#FISH EXPERT HERE. HELLO? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dekariosclan · 1 year ago

Note

Hello my friend!

So we all know how amazing and wonderful Gale is, how kind, good, caring and funny he is. He is, in so many ways, a perfect man.

He is, however, only human. I have the tendency to idealise him, and forget this.

My question to you is - what do you think his flaws are? Both generally and as a husband/life partner.

💜

Ohhh I love this question so much ❤️ I am a hopeless romantic, and I adore Gale’s charming, sweet, loving adorkableness! He is truly amazing—but I can confirm NOBODY (and no relationship) is ever 100% perfect.

The thing about a long-term committed relationship is that, while your partner’s charms make the relationship wonderful, their flaws are what make it REAL. And that’s just as important.

So let’s talk about our charming Gale’s less-than-charming aspects, shall we?

[warning: this went from a short & concise answer to a rambling dissertation, please prepare yourself accordingly! Also I know this ask/answer was supposed to make Gale a little less perfect and help lessen our obsession, but uhhhh, I seem to have veered hard in the opposite direction 😂]

———

First off: The Pomposity™️ (I’m not 100% certain that’s even a real word but you know what I mean right) So we all know that by the end of the game, (human) Gale has come to accept himself as he is, and decided to henceforth be known as ‘Gale Dekarios, a most brilliant wizard of intentionally limited reknown.’ He’s come a lonnng way in cutting down his ego, but let’s be honest: some of it will never truly go away. And that’s fair, because he IS brilliant, and he IS talented, and he IS extremely passionate about magic.

…but it’s tough to remember all that and give him a pass when that usually-oh-so-adorable-finger-in-the-air is now aimed at YOU, as he declares that ‘after all, he IS an expert on [*insert topic here*] because he WAS awarded [*insert scholarly award here*] from the one and only [*insert impressive Blackstaff Academy professor here.*]’

And all you wanted was for your opinion to be taken into consideration regarding the wine selection at dinner.

———

Second: The Disarray / Messiness. Gale has a brilliant mind, one that he applies full throttle to any and all situations: concentration on magic spells, lance board strategy, calculations, poring over ancient tomes, and even figuring out how to cook something edible out of rotting fish heads and some moldy cheese (no veggies, though!)

The problem is, while his mind is brilliant and he will keep it laser-focused on his chosen subject at that current moment, from a day-to-day perspective he is straight-up scatter brained with all the things he has his hands in. We can see this in his vision of his tower: BOOKS. BOOKS EVERYWHERE. Some stacked in piles, some shoved onto shelves, some left open on the page he was reading when he got distracted, etc.

We also get confirmation of this from Tara in the epilogue:

Tara: The way he leaves his potions in absolute disarray—I know for certain he wasn’t raised in a barn, but you’d never know it.

It’s one thing to have books & potions & scrolls scattered throughout his library and sitting room—you have no complaints against that, you HAVE moved in with/married a wizard, after all—but to find them in the kitchen, wine cellar, even occasionally stuffed into your own wardrobe? It’s a bit much.

TLDR: Our rizzard is a hot mess.

———

Which leads us into perhaps his biggest flaw: The Fussiness.

So about all those books everywhere, on everything, all at once? You didn’t try and ARRANGE them or organize them for him, did you?…You did?! Oh, gods! No, no, he had an ORDER to them, you see, and he knew that the exact spell he needed could be found in the third book down in the stack next to the piano, page 453, why did you ever decide to move it?

Well, you explain as patiently as you can, it was in the way, and frankly you could tell from the dust on it that he hadn’t touched it in several yea—

BY ELMINSTER’S ELBOW, did you ALPHABETIZE his illusion scrolls??! Oh, for the love of—!

You get the picture.

There would undoubtedly be moments when you found yourself fully exasperated by this man and his exacting, fussy nature.

———

All that being said: true fights would be rare.

The occasional huffy remark or quickly-forgotten gripe would occur now and then as in any relationship, but a real, anger-filled argument? With heightened emotions and hurt feelings? Rare indeed.

The only thing bigger than Gale’s brain is his heart. And while his mind is dedicated to a great many things as mentioned above (magic studies, lance board, etc) his heart is 100% dedicated TO YOU, and you alone. So on those rare occasions after a fight has occurred, it does not take long for him to come down from the heat of the moment and realize, oh, hells, he’s been an ass, hasn’t he?

He knows you love him. His anxiety about not being enough for you has long since disappeared, and he’s calmed his worries that you would ever leave him, but still…there’s always a lingering concern that maybe you’ll grow distant from him after an argument.

If you are in the wrong and he is certain of it, he will be stiffly polite until you offer an apology, and then he will be taking you in his arms, kissing you passionately and telling you ‘all is forgiven my love, let’s never speak of this again’ (and trying hard to hide his relief that you apologized first, because he was not sure how long he would be able to hold out and stay mad at you.)

If HE is in the wrong, though? And you are truly mad at him? And he knows he really stuck his foot in it? Oh, boy.

You’ll be treated to an apology so eloquent it would make poets weep, and it will come packaged with hand-holding, pouting, pleading, and Gale getting down on his (bad) knees.

And if you’re still mad at him after that?

Well, then you’ll have to complete a gauntlet harder than anything Shar could ever throw at you. You’ll have to try and stay angry, explain your anger, AND explain to Gale why he won’t be easily forgiven, all while looking directly at this:

And this:

AND THIS:

…

…needless to say you will be failing, and hard.

Not that you mind, because the make-up sex will be absolutely phenomenal. Gale doesn’t just want to repair your loving bond after you’ve had an argument, he wants to improve it. Which requires much study and experimentation, of course.

And for awhile afterwards, all will be bliss again.

…until you find a pile of scrolls shoved under your side of the bed, and some open books scattered across your dresser, and you decide it time to do some organizing. ———

So yes, my friend. Gale definitely does have some flaws, and at some point they WOULD drive you crazy in any sort of relationship you have with him. Gale is wonderful, Gale is loving, but Gale isn’t perfect!!

…but when he takes you in his arms after you’ve made up, and his mouth is hungrily devouring yours, and he’s murmuring words of adoration against your skin as he trails his kisses down your neck, chest, hips—

Nevermind! I take it all back. He’s perfect. 😂

#I’M SO SORRY SENUA I TRIED #I made a blog for this man you already know i am WEAK 🥹#gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #gale x reader #gale x tav #galemancer #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #answered ask

345 notes · View notes

aquariuspiscescuspverso · 3 days ago

Text

on verso and being a pisces ♓️

(part one)

hello! so — i wrote a little something. it’s part one, so except more soon! i gotta first thank @mysticmilktea for the idea/inspiration. second, i gotta thank @friedesgreatscythe for the hype, and for sounding ideas with me! i appreciate you both so much for the help in creating this, because this wouldn’t exist without the two of you. and so, without further ado, let’s begin our verso x astrology adventure!

okay, so first i wanna start by saying i’ve had an interest in astrology for years, but i am by no means an expert. i know what i know from reading on the internet/listening to podcasts mostly. so — if i’m incorrect anywhere, and you know better than me, please feel free to chime in (kindly!). if you’re a pisces, i apologize if i get anything wrong. i am not TECHNICALLY a pisces, but i am on the cusp between aquarius and pisces, so i do have some pisces traits. so — let’s get into it:

so, to start this, i checked co-star. we all have opinions on co-star, but i am using a wide variety of sources here (and i’ll probably forget to name them all). but — the first thing i read was “is pisces is a good sign?” and i laughed out loud at the response: “if you’re asking this question, you’re probably a pisces who is insecure,” because i can TOTALLY imagine verso asking this question and getting CALLED OUT by that response. so that’s some funny to start this off.

now, i’m going to, first, use my girl stella rae. she’s a lifestyle youtuber that i’ve watched for years and adore, and she loves astrology. she does these podcasts where she chats about anything, but astrology is a main topic. and she’s going to be the first resource i use, because this girl knows what she’s talking about. she, like, has sources to back everything she says up. she’s not just guessing and making things up. so —

fucking. the first thing she says is — “i love a pisces, but, like, how do you all live like this? like, is this how you feel all the time?” and i just . . . chuckled. because every single thing about being a pisces relates to verso. he DOES feel all the time. he may not be outwardly showing it at every moment, but — he absolutely has Big Feelings. she then says: “because i can’t handle this. it’s too much,” and . . . yeah. yeah. after that, she talks about how she was feeling aquarius season this year, and now she’s feeling pisces season as well, and says: “and now i’m, like, every day i want to cry.” which is — again — verso in a nutshell. so this is all, like, very stereotypically pisces. they feel a lot. they’re emotional, in the sense that they feel things extremely deeply. but let’s get into some other aspects:

first, she mentions, pisces is represented by the fish. she explains that these fish — these pisces — have nothing to defend themselves with. cancer, the crab, has its shell. scorpio, they’re a scorpion, so they have their stinger. so they both have things to protect themselves, whereas pisces does not. this, to me, resonates with verso and his lack of autonomy/control over . . . anything. especially as seen in the maelle ending, but also seen/learnt throughout the game. pisces, are, as stella says: “swimming in their tears all the time.”

but what about the positives? because — this is all just depressing so far (like verso). first of all, pisces are Dreamers. their dreams have Meanings. like — she mentions we all need to pay attention to our dreams during pisces season, and i can sort of relate to this as being someone on the pisces cusp; my dreams are usually relating to what i’m currently feeling, or something i need to work through. i can imagine verso — who mentions having nightmares — as being similar — when he does have dreams. but it’s more than that. pisces also have a dreamy quality to them, which . . . i know it doesn’t actually mean “hot” but i can’t help but laugh because . . . yeah, he is dreamy ;)

so with pisces, as we know, you get a lot of emotion, and emotional depth. you also get a lot of empathy. which i see heavily in verso. an example of this, for me, is when he cuts himself in half to cheer the girls up. he’s empathetic to the fact that they’re hurting, and he literally cuts himself in half to bring a smile to their faces. to me, that’s what empathy is about. is about not only feeling the feelings of others, but also like not wanting others to feel bad because you, as a pisces, are so attuned with feeling sad that you don’t want others to feel that same way. so that’s empathy to me, which i believe verso does extremely well. i should also mention i’ve switched from stella rae’s podcast to the astrology podcast’s episode on pisces.

so, this podcast is talking about the transition from aquarius to pisces, and in it, they note that aquarians wanna make things better for everyone via intellectual means, but pisces do via emotional ones. and i think this also goes back to verso, because a lot of what he does is rooted deeply in emotion, and a lot of his comfort is also rooted deeply in emotion. in a lot of his scenes with maelle, for example, he meets her where she is in terms of emotional empathy, like when they “drown in their sadness” or whatever he says. on this same topic, the next point they make is really interesting and kinda hammers home this point. they mention cancers are, like, more in tune and caring, but that pisces are very caring in terms of “what does a suffering being need?” and this is . . . wow. this couldn’t be more verso if i tried. he’s suffering, so of course he’s extra empathetic to the suffering of others, as we see over and over. with cancers, the empathy is more in a “what’s on your mind?” way. but with pisces, it’s in a “where does this suffering begin and end?” way.

now, there’s a lot about pisces being, well, flaky. and i don’t necessarily have a strong opinion on that regarding verso, so someone can factcheck me here again, but i’m personally getting somewhat of a cusp vibe from him, even though the cusp is technically the 15 through the 21. he’s the 22, so, like, not technically a cusp, but he may have some aquarian traits that i’ll explore later. so it’s generally accepted that it’s the 15-21, but i have found a few sources citing the 22 is an acceptable date for a cusp as well. now this gets a little difficult in true astrology, because “cusps” aren’t necessarily really a thing. but i personally believe someone born close to the cusp CAN have elements from each sign, which i believe verso does. but, in regards to the flaky thing, it’s more than just “they don’t show up on time.” it’s also about how they approach things. they’re ADAPTABLE. and that, i do believe, fits verso. pisces are prepared to adapt to what arises.

so this podcast also mentions that time is weird for pisces, because they can spend a lot of time dreaming. not necessarily literal asleep dreaming, but head in the clouds type dreaming. and how i’ll relate this to verso is in the sense of the “flow” state. the state where you’re focused on something and time seems to pass without actually passing. i don’t actually know verso personally, but i can imagine music is like that for him. it’s like that for me, and i’m just a cusp, so i can imagine it’s more intense for him. as the podcast puts it, “in a flow state, time passes much more swiftly, rather than being hyper slowed down. we are totally in tune with something and there are to breaks to [that] experience.” i haven’t mentioned how creative pisces are yet, but that’s probably because i assumed it was obvious. but in case you’re a newbie to astrology, or to pisces, then — yes. they’re very creative. and verso is musically inclined, which absolutely fits that narrative. and a lot of creative people experience this flow state when they’re working on the medium that they love.

so another point this podcast makes is through the comparison of pisces and virgo. both of these signs end in a solstice, which is the maximum inequality of day and night. so — both of these signs are seeking a perfect balance in their own way. for virgos, it’s, like, wanting everything to be perfectly arranged. by in a pisces, it’s more, like, “okay, what is everything? how do i live with everything?” and i think this can be tied to a lot of verso’s, like, existential thoughts. like not wanting to be alive, for example. because for the longest time, he’s pondered how to live with everything — and he’s come up short. pisces are looking for a harmony between the all the things they perceive themselves and the world to be, and that must be beyond difficult for verso. i mean — come on. the world he lives in? of course he’s struggling to find a harmony between what he is and what the world is. pisces seek balance more than perfectionism (like virgos do), and it makes sense with the canvas he lives in verso is unable to make sense of that balance. anyway, i do wanna say i think this contributes a lot of the creativity of pisces, and of verso especially.

so this goes on to explain the differences between virgo and pisces some more, like how virgos are more focused on the material things. like, tangible things. pisces are, like, more concerned with the CONTENT of the things. you know, they’re concerning with what is being expressed and what the vision is. i think this kinda highlights verso’s entire worldview/line of thinking in the game, because this goes back to existential thoughts. next is the topic of, like, escapism/modification and how those things relate to pisces. in this sense, especially the modification one, pisces aren’t, like, “how do i change this situation so that it’s what i want?” instead, they’re like, “how do i change myself or the way i’m doing things in order to navigate the situation?” and this brings us back to the adaptable thing. i think, being immortal, verso has no choice but to adapt. but instead of changing the overall situation, he’s more concerned with how to mold himself so he can fit into the situation. and regarding the escapism, it’s really just a form of modification for pisces. because pisces are concerned with changing their own state, and so, like, the “escapism” is more of a “i would rather be in this state than that state.” there’s an interest in avoiding negative outcomes and experiences. and like — escapism isn’t always bad. if it’s pathological, it can be. but it’s not always a bad thing. especially if you’re trying to escape the harshness of your reality, which i think we can all agree verso’s reality is absolutely harsh. the podcast states, “when we’re escaping, we’re always moving in the direction of freedom,” which is think, relating to verso, is interesting food for thought.

back to the avoidance thing, pisces are likely to avoid if they see nothing to be gained from an encounter. and a lot of this, to me, is just going back to all of verso’s lies. lies are a way of avoiding the truth. and what’s to be gained from the truth? that’s gotta be what verso’s thinking in many situations, and so avoidance — lying — seems like the best answer. pisces try to avoid the “bad,” and want to focus on the “good,” and are dissatisfied when things don’t live up to that. and obviously, if verso were to tell the complete and honest truth, he can see how that would go badly. so he avoids it, making the situation “good,” because why fuck something up if you can just avoid it and keep things “good”? what’s sad to me is that pisces are generally an optimistic sign, which i need someone to once again factcheck me on in regards to verso. i wanna say there’s evidence of his optimism, but he’s also so downtrodden that it’s sometimes hard to tell. i wanna say there’s evidence of optimism in, like, esquie and the gestrals, but i need back-up on that before i solidify my stance. but the optimism for pisces isn’t necessarily like the optimism for sagittarius, which is more like “we can do it!” for pisces, it’s more like, “we’re going to do it, and if it doesn’t happen, that’s okay, too.” so with pisces, who are more big-picture orientated, it’s, like, if this one thing goes badly, that’s okay because there’s an overall net good — the one bad thing isn’t the end of the road. it’s like determination, and i just wanna take a moment to say how absolutely shattering it is that verso, a pisces, wants to die. it’s pretty much the exhaustion of optimism, which just breaks my verso apologist heart.

back to the avoidance thing again, there’s a level of avoiding, like, the reality of a bad situation. avoiding that you’re, for example, stuck. and on the optimism thing, there’s a dark side. which is where i think verso is, which is, like, if they fundamentally see the universe as predatory or cruel in some way, they can get stuck on that. i think the podcast puts it perfectly for verso:

“you’re, like, oh, where am i? what’s the meaning of life? it’s to be subtly tortured until i’m erased from existence.”

and that . . . wow. okay. i need a moment, because that couldn’t apply to verso more. like, someone else may look at a situation and say it wasn’t so bad. but a pisces wants to look at the, like, context, and the bigger frame, and get stuck in that. they ponder the nature of reality, and can find reality to be monstrous at times if monstrous things happen within it. if that makes sense. i’m probably explaining all of this badly. pisces seek to understand. and for verso, i think this is interesting, because there’s also a lot of mystery surrounding total understanding. and the podcast notes pisces protagonists (i’m not saying verso is the protagonist of coe33, i’m just citing the podcast) are often mysterious, which we ALL know verso is. they’re usually trying to understand themselves, the world, their place in the world, and getting their self-world relationship right. and so it makes sense that verso DOESN’T feel like he has a place in this world. he’s seeking total understanding, and it makes sense for, like, us. but existing in a cavas, as a painting? i can’t even imagine what that would do to a pisces mentally (except that i can, because they’d probably look a lot like verso).

i’m going to end part one of this meta here, because i have SO much more to say if anyone is interested. if not, i’ll probably add to this anyway, because it’s fun for me. but — to end this part — i wanna say that if making verso a pisces WASN’T intentional i’d be shocked, because he fits it to a tee.

love you all, and thanks for reading!

#clair obscur expedition 33 #expedition 33 #coe33 #verso #verso dessendre #my posts #verso x astrology

21 notes · View notes

starlit-selkie · 5 months ago

Text

Namielle Marine Biology Post

Hello fellow hunters!!!

I’ve been wanting to rant about this for a little while so I’m doing it to all of you :D!

This post is gonna be about the elder dragon Namielle, and why she’s just an absolute masterpiece of a design for a sea related dragon.

As a zoology student who’s hoping to work in marine biology, Namielle immediately stuck out to me. I’m always a fan of deep sea based designs, but namielle was different because of how *real* all of her little adaptations felt. It felt to me like the team that designed her didn’t just slap colors and lights on her wherever, but took the time to understand why deep sea animals have the adaptations that they do, and to think about how that would apply to this creature. This isn’t a post that’s entirely about in-universe ecology of namielle, as monster-huntologist has already done a brilliant post on that, but instead it’ll be about various design elements on namielle, the creatures I think they’re inspired by, and how those adaptations work. This is going to be an incredibly long post, but I hope it’s interesting to y’all and that you maybe learn something new from it! So let’s get into it!

A quick disclaimer that I make no claim to be an expert in marine biology. I’m just passionate about it, and I’m not a professional yet. Plus, the nature of science is that we never really know everything, especially not for certain, so this information might become out of date or just be flat out wrong.

I’m going off of the assumption that Namielle is able to live both underwater and on land. We fight her in the coral highlands, but she has so many sea-specific adaptations that it’s hard for me to believe she’s purely a land dwelling creature. Perhaps there’s access to the sea somewhere in the lower coral highlands (assuming the highlands is bigger than the area we can access in game) or near the vale, or there’s underground water. For living on land, I’m going to assume that either she’s able to use the same system that allows her to contain water for attacks for breathing on land, that she has lungs as well as gills, or that elder dragons can just live wherever the hell they want.

I’m also applying the logic of “fuck it, it’s an elder dragon” to how namielle can exist in these environments that have wildly different pressures, since the coral highlands is, well, a highlands, and the deep sea is very high pressure. It’s an elder dragon, don’t worry about how it can just ignore pressure I guess. Anyways, on to things I *can* somewhat explain.

First, we’ll start with her body coloration. The dorsal (top/back) side of her body is black, and the ventral (bottom/belly) side of her body is paler. This is a type of camouflage called *counter-shading*. It’s exhibited by a ton of sea creatures, like orcas and various porpoises/dolphins, sharks, manta rays, and many more! the way it functions is simple but incredibly effective. Let’s say you were swimming in the ocean, and a Namielle was directly below you. As you look down, you only see the dorsal (back) side of her body, so it’s a black shape against the dark water below you. If you were directly below her, you’d see her ventral side, so a pale blue against the light water above you. Here’s a couple of drawings I did to help explain this (I did these in like 5 minutes, I’m fully aware that they’re absolute garbage lol)

Similarly, all of the lights on Namielle are on the underside of her body. This allows her to use another form of camouflage called counter-illumination, which species like squids and various fish exhibit as well. When seen from below, the lights would help merge her shape with the light scattering through the water above the prey. This would be especially effective when the namielle is in an enraged state, when the entire underside of the wings light up in ripple-like patterns. This picture from Wikipedia shows the general idea of this method.

Let’s talk a little bit more about those lights. Bioluminescence is quite common in deep sea animals, and for a wide variety of speculated reasons. The lights on Namielle closely resemble that of a comb jelly, which is a fascinating group of ctenophores (so not a true jellyfish, just related to them!) Though in the case of some comb jellies, they aren’t actually bioluminescent, but rather the comb rows within their body are incredibly reflective and scatter light like a prism as they move in the water. Since namielle has this effect on land, and we can see it happen in the dark, I’m pretty sure she is actually bioluminescent, but I could be wrong. The cells that would create this effect are called photocytes, and in ctenophores they often use calcium to activate specific proteins called photoproteins in order to generate light.

There’s a whole bunch of reasons why namielle could have these lights. They provide some counter illumination as mentioned earlier, but that’s almost certainly not the only reason. Namielle could use them for communication with other members of the species, since having specific patterns of lights would make finding each other easier in the complete and utter blackness of the deep ocean. Namielles could also use these lights like an anglerfish to lure in prey. Judging by their size, I’m going to assume that the namielle primarily eats fish or other similarly sized prey. Hell, they probably also can hunt on land, as food in the deep sea can get pretty scarce sometimes.

Let’s talk about namielle’s beautiful face for a bit. The shape of her head is quite flat, with the points on the sides of her head reminding me somewhat of a hammerhead shark. Her eyes are quite small, so I think that underwater she hunts primarily with other senses. Since she’s also able to live on land, I’ll assume that she does have good eyesight in both land and water, but other senses serve better in the darkest areas. It’s possible that she has organs similar to a shark’s ampullae of lorenzini, which are pores located on the snout of the shark that allow them to sense electromagnetic fields. Her long whiskers may also be used to hunt prey, similar to the vibrissae of a seal. In seals, their whiskers are so sensitive that they can catch prey just fine with little to no eyesight, it’s a really interesting adaptation that I definitely recommend reading more about if you’re curious. Back to namielle, she has a wide mouth with very interesting teeth. She seems to have two rows of teeth, so she might be constantly losing and regrowing teeth like a shark. The needle-like shape suggests that they primarily are used for ripping and shredding meat. An interesting detail I noticed is that her teeth are sort of transparent, which is a trait real deep sea creatures have. Take the dragonfish for example, its teeth are very similar to namielle’s. While it’s not been studied quite as much as I’d hoped, biologists have determined that the structure of the teeth is what makes it transparent. Their teeth lack structures called dentin tubules that are what normally give teeth their color, and also contain nanocrystal structures that most animals don’t have in their teeth. It’s theorized that their teeth are transparent for camouflage reasons, since bright white teeth would stand out against a black colored animal, potentially giving them away. Also credit to u/vers_first on Reddit for this absolutely hilarious screenshot that perfectly shows off her lovely teeth.

Another notable feature is the red coloration. Color is difficult to see underwater, since the wavelengths get absorbed by the water. Red is the first color to disappear, becoming dull grey at around 15-20 feet below the surface depending on water conditions. The amount of red coloration on namielle’s body, like on the wings and head, mean that when submerged in water namielle can become nearly invisible, only the blue/white and black on her body visible enough to be used for camouflage, as well as the lights. This image from the official artworks is a pretty good representation of what a namielle would look like while glowing and below ~20 feet of water. As you can see, it basically just disappears except for the lights.

Namielle is able to store water within its body, and likely mix it with saliva or mucus to produce the slime that they shoot when threatened or hunting. This likely isn’t something that namielle can do indefinitely, it’d probably need to drink lots of water to maintain this on land, and in the sea it’d get its water supply from the food that it eats. In fact, while I was reviewing my footage of namielle, I noticed that I seem to have caught her drinking/absorbing water from the blue sponge corals in the highlands!

youtube

Though, it’s likely that it doesn’t use the slime when in the sea, since goo projectiles don’t work super well underwater. It’s likely that she uses another specialization to hunt when under water: electricity!

Those who have dived into the world of monster hunter ecology likely know about the theory that thunder element is very risky for monsters to use since our nervous systems run on electricity and generally don’t react well to more of it, and that most monsters that do use electricity either have adaptations to protect themselves (like khezu using their tail to ground their bodies, or astalos being adapted to just continue to function with high amounts of their piezoelectricity shocking themselves) or by not actually generating electricity within their bodies (like zinogre’s symbiotic relationship with thunderbugs, or tobi-kadachi generating static forces in its fur)

This isn’t the case with namielle, as being an elder dragon means it can basically do whatever it wants. Namielle canonically has a special organ within its body that creates electric charge. I’m going to assume that this functions similarly to an electric eel. Those guys have special disc shaped cells called electroplaques that produce charges, which are released when a specific neurotransmitter is produced. More specifically, the nerve terminals on the organ create transient paths for the electricity that connect the inside and the outside of the cells, turning each individual cell into a miniature battery. These batteries all activate each other in a cascading effect, producing a shock in just nanoseconds. But you may be wondering why these eels (and thus namielle) don’t just fry their own nervous system with all this electricity. Truth is, we aren’t entirely sure how they don’t, but here’s what we do know. The electric cells are structured inside the body in such a way as to create a parallel circuit that is separated from important organs such as the heart and the brain, which significantly reduces the danger. They also don’t shock randomly, only when they need to. They can also shift their bodies to prevent just nailing their heart with the electric current. However, they likely feel something when they discharge a shock, since they have electroreceptors and contract their muscles when they shock something. Taking a look at the namielle armor, it has 15 thunder resistance. To me, this says that namielle has adapted to have some kind of insulation within their body that lessens the shock to their own systems when they use these electrical abilities.

Let’s talk about the wings now.

Namielle’s wings are made up of a membrane connected to its tail. The wings are incredibly flexible, so it probably has thin cartilage “finger bones” within the wings, or they have flat sheets of cartilaginous tissue within the wings like a manta ray. It could also be similar to the webbing of a vampire squid, where it has a tentacle structure that’s connected by a membranous web. It actually tucks its wings around itself in a very vampire squid-ish shape, which I thought was pretty neat. The edges of the wings have tentacle like structures, but I’m unsure how prehensile these are.

Namielle seems to have a skeletal structure similar to that of a seahorse, where it is made up of overlapping plates of bony materials beneath the skin rather than the shape that we usually think of as bones being. The seahorse in this image is very dead and has been dried out, which allows us to see the structure of the boney plates while still having skin over them. You can see the resemblance to the seahorse especially on the face and the legs, notice the ridged texture. These bones are very flexible and are able to slide and bend around and against each other, giving the namielle structure and armor. This armor is especially effective against crushing, since the force of a blow is distributed throughout the skeleton. This however is less effective on spots where the bones are smaller and thinner/more spread out, such as the legs, head, and underbelly, hence why those are the main weak spots in addition to breakable wings and a severable tail.

Speaking of the tail, the way it’s connected to the wings suggests to me that it uses is to balance itself in the water, as well as perhaps for steering. This has the advantage of working in both air and water, since flying and swimming are surprisingly similar.

The sounds that namielle makes are very interesting, as they resemble the sounds made by marine mammals like seals, dolphins, and orcas. For neat examples, listen to the spaceship-like sound of an adult weddell seal, as well as various orca calls. Namielle is incredibly intelligent (basically sapient since it’s an elder dragon) and these sounds are likely used for communication.

Overall, namielle is a brilliant example of a fantasy creature that’s designed with a basis in reality, since after all reality is often stranger than fiction.

That’s all I have for now, but if I think of any more details I’ll come back and edit this post. If you have anything to correct or add, please let me know, I’d love to talk about this more!

#monster hunter #monster hunter world #mhworld #mhw iceborne #monster hunter world iceborne #speculative biology #namielle #Youtube

44 notes · View notes

maikaartwork · 2 months ago

Note

Hello,! I am artist that has started newly sharing my art here. I have gotten a couple comments under my posts asking if I do commission, and on one someone warned me it could be a scam. I got a message from a different person asking for a commission. Here is pics from the conversation. For this one, since it’s my first official ask, I am not asking for money (also I can’t really GET scammed that way), but do you think this would have been a scam,?

I saw a post you made about being careful of scams, thank you for it

First: you did so well, congrats! You were so respectful and pleasant, didn't let them pull you into paying, keeping your goal in mind, being patient about your boundary, love to see it!

It does look scammy to me, yes.

Although it could have also been a dense boomer (using this as a loose description generally for someone that has no idea how Internet works and how much portfolio is worth to an artist building an audience) or someone that is really, really bad with English (and reading comprehension). Is that likely? Not really, but I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.

I sometimes do a reverse image search through google images, just to see if the photos I am presented with are just pulled from google.

If you're still unsure, you can always ask for more photos of that person from different angles - best case scenario, they are a real client and you get more reference pics for shading or face shape or whatever. Worst case: they can't provide any because they are a lying liar that lies and has pics of some rando they found on their grandma's facebook and will not waste time on you and your pesky questions.

In the future, when money gets involved, that's when you'll clearly know. Fishing for PayPal details, offering generous tips, not taking any alternative payment options, rushing the payment process - you know the drill.

In the future, just keep doing what you're doing - be as lovely as you were here and keep your assertive stance about using actually secure payment methods - ko-fi, paypal invoices, hell, even Patreon has a shop option now. Anything that can be cancelled by the buyer post-commission - BAD. I'm assuming you got to me through that one post I made a while ago, so I won't repeat myself too much ;)

For those that are reading this and have no idea what the post is: you can find it HERE.

There is also a deep-dive on how these scams work post from @scam-alerts HERE. I don't pretend to be an expert so feel free to do research of your own.

Finally: I wish you all the best on your artistic journey, hope it brings you much joy and success!

#artist advice #commission advice #commission scams #art scam

22 notes · View notes

moonydustx · 1 year ago

Note

Hello Moonydustx. I hope you're well! I really like your stories, your way of writing is very pleasant to read. I loved what you wrote for Kid and Killer, I love those two men! In fact, I'm totally in love with Kid Pirates. 💖

I was wondering if you could write something with Kid 🧲 . I so need to fluff with him. I know he likes to show off that he's cruel and ruthless, but I'm SURE this bad boy is also a very big fluffy guy capable of a lot of love. He named his boat after his first love - this boy is a great sentimentalist, absolutely!

Here's my idea: reader is the newest recruit to Victoria Punk. Kid is suspicious at first, but discovers that she's a true virtuoso at the piano and that her voice is the most beautiful he's ever heard 🎹🎶. (We all know that Kid loves music.) See where I'm going with this, Moonydustx 😏😉? Kid will slowly fall in love with the new recruit, but won't understand what's happening to her at first, and it'll drive him crazy. Reader is not insensitive to the captain's charm but is very intimidated even though she respects him a lot.

If this inspires you, I'd love a lot of fluff, cute stuff. Slightly spicy, if you like. We like it spicy, let's be honest but right now I need cuddles.I hope this is understandable, English is not my first language. Thanks if you've read this far and I'll be grateful for life if you accept my challenge. 💚🥰

let me start with: I'VE BEEN DYING TO BE DYING TO WRITE THIS.

YES YES AND YES you are absolutely right, I really have this vision of Kid being a sweetheart.

I wish I had more time to write more and more about this story, I think it would have the potential to be something bigger, you know, something with more chapters perhaps? But I wrote more about the cute part than the spicy part in this one, I hope you like it anyway

Old ghosts

Eustass Kid x F! Reader

wanings: mention of Kid's missing arm, phantom pains, very brief mention of smut (nothing explicit). Regarding the medical and musical parts mentioned: I'm not an expert in any of them, I apologize if I make mistakes.

Your light humming was still stuck in Kid's mind. How your dress fell down your body and your legs flailed against the counter as you hummed a song about Roger's old promise. That was the first sight of you he had.

The second was you standing a few meters away from him, waiting for an answer, while Killer acted in your place.

"She could be a good crewmate." Killer pointed out, both of them staring at your shrunken form, even though you were standing. The bloody arms. "She knows how to fight, knows how to defend herself and can still be good company for our ears."

"Hm…" a growl escaped Kid's reddened lips. "What do you know how to do?"

"Whatever you need." Your voice was firm, even if it was low. "I just need a roof over my head."

"And that blood?" He approached, taking one of your hands and bringing it up to eye level with him. "It looks fresh."

"One of the richest men in town tried to have their way with me." you pointed out, still firm in your words. "I had to kill him. Now, I know they will hunt me if I stay here."

"Right." Kid walked away, turning to Killer. "Find her a task and also a place for her to sleep."

With one last look in your direction, Kid walked away and left you in Killer's responsibilities for the day. In the following days, you barely saw Kid and when you did, he didn't have the friendliest of expressions. The man was intimidating, as were all the rumors about him.

You expected that it would take time to adapt to pirate life, that that world would be immensely cruel to your existence. But there were happy days, days when you would get together to chat and drink, days when you would spend hours fishing.

Little by little, the captain seemed to attract your attention more. He was still a thick shell to dig through, but there was a certain lovable side to him. Infamous jokes, an unshakable ego, a affection for his crewmates that wasn't noticeable to outsiders. In your eyes, being in Kid's presence was inviting, even if he would never pay attention to a new girl.

Kid was reluctant to let other members join out of nowhere, he liked to understand who would step on his ship, what their motivations were. But every justification Killer gave about you joining the crew was ignored. Not ignored, but pushed away somewhere in Kid's mind. The only thing he saw was you a little while ago, humming in a bar. Almost hypnotizing him.

In the first few days, he chose to remain watching you. It wasn't possible that the heavens had sent you there just to please his vision on dark days, you must have something to hide. As the days went by, he realized you didn't.

As the days went by, Kid felt even more mesmerized, seeing you happily doing your tasks in the distance, hearing your voice hum throughout his ship. On one of these nights, when everyone was drinking, he chose to leave early. Lying in his bed, your voice from afar guided him into a deep sleep, like he hadn't had in a long time.

You gradually became a comfort to his eyes and ears, however, for him to get closer would be like holding a delicate rose amidst so much metal debris. Something so sweet, so delicate seemed beyond his reach.

The room you shared was dark in the dead of night and your whispers and turbulent awakenings didn't seem to bother the others present. Another night, another nightmare.

With the idea of refreshing your mind with some water, you didn't expect to find the crew captain, leaning on the edge of the table, his amputated arm stuck in a bucket of ice.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" Kid screamed as soon as he saw your presence in the kitchen.

"I just came to get some water." you explained, reaching for a glass and filling it. You could feel his gaze burning towards you. "Everything is fine?"

"Sure." he grunted, but soon his expression changed to something more serene. It was just the two of you, there was no reason for him to leave it out. "Since I lost this arm, sometimes I have some strange pains. It's like it's still there you know, but it's not."

"Phantom pains." you pointed out, moving a little closer to him. "They say there are many pirates and soldiers who suffer from this."

"Are they saying something about the cure too?"

"I do not think so." You smiled, even if discouraged. "But there are some methods that can help. I mean, just time really helps you deal with it, but some things can distract your mind."

"And can you help me?" his words came out almost automatically, preventing him from stopping them.

"I believe so. I don't have much experience in this, but I have an idea of something that might help." still hesitant, you approached him and took out the ice bucket, placing it aside.

The touch of your hand on his amputated limb made him almost recoil, but your hand was gentle, delicate and in this way you dried the remaining water on his skin.

"Do you mind if we go to my room?" He asked and saw you nod.

The two of you walked in silence to his quarters and with only the moon illuminating the room, it was difficult for you to get caught up on the details.

"Lie down" your voice came out as a whisper and Kid promptly answered. You took the sheet spread there and covered the end of his amputated arm. "Don't look there."

It worked for you, somehow maybe it would work for him. You could feel his eyes practically burning towards you, but you still hadn't found the courage to look back at him. The feeling inside you was strange, different, and at the same time it felt good.

"Close your eyes." you asked and he just grunted, unwilling to follow your little request. "Captain…"

"Aren't you going to do anything?" seeing you agree with him, Kid closed his eyes.

The first thing he felt was your fingers running along his arm, which hadn't been injured. A light, almost imperceptible touch. Sometimes you allowed your fingers to barely touch him and sometimes you let your nails trace a firmer path. You allowed them to trace their way to the back of his neck and then back to his fingertips, intertwining and releasing them. In order to replace the awkward silence between the two of you, you began to hum a calm song, which made up the atmosphere along with the beats of the sea against the ship.

At first, Kid felt tense and still had traces of pain. But little by little the pain in the member that no longer existed seemed to disappear, being replaced by the small goosebumps that you caused on his skin. What he used to try to open his eyes and analyze you became an arduous task. Feeling your skin against his, Kid fell asleep, leaving that uncomfortable pain in the past.

After that day, you felt different. Seeing him trust you to the point of sleeping in your presence made you feel somehow be seen, even if the thought of him not wanting anything to do with you because you were a newbie still haunted you.

One of the afternoons when the ship was docked, you returned to the Victoria Punk only to find a huge piano there.

"What is that?" you let your finger run across the keys. "Is so beautiful!"

"A thanks." Kid appeared behind you, watching you sit on the bench in front of the instrument. "You helped me the other day and I remembered I saw you playing one of these at the bar, I thought you might like it."

"Serious?" you immediately jumped off the bench and hugged Kid, who was surprised and barely had time to respond to the gesture. "I loved it! Emma, come see this!"

You shouted for other crewmates, who soon gathered and listened to you explain how it worked and even teach how they could play a simple song. Moving away a little, Kid watched until his first mate appeared.

"Do you still regret me convincing you to let her stay?" Killer asked.

"At no point did I say I regretted it." Kid pointed out, feeling judged by his friend.

"I know that look, Kid." Killer commented and only saw Kid staring back at him, trying to understand what he was saying. "I haven't seen that look on you in a while, but I'm glad to see it."

"What's with that look?" he asked cynically, seeing Killer start to walk away.

"Last time I saw you looking at someone like that, we chose the name of this ship."

Kid tried to push away thoughts about you after hearing that. But it was intoxicating, inevitable. It was as if your presence and voice were all he was looking for at that moment.

It didn't take many nights for the same discomfort to torment him again, just as it had done a few days ago. His footsteps almost sank the kitchen that morning as he decided whether to ask for your help or not.

“Hi,” you caught his attention, appearing like a mirage. "If you walk any further, you could sink the ship."

"That's not my intention." he pointed out, mustering up some courage. "The pain is back a-and…"

"Do you need my help?" you asked and giving up, he just nodded.

Again, the two of you walked in silence to his room and the whole process was repeated, he lay down, you hid the amputated limb.

"How did you know this would work?" he asked before your fingers even found his skin.

"A lucky guess." you replied, noticing his attentive gaze in your direction. "How can I explain? Well, I have some past problems too, especially when I'm surrounded by too many people at once. It's like suddenly everything becomes too much at once." His eyes followed your every movement, trying to get to know you even more. "That's how I discovered music. Every time I feel like I'm on the edge of that precipice, I use it to get my mind off it."

"As a distraction?"

"Exactly, as a distraction. Take me to a good place." You explained and saw him nod. "I believe that maybe touching and feeling what is still here will make you forget a little about what is not, make you go to a good place."

"It makes sense." he limited himself to saying.

"Let's start?"

Unlike what happened last time, your eyes met Kid's and this time his eyes seemed intent on you. Your hands traced gentle lines on his arm, trying to remove that pain that bothered him so much. Even looking at you, you could notice that Kid wasn't there, not mentally. He seemed focused on a thought that stunned him.

"A berri for what you're thinking." you only heard a nasal laugh come out of him.

"Are my thoughts worth that little?" he asked and you immediately denied it, a shy glow on your face.

Even though it made butterflies in your stomach just thinking about it, you couldn't deny how much you liked it when his eyes were directed at you.

"I can tell you have something on your mind." your hands moved away from him, resting in your lap. "Did I say too much? Do you want me to get out of here?"

"No… You said that helping me with this pain would be like a distraction, right? Take me to a good place" you agreed and Kid continued. "Can I propose something?"

"Of course, I want to be able to help you with that."

You watched Kid lean on his arm and sit down, just a few inches away. Analyzing your every expression, his hand touched your face and unlike every other time you had imagined, the touch was gentle. Even his calloused and trembling hand was still like a piece of the finest silk sliding across your face.

It was inevitable not to lean on his touch, not wanting to feel Kid's hand against your skin even more and it was just that sign he was waiting for.

His lips touched yours lightly, waiting for you to give in to his desire - he had no idea how much of that desire was yours too. What was just a seal of lips soon became an intimate dispute between the space in your mouth, tongues tangled as you involuntarily felt your body lean even more towards Kid.

His fingers were tangled in your hair, slowly leaving strand by strand behind, sliding down your back and pressing firmly against your waist. You knew that Kid was strong, you had been there long enough to see him fight enemies, but a surprised gasp left your lips when you saw that without any effort and with just one arm he managed to tag you - basically guide you - to get to you on his lap.

The kiss became even more heated and you could feel that in addition to the heat, the red paint on his lips had disappeared, probably mixed with your lips.

"Captain…" your low voice whispered, in a struggle to use your hands to push him away. You didn't want to, but the shred of rationality in you knew it was necessary. "Captain, I'm sorry…"

"No, no. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that." He moved away just enough to look at your face, your legs were still on either side of his hips, his intimacy was hard against yours, which was certainly soaked. Rationality, too early for that. You tried to hold on to that thought. "I'm sorry."

"It is alright." your cheeks burned at the way he looked at you. "I liked it, I really liked it. I just didn't want to go that far."

"Noted." he looked at you like a cute puppy that had been lost. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." your hesitant voice stated and you saw him lay down again, this time, he pulled you and placed you on top of the source of his pain, hiding the arm that no longer existed. "Captain?"

"Just stay here for a while, will you?" He asked, hesitant to hear you deny it. "I mean, if you don't want to, I won't get mad. It's just… I like your presence. I like how you're always helping someone here, or how your eyes light up when someone's telling you some of the things we've been up to. by the sea. I like the way you touch me and damn, your voice just like an angel." he whispered the last part, like it was too much for him. "Just stay here, a little longer."

"Of course captain." you whispered back and reached up, placing a light kiss on his cheek.

Nestling even more against him, your hand that used to caress his arm, got caught in his hair, in a delicate cafuné, while you whispered a song in his ear. Little by little, Kid fell asleep trapped in your arms and that night, you wouldn't insist on leaving his embrace.

#fiction #reader insert #one piece #no use of y/n #requests open #eustass kid #eustass kid x reader #eustass kid x you #eustasscaptainkid #kid x reader #kid x you

94 notes · View notes

winxfairyliveshere · 7 months ago

Note

josko is apparently an experimenting cook, which makes sense cause he used to work with his dad in the fish market, and he loves to game and always has snacks beside him. he seems like such a wholesome guy, but deep down i’m there’s a whole different josko with his significant other

wowww actually can we elaboate the last part!? wdym by a whole different? im curious 🤭🤠

After this message i thought what can i write about cook josko,dig into youtube for what can i find.At the end i found a yt video with eng subs which made me so happy. There are so many videos about him but no subs :( I mixed the infos i got into here.

Thank you anon for the idea 💞

Video Shooting

As i got closer to the apartment building, i turned off music. The valet was there, i smiled at him and gathered my stuff.

"Hello Miss Y/S/N."

"Hello, thank you so much. Have a nice day."

I walked to the door, personnels were in ground floor interacting with residents. I fastly passed everyone and started to wait for the elevator. The excitement made my legs move. I couldn't stand where i am, walking back and front. Nearly two weeks ago Josko called me and said "I need to take a video for my new partnership. It will be in my house and i want you in it too. To be honest it will be a good memory in the future, like showing it to the grandkids." Those words made butterflies fly in my wholeee body. Even though we are together for two years and engaged for four months, we still have that connection between us, still feel the same way when i saw him for the first time in Split. I was in there for a trip, taking photos of the glamouros Diocletianus Palace and i heard a voice "I can take your photos if you want, the sunlight makes everything beautiful in this hours. You seem you don't need much but." He acted like a real photographer back then, making me change poses and other things which made me feel odd. I felt like i was under of a giant spotlight.

"Thanks, so polite of you." I swiped amongst photos, they were really good. Golden hour making my face shine, freckles that so obvious you can count them.

"I told you." said Josko while smiling. We had a short chit-chat over there. He had a short beard comparing to now, his curls were resting on his forehead so charmingly. He told me there will be a festive in city centre tonight, giving me hints he will be there. I got the message and said to myself "Why not? He is cute." Also do i need to mention his eyes? In that golden hour? This was our beginning. That sun is still up, never set, warms me constantly, making me feel free, enjoying myself. I trust myself more, I know i can do everything because my life won't be in dark, it will be bright always. Ding, doors are open to hall.

I turned my back to the mirror before stepping out of the elevator, fixed my hair and clothes. "Agh, i paid hundreds for this concealer and still looks cakey!"

"Hi!" My eyes got bigger when i saw my fiancee. "Did you download a tracker app in my phone or something?" He started walk towards me, streching his hands out. As soon as i got near him, i jumped on his arms. "So what is the answer?" I picked my phone, held it closer to his brown eyes. "Where is it?"

"I opened the door for taking the trash out. Sound of the elevator stopped me. And yeah, my guts are right, you are here." He hugged me, placed a warm kiss in my neck covered with my hair.

"Aren't you have guests in your house? You forgot to throw your trash out, leaving them alone and hugging me in the hall. What a bad host you are."

We went inside together, "technologhy people" were in living room and kitchen. They were nearly done with setting up cameras, microphones, lights. I stepped over cables a few times. A lady with a brush roll and Josko were sitting under a light. Isn't it just a youtube video? About Josko's daily life? Why all this stuff? Anyway, i am not a expert on this, i should control my face and my inner voice.

✨

"Don't get fooled by him. He only went fishing one time in his life."

"Do i have to fish regularly because my dad is fisher man? What can i do? That is not suitable for me." he expressed himself with a fun voice and gestures. "I went once and it was enough for me."

"He likes eating them not catching them."

"What about cooking? Is he a bad one or?" question was for me.

"Well, i can not say that. When he wants, he cooks quite good. He goes for healhty recipes like umm, cheesecakes or brownies--"

"Yes cheesecakes, you know she never cooked one." I rolled my eyes and stepped in front of him, blocking him with my body. But he poked out his head over my shoulder. "Cheesecakes are challenging."

"But i should give her credit. She cooks my favorite food burek very well."

"It is a Croatian dish i guess?"

"Yes. It's one of my faves also, he likes it with cheese, i like it with potato."

"And she makes them sooo delicious." he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I caressed them. Long beard of him was digging into my skin.

"Do you prefer your mom's bureks or her's?

He immediately released his arms, turned his back to sink. Everyone, including me, started to laugh loudly. While i was laughing, i put my hand on his back unconsciously.

Josko turned to camera and scratched his beard, said "I think we are done here, let's go to gym!"

"Can you please give us a answer?"

He only moved his lips, no sound. "No."

✨

I hope you guys liked the fic. Feel free to send me your ideas, it can be about Ruben too, or your thoughts about them! We can discuss 💖 Thank you so much! Have a nice day or night or morning 😁

#josko gvardiol #joško gvardiol #josko gvardiol fluff #josko gvardiol imagine #footballer imagine #footballer blurb #footballer x reader #footballer x y/n #fanfic #josko gvardiol x reader #manchester city

34 notes · View notes

not-so-allegiant-general · 8 months ago

Text

Gingerpilotweek2024

Day 4

loyalty, family, connection to animals

Poe breathed out slowly. Millicent jumped from Hux's knees to his.

"Oh... Hello, princess." He forced a smile petting her " I thought you hate me."

"She is trained." Poe blinked and looked at Hux.

"Trained for what."

Hux cleared his throat.

"For... Hm... She can tell if someone is in distress and help him to calm down." Poe stared at Hux for a minute and then looked down at Millicent.

"Well, thanks, princess. I guess I am a bit nervous. " He sighed, taking a deep breath.

"Just hug the cat, Dameron." Poe picked up Millicent slowly and hugged her, scratching behind her ears. "We don't have to do this."

"I want to and we are already here..."

"Is it about me?"

"No. Maybe... A bit, not only. It's about me... I haven't seen him for a long time and I... I guess I just don't want to disappoint him... Again. I don't know. It's just... Difficult." Hux hummed "What?"

"Nothing."

"Come on. You want to say something."

"Many things, but I won't.

"Armitage."

"No."

"Oh come on... Hux..."

"If something goes wrong... I am somewhat of an expert in... Dealing with fathers."

Poe gasped positively horrified and punched him in the arm.

"Hux no!"

"You wanted to hear what I have to say... "Hux raised his hands defensively. " I didn't want to say it!"

"Yeah, I guess that's on me. That's off the table... We are not killing my... You know what? Anyone. You... We are not killing anyone. Understood?."

"Yessir." Hux sent him a wry smile and Poe shook his head.

"Fuck." He rubbed his face. He felt a hand on his arm. Hux sat down next to him. Poe leaned on him, petting Millicent. "I just don't know how to fix it. We didn't talk for so many years and I... you know what it's like.... "

"Dameron."

"What?"

"I have no idea. "

"Right. Shit, sorry... I just really want it to go well and I am scared that he will react like Finn."

"Then it is about me. I can stay here."

"No. I love you. If he can't accept it then I am not interested in being in touch"

"He is your family."

"You are my family, Armitage. " Hux looked at him surprised "What? It's true." Poe smiled.

"It's not. We are not related." Poe chuckled.

"But we are in a relationship, right? I love you, Hux. You are my home and my family. No matter what others will tell."

"Even your father?"

"Yeah. Even him. I am a responsible adult, so he doesn't have much to say... I guess he never really had much to say. I didn't let him." He sighed.

"Responsible is not a word I would use to describe you." Poe chuckled.

"No? What would you use?"

Hux snorted.

"Stop fishing for compliments, Dameron."

"Come on. Indulge me." Hux sighed.

"I... Well... Caring, honest, reckless, persistent, brave, daring, handsome..." Poe smiled hugging Millicent tighter.

"Did you hear that? He thinks I am brave and hot." Hux snorted " Thank you, Hux. I just want to let you know that you are even braver and hotter than me"

"I am most certainly not."

"Of course you are. I am going to repeat it until you will believe me. Even if it takes all my life"

Hux smiled faintly.

"I will take that as a promise."

"As you should."

#gingerpilotweek2024 #gingerpilot #general hux #armitage hux #poe dameron #poe x hux #damerux

35 notes · View notes

fanaticsnail · 2 years ago

Text

Honey Glazed

Chef Zeff. I love him, and I won't apologize for my adoration.

Warnings: hypothetical discussions regarding cannibalism, drinking.

Word Count: 2,500

(Coming from real life conversations and experiences in both my and chef-husband's hospitality careers; you'd be surprised at how much the thought comes up regularly in conversation. Yes, can confirm: chef's flirt like this)

It had been a particularly difficult shift; balancing your managerial roles like an expert plate spinner in a circus.

On one plate, you had a wait staff member needing consolation in the ‘cool room’ to manage their mental breakdown over a particularly rude patron dining in the circular wooden floor. On another, you had to talk down Patty from storming out onto the floor not only in defence of the aforementioned wait staff member, but due to the fact they sent their food back to the kitchen with the proclamation that their meat was undercooked and “bloody”.

Round and round you balanced the dynamic of pure professionalism with engaging with the variety of patrons, serving the dishes presented by the team of chefs, and managing the rapport with the staff with a cheery disposition under the ever watchful eyes of the braid-bearded, head chef Zeff. He would often gaze longingly at you, admiring how truly blessed he was to have you as his queen of the front of house, his warrior of waitressing and his confidant in comradery. And to think, he nearly didn’t hire you.

-------

From the amount of profiles and resume’s he had received from his request for a front of house manager, your resume stuck out like a gem incrusted tiara amongst a pile of dulled rocks. Ex-convicts, reformed pirates, seasoned managers and members of his own staff putting their names forward for the position; all eclipsed by your resume.

You were young, younger than he would ever consider thrusting into the role but older than his blonde apprentice. Kind, gracious and innocent were the three words that flew into the mind of the braided ex-pirate captain.

“Found someone yet?” the young Sanji asked him with his own frown rising to his face.

“Not yet, little eggplant,” he grouchily informed him, placing your resume back to the side of the table and away from any of the other candidate profiles.

“Well, hello,” Sanji said as he took the sheet within his hands, “this is the one, chef.”

Zeff again shook his head, flittering through the tattooed and scarred front of house manager resumes within his hands, muttering a simple: “no.”

“Why not?” the teen Sanji asked him, his eyes wide as he thrust the paper back into Zeff’s pile, “she’s beautiful.”

“That’s exactly why not, kid,” Zeff said again, pushing the resume away from him and back onto the table; “she’s not meant for here. Too pretty, too young,” Sanji shook his head as Zeff continued; “she’d be chewed up and spat out before she’d be able to manage the guests, let alone the staff.”

Sanji let out a small angry growl and fished your resume back and thrust it once more into Zeff’s arms; “humour me. Wait staff are meant to be pretty, it’s the chefs that are hardened criminals. If she’s applying to work on Baratie, it shows she has the balls to run the front of house looking the way she does.”

Zeff locked his eyes with his young apprentice, finally clasping the paper once more in his fingertips and looking it over in consideration. Sanji did have a keen eye for quality, travelling over from his appreciation of food to his appreciation of other areas of his interests.

You were perfect. From your vast experience to the way your uniform clung to you. He just needed to ensure your personality would match up to your role; and with one den-den-mushi call, he was completely smitten with you and offered you a full-time job immediately.

Flirty, fiery, charismatic and professional; exactly everything he didn’t know he wanted flittered in with the qualities he needed in his front of house counterpart. You were the one he wanted.

-------

You sighed, throwing your head backwards to relieve the tension gathered after waving off your closing floor staff for the evening. You leant your hips against the lit benchtop of the pass; the kitchen island closest to the door where chefs and wait staff would meet their hands in service.

“You gonna hang around for knock offs, sweets?” Zeff asked you from his place leaning against the frame of his office door with his arms crossed over his chest. You lulled your head to rest itself on your shoulder and smiled with your eyes barely parted.

“Yes, Chef,” you offered him an exhausted, two-fingered salute as you drew enough energy and willpower to push yourself forward from the pass. Zeff began his stride over to meet with you, his hand brushing with the small of your back to escort you through the entrance of the kitchen and up towards the fish-mouth lounge. You shot him another half-smile in thanks for his attention, a twinkle forming back within his own gaze in appreciation for your gratuity.

He remained close as he approached the bar with Patty falling his grasp of several bottles and sloppily attempting to pour beer from the taps into the wrong kind of vessels. A groan fell from your lips and your back dropped, defeated at the sight that lay before you.

“Get out of there, Patty,” you ordered him with a smile, making your way behind the bar and away from Zeff’s hold on your body, “stick to the food. I’ll get you lot your knock offs.”

“Don’t forget about yourself, honey,” Zeff ordered you, his uneven step making his way over to the till to begin his inventory duties to complete the close of the night. You nodded at him before beginning to assemble a variety of drinks while overhearing the chefs discussing something amongst one another in hushed tones; brows furrowed, lips passionately fleeing words in whispers.

The three major instigators in conversation were Sanji, his eyes widening and hands gesturing to different points of his torso before trailing them down towards his stomach; Patty who was shaking his head with a frown and gesturing to his shoulder blades while hissing out between his lips; and Carne who was just watching the conversation falling between them standing concerned and confused.

You approached the chefs with their knock offs: a red wine for Sanji, a flagon of ale for Carne and a dry whiskey for Patty while keeping another red wine to the side for your head chef to retrieve once he had done inventory.

“There you are, lads,” you uttered with a sigh as you held the drinks forward, your left hand reaching behind your neck as you relieved it of the tension with circular motions beneath the ministrations of your fingertips, “knock offs: done.”

“What are we drinking tonight, love?” Sanji arched his brow upward and pursed his lips suggestively. You leant forward against the bar in response, your elbows and palms lying flat as you brought your face closer to his.

“You’re drinking a cabernet sauvignon-,” you whispered an inch away from his lips, tilting your chin upwards; a pink blush immediately rising to rest on Sanji’s cheeks, “-and I’m,” you pulled away from his face with a small giggle, “having a black Russian.”

You fished your fingertips within the short glass, pulling out the stem of the bright red maraschino cherry and plopping the syrupy fruit on your tongue; wrapping your lips around it and breaking the stem away with a ‘pop’. The three chefs in front of you held their gaze, completely transfixed by your suggestive movements.

This was your favourite part about working at Baratie. The rapport and flirtatious engagements between the front of house and the back of house was the driving force to keep you motivated as you navigated through the shift. After chewing and swallowing the amoretto-forward fruit, your warm laugh fell contagious amongst the four men; Zeff shaking his head off while continuing jotting down his varied notes.

“And all of you-,” you placed the stem of the cherry into the compost bin located below the wooden surface, “-were talking about cooking with human again, weren’t you?”

An apprehensive blush rose to the three chefs in front of you, ashamed of their unbridled conversation.

“Look,” you began, shaking your head, “there’s too much variety in your body shapes and muscle density. You’ve got to focus on just the one of you or you’re never going to make cohesive progress in this completely hypothetical situation.”

“Oh?” Sanji began, raising his glass away from his lips while taking his bottom lip between his teeth; giddy about your willingness to join in the conversation, “so who should we choose to hyper-fixate our cooking practices on? I’m all ears, love.”

You laughed at him, a shrug adorning your shoulders and mouth down-turning in thought, “what about me?”

The chefs all down-turned their mouths in thought, eyes falling to your body as you adorned a slightly more dressed-down version of your uniform. You laughed, held out your arms and gave a small turn in response to their ponderance.

“Will I suffice?” you arched your brow up as you made your rotation back towards the three chefs once more.

“You’ll do nicely,” Carne nodded, turning his body atop the stool to bring his body to face Sanji next to him and Patty behind him, “thoughts, gentleman?”

“Smoked on an open fire,” Patty nodded, gesturing to your body. You chuckled, raising the cool liquid to your lips and taking a small drink as you rested your back against the wall of the bar.

“Smoked?” Sanji questioned him with an elevated tone, “what, and ruin the natural sweetness of her body and unable to crisp up her beautiful skin? Look at her! Whole-smoked?”

“Oh, and what would you suggest; Sanji?” Carne spoke up, prompting the blonde to first turn to him and frown before bringing his attention back towards your body.

He raked his eyes from your ankles, dragging his gaze slowly up your thighs and settling on your stomach. His tongue flicked out to dampen his lower lip in thought as he drew his sights to your breasts before falling to your arms. You giggled at his attention, almost regretting your decision to open your body up to extreme examination.

“I’d take my time,” Sanji began, gesturing to a variety of points on your body, “cut the different portions and begin reductions at the same time as preparing your body to not only be smoked,” he grimaced at Patty before turning his eyes back towards you, “but also honey glazed.”

The four of you all chuckled at the conversation falling between you. Zeff, finally having completed his inventory, made his way back towards his key staff members and collected the red wine glass from the counter besides you.

“Care to weigh in, chef?” you asked him, eyes half-lidded and your signature smile falling to your lips, “if you had my body to enjoy,” you gestured down to your torso and legs, “how would you prepare me for consumption?”

Having no prior context to the conversation falling between the four of you, Zeff found himself get slightly flustered under your brazen disregard for discussing cannibalising your body. You widened your eyes and shook your hand outwards defensively with a laugh.

“Hypothetically speaking, chef,” you breathily laughed in defence of your prior suggestion, “we were talking about how you chefs would go about preparing human. Thought I’d volunteer my flank, ribs, legs, shank and rump,” you playfully slapped your left ass cheek with a giggle, “for continuity’s purposes.”

Zeff hummed thoughtfully, raising his glass to his lips with another glimmer of adoration behind his eyes at how truly accustomed you were to engaging flirtatiously with himself and his staff. He sampled the vintage over his palate, rolling the bitter liquid over his tongue and whistling it through his lips to oxidise the wine to savour the flavour. In response, you rose your black Russian back up to your lips and take the final gulp of the liquid and lay the glass upturned against the bar sink.

“Go on, chef,” you encouraged him, doing another small twirl in front of him, “lay it on me. I truly don’t mind.”

Sanji smirked as he witnessed the flirtations engaging between you and Zeff. He was well aware of his favouritism of you, potentially harbouring more than simple affection for you as his manager. You were a part of the crew, a major part of running smooth operations; Sanji would think Zeff daft to not harbour a semblance of infatuation with you.

“There’s a lot I could do with your body,” Zeff smirked with his left brow arched upwards, causing a small tingle to rise up in anticipation of your next words. The head chef stepped forward, placing his glass down to the side and reaching with his right hand forward to claim your left.

He moved his bearded jaw towards your arms, slowly raking it upwards while inspecting your flesh; uttering: “braised in red wine, spice and liquid smoke,” his lips travelled up to your shoulder, halting at your arched neck, “roasted with a mirepoix and pesto butter.”

Your jaw hung slack with a small smile falling to your lips as your eyes watched your chef remove himself from your body and twirl you away from him; tracing his fingers down your spine, “I’d either crack these separately,” he trailed his hands over your ribcage and leant in towards your ear, “or I’d keep them as a solid rack and tenderise them with a firm massage with coarse sea-salt to bring out your natural sweetness.”

A blush crept up towards your cheeks as you felt his arm come around your body to bring itself against your thigh and clutch it firmly in his wide hands; “but this,” he steadily shivered your flesh under his strong grasp, “this would be my absolute favourite. I’d stud it with cloves, cross-hatch and cure it,” his breath tingled against your neck as his lips traced the shell of your ear, “and I’d glaze it with a sauce as sweet as you are, honey.”

An unintentional gasp fled from your lips at his words. You admit to yourself, you enjoy the odd flirt from time to time with the staff; but this particular interaction with your boss felt unlike any flirtation you had engaged with him prior. Your whole body tingled in surprise and shock at how Zeff so intimately spoke to you, even though it was words so completely unhinged as how to cook you appropriately.

Zeff chuckled and withdrew his hand from your thigh and made his way back towards the wooden bar; reopening the cabernet sauvignon bottle and filling his crystal glass once more before offering the neck to Sanji’s empty one.

“Anything to add, boys?” Zeff asked his team from his spot behind the bar, you remaining stunned before shaking off your stupefied state and bringing yourself beside Zeff and beginning to make your second black Russian to continue to rid your body from the rise of heat.

“Yeah,” Sanji added, raising his glass to his lips, “you’d probably fuck it all up with oregano.”

#one piece #opla #opla fic #one piece live action #x reader #zeff #chef zeff #zeff x reader #zeff x you #chef zeff x reader #opla zeff #red leg zeff

182 notes · View notes

absolutebl · 10 months ago

Note

Hi, ABL!

Could you give me some show recommendations? I'm going into surgery next week and will be bedridden for a couple of weeks after that. Basically, I'll have a lot of time on my hands. What better way than to fill that time with QLs?

I like the dark Japanese stuff (Pornographer, The Shortest Distance is Round, Dangerous Drugs of Sex, etc.), high heat (Bed Friend, KinnPorsche, etc.), suspense/mystery/thriller (Manner of Death, 4 Minutes, Not Me etc.), and all the angst (I loved the angst in Unknown).

I mostly watch shows from Thailand, Japan, and Taiwan because I like their vibes (unless it's dead fish kissing, lol), but I'm open to try other countries as well.

Your expert guidance would be much appreciated.

Have an amazing day!

Best of luck with the surgery. But also, how fun to have some time to watch things!

Dark BL

(Like the Novelest et al)

High Heat BL

(Like KinnPorsche)

BL with Suspense & Mystery Elements

(Like Manner of Death)

High Angst BL

(Like Unknown)

Just for S&G here's:

Just to be on the safe side, some I'm gonna rec right away?

The Sign (heat + all the sub genres you coudl want)

Laws of Attraction (mystery, drama, ridiculousness)

The On1y One (ANGST!)

#BL recomendations #BL rec lists #Dark Bl #BL like the novelest #BL like The Shortest Distance is ROund #High Heat BL #BL like Bed Freinds #BL like KinnPorsche #BL like Manner of Death #Suspense bl #mystery bl #lots of angst in bl #high nagst bl #bl like Unknown

39 notes · View notes

montammil · 8 months ago

Note

PLZ PLZ PLZ just one drabble where marshall and the other two have Stockholm and Lawrence takes them for like a 'family day' 😌 ofc ignore this if you want<333

Sorry this is short, even though I'm inexperienced in more wholesome writings (if you ignore the Stockholm syndrome LOL) I still love writing them! Thank you for the request :D

TW: Stockholm syndrome, parental whumper, infantilization (treating and referring to adults as children)

...

It took a lot of convincing from Marshall and Sadie both to talk Lawrence into taking them to the aquarium today. Lawrence never liked taking them outside their home, for several reasons, but Sadie was an expert at giving him puppy dog eyes and begging enough for whatever they wanted.

Lawrence wasn't too worried about them getting recognized--it had been a few years since their disappearances, after all. He just hated the idea of risking their safety. The outside world was a cruel place.

"Remember to always stick together," Lawrence told them as soon as they pulled into a parking space. It wasn't too crowded, thankfully, but they still had to park quite far from the entrance. "If I see any of you wandering off, we're going straight back home."

Marshall smiled larger than he had in months. "I hope they have penguins!"

"You'll find out when we get there," Lawrence chuckled, opening his car door.

Lawrence led the way inside with Sadie clutching onto his left arm and Marshall clinging to his right side. Nathan lagged behind, walking a bit slower than the others.

Despite preferring being in the comfort of their home, even Nathan felt relieved they could finally do something fun together (that wasn't the same daily routine).

A change in environment, no matter how small or uneventful, was refreshing for the three victims. They've spent enough time trapped within that house.

"Hello," the receptionist greeted. "How many?"

"Four," Lawrence replied, offering a polite smile. He pulled out his wallet and began fishing out enough cash to pay. The four were given bright green wristbands, which they secured on each of their wrists before proceeding inside.

Sadie looked around in awe, grasping Lawrence's arm again. "What are you most excited to see, Dad?"

His heart warmed whenever his kids referred to him as that. "Hmm... dolphins, probably. Though I'd love to see an octopus too. How about you, kiddo?"

"I'm happy with anything! It's all so cool," Sadie marveled, taking it all in.

Marshall still clung onto Lawrence tightly, but with less enthusiasm than before. He seemed more nervous now. "There's so many people..."

There really wasn't, but it was definitely more people than the poor thing was used to nowadays. They could have gone on a weekday to lessen the crowd, but the aquarium would be practically filled with screaming kids on field trips.

Nathan scoffed. "You're the one who was demanding we go here."

"Nate," Lawrence scolded, then turned his attention back on Marshall. "If you get too overwhelmed, we can always take breaks or leave early, okay, baby?" His gaze fell on Nathan. "That goes for all of us. This is supposed to be a good experience--I don't want anyone getting stressed out."

"Look! Piranhas," Sadie called, pointing to an exhibit at the entrance of the tunnel.

Lawrence kissed the top of Marshall's head before taking a few steps forward towards it. He gestured for Nathan to come closer too. He wanted them all to stay in sight.

As much as he trusted the kids wouldn't run off (or try to report him to staff), old habits died hard and he couldn't help but feel slightly paranoid in public. It was rare for his anxiety to affect him--only when his children were involved would he ever worry.

Marshall cringed. "Why do they look like that?"

"I think they're cool," Nathan muttered.

Sadie pointed to the sign. "It says they're actually not as bloodthirsty as movies portray them as. I guess I'm not surprised." She made a face. "They still freak me out a little though." She rushed on ahead, ignoring the exasperated sigh Lawrence gave. "Ooh, there's seahorses over here! That one's pregnant, I think." She gestured to the obvious one. "He's so cute."

Lawrence chuckled. "Seahorses are probably one of my favorite animals. It's nice seeing one in person."

Nathan shrugged. "I think they're overrated."

"There's more exhibits this way!" Sadie exclaimed, running down the hall.

"No running," Lawrence reminded her. "We aren't in a rush."

It was both funny and exhausting to him how different they all were; Sadie was running ahead, Marshall was clinging onto him, and Nathan could barely keep up in favor of trudging everywhere.

Not that he didn't like it. After so long treating them like children, they were finally acting like it.

"The penguins are here!" Sadie called in response. Marshall gasped and ran ahead too. Nathan kept at the same pace, unaffected. Penguins must not have been very high on his list.

Only once when Lawrence had the two in their line of sight, he slowed down to Nathan's pace. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah," Nathan muttered, keeping his eyes focused on the floor. He no longer got angry and embarrassed at the terms of endearment.

It took time for the kids to adjust, but now even Nathan would say 'love you' back to him from time to time. Only if he was feeling particularly loving towards Lawrence, however--which was pretty rare. Regardless, Lawrence was proud of him either way.

Lawrence glanced back at the other two for a brief moment, just to make sure they were still there. "Is there anything in particular you want to do after this? We'll probably only be here an hour longer at most."

Nathan played with the zipper on his jacket. "You'll say no."

"Maybe," he admitted. "But I'd still like to hear it." Despite being so controlling of them, he really did love hearing his kids talk.

"It's stupid, but I was wondering if we could stop by an arcade. There's one across town. It's alright if you don't wanna. I don't even care anymore, honestly." But it was easy to tell it was a lie. His cheeks were red despite the nonchalant act. "You probably hate games, anyways."

Lawrence snorted. "Nate, I'm not ancient. When I was a teen, I practically lived in the arcade."

"That was thousands of years ago," Nathan smirked. He peered over to see Marshall pressed up against the glass of the exhibit, watching the penguins play around while Sadie read the facts about them displayed nearby.

It was like they completely forgot the other two were even there. Maybe that was better. He secretly loved their company, but it was rare he got one on one time with his dad.

Lawrence pinched his cheeks. "Watch yourself, brat," he teased, "we can go but don't make me change my mind."

Nathan swatted his hands away playfully, letting a giggle escape his mouth. He tried to keep quiet, so Marshall and Sadie wouldn't overhear, but it didn't matter much anyways. They weren't paying attention to him or Lawrence at the moment. "I'm excited to introduce you to Street Fighter."

"Oh, please, you weren't even alive when that game released," Lawrence rolled his eyes fondly. "C'mon, let's go catch up with the others." The pair began walking over to join Marshall and Sadie who were already moving on to the next exhibit. He stopped behind them. "Ooh, electric eels."

Sadie shook her head. "Those are actually moray eels. Moray eels have cuter faces, electric eels have flat, weird-looking heads."

"Like you," Nathan snickered. She shoved him in a playful retort.

"There's the Nemo's," Marshall rushed towards the clown fish and leaned into the glass.

"'Nemo's?'" Lawrence cooed at how adorable he was.

Marshall glared at him in a mock pout. "You know what I mean! If you didn't make me watch that movie a million times, I'm sure I would've called them clown fish." He stood normally again and wrapped his arms around Lawrence, burying his face into his chest. "Anyway, I'm ready to go home. I'm so tired already." This was the first time in a while that he walked this far.

He was met with a kiss on top of his head. "You were such a trooper today. Thank you. Nate and I are gonna go to the arcade after this, but I can drop you off at home." He glanced at Sadie. "Do you want to come to the arcade with us or stay home?"

"You can drop me off at home too, I'm, also kind of tired. Can we check out the gift shop before we leave?" she asked.

Lawrence grinned. "I think it's obvious by now I spoil you all."

#answered ask #lawrence oc #marshall oc #nathan oc #sadie oc #parental whumper #stockholm syndrome #tw stockholm syndrome #tw infantilization #carewhumper

23 notes · View notes

lilareviewsbooks · 27 days ago

Text

May Reading Wrap Up!

Hello all! As always, I am late. But here is my May reading wrap-up, nonetheless!

Adrift In Currents Clean and Clear, by Seanan McGuire

4.25/5 stars | 146 pages | audio | 10th installment in the Wayward Children series, can be read as a standalone

I’ve been venturing further into the Wayward Children series lately. I’d originally sworn off of it after one bad experience with one of the novellas, but I read up on it and decided to give it another try. The series’ odd volumes follow children after their typical portal fantasy adventure has come to a close, and they’ve ended up at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. But the even volumes cover those adventures themselves.

I’ve had a lot more luck with these even volumes. This is my second one and I really enjoyed it! As with my other read, the star of the show is our main character — here, Nadya, a Russian amputee who is adopted into the United States by not-stellar parents — and the world-building. I loved the exploration of Nadya’s difficult relationship with home and with her new country and family. The lead-up to her adventure was perfectly paced, as usual.

I also enjoyed the new world we explored! It’s an underwater (or is it??) universe of ships, adopted children that go through doors, and turtle-fishing-boats. It’s so much fun to just take a little dip into these worlds in these novellas, I have a lovely time! But I missed the sinister lurch In An Absent Dream took, which added complexity and reframed the entire narrative. I wish we had this, here, instead of the ending of Nadya’s story. It felt largely accidental and didn't contribute to my understanding of her character. Overall, I still gave it a 4.25 for its strong worldbuilding and character study.

The Nevermoor Series by Jessica Townsend

5/5 stars | 500ish pages | audio & ebook | in-progress, four books currently out

What can I say about Nevermoor that I haven't already? This is a comfort read for me — and my 100th reread, or something. I’ve lost count. I reread the series in preparation for the (long-awaited!!!) release of the fourth volume, Silverborn. I have an entire, spoiler-free review of that book if you would like to check it out!

As for the series… Oh this series…!! Nevermoor follows Morrigan Crow as she is whisked away from her life as a cursed child in the WinterSea Republic to the wonderful city of Nevermoor, where she will compete for a spot at the prestigious Wondrous Society. As for usual, I was as transported as Morrigan by the expert worldbuilding, colorful characters, steady pacing and the trust Townsend puts in her middle-grade audience. This is smart, unapologetically complex children’s fiction (perfectly brought to life by Gemma Whelan’s soothing narration!). There’s nothing out there quite like Nevermoor, and I would highly recommend you try it out!

Every Heart A Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

2.5/5 stars | 169 pages | audio | 1st installment in the Wayward Children series, can be read as a standalone

Continuing on in my second run at Wayward Children, we have Every Heart A Doorway. This is an odd numbered volume of the series, so it covers the lives of the portal-adventure-children cast after they’ve returned from their adventures and settled in at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.

Unfortunately, this did not have the same appeal as the even volumes for me. It was a standard murder mystery, and the pacing dragged, the puzzle wasn’t intriguing, and the characters weren’t as loveable as I think they were supposed to be. The dialogue was especially clunky, particularly when read aloud by a narrator. I had a hard time finding the magic, creativity and well-developed characters from the even volumes, here. Even the ones familiar to me felt strange and removed.

This novella fell very flat for me and I struggled to finish the volume. It didn’t succeed in selling me the premise of the school. Although I’m sure I’ll return to the other even volumes, I don’t imagine anything intriguing could come out of the next Eleanor West volume…

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett

3.5/5 stars | 317 pages | audio & ebook | 1st installment in the Emily Wilde series

My friend Olivia has been kind enough to pick up some of my book recommendations recently, — yay Olivia!!! — so this was me returning the favor! I was really pleasantly surprised by Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries! I should've blindly trusted Olivia, of course, but its place as a TikTok darling made me doubt it — who hasn't been disappointed by one of those?

Emily Wilde, though, is the epistolary wintery story of a dedicated faerie academic on a field study, accompanied by her strange, aloof and much too fanciful… colleague? Friend?

The vibes are immaculate. It feels cozy and comforting without hammering you over the head with it, and the inclusion of folktales also makes the whole thing feel grounded. As an academic jr. (my parents. It's my parents) who grew up in these circles, it’s crazy how accurate Emily's character is to the real-life obsessed academics. Bambleby, her companion, is a good contrast to her, and their personalities play nicely against each other (though I wouldn't say this is exactly the coveted grumpy X sunshine. Sorry.). The side characters have life to them and naturally blend into Emily and Bambleby’s lives without overstaying their welcome on the page, and the same can be said for the setting.

My only grief was with the ending — too nicely tied with a bow, without much conflict left over for the future volumes, which is always a pet peeve of mine. I also struggled with the ease in which the third act conflict was solved, and wished there were just a couple more pages dedicated to it. But overall, it was a nice, comforting read that accompanied me through walks around the neighborhood! I'm excited to pick up the next volume soon!

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame, by Neon Yang

3.5/5 stars | 178 pages | audio | standalone

Towards the end of the month, I picked up the audiobook of this new release: Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame. The book follows Yeva, a lady-knight who has disappeared into her dragon-killing armor, when she is sent into her estranged mother's country, Quanbao, to investigate claims of a dragon. The novella covers her relationship with her identity, having been raised outside her mother's culture and home, her fear of vulnerability and her blossoming friendship with the monarch of Quanbao, Sookhee.

I found the first part of the book compelling and interesting. The world-building is sparse, but Yeva is an interesting character with layer upon layers of repression… Which is always fun! (The back of the book comps her to the Madalorian, but I kinda see Brienne from ASOAIF/Game of Thrones. Anyways.)

But the second half was not so fun, with her stay in Quanbao quietly sizzling into boredom, even as her love for Sookhee blooms. There's a mystery thrown in there for the third act resolution, which is absurdly predictable. I think I scoffed on the bus. I waited for an additional detail or twist I hadn't expected to pop up, but it was traditional to the T, and I wasn't entertained.

As with Emily Wilde, the bow is tied too neatly and too quickly on our third conflict. Everything is a way-too-easy happily ever after, that doesn't feel earned, or as if it has resolved the complex internal struggles of the first half. As usual with Neon Yang's work, I felt like I was reading two different books — a compelling, striking and original first half; and a deflating and disappointing second half.

Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear

4/5 stars | 346 pages | ebook | standalone

I ended the month with Elizabeth Bear's Karen Memory. This had been tucked away in the TBR for a while, but was exactly what I needed! This is a steampunk Western following Karen, a prostitute, and her relationship with Priya, who was forced into prostitution after arriving in the States from India. The pair go on many adventures to try and stop the baddie that put Priya in that position. It features an incredibly diverse cast, showcasing the many different perspectives of the time period.

The book is at its strongest in the first two thirds, when the conflicts are mostly character-driven. The personalities here are strong, easy to believe and to love. Their interpersonal relationships are compelling and fun to read. But Karen Memory takes a surprising lurch into action for the third act, to the point of ridiculousness. The stakes are thrown into the atmosphere out of nowhere, and again, the resolution does not feel earned and is too perfect and too easy. I wouldn't have minded it here as much, because the characters are so loveable that I want to see their happily-ever-afters. But the amount of action sequences got to such a point that I was rushing through to finish the book… Every time I thought it was over, the stakes were raised and there was another one. I think Karen went through so much in that last half, physically, it was impossible for her to be left standing by the end of it (especially considering we weren't really shown she had a penchant for adventure or exercise before these sequences). In general, though, the characters are loveable, the themes of prostitution and love are tactfully explored, the narrative voice is a blast and the setting is fun.

I would, though, caution in the representation department. With the trans woman character, my girlfriend (who is trans!) asked me to include that there is an “ill-advised scene” where the character goes undercover dressed as a man. I couldn't agree more.

I also think the Native American representation could do with some work. The attempt to skirt stereotypes sometimes took the long way around and ended up reinforcing them. But I'll leave that conversation for those who know what they're talking about!

As always, thanks for reading, and please leave your opinions for me to read, too :))

#fantasy books #sff books #booklr #book recs #queer books #queer sff #book reviews #nevermoor #queer booklr #wayward children #emily wilde #heather fawcett #neon yang #brighter than scale swifter than flame #karen memory #elizabeth bear #reading wrap up #lila's reading wrap ups

13 notes · View notes

the-pink-baphomet1861 · 6 months ago

Text

The Biology of Dredge

Or: What the f**k happened to that fish!

Previous/Menu/Next

Part 2: The cod

Hello again! Welcome back to our biological analysis of a video game about spooky fish! This is the second part, and in order to get the full explanation of this series, I highly recommend you check it out, but we can do a quick recap for people who don’t feel like going back and reading several pages of my ramblings.

This is a series analyzing the 2023 video game Dredge, a delightfully creepy fishing simulator with a lovecraftian twist to its setting and story. I also happen to be a marine biology student, and in order to show my love for this game I’ll be dissecting (hah!) the mutated fish and connecting them back to real world biology. So let’s get started!

Before we begin in earnest, I think It would be good to go through the three major ground rules I have for these posts again to establish some boundaries and manage expectations.

While I am a marine biology student, I am in no way a complete expert on the subject, so please don’t take my words as gospel. I’m just doing this for fun and not as a rigorous scientific guide with perfect scientific accuracy, though I will try to source my information well. Please don’t take anything I say too seriously and remember that this is just for fun.

Dredge is a video game, one about eldritch magic and spooky fish, so anything in it probably won’t perfectly reflect reality. The people at Black Salt Games are incredibly talented and have made a rich world full of life, but even if it takes inspiration for our own, I don’t think every single detail is going to have perfect biological accuracy, I’m just trying to see if there’s anything we can learn from them.

I will NOT be covering the large aggressive monsters you can encounter around the area. They’re really cool, but they also fall outside the scope of this series, especially with the hints that they’re from another dimension entirely. I might do a big lore dive once I’m done with all of this, but for now, only the stuff you can catch!

And without further ado! Let’s get into it.

Specimen #2: Cod

That’s it, just a cod. No more and no less. They’re the first fish with a somewhat awkward shape, which makes inventory management a bit more stressful, but other than that they’re really nothing special, in game anyway. In real life every species of fish has something unique about them, so let’s unpack their appearance and see what we can learn!

Who’s that ichthyoid!

First, we need to identify our fish, which will be a bit harder this time considering that we don’t have a proper name like we did last time, so any real-world parallels will have to be made based on observable characteristics alone.

First let’s bring out our handy-dandy fish chart for some comparison:

One of our greatest tools, the fish charts. (Keep in mind that all of these are extremely variable and can change rather drastically between species)

The first thing we should note is the general morphology of the animal, which shouldn’t be too much trouble. The fish has a fusiform body plan, tapered at both ends, with a rounded head and medium-sized mouth. As for fins, it has a mostly truncated tail shape, three dorsal fins that are a decent size and an anal fin that resembles the third dorsal fin pretty closely. The pectoral and pelvic fins are mostly triangle-shaped with the one pectoral fin showing being slightly rounded at the end which, if the fish abides the general bilateral symmetry of most fish, should be fairly similar on the other side of the body. The largest specimen I ever caught was a hefty 1,15 meters in length, with the max being 1,2 meters, according to several guides I’ve seen, so we’re dealing with a pretty hefty critter here, although remember that max size and average size are two different things.

The fish has a muddy green color that starts out pretty light near the ventral side of the body and steadily grows darker as it progresses up the fish’s body, and the fins have a pretty uniform brown-orange coloration.

With all that in mind we can finally move on to identifying our creature.

Using fishbase, a scientific platform for identifying fish specimens, I searched for fish with similar descriptions, mostly for that third dorsal fin, and the family I found was known as the Gadidae family, the group containing the fish that were commonly known as cods and haddocks, (big surprise there) so I began searching for a species that could be our creature, but I ran into a bit of a problem, cods usually have a very characteristic chin barbel that is used to identify them as such, (although there are still animals not closely related to cod and are still called as such which definitely made this easier, but I digress) and our fish very noticeably does not have a chin barbel, so that made this a much harder task. So after some comparisons and struggling, I eventually managed to find a species that fit most of our criteria.

Img source: https://www.fishbase.se/photos/PicturesSummary.php?resultPage=3&ID=308&what=species

Meet Gadus macrocephalus, otherwise known as the pacific cod. It match the colors pretty well , light belly with a darker, mottled pattern closer to the dorsal end of the fish, with the main difference being that the body is more brown than green, and the fins also match up pretty well with our game cod, such as the three moderately sized dorsal fins and the slightly-forked-but-mostly-truncated tail fin, with the biggest differences being that it has a second anal fin under its body and that it has a chin barbel whereas the game cod has none, although that could just be me misinterpreting the games artwork. Even the sizes line up, with the maximum size recorded being 1,19 meters, pretty damn close to our 1,2 meters of fish.

These fish are large and extremely predatory, with a diet consisting of other fish, cephalopods, and various kinds of crustaceans as adults, with the young feeding on zooplankton like copepods. They mostly live in the northern pacific (who would’ve guessed), which is again now that we see another fish in that area, as the blue mackerel, which we analyzed last time, has its home in the pacific ocean as well…interesting. This might give us some info on which habitats the devs were inspired by, and help us narrow down our search as well. Both of these fish are also important animals for commercial fisheries, which could also lead to them inspiring the devs for which fish to include in the game. We’ll have to see if this develops into a pattern

Now that we have our fishy friend identified, we can move on to my favourite part of these so far:

WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO THAT FISH?

Ah, that wonderful time when we stop scraping the barrel for species and start looking into diseases, parasites, and other such fun topics in order to find any link to a fish mutated by spooky dark magic from another dimension!

Before we get to that however, we need to get the skeleton again. This time it isn’t too important because there aren’t too many major skeletal mutations happening, (at least not compared to last time’s grotesque mackerel) but there are still several that are important to go through, and I like having it for completion’s sake. Again, there will be descriptions (not pictures, silly me!) of real-life fish gore and gross parasites and stuff, so if that makes you uncomfortable, then you should probably sit this one out.

This time it was a lot harder to find a decent skeletal model, not because of a lack of them unlike last time, but more because at one point in scientific history, the pacific cod was considered the same species as a close relative, the atlantic cod. So a lot of the diagrams I found were frustratingly unclear about which animal it actually was, so I settled for this diagram of what I…think is an atlantic cod, which are a lot bigger, but otherwise are very similar in morphology.

Img source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Skeleton-of-cod-showing-anatomical-categories-used-in-this-study-Drawing-David_fig1_304489159

Now we can finally get into some of the good stuff, weird fish!

Mutation #1: All-Seeing Cod

We’ve already discussed a very similar mutation in the past, the many-eyed mackerel, which has a lot of the same hallmarks. Abnormal coloration, skeletal changes mostly in the skull, and some really weird eyes! I don’t think there’s any real meaning to this (unless you want there to be) but because of these similarities I wanted to analyze them in a similar way, just to make things a bit easier, for me. With that out of the way let’s start with the pigmentation.

For starters, the fish has gone from a dark green to a bright yellow-orange, which isn’t normal if you couldn’t tell. We’ve already discussed how pigments and colours work in living things a bit, but I think this a good time to go a bit more in-depth with it in order to explain how these colour changes happened.

First, we need to understand how animals create colours in their skin in the first place. Most exothermic animals (eg. reptiles, fish and most invertebrates) have specialized cells in their skins called chromatophores, which contain the various pigments that give animals their colours. You probably know the term chromatophore from the masters of disguise, the cephalopods, but it’s also found in a ton of other animals as well. There are a lot of different kinds of chromatophores, each with their own unique pigment/colour (there are blue chromatophores that don’t contain pigment, but rather structures that reflect light into blue light through rayleigh scattering like we talked about last time), but the ones I want to discuss today are called xanthophores and erythrophores.

These chromatophores are the ones that contain yellow pigments (xanthophylls) and red/brown pigments (carotenoids), and have some pretty interesting properties. Xanthophores are able to synthesize their own yellow pigments, albeit under specific conditions, but erythrophores aren’t, and have to rely on carotenoids ingested from other sources, which is why atlantic cod found in carotenoid lacking areas have a more grey colour and why eating too many carrots can turn your skin orange. (yes, that’s real. Look it up)

Now, let’s turn back to our buddy here. We can see that the entire fish has gone bright yellow, which can mean a couple of things. One is that it has lost a lot of its red erythrophores, or that they’ve turned into xanthophores, not all of them, as we can see in the orange fins, but most of them. Which isn’t easy to do, as the genetic markers of the pigment cells are established during embryonic development, but I’m sure that eldritch magic is as good of a reason as any. My other hypothesis is that it’s the pigments themselves that have changed as opposed to the cells, which could be just as good of a reason, as we can’t exactly test to see if the pigment changes if they don’t eat enough red stuff, but in either case we can see how these changes have affected the fish, and it probably isn’t good, as being bright orange in the ocean with no other means of defense is a good way to get eaten. At least they still have most of their fins intact, so let’s take a closer look at those, and the rest of their skeleton as well.

So yeah, based on what we can see, the fins and the main body skeleton seem mostly unchanged. I can maybe see a case for the pectoral fins and shoulder girdle shifting as the eye sockets expand, but that’s a flimsy argument at best, and it ultimately doesn’t affect the animal too much. The skull is another story entirely. The jaws protrude outwards and are full of pointed needle-like teeth like some kind of grotesque viperfish, (although the protruding-ness might just be because of how big the eyes are in comparison) the eye sockets have no question expanded a lot, and are now forward-facing, which isn’t a common trait in fish, probably because being able to see all of your surrounding in a three dimensional medium like water, but I think those eyes probably help with that. Speaking of which, let’s finally talk about those, shall we?

When we talked about eyes last time, they were mostly unchanged. Anomalous in quantity, yes, but basically normal in every other way. In this case, however, they seem to have undergone some serious modifications both in appearance and function. They’re huge, and are a bright cyan colour, with a fogged-over pupil to match. Fogged eyes in fish are actually a common problem relating to poor water quality, and can also be a symptom of something else as well, like parasites or infections. The complete blue/cyan colour, on the other hand, is a bit more mysterious.

Blue eyes aren’t an uncommon phenomenon in the animal kingdom, as you probably know, but this fish doesn’t naturally have blue eyes, especially such a shade of cyan, and in all honesty, I’m not sure what’s causing this. The animal doesn’t naturally have completely blue eyes, and I can’t tell whether there’s an actual illness that could give an explanation, or if it’s related to gene damage. Illness might not be the answer, because I couldn’t find any that created such a vivid blue and the color is generally evenly distributed, which is uncommon in infections, so for now I’m going to call it a product of gene mutation and move on, but if anyone else has something more concrete that could explain it, please share it!

So we should be done now, right? Well not quite. You see, the description says that the eyes are “borrowed from a larger being, but not the mind to process what it sees”, which made me curious as to what that could mean scientifically. So I did a little research and found some (extremely dubious) reports of people who had tetrachromacy, or the ability to see ultraviolet light.

To explain more clearly, tetrachromacy is when an animal has the ability to perceive extra wavelengths of light due to having an extra cone cell in their eyes, which isn’t all that abnormal if we’re looking at arthropods, some birds and certain species of fish, (though not ours, I’m pretty sure the pacific cod isn’t tetrachromatic) but in our (as in, the species homo sapiens) case, there are only three cone cells in our eyes, which are sensitive to red, green, and blue light. Hypothetically though, if a person were to have an extra type of cone cell capable of seeing ultraviolet light in their eyes, we wouldn’t be able to tell, because as I understand it, our brains wouldn’t have the image-processing machinery to interpret the signals from these cells, and there probably wouldn’t be much difference in how that person sees color. So no extra ultraviolet vision superpowers unfortunately.

If we apply this logic to our fish, it could mean that there are one or more new cone cells in these eyes, which might also explain the size, as the more cone cells there are in the eyes, the larger the retina would have to be to house them all, but because the animal’s brain physically can’t process these signals, there wouldn’t be any strange interpretations on the cod’s end. Kinda disappointing honestly, but that’s how it is with biology. Sometimes comprehending the incomprehensible isn’t really how it works. Sad! but it’s still cool to learn about.

Mutation #2: Fanged Cod

This fish honestly seems a lot more straightforward than some of the other mutations we’ve discussed. No extra eyes, no complicated deformations, no bizarre parasites, but nature can be tricky like that. You think you’ve got something understood pretty well, and then your entire concept of life gets redefined by a sea sponge. So let’s get into that sweet, sweet biology!

This time I’d like to start with the skeleton, and then move onto the other details like the color and general shape of the cod later. We can definitely say that the teeth have gotten a LOT sharper, but otherwise I’m not so sure about the rest of the fish’s body. It’s mostly just the teeth and maaaaybee the skull, but to me it seems more like the teeth are preventing the mouth from closing properly instead of any skeletal alterations.

We’ve talked about some dentition-related mutations in the past and their effects on the health before with the grotesque mackerel, so I wanted to take a minute to talk about them here too, because it seems like there are some differences here. Part of it might be the fact that the teeth are more prominent in the cod compared to the mackerel, as you can see in the skeleton. It could also be that the fish’s skeleton is less distorted than the mackerel’s (um…relatively speaking), but the fish also seems like it’s not doing well in terms of food either.

It generally has a withered appearance, with frayed fins at the edges and what seem to me like ribs protruding through the skin in the design, something that none of the other cod mutants share. This says from the limited information that we can get from only the illustration that the fish is starving, either from an inability to catch prey, an increased metabolism or some other issue causing the fish to be unable to get the nutrition it requires, which is leading to the hyper-aggressive behaviour we see described in the journal entry, the “hunger gleaming in its eyes”, probably due to desperation for food, which leads to it attacking everything it can in order to stave of its hunger. Poor thing.

Onto the colors, the eyes are also pretty similar to the grotesque mackerel, beady and blood-red, although not as sunken as the mackerel’s. I think it’s pretty safe to say that it’s a pretty similar cause, blood pooling in the eyes due to illness. Which both blots out the pupil and causes the eye to become that color, and it probably isn’t helping the fish’s mood either.

Now for the fish’s color, a withered dark purple. This one honestly stumped me, and even after looking for scientific papers I’m still not sure what exactly to make of it. At first I thought it could be some kind of diseased or rotting flesh, but I couldn’t find any kind of rot or disease that made the fish so uniformly purple, (I couldn’t find many purple diseases in fish period) and we can still see the markings on the scales, which got rid of that idea. So I’ve settled on what is honestly the most boring option, another case of color changing.

In this case, the purple can be caused by one of two things, one of which is a returning phenomenon from the all-seeing cod, carotenoids! Which can actually come in purple along with the more familiar orange and red, and the other method is a layering of erythrophores and iridophores (chromatophores that contain structures that cause rayleigh scattering and create blue light) which causes both blue and red light to be reflected together and cause us to see purple when we look at them. Whatever the case, this fish purple now.

So that didn’t take too long! Let’s see what’s next!

Mutation #3: Three-Headed Cod

So this one seems complicated, what with the three heads and stuff, but honestly probably isn’t as bad as it seems. The worst part here is definitely going to be finding out how the colors got weird. (as usual. Joy) So let’s rip off that band-aid and talk about that first.

We can see that the animal’s colour is definitely more saturated than normal, with the fins being a bright orange rather than the normal brown, the eyes have turned a deep maroon and the body going from a dark green to a neon cyan colour. We’ve already talked about the basic mechanisms of how color appears in fish and where it is stored, so there isn’t much of a need to go over that again, but this extreme saturation is something that I’m not so sure about. So now is probably a good time to talk about duplicate genes and color gradients.

The coloration of most animals (you always say “most” in biology because nature is always throwing curveballs) is regulated by a number of duplicate genes, or genes that control the same trait in an animal. For example, human eye color is controlled by several different genes that control the amount of melanin in one’s eye, if all of them are dominant, then your eyes are likely to be a dark brown, if all of them are recessive, then they’re probably going to be a lot closer to blue, or albino, and every combination of dominant and recessive each yield some different eye color. If you add another gene to this mix though, it increases that range of colors massively because it adds another option for all the other genes to mix with. When applied to our fish, this could mean that many more of these color genes have been added, giving the fish the range of color we see in-game.

There is another option though. In addition to these color genes, we also have genes that regulate the actual production of the pigment (and structure) that make the colors. So if these genes were to be upregulated (i.e produce color at a higher rate than normal) then the color of the fish would become stronger, which means that every color in the animal would be more colorful, depending on the specific pigment regulation gene altered, which is how we get mutations like albinism and leucism. Back to the fish, if every regulatory gene was bumped up, then the animal would probably get a lot more intense in color, but every regulatory gene means that the animal would also have the genes for darker pigments as well, which wouldn’t be what we see here, (probably closer to melanism honestly) so if it is the regulatory genes, then it’s probably only some of them rather than all of them, but as always, it’s not like we can check, so both possibilities are just as likely.

Now onto the most distinct aspect of this fish, the three heads. Which isn’t actually as complicated to explain as one might think. Partial twinning, otherwise known as incomplete twinning is a phenomenon that extends to any animal with an embryonic stage, which is a lot of them. Mammals, reptiles, birds, there are even reports about STARFISh that have developed conjoined to one another, and of course this includes fish as well. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like, an egg cell that would’ve become a pair of identical twins (or triplets) doesn’t quite finish splitting, which leads to the developed infants being fused together. These sorts of mutations are extremely rare, and it’s even rarer for them to survive to adulthood. There are quite a few different kinds of partial twinning, depending on where exactly the embryos were attached while they were developing.

In the case of our mutated friend here, the origin point seems to be three embryonic fish triplets (an already incredibly rare phenomenon) that managed to merge together evenly at the base of the developing skulls without stretching into the ribcage and torso, as we can see the first dorsal fin hasn’t split between the three heads yet, but before the point where the heads start to merge together. This kind of fusion is usually called parapagus dicephalus, as in, twins that are fused in parallel with two heads, though in our case I think the term tricephalus would be more appropriate, given that our fusion has three heads as opposed to two.

So this fish already has some astronomical odds to beat, most conjoined triplets (and twins, for that matter) aren’t anywhere near as clean as this, but on top of that these fish managed to outlast all their predators and the health complications that come with this kind of mutation (though there is probably some kind of eldritch magic involved) in order to reach adulthood, and I managed to catch TWO!!! It’s really fun to think about these animals like this, it really puts into perspective how many variations there are in nature, and how lucky we are to be able to see them, even if it’s just in a video game.

Final thoughts

Woof! That certainly took a lot more time than I was expecting! I honestly hoped that this one would take less time than before, but some real life things cropped up and I had to put this aside for a while. Still, I think that these might start coming out more frequently, given that we’re past all the three-aberration fish (until we get to the Pale reach that is) and most of the other fish have one or two.

These fish certainly are interesting, aren’t they? I especially really liked being able to develop some of the ideas from last time like coloration (even if it did get a bit exhausting at times) and getting to explore new concepts like incomplete twinning! So that’s all for this time. I really hope you enjoyed reading this, and that the next one comes out sooner. Byeee!

#dredge #dredge game #Biology #Marine biology #Speculative biology #Mutation #Biology of dredge #fish

17 notes · View notes

traineecryptid · 10 months ago

Text

NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 8

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st.

Folder with screenshots and big compilation google doc is here. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here. Part 5 is here. Part 6 is here. Part 7 is here.

20240902

1233

Why do people say that Tianshou is angsty? #Web Drama Zang Hai Hua# #NPSS explains Tianshou# [Video]

1508

Q: I want to know if there are two forces of Tianshou, both good and bad sides respectively: Gate guarding Tianshou (good) and Lu God's Tianshou (bad).

A: You're a little smart.

1509

Q: Shu, if little Zhang Qiling was in a tomb one second and transmigrated into his Yucun self the next second with his feet in the same foot bath as Wu Xie’s, what would his first sentence be?

A: A demon!

1510

Q: I will watch Zang Hai Hua for you… Don’t stop answering, okay…

A: I’m still persevering.

1511

Q: A-Bing, did you know that Zang Hai Hua will stop updating for 3 days? Do you still want your Heat Index or not! (T/N: Heat Index is the ranking/ trending-ness of a drama.)

A: I’m not the boss. It’s not my decision to make!

1537

Q: Hello, Xu-laoshi. Since you said that you won’t be writing “Yucun Biji” anymore (If there’s going to be 9 more Yucun Biji published, then you don’t have to read this post because Yucun Biji is my favorite out of the entire series), can I beg you for an Altay Biji? I wish to see the Iron Triangle’s nomadic life: Menyouping riding a motorcycle to Ürümqi to buy stuff (could also go from a summer ranch to some village). Wu Xie would be in charge of raising cats and dogs and chickens and goats and cows. Pangzi would be in charge of steaming lamb and barbecuing lamb chop. When they don’t want to herd the animals anymore, they can plant sunflowers. Wu Xie can use his architectural talents and build underground houses and learn a few Kazakh words…

A: I’ve been to Altay. The life there is like the original series and not Yucun.

1540

Q: Laoshi, Sir, Genius Writer, do you know how amazing the Flowery Night you wrote is? How did you do it? Are you Team Experience or Team Imagination? Has a beautiful god descended in the middle of the night and kissed the keyboard you wrote Flowery Night on?

A: Those who understand Flowery Night are experts.

1553 Q: I just took a nap and Shu got online. With the drama updates on hold for three days, will you chat with us for three days?

A: On and off, I guess. I’m deathly busy. I want to cry.

1554

Q: Sanshu, Sanshu, what is the one thing that Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi did that angered the other the most? Please tell me.

A: That would be enough for ten books.

1858

Q: Would there be one day where the Iron Triangle gets poisoned after eating some unknown mushrooms?

A: It would if Xiaoge isn’t around.

1858

Q: Shu, would there be updates for Queen’s Banquet? Approximately when would the updates start? Wu Xie is about to go moldy being stuck in that hole.

A: Soon. I need to pick a good desk.

1900

Q: Sanshu, Sanshu, does Wu Xie have any children appropriate de-stressing methods? The kind that can be broadcasted.

A: Standing in the rain?

20240903

0509

Q: The cat didn’t survive but if the cat did survive, would Xiaohua keep it? Or would he give it to Xiazi to raise?

A: Xiaohua wouldn’t interfere with the cat’s karma.

0510

Q: Shu, I really went to Louwailou to eat their West Lake Vinegar Fish during 817. The taste was unforgettable… The restaurant was full of Daomis. Do you have anything you would like to say to the Daomis who have been violently beaten up by the Vinegar Fish?

A: I’ve heard that every fish that was made into a Vinegar Fish has died in vain?

1259

Q: No updates for three days, you could say that this is a version of Three Days in Silence.

A: You sure know how to meme…

and here's part two if today's double update! we've caught up to 3rd September now! hooray! and this is 120 posts (less than 120 questions)... theres... an amount to go... but! whittling! making progress! yay!

#npss #dmbj #daomu biji

21 notes · View notes

gaysparkler · 7 months ago

Text

And yet I quickly might arrive / Where my extended soul is fixt

Early romance moment... Read on AO3 Title from Andrew Marvell's "The Definition of Love"

There was a small, shy knock at Pénthos’ door—and had they been doing anything other than staring mindlessly at the fish swimming on the other side of their window, they would have missed it. They didn’t doubt the magical nature of the Fade, but was their room somehow submerged underwater, or was this an illusion that would end and begin again, in a loop?

“Come in,” they replied eventually, not leaving their contemplation, hoping to catch the loop. Or—prove that the room was underwater. Somehow.

“Hello, neighbour,” Emmrich’s voice rang behind them. Pénthos couldn’t help but to turn around at the sound of it, a smile already on their lips.

“Emmrich!”

Pénthos stood from their couch to meet him halfway, though the nervous flutters of early romance kept them from reaching for him, so they left a small distance between them. Face flushed, they turned their attention back to the large window.

“You’re the Fade expert,” they said, bumping into Emmrich’s shoulder as they walked back to the couch. “Do you think we’re actually underwater?”

They sat down next to each other, legs almost touching. Emmrich brushed imaginary dust from his thighs as he settled; Pénthos crossed theirs.

“I would not discredit it entirely—the Fade works in mysterious ways, to be cliché about it. I suppose we’d need to test it, somehow. However,” he chuckled, “I would not recommend it.”

They smiled. “And that’s your professional opinion?”

“As professional as it will get.” Then it was Emmrich’s turn to lean on them playfully. “Which possibility would you prefer?”

Pénthos blinked up at him. “Preference doesn’t seem very scientific.”

“Not everything has to be. The Lighthouse is a marvellously impossible place. Science need not apply. Maybe this room was even shaped by what lies in your heart.”

Emmrich’s smile was warm and kind. Eager. Pénthos ducked their head forward and bit their bottom lip as they felt their heart skip a beat.

“I think…I’d like to believe we’re truly underwater. And…the light reminds me of the green flames of the Necropolis,” Pénthos said quietly. “I hadn’t been back until we met.”

Emmrich leaned ever closer to them. “Do you miss it?”

“You said you envied me for my travels, but…Emmrich, I miss it terribly. There’s something…comforting, simple, about a Watcher’s purpose. When I left the Necropolis, I felt like I arrived in a world that didn’t understand the very being that I was.”

Pénthos would never be able to get a number of things out of their mind from their travels, but what haunted them was the way so many people looked at his facial tattoos and pointed ears, the constant and literal demonization of spirits, the misunderstanding of their gender expression. The world outside the Necropolis felt so…hostile and determined to reject what it did not understand.

Emmrich sought out their hand; Pénthos laced their fingers together.

“I cannot imagine what that must be like,” he said, compassion written across his features. Pénthos gave him a small, defeated smile, and a shrug of their shoulders. After a moment, they looked back to him through the curtain of their hair partially hiding their face, spying the fond look in his eyes. They straightened up and cleared their throat.

“You’ve only seen the window—can I give you a tour? You were kind enough to show me around the lab.”

He softly gasped, “I would love to!”

Their hands still linked, Pénthos walked Emmrich around the room and pointed out their scant personal items strewn here and there: the Ever-Turning Orb, their final project made during their magical training, still perfectly tuned though it had been created over a decade ago, the (probably counterfeit) elven scroll a peddler rewarded them with after saving his caravan—when Emmrich asked about provenance, what was written across the parchment, Pénthos had no answer, which only served to confirm its false nature, but they were attached to it at this point—the mirror Varric had given them what felt like ages ago, and—

Pénthos did not doubt that Emmrich was interested in everything they had been showing him, but the urn of Baron von Markham did get more of a reaction than anything else.

“The leader of the undead rebellion?” he exclaimed. “You have his urn?”

They feigned nonchalance, though they knew how rare it was for remains to ever make it out of Nevarra. Kind of like Watchers, they figured.

“I suppose Myrna thought it would be a good reminder. To not act so…rashly.”

“Oh, I do believe the reaction was disproportionate. What disorganization this uprising would have caused! And to think of the paperwork…”

They couldn’t help but laugh—of course that’s what Emmrich would be worried about; not the destruction of the undead, not the possibility of corpses invading Nevarra, but paperwork. Ever the pragmatic.

“An ungodly amount, to be sure. I hesitate to even imagine,” Pénthos chuckled, before concluding the tour with a sweeping motion of their free arm: “And here we are! You’ve seen it all.”

“You don’t have a bed?”

They indicated at the green couch in front of the meditation altar while Emmrich settled his hands on their waist.

“This is enough,” they replied. Not like they got a lot of sleep lately, anyway.

“Well, it’s not quite—”

“Emmrich.” Pénthos tapped against Emmrich’s chest, right under his skull collar pin. “The only thing I’ve seen in your laboratory is a slab for bodies.”

Emmrich made the face characteristic of every time Pénthos had flirted with him: raised eyebrows, a slight widening of the eyes—though the teasing smile was new since their talk by the balcony.

“You make a compelling argument.”

Pénthos shuffled closer until they were squarely in Emmrich’s arm, a proper embrace. Partly because they relinquished that closeness, and partly to hide the blush creeping on their face due to the praise.

“Thank you for visiting,” they said, still hidden. “I was—getting in my head. No good usually comes from that.”

Emmrich hummed, “I rather like your thoughts, my dear.”

He leaned back slightly to grasp Pénthos’ chin, his gold bangles clinking delicately with his movement, and angled their head up so their eyes would meet. They could feel their cheeks still warm and their heart fluttering, but did not dare fight Emmrich’s gentle direction, not when they saw the smitten smile on his face.

“You’ll come back?” they asked, hopeful.

“As long as you’ll have me,” Emmrich replied, and Pénthos dived right back in the embrace.

#emmrich x rook #emmrich volkarin #emmrook #rook ingellvar x emmrich #dragon age the veilguard #pénthos ingellvar #emmthos #my writing #i love writing them......my muses #this is set shortly after pénthos confirmed their interest for emmrich. sweetest scene of all time

10 notes · View notes