#so close that is a prehistoric fish

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I'm reading burning Avalon and got jumpscared by huitzi with no hat

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I love bive

lemon demon reference??

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

how do I.

[mokeonn]

Eusthenopteron in hats

[bogleech]

Actually my CURRENT completely serious personal list of animals I'd add to our current world and specifically local to where I live is as follows. I have shared some of these before but my list is always evolving:

1) A big tarantula sized lousefly because I think they look awesome, would be like vampire bats in that they can bite anything but don't naturally mess with humans. Everyone would find these scary, I would keep one as a pet.

2) a freshwater amphibious barnacle. Larva would have to crawl out of the water and start growing in dirt or mud with long roots. Would smell bad to attract and catch flies when it's exposed to air. In water could catch things like ostracods. I would raise these in pots of dirty scummy water on my balcony. Pokemon would make a poison type Barbacle form out of them.

3) a big huge 12-15 foot long predatory amphibian that looks like specifically this toy of Crassigyrinus. Basically just like a crocodile in size, niche and danger level but slimy and would like cold northern rivers so I can go see them and feed them raw chicken off our fishing docks.

4) a creature exactly like this idiot looking prehistoric lamprey reconstruction, but with a horrible mouth that can bite you like the cookie cutter shark/cookie cutter animals I was hypothesizing. These would live wherever #3 lives so they could have a good food source (#3 should regenerate really well like an axolotl) and so I could catch them and keep them in aquariums

5) a predatory spiny katydid like this guy but as huge as a New Zealand Weta and maybe camouflaged like a clump of lichens

6) a species of glow worm gnats that are maybe just modestly twice as big and just about everywhere in the world in trees and stuff

7) a giant python size freshwater ribbon worm, just like the marine ones with paralyzing venom that swallow whole big fish. Just want one that lives closer. It should be able to come on land, too. I just want the mongolian death worm to be real.

8) a single freshwater cephalopod and I nominate a flapjack octopus big enough to eat a man. I just want the cuero to be real.

9) basket star that hangs from trees and catches birds and stuff. I know echinoderms use seawater as blood but maybe it could fill itself with salty mucus? Maybe it should also protect itself by stinging all over. I'm tired of getting stung by boring nettles in the woods, I wanna get stung instead by spiny tree tentacles.

10) a single surviving pterosaur that evolved to be vampiric and should look as close as possible to the stirge from Dungeons and Dragons

just to clarify that's this one, the one that looks like a miserable piece of shit

[deesea-ao3]

Fun Lore Ideas for Fawcett City

I've been sitting on these concepts for ages and need to get them out of my system. For my current WIP, it was important that I have a strong concept for what kind of city Fawcett was going to be. While the plot isn't technically taking place in Fawcett, a huge amount of my lore interpretations/characterisations rely on there being a solid original setting to draw from. Also, it's super fun to extrapolate history and economy for a fictional magic city to try and make it feel as plausible as possible.

Now, to start with, I had to establish where the city would actually be located. Fawcett is typically represented and/or thought of as being in the Midwest, so I was able to whittle down my options even more. I couldn't have it too close to Central City, Keystone City, or Smallville since I wanted Fawcett to retain its isolated feel. It'd be harder for it to get away with being magic if it was a stones throw from speedster stomping grounds, for instance. In the end, I looked up old maps of America DC Comics had officially released for inspiration. What I got were these:

The first didn't have Fawcett at all, and the second had it placed near the border of Wisconsin. The latter was serviceable for my purposes. However, I wanted something more to draw from. I wanted to make Fawcett feel like an actual city with history before I slapped on the magic superhero. It technically was just an ordinary city until Shazam placed a portal there after all.

My second go of looking for inspiration was much more fruitful. I looked at a few fan-made maps and eventually stumbled upon this one in a reddit forum:

Upon closer inspection, I realised something.

That's fucking Chicago.

The idea that then formed was brilliant, my best one maybe ever. If I don't want to write a 2K+ document detailing an organic history of fictional Fawcett City, coupled with local industry and culture to boot, I can just STEAL a real one!

The existence of IRL Chicago is not necessary for my story, and its absence would be barely noteworthy in the grand scheme of things. Functionally, it wouldn't even be gone. Its location and major historical events would still have occurred, just under a different name. It not only saves me tons of labour as a writer, it's also fucking hilarious.

The heart of ALL of magic lies in an abdoned subway station in downtown Chicago Fawcett, the Windy city that houses pagan subcultures, talking animals, cursed objects and people who still think it's 1945.

Southern Lake Michigan has freshwater mermaids. The flat lands of the city proper are surrounded by bluffs as old as the ice age, which thrum with prehistoric magic. The sunset is always pink, and moonbeams are brighter somehow here. In the river that flows through art-nouveau styled skyscrapers swim fish with rainbow scales. The people are happy and chatty and full of little secrets, kept close and safe for rainy days. The woman who dresses in leaves and sleeps on park benches is liable to be simply human, but the jolly old milkman who visits you every morning is fae through and through. Weird is normal and normal is weird.

All while in Chicago, Illinois, one of the most populous, wealthy cities in America since the 1870s. The mechanic who enchanted your car to not break down anymore was raised by regular steel mill workers. The politician who dreams of addressing the city's entrenched class divides is stuck doing paperwork to establish legal protections for the local gnome population's tree houses. When it snows in winter, Yetis clear driveways and salt the sidewalks. No one talks about it much because what is noteworthy about public servants doing their jobs? So what if they're Yetis? You got a problem with that?

Fawcett blows Gotham out the goddamn water for weirdness, but because they're so nonchalant and humble about it, Gothamites walk around smugly assured of their tolerance for insanity, unaware of the bigger fish, which is the average Fawcett citizen. When tourists come to visit, the very genre of reality changes the second they step foot within city lines.

Fawcett solos, tbh. DC writers are weaksauce for not seeing the vision that is mystic Chicago city, home to all of magic.

[marinebiologyshitposts]

FISH KIN: @lampriformity, your fish kin is...

Lampris guttatus, the Opah! Now, I do personally think it's cheating to assign you a lampriforme, because like. It is literally in your name, but I just couldn't resist this guy- and how could I? The Opah is a discoid pelagic ray-finned fish closely related to the Oarfish, probably one of the best-known Lampriformes! The Lampriformes shaped like the Opah are called "bathysomes", where the longer, slimmer ones are called "taeniosomes"- translating to "deep-bodied" and "ribbon-bodied" respectively! While the Opah is kinda an odd-man-out among the Lampriformes, given its unusual shape, the fossil record shows that MOST prehistoric Lampriformes were bathysomes- and it's only relatively recently that they started getting stretched longer! Thank you so much for your donation!

[3584-tropical-fish]

hello fish! what ballets do u associate w vallerina? (& if you have specific clips can u link them pls?)

Hi morgan!!! I love having excuses to talk about ballet, thank you so so much for asking :D

I think The Rite of Spring (original title: Le Sacre du Printemps) is definitely the most fitting. The music is by Igor Stravinsky and original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, but his choreography has since been lost, so I'm going to link the Joffrey Ballet's recreation, with choreography by Millicent Hodson. It is set in prehistoric Russia, and is about the sacrifice of a young girl (referred to as The Chosen One) in order to bring about the spring. And well. I feel like that theme of being chosen for some sort of great honor that is actually incredibly horrifying is quite fitting for Val.

The whole ballet is only about 30 minutes, but the Chosen One is chosen at the 18:28 mark, and she begins to dance herself to death at about 24:20

I've noticed that a lot of people reference Swan Lake, when they do vallerina art, which I'd guess is probably because it's one of the tragic ballets that is firmly in the public conscious and there's that Black Swan movie, but you know what people are right for it! A person is forced into a shape that doesn't fit them, is made no longer human, and its full of drama and death. Odile has this charm to her that is so fitting for Val, and I think this variation works nicely to get that energy across:

Though I also need an Odette clip, so here's the finale where she turns into a swan:

However, even more fitting for Val, I think, is the The Dying Swan by Mikhail Fokine, set to Camille Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux. A swan song if ever there was one, a final bow for Val, trying to escape but not quite able to.

I think to close out my collection of ballet blancs I am legally obligated to also include Giselle (or, Les Wilis). A story about a girl who was wronged by her lover and dies, joining the ranks of all of the other undead women who were wronged by their lovers - the Wilis.

Paul Taylor's Esplanade I just think is fun, and the frantic vibes of it and the use of classical music are fitting for Val

Also for vibes I will share After the Rain by Christopher Wheeldon!

For the life of me I cannot find a video of Septet by Merce Cunningham, but that uses Trois morceaux en form de poire by Erik Satie, so I associate it with Val because the music that plays when she talks about wanting to be a ballerina is another Satie piece.

Anyways! That's a lot, hopefully you enjoy them, and thank you again for asking!!! If nothing else I hope more people can come to appreciate Rite of Spring as a Val ballet, because out of everything I do think that is the Most fitting

FUCK hang on im gonna throw this juliet variation in last minute this is fun too

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I love bive

Bive when she sees Pest:

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

Words cannot express how much I love this art

(Credits to cube watermelon on deviantart)

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Nirmosho

Today's is interesting in that it's notably vague about what kind of creature this is, other than "lives in the river" and "smaller than a crocodile". (Convenient that the crocodile was so recent, now that I think of it.)

It should also be noted that this is our very last entry on an individual animal -- as we're winding down, our final half-dozen Bestiaryposts are going to be collections of multiple entries, mostly ones that I felt were too short or too obvious to give their own post. Artists should feel free to pick & choose which to draw, or do a group shot, or however they like.

If you don't know what this is about, you can learn at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

To see the entry the art is based on this week, click this link:

To see the entry for next week and potentially participate, click this one:

Now, let's see what people came up with.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has drawn this very charming little beastie that is not unlike a horseshoe crab, just less flat. I really like this overall, but I'd like to highlight the tiny little eyes, the detail on the mouthparts, and the nifty fin-thing on its back.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) correctly observes that she's already drawn this one -- this is indeed the "certain kind of fish" mentioned in the Dolthruk entry, which she included in that illustration. However, in light of addition details, they have revised their design to create a fish that's capable of being mobile on land, basing it heavily on the mudskipper. Here we see an excellent image of two having a dispute in muddy water -- I particularly love the rendering of the fins and think the background works well here. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn this really nice fish inspired by various prehistoric species -- to me, it genuinely looks like this drawing would fit right into a series of illustrations in a paleontological text. To me, it's giving coelacanth, but that may be mostly because that's the only lobe-finned fish I recognize. I also like the little fang at the front. (And thank you for including alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn this rather polite-looking snake, noting that the description provided lines up quite well with it being some sort of snake. As usual, the gold is in the naturalist-style description they've provided in the linked post -- in this case, I think it fits right in with any given article about unusual animal life cycles & behaviors. Weird, but not implausibly weird.

@wendievergreen (link to post here) is depicting, in their usual aesthetically pleasing stylized form, an insect life cycle. I like the idea of it being an insect, which does fit the description, I like the thought put into this crocodile-centric life cycle, and again I really like the vibe of the artwork here. See the linked post for more detail on the life cycle being depicted, and close-ups of the individual details of this drawing.

Now to see what the Aberdeen Bestiary has to say:

... yeah, that is neither a crocodile nor a fish.

The beast being killed here looks more like a medieval hyena than anything -- people who have read these posts from the beginning may find that spiny back familiar. And the creature killing it, which this entry is ostensibly describing, is dead-on identical to the standard-issue Medieval Wyvern Thing that you see in a lot of different manuscripts.

Anyway, as I'm certain nobody guessed from that illustration, we're going out with a bang on the world-famous... Ydrus.

If you've never heard of it, you're not alone. It isn't real, and is one of those imaginary beasts that never quite caught on. As far as I know, it pretty much only shows up in bestiaries -- occasionally it gets confused with the Hydra, but I don't think they were originally intended to be the same, similar names aside.

And now you know.

seriously i don't think the illustrator was making a lot of effort to fit the description

[lovelyerotica25]

Senshi x Laios fanfic idea:

Modern AU:

Senshi: A polynesian, Okinawan, or Filipino private chef who cooks with unique and exotic ingredients. He quite often goes hunting, foraging, fishing, etc, for the ingredients himself.

Laios: An American Paleontologist who loves learning researching about dinosaurs and the prehistoric world. He has a massive obsession with wanting to eat dinosaurs, since they are extinct, much to his dismay, he settles with their modern day relatives and creatures that resemble them.

How they met: Laios was conducting field research on prehistoric fossils with his team; Marcielle, a medic.

Chilchuck, an expert on prehistoric and ancient architecture, artifacts, and traps.

Falin: an expert on botany and horticultural medicine.

They had run out of food whilst on their expedition, and Laios took it as an opportunity to capture a crocodile to eat. An argument ensues amongst the team, and the noise alerts Senshi, who is nearby hunting for ingredients himself. Excited that he found someone who loves out of the ordinary ingredients as he does, he offers to help them cook the crocodile. Laios and Senshi bond over the experience, and Senshi asks to join their expedition.

They grow close over the expedition and eventually sexy stuff ensues. The expedition ends with Senshi inviting Laios to his home in Japan, which Laios just ever so casually happens to be working next, and Laios accepts. They eventually become boyfriends and live together and go casually hunting and foraging together as dates.

[caminthemoshpitatweezer]

I love bive

any regretevator fans here

[ladychandraofthemoone]

In my au Stanley (narrow gauge) has a special interest in insects (I hc him as being into animals, they don’t judge you for your “jinx” and he’s got a soft spot for critters that are seen as “bad luck”) and tends to blurt out the most detailed information, he often info-dumps with and to Nia who encourages it cause it makes him happy once he’s freed from his “jinx” and she know every single insect name alphabetically along with their scientific names and nicknames Here we have Duke immediately regretting asking them if they can name every single species and ends up sleeping when they’re engrossed in their conversation before leaving when they were in the mid section of the e category (Nia gave him “the disappointment older sister look” awhile back so the poor guy can trapped there and wondered how did he got ever himself into this situation)

Basically it’s just Stanley to Duke in alphabetical order: Alderflies Angel Insects Anoplura (Sucking lice) Ants Antlions Aphids Archeognatha (Bristletails) Barklice Bees Beetles Bird lice Biting lice Blattodea (Cockroaches) Booklice Bristletails Bugs Butterflies Caddisflies Chewing lice Cicadas Cockroaches Coleoptera (Beetles) Collembola (Springtails) Crickets Damselflies Diplura Diptera (Flies) Dobsonflies Dragonflies-

Nia joining in cause she was mad at Duke: ah yes the alderfly which are megalopteran insects of the family Sialidae. They are closely related to the dobsonflies and fishflies as well as to the prehistoric Euchauliodidae. All living alderflies – about 66 species all together are part of the subfamily Sialinae, which contains nine extant genera. Sialinae have a body length of less than 25 mm (1 inch), long filamentous antennae, and four large dark wings of which the anterior pair is slightly longer than the posterior. They lack ocelli and their fourth tarsal segment is dilated and deeply bilobed. Dead alderfly larvae are used as bait in fishing-

duke:shooketh (Nia’s is basically the train version of a encyclopedia also her design is based off of MrTerrier673 on Twitter)

[d6b-onion]

"Why can't this river just be normal," Mystia complained, slowly overtaken by boredom at the edge of the pier, fishing rod in hand. Her legs slowly dangled just above the water, with some of the higher ripples tickling the bottom of her feet from time to time. "Catching lamprey's usually a piece of cake," she pouted.

"Hun, I told you the Sanzu was pretty unusual~!" Urumi said in a sing-song voice. The fisherwoman sat a bit further along the pier, alongside several fishing rods affixed to the ground, which both increased yield and meant she had nothing to do until something took the bait. Compared to Mystia's flimsy handheld setup, it was very clear which one of the two was a professional. Patience being part of her trade, she just lounged with all of her length on the wooden floor, using her long, red horns to idly scratch the surface from time to time.

"Yeah, yeah, in any case, the lampreys here just look plain weird."

"That's because they're not your usual lampreys. Rather, they're a close prehistoric relative thereof, which doesn't really have a name, but I call a Yanliao lamprey. In fact, the Outside World name for it is apparently Yanliomyzon-"

"Oh, save it with all the fancy talk!" Mystia interrupted, throwing her arms up in the air, before quickly realizing she had significantly shaken the bobber, scaring away any and everything that was remotely close. She slumped down slightly and sighed deeply.

"Tsk, hun, you're gonna scare away all of my fish," Urumi said.

Mystia turned back to look and stuck out her tongue defiantly. "All that means is that I'm going to catch my own." She paused, and leaned forwards a bit. "I do need it for this evening, after all…" she said, sounding very glum.

Urumi sighed even harder, but it didn't sound totally displeased. If anything, she almost sounded.. relieved? "Oh, what will I do with you…" She slowly (and rather quietly) got up, before walking over to right behind Mystia. "So. Need some help, hun?"

Mystia's pride almost had her snappily reply "no", but she held it in for just an instant to consider it. Fishing in the Sanzu was a lot harder than she'd bargained for, and she needed the lamprey to keep her stand running. Urumi knew the Sanzu's fish inside out, and her help would definitely be valuabe. But Mystia really didn't fancy the idea of getting outside help, and relinquishing her sweet sweet "self-made businesswoman" title (that nobody else ever used).

"…Fine," she said, almost resigned to her fate.

Urumi quietly giggled at the night sparrow's theatrics. The sound bothered Mystia, in some way.

"Well, in that case, let me show you, hun. Here on the Sanzu, the current is everything."

She knelt down, and extended an arm above Mystia's shoulder to point to the place where her bobber currently stayed.

"This spot's no good, there's too much current and the fish don't dwell here for very long, you need a quieter place, such as… here."

She moved her arm to point to a spot slightly closer to the shore, where the water looked more still. However, to point more precisely, she leaned forward a bit more, and pressed the rest of her body right against Mystia's back. She instantly tensed up, not expecting the sudden contact. As the sensation settled in, she felt that refusing to get help was perhaps a tad misguided. The fisherwoman was a lot bigger and taller than her, easily encompassing her small frame. Now she couldn't ignore the sizable chest pressing against her back, which turned out to be much more intense than the sight. Urumi's body, close and warm, wrapped around her own small body. The warmth soon spread to her own chest, her head and her cheeks, a blush slowly forming.

Now, now, Mystia thought, this isn't the time to be distracted by her body no matter how beautiful she is, just focus on the fishing. She pulled the bobber back, then the rod, then swung it forwards, taking great care to not hit Urumi (including her horns), aiming for the spot that had just been pointed out to her. When the bobber landed and resurfaced, it was almost right on the spot. Amazing what I can do when not distracted by-

"Very good, hun~" Urumi said in a mellow voice, so close to Mystia's ear that she could feel her breathing against the lobe. Her train of thought came to screeching halt. The voice, the tickling sensation, Urumi's voice was like honey, effortlessly seeping into her ears and brain. Her blush grew even stronger, her body and mind overtaken by Urumi's presence. She breathed out, trying to calm herself down, but realized partway through she was being very loud.

"Birdie? Everything okay?" Urumi asked with concern, oblivious to Mystia's turmoil.

Her embarassment quickly trumped the elation from the use of that nickname, and she scrambled to answer. "Y-Yeah! No problem with me, d-don't worry about it!" she said, very unconvincingly.

Though, it was true that she had zero qualms with their current situation, save for Urumi noticing how much of a mess the proximity was making of her.

"Are you sure, hun? You-"

"Y-Yes, it's okay, I swear! I'd rather just focus on the fishing, okay?" Mystia interrupted, desperate that it would make Urumi drop it.

"…Alright, if you say so," Urumi conceded, wondering what they could possibly be doing other than fishing.

Mystia's embarassment began to recede, but her blush didn't. She would enjoy this small moment of connection for as long as it lasted, just the two of them. She relished in the sensations, both completely unfamiliar and something she knew she'd needed forever.

Mystia reckoned that asking for help maybe wasn't always so bad.

[helmetjellyfish]

hello! this post is going to be a little different from anything i've written before, because today we're looking at fish.

this fish, to be exact.

this fish is one of the many prehistoric creatures we see in minato's dreams from ch. 48. the translation team did a wonderful job identifying several creatures and explaining them in general, but i haven't seen any specific discussion about this one yet. so i figured i'd talk about what i think this fish is and what i think it represents.

the rest of this post will be under the cut, because there's lots of images and it's going to get quite long. here we go!

so what fish is this?

let's start by looking at these three images for reference:

(you may have noticed that the head shape of the fish in the first image is a bit different from the one in the second. however, since the rest of their bodies are very, very similar to each other, i'm assuming that they are intended to be the same fish and the head shape of the second one is closer to the 'correct' bodyplan.)

to begin with, we can see that the fins are attached to the body with these fleshy lobes, meaning that this fish is probably a "lobe-finned fish" belonging to the clade Sarcopterygii.

Sarcopterygii can be split up into three more clades:

Actinistia - the coelacanths and their close relatives

Dipnoi - the lungfishes and their close relatives

Tetrapodomorpha - the tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) and their close relatives

just based on morphology, we can narrow it down to Actinistia. so coelacanths! the thing with coelacanths is that one of their most notable characteristics is their weird tail:

this is a replica of the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), which is one of the two species alive today. here you can see that the tail is split up into three lobes: the top and bottom lobes are the same width and length, while the one in the middle is smaller and protrudes further out. their tail is diphycercal, which means that the vertebrae extend all the way to the tip of the tail and the tail itself is symmetrical.

both living species of coelacanth have a diphycercal tail. in fact, almost every single genus in Actinistia has a diphycercal tail. but our fish doesn't. its tail has only two lobes, where the bottom one is much bigger than the top, which is a heterocercal tail. why is that?

it turns out you have to look really, really, really far back in Actinistia to find fish without diphycercal tails. and when you look back far enough...

you find Miguashaia, a fish that lived during the Devonian period 365 million years ago. a fish that also happens to be the most primitive coelacanth we know.

in other (slightly more overgeneralizing) words, it's the oldest coelacanth, so old that it doesn’t even have one of the main features we now associate with coelacanths. neat!

okay. why do i care about this fish?

isn't it odd that we see this same fish following minato for multiple pages during the dream sequence, when most of the other creatures only appear for a single panel or two?

it's especially weird by the time we get to the reunion with nagiko, when we stop seeing any other prehistoric creatures in the foreground (save for the basilosaurus skeleton). but this fish still stays next to minato, and neither him nor nagiko seem to acknowledge its presence. it... doesn't really do anything either. it just hangs around at minato's side or right behind him, like it's watching over him.

doesn’t it look a bit out of place in this scene?

and then what’s stranger is that we see it again later on. when haruno voices his concerns about minato's mental state in ch. 50, the implication being that he thinks minato might follow his wife to the grave, we get this panel to go with it:

there’s the whale skeleton and lion’s mane jellyfish, both of which have been previously used to represent nagiko. there's minato, reaching out to the jellyfish with the hand he wears his wedding ring on. and then there’s... the fish again. as before, minato doesn't interact with it at all. in fact, his back is completely turned to it, but the fish is still continuing to watch him from afar.

i already had some suspicions even before ch. 50, but this panel is the one that made me go "oh, okay, so that's definitely supposed to be a person, right?".

nagiko isn't the only character in the story who's connected to a particular deep sea creature or two: there's nagisa with the flapjack octopus, shizuka with the basket star, ryou with the cookiecutter shark, etc. we haven't had anyone with a prehistoric species yet, let alone a prehistoric coelacanth, but we do have someone who's depicted with modern day coelacanths pretty frequently:

so who would be a likely candidate for its ancient relative: a fish that's distinct enough from its kin to be recognized as a separate entity, while still sharing many visual similarities?

who's the person that's the most likely to come to mind whenever minato thinks of nagiko? a person who had always been at his side in his younger days? a person that minato can't truly see or talk to in his dreams, because he remains out of his reach?

a person who still continues to haunt him, even now?

wonder who that could be.