#armored scale insect

[onenicebugperday]

Armored scale insect eggs, Diaspididae

Photographed in Singapore by Nicky Bay // Website // Facebook

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

[vieramars]

I think that if a dragon were to rot it would be like a whale fall. The event is so rare that is teems with opportunist scavengers and creates a boom in the ecosystem. The flesh is uniquely rich and saturated with raw magic that will imbue the next few generations of vultures with sharper talons and bile twice as acidic. That magical energy disperses through the food web to grant small gifts to billions of different creatures. Insects are the first to find the carcass and the last to pick its flesh. Then the plants and fungi take over when there are only bones. Apothecary shelves will be overflowing for months with unique flowers, fruits, and mushrooms. Some gardeners and brewers plant trees in the exposed ribcage.

Humans also play a role in this decay, naturally. Even quite rotten, dragon meat carries no diseases or parasites. There are delicacies made from the flesh at its most rotten state, though most prefer the fresher meat. The scales, bones, teeth, and claws are valuable to jewelers, armorers, and smiths of tools and weapons. If you're lucky, it'll be your local craftsmen who get their hands on them, and you might get a nice set of bone kitchen knives for a high but reasonable price. If you're unlucky, some company will step in to strip away all the valuables from this dead angel, and the 1% will enjoy some novelties they don't appreciate the significance of. They've never seen a dragon rot, or dug through its decaying flesh with thick gloves to stave off its acidic blood.

What remains of the bones will eventually be covered in earth and lush new life. It will become a garden, perhaps tended by the humans who remember it, or perhaps only by the birds and squirrels that scatter the seeds. Someday dragons might visit this place to rear their young on its bounty, and thank the dead for what they've given back.

[amnhnyc]

What’s up? Not the ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii). To spot this critter, look down! This armored mammal spends most of its time on the floor of its habitat, creating burrows beneath the surface to snooze in during the day. Under the cover of darkness, it emerges to forage for insects like ants and termites. It uses its long tongue to slurp up prey whole. When threatened, it can roll up into a ball, protecting its soft body from predators. Its keratinized scales act as a built-in suit of armor. This species can be found in parts of Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Photo: geogirll, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[credus99-blog]

Aggression/ Danger to humans: Medium, Medium

Element/ Ailment: None

            The Green Duck, or Ljëndiv in Dhënuvgöm, is an avian wyvernid species inhabiting the northeastern continent's forest. Green Ducks eat fruits, berries, leaves, and large insects they find while wandering around the mountain forests. While both genders of Green Ducks have a quail-like feather atop their head, only the males have their characteristic green feathers, with females dull browns in coloring. Belonging to a group of avian wyvernids commonly called Punching Ducks (Ljëmpak), the thumbs of these moderately belligerent animals have become stiff and immobile.  Growing a tough round claw at its tip to focus the impact of its punches to a singular point. Due to this avian wyvernid's arm structure, the Green Duck is unable to punch its arms straight forward; instead, it punches from side to front like a boxer's haymaker. Punching with enough force to easily break the ribs and femurs of humans with a single punch.

            For protection, Green Ducks travel in single-gendered cabals (3-5 individuals for males, 5-10 for females) led by patriarchs or matriarchs who are the oldest individuals in the group. When a cabal is threatened, these avian wyvernids will face a threat and inflate the leather sacks on their throats to appear bigger and produce loud rumbling to ward off a threat. If a threat does not heed this warning, Green Ducks will immediately charge and punch the threat. In female cabals, the youngest adult females attack first, while the matriarchs protect the chicks or juveniles of the cabal.

            In early spring, female Green Duck cabals inflate their throat sacks during mating season and make loud calls to attract male cabals. Once more than one male cabal approaches the females, the larger male cabal will attempt to intimidate the smaller ones with inflated throat sacks and brief threat displays. The two cabals will fight if the smaller cabal does not back down immediately. The fighting will continue until one cabal gives up and runs away to safety. While possessing tough armored scales on their chest, arms, and legs, it is not entirely uncommon for male cabals to suffer cracked bones from fighting multiple opponents at once. Sometimes, male Green Ducks are killed during these fights due to being ganged up on by two or more other males at once. If Cabals are the same size, then sometimes the two cabals will forgo the threat displays and start fighting each other immediately. Once the fighting is over, the winning cabal will mate with the cabal of females, with the oldest males mating first and the youngest ones mating last.

            Once the males have mated with the females, the males will depart and leave the females behind. The females then follow their matriarch to the cabal's communal nest location. Each nest is constructed out of soil, feathers, moss, twigs, and leaves and will contain 4 or 5 eggs each. These communal nest locations are often passed down from generation to generation and have one key characteristic. Each observed Green Duck communal nest is created someplace where the nest is protected on all sides except for one or two entrances. Allowing the Matriarchs (Female Green Ducks who have already gone through menopause) to more easily to defend the nest while the younger females are out foraging. The eggs will then incubate between 50 to 60 days before hatching. The female Green Duck chicks will spend the rest of their lives with their mother's cabal or split off to form a new one once they reach sexual maturity at three years of age. On the other hand, male chicks will leave their birth cabal at 8 months of age to join a smaller cabal or form their own. Green Ducks in the wild live an average of twenty-five years (being reproductively active until they are sixteen), while individuals raised in captivity can live as old as sixty-three.

[install-wizard-exe]

Glass Armor. First introduced in Morrowind as a High Elven design mass-produced for warriors in service to the Dark Elven god-king Vivec, a Gigeresque mass of neon green shards of volcanic glass set into elegant silver plates. It then gradually evolved into the more tame Ray Lederer design we all know and love from Skyrim. Both designs suit the High Elves of their respective games very well, but what sort of armors would they be constructing in their homeland? I wanted to design something beyond extravagant, purely decadent, calling to mind Art Nouveau sensibilities and even some influence from architecture, with the inlays resembling stained glass windows, and each individual plate resembling a flower petal or insect wing. Underneath the plates is a suit of scale mail, with each individual scale inlaid with a glass gem. I would love to see this design implemented into a mod as some sort of artifact from the High Elven homeland.

[x-candy-guts-x]

Yautja x human ft worm on a string

I had some more thoughts :)

•It’s really interesting to me how humans are at their core a prey species. You can argue that forwards facing eyes are a trait of predators however it’s seen in basically all monkeys and apes and they are primarily vegetarians. They eat small prey like insects or small mammals but aren’t on the scale of say k-9’s, felines, and other obligatory carnivores. I believe it’s primarily a trait derived from our deeply social species. Our eyes are a huge part of our kinds communication wether we are looking at something or someone. We follow the direction of peoples eyes when talking. It’s been a great tool in our development.

•that being said I feel like predatory species like the yautja would find it fascinating to watch a human go from prey species to brutal predator in a matter of moments due to any given circumstances. Our instincts to danger are typically the five F’s. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn and faint. (For those of you who don’t know freeze is when you become unresponsive much like a deer in the headlight. Fawn is when you try to essentially suck up to the threat and get them to calm down and no longer be a threat. This is usually seen in abusive relationships where people will try to appease their abusor by avoiding conflict or doing whatever they can to get the abusor in a good mood again even at their own detriment. And faint is well.. faint lol.)

•Humans developed carrion stomachs due to our tendency to go after the largest strongest prey possible. We had so much meat we couldn’t eat it all and it would spoil. Our stomachs developed strong acids to kill bacteria in meat that has been sitting.

•humans are one of the only species on the planet to actively hunt the largest and strongest of any animal in a given herd/group. Which I think is something the yautja relate too.

•for humans this was out of necessity. The biggest animal provided the most food for our large social groups. We needed to provide the most food for our people. And our ability to kill from a distance and out do our prey in endurance allowed us to not have to worry about energy expenditure like big cats who hunt alone and need to conserve as much as possible thus hunting whatever is the easiest.

•we did this for so long that we developed predatory instincts. However at our core we still have prey instincts. Your yautja finds that cute. :)

•he is much larger, stronger and deadlier than you without armor and weapons. Sharp teeth and claws with a scaled hide and muscle structure that could knock over a bus is nothing to sneeze at. He absolutely adores the difference between the two of you. Your much smaller form with soft skin and tiny blunt teeth and nails is endearing. But this also makes him extra worried for you when you go hunting. He has to remember that humans are fine predators but only when they have someone else to rely on.

•humans are NOT meant to be alone. In virtually anything. Todays society will have you believe in toxic ideals like pulling yourself up by your boot straps and not needing to rely on anyone. But humans at their very core are meant to be in large deeply socially bonded groups. It takes a village to raise 1 human properly. And our society has forgotten that. Your yautja finds it deeply unsettling when he finds out that your culture is not as social as it seems from the outside looking in. With everyone living so close together and there being so many people in such small areas you’d think everyone would know everybody. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. Single parents and fear stricken neighbors run rampant in most of the cities. So when he sees you pack bonding with a roomba he takes it upon himself to be your best friend.

•that’s another thing. Humans are so social we pack bond with virtually anything. We crave intimacy so badly (not like that you pervs) that we will pack bond with ANYTHING. You name it. A dog? So common. A car? Strange to him but not uncommon for one to become at least a little attached to something important like that. A fuzzy noodle with googly eyes attached? It’s a worm on a string? Ok we’re getting you some help.

•your getting dragged to an oomanologist and he prescribes you a pet.

•your pet ate the worm on a string

•there were tears

•he’s secretly happy about it

•he actually tried to get rid of it several times. Garbage shoot? You walked in on him mid act. Burn it? The bastard wouldn’t even reach the fire because the string kept getting tangled to twigs and branches that hovered above it. A tall shelf? Well he found you sitting on top of the fridge like a gargoyle once so that was out of the question.

•your yautja regularly has to remember that he’s a lot bigger than you and you are so smol. His voice alone can startle you if your not expecting it! There goes the prey instincts again. Loud noises are not your friend that’s for sure.

•did you know that in alien vs predator they used tiger roar sound effects for the yautja roars? They actually do this in a lot of movies and it pisses me off especially when they attach it to things like mountain lions who literally can’t roar but that’s besides the point- anyway tiger roars are actually capable of STUNNING their prey. There’s something about the volume and frequency that actually temporarily stubs other creatures. If the yautja canonically roar similar to tigers and he accidentally stuns you OmG.

•so much purring

•he’s on his knees hugging you trying to make himself small.

•this dude cannot navigate your human home.

•he broke a dining room chair sitting in it

• he’s too big for the hallways without ducking and turning sideways partially sometimes.

•hand holding is so cute. Ur hands are just so tiny compared to his

•he does research on monkeys and sees how grooming is a very important social que and he connects this to humans. Unfortunately he didn’t think that humans were so prudish around nudity so when he just picked you up and threw you into a big tub he was NOT ready for those hands.

•predator instincts activate 🔫

•he almost drowned

•mildly scared of you

•your so small how are you that strong

•when y’all do get comfortable enough though he loves bath time :)

•scratches your little head with his claws (lightly) a lot

•plays with your hair a lot especially in the tub

•your self care routine becomes his care for human routine

•honestly? He fucking prides himself on how well taken care of you are. He flaunts you like you have a pedigree

• “my ooman is better than yours”

•que fight

•you become friends with the other human and while they’re fighting, you guys are sitting in the dirt playing games.

•they come back like ?? Hello? Did you not see us? WERE U EVEN WATCHING?

•you get mad at him? He went and got you new worms

•all the colors

•he has a worm for his ships dash. He chills. Sometimes you catch him playing with it

•I had more ideas but I forgot

[bogleech]

which animal, upon being made much larger, would be the most effective as an anti-armored vehicle weapon?

I honestly can't think of one that could get through a chunk of reinforced metal machinery until it was basically large and heavy enough to crush it, at which point the answer would be just any animal at all at Godzilla scale.

But if the vehicle isn't 100% watertight, you could at least wipe out the people inside it with a giant predatory flatworm. They saturate insects in an adhesive mucus full of digestive enzymes, so it seeps through the prey's exoskeleton and liquefies the innards in practically seconds. Even if the vehicle is completely sealed, the people inside are going to run out of oxygen sooner or later. Someone's going to have to try cracking a hatch open.

[inexplicifics]

Hi the fashion designer in training again, you posted my og ask and it got me thinking about it again (as if i ever stop) and I was thinking about how different monsters would be categorized and how that might change the fashion sense of things too. For example, theres humanoids, animal adjacent, insect adjacent (broadly), and plant adjacent.

Humanoids, to me, would be creatures/monsters that have little to no animal, insect, or plant otherness, such as trolls, drowners, bruxa, even sirens (even though they overlap into animal). Witchers obviously have magical uses from their kills but from a fashion/mundane perspective a lot of what these creatures provide would be equivalent to that of what a human might. Now, there is a lot of real world history that is sensitive and triggering about the use of human remains, especially in recent times of widespread slavery that has a lot of themes of cannibalism, farming practices, and lack of humanity even after death, such as leather tanning for clothes, the use of human remains in parchment (as parchment is made from animal remains and not wood or plants, that’s what differentiates it from paper), and more. This is why anything that leans more human than monster (such as a bruxa, vampire, succubus, etc) I don’t think I’ll touch with a ten foot pole unless it is to deal with their unique remains. Creatures that lean more monster such as trolls get thrown through the wringer though.

Trolls specifically have really thick skin, which in a tanning process would take… forever to turn into leather but the results would be potentially amazing. Thick strong leather would last for centuries if treated right, I have no doubt in my mind that troll leather would make fantastic saddles, boots, furniture — awful clothes but the other implications mean a lot to me because it might just make excellent armor.

Sirens, as the middleman between humanoids and animal adjacent, would be excellent to discuss scales. There is a company that currently helps with fish scale waste and uses them to make clothes that are naturally soft and have added benefits of being moisture managing (helps with retaining moisture in skin in dry environments) and also is naturally anti-odor! This is incredibly cool for the fashion world and I could see it being a real thing for the witcher world… if they had the time to do it, as I fear modern technology would need to be replaced with magic and I’m not sure mages, researcher included, would be interested in going out of their way to collect siren scales to create fabric (unless they could imbue it with magic? 🤔 A potential concept to long lasting charmed clothes) So very interesting but not as plausible in a fantasy world.

But! Reptilian scales are highly sought after in fashion designs and are not as wasteful as fish scales. The Witcher basilisk is reptilian in nature, which would make for excellent clothes, anything in fashion you can think of in scales you can bet it exists. Scales are widely loved and used even today, so basilisk skin? Oh yeah, it’s up there for fashion. Even says so in various wikis 😉.

Animal adjacent clothing will look a lot like what we have for animals now, adjusted as needed. Basilisks are large so their hides would be easy to convert to many items, whereas snake skin is small and you would need several to make a significant piece of cloth. This would make it far more valuable. Not to mention the claws, claws which are used in various forms. From clasps on just about everything, to jewelry, to decor, to piercings, I know a basilisk claw would be on a noble’s cloak or belt, I just know it.

This translates to, as mentioned before, wargs and other furred animals. The larger, the better, the more you can take, the better, the more *dangerous* to prove your worth, the better. A bear claw is nothing compared to a warg fang, and so on and so forth. I haven’t even gotten started on the length of griffin feathers and what that would do for fashion. No one understands what length in natural materials means to me except for other people who’s special interests are fashion, fantasy worlds, and survival skills. I cannot explain *length of feathers* in gowns. In cloaks. In *jewelry.* But that’s a post for a little old me who isn’t up at 1am on a school night.

Enjoy my midnight ramblings, I realize that this got out of hand and is uh… not really well connected in terms of thoughts but I hope it made sense to people who aren’t deep in the trenches like me lmao

Please imagine me sitting here with my chin on my hands, staring at you with hearts in my eyes as I listen to your interesting and informative midnight ramblings.

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the longnose gar!

The longnose gar, known well within North America by anglers, and for their distinctive snout. Scientific name Lepisosteus osseus, meaning bony or armor-scaled bony fish. Gars, as a particularly old species are often referred to as living fossils, in that many of them are exactly the same as the fossils of them we have been finding from millions of years earlier, and the longnose gars are no different. Gars first start appearing within the fossil record around 240 million years ago, and are the only remaining decedents of the Ginglymodi clade, a particularly successful fish group in the Mesozoic era. The reason for their low amount if speciation is because gars are the slowest rate of molecular evolution among jawed vertebrates.

These gar fossils can be found worldwide, but the longnose gar can first be found in the fossil records around 1.8 million years ago, fossils found in Cuba, Kansas, Central America, and area in-between. In the modern day the longnose gar lives along mainly the Mississippi River and the Eastern United States freshwater rivers, although they can handle relatively high salinity, giving them the ability to live in estuaries that other gars can not. In these environments they spend their times living in the shadow of vegetation, usually near fallen trees that they can hide within, or near rocky outcroppings that they can camouflage near, or sea grasses.

Referred to as a primitive fish sometimes, this is because their lack of change over the years. The longnose gar in particular is known for having their intestines in a shape referred to as a spiral valve. A spiral valve is a section of lower intestine that is shaped in a stack of potato chips on top of one another, with a spiral going between them, similar to the look of fish gills when opened, found only within animals that are particularly old and living fossils (sharks, sturgeons, lungfish, paddlefish, and gars). Shaped this way for excess absorption. other than this they also have some old trait such as the bony scaling referred to as ganoid scales, which can also be found in some variation on sturgeon.

Their diet consists of mainly insects and crustaceans, and occasionally small gamefish that they can catch, although this is a rare occasion and mostly made up of fry. Other than humans, they not predated upon, and are apex predators in their environments. Their lifehistory is rather long compared to the fish they live around, but shorter than most gar, living 15-20 years, although in captivity there have been longnose gars that live as long as 40 years. These animals spawn in the summertime from April-July, having as many as 30,000 eggs at a time which are spawned in areas of smooth stones, where the eggs will stick. These animals usually reach sexual maturity around 6 years but some males will reach maturity at 2 years of age. Once they reach their full size they can get as long as 4-5 feet and can weigh more than 50 pounds.

Have a wonderful day!

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Madagascar Hissing Cockroach - Gromphadorhina portentosa

They're back!

Despite how many postings I've made about the ROM's insects (and this specie's exhibit in particular), there's always something new to talk about or share. For today, I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that this insect home is now longer, essentially taking up the space of 2 live-insect exhibits. That's quite an upgrade from when I saw them last year! It's for the best that these Roaches received a terrarium upgrade given that not only are many individuals sharing real estate area, but there are many nymphs scurrying about. A Hissing Roach nymph looks very similar to the full-grown adult, especially since all stages lack wings. However, you can tell them apart as nymphs are smaller in size and leg-span, and their exoskeleton may have a lighter coloration with thinner armor. Inside their exhibit, they have access to good nutrition and protection from predators, so naturally they will molt and grow larger over time. This is good for individual longevity, but if the Roaches cluster, it could instigate competition for space in the terrarium! Particularly among the hardy, fully grown males. Speaking of, there's one specific "handsome" specimen highlighted in Picture 4 (and a total of 3 large males in Picture 1) with a robust form and prominent horns. He would easily batter his rivals, but more room may allow him some peace, so long as other males keep their distance. While the "handsome" males are certainly eye-catching given their large size and pronotum knobs, the showstopper today is a young male.

Although his horns are little more than exoskeletal bumps, the young nymph showcased a lot of promise and strength with his remarkable ability to climb the side of his terrarium. Despite the surface being vertical, his tarsal claws have a strong grip, allowing him to scale up the wall with ease and then move to the right. How he gets down from there is anyone's guess. Moreover, as he moved to the right, his feet were faced with a new obstacle for his climb: glass. While the images capture the beginning of the moment, they don't fully demonstrate just how much effort this insect put into gripping the glass. As the young male stretched out his limbs, the tarsal claws slipped and slid until they found a spot to grip. Like a mountain climber without a line trying to find a foothold, the young Roach was very diligent and careful. He did eventually manage to put more legs on the glass, but couldn't move further to his right very much, so he turned back around to the textured wall. It's still an impressive feat, and it allowed patrons of the museum to receive a good long look at his underside (Picture 9). You can even see his "neck" which is normally concealed beneath his pronotum! It's utterly remarkable how different they look on their underside. Not to mention how fine the sensory hairs along their legs are.

Pictures were taken on November 19, 2024 with a Google Pixel 4. Come and see the many insect exhibits of the Royal Ontario Museum if you happen to be in town. There will be a video follow-up to this point in the future to showcase how the nymphs move and interact with their terrarium roommates.

[monstersinthecosmos]

okay I think we should take inventory of what we learned about Marius's house.

In fact, the impression was one of comfortable messiness.

(i think the tiktok kids started calling ADHD clutter clustering or something LMAO marius de romanus cluster girlie i guess. thanks i hate it)

Here's some stuff that Marius had on his island!!!!!!!

stone benches

a lighted oil lamp on a stand

a pair of heavy wooden doors

a sarcophagus with a plain lid, cleanly fashioned out of diorite

The lid plated in iron and contained

a golden mask, its features carefully molded, attached to a hood made up of layered plates of hammered gold.

a pair of leather gloves covered completely in tinier more delicate gold plates like scales.

a large folded blanket of the softest red wool with one side sewn with larger gold plates

Magnificent Grecian urns on pedestals in the corridors

great bronze statues from the Orient

exquisite plants at every window and terrace open to the sky.

Gorgeous rugs from India, Persia, China c

giant stuffed beasts mounted in lifelike attitudes-

--the brown bear,

--the lion,

--the tiger,

--even the elephant standing in his own immense chamber,

--lizards as big as dragons,

--birds of prey clutching dried branches made to look like the limbs of real trees.

brilliantly colored murals covering every surface from floor to ceiling

a dark vibrant painting of the sunburnt Arabian desert complete with an exquisitely detailed caravan of camels and turbaned merchants moving over the sand

a jungle warming with delicately rendered tropical blossoms, vines, carefully drawn leaves

creatures everywhere in the texture of the jungle-

--insects,

--birds,

--worms in the soil-

too many monkeys in the jungle,

too many bugs crawling on the leaves.

thousands of tiny insects in one painting of a summer sky.

a large gallery walled on either side by painted men and women staring at me

Figures from all ages these were-

--bedouins,

--Egyptians,

--Greeks and Romans,

--knights in armor,

--peasants

--kings

--queens.

--Renaissance people in doublets and leggings,

--the Sun King with his massive mane of curls,

--people of our own age.

droplets of water clinging to a cape,

the cut on the side of a face,

the spider half-crushed beneath a polished leather boot.

a library, blazing with light.

Walls and walls of books and

rolled manuscripts,

giant glistening world globes in their wooden cradles,

busts of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses,

great sprawling maps.

Newspapers in all languages lay in stacks on tables.

Fossils,

mummified hands,

exotic shells.

bouquets of dried flowers,

figurines and fragments of old sculpture,

alabaster jars covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs.

comfortable chairs with footstools,

candelabra or oil lamps.

a forest of cages.

birds of all sizes and colors

monkeys

baboons,

Potted plants crowded against the cages-

--ferns and

--banana trees,

--cabbage roses,

--moonflower,

--jasmine,

--other sweetly fragrant nighttime vines.

purple and white orchids,

waxed flowers that trapped insects in their maw,

little trees groaning with peaches and lemons and pears.

a hall of sculptures equal to any gallery in the Vatican museum.

adjoining chambers full of paintings,

Oriental furnishings,

mechanical toys.

fine rosewood paneling with framed mirrors rising to the ceiling.

painted chests,

upholstered chairs,

dark and lush landscapes,

porcelain clocks.

A small collection of books in the glass-doored bookcases,

a newspaper of recent date lying on a small table beside a brocaded winged chair.

the stone terrace. where banks of white lilies and red roses gave off their powerful perfume.

a pair of winged chairs that faced each other

a dozen or so candelabra and sconces on the paneled walls.

brocade cushions

[r005ter]

Ok, so I was looking through a COD Monster AU and she had interesting and creative interpretations regarding to what the characters would be like as this specific monster/hybrid or otherwise.

These characters include:

-Price

-Soap

-Ghost

-Gaz

-Alejandro

-Rodolfo

-Valeria

-Graves

-König

-Horangi

-Laswell (makes a brief appearance but she seemed to stay human)

————————————————————————

So focusing on the 141 members it’s clear she did the ‘19 versions, so no Roach. :’(

(Which is FINE btw, totally understand why she didn’t include Roach, people can include whoever they want in their AU, I’m not hating).

BUT, this fandom seems loose with cannon anyway, so I thought I’d go brainstorming what Roach would be like as a monster/hybrid.

These are my head-cannons:

For the most part it seems like the monster designs retain aspects related to their monster side (claws, wings, talons, scales, fur, shadows, fangs, etc). So going off of that, I’d incorporate that into Roaches design.

First and foremost, Roach has to have his signature antennas. >:DAnd just for fun maybe include insect inspired eyes, and maybe insect wings? Pincers (maybe)? I’ll leave that up for interpretation.

He has an ability to communicate telepathically to roaches. This could be great for spying (Roach has all the tea) and for intimidating the enemy. What’s more terrifying than being bombarded by a huge swarm of roaches? :D

Thought it’d be fun if Roach had a smaller build to him? Like, I’ve seen some fan art where people depict him being a menace by hiding in small crevices and/or cupboards, or somehow ended up hanging in the corner of a ceiling somewhere. I thought that’d be perfect! (I’ll leave that up for interpretation).

Or, OR, let’s go completely off the rails. Since his original design has him mostly covered up, he's just completely made up of roaches that are embodying military suite (Armor? Clothing? Don't know my military term that well).

And like, when first meeting him you're under the impression that he's a human or something but then later on you just see his body burst into an army of roaches, like a hive mind situation. 👀

And like, I’ll leave it up for interpretation if he can still talk or not, since he’s essentially just made up of a swarm of (intelligent) roaches.

————————————————————————

The original maker of this AU is @bluegiragi. Just a heads up, she’s mostly known for making (+18) content. I was intrigued by her character designs and stayed for the lore. 😗

While I’m not too crazy about the erotic side of her work, she is writing an interesting story and am curious where she’ll take it. 👀

(Plus I’m a sucker for a good ghoap story). 😔👉👈

[cloudyswritings]

More Wyrm Things

just some more wyrm(and PK) headcanons.

Wyrm:

They don’t really sleep in the same way that other bugs, beasts, and higher beings do? Like it’s something a bit like how dolphins sleep with half their brain, but on a much more diffuse scale. The result is that they don’t sleep but do have more and less active periods.(this is also why PK was immune to the Radiances influence and why he felt comfortable moving his palace into the dream realm)

They’re fully capable of closing their inner throat to avoid taking in excess water if they burrow through a aquifer underground.

Aditionally Wyrms aren’t really bugs so they don’t actually have spiracles like bugs do, I’d make the wager that they’ve got lungs or some other stranger form of respiration.

It actually seems like Wyrms are vertebrates? Like the wyrm corpse has what look like vertebrae. I think the track of evolution on hollownest world probably has a group of creatures with both a skeleton and an exoskeleton. These would be some kind of fusion of reptiles and crustaceans, this is the group Wyrms and their distant kin belong to.

Wyrm meat is very tough, luminous, and highly toxic to most beings. Of course roots can devour a wyrm corpse without issue.

in lower form(ie after dying) most Wyrms choose to be taller than the bugs that worship them and also still mostly rely on touch and scent over sight.

Wyrms like very dry and windy conditions, in fact stagnant air and high humidity will actually cause respiratory issues and begin rusting their outer coat of armor, making it much harder to move and shed.

PK:

He doesn’t like having bugs that don’t share his pale color scheme in his palace for any length of time.

in fact this might be a wyrm thing in general but aesthetics matter a ton to him, like it’s sorta an OCD thing? But he needs things to be on theme, at least where he lives. Colors that complement it(like red) are tolerated.

when he first met the white lady he was terrified of her. She was the only other pale being he’d met, and he expected their meeting to end with one of them consuming the other.

in general he tries to distance himself from the culture Wyrms have, he only indulges his instincts in private.

he’s a messy eater, so when he holds court and does politics he generally doesn’t eat. I think most denizens of Hallownest think that gods just don’t eat because of this.

He has fantastic spacial awareness and impeccable memory. Yes this does mean he remembers every single mask in the abyss intimately.

He nibbles on things when anxious sometimes.

He wears such a long cloak to conceal the parts of his body where his understanding of lower bugs and beings failed and he made mistakes. He’s got some really fucking weird joints, and seethrough bits( especially over his heart, it’s why he wears his part of the kingsoul there.

his head might be mostly hollow tbh, it’s a lot like the maw of his wyrm form, in a sense it’s even appropriate to say he doesn’t have a true face.

Parts of his brain are actually stored in his lower body and chest, not that it really matters because as a god he’d survive even without a body. Though he’d have a harder time with that than the radiance. He’s a god of the physical world and she’s one of the ephemeral world.

he likes the taste of mint, to the horror of the bugs around him(it’s a toxic insect repellent to them)

he has little ingots of metal he eats, like candy bars but very dense. It’s because he needs metal in his diet, something which hornet deeply regrets inheriting from him.

[ms-scarletwings]

Every Dredge Aberration (2024), part 14

Over sea and sky raced their hideous, cacophonous sound.

Industrial din, siren’s wail, and earth’s quake,

at once was joined by a dragon’s wake.

Lo! they call, see it winding their false island around.

Hear it threaten to punish their folly if found.

Over waves rang a crescendo warning for the final chain’s break. ₊˚.༄

Crawling Instar ˚.༄

Encyclopedia #181

Aberrant form of Opabinia

Description:

Folds of flesh contract in rhythmic waves, roving ceaselessly towards its target

Comment: Do you understand what an “instar” is? It’s a term to describe an insect or other arthropod still on a path of multiple molts to achieve its mature form. This above, like itself before the ooze’s touch, is still a larval stage of something greater.

How to catch: For this specimen you will have to be switching back to shallows-appropriate advanced gear. Return to the mangroves and surrounding jungle graveyard. You can easily guess where you’ll be looking for a harvesting spot by now.

Boreal Shell ˚.༄

Encyclopedia #182

Aberrant form of boreaspis

Description:

A cold wind blows through a skelatal frame, condensed into the light of a ghostly aurora.

Comment: Ironically, it’s construction scratches better an itch for something I previously didn’t know how badly was missing in the Stellar Basin, or the Pale reach- The signature beauty of their nights wrapped into a cruelly clever play on the boreaspis’s name. Nonetheless, it is still so wrong and unbelonging to the warm and vibrant swamps. A treasured find for the record.

How to catch: An infused coiling rod is the sole tool to drag through the thickness of sinister ooze and twisted tangles of the bog both.

Broken Arapaima ˚.༄

Encyclopedia #183

Aberrant form of arapaima

Description:

Scales plucked from skin turned leather. Eyes paled from the agony of knotted muscles. Bones unset and set untrue.

Comment: Warped bodies as powerless before the elder presence as any other. The flesh must either embrace the change, bend with the current, or it will be broken so easily. We would be foolish to believe we are any stronger.

How to catch: As above ^^^

Primordial Shadow ˚.༄

Encyclopedia #184

Aberrant form of Xiphactinus

Description:

Whispering purple plates orbit and lock around a shadowy core. Shapes of darkness fill the spaces between.

Comment: Not even before I’m done in my bewitched appreciation of the boreal shell, this other living artwork comes into clutches. Did you plunge too far into that darkness, ancient fish? What I don’t have a clue of is whether this new shell is an organic or salvaged one.

How to catch: ^^^

Effigy Crab

Encyclopedia #185

Aberrant form of horseshoe crab

Description:

Wisps of yellow light flicker within this ghastly shell, a screaming skull with a spinal tail.

Comment: I wish I could just dissect the little mutant to find out exactly what's ticking inside that bone armor. Whether flesh, gem, or fluid, the whole animal will be needed as one of the pigments making up the Golden Treasure paint selection.

How to catch: Simply set crab pots about the Twisted Strand, specifically at water no deeper than 10 meters.

Mire Screecher

Encyclopedia #186

Aberrant form of giant mud crab

Description:

A lashing yellow tongue whips around a mouth of flattened teeth. Two humanlike eyeballs burst between dripping claws.

Comment: When a wise man once remarked that he had fought mud crabs more fearsome than you, perhaps he had been referring to these. Take one of them down to Little Marrow to complete the requirements for a beautiful new paint job.

How to catch: With enough space, these are probable to also turn up in the same pots as your horseshoe crabs, but their full depth range runs between 5 and 25 meters.

Wretched Nipper ˚.༄

Encyclopedia #187

Aberrant form of nipponite

Description:

Blunt teeth and a forked tongue test the flanks of passing creatures. A single loosened scale is enough.

Comment: For just a moment, I mistook this atrocity against natural law for one of those office staple removers. Retaining some of the knotted oddness of the original mollusk, it boasts very openly its poorness as a swimmer, likely preferring to simply wait in ambush.

How to catch: Release your own waiting jaws- being a crab pot trap- into the ink blooms about the Twisted Strand. 0–50 meters is their possible range, so most optimal recommendation is to place at further than 25.

[shadowknightapologist]

random shadow knight thoughts until i make an official post and actually know what i want them to look like.

WARNINGS FOR: (body) horror, monsters, dead animals (briefly mentioned), possible contradictions to myself (i try very hard to avoid that, but it's inevitable while i'm working through ideas).

i've mentioned this before, but shadow knights have several forms. for now, the working names are: imposter (human-passing), intermediate (the hulking, armored form you see in canon MCD), inherent (the form developed after "the remaking"), and divined (enhanced forms gifted only to ascended knights and the lower king, previously called a "beast form").

the process for turning someone into a shadow knight is going to be referred to as "the remaking" unless otherwise decided.

i've been recently inspired by cosmic horror steven universe AUs, resident evil, and the mandela catalogue, so i'm thinking shadow knights, in their natural form, are very vaguely recognizable by humans but very obviously not. here are some links to give you an idea of what i mean :3 (these apply more to intermittent forms btw!)

(NOTE: i started looking on pinterest, so some of these might not have the original poster linked; if anyone recognizes a piece and can link me to the origin, i'll add it!!)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 (links not in order of images)

basically i'm going for something very uncanny valley/alienish with some biblical and some folktale aspects. but idk this is just me thinking for once /silly.

in order of most to least likely to occur, shadow knights resemble: armored netherian predators -> scaled netherian predators -> furred netherian predators -> overworld insect predators -> scaled overworld predators -> furred overworld predators -> marine overworld predators.

i previously mentioned that sasha would probably be inspired by a snake, but i think i'm going to instead base her off a ghast and a jellyfish and move the snake concept to a different character >:3

zenix's concept may change too... he was previously listed as shark/alligator but i may go for hoglin and/or bat instead but we'll see.

gene stays a feline, and laurance is confirmed as a wasp (maybe with some praying mantis traits).

vylad is kind of an enigma to me, but we don't have a lot of nether-inspired shadow knights so i might base him off of a wither skeleton.

i'm thinking coyote for vincent, snow leopard for amethyst, and maybe blaze for glenda.

man i really need to lock in.

shadow knight bodies periodically break down so they can re-strengthen themselves and it's so fucking nasty. i'm talking skin sloughing off, limbs tearing off easy, teeth and hair falling out. i'd say it happens really infrequently unless a shadow knight is severely injured or levelled. laurance thankfully gets kind of desensitized to his body falling apart, otherwise he would have crashed out early asf.

i'm kinda crazy and love rank/role shit, so in addition to the four ranks available to shadow knights, every one of them is given a role that probably dictates what their inherent forms look like. for example, sentinels are usually very tall and thin with large/many eyes and can sometimes float (to increase how much they can see). sasha, for example, would be classified as a sentinel.

other roles i'm thinking of are: mothers (remake knights), priests/priestesses (usually magik users who are used both offensively and defensively, often sent to the overworld to extend shad's influence), brutes (highly aggressive, offensive knights).

but idk i don't want this to get corny or like. dumb LOL.

last thing for this post is... sort of cute? depends on the individual.

shadow knights can get hellish cuteness aggression. because of who by and how they're made, most of them express themselves violently even if the emotion is positive. zenix would be a really good example of this; the guy is ALWAYS screaming or beating on something or eating something and it's just how he's wired at this point.

other than him, the rest of our shadow knight cast can keep themselves pretty much in check. they are exceptionally bitey if given the chance though. i also imagine they bring dead things to their select people as some sick symbol of affection. sort of like how cats think they're providing for you when they bring you a dead mouse, but it's also like "i killed this thing instead of you, isn't that cool?"

gene is like this, creepy mfer. when he finds dante in s3 he keeps leaving tiny dead things on his doorstep. nana assumes they have a sweet little kitty hanging around and plans to catch it.

(unfortunate.)

[whiteheartlight]

world-building ideas from my Toa Mata Hagah AU!

separated by enormous distance and no longer even able to remember each other completely due to their time in the canisters, Gali, Kopaka, and Lewa develop an ability to connect to each other through meditation and dreaming. it's not a strong connection, and some of them embrace it more than others, but in a moment of crisis, they are able to summon Wairuha's spirit without being physically nearby, and Kopaka calls a storm of their joined powers. whether Akamai could do the same, I'm still considering: Wairuha has always seemed like the sibling with the more psionic/spiritual bent to me

female Makuta were used as morality/ethics watchdogs due to females being seen as "softer" and more concerned with moral ideas. female Makuta such as Gorast, who embrace violence and conquest, are a reaction to that expectation, while other females such as my character Zarin decided to champion this idea by becoming punishers of those Makuta who violated ethical boundaries. over the years, many of the females grew sick of the expectation to manage their less inhibited brothers and either isolated themselves or fell eagerly in with Teridax, who promised that all Makuta would reject Mata Nui's authority

you'd really want to hear all of Krika's story for this one, but Spiriah became obsessed with the Skakdi as he began to destroy them through his experimentation. he would take the shape and disguise of a Skakdi and walk around the island, where he might abduct or drive mad any Skakdi he wandered onto with his psionic powers. this unknown, wandering Skakdi became a frightening figure of legend in the Skakdi culture called Irnakk.

Skakdi also believe that they were abandoned by the Great Spirits when they were distributing powers or "presents." the Makuta are far more powerful than them and the Toa are blessed with elemental powers. The Skakdi considered themselves cursed or neglected in comparison. this is part of the reason they were so eager, initially, to be the subjects of Spiriah's experimentation. afterwards, although some of them now have substantial power, they consider themselves even more cursed than before, and they hate beings who were given powers like Toa. living on Zakaz, Kopaka is called "natai," a word that means he is blessed or privileged, but is a negative, sarcastic word

Kopaka is able to pick up on some of the methods of Rahi creation from Krika. he wouldn't be able to create anything stable or worthwhile on his own, but he can function as a lab assistant and eventually offers valuable insight to Krika

Makuta care a lot about the order in which they emerged from their pool of creation. for instance, Miserix was the first one created, something that gave him authority among the others. the next day, a second Makuta came out of the pool. I headcanon that Teridax was the fiftieth Makuta, putting him in a prime position to gain some respect from those who consider themselves the oldest siblings, but also able to tell the younger siblings he relates to the ways the older ones oppress or taunt the youngest.

Makuta also change in my au based on their eating habits (this is before they "evolve" to have gaseous forms). some of them are a lot bigger or smaller than others, but even what kinds of Rahi they absorb their energy from affects their forms. for instance, as Krika becomes more spindly and thin, his siblings joke with him that he must be eating too many insects. a Makuta who specializes in fish might have scale-like patterns and colors on his armor, while one who absorbs energy from a lot of birds may develop birds or feather-like protrusions

I want the world around the Toa Mata Hagah to be fleshed out. they are spread out all over the GSR since different Makuta have taken them, so it's a good chance to explore different societies and the culture of Makuta.

I haven't been able to write much in the last few months with my grad program, but I hope to write more, maybe over Christmas break or in the new year? snippet for u