your nails down a chalk board has more melody than a piece by Ligeti. Kubrick clearly loved his work and used it in his other films such as The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut.

Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra from 2001: Space Odyssey (1968)

By contrast I loved it. Music can be the difference between a highly memorable scene and one that leaves viewers with an indifferent shrug. It’s hard to believe that this classical piece was used in the main opening scene of the film originally as a temporary place holder by Kubrick whilst he waited for the film composer, Alex North, from the full soundtrack. In the end Kubrick left Strauss in and it made all the difference.

Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-Flat from: Barry Lyndon (1975)

The Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major for piano, violin, and cello, D. 929, was one of the last compositions completed by Franz Schubert in 1827 and one of the last pieces he heard being performed before he died. The track itself has been used in countless of movies over the decades such as The Hunger, Crimson Tide, The Piano Teacher, L'Homme de sa vie, Land of the Blind, Recollections of the Yellow House, The Way He Looks, The Mechanic, Miss Julie, The Congress, and the HBO miniseries John Adams. But I first heard it on Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon and remember being captivated by the film and the music. I was a teen watching it my parents and the whole scene at the card table was beautifully directed and wonderfully lit. As I learned much later in life, Kubrick and his team invented new kind of film lens to be able to film in candlelight.

Handel's sarabande from: Barry Lyndon (1975)

The sarabande is traditionally the music written for a courtly dance in triple metre. Handel's version was composed for solo harpsichord at some point between 1703 and 1706 and first published in 1733. This classic piece is the 4th movement of the Cette pièce est le quatrième mouvement de la Suite in G minor composed for the harpsichord. Although the Sarabande was originally intended by its composer to be played solo on harpsichord, the orchestral version of the Sarabande is very well known these days thanks to the Barry Lyndon film. Moreover, the Sarabande is beloved by filmmakers and has been adapted several times for various films. It’s one of my favourite pieces and it reminds me of the English countryside for some reason rather than some formal court dance.

Domenico Cimarosa’s Concerto for Oboe in C Moll from: Though the Olive Trees (1994)

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, this little known Iranian-French film was something I stumbled upon through my Norwegian mother who loved these kind of independent films when we lived in South Asia as an antidote to all the Bollywood films we children enjoyed. Kiarostami’s film traces the trouble arising when the romantic misfortune of one of the actors on a film set - a young man who pines for the woman cast as his wife, even though, in real life, she will have nothing to do with him - leaves the director caught in the middle. In hindsight I can now say it was a metafictional masterpiece. Kiarostami contemplates cinema and its romantic fallacies. The film is gorgeously grounded in Northern Iran’s folk traditions and with a soft focus on its shaken yet convalescent landscape. It’s a warmhearted tale that explores what happens when love goes unrequited - which was surprisingly relevant to a teen with raging hormones at the time.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis from: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

A classical musical masterpiece in a masterful cinematic movie - both epic in every sense of the word. As a former British Army combat pilot it’s the only film that made me have a smidgen of sympathy with the Royal Navy. It was one of the first films I was allowed to go and see at the cinema itself as a teen. The film is almost faultless in terms of acting, directing, cinematography, and authentic detail. It even made me go and read one or two of the books by Patrick O’Brian. How Peter Weir never won an Oscar for directing I shall never know.

Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is a 15-minute (or so) work for double string orchestra and string quartet, based on a melody by the 16th century composer Thomas Tallis. The quartet traditionally sits away from the orchestra in performance, to create an atmospheric antiphonal (alternating voices) effect. It is often known simply as the ‘Tallis Fantasia’. The tune is from a setting of Psalm 2 that Tallis wrote in 1567. It originally sets the words ‘Why fumeth in sight: The Gentils spite, In fury raging stout? Why taketh in hond: the people fond, Vayne things to bring about?’ It was in 1910 at a festival that Vaughan Williams himself conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first performance, which was followed in the same concert by Elgar conducting his own The Dream of Gerontius. Vaughan Williams, in his late 30s, was already establishing himself as a major name, but the Tallis Fantasia raised his profile even higher, not least because the concept of harking back to the 16th century was a comparatively new one.

The piece by Vaughn Williams is what has stayed with me throughout the years. In a nod to Proust, I chiefly identify the piece with reflections of my time on the battlefields of Helmand during my time in Afghanistan and especially seeing wounded friends and comrades long after we got back home from war.

Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana from: Excalibur (1981)

I was already familiar with bits and pieces from Wagner’s operas - played loudly in our home by my parents - but I must admit this classic piece by Carl Orff I first heard watching John Boorman’s magical and majestical film about King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. I know this piece has been used endlessly in other films and even gained fame as a men’s aftershave advertisement (so my father says) but I first heard it watching this film.

John Boorman’s 1981 fantastical retelling of Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur is, to quote Nicol Williamson’s Merlin in the film, “A dream to some. A nightmare to others!” It can sometimes come across as an episodic and hammy sword and sorcery tale, but I saw it as clever and satisfying retelling of an evergreen myth. I had read read Mallory’s epic books and so my expectations were unduly high. For the most part they were met and then some. Boorman took an abstract approach that shows us Arthur’s (unnamed) Kingdom, a place out of time, in several stages of transition; from dark to golden age, via loss of innocence, and painfully bloody rebirth. Excalibur arose out of the ashes of Boorman’s earlier attempt to bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to the screen (ironically after trying to get a filmic retelling of the Merlin myth off the ground).

Excalibur is a cautionary tale. The characters are all struggling to find their place in the world, to maintain harmony with nature. Merlin says poignantly of Excalibur to Arthur, “It was forged when the world was young, and bird and beast and flower were one with man, and death was but a dream.” The film is a longing for a golden age, and the struggle to balance the warring natures of honour and goodness with human greed and jealousy. Surely the most rousing image is when Percival has returned the Grail to Arthur who, rejuvenated, also recovers Excalibur from Guinevere (now a nun, to atone for her adultery with Lancelot). She has kept it safe, knowing her once and future king would one day seek its power. Merlin is unfrozen by Arthur, and even Lancelot, a raggedy wild man driven into exile by his own shame, heeds his true king’s call. Arthur rides out with his knights and these fellow warriors through a re-blossoming countryside to do battle with Mordred for the soul of the land, to Carl Orff’s stirring music.

The name of Orff’s piece has Latin roots. 'Carmina' means 'songs', while 'Burana' is the Latinised form of Beuren, the name of the Benedictine monastery of Benediktbeuren in Bavaria. So, Carmina Burana translates as Songs Of Beuren, and refers to a collection of early 13th-century songs and poems that was discovered in Beuren in 1803 - although it has since been established that the collection originated from Seckau Abbey, Austria - and is now housed in the Bavarian State Library. The songs (over 1000 of them) were written in a mix of Latin, German and medieval French by the Goliards, a band of poet-musicians comprising scholars and clerical students, who celebrated with earthy humour the joys of the tavern, nature, love and lust. Although Orff set the original texts, he chose not to use the primitive musical notation that accompanied some of the songs. The collection was first published in Germany in 1847, but it wasn’t until 1934 that Orff came across the texts; a selection had been translated into English and formed part of a publication called Wine, Women And Song. With the help of Michael Hofmann, a law student and Latin scholar, Orff chose 24 songs and set them to music in what he termed a “scenic cantata”.

It was in this form that it was first heard on June 8, 1937, in Frankfurt, under its full title Carmina Burana: Cantiones Profanae Cantoribus Et Choris Cantandae Comitantibus Instrumentis Atque Imaginibus Magicis (Songs Of Beuren: Secular Songs For Singers And Choruses To Be Sung Together With Instruments And Magic Images) Quite a mouthful! After the triumphant premiere of Carmina Burana, Orff, then 41, wrote to his publishers: “Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, published, can be destroyed. With Carmina Burana my collected works begin.” However, nothing Orff subsequently wrote ever came close to approaching the popularity of Carmina Burana. Oh dear.

Richard Wagner’s Siegfried’s Funeral March (from the opera Götterdämmerung) from: Excalibur (1981)

The film almost plays like a screen Opera - it is a heightened reality, a world anew. One where sex, jealousy and pride threaten to undo the mystical balance and ties between the King and the land. A powerful aid to that feeling is the superb score which utilises music such as Siegfried’s Funeral March by Wagner, and O Fortuna, a medieval poem set to music by Carl Orff. Boorman was determined to squeeze as much of the legend into his film’s running time as possible, chopping and condensing characters, and switching acts around. He created a three-act saga - the dark ages and the birth of Arthur, a period of brutality and superstition; the rise of Camelot and its age of reason, law, and dawning of Christianity; and the final descent into chaos and wasteland, where a frail Arthur commands the Round Table knights to seek out the Grail. Arising out of this a final battle commences for the soul of the land and the people, a sense of renewal with a promise of a new age to come. Boorman called it the “past, present and future of humanity.”

Richard Wagner composed his opera Götterdämmerung between 1869 and 1874. It is the last of the four operas that make up Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle, a project that had taken him over 25 years to complete. The opera is much renowned for its orchestral sequences, and these are often performed as concert extracts. Siegfried's Funeral March is taken from Act Three after Siegfried has been murdered by Hagen. Following his murder at the hands of Hagen, the death knell of “Siegfried’s Funeral March” opens with funereal timpani as Siegfried’s body is placed on his shield and carried off by the vassals. The music vacillates from deep mourning and rage-filled outbursts to the majesty of the “Hero” motif, brought out in bold relief at the centre of the movement.The whole opera is made up of musical motives from previous operas that tell of Siegfried's background, including the Volsung theme, Siegmund and Sieglinde's theme, the Sword, Brünnhilde's love theme and the curse of the Ring. 

Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries (Die Walküre) from: Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War phantasmagoria is an epic fresco oozing with madness. It is a madness that manages to escape from the frame and infect the director and his team, turning the film into a legend. It is impossible not to talk about this film without mentioning the Dantesque shooting of the film. A typhoon that destroyed the sets, a heart attack that nearly killed Martin Sheen, a Brando who was more obese and obtuse than ever, who arrived on the set without knowing his lines, and a director at the end of his rope physically and psychologically, on the verge of divorce and suicide. Instead of taking four months to complete, the shoot lasted 15 months. The analogy with the hell of Vietnam is obvious.

The film itself is about Benjamin Willard, a special forces captain, who is given a highly perilous mission: to find and assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade who has set up his headquarters on the Cambodian border. To accomplish his mission, Willard must travel up a river in a small patrol boat with a handful of men. We follow Willard sinking into the madness and insanity of this war, personified by the character of Colonel Kurtz, an obese Buddhist, a true godfather of the Vietnamese jungle. Apocalypse Now is in fact a mirror for the spectator, it plays on our feelings about the Vietnamese conflict, and this is what sets it apart from other great war films. It is a physical and very real journey through Vietnam, but also an inner journey for its hero, Willard, a drug addict and alcoholic, which will allow Coppola to make his denunciation of the war. After watching this movie over several years I’ve come to regard Coppola’s movie as more than just a war movie but also an hallucinatory trip, as anxiety provoking as possible, about the human soul lost inside itself.

For a movie that had two of my greatest loves - combat helicopters and Wagner - the film surprisingly didn’t inform my future career path as a combat pilot for the British Army. I was too young as a teen and caught up with other feminine things girls of my age did. But watching it retrospectively I’m sure it had some unconscious influence on me. I noticed things more with each viewing such as before Jim Morrison's paradoxical and delightful prologue, it is the helicopter blades that open Apocalypse Now. The jerky noise that spatialises this mortifying horizon is a motif that will be the melodic line of the entire film. In crosshatching, it truncates reality and allows the initial confusion of a man in reverse who opens his eyes on an uncertain world. The fan in the hotel room is not the air-conditioned shelter of war. Everything, from then on, is under the sign of duality.

Then of course we have the euphoric scene but no less horrifying than the helicopter attack by Kilgore and his men to lay waste to a village so that they could surf. And all done to the terrifying bombast of Wagner’s Ride of Valkyries. It’s a demented scene but also so visually lyrical. Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries is sadistically perfect. It’s a perfect mythical metaphor of the valkyries who majestically flew in the sky and decided who died in battle from above. Of course the symbolism of Wagner - wrongly tarred with its fascist connotations - as a place holder for Western imperialism over the Vietnamese is not lost on the viewer. It’s a clever piece of juxtaposition.

Armies have of course used music in warfare for millennia. The deployment of musicians - from trumpeters to drummers - in battle was useful in instilling regimentation and rhythmic purpose for soldiers; and in days before radio, in carrying specific orders across the battlefield. As well as unifying an army - it could potentially disorient the enemy, or as Kilgore eruditely elaborates: ‘We use Wagner, it puts the shits up the slopes. My boys love it!’. So what we are seeing is an age old military tactic being given a modern twist. This has already been established by the notion of an air cavalry, trading their horses for helicopters - which gets further embodied by Kilgore’s wearing of a cowboy hat, common to the Western film genre. The symbolism of linking old and new - ancient and modern, history and the present - occurs throughout Apocalypse Now, as it does in the original novella Heart of Darkness. It indicates an uncomfortable continuum, a never ending foreboding cycle. That beneath the fragile veneer of civilisation, humanity is endlessly repeating barbarism - a cycle foreshadowed by helicopter/fan blades at the start of the film which also loops back to become the end of the film - itself a cycle that won’t end.

When I flew combat helicopters over in Afghanistan we were banned from playing music in our cockpit. It’s simply not practical because you need to be aware of all your aural cues of what the hell is going on around you as every mission is task intensive. You’re focused on a mission where the shit can hit the fan such as coming under rocket attack at any second especially if you’re on a night mission. In theory you could,  as anyone with some audio equipment and electronics knowledge could wire in a 3.5mm headphone jack and hook up your music into your own helmet. I knew some pilots who broke the ban and did this. They would get their clever avionic ground staff technician crew to put in a some sort of patch cord that could plug through to their helmet ICS - in return you get them a case of beer. I’m not telling where we got the beer from.

Other honourable mentions:

Second movement of Schumann's Piano Quintet from: Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor "Il dolce suono" from: The 5th Element (1997)

Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez from: Brassed Off (1996)

Maurice Ravel’s Trio en la mineur pour piano, violon et violoncelle, Sonata for Violin and Cello, Violin Sonata #2 in G, and Berceuse Sur le Nom De Gabriel Fauré from: Un Coeur en Hiver/A Heart in Winter (1992)

Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K. 136 from: Out of Africa (1985)

Carl Orff - Schulwerk Volume 1: Musica Poëtica - Gassenhauer from Badlands (1973)

Puccini’s O mio babbino caro (aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi)  from: A Room with a View (1985)

Verdi’s La forza del destino (the Force of Destiny) overture from: Jean de Florette (1986)

Mozart’s Letter Duet (from The Marriage of Figaro) from : The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Thanks for your question

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Can you recommend any dinosaur themed video games? Or maybe games that just have evolution somehow play a part?

sO

for one, you can always play Evolution! evolution is a video game based on a card game that is actually a pretty great game-ification of the process of evolution (I have a couple of big critiques - predators don't hunt their prey into extinction as a general rule, but that's a key game component) and fun to play

if you're cool with going retro, the game Spore is essentially an evolution simulation game, even if its a bit oversimplified

The game Ecosystem mimics evolution too, you essentially are creating an underwater ecosystem from scratch, but my immersion is broken by the modern-type plants juxtaposed with cambrian-era fish

ironically, games with prehistoric life and games about evolution? not the same two things. none of those games really feature actual prehistoric life.

But, there are games that do!

I actually really like Saurian. It's still in alpha, and has a lot of development to do, but it's essentially a complete recreation of Hell Creek, and you can grow up as a raptor or as a triceratops!

Then there's Prehistoric Kingdom, which is a park builder sim with prehistoric life. The online community for it sucks (major transphobia incident), but the game itself is a fun time, and the dinosaurs are gorgeous.

I also enjoy Jurassic World Evolution 2. Sure, JW is inaccurate af, and every time I see manual unguals on digits 4 and 5 on the hands/front feet I scream internally, but a) there are lots of accuracy mods and b) the graphics are gorgeous

Let's Build a Zoo has prehistoric life, too! And things you wouldn't expect! It's kind of a basic game, but it's fun. And has more birds than fucking planet zoo does.

Zoo Tycoon 2 is still probably the best zoo game around, somehow, and there are tons of mods to add virtually as many prehistoric animals as you want. Hell, my friends and I made a Kulindadromeus mod for it! Literally! Any dinos you want.

Roots of Pacha is a game similar to Stardew that takes place in the Pleistocene! It's all about the power of human cooperation and community building, complete with Mammoths and Smilodon and Glyptodonts. Its a fun game, and I love it a lot. Can't wait for it to update more!

Dawn of Man is a pretty good caveman sim, as well, but it's very realism-focused, and killing mammoths is part of the game, so it's a bummer. But it's fun to go through the history of stone age human technology.

Dinosaur Fossil Hunter is... meh. the protagonist is a muscular white guy. the adventure side of paleontology is overemphasized. the controls are kind of crappy. I can't recommend it.

Tyto Ecology is a fun, if basic, ecology simulator, but it is no longer being developed or supported. Still, I enjoyed it.

aaaand... those are my recommendations. The pickings are kind of slim. Hence my desperate desire to make more prehistoric life and evolution themed games!

that said, keep an eye out - Paleopines and Super Zoo Story are both coming out soon, and they both have dinosaurs!

[ringmaster-midori]

My Speech to the Townspeople of Willowside

It's turning out to be a good day.

I got up on the stage in the town hall, standing in front of the Willowside flag, and gave a speech to raise morale among the townspeople:

Citizens of Willowside,

Be seated.

Let's cut through the fog with a blade sharper than any rapier: the blade of truth. The xulgaths and their dinosaurs are at Willowside's gates, thinking they can break us. They see this peaceful town and mistake your love for life as weakness. They couldn't be more wrong.

You are here today for one reason: to defend your homes and your loved ones.

Willowsiders love a winner. Willowsiders will not tolerate a loser. Willowsiders despise cowards. Willowsiders play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in the Nine Hells for a being who lost and laughed. That's why Willowsiders will never lose a war; the very idea of losing is hateful to a Willowsider.

Every person is scared in their first battle. If they say they're not, they're a liar! The real hero is the person who fights even though they are scared. Some people get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real person will never let their fear of death overpower their honor, their sense of duty to their country, and their innate personhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not demons. They are not devils. They are stone-age lizard people and bleed just as you or I do.

Why, by the gods, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By the gods, I do!

My people don't surrender. I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless they have been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bullshit either. The kind of being that I want in my circus is just like the roustabout in Erran, who, with a crossbow against his chest, whipped off his helmet, swept the crossbow aside with one hand, and busted the hells out of the xulgath with his helmet. Then he jumped on the crossbow and went out and killed another xulgath before they knew what the hells was coming off. And, all of that time, this person had an arrow through a lung. There was a real hero!

Some day I want to see them raise up on their bile-soaked hind legs and howl, "Sweet Zevgavizeb, it’s the godsdamned Circus of Wayward Wonders again and that fucking bitch Midori"!

Now, let's show these prehistoric pests how real heroes fight!

For Willowside!

I really think that got their blood pumping!

[jwcc-confessions]

I’m worried about how they’re going to handle animal rights and issues, specifically farm animals, in Chaos Theory, but more in a “what is the audience going to take away from this?” sort of way.

I know the show is mainly about dinosaurs/prehistoric animals but so far we’ve had;

- Sammy, a character who’s main thing is her family’s beef ranch and how much she loves cattle, specifically her pet cow, Bessie.

- Herbivorous dinosaurs that are repeatedly compared to cattle by multiple people, and no one argues against it, everyone agrees that they’re like cattle.

- Vegan alternatives shown as environmentally conscious choices and a parallel to factory farms through dinosaur breeding farms in Dominion.

- And now there’s a new character, Sydney, who is said to be an environmentalist so I’m assuming she’s going to be vegan, or at least vegetarian.

Camp Cretaceous had a lot of issues with putting dinosaurs on a pedestal while ignoring other animals, specifically cattle but that’s because Sammy would keep bringing them up.

Like, I noticed this throughout all the seasons, but in Seasons 4 and 5 it’s more obvious. In the last two seasons they really avoided calling the dinosaurs animals. Because they can’t say that hurting animals, especially for money, is wrong without opening up *that* dialogue about hurting animals for meat and byproducts, as well as implying that the Gutierrez ranch is doing something that is morally questionable, if not flat out wrong.

Because as much as they could say and show that the animals are treated well on the ranch, it’d be dishonest to push that something realistic. Because real life beef farms, no matter how small or how family owned, still adhere to practices like weaning claves when they’re too young (the natural weaning age is 9-11 months), fasting, which is basically starving, animals for 12+ hours to lessen the chance of issues with the digestive track, artificial insemination, and conscious and unmedicated dehorning, ear-tagging, tail-docking, and castration.

And I get that it’s a show for kids, so they can’t go too far into veganism and animal rights without risking backlash from parents, but they weren’t even neutral about it. They full on endorse it with Sammy. She’s a massive animal lover with a pet cow, a big heart, and a love for meat. That’s all we get. No nuance, no conflict, no nothing, to the point where it genuinely felt like some of the funding for the show came from somewhere in the meat industry over some of the things Sammy has said and done.

All in all, the show purposefully compares dinosaurs to cattle multiple times, but when it comes to who is worthy of being rescued and living out their lives in peace, it’s the dinosaurs. It’s the ones’ whose abuse towards is completely fictional that we’re supposed to sympathize with.

Maybe Chaos Theory will be better about it and dive into those issues, since it’s supposed to be more mature than Camp Cretaceous, but considering season 5 had the kids eat ice cream right after using the bond between a mother and her child to convince Daniel not to hurt the dinosaurs I don’t have high hopes for it.

These are some really great points and topics I'd love to see explored in CT. But honestly given what we got in the last few seasons of CC, I just feel like the writing isn't strong enough. They don't care or aren't capable of writing that kind of nuance :(

[jayietheriverwarrior]

I've been super into prehistoric life and learning about dinosaurs and ice age fauana and just animals from all over Earth's ancient past, this planet has existed for so so much longer than we as a species have and there is so much of life that we never got to see for ourselves. Of course, kitties like Smilodon here were around late enough for our species to have encountered, but it's still a shame that our modern eyes will never see one of them alive.

Anyway, with my recent interest in prehistoric life, and slight obsession with the game Path of Titans haha, I decided to try my hand at making a Smilodon version of my fursona Jayfrost/Jayie. :D

It was a lot of fun to work on, and I think it turned out great! :D The side view definitely turned out better than the front view, but ah well. I might get a commission or two of this design, I'm pretty happy with it. :D The fur is a bit longer than what Smilodon fatalis probably realistically had, but I think it looks good and for my fursona at least I don't mind going a bit unrealistic, not too far but I don't think this is crazy or anything, it's just a bit longer and thicker. 

I've been wanting to add something to do with my (tentatively labeled for now) demibisexuality with my fursona for a while now. I played with having a bandana with the colors on it, but for this version (and I'll probably add it to the small cat version soon too once I have time to redesign it), I settled on a flower... laurel, of sorts, that hangs down the neck from around the back of the neck. I had fun picking flowers with the right colors and that have some meaning. Oleanders I picked because I once watched a black vulture chick grow up in my backyard that I loved and the name I called him was Oleander, violets are there because apparently they're sort of connected with WLW in the LGBT community so that works, lavender is a scent I like and I wanted a longer sort of drooping flower, and the last one was because it was the only black drooping flower I could find, or close enough to black anyway. ^^

Like I said, overall I'm really happy with this. :D