mothers-little-pistols - Tumblr blog

[mothers-little-pistols]

Tattoos of another person's symbol aren't a sweet remembrance of a dead crewmate or a show of devotion for a loved one, they're more akin to a contract being signed. They're usually for when someone's on the hook for a lot of money, but it can be for anything a person might want to weasel out of.

These tattoos are usually done on the hands or wrists, or even on the face or neck. Somewhere it's going to be visible. That way you can't escape it. They're not large, just big enough for the symbol to be clear. And when you've paid your debt, the person who gave you the tattoo will black it out for you, too. Once it's blacked out then you're free, and most people won't question where those little black marks came from or why.

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droids in the zones with absolutely no real understanding of what humans can reasonably survive bc for most hours of the day theyre surrounded by teens/young adults with no regard for their own mortality but will immediately act like theyre dying if a crewmate shoves them

[mothers-little-pistols]

“Whatever gets you through the night.”

[mothers-little-pistols]

what's the resulting wound from getting hit with a raygun blast? a burn or a cauterized hole?

i actually have a whole-ass explanation for why i think that an injury sustained by a raygun blast would not be cauterized. I HAVE AN EXPLANATION FOR EVERYTHING AS IT TURNS OUT LMAO

honestly there is a lot of variation in what kind of severity raygun blasts will do to you between the mvs and the comics and it might have to do with power settings, battery settings, the quality of the gun, etc. i don’t think the music videos were allowed to show anything super grisly, but there are some indications that most raygun blasts will smoke and bleed if they come from bli.

jet’s iconic death on top of the hood of the trans am gives us an excellent example of how the site of the injury is visible - again, i don’t think they were allowed to show a whole lot (they had to beep out all those nasty fuckwords in “na na na” after all) but it looks like there’s definitely a suggestion of bleeding there.

in the comics they can get away with way more. we see a couple people bleeding upon being hit with a raygun blast, most prominently volume (sorry volume, you were sorely underutilized and we love you very much). the wounds definitely smoke a lot too, which is probably a result of the, uh, flesh getting cooked by the extreme heat. which does not sound like a happy and painless way to go. love that!

SO from an inductive standpoint, which is how i like to do a lot of my work in this universe, i’m inclined to believe that raygun injuries are fully capable of bleeding. and if anyone wanted justification for this in the context of the world, i think there’s a very good reason why BLi-manufactured rayguns would be purposefully constructed to not cauterize injuries on top of it.

this goes back to general ballistics. there are a lot of different types of bullets out there and different ones will be needed for different scenarios; armor-piercing rounds, for example, are obviously used when you’re coming up against an armored target, but aren’t generally used when it comes to dealing with civilians since the deep penetration risks damaging targets behind who you might be shooting at. a lot of police enforcement in some parts of the world favor a certain kind of projectile known as a hollowpoint bullet - while this isn’t legal in use of international warfare, it’s completely legal for police enforcement to use it in their own internal affairs. which is horrifying, i know, but bear with me.

one of the advantages of a hollowpoint bullet is that it’s good at…damaging people, essentially. it’s designed to disperse upon impact with the body. the bullet isn’t deep-penetrating like an armor-piercing round; it will fragment upon entry and disperse into as wide a diameter as possible and therefore maximize the amount of damage that can be done to a single target, which makes the target more likely to be incapacitated and therefore easier to control.

now let’s roll back to lasers. it’s possible that laser blasts can run hot enough to cauterize wounds, but at that point you have to question whether BL/ind would want that. a cauterized wound doesn’t need to be sealed up. if your laser blasts cauterize the injury, there’s no bleeding and a decreased risk of infection and further damage. in other words, your target isn’t going to be very incapacitated in the long-term or very much in the short-term either unless you hit them in the right places.

when firearms made the switch from ballistics to lasers in this universe, i think it’s completely reasonable that BL/ind would want the general idea of how law enforcement currently operates - weapons that emphasize maximum damage and therefore allow the maximum chance of incapacitation - to remain fully intact. hell, especially if they’re going to be arming the unreliable dracs, who collectively rank only a little higher than stormtroopers on a marksmanship scale. i can see them almost certainly wanting to ensure that even if dracs aren’t making all their shots, that the ones that do hit don’t need to be lethal to do damage.

so with all that out of the way, that’s just what you’re gonna end up with if you want to arm an unreliable security and enforcement department with a weapon that’ll still do its job in incapacitating unruly folks with as little wasteful battery power as possible: you get guns that burn hot enough to sear your flesh, but not so hot that they cauterize the injuries.

someone who’s bleeding out is much easier to restrain and capture or kill than someone who isn’t.

and since i’m guessing a lot of the weapons that zonerunners and killjoys use ultimately come from BL/ind, i’d be willing to bet that most of their rayguns will do the same.

[mothers-little-pistols]

there’s a two-child limit in battery city. it doesn’t matter how close they are in age or what their genders are, but two is the max. in the rare case of triplets, one of them is always taken away and never seen again.

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GENDER IS DUMB I’M HERE TO BE SPARKLY AND KISS GIRLS AND WEAR COOL CLOTHES AND POINT MY FUCKING GUN AT THE SKY AND SCREAM “NICE TRY GOD” FOR TRYING TO HOLD ME BACK

[mothers-little-pistols]

*rollerblades into the desert and is never seen again*

[mothers-little-pistols]

Jobs in the Zones

Killjoys, although they don't exactly have jobs, all have one thing that they do. It could be to make some cash, or just to help others.

Protectors

These are the guys with the cars and blasters, who spend their lives gunning down dracs. They often model themselves after The Fab Four, or later on, The V's.

Vendors

People like Tommy Chow Mein. They own the shops and show up at most markets, carrying stuff that people need, and random objects they collect.

DJs

There are very few of these, seen as if not done right, BL/ind can track their signals. These are the voices behind the killjoys, who call them to rally and warn of any danger. Two of the most well known are Dr Death Defying and DJ Hot Chimp.

Thieves

When the killjoys first formed, with nothing to keep them alive, thieves were the most important joys of them all. They'd sneak into Battery City and steal as much as they could for their friends and family. As the job is dangerous, and becoming less needed, their numbers are becoming sparse.

Musician

Music is a huge part of any killjoy's life, so bands needed to be started. Most joys try this, but only the best succeed. Namely, Mad Gear, and Richard Ai Yai Yai to name a few.

Artists

These are the joys who spray paint the finer details on your car, turn your blaster into a work of art, spice up your jacket, or create masterpieces to spite BL/ind. They are few and far between, but are well received in the rebellion of colour.

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i like the bath after i dye my hair

[mothers-little-pistols]

(source)

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Val showing up to the afterlife with the Fabulous Four waiting for him

[mothers-little-pistols]

What color iz ur hair? R what do u want it 2 b?