#fcaba

I'll be honest, I've yet to meet Solanum! The only reason I know about her is because I actively ignored spoilers believing I'd never own the game anyways (you'd never guess what I now own 🥲).

What I have explored of Outer Wilds, I always get a bit choked up looking around the Nomia ruins. They seemed so beautiful and wonderful, but they are gone now. You can only really imagine what they were like, and that makes my heart ache.

Frankly, they're absolutely gorgeous birds, and have this authoritative aura to them (at least in photos, I've yet to be lucky enough to see one in person).

In British history, they were vilified for hunting, just doing what they needed to do to ensure survival. Despite this, the species has quite the success story, and is managing to recover!

What's really interesting about them that ultimately led to this choice is that White Tailed Eagles fight the same way a similar looking American species (the bald eagle) courts. Reminds me of something...

Also in some photos the coloring of their feathers looks a lot like the coloring of Stratt's hair lol.

Harris Hawks are known for working together to hunt, often likened to wolves. It's believed this behavior stems from their intelligence, which is surprisingly high for a bird of prey.

Where I'm from, U.S America, these guys really only hang around the south west (their range extends far into central and South America!), and one of my favorite things about the Twilight Princess games is the old west aesthetic a lot of it has :)

Bonus: A Harris Hawk that I've met before! His name is Stax, and is sadly declared missing. If you live in the Salt Lake valley of Utah, please keep an eye out for him!

I see a lot of kestrels in my area, very cool little guys with massive personalities!

They're fast, loud, bold and quite the fighters. I chose specifically an American Kestrel is because of the cool blue coloring the males have.

Originally I just chose this species for looks, Ibises look cool, intimidating, and have similar colors to Ava. Then I realized there was sort of an irony to this choice that I really enjoy.

Look, I don't watch MHA, my sister does, that's the only reason I know about this character. But I mean, look at them.

I had briefly considered assigning Simon to a species of butcher birds (kind of obvious why, being the Butcher and all that), but ultimately went against it.

Instead, I chose a São Tomé, the largest species of canary. This idea came from the canary in a coal mine metaphor. Simon, like many canaries throughout history, was sent into a dark and unknown place with no guarantee of survival, more likely to die in there and suffocate than ever make it out. (The difference being that canaries were usually loved and cared for by their captors).