#specifically because of the fossil

[and-this-gun-i-found]

Borealopelta markmitchelii has gotta be my favourite Dino SPECIFICALLY because of the one fossil remain we have of them that looks ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!

LOOK AT IT

It looks like a sculpture

Absolutely gorgeous

This is how B. markmitchelii became my #1 guy

EVERYONE WHO SEES THIS HAS TO TELL ME WHAT THEIR FAVORITE DINOSAUR IS GO GO GO

[bonefall]

On the topic of Flight Rising (as a fellow FR enjoyer) I'm curious what flight(s) you've been in? If you dont want to share thats fair but it's interesting to hear peoples reasonings. I joined in the early days of sign up windows, didn't have internet and got put in Lightning by a friend who made the account for me. It has been years and years, don't even know that friend anymore and am still a die hard Spark.

I was actually a Light flight to begin with! Which is another thing that must be an Absolute Shocker, I'm sure. Girlboything who likes writing was in the flight well known for being full of weird writers.

My move was to the Wind flight because minty green is my favorite color. I do love the aesthetic of the wind, the kites, and the traveling, but I'm actually saving up gems to go to Earth next. I think I vibe the most with its lore, even though its scenery is a little uggo. I love how many cities are there, I love the idea of the crypts and the hidden treasures, preserving and documenting history.

I kinda wish you got a free flight change every like... 5 years. That's more than long enough to be fair I think. I've been playing since 2016 which is actually 8 years so... idk give me free flight change. let me out. im literally from the travel guys let me travel

[rebornofstars]

Hello? Taps mic. The hero of Time is a fossil because his story is so old and long dead that the shape of his corpse has been filled in with sediment and calcified it and the now people can only guess what manner of creature he used to be by the shape of his bones.  I can't put the words into the story but I read a book about how in ancient Greece farmers would find mammoth bones and call them bones of giants. the bones discovered in a place with many thunderstorms were called giants, who fell in battle against Zeus. people knew and questioned the stories but they still called them gods. was that boy a hero? did he really abandon their world? hello bee? i feel like you'd appreciate this crumb without the story. i don't know what to do with it but its fun to toss around in my head. he's old. he's time. he is bones in the shape of a huddled child, but his form is so strange to us we called him a warrior, a beast, a giant, anything but a small thing huddled in the ground long ago. I'm not like babying Time the grown man, I'm thinking the story of him. Wind’s idea of The Hero of Time and the Guy that we call Time are not the same person, ok? Taps mic. Like is this thing on? Can you hear me?

oh my god. im starting a new word document

[nicolefirekitty]

transport of all kinds have had to be reinforced to be able to withstand the different abilities of vivosaurs. however, flight-based vivosaurs often seem uninterested in air travel, some even choosing to fly alongside the vehicles

based on this

[bigrigsonice]

Your final challenge. Finish artfight prep before the last possible moment.

Anyways yeah I’m doing artfight this year!! See y’all on the battlefield 🫡

[codecicle-archive]

Help wait you're 14?? ok that makes sense actually (NO OFFENCE)

every once in a while someone decides to actually read through my pinned and I get an ask like this a little while after don't worry anon you're not the first to be surprised and you won't be the last o/

[arolesbianism]

Sigh. Nikola why must you be one of the more interesting oni characters. I don't wanna think abt you with your stupid spiky blond hair and your unethical science that mostly just serves to make Jackie more shitty by proxy. But I do. Because you're kind of orbo blorbo. Fuck you Nikola I hope you explode again

[reasonsforhope]

"As climate disasters strain state budgets, a growing number of lawmakers want fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions.

Last May [2024], Vermont became the first state to pass a climate Superfund law. The concept is modeled after the 1980 federal Superfund law, which holds companies responsible for the costs of cleaning up their hazardous waste spills. The state-level climate version requires major oil and gas companies to pay for climate-related disaster and adaptation costs, based on their share of global greenhouse gas emissions over the past few decades. Vermont’s law passed after the state experienced torrential flooding in 2023. In December [2024], New York became the second state to pass such a law. 

This year, 11 states, from California to Maine, have introduced their own climate Superfund bills. Momentum is growing even as Vermont and New York’s laws face legal challenges by fossil fuel companies, Republican-led states, and the Trump administration. Lawmakers and climate advocates told Grist that they always expected backlash, given the billions of dollars at stake for the oil and gas industry — but that states have no choice but to find ways to pay the enormous costs of protecting and repairing infrastructure in the face of increasing floods, wildfires, and other disasters.

The opposition “emboldens our fight more,” said Maryland state delegate Adrian Boafo, who represents Prince George’s County and co-sponsored a climate Superfund bill that passed the state legislature in March. “It means that we have to do everything we can in Maryland to protect our citizens, because we can’t rely on the federal government in this moment.” 

While the concept of a climate Superfund has been around for decades, it’s only in recent years that states have begun to seriously consider these laws. In Maryland, federal inaction on climate change and the growing burden of climate change on government budgets have led to a surge of interest, said Boafo. Cities and counties are getting hit with huge unexpected costs from damage to stormwater systems, streets, highways, and other public infrastructure. They’re also struggling to provide immediate disaster relief to residents and to prepare for future climate events. Maryland has faced at least $10 billion to $20 billion in disaster costs between 1980 and 2024, according to a recent state report. Meanwhile, up until now, governments, businesses, and individuals have borne 100 percent of these costs. 

“We realized that these big fossil fuel companies were, frankly, not paying their fair share for the climate crisis that they’ve caused,” Boafo said. 

Recent bills have also been spurred by increased sophistication in attribution science, said Martin Lockman, a climate law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Researchers are now able to use climate models to link extreme weather events to greenhouse gas emissions from specific companies. The field provides a quantitative way for governments to determine which oil and gas companies should pay for climate damages, and how much. 

Vermont’s law sets up a process for the government to first tally up the costs of climate harms in the state caused by the greenhouse gas emissions of major oil and gas companies between 1995 and 2024. The state will then determine how much of those costs each company is responsible for, invoice them accordingly, and devote the funds to climate infrastructure and resilience projects. New York’s law, by contrast, sets a funding target ahead of time by requiring certain fossil fuel companies to pay a total of $75 billion, or $3 billion per year over 25 years. The amount each company has to pay is proportionate to their share of global greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2024. Both Vermont and New York’s laws apply only to companies that have emitted over 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their respective covered periods. That would include Exxon Mobil, Shell, and other oil and gas giants.

Maryland’s law is so far the only climate Superfund-related legislation to pass a state legislature this year, although Governor Wes Moore vetoed the measure late on Friday [May 16, 2025]. The original draft of the bill would have required major fossil fuel companies to pay a one-time fee for their historic carbon emissions. But over the course of the legislative session, the bill was amended...

Climate advocates decried the governor’s decision, calling it “an inexplicable reversal of a position that threatens to stymie Maryland’s climate progress for negligible budget savings.” In a joint press release by three environmental groups, Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, said, “This veto is not fiscal responsibility, it’s a definitive step in the opposite direction of our climate goals.”

In California, environmental groups are optimistic about the chances of a bill passing this year. This is the second year a climate Superfund bill has been introduced in the state, and the sponsors of the new bill have focused on building a broad coalition of environmental, community, and labor groups around the proposal, said Sabrina Ashjian, project director for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. This year’s legislation was introduced shortly after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January, which could amplify lawmakers’ sense of urgency. The bill has now passed out of each legislative chamber’s environmental committee and is awaiting votes in their respective judiciary committees. If passed, the bill will next move to the full Senate and Assembly for a final vote. 

In the meantime, legislators are keeping a close eye on ongoing legal challenges to Vermont’s and New York’s laws...

Climate experts told Grist that with huge amounts of money and liability at stake, lawsuits from the fossil fuel industry weren’t unexpected. Boafo said that given how much financial and political support the Trump campaign received from oil and gas corporations, it’s not a surprise that the Justice Department has sued New York and Vermont. Pursuing these laws invites inevitable opposition — but avoiding the growing costs of climate devastation is even riskier, advocates said. 

Lawmakers are ���passing these bills because in writing budgets, in dealing with the day-to-day operation of their states, they’re facing really serious questions about how our society is going to allocate the harms of climate change,” said Lockman. “I suspect that the lawmakers who are advocating for these bills are in it for the long haul.”"

-via Grist, May 19, 2025

[genderqueerdykes]

i love when intersex people try to talk about our issues people try to hit us with a "that doesn't count, that would be like 0.01% of the population you're talking about," ahh response, which I have personally received several times at this point.

everyone loves to be confident to pull some bullshit statistic out of their ass to be dismissive, but it's funny because they never do a second of research. the United Nations Human Rights Office estimates 1.7% of the population are born intersex:

even if the numbers were any lower, it would still be worth talking about intersex issues. any amount of people with these experiences are worth representing and discussing. we should not have to be invisible because our conditions are so stigmatized that many of us receive "Corrective" procedures just after birth, during childhood, or puberty. so many of us are swept under the rug, that's part of the reason why the statistics vary depending on which area is reporting the statistics.

you can't weaponize how marginalized someone is against them. if we fight for people with the most specific gender identities that can't be easily explained in one or two words, we must include intersex people. if we include people who use unique pronouns not seen in current common vernacular, we must support intersex people. if we support other queer minorities, we must support intersex people.

it's not an option. you can act like we are a statistic on a page, a number you can't possibly fathom in your mind, but we are all around you. everywhere. existing in real time. we are not fossils. we are not extinct.

you don't have the pleasure of ignoring us anymore. intersex rights are human rights, and sometimes, they're queer rights, too.

[bogleech]

This whole sequence in jurassic park is so incredibly funny to me now as an adult because it reads so much like a power fantasy written by the lamest most annoying dinosaur guy ever. A child, for some reason, heckles a dinosaur fossil. Totally something children do. And specifically ridicules the dinosaur by saying it looks more like a bird, which he finds stupid. BUT WAIT!! The badass middle aged paleontologist is here to give such a based and awesome lecture about his favorite dinosaur it owns the shit out of that punk ass ignorant child. Just obliterates him on the spot. And everyone clapped.

[gorgynei]

(puts on my botany hat) okay. so the firelights tree is very specifically inspired by a ginkgo tree

some examples of ginkgo leaves ^ extremely distinct! the firelight tree's are pretty big compared to the real thing though

this is interesting mostly because on earth, the gingko tree (Ginkgo biloba) is the only extant species of order Ginkgoales and is extremly old

fossil of a ginkgo leaf from. a long time ago ^

gingko trees also specialize in growing in disturbed environments (environments near flowing bodies of water or impacted by wildfire, invasive species, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc.) and prefer areas with lots of water drainage, which fits well for it's ability to grow in the firelights hideout!

[pangur-and-grim]

Hi! I have a dinosaur question for you, but idk how ridiculous it might be. So I love triceratops, and I keep thinking about how the cowards never give the dinosaurs feathers. What do you think triceratops feathers would look like? My uneducated mind pictures something like a peacock.

so with dinosaurs, we have to rely on fossil evidence. if there’s evidence of feathers, then they should be depicted with feathers. but if there’s instead evidence of scaly, pebbly skin (like with most ornithischians), then it’s more accurate to depict them with that. the most you could give a ceratopsian is feathers that have been modified into quills, and even then you’d have to do research on the specific species you want to depict, to see if that’s reasonable. I would be hesitant to give Triceratops quills. take this with a handful of salt, but I think the latest on them was weird nipple-like scales.

it does seem like proto-feathers were a basal trait in dinosaurs, because the pycnofibres that pterosaurs have look to be feather analogues (meaning that the archosaur that branched into dinosaurs and pterosaurs likely had proto-feathers), but there are many lineages that went on to lose those feathers. even some theropods (the classic feather group!) may not have had feathers. so it isn’t always a matter of cowardice, it’s more that we have to pay attention to the evidence wherever it points, even if that means we don’t get a fun fluffy T. rex or peacock triceratops. and I am definitely mad about this.

[bonefall]

Odd question but I actually know very little about geology;

Does anyone have good resources where I can learn how places get iron in the soil? Like... how does that happen? How would you know if a place would be iron oxide-rich?

This is specifically about if BB!Cats have access to Ochre but I'm casting a wide net here

[emmg]

He wrestles with a feverish appetite, this crude and uninvited urge that intrudes at its own whim—though, really, when would such thoughts be welcome? It is not refined, not proper, to sit opposite her and let his mind wander to the gloss of her lips, to wonder how she might taste, to wish that the mascarpone she savors so languidly were his own flesh, heavy and impatient. 

He despises himself for it—wants to be better, finer, something more than hunger in its basest form. And yet, he wants. Sweetness, yes; kindness, yes; love in all its quiet splendor—but also salt and sweat, the lush, slippery heat between her legs, his or hers or both, some mingled thing he might catch on his fingers, press back inside her, trace along her trembling thighs as he coaxes her to completion. 

But it is not only this. No, his disease is greater, more humiliating still. He thinks of grand, maudlin absurdities. Of flowers left on windowsills, of rings slipped onto fingers, of days spent making memories out of nothing. And it is this, not lust, that he fears might truly appall her. Because hunger, after all, is easy to satisfy. It is love, foolish and relentless, that tends to send people running. 

You mustn’t be so sentimental, someone had murmured that to him once. He can no longer summon the speaker’s face, nor their voice, nor even their gender, only the ghostly trace of the words themselves, breathed or sighed, said once or, more likely, many times.

It became, in those gauzy, amber-lit years of his youth, something of a running jest. An affectionate, exasperated refrain, volleyed at him with the regularity of a well-worn melody. 

"Don’t fucking propose to the waitress, Volkarin. She’s bringing you a beer, not subtly signaling that she wants to die in your arms," Johanna would mutter, leaning back against the sticky wood of some dimly lit tavern, where they debated spirits over spirits.

"They’re funding your research, Emmrich, not secretly applying to be the mother of your children."

"Your new assistant is very handsome. Try not to hyperventilate when he hands you a quill."

He laughed along. It was funny, after all. Until, inevitably, it wasn’t. Until the joke, fossilized through sheer, relentless overuse, lost its shape and became a dull thing, something to stub his patience against. Until his forced little chuckles gave way to eye-rolls, to abrupt departures, to a growing sense that he was, in fact, trapped in some long-running farce penned by a particularly untalented playwright.

They were all married now, every last one of them—the tireless jesters, the committee of mirth who, years later, still found delight in flogging the same long-dead horse. And he wasn’t. Not that he was alone, of course. He had his affairs, his amusements, his charming little entanglements. But still, from time to time, a most delicate and specific malice stirred in him. 

He wanted to dig up some particularly malicious little corpse, whisper something truly awful to it, and dispatch it to haunt them. Not in any grand, dramatic fashion. No moaning, no rattling of chains. Just a gentle, relentless nuisance. A ghost of mild inconvenience. A door that won’t quite shut. A draft they can’t find. A whisper when they’re shaving. A misplaced document on the morning of a big presentation. 

The sort of thing a petty man might dream up. And he has, after all, always been petty.

He tried, though. He tries still. To smooth the edges of his affections, to hush the operatic swell of his heart, to trade grand declarations for something gentler, something more palatable. Not entirely, of course—self-betrayal is a vulgar thing. But enough. Just enough to keep from frightening them, from scattering them like startled birds. 

For Rook, mostly. Because Rook is not like him. Rook does not do sentiment. Rook has the supreme, indifferent ease of someone born beautiful, the kind of beauty that turns heads and opens doors without so much as a sidelong glance of acknowledgment. Rook has never had to earn affection—it accumulates around her the way cigarette smoke clings to velvet. Rook rolls her eyes at poetry. Rook, with her lazy smirk and her miraculous ability to construct entire, fully functional sentences composed exclusively of obscenities.

He loves Rook very, very much. He suspects Rook loves him too, in her own peculiar way. She smiles, she laughs, she allows him his embarrassing little effusions, even kisses him for his trouble—then, with perfect timing, calls him a dweeb and steals the last sip of his drink. 

It’s fine. He’s learned to translate. In Rook’s private dialect, dweeb means yes, fine, I suppose you amuse me, a kiss means I would be inconvenienced by your untimely death, and drinking the last of his whiskey? That, of course, is a vow of eternal devotion. Or something like that.

It all collapses into a feverish, tangled catastrophe one evening. A breathless, ill-advised implosion of longing and lust and something dangerously adjacent to reverence. She is so, so beautiful, and he wants to touch her, of course, but also—he wants to read to her. Not the dull, airless sonnets, no, but the real poetry, the ones thick with scandal, with sin, the ones that might cajole that sharp little smirk from her lips. Maybe while his fingers are inside her. Maybe precisely then.

He wants to coax pleasure from her, whispering thick, illicit syllables against her skin, punctuating each lewd phrase with the curl of his knuckles, just to see how the two mingle, just to see which makes her gasp first. To see if she’ll arch into it, if she’ll moan, if she’ll laugh. Because of course she’ll laugh. She always does. Even when he licks his fingers clean, even when he settles between her thighs, even when he finds his own satisfaction in the aftermath of hers, she will be laughing. 

It happens like that, and yet, not like that at all. Because as he collapses against her, boneless and spent, something dreadful and unmistakable unfurls in his chest—too late, of course, always too late. His sentimentality, that incurable affliction, has caught up with him at last, threading itself through his ribs, pressing its damp, foolish hands against his throat. 

He bows his head to her chest, breathing her in, willing himself to contain it, to gather the wet, trembling edges of his absurd little heart and tuck them out of sight. Perhaps she will not notice. Perhaps she will feel only the smile he presses into her skin, as if that might smother the rest. 

A silence—brief, terrible, perceptive. 

"Oh no," she says, and he feels her fingers weave into his hair, loose and lazy and terribly knowing. "What the fuck did I do?" 

He shakes his head—not much, nothing at all, everything. Just a little.

"Nothing, my darling," he says, only slightly unsteady. "Nothing at all. I am—" a soft exhale, an almost-laugh, "—very happy." He swallows. Feels the first pangs of self-reproach begin to bloom, acid-sweet. "Only… allow me a moment to gather myself. It will pass." 

A brief caress at the base of his neck. Then, just as he begins to sink into it, she shifts, shoves, displaces him. He rolls onto his back, compliant, expectant, and she follows, settling astride him, her thighs bracketing his ribs, her cool hands framing his face. 

"Happy?" she confirms. 

"Yes, happy." 

"Hm." A small, satisfied noise. "Good. Happy and pretty. You’re so very pretty." 

She does not elaborate—she never does—but she kisses him. Thoroughly. His cheeks first, then his chin, the arch of his brow, the slow, methodical placement of lips upon skin, like affixing wax seals to letters never meant to be sent. His eyes, last. She drags a fingertip down, drawing his lids closed as if dimming a lamp. Then, the press of her mouth, warm, dry, familiar. And then—oh.

The flick of her tongue, feline and quick, slips between his lashes, parting what she has only just sealed, grazing the raw, unguarded wet beneath. He flinches; she giggles, breath skimming his cheek, unreasonably pleased with herself. 

She does it again, slower this time, the tip of her tongue tracing the curve of his eyelid. Then once more, lower now, across the ridge of his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth. A methodical, absentminded mapping—kisses pressed to skin with no particular urgency, a grazing of teeth when the impulse strikes her. He lies still beneath her, utterly at her mercy, though she is hardly in a hurry to exploit it. She seems content merely to taste him, her breath leaving damp traces that cool, then tighten, then disappear. 

Chocolate, yes, still lingering from earlier, something dark and rich that settles at the back of his throat just from breathing her in. Salt, too, a faint sting where sweat beads along the curve of her upper lip. 

Finally, an exhale. A minute adjustment of her weight as she lifts her head, pleased, apparently, with whatever inscrutable calculation she has been making. A kiss, light as a comma, stamped onto the very center of his mouth. 

“There you go,” she announces, stretching her arms overhead, yawning into her wrist, smiling that slow, pleased smile of hers. “All cleaned up. Not a tear in sight, since you seem to find your own emotions so mortifying.” 

"Thank you," he says, and, disastrously, feels like he might start crying again. 

"Mm-hm." A pause. Her fingers tapping absently against his cheek. "There’s a joke in here somewhere." 

"Is there?"

A frown, thoughtful, exaggerated, her brows knitting together in careful concentration before giving way to a terrible smile. "Yes." A beat. Then, the telltale flicker of something truly indecent behind her eyes. "Something about staying hydrated. Or maybe—" a pause, as if she is weighing her options "—eating out your third eye." 

He laughs then immediately chokes as she presses her hand to his throat for balance, the casual weight of it cutting off just enough air to send his body into brief, ungraceful revolt. 

"Never short on dreadful puns, I see." His voice, when it returns, is slightly hoarse. 

"Never," she agrees. Then, with a flourish of indulgence, she leans down again, kissing his eyelids one by one. “So you continue doing this—” kiss, kiss, kiss “—and I'll continue doing that.” 

Disgracefully, absurdly, he cries again, even as she laughs, even as her laughter spreads like ink in water, pulling him under, until the whole thing disintegrates into some ungovernable mixture of mirth and misery. He is laughing too—helplessly, wet-faced, ridiculous—and she, entirely unbothered by his descent into sentimentality, licks at the salt on his cheeks like a cat, or perhaps some particularly devoted dog, calling him pretty, pretty, pretty in that lazy, drawling way of hers, as if the word itself were a charm, a refrain, a verdict.

He wants to ask her why—why this word, why now, why, of all possible things, she has settled on this ludicrous, ill-fitting descriptor as he lies before her, blotchy and unsightly and utterly, embarrassingly undone. But she only snorts into his collarbone, her breath warm, unbothered, and the chant continues, pretty, pretty, pretty, until he is left with no choice but to accept it.

In the morning, his eyes are red. Lucanis notices. Davrin notices. The two, incapable of letting a thing be, set about turning his misfortune into sport, taking turns to see who can unearth the most appallingly indecent explanation.

He feels a migraine approaching. 

And then Rook arrives, deposits a cup of coffee into his hands, and, without so much as a glance at him, declares, “He snorted too much powder last night. Leave him alone.” 

Ah. 

Oh.

He sits there, staring at her, vaguely appalled, impossibly infatuated, hopelessly starry-eyed. Very well, then. She has let sentiment in—however unwittingly, however carelessly—and now she will drown in it. And then, once she is thoroughly waterlogged, he will buy her all the gold in Nevarra. 

[lucybubblegum]

love the litwick line!! started with one in a pokemon ttrpg, only increased my love for a pokemon i already adored

i haven't had the chance to use hisuian zoroark at all but frankly i don't think i need to its such a good design alone that it can carry that opinion

there's honestly not many if any bad ghost types, and even then i probably still love them lol though i will ask, any particular reason its specifically honedge in your top 10?

just here to wonder what ur favorite ghost type pokemon is, mines mimikyu personally (also my favorite type, and my favorite pokemon in general, though gengar comes close)

Mimikyu is such a good choice. Definitely top tier. I also love the litwick line, alolan marowak, hisuian zoroark, skeledurge, ceruledge, pumpkaboo, lunala, annihilape, and honedge.

Top 10 in no particular order is probably the best you'll get. I am notoriously bad at picking favorites.

[redbean-nom]

thinking abt designs for the mythosaur and shriek hawk, because the canon mythosaur does in no way resemble a semiaquatic jungle creature, and the canon "shriek hawk" appears to either be some sort of dino-planet mutant population or somehow crossed with nevarro dragons, especially since it doesn't even match the silhouette of the vizsla shriek hawk- either way, the shriek hawk equivalent of those super squashed french bulldogs.

so. starting with the mythosaur:

disclaimer: this is pulling from both legends and canon, and also from the perspective of someone whose background is in general dentistry, not paleoart reconstruction

our only existing examples of mythosaur fossils are the skull insignias and replicas: the original cracked-skull signet from boba's pauldron, the stylized signet from jaster/the haat'ade, grogu's pendant, and the one on the armorer's wall in the nevarro forge.

this is further complicated by mythosaurs being sexually dimorphic at a skeletal level as well as the iconic sigil being apparently based off a humanoid species that resembles a male mythosaur:

the Jaing mythosaur seems to feature the binocular eyes/eye sockets seen most clearly in the boba and jaster signets, but broader-set and straighter tusks than almost all the attributed mythosaur skulls. assuming that basic features like eye/nose placement and mandibular structure aren't dimorphic, the Forge mythosaur is probably the most accurate representation of a mythosaur skull.

the Living

the only appearance of a nearly-complete mythosaur skeleton is in the form of a defunct theme park of dubious accuracy and proportions, depicted in one issue of a comic from 1977:

this is... certainly something, to say the least. the skull part features the same monocular eye placement (correlates with the Forge mythosaur), oddly-placed nose horns (and no nostrils, and also weird nose-abs), remarkably no tusks, some sort of unicorn-ceratopsid horn crest.

The vehicles for scale are unidentified transport barges, but they seem to be about a foot taller than leia in the back, so approximately 6ft? judging from the transport in the eye-door, the orbital socket is approximately 48 ft across.

in comparison, our other data points in terms of size demonstrate 1) at least one mythosaur (the Living Waters mythosaur) has a head at least twice as tall as din, so approximately 12ft of visible head in comparison to the 48ft-eye of the Theme Park mythosaur. 2) some number of mythosaurs were large enough and of a reasonable shape to be ridden. 3) mythosaurs generally have some large bones of a size appropriate for mythosaur axes, but most likely not so large that the entire axe could be carved from one bone (given the segmented axe shape). 4) all(?) mythosaurs have a sternum bone of a size reasonable for the carving of the mask of mandalore and presumably of a shape reminiscent of the bes'karta.

the Living Waters mythosaur also provides some valuable detail on its face: it appears to be a large reptilian with rough skin of a muted color, seemingly demonstrating the elongated facial structure and the separate tusks (so not a hippo skull situation).

it seems quite odd that the Theme Park mythosaur depiction would leave out the tusks, so given that the Jaing mythosaur resembles a specifically male mythosaur, i'll assume the female mythosaur has the unicorn-ceratopsid crest instead. i'm also going to assume the nose horns are a iguanodon situation, so i've moved them to points of the cheek ridge like ceratopsid cheek points.

looking at these examples, the weirdest thing that seems to stand out is the oddly vertical jaw- where does the mandible attach? how does it eat?? does it actually bite offensively if it has to smush its whole face up to where it's biting?? what sort of range of motion does it have?? the Jaing mythosaur/Jaing species and the Theme Park mythosaur both have more horizontal heads that would better facilitate eating in a hand-less predatory animal; however, the Living Waters mythosaur does have that weird vertical jaw (unless its mouth goes at a 90 degree angle from the rest of its face, like a goblin shark). then again, we can't rule out that the Living Waters mythosaur is just a weird individual with some facial deformity causing the impractical verticality.

that said, why does it have rodent teeth. where are the rest of its teeth. why does it have a huge gap in the side of its face.

i tried putting skin over it and now it looks like a sock puppet.

time to try again with a more forward-angled maxilla, instead of just continuing the angle of the upper face.

i... don't know if this is worse. it looks like some sort of horrible sauropod-rat. well, at least the canon version looks at least as unwieldy as this :/

possible solution for the vertical face: maybe it rotates like how gorilla heads stay facing forward when they're knuckle walking or bipedally walking? but like a weird reptilian version? but then their teeth would be horizontal :///

alright. take three, this time with a more humanoid vertical jaw.

it now looks like it ran facefirst into a brick wall. unsure if this is an aesthetic improvement from the sauropod rat, but it seems even less functional in terms of range of motion and durability. however, the occlusion is a bit better in the resting state?

looking at it again, how does it even fight. the tusks would seem like the obvious answer but they seem too close to the face? and the teeth are huge but they're weird flat skinny incisors that are way too vertical to be of use without smushing the entire face up against the prey.

not to mention these are supposed to be jungle creatures?? judging from the Living Waters mythosaur i'm going to assume they're some sort of jungle river creature-

-ARE THEY BALEEN FILTER FEEDERS

apparently baleen is a non-fossilizing soft tissue, which would explain why the Theme Park mythosaur doesn't seem to have any functional teeth, and those weird skinny incisors can either be some sort of baleen-like tissue replicated as "teeth" in the classic "mythosaur skull" (especially if the Jaing species and associated Jaing mythosaur actually did have teeth), or something like split rostrum whales.

that would also explain how such a huge creature supports large global populations

well, this still needs some work, but it definitely looks better than sock puppet mythosaur... except no, the nostrils probably wouldn't work if the baleen attach to the front of the skull.

going back to look at the front view, the Forge mythosaur seems to have some indentations between its eyes, kind of like where rancor nostrils are, that look similar to trunk attachment points. except the actual nostrils are lower on the Living Waters mythosaur.

wait

going back to rodent teeth

BEAVER. BEAVER TEETH

THATS WHAT HAS WEIRD LONG SKINNY INCISORS

irl, beavers have iron deposits in their enamel to prevent wear/stress during tree-gnawing activity. what if. beaver mythosaur. with BESKAR INFUSED TEETH

mandalore also has massive veshok forests - hardwood trees remarkable for their sturdiness. so it makes sense that something would make use of those giant veshok trees!

BEAVER MYTHOSAURS WITH BESKAR TEETH THAT GNAW VESHOK TREES

BEAVER MYTHOSAUR BUILDING A DAM UNDER THE LIVING WATERS

BEAVER MYTHOSAUR

beavers eat mostly wood and assorted vegetation; to maintain both the herbivore teeth and the reptilian appearance i've added marine iguana features to the mix. (conveniently, iguanas' parietal eye nicely explains the indentation in the middle of the Forge mythosaur's forehead)

it. it looks so dumb but a little more in a Weird Animal way and not a sad deflated sock puppet

...now on to the rest of the body (essentially, it's a 60-ft-long marine iguana with beskar teeth and beaver behavior) :

their reputation as fierce beasts/honorable foes can likely be attributed to Large Herbivore. it's a mandalorian beaver-iguana-moose. with beskar teeth.