Retrieving this image was so difficult. I had to plug in my old water damages MacBook into my laptop with a broken screen in order to quickly access the hard drive and upload onto an SD card, then plug that into my desktop and upload to google drive, and the only way i could get it to my phone was by sending from google drive to Instagram dms. This image is from my trip to montana in 2018. There is a creature in the trees. I will upload another version where it is cropped or enhanced. I saw this creature in my dreams when i was very sick. I saw it peering into my window at me in a motel in Kalispell. It was scaly and hairless, and had antlers like a deer. Its snout was wide and rounded at the end.

=>Montana.jpeg

=>Real.jpeg

Ones

Dinosaurs - I was and in many ways still am a Dinosaur Kid. I got in a big fight the other day about how stupid it is that they didn't update any of the dinosaur designs in the new Jurassic Park movies (which suck). I went to an exhibit at the Science Center when I was probably 12-ish, and they were promoting newer more realistic models of dinosaurs. I saw some velociraptors with feathers and I lost my mind. It's so cool and it makes so much sense. Animals of the past shouldn't look like shrink wrapped skeletons.

This video is great at illustrating that point. I've got more to say about C. M. Koseman later..

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4utNXOfQ4cM

I just saw this article today and felt like, yeah, duh. Why would they be walking around with their teeth exposed at all times. It just doesnt make sense.

=>https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/30/tyrannosaurus-t-rex-had-lips-over-teeth-research

I love these big creatures and the field of archaeology is so interesting to me. Piecing together billions of years of history from the bones and rocks we find in the ground is so awesome. And its even more awesome how often we get it wrong and are constantly revising our assumptions. That 65 million years ago movie looks dumb, but if they gave the dinosaurs feathers in it I would go nuts for that.

Tardigrades - Water Bears. Cutest Smallest most immortal guys ever. I'm obsessed with them and I assume that there is at least one in my life somewhere, doing it's own thing. I think if I come back, I'd enjoy being one of these.

Dogs - I like them. Hope said this thing once about how we didn't evolve dogs, we evolved together, which I think is so beautiful. Theres that video of the guy petting the coyote and he keeps saying "Hey Little Coyote Let me pet you OW!" as it softly bites him over and over.

=>https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lE-RGpcrn_w

The thought of some ancient man and some ancient wolf coming together and deciding that neither was gonna kill the other.. it warms my heart. And then like, 10,000 years later we are irreversibly linked as species. I loved working at the dog kennel in high school, and if I play my cards right, I'd like to have a whole bunch of dogs a some point in the future. They're easy to train and communicate with because of our shared history. Animal breeding stuff tends to get weird with pedigrees and stuff, and I think there's a lot of crossover between the type of person who really cares about that sort of stuff and the type of person who thinks that race science and phrenology are cool. My bosses at the kennel went to dog shows and stuff, and that always irked me. The way they judge the arbitrary aesthetics of the animals reminds me of the chicken documentary i started watching with mothbaby and treeprophet.

Monkey - oh i love these animals so. There's a case to be made that monkeys are a little scary due to how similar they are to us. Sort of uncanny valley. But not for me. I think they rock and they remind me that it is so natural to just chill out and have fun. When I say Monkey i also mean Apes. The Big Guys: Chimps, Bonobos, Orangutans, Gorillas, etc. And also the little guys like the lemur type guys and baboons and capuchins. The monkey house at the zoo used to make me sad. Less so since they added the outside area. I've got conflicting feelings about animals in captivity, but i think the people at Zoos are generally trying their best and with the reality being that outside of captivity we seem pretty determined to kill anything we can, there's not much room to complain.

Okay now we're gonna go into the

This is a science fiction subgenre largely popularized by Artist and visionary genius C. M. Koseman. Basically the premise is, what if we made a bunch of weird guys up, except it was based in heavily researched evolutionary biology. And I love it so much. I'm just gonna link a ton of stuff here. The youtube channel Curious Archive I linked above does a lot of this stuff and it is how I stumbled upon a lot of these topics.

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NifBVOeVdO0

First, lets start with Koseman.

All Tomorrows:

This book is one that I just found in the library and read it and now it has a permanent place in my mind. Its about the possible evolution of humanity and explores our relationship to evolution and the other species we interact with in interesting ways. It kind of goes off the rails in a way that I love so much. This video is a brief summary but you should really read the book the illustrations are sick as hell..

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imNtSPM3-r4

Edit: you can download this book for free on Koseman's website

=>http://cmkosemen.com/books.html

All Yesterdays:

This book was written after all tomorrows and is more science, less fiction, but still suuper interesting.

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZwKqaJx1I

I want to read a lot more of Koseman's work, he is prolific in this genre and many people cite him as inspiration for their work.

One work of speculative evolution that predates Koseman is After Man, and Man After Man by Dougal Dixon. After Man imagines the future evolution of different animals on Earth, and Man After Man is sort of a precursor to All Tomorrows, exploring human evolution. All tomorrows goes a little crazier with the premise, but Man After Man is equally unsettling. Theres some illustrations from this book that I've seen in memes over the years and felt smart for recognizing.

After Man

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO_3lsezhgA

Man After Man

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxASJCaqiCg

Theres also a lot of Speculative Evolution that centers around what life would look like on other planets and how life may change under different conditions. Here's a few fun ones

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ41WRSrrOo

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL_V_jpIANE

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWlazFhSp58&t=746s

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ihfkM1ArV8

Ouroboros - I just talked a bit about this one in a message to @yesworms. He's a big snake (sometimes serpent or dragon) who eats his own tail. A symbol for infinity and the cyclical nature of time. Philosophically I love this guy. The idea of infinity is so reassuring to me, when sometimes the present moment seems eternal and unending. All things die and in dying they sustain new life. It's been done to death but I think I want an ouroboros tattoo.

Mystery Flesh Pit - this is just a fun video

=>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SlH8So1Q_o

Bigfoot - In terms of believing in this guy.. I think its unlikely. But Bigfoot is such a compelling character. If he's real he's just really shy, which resonates with me. I like the X-Files episode about the lady Bigfoot. The sheer proximity of this creature to humans encourages a lot of self-reflection. The exploration of a species somewhat between Man and Ape reminds me of the many human subspecies that Homo Sapiens allegedly killed off. It makes me concerned about our legacy of destruction and genocide. Where did all the Neanderthals go?

Loch Ness Monster - Nessie is real and she gave me a kiss one time. We had a brief but intense time together but ultimately weren't right for each other. I wish her nothing but the best. I like this one so much because there's a lot of history there and it's very easy to just shrug your shoulders and say, yeah I guess that's plausible. They made a bad movie about Nessie that I saw in theaters as a kid.

M