#juniper wwd

So I watched a few clips of that god-awful Walking With Dinosaurs movie from 2013 except the voiceover was removed. Let me tell you, it was a GAME-CHANGER. The purely visual storytelling is so much better than what ended up getting released in theatres, and if I remember correctly, the voiceover was a last-minute addition anyway. The visuals are stunning and I actually find myself really liking the story and characters when they’re presented this way.

Anyway, here’s my headcanon: Patchi is female and her and Juniper are the lead matriarchal pair of the herd.

If you pay attention to the design conventions of the Pachyrhinosaurus herd, you’ll notice that the males are all an olive grey-green in colour while the females are sort of peachy-orange. The males also flush their frills with bright red and sulfur yellow colouration when they’re fighting one another.
Patchi, though presented as male in the voiceover version, starkly contrasts with the other males of his herd in the sense that he appears much more… *feminine.* Being that, unlike his brother Scowler, Patchi is the same peachy-orange as his sisters and the other females in the herd. His frill also never flushes with colour like the other males’ do in his adulthood, and he never changes to match the grey-green of the adult males.
If you had only ever watched the narrator-less version, you’d likely assume Patchi was female when you see how dissimilar to Scowler she looks. There’s really nothing in the film itself that implies Patchi is male aside from what’s stated in the voiceover, and of course the generally assumed heterosexuality of characters in media. Patchi is shown as being interested in another young Pachyrhinosaur, and fights Scowler for her and for leadership of the herd. Because of this, based on how people perceive animal behaviour, people assume Patchi is male.
A few other things that can support Patchi actually being female is that she’s generally shrugged off by Scowler and Bulldust when she tries to participate in activities with them; knocking over small trees, rolling in the dust, or sparring. Scowler actually *chases* after Patchi at first before the two of them bonk heads, implying Patchi initially had no drive to engage in headbutting with Scowler. All of these things could be interpreted as Patchi having the desire to lead the herd and prove her strength and cunning against the males, but because she’s female, she’s met with looks of disapproval from her contemporaries. This could also be why Scowler so vehemently despises her in their adulthood; making a show of driving Juniper away from Patchi when he first takes over leadership of the herd, and ignoring Patchi’s calls when crossing the frozen lake. After she usurps his leadership through saving the majority of the herd from the breaking ice, Scowler finally gives her the fight she wants and she loses. Though she gives up briefly, she’s spurred into action by the memory of meeting Juniper for the first time (that’s some lesbian passion right there), and in the end, she wins leadership of the herd not through brute strength in a fight with Scowler, but through her boldness and encouragement of the herd to fight back against the Gorgosaurs. She proves herself as a reliable and strong leader without a show of physical prowess.

The nest of eggs at the end is interpreted by most people to belong to Patchi and Juniper, but the two of them have clearly left the nest almost entirely unattended, so I personally don’t think it’s theirs. Patchi runs off a Troodon and Juniper is seen grazing a pretty decent distance away, appearing to be pretty unbothered that a nest of what people assume to be *her* eggs was almost decimated by a predator. At this point, I think the pair of them have taken on the duty of being the herd guardians, watching over the year’s brood and chasing off predators from nests whose mothers have gone off to forage.

So yeah, these dinosaurs are gay. I reject the voiceover version because it sucks, and the 25 minute long Bendytick Crumbledump version as well because that one was only shown in museum theatres and I’ve never seen it, so it doesn’t exist.