Return to Lynwood, Chapter 4

 Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Suhel hated getting sick. It was all just a big bother, having a scratchy throat and a stuffy nose and being weak and tired. She wanted to be at her best for Lord Isengrim and their pack, not dial back and have to recuperate. Although she kept herself in excellent condition so that she did not fall ill often, it still inevitably happened from time to time. That didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

But this illness felt different. She had never coughed so violently before—it shook her whole body and made her ribs hurt, and there were times when she struggled to breathe. And she felt so lethargic, like someone had put a heavy weight on her, making everything except sleep more difficult.

For the past few days, she had tried to ignore it, but the symptoms had been steadily worsening. Suhel only hoped Isengrim would find what he was looking for soon, and then they could go home and she could curl up on her bed of comfortable furs and sleep it off.

 

 Don't ask for a mouse unless you want one, friendo.

 Well, this one was fun!

Last Fossil Friday, we were talking about sauropods (yay <3) and how many of them probably ate cycads, which are toxic. Fellow paleoartist Amanda Perry had the great idea that maybe sauropods themselves were toxic because of this. And so of course I had to conjecture that they were colored like poison dart frogs. And then she was like "DRAW THAT", so... what else was I supposed to do? :)

As a result of this, I got to draw lots of lovely sauropods (and I snuck a basal sauropodomorph in there too)! You may notice (if you're as big of a nerd as me) that there are no brachiosaurids or rebbachisaurids in this bunch--that's because those guys appear to have been high browsers and very low grazers, respectively, so I'm not sure they would be eating cycads which were more of a mid-height food. This is scientifically accurate wild speculation, people!

I tried to make this look like a poster you could buy at a museum in an alternate universe.

 Friendship is magic! 

 Finally got another idea for one of these! Mars Climate Orbiter is... a cautionary tale.

I love JPL. Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I lived about 30 minutes up the freeway from Pasadena (assuming decent traffic), and once I got to go to JPL for one of their public lectures, after the Curiosity rover landed. I was in heaven. JPL is basically Disneyland for aerospace nerds (much less expensive, too).

(To be clear, I am in no way making fun of JPL with this or the Mars Polar Lander comic. Space is hard. I feel so bad for everybody involved when a spacecraft is lost--it represents years, often decades, of the blood, sweat, and tears of an entire team. I can't watch launches or landings/orbit insertions live because my anxiety shoots through the roof and I don't want to see the looks on people's faces if something goes wrong.

But mistakes inevitably happen. It's a part of being human. What's important is that people learn from those mistakes. And judging from everything JPL has accomplished since 1997, they learned a lot. And twenty years down the line, those mistakes will, hopefully, be something they can laugh a little at.)

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 3

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

For what felt like a long while, they moved in silence. Above the cloud cover, the sun crept across the sky, and with every gust of wind, fire-coloured leaves swept through the air, catching in the Werelupes’ fur and Terra’s hair. They followed a trail that existed only in Isengrim’s mind, as he and his pack had traced this strange old forest forwards and back during the long years they lived here.

He wove his motley little party through the endless maze of trees, around briar patches and over rough shoulders of bare rock that reached out like giant stone hands trying to grab passers-by. Eventually they stopped going uphill and started going downhill, and then the sweet, clean smell of water filled Isengrim’s nose. Below them, a river snaked through the trees, cold and dark.

Although Werelupes could swim, no one wanted to get wet if they could help it, so Isengrim took them a kilometre downstream, where an ageing wooden bridge arched across the water. The road on either side had long been overgrown, but Isengrim, who had been around for quite some time himself, remembered when there had been a road here, and remembered where it led.

 

Why My Little Pony Generation 5 Failed

… Wow, I think that’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever typed on this blog. Hopefully this essay will lay to rest all doubts about my geekiness.

As I’ve been trying to get my nieces into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I’ve been thinking a lot about the MLP franchise as a whole lately, and I guess I wanted to put into words my thoughts about why Friendship is Magic has been so phenomenally successful, why the succeeding generation fizzled, and what Hasbro can learn from this about handling its franchises moving forward.

And then I’ll go outside and touch grass, promise.