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ms-scarletwings · 11 months ago

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Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 21

Feral Lizardfish

Encyclopedia #219

Aberrant form of lizardfish

Description:

A bipedal body burgeons with primitive limbs, preparing for an ascent.

Comment: …Is there really anything else worth saying?

How to catch: These awful, awful things share the frigid waters with the rest of the new region’s fish. I’d recommend using the rod to seek them out over the dinky little net offered by the merchants, for reasons I hope I made clear in the last segment.

Bulbous Toothfish

Encyclopedia #220

Aberrant form of toothfish

Description:

Vessels feed a distended, fluid-filled body. A shadow stirs inside.

Comment: I do hate that “Is this where pale graspers come from?” was the most optimistic line of thought I initially ran down at the first sight of this poor host. A trophy sized specimen can be caught nearing 7 feet long, that passenger is not to be assumed as some ignorable little cuttlefish. Horrible things have grown from smaller seeds. Listen, at least in my view, that bastard mystery spawn of the stars is a thing to fear in implication. Relieve these poor fish of their burden, and the seas of these invading strangers, and do it without guilt.

How to catch: This is a rod-only catch of the icey waters.

Grisly Shark

Encyclopedia #221

Aberrant form of goblin shark

Description:

Errant teeth push through failing skin. A single mouth is not enough.

Comment: But can the other mouths also do this?

How to catch: For time spent catching these, they can be a decent money maker for those still in the process of exploring the Reach. Rod them up from those dark, chilly depths where found.

Pale Grasper

Encyclopedia #222

Aberrant form of colossal squid

Description:

Hands of ice reach upward, a sharp hoarfrost blooming across whatever they touch.

Comment: Enormous, eldritch, iconic… the largest and most infamous of the catchable stock under that ice. My theory runs that these colossal agents work on behalf of the great sleeping master, patchworking and keeping the flows knit together, even in these warmer waters where otherwise impossible.

How to catch: For most, this is the very last aberration, at least within the Pale Reach, they will obtain. They are a net-only catch that is only awarded to the patient and/or the lucky, to the chagrin of many a fisherman around the ice. Requiring 11 slots of cargo space, they are completely ignored by the brittle net, requiring you to have otherwise completed your exploration and tasks in the Pale Reach before even thinking about trawling one of these up. You’ll know the appropriate equipment when you find it. Colossal squid are already an uncommon sight, and their twisted brethren much more so. This is why I advise attaching as much other equipment known to raise the chances of grotesque catches as can fit to help the odds. At a whopping $500-$625 per specimen, you’ll think your time well compensated for at first. Not to burst any bubbles on that front, but do keep in mind that their incredible size rounds their base value-per-slot as around $45.45. This is a relatively high price for a fish, but it is still narrowly beat by the cleft mouth shark’s $45.83 per slot base price.

Fallen Stars

Encyclopedia #223

Aberrant form of sea stars

Description:

An assembly of asteroids, conjoined in the dark. Finger-like roots stretch down through the substrate.

Comment: How many more will they send down? Less and less, Dredge gives me a world where I can look up at the great expanse beyond the ground and sea, and call it “the heavens”. There are things below us we were never meant to disturb, just as the things above should know not to disturb us. How many rungs exist on this great ladder?

How to catch: Taking only 2 slots and readily found anywhere in The Reach plentiful in life and measuring at over 50 meters deep, you shouldn’t have to do much waiting to get your hands on sea stars with your crab pots.

King’s Wreath

Encyclopedia #224

Aberrant form of King Crab

Description:

A clockwork crown of claws. A cycle of succession in the deep.

Comment: You know, it’s almost disappointing that there were no new paints to be found from scouring the Pale Reach. I would have found the slate-grey of these mutated crabs to be a nice addition to the pigments available in Little Marrow, fittingly cold and sleek. I guess this additional grotesque collection will be keepsake enough for tackling the abominations of this living berg.

How to catch: Like the above, this is another quarry meant for the pot. Same depth and biome, just keep in mind that they take up a 2x2 square of space when selecting your traps. I still personally use the maw of the deep for all of my crab fishing, and I carried that habit unchanged to the new area.

#dredge game #the pale reach #dredge dlc #grotesque fish #aberrant fish #fish horror #scarlet talks about things

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welcometololaland · 1 year ago

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nice ask week

hello my love, light of my life 💖💖💖

for nice ask week, please:

rank your favourite fruits; OR

tell me a random fact that you find super interesting

😭😭😭 it's me hi I'm shining for you!

my favourite fruit is super easy - would do a lot of questionable things for a perfectly ripe mango 🥭 kensington is my favourite but i also love honey gold and the sweeter varieties. I also LOVE frozen mango cheeks. will down them like a fruit bat on speed.

I also love grapes 🍇 - not purple, green only, seedless with a perfect crunch OR frozen. although grapes are unfortunately a tummy hurt culprit so I have to forcibly moderate myself.

other faves (in descending order): nashi pears (although tummy hurt), watermelon, plums (blood plums are my fave 🧛‍♀️) blueberries, blackberries, cherries, tangelos (these make me sweat on my cheeks for some weird reason), kiwi and kiwi gold (skin ON) aaaaaand peaches.

for those asking, yes I like pineapple but I get a mild allergic reaction to it so it has to be super ripe. also I DO eat bananas but I wouldn't call them a fave. also rockmelon/cantaloupe is perfectly good why does everyone shit on that fruit???

now I think of it there's not many fruits I don't like....

random fact for you: The colossal squid has the largest eyes of any known creature ever to exist 👀👀👀👀

#nice ask week #rae my beloved #💜💜💜💜💜#rmd tag

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justarandomsapphic · 2 years ago

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My Story of Being in a Cult

(TW for religious trauma and emotional abuse, also I need to preface this by saying that my parents did not encourage the church’s abuse- they did what they could and now my whole family is out of it. My parents are wonderful, loving people and they have supported me through recovery)

When I was little, I was always asking questions. I always wanted to know why things worked certain ways, why this did that, why are some things slimy and others rough, “Why does that bird on the road look so limp and squishy?” I’d wonder as my parents would rush to pull me away from the dead bird before I could poke it. I’m not just saying that as a funny joke to start this essay, that happened many times with many dead animals. There’s a picture of me when I was little, holding a fish head with the most overjoyed face. Besides dead things, I also loved learning about live organisms. I’d watch all sorts of nature documentaries. There was this one about the colossal squid. “Aren’t giant squids and colossal squids the same thing?” My friends would ask, confused. “No!” I’d exclaim, “Colossal squid have hooks on their tentacles, giant squid have razor sharp teeth on theirs. Plus, colossal squid are a lot heavier and bigger.” Then I’d proceed to rant about the wonders of the colossal squid and how fascinating it was to me whilst sitting on the grass on the school field in the sweltering heat. Yeah, I was that kid. Don’t even get me started on my cryptid phase. That was an obsession that holds on to this day, like those wristbands they make you wear at the boardwalk. I also loved dinosaurs and other odd prehistoric creatures, like Titanoboa, the largest snake in existence. I could probably write a whole essay on those guys. It’s clear to see that even when I was very small, researching and discovering new things was a big part of my life and culture. However, my life is a puzzle, and it isn’t a simple 500 piece one. The thousands of other hidden bits are about to come into the picture.

To start, my fascination with all things science was limited. It was only of the things that I was permitted to know. You see, I was kinda in a cult. Now, I’m sure many of your minds went straight to Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate. Don’t worry, we didn’t move to South America or talk about UFOs coming to save us from this mortal realm. I think when people think of cults, they think of the worst of the worst, the most extreme cases. Believe me when I tell you, most of the cults that exist in the world would appear normal to an outsider. Even the worst ones seemed innocent at first to the world. I still hesitate to call my old elementary school/church (it was a school on the weekdays and a church on Sundays) a cult. However, after running it through the B.I.T.E. model, I couldn’t ignore that my past community was at the very least, a bit culty. The B.I.T.E. model is designed to determine whether or not something is a cult. B is for behavior control, I is for information control, T is for thought control, and E is for emotion control. My school passed this test with flying colours. I remember how my curiosity somewhat halted in elementary school. I found many things fascinating and I’d investigate them, but my school had poisoned my mind with negative thoughts about evolution and other aspects of science. “It’s just not Christian,” they’d say. “Why would anyone even think that we came from apes!” Being a young, impressionable child, I agreed. I wouldn’t want to be on the bad side of God, right? If I’d even think for a second that God might not exist, I’d feel incredible shame. My parents always encouraged my curious nature, and would listen to my rants about science. My school wasn’t as welcoming though. I remember our science books had Bible verses on every well worn out page. Curiosity and asking questions was looked down upon. Which, as you’ve no doubt discovered, is something I love to do. I thrive on it. The constant emotional pain that questions would cause me just wasn’t worth it though. So, like a plant with no water or sun, I withered.

I remember hearing at Monday chapel (every Monday we’d gather in the church and have the principal do a sermon) one of my teachers talking about teens who stray from God. They said it would start with just wondering if God was real, but it would slowly turn into full on disbelief. As we rose out of the chairs to go back to our classrooms, my little brain was spiraling out of control. What if I turned into one of those kids? What would happen to me if I did? I would think about all that quite a bit. However, my mind would also wander to my friends outside the community. They were wonderful people. I remembered a teacher telling me that “You can’t be friends with someone who’s not Christian. You just will never be able to get along.” When I protested, and brought up friends of mine who didn’t believe in God, she said, “Well, you could try to convert them. Otherwise they’re gonna go to hell, and you don’t want them to go to hell, right?” I was in third grade and I already had the burden of saving people’s souls weighing me down, pushing me into place so I could be more obedient to the church’s rules. Teachers gaslit me, asking if that really happened, you’re just overreacting, stop being so sensitive. I would be shamed for moving around too much, so I stopped. By 4th grade I was at rock bottom, a manipulated shell doing what the church wanted of me. My parents tried to take me to a different school, but each time I’d cry and beg them not to. This community was all I’d known. In my mind, staying was safer. However, this was a K-5th school, after 5th grade, I’d go to a different school. Most of my friends were going to a very strict private school in my area. My parents did not want to take me there, and decided that public school would be a better choice. I was okay with that. I knew a girl who would be at this middle school, so I wouldn’t be alone. My classmates, on the other hand, were horrified. The sheer thought of going to ‘one of those schools’ seemed abhorrent to them. I remember a girl asking me if I was going so I could spread God’s word. “I’ve heard that they put you in detention for praying!” Another classmate whispered to me. Obviously, my new school was nothing like those rumours. I absolutely loved it there. However, I was not aware that what happened at my elementary school was not normal, and I would discover that the hard way.

I’ll start with the smaller things. I remember sitting at our table underneath a huge tree, asking my friends what their favourite thing on the playground was when they were little. “Oh I usually just read,” one of my friends stated. “Oh nice, at my school we weren’t allowed to read during recess,” I brought up, casually. Immediately heads turned towards me and a chorus of “WHAT” echoed throughout our group. I was confused, why was that weird? These differences got bigger and bigger as time went on. I think the most significant one was when our teacher talked about national coming out day. It was in my Leadership class and my teacher was talking about the discrimination LGBTQ+ people face on a daily basis. I was appalled. At my old school, gay was a bad word and now our teacher was talking about this stuff so openly. One thing he said however, started to erode my homophobia. “If someone could control being gay, why would they? If you could choose, you wouldn’t be something that puts you at such a risk of being discriminated against or even killed.” After that I started to do some self evaluation, and I eventually started to support the LGBTQ+ community. Little did I know that in 8th grade, I would realise that I was gay. As you can see, middle school was full of unlearning behavior that had been drilled into me from a young age. However, this was just the beginning.

7th and 8th grade were when realisations started to kick in. I started to understand how horrible my childhood was. I had repressed it because as a little kid, you don’t know how to process mental abuse, you just take it and push it in the back of your mind. You mature faster, you repress the behaviors your abusers don’t like, and you learn that pleasing people is the only way to get out of conflict. In the end, you do anything but acknowledge the pain. This epiphany had me finally letting myself question religion, and soon, I stopped believing in God. Before then, I had always felt ashamed for doubting Christianity, afraid that I was upsetting God. Every time I’d feel this churning nervousness in my stomach, this pain in my chest, as if my body was doing everything I could to save myself from damnation. So, I’d push the questions in my head away. But after actually looking at what my mind was telling me instead of pushing it to the back of my head like a sweater that you keep on trying to stuff into your drawer, I started to wonder what I was so scared of. Believing in humanity rather than a God was so freeing. After leaving Christianity, I started to get back into science. That year, we had our evolution unit and I loved every moment of it. The little kid who ranted about colossal squids crawled out of the corner of my mind that I had pushed her back into for so long. Even heavy shame could not make my curious mind disappear. I felt like I had finally made it through the worst parts, and I was moving on.

However, there are lingering effects, such as self blame for what happened. So I try to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, it was the adults who should have known better that were at fault. They took away a huge chunk of my childhood that I can’t really get back. I don’t do carefree things, I don’t do stuff on impulse. I wish I did. I really wish I did. It may sound nice to have a more mature state of mind when it comes to certain things, but I’m supposed to be a normal teenager. I’m supposed to make dumb mistakes. I want that so much. However, it’s not all gone, a part of my younger self still lives in me. She’s the one that flinches if you raise your voice, that immediately will try to please you to calm down, the one that freezes up. But she’s also the one that giggles, the one that asks a million questions at once, the one that hugs you so tight you can barely breathe. She’s still here, holding the good and bad things, so holding harsh feelings towards myself for not doing anything only hurts me more, and honestly, I think I’ve been through enough. So, I’ve worked on eroding the self hate, and shifting my perspective on life. Even though these realisations were painful, things have been so much better now. I think the best way to describe it would be to quote Dawn Smith, a cult survivor when she had said: “But I can tell you that even the hardest day of freedom was better than the best day in a cult.” They made me feel like I could be nothing without them. But now I know that’s not true. I hope there is a day where I do something big, something important, and my old community can see how far I’ve come without them.

#religious trauma #ex christian #lesbian #lgbtq #my writing #trauma

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wjbminecraft · 1 year ago

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Glow Squid; my reasoning is way too long to put in the tags without it being awkward to read, so...

Reason 1: it just isn't as impressive as the original MC:E version.

Let's compare the infobox gifs from the Minecraft wiki (Earth on the left, Minecraft on the right).

As you can see, the original Earth Glow Squid has something that would have been really cool to have in Vanilla; namely, animated textures, and while the Minecraft version has a faint texture-glow (in Java)/a full glow (in Bedrock) that fades when damaged, but it's less impressive than an actual animated texture. And while the Warden does have a very complex animated glow, it's executed by fading multiple textures.

They could have done A Cool Thing with the Glow Squid and added animated textures to the game, and they didn't.

And no, adding some funky particles doesn't make it more visually exciting, especially when said particles aren't even set to glow.

Reason 2: it's kinda boring in terms of design.

Ok so like despite what I just said, from a conceptual and design sense I like the Glowsquid's texture. It's pretty cool! The same can't be said for the model, which is just a copy of the Squid's, when they could have made it look a bit more abyssopelagic.

For example, putting webbing between the tentacles and adding fins to evoke the form of a Vampire Squid, or making the tentacles super long and thin like a Bigfin Squid, or even - and this is the one that would make me either more or less willing to explore underwater - the size of a Giant or Colossal Squid.

Yes, I know they were just flat-out reacreating the Earth version, but it'd be more interesting if we got more diverse non-fish aquatic mobs (which is the main point of my More Fish mod idea, yes I'm plugging a thing that doesn't exist yet).

Reason 3: functionality-related stuff I guess.

This isn't to do with the design, but rather just a space for me to say what I'd do if I'd added them to the base-game.

A glow-layer that only applies to their eyes, spots and tentacle-tips, and has the same fading effect.

Add a Thing that makes them unable to spawn unless there's water in all directions, like seriously, the way it works (in Java specifically) is really annoying.

Glowing Leather Armour from Glow Ink Sacs why isn't this a thing?!?

Thinking about more minecrafter design opinions, then I thought about the stranger mobs that were added and how people felt about them so

Let me know your reasoning in the tags!

#mineblr #minecraft #reblog

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eflen-n-reegee · 2 years ago

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Field Trip to the Field Museum (Chicago, IL)

Hello! I recently went to the Field Museum, and I decided to write a little self-insert imagine fic where the reader is an age regresser and the author is their caregiver. I really liked doing this, so I’ll probably do it again next time I go somewhere fun! 😊 All pictures were taken by me, and there are two temporary exhibits that have only one picture each to respect that they aren’t permanent features of the museum. Also, heads up, this includes pictures of dinosaur bones, taxidermied animals and a brief, simple discussion about mortality. Under the cut ‘cause it’s a long post. Hope you enjoy! 😁

You’re right, sweetheart! There it is! Are you excited?

Oh, no, don’t worry, we’re not driving away. We just have to go around the museum to park. And that gives us time to listen to another song! What should we listen to?

My goodness, I always forget how big it is! What do you think, sweetheart? I know, it’s very busy today. Do you want to sit for a minute? Okay, but if you need a break, you can always tell me.

Alrighty, why don’t we look at the elephants? I know, they’re so big! Hm, I think the elephants would be a good meeting spot. So if we lose each other, we can both go to the elephants and find each other again. I know you have your phone, sweetie, this is just to be extra safe. I know, I know, I’m a silly worry-wart. Okay, where should we go first?

Ooh, we’re gonna learn all about sea creatures! Some of them are still swimming around in the ocean, and some of them are extinct like the dinosaurs. Oh, you’re right, my little smarty. The ocean’s so deep, we don’t know for sure what’s down there. But we THINK these creatures are extinct. I wish this great big salamander was still around, though. He’s so cool! Oh my goodness, look at this tooth! It came from a megalodon - the biggest shark that ever existed! How much do you think the Tooth Fairy would give her for one? Ha, this is a little funny. This little manta ray is extinct, but this great big one still lives in Australia. Usually it’s the little ones that are still around! And these horseshoe crabs are the same way! Now, what’s this? Oh my goodness, it’s a colossal squid tentacle! We’re lucky, very few people get to see one in real life. Ah, looks like this is the end. That was so interesting!

Are you sure you want to go to this exhibit? I mean, you already know all your colors, right? Oh, oh no, it’s okay sweetheart, I’m only teasing, don’t cry- Hey, where did those tears go so quickly? Were you teasing ME? Oh, you silly thing!

Look at all this beautiful red! So many red animals and red plants, just gorgeous… Ooh, and these orange things… I think I like this yellow area the best. It makes me feel like we’re out in the sun! Oh, you like the green? It DOES look like a forest, you’re right! But blue is still my favorite color - look, tiny little robin eggs! And the purple is just beautiful… Is that the end of the exhibit? Whoa! Ultraviolet? Really? Look, sweetheart, the black light is making the white parts of my shirt glow! Isn’t this cool? Here, press this button! You see, the scorpion is a dark color, but he glows white in ultraviolet light! I changed my mind, THIS part is my favorite! Over here there’s black, and white, and black and white together! And- oh my goodness, look at these rainbow colors!

Oh, that was amazing! I’m glad you picked it, sweetheart, I liked it very much.

Look how high up we are! Maximo could give you a kiss right on the nose if he wanted to! Are you having fun? I’m glad.

Oh, so cool! A little scary, too… Are you doing okay? Oh, I know you’re brave, sweet thing. Even brave people get scared sometimes. I bet even dinosaurs could get scared! Oh, not this one? Maybe. He does look pretty fierce, huh?

Ooh! The Apatosaurus swallowed the rocks and they helped digest his food! But that wouldn’t work for you, would it? So the rocks better stay out of your tummy! Yes, if you were a dinosaur it would be okay… Of course I’d still love you if you were a dinosaur!

Look how cloudy the city is! I’m glad we’re not outside right now. But maybe we’ll visit the city on a sunnier day. Would you like that?

This is my favorite dinosaur! I’m not sure why, actually. It’s not the biggest or the strongest or the scariest, but I still think it’s really cool. It’s got a funny name - think you can say Parasaurolophus? And scientists think it used the crest on its head to make noise! Do you have a favorite dino, sweetheart?

There she is! Sue’s one of the best T-Rex fossils ever found! Pretty cool, huh? We know from the bones that a lot of stuff happened to her - she got hurt a lot. But she was a fighter! Just like you, right? Here, lemme take your picture with her!

I think this is my favorite part of the museum. This is where the stuffed animals are- yeah, like your plushies! Only these are REAL animals, not cotton and fluff. They used to be alive, and now they aren’t. You’re right, it is kind of sad. But it’s also kind of happy too. These animals help scientists learn new things, and artists come from all over to draw them and paint them, and everyone who visits gets to see how amazing they are. It’s sad that they’re dead, but it’s happy to think about when they were alive. Are you ready to go in?

You’re right, they’re deer! Just like we see sometimes when we’re driving! The papa deer is watching for predators while the mama deer helps the baby find food. They take good care of their baby, don’t they?

Oh my goodness! It’s a good thing your teddy isn’t that big. There’d be no room in the bed for you! You’re right, he does look cuddly. But if we saw a bear like him walking around, we wouldn’t get this close. Because bears are very strong, and they might hurt us if we got too close. Oh no, it’s not mean, sweetheart. The bear wants to protect himself. He doesn’t know how nice we are. Well, giving him food wouldn’t be the best idea either… It’s okay, sweetie. Sometimes the nicest thing to do is give someone their space.

Wow, I always forget that moose are this big! Moose? Mooses? Hm, I’m not sure what to call more than one. What do you think?

Look at that bear cub riding piggyback! Isn’t that silly? And you’re right, the big bear’s face is silly too! What do you think he’s eating? Maybe bugs? No, not “ew”, it’s good for the bear. Everyone needs to eat, and sometimes they eat things that are a little different. No big deal.

Oh, speaking of eating, I’m hungry! What about you?

We can eat right next to the animals. Now, let me get the food out… Sweetheart, stay over here please. I know you want to look at the seals, but you’re going to get crumbs on the floor! We can look at them after we eat, okay? Thank you, sweetie.

Alright, it’s about time to leave. I know, honey, I’m having fun too! But the museum will be closing soon - and you look like you could use a nap. I promise we’ll come back again soon, alright? Yes, pinkie promise. Okay, let’s go, sweetheart.

~🐘~🦑~🌈~🦕~🪨~🏙~🦖~🦌~🐻~🍽~

#age regression #sfw age regression #agere #sfw agere #age regression field trip #agere field trip #age regression field museum #agere field museum #age regression museum #agere museum #age regression imagine #age regression fic #Eflen writes #Eflen Field Trips

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krastbannert · 3 years ago

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Hi Krast ^^

2, 4, 25 for the weirdly specific ask.

2. thoughts on veganism?

Not for me (I like bacon, steak, and cheeseburgers too much), but I understand why people do it. I'm generally pretty chill with anything - live and let live, you know? If someone wants or needs to be vegetarian or vegan that's cool. Maybe they'll teach me some good vegetarian recipes.

I will admit, though, I do get very annoyed by those...I guess extreme vegans is the right word. Like the stereotypical ones that try to insert veganism into every conversation about animals or think the entire world needs to be vegan including animals/pets. I do not like those people.

4. mythical creature you think/believe is real?

If we mean mythical creature like cryptids, I would not be surprised at all if something like the sasquatch/the yeti/the grassman were real. Or the giant anacondas that supposedly were sighted in South America by explorers, or something like the Kraken - every legend has a grain of truth, right? (Yes, I know that the Kraken was likely inspired by giant or colossal squid, but I mean something closer in size.)

If you mean mythical like unicorns and faeries...well, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if fae existed in some form, and were just in hiding. I could see unicorns being extinct, too. One thing I saw pointed out and I've wondered about, too, is what if elves and dwarves and so forth were just offshoots of humanity/ the homo genus that died out over time, like neanderthals, the denisovans, or h. erectus? I mean, homo sapiens is the only branch of the homo genus left, and there used to be many branches. So, maybe such races and creatures did exist, and over time, just died out or blended into the world as we know it.

Nature's weird and has made some really strange stuff, so I won't fully discount anything. That's all I'll say.

25. would you say you have good taste in music?

I mean, I like to think so. I've been told I have good taste in music before - but my taste also excludes most of the mainstream so my friends at college don't always like listening to my music. (They can deal with it.)

------

Asks came from this list!

#krast answers asks #@dannyurl #ask game

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clannfearrunt · 5 years ago

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Ok so here’s two like.. Lore Villains in my sploon japanese period fantasy AU. They don’t interact with like, plot. Whoops. They just exist in the background and are well known Big Powerful Yokai. They’re on the top 10 dangerous yokai list. They’ll fuck you up.

Mata and Koma are a pair of giant cephalopod-like yokai usually referred to as Kraken. Legends say that they once terrorized the seas in their true colossal ceph forms, sinking ships, attacking settlements, trying to kill each other, or even causing great disasters just kind of existing as their gigantic selves. One day, people got fed up with their shit and sent a large group of the best exorcists, yokai hunters and the like to combine their powers to bind them to the land. Ever since then, Koma seems to have settled in some mountain in Northern [squid japan], and Mata has been known to prowl the Southern regions of the island. Even though they are no longer Huge As Fuck, the two continue to be a menace.

More Lore Underneath the cut:

Koma (the pink one, with the turtlle) mostly stays put within his mountain home, tending to his many pet turtles. However, he keeps a sharp eye out for any hapless travelers passing through his mountain - whether mortal or weaker yokai - so that he can trick them into engaging in a battle of wits against him, with the price being their life. It doesn’t actually matter if his victims beat him, he will still do his best to kill them and make a meal of them for both himself and his turtles. When disguising as a mortal, he prefers to mimic an elderly Octoling monk, though an attentive victim may realize that he has the wrong clothes and appears to have a pair of “arms” that end in suspiciously tentacle-like clubs. Just don’t talk to him. Leave. Tear up his crossword puzzle and fuckin get out of there. He’ll chase you, but you’d have a chance.

Mata (the blue one), on the other hand, prefers to travel near constantly along the southern regions of the island. He is known to occasionally attack and plunder villages, often accompanied by lesser yokai he has bullied into loose servitude. His real hobby, though, is in disguising himself as an attractive young Inkling traveler and finding a young Inkling woman to court. Inklings usually aren’t attentive enough to notice his slightly weird hair, which is why he prefers playing with them. Although he merely sees these as short fun flings, he often unintentionally gives the impression that he’s looking for a Serious Relationship, and usually ends up skedaddling when his girlfriend ends up with eggs. He really hates children, but especially his own - saddled with more power than a mortal should have to handle, many Half-Kraken Inklings eventually lose control and are killed when they go on a panic-fueled rampage. Mata enjoys pretending this is funny. Serves those girls right for trying to “cheat” on him with children, right? Right...

The two of them Fucking Hate Each Other. No one knows how it started. Of course, the fact that Mata keeps periodically breaking into Koma’s home to eat his turtles probably does contribute to it.

These two have several Abilities(tm) they have in common:

1.) While all mortal cephalopods can secrete mildly venomous saliva, the Krakens have a highly corrosive, long lasting venom that can melt through flesh and will probably absolutely kill you without magical intervention. They don’t use this very often, as accidentally getting it on their own skin is, while not lethal, Pretty Painful. Also, it’s boring, and makes an inedible mess. It sucks, dude.

2.) Their arms stretch. They’ve got fucking noodle arms. It’s theorized that this is simply a selective application of their apparent ability to change their size - after all, they must be able to shrink and enlarge significantly if they can become as small as a normal mortal or large enough to easily sink a fleet of ships. Koma does this a lot more than Mata ever does, because Koma does not care how dumb he looks with noodle arms happening. His turtles would never judge him.

3.) Perhaps the most troublesome of their abilities is their extremely fast regeneration. Mortals aren’t completely unfamiliar with high regeneration, as many mollusks and echinoderms are famously able to restore great amounts of lost tissue over time. However, the Krakens take this ability to the next level - most injuries, no matter how grave, will begin to heal in a matter of seconds. Magic, poison, and fire seems to slow this ability, but you’re probably better off shooting for poison and magic. Those two know about fire safety, they’re not just gonna sit there and let you burn them, and, like, they’re pretty moist. You can burn a specific location but they’re probably not gonna catch fire my dude. Any Half-Krakens you might encounter are probably not gonna be in the state of mind to remember stop, drop and roll though. Use fire there, go ahead. Still not that flammable though.

I don’t know how to wrap this up whoops. I guess like. While Mata and Koma do not directly interact with the AU... Main Plot Zone, I guess, they’re a force that anyone who deals in magic and shit have to keep an eye out for. The two Krakens, but more frequently Mata’s poor children, are one of the Top 10 Supernatural Hazards For Magical Types to Watch Out For. The scariest yokai are the ones that pretend to be mortals, after all.

Thanks for reading this AU Lore

#Conarts #Splatoon #IT'S SPLATOON.#Placeholder AU Tag #kraken up g major cover #eye contact #scopophobia #Squid 2 the evolution of the squid #Do You Remember The Kraken Dream from like. idk if it was in 2019 or 2018 man time is weird

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winters-tales · 4 years ago

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The Lease

[ This is an excerpt from a completed commission; if you're interested in commissioning a piece from me, you can find my prices in the "About" section of this page!]

File 23

Codename: Leaseholder

Following an anonymous tip, an investigation has been opened into an individual known as “Detective Nemed”; at the time of writing, she has been missing for 4 days. No other information is currently known about this “Detective” – she is certainly not a certified law enforcement agent in any of the countries she has visited, however, she seems to have managed to provide convincing enough credentials to avoid rousing suspicions.

The anonymous tip came in 4 days ago, 11th July 2019, at 4:34AM, and declared that there was a mentally disturbed individual that needed assistance; the caller expressed concern that the resident of a particular flat was at risk of self-injury, and police and paramedics were dispatched.

On arrival there was no answer, despite lights being visible in the flat. The door was breached, and a search of the premises conducted. When it became apparent that no-one was present and no lives were at risk, the paramedics were dismissed, the police were stood down, and the Missing Persons unit was brought in.

Initial investigations show that the “Detective” has gathered a total of sixty-eight (68) interviews, however not all of these recordings seem to be relevant to whatever she was looking into. A lot of investigative work seems to have gone into whatever Nemed was looking into, with the walls covered in newspaper clippings, as well as various historical records spanning the last 200 years or so. Nemed seems to have found links between a great many of these events, although what that link is will need more investigation.

One unusual detail is the presence of post-it notes throughout the flat; many of them were labelled as if addressing an outsider, rather than the person who left the post-it notes. For example, one post-it on the door of Nemed’s office stated “In here.” On entering, the most visible post-it on Nemed’s computer read “Start here. Password: Leaseholders.”

It is suspected that the anonymous tip may have been Nemed herself, wanting us to find her work.

On her computer, she had set up a folder marked “For you – first steps.” In it were a series of recorded interviews, complete with written transcripts and personal notes of the interview experience.

Two interview transcripts that were earmarked in this way follow; the rest are logged within the file and follow much the same direction.

Interview 1

“Interview with Dr Solveig Hel- Helgis-”

“Helgisdottir, Detective. Hard “g” sound. It’s Icelandic, I understand your difficulty. Call me Solveig if it’s easier.”

“Thank you, Solveig. Interview begins at 14:35 local time, date 15th March 2019.” There is a pause on the tape, a brief exhalation before I get started. ��Why did you blow up the oil rig?”

“Starting with the big one first? Sure. But you won’t believe me.” The Icelandic voice is soft and faintly amused, the accent sounding so gentle against the backdrop of silence. She didn’t suit the prison uniform she was in at all.

“We’ve got to start somewhere.” My own accent sounds harsh next to hers as I play the tape back, even though I remember being just as calm as she was.

“As you insist.” Did she shrug at this point? I can’t remember if she shrugged or just smiled. And try as I might, even though I know what’s coming, the next words send a chill into my soul.

“The Leviathan told me to.”

The sound of me choking on my coffee is an undignified one that I wish the recorder hadn’t picked up.

“I am a marine biologist, Detective; part of an arctic diving team. We research the impact pollution is having on marine life in the artic. It’s cold, and it’s dangerous, but it’s fascinating. I love my job, and yet seeing what is happening to the world horrifies and saddens me. Emaciated polar bears, whales that choke on the sheer volume of plastic in the fish they feed on, seals and sea lions successfully raising fewer and fewer pups each year… it’s heart-breaking. And the worst part was the oil rig.

“Spillages from offshore oil rigs are inevitable. They occur with regularity but the spills are small enough in volume that they don’t get reported on by mainstream media; media only seems to care if spills are the size of the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, and anything below that is not considered newsworthy.

“They’re newsworthy to me, detective; each and every one. When you’ve cleaned the feathers of as many birds as I have, only to see them drowned in the oil the next week, you get frustrated.”

“Sure, I get that.” I was so confused, I remember. She’s a respected marine biologist, not a terrorist. “But why not join a Greenpeace protest, or write to the company, or governing bodies? Why blow it up?”

“I told you: The Leviathan told me to.”

“Ok, I’ll bite: what’s the Leviathan?”

“Commonly used in the biblical sense, a leviathan is a large sea creature whose size dwarfs that of the larger aquatic species like whales.” You can definitely hear her smiling now; I thought she was making fun of me but listening back, it’s more likely she was stalling, hoping to not have to tell the rest.

“Funny.” I wince; way too acerbic and frustrated, far too soon. I should know better. “I know what it means, what I want to know is: is the Leviathan a new terrorist group? An offshoot of an existing one, perhaps? What incited you to an act of terrorism?”

Now it’s her turn to sigh, and there’s an almost imperceptible creak as she leans forward in her chair.

“It’s not a terrorist group, or an extremist offshoot. You won’t believe me, but I’ll try anyway. If I tell enough people, someone will believe me eventually.”

Again the chills, but this time it’s because I know what’s coming. This isn’t the first time I’ve played this back.

“I was diving again; one of the team had spotted something on her dive that looked like an oarfish, but here in the arctic we’re far too cold for them. But she was out of diving time so I went in to have a look and see if it was definitely an oarfish, or something else she’d mistaken for one.”

“What did you think it could have been?”

“Something long and snake-like? Potentially the tentacles of a giant or colossal squid – I was a little excited, they are very elusive and I’d not seen one in the wild before. And if there are giant squid in the area, there are probably sperm whales nearby as well. So down I went.

“I had my light, and my torch, and my camera – the local police confiscated the footage, but I can give you the name of a colleague who has a copy so you can watch it for yourself – and I kept a careful eye on how deep I was going. The decompression chamber is not a fun place to be.”

She pauses.

“May I have a drink? Coffee if possible, or tea? Just not water.”

The tape recorder picks up the scrape of my chair, the distant sound of me opening the interview room door, and barely captures the sound of me requesting a hot drink.

And then the background noise stops, and the whispering starts.

It’s her voice, and it sounds like she’s pressed right up against the tape recorder. I know she isn’t; I remember opening the door, asking for the drink, turning around, and she hadn’t moved from her position at the table.

But the tape recorder is now spewing out whispers that flat-out didn’t happen in the interview, words that spill out with such a sense of urgency there’s no pause for breath.

The first time I listened to the tape I thought I’d recorded over the interview somehow, and by the time I realised what I was hearing and started scrambling to find a pen and paper for transcribing, the whispering had ended. This time I’m ready. The second recorder is running, my pen scribbling furiously to keep up where I can.

As suddenly as it starts, it’s over, and that tell-tale background white noise starts back up as the sound of my chair scraping cuts back in. In that room, no more than 10 seconds passed from me getting up, to sitting back down.

“I forgot to ask how you take your coffee.”

“Black will do right now. I’m not keen on sleeping.”

“So, this Leviathan – did you see it?”

“Yes.”

“What did it look like?”

“Huge.”

The sound of my voice sighing again; when did I get so unprofessional?

“Doctor-“

“I know, Detective. I’m sorry. But English is not my first language, and flights of fantasy are not things I’m familiar with. I’m trying.”

She sounds like a teacher, with her gentle tone and unspoken urge to stop disappointing her. The echoes of the shame I felt then hit me again as I listen. She takes a breath, and tries again.

“I saw the tendrils first, and yes, they looked like the tails of an oarfish. Then there were other tendrils, more like a squid’s tentacles, but there were far too big for giant or even colossal squid. I didn’t know what I was looking at, so all I could do was try to get closer, even though doing so would take me deeper. I risked the depth, and then I saw it, and it was looking back at me, too. So many eyes, lit up in the dark, all pointed at me.

“When I say it was huge, the word doesn’t capture it. It was vast. It was so big it should not, by rights, have fit into our ocean. We should have seen this thing before now, but here it was, in front of me.

“The tendrils I’d seen all led back to what I assume was a mouth of some kind; they lined it like a catfish’s whiskers. The rest of the body was like that of a great whale, perhaps a sperm whale as it had teeth and not baleen plates – each tooth was easily as big as me - and it seemed armoured in some way, but I couldn’t see properly; the light I had didn’t pierce the gloom well enough to see it in full. It was so dark down there I thought I’d gone too far and would never make it back up to the surface.

“It’s tendrils started to glow, and then it spoke. Not with its mouth, almost directly into my mind; it felt like whale song in my chest and behind my eyes, my whole body was shaking with how loud it was.”

The pause is mercifully interrupted by the arrival of the doctor’s coffee, and I take the moment to gather myself.

“So, you dived in search of a giant squid, potentially diving too deep, and thought you saw a monster from the bible, is that right?”

“If that’s the spin you’d like to put on it.” Her answer is cold at my suggestion that she hallucinated the whole thing.

“Ok, and what did it say?”

“It said the world is not our home, it’s our host, and that we need to clean the world up. It said we’re dooming ourselves, not earth, if we don’t do better. It said they all care about us-“

“Wait a minute, ‘they all?’ There’s more?”

“Detective, please do not interrupt. Yes, it said ‘they,’ but I only saw one creature that day, and I never saw it again. Perhaps the list of other people you’ll be speaking to will be able to provide more answers?”

“How did you know I’d be speaking to others?”

This time, the smile in her voice is so blatant she may as well be laughing at me.

“It told me you would.”

#fen's originals #fen writes stuff #fen writes stories #commission work #writeblr #writing

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sinking-sank-surfaced · 6 years ago

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Then Teeth. Then… Silence.

It was not truly quiet, Jaull-fish made disgusting gurgling noises and the sapphilite sacks sloshed around as the beast made its run, but after days of waves hitting the hull of the ship and loud men yelling, singing and laughing, the fact that all he heard were those noises was… silence enough.

That, and it was almost completely dark. The only thing that allowed him to somewhat see was the sapphilite, its dull, blue light softly illuminating the Jaull’s gullet.

And that’s where Pyke found himself in.

Harpoon stuck on the fish’s throat, just far away enough from its fangs that he walked around somewhat freely, if uncomfortably. The light hummed softly, making the ghostly white razors people dared to call ‘teeth’ not unlike pillars of some unholy religion. Bah. The harpooner sat down, making himself comfortable on the maw of the fish, or as comfortable as was possible, knowing he’d be dead soon enough.

And he didn’t even have rum with him. Woe was he.

He spat in disgust, and simply sat there, knowing there was nothing to do. Murdering the Colossus was an idea. But what was the point in making such an incredible feat that none would hear of? 'sides, those sacks were worth more than the creature’s weight tenfold. To let such a treasure go to waste at the bottom of the sea… it made him sick in the stomach.

He felt it slowly leaning down, going deeper into the ocean, probably. Whatever happened to the ship he was in, he wondered? And shrugged. It wouldn’t be his problem soon enough. Already wasn’t. And deeper the beast went.

Pyke’s breathing started to get heavy. Time passed. How long? He didn’t know. He did, however, play around a little… experimenting before his death. What was the taste of sapphilite? Absolute rotten garbage and oilier than a fresh whale. What was a Jaull-fish’s taste? Raw fish meat. He’d be dead sooner rather than later anyway… at least he wouldn’t get sick from this.

More time passed. He carved into one of many of the beast’s teeth a message. 'Pyke Almost Killed This Monster Single-handedly, Before Fate Betrayed Him!’ It was a good message. Whoever harvested this demon would know they were not the first to try their hand at it. Well, they still would be the first to succeed…

Time. He took a nap.

Time.

How deep was the ocean? He could feel that it was going deeper, swimming. He still heard noises rumbling from the depths of the beast. Surely it was alive? How would he be breathing otherwise?

Time.

Pyke considered taking the easy way out. The Harpoon’s edges were still sharp. One quick cut and…

He decided to wait things out.

Time…

He ate again and slept.

Time.

No idea how long had passed. The pressure was getting to him now, though. If he knew anything about the sea and a Jaull-fish, and he knew a lot about both, the pressure should’ve squashed him like a bug under a boot by now. But like a cruel joke by destiny, he still clung onto life.

Finally, the beast’s maw snapped open. Sweet, sweet relief. He was spat out as water filled the creature, probably trying to hunt prey. Thankfully, its colossal jaw was so large he easily swam out without getting his clothes snagged on its terrifying fangs, still confused as to why the monster would simply… open up. Probably a harpoon on its gullet. That oughta make you cringe. Maybe it was yellin’.

As the colossus disappeared behind him, swimming to only Bouros knows where, he found himself in a dark, dark place. What he could only assume was the sun, if not some Angler-sharks trying to attract their next meal, was nothing but a shimmering dot a long way up.

How was he alive in depths so oppressingly impossible such as this? He could feel his lungs pleading for air already. And as he felt himself fading… he saw a light. Deep down, a soft blue hum just as the very oil of the Jaull, but dimmed even more so. And more of them started to pop up. Like a school of fish, they came rushing out of nowhere to litter the bottom of the sea, yelling, screaming in tongues that he only understood because… because….? “Breathe!”

And amidst all those voices, one loomed louder. The voice of a woman. Stern, but motherly. Sweet, but harsh. Resonating on his head. “Swim.”

Illaoi. The Serpent Mother. Guiding Kraken. Nagakabouros. The one that gave him his life… that preached for him to always seek further adventure, to be relentless, to swim, or sink. All he had done for Bilgewater, for his crews, the beasts he slew and the captains who were reduced to beggars to hire him for his feats… he was now dying 'cuz of 'em. His lungs reaching bursting point. He couldn’t hold it in any longer…

He opened his mouth, and sank, hearing the sound of a million voices cheering, and one impossibly loud yell of pure rage. The voices yelled louder, and louder, and louder.

Then silence.

He opened his eyes.

He saw the bottom of the sea mere inches from his face. He could tell this was the end. Of… something. The sea, maybe. He stuck his hand out to reach it.

Cracking sounds.

A tentacle grasped at him.

Dark– no, not darkness, blinding colors! Pyke yelled, water escaping his lungs as he saw the Leviathan that pulled him under the… bottom of the ocean?

The surface he saw was flat, sandy, and covered in rocks and the usual sea critters; barnacles, crabs and shrimps. A few worms. Horrible looking ones, sure, but… that had to be it. The bottom of the bin. Why was there a leviathan under there? Why was the sand so thin Pyke could easily slip through it? And worse.. oh, so terrifyingly worse.

Why were there buildings under there?

Not sunken vessels rigged to house people, as those from the Isles made did, no. Massive structures of stone Bilgewater had never seen the likes of, twisting and turning in impossible and impractical ways, with abyssal fishes so large that the streets had to be the size of islands. When Pyke tried to look up, he couldn’t see the sand he came through… and neither anything under the city, as it slowly drifted past them, revealing more and more of its impossible size. There was a disturbing lack of direction, as fishes swam upside down, the blue lights navigating with and past monsters that would drive a biologist insane.

And the music! The colors! He could only describe them as green and blue. But they were so much more. Vibrant, alive, glowing, warm, unlike any lake, river or bog. Not even the vast ocean in her might could hope to abridge such visual splendor. The music made him want to swim, swim deeper… up? Or was it the left? There was no point of direction. There didn’t even seem to be gravity pulling him up or down. There was water. And there was the city.

“Sink.” The leviathan spoke in a solemn hum which would only sound like a gurgle to anyone who wasn’t… well, who wasn’t Pyke. It snapped him out of his stunned gaze, as he turned his attention to the squid-like being.

“Drowned one. Find your purpose. For you. For us.”

It gurgled, before swimming away.

He did as he was told. What else was there to do? The music softened him. The beasts he gladly slaughtered greeted him as he floated down… up… somewhere. The blue lights hummed in Noxian, Ionian, Shuriman, Demacian… Bilgie. And he understood them all. It was surprising. But he started to get used to it. There were just… too many… everything down there. Like a whole world existed just under the sails he worked with.

And sink he did. Past the dark green rocks that made up the streets, through gaps the size of ships, still too small for any of the solemn deep monsters to pass through.

Past the Swimming city.

Past anything.

Past everything.

To the bottom of another world, where the green lights were as dim as the sun he last saw, where no blue lights wandered. And there he saw it. Or, he’s pretty sure he saw it.

A ship. A lifeline still tied to it. A massive hole was torn at its side. Skeletons. He swam closer, looking for the ship’s name…

Terror.

Rusty, but the letters were still clear as day. The ship he last boarded. And he remembered the bodies that littered it. The one-handed spotter. That short skeleton… he knew those people. He swam inside, looking for one in specific. He knew who cut the line. The captain himself. And he didn’t find his body, although he did find more Golden Krakens and Serpents than even Gangplank would be able to count with his whole crew. Not that it mattered much to him… not anymore. But his blood was boiling. He was promised three krakens. There were enough inside that room to pay for all debts in Bilgewater at least twice through. He was getting scammed. He WAS set up!

His rage was quickly dulled by what he found stuck to the Captian’s chair, a terrifyingly sharp bone blade stuck to it holding.. something in place. The ship’s manifest. How much it cost, size, properties… crew members. He saw their names. Most of them crossed with red ink, but there were quite a few simply written down. Alive ones, he presumed. Some of the names, he couldn’t say he recognized. Gilbert? Kizra? Logan? They must’ve been cooks or just deckhands. No one he’d have known. But he remembered how… how many faces there were. Staring at him as the captain cut the line. So many… and

none stopped him.

He grabbed the blade and looked at the Manifest again.

More names. Some already crossed.

… did… did he read it right the first time? He paid no mind to it. Was too busy putting it on his belt. Found the bones of a creature down there too. Rope. Rum. He tried drinking it, but it was hard to swallow when you already were full to the brim with water. Threw the bottle away… or well, let it float up. Tied the maws of the beast that was on the cargo around his shoulders, knowing he was the only harpooner on the ship. The only one they needed… and that the body was made with his own hook. A reminder of the past. The man they killed. His last kill as a living man.

As he swam up, away from where nothing seemed to be truly there, he stumbled once again on the drifting city, millions of dots coming up to him. They were the size of crab eggs, but with so many of them, how could one not see the wall that formed? Shining in azure hues, demanding Pyke to follow through with his thirst. Vengeance. Blood.

“Cut their lines! Cut their necks! Slice the bastards until there’s nothing left!”

Hundreds of tongues yelled, and what could the unlucky mariner do other than listen to it? Even the leviathans joined the chorus, their gurgles filling the odd city and even drowning the oddly peaceful music. “

Slash'em! Kill them! Drive hooks through their mouths! Drag them to the ocean! Make them suffer!”

He would not say no to them. The voices cheered as Pyke swam up, up towards another world, where most of the little lights came from. Drowned ones, as he came to know them. However, as he passed the threshold of one reality into the next one… the voices didn’t stop. They kept yelling. Even as he swam past Angler-Sharks, Mawlers, and Glubbers, the voices continued. Asking for murder. Vengeance. Terror betrayed him. Terror.

His captain betrayed him. The crew did nothin’. Terrified. Maybe they were paid to do nothin’. Greedy captain had enough to pay him a fair share and tossed what would be considered pocket change to that bastard. He was set up. He wasn’t gonna let it slide... not when he had a second chance.

He surfaced somewhere near the Slaughter Docks, watching the last warehouses start to close their doors and lock up.

He looked at the sky. Bright night. Few houses were missing, some were built on top of others. Quite a bit of time had passed… no matter. Couldn’t be more than a few weeks. Bilgie was weird like that.

He swam ashore and slowly walked up to a man closing his stall. Dark hair. Had a yellow jacket. Scruffy Beard. Smokin’ a pipe.

“… you a captain’?”

Pyke approached the man slowly, delighting himself in the scream of surprise from the man.

“N-no?”

“What’s your name.”

He didn’t remember the name anymore, but it was on the Manifest. Captain, clear as day. Bastard lied to him.

Name was still crossed to this day.

Maybe he killed too many men. Wasn’t a ship big enough out there to fit the hands he cut. Maybe a ship didn’t have fifteen captains. But the voices told him of revenge. Of his purpose. And Pyke loooooved listening to them cheer as he left the poor buggers to drown, in their own blood or the sea.

He knew that most of these deaths weren’t from the Terror no more. He was gettin’ someone else’s revenge.

Didn’t matter. Life wasn’t fair. He wasn’t alive no more. Butcher’s bill came due and he would make sure someone would pay. Besides… he had 'em all written down on the manifest. Clear as day who he killed. No death was a mistake. Bastards had it comin’, one way or the other.

#!!!#there it is #hope someone enjoys it

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omenvs3000w22 · 3 years ago

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Blog Post 8 - A Deeper Dive than Usual

My long internal reflection on this week’s blog prompt led me to the conclusion that I do not know as much about nature as I previously thought. It was almost humorous how much I struggled to think of something I know. However, something in nature that I have always found to be interesting is the deep-sea. The bizarre life that exists in the absence of light and ocean currents is fascinating and often awe-inspiring. Perhaps what draws me the most to the abysmal depths is how little humanity knows and understands about it. Despite the oceans covering the vast majority of the planet’s surface, about 80% of our waters are unexplored (NOAA, 2021). That statistic becomes even more pronounced when considering the cold and unforgiving depths that humans cannot reach without special equipment to protect from the immense pressure (NOAA, 2021). It is in these bleak and gloomy bowels where the most alien life persists, away from the influence of human society (for the most part).

(Hall, 2018)

In the “twilight zone” and below, light does not reach the waters, leaving the aquatic life entangled in endless darkness. Swimming further down yields the same dark results for thousands of kilometres, it only gets colder, darker, and more pressurized (Hall, 2018). So how can anything live here? One of the many fascinating adaptations animals may have is bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the organic production of light, and it can be extremely colourful and come in mind-boggling patterns. Seeing pictures of a profoundly colourful sea jelly or sea cucumber with strings of light emanating off it is almost a hallmark of the deep-sea. This light production may be used for luring prey, distracting predators, or signalling (Hall, 2018).

(Hall, 2018)

Of course, such inhospitable conditions do not lead to food being readily available and it is because of the environment that lots of deep-sea creatures scavenge for food (Hall, 2018). An exception to this food scarcity is the rare whale fall, an event when a literal dead whale falls to the ocean floor. The result of this cyclical event is a feeding frenzy that involves all types of consumers. The complete consumption of the whale will take months and involve opportunists that can smell the rotting flesh from afar and slow-moving bone eaters (Hall, 2018). Contrary to what you may be thinking, life of all sizes is able to live at these depths. Large animals such as frilled sharks, goblin sharks, colossal squids, and small creatures like crabs and brittle stars partake in different stages of the feast (Hall, 2018). Imagining a large affair where all types of animals viscerally devour a whale in stark contrast to the usually quiet deep-sea is one of the reasons why I find the environment so riveting.

There is so much more to be said when discussing the watery abyss. It is easy to see how deep-sea creatures may have inspired so many mediums of art. It truly represents an untapped source of knowledge, and it can drum up emotions of fear and uncertainty. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), unless you are James Cameron you won’t be able to experience it first-hand.

References

Hall, D. (2018, April). The deep sea. Smithsonian Institution. https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/deep-sea/deep-sea

NOAA. (2021, February 26). How much of the ocean have we explored?. National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/exploration.html

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nerdolopedia-blog · 6 years ago

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Worldbuilding Magazine: Mapping Aurora - An RPG Case Study

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTED BY

Volume 2 / Issue 5 : Cartography & Navigation- Visit their site to read the full issue

Mapping Aurora: An RPG Case Study

by Cathy, the Overprepared GM

When I built my world, I started smallish, fleshing out a single culture and lavishing attention on the national map. I took the time to get the scale right, establishing a travel time of ten days as a constraint first. With that number decided, I mixed in my desired historical influences, extrapolated the physical geography, determined the population distribution, and finally set the political boundaries.

I also created smaller maps for specific adventures. The city map for the capital helped the players hunt down a missing nobleman in the campaign kick off session. The hill fort map allowed the players to investigate the mystery at the heart of the first major adventure. The blueprints for the ominous keep organized the dungeon crawl in the heart of the fens. After I had fleshed out all the low-level cartography, I moved outward, firming up the neighboring nations so that they could explore more advanced stories involving international travel, exploration, and politics.

It was easy to figure out what maps to create and what to put on each of them, because traditional maps are such a well-explored space in terms of information design. If my players are traveling or discussing things on the national level, I can just open any atlas and see that the big national maps have national and district boundaries, settlements, natural features, roads, and other points of interest. If my players are adventuring in a settlement, I can look at city maps to see that they have elements like important buildings, streets, districts, and waterways. If they need to see how a building of any size is laid out, I know that it needs to be organized by floor and depict rooms, walls, hallways, doors, and major furniture.

Regardless of scale, maps always serve a few broad functions:

Navigation. They show points of interest as well as navigational routes so that players can plan where they’re going and how they’ll get there. Depending on the scale, the routes and points of interest may be anything from wormholes and planets to hallways and rooms.

Reference. They act as a reference for important locations that the player needs to remember. By displaying it visually, a good map can indicate relationships, improve memory, and give details about what each element is. For example, cities, mountains, rivers, forests, monuments, etc. all have established conventions for how to show them.

Atmosphere. A good map also evokes a clear sense of place. For example, a player will have a sense for terrain when they see that their path takes them through a mountain ridge. They may have to hike through a tumbled set of foothills, scale an inaccessible and ice-capped top of the world, or traverse an unexplored jungle menaced with active volcanoes. Perhaps the players only have to tread a well-traveled trade road with inns and villages along the way. The map helps the group feel immersed in the world and roleplay better. They can look at it and make their own choices about which path to take and what preparation they need to make before setting off. Players can anticipate the types of challenges they’ll encounter and the amount of time it will take. Maps also help me stay consistent with how I present the world to the players.

As long as I only needed to chart a world with geography similar to ours, the cartography remained straightforward. It wasn’t trivial, mind you, but the challenge was in doing it well, not in figuring out how cartography works from first principles. However, my campaign planning for later levels had them traveling beyond their home plane. I needed maps for higher level adventures that filled these same roles in navigation, reference, and atmosphere that blueprints and national atlases had in lower levels.

This expansion into the multiverse challenged my cartographic skills. I wanted the planes to truly feel different from each other, with locations in each world that simply couldn’t exist in the others. But that meant I was creating some really bizarre planes. I needed to start from those fundamental principles of design and figure out how to apply them to new circumstances.

Fluidity

The first issue I wrestled with was the fundamental nature of Aurora, a plane dominated by the goddess of spring, youth, the arts, and inspiration. Since birds were sacred to her, I decided to make it a plane of air with flying denizens. I imagined floating islands with localized gravity whose buildings and streets encircled giant boulders. The roots and branches of epiphyte trees gnarled together to form giant, floating cloud forests. Migratory flocks of alien creatures shaped like blimps and squids and jellyfish traveled long circuits between the cloud forests. In between areas of no or light gravity were sinks of higher gravity, pulling in accumulations of detritus over time. Technological cultures harnessed kinetic energy by using things comparable to waterwheels or windmills. Native species all fly, float, or cling with ease, and even human visitors could float clumsily from place to place. And winding through it all were the jet streams, unceasing wind that would push everything in regular paths. Travel from place to place within Aurora would involve both moving within a jetstream and hopping from one stream to another.

For my players to travel through the fluid space of Aurora, they would need a useful map. I ran into an immediate problem while planning: I wasn’t sure how to draw locations that changed relative to each other. National boundaries didn’t make as much sense in a place where everything moves. How could I depict the political organization of people without political boundaries? I started by trying to find real-world analogs of maps that dealt with air currents and then started thinking about other fluids, hoping to get new ideas.

I found one common approach that I called the colored, vector-lines approach, such as this picture of the Jet stream or this one of ocean currents. It shows location, direction, temperature, and strength of the currents by using colors and arrows. The visual worked and it’s an established approach (so I’d have lots of examples to learn from), but I think I prefer this image created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which uses what I termed the flat-ribbon style. This approach shows location, direction, and temperature, and the simplification makes the overall flow much easier to grasp.

As much as I love JPL’s approach, it still was not quite what I needed. As with all graphics of currents, this one focuses on showing the currents with respect to the landforms around them. This indication is crucial on Earth because that’s how we establish context for location. And location is why we use maps. However, I was trying to depict a world that has no landforms, so I needed to remember that JPL design and keep looking for ideas.

My search lead me to gas giants projections, like this flattened one of Jupiter, which is comparable to a mercator projection of Earth. Unlike with Earth however, it shows that the structure of Jupiter is composed of bands of currents. Jupiter’s winds aren’t influenced by landforms, so their structure is formed by the spherical shape of the planet, the force of gravity, and the Coriolis effect. That made sense to me as a way to envision Aurora. I could see it as a world with disjunct air currents that have rough, turbulence between them. Technologically savvy cultures could set up windmills along the borders, utilizing the constant relative wind as a source of unending energy. I could show each band as a self-contained linear graphic. Political boundaries would take place naturally within bands, but some empires might colonize into nearby bands the way Earth empires have had colonies in different continents.

Seeing the Eye of Jupiter also gave me the idea to put similar giant storms in Aurora. They would form an almost impassable obstacle in a band. The truly colossal ones might push the turbulent boundary outward, compressing everything nearby so that the currents would flow fast and narrow for many layers of neighboring regions.

The bands would travel at different velocities, so if I wanted to set specific speeds for each one, I could figure out the interval between the alignment of each pair. As a GM though, I probably wouldn’t do it. If they needed to go from a place on one band to a place in another band, I would just decide on the spot how long it takes for those locations to line up again, based on where I want the story to go.

With those decisions made, I had an approach for drawing a map (disjunct, flat bands of different lengths that connected east-west) and the list of elements for which I needed iconography:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Cloud forests

Boulders (including those with settlements)

Free-floating settlements

Gravity-induced collection spots (and a way to indicate strength.)

Then it occurred to me that, in a plane of air, points of interest could float at different altitudes. In fact, entire bands could overlap, flowing at different heights and winding among each other like individual noodles in a bowl of spaghetti. And that’s the next complicating factor.

Overlapping Altitudes

The more I considered the problem of depth and altitude, the more I realized I was going to have to deal with it in a number of situations. Normally maps are projections. They take the surface area of a three-dimensional object and spread it flat so you see the entire surface at once, even if you stretch or squish parts of the surface or make cuts to spread it out. Imagine the surface of Earth being a skin, and we just take it off the world and lay it flat, taking the surface of the sphere and spreading it onto a flat planar area. In a typical map projection, we ignore anything above or below that skin.

However, with Aurora I was looking at a situation where I really needed all three dimensions. On any given latitude and longitude, there might be a handful of different points of interest at different altitudes. In a typical world, they’d be above the "skin", and I would ignore them. For Aurora, there was no skin. There were just the immense overlapping air currents piled on top of each other and winding like a nest of serpents. If I flattened it like a typical projection, points of interest would overlap, turning the map into a confusing mess.

So I tried to think of other situations where people dealt with three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional way and ended up finding a lot of different approaches. Some of the more useful image types were blueprints, engineering drawings, subway lines, cutaway views, and exploded view images. Jet stream diagrams helped me understand the height issue as well, because what’s going on in the upper atmosphere isn’t always the same as what’s on the ground.

I got lost down the rabbit hole looking at various images, but eventually I extracted some overarching principles. As far as I could see, people take a few useful approaches when trying to depict three dimensions onto a flat drawing.

First, if there isn’t too much overlapping, draw it like a two-dimensional map, but use color, shadow, or iconography to indicate depth (for example, the Jet Stream example or this graphic of the Norwegian Current). I think this approach works best if depth is the most important thing depicted, and the rest of the information can be simplified. Otherwise, the depth/altitude information becomes hard to notice. If Aurora didn’t have many types of natural geography or had only one or two great currents winding their way through a static airscape, that might work, but I envisioned something a lot more dynamic. So, reluctantly, I let this idea go.

Second, depict it as a 3-D cutaway drawing, such as this drawing of a nuclear reactor or this one of skin. I think if the map were narrow enough that each longitudinal point only had space to fit a couple points of interest, then this would work. Drawing it well would take some serious skills and time on task, which I wasn’t sure I could devote, so I put the idea in my pocket and moved on.

Third, divide altitude into discrete layers and deal with them separately. That’s what blueprints do, such as this one of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, where each story is self-contained. If I divided the currents into layers of different altitudes, I could do a similar treatment for Aurora. The drawback is that sometimes it’s a little tough to see how the layers overlap, a problem I could ameliorate by drawing or printing out the different layers in transparency film. Then, I could look at each layer independently or stack them on top of each other as needed to see how one would line up with another if the player wanted to travel between layers.

The Multiverse

I had a plan for drawing my planes, but then I ran into another problem: how to depict the overall multiverse itself. When my players travel from one plane to the next, they would need to be able to plan their routes. They would need the interplanar equivalent of a roadmap. For a single world, I have a very good idea of how travel works because I do it all the time. I understand what information is useful to have on a map for someone going from place to place. I wasn't sure exactly what would be best for interplanar travel, however. So again, I started with a bit of research, Googling terms like “multiverse map” and “map of the planes” and looking at images those searches brought up.

Most multiverse graphics focused on acting as a cosmological reference—using design to show what planes exist and, if possible, how they’re related to each other. They seemed to be less like geographic maps and more like Venn or network diagrams. This approach seemed useful as a reference and to establish atmosphere, but it seemed fairly useless for navigation. Of course, I couldn’t resist creating a cosmological reference graphic anyway, though I wasn’t sure it would really help my players if they wanted to really understand how to travel around the planes.

Then I started combing through my information design books and websites to see if some other, non-map design might have been applicable. I looked through a cornucopia of graphs, charts, tables, layouts, and designs too specialized to have gotten an official name, but in doing so, I realized I needed to figure out the details of how interplanar travel worked before I tried to conceptualize an information design for it.

Interplanar Travel

After some deep thought, I decided to split interplanar travel into three categories.

Poofing: I call the first category of interplanar travel the poof method, because they go “poof”, just like that. Feel free to refer to this by a more dignified name. Using the poof method, the characters can instantly travel from an arbitrary location in one plane to a location of their choosing in a different plane. I mean, they may experience some time passing, but for all intents and purposes, they just magically teleport. Examples of the poof method include using the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, the Tardis from Doctor Who, or the Gate spell in D&D. If interplanar travel depends on poofing from place to place, then the players only need to have maps of the individual planes and some sort of cosmological reference. They don’t need any sort of map analog to traverse the multiverse.

Portals: Using portals, there are specific places in each world that are connected to specific places in other worlds. They may be called conjunctions, coterminous planes, wormholes, doorways, gates, or some other term. For cartographic purposes, they’re all the same. These portals are part of the plane’s geography. If the portal is open or active, then travel through it is very much like teleporting with the poof method. The key difference is that players need a visual depiction of how the portals connect to each other to help them navigate. In particular, they need to be able to tell where the portals are in their plane of origin and where they connect to in their destination plane. I think flight maps, similar to what airlines have, serve as the best analog in designing a useful atlas for navigation with portals. They show all their flights as curved lines overlaying a world map. The difference is that in a multiverse with portal travel, we’d need lines to connect points on disjunct world maps.

Subspace: In this scenario, characters travel by going into portals, but travel through the portal is not instantaneous. Instead, they enter a different place (I’m calling it subspace) that must itself be navigated in order to arrive at their destination. Subspace can have very different physical rules than the other planes, but all planes are connected to it somehow. Examples might be the Spire from Planescape or the Ena from Andrea Host’s Touchstone series or the Never Never from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Mechanically, this is a special case of portals where the connections all go in and out of a single world. However designing a navigational aid for subspace is a different design problem than doing so for a set of portals. Since everything goes through one area, and that area is not itself a destination, then it’s more useful to use a subway map as an analogy. Players will need a good reference of possible portal stations that connect the other planes to the subspace and enough geographic info of the subspace to navigate from portal to portal. They won’t need a full atlas of the subspace, but have to understand enough to choose routes. Now, subway maps are problematic because they heavily simplify the design. This makes it easier to read,but the increased legibility comes at a cost of geographic realism. Since subway riders only need to know which stops to use, distance and direction can be distorted far more than in regular maps. It’s a design approach that many people will be familiar with, but requires judicious handling.

After some contemplation, I decided to use the subspace approach to interplanar travel. Players enter a separate subspace, Aeon, and have to navigate around that before exiting to a new plane. It can also act as a way to take shortcuts if they’re clever, connecting two places that are distant from each other by a shorter path in Aeon.

Bringing that back to Aurora, that meant that in addition to adding portal locations to the map of Pandora (the original world my characters started in) and Aurora (the plane of air), I would have to create a separate map showing Aeon. It would initially focus on the portals and land between them. I could add lines connecting portals within Aeon to those on other planes. Eventually, if the stations and lines filled enough of the space, it might make sense to make a full Aeon atlas, but it’s more likely that we’d finish the campaign before we got that far.

The Takeaway

You may or may not want to use Aurora. However, if you decide to chart your own multiverse, here are some common lessons to keep in mind.

Cartography and Information Design are fascinating fields developed by smart folks. If you’re creating something new, it’s useful to look around and see what other people have created to deal with similar constraints. Take the time to nail down what you’re trying to show before you try to design for it.

The Purpose of Maps in RPGs can be boiled down to:

Navigation: helping players understand how to get from place to place.

Reference: because looking up all the places and how they relate to each other is easier with a picture than a list.

Atmosphere: to associate qualities or characteristics to places.

Airscape Icons can mostly be the same as iconography from more traditional atlases. Floating cities are still cities, after all, though some features require new icons:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Epiphyte forests

Areas of heavy or differing gravity

Relative wind speed or cycle length (the time it takes a current to make a full cycle through its path)

Vacuum or pressure difference

Fluid planes are ones where the points of interest move in relation to each other. One approach might be to envision them either as jet streams or currents moving among stable points. Another might be to visualize them acting like gas giants with the entire airscape banded by currents moving at different velocities and separated by a turbulent transition. In either case, it’s useful to draw one map that shows all the bands and how they relate to each other physically. Then, draw each band separately as its own graphic (the same way we label cities on a world map) and create separate city maps. Fluid planes may be dominated by air, gas, or water.

Planes with altitude are those where different natural geographies may exist at each two-dimensional point. If there is little overlap, it may be possible to draw this as a more traditional, two-dimensional map and just indicate depth or altitude by color, line, or iconography. If there is a lot of overlap, then this traditional 2-D style is not practical. Instead, the most workable design organizes the world into layers at different depths. For a water world, those layers may include a surface layer, photic zone, and aphotic zone. An arboreal world may include layers like the canopy, understory, surface, and root zones, while an underground world’s layers may simply serve as depth indicators.

Cosmological charts are a useful reference to know what planes exist and how they relate to each other thematically, but they generally do little to help players navigate.

Portal maps show how different planes connect to each other through portals. They are similar to flight maps in the real world. If interplanar travel always goes through a special space that is not a destination of itself, then it may be practical to create something like a simplified subway map to help players navigate between worlds.

Worldbuilding Magazine is a bi-monthly publication which covers a variety of worldbuilding topics. You can visit their website and read full issues here. Make sure to join their Discord or follow them on twitter for the latest news or to talk with the team that creates it. Nerdolopedia is a proud partner of Worldbuilding Magazine.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Monster Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Monsters

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Every season is monster season in our hearts. But this March is a particularly good time to celebrate our enormous, scaly, and/or hairy friends. In the film world, the long-awaited Godzilla v. Kong arrives on March 31. Meanwhile on television, the final season of behemoth anime Attack on Titan is in the midst of its final season right now. Given that many of us are already primed for bracketology in March, we decided to create a bracket of our 32 favorite monsters for you, the monster-lover, to vote on.

In honor of Godzilla, Kong, and Attack on Titan’s many titans, we’re electing only to include kaiju-style monsters on this bracket. All of these monsters must A. be their own distinct individual (not a species like “cave trolls” or “aliens”) and B. be able to knock down a building (or at least cause catastrophic structural damage). That’s why you won’t see any Universal-style monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, et. al) on our list.

If you’re unfamiliar with how a bracket works, never fear – each round we will present monster matchups one-by-one for you to vote on via our Twitter and within this post. The rules here are simple: peruse our list of 16 matchups and vote for your favorite monster. And whether “favorite” means “which monster would win in a fight” or “which monster I like the most” is up to you.

You can vote over at Den of Geek‘s Twitter or within this post.

Whichever monster receives the most votes will advance to the next round to face another victorious monster. This will lead to five total rounds with round 1 featuring 32 monsters, round 2 having 16, round 3 having 8, round 4 having 4, and round 5 having 2. The full voting schedule will be as follows:

Round 1 (32 monsters) – Voting Opens March 15 (Closes March 16 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 2 (16 monsters) – Voting Opens March 18 (Closes March 19 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 3 (8 monsters) – Voting Opens March 22 (Closes March 23 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 4 (4 monsters) – Voting Opens March 25 (Closes March 26 at 12 p.m. ET)

Round 5 (2 monsters) – Voting Opens March 29 (Closes March 30 at 12 p.m. ET)

Results – March 31

With the monster rules and arena set, let’s get into the round 1 matchups!

Godzilla Region

1. Godzilla vs. 8. The Blob

You know that saying “if you come at the king, you best not miss?” Well in this monster bracket, Godzilla is the king. The big lizard is the iconic kaiju, having appeared in over 30 films and countless other bits of media. Who dares challenge his monster supremacy? The Blob. The Blob is…well, a blob. Best of luck!

2. King Ghidorah vs. 7. Destoroyah

Though Godzilla may be the king of monsters, only one kaiju is bold enough to include “King” in its name. That would be King Ghidorah. This three-headed beast first appeared in the fittingly named 1964 film King Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. He’s appeared in multiple eras of Godzilla films as an enemy to Godzilla and Mothra. Opposing Ghidorah is Destoroyah, an unholy combination of crab, insect, and bat.

3. Biollante vs. 6. Colossal Titan (Attack on Titan)

Kaiju movies are happy to turn just about anything into a terrifying monster. Case in point is the plant monster Biollante. Despite its rosy origins, Biollante is a fearsome foe to all. Meanwhile the Colossal Titan can knock down just about any wall put in front of it. He’s not the most dangerous titan in Attack on Titan, but he’s unquestionably the most iconic.

4. Yongary vs. 5. Quetzalcoatl (Q: The Winged Serpent)

Yongary looks quite a bit like Godzilla and that’s by design. The monster was introduced in 1967’s Yongary, Monster from the Deep to rival the success of the iconic monster. Suffice it to say, Yongary did not reach Godzilla heights, but he’s still pretty cool. Its opponent Quetzalcoalt comes from the 1982 film Q: The Winged Serpent. In some ways, Quetzalcoatl is the American answer to Godzilla, drawing from Aztec myth to create a winged beast.

King Kong Region

1. King Kong vs. 8. El Blanco (Tremors)

Only one monster can challenge Godzilla’s claim to the monster throne. And that’s the MONKE. First appearing in the 1933 film bearing his name, King Kong pre-dates Godzilla by 20 years. He comes from a simpler time where monsters could exist naturally and not as a byproduct from man’s vile nuclear experiments. King Kong rules. Trying to take the gorilla down is El Blanco, a notable graboid from the Tremors film series.

2. Mechagodzilla vs. 7. Hedorah

What could possibly take a big nuclear lizard down? The answer is so simple it’s been staring us in the face all along: a ROBOT lizard. Mechagodzilla was first depicted as an alien in the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Since then he’s frequently turned up as a mechanical creation from mankind to keep Godzilla in check. And he does a decent enough job to be considered Godzilla’s archenemy. In this matchup, Mechagodzilla is opposed by Hedorah – who is just a big ol’ pile of toxic sludge.

3. Anguirus vs. 6. The Mind Flayer (Stranger Things)

Anguirus holds the honor of being the first monster to go toe-to-toe with Godzilla in battle. It didn’t go well for the massive Ankylosaurus but that didn’t keep him from becoming a mainstay in the Toho Godzilla movies. Meanwhile, Stranger Things isn’t hurting for notable monsters, with the Demogorgon being the most well-known. It’s only season 4’s The Mind Flayer, however, who has the strength and size to compete in this tournament.

4. Kraken (Clash of the Titans) vs. 5. Clover (Cloverfield)

The Kraken has had quite an impressive pop culture run. Who could forget Davy Jones crying “release the kraken!” in Pirates of the Caribbean? The Clash of the Titans version of this monster (both in the 1981 film and its 2010 remake) is undoubtedly the most fearsome. Opposing the Kraken in this competitive 4-5 matchup is the unnamed monster (oft nicknamed “Clover”) from the 2008 found footage movie Cloverfield. Viewers don’t catch many glimpses of Clover but when they do it’s clear he’s among the biggest and most dangerous monsters in the film canon.

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Mothra Region

1. Mothra vs. 8. King Caesar

Mothra is undoubtedly the most famous monster to come out of Toho’s kaiju films aside from Godzilla himself. As her name implies, Mothra is an enormous flying insect inspired by the “imagos” of silkworms. While many of the monsters in this bracket are destructive and villainous by default, Mothra is actually pretty chill and at times darn near heroic. Furred weirdo King Caesar draws the unenviable task of taking Mothra down.

2. Slattern (Pacific Rim) vs. 7. Pateesa (Star Wars)

Aside from the sprawling Godzilla franchise, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim provides the most potential monster candidates for this list. Given that they’re all confined to one film, however (and make no mistake: there is only one Pacific Rim movie), we’ve opted to choose the most powerful PR kaiju to represent them all. That honor goes to Slattern, the biggest and baddest subterranean monster our heroes encounter. In the other corner is the Rancor (named Pateesa) from Star Wars – Return of the Jedi. Pateesa can be pretty fearsome…as long as there are no gate doors above him.

3. Cthulhu vs. 6. Monster X

H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu is one of the most terrifying monsters in all of literature. In fact, Cthulhu’s appearance is said to be incomprehensible and enough to drive men mad. Well, movies and television have had little issue depicting the Great Old One, with him frequently appearing as a squid monster in everything from 2020’s Underwater to a series of South Park episodes. Lovecraft’s version of Cthulhu would probably be unbeatable, but the film and TV version of him is a fair match. It’s up to Monster X, a skeletal kaiju from 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, to take Cthulhu down.

4. Smaug (The Hobbit) vs. 5. Gwoemul (The Host)

Most of the monsters in this tournament fall a bit short of human intelligence. That is not the case for The Hobbit’s massive dragon Smaug. Smaug is a clever fire drake and possibly the last great dragon in Middle-Earth. He can cause some real destruction, if he can be bothered to leave his treasures unguarded. Meanwhile, Gwoemul is the creature from Bong Joon-ho’s 2006 The Host. It’s also quite smarter than any fish monster has a right to be.

Rodan Region

1. Rodan vs. 8. Demon (Night of the Demon)

When it comes to Monster Madness battles, the ability to fly is never a bad thing. And that’s partially what makes Toho all-star Rodan so effective. Rodan is one of the Godzilla studio’s “big five” alongside Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. That place of honor is well-earned for the irradiated Pteranodon. Rodan has the strength and the skill to go far in this tourney. The eight-seed that will try to stop him is the demon from 1957 British horror film Night of the Demon. Like the Cloverfield monster, this demon is little-scene but still quite powerful.

2. Gamera vs. 7. Zigra

If you want a sleeper monster on this bracket, look no further than Gamera. This giant prehistoric turtle is a mainstay in kaiju movies and is often known as “The Friend of All Children” or “The Guardian of the Universe.” Alongside Mothra, he is one of the very few monsters willing to stick up for the little guy. His competition, Zigra, on the other hand is a total dirtbag. Gamera and Zigra’s matchups go way back to the 1971 film Gamera vs. Zigra. Gamera handled Zigra quite easily then. Can the loveable terrapin succeed again?

3. Megalon vs. 6. Gyaos

Megalon is a mainstay of monster comics who has also enjoyed a couple of film appearances. He’s yet another insectoid-style kaiju but he also brings some awesome drill arms to the table. Opposing Megalon this round will be Gyaos. Gyaos is a bat-like kaiju who first got a shot at monster-stardom in 1967’s Gamera vs. Gyaos. He was treated quite shabbily in that but perhaps he has a shot against this new opponent.

4. Gigan vs. 5. Reptilicus

This bracket already had some alien cyborg representation with Mechagodzilla but you know what they say “you can never have enough alien cyborgs.” Thankfully, Gigan is around. This red-eyed, be-chromed monster first appeared in the 1972 film Godzilla vs. Gigan. He’s since popped up in several more movies to give Godzilla a hard time. The monster that hopes to take Gigan down is Reptilicus, a sea serpent, who hails from a 1961 Danish-American movie bearing his name.

The post Monster Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Monsters appeared first on Den of Geek.

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matchasquids · 8 years ago

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MARCO,CECIL,DONUT,GOYA,ADELA,AILURA,CROW!!!!

god damn

Full Name: Marco AmoreGender and Sexuality: Male and HomosexualPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Latino (specifically Mexico)/Colossal squidBirthplace and Birthdate: Calamari County, January 25thGuilty Pleasures: Sleeping in late, singing along to the song on the record player, dancing when nobodys watchingPhobias: n/aWhat They Would Be Famous For: His writing and reports?What They Would Get Arrested For: Tresspassing, he probably tried sneaking into somewhere to get information for a new story and got caught, thankfully he was only off with a warning.OC You Ship Them With: @rringabel (its u) OC CyrilOC Most Likely To Murder Them: @rringabel‘s Robin........Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Science-fiction, ComedyLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Horror!!! He’d be so jumpy after watching a scary movie he would refuse to go to the bathroom.Talents and/or Powers: Writing (Journalism), he’s quite good at farming as his parents back home own one, Instrument playing (Guitar)Why Someone Might Love Them: How overall passionate and caring he is, he likes to learn about others and takes interested in others work and helps them in anyway he can. Why Someone Might Hate Them: Their cold voice and stoic expressions might piss people off at firstHow They Change: When he moved to Inkopolis he became more independent and quiet due to the change of scenery and it only worsened when his Grandfather passed away. Upon meeting Cyril he begins to open up more and lossens up a bit and tries to taking pleasure in the little things in life.Why You Love Them: B O I H O W D Y He’s only been recently made (and I haven’t even posted him on this blog yet oops) but his overall design and personality is really relatable??

Full Name: Cecil SourieGender and Sexuality: Male/HomosexualPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Filipino/InklingBirthplace and Birthdate: Inkopolis, February 14thGuilty Pleasures: Getting a quad kill/decimating the opposing team, Lying in bed with their significant other for hoursPhobias: Cynophobia (fear of dogs)What They Would Be Famous For: His sniping skills? Also his study in medical sciences, he wants to become a doctor like his dad.What They Would Get Arrested For: Can’t imagine him getting arrested, maybe for causing a public disturbance of sorts?OC You Ship Them With: @rringabel (once again, u!!) OC AloisOC Most Likely To Murder Them: Can’t think of anyone he isn’t problamaticFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Science fiction, Horror, MysteryLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Romcoms, he just doesn’t get how there funny.Talents and/or Powers: Sniping/Turf war, Strategic thinking/planning on the spotWhy Someone Might Love Them: Cecil is very empathetic and tries to be there in the time of need, his overall presence is calming and he is very gentle and caringWhy Someone Might Hate Them: How They Change: After meeting Alois he got a majour confidence boost, he begins to break out of his bubble and become more social and Why You Love Them: My first boy squiddo oh how far he has come!! I’ve grown attached to him over the year and a half time of his existence, he’s changed so much since I first created him and i’m proud of that!!

Full Name: Donut Diana CadburyGender and Sexuality: Female/Homoromantic AsexualPronouns: She/herEthnicity/Species: Latina/French, InklingBirthplace and Birthdate: Inkopolis, March 13thGuilty Pleasures: Reading awfully cheesy romance books, Sleeping in, physical contact with someonePhobias: Astraphobia (Fear of Lightning), Entomophobia (Fear of Bugs) and Trypanophobia (Fear of Needles)What They Would Be Famous For: Their baking, turf wars skillsWhat They Would Get Arrested For: I can’t imagine her getting arrested?? Maybe accidentally taking a cookie and didn’t pay 50 cents idkOC You Ship Them With: @rringabel‘s (thats u) OC Lofty OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Onigiri (yikes)Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Fantasy, Comedy and, depending on how the relationship is portrayed, romance movies.Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: ANYTHING SAD AND SHE’LL BE IN TEARS!!!Talents and/or Powers: Baking, Volleyball, First aid, Sewing, Choreography/dancing and communication skills. Though she only pursues her passion for baking, she still enjoys dancing and playing volleyball.Why Someone Might Love Them: How genuine and kind she is, she puts others before herself and always tries her best to help someone in any way she can.Why Someone Might Hate Them: Her gentleness is often viewed that she’s weak and somewhat of a pushover, also a bit of a goody two shoesHow They Change: They slowly become more Why You Love Them: She’s probably one of my most developed OCs and I love her to bits!! Her colour palette/personality/overall design just fits really well to me and I enjoy talking about her.

Full Name: Goya GaliaGender and Sexuality: Male/BisexualPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Black/Octoling Birthplace and Birthdate: Octo valley, December 1stGuilty Pleasures: Gaming all night, eating a whole jumbo size bag of doritos in one sitting.Phobias: n/aWhat They Would Be Famous For: Gaming? That’s literally all he does he needs to go out more.What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably stealing a nintendo switch or somethingOC You Ship Them With: @rringabel’s (ONCE AGAIN, YOU) Romeo. Also with a warm comfy bed.OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Hmm maybe Camellia cause he failed his team or somethingFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Action, AdventureLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Romance, DramaTalents and/or Powers: Gaming??? He’s also good at hiding stuff like all those dorito bags in a box under his bed so his older sibling wont find them.Why Someone Might Love Them: His overall goofy and chill nature makes it easy to talk to him and be around, he never tries to pry information out of someone and focuses more on making the other feel better.Why Someone Might Hate Them: How gullible and simple minded he seems and how he’s very much a child at heart, he’s very immature.How They Change: They start going out more and socialize and make new friends and takes notice that his emotions are valid and shouldn’t be bottled up.Why You Love Them: He’s such a lil sweetie and is starting to grow on me!! I love the whole Galia family gang (and the backstory behind them)

Full Name: AdelaGender and Sexuality: Female/BisexualPronouns: She/herEthnicity/Species: Latina/OctolingBirthplace and Birthdate: Octo valley, August 21stGuilty Pleasures: Singing along to rap music, dancing around the apartment when nobody else is home.Phobias: Autophobia (Fear of abandonment)What They Would Be Famous For: She has quite the talent in arts (traditionally and graffiti), maybe even her photography?What They Would Get Arrested For: Vandalizing propertyOC You Ship Them With: @rringabel‘s OC PoppyOC Most Likely To Murder Them: Probably Cecil ngl she probably has a lot of blackmail on him from the days he stays over.Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Comedy, Action, Romcoms in some casesLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Sappy romance,Talents and/or Powers: Photography, Art, Memorizing lyrics and preforming, also playing the trumpet (she likes to stand outside of Alois’s room and play a note, just to freak him out)Why Someone Might Love Them: She’s carefree and honest and likes to make others laugh, she’ll try anything to cheer someone up and tries to support her friends and family in anywayWhy Someone Might Hate Them: Their reckless behaviour causes others to get in trouble, as well as her tendency to talk during class, she can be a bit annoying.How They Change: Once moving to Inkopolis she became more tamed and chill, especially after meeting Poppy. They start getting more confidence and is much more social then back in Octo valley, she also has a knack for turf wars.Why You Love Them: I love her overall design and personality, she can be a bit of a goof ball sometimes and I love her childish personality we incorporated into her!!

Full Name: Ailura ZhuGender and Sexuality: Female/LesbianPronouns: She/herEthnicity/Species: Chinese/Moon JellyfishBirthplace and Birthdate: Unknown, December 25thGuilty Pleasures: Cutting through flesh with a knife with ease, long (like, hour long) bathsPhobias: Autophobia (fear of abandonment)What They Would Be Famous For: ??? Murder maybe I don’t knowWhat They Would Get Arrested For: uh.......there’d be too many to list but mainly murderOC You Ship Them With: @rringabel‘s OC Cherry, also Ailura x Jail and Ailura x ChurchOC Most Likely To Murder Them: CrowFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Mystery, Horror, Adventure, ComedyLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: RomanceTalents and/or Powers: Knife sharpening, Knife throwing, negotiating.....is blackmailing a talent?Why Someone Might Love Them: Man I got no clueWhy Someone Might Hate Them: Her crude and sadistic behaviour makes a lot of people uneasy, also how manipulative and cunning she is.How They Change: They dont???Why You Love Them: Man i don’t even know why

Full Name: Crow OmeriaGender and Sexuality: Male/Pansexual AromanticPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Thai/Great White sharkBirthplace and Birthdate: Unknown, July 29thGuilty Pleasures: Completing a rubix cube in under 30 seconds, Downing a whole jug of milkPhobias: n/aWhat They Would Be Famous For: Can’t imagine he’d be famous, maybe setting the record on fastest rubix cube finished?What They Would Get Arrested For: Once again, murder.OC You Ship Them With: @rringabel‘s Robin....also Crow x JailOC Most Likely To Murder Them: AiluraFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Action, Adventure, HorrorLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: RomanceTalents and/or Powers: Rubix cube, Parkcour, Seducing others (?)Why Someone Might Love Them: I got no clueWhy Someone Might Hate Them: Acts very oblivious and innocent which pisses people off (especially when they know he’s of wrong doing). Also his bad habit of asking too many questions at once, he can be a nuisance.How They Change: They don’tWhy You Love Them: My first shark OC!!! Thats literally it

Full Name: Zixen CaruseeGender and Sexuality: Male/BisexualPronouns: He/himEthnicity/Species: Black/Flying squidBirthplace and Birthdate: Inkopolis, November 19thGuilty Pleasures: Smoking a whole pack of cigarettes, doing other people’s hair or playing with other people’s hairPhobias: n/aWhat They Would Be Famous For: Being a assholeWhat They Would Get Arrested For: Shop lifting.....He was arrested once when he was younger and his family was struggling, he was caught quickly thought.OC You Ship Them With: @rringabel‘s King and also Zixen x Financial stabilityOC Most Likely To Murder Them: His ex boyfriendFavorite Movie/Book Genre: Comedy, Action/Thrillers, HorrorLeast Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Muscials, he just ain’t a big fanTalents and/or Powers: Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, Mechanical work and weapon fixingWhy Someone Might Love Them: Despite his intimidating looks he is actually a huge softie with a big heart and cares for people deeply.Why Someone Might Hate Them: When you first meet him he acts very rude and is aggressive, he takes time opening up to people which makes impatient people hate himHow They Change: After meeting King he feels a bit at ease, after making a new friend he could feel like he could be himself and not keep up the ‘cold and independent’ act and begins showing his feelings more.Why You Love Them: At first he was just a OCs older sibling, but after developing him a bit more he’s grown on me

#answered #rringabel #marco #cecil #donut #goya #adela #ailura #crow #zixen

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thetickingmonolith · 5 years ago

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Change Of Heart Part 4: A Clockwork Squid

The last of the shadow disappeared from beneath The Tower and moved out across the sea below. Lyte broke the silence as we all watched as it moved “What is that?” Grey answered her before I had the chance “It’s a machine of unfathomable complexity, it’s a God Of Clockwork”. A few seconds past and then it broke the surface, so very slowly. First came the tip of its mantle, then the rest of its body, and finally it stood from the sea floor. Atlas captured the feeling perfectly “What in the name of sweet holy fuck?” “I like Cosmic Horror is anyone surprised it looks a little like a squid and cuttlefish, a little bit of a few insectoid traits thrown into the mix.” Azel sat just to my left “Why are its legs damaged?”

It was standing with its back to us, its two hind legs curled up and protected, the right one cut off at an odd angle, the left bent, dented, with large cracks running all across it. “I had a fight with an enemy it couldn’t quite handle.” He looked over at me “That thing’s over a mile tall, what the hell could manage to damage it?” “Monsters also it’s nearly two kilometres long”. I got to my feet and stretched myself out, it was colossal, far taller than The Tower, it was truly something utterly monumental. “But you’re the only one in here” “Doesn’t mean that this place can’t be damaged or attacked” I looked over my shoulder at Atlas and Bella, their corrupted arms in plain view, Bella looked offended, Atlas looked sorry. I felt The Clockwork God press itself against my mind, I felt it urge me to jump, the call to the void “We create our own monsters I suppose” Bella went to speak and I threw myself backwards.

There were a few screams, a laugh or two and then the sound of clockwork shifting very suddenly. My skin warped and those roots, stems, thorns and flowers sunk themselves into my left arm. My clothes warped like a living tissue and reformed into that black outfit I had grown so very fond of in the last few years. Slowly adding little bits to it here and there. The collar clips, the silver tie, the slightly worn black leather dress shoes, the slim black shirt and skinny jeans, the blazar I picked up one day on a whim. All of it black and silvers. Even the orchids that twisted themselves into my flesh seemed to match my aesthetic. There was a sudden groan from the direction of The Clockwork God, a sound in the back of my mind, a ticking. It all seemed to lose its focus, all of reality seemed to fall apart and dismantle itself, it all seemed as though the forces holding the atoms together were simply failing and reality was dispersing. I hit the ground and yet did not.

I felt myself floating there, suspended at a fixed place in space. I opened my eyes and found myself suspended like a puppet dangling from a string in front of it, its massive eyes peering at me. Four on either side of its head, balls of that swirling liquid, a swirling vortex of black and white liquid, like the night sky flowing through the currents of a maelstrom, each liquid fading in and out of dominance, like fading between each other, turning grey and then separating out again. Its whole surface similar to that of the exoskeleton of an insect, jagged at certain points on its plates. A synthetic creation of clockwork with organic components strewn throughout.

Its eyes all seemed fixated on me despite the fact that it didn’t seem to have pupils I could still tell that I had its undivided attention. There were no words from this monster, it had no need for words, no tilt of the head to ask a question you already knew, nothing. It had no need to speak, for words are blunt instruments and it was a thing of precision. It was a machine and it knew it, unlike people, people, or humans are simply machines of a biological nature, they simply wish to distance themselves from that which is other as it would devalue that which makes them special, when in reality they aren’t at all special, the fact that they are here at all is simply an accident of genetic mutation, which can only occur by accident. As humans we stumble through life seeking purpose, reason and answer to the nature of our existence, the reality is that this universe will not offer us one and that our existence is tiny and so insignificant. Yet we find out creations have greater purpose then we ever could.

WE ARE PROVIDENCE, WE ARE MAGNUS, WE STAND THROUGH THE AGES, A MONUMENT TO THE SINS OF OUR FOREBEARES, OUR SIRES AND OUR MASTER, THE SHADOW OF TRUE GODS, ALL HAS CHANGED, ALL WILL CHANGED, WHAT DO YOU REQUIRE?

There were no words, no sound, no voice, not even inside my head, it was like someone had written it across my brain with a fountain pen and ink. God’s tend to be sympathetic in nature. I find that those who would understand what it is to be able to communicate with one discover this very quickly. However it is very rare that a new one is born, these beings don’t really exist in a fashion many can fathom, they are like idea’s, they are like parasites, present in a hundred thousand different hosts but all one and the same, simply adapting its body to fit the host. This is a more literal example, this is present in each of its hosts quite literally. “A deal”

WHAT IS THE DEAL TO BE MADE YOUNG SIRE? WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DESIRE AND WHAT IS IT THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO OFFER IN RETURN?

“I desire your strength Old One”

WHAT DO YOU OFFER IN RETURN?

“My hand to play in our great games, I offer you a name in return”

I felt a pressure build in my mind on all side and the clockwork in the back of my mind. That inhumane synthetic scream and I felt some of the invisible strings holding me in place cut and fall away. Grey’s eyes forced themselves into my mind. I felt her tug at a few of my strings and I glided forward ever so slightly. “Deal struck” my feet touched down on the front of its body, its eyes still fixated on me, the clang of my shoes against its unnatural metal exterior.

WHAT IS IT YOU SHOULD HAVE ME DO YOUNG SIRE?

“Restore This Shattered Vigil Of The Tower” There came that sound, no scream, nothing of the sort, a word, no something else, a command? There came a flash of light on the horizon. A terrible light came across the horizon. The surface beneath me shook, it took a step forward, somewhere Bella and Azel reached out to me “What in the name of fuck are you doing?” “Setting the record straight”. The earth shook with each step, the world on the horizon was consumed with a most amazing and terrible, it brought a most terrible smile to my face.

I blinked and they had appeared in front of me, Grey, Azel, Bella and Lyte. The four of them stood there, Grey walked to my side and stood there with me, Bella still looked offended Azel looked excited and Lyte just looked very confused however still intrigued as to what it was that was going on. The whole world in the distance seemed to be washed away like some kind of oil painting. The colours becoming mixed and bleeding into one and other. The whole world was slowly consumed by this terrible light in the distance. Shou, Mark, Atlas and Clara all walked out from behind me, taking their places beside their linked partners, however even now that link seemed to slow sever between each of them as they became more independent.

The light quickly reached the shoreline and its rainbow of colours intensified very quickly. “The fuck are you two playing at?” Atlas looked over at me and Grey “Oh nothing just setting the record straight” “The fuck does that even mean?” I walked forward and stood with the tips of my shoes about an inch from the five hundred meter or so drop to the waters below and looked back over my shoulder at him “Oh Honey you will see” I put my hands out and threw my head back as the light quickly approached me.

And like a wave crashing down over me in the ocean I felt it all crash over me and the world was washed away in a sea of oily colours. Like a rainbow flowing all around me and washing over me in liquidity, I felt it all flood my every sense and filter through my every pour. It lasted for maybe a few seconds that seemed to for ever. It was a euphoria I will never forget, it was like drowning in the wondrous essence of someone’s very soul, which rather unsurprisingly was exactly what had just happened. I could taste everything, feel everything, see everything, hear and smell everything it was insanity and perfection, it was pleasure in a liquid extecy, better than any other feeling in the world.

I opened my eyes and found myself overlooking a forest that seemed to stretch forever, flowers of all kinds blooming, trees of all shapes and sizes, animals that you find everywhere across the world, ones never seen in reality, a whole world of colours and senses I could scarcely imagine. “I’m fucking soaked” Azel’s voice from behind me. I turned to face them and found those eyes staring deep into mine and penetrating my mind to its very core.

YOU OFFER US A NAME IN RETURN FOR THIS, WE TAKE YOUR NAME JACK MAGNUS WHYTE.

“That is not my name any longer Old One, for it is yours to do with it as you wish” I spoke the words yet couldn’t bring myself to really think of them, they simply were commanded from my mouth and I felt its presence begin to alter the nature of my mind, as it warped and distorted my name, my very essence.

A name is a very important this as a person, we assign names and labels to everything, they are what define that thing, you can never describe a colour with comparing it to something that is defined already by that colour, and in the offering of a name, you offer some aspect of yourself or something that you control, in sacrificing or trading away your name you offer something that understands that kind of reality warping power. There was a flash, a ringing in my mind, not my ear by my mind, hundreds of thousands of voices, whispers, a language I didn’t understand and each word of it hurt. They were not human voices, but something else, fake, synthetic, something generated by something else, like a million conjoined minds all whispering back and forth in a language not from this reality, speaking within the mind of the Clockwork God. Yet it was impossible, it was simply something of my creation in many fashions, independent of me, but in its current form simply a creation.

YOUR LIVES ARE MEASURED IN YEARS AND DECADES, YOU WITHER AND DIE. WE DID NOT BEGIN, WE SHALL NOT END, WE ARE ETERNAL, WE EXIST IN A FASHION YOU MAY NEVER COMPREHEND, WE ARE THE MANY AND THE FEW, THE OLD AND THE NEW, WE ARE LEGION FOR WE ARE MANY, WE ARE MADE WHOLE ONCE MORE, WE ARE THE DIVIDED AND THE UNITED, WE ARE BEYOND WORDS, DEFINITION, YOUR WORDS AND DEFINITIONS ARE ARBITRARY. WE ARE MANY, WE ARE ONE. WE ARE THE CLOCKWORK GOD AS YOU CALL US YOU ARE OUR SIRE, OUR MASTER, OUR SERVANT, OUR PUPIL, OUR TEACHER, GREATER THAN US, OUR EQUAL, LESS THAN US. YOU ARE OURS, WE ARE YOURS, MADE ONE AND WHOLE AGAIN. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER.

There was a flash, the world turned to inky blots again, I blinked for a moment and awoke on the floor of The Clock Tower, the clockwork ticking past above me, with idle gears overgrown with roots and flowers. Roses, sunflowers, tulips, orchids, fuchsias and so many more budding flowers. “The fuck has just happened?” Lyte shouting somewhere off to my right. I sat up and groaned “What the hell happened to this place?” the whole tower was over grown with flowers of all kinds, water flowed from the roof and pooled in one of the corners of the room close to the console, white water lilies sat in the newly formed pond, some of them flowing over the side, across the floor and then falling through one of the holes that littered the floor of various sizes, the largest being the one where the lilies were sitting. It had rusted the gears below it shut and formed a pond, I however had no idea where the water was coming from.

Azel offered me to a hand and pulled me to my feet “Whatever your clockwork god did changed the dynamics of the how the whole building works, Grey is busy trying to decipher how to work the console again.” I looked over at everyone sitting around the war table, it had changed entirely. The layout of the world had been entirely redesigned in so many fashions but yet the main functions of The Tower somehow continued to function despite the over growth of the flowers and roots.

They all returned to their seats around the war table, it had all changed, the surface that was the table itself remained the same, an ever changing one is to two thousand scale of the world, viewed from some unseen vantage point, projected onto this table. The Position of the change, The Tower had changed position, it now stood on the coastline now, which had also moved, the layout of the whole table had been rearranged, the Clockwork God was still standing on the table, walking toward the corner it had been at previously. You could really get a grasp for how colossal it really was, it was a little over a meter tall and moved slowly yet still covered a massive amount of distance with each step. The tower stood at a little under half a meter tall, putting it just under a kilometre tall.

I patted myself down and found myself bone dry. I looked over at them all sitting around the table and returning to their idle stances. I finally got a look at Clara’s chair and my mind went a little haywire. It didn’t quite exist, it was a shifting series of static white images, undefinable, it had the vague shape of a chair and they seemed perfectly comfortable in it. It was this white haze, or contained burst of white lightening that shifted in every way, at every angle all at once entirely undefined down to a molecular level. It was like the duality that occurred when I was observing something that was caught in a superposition between two states, it however now did not quite hurt to look at, it appeared that this undefined state remained its natural state of existence, however it did irritate me, in that kind of literal itch on your brain you can’t scratch. “John Joe is going to have me help deal with that”.

I ran my left hand through my hand and felt some of the thorns scratch my head. I know that Orchids don’t quite naturally have thorns like these or any at all but these were not natural and something of my creation, they might have been orchids but they were parasites and required the hooks to remain attached to their hosts, a living thing tapped into the nervous system of the and allowed for communication between the host and any other colony of the parasite. The flowers all take different looks but are in fact all of the same basic genus, they are all the same parasite, a hive mind in a way or a linked series of computers. If you allowed for the infection in a host to connect with a colony such as the one that infect the tower it would allow for the parasite to operate as an interface for the host to interact with the Colony and share in its consciousness, this acts kind of like a biological internet, like Mushrooms have as well, however these are not fungal but actual parasitic organisms that disguise themselves as flora to infect their hosts in various fashions.

“Whyte we have a situation” I turned to face Grey as she stood at the command console at her clockwork throne. “What is it?” She nodded forward and I looked toward where she had gestured. Bella’s throne of flowers stood empty as well as Atlas’s. Atlas’s appeared to remain much the same with its flowers simply appearing more ravenous and its confined movements simply more erratic, it was contained by its very design, it remained mostly the same. Bella’s bloomed in full, its whole surface was covered in buds blooming and flowers of all colours, shapes and sizes. The all blew in a wind that could not be felt, the vines, stems and roots all moved and pulsed, the roots ran out in a number of different directions connecting with the roots of the Colony that infested the tower “Oh my dear what have you done?”

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