#i’ve only had highly alert; intelligent retrievers all my life and now i’ve got a deaf terrier with zero survival instincts

[fingertipsmp3]

What just fucking made three loud clicking sounds at the back of the house 🚨

[doomspaniels]

Would you recommend spaniels as companions? I dream to have a dog to snuggle with and play. Also, due to my disability, some training/tricks could come in handy? Like retrieve something I can't reach, alert when I fall, and maybe help me calm down during panic attacks episodes?

My spaniels are companions, and I think they are the most perfect dog for the job if you like cuddly and playful. We walk together outside, we cuddle inside, they learn and practice tricks, it's perfection to me. I've had a number of excellent cocker companions now, who have all done that job magnificently. Lately my disability has been worse and we have had an extraordinary cocker, who has also been helping me in many ways.

Tristan knows many tricks that help with my various disabilities, like handing me things I drop (and drop again, and drop again... good grief), bringing me stuff I have left out if it's not obviously a dog toy, bringing me named items like the supper dishes, and finding things I have lost. Tristan is a superbly clever boy, probably the only one of our previous cockers who could manage much of what he does, but I expect Gwyn will probably eventually learn a lot of it too.

When we got him, I was looking for a companion, not a helper, but probably if you look you can find someone breeding spaniels who are already known to be steady and extra trainable.

Spaniels are extremely sensitive to handler emotion. I don't doubt that they could recognize panic attacks, but they'll probably need to have a lot of practice in advance to respond when it happens, otherwise they may be too upset by your distress. If you have experience training you may still want to consult with a service dog trainer online or in person for specific task training[*], and if you don't have much experience there's probably a local trainer who can help you get started in-person with a good foundation for helpful tasks and then help you work on expanding.

...

Now, having had nothing but good to say so far... my cockers have been very, very clever. And like an intelligent child, if they run out of things to do, they'll find something themselves. Several of Tristan's tricks grew out of redirecting his mischief[**]. For the first few years I spent part of every morning devising puzzles (taping cardboard to a spinner puzzle, stuffing tissue into empty parmesan jars, putting paper towel tubes over sticks and hanging them at nose height) to keep Tristan occupied. Spaniels who get bored will disassemble your house to see if they can.

Tristan is mostly content now to do the helpful tricks he knows, learn more, and practice fun tricks like spin or touch when I have the opportunity to play. I'm going through spaniel puppy again with Gwyn, of course. Today I stuffed large toys tightly into a bucket with a strip of cloth hanging out the side, then tucked the bucket under a chair, so she can squirm in, pull all the toys out, and eventually get the strip of cloth.

There are more easygoing breeds if that doesn't sound doable. That part of spaniel life is understandably not for everyone.

[*] I've consulted @fragile-milkbones online a few times when I needed a fresh perspective or was just outside of my area of experience, an objective set of eyeballs can be really helpful (and I highly recommend him).

[**] For example, Tristan found exciting Illegal Stuff--non-toys he could reach--I rewarded him for picking it up, he started bringing the Illegal Stuff directly to me for the reward. Now he brings me anything out of place.

[headcanonsforcompanions]

Danse/Synth theory!!

Ok so from what I can gather from Canon, is that Danse was an escaped synth.

-Danse was probably a chosen name or a name given to him after the mind wipe, when they implanted false memories.

- besides there being a possible canonical first name of Saul I think, Danse is the only name he has. Which when you think about it, makes perfect sense. The world has gone to shit and with all the radiation, and things killing people left and right, it’s not likely you have many kids (or live long enough to) to pass your last name down to. Unless of course your from a safe enough place where you can. I.e the brotherhood of steel. A lot of the Bos members might have first and last names, purely because for a long time they never let anyone else in and they have the protection and resources to provide for families of their own. Another instance is in little lamplight, there were very few but people like RJ MacCready, not only had a first and last name, but also a middle. Of course that begs the question of where did he come from? How did they all get there? How do more kids come etc etc. so we have established that if you were an orphan (such as Danse, Cutler, Harkness, Cait, etc) then it’s possible you didn’t have a last name.

- Danse as we know, is the original Danse. He was never a replacement. Why? Because if he was a replacement he would know. It’s very unlikely that he replaced OG Danse and then felt guilty and had his mind wiped. Why? Because for one, the institute would know where he is and either recall him, or at the very least not label him missing. On top of that X6-88 (my Boi) even comments that he didn’t know Danse was a synth. Also, Danse only has vague memories of his childhood, growing up as an orphan. No attachments, no one to miss. It makes sense that the first real person he meets and has a bond with is more vivid. Because the previous one before rivet city are all fakes.

- Certain Synths Can Age. It just doesn’t make sense why they couldn’t. For one, the institute has been planting spies for years!!! And no one had noticed until shit happened like the broken mask. Since the broken mask, the institute didn’t just stop replacing people. They continued. Don’t you think it would be a super easy tell if they just never got older? Because this is fallout we’re talking you have to make some assumptions. For one you can assume life expectancy is not long. How many old people do you see? Very few. Besides mama Murphy there’s next to none outside of cities. Which leads me to believe people just don’t live that long. But just like way back then in real life when life expectancy wasn’t long, people tended to age faster due to stress, hard labor and lack of proper sleep. I bet people in the commonwealth experience at least 2/3 of those. Hence they have wrinkles, they get grey hair, etc. now I’m not saying that’s fool proof it’s just an assumption. Buuut if everyone is on high alert in the brotherhood about synths, someone would have to notice Danse never aged. That Danse never really grew or changed in muscle mass, which he would have to if he was undergoing vigorous training from the brotherhood. He would have been caught not 5 years down the line. So I think it’s safe to assume that SOME synths are designed to age in order to infiltrate.

-Danse was an infiltration Synth that ran away. Not all infiltration is replacement. Just like not all spies are synths. Cricket, Trashcan Carla and that one other guy being some human ones. It’s not far fetched to say that Danse’s primary objective wasn’t to infiltrate the commonwealth. If we go with the idea that Danse never had reconstructive surgery, then well...Danse is very Attractive. Possibly he was at one point charismatic or suave for easy infiltration. We know for a fact he’s a good leader. Which just could be some ingrained characteristics. So if he was an infiltration synth, then he either saw the world as a new chance, got convicted by some railroad member who found him out or whatever, he decided to run. Which could explain how he got out.

- Alternatively Danse could have been a Courser. This is going with the idea that Danse’s body doesn’t change. Coursers have the strong lean combat ready form that Danse has. Plus it would explain why Danse fit into being a soldier so fast. Being a courser and being a soldier in the Bos aren’t too different. But I don’t have too much faith in this one. Primarily because

-Danse grows facial hair. Hair is at the base of it, Dead cells that are being pushed out. Granted they have a function, but that’s what they are. So I’m pretty sure he has to trim his beard or get a haircut at SOME point. Otherwise, another dead giveaway. So just by growing hair, Danse’s body is changing. It’s not staying perfectly the same how it was originally created.

-Danse and all other synths who have gone through the mind wipe are still sentient. Also codsworth and all other Mr handys and miss nannies are artificial intelligence, bordering on full sentients. For one memories are a fickle thing. We as humans don’t even have the best memories. Often we take what we think is important and then toss the rest in the trash to be discarded. When we sleep, are brains are processing everything in took in today and decide what to keep and what is useless. What you at 3 days ago? Useless. Depending on the personal importance to you it gets chunked in the trash. It’s also very easy for our brains to be lied to and for us to make up false memories on our own accord. Just through mere suggestions. In cases of severe brain trauma, sometimes they lose all memories. But that doesn’t make them any less alive no? I would go back to the definition of being alive all of which they match except! Possibly being able to reproduce sexually. Instead they can reproduce Mechanically. As in they build more of themselves instead of asexually (splitting themselves to make more) or sexually. So they are indeed alive. Codsworth waited for you for Hundreds it YEARS he nearly went mad form the loneliness. But that’s another issue altogether. Point is, synths are alive and sentient. Regardless if you take their memories.

-Danse sleeps and eats obviously, he has PTSD which is why he sleeps very little but he still does. Obviously he eats because again, dead give away. If he never felt hungry or ate he would be found out very quickly. Likewise if you eat it has to go somewhere. So obviously he shits too. Which means he has those basic bodily functions.

- now I’m not saying all synths eat,sleep, shit, grow but I’m saying ones designed for that certainly could. Think about it, your brain essentially sends out signals and hormones that tell your body what to do. It shouldn’t be that far off the mark to say the institute could enable or create some synths that do age and others that don’t. Shaun might not age because he’s the first child synth and therefore a prototype. Coursers might not age or sleep (or just sleep very little ) because they have no need to. But I highly doubt they don’t need to eat. Maybe eat very little but unless they get charged like the gen 1s and 2s , and those gems do get charged, it’s a scene you can come across in the institute, then they need a power source in order to function. There’s a doctor talking to gen 1s about not charging themselves for power unless necessary. Anyway because of the simple fact that even gen 1s and 2s need power, also the fact that if gen 3s acted like an unlimited powered unit well...then they obviously wouldn’t be so strapped for power now would they? So it’s again safe to assume like all organic organisms they need a fuel source. Food and water is a fuel source for organic organisms. For coursers it’s a bit tricky. For all we know they do have to go charge up, but since they technically are Gen 3s maybe they eat and drink instead for fuel or a mixture of both. If Harkness is to be believed to be a escaped Courser (which is why the Head of SRB set out to retrieve him) then it’s likely that coursers can refuel on food and drink. Because again it would be obvious he wasn’t human if he suddenly died do to lack of power, also again Harkness obviously eats and drinks and sleeps because he would be found out or he himself would know something was up.

Ok that’s allll I’ve got...anyone got anything to add or maybe even point out holes in? Please feel free! The synths/Danse debate has been killing me!

[kestrelsarethebestrels]

Employer termination.

-PART 1-

It wasn’t easy at first.

Not the part that involves eating people, of course. Alex had no qualms about that. He wasn’t burdened by things like “morals” and “ethics,” and that silly thing called “introspection.” No, it was the process of taking them apart and storing the pieces which he found difficult. Oh, and of course - getting the bodies in the first place. After the aggression of the initial avian assault, the store had been nearly picked clean and there weren’t a whole lot of surviving humans.

There was one single advantage in his possession. Intelligence? Nope. Skills? Naw. It was the element of surprise. That was assisted by arrows. Lots of them (fletched by the other employees). Oh, and the pocketknives, of which he had pocketed a few for himself in the before-times. From time to time he reminisced about the particularly gruesome ones, which were intentionally coworkers he had deeply despised. Like Gary, for instance. Always bossing him around, that son of a bitch. Thought he was way better at being a bow technician, just because he knew how to properly tune a bow and cared, for some stupid reason, about customer service. You’re not my real boss! he often angrily thought, when Alex’s mistakes were pointed out to him.

Well, he took care of Gary first, that quiet old man. That one was rather messy, but the goal of the inaugural kill was to make a statement, not to keep it simple. It terrified the others, but at that point Alex had already stockpiled any usable weapons and had trapped the rest in the conference room. From then on, the order was his immediate boss, the owner, and then anyone else on a whim. 

Preparing them was also an ordeal, as Alex had never once cooked in his life, unless you count putting a frozen pizza in the oven as cooking. He had burned that the first four times in his life too, but he got the hang of it eventually. The grill at the 4U Cafe should have been simple to operate, but he had spent the better part of a day trying to light the flame. Imagine a man desperately flailing a mini Bic lighter around what he thought was the flame source, but was in fact just the edge of a grate. That was the scene about three hours into his struggle. Two hours after that, it finally occurred to him that he had never turned on the gas in the first place. He still considered that an overwhelming success. There was a bunch of leftover onion ring breading in the kitchen storage room, and being a good ol’ boy from the land of fried foods, he created his own version of deep frying the meat. Serve that up with a side of decade-old expired ketchup, of which there were gallons in the kitchen, and voila. It’s a hell of a wonder he never got scurvy, but thanks to Gary’s immense stash of Emergen-C packets, the minimum amount of sustenance was just barely achieved. For shits and giggles, he had even tried deep frying brains. It turned out pretty good, in his opinion. (Remember, this is the same guy who thinks frozen pizza is the height of culinary mastery.) He liked to pretend he was a zombie whenever he got to those pieces, which was always saved for last.

He savored (both literally and figuratively) in the fact that he had finally proven himself to be an alpha male by being the last survivor at H&H. He didn’t miss anyone, sentimentally speaking, after the apocalypse started. Friends were far and few in between before that, anyways. Alex incorrectly chalked that up to the idea that mere mortals were intimidated by him. Men envied his souped-up super duty F250 and camo everything, and women were… well, he didn’t know anything about women, so anyone who didn’t respond to his creepy Tinder messages (which was all of them) was definitely a bitch. Everyone else outside of that gender binary didn’t exist, or else they were “goin’ straight to hell,” as he liked to remark to anyone who’d listen.

As for the birds, he took the hero’s route and bravely stayed indoors almost the entire time, only venturing out to find fresh water and pilfer dry ice from the businesses up near MacArthur and 29th. Dry ice - why, you ask? Well, that walk-in freezer had to stay cold somehow. What with all the body parts and such.

Except now, in early 2042, the people-food had run its course (pun totally intended). Occasionally he was able to lure down a highly dull and unintelligent bird to the front entrance and shoot it with his bow (missing his mark about half the time, arrows sent clattering over the parking lot asphalt), but in his attempt to prove his dominance over all of god’s creatures, he opted to use broadheads. There wasn’t a whole lot left that was edible after that, but goddamn did he feel good after a good bird kill. Revenge, he thought. Revenge for the humans (though, again, “humans” defined a universe that included himself and himself only). Eventually he ran out of functioning broadheads, which slowed that food source to a trickle as well. It turns out that missing your target and hitting the concrete sidewalk or parking lot surface really messes with the integrity of the arrow. Who would’ve thought?

Anyways, he was running out of ideas, flesh, and also vitamin C packets. On one cold morning, he woke up as usual (fatigued and cranky as all get out). He shuffled slowly, bundled up in other people’s jackets, exited the warmer interior room and made his way towards the cafe for the very few morsels that were left of his last victim, a pathetically obese bluejay that had gorged itself on too many rancid leftovers from the nearby Denny’s. His bulky elbow caught a stack of decaying papers on the shop counter, which fluttered disorganizedly to the ground (is there any other way for paper to fall to the floor?). Something caught his eye. An invoice? Painstakingly, he bent down to pick it up.

JASON MILLER - INVICTA 37 SVX PINK SATIN FINISH #3 MOD SET

Hah. Jason Miller. He vaguely remembered that name as being attached to a fussy asshole who was constantly pestering him about the “status” of his order. Like he cared. Looks like Chris was the one who placed this order. Chris: former manager, also formerly alive. His current position was now part of a haphazardly balanced pile of bones behind the cash register.

The journey to the cafe would have to be interrupted for now. He gripped the invoice tightly with a sense of anticipation. Alex knew there was a giant stack of boxes that had arrived from Hoyt, Mathews, and Elite in the back room, and he was pretty sure those people were still waiting to pick them up (deceased status pending). If he knew anything about statistics, his confidence in that information would have been within a 95% confidence interval, because after failing all of his other responsibilities, it had been his sole job to contact those people to let them know that their orders had arrived. This task, like most other things, was consistently shirked as well.

He mustered his last few brain cells and remaining muscle mass and awkwardly sprinted to the back room, if you could call it a sprint. He ran a pen, as a pointer, from top to bottom of the stack of cardboard boxes… slowly… slowly… there it was. The Invicta. He silently congratulated himself, as usual, and quickly returned to the main shop.

It had been a long while since he had used the landline, seeing as how he had no friends to check up on. A tone immediately greeted him upon picking up the phone, much to his relief. He located the phone number on the invoice from earlier, rehearsed a few lines beforehand, and then made the call. Shockingly, the person on the other end responded.

Cool.

Now the plan had been set in motion. It was time to play the waiting game…

-PART 2-

He couldn’t stop marveling at his good fortune. He also couldn’t stop laughing, either, but that was a side effect of the starvation delirium. While that chump in the back room was getting excited over his new bow, Alex silently retrieved one of his own, which had been hidden earlier behind the counter. Pushing aside an assorted mix of Gary and Chris to grab an arrow, he loaded up his second-to-last broadhead and stayed low. No sense in alerting the other guy right now, who was probably still futzing around back there. He closed his eyes, gripped the bow, and attempted to wish the hunger pangs away. The anticipation was too strong. With his index-trigger release already attached to the string, Alex peered from behind the shelves and into the backroom to catch a glimpse of his next meal.

Shit. Where’d he go?

“You lookin’ for someone?”

Now standing, he frantically searched for the source of the sound and was blinded (again) by that stupidly bright flashlight beam. With the last of his strength, he drew back the bow. It came back down. Too weak that time. He drew back the bow... nope. Still needed more force to get all the way to full draw. All right, this time for real… he drew back the bow and once again failed to overcome the peak draw weight.

“Struggling a little there?”

Ah, that fucker was taunting him. Alex had no reply - speaking drained too much energy. He could mutter crazily, though, and he sure did. Exasperated, he angrily drew back the bow one more time and his own shoddy workmanship failed him. 

A great shattering noise was followed by a clattering of pieces. In his enthusiasm, Alex had torqued the bow while drawing it, de-aligning the strings (which he had never waxed) and popping the main cable right off of the cams. He blankly and pathetically stared at the only thing that remained in his hand, the compound’s riser. (The moral of this story: don’t shoot a PSE. Just kidding.)

The other voice spoke. “Wow. I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.” He heard the subtle click of another bow being pulled to full draw. “I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time, and I mean this in the most genuine way -

Alex, you’re the worst.”

In a final moment of brief clarity, right before Jason’s fixed-blade arrow passed through his skull, a thought occurred to him for the first and certainly last time in his life: Oh. I fucked up.

-PART 3-

It wasn’t that hard, in the end. A 20-yard shot, Jason guessed. He was pretty close, too - the other man was just shy of 22. 

The bit that tipped him off was the sudden quietness from the main room. Very suspicious. By then, Jason had already tied a d-loop onto the Invicta and threw on an arrow rest. No sense in dilly dallying while ol’ Hannibal was still out there. His camping pack had included a whole bunch of archery tools. Added some extra weight to his already hefty bags, but it was worth it. And he packed arrows. All of them, but especially the hunting arrows.

Jason didn’t take too kindly to people-eaters. He made sure to double-tap too, just in case. 

He kicked one foot for a response. Nothing. Dug his foot into the shoulder. Still nothing. Kneeled down to check the carotid artery… no pulse. And since this isn’t a zombie story, it’s safe to say the guy on the floor was now totally, comprehensively, holistically, well-n-good dead.

After loading up on more tools from the shop, he made his way back to the entrance and took one final glance towards the dark, haunted western corner of H&H. This time, he wasn’t leaving empty-handed. The gorgeous and garishly pink bow would turn some heads, to be sure, but most likely they’d be heads with beaks on them, and maybe now they’d leave him alone for a while longer. He sighed deeply, this time with satisfaction.

It had been a good goddamn day.