#brahs I have been messing with this for DAYS and I still cannot get the angle right

[kaijukebox]

Holds him tenderly 🤲

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Today’s Reference

[drv3imagines]

We need some angst [We didn't we totally didn't but Mod Kaede will oblige] THE DEAD MEME IS BACK, BACK FOR NOW I'M SO FUCKING SORRY, I WAS BUSY IN JULY HANGING WITH MY FAM. I HAVE NO EXCUSES FOR AUGUST I WAS JUST LAZY FOR DAYS AND I AM SORRY BUT I AM BACK. BACK FROM THE DEAD AGAIN. HOPEFULLY I'LL STAY ALIVE THIS TIME Also thanksssssss andromeda773 probably won't be the same for a while for these requests tho :,) Last words I say before I stall any longer Fuck school Shuichi Saihara -He's crying, he's shaking, he's being a complete crybaby he doesn't care though -He's holding your hand as if it's the end of the world, repeating the same apology under his breath -He didn't know that someone poisoned his tea, he didn't know that when you warned him -And now your unconscious barely hanging onto life -You told him if you don't make it survive for you, to not regret anything that happened -But he regrets everything already and he just wants to hear you tell him it's okay already -The worst part about this is that he's wearing his hat again, the hat he promised to never hide under again -He made that promise to you didn't he? -He should be ashamed for doing this, but he doesn't feel ashamed for his actions in the very least -He just wonder how he can ever face your glance at him if you survive this -He lowers his hat trying to hide the tears streaming down his face -:,) Ouma Kokichi -"Pathetic, they really sacrificed themselves for me thinking I cared! Nishnishi~ Of course that was a lie~" -"Seriously they actually pushed me so I wouldn't get stabbed! I feel a bit bad for my dear S/O-Chan though..." -"That was a lie~!l -"I hope they never wake up again actually, yeah that be one less annoyance to deal with wouldn't it?" -"Yeah... One less annoyance, yep.. Everyone here's just in my way of surviving~! Haha~!" -Lies -He's lying to himself and he knows it -His expression isn't matching his words at all, he's friggin crying and he can't even smile -Worse of all now he's sounding out of character -If that even is his real character he's forgotten what his true nature was long ago though -But he doesn't bother correcting himself he just wipes the tears falling down his face -"Jeez... If I can't even lie how can I call myself a liar~?" -"But that's okay because S/O is totally gonna. survive! And once they live we can go back to normal and I can lie again!" -"Yayyyy~!" "Even as I liar I can tell the truth once in a while~" -Everything just said is a lie -:,) -(Just gonna keep posting :,) emoji's) Kiibo -Ḣ̸͇͎̮͇̽́͝o̶��̩ŵ̶̩̤͎̫̌̋̿̄̔̾̍.̴̧̨̦͉̮̱̙̫̝̮̜͒̊̒͆̅̈́̒͝.̴̡̢͖̩̮̪̩̫͚̰͖̳͓͗͌̈͒̆̑́͛̇̀̐́.̵̢̛͓̪̩̱̬͉̜̳̘́̀̽͐̄͒̃̍̐̋̓́̕ͅ ̸̨͙̳̰̻͉̺̬͙͓̭̖͈̀̄̆̆̎͘͝s̶̟̣̹̾̈́͌t̵̡̼̤̲̠̞̟̪̗͇͕̯͉̀͒r̸̦͔̩͇̦̞̰͓͎̅̈́͌̆͛̒̎̐́̅̊̈́å̸̡̢̦̠̠̈͂̈́͐n̴̡̨̛̬̝̙̘̠̰̺̹̺͙̲͈͈̊̓̈͋̑̾̂̚g̸̠͚̪̍͊̄̂͆̋͒̍͌ë̴̛̫̬̖̗̺͙͉͉̣͎͉́̀̕ͅ -"I'm having a malfuction? How... strange.." -"I̵̧̦̠̤̣̝̪̗͎̳̥̻̿̈̋̄̍̏͘ ̶̧̘̙̱̙̰͔̦̹̥̲̯͙̒̔́́͋ǫ̵̘͕̘͓̰̫͖͂̚n̵̡̼̪̺͍̩͎̯̳̱̭͇̐̇̋͊̂̎́͋̔͆̕͘̕͜͜l̷̨̦̼͇̺̻̘̙̝͊̋̔̿̈̒̐̐͌͋̐͋̒͐͘y̸̻͇̟̠̪̬̫̼̗̹̬̰̰̣͍͂̔̾͊́̉͌̌̐̉̀͊̍͝ ̸̨͚̪͉̇̽̉̃̍̾̐̌̉͝h̵̢̦̟̲͇̺̗̀̈̍͛̅̂̍̈́̌́́̔͝͠͠a̶̡̫̰̪̭̰̰̥̺̤̖̰͋̎̂̑̂̚͜͜ͅv̸̳͛͑̽̌͆͗̎̚é̸̡̦̖͎̟̩̫̖̝̘̖̗͙̏͆̃̓̎́͆͑̌͊̌͜ ̷̡̳̪̭̲̼̭̙̝͙͈̙̗̜͒t̸̨̨͚̜̲̝̯̹̤͓̮̰͇͇̟͆̎̿̅͠h̶̨̨̞̭̞̻͊́̀̇̍ȩ̸̳̝̬̞̻̕͝ś̷̤͔̻̟̝̱́̇̍ế̵̱͇͕̗̈̄͌̆͗͂̔̊̈͝ ̶̮̲͈̗̟̒̒̑̎w̷̨̺̥̣̗̬̬̻̬̠̪͎̓̒͊̉̚h̴̨̧̭̝̭̣̦͔̰̝̫̞̳̀̅̈͋̎̅̽̃̓̚͘è̵̘̰̑̌̂̌͐̾̋͠͝n̴̝̰̂̓ͅ ̷̡̡̪̝̯̬͕̪̰̳͔̌͛̾͒̈͘͜͠Į̷̛͚̾́̈͠m̸̠͍̜̈́̀̏̀̃ḿ̵͓̪̯̰̻̭̥͙̰̔͋̋ ̵̙̙͓̱̹̟̭͇́̄̅͑͌ṳ̸̲̩̼͇̼̱̪̎̋̏͂͊͐̂̾͒̕̕̕n̵͍̪͐̿̈͗̓̊̎̇d̶̬̝̰̳̙̈̿͒̾̓͑̅̊̽̂̌̂͑e̶̛̯̘͉̹̰̅̀̎̔̍̉̐̈́̔͛̔̚̚͘r̷͎͖̞͍͎̈́̏̎ ̶̧̡̦̻̙͔̥̝͔̫̝̯͈̼̱̾̀̓͐̽͑̽̑͋͆̏ĕ̶̡̼̫̪̮̪͔͍͍̮̋̐͜m̷̡͈̮̞̰̮̱͎̜̹̗͈͉̪͆̐̓ͅỡ̷̡̢̲̳̥̳͔̼̲̫͋̏́͂̾́̈́̓̄̄̑̚ẗ̴̡̺̪̝̮̖͇̗̩́̅̌͒̓̈́̂̇̿̐i̸̡̯̮̞̮̝̳̜͋̽̂̔̍̌̏̑̎͆distress ̷̟̙̦̮͌̃o̴̢̫̞͙͕͙̥̯̎̈́͒̈́̈̿̋̿̿̈́̆͗̎́̿ŗ̷̧̥̣͈̖̯͉̖͔̳̌̅̏̒̌̎̌͆͘͝͠.̴̲̅.̵̡͔̖̙̬̰̬͚͓͈̼͖͋͂͊̂̿̌̀͘͠ͅ ̵̡̰̮̟̤̞͙͙͖̞͔̟̐̌̆̿͆̆̑Ä̷̢͈̬̮̦̺̘̟̭͚͆̈́͒̚ bug... -I wonder if S/O knows what's happening to... Me -When Kiibo wakes up he expects to find the face of a worrying S/O, or just S/O sitting beside him happy to see him wake up -Instead all he finds is a crying Kaede and Shuichi trying to cheer her up (which is strange) -Why are they so sad though? And why do they seem so distressed to see him awake? -"K-K-Kiibo-Kun...? Y-Your already awake...? I-I.." -Akamatsu-San if you don't want to say it I...I" -"N-No it's fine.. As the leader it's my duty to tell you you Kiibo..." -"Tell me what?" -"S/O-San.. Died protecting you... Iruma-San had tried killing you but S/O had stopped her." -"But... But S/O-San died in the end... Iruma-San dead too now and now she can't fix you so I don't even know if S/O's death is going to be in vain and if you die too..." -"I'm honestly so s-sorry.. For being such a bad leader.." -Kiibo doesn't answer -Instead his program crashes and he sees glitches flash before his eyes -:,) Kaito Momota -(Mod Kaede: I cried again...) -He's banging his fists on the walls angrily yelling about how he should have protected you -It's fucking sick that he couldn't have even figured out how you were acting strange. -No it's fucking sick that he didn't save you. What kind of boyfriend is he to let his partner get hurt protecting him?! -In total this game's only proving his weakness's again. Fuck this game's making him feel totally useless again! -If he can't protect you now, how are the both of you supposed to see the stars together again? -No, no matter what there's no fucking way that you won't see them with him again. -He'll make sure of that -So for now he just needs to look at the bright side of things, and hope for the best -"Ain't that right S/O?" -(Insert dead or totally alive S/O smiling at him here) -"S/O?!" -(IMAGINE IT AS YOU WILL IT'S EITHER F- OR GOOD END IF YOU WANT ME TO CONTINUE THIS JUST ASK WHEN THE ASK BOX IS CLEARED) -:,) Ryoma Hoshi -Mod Kaede: (Totally not crying) MOTHER FUDGER WHY IS ANYTHING WITH RYOMA ANGSTY??? WHEN IT'S ANGST IT ONLY MAKES IT WORSE??? -He seriously can't catch a break can he? -First her now you huh? -Why is it everything he loves end up burning because of him? Is it because he's cursed? His luck really is the worst though... -"Actually I believe the fact that I'm cursed -"Really? Ryoma no fucking really? -"It does makes a bit of sense though right?" -Lying next to your bed, where you currently lay looking at him you give a shrug -"Nah, it's just the fact the world's a fucking bitch to us all. But it'll turn up better soon I tell you! So uh.. Please don't blame this on yourself. C'mon?" -"Your fucking dead" -Pushing his hand though your stomach, it goes right through the wound which looks brand spanking new even though you died hours ago -"Seriously how does this even work?" -"I will admit one thing. Your conscious is fucked up for imagining me like this yes." -"Oh so it's just my conscious trying to make me live..? Again?" -"Shut." -"BUT I MEAN" -"It's (BLANK)'s fault isn't it? Not you're nor anybody elses So please don't... Visit me anytime soon.." -"...." -"It hurts" "I know it does, but it's okay, you have everyone else and I swear they care for you!" -"Are you going to disappear any time soon? Please don't say yes" -"Probably" -"Ugh.." -"Well... Just remember I love you... And please live for me... That's all I ask Ryom-" -Saying goodbye to you as fast as your returned, you left him once more -Groaning he takes now gone lollipop out of his mouth, before digging into his pocket for a cigarette -It's his last one, fuck he hasn't done this in so long so why now? -That doesn't matter though he lights it before taking a puff -It's not long before Kaede finally finds him sobbing into your bed -:,) Korekiyo SINguuji -Is it bad that I purposely spell it without an H? -And is it badder that I admit I never stop calling him that that? -Does it maker it WORSER that I'm going to make this imagine that irony everyone hates? -I think I made it horrible by not knowing his personality well... (SPOILERS AGAIN...) -Never had he once wanted you to see his older sister, even if he spoke of the day where all of you could unite and finally meet each other -He had never wanted it to happen so soon, it was too soon -An innocent(?) and pure(???) soul such as yourself to die this soon because of his unholy soul -He hadn't deserves your affection, he doesn't even know why you loved him -You truly were a strange part of humanity that much he admit -"Thank goodness, you were only injured I was frankly worried about you for a moment S/O" -"But as much as I hate saying this, you've made some stupid decisions you should've told me beforehand so we could've just avoided this mess" -"Now your stuck in bed till Tojo-San says your better which will most probably be long from now..." -Giving a sly smile you apologize to him -"You are genuinely the most thickheaded human being out there aren't you?" -"Which is fine. Now you cannot run when I try to tell you all about psychology and-" -"SH-" -Even though you were stuck in bed months at least he could happily sit beside you observing you -:,) Gokuhara Gonta -Stop this -STOP THIS -NO NO NO- -Mod Kaede will NOT -BYE GOODAY -CHUM, BUDDY, FRIEND, PAL, AMIGO, BRO, BRAH, DUDE, YOU NOPE -I RATHER WRITE KAEDE ANYTHING THEN THIS. -AND KAEDE IS MY RELIGION FOOLS -(Gonta's soul is too pure for any type of angst AND I REFUSE THIS) -:,) Amami Rantarou -He's been trying his best to help you recover -It was his fault you even got hurt in the first place so it was the least he could do! -Harukawa's been telling him to stop, that it's pointless for him to do anything now -But he's not listening to her he won't allow her negativity stop him from helping you. -(Yeah this is the best I could come with. I still suck at his character) -So no :,)

[tuckerfuckingdidit]

Carwash

YES. IT’S TIME. strap the fuck in, you knew this was gonna be a doozie when you sent it. obligatory tag for @capricornfraud.

when I started shipping it if I did: this started as a weird preoccupation with why no one else shipped it, and how it would work. like, wash is shipped with doc, who he held hostage, and donut, who he shot. i figured carwash didn’t work because their power dynamic is imbalaced in a pretty clear-cut direction, but then tuckington happened! so i assumed it was the Memories that made it weird, and carolina not going back for him. but honestly, ships with History that they need to work through are my fucking weakness—i have an entire tuckington au where tucker is a freelancer for this very reason. 

second, relationships aren’t always easy to put in boxes. “wash has memories from carolina’s father, so all of his feelings for her are familial.” uh, no. wash has come a long way from his initial implantation with epsilon—he knows he is not leonard, and he had a relationship with carolina before he got those memories. there’s no way his feelings are that easily defined. there’s admiration and resentment in there, and that’s just on his side, before you start to fill in the blanks with headcanons.

i ship it because it stands to arguably be one of the most complicated relationships between two living characters on the show. there’s so much there, and i think the writers have shied from carolina and wash having certain Conversations because they don’t know how to tackle them—or had no interest in doing so because they felt it was Too Serious.

my thoughts: i started out not really paying them any mind and now I LOVE IT!!!! i’ve yelled at freddie a lot in the past two weeks, but just. there’s so much there. a lot of people write them as giving each other a wide berth because they have a lot of similar scars—some that they gave each other. you have to remember that it’s not just that carolina didn’t go back for wash: from her perspective, wash put a gun to her head over strangers (who she later came to love, but they were strangers at the time!), and even though he had seen epsilon’s memories of what the director had done, wash stayed with the project. of course he had his reasons, but when carolina’s discovering that everyone is in the wind except for south, wyoming, and wash, she doesn’t know what shape his recovery has taken. all she knows is that he’s still with them. 

but i think it’s also important to bear in mind that they’ve moved a great deal past that. i talked in my carolina post about how i see her as moving full circle, not reinventing herself. i think the reason there aren’t more carwash shippers is because we aren’t given much of a foundation for them during the project for them to circle back to. we see it happen when they’re fighting, but nowhere else. and with carolina having called the freelancers family, i highly doubt carolina and wash only interacted in drop ships and battlefields. 

there’s a lot of empty space to be filled regarding the freelancers, but simply put, i think carolina was tactile, and wash was affection-starved. wash isn’t given a face because we’ve already known him for three seasons when the flashbacks start, so his helmet never comes off, and we miss out on one of the biggest headcanons i have—the team ruffled this kid’s hair constantly. before leonard realized everyone had gotten too chummy and the board was put into place (because what hurts more: people who were always fiercely competitive and shitting on each other abandoning each other, or a family with genuine camaraderie turning into strangers?), you could catch these two half on top of each other in the rec room every once in a while (which conveniently could be a great reason wash seems to rub york the wrong way). like, if you listen to the tone of voice that carolina teases wash in, she obviously thinks wash is adorable. i refuse to believe she wouldn’t have gotten a kick out of flirting with him just to fluster him.

this portion is getting way too long oh my god. basically, the carwash you get on chorus (and going forward), depends largely on your pfl era interpretation of them. that’s the ground work. just because the writers didn’t take the time to develop their relationship doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. do i think they go through the motions of Falling In Love? no. but i do see them as reluctant to ever let go of each other again. like, ever. especially if there’s really no epsilon anymore. they’re each other’s only relic from the project, and that history puts them in a prime position to be the other’s Person—if the work was put in. if you just write them as never talking, then there’s nothing of note to them, and red is a sad panda. but where’s the fun in that?

What makes me happy about them: her fierce determination to never lose him. her starting to reach out for him physically again on chorus, and wash surprising even himself, because holy shit, he’s not flinching. carolina’s quiet mix of amusement and happiness at the (re)discovery that wash still turns into a goddamn cat if you can get him to relax. her foot hooked under his ankle in the mess hall while she talks to the reds. wash deciding he is Done with his food early so he can jam his helmet on his head, because he can’t stop fucking smiling. 

and in restoration AUs where the reds and blues stay on chorus, once the fighting is over? oh my god. have Some Things:

the first time carolina gets her fingers in his hair and he nearly falls asleep on her

her utter dismay when he proceeds to go back to his room and not sleep at all. 

the fact that she would totally take scheduling a Communal nap super seriously if he started to look really exhausted. 

him showing up at her room at 3 in the morning the night he finally cracks and admits to himself that he sleeps best next to her.

the super chill, seemingly impenetrable bubble forming around them that follows. absolutely no one else understands it. they barely understand it. “are they fucking? wait, what if they aren’t? are they gonna get even more obnoxious when they do?” 

^ tucker, probably. it’s ok tucker, just come squeeze in if you don’t have kai.

and when epsilon is gone, carolina has someone who won’t allow her to wall herself off from everyone else, even if it means they just sit together and don’t talk about it. sometimes they do, but most of the time, they don’t. wash just doesn’t want her to be alone. he knows what that feels like, and he doesn’t want that for her. 

just. the sheer amount of forgiveness and trust that is required for them to even function together will never not Get Me. i love happy, healthy stories, and the idea of the two of them healing together will always be something i am here for.

but they’re also not perfect. she’s still going to be protective, and try to take on too much on her own to lower his level of risk. he’s still a fucking spaz. they’re going to get on each other’s nerves. there will still be days neither of them knows how to say the right thing, and days they both keep saying the wrong things. it wouldn’t be Them if it wasn’t awkward. but that just makes when it works so much better.

What makes me sad about them: there are bad days. days when it’s hard to look at each other. when their silences aren’t so companionable—both of them locked in their heads, mulling over past mistakes, could-haves and should-have-beens. 

the days wash can’t quite meet her eye, no matter how much carolina wants him to. 

the days she doesn’t want him to.

also?? if they get closer when epsilon is still around/alive/himself, LOL. awkward.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: there is no carwash fic to come to my attention so far, which is an annoyance in and of itself. *puts on captain hat*

things I look for in fanfic: FOR IT TO EXIST, CACKLING. but i like it when writers understand carolina’s opinion is one wash trusts, and vice versa.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: yorkalina, kimbalina, tuckington, suckington, and mainewash are all Good Shit. oh, also mainealina. how did i forget mainealina?

My happily ever after for them: if the reds and blues are all getting houses in the same cul-de-sac, carwash doesn’t just live under the same roof, their rooms are right next to each other. tucker, junior, kai and caboose can live next door. they’re loud. wash may be used to the blues, and carolina had church in her head at all times, but at the end of the day they still need a place to retreat when wash flinches at every loud noise and carolina can’t stop grinding her teeth. 

it’s really important to me that they have somewhere they can go be Quiet together ok, no matter where/when they are. i do love the idea that they never really slow down though. carolina’s not really the settling type, and i’ve always read wash with an inherent need to be Useful since serving as recovery one.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: carolina is the official big spoon. she is not the smol, fight me on this. first of all i literally cannot reblog art where she’s shorter than him—thank u rt, for giving us absolutely no tall women in the pfl arc Because Reasons. but snuggly naptime carwash and post-coital are two completely different animals. at first they can’t even both stick around after sex, and then when they start to, they plant themselves right on each respective edge and Do Not Move. 

you can tell the second they relax though, because they slide closer to the clothed, snuggly arrangement, which is less spooning and more wash on top of her with his head on her chest and her hand in his hair.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: the exact above arrangement with clothes on. lmfao. NAPS, BRAH. but also don’t underestimate the value in them just Sitting Quietly and being present together, because i neeeed it. i crave it ok. it keeps me up at night.

[hermanwatts]

OTHERSCIENCE STORIES: The Pleistocene Murders, Part 5

[Part 1] …[an] insidious gang of possible accomplices… we’ll need to investigate a little further before passing judgment.

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The Winter of Life

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At the worst of the Ice Age, the Arctic of now was the Europe of then- ice to the North, then permafrost all the way south to the Alps, then tundra and steppe to the Mediterranean. The sea level was more than one hundred meters lower than today. The Solutreans were able to walk across, or skip along the edge of, the sea ice from Iberia to America more than 20,000 years ago, there to become the Clovis people. The North America they discovered was not much different from Europe; a massive sheet of ice covered half the continent.

Yet, at the same time, Siberia had no icecap, nor did most of Alaska. These places were temperate at the time, even though they are further north, a major mystery stashed under the rug somewhere- don’t bother asking Dr. PhD how that’s supposed to work. On this particular point, a pole shift, or a giant electric blanket, are just as good of stories as any. We know these regions were temperate because of, among many other things, the undigested flowers, leaves, and grasses found in the mouths of the frozen Mammoths.

A group of awesome human hunters demonstrate the proper Sapien-guy form. Dr. Mammoth’s colleagues are just out of picture, to the left and to the right. Artist: Paul Jamin, 1885

The comet story is some part of the picture. The broken-up comet/asteroid (these are two names for the same thing, a Rock-That-Moves-Through-Plasma-Space) might have come in hyperbolic, at a low angle from the Southeast, ploughing into and vaporizing parts of the Canadian icecap, scouring the Canadian Shield. Part of the ensuing insta-muck was launched onto suborbital trajectories over the Arctic Ocean, to land on northern Alaska and Siberia. In this unauthorized version of the story, the Carolina Bays would be the precursors, with the similar features in Northern Siberia as chunkier pieces that overshot the space-muck. The atmospheric blast wave, then blast wind, attended the monster tsunami coming in from across the Arctic Ocean. These fluids carried the forces that uprooted, tore asunder, and finally entombed the millions of shredded trees and animals in the frozen muck. The volcanoes that lit up as a result could have plunged the northern world into darkness for some time, while the liquefied ice cap flooded all the coasts. A great deal of the lofted water would have ended up in the upper atmosphere, enough to provide heavy rain for, say, forty days and nights. Whatever did cause the mass destruction also instantly changed Siberia from a temperate climate to the subarctic climate of today, like turning out the lights.

Though the comet/asteroid story makes the grazing fly-by, it doesn’t quite land with the punch we are looking for. To be sure, something Terrible visited the North around the time of the major extinctions- maybe to wipe out much of the Clovis people in the process- but, in addition to the undesirable litany of iffys, maybes, and perhaps seeminglys, the Terrible didn’t visit South America, which suffered the worst losses. It also happened too quickly to account for the spread in the putative dates of the various extinctions, unless there were multiple hits coming in on similar hyperbolic trajectories over the centuries. That’s middling-plausible, since the Taurids always radiate from Taurus, but all the pairings of the orbital elements have to line up just so. The Terrible also destroyed all kinds of plants and animals that did not end up going extinct- the comet crept in through the window but the dog didn’t bark for them.

We want something even more terrible than an asteroid strike, that is worldwide, and that takes place over a period of centuries, hence the desire to blame climate or humans. We also don’t want to have to drag our tropey Space Brothers in to get ‘er done as part of their off-world mining operations- that’s so last ice age.

Dear Human Hunter:  Mama Giant Ground Sloth would like a word with you.

The human-hunting idea has what amounts to a military problem. Our ancient parents were as bands of Hobbits surrounded by armies of giant Orcs numbering in the hundreds of millions between their different kinds. A field marshal, reviewing his rag tag tribe of midgets armed with sticks and arrows, would have to weigh those facts against his enemy’s tooth and claw, tusk, armor, size, and troop strength. He would have to retire from the field, discretion being the better part of valor.

We saw this dynamic play out in North America in historical times. The Great Plains Indians could not subdue the immense herds of Bison that ranged across the prairie lands. Save the occasional Hobbit-Indian, these were prey almost without predators, the layovers of a devastated ecosystem. These wilding Pleistocene survivors could not be fenced, or tamed, or stopped. Bison Army Field Marshal Old Logan, Pennsylvania Division, was quite insistent on this point. Most instructive. On this point:

“… When they were gone the barn was still standing, but the fences, springhouse, and haystack were gone, as if swept away by a flood. Six cows, four calves, and thirty-five sheep lay crushed and dead among the ruins.”

The Indians couldn’t build cities because cities need farms, and farms would be plundered by the Million Bison Army. They had to move their teepees around, always being careful not to pick a place that was too lush, too open, too attractive. Even with the gifts of the carbon-based horse and the iron gun there were still too many Buffalo and not enough Indians. The mighty new iron-based horse had to charge, to build the requisite mountains of skulls, to clear the table for the next course on evolution.

As with all the higher animals, there is an innocence and a sweetness about the remaining Bison despite their formidable appearance. The men on horseback could ride right into a herd and fire at will. The Bison have no concept of this kind of predation. Poor Old Logan was doing what he could to protect his tribe in the only way he knew. The landed farmers were as enigmatic as UFOs to them. In the end, all they really wanted to do was to eat the grass. It is no stretch to imagine that all of the other Pleistocene animals, both predator and prey- even the Orcs- were of similar disposition- as long as you are not on the menu, and don’t mess with their kiddies or their doggie bowl.

A few thousand years ago there were several North American bison models to choose from, from the deluxe Texas-sized edition on down. The little guy on the right is the only kind left, the only one we know. This striking pattern is echoed across many types of Ice Age animals: the big ones went under, their little cousins pulled through. Artist: Roman Uchytel

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The idea that the biggest animals were sought after is a complete inversion of the basic rules of predation.

I’zzz jjjusss lovesses meezz sssome humanzesz hunter, tse-tse-tse. ////ssss//// Megalania Prisca

A predator cannot afford grave injury. He who fight and run away live to fight another day. The injured wolf cannot run with the pack anymore; it has to be left behind to die. The predator always looks for the easiest kill, not the most difficult. The predator, the bureaucrat, the businessman- the cleaning lady- all seek to make the necessary gains while spending the minimum amount of time, effort, and risk. Tracking prey over long distances would be quite perilous where packs of more capable predators are roaming the same territory. The hunter becomes the hunted. This is also a numbers game: one million or less Hobbits vs. 100 million or more Orcs per continent, with each Orc requiring several Hobbits for the dicey take-down. Additionally, each such operation has to be done while all the other Orcs are looking the other way, times 100,000,000.

Many of these Pleistocene animals had enormous ranges, spanning continents and even over several. A fanciful, blitzkreig annihilation would have to be coordinated between all the little tribes of warring Hobbits both in time and in geography, otherwise some of the animals would always be left to re-populate. The minor inconvenience caused by starting prairie fires over here isn’t going to stop the animals from simply moving over there for a bit, there to anticipate the lush new vegetation coming in after the burn. All those little stone arrowheads are clearly designed for small game, not the big stuff.

Some stories are better than other stories. The “Horrible Human Hunters are Awful” narrative has too many insurmountable problems to stand up to scrutiny, unless the absence of evidence can be entered to prove. It reads like badly-written fantasy: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Ugh: “Nice pix, yo. How’s bout we roll on these lion and hippo packs and stuff?” Og: “Cool idea, brah. But I gotta hang here and finish up another 10,000 years of art class.” Artist: Og the Chauvet Caveman

The debate about the causes behind the Quaternary Extinction Event has gone on for a long time without resolution. The pattern of extinctions doesn’t make sense. Things don’t add up. Into this vacuum other theories- stories- about exotic diseases, comets, and black swan events, have been put forth. I made up a new story awhile ago too, about Earth’s gravity increasing just a tiny bit, just enough to make today’s elephant and giraffe the biggest and the tallest possible animals, and the condor or albatross the biggest possible birds.

Any of these things may well be a part of the truest story, but none of them can stand on their own. There are too many specific cases that don’t fit.

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The Pleistocene Murders were so very selective. Very discriminating.

The bit about a lower carbon dioxide level can’t explain either why only certain animals went extinct and others did not; it’s much too capricious and indiscriminate. Climate change- the Ice Age, the cold, the drier air, less rainfall- can point to a great part of it, but it also runs into the specificity problem. That should have affected many more plants and animals, not just certain ones. But there is another diabolical piece to this puzzle, one the Prosecution had failed to fit to its proper place before.

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The players and their furniture have been entered and examined. There will be war…

OTHERSCIENCE STORIES: The Pleistocene Murders, Part 5 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/