#the bone wars

[dubioushonour]

I saw someone in the tag ask for "Puppet History Finale Bingo Card" so I made this quick in mspaint

[inaweofmytism]

A shonen anime “about” the bone wars in which once you name and describe a new fossil species, you get a token (a la Fossil Fighters) which can summon that creature to aid you in battles with other paleontologists. The summons all have ridiculous stand abilities and are based on terrible old fossil reconstructions

[zeldahime]

Highway to Pail Bonus #1

[Day 1] [Prev] [Next] @do-it-with-style-events

Bonus prompt 1: Thought I'd found a dinosaur skeleton, but it turned out to be a fossil arm.

The oddest part about being on the outs with Crowley for the last year and change was that the Arrangement was still on. They weren't speaking about anything but work, as though work were a safe subject. It was only safe in comparison to the fight itself, dull with familiarity, but still more dangerous than Crowley appeared to want to realize.

So, here Aziraphale found himself in America, carrying out the work of angel and demon both. Blessings in Rhode Island and New Jersey, followed by a temptation in Connecticut. If he hadn't seen the orders, he nearly would have thought the temptation specifically cooked up to make him feel guilty: the target was a nephew of a gentleman he'd known socially in London some years ago, an academic studying to make sense of the bones he knew to be a divine prank, a confirmed bachelor.

Still, needs must. Work must get done, or else both their bosses would be breathing down their necks, and if Crowley insisted on believing him so, so, well, transactional about it all, Aziraphale would live down to his expectations. Anything to keep death out of his hands.

Connecticut's Yale University was not unlike Cambridge or Oxford in appearance; he supposed that was to be expected. Also to be expected were the academics in tweed suits and beards, the students in the quad studying or playing lawn sports, the small offices in which the teaching staff eternally suffered a lack of space for their packrattish tendencies. The eternal aura of professional envy toward their peers, even their friends, which Aziraphale usually politely disregarded but which currently he found useful.

He found the correct door and knocked. "Mr Marsh?"

"It's unlocked," came an irritated voice from inside. Oh. This was going to go swimmingly, Aziraphale thought sarcastically. I shall wind up tempting him to kicking an Angel of the Lord out of his office, which can hardly be written up in the memo.

He smiled politely as he entered. "Hello, Mr Marsh. I'm A. Fell; I wrote you that I would be coming?"

"Did you now," Marsh said flatly. "I remember, Mr Fell. I don't recall my uncle ever having mentioned you, but you seemed quite familiar with him in your letter."

"We met because of the nasty bit of business in Baltimore, you see," Aziraphale tried to explain, and Marsh's eyebrows raised.

"Forty years ago?"

"I try not to count the years; it does make one feel rather old, and it seems as though it were only yesterday. But yes." Not a lie; well, except the man bit, but that was purely social convention. He'd simply forgotten it had been so long. "Your uncle made quite the impression."

Marsh gave him a long, appraising look, then nodded. "I'm certain he did." Aziraphale looked appraisingly back, feeding the obvious impression Marsh had formed of him, and let his smile turn a little sharper at one corner.

They spoke for a while. Aziraphale's cover of a potential wealthy donor but scientific ingenue was quite truthful. He had plenty of money, knew next to nothing about natural history or the sciences, and had centuries of practice delivering fawn eyes to anyone (well, one particular someone) who he knew wished to explain them to him and only needed encouragement or excuse. Marsh grew comfortable with him quickly, seeing the like-mindedness bachelors tended to see in each other in these days, and invited him to continue their interview over dinner.

Eventually, their conversation turned to other academics, and Aziraphale found his opening. "How about that fellow Cope?" he asked, setting down his fork. "Some of those I represent had thought Haverford may be a recipient of future funds, but they were concerned their premiere paleontologolist had resigned. Are you acquainted with his reasoning?"

Mr Marsh smiled patronizingly and looked so like Gabriel for a moment that Aziraphale blinked repeatedly to center himself, hoping it looked more like the batting of eyelashes than a sudden gesture of fear and distrust.

"Cope is a good friend and a fair enough scientist, but it's hardly worth throwing money around on his account," Marsh said with more than a hint of judgement. "He's no anatomist and has a habit of destroying his work when he gets into a mood. Haverford is probably better off without him, though don't tell him I said so."

Aziraphale swallowed hard. Suddenly he no longer felt any need to be guilty about whatever the fate may be of this particular man's eternal soul. His attitudes were not at all incompatible with those of some in Heaven.

"In fact," Marsh continued, "I'm due to meet with him in New Jersey in a few weeks. He's found a quarry that might hold some undescribed species, he says."

"Could he be trusted with such a find?" Aziraphale asked, all innocent curiosity. "If he's as poor an anatomist as you say, surely he wouldn't do the animals justice." Marsh looked thoughtful. "In fact, if I might be so bold," Aziraphale said, sliding his hand across the table towards, but not to, Marsh, who watched its movement with a sharp inhale, "perhaps it would be best if you could arrange for new finds to bypass him. In the interests of science, of course."

"Of course," Marsh said to Aziraphale's hand. Marsh licked his lips.

"Where are you staying, Mr Fell?" he asked. "If you haven't yet found lodgings, I have a fairly spacious home."

Flattering, of course, and exactly where Aziraphale had pointed him, but....

"You're very kind to offer, Mr Marsh, but I'm staying with friends who will surely notice if I don't return. Perhaps I might call on you the next time I am in town?" Aziraphale looked at Marsh and thought as hard as he could of Crowley, trying to replicate his friend's strikingly flirtatious demeanour, and judging from the somewhat glazed look in Marsh's eyes, it seemed to work.

"Please do, Mr Fell. Let me give you my address; you could come straight there next time, if it pleases you."

Aziraphale took his card with a flourish and a smile. He then retreated from the restaurant, teleporting himself to his actual lodgings as soon as he was out of sight of Marsh, and locked the door.

He wanted to talk to Crowley dreadfully, about anything other than work, not about memos or missions or that dratted Marsh but about the fashions Crowley had decided to mimic this decade, or what made the stars burn, or the ethics of using carrots and string to direct a horse. He wanted to be in his bookshop in London, with its soft dim lighting and worn-in furniture and books that had seen him through both better and worse times. He wanted his spectacles and his house-coat and the Sauvignon Blanc that Crowley had picked out last time they were in France together. Most of all, he wanted to simply be Aziraphale, not all the things he was supposed to be instead.

Instead, alone and exhausted from a day of pretending on Earth as intensely as he did in Heaven, in a hotel room in America, he pretended that tears did not escape from the corners of his eyes.

Author's note:

Aziraphale started the Bone Wars? Nope. Marsh started the Bone Wars. He 100% chose to play Cope for a sucker and it's not Aziraphale's fault he chose to backstab his friend and then humiliate him in front of the entire American Philosophical Society.

Othniel Marsh was a life-long bachelor, but I made up him being gay and also his entire personality in this fic. Any resemblance to how he was in actual real life is basically coincidental. Also, look at his beard:

He is making Choices with that beard, let me tell you.

[roesolo]

Tales from the TBR: The Bone Wars by Jane Kurtz & Alexander Vidal

The Bone Wars, by Jane Kurtz/Illustrated by Alexander Vidal, (Nov. 2023, Beach Lane Books), $18.99, ISBN: 9781534493643 Ages 5-8 The Bone Wars! It’s a tale of friendship gone wrong! With dinosaurs! And exploding fossils! Kurtz writes history with a sense of humor that will catch a reader’s attention, describing the 19th-century race between two paleontologists – O.C. Marsh and Edward Cope – who…

[whimswept]

Song of the Elasmosaurus

(There’s no place like the Western Interior Seaway)

I swam in Kansas above the plain

(There’s no place like the Western Interior Seaway)

All the fishes feared me in this interior sea

Then something happened to my domain

The waters ebbed and people came

They pulled me from my shale grave, sent me east by railway

And here in Philadelphia I remain

I’d swish my flippers and wish once more

(There’s no place like the Western Interior Seaway)

To wake up from these strange dreams, wash away deranged schemes

In waters filled with plesiosaur

But my limbs are lost by those distant shores:

Disarticulation; maybe something ate them

They say I became the flash point of the Bone Wars

Professor Cope has returned to Penn

(We’re neighbors now; eight minutes away by freeway)

He made some flawed deductions, an imperfect reconstruction

And somehow that’s how a friendship ends.

Then petty nonsense found me again:

Were some of my bones shattered in Central Park and scattered?

A mystery for another time, my friends!

(There’s no place like the Western Interior Seaway)

[shutupcrime]

I feel like so many problems people have with tv at the moment could be solved if we just went back to the good ole days of 20 episodes a season that’s just sixty percent filler and character development. Give the people what they want- less condensed story and more meaningless shenanigans

[eriochromatic]

In the outskirts of the city lies a rundown apartment building filled with eccentric residents... Doesn’t seem like anyone checks on this part of town, but it’s not like they’re causing trouble, right?

Impel Down Escape Team Modern AU!!! 🏬🏬🏬 they r all living in the same building and being silly together

[clearlyaginger]

Demisexual? No, you misheard. I said Dummysexual. I'm attracted to that moron over there. Look at them. They just tripped over nothing and set the house on fire. I'm in love.

[nell0-0]

Just a bit more about my HC for this lil' guy

[vamplire]

when a morally grey character develops feelings for someone without being self aware of it & subconsciously makes sure danger never comes their way while also making every excuse to be close to them until they realize their feelings & are just like FUCK. WHY. this is the worst possible thing that could happen ever.

[kathrahender]

Please tell me I'm not the only one who hates fics with tags like "Major Character Death" "Hurt No Comfort" "Bittersweet/Sad/Bad Ending" and more. Isn't life enough sad and hard to make the characters from shows/movies unhappy in the fics too? 💀

I mean of course everyone can write whatever they want, but why writing a fic making your favorite characters/favorite pairing suffer until the end of the story when you can give them a happy and beautiful ending????

"It's for the angst". Bro the angst is only funny if there's comfort and a happy ending after all the pain 😭

[skullinacowboyhat]

it's lesbian visibility day, so I had to draw my tragic sapphics! so much love to all my fellow lesbians - you’re all so cool and beautiful! stay safe and stay gay, friends 🧡💖

[imakequestionablechoices]

Just goofin around

[warandpeas]

Studies

[polartss]

The White Rat🐁

Wen from the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee :)

[tmgstudios]

i was ready for colin to be an asshole. i was ready for him to be a seedy greasy asshole. which i can handle. i can be normal about that. but i was NOT ready for him to be a LOSER. i need him carnally.