As a fan of both paleontology and astronomy (and a lot of other things), sometimes I find myself pondering the fact that quite a few astronomical events happened during the history of life on Earth. Such as the lunar impact that caused the Tycho crater, estimated to be about 100 million years old, which would place it in the middle of the Cretaceous. So dinosaurs could have seen the impact happen if they had been paying attention. I wonder if they would have noticed?

Given the date, I couldn't help but plug the mid-Cretaceous Wayan Formation yet again, so here's an Oryctodromeus having a snack and totally ignoring what's happening to the Moon.

I based the color scheme and time of day on a lovely photo I took a while back of the Moon rising above the mountains near my neighborhood one late afternoon.

 Professor Elm hasn't left his lab in so long, he's just completely lost touch with reality.

 In the games, after you defeat Lance and get your Pokemon recorded in the Hall of Fame and the credits roll, you find yourself back in your bedroom. My thought is that after becoming Pokemon Champion, Kris went back home, zonked out in bed--and was then rudely awakened by Professor Elm because it's time for the postgame.

 More fake clickbait news!

This one is poking fun at how the Internet seems to think that everyone likes dinosaurs for the same reason and that we are all 5-year-old boys who just want to watch dinosaurs eat each other, eat people, and just be vicious monsters of unchecked mayhem. I don't know about you, but I like dinosaurs just because they're fascinating creatures and a wonderful part of the 3.8-billion-year-long pageant of life on our amazing planet, regardless of their ability to eat people.

(I'm very certain that if dinosaurs were around today, they would not run around trying to eat everybody. They would probably be really afraid of humans, like most animals today. I have a big soapbox about the psychologically skewed perception of dinosaurs in popular culture, and how it's been unfortunately fed into by the Jurassic Park/World franchise that likes to depict prehistoric animals as nothing more than bloodthirsty killing machines, but let's not open that can of worms today.)

 And so another Pokémon journey concludes... or does it?

(Of course, if you've played the Johto games you know that it doesn't.)

 I'm a big fan of those weird and mysterious ice giants that totally need more space missions dedicated to them, and I just had to make a Redbubble design for my boi Uranus! With an axis tilted nearly 90 degrees to everybody else, a seriously weird magnetic field, and a really beautiful polar hood that forms as it nears the summer and winter solstices, Uranus is one of the strangest and most fascinating places in the Solar System. Besides everything else in the Solar System, of course. Space is neat.

Shadow Play, Chapter 9

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9

The Catacombs were a sad husk of their former selves. Terra remembered that, in her adolescence, the main cavern was full of people perusing shops, submitting their art and writing to the galleries, and chatting about the latest issue of the Neopian Times. Now, only the Coin Shop remained open close to the entrance—the other establishments were boarded up and abandoned. A sole, small newsstand near the Coin Shop sold the Neopian Times and a few other periodicals, but the Chia proprietor was napping. And only a handful of people mulled about the cavern besides Terra, her family, and Zoltan. Past what had once been the main hub of activity, the cavern branched off into many tunnels, all shrouded in darkness.

“This is kinda depressing,” Blynn said. “It’s always sad when a place dies like this.”

“Right?” Terra said. “As much as I like Roo Island, the Catacombs were a special part of Neopia Central. I have a lot of great memories of this place.” She sighed. “It’s tough when you have a lot of nostalgia for something, and when you revisit it, too much has changed.”

“All part of growing up, I guess,” Hyren said. “At least you’ll always have those great memories.”