#bullets are extinct

[formulas-fatal-to-your-mom]

[extinctionstories]

On April 19th, 1987, a bird known as Adult Condor 9 was captured in the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, near Bakersfield, California. After decades ravaged by the threats of lead-poisoning and pesticide exposure, and intense debate over the ethics of captivity, it had been determined that captive breeding was the final hope to save a species. As his designation might suggest, AC-9 was the ninth condor to be captured for the new program; he was also the last.

As the biology team transported the seven-year-old male to the safety of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, his species, the California Condor, North America's largest bird, became extinct in its native range. It was Easter Sunday—a fitting day for the start of a resurrection.

At the time of AC-9's capture, the total world population of California condors constituted just twenty-seven birds. The majority of them represented ongoing conservation attempts: immature birds, taken from the wild as nestlings and eggs to be captive-reared in safety, with the intention of re-release into the wild. Now, efforts turned fully towards the hope of captive breeding.

Captive breeding is never a sure-fire bet, especially for sensitive, slow-reproducing species like the condor. Animals can and do go extinct even when all individuals are successfully shielded from peril and provided with ideal breeding conditions. Persistence in captivity is not the solution to habitat destruction and extirpation—but it can buy valuable time for a species that needs it.

Thankfully, for the California condor, it paid off.

The birds defied expectations, with an egg successfully hatched at the San Diego Zoo the very next year. Unlike many other birds of prey, which may produce clutches of up to 5 hatchlings, the California condor raises a single chick per breeding season, providing care for the first full year of its life, and, as a consequence, often not nesting at all in the year following the birth of a chick. This, combined with the bird's slow maturation (taking six to eight years to start breeding), presented a significant challenge. However, biologists were able to exploit another quirk of the bird's breeding cycle: its ability to double-clutch.

Raising a single offspring per year is a massive risk in a world full of threats, and the California condor's biology has provided it with a back-up plan: in years when a chick or egg has been lost, condors will often re-nest with a second egg. To take advantage of this tendency, eggs were selectively removed from birds in the captive breeding program, which would then lay a replacement, greatly increasing their reproduction rate.

And what of the eggs that were taken? The tendency of hatchlings to imprint is well-known, and the intention from the very beginning was for the birds to one day return to the wild—an impossibility for animals acclimated to humans. And so, puppets were made in the realistic likeness of adult condors, and used by members of the conservation team to feed and nurture the young birds, mitigating the risk of imprintation on the wrong species.

By 1992, the captive population had more than doubled, to 64 birds. That year, after an absence of five years, the first two captive-bred condors were released into their ancestral home. Many other releases followed, including the return of AC-9 himself in 2002. Thanks to the efforts of zoos and conservationists, as of 2024 there are 561 living California condors, over half of which fly free in the wilds of the American West.

The fight to save the California condor is far from over. The species is still listed as critically endangered. Lead poisoning (from ingesting shot/bullets from abandoned carcasses) remains the primary source of mortality for the species, with tagged birds tested and treated whenever possible. Baby condors are fed bone chips by their parents, likely as a calcium supplement—but, to a condor, bits of bone and bits of plastic can be indistinguishable, and dead nestlings have been found with stomachs full of trash.

There's hope, though. There are things we can change, things we can counteract and stop from happening in the future. It was a human hand that created this problem, and it will take a human hand to fix it. Hope is only gone when the last animal breathes its last breath—and the California condor is still here.

-

This painting is titled Puppet Rearing (California Condor), and is part of my series Conservation Pieces, which focuses on the efforts and techniques used to save critically endangered birds from extinction. It is traditional gouache, on 22x30" paper.

[justkending]

However Many Tomorrows it Takes. (One-shot)

Summary: It's not a big deal? People get shot on the job all the time. We patch it up and move on. So why is he so adamant that I don't make a few jokes here and there? Is it really that serious-? Apparently, it is.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger Reader (Enemies to lovers)

Word Count: 3100+

A/N: As requested, another angsty, injury, one-bed trope, Bucky fic :) Enjoy, and let me know what you think! ❤️‍🔥

________________

“Is that blood?” 

“No?” 

“That’s not a question you’re supposed to answer with another question.”

I look to Bucky, blinking a few times, and he stares at me with a raised eyebrow. 

“Yes?...” I follow with as if not sure what the correct answer was. 

“Dear God, how much blood have you lost to be this stupid?” he grumbles, moving to me and quickly assessing the damage, even if he doesn’t know the spot of my wound. 

“Hey now. Can’t blame a girl for trying to curve an obvious disappointment glare you were winding up,” I retort, having my arm harshly raised so he can get a better look at my side. “Hey! I’m fine!” I argue, snatching my arm back down and giving him a look. “Stop that.” 

“You’re. Bleeding,” he says it loudly and slowly as if I’m hard of hearing, but I know it’s just him playing into the fact of his joke early that I would have to be incoherent to not realize the depth of the problem at hand. 

“Thanks, Einstein. I thought I was just sweating red sticky liquid,” I smack his hand as it reaches for my side again. “Cut it out!”

“Stop acting like a child,” he grumbles, and I step back, getting another long glare from him, showing me his patience is soon to be extinct. “Let me see-”

A loud shout down the alley on the city outskirts, where we were working, brought both of our attentions ahead. 

“We can role-play doctor and patient later. We have bigger things to check off on our to-do list,” I say, starting to jog backwards, wincing at the sharp pain on my back, and as Bucky runs alongside me, he gives me a judgmental look. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay alive so you can ridicule me about my life decisions later. I know how much you love that after a mission,” I chuckle, hiding the new wince that threatens to take over my features as I turn and run full force to another hiding spot, trying to get away from the guards we set off on our heist.

We managed to make it back to our hideout, and while Bucky chatted on the phone with Steve, he made me promise to shower and change so he could check my wound after he was off the call. 

“Don’t overdo it,” he warned, phone still up to his ear as he positioned it away from his mouth and pointed a finger at me. 

“Don’t play mama bear, it’s annoying,” I say, pointing to him the same way as I leave the room. 

We were in a disheveled apartment flat slightly in the city limits- a good distance from our mission point. It didn’t have much as it was a safe house for temporary cover and reset, but it had a working shower, a mattress on the floor, and a few necessities to stay a night or two if needed. 

If we were lucky and on the right track, we wouldn’t need to stay the night, but until we got reports back from Steve about how successful our infiltration was, we weren’t sure how long we’d be here yet. My hope? A few hours. Likelihood? Longer than that…

“Steve says they received one of the files we sent from the lab, but they’re waiting on the next one to come through. Should be in the next hour, but if not-” he says, walking down the hall and turning into the one room the place had, he sees me in front of a mirror, trying to see the bullet wound on my back. “You were shot?!” he says in surprised terror as he stomps in quicker to the room. 

“Grazed. I was grazed,” I correct, focusing on trying to get a better angle, but before I know it, I’m being gripped by the waist and turned in Bucky’s hands as he squats down to get eye level with it and holds me steady. “Hey now!” I say almost losing my balance in the switch-up, but his hands are secure and strong, keeping me in place. 

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me it was this bad?” he says through his teeth as he grabs my hands and forces me to hold my shirt up so he can examine it better. 

“Because we were kinda running for our lives,” I answer with a sigh and slouch in my spot as I hold my shirt up bunched above my stomach. 

He grumbles something under his breath and stands guiding me to the wooden chair I’m not sure is 100% stable, and sits me in it softly before leaving the room. 

“What’s happening?” I ask dumbfounded to being politely manhandled. 

I shouldn’t be surprised, considering he gets like this each mission, but luckily, it’s been a few years since I’ve had an injury as such, and he was around for it. Usually, I’m on missions with others, and considering that we have a nitpicking and annoyed forced friend kind of bantering going on constantly, I still figured he’d tell me to slap a band-aid on it and call it a day. It’s what he does for himself…

He comes back in with a first-aid kit in hand, the scowl permanent on his face as he steps into business mode. 

“Keep your shirt up,” he instructs, opening the white plastic container and rifling through it for the appropriate medical tools. 

I don’t really fight it as I know it’s pointless. Besides, I have nothing better to do as we wait to hear if we’re stationed for the night, or if we are making a 6-hour flight home soon. 

“Like I said, it’s just a graze,” I say as he grabs a sanitizing wipe and sprays it with disinfectant. “The healing process won’t be bad,” I say, looking down as he brings the doctored gauze strip to the cut, and I take a breath in, knowing the sting to follow. 

When I grit my teeth ready for the discomfort that follows, I don’t expect his hand to rest on my knee in silent assurance and support as he presses it, and the slight distraction makes the initial sting numb. 

I look down at him, and he’s focused on the cut, being gentle and not at all abrasive like he’s been stomping around here and demanding. 

It’s quiet as he fixes me up, squeezing my knee before another sting occurs. As he’s applying the biggest bandaid in the kit over it (a touch overkill if you ask me), he looks up at me, arm resting on his knee where he’s been squatting the entire time. 

“Do me a favor. Stop getting shot. It stresses me out,” he says with a straight face, but a hint of genuine concern is laced in there. 

As he goes to stand, I sigh and playfully reply, “Well, if you don’t like it...” 

“No one likes it,” he says, wiping his hands on a cloth, looking over his shoulder with a warning look. 

Ok. Serious Bucky is still here even after the danger has been evaded. 

I sigh, putting my sarcastic personality to bed for the night. You can only fake that you’re unbothered for so long before people see through it. Bucky is a ‘people’. Bucky has always been ‘people’ when it comes to me. For whatever reason that is… I have no clue. We’ve always kinda… budded heads? I don’t know how to explain it because it’s temperamental most the time. However, it’s a known fact on the team, that the battle of stubborn asses will likely come into play if we’re around each other long enough. Seems the battle is itching for a start. 

“Ok, you know you can play along, right? You don’t have to be so uptight,” I roll my eyes, adjusting my shirt and moving to my bag for my sweatshirt. The flat doesn’t have great sealing on the windows and doors. It’ll likely be a cold night. 

“Or you can take the fact you got shot seriously and not kid around about it,” he responds, grabbing the first aid kit and organizing it. He was an organizing fiend when he was upset or needed to hone his energy somewhere else so he wasn’t in his head too much. 

The compound's pantry and spice cabinet? Pristine almost always, by the way. 

“Or you can recognize this isn’t life or death and we say, ‘Hm, that sucks. Good thing no one's dead or dying. Call it a plus,’ and move on with our day,” I argue back. 

He rolls his eyes as he winds a roll of gauze and looks at me from the side. “You. Were. Shot,” he says again in that slow, demeaning tone. 

“Obviously, I know,” I growl. “I. Felt. It.” 

He narrows his eyes at my unphased demeanor and the way I mock his tone. 

“What’s so wrong with a person worrying about you, huh?” he questions with an investigative look, stepping towards me where I’m sitting on the bed that’s less than a foot off the ground, forgoing the kit. 

“That’s not the problem,” I scoff, digging in my bag to avoid eye contact. 

“Then what’s the problem?” I can feel him standing over me, arms crossed in his intimidation tactic. Can’t work if I’m not looking, right? 

“Problem is you overreact.”

“I’m not overreacting. You were shot.” 

“As you’ve said only a hundred times in the last hour. Care to make it 101?”

When I don’t hear a witty response, I look up, seeing him staring down at me with what I can’t decide is distaste, pure fiery annoyance, or pity. Only one of those I’m slightly ok with. 

“Silent treatment? Kay, cool.” I shrug and grab my sweatshirt, throwing it over my head. “I’m going to go make a sandwich and wait for Steve to call back. Hopefully, we’re not here much longer.” 

I can hear the short scoff he lets out of his nose as I pass him and move back to the kitchen space while he gets changed himself. 

Twenty minutes later, showered and new like me, Bucky comes in and sits across from me in the mismatched chair paired with a table that looked to be built by a two-year-old. 

“Careful, splinter galore over there,” I motion to the side of the table where I purposefully moved away from. “Hungry?” I ask, nodding to the minimal ingredients as I take a bite of the sandwich. 

“No.” His arms are still crossed, and he’s still glaring at me from over the counter. 

“‘Kay,” I shrug and stay on my phone as I eat and scroll through social media, waiting for Steve’s notification. 

Did you know Bucky can stare at you for hours without moving and make you uncomfortable in your seat just by his presence? Well, he does. And he’s doing it right now. 

“Twenty-seven minutes, Barnes. That’s how long you’ve been glaring at me without breaking,” I say, never breaking my concentration from scrolling on my phone through the pictures that Nat sent a while ago in the group chat. “Going for a new record?”

“Can you not make everything a joke for one second of your life?” he grits after a minute, and when I look up, I see he’s genuinely upset. 

I blink a few times and scrunch my face at the change up, and lock my phone, leaving it on the table as I cross my arms and lean back in my chair. 

“What’s up with you-”

“What’s up is you don’t seem to have any regard for your life,” he cuts me off, looking away as he takes a breath and runs his hand through his hair. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it freaks me the hell out that you don’t seem to take it seriously.” 

“We all have different ways of responding-” I start again, my eyes narrowed as he calls me out on it. 

“I’m not negating that,” he says, holding a hand up, still not looking at me. “My concern is one day it’ll be far more serious, and you won’t speak up or you’ll downplay the fuck out of it to not be a bother to others.” 

What the hell- How did he know…?

“That’s not-” 

“Don’t you dare even finish that fucking lie,” he holds a finger up to me with a warning look that I’m not stupid enough to take lightly so I shut my mouth, but continue to glare. “Y/N, you were shot today. Shot. And yes, I know it was a graze and comparable to a mosquito bite, given the injuries we’ve sustained throughout our careers, but it’s serious nonetheless. You getting hurt is serious.”

I don’t know where this is coming from, but I’m curious where he’s going with this. Curious and slightly scared he’s seeing through me like a damn cellophane wrap. 

“Be honest with me,” he crosses his arms again when I don’t give him a quip back, and he knows he has the floor. “Do you see yourself as a burden or inconvenience when you get hurt on missions?” 

Ok. Getting straight into the hardhitters and not even easing into the topic. 

My only answer is more narrowing of my eyes as I begin to build a wall, I think he’s already prepared for. 

“Eh, be honest,” he says, raising one eyebrow in challenge. 

I hesitate. I don’t want to give him the reward of being right at all, let alone so soon. “Majority of the time that we’re on missions, there are more important things,” I answer vaguely, but the real answer in that response is, “I don’t see myself as a priority as much as others or other aspects towards the missions.” 

He seems to see right through it, and his face relaxes somewhat. Sympathy instead of frustration comes through his eyes. 

“You are important,” he says simply, never breaking eye contact with me. “How could you not be?”

My scowl eases from my face, and I blink in surprised confusion. 

“I-I know that,” I say, having to clear my throat because I didn’t even believe that. “I know that.” I try again, and this time it sounds like words you’ve said a million times, and now they feel wrong.

His face fell in pity, and that’s when I drew the line. I clear my throat again, standing quickly and straightening my clothes. “I’m going to lie down for a bit. Let me know if Steve calls.” I exit the room as fast as I can before he can argue for me to stay and talk.

____

I must have dozed off pretty soon after getting the bed made up and ready, in case we ended up staying the night because the mission wasn’t done. 

But when I woke to the bed dipping and the single lamp on Bucky’s side turning off, I came to the conclusion we were stuck here for the night. 

I’m as close to the edge on my side of the queen mattress when he pulls the covers over himself, and I feel the change as the sheets come up to cover me more, too.

“Not done?” I ask, meaning the mission. 

“Not done.”

“How long?” 

“Second file still needs to be obtained. We’ll come up with a plan tomorrow. Don’t worry about it right now.” 

I turn, shifting to sit up, but his hand wraps around my waist gently and pulls me close to his body heat. “Bu-”

“I said don’t worry about it,” he repeats, taking in a deep breath as he rests his head on top of mine and wraps me into him as the little spoon to his big spoon. 

I don’t even question it because this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to share body heat to keep warm. We’re lucky the flat was supplied with clean sheets and a giant comforter, but the single other blanket didn’t do much to shield us from the cold European fall nights. 

But considering how much he seemed to see through me, I felt vulnerable tonight. And his touch… Felt more protective than usual. 

“My feet are cold,” I say softly and almost childlike when I recognize both he and I are bundled in all the warm clothes we have packed, but the socks on my feet aren’t enough to help still. 

“They always are,” he mumbles into my hair before moving his leg to capture mine and tangle our limbs under the covers, perfectly positioned to warm my frigid toes. Once he’s happy with the positioning, he lets out a deep breath and says. “There. Now, go to sleep, Y/N. Our problems will still be a thing in the morning.” 

“Which problem are you hinting at?” 

“All of them.” 

“Well, yes, I know, but which one are you actually talking about, because there’s a big elephant in the room making me anxious because knowing you, you’ll start something about me not-” A hand covers my mouth while his other wraps tighter around my stomach, pressing my back to his chest, careful, however, to not irritate my wound. 

“However many tomorrows we have, Y/N, I will continue to solve the problem that is you not seeing yourself as a priority or important piece to this world. And if one morning you finally wake up and realize just how true that is,” his mouth is next to my ear, my hair being the only things keeping his lips from grazing it. “Then we can move on to solving all the other world’s problems, ok?”

I’m shocked yet not. Taken aback by the sheer genuineness, yet not. He’s being honest. Bucky doesn’t say or promise things lightly when it comes to his passion and affection for those he cares about. 

And sure, we poke and claw at each others nerves, but I know and he knows, we’d take a bullet for the other if the situation called for it. No hesitation. 

And to hear him say it, in such non-surface level way, left no room for uncertainty that he meant it.

“Why do you care so much?” I say so softly, “About me,” almost followed but stayed stuck in my throat like my innerchild was asking the question she so desperately needed the answer to. 

Bucky’s hand had moved to rest across my shoulder practically strapping me to him with both arms now and he relaxed fully. 

“Because I always have and I don’t plan to stop... Not when it comes to you. Goodnight, Y/N…” 

That was all my soul needed to hear before I was pulled into the most peaceful and comforting night of sleep I’ve had in a very, very long time…

If you've asked to join any of my tags and I haven't yet, please send me an ask! I lose track sometimes. :)

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My Lovelies Forever:

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@chloe-skywalker​ @charmedbysarge​ @jbarness​ @bellamy-barnes​ @katiaw2​ @aikeia​ @stopjustlovethemcu​ @enchantedbarnes

[myownwholewildworld]

ppcu discord server

hi everyone <3 right, so this idea was born out of utter desperation at the thought of tumblr going extinct... 💀 so my beloved odi ( @joelmillerisapunk ) and i have decided to bite the bullet and create a PPCU discord server in the event of an emergency (yes, tumblr getting nuked is an emergency).

it's meant to be a welcoming space where the PPCU community can reconnect and yap about our favourite PP characters, so we can keep in touch even through tumblr apocalypse (may this never happen pls). i know for some of us is a bit daunting adding people out of the blue so we thought this might be a good idea.

we've created different channels where you can self promote, rec fics, ask for help, etc. and it is obviously open to EVERYONE! writers, readers, gif makers, artists, lurkers - the only thing you need to bring is your love for the PPCU and respect for everyone.

so please come join us!! (this server is 18+ ONLY, so by joining you confirm you are of legal age)

this link has no max number of uses and it'll never expire, so feel free to share it if you want <3

tagging some moots below the cut in case you want to join and/or spread the word 💖

@cuppajoel @syd-djarin @gothcsz @pedgito @almostfoxglove @iknowisoundcrazy @joelalorian @baronessvonglitter @inept-the-magnificent @chronically-ghosted @goodwithcheese @tightjeansjavi @sixhours @gracieheartspedro @strang3lov3 @aurorawritestoescape @styleispunk @jessthebaker @almostempty @yopossum @djarins-cyare @yxtkiwiyxt @punkseyes @strangererotica @pepperstories @missyorkswhore @javierpenaispunk @romanarose @orcasoul @jolapeno @joelslegalwhre @huntingingoodwill @maiamore @josephquinnswhore @slimybeth69 @peepawispunk @itwasntimethatdidit40 @probablyreadinsmut @max--phillips @mushgloomz @letsgobarbs @damneddamsy @beyondthefold @ohhoneypascal @dontlookatme121 @pedroscurls @nathanbatemanfucker @salingers @rainy-day-gracie

[medlilove]

(Edited to add headshots because tumblr hates detail) I've etched away at this is a lovely few weeks, so click for full res and all the little details, okay? It's my love letter to the journey I've found myself on

This is long-ish, so its under the cut (but worth reading...)

I had been thinking a lot recently about that double feature episode, you know the one? I half remembered it then, when they chased a bunch of alien spies so fast through the solar system they all got thrown back in time. Half the crew went on a little undercover adventure in Toronto in 2024. It was great because they got completely cut off from the Enterprise, so half of them, well mostly Uhura and Spock if I recall correctly, spent their time collecting as many radios as possible and worked on building their own communications. Uhura and Spock were basically taking turns constantly tweaking radios by the window with wires everywhere. Oh yeah, their base of operations was the whole top floor of a worn out old building looking over a big square. They ended up in the really arty/queer part of town full of art galleries and thrift stores.....??

Chapel and Chekov were sent out to those shops to find disguises for everyone. I loved the joke that Chekov was puzzled and slightly alarmed that Christine just knew everyone's clothes sizes and measurements with no explanation. Later on, they ended up getting separated from the rest of the group and getting held up by B story shenanigans, mostly getting lost and running into culture shocks. It was fun to see them having their own adventures and made for a pretty interesting combo. Spock and Uhura spent most of their time with the tech, accidentally listening to the times most popular music while changing frequencies. Jim and Sulu paired off to search for clues, and getting supplies and spent a lot of time talking to the locals setting up for a Pride parade. McCoy, feeling paranoid and irritable that he had practically no equipment, wandered around with Dr Alfred Nahdi, the Botanist, who kept picking random weeds and talking about how extraordinary the little dandelions were. Oh and together they stole a whole medical bag out of an ambulance?? It was pretty funny.  Anyway, the main issue was they couldn’t risk leaving the area because all these alien spies had assimilated into the population and they had to track them all down and bring them back with them so as not to disrupt the timeline or something. They had to track down the aliens while making sure the aliens didn't pick up on who they were or that they were also out of place. They ended up being there for around two whole ass months, I think. The spies were spread out all over and there were about 30 of them, but it ended up being the Botanist, Alfred (Alfie) Nahdi who found the enemy base of operations by complete accident. Alfred, who had spent most of the time studying all the common flowers and weeds that were so ordinary at that time but were extinct in their time, figured out where the aliens' base of operations was because the big plant shop at the end of the square had a few succulents that could not have existed in 2024. It was a big "woah" moment. And there was this whole thing where he had to act like he hadn’t just figured it out because the florist, who was almost certainly a spy, was watching him and McCoy. But soon after, it all went to hell anyway when a fight broke out and Sulu was straight up shot with the aliens' weapon that had bullets made from alien metal. So then Bones had to perform old school surgery on him in their HQ, with only 2024 equipment. Jim, Spock, and Uhura were out fighting and ran into Chapel and Chekov and were able to finish them off, but it got really crazy because there was a Pride parade in the square at the same time so they had to make sure no one noticed them. While Bones was pulling bullets out of Sulu, with the botanist assisting him until Chapel (who had been sent by Jim) appeared and took over. McCoy said something like, “Christine, I’ve never been so glad to see you in my life,” and they sewed him up all old school. And it worked out! But Bones was a mess because he had to do messy surgery with none of his kit, and so much pressure, and more blood than he was used to... Chapel stayed with Sulu, and Bones and Nahdi went to sit on the fire escape stairwell and had a sweet scene of Bones just full of adrenaline, his hands couldn't stop shaking. They sat hand in hand for a while listening to all the people on the streets below. Then Spock, Jim, Uhura, and Chekov appeared at the stairwell and they all had a happy, albeit exhausted reunion. After a day of everyone recovering from all the excitement, Uhura and Spock used some extra tech they got from the aliens and finally made contact with poor Scotty who was up on the Enterprise losing the will to live. Anyway, their outfits were iconic tbh.

I invented this whole thing to draw Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in a sweater. I lost control of the situation. I spent a lovely two weeks etching away at this with the support of my lovely ST server, I love you guys. This ones for you.

[s0fter-sin]

one of my favourite aspects of supernatural that you very rarely see in paranormal shows is that sam and dean are already versed in the world they live in. there’s no sudden discovery of ghosts and demons and now they have to learn about them along with the audience; they are born into it and already know all about it. it allows the audience to follow their personal story instead of also trying to figure out this new world and its rules

the first season is full of knowledge we never see them learn; “w*ndigoes are in the minnesota woods or- or northern michigan. i’ve never even heard of one this far west.” […] “great. well then this [his gun] is useless.” (1x02), “you don’t break a curse. you get the hell out of its way.” (1x08), d: “it’s a god. a pagan god, anyway.” […] “the annual cycle of its killings? and the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. like some kind of fertility right.” […] s: “the last meal. given to sacrificial victims. d: “yeah, i’m thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some pagan god.” (1x11)

almost every episode in the first season is a monster they’ve faced before that they then explain to the audience in a way that should feel patronising; like it’s the same speech given over and over again but instead, the audience almost feels included in the knowledge. it’s stated with such an innate confidence and comfort in said knowledge that it feels like we already knew it too; “spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. if they want inside, they just go through the walls.” […] “the claws, the speed that it moves; could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog.” (1x02), “it's biblical numerology. you know noah's ark, it rained for forty days. the number means death.” (1x04), “no no no, not the reaper, a reaper. there's reaper lore in pretty much every culture on earth, it goes by 100 different names.” […] “you said it yourself that the clock stopped, right? reapers stop time. and you can only see 'em when they're coming at you which is why i could see it and you couldn't.” (1x12)

they already know and, at least in the first season, already have what they need to kill whatever they’re hunting; already know to salt and burn bones for spirits, fire for a w*ndigo, exorcisms for demons, a silver bullet to the heart for shapeshifters. there’s only three times in the entire first season that they run into something new to them; 1x14 when sam gets his first vision that leads him to another psychic, 1x16 when dean calls caleb for help on the sigil he put together and he tells him about daevas, and 1x20 when they find out vampires are real- and they only don’t know that bc john thought they were hunted to extinction and not worth mentioning

(there’s also technically two half instances if you count one of them knowing something the other doesn’t - sam figuring out the tulpa in 1x17 and dean already knowing about the shtriga in 1x18 - but those still rely on sam and dean having prior knowledge)

even when they’re uncertain about facing something, it’s not bc they don’t know what it is; it’s precisely bc they know what it is and acknowledge that it’ll be a difficult hunt (“i don't know, man. this isn't our normal gig. i mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. this is big. and i wish dad was here.” 1x04)

so much of the tension in paranormal shows typically comes from the main character(s) not knowing what is happening to them/the people around them and having to find out how to resolve it. supernatural is unique in that it operates more like a police procedural. the tension comes from solving the clues and identifying patterns to figure out who (what) the killer is and intercepting before they can take another victim

it’s such a different tone to go for when compared to other shows that came both before, during, and after its run. it sets sam and dean on even footing with each other since they both have the same knowledge going in, and it puts them in a place of authority usually reserved for an outside character

the shows i compare spn to most is charmed, buffy and teen wolf; every main character in those shows are brought into the paranormal world knowing nothing, putting them on the same level as the audience, and they have their mc interact with others already knowledgeable about that world in order to overcome their problem/monster of the week. the audience organically learns about this new world as the characters learn about it. it’s a sound writing strategy that prevents “as we already know”-style exposition but something that complicates it is if your world building isn’t unique or intriguing enough, this slow introduction can become boring

we’ve seen shows like these before; sitting through the same tropes of characters learning to use their powers, struggling with no longer feeling normal/relating to the regular world around them, and not knowing how much they can trust the people already involved in this new world gets repetitive. all three shows eventually reach the same level of comfort with their new world that spn starts with but if the characters aren’t enough to draw you in, you can end up dropping it before they reach that point (and often, before the overarching plot can really kick in and evolve the show beyond the villain of the week format)

it’s the superhero origin movie in tv format; dragged out and overplayed. dropping the audience into an established world of course comes with its own problems but you also have the benefit of pre-existing established character dynamics that let the audience slot in like they’ve always been there instead of just getting to know all the characters while the characters also get to know each other

sam and dean already knowing about the supernatural lets the audience immediately get to the core of the story; the conflict between sam and dean, the search for their father, and the mystery of what killed their mother

[not-neverland06]

How About a Nuke?

Part I / Part II / Part III

The ghoul x fem!reader A/N: Part three is going to be when it gets juicy, this is just them becoming reacquainted. You’ll get the good angst in the next parts. Summary: Your dreams of stardom and fame have been blown away. Your old life is lost to the sands of this new world and you find yourself utterly confused. There’s a man who looks an awful lot like Cooper yelling at you, but it’s not the man you remember loving. Not anymore.

For two days he’s been following the sound of sirens. With no new bounties, he hasn’t got much else to do with his time. Plus, he’s hoping that maybe if he figures out what’s been causing all this noise he can shut it the fuck up. Didn’t matter how far he walked, the blaring wail was echoing across the whole damn wasteland. 

A cough started up in his chest, itching into his throat and rattling his whole body as it ripped its way out of him. He tried to walk through the discomfort but it wouldn’t let him. He leaned over, hands braced on his knees, and coughed so hard he could feel ass jerky coming back up from his “dinner” last night. He clamped a hand over his mouth and forced the bile down. Frantic hands dug through the bag on his side, shaking as he ripped the box open and grabbed his inhaler. 

It took a minute before the drugs had the desired effect, and even then he was still fighting back nausea. He’s got to find a new dealer, that bitch in Filly was watering down her supply and he knew it. Not just that, she was overcharging too, on account of his being a ghoul. 

Even in the apocalypse money still managed to rule the world. Even if it was in the form of Nuka caps. He walked a little further before leaning against a boulder for a break. He wiped spittle off his lips and surveyed his surroundings. 

There was a faded old billboard sunken into the sand, only half of it sticking out. The paper was curled and browned from age and the sun, but he could make it out well enough. Quench Your Thirst, it wasn’t one of hers, though. It was the girl they’d replaced her with. He contemplated shooting it, just so he wouldn’t have to stare at the girl anymore, but it was a waste of bullets. 

Instead, he pushed off the rock and forced himself to keep going. The noise was unbearable now, rattling around his brain and making his ears bleed the closer he got. He must be right on it, only a little while longer and he’d finally turn the damn thing off. 

He lifted a leathered hand to block the sun out of his eyes. He kept squinting, disbelieving in the sight before him. Vault 111 was sitting pretty among the skeletons and dunes of sand. It’s big white numbers upside down as the door was slid open, alarms ringing out and red flashing lights dancing around within the vault. 

He couldn’t believe it. Vault dwellers were practically extinct in the Wastelands, nevermind actually getting into their vaults. But here this one sat, open and ready for the taking. Normally, he wouldn’t risk it, even just to turn off those fucking alarms. But he had just used his last vial and if he didn’t get his hands on some good shit soon, well, best not to imagine it. 

Hand on his holster he started forward, eyes darting back and forth to make sure this wasn’t some sort of trap set by raiders. He didn’t imagine they were smart enough to do that, but apparently Muldaver’s been on the move, this could be her people’s doing. He’d rather not have to listen to someone whining on about a better life and a kind society. 

He’d believe it when he saw it. All people were capable of was greed and lust, it’s been the same before the bombs and it will be the same after. 

He stepped inside, eyes pained as they adjusted to the stark contrast of the glaring sun outside and the soft fluorescent lights within the vault. He spotted a big red button and slammed his palm down on it. The sirens, thank fuck, shut off, but the lights kept going. 

There was a gap between his platform and the next. The control panel clearly needed a Pip-Boy to be operated but he didn’t see any nearby. He sighed and took a running leap, just barely making it to the other side.  

He took another suspicious look around, still not quite sure he was completely safe. His chest tightened with the irritating feeling of an oncoming coughing fit. “Fuck it,” he muttered, starting through the open doorway without a glance back. 

Whatever had happened in here had been messy and recent. He kneeled down next to a puddle of blood and dipped an ungloved finger in, still warm. He popped open his holster and tugged out the gun, better to be safe than dead. 

He had been following the direction the lights had been pointing this whole time, hoping maybe he’d stumble across an infirmary. These vault fucks had to have left at least one bag of radaway behind. So far, though, he didn’t have high hopes. Everything was ransacked. The bodies that were left behind had been stripped naked and beaten to unidentifiable pulps.

So far, the vaults had at least been air conditioned. If nothing else he was getting a break from the sweltering heat that trailed him on the surface. He’d already tested out one of the sinks down here, their water was still functioning. Maybe he could get some of the blood caked under his nails cleaned out. 

While the air conditioning had been nice, the breeze that was coming from the door across the way would have had goosebumps rising on him if he was still capable of that. His head tilted in contemplation as he stared at it. Above every door was meant to be an indicator of what went on in there. 

There wasn’t for this one, though. And despite knowing better, he had to admit, he was pretty curious. He strode forward, tucking the gun back in his holster and slamming the button on the right side of the door. The second it slid open, whatever had been sealing the noise inside broke. 

He flinched away from the sounds of sirens and covered his ears, cussing up a storm as he slammed the button once more. It clicked uselessly but didn’t send the door down again. “Fuck,” he hissed, stepping inside and grunting as the cold bore down on him ten times worse than before. 

Cryogenics, well, the temperature made sense now. 

He stared at each of the pods, the windows frosted over with cold and making it impossible to see the people within. He took his time examining them, trying his best to see if anyone he knew was in one of them. Despite it all, he held a little hope that he might see Janey, maybe even Barb. 

Without any luck he headed towards the terminal, he could probably get the sirens to shut the fuck up this way. Or maybe just get this door closed again. 

In neon green a warning sign flashed over and over across the screen. 

LIFE SUPPORT: CRITICAL FAILURE.  

He glanced back over his shoulder and scoffed. Rich fucks hadn’t thought to have a back up, or did they really think their buddy Vault-Tec would keep them safe? He shook his head and clicked away the warning. He peered through the list of commands but couldn’t find anything except a list of who was in the pods. 

He figured he might as well see if he spotted a familiar name. If they were alive he might be able to get some information off of them. It wasn’t until the bottom of the list that he saw anything helpful. Your name stood out bright and bold and beside it the message:

LIFE SUPPORT FAILING

RISK OF ASPHYXIATION: 

The colon blinked a few times and he drummed his finger impatiently on the sides of the terminal. Finally the risk analysis loaded and he let out a rough exhale. 

RISK OF ASPHYXIATION: IMMINENT 

REMOVE SUBJECT IMMEDIATELY 

His eyes widened and without thinking he clicked the little button. A moment later he heard something creak open, the seal of the pod broken as air rushed out. He turned around and faced your pod, of course it was the one right beside him. 

He ran forward, catching you just as you slumped out of the seat. Your skin was like ice, your lips blue and face purple from choking. It was all swollen, like you’d been struggling to get air in for a while before he came. He frowned down at your limp form, shaking you slightly as he waited for you to take in a breath. 

“Hey,” he brought a rough hand down on your cheek, the leather striking loudly against your skin.

Your lips parted and you took in a deep breath, gasping as your hands flew up to your throat. You turned over, falling out of his arms and landing roughly on the metal grates of the floor. He took a step back, watching as you hacked yourself back to life, your lungs nearly coming out with how hard you were coughing. 

His head tilted as he observed you. You looked damn near the same as the last time he saw you. The only real difference being the slutty little black slip you had on. He scoffed and shook his head. So that’s where you’d disappeared to, sold yourself out to Vault-Tec for some apocalyptic protection. 

Lot of good that did you. 

You clawed at your throat, air feeling like razor blades as you greedily inhaled. You’re not sure where you are, you can barely feel your extremities, you’ve got an uncomfortable draft on your backside. You wince as you sit up, wiping your blurry eyes in the hopes they’ll clear up, metal digs into your skin as you do. 

It’s like when you get too cold during winter and your eyes frost over a little bit. Except, this doesn’t feel like a little bit. You can’t even see your own hand right now. All you can make out is faint outlines of everything, blurry little clouds of color. 

“Hello?” Someone was here, you could tell that much. You just didn’t know who. Metal creaked in front of you and you scrambled back. They weren’t saying anything. Why weren’t they saying anything? 

You wracked your brain for the last thing you could remember and felt tears building along your lashes. Oh god. “Tom?” You called out hesitantly. Maybe they’d changed their minds. Maybe the men who’d grabbed you had dumped you off somewhere. 

You didn’t want to think about what they’d done while you were asleep. You were slowly becoming more aware of your surroundings and very aware of the skimpy slip you had on right now. Not even close to what you’d been wearing when they grabbed you. You wrapped your arms around yourself in a meager attempt at comfort. 

“That who you fucked, sweetheart?”

Your brows turned down. “Cooper?” He sounded a little rough, his accent more pronounced, but you’d know his voice anywhere. It was as familiar to you as your own. “Cooper, where am I?” The tears were spilling freely now the longer he stared at you in silence. At least crying was starting to thaw out your eyes. 

You could more clearly make out his form now, looming overtop of you like some sort of dark omen. You always felt safe with Coop. When someone pushed you too much or got a little too aggressive, you could go to him. 

Right now, though, you felt like prey in front of a wolf. There was no kindness in his words and only a cruel accusation in his tone. Dear god, where were you? And why would he think you would ever fool around with any of these sick fucks behind his back? 

“Cooper, please, what happened?”

He barked out a laugh and you flinched back, “What happened? Well, lets see what the fuck happened.” You heard more than saw him pace across the metal floors, the spurs on his boots clanking loudly. Had he been at a party and come looking for you?

“You told me you’d be back for lunch and I didn’t see you for another two hundred years.”

Your stomach dropped to the floor, “What?” You whispered. 

He knelt down in front of you. “Your eyes still foggy?” You nodded your head mutely. “Well,” he chuckled but it wasn’t the one you knew. This was something mean and sharp. “When those clear up, I’m not gonna look like you remember me, darling. Should probably get out of here before you realize what you’re talking to.”

He made to get up but you shot forward, blindly groping at the dark form of his torso until you latched onto his duster. “Cooper, please, I’m confused. I-” you looked around blindly, hoping to find something to explain how the last thing you remembered was eating pancakes with him. There’s no way in hell it’s been two hundred years. 

“I went to Tom’s to get the script. He made me come in for drinks. There- there were all these men there, they grabbed me and I don’t remember anything after that. Cooper, please, I wasn’t wearing this when they snatched me. What the hell happened to me?”

There was a moment of silence before he let out a sigh. “You didn’t leave to find some safety in Vault-Tec?”

You frowned and let him go, shoving him away from you with as much force as your frozen muscles could muster up. “Fuck you, you think I’d do that to you? How little do you think of me?”

You reached out for the pod beside you, using it to get to your feet. You felt about as graceful as a newborn foal right now, all gangly limbs and stilted movements. You leaned over, catching your breath as you tried to walk forward. 

“If I were you, I’d get back in that pod and let the world rot away. You’re not gonna do well on your own out here, honey.”

You heard his spurs moving past you and then made out his form as he walked through the doors of the room. “Cooper?” You called out, but you knew it was pointless. He was gone. The man you knew was gone and you had no clue what the fuck had happened. 

He managed to finally find the infirmary, lucky enough that a few bags of Rad-Away had been left behind. They’d only had IV bags, so he’d spent a while trying to find a spot where his skin wasn’t so tough a needle could actually get through. 

She had to be lying. 

He felt himself trying to look at the door, like she’d step through, and forced his head down. He flicked at the IV bag, hoping that maybe it would speed it the fuck up. He needed to get out of here. The longer he stayed, the more he wanted to talk to her. 

He’d changed a lot since they’d last seen each other. Whatever he had once felt for her was gone. The man he had once been was dead. There was no point in hurting the girl by giving her false hope. He sighed and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes and trying to relax some. 

He’d finish this bag, pack the others, and then he’d leave this vault behind. She could figure out what she wanted to do on her own. He didn’t have time for strays or old flames. 

You stumbled around for a while before you finally got your bearings. You managed to make your way into what looked like an office and sat behind a curved desk. A terminal on top sat blinking bright green letters at you. You went through each of the logs, your dread only getting worse the longer you read. 

Tom wasn’t in this vault, that’s for sure. The other names you only recognized from the credits of some movies you’d watched a while back. The men who had taken you from Tom’s house. 

According to the scientist using this terminal, they’d wanted to ensure they had some fun before they went underground. 

You weren’t the only one Tom had sold out. Your entire cryogenic chamber had been filled with other women, each of them dead because of a life support failure. You were meant to be their entertainment while they waited for the world to be ready for the taking. 

You took a break, forcing your eyes away from the screen and staring down at your hands. 

Well, Cooper hadn’t been lying at least. Two hundred years you’d been frozen, you hadn’t even known it. It was bizarre, what felt like only a few hours ago was over two millennia. You’d only just kissed Cooper goodbye and now he was acting like some asshole who wouldn’t even stay to help you to your feet. 

Feeling yourself getting angry and panicked you went back to reading. There was nothing you could do. You’d been screwed over by someone you trusted, you were stuck here. No point in pouting about it. 

The scientist wrote more about the men’s intentions and you forced the bile down as you read. Then he got to what Vault-Tec’s real intentions were. Something about experimenting with cryogenics, seeing how long a body could last, what all it could preserve. You didn’t understand most of it, the language far above your education. 

The men were just guinea pigs, same as you. It brought you a modicum of satisfaction. Barely, though. 

The lead of the whole project gets more cryptic and paranoid the further he writes. Something about Vault-Tec never sending the all clear signal to get the fuck out of here. Security was getting antsy the longer they stayed and supplies were running low. 

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together when you looked at the blood splattered walls and the white coated corpse across the room.  

Underneath the last entry was a fail safe. In case the experiment was going wrong and there were no other options but to abandon it. 

TERMINATE?

The green pointer blinked as you stared at the question. Your mind traveled to the way they’d swarmed you. How ruthlessly they’d taken you like you were nothing more than cattle. The other women they did it to. You could only imagine what had happened while you’d been knocked out. 

That familiar feeling of anger, disgust, and shame welled up in you. You had always been typecast. The sexy bombshell with nothing else going for her. It bled into other aspects of your life, people treating you like you were nothing more than a walking doll, for their enjoyment and nothing else. 

You’d be damned if you let these men survive what the other women couldn’t. 

You hit the button and listened as the sirens quieted down the hall, the hiss of oxygen as the pods killed their inhabitants. You didn’t allow yourself to linger on what you’d just done for very long, you went clicking through the rest of the terminal. 

Most of it was password locked, you only gleamed enough information to figure out what had been going on while you slept. Bombs dropped, the world went to shit, just like you always thought it would. You’d never considered that you might survive it. 

Maybe those men had done you a slight favor, just barely. 

He sighed as he ripped the needle out of his arm, pulling his sleeve down he moved away from the wall he’d been leaning on. He’d definitely been getting cheated out of his caps. Next time he saw that bitch Ma June, he’d show her what he thought about her watered down bullshit. 

A shadow passed by the doorway and his hand drifted down to his holster. He slipped out of the room and took a peek around the corner. She had her back to him, but he’d recognize her anywhere, even with that ridiculous vault suit on. 

“Hey!”

She jumped and whirled around on him. For a moment he forgot that this was a completely new reality for her. She didn’t know what a ghoul was, she’d never seen one before. Her last memory of him had been his prime. When he’d had a fucking nose. 

Her eyes widened and his grew cold while he waited for the inevitable disgust. He was used to it by now, but he was pretty sick and tired of hearing about it. Especially when the few people who managed to get their hands on his old movies would recognize him. 

The disgust never came, just obvious shock and disbelief. She took a few hesitant steps closer, her eyes darting across his face while she did. He nearly missed her hand coming up, like she wanted to touch him. He caught it at the last second, bringing his hand up to swat hers down. 

She winced and backed up a step, the wonder on her face gone and replaced with hurt. “Cooper-”

He darted forward and snatched her chin in between his gloved fingers. “Now, darling, I’m gonna need you to get this through your fucking head,” he hissed, eyes boring into her terrified ones. “That’s not my name anymore, I’m nothing but a ghoul. I’m not the man you know and I’m never going to be. Let it go and if you know what’s good for you, move the fuck on.”

He could see the tears welling up in her eyes and grinned, she had always been pretty when she cried. “Understand?” When she didn’t respond fast enough for his liking he shook her roughly, “Speak!”

“Yes,” she shouted, clawing at his arm and wincing when her nails scraped across the leather of his skin. “I understand.” He took a moment, looking into her eyes, before he nodded and released her. 

She stumbled back, choking on a sob and glaring up at him. “So, what? Am I just supposed to call you an asshole?” He scoffed, barely laughing. Everything that happened to her today and she could still get a fucking attitude. It was nearly impressive, if not stupid. She didn’t watch who she spoke to and she was going to get killed before the day was up. 

“You’re not gonna call me anything. We’re not working together, you’re on your own.”

She glared at him and rubbed her jaw where he’d grabbed her. Her cheeks were already changing colors, bruises blooming where he’d snatched her. His eyes darted away from her hands and back to her. “Why’d you stop me then?”

He looked her up and down and grinned at the way she shivered, seemed he hadn’t lost all his charm just yet. “That tight little suit of yours is gonna get you killed. People up there don’t take too kindly to people from down here.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, glaring at him. “So, what? I’d be safer walking around in what they had me in?”

He shook his head and started walking back towards the door of the vault. “No.”

He heard her huff and race after him. “You’re fucking infuriating, you know that? What the hell am I supposed to do, Co-” He shot her a warning glare but she’d clamped her mouth shut before she could finish the sentence. She still had that stupid hurt look on her face, like he’d kicked her puppy. It kind of made him want to just shoot her. 

“I don’t have any supplies, all I have is this stupid suit. Please, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

He sighed and stopped. She stumbled forward, nearly ramming into his back in the process. “Go to Filly, I’m sure you’ll find something there.”

“I’m supposed to just know where that is?”

He didn’t bother responding to her, there was no point in it. She would be dead soon, anyway. This world wasn’t made for pretty girls like her, especially not on her own. If she was smart she’d just starve herself down here, at least she’d have running water. 

You watched him walk off and felt like your chest was going to cave in. You couldn’t handle this, he was just Cooper an hour ago. Making you breakfast and kissing you goodbye. And despite the odd deformities, you could still see him. Sure, he was missing a nose, but he was still there. Your Cooper. 

Except he wasn’t. 

You couldn’t quite believe he would be so cruel earlier. He was always mean when he was hurt. You figured maybe he was still sitting with the fact that you hadn’t actually left him behind for Vault-Tec. But his eyes gave him away. 

They were cold, devoid of anything you used to know. The man you had known was no longer there. And if he was, he was buried far deeper than you were interested in digging. You watched him walk away and felt your chest squeezing painfully. 

This was not the fucking time to start panicking. If the carnage around you was anything to go by, then the surface had to be so much fucking worse. Cooper seemed to think vaults were safer, but right now you were staring into the gouged eyes of a corpse who’d been killed by a friend. Clearly, nowhere was safe. 

You couldn’t afford to pity yourself or cry. You’d have to keep moving, process it all later. You pushed off the wall and leapt over the corpses blocking your path. Cooper must’ve stepped in a pile of blood because you could clearly make out his footprints. He seemed like he was going to leave, you bet if you followed him you would find the way out. 

You followed the prints up a set of stairs, but they had faded out completely by the time you got up to the vault door. You winced, blocking your eyes from the bright glare of the sun. Barely a second out of the vault and you felt like your skin might already be peeling. 

Whatever had happened while you were out, this was not the world you remembered. The sun seemed bigger, brighter, more violent. If the skeletons littered throughout the sand were anything to go by, everything was more violent now. 

You tripped over a particularly deformed skull of a beast and scrambled up to your feet. You glanced around, spotting a figure in the distance and ran after it. You hoped it was Cooper you were following, but he was already so far ahead of you that he was barely a dot on the horizon. 

You followed the footsteps he left in the sand and prayed he didn’t notice you trailing him. You couldn’t very well stay down there with all of those corpses. There had been no supplies to protect yourself with except a bloodied scalpel. You wouldn’t make it down there on your own and you certainly wouldn’t make it up here. 

You planned to just follow Cooper until you found something resembling civilization. He didn’t want you around him and you got the message, you’re not exactly eager to share his company. He’s a stranger, the only part of him you recognize is his name, and you’re not even allowed to use that. 

You kept your distance as long as you could. Keeping him as far away as possible so if he turned around he wouldn’t be able to realize he was being followed. But you’re already struggling. He’s not showing any signs of slowing anytime soon and you can barely see anymore. 

Your lips are peeling, throat raw and aching for water. Your eyes are completely coated in sand and being damaged by the sun. You wished you had been better prepared for this but it’s been at least four hours and you’re about to keel over. 

You wheeze, dragging yourself over to a fallen billboard and slumping against it. You’re not paying enough attention to your surroundings, or you just don’t care anymore. You find yourself drifting off and you don’t stop it. You’d prefer if the heat stroke took you while you were asleep, at least then you wouldn’t be aware of it. 

Your eyes drift closed and your head slumps forward, the sun bearing down on your neck and burning away at the skin there. 

You cough and splutter, frantically brushing sand off your face and spitting it out of your mouth. Cooper’s standing over you, frowning and glaring, which seems to be his go to expression now. You glance down at his outstretched foot and realize he kicked the sand in your face. “What the fuck?”

“You know,” he tilts his head and rests a hand on his holster, grinning at the way you shrink away from his gun. “I thought you would have lasted at least another hour.”

You wipe your face off and struggle back onto your feet, nearly teetering over as you did. “You knew I was following you?” You groused, glaring up at him. You’re not sure your anger translates well, though. You can barely hear your own voice, your throat too dry to produce any proper words.  

“‘Course I did, sweetheart. I’d be a pretty shit bounty hunter if I didn’t recognize when someone was trailing me.”

You finally manage to get to your feet and glare at him. “Congratulations, you want a prize?”

His smile drops and he darts forward before you can move away. His hand clamps around your arm and he drags you behind him. You’re stumbling, barely able to keep in stride with him. Mercifully, you notice the sky is starting to turn pink in the distance. Soon, the sun will be down and you’ll get a moment's reprieve. 

“Where are you taking me?” You demand, tripping over a rock and wincing as he jerks you back to your feet. He turns around to glare at you like he isn’t the one dragging you around. 

“Filly,” he grunts. He finally comes to a stop, you ram into his back wincing as your nose slams into him painfully. He doesn’t even flinch and you wonder if he felt it. If he can feel anything with how crisped his skin is. 

“I thought you weren’t going to help me.” Maybe you shouldn’t be pushing your luck. If he is helping you, and that’s a pretty hesitant if, you’re sure he’ll be quick to change his mind. Still, you can’t help but push him. You’ve always had that problem, except before he took it in stride and teased you right back. 

Now, your eyes dart down to his gun, you’re not sure he wouldn’t just put a new hole in you. 

“Changed my mind.”

You huffed and rolled your eyes, “Yeah, I’m aware. I’m asking why,” you cut yourself off sharply, mouth clamping shut because you almost called him Coop again. Your jaw is still aching from the last “warning” he gave you. You’re not looking for another. 

He whirled around on you and you didn’t even realize his gun was in his hand until it was digging into your throat. “Why don’t you stop asking me so many fucking questions, hm.” He sneered and you winced at the sight of his yellowed teeth. Finally you nodded and backed away from him, he kept his eyes on yours for a moment before he holstered his gun again. “Let’s go,” he started walking and you couldn’t do anything but follow him. 

At least this time you weren’t trying to track a dot in the distance. 

The sky was getting dark quick and the temperature was dropping even faster. You hunched into yourself and ran your hands up and down your arms to try and keep warm. It seemed everything was done in the extremes now, even the damn weather. 

Cooper whistled and you hurried to catch up with him. He stood in front of a decaying old house, nearly all of the roof gone. The walls looked like they might cave in soon and it had clearly been unoccupied for a very long time. He opened up the door and walked inside, letting it slam back into your face. 

You caught it and huffed. You followed after him and saw that he was already setting up his spot for the night. He leaned against the half-rotted couch, his hat over his eyes and his arms tucked under his coat. You glanced around for a clean spot to curl up and laid down on the ground. You winced at all the dirt on the floor but figured it was better than sleeping out in the sand. 

Despite your oh-so comfortable sleeping arrangement, you found it hard to pass out. Maybe it’s because you’d just taken a two hundred year nap or the man across from you. Your eyes refused to stay shut and you couldn’t stop staring at him. 

You told yourself you would process your emotions later but apparently your mind had decided now would be the best time. You could feel the tears trickling down your cheeks again and you tried to wipe them away.

Too much had happened for them to be so easily dismissed. You were struggling with the thoughts of what those men did to you. You’re certain your imagination is worse than anything that happened, but not knowing was killing you. You felt violated, just being knocked out like that and being left vulnerable to them. 

And Cooper. 

Cooper was practically dead as far as you both were concerned. You felt like you were grieving for someone who was lying right across from you. You were staring right at him and he was just out of your reach. 

You sniffled and wiped your nose. A loud sigh came from the man in front of you and he spoke without bothering to tilt his hat back up. “I’m gonna take you to Filly and you’re gonna help me with some business there and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“What?” Your voice was an embarrassing croak and you winced. 

“They don’t take too kindly to my folk down there-”

“You mean zombies,” you interrupted, propping your head up on your hand. 

He finally lifted his hat up and glared, though it was half-hearted at best. “It’s ‘ghouls,’ sweetheart. Never knew you to be racist.” You rolled your eyes and he dropped his hat back down again. “You’ll get me what I need and I’ll have delivered you to, well, not safety, but as close as you can get out here.” He leaned forward, arm outstretched and grinning at you. “Deal?”

Well, it wasn't like you had any other options. You leaned forward, grasping his gloved hand in yours and shaking, “Deal.”

SERIES TAGLIST: @pixelatedprofilepic @o0mellowdramatic0o @bisasterbisexual @julianmarie @v3n1x @weakling-grace

end. — I do not own the characters or the game/show Fallout, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[kiame-sama]

Hello, I have some questions for Humans are Extinct au that kept me up last night. Tw. Teeth and oral surgery

Is Sebek’s dad still a dentist in your au? And what if human needs their wisdom teeth removed? What would be the laws and regulations of disposing human teeth in this context? If human asked, would they let them keep their teeth? I once asked my dentist if when they remove mine if I could keep them and they said sure so I’m kinda curious if they would let reader keep theirs

Who is offering to buy reader’s wisdom teeth if they are allowed to keep them? Or are they gonna be put in a museum bc hey, modern human teeth?

Yes, he will remove them, there are complex laws regarding Human teeth, yes, they all would try to buy them, and yes museums will fight for those teeth.

- Sebek's father is still a dentist and is likely the only dentist Malleus will allow near his Human as he is the father of one of Malleus' Hoard members. Naturally, Sebek's dad will be sweating bullets and very nervous to be the only dentist allowed to operate on an extinct species. Those nerves and stress will begin to fade as he realizes the Human has teeth like that of many Fae- duller and less sturdy, but still close enough- and his own professional confidence will return.

- He will likely be the only one who can remove the Human's wisdom teeth and will genuinely feel badly for the Human when their face gets all swollen and painful after surgery. He will want to keep the teeth- because Human teeth are good luck and these are Premium Human Teeth- but will happily let the Human keep them should they want them. He may ask to keep one just because of the Fae's proclivity towards Human teeth and he is excited to show he is trusted enough to work on a Human (literally a trophy to him that other Fae would be exceeding jealous over).

- There are laws about the buying, selling, and trading of Human artifacts and many Historical societies demand all Human artifacts be taken and put on display/studied but most Fae will not part easily with remnants of their Humans. Human teeth are Fae family heirlooms and are considered good luck, often passed down through generations from Fae who raised their own Humans and gathered the baby teeth. Some places such as the Queendom of Roses and the Coral Sea also have family heirloom Human artifacts that they hold tightly to. (Crowley has a full collection of Human artifacts, from baby toys to several sets of teeth, the crow loves the shiny things Humans made and loved Humans in general)

- Malleus and Lilia both desperately want those teeth to keep but they won't push for the teeth if the Human wants to keep them. Leona may offer to buy one or two just for the hell of it. Riddle will honestly cry if he is given one of these teeth and he will literally put it on a pedestal to show it off. Rook wants one and will wear it as a necklace ornament for the remainder of his life. Vil will add it to his collection of beautiful things and won't let anyone take it from him. Malleus, Ortho, and Idia would get the teeth to gift to their respective ancestor. Malleus would give a tooth to Maleficent who will be pleased as punch with the offering. Ortho and Idia would give a tooth to Hades (who has literal hundreds of Human teeth already due to his genuine love for the Humans he kept on the Isle of Woe) but he would treasure it all the same.

- Museums can try to push to get those teeth, but they would have to go to the Human directly about it as Malleus will burn them and none of the others would willingly give up such a gift. If the Museum wants the teeth, they will have to fight for them and there is no one who would win against Malleus in a fight other than Hades or Maleficent.

[poguelandia]

SMALLVILLE (2001-2011) 3.03, “Extinction” What I don't understand is you're willing to walk into bullets for me but you won't share what's going on inside.

[zeravmeta]

hi! i know very little about arknights but the gacha game i DO play is gonna be doing a collab with them this year (limbus) and i feel like, knowing limbus like i do, i very much need to ask: who is priestess and what kind of narrative haunting insanity is she up to

-digging through inbox- im so sorry I starved you my child

OK SO, important point: This is a spoiler as fuck answer

Priestess is a character that's been hinted at from as far back as the concept trailers of Arknights, and hinted at throughout the entire game up to chapter 15 of the main story, which is currently newly released and properly introduces us to her in the present day. The only time we saw Priestess previously was in one backstory event Babel, and even then she is incredibly mysterious, all we knew at the time was this:

She was the one who created Originum

Now, in Arknights, Originum is the magic rocks that give you rock cancer and are at the center of pretty much the entire plot: Rhodes Island exists specifically to try and cure Oripathy, the disease Originum caused, and the Infected are at the backdrop and root of most if not all connected plot threads in the wider AK world.

The Babel event has another crazy lore reveal in conjunction with the existence of Priestess: Our player character Doctor, or Oracle as they were known, did not know that Originum would hurt Terra like this.

Now, there's a lot of backstory here as well, but the TL;DR is that there was once this hyper advanced space faring civilization that traveled the cosmos before being attacked and brought to the brink of extinction by 'something'. We don't really know what that 'something' is concretely just yet, but it led to many of their greatest trying to find a way to preserve their existence and immortality in a multitude of ways, and a lot of the main threats we fight across the various modes of Arknights ARE those methods that have been corrupted by either time, human error, or Originum.

Originum was one of these methods as well. It was the silver bullet, in fact. Originum was left on an ancient Terra and allowed to grow, and when Oracle, the last living individual of this species returned, they found that Terra had developed into the modern world of Arknights, and that Originum was hurting them.

It always came back to Originum, Oripathy, and Priestess. And we learn what Originum truly is before we even meet her, in Chapter 14: Originum is an assimilation device, a way to preserve souls, information, and consciousnesses even through death within an alternate universe called The Assimilated Universe.

Priestess' final endgoal was the assimilation of all life and the universe, leaving it an empty void filled with nothing but black rocks, all living things locked in what amounted to an empty dream.

We have multiple instances of characters basically doomsaying as much throughout, but Originum, and specifically Priestess, has a hand in pretty much most of the tragic events in the main story that follow Rhodes Island and Doctor. And she wasn't there physically until recently, but she was always watching.

PRTS is the AI of the Rhodes Island landship, the main base for the characters, and specifically was something we as a player would always see and were passively aware of at any point, given that it runs our auto farm comps and we see both the logo and name pretty much everywhere.

PRTS. Priestess.

She was always there. Always watching. Waiting. Waiting for the right moment to finish what she started.

[b0oker18]

X FIles fans, I gotta know. Which of the two options do you prefer about William:

P.S. Please read both options and bullet points CAREFULLY.

A.) William is the result of a union between Mulder and Scully. His powers come from the following:

Mulder and Scully are both immune to the coming black oil plague due to their exposure (Mulder in Tunguska/Terma, Scully in Fight The Future). This trait was passed down to William, also making him immune to the coming Plague.

The Biogenesis ship reactivated Scully's ova, allowing her to conceive again.

The rubbings of said ship activate some Alien DNA in Mulder, giving him “powers” such as remote viewing and reading minds. (Biogenesis/ The Sixth Extinction)

These traits were passed down to Willam who also has the ability to move objects with his mind, etc. 

William IS “more human than human” but he is unequivocally Mulder and Scully's son 

B.) William is the result of CSM and “Scary Science”:

William was created to aid CSM in affecting the population with with spartan virus

He is “more human than human” because he has the ability to shape shift, explode peoples heads, etc.

William is NOT Mulders biological son, he is his half brother/spiritual son

I'm going to take a wild guess and say y'all are going to pick option A, but this fandom is full of surprises so you never know!

[lyricalt]

[tf2 mini fic]

Challenge Prompt: sheltering from the rain / bonus: darkness

Note: pre-relationship sniperspy (same fraction)

----

Sniper first hears rather than sees Spy’s stupid loud Bizzarrini Strada coming up the long stretch of highway. He recognizes the sound of the engine in the distance even in the pouring rain, though he gets a little worried about the speed at which roar is approaching him. 

Just to play it safe, Sniper makes sure he stays a minimum of two meters away from the road. It still isn’t enough to stay out of the splash zone when the Bizzarrini zooms past him, drenching him completely in rainwater and mud. If Sniper wasn’t already damp before, he’s practically soggy down to his knickers now.

He trudges onwards, watching as the Bizzarrini screeches to a halt a good distance away, makes a sharp U-turn, and goes speeding back towards Sniper.

Sniper gets drenched a second time.

He stops walking when the car stops in front of him, blocking his way. 

Spy rolls down the window by the tiniest crack. There’s some lilting French song blasting from the radio, but Spy turns down the volume.

“You’re all wet,” he says, disapprovingly.

Sniper takes in this criticism as stoically as he can. The only way to do it is to pretend he didn’t hear any of it. “Your headlights are off.”

There’s a single highway lamp above them, flickering weakly in the rain. All the better to make Spy look more put-upon.

“I was under the impression your mission involved some stealth,” Spy says. “I am being stealthy.”

Sniper gives him an expressionless stare.

Spy smiles sweetly. “Did it go well? Were you stealthy enough? You look like shit.”

Considering that his hat is sporting several new bullet holes through the brim and he’s missing his own getaway truck, Sniper isn’t inclined to answer any of Spy’s questions. He takes a step forward, leaning slightly down so that he can peer through the gap in Spy’s window. Out of politeness and professional integrity and future networking opportunities, he doesn’t yank the car door open so that he can simply throw Spy out and steal the car. Better to cut to the chase before making threats.

“You gonna give me a ride home or no?” Sniper asks.

Spy’s brow goes astronomically high. “And ruin my leather seats? The leather that is imported across six different countries representing the four cardinal directions, made from the hybrid skin of two extinct reptiles-”

Sniper starts walking around the Bizza so that he can at least get back to base before five in the morning, if he keeps his current pace and stops listening to Spy.

Spy puts the car in reverse and has the bloody nerve to brake check him, grazing his shin with the fender. After hopping gracelessly to the side, Sniper pounds his fist over the back trunk.

“Oi, watch it!” he sputters, jumping again when he gets a rather scary blast for a honk in answer. So much for stealth. 

Spy must be handy behind the wheel. He does some complicated maneuver that Sniper assumes has something more to do with pure skill than a stick shift behind the controls. Before Sniper knows it, the passenger side door flies open, nearly smacking him aside to the muddy ground. He regains his balance just in time to see the grin disappear from Spy’s face.

“You’re limping,” Spy says.

“From you nearly running me over just now!” Sniper explodes, though it’s only half the truth. Falling off three stories from a roof in an attempt to run away from a near-blotched job doesn’t help matters. 

The smirk on Spy’s face returns, though there’s something fond and less sharp in the shape of it, and Sniper finally gives in to throwing himself into the bloody fuckin’ car. His flare of temper and frustration about the mission dissipates the moment he slams the door shut.

The noise of the rain dims, turning into a different sound of drops pattering against Spy’s windshield. Sniper curls into the seat, sliding into a slouch. Sliding way down. Unnaturally so, even in his exhausted state.

“What am I sitting on?” Sniper shifts, crinkling loudly, and pats his seat. “This a bloody tarp? You put a tarp over everything?” 

“Well, I had planned to retrieve your corpse and wrap it up to keep things tidy,” Spy says, now turning on his stupid headlights. Highbeams, at that. He tosses Sniper a warm towel from God-knows-where. “You cannot imagine how hard it is to commission a custom black tarp interior for a 5300 GT Strada-”

Sniper turns on Spy’s radio, now blasting a new jazzy tune by chance, but at least he’s gotten some dirt all over the controls. To his surprise, Spy doesn’t say anything about it, and only begins to drive back towards base. Slower than his usual speed, which gets Sniper grumbling, but it makes for a smoother ride, especially with the ridiculous tarp making him slip around in the seat. 

He’s too worn out to complain at this point. Sniper scrunches up as best he can and lays his head across the middle console, hat dripping towards Spy’s side. The second surprise of this entire ordeal comes in the form of silence from Spy, whose elbow doesn’t move out of the way when Sniper rests his forehead against it and gets the sleeve all wet. He catches Spy’s fingers tapping over the gear shift, offbeat to the song. Nervous. Even though he’s already gotten Sniper in the car with him, pretty well and alive as can be.

“Sorry to worry you,” Sniper says, quietly enough that the rain should’ve been able to drown him out.

Spy brake checks him off the console, hard enough that Sniper has to catch himself with a hand against the glove compartment.

“Seat belt,” Spy says.

[some-triangles]

Funny thing:

Game called Everhood came out in 2021. Clearly Undertale-influenced. Lo-fi surrealistic gamemaker styles, but instead of bullet hell combat, you get rhythm game combat - and instead of deconstructed JRPG tropes, we're doing psychedelic euro-buddhism.

Spoilers follow.

As befits psychedelic euro-buddhism the goal of Everhood is the extinction of the self. Every character in the game is trapped in samsara. You get through the game world and meet all the characters, who are charming enough, but it turns out they're all immortal and stuck in limbo (the hood) forever (ever.) Your quest turns out to be to kill them all and turn out the lights on your way out. It's clear that this is the humane option. There are alternative endings which allow you to avoid this but they aren't good endings.

So: good game, popular. People enjoy it. Because the developers are humans who live in capitalism, they crowdfund a sequel. But because they're artists, they ask themselves: how do you make a sequel to a game where the point is to end the game? And the answer, ingeniously, is to make a game which doesn't end.

Everhood 2 is the failure state of Everhood. It's what happens after the endings where you weaseled out of killing everyone. Everhood was rangy but it had a plot and a structure and characters, more or less. Everhood 2 is just a giant bucket of slop. You keep going and going and going and you transcend this and you overcome that and you defeat your demons and you individuate (this game is so contemptuous of individuation) and you go and meet god and then you go and meet god again and finally you go meet the real god, we promise this time, and, no. The end is you get thrown back to some arbitrary point earlier in the narrative. The ending achievement (which you get like five times in a row) says that it never ends in Everhood. And, in a brilliant move, there's a breadcrumb trail to a secret ending (it mirrors the trail you get in the original Everhood!) and it leads exactly nowhere. The only thing it ends up giving you is a hint: you need to lose. The good ending is you quit. (And you have to quit twice, every time. It doesn't let you leave unless you really mean it.)

Maybe there really is a secret ending stuck in there somewhere; the game is so shaggy and unfocused that there are a million places a path could branch off. I won't be looking for it because I can feel the gnomes laughing at me. As a person of Homestuck experience I sense those "if you got the point of this story you wouldn't still be reading it, asshole" vibes. "And yet you still have my money," I say to the gnomes, proving their point.

[ronqueesha]

How about some more 40k facts for the Rogue Trader mutuals!

The Aeldari are not a naturally evolved species. They were engineered by the Old Ones over 60 million years ago to act as psychic warriors against the Necrons and C'tan.

The War in Heaven ended with the extinction of the Old Ones, and the Necrons sort of "won" after they shattered and imprisoned the C'tan. However, the sheer scale of the violence and psychic monstrosities birthed during the war almost rendered the galaxy lifeless. (every big fight you see in 40k is a tiny fraction of the violence seen in this war) Somehow, just barely enough Aeldari survived the aftermath to build a new civilization without their creators, and dominate the galaxy for millions of years after.

Rogue Trader mutuals know about drukhari and craftworld aeldari, but there is a third section of their population that the game glosses over: exodites. When the aeldari civilization collapsed during the birth of slaanesh, the tiny handful of survivors were mostly in 3 groups. Those that fled into the webway and refashioned commorragh into the heart of a new society. (the city itself was an outpost of the ancient aeldari empire, which is a cool fact on its own) Those who had fully rejected Aeldari society already and lived a severe and disciplined life on the various craftworlds. And those who chose instead to colonize distant worlds and restart civlization from the ground up.

The exodites are aeldari who live on worlds that are largely unsettled and untamed. And they live in scattered societies of various technological development. They still have connections to their craftworld brethren, have soulstones and other cultural icons of their past. But other than that, they live in a largely isolated environment. The most famous artwork of exodite aeldari depict them like medieval knights riding alien dinosaurs and space dragons. And that's just cool.

Orks were also engineered by the Old Ones as a bioweapon against their enemies. However, the orks we see today are a pale and pathetic shadow of the Krorks that originally dominated the battlefields of 60 million years ago. Every now and then, orks gather in sufficient numbers and their bosses grow in such power that they begin to resemble ancient Krork super-soldiers. The War of the Beast happened 8,000 years before the current setting and almost destroyed the Imperium in its relative infancy.

There are memes that the orks possess a powerful psychic field that can alter reality to anything they believe is real. This is SORT of true, but internet gossip has massively warped the power of ork WAAAGHs. They can subtly influence things related to fighting, because fighting is all they care about, but not much else. An ork can't pick up a random piece of pipe and call it a gun, then have it magically shoot bullets. They can, however, have a shoddy and terribly-built gun made by their mekboys work perfectly in an ork's hands, but jam and/or explode if a human uses it. Red vehicles do go a little faster when orks drive them because they believe red is the color of speed, but it's not a reality-shattering change.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Moorhuhn

Debut: Moorhuhn/The Original Crazy Chicken Hunt

This is Moorhuhn. And Moorhuhn is one crazy chicken! Don't let the fact that it looks like a very regular chicken fool you. It's CRAZY! The official descriptions of some Moorhuhn games refer to the creature as "probably the craziest and best-known chicken in the world". I don't think it's true... but they did say "probably", so I can't technically say they're incorrect? I guess?

There is a good chance you do not know Moorhuhn. If you do, it's likely from seeing "Crazy Chicken" games on the eShop or similar places, and dismissing them as shovelware. If you're German, however, you might be pogging your face off, because this thing is the most popular German video game character!

Such a popular character and franchise, and I dismissed it as shovelware upon first seeing it... what a fool I must have been! This must be a hidden gem outside of its home country, and if I were to play it, I would realize what fun there is to be had!

I've played it. I've played so much of it. The mainline games. The spinoffs. They're all mid, mid as hell! Germany, please make better games and characters!

So, the core of Moorhuhn is killing those crazy chickens with a shotgun. They run around, they fly around (with their fat-fingered Garfield hands that no longer even try to resemble wings), and they do cheeky things like block your bullets with a frying pan. This marketable cartoon animal mascot exists to be killed, and that is just so fascinating. Do we like this thing or not? My feelings are complicated.

Originally, Moorhuhn resembled more of a regular cartoon chicken, a design that I prefer, really. But the original game, made to sell whiskey and playable only in bars, was such a massive success that the franchising quickly began! Moorhuhn was redesigned, now unmistakably a scrimblo, ready to be shoved into any genre of spinoff was necessary. This chicken is like Germany's Mario, if instead of platforming, Mario made his fortune by being killed with a gun.

See? There's a kart racing subseries, because of course there is. Moorhuhn Kart 2 in particular seems to be one of the most beloved games in the entire franchise, and... well, it's as fun and functional as you might expect a Moorhuhn Kart to be. I kind of like it! The most fun, however, comes from laughing at, rather than with it. I played locally with two friends, and we had no idea what was going on, until we realized the UI was scrambled among our three screen quadrants! The placements, items, and boost meter you see on your corner of the screen are NOT yours, and you have to figure out where your UI actually is in order to know what's going on. I've never seen anything like it! It's quite an experience!

In this image you can also see some other Moorhuhn Characters! Who does this crazy chicken pal around with? Well, three of these characters- the turtle, the frog, and the mole- have received their OWN spinoff games, which is crazier than a chicken to me! They only appeared as elements of a mid shooting gallery game, and then they got their own games! You know, Meta Knight doesn't have his own game. Meta Knight! The certified coolest guy ever! He just cannot compare to Moorfrosch.

The other characters are even more interesting! My main is the one that looks like Moorhuhn, but not. This is Lesshuhn, which is a delightfully goofy name, and the design- basically a goofier, lankier Moorhuhn- is like Moorhuhn but more charming! The Lore of Lesshuhn is that it is a closely-related, but dim-witted species, so stupid that it's on the brink of extinction. In the shooting games where it appears, you will lose points for shooting it! Be nice to the poor fool!

The final two characters are where it gets really great. Snowman and Pumpkin! In their original appearances, these are not even characters. Just objects that you can shoot if you want, for some extra points. There were so few actual characters to choose from that these two had to be brought to life! As a fan of both snowmen and scarecrows, I am not complaining.

What does "Moorhuhn" mean? It means "Moorhen". This is a Moorhen! You might notice that it is not a chicken. Yeah, I don't know why they decided on this name for a domestic chicken. It's like if I made Moorhuhn, but decided to call it Woodcock, since cock means rooster, even though a woodcock is already an existing bird (an incredibly fantastic bird). I just don't get it!

I could go on and on about Moorhuhn, but I must end the post somewhere. I will end it with a question for you.

I would eat Moorhuhn. When I eat chicken fingers, I now pretend they are Moorhuhn's fingers. And if you think about it, Moorhuhn is getting killed all the time. Might as well not let them go to waste!

[omegastation]

(if you don't want to read something critical avoid this post because something bothers me a bit)

one of Shepard's first conversations in the Citadel in ME1 is with Din Korlack, who is so grumpy that we think, aaaaw, he's just mad the volus don't get a seat on the Council, but he talks about how some species are not seen as equal, and when you get to Avina in the embassies and you ask her about the volus and Council seats, she ends her little speach with "The embassies allow lesser species to have a voice on the Citadel." she was 100% programmed to tell visitors that, with those words.

fastforward in me3 and you can tell the writers don't know how to deal with the batarians and the sheer level of atrocity that has been commited in me2 yes yes, the reapers would have done worse in arrival and shepard had no choice, and yes, the batarians have done terrible things but it's so big, as in "every remaining batarian knows shepard's face because of what they're done" big that the writers can't deal with what truly happened and what it should do to a human being

so we get a sort of simplistic story in me3 to make the guilt seems less than it should be (the remaining batarian leader, Balak, is bad and wants revenge). after a talk with him, batarians with their ships become war assets. it goes okay?

but when Officer Noles asks Shepard if they want Balak arrested and Shepard replies "I want you to put a bullet in his head… but we're all making some sacrifices today", I'm thinking that's a very questionable default line right there and that's not how I see Shepard. because yes Balak is not exactly someone innocent in this story but the use of the word 'sacrifices' is really annoying me considering arrival and the near extinction of the batarian race.

Balak just told Shepard he feels he can't save his people. and if you read the war assets, batarians are described as "enraged survivors". he even implies that the remaining batarians are basically cut from war info, he knows the location of Reaper forces because he's listening to Council transmissions. so he's basically their only hope at this point, and it's clear he doesn't know what to do. the level of despair there is just really high

"No collection of vessels is more eager to engage the Reapers than Khar'shans last warships."

so... it's not like i want shepard to be a full on batarians fan but there was a better way to express themselves after talking to Balak