A VERY Long Series Of Screwups

There was some recent discussion on the Palaeoblr Discord server about the ridiculous amounts of “shrink-wrapping” that a lot of prehistoric animals get in palaeoart. 

A QUICK EXPLANATION:

For those of you who don’t know, shrink-wrapping is a word used in palaeoart to refer to a reconstruction where the skin of an animal is shown basically clinging to the skull or the skeleton, as if it has been shrink-wrapped onto the animal. Here’s a good example of shrink-wrapping in modern palaeoart:

[source]

Although this is a fairly tame example, the shrink-wrapping is still visible. See how the skin traces around every hole and dimple in the skull, the teeth are exposed and you can see the outlines of the shoulderblade, backbone and hips? That’s shrink-wrapping. In real life, these bones were probably covered in muscle and fat, like in most modern animals.

OKAY, BACK TO THE STORY:

So, in the light of this rampant shrink-wrapping epidemic, fellow palaeoblr artist @cheetahtrout decided to take suggestions for animals to “un-shrink-wrap”, restoring them with a proper amount of muscle and fat. I joined in, and we both drew the same animal, then compared the results.

First up, we drew Titanophoneus, a large predatory synapsid, based on this skeletal diagram. I gave it a big, thick neck and some powerful jaw muscles, filling out the shape of the head. I also covered up the teeth with some nice thick lips, to protect them from drying out. If you look, you’ll notice that most modern mammals have lips covering their teeth, even animals like hippos and baboons, which have enormous teeth for their size.

The other challenge was the gorgonopsid Sauroctonus. The reference was this skeletal diagram. Gorgonopsids are very often shrinkwrapped in palaeoart, usually to make them appear more menacing, as they were the apex predators of their time. The shrinkwrapped example I showed at the start of this post is also a gorgonopsid. @ridiculouslyphotogenicsinosaurus​ joined in on this one.

And here it is! Compare this Sauroctonus to the gorgonopsid at the start, and you should be able to see some key differences. This guy has a lot more bulk to him, since in modern animals the shape of the skeleton is often covered up with muscle, skin, and fat. Gorgonopsids were most likely built for power rather than speed, so they would have been quite thick and muscular.

The other main difference is in the mouth. I’ve drawn an open mouth for this guy as well to make it easier to tell what’s going on. The lips droop down and cover the teeth when the mouth is closed, and when it’s open you can see that the actual mouth does not go all the way back to the edge of the jaw like it does in many shrink-wrapped restorations.

After all that I though I should try taking the idea of ‘anti-shrink-wrapping’ to its extreme. And so, I proudly present to you … the Bullet Man

Going down a hill, I was going 10mph over the speed limit. I had the cruise control set to 5mph over the speed limit and didn't know that unlike my bf's car, it doesn't slow itself down when the speed goes over to what you've set the cruise control to. Judge me for speeding. Whatever.

The cop pulls me over. Takes my license and registration. Asks me to step out of the vehicle. I ask him why I need to step out of the vehicle. He says he doesn't have to tell me why.

I tell him I'd like to look up the state law first. He tells me the law is to do whatever he says, pushes my phone out of my hand, and opens the car door.

I tell him that the only times I or anyone I've known have ever been asked to step out of the car during a traffic stop were when the officer suspected that they were impaired (it happened to me in 2019 when I was driving my friend home and the cop saw her drunk and passed out in the back seat. I immediately got handcuffed without being told why and wasn't given a breathalyzer until i got to the police station. They let me go after that, but didn't give me my stuff back. Or my money. They robbed me that night. When I called to get my stuff back they said they didn't have it. This is why I didn't want to immediately get out of the car for this traffic stop.)

He grabs me by my arm and starts pulling me. I tell him to let me go. He tells me to shut the fuck up and do what I'm told. Grabs my head with his other hand and tries to pull me out by my hair.

I pick my phone back up and dial 911 to let them know that an officer is trying to pull me out of my car without reasoning. They tell me, in a very annoyed tone, to just do whatever the officer says.

At this point, the cop is pulling my arm backwards against the car, and I'm scared he's going to break it. I start panicking.

A 2nd officer, his supervisor, walks up and rips my keys out of the ignition, breaking them.

I'm already freaking out at this point and impulsively reach out my hand to stop him. He says "oh, you REALLY fucked up now" and grabs me along with the other cop. They grab me by my hair, neck, and arms.

They throw me onto the highway.

Cars were coming. They had to swerve to get around me. Truck tires pass my head about a foot away.

My chin hits the ground. They shove my face into the road. One of them is sitting on me and the other is standing on me so I can't get up. I'm extremely claustrophobic. I start screaming for help. They tell me to shut the fuck up or I'm getting tased and hold a taser up to my back. I stop screaming, but I can't stop crying and hyperventilating. They shove the taser into my back even harder and tell me to stop crying or they'll use it. I say "I'm sorry, I'll comply" and hold my breath. They pull my arms behind my back and handcuff me, very tightly.

The supervisor pulls me away to talk to me separately.

He does not. Stop. Talking. I get a huge lecture about how if I would've just done what I was told, I wouldn't have gotten hurt, but also, he "saved me from getting hurt worse and thrown in jail" by pulling me away from the other cop.

He tells me that he "doesn't care what bullshit advice that i learned from tiktok." I tell him I don't use tiktok, I just had a bad experience with corrupt cops in the past. He tells me that he doesn't care, I shouldn't assume all cops are corrupt just because they are, and he's not like those shitty cops.

He goes on to tell me about how they had to do what they did because they've both had people attempt to hurt them during traffic stops before and there was no way to be sure that I wouldn't do it too. He says that when i reached for my phone I could've been reaching for a gun.

I say "you just told me not to assume something bad will happen to me just because I had a bad experience in the past."

He tells me to stop talking.

He says "what is it called when someone is grabbing you and pushing you? Assault. And that's what you were doing to us. So it was safe to assume that we were in danger."

I say "That's what was being done to me, and considering that i wasn't told why, i think it's a normal reaction to try to stop someone from doing that in that situation. I was terrified."

"That's different. What you did was assault on an OFFICER. You shouldn't have put your hands on him."

Then he goes on rambling again. All while chain smoking cigarettes.

He talks about how great of a cop he is. He repeats that he "saved me" from the other cop immediately arresting me and sending me to jail. He talks about how i could be sitting next to murderers right now and starts to tell me graphic details of some of the cases he's dealt with.

I start hyperventilating so hard that I can't breathe. He tells me to shut the fuck up, but then gently pushes my hair out of my face and says "hey. Smile. You're lucky."

I force myself into breathing normally.

He says "man, that's the first time I've ever had to pull out my taser! I could've used it for the first time today! Ha ha ha!"

I start crying again.

"HEY! LAUGH! I'm trying to joke with you and lighten the mood!"

He continues to boast about how great and nice of a cop he is. He asks if i have kids. I tell him yes, and that he's waiting at home for me. He tells me about his kids. Says he's trying to relate to me.

At one point he asks if the other cop can search my car. I know they technically can't if they don't have a warrant and I say no. But I didn't want to get hurt again, and I didn't have anything illegal in the car, so I complied.

He asks me if I have anything in the car that i shouldn't have. I tell him no, but I brought some of my Adderall with me in a different bottle. He asks me to pull up my medical info to prove it's a prescription. He sees that I'm also prescribed pain medication and ask about it. I tell him about my physical issues and chronic pain.

"Oh, you think YOU'RE in pain? I got [list of injuries] while serving overseas so imagine how much pain it caused me when you forced me to pull you out of the car. Do you think i wanna go home to my family and tell them I got hurt because of a 130 pound female?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry."

I realize at this point that the only way out is by sucking up to he cops.

He tries to strike casual conversation. He says "did you know that in the town you live in, one in every 3 people has an STD?"

"I suppose that makes sense since it's a college town."

"Yeah, I just wanted to warn you so you know to be careful, just in case."

"Thank you, but i have a long term partner, so i don't think that'll be an issue for me." I force out a laugh in between tears.

"SEE! All you had to do was smile and laugh!"

He removes my handcuffs and tells me to stay still or I'll get tased.

"Thank you."

"So what do you think your boyfriend is gonna tell you?"

"That i should've listened. He'll probably be mad at me." (No the fuck he won't lol)

"Yeah, I bet you learned your lesson. I'll go try to convince the other officer not to throw you in jail. It's up to him though. Stay here and don't move. My dog in the car will alert me if you do."

I stand and wait.

They approach me with two tickets and tell me i can go home to my child. The first cop tells me someone shot at him two days ago. I tell him I'm sorry he went through that and that his job must be hard.

They pat themselves on the back for being such nice, empathetic cops.

I go to the car. It takes me a minute to start it because I'm trying to twist just the metal part of the key. It finally starts and I drive the rest of the way home slowly.

I didn't know until afterwards that they put down that I was going faster than I actually was. It's a higher charge for going 20+ over.

I can't get pictures of every bruise on my own nor do I want to show all of them, especially my face. But these ones are from the handcuffs and from having my arm grabbed.

I really need help.

Cashapp: $niceworkbonedaddy

Paypal: yanidork

I don't, but I think I need to make one this time around because it's damn near impossible to save money when you're always in the negative with overdue bills, loans, and money you owe to other people. Getting paid once a month sucks.

I just need to figure out the total cost first. I don't know why the tickets don't have a price listed on them, and I haven't called anyone about it because of panic attacks.

Just to be completely transparent, this is where the donations have gone so far:

- uhaul to get my stuff out of my mom's house (listed in original donation post)

- gas for said uhaul (listed in original donation post)

- gas for me to make that same 2 hour trip for court (that got rescheduled w/o telling me) and an appointment.... the very trip I got pulled over on the way home from 🙃

- gas to get the kids to and from school

- food for us last night because I can barely move, my bf is horribly sick, and he's been missing work both due to that and getting surgery a couple of weeks ago and we got 3 kids to feed (the cheap hot and ready little caesars pizza)

- medicine for pain relief

- paying back part of the cashapp loan (listed in original donation post)

- paying off my negative balance in my regular bank account (that was actually an accident, I wouldn't have transferred money to that card if I knew about it)

- past due bills

- paying my brother and friend back (they couldn't wait on me any longer)

So because of those things being paid for, my SSDI payment won't be immediately eaten up the day I get paid and I'll be able to put THAT money into my savings account for car repair/replacement and moving costs, so it still counts towards my goal.

Expenses that we still need help with:

- moving costs (we have to be out of here in 5 weeks)(my bf DOES have SOME money saved up for this, but not enough to cover the total costs of a security deposit + first month's rent + a THIRD uhaul)(we have not found a place that suits us yet but we can't really look too much right now anyway bc what's available now might not be available next month)

- vehicle issues

- food

- gas to make two more 2 hour trips to my hometown within the next month for a doctor appointment and court

I'll push myself to get on top of things and figure this all out so I can make a proper fundraiser. In the meantime, we're running out of food at the house for us and the 3 kids, and since that's an immediate need, we'll still need donations thru these payment apps as well.

My three musketeers.

Yeah I said something similar yesterday but we can NOT let what happened to Renee Good cloud what happened to everyone else at the hands of these SS Demons!!!

The above screenshot reads:

A Black man was killed by ICE (off duty) in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve. And like Renee Good, he was an American citizen. But most people have not heard about Keith Porter. I need y'all to realize this. Black people experience this lack of visibility all the time when it comes to being victims. (Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com)

The second screenshot above reads:

Renee Nicole Good wasn't the first killed by ICE... In 2025, ICE murdered: Silverio Villegas Gonzalez Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdez Genry Ruiz Guillén Serawit Gezahagn Dejane Maksym Chernyak Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez Brayan Garzón-Rayo Nhon Ngoc Nguyen Marie Ange Blaise Abelardo Avellaneda Delgado Jesus Molina-Veya Johnny Noviello Isidro Pérez Tien Xuan Phan Chaofeng Ge Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas Oscar Rascon Duarte Norlan Guzman-Fuentes Miguel Ángel García Medina Johnny Noviello Santos Banegas Reyes Ismael Ayala-Uribe Norlan Guzman-Fuentes Miguel Ángel García Medina Huabing Xie Leo Cruz-Silva Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh Josué Castro Rivera Gabriel Garcia Aviles Kai Yin Wong Francisco Gaspar-Andrés Pete Sumalo Montejo Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani Jean Wilson Brutus Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir Delvin Francisco Rodriguez Nenko Stanev Gantchev In 2026, ICE has murdered 2 people: Keith Porter [New years eve 2025] Renee Nicole Good -From the ICE_Raids Community on Reddit

And to all of our lovely WWC Followers, particularly those in the United States:

Take care. Take care of each other, your community, yourselves.

Travel in groups and make sure your loved ones know where you are. And absolutely know your rights.

And even in troubled times, try to find a spark of hope, creativity and comfort and hold onto it. For even joy is resistance.

Resources

Immigrant Defense Project

City of Mpls website: Know Your Rights (Minnesota)

For those who can support:

I've included the verified GoFundMe for Keith Porter's daughters.

Keith Porter's family GoFundme

Claiming that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she drove away from him was “fully justified,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned Thursday that any action taken by Americans would be treated as domestic terrorism. “Make no mistake: Anything and everything Americans do, from the second they wake up to the second they fall asleep, will be treated as a national security threat and dealt with accordingly,” said Noem, who added that even seemingly trivial activities like picking up groceries, calling friends on the phone, or sneezing would warrant the use of lethal force by a federal agent.