Mer!Shigadabi Au things~
Language barrier
Dabi: lionfish + black tipped reef shark hybrid
Shigaraki: giant octopus + stonefish hybrid
Dabi has two internal claspers that make an appearance when he's properly ~stimulated~
Romeo and Juliette coded
Dabi's reef: nearly no culture because they are always hunting for food to feed the huge population on their reef. Their entire society is built around making themselves smaller so that the esteemed hunters can protect the reef and fatten their food stores enough to avoid the famine they are always on the verge of.
Shigaraki's reef: way more unique culture, especially sports, music, and history, but that's because merfolk eat each other there and any humans who crash their ships along their reefs.
You know what, it's also Beastars coded tbh
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OKAY!! let's talk about venom!!
there are several species of venomous herp pokémon. we have seviper, the arbok line, toxicroak, and the salazzle line. now you may notice that this list does not include salamander pokémon despite me discussing their toxins in multiple posts, nor does it include the venusaur line. why is that?
well, although they are both toxins, poison and venom aren't quite the same thing. venom is generally, although not always (we'll get into this) modified saliva that is delivered through injection, while poison is more of "you die if you eat it" thing. similarly, toxtricity isn't venomous, but rather gathers toxins in stagnated water in its body and expels them through secretions. the venusaur line does something adjacent through its relationship with the corpse flower on its back.
so today we're focusing on those pokémon that inject self-produced venom, either through their teeth or through some spur on their bodies.
let's start with the snakes.
seviper and the arbok line both have fangs like hypodermic needles. when they bite and inject venom, muscles in their upper jaw squeeze their venom glands and a controlled amount of venom is delivered through the hollow fangs into the victim's bloodstream. these pokémon all have different types of venom, but what is their venom for?
well, with the exception of the toxin on seviper's tail, which is a hot topic in terms of classification, and i won't be talking about it here, venom in snake pokémon is believed to have evolved for the sake of hunting. for this reason, many defensive bites are quote-unquote "dry bites" where no venom is injected.
now then, what do these snakes' venom do? it depends on the species.
seviper's venom is predominately a haemotoxin, but also has cytotoxic properties. a seviper bite, left untreated, can cause hemorrhaging, damage the kidneys and livers, cause painful swelling, blistering, and even necrosis, and lead to permanent tissue damage.
ekans starts out with venom similar to seviper's, but less potent and with some slightly different effects (predominately, rather than causing excessive amounts of bleeding, bleeding from an ekans bite is stable, but happens for a longer amount of time). however, for reasons we don't fully understand, when ekans evolves into arbok, their venom becomes predominately neurotoxic and extremely fast-acting. untreated arbok bites are far more dangerous than seviper or ekans, and begin with numbness, partial paralysis, and end with a complete shutdown of the respiratory system, including paralysis of the heart and lungs. victims of arbok bites may require artificial respiration in order to survive, and because arbok is fucking huge, it has a lot of venom to deliver.
but what about the salazzle line? it doesn't have nearly as sophisticated of a delivery method as the snakes, so what gives?
unlike the snake pokémon, salazzle and salandit actually evolved their venom for different purposes. salandit venom is not for hunting; salandit often prey on slow-moving or uh...unmoving prey (eggs), and when they prey upon fast-moving species, they use toxic gases rather than venom to subdue their prey. similarly, salazzle mostly use their venom to ward off predators that might infiltrate their lounges and prey upon them or the salandit. thus, it's believed the salazzle line evolved their venom for defense.
this probably also contributes to the poor delivery method. salazzle and salandit do not have fangs, nor is their venom created in the upper jaw. rather, venom is produced in a gland in the lower jaw and when squeezed out of this gland, sort of vaguely drooled out through grooves in enlarged back teeth. because of this method, despite sal venom being drop-for-drop as potent as seviper venom, envenomation is rarely as significant. salandit in particular struggle to envenomate foes, and must "chew" to inject any significant amount of venom. one doctor a hundred years ago stated that anyone stupid enough to be envenomated by a salandit deserved it and he would not treat them. some salandit will cling to a victim for ten or more minutes just to get some kind of result. salazzle, due to their size and strength, are more efficient.
but what does it do, once it gets in the bloodstream? sal venom is a combination of haemotoxins and neurotoxins. in salandit, it prevents clotting, lowers blood pressure, causes swelling and attacks pain receptors, producing extreme pain. once a female salandit evolves, this venom becomes stronger, and the hemorrhaging it induces can cause shock. there are no known human fatalities from salandit venom, but a handful from salazzle.
finally, what's the deal with toxicroak and croagunk? croagunk does not produce venom, rather oozing a relatively mild toxin from its finger, but toxicroak does. while the salazzle line and snakes produce venom in the form of modified saliva, toxicroak produces venom in the form of a concoction of lipids, amino acids, and polypeptides. i don't fully understand the details of the chemical makeup of this substance, but the important part is that it's not saliva, nor is it an environmental toxin harnessed by the body.
the claws on toxicroak hands contain a strong cytotoxin pumped down from glands in the neck and stored in the knuckles. this cytotoxin is the structurally similar to the poison in its throat and chest, and comes from a gland close to its throat sac, but is significantly more concentrated and potent. it dissolves tissue as it spreads through the bloodstream, causing swelling, extreme discoloration, blistering, cell death, and ultimately can lead to necrosis and death. toxicroak, unlike lizard and snake pokémon, which evolved their venom for defense and hunting respectively, it seems to have evolved this venom specifically for fighting other pokémon. it predominately uses this to engage in territorial disputes both with its own species and with others.
so there you have it! a brief rundown on the venom in reptile and amphibian pokémon.
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Whats AOD relationship with Ko ? (Like good friend, partner, family, ect) because I can't really tell.
i can't fucking tell too they just Exist and are Very Close but also they quite well get me like
when trying to explain them
the only thing i know for sure is that they aren't romantic partners. Disdain doesn't think to be looking for something like that and Ko has understandable Trust Issues towards the idea of a girlfriend/fiancé/wife. he's stuck like this Because of a romantic partner, you could say he's almost outright allergic and repulsed by the idea of getting into another relationship because of the trauma. and since he's a ghost, which is a thing emotionally stuck and unable to really heal and move on (and when it does that's when it passes on to next incarnation), he can't get out of this mindset
in a better version of the events And when Ko would be present in the time of Iterators instead of before, they could've ended up in a similar deal like Sparrows and Euros, yeah, i could see it. but as it is they are like... maybe like childhood friends? friends, not really family, recognize that they aren't family, but it sure Feels like family with how long they've known each other deal. especially for Disdain since she's younger than him. for Ko she's a point of grounding and safety. so she's also smth similar to him like he is for her, but more instance is put on the idea of a person being/feeling like your home
but Also
their relationship keeps reminding me of like. there was this one short video on utube that touched on the more common presence of cannibalism and romantization/sexualization of it in current media (like vampires). that current society has such deprivation of healthy loving relationships (including platonic ones) that when it comes to romantic love that what is present, it is no longer enough. loving isn't Enough. one needs to consume the other. own them in Such animalistic way as food. and that it speaks about the current state of the civilization not only to the deprivation of the relationships but also of more personal things like specifically self-worth. you want to be bitten, you want to be eaten, you want to be owned but why. that is no longer love, that is possession and obsession. anyway in comments of that vid people peeped up about vor€ at some point too ofc, inevitable thing, but it does add to the discussion and it sure is an interestin one 👁👁
Disdain and Ko feel in similar vein to me. its not an entirely healthy relationship. but because of What both of them are there isn't really a way around it than it be based off of something wrong. Ko just on the principle of his undead existence is inherently an unhealthy leeching thing though he may not want to be. he DOES want to be alright, he does want to be a normal good person just living their life but can't. his chance to be that has passed
Disdain is a sensible good person with well set boundaries for what she will allow others do to her and what she can do to others, but also she's an Iterator. thing made to be a god. she might as WELL be an actual god to Ko, because he's so torn down, so low next to a normal Ancient that she's unbelievably high and powerful next to him. he's just a little shard of a proper living being and she is Millions of proper living beings
so the more powerful one has to keep ensuring that this unhealthy fucked relationship is a healthy one cuz the other party is as capable of doing that as a completely paralyzed person is capable of walking by themselves. as i've said in their intro post they have an… Interesting relationship
but tl;dr shit's platonic with a real fucky fucky base
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