#thought id ocean fish

[rinnysmuses]

sob

missed the fishing boat

f]

[toytulini]

I think making sweeping generalizations of specific traits being considered "ugly" is not great the same way i think its rude and unnecessary to call others ugly, i also think its worthwhile to acknowledge that certain traits ARE considered "Ugly" due to societal beauty standards, that doesn't make them ACTUALLY ugly, bc beauty is subjective anyway, and can be found Anywhere, and even someone who seems to tick every single box of societal beauty Ideals will almost certainly have at least one trait or feature about their appearance that they are insecure about or feel is "ugly", bc even within the constraints of conventional attractiveness theres subjectivity

also this fish was so fucking Ugly and i adored it so much. i miss him.

he was also gorgeous.

[bethanythebogwitch]

I recently found out a show I liked is 10 years old now so to not be the oldest thing on this blog I'm talking coelacanths for Wet Beast Wednesday. Coelacanths are rare fish famed for being living fossils. While that term is highly misleading, it is true that coelacanths are among the only remaining lobe-fined fish and were thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago before being rediscovered in modern times.

(image id: a wild coelacanth. It is a large, mostly grey fish with splotches of yellowish scales. Its fins are attached to fleshy lobes. It is seen from the side, facing the top right corner of the picture)

Coelacanth fossils had been known since the 1800s and they were believed to have gone extinct in the late Cretaceous period. That was until December 1938, when a museum curator named Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was informed of an unusual specimen that had been pulled in by local fishermen. After being unable to identify the fish, she contacted a friend, ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith, who told her to preserve the specimen until he could examine it. Upon examining it early next year, he realized it was indeed a coelacanth, confirming that they had survived, undetected, for 66 million years. Note that fishermen living in coelacanth territory were already aware of the fish before they were formally described by science. Coelacanths are among the most famous examples of a lazarus taxon. This term, in the context of ecology and conservation, means a species or population that is believed to have gone extinct but is later discovered to still be alive. While coelacanths are among the oldest living lazarus taxa, they aren't the oldest. They are beaten out by a genus of fly (100 million years old) and a type of mollusk (over 300 million years old).

(image: a coelacanth fossil. It is a dark brown imprint of a coelacanth on white rock. Its skeleton is visible in the imprint)

Coelacanths are one of only two surviving groups of lobe-finned fish along with the lungfishes. Lobe-finned fish are bony fish notable for their fins being attached to muscular lobes. By contrast, ray-finned fish (AKA pretty much every fish you've ever heard of that isn't a shark) have their fins attached directly to the body. That may not sound like a big difference, but it actually is. The lobes of lobe-finned fish eventually evolved into the first vertebrate limbs. That makes lobe-finned fish the ancestors of all reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, including you. In fact, you are more closely related to a coelacanth than a coelacanth is to a tuna. Coelacanths were thought to be the closest living link to tetrapods, but genetic testing has shown that lungfish are actually closer to the ancestor of tetrapods.

(image id: a scientific diagram depicting the taxonomic relationships of early lobe-finned fish showing their evolution to proto-tetrapods like Tiktaalik and Ichthyostega, to true tetrapods. Source)

There are two known living coelacanth species: the west Indian ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and the Indonesian coelacanth (L. menadoensis). Both are very large fish, capable of exceeding 2 m (6.6 ft) in length and 90 kg (200 lbs). Their wikipedia page describes them as "plump", which seems a little judgmental to me. Their tails are unique, consisting of two lobes above and below the end of the tail, which has its own fin. Their scales are very hard and thick, acting like armor. The mouth is small, but a hinge in its skull, not found in any other animal, allows the mouth to open extremely wide for its size. In addition, they lack a maxilla (upper jawbone), instead using specialized tissue in its place. They lack backbones, instead having an oil-filled notochord that serve the same function. The presence of a notochord is the key characteristic of being a chordate, but most vertebrates only have one in embryo, after which it is replaced by a backbone. Instead of a swim bladder, coelacanths have a vestigial lung filled with fatty tissue that serves the same purpose. In addition to the lung, another fatty organ also helps control buoyancy. The fatty organ is large enough that it forced the kidneys to move backwards and fuse into one organ. Coelacanths have tiny brains. Only about 15% of the skull cavity is filled by the brain, the rest is filled with fat.

(image id: a coalacanth. It is similar to the one on the above image, but this one is blue in color and the head is seen more clearly, showing an open mouth and large eye)

One of the reasons it took so long for coelacanths to be rediscovered is their habitat. They prefer to live in deeper waters in the twilight zone, between 150 and 250 meters deep. They are also nocturnal and spend the day either in underwater caves or swimming down into deeper water. They typically stay in deeper water or caves during the day as colder water keeps their metabolism low and conserves energy. While they do not appear to be social animals, coelacanths are tolerant of each other's presence and the caves they stay in may be packed to the brim during the day. Coelacanths are all about conserving energy even when looking for food. They are drift feeders, moving slowly with the currents and eating whatever they come across. Their diet primarily consists of fish and squid. Not much is known about how they catch their prey, but they are capable of rapid bursts of speed that may be used to catch prey and is definitely used to escape predators. They are believed to be capable of electroreception, which is likely used to locate prey and avoid obstacles. Coelacanths swim differently than other fish. They use their lobe fins like limbs to stabilize their movements as they drift. This means that while coelacanths are slow, they are very maneuverable. Some have even been seen swimming upside-down or with their heads pointed down.

(image: an underwater cave wilt multiple coelacanths residing in it. 5 are clearly visible, with the fins of others showing from offscreen)

Coelacanths are a vary race example of bony fish that give live birth. They are ovoviviparous, meaning the egg is retained and hatches inside the mother. Gestation can take between 2 and 5 years (estimates differ) and multiple offspring are born at a time. It is possible that females may only mate with a single male at a time, though this is not confirmed. Coelacanths can live over 100 years and do not reach full maturity until age 55. This very slow reproduction and maturation rate likely contributes to the rarity of the fish.

(image: a juvenile coelacanth. Its body shape is the same as those of adults, but with proportionately larger fins. There are green laser beams shining on it. These are used by submersibles to calculate the size of animals and objects)

Coelacanths are often described as living fossils. This term refers to species that are still similar to their ancient ancestors. The term is losing favor amongst biologists due to how misleading it can be. The term os often understood to mean that modern species are exactly the same as ancient ones. This is not the case. Living coelacanth are now known to be different than those who existed during the Cretaceous, let alone the older fossil species. Living fossils often live in very stable environments that result in low selective pressure, but they are still evolving, just slower.

(image: a coelacanth swimming next to a SCUBA diver)

Because of the rarity of coelacanths, it's hard to figure out what conservation needs they have. The IUCN currently classifies the west Indian ocean coelacanth as critically endangered (with an estimated population of less than 500) and the Indonesian coelacanth as vulnerable. Their main threat is bycatch, when they are caught in nets intended for other species. They aren't fished commercially as their meat is very unappetizing, but getting caught in nets is still very dangerous and their slow reproduction and maturation means that it is long and difficult to replace population losses. There is an international organization, the Coelacanth Conservation Council, dedicated to coelacanth conservation and preservation.

(image: a coelacanth facing the camera. The shape of its mouth makes it look as though it is smiling)

[noxhiemiscaliginisque]

never thought id see one of these anywhere outside of tumblr!

a large ocean sunfish washed up on the shore of oregon.

fun fact, apparently they are called mondfisch aka moon fish in german, which led to some confusion on my part.

@ocean-sunfish-apathy

@ocean-sunfish-worshipper

@ocean-sunfish-hater

thought you three would want to know :)

[ohno-the-sun]

I saw @chandlelures ‘s lineart on the @dca-coloring-book blog and I thought it was so pretty I wanted to color it

But also sorry I had no idea what to do with the background 😭

[ID/ Digital fanart of Sun and Moon from Five Nights At Freddy's Security Breach. They are depicted as a mermaid and jellyfish like creatures respectively. Sun is in the lower half of the drawing, body turned away from the viewer. His head is turned slightly away from the viewer, but he looks towards them with a happy expression. In his hands is a fish with sad, tearful eyes, and implied to become Sun's next meal soon. The upper half of the drawing is of Moon, gazing down upon the viewer with an unreadable expression. Around both characters are moon jellyfish, floating along the ocean's current. They look like they’ve been watercolored, Moon in blue and purple and sun in pinks, yellows, and reds. /End ID]

[crow-ur-beloved]

various jrwi headcanons because the worms in my brain (potential autism) wont shut up. no real plot spoilers except for one, but its marked :]

the suckening:

shilo is like vampire immunocompromised, which added to the pile of reasons his mom used to keep him inside the castle because she didnt want him to immediately get 37 different diseases and Die. (if vampires can have allergies then id like to think they can also get sick. i dont actually know if thats possible in the vtm system but i dont care they can in my heart)

genderfuck/genderpunk afab emizel. i feel like thats the only label he'd use, if he had to have one. i dont think hed label his sexuality because he wants to be an enigma. but he Definitely likes men.

bizley said in the qna something that can Only let me think of shilo as aromantic. maybe aro And ace... i dont remember what he said exactly aughhgh i wish i did...

shilo fidgets with his hands like all the time. his mother and uncle tried to get him to stop and sit still because it wasnt very princely and whatnot but my boy needs a fidget toy. i think hed go craaaazy with an infinity cube

i feel like me saying arthur bennett is a bisexual doesnt even count as a headcanon like i think thats just a given. i feel like itd be more surprising if i said i thought he was straight. all beautiful beautiful vampire men have to be lgbtq. its the law actually

arthur never officially broke up with mary. mans just Left one day without warning. probably left a note that said "sorry. -arthur" on it. i doubt he had it in him to say goodbye to her face or his reasoning for it (he thought hed inevitably hurt her because of what he is and what he did to the people he loved in the past, because bad luck seems to follow him everywhere... oughh he makes me ill). he definitely used finding a new lead on anya somewhere else in the country as a good reason to dip. at least, as good a reason as it couldve been for him.

maybe controversial but i 100% think arthur and magnus had a one-night stand at the beginning of their relationship, before magnus met jerome, and they never talked about it again and pretend it never happened. cannot explain how real this is to me.

riptide:

ftm chip who 100% innately knew he was a dude since the moment he could think. like when the black rose pirates picked him up, he got confused when they started referring to him as a girl at first. probably never got The Talk from them, so was Very confused when he hit puberty. Reuben reluctantly helped him steal to pay for top surgery.

since tritons live at the bottom of the ocean, they would have eyes that are far more sensitive to light to allow them to see better since little light gets all the way down there. gillion was Immediately blinded by the sun when he surfaced and still gets headaches from how bright it is in the oversea, but they've gotten better the longer he's been up there. tritons are built to adapt to all kinds of conditions, so his eyes have slowly been getting a darker bluish-purple the longer he spends above the ocean; they were originally more of a light blue-grey.

in tandem with the last one, chip thinks hes either going crazy or a bad friend because he Swears gill's eyecolor is different than last week but how could that be possible, thats not just something he can do, right? why would he be able to do that???

if gillion gets knocked onto his back without warning he does that thing that sharks do where they get paralyzed for a bit when they get flipped upside down. its scary because he can see everything but cant do anything. he also definitely forgot to tell chip and jay about this fact and scared the Shit out of them the first time it happened around them.

gillion can also change his sex like some fish can. its the reason he can lay eggs. i think this makes it safe to say genderfluid/nonbinary/generally trans gillion tidestrider is highly possible and even probable in this headcanon. what im saying is t4t fish n chips.

not to headcanon all my favs as trans but i cant help it. it is the highest honor i can bestow upon them. anyways. mtf jay ferin. ava always knew and was the first person jay came out to. jay was also 100% named jayson after her father and went by jay most of her life anyway as a nickname and just decided to stick with it instead of picking anything else. may was always very openly-supportive of her. jayson was as supportive as a generally strict, overbearing, unsupportive-in-everything father can be. jay totally came out to him and the first thing he said to her was something like, "as long as it doesnt interfere with your navy training," and may promptly kicked him under the table and made him say something nice.

kiras trans too btw. she came out before jay and helped jay discover she was trans. and that she liked women.

(spoilers for 109 and beyond) chip can't entirely remember what he looks like. everytime he focuses on the illusion of hiding that hes practically just a skeleton now, it changes just a bit. freckles in the wrong places, the wrong shade of orange for his flame tattoos, too much light in his eyes, too much muscle on his arms. jay notices it but cant bring herself to say anything. she knows the illusion is meant to keep everyone from worrying, but, everytime she sees something off about it, she just remembers what he really looks like underneath, and that somehow feels worse.

blood in the bayou:

all these bitches gay as hell. kian is pan. rands got a lot of internalized homophobia. rolan probably too. its the 80s, man.

apotheosis (haven't finished it yet so idk how true these'll be lol):

agender rumi. godbless.

also rumis a theater kid. he got the lead in every musical he auditioned for because he could literally just shapeshift. theyd make up a new identity and appearance for every role and get to know everyone on the cast and then mysteriously drop off the face of the planet as that person when the production was over and nobody would know it was them.

peter has actually tried All Kinds of things. weed. yoga. multilevel marketing schemes. you name it, big chance hes done it at least once and didnt like it. he doesnt know how he ends up in the situations to try it, either.

[raining-anonymously]

okay deltarune fandom! i haven’t posted to or gone through these tags in a while, but in light of recent events (me deciding to replay the games just in time for the newsletter), i have some things to share concerning our friends The Weather.

ID in alt text, and aforementioned “things to share” under the cut.

this message tells us some interesting information about the Weather. for those who don’t know, i believe the Weather were first introduced during the spamton sweepstakes under the link https://deltarune.com/weather/. the page functions similarly to lancer’s. despite having no information on these new characters—other than that they’ll probably appear in the next couple chapters, are called “The Weather,” and always stick together—the deltarune fandom immediately latched onto them, because that’s what we do.

and now, after the newsletter? we have names. do we know which name goes to which sprite….? not really. but there’s something interesting about what those names are.

when i first looked at the names Lanino and Elnina, one of my first thoughts was that they sounded gendered. in english and in romance languages, names ending in -o are often thought to be masculine, whereas names ending in -a are interpreted as feminine. not a common name convention in undertale and deltarune, where most names end in constants or “-ee” sounds, and obviously not an absolute rule — for example, chara is not feminine-presenting, but its name still ends in -a. still, many english-speakers, as well as speakers of romance languages and any other similar languages i’m not thinking of, will see “lanino” and “elnina” and assume masculinity and femininity respectively.

at this point, i was still thinking of romance languages because i’m autistic about words, and noticed that the endings of the names are very similar to the spanish words for boy and girl: niño and niña. then i noticed the beginnings of the names, “la” and “el,” are the spanish words for “the.” funny thing, though? “la” is feminine and “él” is masculine.

so… they’re mixing and matching gendered terms!!!? bigender weather real!!!!!! post over!!!!

…except it’s NOT over. put linguistics aside—it’s time for some environmental science.

this graphic (which has an ID in alt text) is a lot of information, so i’m going to break it down: the earth experiences something called El Niño–Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. it’s a climate phenomenon that consists of two main phases: El Niño and La Niña. each one of these phases is a global event that can last years, and leads to changes in wind patterns, sea surface temperatures, and extreme weather events. it affects everything—how dry the land is in certain places, how many fish can be found in the ocean, etc.

to differentiate between the two, most simply: el niño is the warm phase, and la niña is the cooling phase.

why does this matter, you ask? because el niño and la niña climate events are largely inverse and opposites. that’s a simplification, but it does lend us some potential insight into the weather’s devoted and apparently monogamous relationship dynamic. or it would, if they hadn’t mixed up their names… but hey, that’s food for thought too!! could it be that the weather is so devoted to each other that they blended together? maybe that’s why their color palettes are the same—they balance each other out!

either way, i’m quite excited to do battle with them in the next year or so. they’re going to have such fun bullet patterns, i just know it… i hope they heal each other with photorealistic milk. or something weather-related, idk.

anyway. BIGENDER WEATHER REAL!!! post over!

[forgottenroisin]

OOC | Astairan Science & Witchcraft

sooo ya girl has had a thought anD now you gotta hear abt it ;DDDD tbh i feel like this isn't really even my thought it think its smth we've all lowkey been driving at but never fully addressed so i thought id do that!

ok so @forgottenarias mentioned in a post abt the stafford observatory (and i 10000% agree! they totally have that!!!!), and yeah it sent me down this train of thought and, surprisingly, while i def think it applies to astaira over all, i feel like it feeds in v nicely to a lot of the other world building we've been doing and all esp re: the malconaires...and their future predicament!

ok so basically? my thesis here is...astaira is stated to be the largest country in the world, and we know it has a system based on merit etc so top minds're gonna really go places ++ they've got the largest variety ~of minds etc and basically thesis statement: i think maybe astaira has some of the best educated ppl, top to bottom, and more advanced science than most anywhere else in the world, perhaps???? and, bc of that, when roderick looks at them...he sees a bunch of witches! bc he sees ppl out there doing what are (to him!) unexplainable/impossible things w ease, but its just that they have more knowledge etc.

so, obv there are ~literal seers here too and that's def just throwing fuel on the fire (heh), but i lowkey think that there's a lot of things that roderick (and his countrymen etc) just see and...don't get and they go witch!!!!!! that's witchcraft!!!!! kinda like how amira has a reputation of witchcraft bc (well, ok her gm who raised her was a seer but also!!) she has this intense knowledge of medicines and poisons and she can heal and she can harm w a touch and????? witch!!!! but ofc she isn't a seer! and aleksander royce has a v similar backstory, himself, except he was able to fashion into his divine miracles rather than sorcery, but its that same kinda thing!

so!! a lot of our houses and things are tied in w precisely elements and such: perhaps not simply the house (as we've established), but the ~ppl of stafford, specialize in astronomy and astrology and so forth; the callearies/cultures who also hail from not!atlantis (minus cormac lbr ;D) are probs up on all sorts of oceanic and marine sciences of the day w advanced knowledge of tides and of fish etc alike; the kolcheans are students of heat and how it interacts w other materials and so forth (i always hc'd that kolchean fire aka greek fire was a thing... ;D); and the ppl of malconaire understand plants and the earth

now, @forgotteneithne gave us the hc that sorcha and bran always made sure their daughters weren't just wealthy and pretty and refined, but that they also had practical skills, and esp if either of them knew/suspected @forgottenbrigit 's gifts (but even if they didn't!), i can see where they may have also put emphasis on learning all abt plants from anyone who could teach them, wherether grand or humble of origin (esp if we go go the idea of actual seers having ~specialties or whatever too -- ex. perhaps brigit is more earth based in her powers as a malconaire, and aria more air based, but again even if not its just good stuff to know!)

so maybe, amongst their practical talents of cleaning and cooking and such, the girls also learned herbology and like hemlock can relax you or even help staunch a wound to keep you from bleeding out, but too much can kill you, bc it slows your organs etc -- that sort of thing. and maybe, amongst the other things they do when they go to the village, they help cure the sick, and that sort of thing, and perhaps this is another way they also helped out during the battle of malconaire, etc?

and yeah! maybe, given that (most of ;D) the malconaire girls aren't ~actually witches, maybe this (and the whole romancing ~all of roderick's sons! egregious! roderick is SHOOKETH) is another 'proof' of their witchcraft, but also smth they can fall back on while they're on the run?

regardless of this, rosie, i think, (as ive said before) will be leaning into her showmanship to try to spook the o.v.n.-ians and save ppl (ig all those pranks came in handy in the revolution, after all! ;D #weaponizewonder) but yeah i also like the idea that she might be out there helping ppl in other ways than just distracting ppl so others (rebels, refugees, etc!) can make a get away and such (whether or not she's hooked up w the rebels or is just helping other accused witches escape or...what idk!! but yeah this is the direction i see her going in) -- actively in there brewing up teas and sewing up cuts and making healing elixirs and such!

idk!! anyway!! we don't need to do anything w any of this but yeah!! just thought id throw this out there and see what everyone thinks?

[lalalian]

things you have to script if you're shifting to my aethergarde academy dr

date: september 14, 2024

aethergarde academy = my dragon rider academy dr

i may update this, if I do I'll let you know in this little boxed off section!

things you should script

"I do not ever get motion sick, especially when I ride dragons."

I scripted this even though I can ride rollercoasters just fine, but yk dragons don't fly around like a plane, do they? I imagine that many dragons would absolutely mess you up when you fly with them for the first time just to fuck with you out of excitement.

"I never fall into the ocean. Nothing can drag me into the ocean, especially on dragonback."

definitely not for plot reasons................... just know you're supposed to travel around in secret. I hate the ocean honestly (let's ignore that I'm making a mermaid kingdom dr), but don't think that the only things that live in the ocean in this DR are little baby axolotls and rainbow fish.

"my bangs don't mess up my vision or bother me while fighting."

actually I did have a rule in aethergarde's handbook (not finished with it yet, sorry yall) that specifically says that you cannot have a haircut that messes with your fighting ability, but like... bangs are so cute...

"the appearance of monsters do not scare me."

uh so idk if you're a pussy, but I do know I am, so

"proper plumbing exists, drinking water is clean and sanitary; there are significant studies in childbirth, because of this, mothers typically do not die from childbirth and childbirth isn’t painful due to proper birthing practices and tonics that alleviate pain."

I watched house of dragons. No mom should ever be cut open without some sort of anesthesia to give birth to a baby.

"dragon riders get discounts, the higher the ranking, the better the discount."

bc yes.

“I can read cursive handwriting.”

You will have to constantly write in cursive too btw. Maybe I should do a handwriting claim post…

“my keystone never malfunctions."

Keystones are basically your school ID; you use it to get in and out of Aethergarde, get discounts outside of Aethergarde, check in and out of your dorm, check out books from Aethergarde's personal library, and honestly it's a status symbol. You absolutely do not want your keystone to malfunction!

“I never get sunburnt."

You can either script this or always carry a sun protectant charm! Poor Miaene, flying really does a number on your skin so do make sure (or just script it) your skin stays healthy.

"If I can't get into my leathers, I can fight well no matter what clothes I'm wearing."

Leathers = clothes you wear in any class that requires you to fight. I'll cover this topic in my post about protective wear!

"I never smell like horse shit or dragon shit."

Just in case, yk.

"my dragon practices proper bathroom practices, this includes shitting/pissing in the proper places and not on me or my stuff; my dragon never smells like shit; my dragon's asshole is never caked in shit."

speaking of which... how would a dragon clean their ass... I'm just going to assume they always shit cleanly like dogs. EW IMAGINE HOW BIG THEIR SHITS WOULD BE. Actually don't do that. I had to include 'my dragon doesn't poop/pee on my stuff or me' bc my dog... likes to do that. okay well he doesn't necessarily pee on my stuff, but he used to have this thing where he'd pee on things he was frustrated with, which ALWAYS entailed a gate. Since he's a big boy now, he doesn't do that anymore, but yall don't fucking coddle puppies 24/7 like I did... I literally had to wake up every morning or get up in the middle of the night to mop/clean up dog piss.

"I will pass my glyph classes."

I'm already melting at the thought of glyph class.

"my dragon or other dragons don't try to destroy the school."

Just in case yall. Just in case.

"I never get shat on."

Dragons aren't supposed to shit mid air unless they're over an ocean, but yk just in case. Yes there are strict laws against this practice, and if your dragon is found doing this, you will have to pay a hefty fine + your flying license will be restricted for a certain period of time.

"dragons generally don't smell like shit like horses do."

Sorry, there's a lot of stuff about poop. Poop is gross okay..

wanna know more about my aethergarde academy dr? here's a masterlist with everything I've posted about it!

[izgnanik-a]

MerMay GhostSoap 3

// MDNI // read at your own risk //

Johnny didn’t say a word about his venture into the restricted room to anyone, not even his roommate. He was beyond terrified, and worried he’d lost his own mind, let alone be fired for going somewhere he wasn’t supposed to.

He didn’t get reamed out for losing his lanyard like he thought he would, but there were questions that he’d built a lie for. His lie was far fetched and they believed it, or maybe they just indulged his horrible lie because they didn’t care.

Johnny learned his lesson about keeping it around his neck, and stuffing it into his pocket. He outlasted the week trial period and soon he’d get his paper check, letting the others down with his presence. He hadn’t seen Garrick around but assumed he was due to see him.

The anniversary of his week and a half employment was rolling by when he saw him again, smiling bright as usual.

“Hey. Good to see you still stuck around here.” He stopped before him in the halls, a duffel bag he kept his tools in clinked at his side. “How are you holding?”

Johnny didn’t know what to say; he’d been scared out of his mind for the week on what he could’ve saw in the water. Even too afraid to stare too long into the tank and see his reflection morph again. He was considering leaving and never showing up again. But the pay was good, and he needed to pay rent.

He blabbered off some nonsense that had Garrick chuckling. He liked the sound of that noise. It filled the hallway until it was swollen with something.

“I’m just glad you came in today. It’s good to see you again.” To that, it sounded like he was leaving.

“Hey.” Johnny came to his side, stifling his movement. “I know I’ve already asked you about the tank and everything but — what’s in it?”

Kyle looked at him with some amused look. “Shepherd has a hobby for collecting rare things.”

Johnny blinked at him. “So you’ve told me.”

“Look, John.” Garrick’s tone became serious, but some airiness remaining to keep it lighthearted and friendly. “You’ve got a good job here. Good benefits. Sometimes you should let the questions roll off. I stopped asking questions a long time ago.”

“I can’t help it. It makes me me.”

“And I find that admirable.” Garrick hesitated to put his hand out, pressing his palm into Johnny’s shoulder. “But you don’t have to be brave here. Just — watch the tank. Okay?”

Johnny glanced between his dreamy eyes, and assumed this was some sort of complacency tactic. They sent the dreamy eyed man to strangle the lively, curious bunch back in line and no one would say a thing because he was charming. Siren-like.

Johnny did that for his shift. Sat at his desk, idling thumbing through the book he’d brought in, and not reading a single word. He fixed his eyes on the tank ahead of him.

Every time Kyle had come by, it had become somewhat cleaner, brighter, but still harboring that darkness that could only be seen within the crevices of the ocean. His mind began to drift of some otherworldly thoughts of angler fishes and dreadful prehistoric anomalocaris��� swimming around, — when a flicker of something white flashed in his eyes.

He brought his focus forward and watched a speck from within the water shine off the overhead lights. Johnny stood carefully, rounding the desk, and squinted his eyes.

The object beckoned him forward, curled its finger at him, and dragged him to the glass with his hands pressed up against it only to realize —

“My fucking lanyard.” He watched it float towards him like some ghostly sentient beast, sitting out of reach behind a pane of glass.

Just as he’d pressed his brow to his hands to stare into the water, the ID card came blaring at it into the glass with a thud and he was sent back flying. His thighs hit the desk, scraping against the ground, and he caught himself with his hands on the desktop.

The lanyard was wrapped within the clutches of a beast, dark speckled hands pressed into the glass where his had been moments before. A face stared out at him.

All those nightmares came back to him.

Reflective cat-like eyes bored into his, wide and double slitted when they blinked at him in a humanoid way. Where Johnny could see a burly chest, the rest of it vanished into the darkness behind it. What broke his sense of reality was the ghastly face, a glower that burned his fear, replacing it with frozen trepidation.

Johnny didn’t realize he was panting until the audio cut back over his hammering heart in his neck.

All logistics told Johnny that this was just a diver cleaning the tank out, his eyes were playing tricks on him because he got spooked. But there were gills along the side of the creatures neck, webbed skin between its fingers, an unnatural pattern of flesh that sheen blue and purple as its rear flexed behind it to keep it from sinking to the bottom of the tank.

And John fucking MacTavish’s ID in its claws.

He should scream.

Was he screaming?

Why didn’t he scream?

Why did it look at him like that?

Johnny felt himself slowly thawing out when the creature blinked at him for the nth time in the last four minutes. He gulped with a strain in his neck, a dull throb in the back of his thighs from hitting the desk. He straightened out carefully, not yet taking a leap of confidence in stepping closer to the tank.

The creature watched him, like a vulture watching an injured animal, waiting for it to croak before diving in. The lanyard buoyed in front of its chest.

Johnny gulped again to wet his dry throat. “That—“ his voice cracked as he shoved his words forward, “was not — nice.” He gave a startled noise to his own response. He pointed briefly at the lanyard. “That’s mine.”

The creature, unamused, tapped the face of the ID into the glass as if to say ‘eat shit, mine now’.

Why Johnny’s first instinct was to reprimand was beyond him. But it felt more natural than screaming his way out of the building in confused fear.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” Johnny muttered again.

The creature’s eyes shut behind its double lids, but to Johnny —

“Did you just- you rolled your eyes at me? Didn’t you?”

It dropping his lanyard where he could see it, right at the edge, and turned around.

Johnny spotted the massive tail fin behind it, and he didn’t feel a sense of awe but his scolding was to be heard. He pressed up against the glass looking in. “Listen here you numpty, fish breath. If I had a word with you, I’d tell you my mind. I’m not finished with you.” He knocked his knuckles against the glass. “Get back here.”

Johnny looked to the small closet-like door that led to the top of the tank. Tempted to get a look at this thing up close, definitely not to get in the last word, he found himself unlocking the deadbolt and leaning over the ledge.

“Where are you, you hackit fish?” Johnny smacked his palm against the surface of the water, ripples being splashed against the wall and returning. “You’ve got plenty to say for someone who looks like my grandad’s baw.”

At the edge of the water by Johnny’s right, out dipped a head and a pair of eyes. Oblivious to the watchful splashes against his palm, if Johnny had been an injured fish, a predator would’ve snatched him up already.

He didn’t realize, by tapping the water, he was displaying a meal for a starved beast.

“That’s what I thought. You’ve got all to say when you’re behind a glass.” Johnny sat back on his haunches, hands on his hips. “Im never coming back here—“

Water splashed up against Johnny’s knees before he was reeling himself back against the chalked door, and a body emerged out of the water entirely. Johnny’s eyes laid on the torso and up of the beast who’d been swimming in the water only moments ago.

A scream strangled it’s way up his throat as he struggled to get his feet under him, and when he reached out to snag the door handle to bring himself to his feet — the creature snatched his ankles, forcing him on his back.

The unbelievable weight of it trapped him, cornered against the wet concrete underneath as droplets of freezing salt water sunk into Johnny’s clothes. He pressed his palms into the slick amphibious scales of it to try and pry space but it’s body pressed him further into the ground.

It’s face was in his, dripping, drooling, and Johnny gave a pathetic cry as he leaned his face away from the salty licked of water across his cheeks. Threatening to sting his eyes, he looked to the bucket encrusted with old blood and reached out to snatch it.

Looking to his hands, the bucket went toppling over as the creature snatch it and brought it closure. Food association with the bucket made it thrum, a cat-like trill escaping its chest as it peered in only to see nothing, but smelt the chum lingering on it. It ignored the bucket and turned its attention back on Johnny with disappointment.

“I didn’t mean it!” He cried out. “When I said you looked like my granddad’s baw, I was just kidding!”

The crushing weight on his stomach grew as its tail flapped against the concrete above Johnny’s feet with a PLAP. It’s slimy hands clasped the bottom of his jaw before turning his head left and right.

In deep surveillance, ignoring Johnny’s blabbering, it eyed the scaleless, gill-less, warm blooded creature. Having seen the creature who feeds it as well as cleans the tank as best as he can, it hadn’t been able to get close enough to the surface without being caught. This one, brave enough to taunt it, was interestingly shaped.

It leaned down to sniff at the creature’s flesh.

“I don’t even want the ID back! You can keep it-“ Johnny yelped as the creature ran a slimy tongue up the side of his neck to his temple. “I don’t taste good! I taste horrible! Please don’t eat me! I’m sorry!”

It turned Johnny’s head up, baring his throat before running sharp rows of teeth along his jaw. The salty taste of him was appetizing, it thought. But would he bleed easily?

Johnny cried, looking up to what looked like half a piece of a sardine. He put his hand up to snatch at the decaying thing, and pull it up by its tail. “Here!” He muttered.

Holding it between himself and the finned beast, it set its wide eyes on the sardine before bringing its human mimicked nose to it. The sound that escaped it was something of an excited chirp, and Johnny could feel the vibrations against his own belly.

Tilting its head rather gently to fit the fish in its two rows of teeth, it pushed down on Johnny’s chest, with Johnny grunting in pain, before hitching itself over the ledge and back into the water with a splash that threatened to soak all of Johnny.

Johnny, covered in water and fish slime, sat up baffled. He looked over the ledge to the dark water to see what appeared to be half human-half bioluminescent fish eating a sardine with its fingers. It was human in manner; blinking and eating in bites instead of whole, using its human arms to push up on the ledge and grab Johnny —

“This can’t be happening.”

His voice brought the fish’s attention back up, once it was spotted, and it sunk back deeper into the darkness of the water.

“What the—”

x

Next chapter

fic masterlist

[rainbow-banana-slug]

echorise 🌊

[plain text: echorise 🌊 waves emoji]

[id: faceless character in water be looked at from above. they have water as hair that light blue n glowing a little but have shadows. it in side ponytail held together by ship rudder. have dark blue skin. they wear translucent navy blue shirt with light blue sequins/beads & white shirt collar & flowy white sleeve over lighter navy dress with spaghetti strap. on bottom dress part there big scales with purplish blue to blue to light blue gradient. they sit in dark navy water. end id]

🌊.

their skin navy

on picture don’t have eyes n mouth - most likely stylistic choice for this piece specifically. have thought about make it permanent, but some parts of character story not decided yet, n want make sure not accident be in harmful trope territory for blindness low vision & facial difference. n much rather on purpose make blind low vision character w facial difference anyway. tho if you blind or low vision or have facial difference n want draw them like this that also welcomed :D

🌊.

they/them/themselves plural

echorise pronounce /echo-ris/ or /E-co-ris/, like icarus

demi-god/dess. not as in blood born child. as in being saved and reborn by gentle touch. as in creation. as in sponsorship. as in promotion you must be grateful for. as in experiment. as in cruelty. not as in mercy.

“many in one”

maybe can be see as complex dissociative disorder adjacent. there amnesia. there possessive switches, passive influence, co-conscious, & member conflicts. not really meant be accurate exact CCD.

they character that mirror but opposite of my many (modified & AU & mythologically inaccurate) interpretations of icarus myth

this character storyline blanket content warning about death & loss: including suicide & filicide & etc. -> if okay, see under cut

artfight character profile

person who originally body belong to, have decided many things, but is base off of one of oldest oc. had water magic & hair was same except regular n not made of water, n blond. current clothes fancier version of original clothes as call back :>

now, body that house many , a collection of many — those who died by water.

hesitant share this because worry see as glorification. not meant to be. meant to be heavy. meant to bear witness. some of these fantasy elements, but many of them happen in real life. is meant bear witness to them.

death by suicide through drowning in ocean; try stay afloat in life meet societal expectations, but finally couldn’t anymore, story about perhaps lower support needs autistic/wider neurodivergent burnout - icarus kept flapping his wings trying stay afloat, but realized had no feathers left and was flapping bare arms.

victim of filicide by blood caregiver as a severely disabled child, n story about disorganized attachment.

death by elopement into water as nonverbal level 3 autistic child , with suicidal single mother blaming herself, alive but drowning in grief; elopement very common n very serious thing for autistic people, can happen in instant three seconds look away, & autistic people drown at disproportionate rate from fascination of water & elopement, both especially serious risk of happening for higher support needs people with limited to no awareness of danger. boy (trans, but at age of death no ability communicate it or understand it), fell in love with child-like wonder with tropical fish ever since mom brought him to aquarium. once overwhelmed n eloped out of house, body wanting safeness & familiarity, instinctively went to body of water near by. accidentally drowned, could not understand danger, not yet realize not all water have tropical fish. mother putting away groceries (hence unlocked door) n looked down for few seconds. few seconds too late n once raise head, boy nowhere to be seen to be followed. will regret that few seconds for rest of life. - child icarus locked away as punishment of crime he didn’t commit, getting too excited with childlike wonder seeing sun n feeling warmth in perhaps first time, & a forever devastated daedalus

a story about a corrupt ruler in history & his child who was killed via water to cover up his crimes, a curse, & history repeating - king minos basically sentenced icarus to death for crime by blood association to his father, commentary about power

n others

[projectmoon-smash-or-pass]

propaganda:

✅ "Its been a long week Ishmael... Pass the Yuri"

✅️ "the one of the most infamous names in the entire project moon fandom is solely defined by how much he simps for ishmael. there is absolutely no escape. i got my friend into limbus because of how hot ishmael was and it because the profile of his private twitter account. there is absolutely no debate. i would let her slam me into a fishing pond, hit me over the head with a glass bottle, throw me against a chair, ANYTHING"

✅️ "i downloaded limbus because i saw her molar boatworks id + immediately had a HUGE yuri moment. i needed her in my life. i want to bury myself in her hairrr. i want to fuck her. i want her to fuck meeeeee !!!!!"

✅️ (image below)

✅️ "im just saying that when liu ishmael dropped the entirety of limbus twitter and a few outliers went batshit over her voice"

❌ "too much hair :("

✅️ "Ok like. She worked with the pequod for quite some time, she's gotta be pretty muscled and scarred(Obvious plus). Plus it'd give experience and knowledge tying knots(as if Roseate Desires wasn't enough bondage fuel for Ishmael). Also very frequently headcanoned as trans so imagine if you will, ginger trans sailor woman who could tie you up so perfectly and rail you even better. 120% smash

(Though if I'm being perfectly honest I am horribly biased. Ishmael made me trans my gender and realize I liked women. I'm getting a tattoo of her sinner icon in like a week. I'm cosplaying her in a few months. So take my words with a hefty grain of salt)"

✅️ "counterpoint to the too much hair ishmael propoganda, first of all, how dare you, and second, her hair is half the appeal. you can play with it. i bet its so soft. you can bury your face in it. also, it's beautiful. ishmael <3"

✅️ "to quote a tweet i saw "im gonna suck her dick until she’s groaning like a beached whale" (they wrote it for captain ishmael but shush)"

✅️ "i thought her sloshing id was "sploshing" instead and i got so wet i made a new ocean"

[neopronouns]

flag id: two images of the same flag. it has 4 stripes in the background, which are near-black, dark silver, silver, and light green-grey. the bottom of the flag is taken up by a dark faded teal wave, which is lower at the left and higher at the right. the wave has a thin green-grey outline, like seafoam. at the very bottom of the flag is a thin green-black layer intended to look like deeper water or the seafloor. at the left edge of the flag, behind the wave but in front of the stripes, is a dark brown trapezoid, slightly wider towards the bottom edge. in the center of the left flag is a medium dark dull teal silhouette of a fish, with its back fins replaced with the eight variously coiled/extended tentacles of an octopus, which has a thin dull teal outline. end id.

banner id: a 1600x200 teal banner with the words ‘please read my dni before interacting. those on my / dni may still use my terms, so do not recoin them.’ in large white text in the center. the text takes up two lines, split at the slash. end id.

pisceldryst: a neogender umbrella for terms conceptually related to the game 'dredge'

[pt: pisceldryst: a neogender umbrella for terms conceptually related to the game 'dredge'. end pt]

term is 'pisce' ('fish') or 'pisc' from 'piscator' ('fisher'), 'eldr' from 'eldritch', + 'yst' from 'mysterious'. the first syllable is pronounced with a long i sound (like 'pisces') and the third is a short i sound (like 'mystery'). emphasis is on the second syllable ('el').

concepts included under pisceldryst include, but are not limited to:

eldritch horrors (and real-life massive creatures) that dwell in bodies of water, and fish/other creatures/the environment itself being mutated by their proximity to said eldritch horrors

fishing far away from people/civilization, fishing at night, being on a fishing vessel alone, etc.

the incomprehensible depth of the ocean and the unknown and alien things that lie within it

one's mind or actions not being their own, seeking eldritch knowledge, acting on instincts one doesn't understand, being presented with knowledge one cannot comprehend, etc.

the panic associated with the pitch-black darkness of the ocean at night, being chased by something in the water, not knowing what threats lurk beneath the water, etc.

imagery of thick fog, eyes, lighthouses, ships in the distance, stone altars, hooded figures, crashed/moored ships, viscera, comparisons between the sea and the sky/space, etc.

the colors black, deep shades of blue and cool green (like the ocean, especially at night), warm brown, neon blue/teal/green (like bioluminescence), and colors associated with eldritch/cosmic horror (such as dark purple/indigo, red, and green)

importantly, pisceldryst terms don't have to be related to 'dredge' itself in any way — the game is simply named in the term's definition to provide a summary of the concepts, themes, and aesthetics that are included under pisceldryst!

derived terms:

scel: a pisceldryst person. plural is scelae

rish: a younger pisceldryst person. plural is also rish. derived from 'eldritch' and 'fish'.

cator: an older pisceldryst person. plural is cators. from 'piscator', an archaic term for a fisher.

eldrysc: a pisceldryst gender. plural is eldrysces.

pelin: pisceldryst-in-nature (ex: pelingender)

pisceldryne: having pisceldryst qualities. noun form is pisceldrynity.

transpisceldryne: transitioning towards pisceldrynity/a pisceldryst identity. can be shortened to transpisc or transpiscel.

piscian: gender alignment to pisceldryst/pisceldrynity.

a very self-indulgent neogender umbrella based on what is now one of my favorite games of all time! i loved the atmosphere and themes of dredge so much and thought it would make a great umbrella term.

here's the template if anyone wants to coin eldrysces! the water is from this image.

i made the symbol by combining fish (85) from this folder and octopus (2) from this folder to make something resembling the aberrant fish from dredge. here's the symbol by itself:

[image id: the pisceldryst symbol, a medium dark dull teal silhouette of a fish, with its back fins replaced with the eight variously coiled/extended tentacles of an octopus. a blank image of the same size is placed next to the image of the symbol so that it doesn't take up the whole width of the post. end id.]

tags: @radiomogai, @liom-archive, @macchiane, @genderstarbucks, @sugar-and-vice-mogai

tags cont: @p-rtyboy, @pawsibell, @dragonpride17

dni link

[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)

[rippleclan]

RippleClan: Moon 13

Oilstripe and Burdockpaw run across a kittypet named Apple Cider.

[Image ID: Oilstripe and Burdockpaw face a warm brown tabby on the left of the screen. Under the tabby, it reads ‘NEW PLAYER: APPLE CIDER, 22 MOONS, SHE/THEY, REBELLIOUS, LORE KEEPER’]

“Do you think StarClan really blesses our memories?” Burdockpaw asked as he sniffed the edge of the Great Northern River.

“If they didn’t,” Oilstripe hummed, scanning the water, “do you think we’d be able to remember everything we do?”

“I don’t know,” Burdockpaw grumbled. “Didn’t Fennelspot say something about cats fading in StarClan? If historians remember so much, how come cats fade away?” Oilstripe slashed at the water and snagged a small fish hurrying toward the ocean.

“I’m still figuring that stuff out,” Oilstripe said through her fish.

“How can you be my mentor if you don’t know that stuff?” Burdockpaw huffed. A cheerful meow bounced through the trees on the other side of the river before Oilstripe could put her little brother in his place.

“Hi there!” Oilstripe and Burdockpaw looked over the river. A warm brown tabby stood along the river’s edge, tail high. Green-yellow eyes glimmered in the late afternoon glow.

“Hello?” Oilstripe mewed back hesitantly.

“I believe we’re neighbors now!” the cat yowled. “I’m Apple Cider! My humans moved into the village north of here a few days ago! Do you live out in the southern farms?”

“We’re Clan cats, actually,” Oilstripe explained, sitting politely beside her catch. “My name is Oilstripe. This is my brother, Burdockpaw.”

“You need to stay on that side of the river,” Burdockpaw called. “We can’t have kittypets hunting in our land!”

“Oh ho ho, is that a challenge?” Apple Cider laughed, wiggling their flank.

“We could tell you more if you’re up for a chat,” Oilstripe suggested.

“No, thank you!” Apple Cider chirped. “I’m just saying hello to all the neighborhood cats. We can swap stories another time. Nice to meet you!” With a simple wave of their tail, they trotted upstream, tail swaying behind them.

“There are humans up north?” Burdockpaw asked. “I thought they only lived south by WheatClan.”

“Apparently not,” Oilstripe hummed. “Come on. Let’s go tell Downstar about our new neighbor.” 

(Oilstripe: 17, female, historian, charismatic, ghost sight)

(Burdockpaw: 6, male, historian apprentice, loyal, interested in Clan history)

(Apple Cider: 22, she/they, kittypet, rebellious, lore keeper)

Fennelspot couldn’t imagine how boring life would be without a friend like Scrubmask.

[Image ID: Fennelspot follows Scrubmask. Under Fennelspot, it says + PLATONIC LIKE: SCRUBMASK. Under Scrubmask, it says + PLATONIC LIKE: FENNELSPOT]

---

Most of RippleClan knew what the other Clans thought of Scrubmask. In their eyes, she was a monotone molly whose pessimistic worldview meant she wasn’t long for RippleClan’s bubbly culture. A lot of that was true; Scrubmask was a steady, slightly sour figure among a Clan of hopefuls. For Fennelspot, though, a sour friend was exactly what he needed.

“If willow bark is so effective,” Scrubmask sighed as she led Fennelspot through the territory, “what’s the point of collecting lettuce?”

“You don’t want to over harvest any one source of medicine,” Fennelspot explained. “Wild lettuce has a stronger sedative property than willow bark. I used some when I amputated Parsley’s tail.”

“Oh,” Scrubmask hummed. “Just tell me what to do, then.” Scrubmask slowed and walked beside Fennelspot with an empty basket dangling off her neck, carefully balanced against her chest. The pair fell into a gentle rhythm as they made their way to the open reaches of the territory by WheatClan. With Scrubmask at Fennelspot’s side, there was a comfort in even the most tedious of tasks.

(Fennelspot: 70, male, cleric,  insecure, valuable insight, incredible runner)

(Scrubmask: 30, female, warrior, gloomy, fast runner, good hunter)

[hypertimesstuff]

Was thinking more of my Hunger Games AU!! I'm thinking of making a few changes :)

uhh theres technically. kind of. hunger games spoilers but like this whole au will be full of spoilers lmao. Warning that there is a Lot of text below the cut, but I wld love if you guys read it since I've thought a lot abt it

District 2, I've finally decided, will be New York. New York and California in the present day are the most powerful states. I wanted to show that, with California being District 1 (previously established), and District 2 as New York. So, he and California are the two most powerful districts.

Because the districts are in totally different locations than where they used to be as states, the states chosen to be districts are chosen because they, as states, exhibit behaviors that make them favorable to be a specific district. Or, there are specific circumstances or situations that cause them to be favorable as a certain district.

The 11 states chosen to be districts, even before the disasters that caused Panem to exist, slowly, slowly changed into how they are in Panem. For example--New York slowly becomes more warm blooded, since he goes from, not only the east to the west, but the north to the south. Heights and builds also change, eye colors change, etc etc. personalities slowly change as well. When the disasters happen, it sets everything in stone. They are like this now. Theres no going back. When the disasters happen, they don't remember the names of who they used to be, and have vague, practically nonexistent memories of who they were. It's a reset.

Gov and DC are gone. completely gone. Replaced by the entities of the Capitol and Panem, they have no attachments to the districts (but they DO choose favorites).

District 13 won't be Florida !! he'll be district 4, fishing. Multiple reasons--1. He's known for, y'know, the ocean, the beach, the water, etc. 2. District 4 is a career district, a district favored by the capitol. I think its a lil bit ironic how Florida goes from,, y'know, how Florida is, bothering the government, to being a favorite of the government. And, lastly: Louisiana, whose Florida's best friend, who I imagine goes fishing and hunting with Florida, no longer exists. District 4 doesn't even remember him. I think it'd be fun to also make it hurt that way, that Florida's best friend will never join him in fishing again. So Florida gets to be the fishing district !! :] (I hope you appreciate my evil)

Regarding district 13: They're a new entity all together. They're a woman (she/they). All of the events that occur to District 13 have occurred in this AU as well. District 13 has always only been District 13. This, even from the start, causes distance between them and the other districts. Sure, the other districts all can't remember who they used to be, but there's still,,, a feeling, that District 13 is not like them. The other districts remember her, from before their rebellion and before they were forced underground, but they don't talk about them. Ever. They think she’s dead.

So. Nevada is mainly federal land right? I've seen some headcanons here and there that Nevada is, to some degree, controlled by Gov. I personally don't use the headcanon, but I'm using the concept behind it: that the government is able to control Nevada because he's mostly federal land. I'm applying this to District 2 (who was, as mentioned above, previously New York). District 2 is the district of masonry and defense. It's where the peacekeepers are stationed in. I'm imagining, because of that, District 2 is the one most under Panem's control.

All of the Districts have powers !! Reason being? The other states disappearing leaves magic behind, manifesting in the districts as abilities that suit the specific district. Sure, all of the people you love and care about are dead (or you can't remember them. Though, then again, you can't even remember yourself, so does it matter), but hey, you have powers now!

So, combining the last two ideas together. District 2's ability is to summon weapons out of thin air, kind of creating themselves. (Rise of the TMNT spoilers since his powers were inspoed by this, but think Donatello's ninpo, basically). As you can imagine, Panem and the Capitol pretty much completely controlling a living arsenal of weapons is. Not great !

District 5, the power and electricity district, is Ohio. Because he's one of the states that produces the most electricity in the country. Thats. It really.

District 6, the transportation district, is Illinois. Chicago is the busiest rail hub in the US (which I just now learned !!) so,, it seemed fitting for him to be the transportation district.

District 7, the lumber district, is Oregon. Oregon is a pretty foresty place, AND they produce the most lumber in the country. So. Lumber district now.

District 8, the textile district, is North Carolina. Another thing I just now searched and learned is that they make the most textiles in the country. Therefore, they're the textile district.

District 9, the grain district, is North Dakota. Once more, I just learned that North Dakota produces the most grain in the US. So, wow, they get to be the grain district, shocking!!

Previously, I chose district 11 (agriculture) to be Texas. I'm changing it. He's now district 10 (coincidentally the district number right beneath district 11), because Texas produces the most livestock in the country.

District 11, the agriculture district, is Iowa. Yes, California is the number one agricultural state, but Iowa is the second, and California is already district 1. So Iowa gets to be the agriculture district.

District 12, the coal district, is Wyoming !! I do in fact have multiple reasons for this one. Wyoming produces the most coal in the country. Additionally, Wyoming is often, as frequently seen, forgotten by the others and even Gov. District 12 is also, like Wyoming, forgotten and dismissed. So! Now they get to be District 12.

District 3, the electronics district, is Nevada. I chose this one for Nevada because, for one, Nevada with Las Vegas seems to fit the electronics idea of it the best--I would've chosen New York for this, but alas, he's district 2 already. Also !! I thought abt it rn and !! It also makes sense because district 3 is between two districts heavily favored by the capitol (district 2 and district 4). And yet. He himself is not a career district. So, SO close to being a favorite, but he's not. (passes you a "this reminds me of California and Nevada's relationship" card).

District 2, District 1, and District 4 are the Capitol's (and Panem's, in extension) favorites. They're treated the best.

District 1 and District 2 are very, very close. They never leave each others side, unless the Capitol or Panem needs them. (cough cough. California and New York, as completely new people, are still soulmates throughout it all. The love persists even when they and everything else around them changes.)

District list: District 1 (California), District 2 (New York), District 3 (Nevada), District 4 (Florida), District 5 (Ohio), District 6 (Illinois), District 7 (Oregon), District 8 (North Carolina), District 9 (North Dakota), District 10 (Texas), District 11 (Iowa), District 12 (Wyoming).

You may--or may not idk--have noticed that there is multiple states of each region now as districts. This was on purpose. Guess which region is the exception. :] <—the face of evil

I had ! a lot of ideas ! Please do enjoy and share your thoughts bc this AU is rotting my brain. If you have any questions, I would also love to answer. I have put so much effort into this. god

(psst. I'm also going to hopefully write a lil thing with New York--specifically, where the Changes start to become noticeable)