#giant stork of doom

[olessan]

PATH OF TITANS HATZEGOPTERYX

GIANT DEATH STORK TIME

#Path of Titans #I have only 2 adult animals a spino and a thalasso and my fave thing to do is fly around on the thalasso and I have been waiting for #giant stork of doom

[herzgeist-writes]

Pairing: Corazon x gn!reader | Word count: 1k | Warnings: none

Synopsis: What happens when a clumsy, tall and thin human being attempts to glide over the ice like a pro figure skater? Especially a certain man who's ability even to stand straight is doomed to fail at times? Correct, he most likely face plants the cold surface - until his lovely little thing (Y/n) steps in, offering a helping hand to that lovable klutz.

A/N: Cold Nights - Warm Hearts! A short winter story to envelope you all in a fluffy feather coat - something mellow and sweet (crushing a bit on this soft boy)

Dividers by cafekitsune ~

The first crystals of snow gathered over the plains, covering the lands in light blue hued white. Everytime you suck in the crisp cold air, your lungs appear to crackle like ice.

Warmth emits from the sunrise, rising into the pastel coloured sky. It's truly a sight to behold - emotions only enhanced by the picture before you, accompanied with the feeling of the soon arriving Christmas eve.

From each step taken, the snow crunches beneath your feet, however a second pair of shoes indents the snow with giant prints next to you. "Hey honey, what do you say we go to the lake and enjoy the ice skating festival near the village?", a voice low asks you sweetily.

Corazon places his palm behind your back, supporting your unsteady stomps on the powdered white. Through breathy huffs you chuckle your reply: "That sounds wonderful!"

You cannot supress more giggles, thinking of your lover slipping over the ice, walzing over it like a stork in a salad field. Rosinante takes notice of your secretive amusement and joins your titters: "What's so funny?" - "I'm sorry, I'm simply looking foward to ice skating with you."

Torn open eyes look you up and down, abashed more than in the slightest. Waving his hands infuriatingly, he declines your little dreams, saying he wouldn't survive such a stunt. He merely wants to 'be' there, enjoying the amtosphere. Right.

The both of you stop your walk for a moment and he stumbles over his own words: "You know I'm not the most . . elegant, (Y/n)."

"Oh hush, you're the most graceful being I know!", you beam and pull on his heart shaped strings of his beanie, drawing him closer to plant a kiss on those silent lips, a hint of smoke lingering on his skin. He hums shakily in fluster and admits defeat: "Alright alright, you win sweety."

-_

Horses pull sleighs over the frozen streets and villagers gather around the stalls of the market, preparing for the ice skating over at the lake, not far from town.

"Are you sure this is going to work?", Corazon holds up a pair of figure skating shoes, looking at them as if they're about to bite his face off. Reassuring him with a purr you nudge his sides. How much you adore this silly man, his playful and overdramatic acting skills when it comes to goofing around.

Ready to rumble, you follow the crowd - the tall blonde mutters, while lighting a cigarette, luckily without his coat catching fire: "I'm going to regret this." - "Don't say that Cora!" The smoke wafts your way, engulfing you. Flicking away the excess ash off the cigarette's tip, his lips form a frown, the red lines of his make up contorting his face to the extreme.

"If you say so . .", to wash away his doubts you interlace your fingers with his, holding his hand gently - so you utter: "You'll totally rock this, trust me."

-_

And he "totally" dragged along the frozen, giving his utmost best in keeping a steady posture, long legs trembling as if new born. to this world Curses spit out of him whenever he realises he's lost balance, losing the fight against gravity - not a surprise.

Each time you hear a loud thud and hushed 'Crap', you whince - shoulders retacting, almost shivering to the sound. Is your man cursed? It is a question that swirls around your mind on a daily basis.

Nonetheless, Corazon is still able to make a show out of this entertaining display, throwing unexpected jokes or tacky puns at you like: "Ice to meet you, you come here often?" He slides by, raising a brow to play it 'cool' and deftly hits the frozen floor.

The adorable clown falls over and over until he's come to the point of accepting his painful fate, simply lying there like a sea star, watching the clouds pass by. "I give up."

Gliding over to the poor body laying pathetically on the ice, limbs expanded to all directions, you lower to his level and reach out for his hand to offer support. "That was a beautiful leap you did there love.", a small huff of muse escapes you, supressing a chuckle convulsively.

"(Y/n), I landed on my ass . . twenty times in three minutes.", Corazon snorts, propping himself up onto his elbows, accepting your assistance. Or does he? He pulls you in, heaving you on top of his large frame. Taken aback, your shock is vacant in your eyes.

"Oi . . what are you-", leaves you in a stutter as he slings his arms around your waist, hugging you. The feathers tickle your nose, yet develop you in comforting softness and warmth. To your luck, there aren't alot of 'witnesses', able to judge you and your rather foward lover. Which is quite the surprise, for Rosinante is a usually reserved and tranquil soul.

After a good while, he whispers: "You know, this is how you make me feel." You don't follow, lifting your covered in dark feathered plush head, tilting in query. Thus he proceeds: "My heart. Whenever you try to encourage me, it slips as if it's constantly on ice. The bright smiles, the sugar sweet kisses you give me. I can't help but to fall all over. Again and again."

Oh those amber eyes, brows curling in a puppy dog manner. Mellow lips find yours, him smiling by the touch of your velvet skin on his. You pull on his heart strings, metaphorically and literally, tugging on the rose coloured hearts of his beanie once more.

"You big dork.", you hum, gifting him a set of white shimmering teeth, grinning over both ears. Corazon reciprocates, nuzzling the tip of his nose against yours: "You sweet little thing."

The sun sets - orange hues glazing over the fading blue, to which the snow glistens in flushed colours. Cold looms in the air, every breath taken appearing like fog wading through your mouth.

Christmas is around the corner and you wouldn't have it any other way, than to spend the most beautiful time of the year together with the kindest of hearts in this world.

#one piece #one piece corazon #donquixote rosinante #corazon x reader #corazon x you #fanfic fluff #fanfiction

[harpagornis]

Multituberculate Earth: Birds

(As with all animal pages so far, this only goes so far into the Oligocene… for now)

At first, the avifauna of this timeline evolved much as ours. Only the toothless crown birds survived the KT event (though outliers like Qinornis may indicate other lineages survived briefly; one study did note the similarities between pelagornithids and ichthyornithids, but it hasn’t made the plunge), several lineages quickly producing megafauna to replace non-avian dinosaurs and other great reptiles. Gastornithiforms and ratites occupied large herbivore niches on land, pelagornithids and lithornithids attained large wingspans as competing pterosaurs ceased to exist and giant penguins and plotopterids were the first vertebrates to occupy large predatory niches at sea (barring sharks of course). To say nothing of the massive variety of smaller birds like stem-tropicbirds, the passerine-like zygodactylids and carnivorous parrots.

But the absence of an Azolla Event put avian evolution in a very different track from the Eocene onwards. For starters, without a mid-Eocene cooling to alter forest biomes, lithornithids and presbyornithids didn’t decline, thus preventing an opening for several lineages like cranes, storks and pelecaniforms. Many groups that depended on the cooling temperatures, like seagulls and relatives, also did not get the opening they wished for. Some modern groups you might assume quintessential, like ducks and shorebirds, were either greatly crippled or did not get to rise.

Likewise, the evolution of flying mammals put some pressures on birds that our bats didn’t have, but for the most part both groups managed to co-exist. Niche partitioning is easy when you can fly anywhere to get resources, after all, and birds are no strangers to it given how they co-existed with pterosaurs and other Mesozoic flyers for over one hundred million years.

By far the greatest challenge faced by birds thus far was the Grand Coupure, leading to a dramatic collapse of forest habitats. For European and Balkanatolian flightless birds it was particularly hard as their isolation in Europe came to a drastic end, but several flightless lineages remained in the Oligocene.

Because there are lots of Cenozoic bird groups, some more understood than others, this is something of a work in progress. However, I will list the bird groups that I have most assuredly set in stone.

Palaeognaths

The so called “old jaws” might be something of a misnomer, as some Cretaceous birds already had a neognath palate and their own palate is much more advanced than in some other early birds, but regardless they do invoke that prehistoric mystique. In our timeline the sole survivors are the flightless ratites + tiny tinamous, animals that truly seem to come from the era of the dinosaurs.

In this timeline, ratites similarly diversified, with rheas and other poorly understood taxa in South America and Antarctica, members of the cassowary/emu line in Australia, elephant birds in Madagascar (and possibly mainland Afro-Arabia) and a variety of stem-ostriches in North America, Europe and Asia. But it is another group, the flying lithornithids, that remain the most diverse and arguably spectacular group.

In our timeline, lithornithids started the Cenozoic in style, dispersing across the northern continents as forest dwelling probers like modern woodcocks. They were far more efficient flyers than our timeline’s surviving flying paleognaths, the tinamous, there being evidence of migratory behaviour and stork-like soaring, and some species attained quite large sizes. In our timeline the mid-Eocene cooling seems to have doomed them, but in the prolonged hothouse conditions of this timeline they managed to acclimate and diversify further.

Some lineages were lost in the Grand Coupure, but those that survived were ready for the spread of open habitats. Many forms occupy niches taken in our world by cranes and storks, prowling the steppes or stalking the swamps for small animals and nutrious plant matter. Others have diversified as shorebird analogues, probing along the coastlines. Some conversely became smaller and hoopoe-like; lithornithids were already more efficient perchers than other palaeognaths, so a few managed to capitalize on arboreal niches.

Though efficient flyers, lithornithids lack tails, relying mostly on their own wings for steering (for reference, see videos on tailless kites or hawks). Like in their ratite cousins it is the male that protects the eggs and offpsring, though in some derived species the young are superprecocial and can fly soon after birth, a condition seen in many Mesozoic birds. Many species have glossy eggs and feathers like cassowaries.

Other than lithornithids, there seems to be some other flying palaeognaths about. The stem-ostrich Eogrus for example is traditionally considered capable of at least some flying abilities, while flying stem-kiwis must be around somewhere given Proapteryx. And, of course, there’s the ancestors of tinamous, which have not yet debuted in the fossil reccord for some reason (in both timelines).

Pelagornithids

The so called “pseudo-toothed” birds due to tooth-like serrations in their bills, these seabirds are a mystery. Sometimes they are grouped among albatrosses and other higher waterbirds, other times they’re considered closely related to waterfowl, with most recent studies putting them in a polytomy between both groups. As mentioned above there is a study that does note similarities between their jaws and those of aquatic toothed seabirds, and given that their serrations seem to share a true molecular origin with teeth I wouldn’t be surprised if they were surviving toothed seabirds all along.

Anyways, besides the “teeth” (which were acquired late in life, implying prolonged parental care) the most notable feature of pelagornithids is their size. These are easily the largest flying birds of all time, some reaching wingspans of over 7 meters. Because they lack the quadrupedal launching of flying mammals and pterosaurs, they compensated by become extremely lightweight like living kites, thus while they look fearsome they most hunt small, soft prey like squids. Its even possible they can’t flap their wings anymore, relying solely on thermal soaring like modern frigatebirds (and not dynamic soaring like albatrosses), to which they can be considered close analogues if much larger.

While the evolution of giant insulonycteriids might seem like a disaster for these enormous birds, in truth both groups get along just fine (most of the time). The giant flying mammals are most robust and can hunt proportionally larger prey and even dive, so if the pelagornithids are the frigatebirds the insulonycteriids are the albatrosses and gannets.

Pelagornithids in both timelines have been extrariordinarily resilient, surviving from the PETM and Grand Coupure in spite of their effects to the marine biosphere. They died out in our timeline just as humans evolved, for unclear reasons; we’ll see if they have better luck here.

Gastornithiformes

Like ratites gastornithiforms lost the ability to fly and attained large sizes, occupying the niches left by ceratopsians and other herbivorous dinosaurs. They are clearly galloanseres, though its currently debated if they are closer to waterfowl or to galliforms.

Like ratites, they attained a cosmopolitan distribution, with gastornithids in the northern continents, dromornithids in Australia and Brontornis in South America, though gastornithids disappeared from Asia and North America in the PETM. Unlike ratites they have massive, powerful beaks, apt to crush through seeds and harsh plant matter like branches. In Europe they in fact were the most common megafauna, with few large mammals, much like in our timeline. With the Grand Coupure the collapse of rainforests and the arrival of Asian predatory mammals they disappeared from the former island continent, but they continued to thrive in Australia and in South America.

Presbyornithids

Presbyornithids are a clade of long legged waterfowl that first evolved in the Cretaceous and attained a diversity peak during the Paleocene, before declining in the Eocene of our timeline, reduced to only the terrestrial, goose-like Wilaru by the Miocene. This is often attributed to competition with anatid waterfowl, but studies show that they were incapable of filter-feeding, so they must have occupied fairly different ecological niches at the water’s edge.

In this timeline, they kept thriving thanks to the continuous hotshouse conditions, and more overtly diversified in piscivorous and crustacean eater niches akin to those of shoebills, spoonbills and even pelicans and ibises. Consequently, many of these waterbirds did not evolve in this timeline.

A partiular clade related to Wilaru kept exploring terrestrial biomes. These developed a novel way to process food: chewing it. Yes, some birds can chew (even used in the past to explain phylogenetic relationships between cuckoos and mousebirds before genetics said nah), using the cranial kinesis common to all crown birds to slide the upper jaw against the lower jaw in a pestle and mortar like way.

These birds, the Chakranatids, found thus a way to not only process plant matter more efficient while minimising fermentation, so they for the most part retained the ability to fly. Still, some have become large flightless herbivores, a distant echo of the Mesozoic hadrosaurs.

Palaelodids

The niche of ducks was instead taken by a decidedly non-waterfowl clade: the palaeolodids, relatives to flamingos and grebes. Neither divers or specialised filter-feeders (barring some species), these birds are rather generalistic, adapted to swim and catch small animals and plants with their broad beaks. They first debuted in the Oligocene in both timelines, though they might have a potentially older origin given grebes and flamingos split further back in the Cenozoic and Eocene fossil birds like Juncitarsus seem to represent the last common ancestor between these three groups.

Coliiformes

(A suggestion by Tozarkt777 on reddit)

In our timeline’s Paleocene, before passerines had evolved and spread to the northern hemisphere, the songbird niche was held by the Coliformes, an order that now only includes the mousebirds in our timeline, but back then comprised of many more species and many more niches, from generalistic grain-feeders to raptorial forms. They were most diverse in the Paleocene and Eocene before losing ground from there onwards.

Their decline likely is attributed to the PETM, and with the warm conditions of Multituberculate Earth having been maintained, so did mousebird rule. These are now the dominant small birds in the northern and African canopies, passerines now mostly restricted to small insectivores and nectivores.

Cariamiformes

Represented by the vicious little seriemas in our timeline’s present, this group is best known for producing the infamous terror birds. However, a variety of other extinct groups also existed in the early Cenozoic, including another clade of infamous flightless killers, the bathornithids. Though known from usually more fragmentary remains, they too were incapable of flying and had deep, powerful beaks, well suited to tear flesh.

Proving that mammals still oughta fear theropods, the terror birds spread far and wide in the Eocene. Eleutherornis and relatives terrorised Europe while Lavocatavis and kin terrorised Africa; it is in fact unclear if terror birds evolved in the Old World and later raft/swam (or flew, if the last common ancestor still could fly) to South America like many mammals did or if inversely it went the other way around. We do know at least that Eleutherornis is a late comer to Europe as it arrived only in the mid-Eocene, so the group likely didn’t evolve there, though many other cariamiform groups were present, from the crow-like Salmila to the herbivorous, also flightless Strigogyps.

Meanwhile, South America was host to a larger diversity of terror birds, and across the sea North America was ruled by a large diversity of bathornithids. Both groups co-existed with predatory mammals in both timelines, and attained large sized species over two meters tall. The African and European species seem to have gone extinct in the Grand Coupure – the later doubtlessly affected by the extinction of indigenous prey and the arrival of new competitors – but the Americas saw an adaptive radiation in response to the spread of open grasslands. Predatory mammal groups may rise and fall, but these dinosaurs seem to be a constant, though for how long remains to be seen.

Besides large predatory forms, there are a variety of other poorly understood forms, like the aforementioned European species. Some, like Elaphrocnemus, appear to have been efficient flyers, less adapted to run like their terrestrial cousins but capable of soaring for long distances. while others like Qianshanornis seem to have been functionally similar to hawks and eagles. Most of these groups died out in the Grand Coupure, unable to cope with the loss of forest habitats.

#multituberculate earth #speculative zoology #spec evo #speculative biology #speculative evolution #bird #birds #dinosaur #dinosaurs #bathornis #lithornis #presbyornis

[wayward-delver]

The Unconventional Zoo of Little Nightmares

Little nightmares is a series of the cute, bizarre, and terrible. But moreover it thinks outside the box. So if I am thinking of animals, I should do the same.

(Disclaimer, I have nothing against these these species. Most of these descriptions are symbolic.)

Six is a Perentie/Goanna Monitor Lizard: Cold-Blooded, Cunning, highly unpredictable, ravenous, and exceedingly brutal hunters. They start out small, frail, and inconspicuous but given the chance, they will grow into something deadly. They can be bonded with, however, they’re empathy is difficult to reach.

Mono is a Honey Badger: Bold, single-minded determination, stubborn, faithful, and as brave as they come. Will stand up to even the most terrifying of opponents when their partners are in need.

Runaway Kid/Seven is a Spotted Genet: Clever, nimble, cute, timid, and unapologetically sweet. A pure cinnamon roll that doesn’t get the love it deserves.

The girl in the Raincoat/Veronica is a Meerkat: A smart, kind, resourceful, and capable survivor. But when alone and rejected, they’re without hope.

The Children of the Maw: (in order from left to right)

Refugee Kid/One is a Brown Hyena: A loner whose a lot braver than it looks.

Long-Haired Girl/Two is a Red Fox: Smart and reliable, looked to as an example.

Green Boy/Five is a Fennec Fox: It’s just a little pup.

Hunchback Girl/Three is an Argentine Tegu: Big, round, and beautiful.

The Pale City Kids:

Lollipop Boy is a Bear cub: They maybe fearful, but they’re only the one to beat back Bullies with one steady hand.

Bleeding/Pigtailed Girl is a Lab Rabbit: A determined survivor who doesn’t give up despite their ailing body.

Blanket/Ghost Child is a Flapjack Octopus: This was purely for aesthetics.

The Toddler is a Burrowing Owlet: A little bird not quite ready to fly, waiting in their nest to grow.

The Lady is a Red-Crowned Crane: A vain creature of high standards, her elegance and grace makes her stand out from the lower beasts. But with this beauty and power is tempered with fragility.

The Janitor/Roger is a blind Orangutan: Calm, creative, and distant. They likes to keep his world at arms length.

The Twin Chefs are hippos: From a distance, they seem doughy, cumbersome, and one foolish soul might say goofy. But they are far more temperamental and dangerous than they came imagine... and they will outrun you!

The Guests are Elephant Seal: The mental image speaks for itself.

The Granny is a Snapping Turtle: Impossibly old, lurking the deepest darkest depths. Patient and bitter, unwilling to let go.

The Hunter is an American Alligator: A nocturnal, swamp living, territorial, persistent, bear-trap predator with an itchy trigger.

The Teacher is a barn owl: Strict, uptight, and silent rage. No vermin escapes her piercing gaze, hearing their shrill means certain doom.

The Doctor is an upside down sloth bear: Huffing, puffing, seemingly gullible, but don’t be fooled. They are anything but comical.

The Viewers are Moths/Bugs to an open flame: Blind to their own demise.

The Patients are Taxidermies: Once they’re real living beings, now their fake replicas of skin, stuffing, and plastic. 

The Bullies are Monkeys, Kea Parrots, Cats, and Tasmanian Devils: Wild, playful, destructive, noisy, conniving, and cruel little beasts. They’ll take any opportunity to cause and mayhem when no one’s their to stop them.

Thin Man is a Maned Wolf: Not a real wolf, not even a fox. One of a kind, but is so easily forgotten.

The Pretender is a Cockatoo: Loud, boisterous, playful, pretty, vain, and incredibly proud. But secretly just as much destructive, irritable, and potentially cruel as the Bullies.

The Craftsman is a Gibbon: Nothing really to saw here, another long armed ape but not as cool as the Orangutan. 

The Butler is a Marabou stork: Silent and proper, carrying themselves with subdued pride. But their is anything but gracious to anyone but their mistress.

The Ferryman is a Wandering Albatross: A enigma at best, and haunting presence at worst. But in some ways could a blessing over a curse.

The North Wind is an Argentavis: A malevolent force, older than any other. Preying upon the weaker, with such power the “weak” are ill defined.

Mirror Monster is a Giant Squid: A faceless monster from the void.

The Nomes are House Geckos: Small, cute, completely helpless, and overall insignificant who while thriving will never the power to ever go beyond the shadows.

#little nightmares #little nightmares six #little nightmares 2 #little nightmares mono #little nightmares seven #runaway kid #the lady #thin man #ln #ln2 #ln2 spoilers #little nightmares 2 spoilers #ln six #ln2 mono #mono #six #the janitor #nomes #the pretender #little nightmares bullies #animals #little nightmare ii

[ao3feed-batb2017]

Send Me On My Way

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3A6uuXo

by BluD3vil_Fire2000

After saving a human toddler from a doomed fate, an unlikely group of friends—consisting of Migo, a no-nonsense, lone Yeti; Rodney, an inventor with a heart of gold; Alex, a Lieutenant of an enemy gang; and Blue, an exiled Princess with a unique power—band together to return the child to her family. In order to reunite the baby with her tribe, the four will have to take on many dangers along the journey while having to work together as a herd.

Words: 7501, Chapters: 5/?, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of Ice Age/Multifandom AU

Fandoms: Original Work, Ice Age (Movies), Disney - All Media Types, Smallfoot (2018), Robots (2005), Madagascar (Movies), Wreck-It Ralph (Movies), Book of Life (2014), Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Wild Kratts, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Van Helsing (2004), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002), The Prince of Egypt (1998), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Shrek (Movies), Monsters vs Aliens (2009), Shark Tale (2004), Antz (1998), Chicken Run (2000), Wallace & Gromit, Over the Hedge (2006), Flushed Away (2006), Bee Movie (2007), Kung Fu Panda (Movies), Megamind (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Croods (Movies), Turbo (2013), Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014), Home (2015), Trolls (Movies 2016 2020), Abominable (2019), Horton Hears a Who! - Dr. Seuss, Rio (Movies - Saldanha), Epic (2013), Ferdinand (2017), Spies In Disguise (2019), FernGully (Movies), Anastasia (1997), Cloverfield (2008), 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), Indiana Jones Series, Open Season (Movies), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Movies), Hotel Transylvania (Movies), Quest for Camelot (1998), Cats Don't Dance (1997), Osmosis Jones (2001), Iron Giant (1999), The LEGO Movie (2014), Storks (2016), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Fantasia 2000 (1999), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), Cinderella (2015), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (2003), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book - All Media Types, Robin Hood (1973), The Rescuers (Movies), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Oliver & Company (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (1992), Aladdin (2019), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Pocahontas (Disney 1995), Toy Story (Movies), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), Mulan (2020), A Bug's Life (1998), Tarzan (1999), Dinosaur (2000), Emperor's New Groove (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Monsters Inc. (Movies), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Treasure Planet (2002), Finding Nemo (Movies), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), Incredibles (Pixar Movies), Chicken Little (2005), The Wild (2006), Cars (Pixar Movies), Meet the Robinsons (2007), Ratatouille (2007), Enchanted (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Gnomeo and Juliet (2011), Brave (2012), Frozen (Disney Movies), Big Hero 6 (2014), Inside Out (2015), The Good Dinosaur (2015), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016), Coco (2017), Onward (2020), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Balto (Movies), Despicable Me (Movies), Minions (2015), Missing Link (2019), Coraline (2009), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), The Boxtrolls (2014), ParaNorman (2012), Rock-a-Doodle (1991), The Secret of NIMH (1982), Cool World (1992), The Meg (2018), Rampage (2018), Aquaman (2018), Geostorm (2017), Brightburn (2019), Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Godzilla (1998), Godzilla: The Series, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Sonic Boom (Cartoon), Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types, Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies), Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies), King Kong (2005), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Alien Series, Spiders (2013), Venom (Movie 2018), Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot (Video Games), Spyro the Dragon (Video Games), Rayman (Video Games), Gex (Video Games), Klonoa (Games), Croc (Video Games), PaRappa the Rapper, Oddworld, MediEvil (Video Games)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi

Additional Tags: Ice Age AU, everyone's gonna be in it, I just felt like it's too much, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Canon, Self-Insert, My OCs are in there as well, this is the first time I've done an AU like this, Inspired by Heroboy005 from fanfiction.net, if you see paragraphs that are familiar to the stories, Blood and Violence, Aftermath of Violence, Explicit Language, It does have some, Fluff and Humor, Family Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, That's all I can say

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/3A6uuXo

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #batb #beauty and the beast #emma watson #dan stevens

[stormhawksplanb]

Nova and her relationship with the others PART 1: Storm hawks.

Aerrow :

And here come the troublesome duo!

Aerrow antagonizes Nova 78% of the time

Mostly to get her to come out of her shell and actually do stuff.

Like climbing down a small mountain

"I'm scared if heights" "But- you live on a giant ship with us, and fly a skimmer' at inhuman speed-" "I'm still scared of heights!"

He just kind of left her there to her own devices

She eventually climbed down

"Did ya' have fun?"

"... I'm still scared of heights..."

Brother sister rivalry

They race

She doesn't care if she wins, she just wants to go zoom

He also wants to go zoom, but wants to see if he can cause her to do some dumb dangerous stunts

She does

Usually crahses

Why was there rings of fire involved?

No one will know

They don't even know

Nova is damage control

"Now what did I say about doing x,y, and z?"

Aerrow nervously "Not to do x,y and z?"

She won't save him from Piper's wrath.

Not my problem TM

Piper :

Sisters unite!

Unbreakable bond

It's kind of scary

Like, Atmos forbid if piper gets hurt.

Very Angry Nova TM

Piper has to be Nova's damage control when stork isn't around.

She's the only one Nova will listen to.

They like coming up with plans together.

Nova tries to make sure the others follow said plan. Doesn't work.

They also have a silent code system

Even for mundane things

'Do the dishes'

'No'

Despite being completely different people, they get along better than everyone expected when on missions.

Nova is pipers rock, and makes sure no one has the chance to fool Piper

This has cause a couple "I'm not a little kid, you can trust me!" Fights

That qoute has been used by both sides.

They're the quickest to make up when mad at each other.

They just needed a break to cool off

Most of the time no one apologizes, they just kind of, forgive and forget?

Finn

The "This was a terrible idea but neither of us have any clue how to stop ourselves" pair

Nova and finn left alone is a TERRIBLE idea.

You thought Aerrow and nova were bad news

Guess again

With Nova around, ALL of finn's pranks work out.

And no evidence is left behind

He has been pre warned to leave stork alone

They also bicker

A lot

"How was I supposed to know your paint would stain the seat!"

Cue Finn running for his life

Nova chases Finn a lot

This is almost a weekly accurance

But don't f*ck with Finn

Nova will get you, and hurt you badly if you do

As a warning.

Junko

Anyone need some Group therapy?

Cause Junko and Nova are top tier therapist!

Nova looks at Junko like a younger, yet stronger, brother.

She's always checking up on him

And she and funny are first to sense when he's not in a good mood

Tries not to baby him, but does it anyway

Junko treats Nova like a gentleman

"Let me get the door for you miss..."

It's more of a way to pick on stork.

Stork thinks it's kind of adorable they get along and goof around

The food junkies

Nova will never be able to keep up with him

Also the nicest person to tell junko when certain things need to be said

He's extremely understanding anyway though.

Stork :

Death And Doom combo

Can't have one without the other

They're like magnets

Also usually the first to get full of themselves

Mostly because they're always right

They get bullied by the others for being a couple

S T R E S S E D PARENTS

"Did you hear that Finn fell off the ship and twisted his ankle?" "NO!" "You should go check on him them..."

They're also really sneaky

They never fight, but there's a lot of bickering and sass

"Is this contagious?"

"Will this kill me?"

They can be super wholesome, but in a weird way

What's his is mine, and what's mine is his

Stork has been caught in her make up, clothes, and art supplies.

They keep getting handcuffed or tied up in missions.

People are now suspecting that they do it on purpose.

Nova is REALLY good at saying stuff only stork will understand *wink wink*

The "if they're not back by sundown we send a search party"

Search parties are usually sent, and they're just hanging out because their transportation is either stolen, or has exploded.

Raddar:

CUTE BABIES TM

Raddar gets many head scratches

She spoils him. So. Badly.

Tiny outfits

Tiny hats

Nova has yelled at the team for using Raddar to get into dangerously small places

Another prank Duo

Not as successful because Raddar thinks it's funny when the pranks go a wry.

I know I posted about it before but, Tiny hats are scattered and hidden around the condor.

Both of them enjoy making the other jump.

Nova is especially happy that her Albino Ferret gets along with Gear.

#PhotoShoots

#storm hawks #stormhawks #nova #piper #stork #junko #finn #aerrow #Raddar

[sussex-nature-lover]

Monday 4th January 2021

Review of the Year Q4. October, November, December 2020

Not that we were likely to be having any games of Conkers, but I couldn’t help collecting, especially this bad boy.

There were some lovely sunny days in October and we were still getting out walking. The photo below was taken at Bateman’s (NT) Lily Pond. We got talking to a photographer and he was trying to capture Damselflies in flight, so I decided to try too even though I was sat on a bench a long way back. It’s something I can work on next Summer.

We were thrilled to see the young Greenfinch still around the garden. Seen here with a Starling bathing just outside the kitchen doors. I do think Greenfinch have a stern, or even angry look about them.

On top of all the news of doom and gloom, I was anticipating quite a hard Winter, maybe it was because of the abundance of berries this year? We decided to get a load of logs in and they were so good it prompted us to order more again in December. I do like the look of a well stacked log pile in the porch.

As it got colder we certainly started to enjoy a fire and some other Winter treats.

Goodies from Ms NW tE from a drive-by visit in the street

It’s so very, very strange when the only way you can see your family is yards distant.

We had some very foggy mornings which gave a completely different look to my pictures

Male Woodpecker

Starlings took to the berries produced on the Cabbage Palm. I’m not sure I’ve seen the berries before, previously the flower stalks seemed to just dry and die off. Anyway, they’ve proved extremely popular.

Of course there was lots of Autumnal colour and produce around. We certainly had an apple bounty from next-door-but-one who were kindly sharing their crop.There’s plenty in the freezer to see us through.

Crow had his birthday in November: it was an extremely quiet one as you can imagine. That was it then, all four of us added another year on to our tally and not a single get together at all. No Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, no bank holiday BBQ. What a shame, but at least we all kept safe and well.

Crow’s birthday had started off foggy and wasn’t very inspiring but we did have some late Autumn days which were bright and fun.

The field across the lane

The Girls love a perch. Counted them today and we’re now up to seven at a time

Our resident Pheasants ‘The Girls’ were here more and more and often queueing up at the door in the morning, waiting for ‘The Man’ and one morning we were disturbed by Blue Tits pecking at the bathroom window. The sound carried right across to the other side of the house.

My Christmas Cactus didn’t live up to its name and flowering was over by the end of November.

The field across the lane at the front became more and more interesting to watch: the changes to the tree line, the play of light and at one stage, the flooding which all ran off into the lane. We can usually tell when the weather’s bad as it hangs over the gap on the far right hand side or begins to close in on us, so we look out that way for an indication of how it’s going out there.

As the fields around were so very boggy underfoot we were really pleased and grateful that some of the National Trust land remained open for a stroll around different landscapes. Most properties have been restricted this year if not closed altogether because of safe social distancing constraints, but wherever possible the Trust has kept its car parks, gardens and estates open for exercise and enjoyment.

Bodiam Castle looking serene

Back at the field we had a new named character showing up quite a lot

Babs the Buzzard - she’s a giant of a bird

The Deer continued to hang around the tree line too and Ms NW tE took photos of Deer at close range (Richmond Park)

See also the January Blog header

Little and Large! We were still getting several visits a day from the Long Tailed Tits who make the most of a never ending supply of fat balls in the back garden  and Babs (below) hunting her own feasts the other side of the house.

A favourite perch to survey the field

The end of December brought some flooding down the lane. Luckily we stayed dry. 

Very late on the year also brought four new sightings 

Tree Creeper. Photo Credit: Lou Ryan via Twitter

Lou has a channel on You Tube, you can find it Here or search for Lou’s Wildlife Garden.

The loose leaves blowing around the field opposite turned out to be a mixed flock of Redwing and Fieldfare - the first time we’ve seen either of those species

and a casual glance at some huge birds in the skies above the back garden turned out to reveal White Stork being monitored by a Crow. More of the Storks later this month.

So, we arrive at the end of the year and the Great Conjunction of planets Jupiter and Saturn. A once in many, many, many lifetimes event, but sadly marred for most of us in the UK by the cloud cover. Oh well, we got to know it was out there and to read up about it. And then it was Christmas and for people like us who’d been living in a Tier 2 Coronavirus Restriction Area, suddenly moved to Tier 3 and then rapidly to Tier 4, it was incredibly strange to be without family and all making our own celebrations separately in our own homes. I did decorate the house as usual but in a much more restrained way 

Right back where I started my picture Review of 2020, here’s Little Tree again.

I’ve written far more in the four reviews than I ever thought I would and I could just’ve gone with something far simpler.

Decoration of the Day:

Let’s hope this favourite fairy can grant you a wish. 

On 8th December a nearly 91 year old lady, Margaret Keenan, became the first person in England to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination and today the first Oxford vaccines are being administered today (4th January)

Vaccine update - let’s wish the programme world-wide is successful and we can all start to live a more free and normal life again.

London (above) The Palace of Westminster on New Year’s Eve

photo via Twitter from the River Police

And so we looked forward to 2021, a new year with new hopes for a better future. 2020? it’s time to just...

#nature wildlife birds reviewoftheyear photography England

[dndtomsfoolery]

Random Quotes From Previous DND Sessions

No context will be given.

From Session #75

~ “The weird Spider in the sky is doing something Spooky” - Aaron

*To the tune of “Giants in the Sky”* “There are spiders in the sky!” - Laura

~ “I am a Doomed Existence.” - Will/ Grish-Ham

~ “Raven Queen is the worst stork ever.” - Katie

~ “We all just a bunch of guilty feeling bitches.” - me (Veronica)

#DND #DND quotes #funny #out of context #what is even going on

[plusplusjames]

Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don’t have the wit to deal with the problems of life. ” ― Joan Lowery Nixon, In The Face of Danger

Problems?  Yeah, I had a few.  But let’s be real.  My weird situations are nothing compared to many suffered by others.

Consider Denne Bart Petitclerc, journalist, author, producer.  When he was 5 years old in 1934, his father took him to downtown Seattle to admire the holiday decorations.  Stopping in front of the giant Christmas tree, his dad told him to “watch the angel (on top of the tree), I’ll be right back.”  He didn’t return.  He left his child there, abandoning him to be an orphan in the December night.

At least I had a Father to love, to admire, to tell me funny stories, to join in the family business, and then to, maddeningly, watch as he withered away.  There were many good years, regardless.

I think we’ve all had pivotal moments like that, when everything changes.  Today’s story, a repeat, is about my night when the sky was darkest, and most unfamiliar.  

In the spring of 1962, I turned 4 years old. Mom and Dad were living at 1050 Fifth Avenue and Central Park was my playground. In the evening, I would play in my room and when I heard the door open and Dad enter the apartment, I would thrust myself down the stairs, yelling “Daddy, Daddy!” One time I came down the stairs so fast, I tripped and fell. I arrived at the bottom in a tumbled mess.

My Dad would have a seat on the couch, maybe after turning on the hi-fi or plopping the Four Lads on the phonograph. Mom would serve him a Rheingold. “What’s that?” I asked. “Beer,” he said. “Can I try some?” “Sure.” I did, it was not to my taste.

I was oblivious to the fact that the marriage of my Mom and Dad was finished.

Dad was 14 years older than my Mom. That may seem of some minor consequence now, but back then it was a huge age difference. He was just as close in age to my Mom’s Mom, Margo, as he was to Mom.

And unfortunately, things were not so great during the marriage. Even during the honeymoon, my Mom called my Grandmother in tears from Bermuda. Her first night as a married woman wasn’t painless.

Dad was a workaholic and was very much an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy. A workaholic is the sort of person you want to have working for you, but maybe not necessarily the kind to be married to. Especially for a younger girl who was used to going out at night for dinner and parties. After they were married, Dad went to night school to get his law degree at New York Law School, so the young mother was left even more alone at home for two years, listless.

Margo, in the meantime, had made friends with a couple from Florida named Charlie and Fran Irrgang. These were fun loving people who relished The Stork Club during their visits to New York and could drink anyone under the table, even Charlie. The Irrgangs were originally from Chicago but had moved to a small town in Central Florida called Winter Garden, about 20 miles west of Orlando, in the late 1920s or early 1930s. There, Charlie had built up an orange juice concentrate packing operation in a big plant on the north side of Highway 50 and lived in the family compound on Deer Island on the other side of the highway. They had three children, Charlie, Jr., John, and Mary Fran.

Margo was even invited by Fran to design evening gowns for local ladies at the Winter Garden Welfare League’s Bundles Party on Saturday night, April 15th, 1961.

Orlando Sentinel, April 16, 1961

One night in 1962 during one of their visits to New York, they suggested to Margo that they all dine together at The Stork. Bernard Olcott was not present.

John Irrgang was a young smart stock broker with pale blue eyes, a winning smile, and it was love at first sight between him and my Mom. A fast and furious romance developed and in a matter of weeks, Mom had made her decision – she wanted out of her marriage to Bernard Olcott. She gave back her ring and wanted nothing more than child support for me – she just wanted out.

Dad was unable to persuade her otherwise. Heartbroken, he felt the best thing to do was accede to his young bride’s request. To soften the blow, my Mom implied that maybe they could always get back together later on.  It is still strange to me how this breakup was not acrimonious.  Neither one ever spoke ill of the other.  And oddly, in written letters from my Mom to my Dad, even in the 2000s, she would draw little smiley faces.

In any event, back to 1962, maybe Dad thought that he had a chance to win her back after the glow had faded from her infatuation with John Irrgang.  So, on my Mom’s urging, he flew down to El Paso with a heavy heart and crossed over to Ciudad Juarez to file for a Mexican divorce. I remember finding those divorce papers years later, with exotic looking stamps and seals. I couldn’t read the Spanish text but I knew it was a hateful document. Dad claimed years later, usually after he had a few beers in him, that he knew of some legal defect in the divorce proceedings pursued under the laws of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Accordingly, he would say with a grin, he was still married to Mom. More about that later.

All I knew is that one night in the summer of 1962 I was in the back seat of a taxicab on Fifth Avenue, mesmerized by the shadows of my head dancing back and forth in front of me, as illuminated by passing streetlights.  The next night, I was in a car driving through the deepest nighttime indigo of central Florida, the loud sound of crickets blazing throughout the shadowless darkness. I was introduced to my new “Daddy John,” “Uncle Charlie,” “Aunt Mary Fran,” and was given my first glass of orange juice, which remains part of my morning routine to this day. I can’t do without it!

Me in 1964 with John Irrgang’s Grandmother, Edie Irrgang.

That first summer in Florida I spent a lot of time with my new family at their boat house on the clear waters of Lake Butler, near the town of Ocoee.  The Irrgang men would hang out in the living room drinking beers and watching the game on a large black and white TV mounted near the ceiling, channels changed by an old-fashioned clicking remote.  The womenfolk would hang in the kitchen and gossip.  If the weather was nice, the boat would be taken out for sessions of waterskiing.  The grass outside was not the soft Kentucky Bluegrass that I knew back home but the thick coarse blades of St. Augustine Grass, not as comfortable underfoot.

Once that summer, someone spotted a snake on that crunchy grass and the game on TV was instantly forgotten.  My new uncles rushed outside with a hoe and a shovel and do battle with the intruder.  Surrounding it, the doomed serpent would coil up and lash out, it’s white mouth clearly visible to me from the safety of the porch inside the house.  Finally one of the men pinned the cottonmouth’s head with the rake and then another man, with a quick motion of a spade, did the decapitation.  The viper at this point wriggled ever more furiously in agony, so much so that it seemed there were 3 snakes vibrating together.  Walking outside for a closer look, I was warned not to play with the head as it could still bite me.  Not that I really wanted to pick it up.

A knife was summoned from the kitchen, the animal cleaned, and then thrown on the grill.  “Tastes like chicken,” the men said as they ate carefully around the small bones.  They offered me some, of course, but as my diet was limited to hamburger and French fries, I declined.  Tom Clancy wrote about men who could “hunt and eat snake.”  I knew them.

A few years later, I would pull my own green snake out of a Cyprus tree and keep him as a pet.

Dad in the meantime got busy. If the best cure for a broken heart is a new distraction, he found it right away while attending a reception at the Ecuadorean consulate in New York one evening during the fall of 1962. Like Mom, Graciela Levi Castillo was of Latin origin; in her case South American. A graduate from Columbia College, Graciela was the highly educated daughter of Roberto Levi Hoffman from Hamburg, Germany. While studying for his Master’s Degree in Chemistry at University of Bern around the turn of the century, he won a contest sponsored by Guayaquil, Ecuador, a growing city on the Pacific coast that evidently needed drug stores. Roberto won the contest and soon became the first pharmacist in the steamy tropical port.

As a young girl, Graciela had left her local high school, the Colegio Nacional de Guayaquil, to become a boarder at the Penn Hall Junior College for Girls in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. On the strength of her strong academic performance, she won acceptance at Columbia and graduated in 1948. By 1962, she was an accredited journalist and interviewed world personalities such as Gamal Nasser of Egypt, Francisco Franco of Spain, the Agha Khan as well as renowned artists like Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Ernest Hemingway.

Fast and furious relationships were in the air. Dad married Graciela on January 19, 1963.

CHANGE AND REBOUND Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it.

#Irrgang #New York City #New York Law School #Ocoee #Stork Club #Winter Garden