#out here its krill or be krilled

[cirolik]

Had an ocean fishing trip yesterday where a few of us were just making tons of sea and fish related puns that was fun :D

[patchiko]

GIVE US MORE ABOUT NSFW AL JAYYY PLSSS

HRHSJSGAHS OKOK!!

NSFW Arkham Knight / Ak!Jason Todd !! <3

detailed smut !!

(wet dream, praise, soft sex 2 somewhat rough sex, not super long, , im so obsessed with his brain)

rq are open :3

‘tis under the cut!! :p

M’SO EXCITED TO WRITE MORE ABT HIM M’SHAKING AND THROWIFN UP

NGL, i think one of the only reason he would come to terms with liking someone is bc he had a wet dream…

listen,, 99% of his dreams are nightmares, and you just changed his fuckin statistics for the possibility to the 1% chance of him coming in his sleep and being able to rest well after.

he has mixed feeling abt this..

on one hand hes like ‘wow cool i get to sleep well,’ but on the other hands hes like staring at his boxers and hes like ‘but at what cost…’

but oh,, he just knew he was fucked when it first happened and he woke up

after many , many years of overthinking, and his mind not being able to shut up … the thing that made his ass get so quiet was a fuckin’ wet dream

uuhhggrr it was such a good one tooo (hes internally cringing so hard)

ONE hand in his hair, softly rubbing his scalp, the other massaging his shoulder to the base of his neck. Jason has both hands on your hips. Being so gentle yet passionate with each thrust, fighting back the nastiest sounds begging to leave his mouth. So he starts kissing you, open mouth kissing your jaw to just between where your neck and shoulders connect. The noises you start letting out make his breathing stutter for a second. His kissing gets more passionate, soft sucking at your skin, and he’s feverishly rubbing and grabbing at your hips.

The wet sounds of him fucking you get louder. Poor guy is just barely stopping himself from rutting into you. His strokes were slowly getting more rapid but nonetheless coordinated, hitting that spot that had you loudest. Jason was marginally coherent but he’s still trying his hardest to make you feel good. Your body returning the favor by squeezing him so lovingly and he just cant fight back the soft gasps he lets out in between his strokes. The wet sounds, the lewd noises, the details of your body and skin he felt every time he pushed into you. All of this just because of him, just for him? You babble to him how good he was doing, murmuring how good it feels between moans, and it has him gripping your hips.

JASONS rocking himself roughly into you, but its that ever so loving hand, still gently massaging his neck and scalp. That sensation has his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Soft curses leaving his mouth. He buries his face right next to your head and has to grab the bed sheets just for an last attempt to stay composed. But the moaning gets louder, and you don’t stop gently massaging his hair.

So he can’t stop the “mmh, mmh, mmh” ‘s leaving his mouth with every rapid push of himself. He can’t stop the way his hands trail down to your legs to spread you wider for him. Grabbing at your thighs as he fucks himself through.

N’ just as he cums with a breathy gasp, his eyelashes are fluttering and eyes rolling to the back of his head. Letting his body weight press onto you and closing his eyes shut, trying to control his stammered breaths,,

he fuckin’ wakes up..!

First thought was “what the fuck.”

genuinely startled, he doesn’t freak out bad but he like slowly reaches to touch his pillow.

his mind was so blank, couldn’t tell if it was because of the wet spot on his sweatpants or he was genuinely so stunned.

*hes like scratching his head and looking at his pants.*

hes goes to take a shower and his eyes are so blown out he looks like one of those cat memes

but his mind is soo quiet,,

in my brain at the very back of his mind he’s like ‘whys there so much of it.’ HSIGSISHSISHSIDHS HES COMPLETELY SERIOUS TOO???

he’s taking a shower and his brain, oddly, isn’t foggy, not dissociating, just feels so here.

which is horrible because that means he really has to directly face his feelings

KRILLING MYSELF WHY IS HEART TO HEART PLAYING WHILE I WRITE THIS???

heart to heart, heart to heart, heart to heart <3

Next time he sees you he feels so odd, he knows it a natural thing that can happen.. but it was so

djsksnkdnd

tingling under his skin sensation is yelling at him to leave, and he does.

hes cringing

he likes you…

he cringes harder

ghosts you for awhile

realistically doesn’t want anything like that to happen ANYTIME soon

but is it weird that he kinda wants it to happen at all?

MENTAL GYMNASTICS COMMENCE !!

but when he stops ghosting you for awhile, and comes back to see you still being just as patient as you were every time you saw him before,

arms always open for him, food waiting for him, a sweet smile. and with your own patience, his own patience begins to thin.

Everytime he leaves you its a little harder for him to not come back

that tingly feeling under his skin slowly becomes a craving for just your presence. thats all he wants.

he doesn’t need to fuck you when he just has your eyes on him.

“what you run from is what you end up chasing.”

live footage of arkham knights brain cells falling for u insta reel

TEEHEE i loved writing this it was so fun, rq/inbox is open !! feedback is always appreciated >:3

[sketchingstars03]

love this animals

the krill

I've been meaning to redo Acrylic's reference for a while!

if you're new here: Acrylic is my BEI shipkid!! they're a little goober :]

theyre like every 15 year old in that they're cringe but they're FREE

[purplealmonds]

Continuing to fire on all cylinders to make this Sky 🤝Mononoke collab a reality! 🐲⚖️🌊

Process GIFs and artist commentary below the cut. ⬇️

Left: Process GIF Middle: Just the background, cos I really like how it looks! Right: Illustration without the collab logo

And here are my notes on my inspirations and references. There's a lot of 'em, so instead of embedding relevant images one by one I put them in a callout sheet! For accessibility, I also included transcript (with bonus ramblings) below each sheet.

Ofuda circle modeled in Google Sketchup 2017, then lightly transformed in Photoshop to flare out. I tried my best to hand-draw these, but it the results came out really clunky and stiff. I figured if Mononoke shamelessly utilizes 3D in their show, I can too!

Krill and sky kid composition roughly inspired by the Ayakashi DVD cover illustration. On the surface level, the krill's black-and-red color scheme mirrored that of the bake-neko. Not to mention, in the world of Sky, the krill would be the best fit of a mononoke-like entity. The red background is also a nod to the red skies seen during a shard eruption in Sky.

Sky kid gesture based on the Festival Spin Dancer's Tier 3 poses and the Medicine Seller's iconic pose in the Zakishiwarahi episode as inspiration. This was the idea which springboarded this illustration into existence. I wanted to do my take of the Medicine Seller's pose, but in a more dynamic manner: rotate the pose to a profile position and set the ofuda in a diagonal, flared out arrangement.

Cape inspired by tenbin design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. This one's an interesting one - I wanted the cape to be a stiff material that doesn't "flap" when in flight - similar to the Aurora wing capes. It ended up looking like a kite of sorts, which I'm not entirely opposed to! I haven't had the opportunity to showcase the back view of this cape design, but I envision it having some mechanical aspects to it - the "wing" which are flared out in this illustration fold in like moth wings, and a little bell is attached to the "tail" part and it jingles a little whenever the sky kid flaps!

Bandana is based on the Scaredy Cadet's hairstyle from the Season of Assembly. Mask design utilizes the 2023 Days of Style mask and the Nintendo Pack mask as bases. Pretty self-explanatory. I basically went onto the Sky wiki and found the cosmetics that most closely matched what I was looking for. Then if necessary, I went to the Office space to do photoshoots to get the appropriate camera angles for them all.

Seasonal pendant inspired by the classic Medicine Seller's necklace and the eye motif featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie. Possibly the only one-to-one homage to the classic Medicine Seller design here, but his garnet necklace was too good of a match to the seasonal pendant. A side tangent: does the new Medicine Seller possess a necklace, let alone a mirror? So far all the shots of him don't feature it. Fascinating.

Dark dragon krill anatomy references a custom figurine crafted by @/escaflowne_n07 on Twitter. Until I found this, I was honestly at a loss finding reference for this - be it on the internet or during in-game photoshoots. The lighting on the krill in-game focused on its menacing silhouette rather than its structure. And not to mention, getting a close-up shot almost always set off the dark creature's aggro. I have no idea how this guy found the references to put this model together - well done!

Mantas, elder constellations, and sun dog references murals in the Cave of Prophecy. Krill aside, the overall illustration was leaning a little too much towards Mononoke so I tried finding opportunities to insert more Sky into it. Added bonus is that now there's storytelling in the background: during a shard eruption, a giant krill rises from the frothing waves of dark water to hunt down a flock of mantas.

Clouds behind the sun dog reference the ones featuring heavily in the Umibozu episode. This illustration has a lot of ocean theming, so I figured this would be appropriate.

Rendering style of the background is lightly inspired by the 2007 Mononoke illustration. Mainly having a 2D inked style to contrast with the more polished render of the sky kid. Funnily enough, this was a tertiary inspiration, which lead to the discovery in the next point!

Dark water waves and sun dog composition heavily references Hokusai's "The Great Wave". The waves were modified to be bottle-green of the Golden Wasteland's dark waters. The sun dog is in the spot where Mt. Fuji is in the original composition. these were all hand-drawn by the way! I merely emulated the style of the source material. As a side note, I also borrowed the spotted sea spray rendering for the krill's red spotlight.

Background pattern taken from the ofuda design featured in the 2024 Mononoke movie poster. Mainly to add some gritty texture to the sky. I worked pretty hard to replicate this ofuda design as a high-res asset so I wanted to use it more!

[twice-inamillion]

Family Trip

Fluff and Smut (adventure, family time)(teasing, sex, dom Jihyo, cowgirl riding, creampie, talking about breeding)

Chapter 214

2124 Words 

(The first trip as a married couple with Jisoo. Some fluff moment and with a happy ending. 😏)

After your honeymoon, the two of you decide on a family trip with Jisoo. “Are you excited to go on a trip with mommy and daddy?” asks Jihyo. Jisoo nods and smiles. “Okay, then you will need your sweater and your toy.” Jisoo makes her way down the bed, runs to get her sweater and stuffed toy, and puts it inside her backpack. 

You leave just before sunrise for a morning hike to Diamond Head State Park. Jisoo tries her best to make the hike but can only walk on flat surfaces. “Daddy, up,” says Jisoo, who puts her hands up. You put her inside her baby carrier and climb up the stairs to the top of the mountain. When you arrive at the top, the sun rises, “We made it just in time." Jihyo takes a photo of you and Jisoo with the sunrise in the background. 

“Say cheese!”

Jisoo smiles and holds a heart sign, which makes Jihyo laugh. You then take a picture of Jihyo and Jisoo and a family photo of the beautiful background. 

After the hike, the three of you enjoy a light breakfast before going to the second stop of your trip. Jisoo can’t help but be excited to go whale watching. Before arriving in Hawaii, the two of you would read Jisoo, a book on whales, before going to sleep. When she was asked what she wanted to do while she was in Hawaii, she immediately replied, “Big whale, big whale!” 

The three of you arrive at the port and are the first trip of the day. You board the large boat and take your seats inside. The ship departs from the port, as Jisoo is glued to the window trying to look for the whales. 

“Jisoo, there are no whales here.”

“No?” Titling her head in confusion.

“We need to be in the middle of the ocean because the whales are so big,” says Jihyo.

“Whale, big?” 

“Yes, some whales are bigger than this boat.”

“Whale eat?” as she points at the two of you.

“Ohh no, the whale doesn’t eat people. Remember how the book said it eats small creatures called krill.” Jisoo nods her head and stares back at the window. 

About an hour into the boat ride, there is an announcement that there has been a site of a pod of whales nearby. Jisoo’s ear perks up and asks you to go outside.

The three of you head out and walk to where the captain points. Jihyo takes out a pair of binoculars for the two of you to use. It doesn’t take long before you get a glimpse of the whale’s fin, “Look, Jisoo, it's right in front of you.” Jisoo lifts her binoculars and sees the whale showing its head, “ama, whale!”

Jisoo turns to Jihyo and points out, “Look, whale!” You hand over the binoculars to Jihyo, “You’re right; good job, Jisoo, you found the whale.” Jisoo can’t help but feel proud of her finding.

The captain steers the boat closer to where the whale was sighted. “Right before us is a humpback whale in its feeding ground. One of our deckhands communicated with us that they have also caught sight of a calf, so we need to be extra careful.”

“Did you hear that Jisoo? The captain said that they saw a calf, a baby whale.”

“Baby whale? Jisoo?” pointing at herself. 

Jihyo responds, “Yes, a baby just like Jisoo.”

“I see, baby.”

“Ohh, we need to be extra careful. We don’t want to scare the calf away.” 

The three of you wait for a few minutes until the water bubbles up. The whale jumps out of the water and crashes down, causing a huge splash. Jisoo points and laughs out loud, “Whale jump, whale jump!” 

Before the whale came out, Jihyo took out her phone to record Jisoo’s reaction. She knew Jisoo would go crazy if the whale came out jumping from the water. Jisoo moves her hands excitedly as the whale leaps from the water. Jihyo can’t believe she caught this beautiful moment. 

The whale stays afloat for a few minutes, eating the large amount of krill that swarms on the surface. Out of nowhere, Jisoo sees the calf pop its head, “Baby, baby!”

“You’re right; the baby saw you and wanted to say hi.”

“Baby, hi?”

“Yes, baby, wanted to say hi to Jisoo.”

Jisoo laughs, “Hug, baby!”

“Ohh, you can’t hug the baby; it's too big. Maybe when you’re older, you can swim with it.” 

After going back and forth, Jisoo is convinced and understands that she can not hug the calf.

The boat arrives at the port, and the three of you give your thanks to the captain. “Bye-bye!” Jisoo turns around to Jihyo, says, “Jisoo hungry,” and rubs her belly.

You stop at a local Hawaiian shop and get some food before heading to the beach. When you arrive at the beach, Jihyo walks to a good spot with some shade as you carry your belongings. Jisoo watches and eats her pineapple ice cream and shouts, “Apa, tent!” rushing you to hurry with setting up the tent. “Okay, okay, I got it.”

After setting up the tent, you all enjoy some ice cream and food as you watch the waves crash to the shore. Jisoo extends her arms, “Ama, boobs, boobs!” Jisoo crawls to her mother and lifts up her shirt, exposing her bra. “Okay, okay, you want to drink mommy’s milk,” as she releases her breasts from her bra. 

Jisoo immediately positions her head and attaches her mouth to Jihyo’s nipple. She starts to suck on Jihyo’s breast aggressively, causing her to moan slightly. You can’t help but laugh at Jihyo for her sudden reaction. She throws her bra, which hits your face. Jihyo laughs at you, but instead, you take her bra and give it a sniff, to which she says, “Babe, you’re gross.” 

“Haha, you know we’ve done worse,” giving her a smirk.

“Haha, that’s true.” 

After a few minutes of breastfeeding, Jisoo falls asleep, attached to her mother’s breast. Jihyo places her on the floor of the tent and covers Jisoo with her blanket. “Aww, she looks cute, doesn’t she.” 

Suddenly, she feels your head on her lap, and you say, “Mommy, I’m hungry too,” giving her a pair of puppy dog eyes. She gives you an annoyed face before you attach your mouth to her breast. You slowly begin to suckle on her nipple, causing her to release a slow moan, “Ahh… babe. That feels nice.” You increase the pace of your sucking, which increases her cry. She can feel herself getting wet but then hears Jisoo whine in her sleep, making her release her nipple from your mouth.

 “Why did you stop?”

“She’s going to wake up.” 

“Dang, okay,” you pout.

The two of you instead lay next to Jisoo and talk about the past few days. The ups and downs and what is on the schedule for the next few weeks. She also asks you for an update on the house, which there is some process but is still a few months away from completion. Eventually, she falls asleep like Jisoo, and you decide to enjoy your time at this very moment.

You return to the house and have a light dinner before showering. Jihyo decides to bathe with Jisoo as you clean up the kitchen and get your items ready for tomorrow. After you are finished, you hop into the shower as Jihyo gets Jisoo ready for bed. With the water muffling any outside noise, you clear your head and enjoy your time alone. 

Done with your shower, you see Jihyo covering Jisoo with her blanket. “She fell asleep so fast; she must have been so tired.”

“We did wake up earlier than usual. She didn’t even complain one bit  throughout the day.”

“Our baby is growing up,” says Jihyo with a warm smile.”

“You’re right; our baby is growing up so fast.”

Jihyo then turns around and touches your chest, “Let’s continue where we left off.” She stares at you with lustful eyes and pushes you onto the couch.

“Wait… what are you doing?”

“I said I want to continue where we left off.”

“But Jisoo is here.”

“So, she’s asleep, and I don’t think she’ll wake up until tomorrow.” She undoes your towel and pulls out your limp cock, and gives it a few strokes. Jihyo lifts her oversized shirt and aligns your cock to her entrance, slowly lowering herself into your cock, causing her to moan.

With your cock between her walls, she slowly rides you. You can feel your core burning up and your cock throbbing due to her tightness. 

She whispers in your ear, “I can feel your cock getting bigger inside of me,” which makes you immediately go to full size. Now, at full length, she increases the pace as she rides you like one of her toys. 

You try not to make any noise and not wake up Jisoo, and you bite your lip and try your hardest not to make a sound. The only sound in the room is of flesh slapping against each other as Jihyo rides you like a mating bull. 

You don’t want to be the only one nude, so you lift up Jihyo’s oversized shirt and toss it on the floor. With your hands on her ass, she begins to thrust harder, causing your thighs to turn red. To what seems like thirty minutes of pure riding, Jihyo knows you are at your limit. She comes closer to your ear and whispers, “I know you’re about to cum just like I am. So where do you want to shoot it? Inside or outside?”

It’s a no-brainer, and respond, “You know the only choice is inside.” 

“Why did I even ask? You’re always one to get a girl dirty right after they get cleaned.”

“What can I say? I like marking my girls with my seed.”

Teasing you, she says, “And what do you like doing to your girls with your seed?”

“I like breeding them.”

“Ohh, you like breeding us?”

“Yes, just like right now. I want to breed you all night and give our daughter another sibling.”

“If you want to, do it.”

“Really?”

“No. You know how busy we are with the tour.”

“Fuck, you’re right.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can't just fuck me here and there. I’m on the pill, so you can cum inside of me as much as you want.”

“You really know how to make a guy happy, huh.”

“I know you like the back of my hand. I know you’re about to burst at any moment, so let me give you a push,” and lifts herself once more before slamming herself with full force. 

Both of your floodgates burst wide open, releasing your orgasms at once. Her love juice and your thick cum collide with one another, mixing into something new. Jihyo spasms as she rides her orgasm, tightening her walls around your cock and milking you of all you’re worth. 

After a few minutes, she regains her composure and asks you to bring her to bed. “You don’t want to clean yourself first?”

“No, why would I? I love the feeling of hot baby batter in my tummy.” You can't help but get turned on again. “I see our little friend here is still full of energy. How about you go clean up the mess, and if you’re still hard, I’ll let you sleep with your cock inside of me.” 

You try your best to clean yourself and the mess before going to bed. Luckily, your friend didn’t disappoint and stood tall and proud the whole time. 

You climb onto the bed slowly, not to wake Jisoo from her sleep. Jihyo turns around and whispers, "I guess you’re still hard. A promise is a promise," and turns around with her back facing you. She sticks her but out, teasing you as you get closer to her. She grabs your hard cock and aligns it to her entrance before taking in the first two inches of your meat. “It’s in, you can put in the rest.” 

You grab her waist and shove your whole length inside her womb, causing her to moan slowly. Jihyo, in a spooning position with you, grinds herself onto you and makes sure that every inch of “you” is warm. She slowly falls asleep with your embrace and her baby next to her. 

[plutonium-sky]

AIGHT HERE WE GO.

So! About the revelation I mentioned with WL and Eden statues- I’m going to give some context first. Me and @halcyon-xxy-art were discussing some Sky DND stuff, and then had an interesting idea- what if there was light corruption, alongside dark corruption?

We immediately establish dark corruption as the crystalized bodies, with the soul (light) trapped inside. The thing is, we wanted to make it so that there wasn’t any weakening of their light- it’s just that there is more darkness. After that got put out, we started thinking about what light corruption would look like, and Aria basically perfectly described a Winged Light. That’s when I had my revelation. What if Winged Lights are sky kids who got light overflow?

I’ll elaborate on that in a bit when I establish another fact we put out right after. Skykid DO have darkness inside them. It’s just hidden in a way no one would expect- it’s right in front of us. A skykid’s darkness would be their physical Body. And, if we go by that logic, their light would be everything else that the body holds- their light and Soul.

And then we added more to the corruption parts. Darkness corruption would work that the soul is trapped inside the body- and cannot return to Megabird (it would slowly weaken inside, losing its power bit by bit as the overbearing darkness drains it.) Light corruption was easy to figure out from there as well. The soul doesn’t have a body to guide it back to the cycle (it had burnt it away, and now the soul is horribly exposed, frozen in time, until a new, temporary vessel guides it back to freedom.)

The skykid’s body needs to walk alongside a delicate balance of light and dark, lest things go to SHIT for them. Too much light will result in being corrupted and overloaded by it, and the body will burn and flake away and the soul be frozen in time and space without the body to guide it back to the cycle. Too much darkness will slow them down, overtake them, eventually turning the skykid into an immovable statue, the soul covered on all sides, and it’s now trapped in a cage of its own making.

Also, absorbing WL (the lost souls of someone else) benefits us instead of harming us because all the overloaded light is still being taken by the other’s soul, not yours. Of course, a little still leaks through- and that’s why it makes flying easier. It’s a sort of…. symbiotic relationship, where the sky kid gives the soul a temporary vessel for it to rest in, while the soul helps the vessel, benefitting it as safely as it can. It takes more WL the longer you have to fly for safety concerns- if they keep on sharing the same amount of energy, the light corruption will happen once more, to a new victim, and now there will be two souls trapped beside each other.

Also, the body and soul theory is further supported by sky kids extinguishing. NORMALLY, we don’t grow crystals. By normally I mean stuff like rain and non-shard crabs. That would be a “normal” death- we aren’t corrupted, the soul and body are still in balance. There’s the pity WL too- you can still be saved. For lore reasons, I’m going to partially ignore the fact that you would still get a pity WL if you lost all of yours to a krill, shard, or shard crabs, because let’s be honest- it’s just ingame things. And, if my memory serves my right (I can’t play sky at the moment to check properly), you would grow crystals for all of those deaths- corrupted by darkness.

There’s then Eden. We run around, giving WL to the lost to darkness bodies of sky kids- or perhaps spirits. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. But, what matters is that somehow, this works in freeing them. My theory for how is that the light corrupted and overloaded soul helps balance out the dark corrupted body, sharing its light with the trapped soul inside. By the point we find the eden bodies, though, the souls are so weakened that they’re barely there- my explanation as to why we don’t see double the winged lights in orbit. They need time to recover.

The last nail in the coffin for this theory, to me, is the cutscene in eden that happens when we finally lose all of our winged light and become a statue ourselves. Where we fall in darkness, as a dark figure, then land. The light and dark of our being in a limbo meet. The light (soul) is sitting there, unmoving, trapped. Meanwhile, us, as the darkness (body) moves, going back to the light, to guide them back. This supports my “the light and soul cannot be guided without the darkness of their body” talk- because it IS the body guiding the soul here. It frees us.

TLDR? Skykids aren’t only light- they are also darkness. The light is their soul and the dark is their body. Without a body, lost because of various reasons (the one I gave is being overloaded/corrupted by light), the soul is trapped and we see this ingame as Winged Light. This creates a delicate balance where there can’t be too much light or too much dark in the soul and body. When you are corrupted by darkness, the soul gets trapped but it is still there. A normal death for a sky kid is when no crystals grow on their body. Eden statues are helped with WL because the overloaded darkness and the overloaded light balance each other out.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, hope it lived up to your expectations.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: manta rays

It's time to spread our wings and fly, or rather swim, into another Wet Beast Wednesday. This week's topic is the wonderfully wide manta ray. These gentle giants have historically been misunderstood as dangerous and scary, but now we know better. Here's the real facts.

(Image: a SCUBA diver swimming alongside a giant manta ray, seen from above. It is a large stingray with pointed, wing-like fins along the side of its body and a large head with short tail. Two fin-like cephalic lobes extend from either side of the mouth. The back of the body is black, body with white marking on the head, just before the tail, and the tips of the wings. End ID)

Manta rays are two species of stingray: the giant manta ray Mobula birostris and reef manta ray Mobula alfredi. Mantas have historically been classified as members of their own genus, Manta, but as of 2017, they have been reclassified as members of the genus Mobula, the devil rays. In addition, the two species were thought to be the same species until 2009. As with other rays, they have flattened, disc-shaped bodies with their pectoral fins being enlarged to take up each side of the body. While bottom-swelling stingrays have rounded pectoral fins, manta ray fins have developed into pointed, wing-like structures that are used for active swimming. The width of the ray (measured from wingtip to wingtip) is about 2.2 times the length (not including the tail) in both species. The tail is shorter than the length of the body and has no stinger. Unlike most ray species, the mouth is located on the front of the body. On either side of the mouth is a fin-like cephalic lobe. These fleshy growths are flexible and are used to aid in feeding and possibly communication. Giant mantas reach a max width of 7 m (23 ft), but the average adult size is 4.5 m (15 ft). Reef mantas reach a maximum width of 5.5 m (18 ft) and an average of 3 m (10 ft). They are the largest and second largest rays in the world.

(Image: a group of reef mantas seen from the front. They are similar to the giant manta, but smaller and the white marking on their baks are more curved. Their mouths are open and the cephalic fins are curved to sit beneath the mouth. Inside the toothless mouth, the inside of the gill slits can be seen. Bits of the white underbelly are visible. End ID)

Manta rays are found in tropical to subtropical waters. Giant manta rays are found worldwide while reef mantas are primarily found in the Indo-Pacific, thought they have been recorded in the Atlantic ocean on a few occasions. Reef mantas are normally found in shallower, coastal waters while giant mantas will swim through the open ocean. They are somewhat social, sometimes swimming in groups of up to 50, but will also live on their own. Feeding is done by swimming with their mouths open and cephalic lobes angled to direct water into the mouth. They are filter feeders, targeting krill, plankton, algae, and oceanic larvae. While feeding, mantas will swim in different ways, including making somersaults. Mantas feeding in groups will perform coordinated swimming maneuvers, including swimming in giant circles. Giant mantas have been observed making dives to 400 m (1,300 ft) and they appear to target larger food at these depths, such as small fish. as with the other Mobula rays, mantas will breach out of the water. The reason they do this isn't clear. It could be to clear parasites, communicate, or for fun.

(Image: a manta in the process of breaching, with only its rear end still in the water. It is pointing straight into the air, leaving its back and the white markings on it clearly visible. End ID)

Manta rays are known as some of the smartest fish in the world. They have the largest brain-to-body size ratio of any fish. Manta rays are among the only fish capable of passing the mirror test for self awareness. The mirror test is used to determine if an animal can recognize its reflection as being itself rather than another member of its species. Manta rays exposed to mirrors showed some unique behavior that is not what they do when encountering other manta rays. This included blowing bubbles and swimming in odd ways that may be used to examine themselves or test if the reflection really is them. Manta rays are also excellent navigators, able to repeatedly find the same feeding sports or cleaner fish stations from thousands of miles away. This would indicate an excellent memory and the ability to develop a mental map of areas. Manta rays also have the ability to remember other individuals and have been shown to have a preference for spending time around specific "friends". They are also believed to engage in play behavior including acrobatic swimming with each other and maybe jumping. Playing for no purpose other than fun is a rare traits usually seen in intelligent and social species. Divers have reported that mantas are curious and will come investigate them.

(GIF: footage of a manta ray undergoing the mirror test. It is swimming up to the mirror, pausing for a second, then swimming parallel to the mirror, with the stomach facing it. End ID)

Manta ray mating seems to be triggered by the full moon and takes place at different times of the year depending on location. A male will follow a female moving at speeds of about 10 km/h (6.2 mph) and try to grab her fin in his mouth, which may take several attempts. Once he has a good grip, he will moved so their undersides are facing each other and insert a clasper into her cloaca. Claspers are paired appendages in male cartilaginous fish that are extensions of the pelvic fins that function similarly to penises. Semen runs down a groove in the clasper into the female's oviduct. The pair will then part. Females are left with scars on their fins where the males bite them. The quantity of scars can help determine how many times a female has mated. Oftentimes, a female will be followed by a train of multiple males, all attempting to mate with her. Females will bear usually one but sometimes two babies at once. Mantas are ovoviviparous, meaning the female will retain an egg inside of her that will hatch internally once the yolk supply is depleted. Once hatched, the juvenile remains inside the oviduct for some time, being fed by a milky-white nutritious substance called histotroph that the mother secretes. Once the juvenile exits the mother, it is on its own, receiving no parental care. Gestation takes 12-13 months. Mild females typically get pregnant every 1-2 years. Females seem to reach sexual maturity at 8-10 years can can live to 50 years old in the wild.

(Images: black and white photos of a manta ray giving birth. The first photo shows the juvenile having just exited the mother. The second shows the juvenile after leaving the mother, resting on some coral. The juvenile exits the mother with its fins curled up like a burrito. End ID)

The IUCN classified reef mantas as Vulnerable and giant mantas as Endangered. Their largest threat comes from overfishing, both targeted and as bycatch. Mantas are fished fro their skin, meat, and liver oil. More recently, a demand for manta gill rakers in alternative (read: quack) medicine has led to an increase in fishing and poaching after a historical decrease. Mantas are highly vulnerable to becoming entangled in fishing lines and nets. Because they need to continuously swim to force air over their gills, an entangled manta will quickly suffocate. Their attempts to free themselves typically just gets them more tangled. Manta rays are also vulnerable to boat strikes, pollution, climate change, and microplastic ingestion. Mantas are now protected in international waters by the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals and have local protections on many places. Manta ray tourism has become an industry that brings in an estimated US$140 million per year to local economies. Tourists are offered the chance to observe manta rays in the wild on boat and SCUBA trips. While manta ray tourism can increase awareness of their conservation needs, it can also lead to in increased risk of injury and disease transmission to the rays. Manta rays in the past were often feared by sailors due to their size. They were named devil rays due to their cephalic lobes resembling horns and were believed to pull up anchors and drag ships off course.

(Image: Inspector Clouseau, a pink manta ray seen off Lady Elliot Island, Australia. It is believed to be the result of a mutation in pigment cells and is the only known case of a pink manta. End ID)

[ashenberry]

[ID in ALT]

a compilation of trying to make splatoon-esq designs of metal gear characters with the caveat that i cant make anyone an inkling/octoling besides the snakes (and raiden but his ass isnt here) everyones sea creature under the cut and also just how i felt about the outcome of these

Ocelot: Catfish Kaz: Koi Paz: Rainbow Parrotfish The Boss: Bleached sea anemone Strangelove: Krill Psycho Mantis: Mantis Shrimp Huey: hermit crab Quiet: Wrought Iron Butterflyfish (<- fucking beautiful fish. for the record) the Snakes: Inkfish (bb solid are inklings, venom was an octoling) Sunny: Yellow Sea Urchin

SO LIKE. overall while making these i was worried that they werent creature enough to be splatoon-esq until i realized that mmm actually. a lot of the time splatoon designs are actually just a person with a fish feature slapped on top of it like there are some stand outs ily finn feeder but like. i had to creature up the inklings so they didnt feel out of place (and side note il probably start just drawing inkfish like this its really fun) so like. idk overall im happy with it. esp mantis idk if its just bc mantis shrimp are really pretty to begin with but waow mantis came out good

[21angryfrogs]

Inscryption Act 2 Dashboard Simulator

🔍 gadgetinspector Follow

i think we should all start unionizing actually.

🚬 shrimps.is.cards Follow

yer just mad cause ya didnt git a raise this month n i did.

#as the boss'd say: L + ratio

15 notes

☁️ dyke-mage Follow

just found out that rebecha is 26??? she should be at the club...

🔧 trans.on.a.mission Follow

"the club" is a state of mind i'm in when clobbering whoever keeps breaking my bridge. woof.

#im serious #when i find you its on sight

1,905 notes

🦦 iceekaycee Follow

for those not caught up on the old man yaoi lore...

#that makes 3 this month... #what is wrong with them

21,039 notes

🗝 wizstim Follow

⚠️ PSA!!!! ⚠️ guys you really need to stop telling people to k/ll themselves!! you never know what people are going through, and it can be really bad for people's mental health!!! 🍯 gooart Follow

^^^ SOME OF YOU SHOULD READ THIS OVER A FEW TIMES!

☁️ dyke-mage Follow

kys beam. get them, boys.

🕯the.melter.official Follow

kill yourself.

🚬 shrimps.is.cards Follow

kill yerself.

🎣 fishfearme Follow

krill self. now.

7,192 notes

🕯the.melter.official Follow

currently living in a peaceful state of tumblr fame where i'm popular enough to have to add "official" to the end of my blog name but not popular enough to have an evil shadow clone of myself.

🌋 the.melted.official Follow

HELP ME SOMEONE PLEASE DEAR FUCKING GOD LET ME OUT OF HERE

🕯the.melter.official Follow

... haha... did anyone else hear that....?

2,071 notes

🕸 wellitsgolly-deactivated277457

🔍 gadgetinspector Follow

how did she say that

92,644 notes

🦦 iceekaycee Follow

🍯 gooart Follow

does anyone else find it kind of troubling how many people are voting and campaigning against THEIR OWN EMPLOYERS?? i mean sure, sometimes they can be cruel, but we still owe a lot to them!!

☁️ dyke-mage Follow

grimora sweep.

🕯the.melter.official Follow

grimora sweep.

🪄 magikificus Follow

grimora sweep.

🔍 gadgetinspector Follow

grimora sweeHey Who Was That?

🦦 iceekaycee Follow

SCRYBES FOUND THE POST, EVERYONE SCATTER

#I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE THEY WERE ON THIS SITE??? #WHOOPS

276,651 notes

💾 po.tothethird Follow

for april fools i'm deleting this entire game. sayonara you insubordinate shits.

1,263,333 notes

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

📖🤹‍♂️🔞, pretty pleeeaasee ?

Collared But Untethered - Abner Krill/Reader

Warnings: No use of Y/N, gender-neutral reader, slowburn, slight exhibition (Belle Reve), touch-starved induced desperation, making out, sudden smut, handjobs.

Wordcount: 2970

Summary: Even with every personnel in Belle Reve questioning why you wanted him, you kept coming back for more so long as they kept letting you touch him just out of sight.

Notes: Even when I try to drabble I still can't resist the buildup cause I love him so much oop- This is the first request I've ever gotten/filled so here we gooooo :'D I hope you like it, thank you so much for sending something in 💗💗💗

You were 100% certain that everyone had caught on by now to what you two were doing, but it was hard to care when orange fabric was bunched under your hands and the sound of his poorly quieted voice was in your ear. Belle Reve was well known for its lack of care towards its residents, so at first you’d both assumed that someone would barge in at any second to tear you apart, ban you from ever returning, but you were going on your fifth visit now with no one disturbing you, so even if you weren’t as perceptive as you’d thought and they were watching on a camera you’d missed no one made it known.

You’d first seen him on TV, shakycam footage barely capturing him as he and the other prisoners briefly designated as ‘Heroes’ made quick work of the current bigger threat destroying the city, and the way his powers had lit up the area in a rainbow of colours had instantly drawn you in, made you forget all about the danger as you hid in your apartment and waited in terror for it to be over, trembling hands clasped together in front of your heaving chest as you prayed you’d be safe. He’d destroyed that threat singlehandedly the second he was sure no one else was in his way, the others chiding him in the footage as he’d closed up on himself and apologized, having forgotten their goal of taking the villain alive so he could join them in their home. 

He was so unlike anyone you’d ever seen before, a timebomb of danger wrapped up in a polka-dotted bow, hands fidgeting and head downturned nervously while the destruction of what he could do showed all along the street up to where gory remains decorated the open main road.

As the reporter took over the submitted shakycam with her own live footage, people circled the villains to thank them, albeit keeping their distance even as they reached out to shake hands, pat backs, give gifts that would definitely be confiscated as soon as they returned. No one thanked him for killing their target, everyone too afraid of the gauntlets holding back bright lights and coloured dots, worried that he’d turn them on the crowd next even as the infamous Harley Quinn herself showed off the gun she’d stolen from one of the fallen policemen to a couple kids who’d wandered up to praise her without their parents’ permission.

That wasn’t fair at all, he’d needed some thanks too.

So you’d left your apartment and hurried down to them, the fight just a couple blocks away, the still burning circles in the buildings and pavement growing in number the further you got. They were already starting to get into the armoured vehicle that brought them there by the time you’d arrived, and you didn’t know his name so you could only call past the gathered guards making sure they didn’t run before he disappeared out of sight. He turned to face you, one of his teammates elbowing him to go when it became obvious that you were there for him; he walked back down the lowered ramp to approach, looking apprehensive that you’d want to talk to him when the others were right there, so you’d extended your hand to shake his, prove that you weren’t afraid but rather thankful for his help as you reached as far as you could between the two guards keeping you at a distance for your own safety.

The moment his hand touched your own you knew that you could never let him get away again.

Visitors to Belle Reve were always heavily inspected and supervised, no one ever allowed to meet face to face for fear of what could happen to either party as well as those around them, and they made that explicitly clear to you as you passed their inspections and were ushered down the hallway to the partitioned phones. The moment you told them that you were there for the Polka-Dot Man so they knew who to get they’d hesitated, turned halfway down the hallway to look at you like you were crazy, some weird thing to be studied for wanting to see him of all people. You’d just simply shrugged and told them you wanted to thank him for the other day.

He’d never had a visitor in all his time being there, and the moment he’d seen you holding the phone opposite of his own he’d gone red in the face, a mix of embarrassment for the continued support and obvious confusion as to why you’d sought him out a second time. It was cute, and while the conversation had been short, his voice low and answers coming out in single worded sentences as he thought about what to say, it still brought butterflies to your stomach until your time was up, your final question asking for his name before you were forced to hang up.

‘Abner…’ he’d told you, like he hadn’t said it in a long time. ‘Abner Krill.’

The second time you visited you asked for permission to talk to him face to face, as his voice barely carried over the phone and he had a tendency to forget he was holding it as he talked to the desk. Request denied, but they’d think about it for the right price, it wasn’t like he was going to escape his birdcage when it kept him safe from himself, the shiny collar around his neck stopping the kaleidoscope from painting the walls in cinders. That conversation had come easier, the guards getting bored and pulling out their phones as you talked about everything and nothing at all, his words flowing a little more freely.

The third time you’d gotten your request with the handing over of a few steep bills slid under the table, Abner looking around at the room before seeing you and smiling. There was a little more space between you compared to the phones but the wall was gone, and you almost missed his questions about your life as you watched his mouth speak, hands rubbing and fidgeting on top of cold metal in his persistent nervousness. The moment you’d started talking about yourself the guard watching over you had sighed loudly in annoyance and walked out, leaving the two of you alone to both of your surprise, the camera whirring in the corner telling you that they were still watching from afar at least.

You shook his hand again when time was up, and he trembled a little less as he stood before you, your bodies dangerously close for a quick moment before the guard rushed in to put a little space between you with an utterly confounded look shot in your direction.

The fourth time you looked around to see if there were more cameras than just the one over your shoulder before he was brought in, his eyes instantly brightening in your presence as they’d recently started to do. He looked more alive, his face less sunken like he was taking better care of himself so you wouldn’t worry, and you longed to hold him as the table became a deep crevasse between you. He wasn’t chained to it this time, they didn’t care enough and he knew better, he was well trained by now, and the moment you were left alone again you’d moved your chair to the empty space on the side, a little closer but not touching, testing the waters as you shot a glance to the camera to see if this was okay.

Nothing happened. No one came. Hands rested in sight as they reached but never touched, the crevasse a little smaller as the space between turned from feet to inches, then centimeters.

When your pinkies linked together it was like a bridge formed instantly, the two of you meeting in the middle as he closed his eyes and just breathed, completely calm as his free hand ran over his arm to make sure the gauntlets were gone, make sure he wouldn’t hurt you. He was touch-starved, that much was apparent as long fingers crawled over your own to create more points of contact, Abner fully holding your hand and forgetting that you were supposed to be talking. Your heart raced as you wanted more, wanted to see what other reactions you could pull from him if just this was enough to make him lean towards you, eager to invade your personal space, or perhaps invite you to invade his.

It was a space he guarded dearly, you’d learned as much over your visits as he told you about how the other inmates treated him, your touch so gentle compared to their punches, both of your chairs sliding over the floor as you closed the gap even more. Still no one came, your eyes going to the door to make sure they weren’t watching you through the wire-meshed glass to see what would happen next but the space on the other side was empty, the camera blinking red high above you as your legs made contact, a buzz of electricity shooting up your spine.

He tried to pull away, surprised by his own brazenness, or maybe it’d been an accident since he was so much taller than you, but you refused to let him, your leg pressed into the cold table leg almost painfully as you pulled him right back. The knowledge that you wanted him close, wanted to touch him even though he could burn right through you in an instant without the collar controlling him, made his chest start to heave then, eyes searching your face for fear but finding none.

Your hand unlinked from his before sliding up his arm, feeling the way he shivered as you reached his elbow, his bicep, muscles tensing under loose fabric just out of sight, a sigh leaving his lips as your fingers carefully trailed over his collar up to his cheek. He leaned into you, slowly at first, like you might change your mind and pull away at any second, his eyes closed tight as chair legs scraped over the ground. The gap closed more and more as you stood, leaned in close enough to see the scars of his time in this place, the way his lips parted ever so slightly as he let out shaky breaths, how long his lashes were as they fluttered in anticipation of what you were going to do next.

The door opened before you could make that final leap, the men who rushed in looking just as confused to your actions instead of angry, and while they weren’t rough with you they did tease him all the way down the hallway as he tried to hide the fact that he’d wanted you in those last seconds, your face flushing as pure longing rushed right to your gut at the sight of something hidden behind shaking hands as he was led to the showers to cool off.

The fifth time you’d come in you’d stared down everyone you passed as they whispered and nodded in your direction, not caring as you headed for your visiting room, no one stopping you even as they shook their heads and questioned your life choices. They still let you wait by yourself, your heart pounding as he was brought in and the door was closed behind him, the guard locking it muttering to himself about how he didn’t get paid enough for this. Abner didn’t even get a chance to sit down as you stood up and grabbed onto his shirt, pulled him down to continue what you’d started with a chaste kiss, testing the waters as he let out a surprised noise against your mouth before it turned into a moan, his hands hovering over you as he tried to decide what to do.

‘Touch me,’ you told him as you parted for a breath, the end of the collar pressing into your own throat as he groaned and kissed you back, dry lips parting to let you in as you ran your tongue experimentally over his bottom one. His hands wandered all over you, touching whatever he could now that he knew you wanted him to, his back hitting the wall and the collar scraping against the brick as he arched against you wantonly. It was like the floodgates had been opened, touch-starved desperation making him want more before you were separated again, your body ready to follow his every command should he ask, wanting nothing more than to make him feel good before he was forced to go back to his solitude. 

You palmed him over his pants and he keened needily, hips moving to feel you more before he stopped himself with a choked whine, he was asking too much too soon, surely you couldn’t want him that badly, surely now would be the time you’d come to your senses and see him like everyone else did. You nipped at his bottom lip, got him to look at you before you glanced up at the camera; it was facing the table, the two of you probably just in frame, so you led him to the corner directly underneath it, in its blindspot as you played with the hem of his pants.

‘Do you want this?’ you whispered, voice low so anyone outside wouldn’t hear, Abner’s eyes shut tight again as he nodded his head, slowly at first and then a little quicker as you made contact against his bare stomach. He was breathing so heavily, the growing tent just under where your hand rested making you lick your lips; they were bound to stop you before it got too heated but you could at least give him this, all your fantasies from the past month coming to life as you felt hot skin under your fingertips.

He sighed and let his head fall back, hands gripping you like a vice as you touched him, and you couldn’t help but wonder when the last time anyone else had touched him like this had been, if anyone ever had; it made you a bit jealous to think about the former, of someone else making him look this way before you, so you couldn’t help but selfishly wish you were the first as you wrapped your hand around him. His knees shook, he wasn’t used to it, your name falling from his lips as he started to buck desperately into your hand. 

He was beautiful as his jaw went slack, so open with what he wanted as he held you close, your own pleasure building just from watching him come so easily undone like it was the strongest aphrodisiac. His quiet voice came in handy as he moaned out his desires, how good it felt, how he needed more, pleas to not stop sending shockwaves all the way down to your toes as the words started to cut off the closer he got. You felt your throat tighten as his tongue peeked out to wet his lips, needing to taste him again as you swallowed and leaned up to capture him in a deep kiss, his tongue dancing over your own and refusing to let you get away in such a lewd way that it made your head spin.

He didn’t last long between your kisses and your hand attacking him at the same time, his hips jutting with a broken cry of pleasure into your open mouth as he came into your fist, palm gathering as much as you could for his sake. You didn’t realize you were panting as well with how turned on you were as his expression softened into one of pure bliss, a need filling your gut and making you burn with desire unlike anything you’d ever felt before as you wanted more. You pulled your hand free, mouth watering as you felt the sticky substance leak through your fingers, Abner just staring at you through half-lidded eyes as you raised your hand to your mouth, tongue darting out to taste when the door suddenly opened, two guards rushing in.

‘Alright, that’s enough of that,’ one of them said, your fist held by your side as you were pushed out of the way, Abner letting out an actual whine at not being able to return the favour before he was dragged out the door. Once he was out of sight you were led to the nearest bathroom, the guard not fooled at all by your attempted nonchalance and letting you wash up, your hand shaking as you still felt his heat against your wet skin. You wouldn’t do anything about your own situation until you were home, the guard just shaking his head as you rejoined him and followed him to the front doors, the detour allowing you a glimpse of Abner as he walked down a connecting hallway.

Despite the cuffs around his hands and the collar around his neck he looked relaxed, free, not even reacting as one of the inmates passing by tried to insult him, sharp canines biting his lip as he just stared the men down. You grinned, proud of him as you walked out of sight of him again, the highly protected doors leading to the outside world coming into view moments later. You didn’t leave right away, turning to talk over your shoulder as your escort waited impatiently for you to go, a gleam in your eye as you stared into his mask.

‘I’ll be back again next week,’ you promised, everything that came with that unsaid but understood, and he sighed before giving you a shove, everyone around you already whispering about the day’s visit as you just grinned and walked out into the warm Louisiana sun.

[beautifulelephantsealsunrise]

Ok another question. Can u rank best seal teeths for me ? Very curious !

ohh cool i've never considered this question before!! seal teeth are pretty interesting, it turns out. seals are born with teeth, unlike most mammals, and they usually have 34-38 teeth, depending on the species. here's my ranking of the top five types of seal teeth.

crabeater seal teeth

these things have to be number one simply because they're cool as fuck. despite its name, the crabeater seal doesn't actually eat crabs. instead, it uses its specialized teeth to filter krill out of the water, just like whales!

2. elephant seal teeth

they're nothing fancy like the crabeater seal teeth, but they have to be big and strong since elephant seals use them to fight. plus I think it's so funny how they just look like two little points when an elephant seal opens its mouth.

3. leopard seal teeth

these look a little like crabeater seal teeth, right? leopard seals eat krill too, but also fish, squid, penguins, and even smaller seals! their teeth look very sharp and pointy. leopard seal probably ranks #1 on my list of seals I would least like to be bitten by.

4. harbor seal teeth

I like how they're so uniform and neat. politely sharp little points. this harbor seal is getting its teeth brushed! harbor seals don't use their teeth for chewing -- they're mostly used to get a good grip on fish, which they will then swallow whole.

5. harp seal teeth

delicate and beautiful. need I say more? the harp seal eats many different fish and ocean invertebrates.

plus: bonus pic of a harbor seal showing off its tongue! seals have bifurcated (forked) tongues. this is because they are beasts of the devil.

[synnthamonsugar]

Merry Krillmas Written for @wonderwafles as a part of a small yearly exchange. Also on AO3

"If we can survive this, we can survive anything," said young Xi Ro as she and her siblings strolled dark passages illuminated in blue glow lamplight. They'd ventured deep enough that the architecture of the Osmium Palace had given way to untouched stone, heavy carved columns replaced with stalagmites, the decorative vaulted ceilings replaced with sharp outlines of stalactites. "At least that's what Father says."

Fundament had entered its Long Winter, a time when axial tilt combined with orbital irregularities plunged the world into a particularly bitter period of cold and darkness. The conjugation occurred infrequently enough that many krill lived without experiencing it.

It was a time when the Osmium Court battened hatches and external life waned, thoughts turned from external threats inward to stockpiles and crops that flourished in fertile cavern soil. The castle was permeable, built into the porous rock of the alien continental shelf. Instead of fishermen braving ice encrusted seas, they dove into twisting natural tunnels to the deep unfrozen ocean to cast their nets on the schools of arthropods who flocked around the light of their eyes, and fish lured away from rough seas into the safety of the crags beneath the castle.

With the cold and the dark came celebration too. Each new moon, a feast marked the passage of time, the largest happening on the nadir of their journey. It was this celebration the princesses had snuck away from — while the court was lost in the revelries of good food, strong drink, and conviviality, the workers drawn from the tunnels to the celebration and the guards consolidated to the main hall, they disappeared out a utility hallway into the undercroft. Royal finery had been cast off for waterproof skins and insulating furs, a stolen hand torch — and the traverse-line planted by navigators — guided them through the darkness.

Aurash was thrilled to explore parts of the castle that children were banned from, while Xi Ro was excited to see what monsters lurked below. Sathona felt a pang of annoyance missing the party, but the opportunity for mischief compelled her to join. Besides, three was the luckiest number, forming an indivisible whole. To split would invite disaster.

"Taox says living through it is auspicious," Aurash added, looking back at her sisters from the lead. "Anyone who does is destined for greatness."

"It's a trial," Sathona offered. "A time when new champions for krillkind are chosen by the old . . .”

Xi Ro tilted her head, urging her sister to continue.

Sathona's eyes narrowed in a mischievous smile. "I can't tell you. You will be frightened by the stories."

Xi Ro flared with indignity. "I will not! Tell me, sister!"

"You know she's winding you up," sighed Aurash. "Don't give her what she wants."

"Tell me!" Xi Ro scuttled for her older sister's back, throwing her off balance for a step until she adjusted to the new equilibrium. She clung tight to Sathona's neck, face against the hood of her cloak. "I'll make you carry me until you do!"

"That sounds good to me," Sathona played along, locking her forearms under Xi Ro's legs for support. "You overestimate your might, little sister. I could carry you to the end of the tunnels and back without getting winded."

Xi Ro made a frustrated noise, legs kicking to and fro in agitation. "You're so mean!"

"Mean? Me?" She intoned in mock hurt, "I'm giving you a sedan ride worthy of the King’s procession. We only lack the servants to carry your parasols and fans, not that we need them down here . . ."

Xi Ro slid petulantly down her elder sister's back, making herself as inconvenient as possible to carry.

"Fine, I'll tell you." Sathona dropped her, Xi Ro scrambling to her feet effortlessly. "But you can't blame me if you get nightmares."

The trio came to rest next to one of the openings in the cave floor, the kind that would be bustling with divers during work hours. Atmospheric pressure kept the water from flooding in, forming a perfectly still, dark mirror.

“The fall of the Osmium homeworld into the seas of Fundament marked the first of the Long Winters. The krill who survived found themselves beset not only by an inhospitable environment, but the slavering jaws of every creature on this world. Emboldened by darkness and frenzied by scarcity, beast and barbarian alike crept forth from the far north, throats parched for the ichor of the krill."

Xi Ro watched, transfixed, hanging off her sister’s every word. Aurash looked less impressed, but nonetheless held her tongue for her little sister's sake.

“It was a time of complete darkness,” she continued, extinguishing the torch so that they were plunged instantly into pitch black. Xi Ro jumped and Sathona chuckled low to herself. “Of despair. But not total hopelessness, for a champion arose.”

Slowly their eyes acclimated. As they did, detail emerged around them. The gentle bioluminescence of the lichens that covered the slick cave walls, and the mats of moss crowned with glistening dew. In the moon pool, the outlines of schools of fish — as delicately frilled as the lepidoptera who fluttered around the hanging gardens under hazy summer skies, surfacing to pick at the algae growing on the smooth stone. Sathona thought it more beautiful than the phosphor chandeliers of the palace or the auroras that hung perpetual in the dark skies, the gentle lapping of water and rock settling more enchanting than all the song and revelry of the great hall.

"Her name is lost to time. She is called Ûtun — The Indomitable, in the old language. The exception that proves the Timid Truth. It's not unusual to find a krill who is formidable, or courageous," she looked first to Aurash, then Xi Ro, whose eyes brightened, ". . . or smart. We live and die by these traits. But no one who has lived since has exemplified all three to such great degree . . . "

Sathona went on to describe (with a child's fancifully gorey embellishment) how in the first of the Long Winters, Ûtun single-handedly fought a rampaging icewyrm who threatened the nascent settlement that grew into the Osmium Court. She recounted the legend of her second Winter, a thrilling war caper involving a months-long siege of the Osmium Palace against the cannibal Helium Drinkers, and her army's eventual triumph against the invaders. Sathona especially brightened when she recounted the third story — Ûtun using her wisdom, wits and charm to survive the inhospitable wilderness, delivering supplies to a distant outpost cut off by endless blizzard.

"What happened to her?" Xi Ro asked, when Sathona got to the end of the third tale, and paused for a long while.

"Well, she lived longer than a krill ought to, much longer. Rumors swirled that she was deathless. Others said she was mortal, but bound to this world by her mission. Whatever the case, one day she was gone. Disappeared without a trace. Everyone feared for the next time of darkness, without her strength, her courage, her intelligence.

"But when the sun set on the last day, and krill retreated to these very tunnels, three loyal disciples beseeched her for protection. For guidance. They looked into the dark waters, and called out to her."

Sathona rested on her belly, gazing into the moon pool. Xi Ro excitedly followed, while Aurash paused before rearranging herself to mimic her sisters.

"It's true that no one will ever match her. This is why she chooses a trio to carry her mantle. One for strength. One for courage. One for wits."

"I wish she would choose faster," Aurash groused, out of patience for Sathona's antics. "We came here to explore."

"You can't hurry Ûtun," Sathona sighed matter-of-factly. "She appears when she's needed, and only then."

"What happened next?" pleaded Xi Ro.

"From the water she came to them. She deemed them worthy, and commanded them to prove themselves as her champions. And with their combined powers they were able to keep the krill safe for another cycle. When they met their end, she chose a new set of exemplars. And this is why the krill will always survive the Long Winter, no matter how harsh."

Xi Ro leaned so close that the tips of her mandibles almost broke the still water. Aurash fidgeted. Sathona smiled.

". . . can we leave now?" Aurash asked.

"No!" Xi Ro objected. "We have to wait for Ûtun."

Aurash groaned. "We're going to be here for a long time, then. Little sister . . . do you really believe all this?"

"There's no need to 'believe'," Sathona lied, "it's all true."

"It is not —"

" — It is! I swear on my third eye!"

"It's another of your stories —"

Xi Ro screeched, scrabbling for both her sisters' arms. At once, the elder siblings looked down and jumped nearly out of their shells at the sight of a fourth set of eyes set in the dark outline of a crested head. Aurash startled so violently that she slipped face-first into the pool before recovering her balance, while a split-second roil of panic welled in Sathona —

"Princesses."

Taox's voice was as cool and hard as the stone below. All three scrambled to their feet, facing their tutor — still wearing a partygoer's ceremonial mantle and sashes and jewels upon her horns and neck — with stiff backs and guilty consciences.

"This area is not safe, no matter how good you are at escaping the consequences of your mischief. Come along now, children, before your Father sobers enough to notice your absence."

All three knew better than to argue with the Taox, especially when she was saving them from the ire of the King. They fell in line behind her like three hatchlings following a mother bird, setting forth to the surface.

[flowers-of-io]

Destinytober - Dream, Tree

Read on Ao3 with proper formatting

There is a garden at the end of the world. It's just a children's story, some people would tell you, but that's not true--I've been there. It's a gorgeous place, filled with birdsong and the sweet scent of fruit trees in bloom, awash in pink-golden light. Its inhabitants, in their broad variety, wade in the lush grass, picking at scraps and building new things from it.

The garden, you see, is a little like a landfill. All things failed and discarded end up here. From the smallest krill to the mightiest warrior--everyone who could not bear the weight of existence, here finds solace and respite from their burdens.

I can already hear you accusing me of overmetaphorising. There is no end of the world! The cosmos is infinite and Guardians make their own fate. Even the radiolaria in their little bronze caskets may soon have to make peace with this fact. This is the beauty of existence: it keeps going on, and on, aimlessly and for no reason other than it just does. Arte pro arte--but oh, what beautiful art it is indeed! We have always appreciated this majesty, me and her. You could say it was the love of life which brought us together. Would you believe that?

(You'd do well brushing up on your Symmetrist writings. The sword and the bomb share some very basic principles.)

And now the children's story (and a holy story, because believers are a lot like children): in the garden at the end of the world, there is a tree. It grows tall over the hedges and flowerbeds, spilling shadow over the ground and enticing birds with its sprawling branches. But no birds that choose to nest in its boughs ever emerge back into the sunlight. There's a terrible power in its heady scent, the way it inspires violence in anything that breathes it in; its leaves are ruin, the bark disaster, and of the seeds... well. Its roots sink in piles of bloodied feathers.

It is a cautionary tale, teaching children that curiosity can kill, and believers--that there is no end to conflict, even in paradise. The unshakeable rule of existence, caught in a parable and give shape.

But did you know it had been a gift? One of the first she'd given me, back before everything became complicated. A proof of love, you might say. It's still ruinous, of course--but I do wonder if it has changed your perspective a little, me admitting this? Do you think of it in gentler terms, now that you know it had been a mark of affection? A crime of passion is still a crime, but has a nicer ring to it. You could compare the splatters of blood to a rose garden and still get away with the metaphor.

Of course, were you to tell this fable to a scholar, their first question would be, "why does the tree incite violence?" But as I said, it's a children's story. And that is not something a child would ask. Children understand stories better than adults do: they accept there is a set of rules that cannot be questioned unless the whole world falls apart, and the essence of the tale trickles out through the cracks and sinks into the ground. There's no use asking how the hag could ever have an oven inside a gingerbread house; it is an axiom, and while you could waste time trying to dissect it, it wouldn't do much beside ruining the entire point of the story. The tree incites violence because it does. Taking this statement apart doesn't deny the reality it describes. There are still dead birds on the ground.

It's just as I said--life goes on, and on, with no aim or meaning, directionless and unfettered and entirely without a point. It is, for all intents and purposes, what it is.

But I will let you in on a secret: the Symmetrists are wrong. There is no other tree, in some different corner of the world, that would inspire in its beholders a proclivity towards peace and mercy. Not every rule of the universe has a mirrored rule; and however far you might look, the number of wicked witches and brave maidens will never be equal. Sometimes--to assume your very shallow and constraining human perspective--evil simply wins.

But then again, what do I know. Maybe it's just a children's story.

[serpentface]

an assortment of animals that call the Goosefeather Gulf ("Rodiharra") of eastern Bylaea home.

Bylaea is a small continent (or large island) north of the supercontinent. It falls within the arctic circle. Though its winters are fairly mild (with the very lowest temperatures usually being in the 10s F) they are long and dark and see great accumulation of snowfall. It has thousands of lakes (many glacial in origin) and dozens of major rivers. It's east coast contains the Goosefeather Gulf, a relatively shallow sea teeming with life. Here's some examples:

the Ugu-Garree (top left)- a very large goose. These birds seasonally migrate between fresh and salt-water, feeding on grass and lake vegetation in the warm months and on kelp and seaweed during the freeze. Their bodies are highly buoyant and they cannot naturally dive though may moderate their buoyancy through the ingestion of large gastroliths held in the gizzard. Ugu-Garree are slow on land and completely flightless, but are aggressive and can successfully intimidate most land-based predators.

Bloodlip Tiviit (middle left)- a mid-sized species of tiviit which preys on fish and squid and nests in noisy shoreline colonies.

the Bjommavír (top right) - a slow-moving seahound that suction-feeds along the ocean floor. They sift through silt with sensitive whiskers and keen eyesight. Prey is quickly sucked into the mouth and crushed between their huge molars. They do not need to haul out on land and can spend their entire lives in the sea, (though are capable of strenuously navigating over land if absolutely necessary).

Redbeard Tiviit (center right)- a small tiviit that feeds predominantly on baitfish and krill. Males possess a large 'beard' and orange coloration, females are a duller brown-grey. These tiviit swim far inland via rivers to lay eggs and raise their young in less predator-dense waters.

Masked Varkheshi (center)- one of three species of varkheshi ('wolf-(sea)bird') found around Bylaea. Varkheshi live in packs of 2-10 animals (usually a breeding pair and their subadult young) and cooperate to hunt larger animals. A pack will chase and tear at its victims with their sharp beaks until the victim bleeds out or is immobilized by its injuries. Varkheshi also readily predate on their smaller relatives.

Bjommri (bottom) - the apex predator of the waters surrounding Bylaea. These massive seahounds form lifelong monogamous bonds, living and hunting in pairs. Pairs are mostly reproductive, but are occasionally same sex (usually siblings) in which case they will mate with unattached bachelors. Pairs of bjommri can take down very large animals (including some leviathans) but mostly consume fish and tiviit. While they are fast and deadly in the water, they are slow and clumsy on land and may often be successfully mobbed by groups of even the smallest tiviit.

[daisychainsandbowties]

Is there anything more beautiful and tragic than Lilith’s self-destructive longing to be loved?

i wrote a little something for this. a little bit of davy jones au

/// lullabies in salt

Lilith sings to her, sometimes, when the ship becomes a ghost and all of her crew are just specks of watery light. They move through the rigging, each one turning into what they really are.

Or what they long to be – Lilith has never been certain of this as she stands alone among them all, watching as eels curl around ropes dangling unattended, as crabs wander the deck with their claws scraping softly on soft wood.

Jellyfish strung like floating lanterns up above as thought trying to replace the night sky.

Her crew, to whom she is not gentle, and yet here they are in their simplest form; their wishful thinking that endures to this depth and makes light for her where there should be none. She has watched their bodies change, like hers, over the years.

(there is no need to admit to herself that she has lost count of them)

They are always so astonishingly alive in the beginning, and of course Lilith is just a ghoul to them. She has to be. Pacing by day in her coat that always drips cold water, her swords lending weight to her hips where flesh and fat and all her girlish ends of her have faded away.

She’s seen how they look at her – eyes bloodshot, gleaming in the candles her crew carry with them onto the wreckage of ships. Lilith wonders each time if this makes for a better ending, as she paces in front of the survivors where they kneel in their shallow saltwater graves, variously bloodied and always on the edge of death.

Her crew, who have all made the same poor choices, whisper that it is. Better.

“Why?” she asks them, her voice moving like water over sand.

Her crew, who she thinks of as beautiful because what else to think or to feel about them? Their faces cracked open by barnacles and occupied by every crawling thing that lives inside the ocean. A girl of seventeen (dead) who did not endure the crossing from England; her eyes replaced by the broad caps of jellyfish, who looked up from her whalebone dice and said, “It’s better to have a choice, I think.”

Even now, she is shy, though the sea has reclaimed all of her girlishness. Her forearms are chitin and her teeth are coral, and even as Lilith stood by, waiting for her to summon her voice again, a tiny krill crawled out of her left ear and settled on the lobe like an earring.

The girl touched it, smiling, as though a pretty boy (or another pretty girl, Lilith supposes) had set it there with bare hands. “I wasn’t ready to be dead,” she told Lilith, quiet but fierce, “And I don’t regret this.”

“You will.”

As the ship falls, passing out of sight of sunlight, Lilith searches for the marshlight of that girl in the strung-shadows, in the ghosts. There are a few she suspects.

One, a dolphin turning loops around the mainmast. It is the pink kind that live out somewhere on the continent west of Europe – oh, Lilith can’t remember the names they put on maps. What she remembers, from the queer knowing of things that is her deathbed companion, is that this creature is a freshwater thing and does not belong here.

Its shape climbs and climbs, into the crow’s nest, and then the ship shudders. They are done descending.

The light vanishes.

Lilith steps away from the wheel, fingers unsticking reluctantly from the barnacle-choked wood. Maybe there is no wood left at all, she realises, taking in the twitching mass of creatures that have consumed every inch of what was once a clean and solid shape.

(what has she done to them?)

Her memory is cloth eaten by moths, and all of this is probably her fault, but she cannot remember why.

Sometimes, when she falls asleep (at last. Always at last) with the ship’s organ falling silent around her, she dreams of a rainswept shore. Scrawny palm trees and dried seaweed strewn along the sand.

Kneeling there like one of the flotsam she fetches out of the sea, face uptilted to taste the rain, to feel it run between her teeth. One last taste before her trembling hand raises something that makes her fist ache. She is shirtless in her dream, lurid in the shine off of drenched skin. Her scars all laid bare for that ruined island to see.

(did she burn them out of their little church on the hillside. did she paint the parish bell with blood and turn the neat little houses to cinders. did she-)

Perhaps the island was deserted when she came, rowing away from the Dutchman in the longboat with her crew watching in their silent way. Arms flung over the railings, hands fiddling with bits of wood or scraps of leather.

She went to where they could not witness her and stripped down. Laying her coat over a fallen tree and leaving her shirt as a smear of white on the sand, weighted by rain. She kept her pants (she has others) and knelt, placing every last letter into the box. A handful of flowers long turned dry and delicate as she shielded them from the rain, snapping the lid shut to protect them.

Turning instead to a smaller chest, all filigreed in the shape of sea creatures. Lilith didn’t make it herself. In the way of things, the ocean brought it to her in the ruins of a dying ship. It knows her mind and what she intends, and there is only a little mockery in the gifting of a chest.

(a locker)

 Sailors, among all types of men, are good at poetry because they see so little of it.

And so much.  

Lilith has seen so much and she remembers certain things with clarity like crystal – warped, but unashamed. Carrying light somewhere, if not where it needs to go, if not exactly all the way to the eye of the beholder.

She remembers kneeling, naked, and something in her hand (terrible) and tears tracking toward her mouth to make the freshwater taste of rain vanish. It was a knife, she thinks, that left hard welts in the flesh of her hand and made her bruise for days.

Her palm a cup of bluegrey turning green, turning yellow, turning on her as she walked unsteadily through the ship.

(and lilith is no fool)

She knows what she’s missing, and few besides her know that it is difficult to walk without a heartbeat – that there’s a rhythm to it. Stumbling like a drunk for days with the ship all run dry of rum.

“When do we make port?”

Her crew, as things crawled up on the deck.

They were afraid at first to become more like the sea, lashing out so she tipped more than one eviscerated body over the railing in that first week. Bodies weighted like anchors to their doom, since they could not sleep without serving her.

(she came back, later, and found them in their shallow graves alongside hidden reefs or close to islands they used to visit in passing, just to lay on the beaches and drink)

“Sorry captain.” Voices almost vanished into seawater and the soft rolling of waves across the ocean floor. “Glad you came back for me.”

(what else could she do? this is all her fault)

 It was cheating, but Lilith made deals and traded favours with other ships to get them supplies. “I’m a ghost, if anyone asks,” she’d tell their captains, who were always variously afraid of her. “Speak of this at all of your own volition and I will send her to find you.”

“Who?”

Only the daring ones asked, and sadly Lilith liked the daring ones. Their smiles and how their fingers lingered on her cold wet hands, fascinated instead of repulsed – give it time.

A hunger to them as they stepped a little closer – they met on her ship, and in their eyes it was because she preferred it this way, and not because her ship would not allow her to leave. “Who will you send?”

She’d smile, like a girl who did not need to keep secrets, “The sea.”

It was close enough to the truth. Lilith does not remember anything of how it came to this, but she sourced paint, canvas, charcoals and paper and anything her crew might need to remember for her. All of her kindest acts have been out of fear.

In their stumbling and then better and then beautiful attempts at painting, or sketching, Lilith has seen the bottom of the ocean as it changes over years. The crawl of objects along the ocean floor as the waves return. They are more loyal than the rest of the world together.

Sometimes she would be stupid and end up in her cabin with one of these odd little artists – her crew which is a collective and also individual. Individuals.

They were like anyone else to fuck – messy, and good, and quiet afterwards, tracing the mark of her own sword on some crewmember’s stomach.

Of course she is not so much of a fool as to say, “Who did this to you?” even in jest, but she wonders.

Who did this?

It doesn’t feel like her, but she remembers and it was and she left markings on her map at each place where she sent a panicked body over the railing.

All of them were right as they came at her with cutlass, saber, chunks of rotting wood.

“You did this to us.”

(and she did. she did)

It is not punishment enough, she knows, to have watched them change, one by one. Bodies she knew – fucked, cooked for, defended with her own – turned to bodies she only recognises because she never looked away. Afraid to blink, sometimes.

She gave them paper and paint so that they could remember, and there is a little booklet in the dry-store of her crew before, or halfway through. Her crew slowly undone as the Dutchman turns and turns around the ocean like a tiger in a cage.

And she is not brave enough to remember why she did it to them.

Lilith has no interest in drawing things, or putting smears of colour down to try, try, try and represent what happened to her. Lilith is a liar, and that should make her an artist too, but she takes what she has and puts it onto piano keys.

Happy, in the end, to remember little beyond her own naked chest. Nothing but a beach, a knife, a bloody shape in her hand.

(still beating)

It has been like this forever. Lilith with lichen growing out of her hairline and glassy teeth growing under the veins in her wrists. As a child she read about Moray eels and their teeth, and as usual her dreams have come back to infect her.

She is sick with longing, disfigured by it, and sometimes she wakes up with her arms bloody and soaking her bedsheets. Prongs of a glasslike substance sticking out of her wrists – and it is terrifying, but Lilith cannot die.

(and ‘cannot’ is a terrible thing, even when it is about death)

Tonight the ocean is calm and nothing has died, so Lilith moved through her crew. Oh, they are quiet sometimes especially when the stars come out. Night so clear you can feel it reaching for you.

Their voices all around her and their hands reaching out, sliding off her slick skin. Lilith, their fresh-drowned corpse, with new shapes sprouting now from her jawline. Following it all the way home into her mouth.

She loves their hands. She loves them.

The new ones as yet unbroken by the slow crawl of time, with their human faces. Almost, now, she finds their eyes unnerving – all simple shades of brown or blue or black or hazel or grey. There is so much weather in these living-dead things. So much of land.

As the sun fell she moved through them, listening, composing something in her head that sounded already as though it would be a sad song. She is good with only two emotions in music.

Anger, and this strange melancholy that falls over her crew when there are no bodies to collect. No limbs floating in the water and no blood in the seafoam.

No sharks.

“Let’s go down”

                                                      “Lilith”

                       “Captain”

    “Let’s go down”

Lilith has seen more of the ocean than anyone alive. Her body is spyglass, map, compass, and complicated in all the ways that saltwater is. There are no clean deaths out here.

Only drownings.

She took them down, waves rushing up the length of the ship to swallow their bodies one by one and how they floated for a while as the crushing took hold. Their bodies ignored it, and Lilith felt only the familiar ache in her wrists.

Here, at least, she cannot drip water onto the deck beneath her like a poor excuse for a heartbeat. Her crew were, at first, themselves.

She hates to find them beautiful, but there’s a helplessness to it; to Lilith and her long acquaintance with the sea.

I miss you.

The thought stepped out like a ghost to frighten her, and Lilith flinched against the wheel, but she did not let it go. Beach, knife, rainwater, and a bead of sharp pain somewhere on her chest.

Sand, blood, and the water catching up to catch her, and drinking it down.

“Are you thirsty, Lil?” (a voice she does not know)

Her crew are beautiful. They are the ocean and they are her and they float so perfectly as the ship descends, dragging their shapes out of sight. Light-swallowed and turning into light as they unravel.

(she will not describe them)

Only their ghosts, strung up into blurry wavelengths as the depths settle like an absent heartbeat around her. Quiet as her grave.

Lilith waits.

Her ship is lost now, barnacles loose in the water around her as they try to flee. (where? there is nowhere to go)

Catching one, she turns it over, watching as featherlike cirri tease from its tip, combing the water even now for food. It is not afraid of her, or it would have retreated into its shell, and Lilith lets its tiny appendages tease over her fingertips. There is plenty to eat on her skin.

She sets it on her forearm, feeling it secrete onto her skin, burrowing down among fine hairs and into flesh. There is a momentary bloom of blood in the water and then Lilith turns her attention out toward the ocean, to where a shape lurks now on the edge of seeing.

“Hello darling,” Lilith whispers, and a kraken’s arm punctures out of absolute darkness, easing toward her like a tongue parting lips, parting water. Easy as a knife parting flesh, carving out space for a ghost.

It moves through her crew, who scatter like wavelengths of light (that is all they are for now) from its path. The barnacle, newly apart of Lilith, quivers against her bones.

The arm stops, extended, a few inches from Lilith where she stands just shy of the ship’s wheel. It is cold at this depth, but Lilith cannot feel that any more than she can feel sunlight on her skin or the taste of food in her mouth.

She reaches out with her left hand so as not to scare the barnacle (who knows its place in the grand scheme even if Lilith does not) and lets the very tip of that unfathomable arm reach forward, curling all around her.

Her kraken hums and Lilith feels the reverberation of it mostly in her chest where there is plenty of room. She steps forward and the arms curls and curls – and Lilith is always dripping water but this creature is wet and she can feel it for once.

Lilith closes her eyes, feels her feet lift away from the deck and she is free, finally, of all that wood and tar, of a million nails and a thousand tiny chips in once-beautiful wood. She feels her barnacle rush toward the inside of her elbow where it burrows into the vein, opening her wide.

A blood trail follows them through the water as the kraken brings her close, away until the ship is just a mirage. Its mouth opens to show her rows of pretty teeth. Lilith has one on a leather cord around her neck, gifted accidentally by a shipwreck she visited one.

“Liar. A shipwreck you made.” (says a voice she does not know)

Its breath is only warmth here as the kraken lazes at this depth, letting faint currents shift her from side to side. They are still far from the bottom of the ocean, but this dark is preternatural anyway. This place hardly even exists.

Lilith, who has been granted space to move in the safety of the kraken’s grip, runs her hand over the suckers on its arm. It tastes her blood.

“Have you been well, dear one?” She asks this through the murk so her voice does not really travel, but the kraken hears her. She feels it twirling her lightly in place, humming more serenely as they dance farther from the ship, together.

Lilith kisses its wet flesh and looks toward her creature, her kraken, her ocean. “It is all I have, to hear that.”

It sends a small shockwave through the water in response – enough to make the barnacle shiver where it sits sipping at Lilith’s blood.

“Do you want me to sing for you?” Lilith spreads her palm over what passes for a kraken’s hand, sliding her fingers fully around the thinnest part, the very tip of its arm.

There’s a plea in its voiceless rhythm as the kraken twists in the water. There is so much of it that Lilith cannot follow every arm to its ending. Her creature is vast and it swallows the ocean around them. Everything, instead, is her.

(they are the same thing)

(ocean and kraken. ocean and girl)

Lilith sings.

[soulcatdoodles]

Just wanted to say that I stumbled across your art today and I LOVE IFOR AND I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM PLEASE

( your art is absolutely amazing )

THANK YOUUUU I’m so happy that you’re interested in ifor 😭💖 Allow me to dump their lore here:

Once upon a time an ancient, nameless skykid made friends with a moth. That moth asked them, “what’s your name?” They pondered a moment, then replied, “I forgot”. The moth, somewhat dense, inquired in a confused voice: “Iforgot? What an odd name. I’ll just call you Ifor”.

Seasons passed. Long after said moth had grown up, sacrificed countless lifetimes, and eventually faded into nothingness, another moth lit that weary skykid’s candle and asked, “what’s your name?” That skykid answered after a brief moment: “You can call me Ifor.”

Ifor is a gratitude kid, and has been around for countless seasons. While most skykids of their age have long since faded into nothingness, they somehow never managed to. And so, they pass their time by seeking thrill wherever they can - anything to impede the boredom, be it dodging krills, purposefully getting krilled, exploring out of bounds, worshipping AURORA, or half-heartedly following along the seasons.

They own a vast collection of cosmetics, and often are seen passing their time by switching up their look. Most often though, they wear their signature tattered dark robe with black boots (halloween pants), and sometimes season of duet’s sleeveless grey pants. Their cape is that of a manta they hunted themselves, and it serves to attract krill’s attention. The krill horn they carry on their back is also used to summon krills. Quite often though, they carry a musical instrument (such as the e-guitar, violin, or piano) in its stead. They’ve had ample time to practice various instruments to perfection.

Due to the constant negative energy surrounding them, and the countless amount of times they’ve lost their light, darkness has started growing on their body. It recedes and progresses like the tide, but most often it can be found on their head and face. Everytime they get reborn, their darkness is cleansed, but their darkness can also wither and die when they experience positive emotions. Positive emotions always come from forming bonds with moths, but it’s only a matter of time before the moth fades and their darkness grows back stronger.

Morally they are ambivalent, their mood changing unpredictably. They will often help redirect krills from other skykids by taking it head on, but sometimes will also lead a krill over to target another skykid just for the sake of it.

Currently, ifor is quite happy as they’ve made some new friends. Only time will tell if these will stay, but ifor has a feeling that at least one of them might. Said skykid is my irl partner’s character, and I very much enjoy drawing ifor with some of the ice melting from their demeanor (soft blushing ifor is my new obsession)

I hope this satisfies your curiosity! Ifor is probably the oc with the most lore I’ve made so far, besides my last skykid oc from like 2020, but i feel much more personally connected to Ifor because I based them off of my own playstyle of the game.

I’ve been playing sky since its release in July 2019, and I’ve had phases where I’ve gotten so tired of it, but just couldn’t quit for real cause of all the time and money I’d spent on it and all the fond memories I’d made (plus the game is just so pretty). I wanted to imagine how those feelings would translate to the character I’m playing as - I imagine they’d be amplified by a lot, so me wanting to quit the game became my skykid wanting to quit life, essentially. Fun stuff, fun stuff. And I do love to be the krill bait when doing wasteland quests with other ppl, so that part is pretty accurate too. And I’m also absolutely in love with the aurora concert and her music in general.

The only inaccurate part may be the “practicing to perfection” - I definitely know my way around the in game instrument mechanics but I’m no where near as good as some of those sky musicians out there hahaha, I do enjoy playing it though.

If anyone read this far then wow, amazing, I love you, hand in marriage please?? Hope you enjoyed my ramblings, @ the like 2 ppl who got this far

First image by me

Second by mfxdraws https://www.instagram.com/mfxdraws/

Third by kxrmaou https://www.instagram.com/kxrmaou/

Fourth directly from sky