#Bulletproof Dolphin

[miras-false-pr0phet]

I Paired Songs with Every Single Animal Dance in Animal Jam Classic

This doesn't include the patterned versions, like Snowflake Arctic Wolf, Autumn Coyote, Jamaaliday Deer, etc.

BIG ol' list with song links below!

BY THE WAY: Most of these songs are probably explicit! I was focusing mostly on unique takes, beats/BPM, and just general goodness.

Arabian Horse - FΛSHION (Britney Manson)

Arctic Fox - All Men Are Pigs (Studio Killers)

Arctic Wolf - The Night (Voltaire)

Bunny - Fine (Lemon Demon)

Camel - Animal (*repeat repeat)

Cheetah - 8 now (food house)

Clydesdale Horse - Here Comes the Hotstepper (Ini Kamoze)

Cougar - Imma Be (Black Eyed Peas)

Coyote - Crank It Up (Joey Valence & Brae)

Crocodile - Good Vibrations (Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch)

Deer - Hey Ya! (Outkast)

Direwolf - Rock It For Me (Caravan Palace)

Dolphin - Booty Swing (Parov Stelar)

Eagle - Lay All Your Love On Me (ABBA)

Elephant - Rasputin (Boney M)

Falcon - The Outside (Twenty One Pilots)

Fennec Fox - Let's Groove (Earth, Wind & Fire)

Flamingo - Funkytown (Lipps Inc.)

Fox - Break It Down Again (Tears For Fears)

Giraffe - still feel. (half•alive)

Goat - Get It Right (Left Boy)

Great Horned Owl - Say It Right [Violin] (Joel Sunny)

Horse - Pretty Ugly (Tierra Whack)

Hyena - Genghis Khan (Miike Snow)

Kangaroo - High (Sir Sly)

Koala - Call This # Now (The Garden)

Lemur - Monkey Tree (Mother Mother)

Lion - Talking, Sleeping, Waiting (JHAS)

Llama - Dancin [KRONO Remix] (Aaron Smith)

Lynx - Upside Down (Oliver Tree)

Monkey - Cool City (Danny Elfman)

Moose - Americano (Lady Gaga)

Octopus - Tennis Court (Lorde)

Otter {Land} - Reflections (MisterWives)

Otter {Underwater} - Sharks (Imagine Dragons)

Owl - Lost In The Rhythm (Jamie Berry)

Panda - Bulletproof (La Roux)

Penguin {Land} - Deceptacon (Le Tigre)

Penguin {Underwater} - My Type (Saint Motel)

Pig - Null 2 (Graham Kartna)

Polar Bear {Land} - Boreas (The Oh Hellos)

Polar Bear {Underwater} - Death Is A Girl (Mini Mansions)

Raccoon - Drunk-Dazed (ENHYPEN)

Red Panda - Space Ghost Coast To Coast (Glass Animals)

Rhinoceros - Birthday Suit (Cosmo Sheldrake)

Sabertooth - Demigod (KT Tunstall)

Sea Turtle - 90210 [Acoustic Ver.] (blackbear)

Seal {Land} - Shotgun (George Ezra)

Seal {Underwater} - Shotgun (George Ezra)

Shark - Wriggle [Edit] (Cosmo Sheldrake)

Sheep - Droopy Likes Your Face (C418)

Skunk - The Russian Music Box (Soon Hee Newbold)

Sloth - Burn The House Down (AJR)

Snow Leopard - Circular Road (Heathers)

Tiger - American Money (BØRNS)

Toucan - Riptide [FlicFlac Remix] (Vance Joy)

Wolf - Roll with the Wind (Alexander Rybak)

[randomclicheusername]

Image by Gage Skidmore

James Cameron’s Fighting Words

Yes, I still got avatar on the brain.

More specifically, a Mr. James Cameron controversial comments from ages ago, floating over me like a storm cloud.

A long time ago, 2010, Mr. Cameron believed that the United States’ indigenous people “would have fought a lot harder.”

Here’s his full quote:

"I felt like I was 130 years back in time watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace and they were being given some form of compensation," Cameron told the Guardian.

"This was a driving force for me in the writing of 'Avatar' — I couldn't help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future … and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation … because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society — which is what is happening now — they would have fought a lot harder.”

I wanna know that the heckin’ heck that man is smoking because bruh… that’s just messed up to say.

There were literally the “Indian wars” where the many tribes battled for their livelihoods, culture and literally everything was on the line for them.

They used every available resources available to them and literally bled to death on battlefields for their people’s survival.

No one has the ability to know what ill effects could befall on anyone’s descendants. They literally went to war to protect the future for their respective tribes.

The dreadful unfortunate fact is they were limited to the technology at the time and an enemy with what may have seemed like unlimited resources. Fallacious statement because it creates an impossible what if scenario that only works with unobtainable information from the future.

And to me, it feels like Cameron’s world building and storytelling has obvious shades of showing how a indigenous other worldly inhabitants fight as hard as possible.

It’s an untenable comparison to even make because Cameron’s Pandora is a fantasy world. The indigenous population in the movie is a giant blue humanoid species that’s more athletic and stronger than human of them film. In the first film, they even kicked the invaders off the planet.

The wildlife are incredibly ferocious and effective form of offense and defense. The forest Na’vi have these lizard like pyrictactles pterodactyls that can pack a punch. The water tribes? They have the gliding killer dolphins.

Their whales are somehow bulletproof and are built like tanks. This futuristic version of human has mechanical suits and the other sci-fi trappings. Yet their windows are not arrow proof.

The Na’vi has strength and agility they is beyond human capabilities. They can scale trees, rocks, and other obstacles with ease. Incredulously, their bones are reinforced with a type of naturally occurring carbon fiber. They tend to live until they’re 160-180 years old.

They even can bond with a variety of animals and plants using their queue. Which is an external cluster of neural tendrils. This bond allows them to exchange sensory information and creates a deep connection. Henceforth, a incredible tactical ability that human lack.

I’m sorry but no horse or any domesticated animal could dish out the damage than Cameron’s vicious killing machines.

All that helped the Na’vi boot the humans off the planet in the first movie and win a major oceanic scuffle with a militarized science ship.

They also have Jake Sully in an avatar Na’vi to lead his adopted species to victory. Besides the shameful use of the white savior trope that I’m acknowledging but cannot go down that particular rabbit hole. Sully has a military background and knows the that military’s MO and capabilities to create an effective strategy. Plus, direct his forced towards humankind’s weaknesses.

Also, the weapons the Na’vi could apprehend from the human forces is far deadlier and superior weaponry than any North American Tribe had access to obtaining the span of 1609 to 1924.

My point is that the mythological sci-Fi inspire Na’vi have more powers, abilities and plot armor by an man with not care to indigenous people’s ancestors fighting like hell.

Those comments by James Cameron were over a decade ago. There’s a chance he thinks differently than he did all those year ago. Maybe he has been educated on the subject. I don’t know:

What I do know is that if any aspect of how motives for making the avatar franchise is to prove that if a indigenous group fighting up to Camron’s expectations then he’s ironically missing one of the points of his movie.

Either way, it was an ignorant comment that should’ve resulted in a public apology.

[drogba-prospect]

Watch Bulletproof Dolphin - LUCKI ECK$ - NONE OTHER on YouTube Music

"None Other"

Aye [x8]

Man, man

I'm t'd off juice and xan

I don't know you lil' mans

Got this lil' deuce-deuce in my pocket, in these Nudie pants

My plug up on a band

I gotta meet him there

So I don't do shorts, don't do deals, it's either here or there

My bitch don't like new niggas

Say they gone get me caught

Say, "fuck with them, you gone catch records." '07 Randy Moss

I touch her redskin, then I jet

Boy I'm Santana Moss

Wait, let me pop like four more pills

Them old ones wearing off

Boy, who the fuck is you?

You ain't no one nine seven

What stain you rep?

Who chain you grip?

It's looking ugly, yessir

I take yo' shit, won't bring that back

Boy I'm no Devin Hester

That bitch left me, fake like that hurt

Boy I'm just like a wrestler

I talk my shit like none other

Finesse this shit like none other

Fuck around, make you rob yo' brother

I'm on it

Man they got me T'd

Don't tell me no fucking rules

We don't do those

Remember I said that's why I dropped outta school

You gotta listen bitch, don't make me show this attitude

You like, "this why all yo friends be fucking mad at you?"

I'm just too smart for mu'fuckas but that don't matter dude

I'm just 18, they said I'm dumb but that's what xanax do

Well I pop X [?]

Don't be this stubborn to the devil wanna dance with dude

Finessed a close friend

I didn't feel anything

I knew since then that it don't matter if you kin to me

Instead of ghost, get Scooby-Doo to solve this mystery

You sick? Well this black-market magic is the remedy

I talk my shit like none other

Finesse this shit like none other

Fuck around, make you rob yo' brother

I'm on it

[good-golly-yikes]

updating some info about my ‘bright fury’ oc and how she compares to the night fury. honestly thinking abt changing her species name as a whole to something kind of fun and unique, like “wrathful flash” or sth (:

long long post incoming. mostly just for my own personal reference lol

traits differing from night fury: -thicker jaw, with greater bite force and holding power -rounder head (although it's still long and narrow--should ultimately evoke a cetacean, i.e. porpoise) -smaller eyes -smaller earplates -4 accessory faceplates, all similarly-sized -body is overall larger; enough to comfortably carry 1 large man, and only just carry 2 -good dayvision instead of nightvision. can still see in the dark, and has tapetum lucidum, but not as well as the NF's enormous eyes -legs are slightly shorter than NF's. still long enough to allow sprinting, galloping, leaping, etc., but difference should be noticeable -lacks most the spines/spikes of an NF. she has 1 series of spikes which starts on the lower back and runs along the spine, continuing down the rump and receding back into the spine about halfway down the tail. these are slightly rounded & flow with the body--again, evoking a cetacean, like a dolphin's dorsal fin -wingtips are more rounded than NF's, and actually possess rudimentary pads/claws on each -the tips of her basal and tailfins are similarly rounded, and the leather there is a touch thicker. fin sets each contain one more "digit" than an NF's, and her tailfin sports an additional connecting length of membrane, which the NF lacks -pupils are oval-shaped, as opposed to NF's rectangular ones -claws are longer/narrower, like those of a bear -all four feet possess 5 digits, which are fairly manipulable and dexterous, like a monkey's -neck is slightly longer than NF's, but retains thickness -flight speed is less than that of a NF, esp with full harness/rider, but still pretty comparable -can produce diving shriek like NF. also like NF(?), can recreate the sound vocally as a dominance display -has the vocal range of NF And Then Some--an excellent mimic, capable of recreating sounds from all over the animal kingdom: chuffs, growls, barks, purrs, whistles, wheezes, etc

traits similar to night fury: -body is fairly weaponproof, scales are fairly fireproof, hide is fairly bulletproof. the closer a blow strikes (i.e. a gun fired from 1ft away vs 30ft) is more likely to actually pierce hide. this extends to wings/fins. this immunity extends to sci-fi weapons as well, such as energy blasters, electrical weapons, light sabers, etc. (this was all taken from an episode of the netflix show where toothless effortlessly blocks several knives/arrows with his wings alone so im drawing from that as 'canon' lol) -has an 'alpha' glow, although hers is bright yellow, and extends in narrowing patterns along the limbs, from the central back stripe -claws are not Just Keratin; they are kind of fused w/ the bone and flesh of the foot, making up the majority of the toe, rather than being an accessory. due to this, they are actually able to flex and shift. they are hard as steel, which makes them very powerful, but in the event of breakage, the pain would be immense ): -good deep chest. lots of muscle that needs anchoring there -teeth are retractable -capable of 'classic' firebreathing, as well as flame and plasma blasts -posture/body plan is similar to original NF: fairly flat and low to the ground, but head is carried somewhat high off the ground. silhouette should evoke something mammal, but ultimately remain reptile -end of wings extend over base of caudal fins, like NF. this makes the attachment of a saddle and harness a real challenge! -warm-blooded -head being wet will cause her to "lose" her fire until the water evaporates. -has approximately 10 “shots” worth of fire. when spent, shots will naturally “regenerate” over a period of time. consumption of small mineral material, such as pebbles, can expedite this process -all faceplates function as ears as well as fleshy whiskers--they pick up on vibrations, and also provide spacial awareness. very good senses due to this

unique traits: -canonically, in-universe, she is designed to be an Ideal Creature. shes not perfect, but Sueness is baked into her--her body is optimized for combat, for burden, grace, companionship, protection, etc. OPness is required to survive many of the challenges she will face -more long-bodied than an NF, purely for 'realism'--while a NF body is more stylized, this body Needs to have space to have organs on top of all the limbs and muscle that has been crammed on here -when in flight, forelimbs are usually folded over the primary pectorals, as opposed to being held against the secondary pectorals or sides. this may vary however -separate from the 'alpha' glow is the ability to make the entire body emit light, levels of which may vary from glowstick to lighthouse. the latter is really only reached during levels of high stress; otherwise, the strength generally does not exceed that of a flashlight. the light is generally white or whitish-yellow in color, although natural patterns of a golden hue can be seen within if the glare can be tolerated -just very physically powerful in general. nothing superman-level, just enough to survive scuffles w creatures such as kaijus, giant mechas, etc -even if the ‘species’ name is different, she is still part of the night fury genus as a whole, same as the light fury. idk how the Actual speciation of it all actually works out, given httyd’s increasingly tenuous grasp on the concept of genetics, but theoretically, a [wrathful flash] could reproduce with a nf. lf, or any other fury variation within the clade (but this one wont bc shes Sapient).

[cherrydreamer]

Just imagine Billy and Steve, both of them living together in some shitty apartment that they've made their own with books and plants and a fancy set of pans for when Steve goes all out cooking dinner and a big wicker basket next to the couch full of blankets for when Billy gets cold watching TV.

And, of course, they have jobs now.

Not the ones they thought they'd have when they were kindergartners filling in that 'When I Grow Up' sheet. Billy's not a dolphin trainer by day and a stuntman by night and Steve's not a vet, which he never really wanted to be but it was easy to spell and he was good at drawing animals so it seemed like the best thing to choose.

But they're doing OK.

Steve has to admit that he got lucky. He never wanted to mention his family connections but when it came up at interview, well, he didn't lie. He gets shuffled into some dull as ditchwater office job where he wears a boring suit and files boring paper for boring people all day long. But it pays well and it’s easy and the coffee in the machine is pretty good so, yeah, he fell on his feet.

Billy did more of a stumble onto his hands and knees, managing to score some hours at an all night convenience store where the shutters don’t close all the way and the bulletproof screen has a crack in it. And because he's new- and because he can't afford to complain or refuse- they give him the shittiest shifts. The long ones, the holidays, the overnights.

So while Steve's doing the full Dolly and workin' 9-5, Billy's more likely tumblin' out of bed in the afternoon and coming home to see the sunrise.

They're like ships passing in the night.

So when they only have moments, they make the most of every second.

Billy pushes open the bedroom door quietly, padding across the floor on bare feet and leaving a trail of clothes as he goes- the shirt that smells like the hot dogs on the roller grill; the jeans with bleach stains on the knees from too much mopping; the jacket with the peppy little 'here to help' badge and someone else's name because they never ordered one for Billy.

And then he slips into the bed, sheets warm and crumpled from Steve's sleeping body and the way he thrashes around more when Billy's not there to keep his arms occupied and his mind calm. And Steve gravitates to him even in sleep, arms reaching out to pull him closer, shoving his warm feet against Billy’s cold ones and making a content little hum when he finally has Billy right where he belongs.

They don't have long. Billy knows that Steve's alarm will be blaring soon, 9-5 not exactly accounting for the damn near two hour commute he has to deal with, but they have some time and that's enough, for now.

So Billy relishes it. Relishes the way that Steve's fingers draw lazy patterns over his skin, and how he’s pressing kisses into Billy’s curls before he’s even properly woken up and how slides one leg over Billy’s, like he needs every single part of them touching. And Billy appreciates he fact that the first thing that Steve does, before he’s even opened his eyes, is to murmur, ‘Sweet dreams, baby,’ against the shell of Billy’s ear. He appreciates the fact that Steve’s started setting his alarm ten minute earlier than he needs, so that he doesn’t have to jump out of bed straight away, so he can stay there holding Billy so closely to him, like he’s something precious to be protected. He appreciates the way that Steve holds him like that, close and tight and secure, for those ten beautiful, glorious minutes, until Billy’s on that delicious cusp of sleep where his thoughts are muddied and all he knows is warm and safe and loved. Until he slips right over, breath evening out and body relaxing, and he doesn’t even stir when Steve finally, grudgingly, slides himself out of bed to start his day. Because, right now, they only have moments. Moments like this.  And they’re gonna make the most of every damn one. 

[antoine-roquentin]

Seventeen Colombians and two Haitian Americans from South Florida are in custody in Haiti. A person who interviewed the detained Colombians in Haiti told the Miami Herald that the men claimed to have been recruited to do work in Haiti by an under-the-radar firm in Doral called CTU Security. It is run by a Venezuelan émigré, Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera....

Known in Venezuelan expat circles in South Florida, Intriago would boast of his police background in the South American country. At times, said one who knew him but did not want to be identified in the widening story, Intriago claimed to have connections to or to have worked directly for U.S. agencies.

A person claiming to have known him back in Venezuela said Intriago worked out of a small Doral office, where he would boast of being a paid mercenary and a coordinator of special forces, but most people did not take those claims seriously.

The source, who demanded anonymity to speak freely, said that Intriago is also known for providing firearms, firearms parts, and military and police equipment such as bulletproof vests.

Public records link him to a small, fenced three-bedroom residence a few blocks off of I-95 near Miami Northwestern High. Venezuela’s voter database shows he remains registered to vote there through the consulate in Miami.

Intriago’s Facebook page provides a bit of a timeline. It shows him appearing to arrive in the United States around 2009 and working initially with alarm systems. His social media presence is largely apolitical except for some postings against the Venezuelan government and one in support of Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan lawmaker the Trump administration recognized as the oil-rich country’s legitimate leader.

Intriago’s security firm has a limited social media presence and does not appear to have won any federal contracts to provide security or training. His personal Facebook page shows that he offers personal security classes at night for people wanting to protect their families and pitches the services occasionally in posts.

On Saturday, a Herald reporter and photographer rang the doorbell of CTU’s storefront at 2510 NW 112th Ave., tucked in a beige, green and orange corporate office complex. The store, near the Dolphin Mall, had a cargo company, a CCTV camera store, a Realtor and a blinds warehouse nearby. The office unit had a white garage door in the back and a pickup truck parked out front with a CTU bumper sticker. No one answered the door.

A security guard sitting in a golf cart told the Herald that CTU hosts shooting range classes inside and those classes have people constantly coming in and out of the store. She said the company had a class as recently as last Thursday and added the black pickup with a Texas license plate is always parked out front.

At one of the company’s two other listed locations, the office headquarters on 53rd Street, Herald journalists knocked on the door of the listed suite number inside a white office building with black awnings. The suite was identified with a plaque that read Offix Solutions, which is owned by someone who appears to be unaffiliated with Intriago. No one answered the door.

Intriago and his now ex-wife owned a South Florida newspaper company Prensa Libre Newspaper Corp., which corporate records show existed between 2003 and 2009.

There is nothing in Intriago’s public footprint to indicate that he had either the money or the scope to train dozens of private soldiers to raid the private residence of the Haitian president and kill him.

What role Miami and Intriago played directly, or inadvertently, in the Haitian assassination will surely be investigated with the FBI. Haiti has asked for FBI help, in part because of the large number of businessmen and drug gangs that might have had an interest in getting rid of the president.

A team from Colombia is already in Port-au-Prince, dispatched on Friday to collaborate with the Haitian government on how the Colombians became involved in the assassination.

Miami and the Doral enclave have become sort of a Star Wars bar for would-be liberators and for-hire warriors.

A botched coup in May 2020 in Venezuela similarly involved for-hire security men in Florida and some of the plotting traced to the 12th fairway of the Red Course at the Doral resort.

[nanoland]

new chapter (lucifer fic)

(earlier parts are here; whole thing is here) 

Ponder on the Narrow House, part 3 

Mazikeen + Eve + Michael, gen fic (for now), warning for gun violence 

0   

Along the California coastline, the cruise ship Illustrious Voyager bore four thousand three hundred and ten passengers, one thousand two hundred and ninety-six crewmembers, and two guide dogs.

Five thousand six hundred and eight souls, in total.

At around 4pm, without anyone noticing, that number became five thousand six hundred and nine.

Hands clasped behind her back, Eve strolled down the promenade, admiring the vessel’s size and beauty. This fresh new millennium’s wealth astonished her. Sickened, sometimes. Entranced, sometimes. But always astonished.

Back in the garden, they’d slept on and under rocks. When it rained, they got wet. When large animals came by, they hid. No weapons. No shelter. No blankets. The only resource they’d had in abundance was food. Good grief – so much food. God had been so proud of all the different fruits and nuts and mushrooms he’d made available to them, and Adam had been so grateful. Eve supposed she had been, too.

It hadn’t stopped her from one day approaching her husband and the plump rabbits resting in his lap – two of several dozen pets – and asking if he didn’t think the cold nights would be much more endurable if they each had a warm pair of fur slippers.

Then she’d met Lucifer. Fallen in love. Bitten the apple. Learned how powerful he and his Father truly were. That was when the real questions, the sticky, prickly questions, had come bubbling up.

If Lucifer has such a vast family, with so many siblings, why can’t I have even one? she’d asked the sky. Why is Adam all I get?

And later: If You can simply bring people into existence, why must I scream and bleed and shit myself in order to have children? Am I doing it wrong? Is there another way? If there isn’t, why not?

And later: Why is nothing fair?

And, most recently, after meeting Mazikeen: Why isn’t everything at least equally unfair? Why do humans get a world of options while Maze and her family are expected to serve angels from birth to death? Why isn’t Maze allowed into Heaven, even after an eternity of loyalty and hard work?

“Sorry,” she said, flashing white teeth at a passing crewmember. “I’m trying to find a friend of mine. Can you tell me how to get to Room 835?”

Half an hour later, there was a splash and the ship’s population dropped to five thousand six hundred and seven.

Before binding his arms and legs, Eve had secured Andrew Bismarck’s lifejacket and gagged him. Furious and helpless, he bobbed alongside her as the ship moved on and Mazikeen rowed up in her inflatable raft, wearing a sunset-orange swimsuit.

“Should I be worried about those, babe?” she asked as she gripped Bismarck’s lifejacket and hauled him out of the water.

Eve smiled at the dolphin pod swimming in playful loops around her, and patted the nearest one’s nose. “No. They’re my friends.”

The inflatable wasn’t big enough for three people, so Eve held on to a friend’s dorsal fin and let him drag her back to The Choronzon.

Michael stood on the deck, looking bored. As they climbed aboard, their prisoner slung over Mazikeen’s shoulder, he drawled, “Seriously? This sad specimen’s worth two million dollars?”

“Actually, his net worth is eight hundred million,” said Mazikeen, dumping him down. “Two million is just what his ex-wife is willing and able to pay.”

Wringing out her hair, Eve added, “She took half his money in the divorce but she gave almost all of it to a chimpanzee shelter. I really like her!”

His lip curled. “How delightfully sordid. Isn’t this all a little beneath you, Ms Mazikeen? I mean, you’re a big deal in Hell. High Commander of Lucifer’s legions, head advisor to the king himself. Aren’t you worried taking jobs like this diminishes you?”

Busy handcuffing Bismarck to the railing, Mazikeen said, “Eve, honey? Do me a favour?”

“Boop!” Eve chirped, having already snuck up behind Michael, and pushed him overboard.

“I know it’s your whole gimmick,” Mazikeen called down as he splashed and spluttered, his face red with princely indignation. “And I know you don’t have a lot else going for you. But the next time you try that on me, I will stop being nice. Kapish?”

“Kapish,” he muttered.

The Choronzon had barely travelled a mile before Eve spotted Bismarck’s henchmen coming after them.

“Someone gimme details!” shouted Mazikeen, busy putting a bulletproof vest on over her bikini and opening up the box she’d told Dan contained a fishing rod, not a halberd.

Eve peered through her binoculars. “Two speedboats. Twelve guys on jet skis. Guns everywhere.”

“Heh. Awesome. Mickey – move that tight ass to the front and make like a nice juicy target.”

“Wait, what about-…” Michael began, trailing off as Mazikeen dove gracefully into the sea.

Bouncing from foot to foot, Eve shot him a grin. “Don’t look so glum, sourpuss. This is the fun part.”

She’d never spoken to Michael in Heaven, despite the millennia they’d both resided only two miles apart, her in a lakeside cottage on the outskirts of the Silver City, him in the crystal palace in its centre.

Granted, she’d not exactly had a warm and fuzzy relationship with any of Lucifer’s siblings. They all knew what had happened in the garden. Some had been nice – Amenadiel had visited often, even though he’d never had much to say and they’d spent their time together skipping stones across the lake’s surface. But the others had kept her at a distance. She was a bad influence.

Michael, however, was the only angel she’d not ever said one word to.

She’d seen him, now and then, in the early days, when she was the only human in Heaven and, as such, grudgingly invited to divine family get-togethers. On those occasions, she’d spent too much time feeling awkward and out-of-place to pay attention to the sullen figure lurking in whatever shadows were available. The one time she’d glanced his way, it had been to marvel at the stories of people getting the twins mixed up; beyond the raw basics of bone structure, Michael couldn’t have looked less like her old lover.

Bullets sprayed across the hull. Humming, Eve stepped daintily into Michael’s shadow, seconds before they started bouncing off his shoulders and chest.

“It is beneath her,” he muttered.

She made an ambiguous noise. “How d’you figure?”

There came a shout and a splash from the nearest jet ski. The bullets stopped.

“C’mon. She’s Mazikeen. Everyone in the Silver City knows about Mazikeen. Ordinarily, we couldn’t give two dry shits about Lucifer’s minions, but her? She’s a minor celebrity. The power behind Hell’s throne. Christ, it’s no secret my beloved twin couldn’t govern his way out of a paper bag.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling fondly. “He’s kind of bad at everything. Except music. He’s a great musician.”

More shouting. More shooting. More bullets bouncing off Michael’s torso. Mazikeen rode by, one hand gripping her newly-acquired jet ski’s throttle lever, the other clutching her bloodstained halberd. Watching her circle the enemy, Eve was reminded of a sheep dog.

Michael went on: “And then there’s the fact that for a while, everyone thought Lucifer was going to marry her. It was all anyone could talk about. Jophiel was taking bets on when the proposal would happen. She’d have been High Commander and the Queen of Hell. Instead? All of a sudden, Lucifer takes an indefinite vacay to the mortal realm, drags her with him, and next thing anyone knows, she’s working behind a bar.”

The remaining jet skis and their terrified, wounded riders had been neatly rounded up, which meant it was time for Eve to open her purse.

“Um – how long have those been in there?” asked Michael, watching her take out three grenades.

“You want one?” she offered. “Don’t forget to take the pin out before you throw it. I did that my first time.”  

One thing to be said for millions of dull, dull years spent sitting next to God’s Greatest Warrior, skipping stones across a lake; your aim got good.

The first blast was a warning, not close enough to actually kill any of Bismarck’s men, though the resultant waves did knock several into the water. They tried to retreat, turning their vehicles around, only to remember Mazikeen, corralling them single-handed and now armed with machine guns she’d confiscated from those already bested.

When they saw the second and third grenade incoming, they gave up and abandoned the jet skis, jumping into the sea and swimming for their lives.

“Fuck!” Michael yelped, blocking his ears at the concomitant explosions.

Gazing past the debris and smoke, Eve saw Mazikeen head for the nearest of the two speedboats. Its occupants, preoccupied with aiming a rocket launcher at The Choronzon, saw her coming far too late.

“I get your point,” said Eve, as her girlfriend and her halberd made short work of the crew. “But that’s a really… how can I put this? It’s a really angelic way of looking at things. Maze doesn’t consider anything ‘beneath her’.”

“Wow. Sick burn. You’re basically admitting she has no pride.”

“Oh, she’s got pride. Tons of pride. Her pride’s just dependant on how well she does a job, not on the type of job she has. She wasn’t happy working at Lux, but that wasn’t because she thought bartending was ‘beneath her’; it was because she prefers doing things she’s good at. Customer service isn’t really one of her strengths.”

The second speedboat was abandoned by its crew mere seconds before Mazikeen rammed the first speedboat into it, cackling victoriously.

“Actually,” Eve said, moving from Michael’s shadow to where Mazikeen had earlier set a crate of peach soda – her favourite – out on the deck, “now that you mention it, I guess I’m the one with no pride. Haven’t really ever had anything to be proud of. Your Dad never gave me the chance. I was never meant to do things. I was just meant to be.”

Michael snorted. “Lucky you. Trust me; he may have softened in his later years, but back in the day he never, ever stopped riding our asses. You think Lucy really rebelled because he had better plans for how the universe should be run? Because he was an innovator? Nope. Lazy dick just hated being told to do his chores.”

By the time Mazikeen swam back to them, saltwater had washed off the blood and her ponytail had come loose.

“Oh, hey,” said Eve, gripping her hand and pulling her up. “A mermaid.”

After pressing a rough kiss to her cheek and taking a swig of peach soda, Mazikeen asked, “You okay? He did his job?”

Eve patted the angel’s shoulder – the one that wouldn’t hurt. “He was terrific! Awesome addition to the team.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Michael mumbled.

Ignoring him, Mazikeen snatched up a towel to dry her hair. “Glad to hear it. Alright! Let’s get Bismarck back to shore, get paid, and find a place to have dinner so we can toast Team Hellrazor’s first successful mission.”

“R-A-Z-O-R,” Eve informed Michael. “To make it cooler.”

[choisans]

top 10 korean songs from the first half of 2020 ♡ 

tagged by @mapofbts, @park-seonghwa, @hongjooong, @01degree (on my skz blog) & @unclejuho​ (on my sf9 blog), thank you guys!! 

love me or leave me | slump | end of spring | dolphin | puzzle piece | we are bulletproof: the eternal | answer | stand up | wannabe | eight 

i feel like everyone’s been tagged already so i’m really sorry if you have but i’ll tag @cultursan, @yeosangs, @kwjz, @kqtiny, @honjoong​ & @subaek + anyone else who wants to! 

[csnews]

Innovative New Whale Detection System Aims to Prevent Ships From Striking Animals

Alex Fox, September 17, 2020

Southern California is home to the busiest port complex in the U.S. Nearly 500 ships passed through the 24-mile-wide Santa Barbara Channel en route to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in August alone. The same strip of water also hosts droves of giant whales. In summer, over the course of a single day, whale watching outfits routinely spot as many as 15 blue whales, many nearly 100 feet long, feeding in the channel alongside humpback whales and thousands of dolphins. This overlap creates an environment where ships sometimes strike and kill endangered blue, humpback and fin whales. The last two years have set successive records for the most whales killed by ship strikes off the California coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with 21 whales dying by the hulls of ships in 2018 and 2019 combined.

And researchers say that’s likely to be just a fraction of the true death toll. A 2017 paper published in the journal PLOS One estimated that more than 80 endangered whales are killed by ships each year along the U.S. West Coast. The same paper suggests NOAA and whale researchers may only find between 5 and 17 percent of the whales whose bodies have been broken by the bow of a ship, because their corpses tend to sink to the bottom rather than washing ashore. The fatal collisions scientists do record are often grisly. Many times a vessel will coast into port unaware of the pulverized whale draped across its bow. The ships are so large, many are 15 stories tall and more than 1,000 feet long, that they typically have no idea what’s happened until they reach port.

“I’ve seen the damage that a ship strike can do and it’s massive and traumatic,” says Nick Pyenson, the Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and author of the book Spying on Whales. “I’ve seen fractures that run clear across a 20-foot skull, jaw bones that have been snapped and cracked. If it’s not immediate death it’s horrific suffering that typically ends in death.”

Now, a team of researchers is launching an innovative new whale detection system called Whale Safe in Southern California waters to help mariners avoid collisions with the marine mammals and to grade shipping companies on their whale safety. The system produces daily alerts informing subscribers how likely ships are to encounter whales in the Santa Barbara Channel as well as a web-based interactive map showing the locations of individual whale detections. The team has shared the tool with key shipping companies, and officials at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach who are expected to share news of the launch.

The goal of Whale Safe is to provide mariners with the best, most up-to-date information available and to create more awareness, says Doug McCauley, a marine scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and director of its Benioff Ocean Initiative, which is launching and funding the project in collaboration with other research institutions. “These are 100-year-old animals that are ecosystem engineers carrying around thousands of trees worth of carbon and they’re being run over out there,” he says. “We want to help incentivize the people and companies who want to do the right thing to actually do it and be recognized for it.”

Whale Safe creates a near real-time map of where whales are swimming and how likely ships are to encounter them using data from three cutting-edge sources. First, a buoy equipped with an underwater microphone listens for whale songs in the Santa Barbara Channel and uses an algorithm to automatically identify the calls of humpback, fin and blue whales before beaming the detection to a satellite. Second, trained observers and citizen scientists use a smartphone app to report whale sightings from boats. Third, a newly developed mathematical model uses information gleaned from years of blue whale tagging studies and the latest oceanographic data (such as sea surface temperature and ocean currents) to predict where blue whales are most likely to be.

These three streams of data are all integrated in a single streamlined platform accessible via the web. “The combination of methods is ideal,” says Jaime Jahncke, a marine scientist at Point Blue Conservation Science who was not involved in the Whale Safe project. “Acoustic detection alone is not perfect and modelling alone is not perfect but the combination makes it much more robust. The multiple layers of data help give mariners the clearest picture of where whales are and could make Whale Safe very effective if mariners use it.”

In their preliminary conversations with shipping companies, McCauley says the Whale Safe team has gotten a lot of interest, but no commitments to use the platform right out of the box. Most companies want to take a look at the website and the alerts and see how the whole thing works before taking it on board.

“Nobody wants to hit a whale so whatever we can do to mitigate that we’re excited to pursue,” says John Berge, a vice president with the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. “More and better data is always an improvement. Having a better idea of where whales are and their concentrations at certain times of year will allow ships to make more dynamic speed and routing decisions.”

Following its launch today, Whale Safe could see a wide range of user groups, says Morgan Visalli, a marine scientist at UCSB who led the Whale Safe project. Curious scientists or members of the public might peruse the locations of whales off their coast, while port officials or the U.S. Coast Guard may decide to push out alerts to ships in their area based on whale detections made by the system. In the case of the shipping industry, Visalli says some companies have indicated it would work best for them if an operations manager on shore signs up to receive the data, and then disseminates it amongst their fleet. Visalli adds that the Whale Safe team is anxious for feedback once more mariners are able to interact with the system.

Some parts of the Whale Safe are already in use in other parts of the world. Acoustic whale detection systems are in use on the East Coast of the U.S. and an app called Whale Alert has been mapping the locations of sightings by humans on the West Coast since 2014. But Whale Safe is the first platform to bring all the best available, near real-time data on whales under one digital roof. Sean Hastings, the resource protection coordinator for NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, says Whale Safe combines layers of data in a matter of hours that might have once taken his team up to a month to merge.

In the Santa Barbara Channel, where Whale Safe’s efforts are concentrated, shipping lanes have been shifted to avoid whales and what’s known as a voluntary speed reduction zone was put into effect in 2007 in response to the deaths of five blue whales killed by ship strikes in just a few months. These voluntary speed limits currently request that ships slow down to 10 knots during whale season, which usually runs from May to November. But even after a more than a decade on the books and various incentive programs only 44 percent of ships slowed down on their way into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2019. Near San Francisco Bay, cooperation is only slightly better at around 50 percent.

Berge says the ships that don’t slow down may be more concerned with adhering to a strict schedule, may be unfamiliar with local regulations or may in fact be slowing down, just not all the way to 10 knots. “I like to think that continual outreach on this topic will continue to boost the compliance,” he says.

Scientists say slowing down makes the impacts that do occur less deadly and may give the whales and the ships a better opportunity to avoid the collision in the first place. “I think of whales as being like giant kids,” says McCauley. “If they’re wrapped up in feeding and socializing, they’re not focused on looking out for ships. We ask cars to slow down around schools to keep kids safe, and these speed restrictions for whales are the same idea.”

Research suggests mandatory slow down zones aimed at protecting the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale have had some positive results. A forthcoming paper by researchers with Point Blue estimates that if 95 percent of ships slowed down in the voluntary speed reduction zones off San Francisco it could decrease humpback and blue whale deaths by as much as 30 percent.

Many whale species have made historic recoveries after being nearly exterminated by human hunting, but those recoveries aren’t bulletproof. When it comes to endangered blue whales in the eastern Pacific, even one whale is significant. “NOAA’s most recent assessment for blue whales says that if we lose more than one animal each year, which we do, then we’re not meeting our population growth targets,” says Hastings.

Whale Safe will be issuing report cards for shipping companies based on their vessels’ cooperation with the voluntary speed reduction zone that NOAA seasonally activates in the Santa Barbara Channel in hopes of reducing fatal ship strikes. Whale Safe uses public location data transmitted by special transponders on ships to calculate their speeds and judge whether they slow down when they’re steaming through the whales’ dining room.

Though the results are only now available to the public, Whale Safe has already produced some assessments for shipping companies’ adherence to the slow-down zones in 2020. The world’s second largest shipping company, Mediterranean Shipping Company, gets an “A.” Its vessels slowed down to the requested ten knots in the voluntary speed reduction zones 94 percent of the time. Meanwhile, Ocean Network Express, the sixth largest shipping company in the world, gets a “D” for only backing off on the throttle for whales 35 percent of the time.

McCauley points out that if the system helps motivate more vessels to slow down for whales, humans will reap benefits too. When ships slow down they burn less fuel, which cuts down on their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and the release of pollutants like nitrogen and sulphur oxides.

Hastings says Whale Safe could also help inform other interventions like amending the paths of the shipping lanes themselves or extending the envelope of speed reduction zones. If Whale Safe proves effective during its first year of deployment, the Bay Area could be its next stop. But the biggest question surrounding the project’s ability to make an initial impact is whether it results in more ships reducing their speed when whales are present.

“I’m hopeful that the added confidence that Whale Safe will bring to say ‘Hey there really are whales here today’ will encourage more shipping companies to slow down,” says Hastings. “But it also provides resource managers like myself with amazing data to assess whether these speed reductions should become mandatory. Because while we’re grateful for the cooperation we’ve gotten with the voluntary speed reduction program so far, it’s not good enough.”

[bboyplankton]

Hip-Hop/Rap Albums 2020

1. Mac Miller – Circles (Deluxe)

2. Royce Da 5’9” – The Allegory

3. Asher Roth – Flowers On the Weekend

4. Pop Smoke – Meet The Woo 2 (Deluxe)

5. Run The Jewels – RTJ4

6. Larry June – Adjust to the Game

7. Jadakiss – Ignatius

8. Jay Electronica – A Written Testimony

9. RJD2 – The Fun Ones

10. Westside Gunn – Pray for Paris

11. Joell Ortiz & KXNG Crooked – H.A.R.D.

12. Denzel Curry – Unlocked

13. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo

14. Nick Grant & Tae Beast – God Bless the Child – EP

15. Duckwrth – SuperGood

16. Black Thought – Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane and Abel

17. Lecrae – Restoration

18. Joyner Lucas – ADHD

19. T.I. – The L.I.B.R.A.

20. Nas – King’s Disease

21. Wale – The Imperfect Storm – EP

22. Sa-Roc – The Sharecropper’s Daughter

23. Larry June – Cruise Usa

24. Deanté Hitchcock – Better (Deluxe)

25. Russ – Shake The Snow Globe (Deluxe)

26. TOBi – Elements, Vol. 1

27. The Lox – Living Off Xperience

28. Kid Cudi – Man On The Moon III: The Chosen

29. Duke Deuce – Memphis Massacre 2

30. Benny the Butcher – Burden of Proof

31. Redman – 3 Joints

32. Eminem – Music To Be Murdered By (Deluxe)

33. Styles P – Styles David: Ghost Your Enthusiasm

34. Statik Selektah – The Balancing Act

35. Larry June – Numbers

36. Jack Harlow – Sweet Action

37. Armani Caesar – The Liz

38. Spillage Village, JID, & EarthGang – Spilligion

39. Juicy J – The Hustle Continues

40. Pop Smoke – Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon (Deluxe)

41. Lupe Fiasco & Kaelin Ellis – House – EP

42. Tobe Nwigwe – Cincoriginals

43. Reason – New Beginnings

44. Big Sean – Detroit 2

45. D Smoke – Black Habits

46. Megan Thee Stallion – Suga

47. Wiz Khalifa – The Sage of Wiz Khalifa

48. Nappy Roots – 40rty

49. Larry June & Harry Fraud – Keep Going

50. KXNG Crooked – Flag

51. Cookin Soul & Larry June – Orange Season (Deluxe)

52. Busta Rhymes – Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God (Deluxe)

53. Conway the Machine – From a King to a GOD (Deluxe)

54. Russ – Chomp – EP

55. 21 Savage & Metro Boomin – Savage Mode II

56. Problem – Coffee & Kush, Vol. 1

57. Animé – Limbo (Deluxe)

58. Dizzy Wright – My Hustle Unmatched

59. Westside Gunn – Who Made the Sunshine

60. Jaden – CTV3: Cool Tape Volume 3

61. Jack Harlow – That’s What They All Say

62. Max B – Charly – EP

63. Skepta, Chip, & Young Adz – Insomnia

64. Problem – Coffee & Kush, Vol. 2

65. Future – High Off Life

66. Logic – No Pressure

67. Action Bronson – Only for Dolphins

68. Boldy James & Real Bad Man – Real Bad Boldy

69. Joey Bada$$ – The Light Pack – Single

70. Terrace Martin – Village Days

71. Tobe Nwigwe – The Pandemic Project

72. Dave East – Karma 3 (Deluxe)

73. Berner & Larry June – Cooks & Orange Juice

74. Moneybagg Yo & Blac Youngsta – Code Red

75. Meyhem Lauren & Harry Fraud – Glass 2.0

76. Gucci Mane – Gucci Mane Presents: So Icy Summer

77. B.o.B – Somnia

78. Westside Gunn – Flygod Is an Awesome God 2

79. Kyle – See You When I am Famous

80. Hit Boy, Dom Kennedy, & courtesy of half-a-mill – Also Known As

81. Cassie Veggies & Rockie Fresh – Fresh Veggies 2

82. Boldy James & The Alchemist – The Price of Tea in China (Deluxe)

83. Tory Lanez – New Toronto 3

84. Common – A Beautiful Revolution (Pt. 1)

85. Public Enemy – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?

86. Papoose – Endangered Species

87. The Alchemist – A Doctor, Painter & An Alchemist Walk Into A Bar

88. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie – Artist 2.0 (Deluxe)

89. YG – My Life 4Hunnid

90. Lil Baby – My Turn (Deluxe)

91. Rare Sound & K Camp – Rare Family

92. Tsu Surf – MSYKM

93. The Alchemist – The Food Villain

94. Goodie Mob – Survival Kit

95. SAINt JHN – While The World Was Burning

96. Scribz Riley – Wish Me Luck

97. A$AP Ferg – Floor Seats II

98. Mozzy – Beyond Bulletproof

99. Akon – Ain’t No Peace

100. Joyner Lucas – Evolution

101. Stalley – Cake – EP

102. Mickey Factz – Warped Collages

103. Jeezy – Twenty/20 Pyrex Vision

104. Young M.A. – Red Flu

105. Blac Youngsta – F*ck Everybody 3

106. Megan Thee Stallion – Good News

107. King Von – Welcome to O’Block

108. Mozzy – Occupational Hazard

109. King Von – Levon James

110. Vic Mensa – V Tape

111. DaBaby – Blame it on Baby (Deluxe)

112. Don Toliver – Heaven Or Hell

113. K Camp – Kiss 5 (Deluxe)

114. Lil Uzi Vert – Eternal Atake

115. Fetty Wap – You Know the Vibes

116. French Montana – CB5

117. 2 Chainz – So Help Me God!

118. T.R.U & 2 Chainz – No Face No Case

119. Bia – For Certain

120. Drake – Dark Lane Demo Tapes

121. Future & Lil Uzi Vert – Pluto x Baby Pluto

122. Mulatto – Quuen of Da Souf (Deluxe Version)

123. Rich the Kid – Boss Man

124. Jeezy – The Recession 2

125. Meek Mill – Quarantine Pack – EP

126. Lil Wayne – Funeral

127. Da Baby – My Brother’s Keeper (Long Live G)

128. Lakeyah – Time’s Up

129. G-Eazy – Everything’s Strange Here

[junker-town]

Here are 9 of the most badass animals ever to swim

Art by Tyson Whiting

Say hello to some horrifying sea monsters

This article was originally published on SB Nation a while ago, but was always intended for a Secret Base-y audience. So if you haven’t seen it yet, here you go!

The Earth has some very cool aquatic predators swimming about. Thanks to their intelligence and pack-hunting techniques, orcas are, perhaps, the most dangerous hunters ever to swim the ocean. Saltwater crocodiles are bulletproof murder tanks. And the great white shark, of course, needs no introduction. But now that we’re talking about terrifying underwater murder-beasts, why just settle for just the ones we have around now?

Underwater murder-beasts have a long and distinguished (pre-)history, and I thought it would be fun to introduce y’all to some new pals. TO THE IMAGINARY TIME MACHINE!

Temnodontosaurus eurycephalus

Grumpy croco-dolphin

Ichthyosaurs evolved 250 million years ago. In the aftermath of the Permian extinction, which killed off a frankly horrifying number of creatures, a group of terrestrial reptiles took to the depleted seas. Fast-forward a little bit and you have primitive ichthyosaurs, creatures so well adapted to oceanic life that they ended up looking like a cross between a crocodile and an extremely ill-tempered, extremely large dolphin.

Fast-forward even further, to the early Jurassic (175 million years ago), and you have Temnodontosaurus eurycephalus. It’s not the largest ichthyosaur ever to grace the seas, but it’s up there, and it’s a far more developed predator than its giant forebears. Somewhere around 30 feet long, T. emnodontosaurus was a powerful swimmer with strong jaws, well-equipped to chow down on other Jurassic swimmers. One closely-related species possessed the largest eyes of any known animal, perfect for hunting in deeper oceanic waters; another has been found with the remains of a different ichthyosaur in is stomach.

This monster considered 13-foot oceanic reptiles a delicious snack. It was also fast. Spare a thought for the poor ocean-going creatures minding their own business before one of these huge assholes rams into them from below at speed, opens those long, toothy jaws and turns them into lunch.

Deinosuchus hatcheri

Dinosaur hunter

Take a saltwater crocodile. Actually, it’s probably best not to. They are, after all, 20-foot, 2,000-pound apex predators more than happy to eat anything they come across, including you. Salties are strong, fast and surprisingly smart. They are at home in the open ocean as well as along the coast. Like all crocodiles, they’re ambush predators who use water as cover to attack their prey. Unlike most crocodiles they’re capable of jumping clear out of the water to get to it. They have the strongest bite of any living animal.

Right. Now that you have a saltwater crocodile in your head, make one, oh, twice as big. Yeah, like that. Decently boat-sized. Terrifying teeth in terrifying, dino-crushing jaws. Armored skin thick enough to turn aside more or less anything.

Your terrifying vision is Deinosuchus hatcheri, a crocodile adapted to more or less the exact same situation as a modern saltwater but in a world inhabited by giant dinosaurs. During the late Cretaceous (80 million years ago), North America was split by a shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway. D. hatcheri was present on both the western side of the seaway (a slightly smaller species dominated the east), happily chowing through dinosaurs who were foolish enough to get too close.

Anomalocaris canadensis

Nightmare Shrimp

So far we’ve had a dolphin analogue in Temnodontosaurus and an actual crocodile. Cool, but nowhere near the sort of weirdness the past can provide. So let’s go to the deep, deep past, revealed wonderfully by the Burgess Shale. Here we shall find the NIGHTMARE SHRIMP.

One of the problems with studying the very earliest phase of animal life — we’re talking half a billion years at this point — is that it’s squishy, and squishy is not of much benefit when it comes to preserving fossils. Thanks to a fluke of geology, the conditions that produced the Burgess Shale were also capable of preserving soft tissue, giving palaeontologists a rare chance to look into what the seas looked like during the first days of the animal kingdom.

They looked extremely weird. The fauna found in the Burgess Shale was almost obnoxiously uncategorisable. One famous example is the worm Hallucigenia, which so confused everyone involved that it was reconstructed upside-down for the better part of a decade. Another is Opabinia, which looks sort of like a five-eyed miniature vacuum cleaner. I promise I am not making this up.

Anyway, all these critters were apparently food for the ocean’s first proper predator.

With good eyes set on flexible stalks and a surprising turn of speed, Anomalocaris canadensis cruised the Pre-Cambrian seas in death-shrimp mode. It was a full meter long, dwarfing most of its companions in the Burgess Shale. It was also delightfully strange-looking. It is so odd, in fact, that when it was discovered its various body parts were assigned to several different animals.

A. canadensis would be higher on this list if we could be sure of what it actually ate. Long-held to be a trilobite-hunter, recent studies have shown it would probably have had to restrict itself to soft-bodied prey due to relatively flimsy mouthparts, and therefore could only have actually eaten a trilobite just after a moult. But it’s much more fun to imagine this guy roaming the seafloor chomping down on everything, so that’s what we’ll do.

Disclaimer: an old friend of mine is a paleontologist who specializes in the Burgess Shale fossils. I did not contact him for this story, because I am consumed by envy whenever I so much as think about him.

Cameroceras

Spiky death-squid

Back in the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic, cephalopods were armored critters, much like our modern nautilus. The most famous of them, and one of the most widely known extinct animals ever, is the spiral-shelled ammonite. Since they had hard shells, they’re extremely common in marine strata. They also got surprisingly large. The biggest-known ammonite was two meters across. Imagine that thing trying to swim.

Ammonites weren’t the only armored cephalopod prowling the ancient seas, however. The orthocones were straight-shelled versions, and some of those got really, really big. Like Cameroceras. Current estimates put Cameroceras’s shell at upwards of six meters long. That’s three average-sized men stacked on each others’ shoulders.

Somehow this monster was still able to get about in the Ordovician seas. It’s quite hard to imagine it chasing anything around, so it presumably surprised trilobites etc. at nighttime or dug it out of the mud, but since paleoecology is at least in part about imagination, right now I’m enjoying Cameroceras retracting its head deep into its shell and pretending to be a cave before trying to eat whatever entered. It wouldn’t be quite big enough to swallow the Millennium Falcon, buuuuuuuuut ...

Carcharocles megalodon

The shark that eats planets

Megalodon needs no introduction. The great white shark has a profound hold on popular culture, but its long-gone big sister isn’t far behind. Megalodon made even the most vicious shark in today’s seas look like a toy. Since sharks are mostly soft tissue, they don’t fossilize as well as we’d like, but their teeth do, and Megalodon’s tell a terrifying story.

Megalodon died out only relatively recently. It wasn’t quite contemporaneous with human beings, but its extinction was recent enough that there are plenty of folks willing to tell tall tales of how it might still be swimming somewhere in the depths of the ocean. If it was, probably best not to get anywhere near it — a Megalodon may have had a bite force of up to 10 times the strength of a great white. That’d be a bad day.

What were those huge jaws for? Whales. Apparently, these things liked to swim up from underneath its prey and bite through their chest to reach their internal organs. The ability to kill a whole-ass whale with one bite is honestly horrifying, even if whales in Megalodon’s day were a little smaller than the current batch of great rorquals.

Jaekelopterus rhenaniae

Sea Scorpion

Did you know ‘sea scorpions’ were a thing? Sea scorpions were a thing. Since eurypterids (to give them their proper name) went extinct hundreds of millions of years ago, we don’t have very good comparisons for what these things were like. So let’s get creative. Let’s take a lobster. Despite their ferocious armament, lobsters are relatively placid creatures. They’re not averse to grabbing a fish here or a mollusk there, but they’re not built for hunting. Let’s make the required tweaks.

We need to add eyes. Let’s make them big and sensitive and set for stereoscopic vision, which allows those pincers to be used more effectively to grab prey. Let’s make them better swimmers, too — we’ll add some paddles for agility and short bursts of speed. Let’s make their claws spikier, just for sheer scare value.

Oh and let’s make them 10 feet long and perfectly happy to eat you alive. Now you have a Jaekelopterus. Aren’t you glad they’re dead?

Dunkleosteus terrelli

A, uh, fish-tank

When evolution first came up with bone, it got a little bit carried away. Well, a lot carried away. The era of armored fishes is one of the most fabulously strange in the entire history of the planet. (A personal favorite of mine is Lunapsis, which looks like a fish had a baby with Batman’s utility belt.) With bone-plated heads and upper bodies, these fish probably didn’t swim very well, but who cares? They looked cool as hell, and with that body armor they were well protected against predators.

Which, as it turns out, is the sort of inspiration nature needs to come up with some better predators*. Enter Dunkleosteus, a monster armored fish with a set of jaws which could rip straight through the armor of any other fish slowly swimming through the Devonian ocean. Known to be 20 feet long, it didn’t really have teeth so much as a huge bony beak, which honestly makes the whole contraption even more frightening, like some sort of mobile oceanic guillotine.

*I’m being overly teleological here. Forgive me. Nature, of course, does not ‘come up with’ anything.

Mosasaurus hoffmanni

For whatever reason, the fauna of Cretaceous period got big. Really, really big. On land, we had Tyrannosaurus Rex. In the skies, azhdarchids the size of small aircraft coasted from thermal to thermal. And in the shallow seas, we had another monster: Mosasaurus.

Mosasaurus was essentially an enormous — estimates have it as almost 60 feet long — ocean-going lizard. Its legs were replaced with bladed paddles for maneuverability and it had a powerful tail for direct propulsion. Mosasaurus ate everything it could get in its mouth, which was a) double-hinged for extra capacity and b) already pretty capacious to begin with.

It would have hung around near the surface of the ocean, where there was an abundance of prey. Mosasaurus could have waited for other marine reptiles (such as Archelon, the largest turtle known) to come up to breathe, grab low-flying pterosaurs on fishing expeditions, or simply have picked off the many large fish that swam the Cretaceous seas.

Livyatan Melvilli

Moby-Dick’s even-scarier dad

In 1820, the Essex was lost in the southern Pacific Ocean. The ship had been sent out to hunt for sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus, since you asked), but soon had the tables turned when it was attacked and sunk by a ferocious bull. Of the 20 crew, only eight survived, and the incident went on to inspire a famous book about whales which you may have heard of.

What you probably haven’t heard of is Livyatan. Modern sperm whales are enormous creatures, but very rare boat attacks aside, they’re only really dangerous to their favorite prey, deep-swimming squid. But not so long ago, geographically speaking, there were also a group of ‘macroraptorial’ sperm whales. These didn’t eat squid. Instead, they competed with Megalodon to hunt other great whales.

Livyatan’s teeth are some of the most awe-inspiring fossils in the world. The biggest ones are 12 inches long and look like artillery shells. Estimates have Livyatan as sitting a touch smaller than its modern friends, but those teeth indicate that it would have been significantly more vicious, fully capable of cutting a sperm whale into very bloody chunks.

It’s not clear whether or not Livyatan hunted alone or in packs, like a modern killer whale, but it had the power and size to be able to plausibly compete with Megalodon even solo. The crew of the Essex found out that a bull sperm whale could be a formidable opponent; one suspects Livyatan would have left even fewer survivors.

[me-evil-never]

Get to know me??

I was tagged by @jooniephoria a l o n g time ago but was I've got the time to do it now lmao

Nicknames: dawn, dawnie, honeybunny, mom, darling, sunshine and a bunch that involve my real name which is difficult enough in english as is so nah

Star sign: taurus

Hogwarts house: huffelpuff/slytherin

Favourite animals: dolphins, cats

Blankets: as many as possible, as soft as possible and thick

Dream trip: oh wow I dont know,, I wanna travel the world in general? Maybe Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, Canada again, Germany, the Nordic countries~ Oh! The Caribbeans were great I'd love to go again

When did I start this account: according to tumblr memories on the 05.02.2017 but idk if that means the 5th of Feb 2017 or the 2nd of May 2017 lmao

Why did I start this account: I was bored and just starting to get out of my cringe wattpad phase and into less cringe fandoming?? Idk

Umm I'll tag @eternally-bulletproof @troyeblemaker @doyoungcity @aussiearies @andeverydayistay

[hoetaro-kujo]

I haven't posted Bey's stand description bc I don't have an illustration yet. But now that I have (massive thanks to @the1000yeargay) might as well share it. Please feel free to send your thoughts or questions about my OC or anything. Arigathanks! 💙

『 Radiohead 』

Stand user: Bey Ventura

Namesake: Band of the same name

Appearance: A head of a boom box with a body like it's user. Cord-like weapon that comes out of its back. It can reach up to 50 to 100m.

Stand Cry: Creeeep (lol kidding) It just produce static noises.

Active Ability:

Ripcord - Bulletproof cord-like weapon that can be manipulated and releases electric shock up to 1000mA.

Creep - Produces high intensity vibrations that can break any surface.

Passive Ability:

Karma Police - Can find anything using soundwaves like dolphins. Can also record sounds/voices/music.

Telepathy - ability to communicate with comrades or to anyone through the mind.

Stats:

Power-B

Speed-A

Precision-A

Durability-B

Potential-B

Range-A

[alannacurry]

݁ ⠀.⠀ ݁ ⠀. Cнαяαcтєя Ƒσℓισ. ୭̥ ✧ ───────────────────

⎯ Pяєℓιмιηαяιєѕ ;

FULL NAME . Alanna Vanora Curry. DATE OF BIRTH . 2nd of November. AGE . 24. ZODIAC SIGN . Scorpio. GENDER . Female. RACE . Atlantean & Xebelian. SPOKEN LANGUAGES . because Alanna has travelled all over the world due to her career or simply being a life form of the sea, she can speak many languages and has the ability to quickly learn them as well. her best languages are french, greek, chinese, hindi, russian, and english.

⎯ Ƥнуѕιcαℓ Aттяιвυтєѕ ;

HAIR COLOUR . Blonde. OPTIC HUE . Oceanic Blue. PIGMENTATION . Fair. BODY TYPE . Hourglass, fit, & slender. VOICE . her voice is much like the waves from which she came. soft like the ocean breeze yet powerful like the waves that slap against the rocky shores. her way of speaking often mesmerizes the minds of others and leaves them entranced. she has a way of asserting herself even with a melodic and hypnotic voice. her voice is moderate meaning she does not speak too high or low. when incensed or fatigued, her voice becomes sharp as she often uses little to no words to express her current state. DOMINANT HAND . right handed. POSTURE . she holds herself tall, often raising her head. she composes herself to be the future queen she will be. she rarely ever slouches both while standing nor sitting. in moments of privacy and ease, she finds herself lying down not thinking much of her queen-like composure. while with friends, she often emulates the way they compose themselves to blend in more with the land dwellers. SCARS . none. TATTOOS . none. BIRTHMARKS . she has a miniscule birthmark distinctly shaped like a heart just below her left breast. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURES . her thick, wavy blonde curls, her oceanic blue eyes, and her luscious, rose coloured lips. FACECLAIM . Jelena Noura “Gigi” Hadid

⎯ A∂υℓт Lιƒє ;

OCCUPATION . marine biologist. WORKPLACE . maine laboratory for oceanic sciences. CURRENT RESIDENCE . maine. CLOSE FRIENDS . Tula, Dolphin, Donna Troy, Richard Grayson, Bernadette Grayson, Koriand’r, Kahaland’r (OC). RELATIONSHIP STATUS . single. FINANCIAL STATUS . high. DRIVER’S LICENSE . yes. CRIMINAL RECORD . none.

⎯ Sєx & Rσмαηcє ;

SEXUAL ORIENTATION . heterosexual PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE . submissive | dominant | switch PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE . submissive | dominant | switch LIBIDO . average. LOVE LANGUAGE . small gestures of affection such as gentle forehead and cheek kisses. finds pleasure in running her slender fingers through her lover’s hair. enjoys quality time in solitude with her significant other, tends to keep her love life private and sheltered. nurtures by nature and is often expressive through words of affirmation or gifts. enjoys giving physical touches and affection to her significant other as well as receiving. loves late nights in the quiet, just embracing her partner whether it be on the sofa, the bed, or somewhere where they can enjoy the little things. often clutches her partner’s hand in the car or caresses their inner thigh whist they drive. she simply wants to give her lover her all with any time she can spare for them. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES . she finds comfort in keeping her relationship private and away from the rest of the world due to her status as the princess of atlantis and heir to the throne. while in a relationship, she is often very eloquent in showing her love. although she has many duties which can cause her time to be quite minimal and she cannot devote all of her attention to her partner, she is still naturally truthful and loyal, never straying away from her significant other for anyone else. she feels confident and loved when given the same amount of affection that she gives to them. she rarely ever gets flustered with her lover once comfortable in the relationship yet with a new blossoming love, she often finds herself shy by nature and taken aback when one expresses interest in her.

⎯ Mιѕcєℓℓαηєσυѕ ;

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG . greek tragedy ( remix ) ⎯ the wombats LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED . left brained. PHOBIAS . suffocation, losing her friends and loved ones, becoming queen, and becoming a disappointment or burden to those she knows. SELF-CONFIDENCE LEVEL . although she knows her beauty, she often finds herself feeling that is her only value and those around her do not take her more analytical and intelligent side seriously causing her self-esteem to be somewhat low. she knows those around her do not take her seriously often hearing the comment “dumb blonde” repeatedly through her life hence why she thrust herself into the field of science, specifically oceanic sciences. VULNERABILITIES . being of royal lineage has often put her at risk of attempted abductions. because of this she was sheltered which has caused her to have a naivety and innocence to the outside world. she is also horrified at the idea of becoming queen, often fantasizing her future where she is either a ruthless dictator or just a horrible queen who cannot defend her people or keep peace amongst the oceanic dwellers. her negative thoughts often leave her to sulk in the night. because she is a marine biologist, she is always studying for her occupation, often never getting an ounce of sleep. she also tends to be a very temperamental and emotional person, rarely expressing herself and shying away from her emotions until she can no longer take them and lashes out.

⎯ Ƥσωєяѕ ;

WATER MANIPULATION / HYDROKINESIS  . Alanna, inheriting this gift more so from her mother Mera, was gifted with the ability to manipulate water. As she is able to move water and control just how powerful the flow of the water is, she is also able to use this ability in the form of Hydrokinetic Creature Creation. This allows her to create beings or objects with water and give the creature or object a level of independence from its creator. A true gift from the Xebelians. ELECTROKINESIS . Alanna has the ability to channel a high-voltage electrical current through her body. this power is derrived from the Xebelians and is made even more powerful if Alanna were to boost the ability of hydrokinesis and combine the two powers. this power is quite rare and only shared among few Xebelians, her mother not even being able to harness this power. CRYOKINESIS & FRIGIOKINESIS .  aside from her ability to manipulate & create objects with water, she also has the ability to control the cold and form ice. with this power, once more gifted from her mother's side, she is able to create hard objects or creatures of ice just as she is able to with her ability to manipulate water. among this power comes the ability to create snowfall, sleet, and hail. Alanna also has the ability to freeze objects and / or opponents from a distance as well as harness the power of ice breath. HYDRO-THERMOKINESIS . with this power, she is able to make water temperatures warm, or even boiling hot. she can emit steam to create a thick cover in battle. along with this power comes the ability to melt almost any object though she is still learning how to fully understand this power. TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION TO SEA LIFE . this power was something Alanna has inherited from her father, Arthur. Though she cannot yet telepathically control sea life like her father, she has the ability to communicate with the organisms that live in the ocean. this, along with her ability to manipulate water, is one of her favorite powers as she can spend all day talking with the marine life.

⎯ Sυρєянυмαη Aвιℓιтιєѕ  ;

ATLANTEAN & XEBELIAN PHYSIOLOGY . due to her being half atlantean & half xebelian, she is a natural born creature of the sea. because of this, she was not only gifted with powers that she could learn & utilize but she was also gifted with natural abilities because of her genetic makeup. AMPHIBIOUS NATURE . Alanna is capable of breathing both underwater & on land. the only difference between her and some of the atlanteans is she does not possess gills anywhere on her body that would suggest she is capable of staying submerged in water for days on end. SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH . because Atlantis & Xebel are located in the deepest parts of the ocean, Alanna's body is more attuned to the pressures of the oceans depths and she has the ability to withstand pressures that are ten times more than that of a normal human. SUPERHUMAN DURABILITY . both the Atlantean & Xebelian race have this ability. because of this, Alanna has the ability to withstand the oceanic pressure, her skin being nearly bulletproof. she is also naturally resistant to heat & energy. ENHANCED SENSES . Alanna's senses are naturally tuned to the ocean due to her hypersensitivity for any and all things. though it may seem her senses are only useful when submerged in water, her senses are just as keen on land. ENHANCED VISION . Alanna's enhanced vision allows her to see into the deepest & darkest depths of the sea. ENHANCED SENSE OF SMELL . Alanna possess a more keen sense of smell compared to ordinary humans. SUPERHUMAN SPEED . Alanna is capable of moving, reacting, running and swimming at superhuman speeds. this trait comes from both the Atlanteans & Xebelians. SUPERHUMAN AGILITY . Alanna has perfect balance, bodily coordination, and / or perfect equilibrium to a point far in excess to that of a normal human being on earth, her body being able to coordinate easily while under the pressure of the ocean. SUPERHUMAN STAMINA . Alanna has the ability to maintain continuous physical action for an undefined period longer than an ordinary human. LONGEVITY . Alanna's life-span is much longer than that of an ordinary human. ENHANCED SWIMMING . Alanna is able to swim at groundbreaking speeds and navigate through any kinds of waters. DIVING . Alanna is a natural diver being a creature of the sea.

⎯ Ɯєαкηєѕѕєѕ  ;

ACCELERATED DEHYDRATION . although Alanna lives on land after fleeing from her aquatic home, she is still susceptible to severe dehydration. even though she possesses lungs much like that to a normal human, if she is on land for elongated periods of time, she can become exhausted, requiring a level of training to breathe air at a rate comparable to humans. SENSORY OVERLOAD . with her enhanced senses, Alanna can become overtaxed from external stimuli. although sunlight is not much of a bother for her, it does become intolerable to a degree when she spends longer periods of time in the ocean's depths. it is also to be noted that hypersonics do affect her and often times disorients her heightened senses.

captioning credit ⎯@/AriannaWayne (Unfortunately I cannot tag her but she was kind enough to allow me to use this template! Please give her a follow as she works very hard on all of her content and OCs!).

⠀.⠀ ݁ ⠀. ݁ ⠀.⠀ ݁ ⠀.

[behind-the-screen-of-bangtan]

Map of the Soul: Journey to Myself

4 December 2019

All moments at MAMA

Episode

Just notes and the videos of past performances that were used.

I. FUTURE MEETS PAST : CALLING

You can catch a shot of an eye in the first VCR, looking similar to Jimin’s eye shot from “Serendipity”

During “N.O” and “We Are Bulletproof Pt.2″, similar hands to the ones from “N.O” MV can be seen on the screens in the background.

II. PAST MEETS PRESENT : WORLD

Videos that appeared:

130517 방탄로그 (Bangtan log)

Vocal practice by 정국 of 방탄소년단

흔한 연습생의 크리스마스 Video Edit by 방탄소년단 

방탄소년들의 졸업

Dance practice by 지민 of 방탄소년단 - Bait

[EPISODE] BTS (방탄소년단) Debut day 130613 (1:48)

“No More Dream” MV

방탄소년단_No More Dream (No More Dream by Bangtan Boys@Mcountdown 2013.6.13)

The Wings Tour The Final

방탄소년단_N.O (N.O by BTS@Mcountdown 2013.9.12)

“Boy In Luv” at M Countdown

Mnet [엠카운트다운] Ep.390 : 방탄소년단(BTS) - Danger @MCOUNTDOWN_140821

First Release! BTS ‘I NEED U’ Powerful Charisma! [M COUNTDOWN] EP.422

“I NEED U” MV

1st win at M Countdown (Bangtan Bomb)

The Wings Tour?

“Blood, Sweat & Tears” MV

BTS DNA Comeback Show

2016 and 2017 daesang wins at MAMA

방탄소년단_BTS Concept Trailer (BTS Concept Trailer by BTS@Mcountdown 2013.9.12)

[BTS - FIRE] Comeback Stage l M COUNTDOWN 160512 EP.473

413?

Love Yourself Tour

방탄소년단 - FAKE LOVE (BTS - FAKE LOVE) │BTS COMEBACK SHOW 180524 180524

ly tour

Articles

BTS Takes Home 3 Awards At 2019 American Music Awards

BTS: K-pop idols make first historic Grammy appearance

K-POP BOY GROUP BTS MAKES HISTORY AT THE 2019 BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS

BTS breaks The Beatles record on Billboard 200 - 3 Billboard No.1's within a year (while it’s a fact Bangtan topped the Billboard 200 thrice and there are articles about it, I can’t seem to find an article with this exact headline)

Fear of the unknown future We doubted ourselves all the time We tried to overcome the fear we encountered Dreams are our realities from now on We are no longer sad nor pain

“Boy With Luv”

“Mikrokosmos”

III. FUTURE MEETS PAST : ETERNAL JOURNEY

All our time

우리의 모든 시간은 과거, 현제, 이래는 결국 우리 안에 존재한다 우리가 걸어온 7년의 시간 함께 해 온 7명의 BTS 멤버들 안에 존재한다

Each boy is associated with an object:

Jungkook: camera

possibly a reference to the G.C.F.

Jin: binocular

possibly a reference to “Blood, Sweat & Tears” JP ver.

RM: vintage mic

possibly a reference to “Boy With Luv” or to “Airplane Pt.2″ (see the notes of this post)

J-Hope: frame

possibly a reference to the painting of Frau Eva in the Short Films (see the notes of this post)

V: violin

there are violins in “N.O” MV (see the notes of this post)

Jimin: Polaroid

possibly a reference to his hobby of taking polaroids

Suga: hourglass

Giant elements were projected in the stadium: bear, dolphin, lion, calice, ram, bull, tiger

And a giant snake was on the stage.

[elitemuzik]

#LISTEN @DeejayEarl_ + @Nadus Remix @nickhook's Single "Head" BK producer Nick Hook's single "Head" featuring 21 Savage and Bulletproof Dolphin, receive the remix treatment from fellow beat genius DJ Earl and New Jersey club agitator Nadus. Give the remix versions a spin below and be sure to check out Nick Hook's Relationships LP, out now.