#SQUID HAVE TENTACLES OCTOPODES HAVE ARMS

[sauriansolutions]

Kinda re: my last post... *sheepish grin* SO UHH. I like lots of different ships, for various characters.

Twst does such a good job of worldbuilding, and making every character so well developed, any and all character interactions end up interesting!

*sheepish grin intensifies*

Re: my last post, though... imagine Azul using all 10 of his arms to force a sick, grumpy Jamil into bed.

Simultaneously holding him down, feeding him soup, and reading him a bedtime story. While Jamil flails uselessly and tries to scream invective... but there's an octopus arm covering his mouth.

🐙❤🐍

[keiyaku-tako]

Aside from the obvious, what are some other diferences between octopi and octomers?

Well... I am not certain what you would call "obvious," so I'll start with the basics.

Firstly, octopuses are animals while octomers are, roughly speaking, half-human and half-octopus. My lower body, for example, has eight appendages (arms) that have suction cups for the entire length - similar to that of an octopus. They are not tentacles, as some people have mistaken. Tentacles only have suction cups near the end of the limb. Squid and cuttlefish, for example, have tentacles (but they also have arms).

There is also ink. While octopuses in the wild usually use it as a defense mechanism, I use it most often to write my contracts or spells quickly. It can be easier than grabbing a pen in some instances, since I'm used to it most.

I also have venom, like many octopuses, but it causes little harm to regular humans. However, with a high enough concentration, I am certain that it will be able to at least cause a person to pass out for a couple hours.

I do not have camouflaging abilities; if I did, I would be able to hear more secrets - er, be able to help others in a more efficient manner.

I cannot think of any more at the moment, but feel free to ask for more if you would like it. I'm sure I can remember a couple more for you.

Also, if I may add; 'octopi' is not the correct term, and 'octopuses' is, grammatically speaking. Octopi comes from a belief that Latin words should be pluralized with Latin endings and that words that end in 'us' should be pluralized with an 'i' (such as fungi). However, the word 'octopus' is a Latinized form of the word from Greek (októpus).

And before you ask about octopodes, let me say that although people may say that this is correct due to the origin from Greek, it is the least-used incorrect form. So it will cause more confusion in the end. (And in addition, it is rarely used outside of the octopuses vs octopi debate.)

So, that leaves octopuses as the correct term as it was adopted into the English language and should therefore be given an English ending. In addition, it is also the more common pluralization. However, octopi is accepted in most areas so it shouldn't really matter... But still, I wanted to inform you in case you have any misconceptions.

[catgirltoofies]

Octopodes have no tentacles, instead having only arms, which means Squidward tentacles' has no tentacles

squidward is a squid, not an octopus

[octofurvus]

I'm genuinely the worst person to tell a joke to because I WILL 'well actually...' you without meaning to.

Ex: How many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles (tentacles)!

My gut response is to go "Actually, octopodes don't have tentacles, they have arms. It would be more accurate to make that joke about a squid instead, as they DO have tentacles!"

And then I get beat up on the playground.

[surveykilop]

Inkling books

He also speaks highly of his family who themselves have written books. He is probably the oldest Octonaut, judging by the monocle and his collection of old books. He too appears to live and sleep where he works, which is the Octopod's library. Just like Tweak, the Vegimals, and Shellington who all seem to sleep where they work, it's believed that the same can be said for Inkling. Inkling is almost always in his 3 chairs: his small chair in the HQ, his large barrel in the launch bay, and his chair in his library. He admits being able to squirt ink for protection and has little suckers on his arms for him to move and climb. But, like Captain Barnacles, he also possesses certain attributes pertaining to his species. He is capable of breathing in and out of the water. Unlike the other Octonauts, Professor Inkling (along with the Vegimals) is an amphibious creature and does not need a helmet or air tank. He claimed to be an expert at tentacle wrestling. However, Professor Inkling showed his physical prowess when connected to the Octopod to combat The Colossal Squid. Instead, he prefers to help the team from his library in the Octopod. He rarely ever goes out on missions, but he has gone on a few, such as in The Giant Squid, The Great Christmas Rescue, and The Gulper Eels. Aside from being their founder, Inkling is also their oceanography professor. Inkling founded the Octonauts to promote marine research and preservation. He is an Octopus and has a deep understanding of marine life. Professor Inkling is the venerable founder of the Octonauts.

[lurking-latinist]

@human-nxture requested accidental baby acquisition with Six and any companion! (I couldn’t tell if you meant shippy or gen, so I went with gen but not not shippy.) Thanks for the prompt!

Below the cut: Six and Peri and accidental baby acquisition!

(It’ll go on AO3 tomorrow when I’ve thought of a title and have the brain to do tagging and such.)

She'd left the Doctor alone for half an hour, Peri thought, while she bought a new notebook. Half an hour by her well-maintained Earth watch, and a totally unexceptionable errand. Was it too much to ask that he avoid finding new and inventive kinds of trouble for just half an hour?

Apparently so. Because he was sitting on the steps of the forum hall, apparently cheerfully unaware of the crowd of diverse alien travellers and shoppers parting around him and nearly stepping on him, with what looked like a bag cradled in his arms.

She decided to walk up behind him and see if he noticed.

"Don't you worry, my love," she heard him cooing.

To the bag.

All right, then.

"Mummy will be back very soon, you'll see," he went on. He offered one hand to the bag, and a small purple tentacle reached up from it, curling around his finger. It wasn't a bag at all, she realized--it was a baby carrier, for... squid babies? Octopus, octopi, octopodes? Who could say.

She tapped the Doctor on the shoulder, and he jumped and turned his head, still cradling the baby squid (if it was a squid). Standing several steps above him, while he was sitting down, she felt she very definitely held the high ground for once, and she intended to use it. "Mind explaining?" she said.

"Ah!" said the Doctor. He looked slightly guilty, which was in some ways more worrying than if he had looked altogether guilty. "Well, you see, there was this lovely Askelcha woman..."

"That would be a squid person?" prompted Peri.

"They're not squid people, Peri, that's very offensive, they're--and anyway would you not interrupt me?"

"Sorry. There was this Asquelcher woman..."

"Askelcha," said the Doctor. "She had some legal business to do in the forum and she asked me to look after her larva while she does it. She said it would only take a few minutes."

Peri crossed her arms. "And she made big sad eyes at you and you said of course you would do it." On second thoughts, maybe it wasn't the best idea to make the Doctor aware that this always worked on him. She found it quite useful herself.

She sat down next to the Doctor, bending over to see the larva. It reached another tentacle out from its water-filled cradle, and she couldn't help meeting the tentacle with her finger. It was surprisingly soft, although it tickled slightly as it wound around her finger.

"Did she say the baby's name?" she asked.

"No," said the Doctor, "she seemed to be in quite a hurry."

Peri paused and remembered something she'd seen on the news while shopping. "Is there any chance," she asked, "that the woman you talked to was the notorious con artist Nasker Loosh? Tall, sort of purple and blue with tentacles and one big eye?"

"Sounds like her, but I wouldn't know. Why do you ask?" said the Doctor.

"Because she was sentenced to five years in prison about ten minutes ago in the forum," said Peri. "Looks like her 'legal business' didn't go so well."

The Doctor met her eyes with an expression of dismay.

"We might be babysitting for slightly longer than we anticipated," she said.

"Oh well," said the Doctor, happy again in his mercurial way. "At least the baby likes me. Don't you, my darling?" he asked the larva, and Peri sighed deeply. But she couldn't help smiling as well.

[kaygee-doodles]

Dark Waters (formerly titled ‘Nautilus’)

Sequel to this: Part 1

So my plan is to get out chapter one in its’ various parts on tumblr, then move it all over onto AO3.

For more information about the Spooky Water Skull, go check out @uhhbananafrappe, there is an entire cast list of creatures to love on.

It looked up at you with one bright red eye, the pupil shaped like the typical fat barbell most cephalopods sported. It was assessing you, watching you squirm in it's grip.

You couldn't fight it off, but maybe if you proved too much trouble to eat? Surely a human would be too small, not worth a big fight. There was a large gap, a large bashed out area taken out of its' head you could go for, but you didn't really want to get that close to those teeth, bared in a frozen smile up at you. Assuming it ate from it's head. It might have a beak under all those arms and the head was a decoy. You didn't think so though, not the way it's skull-like face shifted as it watched you...and it wasn't worth the danger. This sea-monster was built sturdy, no doubt to weather the deep sea pressure it had come from. It's top half had a thick, boned appearance, like a human skeleton only moreso. Less gaps along what you could only call the ulna and radius, it's ribs wider and flatter, clustered closer together, and an oddly plated skull. The bottom half was...well, one time an octopus had felt threatened by your presence and grabbed on to your leg. That had been enough trouble. The arms and tentacles looked similar, a tough leathery exterior covering pure muscle, and, typical of squid, the tentacles were armed with hooks, only these were the size of your pinky finger. Or more. This thing was a tank. You had your diving knife, but it was designed for netting, or banging against air tanks to make noise, a whole three inches of fairly benign stabbing power.

Actually.

You did have something bigger. And it had already proven capable of cutting through both your dive suit and your own flesh. Still sharp and serrated after millions of years.

You ripped open the bag on your hip, the velcro sounding horrible underwater.

This was either going to make it angry and ensure your death, or convince it you weren't worth the trouble and save your life.

You...you dropped it. In your stupid, panicked fumbling, the megalodon tooth slipped right out of your shaking fingers. Your stomach dropped as quickly as the fossil did. Tears stung your eyes as one of the sea-monsters' arms, the humanoid ones, caught your prize, your last hope, turning it over in it's fingers curiously.

Your previous scream had dislodged your regulator, and you swallowed a mouthful of salty, disgusting sea water as your body instinctively tried for more air as you twisted and tried to pull away, a last ditch effort for survival.

“Ble-hurk?”

You jolted in surprise as the back of your head was grabbed with a long, dexterous octo-arm, cradling you still, sans-suckers, and your regulator was shoved unceremoniously into your mouth in one quick movement. You swallowed one last dredge of water with a shudder before sucking in a lungful of sweet, sweet oxygen. Dazed, confused, and now shaking from an adrenaline rush, you watched as color bloomed below you.

The dark purple that had allowed this deep-sea dweller to hide to thoroughly was shifting, rosettes of orange blossoming across it's octopodic half.

You don't really know what that means. There wasn't any point in trying to hide at this point, so it wasn't camouflage. Pale colors signaled a retreat. Dark colors were for intimidation. 'Neon Orange' was not really anything you had seen or studied, since before this you were honestly more interested in sharks.

Around you, the water moved. You were either pulled down, or the sea creature moved up, it was hard to tell but it ended with two hard, boned hands gripped at your waist either way. You jerked, a reflexive reaction to an obvious predator coming so close, so fast. You didn't exactly get very far, and

the half-kracken, half...skeleton? had the gall to look annoyed. You were pretty sure that style of eye roll was universal. A third hand grabbed at your leg, disrupting the foggy cloud of red that was your blood. That was...a lot of blood.

The lone red eyelight flicked from your face, mostly obscured by goggles and breathing apparatus, to your leg, cut and bloody with a skinned foot and stinging like a bitch.

In his fourth hand, he rolled your impromptu weapon around in his oddly sectioned palm, your removed flippers' strap looped around his pinkie.

You almost wished it would just..do whatever it had planned. You were so scared, so stupidly, stupidly hurt, and now...so tired. You were going to bleed to death. You were going to run out of oxygen. You didn't...you didn't want to die.

Please, you pleaded silently to the behemoth, please just let me go. I'll volunteer on ocean clean ups, I'll never go in the water again, I'll bring you a big ass tuna from the market, whatever!

The sea monster, as it turned out, was not psychic, as you were not let go.

Instead, it's colors shifted abruptly, chromatophores flaring into a dark, greyish purple as it shifted its' grip.

The world lurched, spinning dizzily as you instinctively braced for some kind impact, hands colliding with something warm and hard, textured like tumbled stone as your diving computer gave a warning beep. Even with your eyes closed, you could tell the waters were getting deeper, colder, as you were dragged down into the dark waters.

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I A VENOMOUS INTERLUDE

Did y'all know symbrock is canon? Well, now you do. Reader's favourite deadbeat surrogate uncle is in town and he brought a... Friend. No warnings, just a boatload of crack and fluff, as usual. Reader being mouthy. Takes place a little bit into the future - around after chapter 32: spoiler alert is useless because we already know a tonybrucestrange/reader quartet is the endgame. 💖💝✨

"What," I had to pause for a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes. "The fuck?!"

It was truly a miracle I could say anything out loud, at all. Words weren't valid enough to describe my shock and confusion. The scene unfolding in front of me resembled and unholy cross between a B-rated horror movies about demonic possession and some deep-sea Eldritch monstrosity.

The eight-feet tall black, oozing dude in front of me? Yes, you, with the teeth. Ctulhu called, he wants his tentacles back.

The creature honest to god rippled, like some nightmare-fuel goth Jell-O, rapidly shrinking in size within seconds. As more of the black tar-like substance receded, a much more human form started to appear under it. Worn jeans, leather jacket, ungroomed beard and the look of a biker gang member coming off a serious bender.

"Uh, Princess?"

"Eddie. Fucking. Brock. Uncle Idiot." I punctuated each word with an increasing widening of my eyes. The world was fucking nuts. Two and two did not compute - Eddie might have looked threatening to some people - like white suburban Karens - even without the... Gooey squid-on-steroids thing he had going on. The man was built like a fucking brick shithouse, but I knew him way too well. Eddie couldn't be that badass to save a life.

"You two know each other?" Tony shrieked indignantly, a coarseness in his voice that indicated only one thing: my boo was well into his third drink. Hell, I didn't blame him - that gaping toothy maw was fucking gnarly.

Hands on my hips, I caught myself slipping into a mute rage, storming over to the 200lbs worth of pure dumbass and knocking him right in the face. "You! Didn't tell! ME!" A black tendril wrapped around my wrist, carefully but firmly securing it and preventing me from causing my non-related uncle any more physical damage. Although I must admit, my knuckles probably were more affected than his jaw. "You! Are! A MUTANT!!! HOW COULD YOU?! How could you NOT tell ME?"

I trusted the man with my soul and most embarrassing drinking stories. Hell, I called Eddie in a stoned haze the very same night I lost my v-card. I just thought we were bros, you know? I saw his whole fucking life implode more than once and personally flew to California to ice his injuries and his hurt ego countless times. I was done dirty in the worst way.

"I'm not-" Eddie's sigh was long-suffering. "I, uh, I have a parasite..." He sounded meek, in the same way he used to describe his drunkenly misconduct when I made our family driver bail out his ass outta jail in the morning.

"TAKE THAT BACK!" A deep gravelly voice thundered, seemingly coming out of his chest?

"Okay, okay," Eddie smiled. It was strangely soft and un-eddie-like. The only person he smiled like that was... used to be Anne. "This is Venom. They're an alien and we're, uh, a thing. It's a recent development." The tentacle unwrapped itself from me as I took an involuntary step back.

Even barring the fact that Eddie was dating an alien, this was way too fucking weird for 3 o'clock on a Sunday. I always knew the reporter was, for the lack of a better word, a little weird but he really took it to new heights. With Thor and Loki looking... Like that, I could see a human dating some sort of a hot alien. But with Ctulhu looking the way he did just minutes ago? Did Eddie seriously let all of those teeth in close proximity of his dick?

I had a "ERROR 404, common sense not found" hanging over me for the longest time. The others were quiet behind me, too, even Tony - one of my boyfriends, the most likely to cause utter chaos, was hanging back and expecting me to do something.

"Venom," I clarified, just to fill the silence with some noise while my brain processors re-synced.

"WE ARE VENOM." The tentacle that was sleek and black now had two completely white eyes and a smaller-scale version of the toothy grin that had drooled all over the common room carpet. Their voice had an interesting effect: it was so deep, the air around them vibrated slightly when they spoke.

I tilted my head examining the appendage. It was considerably less terrifying when it wasn't five times my size. "What are you?" And most importantly, are you a threat to my favourite non-related family member? I left that statement unspoken although it was obvious I was ready to fight it? Them? If need be.

"A SYMBIOTE," They replied, swaying the head-tentacle slowly. "WE LOVE EDDIE AND KEEP HIM ALIVE AND HEALTHY." So, they understood the actual question.

"Which is fucked up because Klyntar usually behave in the opposite way." Hearing Thor swear was, perhaps, even more unsettling than finding out about the symbiote-alien-boyfriend thing my uncle had going on. The thunderer himself was nursing a jug of golden liquid. The good Asgardian stuff, he must've been really fucking bamboozled.

"Okay. So anybody wanna fill me on the details before I beat up my favourite idiot?" I sighed, pointedly looking at Tony.

"I thought I was your favourite idiot!" He immediately retorted, hurt, but nonetheless opened his arms to give me a grounding embrace. We may have sucked face for a few seconds, because why the hell not, Tony was an amazing kisser and his tongue down my throat was very calming.

"Hold up, what the fuck?" Now it was Eddie's turn to act all offended. "Aren't you a little too young for him?"

"You and your most likely carnivorous goth space pudding can fuck right off if you're not going to be supportive of my very inappropriate, very polyamorous relationship with three incredibly hot boomers," I shot back, slipping into some resemblance of normalcy. Me and Eddie go way, way back and shitting on each other's bad life decisions was the founding stone of our bromance. Hell, he was the guy who showed me the wonders of sarcasm at an early age! Wonderbaum!

"There's three of them?" Eddie's voice pitched and he gaped, palming his face.

"SHE HAS A POINT, EDDIE. WE EAT PEOPLE. BEING UNSUPPORTIVE WOULD MAKE US LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE." Eddie's buddy stated, sounding almost fed up. So, they were sentient enough to recognize how much of a pain in the ass Eddie could be. I could work with that, disregarding the cannibalism comment, of course. What the fuck was up with that?

"Yes, Eddie, I also periodically bump uglies and trade disgustingly sweet text messages with the Hulk and a badass wizard," I rolled my eyes at the reporter's following gasp and angry muttering. "Venom, I like you."

"WE RETURN THE SENTIMENT. YOUR CHOICE IN MATES IS VERY WISE, CONSIDERING YOU ARE A WEAK MORSEL. THEY CAN PROTECT YOU."

"Shut up, Squid. I'll still kick your motherfucking ass if you hurt Eddie."

The emo space goo laughed, a terse scratching noise, showing way, way too many teeth for me to feel comfortable but I allowed myself to be placed on the couch between Tony and Eddie nonetheless. The initial shock of seeing a talking octopod with fangs passed quickly - I've seen Stephen's "trophies" he brought from his otherworldly journeys and Lovecraftian horrors were, honestly, pretty low on the gross/creepy scale.

"Both of you, explain. For the love of fuck," Tony sighed, emotionally exhausted and drained of his usual bravado.

"Eddie was my dad's friend until he moved to Cali, I've know him for fifteen years, give or take. He taught me how to ride a bike and bake the best pot brownies," I shrugged. There wasn't much to say. "I visited him whenever I could but you know, with school and then you guys, there wasn't that much time to iron out the details." I have Eddie a death glare, pointing to Venom's floaty head with my eyes.

Eddie nodded. "What she said..." And then launched an elaborate tale about some company called Life Foundation, some evil dude named Drake and his own alien pudding named Carnage, who was one ugly motherfucker judging by Eddie's and Venom's combined "ew" face, their aching need for human brains to survive and other, more trivial things, like mental breakdowns in a lobster tank and getting dumped by a fiancé and eating their way through a HYDRA base after being captured and tortured. What a wild fucking ride.

"Sounds like you had a rough year," Everybody's dumbfounded silence was ended by Tony who took a slow swig of his whiskey before speaking.

"Yeah, no shit," Eddie muttered, twisting his black coated fingers in elaborate but frankly pretty shapes. His alien wrapped around his neck like a tube scarf and additional tentacles appeared between Eddie's hands, gently prying them open and enveloping them in a sort of a hug? It was hard to compute, the black mass appeared to be totally amorphous.

"How's your anxiety?" I asked, damn well knowing Eddie's mind tended to run like Tony's: zero to sixty in point five with no clear destination. Having an alien inside of him must've really thrown Eddie for a loop.

"It's, uh, better. Venom helps," The reporter admitted, still staring at his hands but the crease between his brows had disappeared and the expression he wore was kind of fond.

"Good. You know, Venom," I thoughtfully addressed the definitely sentient creature. "Eddie is a bigger dumbass than me, which is saying something. You ought to keep a really close eye on him. If not for me, he'd probably be dead from alcohol poisoning, like, years ago."

"WE ARE AWARE. WE CAN ACCESS EDDIE'S MEMORIES." A head manifested itself on a thicker tentacle, floating over to look me in the face but maintaining a respectful distance and staying out of my personal space bubble. "AND WE ARE THANKFUL. EDDIE IS THE PERFECT HOST. WE LOVE EDDIE."

I felt the corner of my mouth tilt upwards at the alien's proclamation. It was child-like in its blunt honesty but carried a certain weight with it. It told me whoever tries to separate those two in any way would get eaten faster than they could say "SIKE!". And honestly? I would help Venom hide the evidence.

"I literally had you for thirty minutes but I would kill everybody and then myself if you two got hurt. This is too soft, I can't." I snorted, extending a curious hand towards Venom. They looked so shiny. I had to touch them.

And they let me. Venom butted their head into my palm and let me gently run my fingers over their slightly cool, slippery flesh. It felt like putting my hands on a surprisingly sturdy yet bouncy piece of flubber. I purposely avoided the small maw and the endless rows of sharp teeth but managed to accidentally brush against something rough and scratchy - as it turned out, the Symbiote had a very long, very dexterous tongue. And didn't that give me a bunch of interesting mental images.

"Oh my God, NO!" Wanda moaned from somewhere, the voice mortified and disgusted.

"Why are you touching the people-eating alien?" Bruce yelped, entering the room with several people in tow. The scientist looked worried, a little bit green around the edges. The tablet in his hands beeped periodically, signifying the ongoing sciencing bender he was in process of.

"WE WOULD NOT EAT THIS HUMAN. WE ARE FOND OF THE MORSEL." Venom defended, well, venomously. Eddie wisely choose to stay silent, trading a knowing look with Tony.

Stephen Strange sighed, briefly closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with a jagged movement. "One day, Princess, one day you will stop collecting people that are obviously bad for your health and your future. That, or space in the tower will simply run out." With a deeper, calmer sigh, the sorcerer landed in front of me on the floor, sitting cross-legged and subtly begging for a head scratch. Which meant just placing his always neatly trimmed curls under my free hand. His jealousy was about as subtle as a foot in the face.

"I'll just ask Tony to build more floors, duh," I rolled my eyes with force at the obvious solution, giving into Steph's demands, beginning to card through his hair. It was calming both of us, really.

Bruce came over to give me a kiss and my other boyfriends didn't even grumble about the scientist placing himself in my lap, crawling over both Tony and Stephen to get comfortable.

Our dynamic was unconventional and more than a little weird, but it worked for us and the rest of the team most certainly didn't complain about the vast decrease in conflict that came with the territory. Come to think of it, all of us were more tactile than just a group of friends sharing a house and I was very much on board with that. None of us except select few (looking at you, mister doctor) were hugged enough as children and we were making up for it in spades right fucking now.

"Girl has a type," Wanda remarked, like the messy little shit she was. I stuck out my tongue in retaliation.

The Avengers' brain trust began talking about Venom's slightly inconvenient diet that directly resulted in multiple felonies for one Edward Brock, and as much as I tried to follow the flow and make my own, however feeble, contributions to the scientific side of the conversation, the new life form was much more interesting. I asked Venom several questions and they deemed them acceptable enough to answer - which evolved on both of us absolutely geeking out over the differences in our physiology. The space pudding didn't hold back one bit, insulting the inferior human biology with gleeful gusto.

"They need a chemical called phenethylamine," Bruce sighed, having deduced it through discussion since Venom and Eddie both protested aggressively against any kind of invasive testing. "I can synthesize it. No more head-chomping, no more murder."

It made perfect sense. Except it didn't. "Brucie-bear, you're a brilliant fucking scientist but a shit psychologist." I interrupted whatever came next. "Venom is a person, like me and you and, yes, even Hulk. Tell me this: if you found a way to get rid of Hulk, would you stop sciencing in the gamma radiation field?" I looked my boyfriend straight in the eyes, hoping for a spark of common sense. "Do you see my point? You science, Tony engineers, Steve draws and Clint bakes. Venom hunts. It's who they are, you can't give them a pill to make it go away."

The weight of my word landed in the room like lead, heavy. The only source of sound was the TV, playing the news quietly in the background for the longest time. Those few minutes felt like hours until Thor expectantly turned towards Eddie/Venom.

"IT IS SO. WE ARE AFRAID WE CANNOT INFLUENCE OUR INSTINCT TO HUNT PREY. KLYNTAR ARE APEX PREDATORS." The little black goop sounded almost apologetic. It was hard to hear undertones with their voice being so deep and grating. "BUT WE CAN TRY." Okay, I could totally hear the hope. Finding out the Eldritch horror could make puppy eyes was... Terrifying, to be honest, because they fucking worked.

"Got any better ideas?" Tony asked me sarcastically.

"I do, actually." I leveled a look with Natasha. She understood. "HYDRA goons. The aliens that, for some reason, keep invading New York every month or so. Stephen's adventures in Hell. Do I need to continue?"

"Wait, hold on," Steve raised his palms. "We don't kill HYDRA, we deposit them in SHIELD custody."

I snorted at the naïve Captain. "And what do you think happens to them there? Did you honestly think they just let torturing, murdering, world-domination planning psychos back on the streets?"

Steve frowned in confusion. "They go to prison?"

Natasha choose that moment to step up. "It's not uncommon for them to possess certain enhancements to be deemed too dangerous to be released back into society. Some of them are low-tier mutants and inhumans. Trust me, Steve, the lethal injection is a much more humane treatment than solitary life imprisonment in a ultra-high security prison." Romanoff stated with a trace of compassion. "And some mutants, we can't contain for prolonged periods of time." She added quietly, looking away.

Rogers was staring blankly into the wall, mulling over the information in his head. His intensive thought process was plainly visible on his face. I heard about some kind of fiasco with HYDRA agents suicide-bombing a city in Europe few years ago and Steve was there, along with Wanda and Sam.

"Venom is a whole person, and even if they look like they could be the main character in Call of Ctulhu video game, we can't just disregard them like they are some kind of badly behaving pet. They're my honorary uncle's boyf-sorry-significant other, for fuck's sake," I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. "Y'all should know I don't fuck with people who give shit to one of my own. Don't disappoint me like that." I finished, feeling more tired than I had in months. I didn't regret giving into the found family dynamic, however I didn't exactly sign up for hard choices like them vs my long lost uncle, y'know?

Great, now I had a headache and three very concerned boyfriends glaring at me for unknown reasons. The urge to pace always manifested strongly within me as the emotional atmosphere rose in the room. With Bruce dangling off my lap, I couldn't do even that and I felt the restlessness blossom into irritation more and more with each passing second of my existence.

Eddie remained silent, looking down. Venom had mostly receded into the reporter's body, save for a few tentacles tightly wrapped around Eddie's palm.

"Alright," Steve suddenly said. "We can work with that."

"Princess, you look like you're either going to cry or yell any second," Bruce said softly, squeezing my shoulder and pulling me closer.

I immediately hid my face in his chest, taking several deep, shaky breaths. "Eddie is family. Y'all are family. It's terrifying to have to choose between the two." I said, after a brief moment of hesitation.

The reporter made some sort of a choked gasp, quickly masking it with a cough - I knew him way too well to miss the way he was fighting back tears of his own. Bruce understood, he really did understand me - hopped off my lap and let me hug Eddie properly, my happy-sad tears soaking through the collar of his tee.

"You're, uh, welcome to stay. I'll have a guest room prepared." Tony cleared his throat, passing his half-finished glass to Stephen who swallowed the liquid in one gulp. My boyfriends were so fucking emotionally illiterate. Disaster humans.

Huh, I really did have a type.

Later that night, I made the mistake of barging into Eddie's room with a bottle of really fancy whiskey I liberated from Tony's overstocked liquor cabinet. Visiting my uncle and boozing and smoking on the balcony, for old times sake, was my plan and...

I failed the mission successfully.

I didn't bother knocking. As soon as I saw a pair of bare feet, my eyes traveled further up on the couch on their own volition. There were so many tentacles, a writhing, oozing silky black mass and Eddie was making sounds, unmistakable noises-

"UNSEE. UNSEE. OH MY GOD, UNSEE, UNSEE." I stumbled back into the common room shivering.

"What happened, is everything okay?" Bucky stood up as soon as he saw me enter the doorway with my face scrunched in a grimace of regret. I felt like I've gone through the five stages of grief in the shortest time possible for a human being.

Somwhere, I heard Wanda's sudden moan full of pain and misery. "Please, stop THINKING about it!"

"Brain bleach, oh my God," I cringed. "Where's the Clorox?! I have decided I don't need my eyeballs-"

"Oooh," Tony's proverbial lightbulb lit up. The engineer sounded like he was about five seconds away from building a space ship and permanently moving to another planet. "They're together-together..." Tony intercepted me nonetheless, doing the most effective thing to make me stop speaking and thinking bullshit. He kissed me. With lots of tongue.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95

[a-table-of-fics]

Cull to Adventure, Chapter 5, Draft 1

[[As Tumblr increased the size limits for posts, I can finally put this chapter draft all together.]]

Marie was already in a sour mood, having woken up far earlier than preferred. But it got worse as she realized she might as well have slept in; hardly anyone was around today. The heat wave, combined with the fact that all games were postponed until the respawn points have power again, meant that no one was around. Marie knew she couldn’t move too far from where the Outpost was without drawing unwanted attention, but it was a bit demoralizing. She was glad she had the parasol for the scant shade it provided in the midday sun, but she still tugged at her kimono every so often.

Well, if she wanted to find her cousin and the stolen Zapfish, she would have to do it herself. She didn’t want a second celebrity disappearance to cause more chaos, but she didn’t have much choice. Agent 2 would have to complete the rescue mission alone.

As she looked in the Outpost for her Charger, she debated whether Gramps should be alerted at this point. She decided against it, still; he was probably stressed enough about his mission with Agent 3, and she didn’t want him throwing himself in danger trying to find Callie. That was her job, darn it!

She opened a drawer and found her charger waiting, but…where was her uniform? The armored hoodie, the short, the boots, even the headset were all missing. She rustled around; maybe a bit of disorganized Callie rubbed off on her…but no, they were gone! Someone was in here! They took the Splattershot and one of the Ink Tanks, too!

A flash of panic came over Marie; someone had come in, and the outpost was breached! But… wait, why wasn’t her charger taken? Or any other supplies? Just the Agent getup and weapons—Oh.

Oh no.

She ran out of the shack, stumbling over her kimono a few times as she went for the manhole to Inkopolis. She had to get to Ammo Knights, and fast. It was lucky there wasn’t really anyone in the Square; while Marie took care to make sure she wasn’t immediately recognized by the adoring public, she didn’t care as much in the rush she was in.

The doors to the Ammo Knights store burst open the moment she unlocked them. Sheldon barely had time to look up in shock before the idol was in the back, frantically booting the computer up. Several monitors came up, each showing different angles of a new part of Octarian territory. None of the cameras could see anything, but when Marie put the headset on and heard panting and slight whimpering, her suspicions were confirmed.

Cull had gone into Octo Canyon alone.

Marie took a deep breath, turned the mic on, and coughed politely.

“Eh—” started Cull’s yelp, before he remembered where he was and clammed up.

“Oh good, you remembered the headset,” Marie said, keeping her voice level. “Okay, I think we can get you through this, but… I’m not sure where you are…”

“C-came in a-and made it to ch-checkpoint…”

Marie checked. The simulated sunny beach area in Octopolia did have a trail of green, including some inflated sponges. And it led right to a smaller respawner, directly in front of a massive road of pink ink. From where the camera was situated, Marie could see a Balloon Fish, but there were a few things behind it that were too blurry to see.

“They got some- some kinda robot b-bombs!”

“Octopods?” Marie asked. “Shouldn’t be a big deal, right? They just run at you.”

“…B-but that one at the start was so fast…C-can I really take more than one in a f-fight…?”

Marie leaned back in her chair, noting where the blurs were.

“You don’t have to, ex-Agent 4! If you can take that Balloon Fish, the Octopods should all pop with it!”

“B-but if I go up there, w-won’t they pop it and…?”

“Nah, they’ll run up to try to blast you. The Balloon Fish’ll be fine!”

Bad time for a joke, Marie realized, as she saw something shake in the respawner.

“Look, look,” she said, frantically trying to clear Cull’s head of some of the anxiety. “All you gotta do is keep your distance! Pop that balloon before the Octopods get to you.”

Cull finally surfaced, out of the respawner, and swallowed. He looked at the expanse of Octarian pink before him; it was going to take a lot of ink to even get to the Octo-bombs. He started firing, and Marie saw that his attention was divided between his path-making and the upcoming encounter.

“Hey, eyes on the prize, kid, not the road!”

Well, now the kid’s movement was slower, but at least he seemed more alert.

A thought came to Marie.

“…Ignore that when you start driving, ok?”

The Octopods started to rush in, but it was too late. Cull had already hit the Balloon Fish, taking the bombs and their weird red balloons with them. Octarians had the strangest ways of holding Power Eggs.

“Nice.”

That just left a layout of crates in a flattened “u” shape against the wall, a wall which had two Balloon Fish attached to it. As Cull looked up and around, Marie took a moment to swap through the cameras, finding a launchpad at the top, and the next camera showed a checkpoint. Thankfully, nothing between there and their current position Cull would have to worry about.

“All right, so just pop those balloons and swim up there. Nothing to worry about.”

Cull looked, hesitantly, but nodded. The Balloon Fish made short work of those boxes and covered the wall in green. But… he hesitated, rubbing the back of his head. Marie could hear sheepish mutters of “uh” and “oh boy” over her headset. She was about to ask what the holdup was, maybe throw in a joke about enjoying his handiwork, but all that came out was “wh” before she realized the problem – he was a slow swimmer when it wasn’t a vertical slope.

And she had seen the kid climb, too. This looked like a tougher thing to scale, sure, but his grip back then was impressive, and she was sure he could have figured something out. At the very least, it would probably be better than him struggling to swim up like he would have to now.

“Okay kid,” she said, attempting to hide her haste in correcting this, “I don’t usually recommend this, but you might want to try a running jump here.”

“O-okay…”

Marie watched as the ex-Agent stepped back, steeled himself, and sprinted to the wall. He jumped, and Marie thought he was going to slam into the wall, his squidforming was so close. However, it wasn’t close enough to conceal the fact his tentacles were… well, half-gone. He disappeared in the ink in a flash, but Marie could still tell, especially as he splashed and struggled to get the vertical movement.

Marie couldn’t do much more than watch; explaining how to swim to a fellow Inkling would just be dumb, and she wasn’t good at motivational platitudes. Still, she could try to encourage.

“Almost halfway there. Just keep breathing.”

“Just got past the second Balloon Fish; you’re almost there!”

Cull finally slipped over the edge onto wooden floor again. He couldn’t even kidform, and Marie could hear him panting and fully view his squid form.

His fins were much more disk-shaped than most, making his silhouette look less like an arrow and more like a mushroom with a point on top where his mantle ended. His skin had a spotted texture, as if someone had lightly sprayed him with darker green paint. More prominent, however, were his eight arms, all irregular stumps of what was expected, clearly from an injury long ago. His two tentacles, while about as long as most Inklings’, were notably thinner, and showed the same signs of being cut off at the end.

And Marie had sent him headfirst into danger. Worse yet, he refused to leave.

Cull wasn’t panting for too long; he soon kidformed, and was silent on his walk to the launchpad. Marie wasn’t sure what to say; she may like snarking, but humiliating someone was something else entirely.

A few quick key presses, and Marie could watch him land on the next section, where there didn’t seem to be much going on. There was a single sponge floating in the middle of a gap in the road, but not much else to see other than a few pillars. As Cull tentatively clambered down in case there was something, Marie switched to the next available camera. She could see Cull fill the sponge with ink to make a bridge in the distance, but more importantly, there were patrolling Octarians moving in a synchronous circle on some grates that were jutting out of one of the pillars.

“Octotroopers above you,” Marie called out, as Cull walked forward. She could see him step back onto the sponge, looking up and spotting the enemies. He tentatively moved forward, but never so much that he committed to a plan before stepping back. Thankfully, neither Octo seemed to have seen him, their gaze focused squarely on what was in front of them rather than what was below.

“C’mon,” Marie said, after about fifteen seconds of this, “You gotta do something if you wanna get outta here!”

“Uhm…”

“Oh for— just go! Take ‘em out and find a way up!”

Well, at least he was moving forward. The bad news was, the Octarians saw him, and began firing shots through the grate. At least the ex-Agent 4 was aware of this, and trying to zig-zag a little bit. He made it under the grate, with only a few spatters of pink on him for it. When he shot straight up and splatted one of the Octotroopers, however, his reflexive ducking was not enough to stop himself from being coated in green ink.

Despite herself, Marie had to stifle a snicker. Maybe it was just a needed release from stress, but there was something adorable about that pratfall. It reminded her of something that happened when she herself was younger, when she played one-on-one with Callie. The exact same thing happened to her, except she completely missed Callie…

“Y-you there?”

Marie took a breath, composing herself. Cull didn’t need the idea that she was laughing at him, nor did he need to hear her worrying about the other Squid Sister.

“Yeah, um… look for a way up the pillar. Looks like the grating goes to another floor… Just watch for that Octoslob and you’ll be fine…”

But Cull wasn’t looking up now. His attention was caught by something out of range of the cameras. He fired ink offscreen, slowly and carefully. Marie didn’t hear any return fire or Octarian shouts from his microphone, but all the same, this was concerning.

“Uh, I said ‘up’ the pillar…”

“Th-there was a lot of pink ink over here…J-just want to be sure…”

“I understand that,” Marie said, quietly kicking herself for not thinking of the possibility of an ambush, “but they’d have a hard time chasing you up. You might be better off—”

She heard the sound of wood breaking, and hoped to the Crane that Cull was alone; she’d be hard pressed to help him if she couldn’t see.

“Huh…Is that…?” he said, after a pregnant pause.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“N-nevermind, I must be mistaken…”

Marie heard some paper rustling, and then some grunting and splashing before Cull emerged from behind the pillar, now on the second floor. He took a few breaths, leaning against the column, before finally heading to the wall.

After making a break through a few more Octarians and some kind of wall-cleaning robot, he made it to a dead end. Behind a bunch of crates destroyed by a nearby Balloon Fish, there was nothing but a sheer drop to the facilities miles below. To his left, he could just see a large wooden wall, with the launchpad there. He groaned.

All Marie could say was “Sorry, kid, but you gotta make it through this.”

Cull stepped back to look, but he didn’t know if he could make another climb like that so soon. Instead, he looked to the re-inflated Balloon Fish, and then at the wall; not even at the launchpad!

Marie was at a loss for words when she saw the kid start clambering onto the enormous ink bomb, and rather quickly at that. Sure, Cull slipped once or twice, but he never once lost his grip. Within fifteen seconds, he was wobbling on top of it, looking almost like an eight-year-old bouncing on a waterbed. He sat down and started rocking, as if he was trying to get comfortable.

“Okay, look,” Marie finally said, “I get it may be tiring, but that’s no excuse for lazing around and…”

She stopped when he stood up, the Balloon Fish rolling back so far that Marie stood up, shocked at how far over the ledge Cull was. Cull, for his part, had an expression like he swallowed a sunfish whole, but kept his eyes to the wall he had to climb. He took one step forward, waiting for the Fish to roll enough…

And then he jumped. His hands reached out, and he was able to grab onto the ledge. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have been able to keep his grip, but it was dawning on Marie that he was a whip-lash squid.

He hoisted himself up, finding another piece of Sardinium, then looked over the edge to see about that launchpad. It was a simple swing down, and Cull was on his rapid way to the next area.

Marie was there to witness each remaining step. The ambush from above, where Cull leapt screaming into his first Splashdown. The attack immediately after, where he managed to actually take one or two of the Troopers before they even landed. Cull getting splatted again by the remaining Octarians, though he didn’t gasp as frantically when he respawned this time. He was able to finish off the other Octotroopers and make it to some more sponge-scaling situations and an easy battle.

After a bridge made from sponges filled with Balloon Fish ink, Marie’s eyes widened. Up ahead, a bulbous flying thing she knew all too well, and she was about to cry out a warning, but stopped herself. She was already dealing with a bit of a nervous wreck; no sense in giving him a heart attack in all three of his.

Instead, she said, as plainly as she could, “An Octobomber. Gross.”

“What—” Cull started, before yelping. He just saw a Splat Bomb land by him, and it wasn’t his.

Marie sighed as he respawned. Even if she didn’t want to scare the kid, that warning may have been less than helpful.

“Sorry, squid,” she said, apologetically. “Didn’t want to scare you…”

Cull walked back over to where he was, far more slowly this time. Shooting gobs of purple at him was one thing, but now they were hurling bombs at him!

“Ugh… how close is the Zapfish?”

Marie blinked. She hadn’t even been looking for the Zapfish; she was just making sure this kid got out alive.

“Um…”

She could see Cull looking around, mostly up and at the corners of platforms. She assumed he was looking for the camera, but he was nowhere close. At least it kept him safe while she re-calibrated the ZapSeek program that Sheldon wrote.

“Let’s see… the Zapfish is… uh…”

“Ye—?” was all Marie heard in response, before the computer suddenly went black. Her eyes widened, and she frantically mashed the power button, but all she heard was the equally frantic clicking of the button.

Sheldon opened the door behind her, frantically pulling out a set of keys. He dashed to a caged area behind the computer, where he kept the generator.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, trying each key in turn as fast as he could, “Without Zapfish, we gotta rely on this generator, and as you know, this is an old thing, and the fact is, it’ll take a bit to refuel it and start it up again, not to mention the computer booting time—”

“Sheldon!” Marie said, sharply. “Just tell me what I can do to help get it back! There’s a kid lost in Octopia here!”

“Right, right,” Sheldon’s capped silhouette nodded. “Sorry. So, I need you to take the rip cord here and wait to give it a good yank! There’s a coupla things I gotta keep in place over here while you do that…”

Marie walked over, but saw multiple cords that looked pull-worthy.

“Um…”

“You got the rip cord?”

“No…”

“All right, hold on…”

The sound of Sheldon pouring whatever the generator needed slowed to a halt, and he patiently walked over, instantly finding the correct cord and handing it to her.

“I’ll let you know when to pull. It might take a few tries for it to start, but keep at it.”

Marie nodded, not understanding when she heard a variety of switches being flicked, as well as some clatters.

“All right, you ready?”

She pulled the rip cord. A rumble, but nothing else.

“Okay, try again.”

It took a few more pulls, but the generator eventually roared to life.

“Now, lemme take care of getting you started, and I’ll be out of here…”

Marie didn’t dispute that. She was a lot of things, but she was no computer squid. She waited for the slow booting, the password entry, the appropriate programs written by Sheldon…

It felt like hours, but everything Marie was used to was back up. Sheldon saluted, then went back to working on his weapons.

Right, so she could flip through the cameras again, and find Cull who was… still standing at that checkpoint. Her audio wasn’t working, but she could tell he was just calling out, trying to get a response.

It took a minute for Marie to find the volume and fix it, but she was greeted with a quiet, almost fearful “…hello?...Yes?...Is the Z-Zapfish close…?”

“Yeah, hang on,” Marie said, putting on a practiced smile. “It was just a technical thing, sorry.”

“O-okay…”

“Just keep moving forward, m’kay? That Octoslob might have bombs, but he’s pretty slow, so just keep on your guard, okay?”

Cull gulped, but still started taking steps forward. It was slow and halting, with him looking around as if he was expecting the Octobomber to have flown to where he was.

Marie wasn’t going to spur him too far forward; the camera systems for other areas were still loading, and she didn’t want Cull dying down there, especially if it would be from something super avoidable.

Suddenly, after some tentative advancement, Cull ducked into the ink. Marie switched from the loading screen back to him the moment she heard a splash. He was nearing the Octobomber.

“Remember, kid: those Splat Bombs have timers on ‘em. Keep moving, and don’t let ‘em catch you! That’s a rule of the battlefield!”

Cull wasn’t moving.

“Come on, this is no time for hide and splat! You gotta move forward! Once you get to the Zapfish, you can get out of there!”

“But…” Cull whispered, still not so much as swimming an inch, “I-I don’t know…”

“Look, kid,” Marie sighed. “If you want to find your way home, you need to get past this guy. I already told you; keep moving and you’ll be a harder target for him!”

After a second (presumably waiting for the fat flying octopus to look away, which Marie had to admit would be a decent strategy), Cull emerged and started running, firing wildly as he did so. The Octobomber flinched as ink hit them, and they spun around, quickly lobbing a bomb at the Inkling intruder. Cull kept running forward, barely out of the blast’s range. He kept shooting, somehow missing half his shots as he did so.

It gave the Octobomber enough time to fire another bomb. Marie would have congratulated Cull on his plan of circling to avoid the explosives, but she was too busy gasping as he inattentively moved towards the edge.

“Kid, watch it—”

“Yeah, just keep movin’! Works great!”

He cheered as he splatted the enemy, but the cheer was short lived as he fell off the ledge.

Marie didn’t see his ghost swim up. She waited, desperately scanning every pixel, rotating every camera, but she saw nothing.

She started breathing again when she saw his hands inch onto solid ground, followed by the rest of him.

“Oh, thank Cod,” Marie said, more under her breath than anything. “Right, so….”

The hacks into the next area of security cameras finally loaded. Marie wasn’t sure what the delay was. Something about cache? She’d have to ask Sheldon later, but for now she looked into the next set of cameras, and…

“Hey, good news!” she said. “You’re almost to the Zapfish and outta there!”

“Uh, y-yeah…” Cull said, sounding like Marie did when she first learned how to fake smiles. “Uh, al-almost might be a strong word…”

“What are you talking abou—oh.”

A quick pan of one of the cams showed the problem. A series of dry sponges formed a line from the floor Cull was on to the floating island the Zapfish was on. Even if he used the Balloon Fish lined across the sides to fill them up, this would be a struggle for him to swim up what most Inklings could with just a bit of effort.

“Er… yeah, this might be tough…” Marie trailed off. “I’m sure you can make it up there, though…”

“Nnn…”

She saw him standing there, craning his neck to see the sun-shaped wall far above him. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could tell he wasn’t exactly readying up for the climb. Heck, he was walking back to a ledge (thankfully, a part with a railing this time). He looked around a little, but he didn’t see anywhere else he could try to go.

The blue skies made from blue monitor light surrounded him on all sides, illuminating a sparkling blue sea under him. Looking out on the wooden platform into the distant waters like this was filling him with nostalgia, back when he could only be halfway between squid and kid at most. He remembered having to brush his tentacles off his eyes a lot, to see a cloudless sky like this, with rocky beaches and wooden docks. The false sun was still a good one, adding to the illusion pretty well. Even if the air was still the stale air you’d find in caves, it didn’t matter; the atmosphere was so much like that of a beach, giving a very surreal vibe of familiarity along with the floating platforms, debris, and screens. This was inspiring.

“You okay, kid?”

“Hmm? O-oh, yeah, j-just needed a moment…”

He pulled himself away from the view, having calmed himself a bit. He took a breath, and looked at the challenge before him.

He fired at the first sponge until it was dripping with ink. He took a breath, and climbed up to the top of it. It was easier to just climb up the one, and he still had a dry, shrunken sponge in front of him.

He stepped onto the dry sponge, and was about to fire to inflate it as well, but he realized he’d have to do still more climbing with the other pair up ahead. He wasn’t sure if he’d be up to that; even that one small swim took effort. He still wanted to get the Zapfish in something resembling a timely manner, so he looked either way. It’d be a tricky thing, but he’d done crazier tagging a spot on Moray Towers the one time.

Standing on the tinier platform, he looked at the Balloon Fish on either side, and popped one.

Marie’s jaw dropped. She just saw Cull get flung like a ragdoll as the sponge exploded out to its full size under him. He flailed and hollered, but not as intensely as she thought it warranted. Heck, it almost seemed planned, as he landed flat on his back on top of the next set of filled sponges. He grunted, but he quickly got up and leapt at the final wall between himself and the Zapfish’s platform. A couple of grunts and kicks against the wall, and he could move from dangling by his fingers to actually getting onto the platform.

From there, Marie could view him freeing and petting the Zapfish. He sat down as the platform moved to the exit, the Zapfish on his lap. It was kind of adorable, honestly.

[someguynamedstevewrites]

Unwanted House Guest: Valentine’s Run - Part 3

Based on the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.

And includes a cameo of a character created by @tamarinfrog , @searching-for-bananaflies , @cafe-cardamari , @bottledupcomic , and more!

———————————

Twenty minutes earlier, in the Salmon Run Ladies Changing Rooms, a slightly older Octoling girl had just finished styling a younger Octoling’s tentacles into a ponytail.

<There you go,> said the older of the two girls, <All done.>

<Thanks, Nalini,> the younger Octoling said with a smile to her older sister.

<Ready for your first Salmon Run?> Nalini asked.

<Well...> the younger Octoling hesitated. <...kind of. I’m a little nervous, though.>

<Don’t you worry, Lajni,> Nalini said with a smile, <I’ll keep you safe.>

Lajni gave a warm smile back to her older sister just as another Octoling with an Afro barged in with a self-assured grin on his face. <Not to worry, sis!> the boy boasted, <I’ll take care of those Salmonids so fast, you won’t even know they’re there!>

The two girls’ faces blushed a crimson red as they rushed towards the Octoling boy. <AADI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? THIS IS THE LADIES ROOM!> Nalini shouted as she began to drag the boy out.

<YEAH! You can’t be in here!> Lajni said as she pushed against her older brother.

<Okay! Okay! I get it! You can get your hands off me!> Aadi complained.

The door to the Ladies Changing Room opened with a shove as Nalini dragged Aadi out by his shirt collar. The three were now all dressed and ready to go, but Nalini still had a few words to say.

<You’re lucky no one else was in there, otherwise you would have been in even more trouble!> Nalini scolded, <Don’t you know it’s rude to enter places you aren’t supposed to be in!?>

<I’M SORRY ALREADY!> Aadi whined, <How else was I supposed to check on you!? You two we’re taking forever in there!>

<You could have texted us from your OctoPod!> pointed out Nalini.

Aadi looked like he had just been hit over the head with an epiphany, <Oh... right! I forgot about that!>

Nalini sighed and looked at her two younger siblings. While Lajni was fourteen, and Aadi was fifteen, the two of them still acted like little kids. A smile spread over Nalini’s face as she remembered what brought them all here today.

At seventeen, Nalini was the oldest of the three siblings and had taken it upon herself to look after her beloved little brother and sister. After the first failed attempt to capture the Great Zapfish, and after escaping from his snow globe prison, D.J. Octavio began recruiting Octarians left and right. Nalini signed up for training to become an Octoling soldier in hopes of supporting Lajni and Aadi and keeping them from having to serve in the Octarian Army.

Before Nalini completed her training to enter active combat, D.J. Octavio’s plans were thwarted and he was defeated a second time. Soon after, the influence of the Squid Sisters and their music spread throughout Octarian society; moving the hearts of many. Even though D.J. Octavio had kidnapped and brainwashed Callie, one of the Squid Sisters, she bore no ill will towards the Octarians and made great efforts to foster peace between them after her rescue. Finally, the Tartar Sauce incident brought Inklings and Octolings together against a common enemy; forging a new era of peace and prosperity for both species.

Nalini never completed her training, and deep down, she was glad that she didn’t. She could now spend more time with her family and take comfort knowing that Lajni and Aadi would never have to fight in a Great Turf War like their ancestors did. The three Octoling siblings even began making trips to Inkopolis to make new friends and try new things. It was a good time to be alive.

Unfortunately, taking care of two younger siblings required money. While the Turf War League was the best way for kids and young adults to make money in Inkopolis Square, Nalini wasn’t comfortable with it since she couldn’t stand the thought of slinging ink against fellow Octolings, or even Inklings. The Grizzco Salmon Runs, however, let Nalini put the training she received to good use, and make some money without raising a weapon against her people or the people that made up her new friends.

After four Salmon Runs, Nalini still hadn’t made much money, and her younger brother and sister were eager to help her in her work so that they could get by. Lajni just turned fourteen, and Aadi had been wanting to show off what he could do ever since he was twelve. This was going to be Nalini’s fifth Salmon Run, and the first for Aadi and Lajni.

The three Octolings stepped onto the Spawn Point that would launch them to the Grizzco boat that was off the shore of Marooner’s Bay. Lajni, feeling a little nervous, took Nalini’s hand in hers and held on to it with a little squeeze. Nalini squeezed back to let her sister know everything was going to be okay. A few seconds later, the spawn point powered on and launched the three Octolings to their destination.

In what seemed like no time at all, the three Octolings appeared on a different spawn pad several miles away from where they started. Lajni felt a little woozy and clutched her sister’s hand tighter than before to make sure she didn’t fall down. As she regained her bearings, she took a look at who her older brother and sister were staring at. In front of them was a tall, lanky Inkling with purple tentacles. He was wearing the exact same uniform they were wearing and had a no-nonsense expression. His eyes widened when he saw the three siblings and Lajni thought she saw the color drain from his face.

Lajni stepped behind her sister, feeling embarrassed that she didn’t know how to speak Inklish. Aadi did the same as Nalini was the only one who had studied it, and she wasn’t entirely fluent either. The eldest of the three Octolings swallowed hard as she extended a slightly nervous hand in greeting.

“Heh-“ Nalini stuttered. “Hello. I am Nalini. It is... pleasure to meet you.”

The tall Inkling reached out, firmly clasped Nalini’s hand in theirs, and gave it a hearty shake. His grip wasn’t too tight or too loose, and his shake could be measured as precisely in the middle of the two extremes: “trying to tear your arm off” and “I don’t even care enough about this greeting to move a muscle”. It was, for all accounts, a genuine handshake. Nalini would have felt more reassured by it if not for the Inkling’s slasher smile that was stretched across their face and the shrunken pupils.

“HI!” he said loudly with a hint of madness. “I’M SCREWED SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY! PLEASED TO MEET YOU!”

...To Be Continued...

[jasonsutekh]

The Little Mermaid 1 (1989) and 2: Return to the Sea (2000)

A young girl dreams of transgressing the border between the land and the sea, but an evil sea witch wishes to manipulate this desire to obtain a trident that can control the oceans.

 Two main things contribute to make the original a classic for me; the first is the animation which highlights both the dangers and majesty of the sea, as well as working with the comedy in many places. The other thing is the songs which are particularly good because they have good rhythms, amusing lyrics, and aren’t necessarily specific to the situation and therefore can be enjoyed out of context.

 The main route of the conflict in both films is really that parents don’t communicate well enough with their children and how that isn’t emphasised more in each finale is odd. There should have been a more conclusive conversation about that at the end between parent(s) and child, possibly with some suggested solutions to poor communication in families that the viewers can apply.

 Some of the messages were good in the film, mainly about not remaining constricted by social expectations, but it’s pretty clear why Disney decided to change it from the originally written ending which was a lot darker and less satisfying. Ursula is by far one of the best villains because she moves constantly so it always visually interesting, she has one of the best laughs, and gets one of the best songs.

 The second film was poorer than the original even though it was largely a repetition but with land and sea reversed. There were some different voices for some characters which felt strange because Flounder was the only one that seems to have aged, and the new characters were over-comedic and felt like they didn’t help the narrative much. Also their main song sounded curiously like one from Pooh’s Grand Adventure (1997), called “Adventure is a Wonderful Thing”.

 The Little Mermaid: 6/10 -Just a cut above average-

 The Little Mermaid 2: 4/10 -It’s below average, but only just!-

 -It has been debated whether Ursula is closer to an octopus or a squid since she only has 6 tentacles, however her human arms could count as the other two, making her an octopod.

-The second movie repeatedly has references to Melody as a teenager despite her celebrating her twelfth birthday as part of the plot.

-Ariel is the first Disney princes to have biological siblings.

[ucsdhealthsciences]

Tentacle Spectacle

Octopuses have been in the news lately, for good and bad. In the latter case, the bad (at least for one unlucky octopus) was being used as a wet handkerchief by a sea lion to slap an unsuspecting kayaker in the face. That captured video went viral. The octopus presumably went to cephalopod heaven.

But octopuses and their kin (cuttlefish and squid) are interesting not just as material for head shots, but because of what lies within their heads. They have very large nervous systems, with brains unlike any vertebrate species (the majority of their neurons reside in their eight tentacles) but still possess uncommon cognitive complexity.

Which makes them full of surprises. Take, for example, a recent study of octopuses on drugs, specifically the psychoactive compound MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), otherwise known as ecstasy or Molly.

Generally speaking, octopuses are antisocial. They lead solitary lives, except when mating. Put two octopuses in a tank together and one is likely to kill or eat the other. But when researchers gave California two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) ecstasy, they became positively chummy, spending more time close to other octopuses, even hugging them.

That’s saying something when you have eight arms.

A grammar note: The common plural of octopus is not octopi, which was created by English speakers out of the mistaken belief that octopus is Latin and pluralized Latin words use an –i ending. In fact, octopus comes from ancient Greek and if you want to follow strict Greek grammar, the plural would be octopodes.

Pictured: A California two-spot octopus, which gets its name from a pair of marking below its eyes.

-Scott LaFee

[inklingleesquidly]

THE WISDOM OF LEE SQUIDLY

CHAPTER 3

Lee Squidly has been called into  action. Callie has gone missing and according to Marie he’s her only hope in finding her. There is a lot more going on in Octo Canyon than Lee truly knows but Is he up to the task when he is uncertain of even his own feelings?

A new journey of discovery awaits our hero as he comes to realize what the true meaning of the relationship between the Squid Sisters is, and what they mean to others..

Featuring an unreasonable facsimile of another squid...

Word count: 2,461

Chapter 2 can be found here

Some familiar with Lee Squidly knew him as a negative influence, a magnet for trouble, a luckless somebody just unable to avoid getting into unfortunate situations. No time was that more apparent than now where he found himself in some kind of gladiator arena smack in the middle of Suction-Cup Lookout. His journey was impeded by a hulking brute of an Octarian known as the Octo Samurai.

This was someone Lee was actually familiar with. Back in Shee-Booyah he heard tales from immigrants of Octo Canyon of a man who was something of a local legend. Known for his movies, his wrestling career, and his fanaticism for motorcycles, he was a hero that many looked up to. There was always a lingering sentiment in Lee’s mind that it would be so exciting to meet him; the illustrious Octo Samurai –

“AHHH, AIYEE, WAAAAH,” Lee screamed, dodging walls of ink flung at him from the octopod’s mighty roller by skittering about on the ground like a frightened insect.

--He never thought he would meet him under circumstances like this.

Octo Samurai let out a roar, “Hold still, you lousy little squid.” The Octarian boss let out one more earth shaking battle cry before slamming his weapon down directly upon Lee. A massive wave of ink erupted from the ground. Once it cleared it was revealed the teenager had been knocked onto his backside at the edge of the ink.

“AUGGH,” Octo Samurai screamed, “That’s enough goofin’ around, now I’ve got you right where I want you.” He watched the Inkling slowly, fearfully try to scoot backward. It would just take one swing, one more swing and he would be rid of this little pest. Something stopped him; his roller, when he tried to swing it felt so off-balance.

The giant Octarian peered up to inspect what it was that threw off his equilibrium only to discover the little robot attached to the child’s back clinging onto the weapon. “What the,” he gasped, “Get off there you little hunk of junk!” He shook it in an attempt to get rid of Mooky and when that didn’t work he wildly flung it every which way.

Defiantly, Mooky yelled, “No I will not,” and he held onto the ink flicking weapon with everything his tiny blocky body had. “I will do everything to protect Master Lee,” he proclaimed, and then turned to order, “Run away Master Lee, I will distract him as long as I can!”

That was out of the question; Lee couldn’t and wouldn’t abandon Mooky. He wasn’t going anywhere without him but what could he do against someone like Octo Samurai? Without any plan, Lee’s first instinct was to ink a safe space for himself but upon raising and attempting to fire his .96 Gal Buster…

Click click click

He was out of ink!

What was worse Octo Samurai let out a gruff huff, “Fuhgeddit, Im gonna flatten you with this and your little robot! HURRAAH,” he swiftly raised the gargantuan roller high then brought it crashing down to the ground. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide Lee could only vainly cover his head in preparation for the worst.

BANG!

There was a massive metallic noise and somehow—nothing, he was okay. One eye peeked open to see a mysterious figure cloaked in a long form fitting coat that stopped Octo Samurai’s roller with a pair of rods. No, they weren’t rods, they were a unique weapon, tonfas.

With a mighty rumble, the unknown savior parried the attack, knocking away the roller and nearly throwing Octo Samurai off his unicycle. “Step off Octo Slob,” they snarled in a grave, gravelly voice. Lee knew who they were! Though they may have been shrouded in mystery, he was certain of who it was.

Steadying himself, Octo Samurai sneered, “Ohh great, another one of you rotten squids show up.”

Lee’s savior replied, “You got a lot of nerve picking on just one little kid, try picking a fight with someone your own size!” Shifting the bladed weapon in his hand, he challenged the Octarian boss in Lee’s stead.

Octo Samurai gripped his roller in both hands, unphased by the new challenger. “I’ll splatter a hundred of you squids before tea time,” he declared, racing toward Lee’s masked rescuer.

“I’ll give you 45 seconds Octo Slob,” he fired back, charging into the fray.

“WAIT, STOP!!!” Before they could clash, Lee’s voice rang all throughout the arena, stopping them dead in their tracks.

Lee stood up and stepped between them, his gaze transfixed on Octo Samurai as he said, “Mr. Octo Samurai, please, I don’t want anybody to fight!”

Both Octo Samurai and even Lee’s support gave a unified, “Huh” in confusion. The Octarian hero peered down at the boy with narrowed incredulous eyes, “What are you trying to pull,” he wondered, skillfully managing to maintain his balance on the unicycle as he bent down, locking eyes with Lee.

Lee shook his head, “Nothing, I swear, I’m just here looking for a friend who’s lost in Octo Canyon.”

“Probably another trouble making brat,” he scoffed scornfully, “And why should I trust anything you say, you’re a squid.”

His gaze was so frightening but Lee answered his skepticism, “I promise she isn’t—she’s lost somewhere and I—I—hii, I just want to find her!” His voice choked as he uttered those words. Desperate to end this fight and continue his search, Lee sunk down to his knees and clasped his hands together, pleading, “I’m begging you Sir, I promise I don’t want to hurt any Octarians, so please let me leave so I can find my friend!” He shook his hands then clutched them tight against his heart, imploring mercy from the Octarian hero.

Octo Samurai analyzed everything about that look the tiny green squid gave him. He peered between him and the other who just stood there watching the boy beg and plead. The way the small one’s lip trembled, the way his eyes watered, the way he panted as if he couldn’t get enough air to breathe—it was a pathetic sight for any creature, big or small.

Knowing he would regret this, he let out a long huff and decided, “All right, fine, you can leave.” Even though he had his orders, it would be a dishonor to bring harm to someone begging for their life, and who claimed such a noble undertaking.

Lee’s eyes lit up like the stars in the sky and he smiled from ear to ear, “Y-You mean it?!” He shot up to his feet, shaking his tightened fists in glee, “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, I swear Mr. Samurai, as soon as I find my friend I’ll leave right away.”

The boss mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, just make good on what you said, if I find out you lay a single tentacle on any Octarians I’m gonna smash you flat! Now get lost before I change my mind.”

“There’s just one more thing,” Lee timidly murmured.

“What?”

Pointing up, Lee requested, “Umm, can I please have my robot back,” referring to Mooky still dangling from the octopod’s humongous weapon.

A low grumble escaped from Octo Samurai as he gently lowered Mooky, allowing him to slide off. “Fine, here ya go kid, just be thankful I didn’t decide to crush him into a hubcap for my bike.

As the metal butler secured himself onto his owner’s back, Lee replied with a glad, “Thank you very much Sir.” He ignored the comment about harming Mooky as he could tell the octopus before him was every bit the good and influential creature he knew him to be. The mercy he was willing to show to him was evident enough of that.

Leaving Octo Samurai’s arena, Lee & Mooky were tailed by their earlier rescuer who soon stopped them. With his arms crossed, he sternly chided the starry eyed youth’s actions, “Lee, I’m glad to see you haven’t stopped being you but not every opponent is going to show you mercy.  Don’t you remember what I taught you about standing on your own two feet and—“

He was stopped by the sudden, speedy movement of Lee who threw his arms around his waist, “Mr. Jonn, I can’t believe it! Thank you so much for helping me out of that jam, you’re the best!”

Mr. Jonn, or rather Jonn Inkra, Agent Binary, another founding member of the Justice Society of Inkopolis couldn’t help but smile and pat Lee’s shoulders. Feeling the embrace of the excitable, appreciative teen, the mystery man hooked a thumb underneath the face mask he wore and peeled it down. With that removed, his deep, menacing voice was replaced by something strangely soft, almost melodious as he said, "Who could stay mad at a kid like you? It’s been too long."

Along the way from Suction-Cup Lookout to Beaker’s Depot, Lee informed Jonn of his situation thus far. Hearing the story, the agent let out a heavy sigh, “So you’re the one she brought in for this search? Hmm—I thought it would be you but a part of me really wished it wasn’t.”

Though Lee was unsure of what he meant by that there was a much more pressing thought in his head. “Well now that I’m here, have you found anything about Callie?”

His hopeful smiled and tightened, shaking fists were met by an unfortunate shake of the head from Jonn. “I’ve been back and forth between these sectors for awhile now and I haven’t seen or heard a thing, I’m sorry.”

Lee loosened his fists and his arms dropped to his sides; two people he had to meet had nothing at all for him. His head tilted down, a downtrodden look upon his face that Mooky was quick to console. The little servant spun around and patted Lee’s shoulder with one hand, “There there Master Lee. We still have one more informant to meet and much more of Octo Canyon left to see, we must press onward.”                                                                                                            

“Right,” Lee muttered, “Yeah,” he said, lifting his head back up, his morose look not leaving . Ready to leave to find the next contact he turned to Jonn and said, “Well thank you for saving me Mr. Jonn but we’ve gotta get going.”

Just as he took his first step he was halted, “Hold on there, Lee, we’re not done talking yet,” Jonn called.

“Huh?”

“I want to talk to you about Marie.”

Hearing that name made Lee let out a quiet sigh, he said, “With all due respect Mr. Jonn I already heard plenty from Mr. Bl— Blueshift. There’s no excuse for what she’s doing. Callie wouldn’t want this.”

Jonn was forthright in replying, “This is about Callie to. There’s some things you should know about the both of them.” Lee was unsure of what he was getting at but he listened as Jonn continued, “Listen, I’ve known these two longer than anyone so I can tell you they need each other.” There was a lot of that Lee couldn’t argue; he knew of his history with the Squid Sisters beyond their work as Agents and him as their personal bodyguard.

“I swear, ever since we were kids in Calimari County those two were inseparable. They did everything together, and I mean everything.” A small, nostalgic smile spread across Jonn’s lips as he looked off at the scenery of the canyon. “Every scraped knee, their first day of school, their first ride with training wheels, every lost baby tooth, every lost or broken toy—.” He started to regale Lee with a number of stories about their lives together.  Some of those tales were new to him but many he happened to have heard previously from Callie. Quite often during their time together he would hear these stories.

His train of thought was broken as Jonn revealed, “—And that’s why getting their big break was one of the happiest moments of their lives.” He breathed deep,  “It wasn’t the fame, the fans, or getting to sing and dance like they love, it was getting an excuse to finally have fun together all they want.”

Them making music together—their partnership as the Squid Sisters was a cornerstone in Lee’s very life.

Jonn’s tone then became glum, “Them being apart like this—they both just get so out of whack!” He waved his hands about as he spoke, as if trying to piece it all together himself, “Things were all ready pretty rocky between them after they started doing their own thing months ago, especially for Marie.” He sighed, holding his hand over his face after stroking his chin, “Whenever she was sad, Callie would always be there to make her smile better than anyone. Whenever she was frustrated, Callie could calm her down the best. Whenever she was at a loss, Callie could help her get back on track.”

Jonn paced about before he quietly mumbled; “Now all this happened and just-- Marie is just a wreck.” Lee thought back to his initial meeting with her what felt like hours ago. He thought of her hurried, muddled tone of voice, the way she fidgeted with her parasol. There was more he didn’t notice that stuck out in his mind now; particularly her inability to put her thoughts together.

Crossing his arms, Jonn was deeply serious as he said, “I’m not gonna force you to believe me but if it was Marie who was captured, Callie would be doing crazy things to get her back to.”

Lee couldn’t think of anything to say or even fathom a means of reply, especially when Jonn said, “Keep this in mind Lee, you’re not the only one who needs Callie in their life. That’s why we’re all here.”

He tried to talk but nothing came out. He could say anything, anything at all. By now he should be feeling sympathy for Marie and her plight like Blueshift and Jonn wanted him to-- but he couldn’t.

Mooky ended up speaking on his behalf, “That is a lot to take in Mr. Jonn, Master Lee will certainly keep in mind the importance of Miss Callie to others and her necessity in their life, right Master Lee.”

“Y-yeah,” Lee muttered unconvincingly under his breath.

Jonn could see right through him, there was no deceiving one of the Agency’s top operatives.”Think long and hard about that Lee, I’ll be in touch, if I find anything, you’ll be the first to know about it.”

With that, Lee & Mooky were back on their way. Conflicting feelings ran rampant in Lee’s head but in the end his resolve returned to one thought, I promise Callie—I’m doing this to help you, and not Marie.

[qaaba]

#octopodes don’t have tentacles; they have arms. And people eat them. I refuse because they are very intelligent. #Squid, on the other hand, made their choice to be delicious. #blue #notfordinner #sorrydude (at Zhongshan District, Taipei)

[ntrending]

Octopuses are not aliens, but boy are they a bunch of beautiful weirdos

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/octopuses-are-not-aliens-but-boy-are-they-a-bunch-of-beautiful-weirdos/

Octopuses are not aliens, but boy are they a bunch of beautiful weirdos

We have to stop taking away Mother Nature’s achievements. Every time a creature is quirky or bizarre people say that it must be an alien, when the reality is that evolution is capable of creating some of the strangest, creepiest organisms you could ever fathom.

This includes octopuses, which for the record is the correct pluralization of octopus. (It can also be octopodes, since the word is Greek in origin, but never octopi.)

Octopuses seem to be particularly prone to alien theories. The most recent is thanks to a group of scientists—none of whom study zoology and many of whom don’t even study anything biological—wrote a paper in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology that claimed to show octopuses might come from space. In fact, they say that the entire Cambrian explosion (a period 541 million years ago when animal diversity rapidly expanded, producing early forms of many creatures alive today) originated with an influx of viruses from the cosmos. Thirty-three authors co-signed their names to this paper, including the man who originally proposed this highly controversial idea in the 1970s. They use an octopus as an example, noting that “The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus to the common Cuttlefish to Squid to the common Octopus are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form” and that therefore “it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant ‘future’ in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large.”

E.J. Steele, a molecular immunologist at the C.Y. O’Connor ERADE Village Foundation, one of the co-authors, wrote that “From our perspective the evidence is now quite overwhelming” for their theory, and that they felt it merited a “complete rethink” of evolutionary processes. Steele thinks the claims presented in the paper have been “suppressed and ignored for many years” and adds that “I have great faith that other objective scientists confronted with the same array of data would behave like me and reach the same interpretation.”

The problem is that viruses and octopuses are both firmly terrestrial. A commentary, written by molecular geneticist Karin Moelling, printed alongside the article, notes that though the authors clearly believe their own theory, they’re “describing it as evidence-based, yet without any of the necessary evidence.” She concludes that “the main statement about viruses, microbes and even animals which came to us from space, cannot be taken seriously.”

William Gilly, a biologist specializing in cephalopods at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, told Popular Science that “To be truthful, this paper seems to be so badly written and full of misleading statements that I cannot believe that it passed peer-review in any respectable journal.” He also asked whether this was perhaps the April Fool’s issue of the journal, as that would be the easiest explanation. (We reached out to said journal and will update this article when they respond.) Another biologist, Ken Stedman, told Live Science that “Many of the claims in this paper are beyond speculative, and not even really looking at the literature.”

Caroline Albertin agrees. She’s a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory and says to find confirmation of octopuses’ earthly origins, one need “look no further than their DNA.” She explains that in fact, one of the papers cited in the new study “shows very clearly that octopuses share a lot of the same genes with other animals—molluscs like snails and clams, flies, and humans, indicating that they share common ancestors, and therefore are from the same planet as the rest of us.” The cephalopod fossil record may be limited, but Albertin notes that’s it’s hard to find fossils of soft-bodied creatures in general, which is why biologists look back at nautiluses and ammonites to trace evolutionary origins.

Back in 2016, yet another set of headlines proclaimed that octopus DNA came from space, which was wrong, but persisted because some researcher gave a reporter a juicy quote about octopuses being practically alien.

Here’s the thing: if octopuses are aliens, then so are milk-sweating echidnas, cartilaginous blobfish, and indestructible tardigrades. Which is to say, until the day we scoop up bacterial goop in the oceans of Europa, we can safely proclaim that 100 percent of the weirdest creatures we know about were created right here on Earth. “The fact that they are so cool and weird even though they have similar genes to other animals is what I am most fascinated by,” Albertin says. Her own work focuses on figuring out how genes crucial to other animals’ developments play a role in octopus bodies as well. “Obviously, that wouldn’t work if they had a celestial origin.”

So let’s celebrate how incredibly bizarre our planet has made octopuses instead of flinging the credit out into the larger cosmos.

Octopuses: not alien, but still pretty cool

For starters, octopuses have literal blue blood. There’s a common misunderstanding that human blood is blue inside your body when it’s deoxygenated, but that comes from the fact that your veins look blue through your skin. Deoxygenated blood is still very red because of the iron-based mechanism by which our bodies transport oxygen molecules. Octopuses said ‘no, thanks’ to iron blood, though, and swapped in a copper-based protein that binds oxygen instead. It’s more efficient than iron in the cold, low-oxygen environments that most octopuses live in. It sure does make them spookier, but they’re not alone. The ocellated icefish has clear blood and there are lizards that run green. Both are from Earth.

Octopuses’ brains are in their arms, which is admittedly pretty odd. Two-thirds of an octopus’ neurons reside in the long appendages that many mistakenly call “tentacles” (in modern zoology, a “tentacle” is relatively long and thin, with some kind of clubbed end). This decentralized way of thinking means that even severed arms can “think” for themselves, or at least respond to physical stimuli and try to escape whatever is trying to eat them, which is why people die from trying to swallow live octopus arms only to find that the arm is still fighting back (a reported six people die this way on average each year in South Korea, where the dish is popular).

But their peculiar approach to brains hasn’t stopped them from ranking among the most intelligent creatures that we know of. Octopuses regularly use tools, solve puzzles, and generally cause mayhem by sneaking in and out of their enclosures. They also sometimes accessorize by hopping inside old coconut shells and using them as little mobile homes, all while looking more stylish than most humans.

As they travel, they also taste everything that they walk on since their suckers are all sensory organs. You’d think that would motivate them to swim everywhere, but unfortunately one of their three hearts has to stop beating whenever they swim, which is quite tiring and means that many octopuses prefer to stroll. Their other two hearts provide blood to the gills, but that third heart circulates blood to the central organs. The main organs reside inside the octopus’ bulbous head (called a mantle), which contains no bones. The only truly hard part of an octopus is the beak, which is basically its mouth. This means that the critters can squeeze through almost any opening as long as it’s bigger than the schnoz. Everything else is negotiable.

But perhaps the weirdest thing about octopuses is that, unlike many of the other highly intelligent creatures populating our planet, they don’t live long. Some live just six months, others a few years, and most males die shortly after mating. The females last long enough to protect their clutch of eggs, during which time they slowly starve to death.

Sadly, the myth that octopuses are from space will probably outlive any octopuses alive today. But you can rise above the nonsense and appreciate them for what they truly are: some of the weirdest and most wonderful earthlings ever known.

Written By Sara Chodosh

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 16

First time reader click here

Summary/TWs: Trouble is brewing. Canon-typical violence, graphic descriptions of wounds and Clint whump. Bad, terrible, no-good medical accuracy. Aliens. Reader is an anxious genius with low self-esteem and PTSD. ✨spicy sadness✨

From now on, chapters will be posted un-beta-ed. She's taking a lil break. 💖💝✨

I liked to think I had made peace with the fact that my boys and girls had one hell of a dangerous job. Natasha, Clint, Steve and Bucky frequently left for missions and while I missed their usual bickering in the background, it wasn't like the tower's common room became absolutely quiet. The fact that they mostly did recon-only missions helped, too, as they would come home unharmed and in one piece. The worry was there but subtle - like setting the table and including silverware for the people who were gone on a mission.

Peter's patrols went less smoothly, usually. He was small and even in his spider-suit, the boy was frequently underestimated by common thugs. Apparently, they didn't know how to read the news - it was blatantly obvious the hero was enhanced. And yet somehow, Pete more often than not sported all sorts of bruises, scratches and tears.

Tony and I routinely tore out our hair over the spiderboy's carelessness. The engineer had a funny way of showing he cared for Peter. Once I got to know him better, my brain dubbed them as Irondad and Spiderson. And it wasn't weird at all, somehow, that I was basically fucking my best friend's dad. Tony never made me uncomfortable, if anything, he went to great lengths to accommodate my whims. Tony continuously found time for me, answered my dumb questions and soldiered through the shenanigans I got up to after having too much caffeine and too little sleep.

Sitting in the quiet, empty common room was unnerving. It was shortly after dinner time - the evening news skipped their usual political debate in favour of the battle that was raging downtown, the reason for my headache and wrung hands.

I missed Tony's running mouth. The aliens the team was fighting looked quite hilarious, murderous intentions aside, and I could only imagine the way Tony and Clint would mock them. Hentai rejects. Tentacle porn knock-offs. The aliens were squid-like, about half the size of a human and very, very slippery, from what I spied on the TV.

An irritated-looking Stephen had me equal parts apprehensive and drooling - one after another, he conjured up a series of small portals, teleporting the aggressive octopods only god knew where. It would have looked incredibly badass if not for the exhausted sheen of sweat I could see on his brow, even despite the camera footage being shaky and grainy.

The news footage showed Tony - Iron Man, soaring contentedly through the darkening skies and taking out the squirmy mass of tentacles with his plasma beam repulsors. Steve and Bucky and Loki appeared too, sporadically, being well-oiled murder machines. Nothing new.

Yet, I worried. The little worm of doubt was squirming full-force. I tried to ignore it, yet pacing, sitting and playing Candy Crush got me nowhere. I pestered Friday to order pizza, the team's usual post-mission order plus a large one for me - stress-eating was better than stress-popping-molly in a tower full of superheroes. It took some courage to admit to myself I'd gotten attached enough to be this much from running away from all that in a blind panic.

And it would be the best option for them, really, because they had much sensible things to worry about than me. Yet every time, my selfishness won against even the most logical arguments I presented. I hated fighting myself but it was all I did - not only I was in love with Tony, I loved him.

Even when he forgot about my existence for five days, to emerge from his workshop with a new piece of tech that revolutionised one or another or something else. I loved him when he annoyed the ever living fuck out of everybody, me included, because I knew that it was hilarious to see people getting riled up over totally trivial shit. I loved Tony Stark when he ran away from his feelings, and everybody else's, because he never managed to run far enough. Or he didn't want to. I loved him, because he was like a multilayered puzzle, complex and captivating and beautiful.

I thought a lot about it, more than people would have noticed. For someone as selfish and goal-oriented as me, Tony lived in my head rent-free most of the time. And nobody would find out if I had the choice because let's face it, I'm a short cameo in his life. I'm a fuckin' catch and even then, I can't expect to hold his attention forever. His genius is too brilliant to settle for one when he could easily have the whole damn world.

Another hour consisted of me pacing and accompanying the pizza delivery boys to the common floor. It was hilarious - they were obviously star-struck about walking the same carpet as their heroes. I could see the faint hope of meeting one of the Avengers in their eyes, their posture. All they got was me - in my sweatpants, Tony's tee and no bra. My tits got the attention they deserved, at least.

My lounging was interrupted by a golden circle noisily appearing in the middle of the room, followed by Clint abruptly falling through it with a pained moan. I froze, the pizza in my mouth turning to ash - Strange poked his head through the hole in space, finding my eyes. He looked exhausted.

"Help him, I don't have much time," He breathed and disappeared, closing the portal behind himself.

The pizza piece flew back in the box as I stumbled, jumped over the headrest, kneeling beside Clint in no time. "Bird, tell me what hurts," I demanded. Not that I had a clue what to do. I mean, I knew basic first aid and...

"My leg," He gritted out, curling in on himself. Fear flooded me, limbs turning to lead. Hawk had a good pain tolerance, I knew he could break an arm and not utter a single syllable until he thought it safe to showcase his vulnerability. "That squid motherfucker stung me, I don't know. My whole body is on fire," His speech was slurred.

I nodded, deciding to limit the touching to only the necessary actions. The leg of his pants was torn and the wound itself was shaped like a whip mark, thin and red and angry. It oozed a yellowish pus-like substance, it smelled bitter, almost like stale water and seaweed salad. I didn't know much about aliens but jellyfish stings, I could work with. A short Google check later, I had an approximate plan.

"Friday, run diagnostics." I ordered, taking a deep breath and filing away the fear, the panic and anxiety for later.

"Mr. Barton has a wound that appears to be contaminated with an unknown chemical that is causing an adverse reaction. The elevated body temperature suggests that his immune system is fighting it. I would suggest a blood test to examine the offending specimens."

A blood draw? I could do that. I definitely, absolutely, could do that.

"Bird, Clint, did you hear that?" I gently touched his shoulder only for him to recoil from my hand, muttering unintelligibly. "Pretty bird, I'm going to help you. Let me." My bedside manner needed improvement - with brain running a mile a minute, I babbled utter nonsense as Friday directed me to the needed supplies. Getting the blood was a feat on it's own - I had to physically sit on top of Clint to get but a tiny vial of the red liquid.

A few tears escaped the emotional fortress I had to build within myself. Clint was in so, so much pain - pain I was inadvertently making worse by touching him. I sprinted to Bruce's lab, feeding the sample to be analysed by Friday, tearing through the room in a hurricane. First aid kit, IV, saline, antibiotics. Restraints, too, just in case.

"Analysis complete. The contaminant appears to be acting similarly to a parasitic infection with a short life-span. Primarily feeds on copper, iron and various metals contained in the human body. Does not appear to reproduce or multiply, my algorithms cannot determine the cause of said behaviour. Calculating..." Friday's mechanical voice paused. "I have calculated the approximate duration of Mr. Barton's symptoms. Onset of critical stage in one to three hours. Complete extinction of parasitic organisms in approximately sixty hours."

"Fri, do you think I have a chance of saving Clint before he goes crazy from pain? And have you figured out what's causing it?" My brain was all over the place.

"I have the best faith in you, miss." The AI sounded almost... Comforting? "I am still running multiple diagnostics. My algorithms suggest the organisms may be attacking the nerve endings - reason unclear."

An idea struck me. A crazy, brash, absurd idea. The pathogen was alien and we didn't have antibiotics to kill it. Even if I gave Clint some sort of medicine, it could go awry really really quickly. Besides, wasn't there a medical team for this..?

"Friday, alert the medical suite."

"Request denied. Per Mr. Stark's protocols, only Sir himself and Dr. Banner are authorized to request medical assistance in case of alien pathogen contamination."

"Fuck. Fuck, that makes no fuckin' sense!" I yelled helplessly. "Okay, do you have blood matching Clint's type laying around?" I asked sarcastically. This protocol pissed me off. What was Tony scared of? That someone would steal alien germs? Too late for that, there were plenty of samples all over the sidewalks downtown.

"A-positive, blue refrigerator, top shelf." Friday's answer was curt.

My hands shook. My whole body shook. Clint was laying in fetal position right where I'd left him and the man wasn't looking better - he became paler, dark circles under his eyes, clammy sweat breaking on every exposed part of his skin. Moving him was out of the question - Clint violently recoiled from me once I tried to touch him.

Reluctantly, I dragged the dining room chairs and piled up whatever heavy things I could on top of them, praying to every god that they would hold a trained man trash around in pain. Then, came the restraints. Belts with clips unlike one could see in a movie with a psych ward. I fumbled with them, then with Clint - very slowly, but I got both of his arms fastened and the man rolled onto his back.

"Wwhat... S'appening..?" Hawk finally slurred, cracking his eyes to see my (probably) disheveled and panicked face.

"This is going to hurt, I won't lie. A lot," I rambled, setting up the tools needed for both a blood draw and a blood transfusion. "I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. You have alien parasites in your blood. I'm going to get rid of em," I announced, not mentioning the fact that I had to Google all the things I was going to do to him.

"S'okay, I trust you," Clint slurred again, moving about much more weakly than before. The tips of his fingers began to turn blue and the blood vessels on his face stood out in a pink-purple web. Not good.

My finest thinking moment: laying out some tarp around the archer and putting on gloves and a mask to minimize the possibility of getting infected. I started with the wound first, carefully wiping away the yellowish goop and immediately sealing it into a biohazard container. Some alcohol around the edges, the wound began emanating a faint wisp of smoke as Clint yelled hoarsely. I didn't even react - man, aliens and their germs were fuckin' weird.

Another biohazard container traveled next to Clint's arm. I had a disposable scalpel in one hand and my courage in another - it was now or never. The vein I was cutting was a minor one, but with Clint's body in total disarray, it was an ugly fountain of pinkish-purple liquid that spurted from it. I was no doctor but blood shouldn't have looked like that.

I stared at the timer on my phone. Twenty seconds, thirty, fifty. Eighty seconds, the blood was beginning to have more of a red hue. Clint's breathing slowed, tremors subsiding by a smidgen. One hundred and eighty seconds, the stream was a healthy deep red colour. With a swift motion, I wrapped up the wound, folded his arm, tied off the blood flow higher up his arm with a spare restraint. Clint wasn't moving much anymore; my hand that periodically checked his pulse shook but dutifully did it's job. His heart was working steady.

Compared to having to drain a friend of his blood, setting up the IV with a transfusion was a walk in the park. My mind was empty of any thoughts but for the actions needed to complete the process.

The container with contaminated blood, closed, sealed and put in a plastic bag, along with the gloves and the tarp. My own exposed flesh, meticulously scrubbed with alcohol until the skin became red and raw. All the instruments, Clint's pants, my clothes - in the bag.

The archer himself was laying still, his breathing steady and calm, face no longer looking like he was one step away from the grave. After undoing the restraints, I wiped down every surface we touched with Tony's vodka - rubbing alcohol had run out and I was too emotionally drained to go downstairs and leave Clint for too long. Whenever the booze collided with a stray drop of blood, a wispy smoke emerged. Such an interesting reaction. Part of me couldn't wait to examine the phenomena together with Bruce. The other part was considering the possibility of having a panic attack in a seafood restaurant.

"Fri, keep an eye- a sensor on Clint for me, will ya? I need a shower and some pants," I denounced tiredly, padding to the communal shower. I found respite, however brief, under the steam for a few minutes. Then I found Tony's old tee and a pair of someone's sweats - I didn't care whose. Post-stress adrenaline shivers had me feeling stark naked in the middle of Alaska despite the room being a toasty, comfortable temperature according to the digital thermostat.

Now I just had to think about what to tell the team.

Propping Clint's head on a decorative pillow and covering him with a soft fleece blanket was the least I could have done for the long suffering archer. The floor was hard but I sat next to him, running a hand through his matted hair, my brain an incomprehensible mess.

✨ TAGLIST OF MY LOVELIES (OPEN) ✨

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