#and they have a huge focus on whale sharks

[bluishabalone]

Into Mariana Trench (INTRO & fic idea)

Pair : Namor x f!reader / K’uk’ulkan x f!reader

👋 Writer note : some idea for the next Namor x reader / K’uk’ulkan x reader if I finish Namor x Shapeshifter reader. And againnn pls pls PLS forgive my poor grammar thx in advance 🙏🏻

⚠️⚠️Y/N’s abilities : communicate with sea life (***just communicate no command ability and there are some that she cannot communicate with i’ll list those down later on.), aquatic abilities ; breath underwater / high-pressure resistant / Night vision / You have bioluminescent bacteria on some area of your body.

Timeline : After Wakanda Forever

Intro idea

Ever since you had heard about the conflict over vibranium resources, you doubled your shift and protection for the vibranium meteor lying in the depth of Mariana trench, even though the meteorite is not as huge as the ones in Wakanda and the Atlantic ocean, it’s still valuable that people would kill for it. You are the last of your kind. Others passed away a long time ago, so there is not much left to do besides the trench is already a solitary place. Working in Mariana island always keeps your hope up on finding someone to rely on and talk about your true self , but still, you haven’t found one yet. From time to time, aquatic animals are your source of news. Communicating with them helps kill loneliness in your heart and helps you learn new things like Talokan. You know every detail about the war between Wakanda and Talokanil. The whales told you everything you wanted to know.

You flinch from your train of thought as you sense frustration in the soft wave hitting your toes. Curious, you walk down the sea and a dolphin comes to you. He comes with a message from the deep sea. “What is it?”, you touch his forehead communicating to him. Communicating with animals is not like speaking to a person, the message does not come in understandable sentences, you try to feel it out and focus on reorganizing the message. “Gamomo.” You sigh, “What has he done this time?” The dolphin lets go from your touch and swims back to where it came from.

The sun is almost set by now. You go back to your house built near the beach, toss your backpack on the bed before you go out to the beach again. You are wearing only a tanktop and diving shorts. Despite the fatigue digging in your flesh, you walk down and plunge into the sea with the speed beyond human ability. It takes a couple hours until you arrive at the entrance of Mariana trench. You feel the pressure pushing your torso while your muscles relax letting the gravity pull you down. The environment has zero visibility, your body is beginning to respond. Your back and some areas on your arms produce hard scales. Your palms and some rifts between scales start to produce bioluminescence, as your eyes adjust to the light. 

A creature approaches you from behind, its eerie appearance looks familiar. “Gamomo!”, you turn to a male frilled shark nudging your hands and pet him on his head, “Now what’s the hurry that made you sent a dolphin to me?” Gamomo shakes his tail like a dog demanding attention, he is eager to bring her down the trench. Your brows furrow, “Woah woah! hold up! What do you mean humans without suits? There’s no way they can get down here like that—come on let’s go check it out.” 

They don’t even have to reach the bottom to find the answer. Right in front of them, are humanoid creatures, all of them dressed in ancient garments and accessories. You think, What the- They look a bit like Indigenous people from Mariana Island?. But when you take a closer look at costume details and a complex-looking machine with them, you change your mind, Talokanil? “State your business” you greet them out of nowhere startling them. None speaks up, and instead point their spears at you. You repeat “I said state your business, strangers.”  One of them with wings attached to his ankles asks, “ Who are you?”  

“The right question here is who are you? And why are you?” Your voice turns cold trying to keep your cool despite a concern about you being outnumbered, “I’m not going to ask twice.” 

You notice Gamomo commands other frilled sharks to round them up and whisper to him, “Tell them to back up, Gamomo. We don’t want to start a fight, do we?” Gamomo does as she said, all sharks slowly back up blending in the darkness.

The one with winged ankles said, “We detected a vibranium meteorite in this trench and we are here to collect it.” 

You knew this day would come but not this soon. “And Who are you ?”  He notices you don’t seem surprised much, she knows something, “My name is K’uk’ulkan, King of Talokan.”

Ch1

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

*claps* okay so I had some weird dreams and yet also gorgeous at the same time

I was supposed to be helping cook for an Eid dinner that also included a couple of random guys that I guess were invited for Eid? One of them kept hitting on me, I actually remember what he looked like he looked like Jade’s boyfriend from Victorious. I flirted back a little but I was mostly bored hence, flirting back because meh why not

We sit down to eat and there’s this huge like explosion or attack or something (I am so sad we didn’t get to eat those perfect looking roast potatoes 🥹) and there’s this huge monster type thing roaming. Snake/dragon monster? Idk it’s long and dark red with a rounded snout

I immediately snap into action because somehow me and some other girls (who I don’t actually know) are turned into superheroes, or specifically anime magical girls. Like one second I was peering out from a broken wall to the street and seeing the monster calling out for me and the next I feel this burst of light and seeing other girls getting surrounded by it as well

So… magical girl transformations in dreams are a bit weird you really gotta focus on hope and willpower for it to work and I was a bit out of it because the dream so far had been looking like a family therapy dream and now huh??

So I was struggling to focus on transforming but I shut my eyes and managed partially to transform by throwing myself out of the building and transformed as I fell. I transformed, but didn’t quite activate my powers. Actually had no idea what my powers were I couldn’t decide I was so turned around. I was trying to activate a flight power but it was working slow, in the meantime I got hunted and chased around the city by this monster and I also needed to figure out a plan to kill it.

We were on some sort of island city? I managed to float, not quite strong fly, towards the edge of it after being chased all throughout it and I was at a cliff when faced by the monster.

So naturally, I jumped off of it.

And fell deep into the ocean.

Crazy right? Well I was counting on my flight powers kicking in properly.

I open my eyes after hitting the water and the sea looks like…. Melted sapphires, it’s shining and shimmering even underwater. I can see the ebb and flow and the waves above me and the ripples underneath them, and it’s quiet. The water is clear but a gorgeous turquoise blue at the same time and I feel a mix of peace but apprehension because as much as I love the ocean, I know I have slight fears about it as well. If I wasn’t careful with my thoughts I might turn this moment into a scary one

I turn and look down as I think that and I see this *giant* sea creature with massive gills, it’s a rushed moment so I don’t quite fixate on the image because I want to be in awe of it, not scared of it, I think I immediately focus on the idea of a whale shark so it IS a whale shark.

And I focus on the idea of flying, flying up and very strongly and I think the creature helps me because I feel pushed to the surface as I shoot up, bursting out of the water properly flying now. Okay, time to get to business.

I lay out a trap, it seems most of the other girls have gotten injured so it’s up to me, I get the monster to follow me as I fall out of a building, calling for it to come get me. Just before I hit the ground and open my wings (damn I have wings?) and shoot off across the street, keeping it close behind me. I still haven’t thought of a weapon to use against it, usually I would have given myself a fight power at this point? But I think it looks too huge and scary I can’t think of shooting or firing some sort of attack at it.

I weave through the city, disorientating it before flying to the edge of the island out to open sea

I shut my eyes and hope really hard and- YES the sea creature (it was some kind of sea dragon) bursts out of the waves and takes it down

……I just remembered this is a bit from Shang Chi isn’t it? The dragon in the sea

I’ve always had dreams like this that’s WHY I loved that scene so much so like shush don’t even Marvel plagiarised my dreams babes *flicks hair back*

[delimeful]

(don’t) take this the wrong way (7) (END)

final chapter of dtttww :) i had a lot of fun with this verse so i may take requests set in it in the future, and this might receive some more copy editing later, but for now this is the epilogue!

warnings: mild injury, mild hypnosis, for once no miscommunication :)

-

[Several months later…]

Sunlight trickled down through the water in wavy bands, illuminating the shallows and growing fainter and fainter as the distance from the surface increased.

Virgil didn’t spend much time in the shallows, too wary of being without escape, being made vulnerable to human vessels or poachers. Despite his dark and gloomy aesthetic, he couldn’t go too far into the depths either, simply because his fragile fish bones weren't built for it. His eyes weren’t built for it either, and down there where anything could be lurking, he would need more than speed to avoid danger.

So, on an average, sunny day like this, he could be found miles offshore, in waters that were easily too deep for unsuited humans to reach, but still well-illuminated by the light above.

There were a few old wrecks scattered about the ocean floor here, and though they’d probably been stripped by a pod in the past, he figured he’d go through them and check for anything that was left behind. Things that weren’t useful to a pod could certainly be things that were useful to him, after all.

He’d been poking through the undercarriage of one of the larger ships for an hour or two, relaxed as he ever got. He could take his time. The only creatures around to judge him were the shoals of fish and layers of barnacles built up amidst the metal, wood, and rust.

Actually… Virgil paused in his inspection of an old cutlery set to glance around.

What had happened to the fish?

Through a hole in the ship’s hull, he watched as a broad shadow passed over the ground and ships alike, large enough to belong to a whale.

There hadn’t been a single shred of whalesong above.

Virgil edged further back from the hole, eyeing the outside warily as the shadow receded, leaving behind only wavering sunlight on sand as though it had never been there at all.

There was nothing here that was worth sticking around.

He carefully made his way back to one of the other exits, in the opposite direction of where he’d seen the shadow head, the strokes of his fin cutting through the water with barely a whisper. The porthole was easily wide enough for him, and the ocean stretched out blue and vast before him, a promise of safety if he just moved fast enough.

A moment’s pause, to make sure he didn’t hear or see anything out of place, and then he was out, flitting from rock outcropping to bone reef and scanning the seas above. Not for the first time, he wished his scales were a little less distinctive in the day.

Behind him, an ominous creak.

He froze, and watched with mounting apprehension as a shadow spilled over him, looming closer and darker than before. The silhouette of an arm stretched out, heading towards him…

“Virgil, you must help,” a huge voice pleaded, “I’ve been had.”

He twisted around just in time to see a huge arm flop down onto the floor next to him, kicking up a cloud of sand and panicked burrower fish in the process.

It was wrapped in heavy wire netting from fingertips to forearm, and behind it, a giant mer was pouting at him with the best seal pup eyes he could manage, which, considering who his best friend was, were fairly potent.

Roman was huge, and he was a shark, with teeth and claws designed to shred and tear, and hands that could enclose him entirely-- but his elbows were braced against the ground with delicate balance so he wouldn’t crush anything, and he’d never grabbed for Virgil past that first disastrous encounter, and even now, his brow was furrowing with worry.

“Pufferfish status?” he asked, voice lowered from the dramatic plea of before.

Virgil’s mouth pulled up at the corners without his permission.

Roman was huge, yes, but he was also theatrical and eager and witty, full of sharp return quips for every barb Virgil had to offer.

He could hurt him, but he wouldn’t. Virgil believed that much.

“Prickly for a second, but I’m smooth now,” he answered, shrugging away the last of the tension. “Try not to sneak up on me without a warning click?”

“You have my word,” Roman replied, and if someone had told him months ago that he’d dare to ask anything of a giant mer, he’d have laughed in their faces. Now, Virgil knew that just like all the other requests, Roman would do his best to heed it.

“But really, my fingers are starting to feel numb. Help?” he entreated with a tilt of his head, shifting his net-wrapped hand a little closer.

Virgil rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t go away, though it tilted more towards amused now. He darted forward, twisting in a spiral around Roman’s hand to try and see the extent of the damage.

“How’d you even manage this? At least I had the excuse of being caught up in a storm,” he snarked, picking at a loose section with his claws. Roman’s fingers twitched a little, and he shot him an apologetic glance.

“I was… perhaps… trying to get a glimpse of those sailors that Logan mentioned patrolled the coast?” Roman offered, more than a little sheepish.

Virgil’s gaze turned sharp in a heartbeat. “Did they spot you?”

Logan had warned both Patton and Roman several times that not many humans would take as kindly to their long-term existence near human settlements as Logan himself had.

“No!” Roman assured, “I was very stealthy, truly, I was just… so focused on being stealthy that I missed the other vessel and the nets it had dragging along behind it. It could have happened to anyone!”

“I seriously doubt that,” Virgil replied dryly. He’d snapped a few of the looser wires with his teeth, but already his jaw was beginning to ache with the strain. “Well, you get to explain this to Specs, ‘cause we’re going to need his expertise in detangling for this one.”

Roman groaned in answer, dropping his head to plonk against the ground.

---

Logan carefully set one foot in front of the other, all of his focus on the thin strip of rock below him.

If he switched his gaze to even a few inches to either side, he’d be faced with the sight of a vertigo-inducing drop to the waves below, one that would have all but the most experienced tightrope walkers dizzy with panic.

His gaze didn’t move, though, unerringly focused on the ground beneath him, and on his own body. There was no need to look at anything but the ledge, a soft presence confirmed in the back of his mind, because he wasn’t going to fall.

Another part of him was skeptical, seeing as he wasn’t known for a lack of clumsiness by most. There was just so much to get distracted by, and it was so easy to look away and miss a curb or accidentally trip over his own feet--

But not now. Now, he was focused on just this one task, a gentle voice dragging his attention back whenever it began to stray. He was hyper aware of where each of his limbs were and where he needed to put them to continue forward, step by careful step.

Only a little farther…

“Logan!”

The harsh call snapped him right out of the trance, and he was abruptly made very aware of both the distance he could fall and the effects that sudden instinctual terror had on his sense of balance.

“Newton’s fucking Cradle,” he swore, and then wobbled again, precariously close to falling over.

There was the sound of water crashing against rock, and in the next moment, two giant hands had curled up on either side of him like the shells of an oyster. They provided him some much needed stability to lean his weight against, and he struggled to steady his breathing as relief swept through him.

“It’s okay, Virgil, I won’t let him fall! No cliffs, ands, or buts about it,” Patton’s voice was muffled, but not enough to miss the pun.

Logan sighed loudly, but he also shifted to let his full weight rest against the curl of Patton’s left palm, tapping twice to let him know it was alright for him to move.

His stomach still swooped slightly as Patton slowly shifted his hands away from the thin rock ledge, but there were some things that one had to adapt to when living with two very affectionate, grabby sea giants, and being toted around was one of those things.

Before long, he was level with the flattest segment of rock that made up their meeting place, which could be called an island if one was feeling gracious, but was really more of a collection of rocky spires and bridges that stuck out of the ocean.

Logan was barely able to sit up before Virgil pulled himself up at the edge of Patton’s palm, expression thunderous but his hands gentle as he carefully checked him over for scrapes or injuries.

“Nearly gave me a heart attack,” he grumbled, a phrase that he used much more frequently around Logan for some reason. Logan had already been reassured that it was an exaggeration and Virgil had no heart problems he knew of, so instead of worrying, he bore his friend’s fussing with good grace. “Did we or did we not agree that you need a spotter if you want to play around with bullshit sirensong magic?”

The mer paused. “No offense, Pat.”

“None taken!” Patton replied from where he had sunk further into the water to put himself closer to eye-level.

“I figured you would be along shortly,” Logan defended, and then perked up at the reminder of his most recent experiment. “Besides, one of the things tested in this trial was if the siren song could overshadow significant fear or even terror, and I wouldn’t have been nearly as afraid if you’d been there with me.”

“Aw,” Roman cooed, curling his tail up and leaning against one of the larger rock outcroppings, his posture slightly off.

Virgil dragged a hand over his face with a sigh, and then flapped a ‘go on’ gesture at Logan, distracting him. “So, what’d you figure out this time?”

Logan needed no further encouragement.

“Even the lightest application of a siren’s song can overwhelm other emotions,” he started, recalling the utter honed focus he had experienced. “While in the past I’ve felt distant or removed from my body while under its effects, this time I had Patton focus on requesting a very specific task, and due to the intense concentration it took, I was very present in the moment while fulfilling that task.”

“You didn’t snap out of it until I called for you,” Virgil interjected, more curious than wary. “Was it harder than normal to use the grounding tactics?”

One of the first things Logan had investigated was what it took for him to resist and even break free from Patton’s song, a task that Virgil had demanded in order to let him run any experiments with the siren’s magic. Back then, Virgil hadn’t expected Patton to agree, and he’d outright sulked for weeks to cover up the nerves he felt whenever the siren thralled Logan.

“It was,” Logan said, his excitement growing as he considered the new information. “Without significant outside stimulus, all of my attention was focused on the task, and so I couldn’t pull away mentally to do my normal grounding techniques!”

“I’ve never heard someone so excited about being hypnotized better,” Roman commented wryly.

“He should get a hypnoprize,” Patton added, and Virgil grinned, because he was a traitor who enabled Patton’s wordplay habits.

“Is there an award for smart people doing dumb things?” Virgil mused teasingly. “Logan could be voted ‘most likely to throw himself into danger in the pursuit of knowledge.’”

“That’s why he has us, Finding Emo,” Roman countered, gesturing extravagantly with one hand. “We would never abandon him to the cruel clutches of his own nerdiness.”

Logan couldn’t help but feel a thrill of pride at the casual way that Virgil ducked beneath one of Roman’s sweeping gestures, no trace of the blatant fear or suspicion that had been present as recently as a month ago.

They’d really come a long way from the misunderstandings of that first encounter, all of them.

A glint of light at the edge of the shark mer’s submerged forearm caught Logan’s eye, and he frowned. “Roman, what’s happened to your arm?”

Roman’s prideful grin dropped into sheepishness immediately. “Well, about that…”

“Princey here was abandoned to the cruel clutches of his own reckless dumbassery,” Virgil informed him, ignoring Roman’s trill of offense to drift back and shove at the hand in question until Roman finally lifted it, displaying the impressive collection of netting that he’d managed to get tangled in.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Patton clucked sympathetically, and Roman soaked in the attention like a very dramatic sponge. Virgil rolled his eyes even as he sawed at a few of the looser wires, and Logan sighed in fond exasperation as he reached for his pocket knife.

Perhaps some things would never change.

[fostersffff]

do you have a guide into getting into vtubers?

I can certainly make one up!

Much like any other kind of streamer/LPer/“content creator”, the most important thing is just finding one (or several) that you enjoy watching and- if you’re into stream chat- interacting with. The only thing you may want to be versed in ahead of time are in-jokes and memes (which you’ll catch onto over time by lurking, which should always be your first move when joining a new community) and basic etiquette, ranging from normal stuff like “don’t spam chat, don’t talk about other streams/streamers unless they’re brought up first, especially in the name of DRAMA, you are not friends with the streamer no matter how much/often you participate and/or donate” to more vtuber specific stuff like “don’t doxx them”, which is The Big One™ and ranges from “don’t literally doxx them” to “don’t bring up past handles/identities unless they bring it up first”. If you’re looking for suggestions on who to check out, or what you should be looking for, here’s a very wide scattershot recommendation (bolded text is searchable names):

Being affiliated with a big brand name isn’t an objective measure of quality, but by nature of how networks function there’s way more readily accessible content of vtubers affiliated with those brands. If you go to YouTube and search “Hololive clips” or “Nijisani clips” you’ll get infinitely varied results, but if you’ve never seen a vtuber and are looking for something specific to start with, I’m really partial to Inugame Korone’s English-only Super Mario Bros. playthrough. And if you want to narrow down the search to specific vtubers, try searching for clips of Korone, Usada Pekora, Kiryu Coco, Houshou Marine, Oozora Subaru, Sakura Miko, Omaru Polka, Momosuzu Nene, and Amano Pikamee; all of them tend to have a lot of clips made and a huge backlog of streams.

Speaking of English-only, if you want to actively be engaged with streams and can’t understand Japanese, there are also plenty of English speaking vtubers. The most popular ones far and away are the English branch of Hololive (aka HoloEN or HoloMyth, made up of Amelia Watson, Gawr Gura, Calliope Mori, Ninomae Ina’nis, and Takanashi Kiara), and as well as a number of Indonesian Vtubers, who tend to be extremely fluent in English (Hana Macchia of Nijisani, and Ayunda Risu, Moona Hoshinova, Kureiji Ollie, and the rest of the Indonesian branch of Hololive, aka HoloID). However, if you’re looking more distinctly Western/American vtubers (less of a wholesome/idol-like presentation and more chaotic chat), you should check out one any of VShojo’s members (made up of Nyatasha Nyanners, Ironmouse, Froot, Projekt Melody, Zentreya, Silvervale, Hime Hajime, and Veibae). I’ve become particularly fond of Zentreya, who uses a speech-to-text-to-speech program and an absolute ton of chat interaction gimmicks, but they’re all good people. Also worth noting that most Western/American vtubers stream on Twitch instead of YouTube, but they also usually maintain some kind of YouTube presence, as well as Twitter accounts to keep people notified of where they’re going to be and when.

Past those groups, there are literally thousands upon thousands of much smaller groups and independent vtubers to recommend. As I said before, their relative audience size or independent status isn’t an objective measure of quality, and in fact, one of the nicer things about less immensely popular streamer is that you’ll get the benefit of a less chaotic/more intimate chat experience, but in exchange making sure you’re observing good etiquette is even more important since it’s easier to be disruptive to the chat. Off the top of my head:

The Tsunderia group, spearheaded by Hoshino Charlotte (Char Aznable-themed vtuber who does a lot of figure building on stream and makes/eats horrible food) and Umiushi Urara (Urara is especially fascinating, because she’s the real life manager of the company, and her streams are often more focused on behind the scenes and business-oriented facets of the vtuber industry, but that’s also maybe not the best place to jump in if you’re new)

Artemis of the Blue (a shark vtuber who’s perhaps best known for constantly simping for other vtubers)

Bao (a whale vtuber who also dabbles in making music)

Lady Hatsuu (a English localizer who’s worked on games like Trails in the Sky and takes donations for her local cat shelter)

JiBo (aka Great Black Otaku, aka former NFL player Brennan Williams, aka current WWE superstar Dio Maddin/Mace)

Mimika Morph (a Japanese vtuber who tries to incorporate as much English translation as she can and is literally an eldritch abomination)

Valerie Valkyrie (professional wrestler-themed vtuber who’s appropriately collabed with JiBo a few times)

Go Ria (gorilla (!!!) vtuber)

and Tsukimiya Mai, who actually has a presence on Tumblr, although at the moment I believe she’s on a wellness break.

If you’re not into watching streams at all and want Just The Good Parts, there are tons of channels that exist solely to make (and subtitle) clips, and almost always of already popular vtubers. The most annoying thing with them is that they’ll occasionally get aggressively clickbait-y, but such is the nature of the YouTube algorithm. I personally subscribe to Vtube Tengoku, Sushi [Hololive and Vtubers], CMT, JShay Translations, Aru Azumaya’s Pikamee Things, and Cooksie. The first four tend to focus on Hololive, Aru Azumaya of course is pretty exclusively dedicated to Pikamee, and Cooksie covers VShojo and a smattering of other English vtubers.

Last but not least, there are dedicated fan creators who make animations, usually either of whole clips or by stitching unrelated clips together. My recommendations include 2Snacks, tian nya, Kanauru, and Caroline Director. Just note that especially for these folks and other fan creators, content comes out much slower because of the nature of the work, but it’s always quality.

[bump1nthen1ght]

Deep Blue Sea (Shark Merman x Reader) Chapter 2

Pairing: Gender Neutral! Reader/Shark Merman

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Soulmate AU

Warning: Slight description of Animal Violence. Nothing too graphic, but if the genre of stuff you see on Shark week isn’t for you, skip over the part denoted by the *******

Word Count: 3530 words

Summary: You learn more about Cruz and about yourself

Prologue

Chapter 1

“-and then he just leaves. What do I even do with that?”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Your roommate hums, refilling up your glass of wine. “And you don’t have his number, so you can’t call or text him right?” You take a large sip, nodding and trying not to spill wine on your pajamas.

Well, kind of.

You hadn’t told anyone about Cruz, not even your family, because frankly you didn't know where to start. But when you walked into the apartment, sullen and dragging your feet, your roommate, Caitlyn, had offered wine, ice cream, and a willing ear. That's when the floodgates opened (with some modified details, of course).

“We’re meeting at our usual place in a couple days, I just…”Another sip of wine,”...hate sitting here, not knowing what he’s feeling, what I did, how I’m feeling.” You set down your glass and throw yourself back against the couch, sinking into the cushions. “I feel so stupid, like a fucking teenager, and I hate it.” Caitlyn sets her own wine glass down and nudges the half-empty ice cream carton towards you.

“It’s for the best your feeling all this now, then you can come at ‘im all composed and articulate. Really throw him off his game.” You grab a spoon and the carton, Caitlyn patting your shoulder as you take a pathetic bite.

“You’re right but I-I don’t even know. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Sounds like this guy’s got you hooked. At least that’s a start right?” Caitlyn hums, pressing her chin into her palm. “To be completely honest, Sam took a couple days to warm up to me. And I never told her this, but she gave me hardcore pretentious vibes on our first date.”

Caitlyn gives a long spiel about her awkward first soulmate date (“Seriously, who brings up ‘the superiority of vinyl’ on the first date!”), and if you were in the mind to be a good roommate, or hadn’t heard this story before, you might’ve listened closer. But only one question was occupying your thoughts; Did Cruz like you?

--------

You arrive at the boardwalk an hour early. You don’t immediately go to the tidepool, instead choosing to take a long walk on the beach, taking a moment to calm your racing heart and collect your thoughts.

You like Cruz. You like him as much as two people who just met can, despite a less-than-romantic first impression. But does he like you?

You never thought you would have to ask your soulmate that.

There’s a small thwap as you slap your cheeks, heat simmering your skin even as the cold water laps at your feet.

This is ridiculous. You’ve talked twice. Caitlyn and Sam have a thriving relationship (You should know, you share a wall with Caitlyn) and even they got off to a rocky start.

The pit grows in your stomach, thinking of Cruz’s disinterested stare as he swims into the open ocean. The weight of it almost sinks to your toes.

You shake your head, slapping your cheeks once more.

Today is a new day. Just go through the motions _____.

You reach the tidepool, setting down your picnic blanket and bag. You grab one of your notebooks and prop it open as you bite into an apple. You’re 30 minutes early, might as well get some reading done.

The waves crash and pull against the rocks, pleasant studying ambience, but is interrupted by several clicks and abrupt, out of rhythm, splashes. You look up, immediately in awe of the sight.

About 50 feet away from the entrance to the tidepool is a pod of dolphins, breaching out of the water. You grab a pencil, your phone, and your notebook, tiptoeing through the tidepool to get a better look.

Good choice wearing water shoes today.

From closer up, you notice the distinct lack of dorsal fins and realize they must be Northern White Whale Dolphins. 60 of them have congregated in a group, most likely scouting for easy food or taking a rest.

Their pod is pretty small though. What are they doing so close to the shore?

The pod continues to play as you take shaky photos with your camera, trying to balance your notebook and pencil in the crook of your elbow. Through your viewfinder, you spot a familiar shape, not 30 feet from the pod, peeking his head out of the water. Cruz’s black eyes narrow into focus before he fully submerges. Your eyes widen as you lower your camera.

The water above Cruz rushes as he swims closer and closer to the pod. You tuck your phone back into your pocket as you finagle your way up to a nearby rock. You need a better view, and it might be best to be out of the water while this happens.

The dolphins haven’t noticed Cruz yet, still gliding along the waves. There's a quick flash of his strong back before he dives even deeper into the water. The rock slightly digs into your stomach as you lean over to get a better look.

What I wouldn’t give for a drone right now.

Before long, there is a burst of clicks, the largest dolphins quickly surrounding the group and issuing them away. They’ve spotted Cruz, but one is a little too slow.

Cruz’s dorsal fin cuts through the water, close enough to the surface that you can make out the details of his determined face. His eyes have latched onto the slowest dolphin and his speed increases exponentially. His long tail flicks back and forth as he gains on it.

*******

The dolphin flips into the air, trying to gain distance. But like a flash Cruz’s large hand shoots out of the water, getting a hold of the dolphin’s tail, and pulls. You see his shoulder and tricep bulge as the dolphin thrashes in his grip. His head once again breaches the water as he digs his other clawed hand into the dolphin’s side, raking into it as he pulls the dolphin closer to him. The two tussle and wrestle against each other, going in and out of the water as the dolphin tries to push Cruz away.

But Cruz is limber, keeping a tight grip on the dolphin as he maneuvers his body alongside it. His torso raises up as he pushes the dolphin down under the water and into submission. Cruz then yanks the dolphin’s front upwards and out of the water, grip still tight on it’s rear, before opening up his maw and tearing into the dolphin’s neck. He rips his head back and forth until the dolphin stills, a large pool of red slowly cascading around them.

*******

Your pencil hangs loosely in your fingers as you watch, eyes locked on Cruz. You think the struggle must’ve lasted only 20 seconds, but in the moment, it felt like hours. Cruz’s chest heaves as he takes another bite, serrated teeth easily ripping the flesh, as casual as the lobster roll from your last meeting.

Blood drips from his mouth and covers his claws. His cards his fingers back through his hair, leaving crimson streaks that shine against his black locks. Cruz bites off another mouthful before heaving the dolphin onto his shoulder.

As a large science nerd, you’ve always enjoyed watching nature in progress. But a new, exciting, vaguely uncomfortable feeling stirs in your gut as you watch Cruz suck in his fingers, picking out stray bits of meat from his large, sharp teeth. A feeling like a shiver rushing down your spine and heat in between your legs.

Oh my god. Why was that the hottest thing I’ve ever seen?

Cruz turns away and submerges himself, giving you a nice shot of his defined back muscles as he sums up his hunt. You can’t take your eyes off his form moving just below the water, even as your 5 PM alarm goes off.

You knew Cruz was larger, and far stronger, than you, but seeing him in his element reminds you just how easily he could tear you apart.

God, and I kind of want him to.

As he swims further away from the shore, you see two black dots in the distance. You take out your phone again and open up the camera to zoom in.

Speaking of huge. Holy shit.

The focus is a little blurry, but it’d be hard for you to miss the massive mermaids. With only their shoulders and up out of water, they still tower over Cruz by at least a head each. Both have long black hair, intertwined with what looks to be seaweed and various types of shells. The one on the right is holding two larger masses over her shoulders, positioned the way a lumberjack would hold a fallen tree. Cruz reemerges with his dolphin in tow, frighteningly small.

Cruz’s gestures indicate they’re having a conversation, mostly one-sided. The dolphin on Cruz’s back bounces as he talks animatedly, his hunt small when compared to the two weights the right mermaid carries. With your old phone you can only catch a glimpse of the left mermaid’s lips moving. Cruz’s energy dims as she continues and he seems to sink deeper into the water.

The left mermaid holds out her hand. Cruz hesitates, then throws his dolphin into her arms. She swings it over like it weighs nothing and then shakes her hand as if to shoo him away. The right one rumbles with laughter. Cruz nods, solemn as the two submerge and swim away.

Cruz stays there for a minute, looking out at the horizon. When he finally turns, his movements are lethargic as he swims towards the tidepool.

You scramble down from the rock and quickly tiptoe  back to your blanket, fumbling to stuff your notebook and pencil back into your bag.

Cruz glides in, his eyes not meeting yours, locked in thought.

“Hey Cruz.” You wave, struggling to catch your breath from your impromptu rush.

Cruz slowly looks up at you, still slightly downcast.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.” You  shake your head furiously.

“It’s no problem! I got her kind of early, and then I saw you hunting and didn’t want to bother.” Cruz’s eyes widen a bit, before her recoils into himself and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

“Oh, sorry. You probably didn’t want to see that….” You once again shake your hands and head back and forth.

“No! No I-, I actually thought it was super cool!” Cruz quirks his eyebrows.

“What?”

“Yeah! It was like my own personal Shark week. Like wow, you looked amazing out there.”

Cruz’s cheek tint a cerulean blue, the corners of his lips turning up at the sides as he fiddles with his fingers.

“And those dolphins are the fastest kind around here, but bam! You were on them like a firecracker, kind of wish I had a slow motion camera.” You laugh, before realizing Cruz probably didn’t understand half of your analogies. “You looked uh, you were really good at it.”

Well duh, you idiot. He’s a shark.

“Thank you.” Cruz shoots you a tiny smile, blush still running across his face and down his neck. The ensuing silence is only slightly uncomfortable, as Cruz’s blush stays strong and you're sure you develop one of your own. You try and focus on something else to calm down, but catch a glimpse of his biceps, and fail miserably.

“Oh, that’s right.” Cruz reaches over and sticks his hand in between two nearby rocks. His brow furrows before his eyes light up, and he pulls out a….handbag?

It’s loosely sewn together with kelp, made of some sort of seal skin and closed with a seashell button. Cruz pops it open and begins to rummage inside.

“Gotcha.” Cruz pulls something out of the bag, before turning and hiding it behind his back.

“Uh, whatcha got there?” Cruz smiles, his blue blush painting his face from top to tip.

“I found this thing and thought you um….might want to look at it?” Cruz pulls his arm in front, revealing a reflective white shell, just a bit longer than his palm.

“It’s not a crab, but I thought it was neat looking so….”

You slowly move towards him, gesturing to ask if you can hold the shell. Cruz nods, almost shoving it into your hand.

The color is completely white, sharp, almost polished-looking. It carves into several rings before sloping into a point. It’s empty, the inside free of any sand or tiny algae.

“Do you know what it’s called?”

You look back to Cruz and nearly brush your nose against his. You realize how hot his body heat is as he leans over you to look at the shell. Your shoulders just barely touch.

As if dipped into boiling water, your face alights into red and your body convulses to jerk away from the heat.

“Yeah-Yes! Actually I do, it’s-it looks like a Kellets W-Welk. Well, the remains of one’s shell anyway.”

Cruz stays close, letting out a small “Ohhh.” as he squints his eyes to get a closer look. It’s the most on-land you’ve seen him, with the water lapping at the base of his tail. Sitting down, your head only comes to his clavicle. The uncomfortable burning stirs in your gut.

“Is it a hermit crab?”

“Not, it’s a sea snail. They're not really on land like crabs.” You brush your thumbs over the shell’s ridges. “There are quite a few varieties of sea snails around here, lots of beautiful shells. Their babies look pretty cool too.”

Cruz nods, eyes intent, and it reminds you of the elementary kids you saw when working at the aquarium. Your heart skips as you futilely try to fight the smile on your face.

“Can you eat ‘em?”

You chuckle and Cruz’s face grows a darker shade of blue. “Yeah, you can. You’ve got a good eye for snacks huh?”

Cruz pouts playfully, blue still awash on his cheeks. “Maybe, but I’m not always thinking about food.” Just as he finishes, you hear his stomach rumble. You stifle your laugh with your hand and Cruz grabs his stomach angrily. “Sh-Shut up! It’s almost dinner!”

The two mermaids flash in your mind. You see Cruz handing over the dolphin as they swim away. Then you see Cruz, furiously cracking open crabs with a single-minded purpose. The smile drops from your chin.

How often does that happen?

Cruz was small for a Great White. You hadn’t even thought about why. You don’t even know if you want to.

“They’re pretty tasty, but their shells are a lot more fun.” Cruz furrows his brow again. “Here, let me show you.” You scoot yourself closer to him, putting the white shell against his ear. His eyes widen and he leans backwards a bit from your closeness, but the shell still lingers by his ear. “Do you hear it?”

Cruz stills, furrowing his brows even deeper, but then they rise in surprise. He leans back towards you, tentatively grabbing your wrist and pulling the shell closer.

“Its-”

“The ocean.”

The same childlike wonder from before flushes on his face as he looks at you, bringing your stomach a flutter. Cruz presses his head down closer to the shell, the bottom of his cheek now touching your palm. Cruz’s skin is cool against yours, slightly damp, and you feel the hint of roughness as his chin brushes against your wrist.

“How-How did you-”

“My mom showed me once. I mean, technically it’s the echo of the blood coursing through your ear, which reverberates and sounds like waves crashing. But it’s still a neat trick.”

“Oh, I see….”

From this close, you can see the small freckles which dapple Cruz’s cheeks, peppering across the bridge of his nose and up onto his forehead. Specks of dark blue, black, and green contrasts against his light gray skin, like the setting sun catching the pulling tides.

In the moment, you long to touch them.

So you do.

It’s so….soft.

As your thumb brushes up his jaw, the mottled colors are overwhelmed and overshadowed by Cruz’s furious blush. Cruz moves away so quickly that he unfurls his grip on a nearby rock and loses his balance. He braces himself and hisses as his thin skin nicks the corner of a rock.

“Oh my god, I’m so-so sorry! I just- oh my goodness are you okay?” You retract the shell closer to your chest, your other hand outstretched to steady Cruz. When he flinches away, you pull it back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have invaded your personal space like that.”

Cruz's chest heaves but he doesn’t move or say anything. From the corner of your eye you spot a tiny bit of blood leaking onto the rock.

“Oh shit, wait I-I should have something.” You whip around to your backpack, shuffling and pushing aside your notebook to find your emergency first aid kit. Water wells in the corner of your eyes as you frantically search. You desperately try to will the tears away.

Stupid, stupid, stupid stupid-

Your inner insults are interrupted when your fingers brush against the familiar plastic fabric pouch. Before turning back to Cruz, you hastily wipe your eyes.

“Here, this should help.” You hold out the small thing of gauze and an antiseptic wipe. Cruz slowly takes them, fiddling with the gauze until it's undone. He picks up the antiseptic package with the tips of his forefinger and thumb, eyes squinting as he tries to read the small text.

“That’s to clean the wound with, to get the gross stuff out.” Cruz’s eyes narrow even further, brushing his thumb over the paper wrapping. Tentatively, he plops the unwrapped wipe on his wound. He looks back, clearly confused. “You have to unwrap it first, then wipe it.” His blush returns as he jerks his eyes away from you, embarrassed with you watching.

“I could do-”

“I’ve got it.” Cruz snaps, finding the perforation and ripping it off quickly.

“Okay, but it’s gonna sting-”

“Ow, shit!” Cruz curses as he presses the wipe against the apex of his cut, whining and biting his lower lip.

“If it’s hurting that means it’s working.” Cruz nods, but he hastily wipes the wound and sighs as he crumples it up.Cruz wraps his cut with medical precision, reminding you of boxers right before a match. He cuts the gauze short with a snip of his teeth

“Wow, you're really good at that.” Cruz snorts.

“I don’t need any jackasses going into a frenzy anytime soon. That would be the perfect end to this shit day.”

Your heart freezes as your stomach drops, and you recoil into yourself. The nausea of guilt washes over you. And then that makes you feel even worse, and so the cycle continues.

Cruz notices your sheepish, downtrodden stare, and frantically waves his good hand.

“Wait, shit, no, thats-thats not what I meant. Uh…” He loses track of his sentence, mouth agape as he looks for words. “I mean….thank you.” He fiddles with his claws. “For the bandage, a-and the food a couple days ago. This is...nice.”

You’re almost embarrassed by how quickly his praise perks you up, rolling over your tense muscles like a masseuse.

“Thank you for the shell, it was very thoughtful of you.” Cruz sputters.

“I just passed by it on a swim, it wasn’t a big deal. The reefs got a ton of them, so, y’know.”

You don’t know, but it’s cute watching him fumble with his words. He’s so bashful for an apex predator you saw kill a dolphin not 20 minutes ago.

“I could even-well, it’s close that we- we could go sometime? You and me?” Cruz fiddles with his claws once more, and you wonder if it’s a nervous compulsion. “It’s a little ways away from the coast but with me carrying you, we could probably see a lot.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Cruz’s nervous smile is much more lopsided than his regular one. It accentuates the dimple on his left cheek.

“I would love that.”

-----------

You decide to meet up early on Saturday to get a head start on the sunlight. You leave the boardwalk giddy, your nerves tingling pleasantly with pre-plan jitters. All this energy means you might have to spill to Caitlyn once more, just to let it all out. You’ll most likely tell her you two are getting breakfast by the beach, maybe stop by an aquarium.

Looking at all the coral and the crustaceans. Just me, in Cruz’s arms-

You stop, your nerves bubbling up under your skin, like steam is blowing out of your ears as you think about what is in store for Saturday.

You’re still not sure how Cruz feels about you. But there isn’t a show of a doubt now; You have a crush on him.

----------

Cruz sits in the water, cracking open a leftover oyster he had left in his bag for emergencies. Emergencies like being so flustered he can't possibly go back to the pod, not without looking incredibly suspicious.

He brushes his thumb over his cheek, and it’s almost like you're there again.

So….soft.

[woolieshubris]

Aquarium Date Fic !! Kagehina, but kag!asd. Kageyama pov. 2k words, oneshot. Tw : Sensory Overload! (it's present throughout the whole fic) Made partially for @spixi and partially so i could prove to myself that i can If there's a typo no there isnt <3 If you are an IRL this post doesn't exist <3

I typed out my message and pressed send, throwing my phone onto my bed.

Maybe I should go grab a snack or something... I think to myself, when I suddenly hear my phone buzzing against my pillow, and I dive to grab it. He replied to my message. That was fast.

Me : Hey we should go to the aquarium tomorrow.

Hinata : Okay :D sounds good 2 me!

Quickly, with my face quickly going beet red, I drop my phone and go to the kitchen to grab something to stuff my face with. I'm shaking, but as long as I walk quietly, I doubt my family will notice I'm even out of my room.

How should I reply? A thumbs up might be good, but it might be too cold. Any other reply is probably too much... Whatever. I'll go with the thumbs up.

I head back into my room and pick up my phone, typing a thumbs up emoji before covering my face again.

F/ck, I need to come up with something to wear, don't I..?

---

I arrive at the train station, feeling like I probably packed too much. I brought a backpack with an extra phone battery, 2 charging cables, (because Hinata has an apple phone,) and a bunch of snacks, as well as a water bottle.

Did I put on deodorant today??? I can't tell... If so, I'm probably already sweating through it. I start to feel sick to my stomach, but I don't have time to finish that thought when I spot Hinata walking in from a distance. He seems to be wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt, and suddenly I feel overdressed in my jeans.

"Hey! Don't worry, I already bought my train ticket. You ready to go?" He asked while walking up to me. He didn't bring as much as a backpack, and I'm suddenly relieved that I brought so much.

"Yeah. It's coming in 2 minutes. I half expected you to be late." I stated, before realizing what I said. Sh/t! That was rude, wasn't it? I have to be nicer. Ugh. Hinata punctures my worries with a laugh.

"I'm not late that often, am I?" He states. This makes me feel a little worse about my comment.

"Hm. Just often enough." I state, carefully picking my words. I can't backtrack now, but I can try to redirect my speech to seem less biting.

"You only say I'm late because of last time!" He keeps laughing, keeping the mood light. I wish I could speak as easily as him.

"And possibly the time before that?" I reply. This is probably what he wants me to say.

"Shhhhh. What matters is I got here on time AND I have my ticket ready. Don't worry, I also brought enough for the aquarium ticket too!" He states, smiling. His smile is adorable, almost cute enough to distract me from what he just said.

"Oh, I was planning on paying for that." I reply without thinking.

"Ehh? Do you owe me or something? Should I be asking you for money?"

"No, no. I just thought...?" I'm really confused now. I was the one who asked HIM out, right? He knows how these things usually go, right? Maybe he just doesn't know...

"By the way, where are the others? I thought they would have arrived by now."

The... others? What others? The team??? This is a date, right? Wait...

I DIDN'T TELL HIM. I DIDN'T TELL HIM THAT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A DATE. F/CK.

"I didn't invite them." I respond, my subconscious taking care of what my brain is trying to catch up to.

"You really find them that annoying? I know Tsukki and Yamaguchi can be a bit much sometimes but...?" Confusion flashes across Hinata's face.

"I just wanted to hang out with you. Is that a crime?" I answered before my brain could filter out that last comment. It would be useful in getting him to stop pushing, but it's far too rude for a date. Not that Hinata knows that last part anyway. I wish I could take my words back.

"You should be honored that I said yes in the first place." Hinata teases, my face turning red.

If only he knew what he said yes to.

---

Hinata and I managed to keep from fighting on the 30 minute train ride, which was a feat in and of itself.

I can't ruin this date.

"Hey, Kageyama? It looks like there is a student discount, and it also seems like there is a discount for groups. What do you think would be cheaper?" Hinata elbowed me, bringing me back into focus. I look up. He and I are both equally sh/t at math.

"Uh... Let's do the group discount? I'll pay for it. You can pay me back later." As if I'd let him do that. Hinata bought my excuse though.

"Okay! I can buy you lunch or something." He quickly walked up to the desk, and I followed him. "Can we have 2 tickets?"

Wait. Wasn't I supposed to buy them? If I was the one paying, aren't I supposed to ask? Is Hinata planning on paying???

"Oh, sorry, He'll be paying!" Hinata stated, gesturing towards me.

"Yes. Here's the cash." I quickly press down the bills that were almost getting damp from stress. I had already looked online at ticket prices, and made sure to set aside the perfect amount of money for two tickets in my pockets.

"Great! Let's head inside!" Hinata grabs the tickets, holding mine for me. We go up to the metal detector and I get my bag checked. Hinata, possibly because he has my ticket, or possibly out of kindness, waits for me.

"Can you hand me my ticket real quick?" I ask, throwing my bag back onto my shoulder.

"Sure, let's go in." We walk into the main lobby area, waiting to get our tickets checked. The aquarium is beautiful, and oh so huge. The high ceilings, and smell of saltwater, the giant whale sculpture that I can only assume is life size, and the concrete flooring, these things that on a glance are grand, start to give me a pit in my stomach.

"Kageyama! Come on!"

I look at the horizon line, and recenter myself. A quick yet deep breath and I'm ready to go. I walk up, and turn in my ticket in order to get a wristband.

"Kageyama?" Hinata states, causing me to look over at him. "Can you help me put this on? I can never do it by myself." He holds up the paper slip.

"Yeah, sure." I say without thinking. I wrap it around his wrist.

"Hey, make sure not to make it too tight. They are a pain to get off if you don't give them enough breathing room." I nod my head, and make sure to give him a gap.

"There you go." I let go of his arm, realizing just then how warm my hand is. I can feel my face getting warm too.

"Okay, let me do you now." He quickly fits the bracelet to my arm. "It's perfect! Let's go inside. I wanna see this penguin exhibit that I've been hearing so much about. I keep seeing ads for it and I've wanted to see it forever-"

Hinata kept talking. I don't think he ever stopped talking. It's nice though. It makes it easier to not focus on the huge building, or the shifting lighting, or the crowds, or the ambient music that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Yup. I'm not focusing on any of that. Not. At. All.

My feet keep walking, despite my worrying. Hinata eventually slows, stopping before the largest piece of glass I've ever seen in my entire life. A giant tank filled with fish. The glass is taller than my house, longer than 3 busses, and blue and endless enough to make my heart stop in my chest.

F/ck.

Hinata turns around, and finds a bench to sit on, patting the seat next to him, while staring into the blue void. You feel like you have to bow down to its majesty. It is terrifyingly blue, terrifyingly enormous. I have never feared the ocean before, but I fear it in this very moment. A spotted whale shark swims past, paying no attention to the many people standing right against the glass.

"I could sit here forever." Hinata practically whispers. The giant tank orders your complete and utter silence. Even amongst a giant crowd, even with the littlest of children, everyone is quiet. The large speakers playing calming bass tones over the crowd of people, barely vibrating the floor.

"Hm. Me too." I reply. I could sit here forever, I feel like I already have sat here for infinity. Like its presence is something I could never escape. The pit in my stomach grows further. I break eye contact with the tank, reaching in my backpack. The zipper can barely be heard over the ambient noise of people shuffling. Was there always that sound? I bend down to look in my backpack. What was I going to get?

"Do you want a snack? I brought some granola bars." I state as I feel Hinata's eyes looking down at me.

"Actually, that sounds really good right now. I was just thinking about food." He states, bringing his head down to meet mine. I rustle around in my bag, and grab out a bar. It is barely bent. Passing it to him over my shoulder, he grabs it and unwraps it, sitting on the bench with his legs crossed.

"Sooo, what exhibit did you want to see?" He asks, taking a bite after.

"What do you mean?" I reply, choking down the pit in my stomach.

"Like... you invited me out here. So, what was it that you wanted to see?" He takes another bite.

"Uh. I just like fish, I guess." I look over at the tank, trying to avoid his gaze. I doubt he'll buy it, but it doesn't really matter.

"Me too! Let's go into the jellyfish room next? I can see the entrance to the penguins here and it looks packed. Explains why it's so much emptier here." He set his feet back on the ground and stood up, waiting for me to join him.

I leaned back down to zip up my bag, and we walked through a doorway into a smaller, darker room. Blacklights lit up the moon jellies as they calmly glided across the tank. Hinata seemed to drift off, but I didn't mind. It would probably be a good idea to be apart for a bit. I could calm down and collect myself quickly.

I walk up to the tiny seahorse exhibit, and look into the tank. I can't see them at all... I thought, when suddenly, I felt my forehead bump up against the glass.

How did I get close enough to bump up against it?

I go to look for a wall to lean up against. Leaning against something should help keep the pit down. I do a quick glance around the room. There are no walls. Only glass, and only fish. I hate fish.

Taking yet another deep and quick breath, I go back to meet up with Hinata. He was looking at a different kind of seahorse.

"Okay, I think I'm ready to go to the next section now." Hinata said, glancing away from the fish and over to the exit door. I nodded, and lightened up the scowl that was forming on my face. I didn't even notice it was happening until I felt my eyebrows aching from the effort. I just hope he didn’t notice.

The exit of the jellyfish room led to a balcony overlooking a lower floor. This must be the back of the aquarium. Below us there seemed to be a small cafe overlooking the sea.

"Here, let's go get some food! I can pay you back for the ticket that way." Hinata pulled my arm over to the down escalator. I step on right after him, and look down at the cafe.

It was very large, and honestly reminded me more of a cafeteria than a cafe, with lots of seating. After we reach the end of the escalator, he walked over to stand in line and stare at the menu. Looking for a good seat, I grab one right by the large window facing the water and set down my bag. I pull out the small amounts of snacks I've already brought to claim the seat and go over to Hinata.

"Hey, so I'm thinking about getting a sandwich. What do you want?" He stood, facing the menu.

"Honestly, just get me whatever you think I'd like." I state. I can't focus on the menu right now; I just don't have the energy to.

"Hmmm... Okay!" Hinata walks up to the register, while I go back to our seats. I'll probably regret that choice very soon, but I have backup food anyways, and I'm sure he'll eat whatever I don't, so it's not like the food will be wasted.

---

What the hell did he order??

I look at my plate, not quite understanding what the dish is even supposed to be.

"You said to get you whatever." He said with a smile, taking a bite of his sandwich right after.

"Whatever I might LIKE. What even is this?" I poked my dish with a spork, and it seemed to swallow it whole.

"No idea. I just pointed at the dish in the buffet." He shrugged. "I thought it might be funny, but it's less funny than I hoped. I expected more of a reaction." He looked up with the last sentence, making eye contact with me, which I broke a moment after.

"Sorry."

"Sorry? What are you saying sorry for? Since when did you say sorry anyways?" There was slight worry behind his voice, though it was hard to tell through his wide grin. To avoid answering, I quickly shove the food in my face. It's not great, but it's not really all that bad either. It's a little cold from sitting out.

"It's.... good." I say with a stuffed face. This causes him to start laughing again.

"You look super angry! That's the sort of reaction I was expecting." When did I even start scowling again? When I took a bite of the food, probably.

"You try it." I say, stealing a chip from his bag.

"I was the one who bought it anyway. I was half expecting you to make me eat it." Am I really that predictable? He took a bite, and made a variety of expressions, before settling on confusion.

"I wouldn't call it good. Maybe okay? It's definitely at least okay." He nodded to himself, taking a sip of water after.

"So, where to after this?" I ask.

---

We ended up on the train home while the sun was setting. It's almost to our stop. It felt so short, but we ended up hanging out for 5 hours. I almost forgot that I wanted it to be a date. I had to give up on that a while ago.

"Hey, we have to get off soon, get ready." I say, tapping his knee.

"Hm? Oh." He wakes up, blinking a few times and leaning forwards in his seat. He glances out the window.

The train stops, and we walk off onto the station platform.

"See you at practice tomorrow!" He says with a large smile, walking backwards towards the exit.

"See you." I reply, gripping the shoulder straps of my bag. I looked down

"I had a nice time on our date!" and with the last word, he turned around, running out of the station.

My head immediately turned upwards to where he was, as I feel my blood starting to rush to my face.

He... HE KNEW?!?

[dangerousconnoisseurdonut]

Underwater Gotham Kingdom Idea

Gotham is an underwater kingdom where dwell a number of different type of merpeople live and work. There are five types of merpeople; octopi, shark, whale, dolphin, and manta. The last two are of a more ruling class, while the former three are seen as less. Still, that doesn’t stop those like shark James Gordon from joining the royal guard, or Orca Alfred Pennyworth from being brought on as a companion for a young noble, manta Bruce Wayne. Martha Wayne was a dolphin and, due to an accident involving the stingers on his tail, Martha died giving birth to him. Thomas has always blamed himself as Bruce inherited his own manta tail instead of his beloved Martha’s dolphin tail. As such, Thomas threw himself into his work, neglecting Bruce.

After countless companions, Alfred Pennyworth is more than a match for rambunctious twelve-year-old Bruce Wayne, especially when Bruce gets a young guard as further protection. Jim and Alfred become fast friends with each other and Bruce, and the pair teach him a lot of different tricks when it comes to fighting. One day, Bruce is swimming around, when he notices a large group of octopi, sharks, and whales swimming together; a little unusual, and he’s curious enough to follow them. When he gets there, he finds a number of octopi, sharks, and whales all gathered together with shark Theo Galavan talking about over throwing their government! He’s about to swim away when he sees something that takes the wind out of his sails and he feels his heart break; Alfred and Jim are there, and they reveal themselves to be spies meant to learn the weaknesses of the palace.

Before Bruce can swim away, he’s caught by a shark named Zsasz who presents him to the group. Galavan is ready to kill Bruce, except that Bruce uses the venom in his tail to hurt Galavan enough to get away. He dodges all of the sharks, octopi, and whales who try to grab him, and uses many of the tricks he learned from Alfred and Jim to make it back to Gotham, but he just wasn’t fast enough and Galavan’s forces start their attack. Galavan finds Bruce and goes to kill him, but Thomas gets in the way, protecting his son. Between Thomas’ more mature venom and and Galavan’s sharp teeth, the two manage to kill each other. Bruce is pulled from the fray by Captain of the Guards, Nathaniel Barnes who takes Bruce to the throne room in one last effort to keep Gotham from falling into the Rebellions hands entirely. He charges shark soldier Harvey Bullock and dolphin sorcerer Lucius Fox with protecting Bruce as Bruce holds the crown jewel of Gotham; a beautiful star sapphire referred to as the Heart of Gotham. The three make their way out of the city and to the one place the Rebels can’t follow; the surface world..

As the three break through the surface, Lucius casts an ancient spell to give them human legs, but is reminded that none of them have ever swam with human legs and have trouble keeping afloat. Thankfully, a family are out on the water and see them, rescuing them. They are Jonathan and Martha Kent, with their twelve-year-old son, Clark, who takes an immediate liking to Bruce.

Five years pass, and Smallville High doesn’t know what to make of the ‘honourary cousins’, Clark Kent and Bruce Fox; on one hand, both boys are handsome jocks that are on the football team, on the other, both boys are huge dorks. Soon, however, they get something new to focus on as a number of new people have moved to Smallville; a new clothing store opened by a Jervis Tetch, whose fashion styles are geared more towards children, and Oswald Cobblepot, who makes very sharp suits for men and women.

Then, there are three new students attending Smallville High; the Valeska twins, Jerome and Jeremiah, and a student said to be a chem genius, Jonathan Crane. To top it off, they get three substitute teachers as well; Victor Fries takes over the science course, Ben Mackenzie takes over as coach for the football team, and Sean Pertwee takes over their history course. At one of the home games, Harvey, Martha, and Lucius are all cheering for their boys (Jonathan having died from cancer two years ago) when Harvey sees Coach Mackenzie, and recognizes his old partner, even through the illusion spell he and ‘Sean’ are wearing. He informs the coach he wants to talk to him later, at the bar he tends at. Saying that he thinks the two have a lot to talk about.

Ben/Jim: Hi Harvey; Oswald was a little surprised you recognized me through Ed’s glamour spell.

Harvey: Ed was always good with magic, almost as good as Lucius was before he gave it up for technology. But you should have remembered that I always had a knack for seeing through spells.

Jim: Yeah, I guess we forgot that. You look good though; the surface world actually agrees with you.

Harvey: It’s not too bad up here; at least up here I don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back by my own species.

Jim: Harvey...

Harvey: Tell me, how many women and children died that day? I know old Thomas managed to take Galavan down with him; Bruce had nightmares for over a year thanks to him. Tell me, was Galavan supposed to kill him too, or were you going to do that? Nice and quick?

Jim, eyes flashing black and teeth sharpening: Alfred and I would never harm Bruce; you know we loved and doted on him! And Thomas wasn’t supposed to get hurt, but Galavan was insane and hated the Wayne’s.

Harvey: Unless you want people to notice something not right, I’d suggest you calm down. And yeah, I remember just how much you two loved that kid, and can’t help but notice you and the others came here just after the kid turned seventeen; courting age.

Jim: You know he belongs in Gotham.

Harvey: No, here’s what I know; Bruce had no friends and no family apart from Thomas in Gotham, here he has friends, and he and Clark are practically brothers. Lucius likes it up here too; says that human tech is a lot more fun to work with than magic. And finally, me and Martha are happy, we...

Jim: Martha?

Harvey:Clark’s mother? She and her husband Jonathan taught us all about the surface world after they rescued us that day. But Jonathan died two years ago from Cancer, and I looked after her; the two of us have been going steady for almost six months. And it’s because of that I’m willing to offer you, your fellow consorts, and the King of Gotham a deal; we give you the Heart of Gotham and you let the three of us remain here on the surface world.

Jim:...

[cherrychonk]

The Transfer part 4

Fic:

You take your notebook and start walking towards the elevator not wanting to wait anymore. The elevator dings signaling you're in the lobby, walking towards Jia you smile at her.

“I lived.” You smirk leaning into the counter.

“And I'm surprised you did.” Jia says as she hands you a cup of coffee with a biscuit. “Eat, you probably haven't.”

You smile and take the warm cup, grateful for her generosity. You would've shug it if it wasn't hot. “Thank you Jia. Did you really go all the way to buy this for little old me?” You ask her, enjoying the subtle blush and the small huff she made.

“No, I made the coffee in the break room and there were a few snacks so I brought you one. The coffee is cheap so it tastes a bit wonky but it gets the job done.”

You fake being shot on the heart. “Oh you made little old me some coffee? Spirits that really gets to me.”

She rolls her eyes, her blush still evident. “Get out of my sight Y/N, go do your job before Beifong gets here and whoops your ass.”

You laugh at this and shake your head. “Fine, fine. I'll see you later. But really, thank you.” You wink at her teasingly as you wave goodbye.

Jia sighs looking at you go, she can't help but smile. The blonde woman started to clear her desk when footsteps caught her attention.

“Good afternoon Jia, what do I have in the schedule for later today?” The Chief speaks

She stood straight in an instant, quickly browsing through the calendar planner. “You have a meeting with President Moon in about an hour and a half. After that you're clear.”

Lin hummed in acknowledgment. “Very well.” The Chief looked at the woman. “Where's Y/N?”

“She left a few minutes ago. I thought you sent her out yourself?”

Lin nodded. “She has my permission. She just didn't tell me where she'd go. I thought you would know.”

“Why would I know?” Jia asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Lin frowned. “She seems to like your presence. I thought you might know.”

“Oh. No, she didn't tell me.” The blond woman responded truthfully.

The Chief shrugged and headed back to her office. The two women going back to work. Jia couldn't shake the feeling that Lin was looking for something else, something about you.

__________

The weather was good, not too hot and not too cold. You were on your way to The Akuma’s old mansion. It was a surprise to find the whole area abandoned. The gate seemed broken and your sato passed through them with no issue.

The house was massive, yet the smallest here. It was the last one in the community, all houses were separated by long areas of land. Some had gardens and stables while others looked more like small private woods. The Akumas had a small garden in the front but everything else was unkempt and forest-like.

You had your flashlight as you pushed the big front wooden doors open. Your eyes went wide when you saw the crimson spot on the ground where the first body had been found. You crouched down to have a better look and to your horror you could see the silhouette of a woman on the stain. Like the poor woman’s face had been forever framed on their home.

You walked further in and you saw more blood, ashes and bits of broken glass. The home had been vandalized and everything of value had been taken long ago. You kept walking around each room, in the master bedroom there was a painting, a huge one on top of the bed. It portrayed the four family members together standing with gentle smiles and behind them was the mansion. It was incredibly detailed and you could see every detail almost like a defined picture. Looking closer you could see a type of shed behind the bushes of the painting. Weird, you thought. The shed looked withered and torned yet there it was, in the perfect painting like a shadow.

You walked out of the mansion looking to the backyard woods. The grass was as tall as you, yet you kept walking in. At first there was nothing but grass, and you wondered if the shed was just part of painting only but then you stumbled on a trail of white rocks. You followed them not looking up from them afraid to lose their track. This caused you to smack head first into something making you stumble to the ground grabbing your head.

“Fuck!” You cussed as you looked up to find the shed’s door. “Bingo.”

You get to your feet and look at the door for a minute. It was old and withered and had holes in the wood. It had a rusty lock in the handle, you pulled it hard and ir unsurprisingly gave in. You stood there, door unlocked. You would be lying if you said you weren't scared to see what could possibly be on the other side.

“Mama ain't raise no bitch!” You yell as you push the door open.

You scream. Like a little bitch.

And when you open your eyes (because of course you had them closed) you see nothing but pitch black. So you light up your palm and carefully walk in illuminating your surroundings. The space was small, it was a shed after all, in the center there was a table. The walls had chalkboards with some writings and blueprints. Prints of different types of boats and ships, some looked familiar and others didn't. There was a desk and a few books and tools. You take in the view, looking for something specific, opening the desk drawer you find a small notebook. Turning the book open you see daily submissions, like a diary. He describes his latest project's progress, something called The Whale-Shark. He goes into great detail about it and how the ship is working. Stage through stage he details everything, from failures to successes.

You were reading each entry when you suddenly heard a twig snap outside the shed. You automatically kill the flame in your palm and stay deadly silent. You can hear footsteps getting closer, two sets to be exact. The dread inside you starts to grow as you hear them getting closer. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You keep repeating in your head. Then, silence. You feel drops of sweat roll down your face as the footsteps start to sound distant. The more time passed the less you heard them. Until finally they were gone.

Finally you get up, light your palm once more and rapidly look around for anything besides the notebook. Opening every drawer and looking through the books quickly, you seem to find nothing. So grabbing the notebook and a few blueprints you hide them in your coat before carefully opening the shed door and poking out your head to look out for anyone that might be waiting for you.

The coast is clear so you hurry your way out, the sun is starting to set so you focus on the white rock trail while you can. You keep running straight back and you finally recognize where you are. You stop and crouch down when you see your patrol car, you wait to see if anyone comes out. One, Two… THREE!

You ran as fast as your legs could take you with the keys in hand. You backed out of that place faster than you could blink just as the sun fully sat. You speed out until you hit the main street, you calm down and keep an eye out behind you just in case. You never feel more relaxed seeing the station in your life. You turn off the engine and just sit there, contemplating your life choices.

*knock knock*

You let out a guttural scream of terror as someone knocks on your patrol window. Looking back you find Jia with an unfazed look on her face.

“The hell is wrong with you?”

You burst out in laughter opening the sato’s door. “Sorry, long day.”

The blonde woman nods. “A few officers are going to get drinks, you in?”

“Fuck yes.” You sigh in relief. “Just let me drop off a few things.”

You grab the things from your coat and walk inside the station. The elevator ride soothing your nerves as you chuckled, Jia scared the hell out of you. The door dings and you step out walking towards your cubicle, looking up you see the Chief’s light still on, again. You smile walking over and knocking on her door.

“Come in.” She says still as stiff as ever.

“Hey there chief.” You smile walking in.

She looks up from her paperwork and lowers her glasses. “Officer Y/N” Her voice is leveled and uncaring.

You walk closer to her, making her raise an eyebrow. You take a chair and pull it in front of her desk. You place the notebook and blueprints on her desk.

“Guess where I was today!” You talk excitedly.

She rolls her eyes and takes off her glasses. “Get on with it.”

If you had a tail, it would be waggin like crazy as you opened the notebook. “The Akuma’s Family Mansion.”

Her frown softened. “And?”

You point to the notebook. “There was a shed behind the main house, like a small workshop! I found this journal, it has daily entries and I thought it would be helpful for the case. I haven't read it completely yet, just a few pages about some work he was doing.”

Lin hums and takes the notebook, flipping it over a few pages. You stay seated staring at her with a dumb grin. She looks up from the book and raises an eyebrow.

“You want a cookie or something?” She growls.

“No! No! I just wanted you to know what I found!” You smile scratching the back of your neck.

“Well, now I know.” She hands you the notebook back. “Now you can leave.”

“Yes chief.” You give a bow and drag the chair back to its place as you start to head out stopping and looking back at her.

“Actually… Do you want to get a few drinks? The other officers and I were going to grab some so I thought you might like to join.”

“No. I have a lot of paperwork to finish. Thank you.” She says as she goes back to her work.

You nod and close the door, grabbing the chair again and dragging it back towards her desk. You grab a file and scan it over before grabbing a pen of her cup.

“What do you think you're doing?” She warns.

You start doing the paperwork. “You have three mountains of paperwork. I'm not just going out drinking while you exhaust yourself.”

“You don't have to. Just go, it's not the first time I've stayed here alone doing this.” She says gentler than usual.

You look up and smile at her, a soft genuine smile. “We'll as long as I'm here you won't have to do this alone. I'll help you out.”

She nods and continues working. After some time she coughs gently to get your attention, you hum in response.

“So… the house. What else did you find there?” She tries to keep you engaged in something.

You chuckle, finding it completely adorable the way she tried to make conversation. You look up to find her with a light blush on her face making you smile again.

“Oh man if I start I won't finish. It was interesting.”

You tell her and when you're done you ask about her day. She talks for a while until she finishes telling you and both of you are quiet again. There was this peaceful silence between the two of you, something that others would find uncomfortable yet you found soothing.

By the time both of you had finished it was well after midnight. You both said your goodbyes and you headed home. Tomorrow would be a long day too and you knew it.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Greenland Incident

The post I typed up got deleted on Reddit (!!!) So I’m reposting here. :)

It’s a bit long but has the story written from professor Schneider’s POV. Enjoy!

This is taken from Dragon Raja III: Part I Chapter: Shadows of Greenland.

Schneider took off the oxygen mask and moved his face into the light. Even as he smoked cigarettes, he was on oxygen. When removing the oxygen mask, he will carefully hide his face in the shadow so this is the first time Manstein saw Ned's (Schneider's) face. It's a horror movie mask. The face is a nightmare, the flesh and blood under the eyes are completely dry, only a layer of dry skin is stuck to the bone, the lips and nose are atrophied, and the front teeth are directly exposed.

"It's ugly isn't it? Actually, I am only 37 years old this year but I have the half century old face of a mummy. When the students hear my cough, they think I am an old man in my 50s. But I am even younger than you." Schneider said, self-deprecating.

Manstein shivered slowly: "How can this be?"

"This is the mark left by a mission," Schneider said. "That was 11 years ago, when we first heard a heartbeat signal from the deep sea."

"This (The Japan sea mission) is not the first time we have found embryos in the sea?" Manstein was taken aback.

"No, No. Eleven years ago, that was in Greenland. We found a similar embryo." Schneider spit out a complete smoke ring. "You might have guessed it. I was talking about the  unresolved case in the Greenland Ice Sea. The dive team was annihilated, but the school board ordered all files to be sealed and the investigation was forcibly terminated. If you want to hear this story, you have to be patient, because this story is very long, and please order Norma (EVAs human personality) to leave this room. You with a black card now, you can do it."

"Why should Norma leave?"

"Because Norma doesn't know. The so-called top secret cannot be stored in the system or the drives. It can only be stored here." Schneider tapped on his forehead. "After listening to this story, you can't say a word. You can't even write a memo for yourself. This is a rigid rule of the college. You can only remember every detail I said firmly as far as you can. If you forget it, there's no remedy."

"What happened 11 years ago, can you still remember every detail of it now?"

"Of course, I can." Schneider said quietly. "That was the only trip to hell in my life. How could I forget?"

The icy cold permeated from Schneider's words. Manstein felt that when he mentioned something that happened 11 years ago, the ugly and powerful man in front of him ignited his anger, an anger restrained for 11 years.

"Norma, leave this room and leave the two of us alone for a while." Manstein said.

"Understand that, starting now, the central control room will be outside of my monitoring range for 15 minutes." Norma said.

All the equipment n the central control room stopped running, the cameras and recording equipment were locked, and the lights went out one by one. Norma left and the surveillance was lifted. At this moment, the central control room was independent of the campus, and the shadows of the trees swayed on the high windows, which looked like the depths of an ancient church.

"It was the autumn of 2001...." Schneider slowly began to narrate.

"It was the autumn of 2001. A person with the ID named 'Prince' posted a message on the Internet saying that his tugboat had caught strange bronze fragments deep in the Greenland Sea. He posted a photo and it seemed that there were some intricate ancient characters on them. These characters were completely consistent with the 'Ice Sea Bronze Column Tablet' secretly collected by the college."

"The Ice sea Bronze Pillar Tablet is considered to be a rare artifact that has been passed down from the Dragon Age to today. It once stood in the dragon-kin built cities. The dragons are accustomed to using pillars to record their history and the center of the city is always a huge pillar standing upright. However, the icy sea copper column tablet is only a part of a column that had broken and it is estimated that it is less than a third of its original length. It is the most detailed dragon text material that humans have found to today, recording the war history of the dragon clan, but we still can't interpret it because there is no text for comparison. Those texts are just meaningless patterns for us."

"I was just a young assistant professor at the time, keen to interpret Dragon Words. I think if there is another copper pillar in the depths of the Greenland Sea, then the comparison of the above text may be able to interpret the true history of dragons. So I contacted the 'Prince' anonymously, saying that we were an ancient writing research institute and hoped to purchase these fragments."

"At that time, someone offered an amazing price, but the Prince expressed that he was willing to donate the fragments to research institutions instead of selling them to merchants. He sent the fragments to us without taking any money, and attached the coordinates of where he found them. We immediately sent an elite team to scan the seabed with sonar. We originally hoped to find a huge pillar on the seabed, but we caught a strange heartbeat signal right on the seabed."

"The Greenland Ice Sea is not as deep as the Japanese Trench. Large animals like beluga and tiger sharks live in it. So we didn't think it was a dragon embryo at first. But we observed it for several months. Nothing moved. We had to focus our attention from the pillar to the heartbeat signal. This was too strange. If the thing is a whale or a shark, then it should hunt around. If it is a giant turtle of unknown species, but dormant, then its heartbeat shouldn't be so strong. 

Someone put forward an amazing idea, that is: it is the embryo of a dragon. The seabed is its burial ground, it has experienced death, and cocooning and then reviving turned it into a fetal state. It is undergoing a long incubation.

"The idea was too bold, but the heartbeat signal was too strange and too tempting. Everyone of us was fascinated by this speculation. Since the establishment of the Secret Party, we have only received one dragon embryo, which is a weak one out of three generations. Dragon blood lines are already weak. If we can get a strong embryo, analyzing it can help us learn more about this ancient life."

"So you decided to dive?" Manstein asked.

"No, we weren't so rash. Because everything is just guessing. The safest way before a human goes is to send out a remote controlled submersible to survey the area. But whenever the underwater robots approached the seabed, they would lose control. We recovered the underwater robots and found that their circuits somehow burned up. This added to the evidence that the thing on the seabed was an embryo of a dragon. When an elder dragon is said to be in the process of incubation, a certain field will be developed to protect themselves. People who step into this field will have fatal hallucinations. Biologically speaking, the hallucinations are all because the cerebral cortex is stimulated, and the cerebral cortex is most easily stimulated by an electrical current."

"So the electric field of embryos burned the robot's circuits?" Manstein said.

"We thought so. We didn't want to send people to dive. If it is indeed the embryonic field that burned down those robots, then the impact on the cerebral cortex would be terrible. Even though all my students are A pedigree, I'm still not sure if they can fight against the field of embryos. In the hallucinations created by dragons, only the most powerful hybrids can maintain self-awareness. Any gap in the psychological defense line will be crushed by the hallucination. This has been recorded in the archives of the secret party." Schneider said. "But this time the school board intervened. They ordered us to dive as soon as possible to confirm the target. Their reason was that we could not wait for the embryo to hatch. At that time, even if it was risky, we had to act."

"Diving was the decision of the school board?"

"Yes. Today they sent you to stop the Caesar Team Embryo dive, but they were the creators of the Greenland plan back then."

"Under pressure, we made a dive plan. We purchased the most advanced diving bell from Germany at the time. It was a kind of all-metal diving equipment. Metal is an  excellent conductor. It can form an electrostatic barrier and should weaken the embryo field. Everyone in the dive team was to wrap their whole body with a fine metal mesh and took nerve tranquilizers orally. They are all the best hybrids. We thought they should be able to resist the interference in the embryonic field after they were fully armed. There were six people in the group. If one person had a problem the other five could force him to evacuate. In order to kill the dangerous embryo we also made a special underwater rifle for the dive team, using bullets polished by the Philosopher's Stone which is lethal to dragons."

"Although they were going to perform a dangerous mission, the students were still excited. Young people are fearless and they had the opportunity to get lose to a dragon embryo, which was as exciting as the opportunity to visit the Kingdom of God."

The weather was unexpectedly good on the day of the dive. The six members of the dive team went down on three diving bells. I provided support on the ice. At first, everything went smoothly, the ocean current was calm. The marine life was calm. They even observed beluga whales. But when the depth reached 170 meters, the leader of the dive team suddenly yelled in surprise in the communication channel, saying that they saw a gate. This is very strange because the seabed in that area is 300 meters deep, and their depth is 170 meters, which means that they are still 130 meters from the bottom. Visibility was very low. But at this point, they saw this gate. Is there a gate suspended in the middle of the sea?

"I became alert and worried that they had strayed into the embryonic field and had begun to have hallucinations. They excitedly discussed the gate in the communication channel. This is completely against the rules of communications. They should not talk about it in the communication channel. This channel is for essential communication only to avoid misunderstandings. I loudly ordered them not to approach the gate. I wasn't sure if it really existed but my instinct told me that the gate should not be opened."

"But they completely ignored my orders. I only heard their hurried muttering and strange noises. It was like someone was breathlessly reading a certain scripture in a deep well. Then the team leader spoke and yelled, "The gate is open! The gate is opening!" Then, "No! Don't Go in!"

"Then the gunshots were heard, loud. I could hear them paddling and the sound of their respirators. They had left the diving bell and were fighting with something. The situation was very chaotic. Someone shouted in the channel but because of the current interference, I couldn't hear what they said."

"I originally told the diving team not to leave the diving bell, because the electrostatic barrier in the diving bell is their important protection, but why they violated my order... there's no perfect explanation. After five minutes, the communication was cut off. We could no longer receive signals from the depths of the ice sea. I decided to forcibly recover the diving bells. Those diving bells are connected to the ice breaker with safety lines. However, we recovered the safety lines, only to find that the safety lines were cut with diving knives. The cuts, judging from the fibers, were made by the diving teams own knives. They cut the safety lines themselves."

"I was frantic and decided to dive down to rescue them. There were no more bells, but I was confident in my physical fitness. I could dive to 300 meters without protective gear. I could dive to 170 on one breath. When I reached the waters where the incident occurred, there was no gate nor were their corpses. The water was clear with no trace of blood, even though I clearly heard the gunshots in the communication channel. At that time, the surrounding water temperature had dropped below zero. It was so cold that any disturbance in the water would form ice crystals."

"I then noticed something behind me that had been silently swimming with me!" "The predator was so cautious to keep itself from being discovered by me. But the super cold seawater was  formed a thin film of ice in front of me and it reflected the light on my diving helmet. I saw its dark shadow in the thin ice, just like the totem on an ancient mural. It was slender, its long and thin tail swung slowly in the sea, like a butterfly in flight. I heard a sound and my spotlight stopped working from the cold and I was surrounded in completely darkness. I thought I was going to die. The embryo had hatched. It killed my students! It was behind me but I can't do anything about it."

"Desperation brings out courage. So I remembered that I was still holding my underwater rifle. All the special ones were handed over to the dive team. I only had an ordinary one filled with ordinary bullets. But I can't sit and wait for death. So I turned and took a shot in the dark."

"I then saw blood. I had actually hurt it!"

"How can an ordinary rifle harm a dragon? That thing was only used by divers to kill sharks and can't even kill a large shark. And you were too far down for it to work effectively." Manstein said.

"I can't answer that, but there was a strong smell of blood penetrating the seals of my helmet. I wasn't injured. The dragon was." Schneider said.

"I could clearly feel it right in front of me. I and the injured dragon are facing each other in the dark, very close. But I still couldn't see it."

"It hissed at me and in an instant my oxygen mask shattered into pieces, and the cold current rushed into my air supply carrying with it, the dragon's blood. I lost consciousness."

"My companions heard my screams and brought me back up from the water with a safety cable. When the water rushed out, I was frozen in a piece of the sea ice weighing several tons. Like a fish frozen at a market."

"Fortunately, the rescue helicopter arrived in a few minutes. After I woke up, the doctor said that I had suffered from the extreme cold. I danced with the god of death and inhaled that cold air it breathed out at minus 200 degrees. It necrotized my face, the temperature of my brain dropped and my blood was frozen. My chance of survival should have been non-existent."

"The doctor tried his best and managed to save my tongue. But I must wear an oxygen mask at all time, and change the plastic trachea every two or three years, otherwise my respiratory system will fail and I will die."

"I used to love hand rolled cigarettes, but this box of shredded tobacco is what I have left over from 11 years ago and I haven't finished smoking it. I only roll one cigarette occasionally to smoke when I am reminiscing about that period. I remember the past more clearly. I assure that every detail I said is true, because I dare not forget. These memories are painfully carved into my mind."

"We were unable to successfully capture or kill that dragon. It is still alive, hidden in the deep sea of the world, looking for opportunities to surface. A few hours after the incident we used diving robots to explore again. The fish disappeared quietly in the ice sea and no trace was found. We explored the seabed but did not find embryos or copper pillars, as if everything we experienced was just a nightmare that disappeared when we woke up. A few years later, a marine minding company found a wealth of manganese in the seabed and build an offshore mining platform. Today there are thousands of marine miners working there. Nothing supernatural happened again, until not long ago, we observed exactly the same heartbeat signal deep in the Japanese Trench."

[skipping down because they talk about other things]

"Only one in 100,00 people can evolve safely after being in contact with the blood of an elder dragon. I was actually one of the lucky ones. I was able to survive the bottom of the sea because it had already begun to increase my potential. But I am not a person who is fully able to accept dragon blood. My body is riddled with holes. strengthening me while destroying me. I have endured the pain for 11 years. The most likely in the college to turn into a Death Servitor is not Chu Zihang, but me."

"I'm not afraid to dive, but my body can't bear it. Now sitting in front of you is a dying patient. Were it not for the dragon blood's corruption, I would have died already."

"Does the principal know?"

"He knows. The college has formulated a special medical plan for me. I change my blood every year, but the dragon blood can never be cleared. I'm not sure how much longer I have left." Schneider knocked on his heart. "I have an explosive device the size of a pacemaker right next to my heart. Once I lose control, it will explode. I will suddenly fall to the ground and it will not be of any trouble to you."

"Must you be so cruel to yourself?" Manstein whispered.

"People who are cruel to others must learn how to be cruel to themselves. Otherwise they are just cowards." Schneider said slowly, "many people think that I would never perform assignments after the Greenland incident. That I would shrink back into my research. Because of that incident, I lost six students and I am the way I am now. They thought that a person who survived hell should value their life all the more."

"But I chose to be the director of the executive department. I am the last member of the Greenland team. Those young people whose lives were blooming like flowers died. And I survived. If I were a stupid coward, wouldn't that be ridiculous?"

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 155

155

What Lance didn’t know was that Keith was also having a hard time focusing solely on the fish. The aquarium part wasn’t hugely fancy. Nice, but a little repetitive with the main attraction being the big tank you went past when you came in. The place used to breed stock for international and domestic populations, with some fish way cooler than others. The sharks were cool. Kids in awe as they came near the glass wall of the tank that arched up and over the walkway. Keith could have totally dick punched a shark of the glass wasn’t in the way. Irrational fear of the glass breaking had him holding his breath until they’d passed from under the tank. Even Lance seemed jumpy as he flinched as the hugest stingray Keith ever seen turned the tunnel black as it passed overhead.

Tank after tank sat alcoved in the walls. The amount of colours and shapes were ridiculous. Everything was amazing, still Lance managed to bombarded his field of vision. Keith wished Lance hadn’t hidden his face away behind sunglasses, he wanted to see Lance’s eyes, see if his boyfriend was mesmerised by all the thousands of fish or if he was hiding his disinterest. He knew his boyfriend loved water. He loved all things ocean related. He also knew Lance was secretly addicted to documentaries. He hadn’t predicted Lance would be caught up watching him in his date plans. God. How was his heart supposed to cope with this? He felt flustered and way too happy to be the centre of Lance’s focus.

Holding Lance’s hand, Keith interlaced their fingers together so Lance couldn’t wander away. Sometimes he swore his boyfriend did it just to scare the crap out of him, and he never wanted to feel the way he had when they’d gone to the shopping centre together. Dragged away from the lower tanks and crowds of families, Keith was off in his own head taking a long moment to realise they’d stopped in front of a recreated set of jaws

“What the fuck is that?”

Meaning the painting behind the jaws that were kind of intimidating as hell with those big fuck off teeth and a whole lot of nope

“It’s the jaw set of a Megalodon. In front of it is the jaw set from a Great White”

Documentaries were one thing. This... was... Keith wasn’t sure how he’d look at the beach again. Megalodons better bloody be dead. There was no way he was letting kids in the water at any beach with those huge bastards swimming around

“You know how I said I’d punch a shark for you... I would, but those teeth...”

Lance snorted at him, his boyfriend tugging his hand free

“I’m the only one who gets to sink their teeth into you... plus, I won’t tell if you punch it. I’m going to punch it”

Keith panicked hard. Punching an exhibit seemed a good way to be booted out

“What?! Babe, you can’t... They’ll kick us out!”

Shrugging him off, Lance waited until no one was close to them before walking over to the set of jaws. Covering his face, Keith didn’t want to look, but that didn’t stop him from peaking through his fingers, watching as Lance punched the lower jaw with all the aggression of a leaf. Grinning at him, Keith realised he’d been had. Lance obviously wouldn’t punch an actual exhibit. Groaning, Keith dropped his hands as Lance covered his toothy smile. What the heck had he been thinking? Why was he acting so totally lame and uncomposed

“You can touch you know. Because it’s not an actual jaw set. Didn’t I mention that?”

“No. You conveniently forgot to. Stand still, I’m going to take a photo and tell Pidge you’re being mean to me”

Moving his hand to his forehead, Lance faked a staggered swoon

“Oh no! Not the Gremlin! How ever can I apologise?”

Talk about dramatic. His boyfriend should have been an actor

“You fear the Gremlin as much as I do”

Keith pulled out his phone to snap a few shots as Lance posed as if scared he was about to be eaten. What an idiot. A big dorky idiot that was his

“I do, but it’s a healthy fear built up over the years and smothered in love”

“Oh, so no love for Hunk?”

“Excuse you. Hunk is the embodiment of sunshine. Now come over here and let’s get a photo together. You can even punch a shark in the mouth”

“I’m not into destroying the displays like you are”

Lance rolled his eyes at him, holding both hands out until Keith finally started moving towards his boyfriend. He’d gotten a good spread of Lance. He’d be screwed if his boyfriend wanted to look back at today’s photos. Ninety-nine percent of his photos were of Lance

“You break into a school once and they never let you forget it. Lotor never did bother clueing us in on that. A bit like how I still have no real idea about Rome”

Posing for photos with Lance, Keith didn’t know what to say about Rome or why they were going back to that again

“Rome is done with”

“I know. I still don’t know much about what happened though. I know. Today’s not the day to ask”

“Nope. I can’t even remember what I’ve told you, but I don’t know how much that matters when the most important outcome is that you’re safe”

“And Curtis is all demony. Do you think he’s stronger than me now?”

Keith stowed his phone away. Curtis shouldn’t have to feel obligated to tell him more than he was ready to. So he hadn’t pushed it

“Maybe. Does he feel different to you? I mean, you can like tell can’t you? About the demon?”

Humming, Lance looped his arm around Keith’s, the pair of them starting to move away from the fake jaws

“A bit. He’s still Curtis though so that’s all I need to know. I’ve given up on me ego being a weirdo. I mean, Matt and Rieva sometimes set it off and that’s whack seeing they’re family”

“Our family is weird as hell”

Lance nodded with a laugh

“Our family is close to hell. Seriously. A vampire who senses death and sees fuzzy things. Pidge who is a raging gremlin with no coffee. A demon from hell. Matt and Rieva are much more powerful under the light of the moon. You’re all dark and broody...”

“What about Shiro?”

Lance’s tone was strained and reaching, words slightly spaced

“He’s got dark hair?”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Yep. I know. I’m lame. I don’t know. Sometimes I did want to shake him, but he’s your brother and he’s family. I can see why he’s such a weirdo after meeting the Blades. I can’t imagine a whole bunch of them. It scares me”

That hurt. To Lance they’d always be distant and weird... then again, that was the truth, even if him being a Blade was what brought them together. They’d let a mark be put on his head, he’d always be a case on their files that someday someone might change their minds over

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to. How does Hunk work into this?”

“Ummmm... The sun is hot and the flames of hell are? I don’t know. He’s like all the good things in one... Didn’t I tell you I was low on brain cell power?”

Turning to face Lance, Keith pretended to feel for a fever, teasing his boyfriend lightly as he did

“You’re not warm... I think you got away with using that brain power but you should probably give it a rest. I don’t know how to explain to people that your head exploded from thinking”

Lance gaped at him, then huffed as he pouted

“You’re so mean. It’s not my fault. I’m like smart and stuff. It’s happened before”

“Maybe. Maybe not. How will we ever know?”

Lance hummed lightly, before clicking his fingers

“Oh! I’ve got it! If I’m so dumb, why did I choose to spend the rest of my undead life with you?”

Keith shrugged, cheeks warm as he tried to play down how happy he was that Lance had

“I’ve been asking myself since the moment you liked me back. Maybe your dumbness wore off on me?”

“This coming from the guy who thought I’d turned him after he punched me in the mouth. You were such a cute little anger loaf. All broody and pouty...”

Ugh. He’d never ever live that down. Lance would drop it in an instant if Keith asked

“Like you’re any better you idiot crumpet. At least I had my reasons”

Because vampires had been the sworn enemy and had robbed him of the most family like family he’d known. He’d loathed them. Thrown himself in recklessly and nearly lost his life, only have everything he’d taught be wrong

“I know. I’m really glad you opened up to me. This is much nicer than jumping out of windows to avoid you, or rescuing you from would be muggers”

“That happened once”

Did Krolia really count? They hadn’t known it was her soooo maybe?

“Ahem, twice. First at the cinema. Or did you forget my manly attempts to save you”

Keith snorted. Oh. He barely remembered that. He’d been pissed at being forced to move at Lance’s speed

“Manly? I thought you were the biggest moron ever”

“Rude! I was very manly and stuff. You’re breaking my heart”

That was lie, Keith biting back with

“Better than staking your heart”

“Don’t go staking my heart!”

Lance sounded like he was singing something, Keith staring at him blankly

“Elton John? Babe, you do know who that is, right?”

“A singer?”

“Oh babe... oh, my sweet idiot. I have so much to teach you”

“If you say so”

“I do. He is legend. I’m shook. I’m shook and going to need to educate you on the way of Sir Elton”

Of course he knew who Elton John was. He kind of knew the song yet was sure the lyrics didn’t go like that. Keith muttering under his breath

“I’ll shake you”

“Nooo. No shaken vampires. It’d be like shaking one of these tanks. Our little cupcakes are gonna be all swished up”

“Fine. You get a free pass for now. Where do we go next?”

“They’ve got an exhibit on Orcas. Did you know they’re not a whale but a dolphin?”

“Yeah, and that they attack moose. They’re like the family member you don’t invite anywhere”

Lance nodded quickly

“I know, right. Dolphins are supposed to be all cute and then you’ve got killer whales. They’re nasty. Man, jelly fish have the right idea with no brains”

Keith wasn’t about to be “out facted”. Not when he knew stuff about stuff

“Did you know people used to stand in whales like it was a magical cure”

“Well, did you know Moby Dick was based on a real whale named Mocha?”

Keith wanted to protest that one. Mocha was a delicious coffee drink... instead he moved onto his next fact

“Did you know a Blue whale can live up to 90 years?”

“Mhmm. Like how their tongue can weigh the same amount as an elephant. You know people think Nessi is a sturgeon”

“Nessi can’t be explained. Nessi doesn’t need explaining”

“Just like Mothman?”

“Yep. Somethings just are”

“You’d make a cute Mothman. Jumping off balconies and all”

“That wasn’t my fault! I blame Shiro”

“Suuuure. Blame your brother. Let me know how that works out for you”

Keith huffed in defeat. He had no one to blame other than the bottle of tequila

“Whatever. Which way to the Killer Whales?”

“To the left. You know, they can weigh up to 6 tons”

“And that they’re teeth are like 4 inches long. And sharks don’t even like eating humans”

Keith felt kind of smug being able to match Lance fact for fact, until he found himself choking on air as his boyfriend delivered the final blow and Keith without a comeback

“If you want 4 inches, I’ll give you the longest four inches of your life”

Whelp. There was nothing smart he could say back to that. He had nothing. His brain had short circuited and his blood was fast draining down to his other brain. Laughing, Lance tugged him along, Keith stumbling as he let himself be moved. How did he reply to that? He didn’t have a reply for that. Now he was popping a semi in his jeans and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to look at whales the same way ever again.

[encyclopika]

Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #36

Brought to you by a marine biologist who is very grateful for her friends <3...

Fish I’ve Covered: Click Here

Today’s fish, the Anchovy, was suggested by @pandoramusicbox09​ a good friend of mine. :) The anchovy is a tiny fish that also relies on its friends for survival, living in huge, absolutely massive schools where they help each other dodge predators and filter feed:

The anchovy is a little fish you can catch anytime off the beach in Animal Crossing, New Horizons. It’s actually a brand new fish to the franchise! Now, even though they’re small, this post will be long just because I have a bunch of stuff to show you, so...yeah, pictures galore! Buckle up!

Figuring out what species this is was easy - it’s the Japanese Anchovy,  Engraulis japonicus:

Anchovies are really small fish within the Order Clupeiformes, which includes all of the herring and anchovy species. The group is made up of small fish that are primarily filter feeders, meaning that they strain the water for plankton, typically fish eggs and larvae and other zooplankton, or animals that float in the water with little say in where they’re going. Baleen whales do this by straining water through their baleen, but fish have other ways of capturing these tiny morsels of food. Now, this relates to the anchovy’s weird-looking face. 

Anchovies have a big mouth for a little fish and that allows them to open up wide and capture as much water as possible, like so:

^Look at that guy go.

Once they open their mouths, water passing from the mouth through the gills forces plankton to get stuck in the anchovy’s gill rakers. Clupeids like herring and anchovies have special gill rakers that can catch these tiny particles...so I realize we probably haven’t spoken yet about the structure of gills. Look here:

Picture from this paper. These gills are from some other anchovy, but the point remains. The pinkish red part of the gills to the right are the breathing apparatus. Those filaments are packed with capillaries under a very thin membrane that allows oxygen to pass directly into the bloodstream from the water. Cool, right? On the other side are the gill rakers, typically only on the first gill arch in any given species. And gill rakers differ in shape and number depending on species, and in Clupeids, like our friend the anchovy, they are modified to help strain out plankton. Once the anchovy closes its mouth, it can swallow all the yum-yums caught on the gill rakers. 

Being plankton-eaters and being so small, you can imagine they are pretty low on the food chain and you’d be right. In fact, anchovies, along with herring and other similarly-sized fish are known as “bait fish” and they feed everything from sharks to birds to dolphins to humans, too. Supporting the whole ocean ecosystem takes numbers, and baby, anchovies got ‘em. Look at this:

^Not an oil slick. Actually just a school of anchovies. The fact that they’re uncommon in ACNH makes no sense. You should be catching them literally all the time, but I digress. Fish schooling is nothing new, but why do they do it? It’s ultimately for protection. Each fish is equipped with highly in-tune senses geared towards the fish next to them so they all seem to function on a hive mind; as they feel the guy next to them twitch, they know to twitch, too. All those eyes also help to spot predators who are very attracted to this aggregation. Predators aren’t stupid, though. It’s really hard to catch one fish in a giant amorphous blob, so smarter predators, like the tuna and dolphins, will force a group of anchovies off the main school and focus on tricking the fish to condense more and more until they are more manageable. This is called a “bait ball” and not only have I painted this amazing phenomenon myself, but ACNH has also included it in the museum:

And the four pier fish in the tank with them actually go and attack the bait ball as part of their swimming animation and of course the anchovies respond in kind. Go watch it...it made this marine biologist jump for joy.

And there you have it. Fascinating stuff, no?

[thecreaturecodex]

Shito, Gaghiel

Image © Cola Gotouryouta, accessed at Zerochan here

[Commissioned by @canwefixitnoitsfucked. Gaghiel usually gets overlooked in discussions of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and art for it is vastly overshadowed on deviantArt by someone’s sexualized Mawile gijinka (and if I have to learn that, so do y’all). But I like this Angel. It’s a Monster-of-the-Week in a very classical sense, and the episode it’s in feels like it escaped from a universe where Evangelion was a typical mecha series as opposed to a psychological horror deconstruction of the same. The AT Wave ability is inspired by its flooding of the various ships on its way to get to Unit 002, and is designed so it has some sort of ranged capacity.]

Shito, Gaghiel CR 20 N Outsider This immense being is streamlined and reminiscent of a whale or shark. Its head is enormous, taking up about a third of its length, and looks like a whale’s skull with a tiny mask situated on its apex. Its body is mantle-like, and flows with the waters around it. A number of triangular fins sprout from its body.

Gaghiel is the Angel of the Fishes, and is the least intelligent of the shito. It lives a bestial life, swimming vast distances across the globe and consuming creatures that it comes into contact with. Gaghiel delights in combat, frequently going out of its way to confront sea monsters or military vessels during its travels. Its telepathic communications are highly limited, and it usually only communicates a few emotional states, and then typically to creatures it is in the middle of devouring.

Gaghiel is a straightforward combatant in the extreme. It uses its massive jaws to snap up promising prey items and then swallow them whole. Creatures that evade its reach may be sprayed with a powerful wave of water generated by its AT field, or it may leap great distances in pursuit of foes above the surface. If it cannot swallow an enemy, it frequently dives deep with the prey in its jaws, hoping to drown them or crush them with pressure.

Gaghiel                 CR 20 XP 307,200 N Colossal outsider (aquatic, native, shito) Init +6; Senses blindsense 120 ft., darkvision 120 ft., Perception +28, scent Defense AC 36, touch 9, flat-footed 34 (-8 size, +2 Dex, +5 deflection, +27 natural) hp 385 (22d10+264); regeneration 10 (force or epic) Fort +18, Ref +15, Will +16 Immune acid, death effects, disease, mind-influencing effects, poison; Resist cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10; SR 31 Defensive Abilities deep diver, fruit of life, AT field (200 hp), unstoppable Offense Speed swim 80 ft. Melee bite +30 (6d8+24/19-20 plus grab), tail slap +25 (4d6+8) Space 50 ft.; Reach 50 ft. Special Attacks AT wave, capsize, powerful blows (bite), swallow whole (4d8+24 bludgeoning, AC 23, 38 hp) Statistics Str 42, Dex 15, Con 32, Int 5, Wis 17, Cha 20 Base Atk +22; CMB +46 (+48 bull rush, +50 grappling); CMD 63 (65 vs. bull rush) Feats Awesome Blow, Cleave, Critical Focus, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Improved Vital Strike, Power Attack, Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical, Vital Strike Skills Acrobatics +27 (+47 when jumping), Perception +28, Stealth +9, Swim +24 Languages telepathy 100 ft. SQ AT surge, breach, massive, ruinous Ecology Environment any aquatic Organization unique Treasure incidental Special Abilities AT Surge (Su) Gaghiel can spend 5 points from its AT field as a swift action in order to take an additional move action on its turn. AT Wave (Su) By spending 10 points from its AT field as a standard action, Gaghiel can create a wave of water from its body in a 100 foot cone or 200 foot line. All creatures in that area take 22d6 points of bludgeoning damage (Reflex DC 32 half) and are subject to a bull rush attempt by Gaghiel. The save DC is Constitution based. Breach (Ex) Gaghiel uses its swim speed to determine its bonus to Acrobatics checks made to jump. Deep Diver (Ex) Gaghiel never takes penalties or damage for being in water of any depth. Massive (Ex) Because Gaghiel is so massive, uneven ground and other terrain features that form difficult terrain generally pose no significant hindrance to its movement, though areas of forest or settlements are considered difficult terrain to Gaghiel. A Huge or smaller creature can move through any square occupied by Gaghiel or vice-versa. Gaghiel can make attacks of opportunity only against foes that are Huge or larger, and can be flanked only by Huge or larger foes. Gaghiel gains a bonus for being on higher ground only if its entire space is on higher ground than that of its target. It's possible for a Huge or smaller creature to climb Gaghiel—this generally requires a successful DC 30 check, and unlike the normal rules about Gaghiel and attacks of opportunity, a Small or larger creature that climbs on its body provokes an attack of opportunity from the monster. Swallow Whole (Ex) Gaghiel can use its swallow whole special ability after having been cut free from, as long as its regeneration is in effect.

[yeenybeanies]

g/t prompt list 

1. discovery 

giant mer & human!reader ( 2nd person pov ).

2422 words

there’s a bit of cussing in this because of who i am as a person 

please keep comments to the tags!! thank you!! 

The water is peaceful. The sky is peaceful. The day is peaceful. There’s a light breeze in the air, pushing little waves that gently lap against the fiberglass side of your boat. You sit in one of the comfy chairs aboard your modestly-sized vessel, a fishing pole settled in its holster to your left, and a beer in the cupholder to your right. There’s not much left in it, but the few swallows that do remain are warm and unappealing. You think it’s probably best to lean over and dump the contents overboard ( not the can, of course; you’re not a monster ) and grab a new one, ice cold. That sounds like a good plan. And it is. It’s an excellent plan. The freshly-emptied can finds itself crushed in your hand and set into an impromptu garbage bag, leaving you free to head to the cooler for more refreshments. Maybe you could do with a snack, too, you think. You’ve been out here for a few hours now, resting in the shade, not bored, per se, but definitely unstimulated. There hasn’t been so much as a nibble on your line. 

U g h. Your cooler’s on the other side of the boat. You kick yourself internally for not pulling it closer, for putting yourself in a situation where you have to get up. You’re also kicking yourself for being so goddamn lazy. It’s not that far. You’re hungry and thirsty. It’s not that far. With a sigh, you push yourself up from your seat and give your fishing line a quick tug, testing it ( no surprise to find that there is still nothing biting ), then you leave your comfortable shade and cross over to the cooler. Its blue coloring nearly matches the ocean, you notice. Hunh. That’s interesting. It makes you smile. Your fingers brush some of the salty water off of the lid, then you lift it to rummage through the chilled contents. Beer and sandwich. That’s what you want. Where the fuck is your sandw––oh. There it is. 

Lunch in one hand and cold beer in the other, you pivot on your heel and head back towards your seat back in the shade. You get two steps forward when––wham––a sharp jolt lurches both you and your boat to the side. You stumble, dropping your beverage in your attempt to remain semi-upright. Sonova––curses bubble under your breath as you cling onto a ledge until the boat stops rocking. Once it’s calmed down, you stand and grab the half-emptied can, frowning deep. So much for that half of the plan. At least you have your sandwich. Frustrated, you take a bite, but it seems that’s all you have time for. A sharp, rapid buzzing reaches your ears––your line! Something must be on your line! And something big, too, if it’s taking off that quickly! You rush to your pole, sandwich held between your teeth, and give it a yank, hoping to hook whatever seems to be running away with your bait. 

You expect there to be a fight, like those you hear about from veteran fishermen ( and their dubious reliability ). You expect to stand here for an hour, maybe two, wrestling with this thing, until one of you eventually tires and gives in. What you intend to do with the presumed-leviathan, you’re not quite sure, but you’ll figure that out when you get there. That’s what you think. That’s what you expect. 

What you do not expect is for the line to go limp. Aww! That was barely a minute! Where’s your glory? Your battle? Where’s–––

Oh holy mother of goddamn shit. . . 

A massive fin slips up from the water only a few yards from your boat as the leviathan slowly rises from the dark, murky depths of whatever hell exists beneath this particular stretch of ocean. It has to be at least as tall as you––taller, even. You can’t quite see what it’s attached to yet, but you know you were right on one thing: this fucker is big! And you imagine it’s probably pissed off. ( Can fish get pissed off? Is this even a fish? It’s as big as a goddamn whale! ) 

There’s another yank on the line, pulling the very pole from your hands. You barely notice, though; you’re frozen, preoccupied with the sight before you. There’s your pole, dangling from what appears to be a massive fucking hand that’s sticking out of the water. That is definitely bigger than you, big enough to snatch you right from your boat. It’s horrifying as is to see one, but the second one scares you more when it slams against the ledge, those big, clawed and webbed fingers bending the metal and fiberglass under them. The boat lurches again, jolting you towards the ledge, close enough to where you could touch that giant hand if you wanted. But you sure as hell don’t want to! Sandwich still gripped in your mouth, you try to push away, try to scramble back, despite the incline behind you getting steeper by the second. It’s not really working in your favor. You hear things slide and shift around, hear the boat groan under the weight. You think this thing’s going to flip your boat! Until it very gently seems to ease off the pressure and lower the vessel back down. You lie flat on your back, stiff, staring up at the clear sky. What the hell? 

It only makes sense that if there’s two giant hands, there’s probably a giant head to match, but that doesn’t make the sight any less fucking terrifying when it greets you. It certainly doesn’t help, either, when that head looms over you, over your boat, like a child peering down into a hamster cage. Unfortunately, you’re not used to being the hamster. You can’t even scream out, though; your forgotten and soggy sandwich still blocks your mouth. At this point, you don’t even know if you have it in you to scream, certainly not when those big eyes lock with yours. You can’t look away from this . . . being. You can’t blink. It’s so goddamn huge––bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. 

Okay, maybe you can look away. The creature raises its giant fist, and you instinctively curl in on yourself, shielding your head with your arms ( as if that would do you any good ). Your expectations, though, seem to be very off today. Where you expect to feel the briefest moment of pain and death, crushed under that hand, you feel nothing but the light breeze and sunshine. There is a thud to your left, though, dull and soft. You peek from under your arms to see your fishing pole dropped onto the deck, fishing line keeping it suspended just a little. Following that line, you see that the hook at the end is––oh god, it’s lodged into the leviathan’s face! Just beneath its lower lip, towards the right corner of its mouth, is where that hook finds its home. You can see the metal glinting among the dark, curly hairs at the edge of the being’s beard. And the being is looking at you. . . expectantly. 

No. Fuck no. No fucking way. You are not going near that thing–––

Then you hear it––him?––g r o w l. Were you not five seconds from shitting yourself, you might notice that it doesn’t sound like an aggressive noise, rather more like an encouraging one, but you couldn’t possibly know such a thing. Again you cower, finally spitting out your ruined lunch so you can shout out a panicked okay! okay. You’ll. . .––well, it’s your fault that there’s a hook in the creature’s face. The least you can do is get it out and hope that he doesn’t decide to eat you. 

Shakily, you push yourself to your knees, then to your feet. But your feet aren’t wanting to move any further. You’re rooted in place, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, staring at the leviathan. He produces another growl, softer this time, but it still makes you flinch and close your eyes. Fuck fuck fuck fuck! You can’t do this! Why can’t he just pull the hook out himself! It’d be like removing a burr, wouldn’t it? 

The boat tilts once more, slowly, sending you stumbling towards the giant. You thrust your hands forward, meeting the being’s cheek as you brace yourself. His skin is. . . far rougher than you expected, like fine-toothed sandpaper. It reminds you of times as a kid when you got to touch those little sharks in aquariums. Hot air blows against your side, startling you. Breath, you realize. The being is breathing. Shit, he is so fucking big. . . His head is taller than you. His mouth. . .––you don’t want to think about his mouth. You don’t want to know what kind of teeth lie behind those lips. But it’s hard not to think about it; you’re right fucking here. Still softer, the being rumbles. The hum travels through his skin, into your flesh, your bones. Okay. Alright. Okay, big guy. the sooner you can do this, the sooner the both of you can hopefully get on with your lives. You’re never going near the ocean again. 

Your voice is shaking just as badly as the rest of you, but you try to talk, more to yourself than the being, saying that you can get the hook out and everything will be okay. There’s also some nervous please don’t eat me after, mister sea giants in there. Much to your dismay, the hook is buried pretty well into the tough skin. It doesn’t seem to hurt the being when you tug, but it’s not something you really want to test. Luckily, your hands seem to ease their shaking a little as you force yourself to focus––enough so to where you can actually make some progress. A few more minutes, a few more little tugs, and the hook slips free of the sandpaper skin. 

Thank fucking god. 

You hold the hook up triumphantly so the leviathan can see, feeling more relief than you’ve ever felt in your life. That relief is short-lived, however. The fear is quick to return as the beast flexes his jaw and rubs a finger over the space where the hook was. You catch a glimpse of those sharp teeth, that big tongue, just beyond his lips. You step back as much as you can, but he notices your movement, and he’s quick to counter it. You scream out as his hand surrounds you. Yet. . . you feel no pressure. You only feel the slight warmth radiating from the giant palm and fingers around you. Tentatively, you look out, meeting the being’s eyes. They’re shockingly human, you realize. There’s emotion in those deep, brown pools. Another yelp leaves your throat as you’re nudged closer, pulled into his looming shadow. He’s gonna eat you! You’re about to be seafood! Your shaking starts up again––not that it ever really stopped. You watch in horror as the being leans in. This is it! This is the end–––

But this isn’t it. Impossibly gentle, its his forehead that meets yours, the scratchy skin resting against you. He must know, though, that you’re scared shitless; he backs off quickly, releasing you to scurry away as you please. What the hell was that? Was that a. . .––a show of gratitude? You blink, now backed up to the other side of the boat, as far away from the being as you can get. You swear you can see a little smile on his lips as he retreats from the side of your vessel, his hands disappearing back beneath the surface. His head remains above, though. Once he’s several feet away, you carefully, hesitantly move to the ledge he’d occupied. he’s. . . leaving. He’s leaving you alone! You watch as he gives you a parting nod, then he twists and dives into the water, his massive body sending waves out in all directions. It’s hard to see, but you swear you could spot several jagged, parallel scars along his back and side lap the surface, like something you’d see on a shark or a dolphin that was hit by a boat. Then comes his tail fluke, truly gargantuan, but missing at least half of the top lobe! It’s just occurred to you now that this being––what you’ve just seen––is a fucking mermaid. Merman? Mer. Despite your awe and your lingering fear, you feel a pang of guilt in your chest as you watch that mutilated tail vanish into the darkness. That creature. . . he’d already been hurt by human things in the sea. . . No wonder he wanted you to fix him. Your hook, you doubt, truly hurt him ( more of a discomfort, if anything, you imagine ), but you still feel bad. You hurt a mer. 

You watch the waves for a few moments longer, then you bow your head and breathe out heavily. It feels like you’d been holding your breath through that whole encounter. Damn. Well, that’s enough fishing for one lifetime. That’s enough ocean for one lifetime. You don’t think you ever want to encounter something like that again. You’re still a little shaky, but you gather up everything that’s fallen out of place and secure it down in preparation for your departure. You’re ready to be off this boat and back onto dry land. Once up at the wheel, you twist the key in the ignition, but the engine. . . sputters. Oh no. You try again, a bit more vigorously, and the resulting sputter is even weaker. You’re out of gas. What the fuck! Can’t you catch a break? All you wanted was a nice, relaxing day on the water! You didn’t ask for giant-ass mermen or shitty boat problems! You yell out in frustration and pound at the dashboard, head hung limply. How the hell are you going to get out of this one? Should you call the coast guard? 

Then you hear it again: that fucking growl. It’s more of a feeling, this time, sent up through the boat, up into your body, but it’s definitely a growl––the same growl. You look up, eyes wide, body shaking again, to see that giant fin heading back towards your vessel. 

AN: okay! so some info on the mer: his  " human ”  half is about 30′ long, head to hips, & his tail is about another 70′, bringing him up to a massive 100′ in total length. think whale shark-shaped, since his inspiration does come from whale sharks––particularly those that have been injured by boats  ( esp that last link there ). 

[thisisluxurytravel]

Bohol Diving: Easy, Cheap and Stunning Diving in the Philippines

I recommend Bohol diving sites if you are looking for great corals, plenty of fishes and easy and comfortable diving. It is one of the most-visited tourist destinations in the Philippines, so you will not be alone. I was surprised that with the high number of divers, the corals and reefs quality was still so high. Bohol has some of the healthier corals I have seen recently. Go, and you won't regret it.

Situated within the centre of the Visayas, the realm of Cebu and Bohol offers some of the best dives in the country. Bohol is that the Philippines' tenth largest island and offers divers much more than diving.

It combines lush natural beauty onto land with excellent diving and great underwater photography prospects.

Most areas around Cebu and Bohol have house reefs, accessible either as shore dive or some minutes boat ride from the beach. Day trips and boat dives offer access to a number of the Philippines hottest dive sites like Balicasag island and Pamilican island, with steep coral coated walls and schooling fish life.

Alternative dive sites offer reefs, wrecks and caves for both beginners and advanced divers.

Macro divers will love Bohol as there are plenty of nudibranchs and critters to play with. But big fishes are also around, notably sharks, whale sharks and barracudas.

Bohol Diving: Balicasag Island

Balicasag Island possesses a number of the most straightforward dive sites.

The turtle point dive site is named for the many turtles inhabiting its caves

On the southwest of the island is the Cathedral Wall that has cracks that are fun to explore.

Royal Garden is at the northern part of the island, coated with thick coral, forming a plaything of multi-coloured reefs with plenty of tropical fishes.

One of the most famous dive sites around Balicasag Island is that the forest. It was given this name for the forest of black corals that are seen at around 30 metres of depth.

‘Divers Heaven' is Balicasag's hottest site and for one reason. This vertical wall drops from six to forty meters and attracts species like the Napoleon fish, angelfish and lionfish. Sloping all the way down to forty meters deep, the forest can sometimes have strong current making it an enjoyable drift dive. You might also be lucky to see some turtles here

TIP: There is now a permit system limiting the number of people allowed to dive Balicassag in one day. So make sure you book your diving a few days ahead as they tend to get full.

Bohol Diving: Pamilican Island Dive Sites

Pamilican island is a small island that can be dived in two or three separate dives.

Once better-known for its trade whales sharks and dolphins, Pamilican's residents have since stopped to focus on tourism.

Pamilican is one of the locations in Bohol where you have a chance to see big fishes like whale sharks, giant Napoleon fish, Manta-rays, stingrays, and reef sharks. As often, big fishes like to hang out in a strong current, so those sites are mostly recommended for advanced divers.

Bohol Diving: Cabilao Island Dive Sites

This island is found the northwest corner of Bohol and may be reached from Alona or from Mactan Island to the north.

The depth of Cabilao dives sites in this island vary from 20 to 50 meters. There can also be strong current making it a good place for advanced divers.

There is a lighthouse in the northern tip. Corals are particularly beautiful on this dive site. Soft corals, gorgonians and crinoids make this dive side attractive. There are also big fishes to been seen so don't forget to look out in the blue from hammerhead sharks, mackerel, barracuda, jacks, groupers to tuna.

Drift diving is best on the southern side of the island wherever the main wall descends. The wall is beautiful with several gorgones and sea-fans corals.

The best dive sites on this island are Cambakis point, South point and the lighthouse.

Bohol Diving: Panglao Island Dive Sites

Panglao Island is famous for its amazing white sand beaches and its clear blue water.

There are some lovely and fantastic dive sites which can be found including Alona Beach Sanctuary, Bohol Beach Club and Kalipayan, Doljo Beach, Napaling and Puntod.

TIP: I dived those sites around the full moon, and the fish activity was incredible, so I highly recommend you trying to time your trip with the full moon.

The coral gardens are spectacular, and a delightful style of underwater marine life can be found. From lionfish to snakes. You are however unlikely to see big pelagics on those dive sites

The dive sites on the northwest tip of the Panglao (Doljo Beach, Napaling and Puntod are deep. This means that the current can be intense. These dive sites are better-known for their steep wall and slopes. The gorgonians are spectacular, and there is a large number of small marine life. The depth of the dive sites and current means that you might even get lucky and see a shark.

Who to dive with in Bohol?

I don't think I have ever seen a place with so many dive operators per square meter as Panglao.

The high competition means that the quality is excellent and the prices are very low. Think about 20 Eur per dive.

I tried three dive shop when I was there, and I would recommend them all.

Tropical diver is conveniently located in the Alona Tropical Beach resort hotel near the beach. They were very efficient. They cater mostly to Russian guests. As the only not Russian on the boat, I didn't feel very comfortable.

Prana diver. Great dive shops managed by a Dutch group. Very professional, nice boat and sound equipment. The only inconvenient is that their dive shop is not near the beach, so it does add another stop and extra transfer. They were also 30 minutes late in picking me up at Donatela resort. So between my original pick up time and boarding the dive boat, it took 70 minutes, which is too long. I would rather spend that time in bed or do another dive. 😊

Piratas Alona dive centre was my favourite dive shop as they are right on the beach. They have a comfortable boat. The dive masters were locals and very friendly. It was well organised and Always with a good vibe.

Where to stay in Bohol Panglao

Most dive shops are located on Alona beach.

The best hotels in Alona Beach are Amorita and South Palm Panglao.

I didn't like to vibe in Alona beach. Too many Chinese mass tourism. It reminded me a bit of the Costa Brava in Spain with plenty of bus tours. So I stayed at the Donatela resort which is a bit out of town.

It is an oasis of peace. I enjoyed relaxing in their huge botanical garden in the days I was not diving. I highly recommend it, and you can read my review here.

You can check the latest rates and availability here.

When to go to Bohol

The best diving conditions in Bohol are between November and May. Even though September to December is hurricane season, Bohol is not overly affected by it because it is located outside of the hurricane belt.

January to May is the dry season in, and those are the months with the best underwater visibility.

The water temperature ranges between twenty-five and thirty degrees. A 3-5 millimetre wetsuit is usually recommended.

I was in Bohol during the full moon and the dives on the day of the full moon were spectacular. We got caught into a school of over 1 million small fishes!! So if you can, try to dive on full moon day. You might get lucky as we did.

[child-of-the-sea-and-sky]

28 Questions Tag

Rules: Tag the person who tagged you, answer the questions and tag 20 people!

I was Tagged by @incorrectpalaye

How tall are you: 5′8″ and apparently growing

What color and style is your hair: golden brown, and I don’t really style it I just brush it then let it do its own thing, maybe put it in a ponytail. I used to do braids but then I cut at least a foot of hair off so it’s too short now (wow, that is probably way more then any of you wanted to know about my hair)

What color are your eyes: green/hazel, I like to think of them as just green though

Do you wear glasses: yep! Though I recently got contacts, I’m just a little scared to use them with how fucking freezing it is outside

Do you wear braces: nope!

What is your fashion style: whatever I feel like, usually very punk/emo but it really varies from day to day, whatever is clean and I’m comfortable in.

Full name: Margaret, though I usually go by Maggie or Mags or any of the many other nicknames I’ve acquired

When were you born: February 18, a whole month early

Where are you from and where do you live now: Minnesota and Minnesota, I’ve really only moved from the twin cities to one of their suburbs.

What school do you go to: High school and that’s all you’re getting

What kind of student are you: I’m that really smart kid that always has a monster in hand, is probably about to have a mental breakdown in the middle of the hallway, and is either passing the class or failing it with no in between.

Do you like school: kind of? I like the idea of school, you know a place where kids can learn academically and socially. But the schooling system is so fucked up it sucks the joy out of me.

What are your favorite school subjects: science, math, english, Spanish

Favorite TV shows: I don’t watch much tv, not because I;m “too cool for that” or whatever it’s just a thing. However, I’d have to say proobably Sherlock, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Arrow, torchwood, probably more I just can’t think of right now

Favorite Books: Mate, there is not enough time in the world for me to choose which of my babies is my favorite

Favorite past time: writing, I have a lot of hobbiees and the like but writing is something I’ve loved ever since I started it back in the second grade (about 9 years ago)

Do you have any regrets: so so so many, chiefly that I didn’t spend enough time with my grandpa while he was alive, but I try to remind myself I can’t change things and to just keep moving with life rather then focus on the past all the time.

Dream Job: a conservation biologist specilaizing in either Whale Sharks, Common Loons, or Wolves while also being a novelist and poet.

Would you like to get married: I like the idea of a wedding but I’m not sure if I’m even the type to get into a romantic relationship with someone

would you like to have kids some day: Again, I like the idea of kids, but I’d be a terrible mom

How many: If I were to have kids, I’d want three, I wouldn’t care about genders or that type  of thing

Do you like shopping: to a point, I get really tired of it really fast , especially with certain people. I’m more of a get in, get what you need, get out,  go celebrate with some junk food from the gas station

What countries have you visited: none.......yet

What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had: I’d rather not say cause it’s highly triggering for me

Do you have any enemies: none that I haven’t bested in elemental combat

Do you have an S/O: no, for a long time I identified as Ace Aro but now I’m not so sure about the Aro part

Do you beleive in miracles: I’ve survuved enouggh stupid shit to make me beleive in them. But seriously, I don’t beleive in huge miracles I beleieve in little ones just cause those little things are so much easier to take for granted so a lot of the time we forget how magival they are.

tagging: @the-official-yeehaw @lucithefer @chaoticneutral-bard @violerwolf @bearisthename @lordpresidentofgallifrey @sickofthisbullshit @lightning-skys @salty-with-a-lil-angst @otp-prompts-homie @waywardgaylord123 and anyone else who wants to do this! (I’m way too tired to tag 20 people)

[drferox]

Do you agree with keeping cetaceans in captivity?

What a loaded topic to ask about, and seemingly out of the blue. I admit I don’t pay a huge amount of attention to the captive cetacean scene, did something happen recently to generate this question?

Keeping cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in captivity is a long and complex topic, but my short answer is: Not the way we currently keep them.

Now, I can’t claim to be an expert on cetaceans. I’m an experienced vet with a broad experience base, which puts me in an awkward position of thoroughly understanding just enough to realise I do not understand nearly enough about these animals. (Honestly, I’m not even completely certain they should be called ‘animals’ instead of ‘beings’, but that’s another topic.)

The thing about keeping animals, any animal, in captivity is that there are some species we can keep very well, with good health and welfare, and there are some species that we don’t keep so well. Domestic species we keep very well, and their close relatives are often not too difficult by comparison,

Cetaceans (and potentially elephants) are in a league of their own due to their large size and social networks. There’s a lot of background discussion on them, especially on how to euthanize stranded whales well because up until recently the go-to method for large baleen whale euthanasia could tactlessly be described as dynamite to the brain.

While there are lots of concerns you could have about keeping cetaceans in captivity, there are a few in particular that personally concern me. This is not necessarily because I think they’re most important, but because I personally understand them the most thoroughly.

First is space and the enclosure. I was fortunate enough to see the whale sharks (yes, I am aware they’re not cetaceans, my point is that they are big) at the Atlanta Aquarium, which is the biggest saltwater aquarium in the world, and those sharks are not fully grown, and I still think it’s too small. The underside of those sharks were covered in scratches and scars that you never see on the underside of wild photographed whale sharks. Now if that’s the biggest saltwater enclosure in the world, and it’s still not big enough, then we need to seriously re-think what we’re doing. These species are adapted to having the entire ocean, we are probably vastly underestimating the space they require for optimum welfare.

The health of cetaceans that spend a prolonged time in captivity varies, but on average seems to be different (and arguably worse) than for cetaceans in the wild. The question then arises, should we be doing something if we can’t at least do it as well as nature?

Captive breeding of cetaceans I think needs a serious overhaul, and some species need to stop being bred in captivity at all. Orcas are a prime example. There is evidence to suggest that multi-generation captive bred orcas do better in captivity than wild caught, which has raised the question of are we effectively domesticating whales. However, some genius decided to take Tilikum, the well known orca that killed three people, two of them his trainers, and spread his genes through 21 offspring. Now, the first rule of making your life easier when dealing with animals is that you don’t breed the aggressive ones, yet we did. That should be acknowledged as a Dumb Move. The family tree is a huge mess.

While we have gained some scientific knowledge from keeping cetaceans in captivity, the value of that knowledge is admittedly limited and could probably also be gathered from wild populations or cetaceans in rehabilitation.

At some point as a global society we’re going to have to realise that just because we want something, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re equipped to have it.

Maybe we can do better. Larger enclosures, more focus on the animal’s enrichment and socialization, prioritizing return to the wild, or even sea cages instead of tanks are all potential possibilities, but I am not the person you should be asking about this.