#grasshopper hunt

[kasper-k]

Found a fantastical toad

[britishchick09]

a teaser for rewrite erik's mystery! ;)

[wearethekingdom]

My current highlighted parts of Grasshopper Jungle

With no explanation and some chapters missing because I had no highlighter for a bit

"Robby and I were gods of the concrete rivers, and history does prove to us that wherever boys ride bicycles, paved roadways ribbon along afterwards like intestinal tapeworms"

"Sat with forearms resting across our knees while we propped our feet on our boards and rocked them back and forth like we floated over invisible soothing waves" - I've never met a skater that hasn't done this

""Nobody's going to know what that means," I said.

"I should have used lowercase."

"Lowercase does use less blood. And a smaller font. Everyone knows that."

"Maybe you should punch me again.""

"I wondered if it made me homosexual to even think about having a threesome with Robby and Shann. And I hated knowing that it would be easier for me to ask Robby to do it than to ask my own girlfriend."

""Can I kiss you, Austin?"

The air suddenly become unbreathably thin. I thought about it. I shook my head

"That would be too weird."

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

We sat there, smoking. Everything was shitty and confusing. Robby felt terrible.

I said, "I guess I would kiss you, Robby"

"Don't feel like you have to."

"I don't feel that way.""

"The shop had this constant, perfumed odor of sorrow, death, abandonment, condoms, and Bible verses; that was like nothing I'd ever smelled anywhere else."

""Don't be such a baby," I said "you wanted to come down here. I know where I'm going."

Robby started to let go of my hand

"It's okay," I said. I pulled Robby along by the hand like a little kid."

[saturdaynightghostclub]

I’ve been taking the kitten for walks in the backyard in his little tiger striped harness and now every single second he’s not outside he’s sitting by the back door making the most pitiful little peeping sounds you’ve ever heard

[oxygenbefore1775]

i've got a grasshopper in the bathtub and I'm compelled to get rid of him but at the same time I don't want to kill him help help help

[wickedzeevyln]

The Ant and the Grasshopper

 Early Spring Seated on a stair beneath a dimly lit sconce, Andy Ant drew the book closer, securing it between his legs with tarsal claws pressed against his compound eyes. The faintly illuminated words became readable in the spill of light. “Hey ant-boy!” “Gaaaahhh!!!” Andy Ant nearly leaped out of his exoskeleton; his antennae stiffened, and the book thudded onto the floor. “Damn, Oly,…

[clumsiestgiantess]

Why did no one pick grasshopper :(

Part 24 of the poll story, choice D!

D) (search) In the kitchen cabinet.

As your eyes wander the room, panic begins to set in.  What if you had been home?  What would the mystery people have done to you if this is what they did when you weren’t there?

The clattering sound of a cup or something tipping over snaps your attention back into focus.  You rush into the kitchen as a small plastic measuring cup rolls across the interior of a cabinet and stops as it hits against another glass.  The door was already open wide and the cabinet’s contents looked searched-through, but maybe there was a chance.

Stepping forward into the kitchen, you kneel down, push everything aside, and peer in.  He isn’t there.  There are just cups scattered around.  The one you heard had probably fallen on its own after being jostled.

Tears well at the corners of your eyes as you fear the worst might’ve happened to Ralyr.  However, as you do, a high-pitched sound hits your ears.  It’s almost like a ringing in your ear, only it isn’t constant.  You knock your head on the cabinet as you lift yourself back up to check if the noise is coming from your surroundings or your ear itself.  When you do, the sound goes away.  It starts up briefly again, then ends abruptly.

While you wonder what could be causing the noise, you notice a tiny bug rather close to your hand — still gripping the cabinet.  You lift it to brush the little critter away.  A piercingly high noise hits your ears and you pull back in shock.

You sit on the floor for a few dumb seconds, then scramble back to peer into the little space.  “There’s no way…”  With a shaking hand, you offer your upturned palm to the tiny creature.  It crawls toward it, hesitates for a moment, then crawls on.

It could just be a random bug, but you’re desperate for Ralyr to still be here.  He’s a shapeshifter, after all.  Why he would choose to be incredibly small and weak made no sense, but.. it was at least a possibility.

Bringing the little thing over to your desk, you dig through the mess the strange people made until you find a little magnifying glass.  You bring the bug close and the magnifying glass closer.

Holy…  The blown-up image is still small, but it’s enough to see the ‘bug’ has an entirely different-looking top half.  Its frontmost set of limbs wave back and forth over its head.  “Ralyr?!” you gasp, “I- I was right?  Is that you?”  That shrill keening sound started back up again.  “Ohh that’s you?  Your voice is way too small for me to understand.  Do.. uhh.. spin in a circle if it’s you.”

The little bug spun in a circle, meaning it wasn’t a bug, it was him.

“Oh thank goodness, I thought they took you!  Why would you change into something so small?”  That keening went off, but even when you strained your hearing it sounded like nothing.  “Don’t worry, I’ll try to get you a bigger form so I can understand you again.  Just give me a minute.”  

You return outside, cupping the tiniest little Ralyr in your hand.  A squirrel dashes away into a tree nearby.  Briefly you think about somehow capturing it for Ralyr.  However, you don’t need it to bite you while you’re trying to round it up, so you try a different idea.  Searching along the side of the building, you find several other bugs that are at least a little bigger than the size your friend is now.

After scanning the edges of the building, you find four different bugs you can catch:

A) A moth

B) A spider

C) A stinkbug

D) A grasshopper

[serpentface]

CAELIN/DELKHIN FOODS: AN EXTREMELY BROAD OVERVIEW

Horselord nomad horking down a blood + seed + cheese sausage while his 4 month old humbly requests a sample. The hard cheeses eaten by some delkhin societies have next to no lactose and can be digested by adults with little issue, but it's too risky for babies. The sausage is too big anyway. It's cooked blood and grasshopper mash for you, son.

Caelin and delkhin are obligate carnivores and can digest very little plant matter (and far less without the use of cooking). The majority of their diets derive from animal protein, and may be supplemented by certain fruits and cooked grains and seeds.

They also have FAR fewer taste receptors than a human and are altogether incapable of tasting sugars. Taste plays a very minimal role in eating to begin with, its function is ultimately a simple matter of determining whether something is safe to be (immediately) swallowed. They have no chewing mechanism whatsoever and swallow food whole.

Because of this, enjoyment of food does not derive from the flavor, which can/will barely be tasted anyway. The more complex and pleasurable aspects of eating stem from visual and tactile interaction with the food before and during swallowing.

The aesthetic qualities of food are very important and sensibilities vary culturally, but an underlying common element is that most 'good looking' food also looks like it can be swallowed whole and will have a pleasing or interesting texture in the process. (IE for the vast majority of sensibilities, a sticky rice ball will look more pleasing than a bowl of rice). To many human sensibilities, some of the most carefully prepared foods might look like an unfortunate chunky meat mash, perhaps strangely sprinkled with petals or insect wings, while an observer from the food's source culture may note the pleasantly contrasting textures and colors, the striking robustness of the meat against the delicacy of its visual seasoning.

Most ‘seasoning’ is for purely visual purposes and plays no role in taste. Prepared meals may be sprinkled non-toxic flower petals or seeds, layered with insect parts (raw or cooked), or dusted with salt for both visual appeal and as a supplement of needed minerals. Pigmented seasonings are very popular and may be slathered across prepared food items for visual flare. Arthropod-derived pigments that may be considered exclusively dyes in other contexts are often used as food coloring by caelin.

Whole meats may be cut to appeal to aesthetic sensibilities, highlighting texture and fat content. ‘Throat-feel’ tends to be important for the shape of cuts, though opinions on what the best throat-feel is varies by culture (the most common denominator seems to be ‘provides a feeling of fullness without any difficulty in swallowing’).

Shaping food items in unique ways also adds both aesthetic and variable throat-feel qualities. Eating meat and cooked grain in meatball or sausage form is very common, ranging from very thick links to almost noodle-like sausages using the intestines of small mammals as casing,

Eating live vertebrates (usually stunned or dying) is more common than in human cultures (both for obvious physiological reasons and because the ancestors of all caelin/delkhin would have done so on the regular as a natural facet of hunting small prey). In some cases this is ultimately a matter of appealing throat-feel, in others it plays a more specified part in specific rites or medicinal practices. Opinions on the acceptability of this practice/what animals are acceptable vary tremendously. Eating live fish tends to be uncontroversial outside of groups with spiritual/ethical objections to consuming anything alive whatsoever, opinions on small reptiles and mammals are more variable.

Caelin have extremely acidic stomachs (a trait somewhat reduced in delkhin) and have significant resistance (though not immunity) to bacteria and parasites in their diet. Eating meat raw is overall Less risky for them than it is for humans, and some cultures will intentionally allow meat to rot to various degrees as a form of delicacy (though some sensibilities consider eating rotten meat to be an act of desperation, or low class). In general, most cultures regularly eat meat in both raw and cooked forms, and the average person will eat most of their meat dried for longterm preservation but will tolerate a mild degree of rot.

Foods are often dipped in oils (usually rendered animal fats) for an appealing sheen and needed extra calories. Blood or wine may serve similar purposes. Where strong liquors are consumed as a regular part of life, they're usually integrated into the diet as a psychoactive dip for meats.

The staple elements of the diet depend on subsistence methods, but insects often play a very large role. Caviar ants are a common staple in warm/wet areas for large societies, as they are the easiest and most productive source of protein to sustain an obligate carnivorous populace. In drier areas, one needs vast amounts of livestock to sustain a large society- most of the biggest caelin and delkhin civilizations are clustered in highly productive grassland for this reason.

Big, livestock-dependent and heavily class-stratified societies are the only contexts in which a large portion of the population is dependent on vegetable matter. Members of lower classes may have a baseline diet consisting of cooked grain (grown predominantly for livestock feed) mixed with blood, supplemented by foraged insects and eggs. This is Survivable, but not healthy and can result in severe malnutrition without being supplemented on a regular basis.

Where large vertebrates are consumed, eating the entirety of the animal is especially vital. All organ meat and flesh will be eaten, tendon and bone not needed for material will be cooked down and pulverized for consumption, etc. Some cultures actively eat small amounts of fur or feathers, seeing it as a means of cleansing the digestive system. Aversions to certain forms of offal are very rare and only tend to develop in class stratified cultures, in which regular consumption of the most favored meats is reserved/only regularly accessible for upper classes (though in these cases, the aversion tends to be towards the more preservable, less nutritious lean muscle meats than nutritious, perishable organs and fatty cuts).

Some caelin societies live as scavenger-nomads, where small family units follow large herds of wild (or semi-domesticated) game, forage the insects they kick up, and eat their dead (either passively waiting for deaths, chasing away predators from kills of their herd, or actively picking off elderly or injured animals). The basis of this subsistence method is ancestral to both caelin and delkhin (prior to the latter becoming flightless in island isolation), and the first anatomically modern caelin and khait essentially domesticated each other via this continuing relationship. This is ultimately the most energy-efficient mode of subsistence for caelin as a species, with the only (debatable) downside being that it does not support large, concentrated populations.

Caelin and delkhin nomadic pastoralists slaughter livestock at a higher rate than most human pastoralists do, as they have fewer options for supplementing their diet outside of their livestock. Total reliance on fast-breeding livestock like horses is more common than dependence on slow-breeding cattle, camala, or khait. The lifestyle still necessitates reliance on living animals as renewable resources and sources of wealth, so most animal protein will still be acquired without slaughter.

Blood can be especially important to nomadic pastoralists as a primary means of consuming their valuable livestock without actually killing them. Livestock can be bled in rotation, minimally injuring the animal and giving each time to heal before being tapped again. Blood is eaten in congealed pastes, sausages, or mashed together with thoroughly cooked grain and seeds to form a patty.

Some pastoralists have relatively unique practices of consuming dairy products. As they are not mammals, caelin/delkhin do not produce the lactase enzymes necessary to digest lactose whatsoever, and their digestive systems will react to milk essentially the same way as a lactose-intolerant human. However, some forms of heavily strained yogurts and hard cheeses have so little lactose that they can pass through a healthy adult’s digestive system without issue (unless eaten in excess). These dairy products are very valuable as high calorie foodstuffs that can be acquired from livestock both without slaughter and without any injury whatsoever.

Dairy products tend to be a divisive subject that plays a role in conflict between settled agriculturalists and pastoralists. A large proportion of settled societies see dairy products as unclean or unnatural for consumption by anything but baby mammals. Some use this as one of many xenophobic justifications for land conflict with nomadic herders, characterizing their consumption of milk as one of many indications that their foes are uncivilized or animalistic.

---

Some misc food examples

[contamination-zone]

Fresh voice. you are LOSINGG the IDGAF war broski !!!!

explanations under cut

Image 1: black kites use and start forest fires to flush out prey. nightmare is a natural disaster that makes things easier to hunt for fresh.

Image 2: nightgmare is referring to fresh as a Cattle egret, specifically. nightmare is the cow startling bugs and grasshoppers out of hiding for Fresh to snatch up.

Image 3: fresh is saying Nightmare is not an uncaring force that helps fresh by chance, but a honey guide, something that is Specifically guiding and leading fresh to food so that it may eat itself.

[o-craven-canto]

Rough timeline of the discovery of genes and DNA

(mostly condensed from the first half of S. Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History, 2016, and this 1974 paper)

1857-1864: Gregor Mendel experiments with breeding peas at the monastery of Brno. The results show that information about flower color, pod shape etc. is transmitted in discrete blocks that do not mix, and can persist unexpressed in a generation to manifest again in the next.

1865-1866: Mendel's results are published in a minor journal and effectively forgotten for 35 years. He corresponds with physiologist Carl von Nägeli, who dismisses them as "only empirical" (???).

1868: Unaware of Mendel's work, Darwin proposes pangenesis as mechanism of heredity: every body part produces "gemmules" that carry hereditary information and merge to form gametes. This does not explain how new traits aren't immediately diluted out of existence, or why acquired changes aren't inheritable.

1869: Friedrich Miescher extracts a mysterious substance from pus on used bandages and salmon sperm. He calls it nuclein (later: chromatin), as it seems to be concentrated in cell nuclei.

1878: Albrecht Kossel separates nuclein into protein and a non-protein component, which he calls nucleic acid, and breaks it down in five nucleotides.

1882: Darwin dies, bothered -- among other things -- by the lack of a plausible mechanism to transmit new variation. Legend has it that Mendel's paper lay on a bookshelf of his study, unread.

1883: August Weissmann, noting that mice with cut tails always give birth to fully-tailed mice, theorizes that hereditary information is contained in a "germplasm" fully isolated from the rest of the body, contra pangenesis. At each generation, only germplasm is transmitted, and gives separate rise to a somatic line, i.e. the body, which isn't.

ca. 1890: Studying sea urchin embryos in Naples, Theodor Boveri and Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz notice large coiled masses of nuclein inside cell nuclei which can be dyed blue with aniline. They call them chromosomes, literally "colorful bodies". Simultaneously, Walter Sutton discovers chromosomes in grasshopper sperm.

1897: Hugo de Vries, after collecting hundreds of "monstrous" plant varieties near Amsterdam, realizes (also unaware of Mendel's work) that each trait is due to a single discrete particle of information, never mixing with the others, which he calls pangene in homage to Darwin. He also notices the appearance of completely new variants, which he calls mutants. In the same year, Carl Correns -- a former student of Nägeli, who had completely neglected to mention Mendel's work -- reproduces it exactly in Tubingen with pea and maize plants.

1900: Having finally found out about Mendel's publication, De Vries rushes to publish his model before he can be accused of plagiarism, which happens anyway. Correns does the same. Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg also independently recreates Mendel's results with pea plants in Vienna. Come on, guys, this is embarassing.

1902: Boveri and Sutton independently propose that hereditary information is carried by chromosomes. Supporters of this hypothesis generally hold that information is carried by proteins, with the simpler nucleic acids (only 5 nucleotides vs. 20 aminoacids) serving as scaffold.

1905: William Bateson coins the word genetics to describe the field growing mostly from De Vries' work. He realizes it should be possible to deliberately select organisms for specific individual genes. Meanwhile, Boveri's student Nettie Stevens discovers in mealworms a strangely small chromosome that is found only in males -- chromosome Y. This is the first direct evidence that chromosomes do, in fact, carry genetic information.

1905-1908: Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students breed and cross thousands of fruit flies in a lab in New York. Contra Mendel, they notice that traits are not passed down in a completely independent way: for example, male sex and white eyes usually manifest together. This suggests that their information particles are attached to each other, so that the physically-closest traits are more likely (but not guaranteed!) to be transmitted together.

1909: Phoebus Levene and his coworkers break down nucleic acids by hydrolysis into sugars, phosphate, and nucleobases. They assume that nucleobases must repeat along a chain in a repetitive sequence. In a treatise on heredity, Wilhelm Johannsen shortens "pangene" to gene. It's a purely theoretical construct, with no known material basis.

1911: Using Morgan's data on trait linkage, his student Alfred Sturtevant draws the first genetic map, locating several genes along a fruit fly chromosome. Genetic information now has a physical basis, although not yet a mechanism of transmission.

1918: Statistician Ronald Fisher proposes that traits appearing in continuous gradients, such as height, can still be explained by discrete genes if multiple genes contribute to a single trait, resolving an apparent contradiction. (Six genes for height, for example, are enough to produce the smooth bell curve noticed half a century earlier by Francis Galton.)

ca. 1920: Bacteriologist Frederick Griffith is studying two forms of pneumococcus, a "smooth" strain that produces deadly pneumonia in mice (and people) and a "rough" strain that is easily dispatched by immunity. He finds out that if live "rough" pneumococci are mixed with "smooth" ones killed by heat, the "rough" can somehow acquire the deadly "smooth" coating from the dead.

1926: Hermann Muller, another student of Morgan, finds out he can produce arbitrary amounts of new mutant flies by exposing their parents to X-rays.

1928: Griffith describes the acquired "transformation" of bacteria in an extremely obscure journal.

1929: Levene identifies the sugars in "yeast nucleic acid" and "thymus nucleic acid" as ribose and deoxyribose, respectively. The two will henceforth be known as ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

ca. 1930: Theodosius Dobzhansky, who also had worked with Morgan, discovers in wild-caught fruit flies variations of wing size, eye structure etc. that are produced by genes arranged in different orders on the chromosome. This rearrangement is the first physical mechanism for mutation discovered.

1940: Oswald Avery repeats Griffith's experiments with pneumococci, looking for the "transforming principle". Filtering away the remains of the cell wall, dissolving lipids in alcohol, destroying proteins with heat and chloroform does not stop the transformation. A DNA-degrading enzyme, however, does. Therefore, it is DNA that carries genetic information.

1943: By mixing flies with different gene orders and raising the mixed populations at different temperatures, Dobzhansky shows that a particular gene order can respond to natural selection, increasing or decresing in frequency.

1944: Avery publishes his results on transforming DNA. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger writes a treatise (What Is Life?) in which he states, on purely theoretical ground, that genetic information must be carried by an "aperiodic crystal", stable enough to be transmitted, but with a sequence of sub-parts that never repeat.

1950: In Cambridge, Maurice Wilkins starts using X-ray diffraction to try and make a picture of the atomic structure of dried DNA (as Linus Pauling and Robert Corey had done earlier with proteins). He is later joined by Rosalind Franklin, who finds a way to make higher-quality pictures by keeping DNA in its hydrated state. By hydrolyzing DNA, Erwin Chargaff notes that the nucleobases A and T are always present in exactly the same amount, as if they were paired, and so are C and G -- but A/T and C/G can be different amounts.

1951: Pauling publishes a paper on the alpha-helix structure of proteins. Having attended talks by Wilkins and Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick attempt to build a physical model of DNA, a triple helix with internal phosphate, but Franklin notes it's too unstable to survive.

1952: Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase mark the protein envelope of phage viruses with radioactive sulfur, and their DNA with radioactive phosphorus. The phosphorus, but not the sulfur, is transmitted to host bacteria and to the new generation of phages. This indicates that DNA is not just exchanged as "transforming principle", but passed down through generations.

1953: Pauling and Corey also propose a structure of DNA, but they make the same mistake as Watson and Crick. These receive from Wilkins an especially high-quality photo (taken in 1952 by either Franklin or her student Ray Gosling). Combining this picture with Chargaff's measurements, they conclude that DNA must be a double helix, with a sugar-phosphate chain outside, and nucleobases meeting in pairs on the inside (A with T, C with G). The complementary sequences of bases give a clear mechanism for the storage and replication of genetic information.

1950s: Jacques Monod and François Jacob grow the bacterium Escherichia coli alternately on glucose and lactose. While its DNA never changes, the RNA produced changes in step with the production of glucose-digesting and lactose-digesting enzymes. So DNA is not directly affected, but different sequences are copied onto RNA depending on need.

1958: Arthur Kornberg isolates DNA polymerase, the enzyme that builds new DNA strands in the correct sequence. By inserting into DNA a heavier isotope of nitrogen, Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl show that each strand remains intact, separating during replication and then serving as template for a new one.

1960: Sydney Brenner and Jacob purify messenger RNA from bacterial cells. This seems to copy the sequence of a single gene and carry it to ribosomes, where proteins are built. RNA must encode the sequence of aminoacids of a protein, presumably in sets of 3 nucleotides (the smallest that can specify 20 aminoacids).

1961-1966: Multiple labs working in parallel (Marshall Nirenberg-Heinrich Matthaei-Philip Leder, Har Khorana, Severo Ochoa) map every possible triplet of nucleotides to a corresponding aminoacid. Synthetic RNA is inserted into isolated bacterial ribosomes, and aminoacids are marked one at a time with radioactive carbon to check the sequence of the resulting proteins.

1970: Paul Berg and David Jackson manage to fuse DNA from two viruses into a single sequence ("recombinant DNA") using DNA-cutting enzymes extracted from bacteria.

1972-1973: Janet Mertz joins Berg and Jackson, and proposes inserting the recombinant DNA into the genome of E. coli, exploiting the bacterium for mass production. Herb Boyer and Stanley Cohen perform a similar experiment merging bacterial DNA, and linking it to an antibiotic-resistance gene so that the recombinant bacteria can be easily isolated.

1975-1977: Frederick Sanger isolates template strands of DNA to build new ones with DNA polymerase, but uses altered and marked nucleobases that stop polymerization. By doing so, then segregating the shortened sequences by length and recognizing their final base with fluorescence, it's possible to read the exact sequence of bases on a DNA strand.

[tiredfox64]

hallo Hallo! I would like to make an request of female reader and Syzoth c:

So,I’ve seen and read many fanfic where the reader is clueless thus doesn’t understand the nature of the Zatteran. Which pisses me off. Let’s change that,Shall we? :3

An female who has bearded dragon pet thus *completely* understands the Zatteran’s nature. In what he eats,how he behaves,the shedding,mating season and such. Syzoth’s greatful for finding someone who gets him and they’re one perfect power couple >:D 💪🏻 I would like mostly be fluff. But if you wanna slip in some smut of mating season,Go ahead. ;3

Small reminder; you’re amazing and don’t forget to drink water to stay hydrated! <3

How to Care for a Zatteran

Yip notes: No YOU’RE AMAZING. You are speaking my language. I’d be happy to give my man what he needs.

Pairing: Syzoth x Afab reader

Warnings‼️: NSFW, biting, you get two for the price of one ayyyyyyy (what do you think I mean?)

Syzoth believed being in Earthrealm would be difficult for him. It is not a realm that has large lizards walking around. According to Johnny and Kenshi, if people did see a large lizard walking around there would be an uproar of conspiracy theories. The government might hunt him down thinking he was an alien that escaped Area 51.

No wonder Syzoth wasn’t too keen on getting to know other humans…except for you. You are like the sun to him. You are needed in his life. If you are not with him then what is left in his life? You get him on so many levels.

You have a great understanding of reptile behavior. You grew up with a love for all kinds of reptiles from colorful geckos to strong snakes and even tortoises that had to wear balloons to allow you to keep an eye on them. You sure know your stuff. You knew what was best for them when it came to environment and diet. That means you knew what was best for Syzoth.

If Johnny didn’t ask you to bring him crickets for Syzoth when he invited him to his mansion you wouldn’t have met your reptilian boyfriend. Because Syzoth couldn’t stand human food the only other option that Johnny could think of was bugs. He knew you had an abundance of bugs to feed your pet bearded dragon, Blondi. And boy was Syzoth happy to see you come towards him with a handful of dead crickets. His tail came out and curled up as his split tongue scooped up the crickets. You were amazed by his tail, not a hint of fear in your voice as you squealed about how cool it was. He was so excited by your enthusiasm that he presented his true form. The rest was history.

You adored him in both forms. He was a handsome human and a cute-faced giant lizard. He was glad to find someone who didn’t see him as a monster or even a freak for who he truly was. Though your bearded dragon was not a big fan of him. The first time Syzoth walked into your home, Blondi was tapping on the glass trying to pick a fight with him. He was bobbing his head like a rockstar, trying to tell your boyfriend that this was his territory. He didn’t back down when Syzoth went into his natural form. Your little guy was ready to put up a fight for you. Or he was ready to fight for his food. He can sense Syzoth is just as hungry as he is.

You did have delicious bugs in your home at all times. Crickets, mealworms, grasshoppers, hornworms, and more. You made him feel better about eating bugs in front of you once you told him that humans also eat bugs. He didn’t believe you at first since everyone he has come across has given him weird looks but you reassured him that it was true. Many cultures eat bugs and there are even some candies that have bugs inside of them. You brought out a bag of chapulines that were coated in lemon juice, chili, and garlic. He watched as you took some from the bag and popped them into your mouth. He got curious and wanted to try some for himself. It was fine for him to try since he isn’t a regular bearded dragon and he has a stomach full of corrosive acid. The chili would not end his existence.

He loved the chapulines so much that you started putting them in the salads you would make him. Syzoth wasn’t used to eating greens that often but seeing how Blondi ate it up he thought it would be good for him. After taking his first bite of that fresh mixture of cabbage, kale, zucchini, and bell peppers he was eating it up quickly. He startled Blondi who was trying to eat his mixture of bugs and vegetables on the same table. Geez and you thought Blondi was a messy eater. Syzoth was messier but at least he licked up his mess.

“Are you sure you don’t want to use a fork?” You asked as you scooted a fork closer to him.

His head popped up from the bowl with his tongue still wrapped around a bunch of cabbage and kale. His eyes looked between the fork and the bowl. His hand slowly crept towards the fork and swiped it off the table before diving his head back into the bowl. The loud sound of crunching continued until he was finished.

The love went beyond a good diet. You made shedding season easier on him.

Shedding in his natural form is never pleasant. It’s unpleasant for every reptile. So you did your best to ease his discomfort and complete the process faster. You went out and bought a kiddie pool that was just big enough to fit his giant lizard self. You bought a bunch of bottles of shedding aid to hydrate his skin and get the old skin off. A nice spray of mist from your garden hose and he was in heaven. The old skin didn’t feel so tight on him anymore. Syzoth was grateful for everything you did for him. You must have spent a lot on the shedding aid to ensure it would work on him.

It was all worth it once you saw how he relaxed. His eyes were closed and his mouth was slightly opened, showing off his sharp teeth. He was able to rid himself of old skin before deciding to eat it. What? He doesn’t want to leave a mess for you to clean up.

The only issue Syzoth has is with Blondi. He tried being nice and showing that he meant no harm. He waved so many times yet Blondi kept bobbing his head and tapping against his glass enclosure. He did not like sharing you with Syzoth. It would result in Blondi running towards Syzoth to give him a good fight. You would have to swoop him up and go into another room so you could peacefully handle your little guy.

Once you were done with one lizard you had to go to the other. Syzoth needed handling too even though he was larger than you. He liked resting his body against yours, using your chest as a pillow for him. Sometimes he would be in his human form and others he would be in his natural form. You preferred the human form just because it didn’t feel like he was crushing you. You took it like a champ in the end. You would run your hand from his neck and down his back. He wouldn’t let you go even when you begged him to.

Now that’s all fun and stuff, having basically another pet lizard who is also a person who you could talk to. Syzoth is loyal to you and adores you. The fact that you understood what he needed as a Zatteran brought him closer to you. You’re the only one who understands him. You understood him better than his own people did.

Tell me, lizard girl, what do you think happens when a man gets really invested in a woman? That’s right! He wants to mate!

You saw this coming from a mile away you can’t lie. It didn’t matter if his habits were more human or lizard he was still getting riled up by you. What man wouldn’t want a kind and caring woman who feeds him well and shows him unconditional love? It was only natural that Syzoth wanted to show you his love. He wanted to give you his children and protect you till his very last breath. But he understands that humans don’t work the same way. Your “mating rituals” are more complex while his could be seen as too animalistic even for you.

Is that gonna stop his natural instincts from kicking in? Fuck no. Nature is an unstoppable force and when it’s go time, it’s freaking go time.

You noticed the change in Syzoth. He was putting in a lot of effort to let you know he was attracted to you even though you knew that beforehand. The pheromones he produced in his natural form would not work on you so you had to go off of visual clues. While in his human form, he bobbed his head a lot and stomped the ground, causing things to shake. It caught your attention and you would stare at him while wondering if that was necessary. His green eyes would stare at you, waiting to see if you would run away or move into a certain position.

“It’s mating season already? Gosh, I should check on Blondi.” You teased Syzoth, acting like you wouldn’t help him before you got up from the couch.

Because you walked away, he took that as you playing hard to get. He gave chase. You were barely down the hallway before you felt his arm wrap around your waist. He put all his weight against your body, causing you to go down. He wasn’t forcing you down on the ground but he was aware that he was using his size to his advantage. You didn’t think he could hold this primal aggression inside of him.

Your chest was pressed against the floor as you felt him grind against you. He whined before saying,

“Now…now…I want you now.”

Syzoth sounded so desperate you wondered if it’s been a long time since he last mated with a woman. That might be why he was more aggressive than you imagined.

“Alright…we can do it now. Do you want to go-“

You were going to ask if he wanted to move this to your bedroom but he was already tearing off your clothes. He didn’t need all of them off he just needed yours and his pants off. He was back to pressing his body against you and you could feel his cock…cocks? Well, guess that answers that question you’ve had in the back of your mind.

One of his cocks pressed against your wet folds while the other rubbed against your clit. Your anatomies aren’t correct but he will make this work. He began pushing his cock inside of you, stretching you out with its thick size. You let out a gasp as your nails clawed at the hardwood floors. Syzoth saw your reaction and thought you might pull away. He decided to pull your shirt to the side and bite down on your shoulder to prevent you from running away. You let out a pained moan as you felt his teeth sink into your flesh. It wasn’t enough to break your skin but it would keep you in place.

His rhythm was constant yet primal. He never took a moment to cool down or take a breather. He kept going in and out as his other cock rubbed your clit. Precum dripped from the tip which landed on the floor. His saliva dripped down your shoulder as his hot breath heated your skin. He let out grunts and groans as he continued fucking you. You were so glad you didn’t have neighbors nearby because you could not handle the noise you were producing.

You knew Syzoth was no regular man but he still managed to blow your mind…and your back out. You didn’t realize that you were drooling and continuously scratching the floor. Your brain was mush from how good Syzoth was making you feel. You could never receive this love from any ordinary man. The only one who could make you a drooling mess and get your full permission to breed you is Syzoth.

His breath grew hotter and quicker. His thrusts grew sloppier. You knew he was close and so were you. You decided to give him a helping hand, literally, and used one of your hands to stroke his other cock. You felt him twitch and groan more before he started going rougher. He was fucking into you while also fucking your hand. He made you cum with him when his last thrust hit your g-spot and you both came. This hot wave ripped through you as your shoulder burned with pain. Syzoth tightened his hold on your waist to keep you in place as he came inside of you. It sure was a lot of cum based on the fact that your hand was covered in it. It still managed to make a mess of the floor.

You both were panting and sweating like you just finished a fight. Syzoth finally let go of your shoulder and licked the teeth marks to soothe your pain.

“You just couldn’t wait, could you?” You teased him.

“You knew what would happen once you walked away. You know me so well, I would think you would be smart enough to not play hard to get.” He teased back.

“I was messing with you, but it seems like that charade didn't last long.”

You both laughed before you tried to get up. Syzoth didn’t allow that. He kept all his weight on you while his arms were still wrapped around your waist. He didn’t pull out.

“Uh…I thought you were supposed to let me go right after we finished.”

“My love, I am more than just an animal. I still need attention. We will stay in this position for a long time.” He snuggled up to you with a satisfied smile on his face.

“Could we at least move this cuddle session to my bedroom?”

“No! Blondi shouldn’t know about this.”

Syzoth, what the fuck is the little lizard gonna do? The lizard doesn’t even understand the concept of dating.

Yap notes: I'm losing motivation again. I'm puffin.

[archive-professional-jaywalker]

Avian Expectations

A small essay about the difference between the pop culture Bird and being a bird.

Being a bird is probably one of the most romanced identity. Being a bird means nothing, behavior wise, scientifically. Yet, being a bird portrays something very specific into people's mind.

Being a bird is freedom. It's effortless flight, belonging to the realm of air and never wanting to touch ground again. Being a bird is adventure, migration. A good half of movies about birds are about overcoming the thrilling dangers of going over entire continents in one year, the reward of seeing an exotic haven far from the cold. Sometimes, being a bird is being a strange endearing critter, voice mimicry, stealing shiny things, cuddling up and preening one's flock. Other times, being a bird is a sharp beak and sharper claws and being the Predator from Above, undefeated in the heights.

I've seen a lot of people question birds with that idea of a bird in mind. And, clearly, it can be true. One bird I know is migratory to her very core, the pull of Africa leading her to travel, irresistible. Another deeply intertwined with the drop of gravity as it's ultimate strength, entire biology built to master it.

But I cannot relate to people who go into questioning bird from the perspective of the Pop Culture Bird Homonculus, of this chimera of all the Cool Bird Traits. It seems like a fictional character to me, without all the little details that make being a bird real. Perhaps it is because I break all of these core traits.

I do not fly well, I glide when I must, and more often I run. I much prefer the ground. I am not migratory, and one part of being a roadrunner to me is Territory, and Surviving winter. I've never had the luxury of fleeing the cold, as much as i dislike it. I do not mimic all that much, I am solitary, I hunt by running along the grass. Barely bird, in the eye of the Being a Bird rules.

Rules say, then, i should not relate to being a bird. perhaps being a roadrunner for me would be akin to coyotes. Perhaps it would be akin to cats. But no, i do in fact relate to birds.

As it turns out, there is still a strong difference, for me, between the Being A Bird non-birds imagine and the actual one. I don't fly, i glide, i struggle to get to heights. A heavy sea eagle responded, saying how they felt flight as tool, from perch to perch, to scan for prey, too costly to waste in play.

I say that i hunt on foot, that i do not relate to the dive of the kestrel or the flight of the swift. A burrowing owl answer; saying they too prefer hunting grasshoppers from their height, sometimes perching but often just lurking around the grass.

I say i am alone, i do not have a flock, and a heron responds, why should you ? You are fine on your own.

I have met flightless cormorants, I have met penguins. On the contrary, I have met falcons, I have met corvids. The shapes of birdhood shift and change, but in the end, I tend to find someone for each things, be it bird like or not. Bird is a wide ground. Bird is a simplification, so that others can understand a flawed but easy view.

I am not A Bird, by pop culture definition. Yet i am very much a bird who relates to beings extremely far from me, behaviorally. honestly there's a point of no explanation. I share phantom feathers with them and beaks, but i couldn't be further from a hummingbird. It's a strange conundrum. So close yet so far, every species that talks about it. always slivers of Me-Truth, always things i just gloss over. a bird is not an animal, its a concept. i wish people would take that in account more before diving in it.

[kissingraine]

18+ (this is meant to be a three-part series!)

Lust for Life — G1 Insecticons x f!Reader

• It's late May, the sun's getting warmer, and you're out on your usual hunt for the friendly arthropods in the back of your home. Evidently, you're alone—because not a lot of people can stand the little critters, and you get it. At first, you didn’t really like them either. Didn’t like them, but still curious about the bugs. So much so that the first book you got back in kindergarten was one about them. All those little fun facts and everything.

• Now you're older, with barely enough space in your house because of all the terrariums and different kinds of dirt—because some of them die if they don’t get the right kind. And you thought you were dramatic. Well, maybe not die, but they obviously don’t thrive, and you don’t like that. You're not sure what you expected to find out here, but it certainly wasn’t this: three half-dead bugs as big as a fifteen-foot-tall tree.

• Hissing, titanium jaws sharp as razors—yet so clearly hurt. You should’ve run. This was obviously out of your league. Call for help. But then again, who exactly do you call? Bug exterminators? The government? Your lawyer?? Because it sure as hell looks like you just walked into a social experiment. Scratch that—this is definitely an experiment. One that involves giant metallic bugs. But when you run back home, you don’t reach for your phone on the kitchen counter. Instead, you reach for the stash of jelly, honey, or raw meat in the cupboards.

• Anything these bugs might like. Because you’ve never seen anything that resembles them before. New species? If that’s the case, then you’re dropping everything to help. The moment you step back into the backyard, they’re there—hobbling, moving so slow it reminds you of an old beetle about to take its final breath. They followed you?! You drop to your knees, hand on one of the creature’s carapaces.

“Shit—shit, hey there, bud. You’re going to be okay, alright?”

He hadn’t meant to let it get this far, but for his hive, it was life or death. The memory slips when he tries to recall it fully—only knowing they’d been cast aside, betrayed by the very faction that swore they’d have their own hive soon. Bombshell had suggested they find their own queen, and for once, Shrapnel knows he should have listened. Because they didn’t need to be tied down to another group—they only needed each other, and maybe a mate to complete them. Maybe that’s why. Just to feel like they weren’t alone anymore. That they had once been many, but now... it isn’t right. This feeling.

Unfortunately for them, their decision to part ways wasn’t taken very well. They could’ve handled the situation more discreetly—slipped away while the Decepticons were distracted. Not running away, no. Megatron will come for them. Left them half-dead as a taunt because the silver mech is just waiting for the right moment to finish what he started. He’s got more important things to do than deal with their hive’s betrayal—he's always obsessing over the Autobots.

Kickback is the first to notice a small organic bumbling through the woods, and he finally realizes they’ve strayed a little too close to a human settlement. But that scent... that soft, fuzzy feeling that lifts through him at the sound of your gentle breathing. It’s familiar. Warm. And many, like a hive. His mind says you’re organic, but the way his limbs drag him in your direction says he doesn’t care—not in this moment of hurting. Your hands caress him, and he warbles like a newborn larva. Sweet hands cupping his face in this alt-mode of his—he didn’t even think that was possible, since it repulsed most fleshlings they met. Or ate...

• You gasp softly. The huge grasshopper is leaking from its mouth and you’re internally panicking. Is it hurt? Bleeding? Its metal tarsus weakly pulls you in when you try to move away—and then, faintly, you realize it’s suckling at your fingers. Coating them in some alien substance. Gross, but your heart squeezes at the resemblance to a kitten nursing. Distantly, you hope it doesn’t bite your fingers off, but to you it mostly just seems like it’s nipping and gently tugging at your skin. The other two aren’t far behind—and you smile.

• You manage to break free of the mechanical grasshopper’s nigh-unyielding grip to clear out your mostly unused shed. You help them move in. As best as your human self can, anyway. You’ve pushed cars out of ditches before, but these are so much heavier—and three insects the size of a car are a feat to carry. When one of them groans, you whisper,

“Shh, you’re safe…”

You couldn’t have known what you’d done.

To the Insecticons, that was a declaration—for their hive. Shelter. Sustenance. Care. That didn’t translate to them as mere hospitality like you meant it to. It was courtship. And who are they to turn down what they needed most in this moment?

A Queen willing to prove herself.

Organic, yes—

But a Queen, nonetheless.

Next

[unironicallytes]

Another Bosmeri food culture headcanon, this time regarding bugs 🐛🐌🪲

So even though we often assume The Meat Mandate refers to the meat of large mammals and reptiles, I think Pact-Abiding Valenwood Bosmer actually get like 75%-80% of their daily nutritional needs from insects. Hunting for food is a huge thing in Bosmeri life, but excessive hunting of large prey animals could still upset whatever the ecological balance may be in the local area. And that's a thing I think they would be very aware and mindful of. Although there are a ton of large bugs in Valenwood, there are also the normal-sized, non-fantastical ones too, which are abundant enough to replace whatever plant material we generally think of as staples. Thus, foraging could still be a major day-to-day need like in any village. They're looking for things like anthills and termite mounds, beehives and wasp nests, spider dens and silkworm webs, etc etc. I imagine a traditional Bosmer breakfast could consist of eggs and meat sure, but with the above in mind, we can also consider more! Hot porridges made of crushed ants, beetle scuttle, and honey; granola made of crushed snails to top your goatsmilk yogurt; baked grasshoppers as a snack on the go. Delightful!

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Grote's Bertholdia Moth: when this moth detects a predatory bat nearby, it emits a barrage of ultrasonic signals that "jam" the bat's echolocation system, allowing the moth to remain hidden

Several different moths are known to produce their own ultrasonic "clicks" or "chirps" as a defense mechanism against bats, but Grote's Bertholdia moth (Bertholdia trigona) can emit these signals at a staggering speed of up to 4,500 "clicks" per second, which is much faster than any other species.

When the moth detects the acoustic signals that bats use to navigate and hunt, it responds by blanketing the surrounding environment with a barrage of ultrasonic "clicks," effectively cloaking itself from sonar detection.

As this article explains, adaptations involving ultrasonic signals have played a major role in the evolutionary arms race between moths and bats:

Like other nocturnal insects, moths need to contend with bats. Unlike grasshoppers or beetles, they have soft bodies without spines or hard cuticles to protect them. Yet bats’ reliance on echolocation has given moths a way to avoid ending up as food: by tapping into their predators’ acoustic signals. Many have evolved ears that can hear the calls of bats. Some moths make ultrasonic squeaks, chirps, or clicks to warn their predators (honestly or not) that they are poisonous. Others generate near-constant, ultrasonic buzzes capable of jamming bat sonar. 

Sources & More Info:

Smithsonian: How One Moth Species Can Jam Bats' Sonar Systems

Knowable Magazine: Prey Tell: How Moths Elude Bats

Journal of Experimental Biology: How Do Tiger Moths Jam Bat Sonar?

The Scientist: Many Moths Speak Up to Ward Off Bats

Science: Moths Block Bats' Sonar

The Telegraph: Tiger Moth Wards Off Hungry Bats with Ultrasound

PubMed: High Duty Cycle Moth Sounds Jam Bat Echolocation

Journal of Theoretical Biology: Neural Representation of Bat Predation Risk and Evasive Flight in Moths

[b1asho]

Huzzahh, it's species number 3! (There's a total of 6, including humans. 7 if you count artificial intelligences, 8 if you count the uhh other intelligences).

An official up to date visual for everyone's favorite communist amphibians, the Kixeli, and some up-to-date info!! ->

Kixeli are a small sophont species hailing from a planet covered mostly in ocean. They are amphibious, and originally evolved to switch between swimming and climbing using their webbed hands and powerful arms.

Their skin is permeable, allowing them to extend their time underwater to hunt and gather as well as reproduce, but due to their larger body and brain size/oxygen needs this isn’t sustainable and they must return to the surface.

Alongside their frequent trips outside the water, they also have a mucus layer and several specialized glands (including in their face by their eyes) to help remove excess salt and change levels of urea in their body to help make sure they dont lose resources when in the ocean.

Kixeli are omnivorous, with a focus on fruits and sealife. many cultures have a preference against eating anything that lives above water, including birds and the like, because they see themselves as spiritual equals to those animals as fellow air breathers.

They are oviparous, and have a specific mating season.

Most Kixeli have multiple variable spawn partners and see it as strange to be nailed down to one. Anyone who participated lays their eggs in a communal tide pool carved out in their communities.

Hatchlings are entirely aquatic wirh gills until later months of age, where they will begin to poke their head above water for air and start interacting more with the adults around them, who feed them a nutritive crop milk as they have already absorbed most of their tail by now.

This period is also the beginning of their understanding of language.

Once they lose their tail and grow in their limbs, they are still mostly helpless until those fully develop and myst cling to a caretaker adult in the community (blood parents don’t necessarily always raise their own children, but as someone who laid eggs they are responsible for children as a caretaker so anyone who didn’t want eggs gets left alone).

During their puberty, they will develop adult skin markings, and some can even end up changing sexes (much for the same reason some of them grow gliding membranes, as the result of population and resources balance in their surroundings).

Speakijg of that, there are two categories of Kixeli in their communities: Kel (swimmer) and Arasit (flier).

Arasit are just a rare continuation of their life cycle, since most Kixeli kids end up growing into Kel adults.

Sometimes, though, an Arasit will develop in case the community strongly needs to seek out new territory over long distance (triggered by close proximity to many other Kixeli and a variety of other unknown gactors, like grasshoppers turnkng into locusts.) They can’t truly fly, but they can use the powerful ocean winds and even some launching technology to glide very far to scout new resources and other communities).

Arasit are highly celebrated as voyagers, but Kel are also valued as providers for their existing community and even accompany voyages on ships to help their Arasit stay alive.

Some Arasit will cut and cauterize their membranes to make it easier for them to swim to symbolize they are staying in the community, though usually, they just poke small holes in there so they can wear clothes and be sanitary.

Their blood uses the hemocyanin molecule to carry oxygen, making their blood a bright blue when oxygenated and a thin blue/clear when unoxygenated (so you can see the other warmish colored pigments in there when it’s inside them, that yellowish stuff)

Their ancestors dwelled in deeper, cooler water where this blood type was most advantageous, but a global warming period brought them up to warm waters and eventually above the surface to capitalize on resources.

During this process, they developed some ways to improve the molecule’s lower efficiency in the heat. For one, they kept a small body size so there’s less to deal with. Another thing is that they get oxygen (albeit a small amount) from all over their body constantly through their skin, also somewhat making up for it.

The main mechanism, though, is their metabolism/temperature. They can quickly adjust their metabolism depending on the oxygen conditions in their surroundings to prevent immediate failure if they don’t have access to the right conditions to otherwise cope (this, and along with hemocyanin’s natural ability to handle low oxygen and their skin breathing, means they can tolerate very low oxygen areas that would cause a human to faint, though they’ll typically be pretty out of commission too, and this can have longer lasting effects on their health from the whiplash.)

they use their surroundings for heat when they aren’t doing anything too strenuous, and because they aren’t really producing much of their own they can tolerate even higher temperatures that would normally put them out of commission (and they actually heavily rely on that heat for ease in a lot of other processes), to do anything that has bigger oxygen needs, they can dip into cooler water/shade for periods of higher activity (but can’t stay too cold for too long or else aforementioned other processes will shut down, though it does increase the effectiveness to the point where they can do a whole lot and allows them to swim/navigate cooler areas where their early competitors couldn’t return to, it only as long as they got back quickly and warmed up)

they basically swing between these two extremes but tend to stay at a warmish middle-ground, wearing heating pads on part of their body while still letting larger areas cool off, if that makes sense.

Hemocyanin’s other properties don’t automatically give them a longer life, in fact theirs is very short compared to other species, but it does make them resistant to cancers (a common threat on their sunny planet) and the spread of diseases in their dense communities

Being cold-blooded wasn’t a problem on their mostly tropical planet. It is a considerable problem once they left it, though, hence the heating pads most wear to warm up.

many also live in areas without a large body of water nearby (or an easy way to access said body of water) but still need to stay damp to maintain their music layer and trap oxygen, so many also carry spray bottles or wet rags with them to always stay damp.

Kixeli are highly social (with their name even roughly translating to "belonging together"). they rarely live in groups of less than 5.

They experience severe negative side effects from isolation. Their naturally intense empathy also makes it extremely damaging for them to see other Kixeli injured or dead, sometimes leading to their own death from shock if they were the one that did it (though this has not stopped wars over their scarce resources in the past, typically because that intense sense of kinship was naturally strongest towards those among their own community, and if Their community was suffering then they had to get rid of the source of it by any means. )

This period nearly drove them to extinction, and led to a Global Community movement that argued for intercommunity cooperation and the end of 'us and them thinking'.

Due to their sliminess, Kixeli normally keep clothing to a minimum and overall don’t have a need for it beyond temperature control and ornamentation.

They have none of their own social taboos about nakedness, having no external genitalia, but still often clothe themselves to the standards of others due to the pressure/need to be polite from other species.

They also have few class divides within their own communities, with everyone working for the good of the whole, and no sex/gender roles beyond squirter and egg layer since everyone cares for the eggs.

To humans, their language sounds like birdsong, with lots of repetitive noises and subtle shifts in pattern and tone.

Their unique vocalization makes their languages hard to learn and even harder to speak, but they themselves are incredible mimics (only surpassed in some ways by humans because lips and teeth).

The fin on their forehead is similar to eyebrows in communicating emotion or tone. They can see a similar color spectrum to humans and love bright contrasting colors similar to their own skin patterns.

They favor “fast food”, or anything that can be carried easily as you swing around in a tree or on a boat.

Payment/restaurants doesn’t really exist for them, they just have areas where food brought in by providers is available to the community (or people just eat what they catch and then bring extra to the community.)

They also don’t chew their food, though some dishes are meant to be squished to the roof of the mouth with the tongue to experience the flavor

Their clothing is often “readable” in that many individuals wear clothing that represents a certain story, event in their life, event in their community, or mythical hero that can be derived from looking at their clothing from the head down.

In the two guys up there, the Arasit is wearing the equivalent of booty shorts cut scantily close to their Hole depicting one version about the founding of the first community (though a simplified one, so it’s actually more like the equivalent of wearing a crop top tee with a little monochrome dog on it or something).

This kind of imagery is common among Arasit, even modern ones, because founding/birth/life are their associations in religious cultures.

The Kel alongside them is wearing a more complex getup meant to show the inciting incident of one of the nomadic communities mythic hero’s journey, when he was cast from the star sea by the wicked Long Arms into the deep sea.

This would be seen as all most goth since this part of the story is seen as eerie and it depicts their underworld along the hem and bracelets.

By wearing clothing associated with a specific figure//story, they can also show gender identity based on whether that figure or hod was male, female, neuther, etc(helping people draw the right conclusions despite the visible evidence of their sex written on all their skin. The clothing and any makeup done on the fin is usually their main reference point for judging how to address someone. )