Toy Review: Terra Pachyrhinosaurus!

Battat Terra Dinosaurs: Under $20 and pretty great!

Battat Terra collection

I'm trying on a new hat today, the reviewing dinosaur toy hat. I don't know if it fits super well, and there are many who wear the hat much more fashionably than myself, but I'm going to do my best. Plus, this is all just for fun, so take everything with a grain of salt. ;3

After learning about the Terra dinosaur toys from my previous post, I rushed out this afternoon and snagged one! It was a tough choice between the dinos available, but I went with the Pachyrhinosaurus, because I don't currently own any ceratopsians in my collection yet.
I know, weird, right?

Like previously mentioned, this line is about $13 at Target, and is a pretty decent little toy. The detail on the skin is pretty impressive, having a lot of texture and cool paint designs. They did a great job on the weirdness of pachyrhino's odd head, and he even has little painted eyes. It's in a cool gallop pose that looks like he is circling a hungry predator getting ready to thrown down. It's not pictured, but one of his back legs is off the ground in mid-step, so the toy is balanced really well. It's made a sturdy plastic that can withstand a beating.  

Honestly for the price, this a cute little toy, great for kids who want to have something to play with.

The cons are given with how cheap it is. The paint, while good, does look a bit sloppy in areas. The back side of this pachyrhino's right hip is a big smudged, and he's missing paint on one of his feet. Unlike the upper scale toys from Papo or Schleich, the jaw does not move but is still in a cool roar pose.

But honestly, it's not a deal breaker. It's a really good toy, and one I'm happy to have as part of my collection. He's adorable and a great first addition to my ceratopsian horde. I probably won't get another Terra myself, I think I'll stick with Papo or Schleich, but I'd recommend it for fans for sure!

I'm glad to see more variety of dinosaur toys out there, with not so common species as their baseline. If you have a dinosaur fan in your life, it's a great gift. I would have loved to get one as a gift of any of the dinosaurs they had out there today. 

I'm glad this guy is part of the family now! :D

My dinosaur family. <3

- M

Happy to be back! Lots to chat about!

I took a very long hiatus during the craziness of the holidays and some crazy stuff happening in my personal life, but I’m happy to say I can come back to posting about dinosaur things again!

Since I’ve been gone for a while, this post is going to be rather long, and really more of a catch-all post instead of it having a clear point or theme. Since the last time I was able to post, there has been some cool news announced, I found some more cool art, learned about new books and a graphic novel, found some videos….all KINDS of good stuff!

MERRY DINO XMAS I GUESS.

Other than the ramblings of my brain, here’s a link to the Top Dinosaur Discoveries of 2015! Now you can’t say I never gave you anything. ;D

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• I found Reddit

I’m extremely tardy to the party on this, but I’ve discovered the wonderful world of Reddit. Well, more like Alex (my hubby) got me into it. He made me an account and loaded my subreddits (pages to follow) with topics that he thought I would like.

Naturally, he loaded r/Dinosaurs as one of them. I lav him. :3

It’s only been about two weeks since I started chronically diving into these threads, and so far I have learned about so many cool things. The newest discoveries are posted almost immediately, which is amazing, but the community there is really friendly and helpful. Stumbling through understanding this new fangled Reddit machine, I learned about “profile flare” which varies between subreddits. In r/Dinosaurs, our flare is “picking teams”, which honestly was one of the hardest decisions OF MY LIFE.

How the hell am I supposed to pick TEAMS when it comes to fucking dinosaurs? It’d be like asking which dog I like better.  I LOVE THEM ALL, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

I ended up picking triceratops, after a good hour of soul searching. Ceratopsians were my favorites as a kid, so I finally had to commit. I’m still in turmoil over it.

• More toys, please

The threads have been fantastic, because I feel like most of the people there are nerds and not actually experts. I think there are a few peppered in, but for the most part, it’s just us dinosaur enthusiasts gushing over something we love. By far my favorite threads have been about the more fun/hobby side of dinosaur lovers, like people’s art, asking for book recommendations, and learning about really awesome dinosaur figures and toys.

Dimetrodon eating a cake pop. :3

Papo Toys and Schleich Toys have been a new obsession since finding this subreddit. I didn’t realize that these guys  really existed, even though my Dimetrodon is a Papo toy. I’m completely in love with both lines, and am going to have to start collecting them. I even found a video the upcoming Papo line coming out in 2016, and holy shit that raptor!!

The detail comes at a steep price though, because I remember looking at some of these bad boys at Toys R Us and paling at the price tag. They are easily $30+ for one of these guys, so this may have to be a birthday/xmas kind of thing, or pulling in some overtime at work.

I was informed early this morning that there is a line of toys at Target called Terra by Battat which features some pretty decent figures at a really good price. My good friend Steven shot me a picture of them today, and one of the first things I noticed was that the dinosaurs featured weren't the normal fan favorites, i.e. t-rex, triceratops, etc.
Not that I'm against these awesome guys, but I like seeing a toy line take the plunge and put out some of the lesser known members of the dinosaur family. In the picture sent to me, the dinosaurs displayed were Ceratosaurus, Carnotaurus, and Pachyrhinosaurus. Steven also mentioned there was a Dilophosaurus there hanging out as well.
Talk about the cool, badass cousins of the famous dinosaurs, right?? While Carnotaurus is one of the coolest therapods out there, I'm really stoked about the pahcyrhino myself. It's such a cool ceratopisan, and I've been reliving how much I adore them recently.
If I'm able to go grab one today, I'll let you guys know what I think of them once I get them in my grubby paws. With them only being about $13, it's hard to turn down!

• Dinosaur Graphic novel??

Along with some cool articles posted this week about Nicolas Cage returning a stolen fossil, someone had posted about a graphic novel I had never heard of. It’s called Age of Reptiles by Ricardo Delgago. Apparently this series has been out of a couple of years, and I had no earthly idea.

I was extremely delighted and very excited to see it, thinking the art and concept was thrilling. There’s even an omnibus available that has a collection of everything out so far….but it’s completely sold out.

Shit.

Hunting down a used copy further upset me, as the ones I found are upwards into the $50 range. New it’s about $25. Damn. It. I’m going keep hunting for this, and hopefully I have find a copy new, or have it ordered from B&N or Wild West Comics. I really want it.

It looks like there is another graphic novel coming out later in January called Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians, which looks SUPER COOL. I’ll definitely snag that when it comes out and do a full book review! :D

• Re-imagining of "The Good Dinosaur"

The last thing I'll share with you from my latest reddit scan today was a really cool video from Josh Cotton, a really awesome paleo artist, who re-imagined the main character from The Good Dinosaur. Now, I had wrote about my feelings on the movie earlier in the month, and so far nothing has swayed me from my pretty strongly apathetic feelings towards the film. Josh was disheartened by the lack of scientific knowledge that went into the movie, stating that the creators basically missed out on a great opportunity to do something wonderful by simply knowing about the dinosaurs they had in the movie. 

Josh took Arlo, an Apatosaurus, who would not have been alive during the Cretaceous period, and re-drew him as an Alamosaurs. It's impressive and amazing to watch, and his commentary is fantastic.

Go check out his video.

• 12 Days of Evolution and my hype for Darwin Day!

In case you have never heard of Darwin Day, it’s a holiday (to me) celebrated every year on Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12th. It’s a day to celebrate triumphs in scientific discoveries, evolution, understanding our place in the tree of life, and the life of Darwin himself.

Over the past couple years, this day has ramped up in popularity, which more places (usually museums and universities) holding celebrations and lectures. Since I live in north Texas, there hasn’t been a lot in the ways of cool ways to celebrate, so I usually do something with friends.

Last year was going to be hard to top! My awesome partner in science-themed greatness, Nym, set up a projector in her backyard so we could watch a vast evolution video playlist I put together with amazing YouTube videos on the topic. We sat huddled under together in the February cold, drinking a fantastic concoction called “primordial booze”, and watching videos all night.

It was nothing short of fucking fantastic.

This year, I have no idea how I’m going to make this event better. I may do something very similar, because it was such a good time. We had food and drinks and science. Perfect.

One of the channels I follow, which I ended up using a lot of videos for Darwin Day from, was It’s Okay To Be Smart. I adore their short, very easy to understand, fun science videos that cover a wide range of topics. Their latest series was put out during the holidays called 12 Days of Evolution, which is absolutely going on the playlist this year.

They released one episode at a time over the span of 12 days (duh), and cover the most common questions and basic understanding of evolution. The host is apparently from/lives in I think north Texas, which means at some point I’m going to have to give him an epic high-five.

• My current obsession with Ceratopsians

Going back to my earlier discussion of the soul crushing decision I had to make about picking which dinosaur team I allied to on Reddit, this sparked me to get a weird bug to avidly consume information about ceratopsians. It’s been a while since I honed in on one species in particular, as I usually to a well-rounded, little bit of everything, type of internet crawl when it comes to dinos. But lately I’ve been pecking and picking a bits of info about ceratopsians, trying to absorb as much as I can.

One of them in particular I’ve totally fallen for, the impressive Regalceratops, which I think I’m going to do a full post about later. He was actually one of the amazing dinosaur finds of 2015, which I linked to at the very tippy-top of the post. :D

I found out that one of the best resources to study about specific species is found in the Dinosauria, a ri-goddamn-diculously giant book….which I own. I’m going to read through this massive tome and make a more detailed post later about what I find out.

Regaliceratops by Julius T. Csotonyi

• Lastly, here's some cool art I found

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I’m glad to be back to posting about this stuff again. It really is a great sense of joy and relaxation for me to have my own little corner to gush and fangirl out about one of the topics I love so much.

I hope you guys have fun reading it as much as I have fun writing it.

And if not, that’s ok too. Because I’m just having a ball.

• M

Dinosaur news 12.11.15: new dinos, fossil blood vessels, dino poop and more!

It's been a pretty good week in dinosaur and evolution related news. Honestly, so much stuff was posted this week it was hard to keep up!

Fossilized Blood Vessels!

Fossilization of tissue is almost impossible. Almost. These amazing jewels of information are so rare only a few precious handfuls have been found in the entire fossil record.

We have found only a few of these gems, mostly in skin and feather impressions, but every so often someone brilliant finds something hidden the bones.

This particular trophy was discovered inside a hardosaur leg bone.

What does finding fossilized blood vessel mean, actually?

Unfortunately, it does not mean that Jurassic Park is in our future, so we’ll take a moment of silence for the heartbreak.

It’s ok to cry a little.

There was no actual blood inside, so no DNA to clone and make inaccurate, featherless hybrid monsters dinosaurs.

The good news is this find may shed some light into the proteins involved in dinosaur evolution by comparing it to their living relatives, birds and crocodiles.

So while no DNA was left over, the remains of the blood vessels proteins are still intact, which is a fantastic find.

Full article can be found here.

Sauropod tracks found in Scotland!

I’m going to refrain from making the “Nessy” joke about the “long neck” creature in a lagoon in Scotland. It's just too easy. :P 

Early theories of sauropod life. Not at all what is believed
now, even with these tracks.

These tracks are like a treasure trove because of the lagoon sediment that the prints were found in. Back in the early days of understanding these giant, strange creatures, one of the more popular thoughts is that these beasts lived in the water, using their long necks to stick their heads up from under the water.

This was back before we had a much better idea of the body mass for these creatures, and how exactly the necks articulated.

This new finding, which is the largest find in Scotland so far, shows that these unknown species of sauropods spent time in shallow water and by coast lines. They aren’t sure which species made the prints, but they know the prints were made during the Triassic period. Not a lot is known about sauropods during this time period, so finding these tracks is helping paleontologists better understand the species during this time.

This is a National Geographic site with the full article is really amazing, because it not only has great pictures but also some short video clips. Beautifully done and fun to watch.

What were dinosaurs's nests like?

Very little is known about how dinosaurs cared of their young because there’s no dinosaurs left to study in the flesh. There have been fossilized eggs found, some of which yielding amazing baby dino skeletons, but it doesn't really show how the parent/parents rared their young. Paleontoloists started studying the porousness of these eggshells of living cousins of dinosaurs to help determain the nature of their nests.

By comparing the shells to living relatives eggs, paleontologists can determine if the eggs were buried in the ground like cros, or left in the open like birds. Shells with bigger pores typically meant the animal buried its nests like modern day crocodiles, and eggs with smaller pores are more inline with modern bird's open-air nests.
This helps build a bigger picture for how dinosaurs raised their young, if they did at all.
Full article here, if you want to take a look.

Dinosaur Poop

Not just any poop, but fossilized dinosaur poop! In a great headline that reads "Giant Turds showed that Dinosaurs dined on flowering plants", you know it's going to be a great read. 

These particular pieces of poopy were dated to be from the late Cretaceous from a large planet eating dinosaur who dined on angiosperms, or "flowering plants". The reason this is so interesting is not only because we know what they were eating from 65 million year old shit, but also because the food source may have been very important to their survival and diversity. Coprolite, poop-turn-fossil, are extremely rare so finding a uh...sample...that has evidence of diet is pretty amazing, and hilarious.

Mammal evolution and distant cousins

The mammal family tree is ancient and complex, and could stretch back a little further than we originally thought.

Paleontologists are now reexamining the remains of one of our earliest rodent-like relatives, Haramiyavia. After careful review of the teeth and jaw structures of specimens found, paleontologists are suggesting that

Haramiyavia may not be a “crown mammal”, or a starting point for mammalian evolution. If Haramiyavia IS a crown mammal, that means mammals origins started in the Early Triassic, if not then it’s likely mammals started much later down the pipeline. If we did start in the early Triassic, that means that mammal ancestors survived two mass extinctions, one at the end of the Triassic and then again in the Late Cretaceous. Making us kind of a big deal as a class.

Jury is still out scientifically speaking. There are other studies that still keep this little dude as a crown mammal, so he has not been de-throned just yet.

Check out Haramiyavia’s new findings here.

Meet Kunbarrasaurus!

This new ankylosaur from Australia is possibly early on the evolutionary tree. Another great find for Australia this year!

Ankylosaurs are cool in general, but what makes Kunbarrasaurus so great is just how well preserved it is. This fossil is probably the best specimen ever found of any ankylosaur which enabled paleontologists to get a detailed scan of it’s brain casing and inner ears. It also seems to be less armored than other ankylosaurs, which means it’s probably an early ancestor to the bigger, tankier hulks.

I imagine that Kunbarrasaurs had a good Aussy accent and liked taking it easy. But I base that off zero scientific evidence.

Another fun fact, according to the article, Kunbarrasaurus has a large inner ear, similar to that of modern turtles. Not sure what that means at this point, but I thought it was interesting.

Your Inner Fish series free to watch online!

Our really cute fish ancestor

For those of you who have not meet the amazingly adorable Tiktaalik, you’re missing out on meeting one of our earliest fishy relatives.

Plus look at that face!!

Neil Shubin, the paleontologist who found Tiktaalik, wrote a book about his findings a couple years ago called Your Inner Fish.

I highly recommend the book if you ever get the chance, but he also did a multi-part series on PBS by the same name which is now free online. I ended up rewatching the first episode tonight at work and still found it compelling and fascinating, even though I was watching it for the second time. I’m glad I did, because I forgot how well crafted the series was, even as a fan.

The series came out last year and Dr. Shubin was featured on It’s Okay To Be Smart, a fantastic YouTube channel about all kinds of scientific topics. On that episode, Shubin talks a little bit about the gene responsible for finger development in animals, and how they manipulated it to grow extra digits on chickens. It’s mad scientist level awesome.

The show is broken down into three parts each about an hour long: Your Inner Fish, Your Inner Reptile and Your Inner Monkey. Each segment takes the viewer on a journey through our evolution to reveal the leftover traits we have as humans that can be traced back to each of these key stages. Dr. Shubin does a fantastic job explaining these complex aspects of evolutionary biology in an energetic way, keeping you engaged and interested. Graphics are used while he talks about the complex structure limb formations and genes, how the jaw is formed and so on, to clearly illustrate exactly what he is explaining.

His enthusiasm about paleontology and evolution mirrors that of Neil DeGrasse Tyson when he talks about the stars; you can’t help but be sucked into the wonder and awe of the science.

You can watch all three episodes of Your Inner Fish here!!

Now, if you have completely fallen in love with how absolutely adorable Tiktaalik is, which I don’t blame you, then please get this song stuck in your head so we can sing it together sometime.

Oh, and happy Hanukkah!!

Why Geophysicists in Canada are freaking cool.

Geophysics ring with the tools of the trade and a seismic pulse

I guess it's no surprise that I have a profound love for paleontology which gave me a deep respect and admiration for earth sciences, among another things. I recently listened to the most recent episode of Talk Nerdy  with the wonderful Cara Santa Maria, and she had the pleasure of talking to a Canadian Geophysicist Mika Mckinnon.

Now, if you've never had the pleasure of listening to Cara Santa Maria, she's fantastic and just as big a dinosaur nerd as I am. Schooled in neuroscience, she is one of the best science communicators out there in how absolutely genuine and passionate she is about any field she is discussing.
Plus she has an archeopteryx tattoo, thus adding +50 to charisma and badassery.
In this episode, Mika gushes about how amazingly fascinating geophysics is, which to be very honest with you I had no idea about until this episode. The one thing that caught my attention in particular, was the mention of a Geo-science Ring awarded to scientists in the Association of Professional Engineers and Geo-scientists of Alberta.
Basically, only other Geo-scientists are awarded these boss silver pinky rings in a super exclusive, Science Mafia style club.
Researching into this further, I found out that Engineers in Canada get an Iron Ring as part of the same type of ceremony.

WHY DOESN'T THE U.S. HAVE THIS?!

A little about Geophysics from someone who knew 0 about it:

Geophysics is the study of the Earth's shape, gravitational pull, magnetic field and its dynamics. It also covers volcanoes, plate tectonics, and can sometimes branch into the moon cycles and how it effects the water on Earth. It overlaps geology quite a bit, and branches into the space around the planet as well which floats also into astrophysics. It's the study of the Earth and its place in the universe.

Geophysics is used in non-intrusive methods of archaeology and paleontology, such as ground penetrating radar. Now, that might sound familiar, as it was used in the very first scene with Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park.

And no, they can't just pull up the image of bones in the ground, much to my dismay. I found that out when I was in school and was heartbroken. If you're really interested in how exactly GPR works, you can check out this link to read about it.

You can find some lectures on YouTube about Geophysics, but I'm not going to lie to you...they are very dry as most lectures tend to be. Interesting, but not something I'm going to really dive head first into. Still, worth watching the basic intro courses just to have a better understanding of what all Geophysics is.

Not only is he field itself very interesting, I can't get over how amazingly cool it is that they have rings exclusively to those fields of study. We have class rings here in the US, but anyone can get those if you pay for them. Not the case when it comes to getting your silver or iron pinky ring.
In fact, part of the ceremony involved in getting this prestige is vowing to be a good scientist:

"I will not pass, ... false information or too casual interpretations in my work as an Earth scientist. My time I will not refuse, my thought I will not grudge; my care I will not deny towards the honour, use, stability and perfection of any project to which I may be called to set my hand. ... My reputation in my calling I will guard honourably .... I will strive my uttermost against professional jealousy and the belittling of my co-workers in any field of their labour." (Source: apega.org)

Beautiful.

Not only does that ring symbolize the work they do, but the standard in which they hold themselves for their publications, information, ethics and science.
I cannot express how elated that makes my heart. With so much pseudo-science and "woo" in the world today, seeing true honesty and respect for the truth, reason, logic and evidence gives me hope for the human race.

On a much more silly note, the concept of a science mafia made me squeal with delight. This should absolutely be turned into a comic series or an in depth, complex novel like the Song of Ice and Fire.
Think of the possibilities! I imagine the sciences, once a family bringing information to the masses and discovering the wonders of the universe, dashed apart by a blood feud over poor citations and plagiarizing. Or worse yet...going against the scientific method and plunging their lives in chaos!

Naturally the pinky rings would denote the higher ranked members of the family, and which field of science they follow.

Maybe next year NaNoWriMo?

Next post will be back to dinosaur related stuff, but I had to gush about how entertained I was by Canadian science pinky ring, and how absolutely wonderful it is. I think I'm going to try and start doing a "this week in dinosaur" post on Fridays with highlights of the cool stuff I read about on various blogs, podcasts and so on.

I'll hopefully start that this coming up week. 

Off Topic: censorship and video games

I wish I could come home to this.

 It has been a very long day. The type of day that pinches your shoulder blades and twists your back, makes you yawn non-stop and pushes pain through your eye sockets. If I could be served as a meal, I would be bitter with a dash of salty, and probably bite back.

A perfect time to let loose a totally not dinosaur/science related rant about one of my lifelong passions: video games.

Plus I just drank some vodka. Here we go.

While browsing though the various internet drugs I'm hopelessly addicted to, I spotted an article from Niche Gamer about Idea Factory, the developer for many Japanese RPGs that are imported to America, making the choice to stop bringing over select games "that need censoring for western regulations".
Alright, so what kind of naughty games are these assholes peddling, right? They must be some raunchy, sex driven, adult only, porno games that are pushing the boundaries of our tame, American sensibilities.

/snort

Compile Hearts, the company behind the Hyperdimension Neptunia games are the ones who are deciding to take their business elsewhere. The censorship became too much for the developer, claiming that it was starting to "not be true to the original developed art". Now, in these games, you get to play as very pretty ladies who represent the major gaming consoles as Goddesses fighting essentially piracy, or becoming pop singers, or other silly themes like that. All the ladies/girls are adorable, some of them well endowed in the chest area.
Since these games are meant to be funny, the chests on these characters do in fact "jiggle" as they move, because well...boobies do that.

And if you've ever seen an anime before, titty mechanics are not based on real life AT ALL.
They are also big on panties, which is a big running joke in Japanese culture, based on women actually adopting the western style of clothing.

How much sex are in these games?

Uh, none. There isn't any. Bam.

Games in the United States are regulated by the ESRB system, which monitors the content in games and gives them ratings based on said content similar to how movies are rated. The games brought over by Idea Factory from Compile Hearts are rated T (teen) or M (mature). They are not AO (adult only), which are not sold in retail locations in the USA.
I know because I worked in a video game retail store for a decade.

So who's pissed off and why?

If you aren't familiar with the SJW movement, let me enlighten you. Take a wonderful concept like free speech, equality, fairness and justice and hand it over to angry, vengeful zealots who froth at the mouth at any remotely opposite their views on society. I wouldn't even say opposite...just not 100% parallel. These are the same overly PC ass-clowns that started the "check your privilege" bullshit that is tossed out anytime someone has a goddamn opinion about something.
The blow up from the SJWs involvement in the gaming community, mostly based on Who Shall Not be Named, started an equally stupid, over the top opposite group called GamerGate, who threaten and harass people who back the SJW crowd.
Cause you know. Fire with fire always works right? Talking rationally and being adults is way too fucking hard.
There has been a vicious backlash from these people all over various social media outlets from Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, attacking the video game industry for their portrayal of women in games. So when a Japanese dev comes over with bouncing boobs and panty shots, they go ape-shit.

I assume the reason they're so mad is because they believe that these kinds of games what show boobies and panties and have women being over the top is degrading towards women. They are worried that this will perpetuate the negative stereotype that women are viewed as sexual objects and not as things. It was cause sex crimes and belittling of females.
I get it. I really, honestly do. I'm a female and I know my skin crawls when I hear sexist bullshit that still flares up in the United States. We could have a whole different long post about the Planned Parenthood debockle going on right now.
But video games causing sexism? The evidence just isn't there.

Since these boob-filled games are from Japan, Japan must be riddled with sex crimes, right?

HAHAHA NOPE

According to NationMaster.com, USA is ranked 27th in rape crimes were as Japan sits happily at 52nd. That's 27 x more rape, my dears.

Now, I'm all for people having opinions, free speech, and blah, blah. But when you start effecting people because of your rhetoric, you better step up with some hard evidence about why the fuck you get to step in my weeb zone because it hurts your goddamn feelings.
I don't like Nascar. I think it's stupid as fuck. Do I think it should be shut down? No. Because I'm not an asshole. It even have females drivers, and I looked it up for lolz. I still don't give a crap.

You know what else has females playing an active role?

FUCKING JAPANESE ANIME MANGA, GAMES, AND SHOWS AS FUCKING DEVS, ARTISTS AND STORY WRITERS.

Sexuality isn't bad. You know what I like as much as I like boobie anime things?

Dating sims were I get to pick out which boy I like and date him. If I could have a game were they just prance around and be cute, you know damn well I'd have that shit day one.
Is that demeaning to men? No, because it's not fucking real. It's a goddamn game and they're drawings.
It makes me a weeb and kinda lame. And I'm really alright with that.
I have  hug pillow of my favorite character from said game. BOOM.

Plenty of sexy in male form too. Where is the outrage?!

I'm upset because this means a media I love and have loved for a very long time is getting locked down by the minority because they scream extra loud. Because developers are getting so much backlash and hate from people who are not fans of their work standing on high-horses to speak for all of us.

These games have to be bought by consumers and are not available to just anyone because of the regulations that go into game releases. They are extremely niche, not overly advertised and not at all shoved into anyone's faces. 

They are not causing anyone any harm. They are entertainment and not taken seriously in any way.

I'm a woman, a married woman, who thinks there is absolutely, 100%, nothing wrong with any of Compile Hearts games, and I think they are awesome.

Stop effecting me because you don't like anime titties. Fight for the stop of female genital mutilation, of sex slave trafficking, of women getting stoned and beheaded every. Single. Day. It makes me sick to think of all the good that can be happening with this kind of influence, but instead harmless art and entertainment is getting trampled.

I'm going to hug my Souji pillow and go to sleep now.

Real Talk: Why the Good Dinosaur upsets me

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way: yes, I'm fully aware this is a kid's movie, no I wasn't expecting scientific accuracy, and yes that does upset me.

And no, to be completely fair, I haven't seen it yet.

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[ EDIT days later after trying to fix this post from looking like fucking garbage:]
I still have not seen the movie, but I listened to a review on I Know Dino (link to the right hand side to their main site), and they confirmed pretty much what I figured the movie was going to be. Cute, very base, and riddled with not giving a shit about dinosaur history or mammalian origins. Apparently there's even a part were the T-rexs are talking about dealing with the "steggos", which died out millions of years before the Cretaceous. 
Why are they even talking about them?!
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It's 2:30am and this has been swimming around in my head since I saw the trailer months ago. Now I have a medium to vent this without annoying the crap out of my friends with a long-winded, redbull induced rant at deranged -o'clock.

I'm not saying I think the movie shouldn't take a fantasy twist, shouldn't be bright and colorful and sweet and nice, and totally for kids. That's all fantastic. Grand. Great. All on board.

What I am saying, is that just because this was aimed at kids and selling toys doesn't mean they had to shove the concept of evolution out the door like an annoying inconvenience, or something that is going to go over their heads. I don't believe it for an instant.

The concept of the movie is that the meteor that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs misses earth, and dinosaurs along with everything else on the planet continues to evolve like nothing ever happened. That's a fantastic premise, but there's no way in hell mammals would have evolved into what they are today if dinosaurs had continued to thrive. There's just absolutely no way.

Let's recap.

Repenomamus the dorable

Repenomamus was around during the early Cretaceous period and was the biggest early mammal of that time, about the size of a small dog. These weird looking guys probably fed on smaller animals, including baby dinos, but were not even close to being at the top of the food chain.  Most of the other mammals during that time were...mice, basically. Small, little dudes like Cimolestes stayed underground and hunted at night for bugs. That was the mammalian norm 65+ million years ago.

Our furry, warm blooded borrowing ancestors didn't come into power until long after the dinosaurs had died out, paving the way for us to seize control of niche groups and grow. It wasn't until 10-15 million years after the dinosaur extinction that mammals rose into power in an age known as the "Golden Age of Mammals"

From livescience.com:

"The second evolutionary spike in modern mammalian history didn’t occur until about 10 to 15 million years after the dinosaurs’ demise, around the start of the Eocene era (about 55 to 34 million years ago), the researchers say. This was the mammalian Golden Age, when the preponderance of mammals, especially the ancestors of many groups alive today—such as primates, rodents and hoofed animals—really took off"

Hypothetically if the dinosaurs weren't all wiped out, there's a good chance that we would have never existed. None of the giant, badass mega fauna of the ice age would have existed, and primates would not have made that leap into bi-pedal buttholes. We'll never know for sure, but it doesn't look like we would have made it past being bottom tier to the dinosaur masses.

That's what kills me about the choices made in "The Good Dinosaur", is that the pairing of mammals with dinosaurs is so far past the scope of make-believe, that it's hard for me to really care about the movie.

Yeah, I saw the clip of the tyrannosaurs hanging out with the sauropod main character, so clearly they don't act like "normal" dinosaurs. I know, I get it. But even in "Finding Nemo" they had sharks chilling with the fish and they could explain that.

Geez, get over it, right? It's a kids movie...whooo cares?!

I guess the real sore spot is the fact that evolution is still being fought for as a fact in the USA. If there was a movie that dicked around with concepts that aren't still so heavily rejected, I'd probably be a lot less heated about it. But having a dinosaur with a human buddy just seems like a bad idea for us right now. They could have used other dinosaurs and kept it adorable, or used a tiny mammal, or even a hominid! That would have been so awesome!! It wouldn't have been human, it would have been something before that point. If "Spot" (the human kid) was LUCY....?

I'd be writing a totally different post.

I'd love to think we were all grown ups here, and that we can all just laugh and say "Oh, how funny and totally unrealistic!"

But the sad truth is....we can't. There are people out there who really, honestly, truly, 100% believe that the earth is onlyo 6,000 years old. That humans and dinosaurs lived together. That evolution is a lie.

Some even running for fucking president of the United States.

Sorry, guys. We're not ready for a fucking kid's movie with creationist ammo. Some asshole is using this adorable movie as a visual aid to teach kids that Jesus trumps science.

I can't get behind it. I just can't.

I'm going to go see the movie, and I bet it's really cute. I bet I laugh and have a great time. But it will be in the back of my head the same thing over and over..."why did it have to be a human?"

Dinosaur, Human, Bison. UGH