#animal jam underwater

[jacobitajoe]

a shrine for Tavie, our future dolphin overlord

(Masterpiece from Animal Jam Classic user bootleggreely)

[jaminthoseanimals]

*taps mic*

I want the Atlantis party back.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[puppmeo]

I have been on the animal jam adventure grind lately . Its so fun

[chatterbox-juice]

finished drafting my AU's jamaa map (for the land areas), just gotta translate it to digital but on the bright side, township is bigger thinking about where to put bunny burrow. maybe some unclaimed territory between township and coral canyons pt 1

[miqotegirl]

Lagiacrus in the Animal Jam art style! Would you finally go to the underwater areas if you could buy him?

[bunnyswritings]

50 (unconventional) date ideas for your otp

Attend an art fair together

Go on a hot air balloon ride

Furniture shopping date at Ikea

Visit an aquarium and have dinner in an underwater restaurant

Have a picnic at sunrise or sunset

Play 20 questions to get to know the other better

Take a pottery class together

Attend a silent disco party

Go indoor skydiving / bungee jumping

Take an aerial yoga class

Rent a couple bike and ride around town

Attend a poetry / book event

Have fun at a board game cafe

Visit a psychic and have fortunes read

Have a dine in the dark experience

Take a cooking / baking class together

Challenge each other at arcade games

Have a home movie night with popcorn and homemade nachos

Ice-skating when one doesn't know how to

Take a painting class / go for an art jam session together

Attend a play together

Go scuba diving together

Take a dance class together

Visit an animal sanctuary / shelter to volunteer together

Go for a kayaking adventure

Go to a comedy show

Organise a get-together potluck event with friends

Go to a drive-in movie theatre

Attend a beer or wine tasting event

Go to an escape room together

Visit an amusement park

Sign up for a themed run together

Go stargazing at a local observatory

Visit an art museum or gallery and have their caricatures drawn

Assemble a lego set together

Go on a scenic drive and have a picnic

Go on a nature trail walk together

Go camping together

Attend a themed costume party

Go to a local fair or festival

Take a horseback riding lesson together

Pet-sit a friend's pet together for a day

Play mini golf together

Have a spa day together

Take a sailing lesson together

Go rock climbing / bouldering together

Go to a karaoke bar

Take a sushi making class together

Visit an old bookstore or library

Play a game of laser tag

[jaminthoseanimals]

As one of the 5 deep blue fans that I assume exist OHHGHGHG YEAHHH DEEP BLUEE!!! YEAHHHH!!!

literally 0 clue what i was doing w this 1

[lemonepes]

Family day at the aquarium! 🐟

Omni and Jem left Raven and Bluprint in charge with the children while they went off on some business. Print decided to take a photo of how they spend time together, failing to attract the attention of the small ones so that they turn around for a photo. Screen just watches the general view of the aquarium and tries a little not to interfere with the Pallet, which is sooo glad to finally be older than someone and with this joy tells Mono about all sorts of fish in the aquarium (after all, they are both lovers of underwater creatures )

I came up with a whole mini story for this picture

One day, Jam suggests Blueprint with the little ones to go to the aquarium so that the adults can relax and the children can look at the fish. Print, of course, agreed and agreed when and with whom this would happen, and later told the Screen and Pallet about this idea. The younger brother was very pleased with this news, running and rejoicing in full voice, only the Screen calmed him down, catching and covering his mouth with his hand.

The day of the meeting came, BluPrint with the younger ones and Raven met with PJ and his wife and child (Omni and Monochrome) and they all went to the aquarium together. Along the way, everyone talked a lot. Mono and Palette immediately found a common language, already imagining who might be among the animals in the aquatic zoo, Jem just chatted with Screen and Print about common everyday problems, and Omni and Raven added their details to their conversation.

After entering the building, PJ and Omni went to buy tickets, and Mono, Palette and Screen, noticing the giant sculptures of sea creatures, ran to them, of course, Raven and Print went after the younger ones. Perhaps only because the elders were looking after them, Chrome and Palli decided not to climb on the exhibits. Soon PJ and Omni were returned and they finally went to the fish. The slightly dark corridors aroused nasty thoughts of scaring each other from the younger ones, which of course they did. By the beginning of the huge halls with aquariums, Mono was hiding behind his mother, and Jam was scolding Palette and Screen for their antics, while Raven and Print were laughing at the situation somewhere behind.

Nevertheless, the children's attention quickly changed from the negative from the situation with the corridor to the positive as soon as they saw all these fish behind the glass and various exhibits on them. Seeing the shark, Palli and Chrome ran up to the glass and began to examine it, Omni was next to them and began to tell the information from the sign about the fish, but Pallette did not let her finish the sentence, as he began to tell about them. Screen looked around the whole room and calmly approached his brother to also look at the shark, but he and others were distracted by the Print, offering to take a picture. Gathered together at the glass, the Bluprint captured this moment and everyone continued to watch the fish and other things. PJ began to quietly discuss with Print whether he was coping with the younger ones and began to give a couple of tips on how to cope with children, Palette continued to teach Chrome that with stars in their eyes they watched everything alive and inanimate that moved behind the glass. Screen was a little tired of this picture and he went to the bones of a giant turtle to read about them, Raven went after him to chat a little with a small one, forgetting that he did not understand the binary or hexadecimal code that Bluskin speaks

Then I ran out of inspiration to schedule their day at the aquarium, but they liked it at the end :)

[jules-has-notes]

The Little Mermaid medley — VoicePlay music video

Everyone has something from their childhood that stays with them as they grow up. For many of us who grew up during the Disney animation renaissance of the 1980s and 90s, that includes the movies of the era. The Little Mermaid is a story about the importance of curiosity, family, friendships, and self-acceptance that endures even decades later. And its soundtrack is one of the best of its genre. But sometimes you don't have time for a whole movie. VoicePlay has condensed all the best bits into less than eight minutes. Enjoy!

Details:

title: The Little Mermaid medley (feat. Rachel Potter)

original songs / performers: "Fathoms Below"; [0:25] "Part of Your World"; [1:15] "Under the Sea"; [2:24] "Poor Unfortunate Souls"; [4:42] "Les Poissons"; [5:12] "Kiss the Girl"; [6:27] "Poor Unfortunate Souls reprise (Vanessa's Song)"; [6:51] "Part of Your World (reprise)" by the cast of The Little Mermaid (1989)

written by: Howard Ashman & Alan Menken

arranged by: Layne Stein & Hannah Juliano

release date: 18 September 2020

My favorite bits:

the group emerging from the mist with a jaunty sea shanty

Layne's delicate bubble noises as the narrative voice transitions from the surface world to underwater

Rachel's sweet longing tone in "Part of Your World"

J.None's nimble ascending riff on ♫ "going up there" ♫

all the instrumental moments as they're mentioned in the lyrics

the high-pitched "Whee!" from the J-snail as he's flung away 🐌💨

the lighting dimming to enhance the creepiness of entering Ursula's realm

Eli and J's creepy Flotsam and Jetsam voices

the slight chuckle Geoff puts into ♫ "please don't laugh" ♫, and his bored disdain on "pathetic"

the trio's crunchy harmonies for ♫ "Ursula, pleee-eease!" ♫

all the gulping sounds in Layne's percussion as Ariel is drawn in

Rachel slipping into a floaty, almost operatic tone as Geoff purrs his demand for "your voice"

J and Eli jamming out to Layne's skittery percussion line

Geoff's incredible four-octave descent from a high rock scream to the subharmonic ocean floor

the abrupt tone change into "Les Poissons"

"What do you have there, Layne?" "A cleaver!" 🔪 "Nooo!" 😱

Eli's velvelty crooning on the lead for "Kiss the Girl"

Rachel's adorably shy little smile and wave

everyone's puzzled reactions to the second Scuttle interruption

the deepening of Rachel's timbre when she's playing Vanessa

how smoothly Rachel and Eli manage the transfer of the mirror from his back pocket to her and back again

Geoff frowning in mild umbrage at J taking the second "Sing it with me now!" (Hey, that's my line.)

the increasing breadth of those exultant final chords

that outro dance remix 💃🕺

extra shout-out to Layne for all the cool visual effects he added

Trivia:

This video was filmed almost two months in advance. In fact, they recorded two projects with Rachel while she was in town, the second being their annual selection from The Nightmare Before Christmas, "Kidnap the Sandy Claws", which they released on the day before Halloween. They had employed a similar efficiency a few years earlier when they shot the music videos for their "Moana medley" and their "Attention" cover in a single weekend.

This is VoicePlay's longest music video to date. (Even their epic "Wicked medley" is nine seconds shorter.) They just couldn't bear to leave out any of these songs or character moments.

The VP guys had last demanded that Rachel "Sing!" five years earlier in their dramatic "Phantom of the Opera" cover.

Rachel had gotten her own turn in Ursula's tentacles three years before, when she recorded a mashup of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" and "I Put a Spell on You" with Voctave.

Their wardrobe is inspired by characters from the movie, though they don't strictly adhere to those vocal parts. Rachel represents Ariel, Eli is Flounder (and Scuttle), J.None is Sebastian, Layne is Chef Louis, and Geoff is Ursula.

Because of the extensive character makeup, Geoff isn't wearing any of his usual array of jewelry for the first time. His rings are absent entirely, his medallion has been replaced by Ursula's shell necklace, and his smart watch and brown leather bracelet have been substituted with wide, bright green buckled wristbands.

PattyCake fans may recognize Ursula's hologram couple as real-life couple Rachel Copeland-Evans and E. Michael Evans. Rachel has played Vanessa for them since "The Grande Mermaid", as well as many other roles. Michael is primarily their Gaston for the Villains Lair series.

VoicePlay had previously included excerpts from The Little Mermaid in all three of their Disney-themed "Aca Top 10" countdowns — "Part of Your World" in "Disney Heroes", "Under the Sea" in "Disney Sidekicks", and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" in "Disney Villains".

Rachel Potter's first theme park job in Orlando was playing Ariel in Disney World's "Voyage of the Little Mermaid" live show. She also played the lead roles in the Beauty and the Beast and Finding Nemo stage shows, the latter alongside Earl and the Cardona boys. (No wonder she's been VoicePlay's go-to princess for so long.) The "Voyage" attraction had shut down with the rest of Disney World in March 2020, and was closed permanently around the same time this video premiered.

Layne's sister-in-law commented on Instagram that his expressions during "Les Poissons" reminded her of his youngest daughter when she's up to mischief. His younger sister retorted that it runs in the family. (And Layne himself has noted that Doris very much takes after both him and his dad.)

The full version of "Les Poissons" in the movie incorporates a portion of an orchestral piece commonly referred to as "The Can-Can", which Layne later included in VoicePlay's "Classical Chaos" medley, also featuring Rachel Potter as their guest.

The audio for this medley was released as an album with eight separate tracks on streaming services, largely for copyright reasons. (Although, sadly, without the outro remix.)

"Poor Unfortunate Souls" and "Les Poissons" were re-released on their "VoicePlay Villains" compilation album in 2024.

Geoff recorded himself reading the original Hans Christian Andersen story early the next year.

[annymaght]

What's your favorite episode? Or favorite scene in jwct?

Oh, definitely episode 7, easily the best one for me.

We see all the major emotional beats of the season in this episode, Kenji's meltdown, Brooklynn's "death" and Yasammy's relationship resolution, and we learned more about how destructive Brooklynn's investigations became.

During this whole episode you can start to see Kenji feel resentment towards Brooklynn because she kept so much from him and everyone else.

Yasammy also find that they work better together than apart. We see how Yaz has overcome her trauma and is able to help Sammy through her stress when the car is sinking.

The animation really shines here as well. The most commendable being the underwater scene, it looks so detailed. But another bit is Kenji's meltdown. The facial animation conveys the feeling of Claustrophobia so well. Not to mention the brilliant voice acting that makes that scene so powerful.

My favourite scene in the whole show has to be from episode 7 as well, which is of Matteo telling the story of the allosaurus.

On its own, it's a beautiful story about an everyday man being dragged into something horrific. Its honestly some of the best storytelling that has come out of Chaos Theory.

Okay, I gotta say another favourite scene of mine is probs when Ben is jamming out to rock music while Sammy is trying to speak to Yaz.

[lazyscience]

DCC Challenge, Day 3

Time To Floor Collapse: 28 days, 2 hours (give or take)

Time for the recap episode!

Crawler @quartzandsundry

New Achievement! Hand to hand...support?

Well, crawler, you out here buffing, juicing, sparking like a motherfucker, and well, I would know. Hi to your mom, by the way. There's a buff with her name on it, iywim.

You and I both know I'm funny. Existential despair is HILARIOUS once you let go and learn to love the bomb!

Reward: A bronze Dr. Strangelove box! Inside is Major T.J. "King" Kong's Ride 'em Cowboy Hat. When worn, crawler gains +20% yield to any explosive deployed, but each wearing also gives a 1.5% chance (cumulative) of detonating a Suitcase Nuke along with whatever your other payload was. Oopsie-daisy! Hope you're wearing your lead-lined BigBois!

Crawler @kathrynalexao3:

New Achievement! Skibidi Bobbity Boo!

Through the magic of bribery and subversion, you've escaped the marauding troupe of tweens! Well played - give a mob a meal, you have something to feed forever. Teach a mob to focus on an objective and you've taught it to hunt!

That's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see how it pays off for you. Or future crawlers, I'm not picky.

(tell me something while we're talking, just why is it SO many Earth sports involve balls and kicking them? I mean, not like graphic pain and humiliation aren't my jam, but - oh. it's not that kind of ball? Bo-ring! At least there's still CTE. My faith in you is slightly restored!)

Reward: A silver Lord Stanley's Cup box, including a refilling stamina potion +3, in a metal cup large enough to water a draft animal. Also a pair of ice skates. You know, in case you were dumped into the middle of a merciless icy vortex with mobs hurtling small circular projectiles. You never know what might come in handy!

Crawler @king-ofconfusion:

New Achievement! Breathe Where You're Planted!

Congratulations, crawler, despite the fact that it probably burns more than a little bit, you are still breathing. Good for you, that was a long fucking way underwater. Oh well, better luck for me next time!

And watch out for that grabby ooze. Why do some mobs just not know when to give up? Sometimes you just have to let go and let the AI take the wheel.

Reward: A Bronze Dream a Little Dream of Me box! Inside is one sheet music scroll for Entourage (1969 Remix), which summons an extremely bitchy, gay and drunk illusion of your party to confuse the issue while you escape! Also inflicts the Tipsy and Thirsty debuffs on mobs and non-partied crawlers if cast with sufficient skill (get out of there fast, because NOBODY wants to see a Thirsty Danger Dingo. Not even me.)

Crawler @oreniaa:

New Achievement! The Pen Is Mighty!

Bards, man. What you all can't do with a well-placed word. It seems like a waste of a perfectly good award to give you anything to do with them.

So I won't!

Reward: A Silver Tombow box! Inside are Blitz Sticks x 10 (good for trading! yeah! sure! right! Artistic types never make shitty decisions to enhance their perception and mana!) and Q's Exploding Pen. It originally also had 10 charges, but that Bond, he's such a kidder, who knows how many it had left when he brought it back.

Crawler @cairfrey :

New Achievement! All Revved Up And Ready to Go

The kids are losing their minds? You don't say! But by sticking it to the Sex Police, I gotta hand it to you. Gloved, I gotta hand it to you. Frankly, there was nobody asking for a case of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea more than the Purity Police. But I'd watch it if I was you. From the looks on their faces, the next burning sensation YOU feel might be a level 16 Fireball. Use protection, crawler!

Reward: A Silver Hole box! With a TOME of Hole, you perverts. The spell, Hole. Well, OK, there might be some Yog's Enchanted Chain in there. I promise not to judge you too hard.

(heh, heh, heh, hard.)

Crawler @deathdovesong

New Achievement! All Ends With Beginnings!

Up all night to get lucky number 7 - well, one crawler's luck might be another crawler's Desperado Club pass, but nobody in this party so far has any urge to get their Dirty Shirley on so you're probably safe for the time being.

OK, so a FEW of them have. Some of us saw what nasty shit went down in that skyfowl settlement, lazyscience, Jake and Hardison. But at least you don't have to worry about being their drink ticket.

Reward: a Silver Rebel, Rebel Box! Inside, a set of brown linen Outdated Religious Order robes of +3 Dexterity and +4 to Stealth (+5 if the mob is particularly weak-minded)

Crawler @lazyscience:

New Achievement: Move Your Ass!

I see you finally took advantage of that training room, none too early mind you. If you're not careful, I'm going to think you don't like my presents. But you did in fact avail yourself of the tutorial. And the banging tunes. Nobody needs to know that you still listen to 90s and 00s booty shakers to motivate yourself.

Nobody NEEDS to, but they all know now. You're welcome!

Reward: Delaying the inevitable advancement of encroaching mortality! Endorphins! Good shit like that!

OK, fine, since I did you dirrrty with the music reveal, have a Silver Alchemy Box! Contents: Funky Cold Medina x1, half-used bottle of Britney Spears Believe (deactivate aggro snake and snakelike mobs).

ATTENTION, all partied crawlers! Don't forget to update me on mobs, quests, or parties (defined at link) so I can award you achievements! Please let me know either in the replies to this post, reblogging with additions, or hit my askbox/DMs!

(please, do this, even with small and silly mobs/quests, it makes giving achievements so much easier!)

[adventurebasscamp]

any of yall want trivia about one of my favorite things in animal jam that no one cares about. THE AREA SIGNS

that's right, these bad boys. simple and not meant to stand out, but i'm quite fond of them!

there's a surprising amount of variation that these signs have had over the years, which. well it's actually not that surprising given how few graphics in animal jam are actually consistent lmao. but anyway here's a bunch of fun facts about em!

1. each area has a building icon to represent it, which is always consistent between signs. the chamber of knowledge for temple of zios, the juice hut for crystal sands, the tree for appondale, etc. but there is just one that's incorrect, and it's the sign pointing to the township from sarepia.

that building is the old version of jam mart clothing. from before jmc and club geoz swapped places in the beta testing.

let me repeat, this sign was already outdated during the beta and it has remained unchanged for 13 YEARS

2. most of the signs are drawn in this style here, with intricate shading and dark straps+hooks.

but a few of them, inexplicably, aren't. they look like this instead.

the weird thing is that the earliest signs in the game (ones shown in beta) and the newest signs (ones added with balloosh) both use the first style. so i guess this second style was some weird middle period where they changed the standard for some reason..???

3. the underwater area signs aren't as interesting since they are actually fully consistent. probably because all the underwater graphics are in vector instead of the usual crusty jpegs, they could streamline it more.

they do have a cool style to em though, and i think this crystal sands sign looks funny

4. the area signs in lost temple of zios are not there anymore. like they are just. gone. they were here in the beta, they were here in 2015 when the wiki's picture was added, and at some point they disappeared.

from what i can tell i think they were removed in the 2017 solar eclipse version of lost temple of zios and just... never got brought back.

5. the sizes of the signs are so inconsistent and i love it <3

[tweettweetie]

(picture is just 2 botticellis I redrew on animal jam cuz idk what else to put i know people just text post on here but I don’t want to for some reason anyway (also ignore I accidently yassified the 2nd one)

I was thinking about this the other day and I think I realized that I actually don’t like history that much, like political history, I like fashion history, music history, art history .. food history? Idk. But like even with Richard iii or something when I try to read about like any of the battles or idk.. political relationships I guess ITS SO BORING TO ME IM SO SORRY . I think I’m just more interested in like the personalities of historical figures, I think that’s why I like Charles ii because he uh .. he had a lot of personality and personal affairs let’s put it at that. ….. also I think I just like folklore and fairy tales more now that I think about it. I love fairy tales bro when I watched Shrek it was like the most magical experience of my life cuz I just kept going like “YOOOO THE THREE BLIND MICE ARE IN THIS MOVIE???”. Also I have a book that’s like a collection of grimms fairytales, I read all of it I really liked it. Fairy tales are so funny cuz like they just really don’t gaf. They do whatever the hell they want regardless if it makes any sense and it’s honestly what I strive to be. Also probably why I like the last unicorn so much. “the unicorns are trapped in the sea” what does that even mean. Wouldn’t they drown. Can unicorns breath underwater ??. Idk it’s never explained. Anyway uhm .. just wanted to get that off my chest cuz I kinda started to feel like a poser. None of this probably matters though.

[jessicas-pi]

is it possible for the ask game, if you could do either starbirds and wolves or a guide to the mythical and mysterious (the sabezra mythical creatures au) with directors commentary?

OOOOOH MYTHICAL & MYSTERIOUS DIRECTOR'S CUT ok buckle up I think you've unleashed a ramble monster because this AU has SO MUCH WORLDBUILDING that I haven't got to yet, and I might go off on some tangents. I'll try to restrain myself but I make no promises.

Soooo, I'm just gonna kinda read through it and talk about things as I come to them!

Okay, right off the bat, there's the framing of the fic. It's basically one long scene of Sabine & Ezra hanging out and reading each other's diaries for fun, with a ton of flashbacks. But in the first draft, the framing of the story was completely different! Instead of Sabine & Ezra reading the diaries, it was Rune (their adopted daughter) and Jacen who stole the diaries and were reading them! It had a lot of funny lines, so when I changed it, I saved all the old scenes to be reworked/rewritten into a companion fic.

Oh, another thing! So, Hera is a siren in this AU. Something I learned while researching mythical creatures is that there's basically two types of siren in mythology: the ones that are the same as mermaids, and then there's bird-women with singing powers. She's the bird-woman kind of siren because she flies! (Also, I made her a siren because the first thing Kanan noticed about her was her voice. In the very first draft, she was a selkie, and she and kanan had a meet cute where he very innocently picked up her coat that she'd dropped to return it to her and she thought he was stealing it and tackled him.)

And on the topic of selkies, Zeb's a selkie! He's purple because of a prank gone wrong. (Sabine thought the dye would wash right out of his coat! Honest!)

OOH, so, I just got to the part where Sabine's diary entry is about Ezra joining the crew, and that reminded me! One flashback scene that I wrote and ended up cutting was how Sabine and Ezra met. It was very little-mermaid-esque, but with a lot more confused screaming.

Hmmm, not much I can think of in the next few sections...

AH WAIT OK SO THERE'S THIS BIT!!

It had been rough at the beginning, but ever since he got rid of that red crystal pendant he brought up from the trenches of Malachor, he’d been much easier to get along with.

So, in case context doesn't give it away, the crystal he took from the trenches of Malachor is basically the Sith holocron. Dark side planets/places in general (Malachor, Dathomir, etc.) are various trenches and such in this---the deeper in the sea, the Darker the place. And Malachor itself...

Well, lets just say, I may have been slightly (incredibly) obsessed by the deep sea as a kid, so Malachor is my JAM.

Instead of a Sith temple, that giant pyramidal structure is replaced by an underwater volcano. The various pillars and columns scattered across the surface of Malachor are now hydrothermal vents (my beloveds). There's also a lot of bleached bones---whale falls, and (more creepily) merfolk skeletons.

OHH AND THAT BRINGS ME TO VARIOUS DARKSIDERS.

So, Force-sensitives are all merfolk in this AU (but not all merfolk are force-sensitive). But Dark-side merfolk look much different than regular mer. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from creepy deep sea animals (also my beloveds). All merfolk have bioluminescent patterns that shift colors, but Dark-siders have theirs permanently turned red. partly because of the red lightsaber thing, but also because no red light reaches the deep sea, so a lot of animals are red because they're essentially invisible, UNLESS they're seen by an animal that emits red light and can therefore see/hunt/kill the red animals, so emitting red light symbolizes how the Dark mer have become exclusively predatory and destructive.

uhhh I got kinda distracted there. ANYWAY,

Oh, there's that line about how Ezra has a habit of curling his tailfin around people's legs so he doesn't float away mid-conversation! So, there's lore to that. Basically, it's a mer-child thing. Little Mer don't have enough control of their body in the water to stay in one place. Kanan doesn't do it, because he grew up with the merfolk and in this AU he was an adult by the time they were wiped out, so he learned to adjust himself in the water with little movements. Ezra was a child when the merfolk were killed, so he never learned that and the habit of holding onto people with his tail has carried over, which is why he still does it as an older teenager.

Pff oh yeah also. that "this is... detailed" thing. I know the details. I know all the details. I will not be elaborating. Some things must remain unknown.

Oh! And the scene where they're talking up in the crow's nest of the ship and it's mentioned that Sabine spends time up there! That was a reference to Krownest! Get it? Crow's nest? Krownest? hehehe i'm so funny

OH OH OH SABINE'S BACKSTORY!! This wasn't elaborated much in the first draft but with the rewrite it got more attention. Although the circumstances are different than in canon, I tried to keep a lot of it the same---Sabine goes into a situation willingly trusting someone who doesn't have her best interests at heart and gets blindsided by their betrayal. ALSO ANOTHER FUN FACT!! In the original version she was an Amazon and not a Valkyrie!! But then I changed it up so she only joined the Amazons for a time after leaving her old life behind. She was determined to join their ranks and fit in, despite all the culture clashes, but when her Amazonian battle-sister left her for dead after she was injured in a skirmish, Sabine cut all her ties with them and left.

Ahh yeah this bit never fails to make me giggle.

“All right, all right,” she laughed. “Maybe I was a little slow in admitting my feelings for you.” “Aha! So you do have feelings for me!” He pointed a victorious finger at her.

At first glance, it's cute banter that hints that their friendship has started developing into a romance. Gains a new level of comedy when you reread it knowing that by this point, they're married.

Heheh the boat ride to krownest scene. Kanan's blind and he still knows they're silently flirting with each other.

OOH! JET! K I'm gonna probably go on a ramble now, anyway: Jet was Sabine's pegasus since she was a child. She left Jet behind when she ran away. During this AU's version of "Imperial Supercommandoes," they're confronted by Gar Saxon and his cronies on pegasi. He tells Sabine that after her mother became the leader of the Valkyries, she "generously gave us access to her stables." In reality, Ursa's hand was forced and the pegasi were taken from her. Sabine recognizes one of the horses there as Jet, and he recognized her. During the fight that followed, Jet's rider was shot, and Sabine grabbed his reins and she and Ezra made their getaway with him.

(In Heroes of Mandalore, instead of being bad at flying a jetpack, Ezra got stuck with a pegasus who hated him and kept trying to buck him off in midair lol)

Hmmm going on...

Oh! Ezra is an ocean Merfolk, and like saltwater (ocean) fish, he can't survive (shapeshifted into his mer-form) in freshwater. That's why it was so dangerous for him to jump in after Sabine fell through the ice---it was a freshwater lake.

Also, the scene where he deliriously asks her to take him to Valhalla if he dies, because "merfolk don't have anywhere to go," is a reference to the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, where mermaids turn to seafoam when they die.

Ahhhh yes, the necklace! I think I said this before in the tags of one of my merfolk art posts, but, so, for merfolk, giving handmade shell-jewelry is usually a marriage proposal, but it's not, like, automatically legally binding or anything. So basically, when 15-year-old Ezra gave Sabine her shell necklace, it was the equivalent of if you jokingly got down on one knee and offered your unrequited crush a cheap plastic ring from a cereal box or something, expecting her to roll her eyes, but instead she's like "Aw thanks! A ring!" and she starts unironically wearing the cheap plastic ring all the time and now you realize that she doesn't know it was a joke proposal because apparently rings don't go with proposals in her culture and you can't explain the joke now, it's way too late, and you want to die of embarrassment.

Oh yeah also Ezra found a pair of elaborate jewel-encrusted daggers in a shipwreck and gave them to Sabine. This is a reverse necklace situation--to reuse the metaphor, it's like if your best friend got down on one knee, pulled out a gorgeous diamond ring, and said "I found this in a gravel pit! It's for you cause I know you like cool rings bestiegirl!! :D" and you're like "...uh... thanks!" and you take the ring because it is a cool ring and you do love cool rings and you don't tell him that he basically proposed because apparently rings don't go with proposals in his culture.

mmmm yeah the love's lights scene. ahhh so much I could say. I guess, it was really fun in this part (and throughout the whole fic) to explore how Ezra wasn't entirely human, and how his merfolk instincts would affect him, especially regarding the way merfolk fall in love and the once-a-year merfolk festival. I actually have an outlined idea for a fic in the series that's about weird merfolk quirks and different traditions they have, so I might explore things more in that one.

ah man I am never gonna get tired of writing Sabine deciding to do random impromptu flirting and Ezra bluescreening over it.

oh yeah shoutout to Robert Louis Stevenson by the way, I stole a plot device from him (character hides in an apple barrel and overhears Important Things)

And then Rune and Jacen come in at the end! This was an adaptation of one of the original scenes of the fic that I mentioned at the beginning of this.

One other thing, I guess--the character named Koti is an orphaned mermaid girl that Kanan and Hera took in, so she's Jacen's little sister. the "guppies," as Rune calls them, are her three merfolk siblings--two of them are adopted and one is a sabezra kid. (said adopted children may or may not be rey and finn.) (Oh, and the guy Rune has a crush on? Poe Dameron. Obviously.)

Hmmm I think that's about it for this director's cut! Which is probably good considering I just dumped slightly under 2k words of ramble on ya

Thank you for the ask!! :D

[chatterbox-juice]

GOVERNMENTS! LEADERSHIPS! WOO!! i hate politics but Jamaa having a flag (last time I checked) suggests that there's some type of government or organization right?? like, yeah the jammatians could've just joined together and said something like "we stand together forever" but no. nah. no thank you. SO, i haven't thought about fully implementing this yet, but i kinda want to? hear me out; the lands of Jamaa have different pseudo-governments and cultures. there's only so much you can do in a game that [was] focused about educating kids the alphas don't count here k? Jamaa Township has a council-based "government;" the alphas make decisions. Township is a jack-of-all-trades thing, anyone from anywhere lives there, so the culture is one big loving doting hug of complete fuckery. Nothing makes sense except the things that do. A leopard runs the news station alongside a penguin. A great horned owl is playing the orchestra on top of the diamond shop. Jam Mart is always empty, a room filled with nothing but pillows exists, it's always crowded and nobody knows personal space even if it gutted them. It just makes sense. Appondale and Kimbara, which are in a territory dispute in my rewrite, both have a vague government structure following the same thing; battle. Appondale and Kimbara both LOVE battle, but in different ways. Appondale, and every other land, by default, also has the alphas that live there in charge (ex. Atlas and his pride, Olive, Biff, etc.) Outside of that "official" government, it's a chieftain system. Tribes in Appondale are somewhat isolated. News gets around, but everyone wants to be left alone outside of events. A gathering for something and other happens, Appondalians (?) celebrate and build camaraderie, and then the camaraderie is basically forgotten about when they retreat to their respective tribes, families, etc. Kimbara, being a smaller land in my rewrite, dabbles in military aristocracy. Protection is NEEDED, and since Kimbara is so bare, warlords are celebrated instead of regular chieftains. Tactical brilliance on the battlefield is what earns you respect. If you have a good sturdy build in Kimbara, use it! They're probably more interconnected because of this. Not necessarily hosting meetings per say, but maybe just little things, like marriages between different tribes. Castes most likely exist in families because of this, we'll see.

Being a warlord's offspring isn't earning you any leverage in Kimbara; blood is as thick as water until it's on the ground. Meritocracy but not really but actually kind of.

In Appondale, blood means everything, to the point of family heads being the ones who call the shots for the land, especially noticeable in Atlas' pride, where obviously the males/head of the family is in charge.

also here's proof about my au's map im transferring it to digital rn

[here-be-descriptions]

The Ness, scientific name: Mystipistrix caecindagos, “blindly-searching mysterious sea-monster”; from “Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds.” Artwork by Dylan Bajda.

My favorite creature, from my favorite entry so far!

“Ness hunt in places without enough light to see by. Whether deep underwater or in the mud-choked depths of rivers, vision is all but useless to find food in its choice of habitat. So over time these birds have lost their eyes altogether - not even a remnant remains visible in the adult, though chicks are born with small eyes faintly visible below their skin, which become buried in muscle tissue as adults. They don't need to see their food to catch it, for they can utilize a special sixth sense in the form of electrosensitivity. The sensitive beak of the ness's platyporp ancestors already held the first hallmarks of this new ability and helped it to locate small animal prey hiding in muddy sediments. Ness have hypertrophied this sense, their beaks being covered in highly sensitive tissue pitted with hundreds of thousands of electricity-sensitive pores. Using a side-to-side motion of their heads, ness gauge the direction and distance of their prey by registering the electric charges its muscles make as it swims. Without eyes, the visual center of its brain now controls these new sensory inputs; in its own way, the ness may literally see in waves of electricity, even in a world without light.

Ness are social; pair bonds are the primary social structure, with mated couples cooperating to herd and capture fish. Though communication between pairs is primarily vocal in the form of high-pitched whistles, there is some degree of electrical communication. To avoid jamming each other's signals, for example, pairs in close proximity release electrical pulses at different speeds so as not to overlap. These specific frequencies soon become signatures consistent to each partner, and so instantly recognizable to one another versus strange ness or other types of animals in the environment.

Ness may be without eyes, but they can detect light with the pineal gland on the back of their heads. In this way they can track seasonal changes as they come to the surface to breathe. In winter, when the sea is dark throughout the day, they follow the deep water fish into the surface waters and can forage in much shallower levels than they do in summer. They give birth in winter to 2-3 relatively large chicks, which both parents tend to and provide food for until they become more capable. As very young ones cannot dive like their parents, a winter birthing season allow their chicks to hide in the shallows, cloaked beneath the safety of the polar night.”