#technically these are crustaceans but whatever

[vcreatures]

Something a bit different from what I normally paint. I was talking to a friend of mine about some of our favorite movie villains which lead to Disney villains and ultimately ended on animated villains in general. A shared favorite and probably the baddest of them all being HIM from The Powerpuff Girls. He can’t help that he makes being bad look so good.

Now I know he’s technically a devil of some sort but for whatever reason I get crustacean vibes especially with the claws, hence the overall look.

#the powerpuff girls #him #character design #concept art #animation #cartoon network #villain #devil #lobster

[dogtoling]

Do you have any ideas for how farms would work in the Splatoon world? I have an oc who's a farmer and her family plants soy and takes care of bees. Do you think/know if chickens, roosters, and adjacent animals survived?

Well mammals like cattle or sheep are definitely all dead. Chickens are kind of in a weird position where they ARE birds, so there's technically nothing saying they should be dead, they even have several (splatfest) appearances in the series (but so does beef, so splatfest mention LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING), and Inklings do eat eggs in many form (but they don't NECESSARILY need to be chicken eggs). There is a statue of a chicken in Splatsville, which is what makes their situation tricky, because these statues are typically given to extinct animals and we know some birds have gone extinct so it's like a coin toss. Of course, chickens are very domesticated and humans haven't existed to farm or protect them for 12,000 years... so their status is honestly? Until anything is said about chickens being dead or alive outside of Splatfest dialogue, just a coin toss. Whatever.

Moving on from human-era farm animals, numerous evolved sea creatures are definitely farmed. I like to think a number of large nonsentient fish are farmed for their eggs, which are a major power source in Splatoon, but I'm also not sure if that's something that's super required given we don't know what actual sapient fish do with their excess eggs; basically I don't think there'd be a lack of fish eggs either way. Land crabs, lobsters, mussels and whatnot are probably farmed for their meat, especially crustaceans given that they are a VERY popular food choice especially for the cephalopods. As for birds I'd like to think if any bird were to replace chickens, it would probably be pigeons, and if you want to stay closer to the ocean theme then seagulls are definitely an option.

Notably, Zapfish are probably also farmed for their obvious electric capabilities, but moreso for generating electricity and selling them rather than killing them for some reason when that is obviously not the most valuable thing you could do with one. Also, land urchins (meat), super sea snails (meat), et cetera. Aside from animals, different types of kelp are probably also very popular to farm, assuming there's some land kelps you could have kelp fields or forests.

Just off the top of my mind, hope those are some good ideas

#mailbox

[cryptid-pet]

Azushin Mermaid AU Headcanons I Created at the Bottom of the Ocean Part II

Note: This is gonna feature other stuff and WON’T ONLY focus on Azusa AND Shin left alone. This is more informative details actually so ALSO keep that in mind

The vibrant colors of merman and mermaids are what make them the MOST unique

ALMOST can blend in with sea life (Coral, sponges, plants with wide variety of colors)

Yuma is the only Mukami with a slight tear in his tail >>> Towards the end

Any jewelry (For humans AND the Mukamis) are made from any pearls, deep sea gold, and other raw materials fresh from the source

The hardest material to find for the Hunter Brothers to produce a product is mostly gold considering the requirement of going deep down

This is pretty obvious but will be listed either way as The Mukami’s tail colors

Azusa >>> Light blue gradient w//faint pink

Yuma >>> Retro Orange w//faint red

Kou >>> Magenta (Sorta Like a hot pink) gradient w//faint turquoise

Hi I don’t know if this is a real fish, someone let me know but this is EXACTLY what I pictured 😭

Ruki >>> Honestly, it appears to be black depending on lighting and the highlights the sunlight, but there’s some silver//grey tinted everywhere

I really can’t see greens or blue on him so you can easily ignore that here

Kou and Ruki are the only ones who have a ALMOST translucent canal tails and move pretty much elegantly with the flow of water- This also means their tails are worth more money compared to Yuma’s or Azusa’s

A lot of smaller fish and crustaceans like to follow Azusa for no reason home, but isn’t allowed to be kept as pets

Justin is a conch, Melissa is a shell, and Christina is a star fish (The one Azusa wears actually)

The way Azusa got himself invested into the surface (Outside of his brothers) is from finding stuff//junk you’d typically would have in your house

Azusa once came home with a beer bottle and accidentally smashed it when Kou said “Toss it here, lemme see!”

Another time, Azusa brought back this tire when he was given permission from Yuma to be additional help finding any goods beyond where they normally go

Only Ruki and Kou know what human items are, but can sometimes confused them for something else (Little Mermaid moment when Arial used the for as a comb, it’s technically like that)

None of the brothers other than Ruki can read English properly, they can make out some words (Because books don’t exist in the ocean lmao)

There was a time where all four went down deeper than the normal deep blue water and stumbled across a piece of a ship that had text on it (Like maybe the company of who made the ship or whatever)

None of them could make out HALF of the word written

“Heyoo…Heyuu…Hy…”

“It says Hyundai, Azusa”

“I don’t get it…”

“Hyun what?”

“Hyunadadadadadad-“

“We’re heading back”

Faint knowledge of current events are given by either going to the surface OR finding new palates that have been trashed into sea

Because the Hunter Brothers are popular, a lot of newspapers will mention them but NEVER will provide a photograph for personal reasons

There is however one reason Carla is willing to hunt for creatures that are cryptic like: To find a solution to his illness (I’m not gonna say if there is a cure or not, I’ll leave that for y’all to decide)

Shin doesn’t EVER get asked why he wears an eyepatch and goes with the rumor if it being a “Worthy hunter” aesthetic

The first time Azusa has seen Shin was when Kou took him up to fresh air for once

Shin didn’t notice Azusa and Azusa couldn’t tell if he was glad or upset (Again, Azusa has never seen a human before so Shin is the first- I’ll go more on this in part three about this)

None of the Mukamis can write due to not exactly having the materials or ability to do so (Unless you really wanna see Kou tackle a octopus for ink because Yuma says learning to write is bullshit and refused to help)

Ruki has a random collection of sand dollars

The only times Kou sings is if he’s trying to catch the attention of animals such as dolphins or females humans up on the surface (He likes to pretend he’s human and makes up a silk story how he lives in a submarine despite not knowing what one is)

Kou’s jewel eye is actually a mystical pearl from the deepest part of the ocean, he can’t remember where or how he got it implanted in his socket (But you can’t tell it’s fake unless it turns red)

Yuma ONCE got caught in a net and was under there for maybe two hours (It wasn’t a place trap or anything, it was casually hangout lol)

The worst time to go out of home for the Mukamis is at night because that’s where Carla and Shin do MAJORITY of their hunting on water

The only one who had a little tiiiinyyyy encounter with the Hunter Brothers was Kou after an attempt to allure some females on land (It wasn’t something bad like a sudden conversation struck out, but Kou clearly gave Shin a side eye)

Thunderstorms is like heaven for the Mukamis because they KNOW Shin and Carla will go in the water, but WON’T travel as far out

[1/4] [3/4] [4/4] [Caruki Addition]

#diabolik lovers #diahell #nixxio text #azusa mukami #dialovers #shin tsukinami #azushin #kou mukami #yuma mukami #ruki mukami #carla tsukinami #mukami kou #mukami yuma #mukami azusa #mukami ruki #tsukinami shin #tsukinami carla #nixxio headcanons #diabolik lovers headcanon #azushin mermaid au

[fatehbaz]

Found this snapping turtle in my front yard yesterday. I live on a river and whenever it rains really hard theres always turtles and snakes that leave the water and just chill in ppls yards until it stops raining, do you know why they do that?

Nice. I know that you probably know that I love snapping turtles for their attitude, uniqueness, serrated shell, elongated tail, love of mud, dinosaur-like qualities, etc.

I want to preface this by saying that I don’t know anything about turtles (compared to snakes and salamanders; though, the two turtles I’ve interacted with most are snappers and softshells); I don’t know much about actual/technical ecology and behavior (compared to geography/distribution and habitat); and I really don’t know much about herps east of the Great Plains.

We must be on the same wave-length or whatever. Fun coincidence and not an exaggeration for clout: Just a couple of days ago, I was discussing turtles in the Great Lakes region with a co-worker. She was telling me about driving between South Bend and Toledo in the 1980s, and the ridiculous number of times that traffic was halted to allow a huge amount of migrating turtles to cross the roadway.

I used the term “ghost path” to describe how some local populations of turtles (and, say, salamanders or toads) still migrate over old or “ancient” corridors between hibernation sites and breeding/summer habitats in landscapes that have been mostly destroyed, drained, or industrialized. Remaining isolated populations of wetland-dwelling reptiles and amphibians may still move over those old pathways to reach fragments of now-gone marshes. Like a ghostly memory.

In this context, the region between South Bend and Toledo was once the site of the Great Black Swamp, one of the largest and most prominent wetlands in temperate North America.

The lower Great Lakes, and the South Bend area specifically, also used to be the site of Grand Kankakee Marsh. Even larger than the Great Black Swamp, Kankakee was about 1 million acres in size. It is occasionally referred to as “the Everglades of the North”; the largest inland wetland in temperate North America, located between South Bend and Chicago.

Pymatuning Swamp -- which remains as a reservoir and some fragmented flooded habitat, though mostly in name only -- is/was located on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border just south of Lake Erie’s shore.

Surely, these marshes would’ve been home to vast amounts of amphibians, turtles, and semi-aquatic snakes.

For as cold and overwhelming as winters might be in the area, the Great Lakes region actually has a surprising number of species of -- specifically -- turtles and snakes closely associated with water, which are either endemic to the region or endemic to a slightly wider area of the Great Lakes/Northwest, including: wood turtle, Blanding’s turtle, the Great Lakes population of spotted turtle, Kirtland’s snake, Butler’s gartersnake, Lake Erie watersnake, and the eastern massasauga rattlesnake.

The Butler's gartersnake, endemic to a small/local area of the Great Lakes:

To me, the snapping turtle has a funny relationship with water, because they’re simultaneously so aquatic (in the way that water allows them to scavenge/sit in muddy bottoms and allows them mobility to compensate for their unusually large size/mass), yet snappers are well-known over-land travelers, too.

I do know that snapping turtles have some fame among ecologists for two behaviors which have been well-established:

-- When searching for a nesting site, snapping turtles travel great distances out of water and/or away from their home range; snappers might regularly travel a kilometer or two to find nesting sites, with documentation of some snappers traveling 5 to 8 kilometers away to find a suitable sites (meaning that snappers might travel a round-trip distance of 15 kilometers to reach a nesting site and then return home).

-- When they do find a suitable nesting site, whether it’s near their home range or several kilometers away, snapping turtles are known to prefer building their nests several hundred meters away from water.

Regarding rain and the time of year that this turtle is moving around:

Reptile behavior associated with rain would be different depending on general ecoregion where the behavior is taking place (at a really general scale of, like, “shortgrass prairie of the Great Plains” or “Intermountain West” or “Appalachia”).

I’ve gleaned the region where you live (though I won’t inadvertently doxx you by announcing it here), and I know that at the northern edges of their distribution range, snappers tend to find nesting sites from late May to late June (when your snapper visitor appeared).

As for snakes and their increased activity away from watercourses during rainy periods in summer:

I think that reptiles, in some parts of North America, might have this association in popular consciousness with warm/hot, sunny days and dry habitat. But it’s really species- and region-dependent, and excessive heat/sun is actually a deterrent to a lot of snakes. For example, let’s say that rattlesnakes are a group of snakes whomst are generally considered to be associated with sunny, dry, hot conditions. In the Intermountain West, Great Plains, and “desert Southwest,” though, rattlesnakes are better known for avoiding direct sunlight, most commonly encountered absorbing heat from roadways after sunset and during the night. (I encounter the most rattlesnakes active during daylight only in, like, late April, May, and early June.)

During periods of rain in an otherwise intensely hot/dry summer, snakes that otherwise might be fried/over-heated by daytime temperatures and direct sunlight can move around if their body temperature can be regulated by wet habitat (flooded lawns, etc.).

Gartersnakes are semi-aquatic, of course. Gartersnakes are also famous for hunting mostly fish and/or amphibians. During periods of rain in an otherwise hot/dry summer, frogs and toads can be summoned up from their hideouts. Since frogs can then be unusually active in wet/flooded habitats, even away from permanent water, this allows gartersnakes to follow and hunt them.

In the Great Lakes region, many snake species have close association with either water or moist microhabitat. Rainy periods in an otherwise hot summer would be favorable. In Michigan, for example, this would include like 12-ish of the 17-ish snake species: The multiple species of gartersnakes, ribbonsnakes, and watersnakes are obviously associated with water. Then, the red-bellied snake, brown snake, queen snake, green snake, and ring-necked snake are associated with shaded/moist microhabitat.

Two superlative semi-aquatic snakes (present in southern Michigan and the former areas of Grand Kankakee, Great Black, and Pymatuning) are actually kinda endemic to the Great Lakes region.

The Kirtland's snake is a strange/unique reptile that lives in wetlands, bogs, etc., and has an extremely close relationship with and dependency on crayfish. They not only consume crayfish, but the snake also lives in crayfish burrows. Thus, this Great Lakes-endemic species of snake can't really live without wetlands.

Graphics from this good paper from 2019, "Into the Crayfish Burrow":

Distribution of Kirtland's snake:

You may as well call the eastern massasauga a “swamp rattlesnake” or “wetland rattlesnake.” The small rattlesnake inhabits flooded prairie, marshes, bogs, etc.

It’s cool that the Great Lakes region is home to more than one endemic snake whomst participates in a reptile-crustacean relationship, since the massasauga also inhabits and hibernates in crayfish burrows. Aside from being a water-loving bog-dwelling rattlesnake, I also love that the massasauga is one of the only reptiles which tolerates living on the fringe of boreal forest. There are populations of massasauga living on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; along the shores of Georgian Bay near Sudbury; and on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. A miniature swamp rattlesnake living in boreal forest.

[zackcrazyvalentine]

Hiyo! This is gonna be a bit specific so i hope you dont mind haha;;

Would it be alright to request for HC's for Mammon, Beel and Belphie(if you only take one char per request then Mammon's fine!) with a GN! reader, where in the reader is extremely obssessed with bug critters? Like tarantulas, moths, all that jazz and they often have a lotta them in their room

Im a big bug lover myself but it often freaks people out when i show them a beetle i caught but honestly its just pretty funny to me more than anything haha

Sorry for this long ask!! And take care~☆

Oh~ this is an interesting prompt :o

I myself am squeamish with bugs, but very much respect enthusiasts and entomologists!

Without further ado, here’s your request!!

-- -- --

😈💛 Mammon 💰💸

“Yo... think we can sell these to witches for some cash? Y’kow, for their rituals and generally to keep as pets? Think ’bout- OW, HEY!!”

This one I see recoiling back once you show him a bug. Doesn’t matter if it’s trapped in a jar, or held by your hands, he will get surprised if the critter is shoved in his face

Back in the Devildom, if you ever wandered out and somehow caught one of the unique dangerous bugs within, he would freak out and worry about your safety

“WTF [Name], put that down!! Its bite/sting is dangerous and hurts a lot! PUT IT DOWN!” “Relax, Mammon, your panic will distress it and provoke it to attack! I’ve got this.”

However, in the first weeks of your stay with them, he won’t care at all. Remember how he acted all irritated and mad when you were lumped onto him, right? Yeah, that’s it

Things change when Lucifer gave a stern warning, in his own Lucifer way, to keep you safe at all times

“Drop that, you don’t want to anger it”  “How many times do I need to tell you to stop with that?! Pesky human..”  “Oi, ya dumb mortal! Hands off, no pets allowed!”

Little “I’m not interested” warning will be given, which then morph to “Not worried about you but in reality I very much am” as time goes on and he warms up to you (damn tsundere, this one)

Once he grows fond of you and a friendship is established (and maybe other feelings surface), he will issue the more panic filled warnings

But otherwise, he will admire the little things. The ones with shiny exoskeletons and vibrant colors immediately catch his eye

He will eventually look forward to see what new friends you bring, even more so once you go over to the human world

Just...keep an eye out for his typical Mammon shenanigans of taking stuff to sell. He knows witches who would absolutely love to have some of your critters so, watch out.

You may find him baby talking to a particular bug he’s fond of from time to time (Mammon and the cat audio drama~)

Takes some time for him to stop being squeamish and handle the bugs

Totally the one to look at whichever critter, point at it and go “haha...Lucifer/[any other of his brothers]” (he may have led you to name a scorpion ‘Asmo’)

If he sees accessories or keychains that are bug related, he’ll buy them for you  “D-Don’t take it out of context! It just reminded me of [bug] and thought of getting it… totallydidn’tremindmeofyou,no”

Any colorful and/or shiny insects interest him, but I can see him loving centi- and millipedes (and pill bugs too, but those are crustaceans aha)

👿❤️ Beelzebub 🍔🤤

“Ah, I can do that too!”   “Beel, don’t! My papers-!!”   *cue him buzzing his wings and all documents are blown away*

At the beginning of your friendship? He’d just be like “...cool…” and keep doing whatever he was doing

Not one to flinch away from the bugs (he welcomes them)

Tell him ants or X bug/s are exceptionally strong, and he’ll begin to take interest in your bug keeping shenanigans

He feels for them, the strength of the tiny things. He’s one half of the youngest brothers, and very physically capable, one could say he relates to them (so tiny, but oh so strong = youngest brother, but oh so buff)

His signature animal is a fly, claims he has a special connection to bugs, but this “sense” was previously not explored… until you came to his life~

Out of the three, I think Beel will be the one to get on with the idea faster, even helping you take care of the bugs. Will also go out of his way to catch a particularly eye catching one for you.

“[Name], look! This one was hanging out near me/was on my path when going somewhere, thought of you and caught it” (insert Reader’s heart full of soft feelings for this teddy bear)

He’s the enabler of you keeping dangerous Devildom bugs. He can do the catching if you’re afraid of getting hurt

Just say the word and he’ll help you clean enclosures, feed critters, free them back to nature, anything

Honestly, you may very well wake up a hidden talent and surprise hobby of his

Please, introduce this boy to any and every bug you come across in the human world! Show him pictures and tidbits of information about all of them, but more so the ones you previously told him are so strong

If you introduce him to an ant farm, he will sit down and eat his snacks while observing the colony closely

Not afraid to handle your bugs at all, likes the sensation of their little legs crawling up his arms

Says he doesn’t have favorites, but absolutely does (he sneaks his favs snacks from time to time, it’s so cute)  Beetles and ants are in his top 5

Mixed feelings about entomophagy (insect eating)

Congratulations! You now have a bug enthusiast buddy to fan with!

👿💜 Belphegor 🛏️💤

“That one’s fuzzy… Can I pet it, hold it maybe?”

Belphie is pretty chill in general, so I don’t see him making a fuzz whenever a bug is brought up to his face

He may act indifferent to your obsession at first, perhaps Beel’s curiosity rubs off on him eventually

Very curious about your moths and tarantulas, and bees (when you get the chance to introduce him to them)

He’s drawn to the fuzzy fluffy bugs because they look comfortable to pet and hold (and sleep with lol)

Beware: DO NOT wake him up to introduce him to a bug, he WILL be cranky. On the same note, don’t even DARE let a critter crawl on his body while sleeping, won’t hesitate to exterminate the thing

This one… edgy boy… The one to warm up and love your arachnids (technically not insects, but let’s let it slide~   remember you’re talking to a biology nerd here, me)

Introduce him to the deadly insects of your word and he will repay the favor by teaching you about any highly dangerous Devildom bugs he knows about

Butterfly magnet. Let your moths and butterflies free in the room and most likely, they’ll land on him. His calm demeanour seems to attract them

Along with Beel, he will invite yourself to you room to look at the fluttering wings of butterflies   “They lull me to sleep”

Perhaps the one that gained a soft spot in his heart is the tarantula. Relates to it in a sense: people are afraid to approach it when it’s actually quite chill (when not provoked)

If you have Madagascar roaches… This was one of the first times you saw him flinch and let out a (very monotone) yelp, the hissing spooked him good

He may buy a blanket with bug patterns on it because it reminds him of you, sleeps with it when missing you

He’s more of taking pictures and sending them to you if cool bugs, spiders, and even snails cross his path. He will text a “Reminds me of you”  “Cool bug”  “Is this a bug?” along with the pics

Up in the human world: PLEASE catch a jar of fireflies for this boy! His eyes will light up at the amazing little natural light bulbs trapped within

Will want to take some fireflies back to the Devildom bc they remind him of the night sky and its stars

A very chill boy towards your obsession, but will eventually encourage you to keep doing what you love

Thank you for your request~! This was great to think about, if I do say so myself Hope it is to your liking!

You take care as well, anon~ ❤️

#obey me! #obey me #swd #shall we date? obey me #obey me! shall we date? #mammon #mammon obye me #om mammon #beelzebub #beelzebub obey me #om beelzebub #beel #belphegor #belphegor obey me #om belphegor #belphie #obey me x reader #beelzebub x reader #belphegor x reader #mammon x reader #mammon x you #March 2021 special #soul cuddle #zack writes #request pavilion

[kaijuposting]

So I decided to write a short fic based on the concept that the Precursors are actually future humans, and focus on someone actually communicating with one - not as a scary hivemind, but as an actual person. And I put Hermann up to the job because he seemed like the Guy For It. Hope you enjoy!

Until now, the Precursors had only been a distant monster - vaguely threatening, but existing only as faint whispers of malice on the edges of Hermann's consciousness. And now, he was staring up at one, a ten-foot-tall being; terrifying not because she was shaped a humanoid crustacean, but terrifying because of the way every bit of her posture and movement screamed hate.

"Why do you waste so much effort resisting us, Hermann Gottlieb?" she asked, staring down at him with six unblinking blue eyes.

He stared back up at her. "You want to kill us, that is why!" he spat.

"Technically, you are already dead. You died long, long, long ago. We are your descendants, simply doing what we must to continue living. Would you be so selfish as to deny a livable world to your descendants? Wait, you already did that. That is why we exist. We adapted as we had to, to survive the hell that you left us in. To destroy us is to destroy your own progeny and deny your own crimes. Oh, oh look at you, look at how humanity has banded together to destroy us. Your bloodthirsty empires have created new weapons of war, new children of the technological revolution you destroyed your world, your future, with. Don't you pretend for one minute that if we were gone, you wouldn't begin to use them against each other."

How... how could he even respond? Nothing she said was even wrong, was it? What could he say? Cold, gnawing despair filling his chest, he sighed. "I... very well. You... you are right."

Her posture shifted, relaxing slightly. "Yes, we know we are. But we're glad you finally agree."

"...But..." he began, as new thoughts formed in his mind.

"But what?"

"That still does not entitle you to kill everyone alive today. Yes, in your time we're all dead, but now, in this time, we are not. And I think it's quite worth noting that you had ages upon ages to develop whatever technology you so desired, and somehow it never occurred to you to go literally anywhere, anywhen, but here. Hell, you could have created your own world from scratch, had you more foresight. All of this, where you are now, this is the consequence of choices you made, and it is damned clear that you haven't learned a single thing from your own history."

"Oh, you think you're saying something clever, don't you?" she asked, her tone cold and mocking. "Sweetheart, we will live on, and you will take your place in history once again."

"I suppose it doesn't... strictly matter, whether it's clever or not," Hermann said. "What matters is... I am not alone."

#Pacific Rim #pacrim #Hermann Gottlieb #Precursors #Pacific Rim ficlet

[bnha-butterfly]

Synopsis: Sakusa could never have imagined he would die like this, and he definitely didn’t know he would love like this either

Warnings: this story includes graphic depictions of drowning, major character death (technically but not really)

W.C: 1.9k+ words

A/N: based off of this post that I made a while back and the fact that I really want to play dungeons and dragons. Also I really wanted to write that drowning scene and I spent three days on it.

This was beta read by @ramelanin Who is easily one of my favorite writers on this platform. Ramen I love you. Mwah <3

Sakusa struggles as he is pulled from the berth of the ship for the first time in weeks. The air is so salty he can taste it. It’s smell is strong, it's almost nauseating but he’d prefer the salty smell and taste of ocean air then the stagnant air of the sleeping quarters he’s been kept in since he’s been forced on the ship. His hands are bound tightly in heavy metal cuffs and the skin around them is an angry red color. Rubbed raw from how long they’ve been on him.

It happens quickly. Almost so quick that he doesn't realize what’s happening until he is falling several feet from the deck of the ship to the churning waves of the ocean below. His skin is bathed in warmth as he plummets. His screams muffled by the tape placed over his mouth, and for a second he wonders if this is what Icurus felt like when he fell. The warmth of the sun was soon replaced with the icy cold feeling of the waves encompassing his body. He tries to stay calm. Knows that if he panics he will drown that much quicker. So he tries to hold his breath. Kicks his legs in some futile attempt to swim or at least break the surface of the water.

His mass of curls float upwards as he continues to sink. The sea water stings his eyes but there is a dull pain in his chest that is so much worse. 

Don't panic. Don’t Panic.

 He repeats the words like a mantra in his head. But how can he not panic when he knows this is how he will die. His chest burns a searing white as he tries to focus on anything else. He lists off anything he can think of in an attempt to avoid the way his chest feels. It’s just so hard to do that with the way his lungs cry out for oxygen. Aching for something he cannot have. 

Don’t panic. Don’t Panic.

 The sun's rays twinkle down at him, tinted blue from the water and filtered through the floating strands of his hair.

 Don’t Panic. Don’t Panic.

 At this point his body is holding his breath on autopilot. The flame in his chest grows hotter and hotter the longer he lasts and he just wishes he could pass out from the pain. His body gives up. The need for air is so fierce that his body just relaxes. His shoulders drop, there is no more flailing or kicking or anything. 

Don’t Panic. Don't Panic. Don’t pani-

 Panic.

Panic because there is  salty ocean water that he can feel fill the back of his throat. This is how he will die. He tries to sputter out whatever is there but it is no use. Not with the tape over his mouth. His vision warps, and the edges of it turn dark. So with his face turned up to the sky, sunlight twinkling through the water down past strands of his hair to him in a taunt, casting shadows over his face his vision goes black. 

Sakusa wonders if he is dead. He attempts to open his eyes but he can’t even tell if he  succeeds. His surroundings are dark and wet and cold.  His body still encompassed in water. He must be dead, and for a second he lets his mind wonder if his body will ever be recovered, or if he’ll just decompose slowly amongst the fish and crustaceans. His mind does not linger on those thoughts long as he feels a hand caress his cheek. It is warm and comforting and he cannot help but lean in to the touch. 

“It is such a shame to see such precious cargo tossed overboard.”

A voice chimes. He can't quite pinpoint what direction the voice is coming from and to his surprise it is not muffled or gargled by the water. Water. He is still surrounded by water….isn’t he? He must be, right? He can fee-. He can't feel anything. Not the cool water or his fingers flexing as he attempts to move them. All he can feel is the hand on his face. Don’t Panic, he finds him telling himself once again. 

The hand on his face retreats and he cannot help the way he instinctually moves his face to chase after the touch. Eliciting a chuckle from whoever or whatever it is that is talking to him. He can’t remember the last time he had felt a touch as soft and warm as that one. 

“Wouldn’t you like to get even with the people who did this to you?”

“Get even? You mean revenge?” Sakusa says and realizes that the tape is no longer over his mouth. He hears his own voice and just like the voice of whomever it is speaking he doesn't sound muffled or gargled by the water.

“Yes revenge. I mean…could you really be satisfied dying here?” 

Sakusa takes a second to think, and in that second he is reminded of the burning in his chest. The way his vision warped and dimmed. In that second he feels just how scared he was. The way realizing he was going to die made him feel helpless. He hated feeling helpless.

“I don’t want to die here” Is the only answer he can muster up, voice shaky. 

“Then open your eyes and take my hand”

Sakusa opens his eyes and is surprised when they are not met with an assault of salty ocean water. Instead standing in front of him eye to eye is the most ethereal person he has ever laid eyes on. Illuminated by what little sunlight reaches them.  Their hand stretched outwards between the two of them. He takes in his surroundings. Pitch black. It is almost like the two of them are standing within the void. The only light is the one that shines above them. He tilts his head up and the sun stares down at him, filtered through water. Twinkling down at him the same way that it did when he was drowning. He flexes his fingers and his toes. Stiff, but at least he can feel them again. 

He returns his attention to the person in front of him. Although, he isn’t sure if he can really call them a person. They are beautiful, yes. But, the sides of their face is speckled in scales reminiscent of a serpent and if he looks closely their eyes glow dimly. They wink at him and he is suddenly made aware of how hard he must have been staring at them.

“What will happen if I take your hand?” 

“You won’t die. You’ll get that revenge I can tell you crave.”

“What do you get out of it?”

“I mean what does that matter? You said you don’t want to die here and I’m offering you a way not to.”

He stares down at the hand.

 Just like that he’d be alive again. Just like that he could get even with the people who tried to kill him. So he takes a deep breath and shakes the outstretched hand. A bright yellow light emits from where both hands are latched together.

“You made the right decision” The voice says, and he doesn’t even have to see their face to know that there is a smile on it. He wonders what he just got himself into as the light from their joined hands dim. 

“What now?” He asks as he gazes back up into dimly glowing eyes. 

The person tilts their head, caresses his cheek. “Just one more thing and then you’ll never have to panic again.” The hand moves from his face to play with the soft strands of hair at the base of his neck. 

He goes to ask another question. But, as this person’s palm comes in contact with the untouched skin at the base of his neck he is met with a searing white heat at the point of contact. His eyes widen and he goes to pull their hand away but the grip on the base of his neck persists. 

“Don’t Panic.” They say. “Trust me.”

He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to not panic when the burning persists. How is he supposed to trust someone he has only just met? 

“The sooner you relax the better it will feel.”

So he tries to relax. But, relaxing isn’t really possible when it feels like there is a piece of red hot metal being pressed into your skin. His vision warps and darkens and he passes out from the pain. 

When Sakusa comes to, he finds himself coughing up water. A side effect of drowning he supposes. He checks his surroundings, and is surprised to see he is in a humble looking room. A bed, a nightstand with an oil lamp and pack of matches next to it, and a mirror across the room close to the door. Sakusa gets off of the bed, pushing the sheets aside and goes to look at himself in the mirror. He feels pins and needles in his feet but ignores the sensation. 

He stands in front of the mirror. He looks okay for the most part. His hair is a mess and his eyes look as if he hasn't slept in a few days but that’s about it. He isn’t clad in the billowy white linen shirt and black trousers he died in. Instead, he stands in the mirror wearing a cream colored cotton shirt and brown trousers. His skin smells of salt and he could crave nothing more than a decent shower, or even a half-decent shower. He feels his stomach growl and sighs. Food. He’d need food first, then he could get a shower.

 He takes a second to attempt to straighten out his appearance. He runs his hand through his hair a few times, and as he does that one of his fingers graze a rather tender spot on his neck. He turns his head ever so slightly and gently brushes his hair out of the way to get a better look, and there on his neck clear as day is a deep red circle of what looks like brambles with four overlapping diamonds in the middle. He touches it cautiously as he inspects it. 

Just as he decides that the door to his room opens. He takes a cautionary step backwards and then he sees the same person from before. Just as ethereal and supernaturally beautiful as ever, although this time there are no serpentine scales adoring their face. No dimly glowing eyes and no long, pointed, sharp looking nails. 

“Good you're finally awake! I thought you would be out for an entire week” 

“You..you're the person from earlier”

“If by that you mean the person who kept you from dying then yes.”

“What did you do to me?”

“What is it with you and asking questions? We don’t have enough time to discuss all that. You’re probably hungry and there’s complimentary meal in the tavern downstairs if you’re stayin in the inn. So why don’t you stop asking questions and we get you some food instead?” 

As if his stomach knows he's going to disagree it makes a noise in agreement, and he isn’t left with much room to refuse. “Fine. But, when we’re done you’ll explain everything to me.”

“We'll see about that. You’d think you’d just be happy you're alive.” They say with a roll of their eyes. “Let’s just go get some food into you and see what this little fishing port has to offer.”

Just like that Sakusa finds himself being led downstairs hand in hand with a person he has only really just met. But, he doesn't panic and instead wonders what he has gotten himself into. 

#sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa x you #sakusa x y/n #haikyuu!! #sakusa angst #haikyuu angst #haikyuu x reader #drowning #tw drowning #tw: drowning #morpho writes #I want to play Dungeons and dragons so badly #also that drowning seen as one of the best things I have written to date

[sepublic]

Voymari

           Xia boasts an incredibly proficient, lucrative industrial sector, constantly manufacturing everything from weapons, to basic household items. Metals and ores of various types make up just about everything, and almost all of them come from the mining district of Voymari, where the main bulk of materials to be processed are actually acquired.

           During the early growing years of Xia’s industrial age, high demand was put on metals and other materials conducive for mass-manufacturing and selling. Attention was directed towards the region that would later become the present-day Voymari District, which was lowest in elevation compared to the rest of Xia and naturally had the most rainfall, rivers, and lakes. The natural presence of water, as well as various high-tides, helped to naturally erode the surface of the region, making the earth softer and easier to dig up.

           Mining operations and industries were set up, as miners set to work tilling the soil and digging up layers of earth to access the precious metal deposits within. To aid in the erosion process, canals were dug, with rivers and lakes redirected to flow across areas and help wash them away. All of the constant water and mining efforts naturally resulted in mudslides that would often prove dangerous, swallowing entire villages or destabilizing them, but the booming Xian industry demanded more materials, and so mining continued as usual. Canals by the shore were dug to allow the high tide to come in and help wash away the earth itself, and large portions of the island were dug up and either dumped into the surrounding ocean, or onto towering, manmade hills and mountains.

           As of the present-day, Voymari is a rocky, craggy, and mostly-barren district. The constant rainstorms and weather has resulted in some of Xia’s clearest skies, which are mostly covered and enshrouded in clouds; Still, it’s far more preferable to the smog of Stelt or Tametru. Scattered across Voymari and etched into the sides of cliffs and chasms are various mining villages and settlements, with massive drilling machines rolling across the landscape, miners following in their footsteps and scavenging dug-up materials.

           In Voymari, countless mining businesses make a fortune digging up metals and ores, such as the luxurious Exsidian, or the invulnerable Bohrok, of which there is a readily-accessible supply of. Technically, all across Xia one could find the same materials, more or less; However, the rainfall, canal, and work of predecessors has left Voymari the most barren area and thus the easiest to dig up resources in, with much of the bedrock having been cleared in various places.

           Aside from the aforementioned landslides, there are massive chasms and endless, shadowy pits, hollowed out by excavators and depleted almost entirely of the resources they have to offer. Many areas of Voymari are structurally unstable due to unregulated mining efforts, and settlements are carefully set up; Even so, it’s not uncommon for people to have to relocate after a few years. Some villages and neighborhoods have been bought out so corporations can drill in them, and the lower-class tend to live in the most structurally unsound parts of Voymari.

           Obviously, mud, sinkholes, and other issues are a regular part of life in Voymari. Almost everyone is a miner, although there are a couple of fisherman and boating crews near the shore and major canals. The vast majority of Xia’s orphan population lives in Voymari, in-part due to a precedent established by a Xian noble who set up multiple orphanages in the district. Likewise, many Xians have reasoned that the cleaner air is healthier for young Xians, who can be exposed to the smog of Tametru and Stelt later in life; Likewise, Voymari isn’t lawlessly dangerous like Zakaz or Nynrah, and Artidax has too many fragile, delicate components to benefit from unskilled childrens’ hands.

           Many of these orphans are unsurprisingly hungry, and tend to go homeless anyway, either cast out by the crowded orphanages, or else by choice; Child Services in Xia, like many other sectors, is abysmal. Roving crowds and gangs of these children often amass, scavenging across Voymari’s ghettos and picking up whatever they can find, even resorting to thievery, to later sell or benefit from. Unsurprisingly, there are those, such as the eccentric crimelord Karzahni, who take advantage of these disenfranchised children and induct them as gang members, servants, and even slaves.

           Otherwise, most people live as miners, waking up early in the morning and working day-and-night in the muddy, wet, and often hazardous conditions of the mines. Most mines are open to the air, unearthed by massive excavation machinery while workers grind away with pick-axes and other tools, digging up ore deposits to be piled together, washed away at another site, and then shipped to Tametru for refining and processing. As always, pay is abysmal, but at the very least consistent- Usually. Mining accidents from rogue explosions, mudslides, sinkholes, and so forth are common, and sudden floods can come in thanks to the constantly-shifting landscape and various rainstorms.

           A high-tide is prevalent in Voymari, one of massive disparity with its low tide. As it gets darker, the water levels will rise up enormously, engulfing lower-elevation areas such as mines and quarries. During these times, workers are supposed to leave before the water comes flooding in; However, poverty and poor regulations result in bosses and overseers who frequently overwork their employees past these designated safety hours. Miners will find themselves exacavating even as the water reaches their ankles, their waists, and even their chests. Particulalry wealthy corporations have resorted to using aquatic mining equipment to bypass this issue at night, but other small businesses simply push disposable employees to their limits.

           Closer to the shore, there are fields of Airweed, a plant that yields a precious, valuable gas useful for a wide variety of products and applications. Airweed grows best in the unusual, high-tide and low-tide conditions of Voymari, and in the salinity along its coast; During the low-tide, it gathers in oxygen, carbon-dioxide, and other gases, and during the high-tide it synthesizes them within the water.

           When the high-tide recedes, workers come climbing down into massive pits and lower-elevation areas to harvest the Airweed, aided by Hydruka, quadrupedal, domesticated crustaceans who have an affinity for being able to discern plants with higher yields of gas, versus the emptier ones. When underwater, they transport themselves by shooting air through their tails, the same kind found in Airweed (a portion of Airweed harvests are set aside for the Hydruka). Hydruka can also spew a poisonous, chemical compound of gases from their tail, manifesting as bubbles that choke and suffocate predators in the water; On land, this air easily disperses and is mostly harmless.

          Hydruka typically scavenge across the ocean-floor for nutrients while also feeding on Airweed, and can breathe on both air and in water. Hydruka can be stubborn and unyielding at times, and some will even sit down and refuse to work all day, forcing a hapless worker to report the situation back to their boss. Still, their evolved senses tend to do better than most Xian tools, and are cheaper as well. Hydruka meat is considered to be peasant food, but some higher-ups and nobles find it to be surprisingly delectable.

           Fun fact- In Voymari, there is a constant running-joke amongst miners all across the district of Morak the Hydruka. Morak will be blamed for a wide variety of things, from running late due to the unruly Hydruka chewing on a worker’s boots, to a slow day with little bounty due to Morak’s laziness. Some will complain of Morak’s incessant temper and snapping, or him eating too much of the feed, and others will even blame Morak for all of their life’s misfortunes!

The joke of course is that Morak doesn’t exist- At least, as far as anyone knows. Perhaps Morak really DID, and when the worker assigned to them frequently blamed Morak for their dilemmas, it was turned into an inside joke that spread across the district, with most not even getting it but still joining in regardless. Who can tell for sure?

           Unearthed salt-deposits and the constantly-receding tides from the ocean that regularly seep in along the coast contribute to another dilemma; Saltlung, a health issue that comes when salt scattered in the air, especially after the tide has just receded, gets into people’s lungs and causes health issues. Many Voymari miners are plagued with lifelong Saltlung and other health problems, unable to get the healthcare they need. As always, no regulations exist to forbid employers from deploying workers into mines and Airweed fields as soon as the tides recede, so many have adapted by wearing specialized breathing masks. In some areas where the salt content in the air is high, people wear their masks almost all day long.

           Due to the constant presence of water (also prevalent in Nynrah, but that district is too dangerous), many shipyards are also built along major coastal towns and canals. The fishing industry thrives along Voymari’s coast, and ships are built and have their seaworthiness tested out on the waves or in the canals. Many nobles will throw parties on lavish yachts along these canals and off the coast of Voymari; However, deliberate ignorance of proper safety procedures and building codes in order to have the most ‘beautiful’ ships and parties can result in ships being sunken by rocky waves or inconsistent tides.

           Although Chutes are used to transport items and goods, some items, including particularly massive ones, are ferried along large canals on boats to their destinations. Fast-flowing rivers are frequently used to wash off collected ore deposits. Due to their connection to the coast, as well as the high tides, some sealife has gotten into the canals and can pose a potential problem for sailors. There are many reported incidents of sealife accidentally getting into areas inland, and being left stranded and floundering about when the high-tides recede; Workers in the Airweeds have often found various animals, from sharks to even giant squids, flopping about with the water gone. Tiny Gadunka regularly cling onto Airweed, snapping and pinching at unfortunate workers, but are more of a pest than an actual threat.

          Voymari’s landscape is constantly-changing, ever-shifting as mining efforts relocate earth, new tunnels and canals are made, water floods areas and erodes them, mudslides and sinkholes occur, earthquakes erode foundations, and so on and so forth. There are few truly permanent settlements, save along the rockiest and stable foundations. Saltlung and drowning is common both amongst miners and sailors, the latter of whom encounter brutal storms and massive waves in their work. Mud and sludge is everywhere, caking everything, and the mining work is brutal and physically arduous.

          Many have been worked to death in these mines, ranging from indentured workers to outright slaves. Entire chasms and pits will be filled to the brim with either salty or fresh water during the night, but then become almost entirely empty by day. Unstable earth can also lead to dams bursting as water floods areas, bringing in new sealife, or else destroying their homes as water flows to another place. Sometimes, secrets in the earth are uncovered after a mudslide, sinkhole, earthquake, or flood passes through…

           As awful as it all is, there are SOME ups to living in Voymari; Again, the sky and air is clearer in Voymari, and its coastal areas and rivers boast some great seafood joints. Most sailors can only get scraps of what corporations take from them to sell in Stelt, but it’s better than nothing. Some lower-class Xians also get to work as bodyguards or servants in the luxurious yacht and cruise parties of Xia’s upper-class; It’s not ideal of course, but it’s definitely more fun and a lot safer than the mines and Airweed fields, and tips, dropped luxury belongings, and scraps are prevalent. Voymari also boasts a handful of lakes, rivers, pools, and beaches that are open to the public as well! Just don’t expect a lot of sunlight, and beware Saltlung…

#bionicle #Bionicle RaE #xia #voymari #worldbuilding #lore #hydruka #morak

[granny-griffin]

tumbling forward we spin on 4/4

“I'm an accidental fish.”

[hey you! read Part One first]

[also Part Two and Part Three]

[ok now you can read this]

They came to Tomorrow at an awkward time.

They landed on the west side of the island in a bog, which was difficult. From there, Timothy led them eastward, which meant they had to walk uphill. Avariya was breathless—but she couldn't tell if it was from the exercise or the flight. The brightness had been hot up there, without the clouds and the smoke in the way. It was hard to breathe in the sky. There was too much air. The wind caught in her mouth and choked her throat and filled her up with laughing. She'd been on a rollercoaster before—it was like that in the way a recipe is like an apple pie. She could acknowledge the technical similarity, but it wasn't the same.

They passed scattered ruins. A crumbling wall crowned the top of the hill. They came around it to a space where a gate must have hung at one point—and Death-Shade immediately drew his wing over them, shoving them to the ground in the process. Avariya would have been indignant—she had mud all over her knees—if not for the funny feeling in her spine. Something wasn't right.

In a moment, the scales on the underside of Death-Shade's wing shifted to reveal the courtyard beyond. Avariya gasped—it was like looking through a pane of glass. Yet somehow she knew that anyone looking towards them from the other side would only see the empty slope they had just crested.

It was a good thing, since the courtyard was filled with hundreds of dragons.

They were scattered across the ruins of whatever town had once grown up inside the walls— perched on crumbling roofs and towers or nestled into patches of grass that peeped up through the cobblestones. All of them faced a silver dragon that sat on the edge of the courtyard before them.

Avariya and the others sat in perfect silence as, one by one, the dragons came up to the courtyard and spoke to all the rest. It was a rather orderly gathering, but even Avariya, who didn't understand a word of it, could feel the tension in the air. It seemed to her that at any moment the smallest thing could set them off into chaos. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe.

"The silver one is called Ghost," Timothy whispered, "He's in charge of this council."

"What are they talking about?" Avariya whispered back.

"Us," he responded, "The humans, I mean. They thought we were gone. That's why they woke up. Now they're trying to decide what to do. Some of them think they should go back to the sea for another thousand years and wait for all of us to die off on our own. Others don't want to sleep any more. They want to live again, humans or not. And then...a lot of them think...they think that this is all a trick. That the humans pretended to leave in order to draw them out and destroy them. They want to strike us down before we have a chance to carry out whatever plan we might have."

"The ships left a year ago," she responded, "They think we would wait this long if we meant to attack? They'd better not, we'd never stand against them."

"Dragons live a long time. A year is pretty short for them. And a lot of them just woke up."

"Timothy—remember why I came with you?"

He nodded. "You're here to remind me to—"

Avariya grabbed his arm and dragged him out from under Death-Shade's wing and through the gate. Timothy was too startled to offer any resistance—and so was everyone else. They made it all the way to the courtyard where the silver dragon sat.

Then the sky was eclipsed by a gaping maw. Avariya shrieked and drew her sword. The mouth drew back, and she realized that there was only a slightly large grey-blue dragon standing in front of her. She must have interrupted his speech.

"Wait—wait no!" she cried, throwing her sword down on the ground. It clattered across the cobblestones. Most of the dragons were still frozen in the shock of the moment, but the silver dragon—that's right, his name was Ghost—stood and crept towards them. He looked over at the sword for a moment, then up at Avariya and Timothy.

"We—we come in peace!" Avariya continued, "Timothy, you— "

"qlweijoewrhjkvcnmasdaoiwqemklxmlxzs!" Timothy yelled.

Ghost stopped where he was, but Avariya couldn't tell if it was because of Timothy's translation or because Death-Shade had just materialized behind them.

Avariya cleared her throat. "We're here to speak for humanity." She nodded towards Timothy.

He turned to face her. "What does your name mean?"

Avariya scrunched up her brow. "What does that have to do with anything?" she whispered, "We're in a bit of a situation!"

"Dragon names always mean something," Timothy explained, "I have to know what your name means so that I can introduce you."

"Just make something up," Avariya said.

Timothy shook his head. "They'll find out later and think we're rude. We need to not be offensive. Tell me—quick, before I lose their attention!"

Suddenly, Avariya's mind was in another place—a world that had long ago been destroyed. Once upon a time, sitting on a ragged couch as the rain drummed against the windowpane behind them, her mother had told her the story of her birth.

Her parents hadn't intended to have a child. Because of her, Da proposed and Mum moved to England. And with the move and the wedding and the pregnancy, the two of them never sat down to figure out a name.

It was in the hospital, immediately after she was born, that her parents realized their predicament. But in their exhaustion, they both drew a total blank. They sat in dead silence for a moment, trying to come up with anything remotely passable for a child's name, and in the quiet they heard Mum's Mum, Avariya's Ukranian grandmother, whispering quietly to herself as she held her newest grandchild in her arms.

"Avariya," she crooned, "My tiny, perfect Avariya."

Her parents picked the name immediately. It was only afterwards that they discovered what it meant.

"Accident," Avariya said, finding herself back in the present, "Avariya Haddock. I'm an accidental fish."

Timothy looked away from the crouching dragons, suddenly distracted from the possibility of their imminent death. "What was that?"

"I'm an accidental—"

"No, I heard you," Timothy said, "I just mean—"

"Oh come on," Avariya groaned, "You make fun of my hair, and now you have to make fun of my name? Right now?"

"That's not what I—"

"Just translate it!"

Timothy spun around and said something to Ghost. For a moment he didn't reply. The crowd of dragons around them fidgeted and whispered amongst themselves. Then Ghost responded to Timothy. They had a short interchange, and when Avariya couldn't stand the tension any more, Timothy turned to speak to her.

"Ghost is going to allow you to speak to the council," he said, "I'll need you to pause every so often so that I can translate for you."

"I—okay, I can do that," Avariya said, "Tell them—tell Ghost that I'm thankful for his kindness."

"I already did," Timothy said, "Just start talking—I can make you sound polite."

"Oh. Thanks."

She looked up at the surrounding crowd of dragons. Everything was quiet. Everyone was looking at her. The wind was howling lonely through the ruined town. She took a deep breath.

"You are half right," she said, "Many of my kind have left this planet. We were ready, but not all the way. We couldn't take everybody.

"So the strongest and the smartest and the richest of us went—because they could. They left the others behind.

"I was one of the strong ones. I could have left, but I didn't. I couldn't leave the other's. That's—it's evil!

"It's evil to ignore what other people need just to get what you want. And a world where safety is bought through evil isn't worth living in.

"I've heard the old stories. Timothy's been telling me some. Once a boy stood here with the power to destroy dragons forever and save humanity and he didn't use it.

"Dragons live a long time. I know that you remember this. Now we are reversed—will you deny us the same mercy?"

When Timothy finished the final translation there was silence for a moment. Then the dragons started whispering again—the whispers grew to full fledged voices—and now the council was in danger of dissolving into complete chaos.

"I will speak!" someone called out over the din, "You asked me to—you have all been asking and—and I am ready now."

Avariya gasped. It was a dragon's voice—speaking it's own language. She could hear the harsh syllables with her own ears. But something was whispering over that, into the back of her mind, telling her what the words meant.

She could see the speaker now. He was smaller than Death-Shade but bigger than Avariya, and he was green—at least, he might have been before he had been covered over in barnacles. She could just make out the color through the creases in the crustaceans. Without waiting for Ghost to approve his request, he walked straight into the middle of the courtyard and began to speak. Nobody moved to stop him.

"Once I did everything in confidence," the barnacled dragon began, "but now that I am a little older my eyes see clearer and I'm hardly sure of anything."

Without warning, he looked down into Avariya's eyes. She had never looked into the eyes of a dragon before. It made her feel a little sick, but somehow she couldn't turn away.

"Girl," the dragon continued, "when I look at you, I see your life, and your father's life, and your father's father's life, all the way back to your ancestors in the past, when the world was young and I flew for the first time. It is always the same! When evil rises, good rises to stop it, and evil rises to stop that. We are like fall and spring, rising and falling and tumbling forward we spin on—and I am not sure who will end on top, or if it will ever end at all—but one thing I know. I would rather die fighting for a good world than live in an evil one."

He turned back to the crowds. "You are dismissed for now—come back tomorrow after you have thought over these things."

They were all still at first. Then, one by one, they stood and began to take off into the sky. Avariya released a breath she didn't know she had been holding. This had all been her idea, but she had still been half sure that they were going to get eaten in the process. The barnacle dragon approached them and struck up a conversation with Death-Shade, but she was too relieved to pay attention to it.

"That green one—he has teeth now," Timothy said nervously.

Avariya raised an eyebrow, "Did he not before?"

Just then, the barnacled dragon turned to her. "You, the accidental one—walk with me for a moment."

"He wants you to go with him," Timothy said, apparently unaware that Avariya had understood, "I think you should. He's one of Death-Shade's friends, he won't hurt you. And you wouldn't know this, but he spoke in your favor before the council just now."

Avariya nodded her assent, but she stopped to pick up her sword before she left. The two of them walked up to the edge of the ruins where the cliff face fell into the sea.

"Why did everyone listen to you," Avariya blurted.

"I'm a sea dragon," the barnacled dragon said, "I have their respect."

"How come I can understand you?"

"I'm a sea dragon. I'm telepathic."

Avariya crossed her arms, but it was more from the cold than frustration. "This is confusing."

"It confuses me," the dragon said, "I'm thousands of years old, but I wasn't aging for most of it. I only woke from hibernation a few days ago. However, that's beside the point—I'm very interested in you, small one. Where did you get that sword—"

"Death-Shade wanted to know that too," she interrupted.

"How did you know we had gathered here?" he continued, "And most of all, what is your plan? What are you going to do next?"

Avariya shrugged. "Wait and find out if the dragons are going to kill us all? I don't even know how I got here, much less where I'm going now. Have any suggestions?"

The dragon turned to look out at the horizon. "Girl with a name I once loved," he murmured, "you will always have a home with me."

The End

#httyd books #httyd books fanfiction #tumbling forward we spin on #my fanworks

[twitchesandstitches]

COMMANDER YATRUIGA -SHOGGOTH MONSTER GIRL WANNABE GENERAL

Basic Concept: World conquering shoggoth monster girl down on her luck and Doing Her Best to be a villain but just terrible at it.

Appearance: Imagine a very wide and strongfat humanoid woman, at least from the waist up. Get that broad image in mind, and add a few additional features: a variable number of arms (at least two, often six or more) that usually comprise tentacles, with optional crab claws or grabby bits. From the waist down, things get more interesting, dividing into a large cluster of enormous muscular tentacles crowned by a massive butt, each tentacle as thick around as her entire body and longer than she is tall. This is the default shape of Yatruiga, the shoggoth girl.

Normal shoggoth girls generally have amorphous flesh, but she takes it to an extreme, apparently made of jelly or a thicc ooze, so fluid that she oscillates and is subject to goo physics; it has some of a latex-ish look, colored a pale cream with veins of blue. This is mirrored in her plump face, and her eyes, which are usually the same blue, as are her very big lips. She doesn’t have hair, but she does have two thick bundles of tentacles that look like hair.

Technically she has at least three eyes at any given time, but she mainly has a large central eye, ringed by two smaller ones that sort of look like eyebrows, and the impression is of a cyclops. She often grows a set of short and spiky gills, but her face is otherwise featureless.

As a shoggoth girl, she can assume whatever body configuration she wants, but rarely deviates from this form; she usually increases her number of arms for an advantage, or make hands if she needs fingers. She can alter her body shape, like becoming incredibly muscular for a powerful attack, or immensely round to absorb an attack. She often adopts crustacean traits into herself, growing heavy exoskeleton, pincy claws, or shaping her tentacles into crab legs. She sometimes does this just for a bit of rigidity and to hold her body together, too. This form is astonishingly flexible, and more than a little stretchy. You don’t impact her or cut her, you just sink in.

She’s not precisely fat but she looks like it, and is very solid too, tending towards a very large gut and imposingly big breasts larger than her upper torso, and even wider lower hips. Her tentacles - and matching mega-scale butt - are incredibly large and somewhat longer than normal for her people, but her liquid form body is highly unusual. This is very hard to maintain and she is smug about her skill in maintaining her body like that permanently, and other shoggirls think this means that she is mentally fluid and capricious.

Her exact size varies, and she is not exclusive to any particular AU. In ones where human-scale is the normal, she’s about twice human size, 11 feet or so. In ones where giants are more common, she’s about seventy feet at minimum, though she can get bigger.

Backstory: Yatruiga’s people, the immortal and incredibly ancient people generally called shoggoth girls, have long cultivated a reputation as being elegant and cultured beings of great refinement, on the rare occasions they feel up to venturing out of their enclaves or form beneath the waves to bother with the rest of the multiverse. It is rare indeed for a shoggoth girl to deliberately seek out company outside of the great shoals of their hidden homeworlds and the private universes folded away from the rest of the planes. But it is even rarer for one to seek conquest and martial glory.

Yatruiga is such a shoggoth girl, hailing from a world that had contact with the shorter lived species prior to the multiversal cataclysm. That is to say, they opened their minds to mortals while remaining obscured to them, examining their cultures and media and written accounts, filing it away for study and reflection. Yatruiga examined these with great fascination, growing to admire the idea of change measured in mere decades, rather than the millenia her passive kind were suited to. She longed for the notion of suddenness, of quickness.

And in the wake of the cataclysm, in the rise of warlords and demagogue, she perceived the value in warfare. Not as a resolution, but as a means to an end. Finding more relevance in mortal customs than the slow pace of the shoggoth, she found that she wanted glory.

Since the cataclysm’s end, she has been patiently learning the skills of conquest, leaving her isolated worlds behind and shunning contact with her people, bearing their advanced technology (now overwhelmingly dangerous in contrast to the ruins elsewhere) and potent psionic abilities and magical theory, and has set forth to gather minions, forge mighty weapons, and conquer as much of the multiverse as she can hold.

In her heart, she dreams that all the multiverse will know her name.

Personality: She presents the image of being bombastic and a hammy, dramatic figure, prone to grand gestures and who wants only the most impressive of things to her name, making every single action or even her form a performative gesture. She speaks louder than most people yell, she gesticulates almost continually, and she takes advantage of her shapeshifting so that she is in an almost constant state of flux; the effect is, by shoggoth standards, of outrageous pomposity, and it is very deliberate.

And it is just that: a persona. She has studied many famous warlords, generals and battle-hardened champions across history and has tried to emulate all their various personalities into a single mask to put on, believing that this is the appropriate way for her to act with her ambitions of warrior accomplishment.

When she isn’t acting like that, though, she’s very low key and even surly, filtered through the mannerisms of a typical valley girl personality. Reluctant to speak more than she has to, she comes off as very terse. She might have a lot to say, but she will only speak in brief, clipped words, saying what she must and trickling it out in a laconic tone littered with easy-going terms.

Ultimately she is acting out a role, without really getting fully into it and still trying to figure it out; she worries that she has the tone down, but hasn’t understood the essence of it yet. This sense of ‘not quite doing it right’ pervades her entire outlook, making her nervous around mortals, and she is not used to that feeling, so it makes her angry and irritable.

However this is hard for mortals to take note of; as a species, shoggoth handle everything in extremely long-term progression, so while by her own standards she is shockingly impulsive and even disturbingly mercurial in how quickly her mind shifts, Yatruiga’s melancholy phases seem more to mortals that her bombastic personality regularly becomes grim and dour as the seasons turn, and remains like that for some time. To her, she slides smoothly into her role, but to mortals she comes off as gradually progressing from one extreme to the other.

She’s not an easy person to like. Whether she is grumpy or dramatic, she has trouble relating to mortals as people rather than brief things, finding them not so much interesting as their ideas, perhaps viewing them as mere hosts for fascinating notions; thus she often treats them as tools for her use, and annoying flies overtaken with their own importance otherwise. She’s not cruel, but her callousness and disinterest in caring about people in general makes her come off that way. She doesn’t enjoy suffering, she just doesn’t care about it much; she might try to swallow someone whole and simply not consider digestion as an unpleasant doom.

She’s also ludicrously overconfident, and simply will not learn from her mistakes, and her military career is full of constant defeats, setbacks and losses from her absolute refusal to accept bad odds. As she can regenerate from almost any wound, she tends to forget that her weapons and armies are not so strong as she is, and heedlessly charges into battle without much regard for tactics or common sense.

Many of her armies have been wiped out by her own overconfidence, or else aged past the point of service simply because she forgot that mortals don’t treat a few hundred years as a brief rest time. That said, she is a genuinely dangerous warrior and very hard to even slow down, but her armies regularly desert her. She’s made up for this by making herself into a broodmother and breeding a massive army of barely intelligent monsters little brighter than zombies, but she craves genuine loyalty, and doesn’t understand why no one really respects her that much.

As a broodmother, she almost constantly pregnant, periodically giving birth to thousands of bestial soldiers for her armies that grow to full size in a matter of weeks, and she has little attachment to them, viewing them not as children but in the same way as she regards individual tentacles. While she can reproduce parthenogenetically, she prefers to harvest genetic material from suitors (be they biological compatible for babymaking or not), and it doesn’t help that she gets crushes on those she has rivalries with. Her shapeshifting powers let her mate with any living being, and she’s become somewhat addicted to this in recent ages.

She does have some slight yandere tendencies; if she gets dedicated enough to a specific rival, she can grow more obsessed with them and single-minded about constantly breeding with them and milking them for every last drop of extra soldiers from them… and eventually become fanatical about consuming them and beating them once and for all. As a result, her getting attached can be a very bad idea, at least in a romantic context.

Species: Shoggoth Girl, a species of amorphous primordial masses of shapeshifting flesh, capable of assuming whatever form they please. She’s very atypical for her people in living ‘in the moment’ and leaving the homeworlds, and even more unusual for her love of violence and martial concerns.

Fandom: Mostly an original creation, though her people are cute monster girls versions of the shoggoth from the Lovecraft Mythos (with a touch of space elf and precursor archetypes), and draw upon the aboleths from Dungeons And Dragons.

Abilities: She is extremely skilled in most in-universe modern forms of warfare, having been doing it for an extremely long time. Practice alone has taught her much, and she is extremely good at fighting in a wide variety of ways, from firearms to melee weapons, and has come to specialize in shapeshifting in combat to maximize them, such as slithering out of holds or making many limbs to attack directly.

Her liquidform body offers her many advantages; among other things, she is incredibly hard to hurt directly, since most attacks will just sink into her body; exceptional magic or specialized weapons are required to actually pierce her body or leave more than temporary holes, though heat does it consistently and she is incredibly vulnerable to biological weaponry. She is extremely flexible, even by shoggirl standards; she can force her way down someone’s throat, bend herself any which way, stretch her body like living gum, and force her way through any gap, given enough time.

By altering the chemicals that make up her body, she can become specularily acidic, dissolving most materials she’s in contact with; by forcing someone into her body (by swallowing them whole, forcing them into her or flowing around them) she can digest them and absorb their biomass directly, and do this to most substances too. She can even apply this to attacks, by making a blow with a limb briefly made of super acidic flesh, though this is draining to do repeatedly.

Her favorite ability is to shapeshift. AS a shoggirl, her amorphous body can assume any transformation she can imagine (though she can’t change her apparent nature, such as take on human appearance), diverting biomass to grow more limbs, reshape any part of her body or make them as big or restructure them, or even grow larger or smaller. She is incredibly creative with this power, manifesting extra limbs just to do a quadruple sword swing, produce a dozen hands on arm just to slap someone repeatedly, swell a tentacle into a barrier in front of her, or produce extra organs to survive different environments like gills.

She seems to favor altering her stomach in odd ways, such as splitting it apart into a belly to swallow enemies whole and then launch them like ammunition, make it a living shield, or store excess biomass in there so it swells to immobilizing proportions. If she is incubating young, she doesn’t grow particularly larger, through her transparent body might make them visible, which can be very disturbing; she can make herself more opaque, if asked.

Her body is also immortal, after a fashion. She does not age, and will regenerate almost any non-magical wound, and even those will heal with time and biomass, and since it is hard to harm her in the first place, she comes across as very tough. Even the complete digestion of her body is only a hindrance; if a single part of her remains, it will regrow into her again, still stubbornly refusing to admit defeat.

Another aspect of her fluid body is that she can gestate young in localized mini-wombs pretty much wherever she wants, though she usually keeps them in her belly to make herself look even bigger and cooler. She can do this parthenogenetically, making strange crab-monster minions that resemble her, but she has grown fond of harvesting genetic material from others through sexual means, or digesting them if she feels like it, adding those genetics to her creations and making stronger armies.

These powers do have a big drawback; her fluidity is the biggest one. She is very vulnerable to being, say, slurped up like any other liquid. Stick a straw in her and suck hard, and she will be drawn into it helplessly despite weighing several dozen tons. She has been defeated many ways in this fashion, and has never learned from it. Her great resilience gives her a false sense of invulnerability, and she heedlessly rushes into situations even when its a blatantly terrible idea.

Her broodmother mass breeding has the big drawback of requiring food for those thousands of offspring; she must constantly devour enormous quantities of food, almost every single hour, in addition to the massive amounts of food she needs to maintain her biomass. As a result she usually must hold off on replenishing her armies, at least until she has enough resources to do so. In theory, if she actually did conquer enough territory, she might end up eating every last drop of organic material or depopulating entire planets - namely, the populations she just conquered - solely to maintain her status quo, and she might not even realize this until after the fact.

She is also apparently incredibly delicious as a minor side effect of her basic chemical makeup, and considers this just another point in her favor. Making her enemies eager to swallow her up hasn’t yet occurred to her to be a bad idea.

Height: Highly variable. She can be as big or small as she wants, but she needs actual biomass to fill out to that point; she’s rather vain and refuses to be too skinny, or at least not look properly bulky. She likes to be on the bigger side on things, to the point that it is ridiculously impractical, such as growing to full size on her flagship and immediately breaking it into pieces.

Relationships: She doesn’t have any canon relationships as such; her tendency to destroy her own armies through mismanagement, obliviousness to their mortality, accidentally engulfing and then digesting them, or simply losing their loyalty through more mundane events, has left her with an inability to hold onto minions for very long. Stil, she always gets more, even if its not clear how she does it.

The minions she mass produces are more loyal, and really have no choice. They were born to obey her and know nothing but following her orders. They’re just not very good at it and unimaginative. She tends to order them to their doom, and she’s not very strategically minded either.

She’s not unfriendly though, or totally unapproachable; come to her pretending to be a servant or at least willing to play a submissive role and she will gladly take you on and she can have a aristocratic sense of duty to her subordinates, if she remembers that they have their own goals. One-on-one, she has the potential to be a good friend, if only she can be bothered to remember things, and learn some humility.

Those who have bested and digested her in the past, she tends to see as rivals and constantly seek them out, always striving to beat them. This even applies if thy died a long time ago, and she pursues their descendants, sometimes under the impression that they are that ancestor.

Pred Level: She thinks she is an alpha predator that flawlessly devours all in her path as surely as she wins campaigns, and she really does try to do this; she does digest whatever she possibly can, rather like an acidic slime monster, just to maintain her biomass levels and be healthy. However in practice she’s not very good at it, most of her attempted prey fighting free of her or actually washing out of her when she forgets to solidify herself. At best, she’s a low-tier with very high potential.

However, her sexual appetite can very easily translate into genuine hunger if she gets attached and her rivalry hits a high pitch, her yandere potential going into overdrive. While she hasn’t had much opportunity to do this yet, it might happen.

Prey Level: Extremely high, though she won’t admit it. She’s constantly getting drunk by enemies, indifferent monsters, ship machines she got stuck in, her own soldiers sleepwalking, kisses that get too intense… it just goes on. Due to the messy nature of her body, at least one droplet of her always falls free and she regrows from it, dazed and unsure of what just happened. Despite her sheer size, it is strangely small for even extremely small beings to swallow her. Even if she’s a 100 ft tall giantess, a regular human girl can swallow her in one drink, and her body material is easily digested.

MILF levels: As she is right now, N/A. Callous, oblivious to anyone’s interests except her own, she’s barely a team player, let alone a matriarch. While she is a powerful mass-producer of young, she doesn’t view them as children but extensions of herself, and she might not even be wrong there, and it's unclear if she even can produce intelligent young, at least without mods. She does have the right look, though, and it's unclear what the MILF fleet’s patented mega-fertility and empathy enhancers might do to her.

Overall Themes: Generally a light-hearted antagonist that just won’t go away, and a recurring threat that isn’t that dangerous despite being quite powerful. Mainly themed around being vore prey, but as a component to adventure and battles rather than a focus detail. She’s also a giantess and at least a huge BBW, with extra tentacles and plush-ness. Her habit of constantly seeking out ‘genetic material’ from interesting suitors makes for some potential sexual vibes. Plus, she’s a cute monster gal!

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #queued #shoggirl #yatruiga #OC refs #my ocs