#and a few molluscs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

diejager · 1 year ago

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more eldritch:konig X his darling mermaid, please & thank you

Saccharine and Monstrosity pt.2

Pairing: Eldritch Horror!König x mermaid!reader

Cw: kidnapping, manipulation, DARK FIC, DUB-CON/NON-CON, breeding kink, protective König, hunting, oviposition, tentacles, eggpreg, stomach bulge, forced breeding, forced pregnancy, possessive behaviour, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 2.6k

You hadn’t seen the sun in a while, neither had you gone hunting, nor seen your parents. You missed the freedom you had, swimming and racing the others mers your age through the coral reefs, that mundane, but fun activity you did once in a while when everyone gathered at the same spot.

“Please, König, I just want to lay in the sun!”

“Nein, the outside world is dangerous, Schatz, ” his tone seemed apologetic, eyes cast down, avoiding your tearful eyes that gleamed beautifully from the bioluminescent plants, “I cannot.”

That was what he always told you, his words repeated on themselves, overlapping in your mind without holding much intent of substance to it. Why would it when all he told you was no? His excuses were getting old, they rarely changed over the few months he kept you in his cave, the little haven you grew to love now became a prison, a pretty cage to keep you locked away from the world you were born into. They always had an aspect in common: danger. He would say that it was too dangerous for you, that there were horrors living around his cave and wandering too closely to the edge you found him, the precipice of light and darkness that he stalked you from. If it wasn’t that, he’d push strongly that you could be taken away from him, caught and eaten by another Eldritch Horror that didn’t have the same obsession and favorability for pretty things like you.

He slowly approached you, arms reaching out towards you to embrace you, his fingers finding the softness of your hips. Kneading the line between your skin and scales, thumb smoothing over your opalescent scales, the smooth surface of it that helped you swim as swiftly as you could. You were a quick, little mouse, able to outrun him if you put enough effort and intention in it to escape his limbs. You shuddered against him, looping your arms around him for comfort that he never kept from you, often reminding you that he loved you and that he would do anything for you —except give you back your freedom.

You sobbed, a heart-wrenching cry slipping out of your pout, your glossy lips pulled down while pearly tears floated upwards, the density of your tears weighing less than the heaviness in his cave, a closed-off ocean of horror he painted over with enthusiasm and comfort. He whispered sweet words to you, smaller tentacles slipping under his hood to cradle your face. They acted as individual fingers, holding your face as if they were hands holding your chin up, curling under your jaw and eyes with the smooth side of his limbs, keeping the suckers away from your pretty face. He touched you so gently, careful to never break your skin or dirty the angelic image he had of you in his sickened mind. He wrapped himself around you, his thicker limbs latching onto you with the intention of never letting go, curling and looping around one another. The messy bundles kept you stuck to him as you whined, crying out the frustration and sadness you felt throughout your situation.

“Hush, don’t cry, mein kleiner Schatzi,” he wiped away your tears, and collected them between the suckers of his arms, watching them gleam with an opalescent shine, much like those of black mollusc shells. They were a spectacle, a beautiful thing coming from his precious mate, “We can go out when it is safe, ja?”

You nodded your little head, closing your eyes and nuzzling against his broad chest, the softness of his scarred skin that easily moulded to fit your shape. It was strange how easily he changed to fit your liking, to answer to your whims despite your protest or your reluctance. You couldn’t hate him, you simply couldn’t after all the things he did for you and how well he cared for you. Perhaps you’d fallen for him, falling so deeply in this hole of unwilling darkness and strange affection —your naivety working against your betterment and with his mind, dark and wretched. Despite your wails and frustrations towards König, he was all you had, all you had known for the past months, so you sought comfort and safety from him, unknowingly falling into his plan.

You let him lead you away from the open entrance, down the wide gate of his - your - room to lay you down, unable to move from the confines of his many arms and the warmth he provided. König was warm, he’d always burned hot compared to the cold waters of the abyss, the swirling vacuum of freezing water that seemed to have no end and the surface that stayed cool despite bathing under the sun for half the day. You thrived on warmth, soaking it up to keep your metabolism going, to be able to function without crashing or slowing down, you needed it and you depended on König to keep you warm.

He pressed down on you, his broad figure looming over your smaller and fragile one, casting a dark shadow with his sole presence. He brushed your hair away, the tip of his tentacle tickling your ear as he murmured temptation, his wide palms leaving your hips to trail down the curve of your navel, teasing the dilated hole of your core, blinking and oozing out slick. He pressed a finger in, listening to you mewl and squirm in his tight hold, your tail twisting and turning before ultimately bucking into his palm when he slid a second one in. He watched your pretty lips part in a gasp, eyes rolling back in pleasure, your lashes fluttering so prettily for him. You felt him everywhere, he was inside of you and all around you, his many arms working as extensions of his presence, teasing you with his little suckers, pulling and biting at you.

“Let me ease your mind,” his mask rose over his nose, tentacles parting like curtains to kiss you. It was all teeth and aggression, his kiss turning into a sign of possession, marking you with his taste and scent. He didn’t have any lips, or lips similar to yours, they were flat, hidden by a moustache of tentacles, thinner and shorter than his other ones, “Help you relax.”

They easily slipped into your mouth as he pumped you, fingers curling into the softer part of your cunt. You mewled, rutting back, walls clamping down on his fingers, their thick and rough textures doing you in with the flick of your swollen nub once he coached it out of its protective sheath. He slipped the straps of your bra down your shoulder, letting the cup sag enough to show your pretty nipples, perky and glistening, tempting him to kiss and bite at them. In his rush, he snapped your bra from the middle by the girth of his tentacles, curling around your tits to knead and play with your little nubs, covering them with a sucker and he pulled, the ride closing around it and pulled. You clamped down on him, your slick sticking to his hand as you burst, eyes rolled back so far that all you could see was the white. König admired you, his eyes gleaming with glee at your climax, helping you ride it out with slow pumps of his fingers. He watched your pupils dilate, steadily coming down from your high with laboured breathing.

“You look so pretty like this,” he smiled under his hood, his eyes creasing in the low light. They roved over your face, over your hooded eyes and your parted mouth, down the slope of your neck and the swell of your breasts, and ending at your cunt, your labia closed around two digits, slick and throbbing. “You drive me crazy, Schatz.”

He was panting, his body riled up with how much his many limbs were swaying, latching onto you and hungrily climbing over you. He mumbled incoherent words, his pretty blues turning a bright red, a bloody crimson that made you feel apprehensive, fear and anxiety spiking in your mind despite the pleasurable buzz. You peered down when you felt something nudge your finger-filled cunt, looking at a particular-looking tentacle. It was harder and slick, the tip cylindrical-like with a long shaft and covered in veins, much like the ones on his arm, bulging and throbbing. You were oblivious to its use, confused about the different shape, but once it moved, the leaky head enthusiastically dipping into you, you panicked.

You couldn’t believe what you were seeing, the engorged head of his arm pushing into you, guided by a hand, pumping himself to spread the slick and pre that gathered around his cock. You keened, head thrown back when he bottomed out, the veiny girth of his cock throbbing inside of you. His cock rocked into you, pulling out until his tip lingered, and your labia stretched around his thick rod before he rammed in so suddenly. It rocked you as a whole, your smaller figure jerked back with every hard thrust, your cervix feeling the brutality of his strength and devotion. You screamed, writhing in his restrictive hold, cunt battered by a hard, leaky cock with a flared tip, bulbous and smooth.

“Scheiße, you’re tight,” he groaned out through gritted teeth, feeling your walls stretch as wide as you could to welcome him despite his size and girth, your pussy becoming wet and sloppy with the amount of slick you produced. You pulsed around him, still sensitive from your last orgasm, clit and nipples swollen and twitching under his tentacles. He could feel everything, jolts sent down his arms followed by a euphoric sensation that ran through his mind, leaving him pussydrunk, mumbling out praises, “Du fühlst dich so gut an. Scheiße – so süß, so nass.”

You felt like you would burst, ploughed open by König’s cock arm, warm wall milking and sucking him deeper, coaxing him to fill you up with him. Your lover’s pace grew frantic, snapping harshly and deeply as if to leave a lasting presence in your innermost part, to mould your pussy into the shape of his cock and his alone, rendering you impossible to be pleasured by the sheer size difference between him and others of his kind. With a few precisely, but sloppy thrusts, he had you gushing around him, back arching - as much as you could with his strong grip - pussy clamping down on him as he fucked you into the soft algae-covered surface. You blacked out, euphoria filling your hazy mind, slick dripping down the sides of your tail and your nerves were set alight with blinding fires, burning through you so strongly.

König swore lowly, his chest rumbling against yours, his cock throbbed and his arm stuttered, pace growing unsteady as the whole length of his arm pulsed with a load of cum. He gave one last thrust, roughly slamming into your gummy cervix, before a rush of cum shot out of his tip, flooding your womb with hot, white cum. It clung to the wall of your womb like glue, coating your cunt in the same adhesive and warm substance. He groaned, nuzzling his face in your bared neck, falling victim to his wandering mouth, biting and lapping at your shoulder and throat. His whole body shook, laboured breaths kissing your sensitive skin as something travelled through the length of his shaft, small bumps varying in size, from small pearls to big grapes, steadily moving towards the flared head of his cock.

You sobbed when the first egg struggled against the entrance of your womb, breaking through the firmness of your soft entrance. It pained you, the forced pop into your virginal womb that wasn’t made to take in, but push out. Your cries were shushed by König, his reassuring words mixed with his heavy breathing that did little to dampen the pain he put you through. The first egg dropped into your womb, sticking to the walls, and another quickly joined it, plopping down beside it, weighing heavily by every egg, adding to the heaviness inside of you.

“You’re doing so well,” he brushed away your tears, his thumb gently cradling your cheek, groaning and grunting at the rising eggs and his flared tip unravelling to latch onto your whole cervix, “Just a few more, ja? I am almost done.”

His “a few more” were more so dozens than anything, stuffing you until you bloated slightly. You were exhausted, limbs as heavy as your stomach did, eyes fluttering through your hazy sight, dancing on the edge of sleep and consciousness. Perhaps if you closed your eyes, falling asleep in this moment, you’d wake up from this as if it were a nasty dream, finding yourself in your little cave near the surface of the ocean. Perhaps this was all but a nightmare made up by your anxious and paranoid mind from all the stories you’ve heard from your parents and the elders. You were tired after all, sleeping wouldn’t be so bad to regain all the energy you wasted, and you hoped - that if this was your reality - that König would take care of you for doing this to you, for enrapturing you with all his madness and devotion.

You still missed the sun, the warm rays when you laid beneath it, just over a rock, but it was a far memory, further than you were willing to confess. You’d already grown used to his overbearing presence, his lingering eyes and wandering limbs, keeping one wrapped around your waists, your wrist or on your back, you’d gotten used to ignoring him and his dark eyes, bleeding into your world like the blood that stained the waters when he caught a live fish to feed you.

He fit you in his schedule, a routine he practised on a daily basis without a fault. You would wake up with a wail, coming all over his tentacle at least twice before he left you alone for the morning. He would go hunting after making sure that you were comfortable on your little perch, returning an hour or two afterwards with enough food for the whole day and a few shiny trinkets to try to appease your sorrowful heart. They were pretty, shimmering and glinting under the bioluminescent light, similar to the pretty pearls and seashells you would collect. Despite his intentions, it only reminded you of a life long gone, one that you unknowingly and willingly gave up when you took his hand that fateful day, condemning you to a life of darkness and solitude.

Then he’d spend the day with you, caring for your round stomach, rubbing soothing circles on your aching body, gently working the kinks and knots out of you. He provided for you, feeding you, soothing your pains, courting you with gifts and loved you with the entirety of his sickened heart. Your every need was taken care of, your hunger fulfilled, be it shark meat (a rarity for your kind of mermaid), squid or tuna, and your excitement satisfied with his cock, fingers, tentacles or mouth, eager to stuff you full despite your womb being grossly swollen with his progeny. He was fiercely protective, letting you out once in your month-long gestation, giving you the freedom to wander close to the ridge with a long arm wrapped around your waist. He never let you wander too far from him and never without a piece of him attached to you, clinging onto you as if you two were a singular entity —you probably were at this point, his thoughts and words echoing in your mind against your reluctance to accept him.

“Mein kleiner Schatzi,” he called, laying his head on your shoulder, his hood hanging over you. He forced you on his lap, snuggling up to you as he curled - loomed - over you while he shamelessly let his hands rove over your swollen stomach, feeling the grooves and bumps of his eggs, “You are very round. One more month and we will have little Satansbraten.” [Mischievous child]

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @havoc973 @candlewitch-cryptic @im-making-an-effort @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @0-ramen-0 @dreamdiaries777 @under-the-dirt @ajadell @danielle143 @bubbletae7 @mushroompasta @skystreamchan @kaelysia @notspiders @dont-mind-me-just-existing-sadly @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @brokenpieces-72 @petwifed @aldis-nuts @randominstake @lilpothoscuttings @cassiecasluciluce @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi

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mbari-blog · 7 months ago

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Anyone else still geeking out on the mystery mollusc? 🤓

Bathydevius caudactylus swims slowly through the midnight zone, an expansive environment of open water 1,000 to 4,000 meters (3,300 to 13,100 feet) below the surface. Most nudibranchs we know of live on the seafloor. They are common in coastal environments, including tide pools, kelp forests, and coral reefs. A small number of species are known to live on the abyssal seafloor. A few are pelagic and live in open waters near the surface.

While most sea slugs use a raspy tongue to feed on prey attached to the seafloor, the mystery mollusc uses a cavernous hood to trap prey like a Venus fly trap plant. Crustaceans are on the menu for Bathydevius caudactylus, though we are still not quite sure how such a slow swimmer catches such speedy prey.

If threatened, Bathydevius caudactylus can light up with bioluminescence. On one occasion, we observed a mystery mollusc illuminate and then detach a glowing finger-like projection from the tail, much like a lizard dropping its tail as a decoy to distract predators.

Bathydevius caudactylus is typically spotted swimming or floating in the water column, but descends to the seafloor to reproduce. We have observed several spawning individuals attached to the muddy seafloor with their muscular foot.

#mbari #deepsea #ocean #sealife #science #obsessed #tastefulnudes

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ggolondrinaa · 1 year ago

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Shoutout to biologists on my cuttlefish posts you are 1000% my target audience and I wanna hear so much more ! ty 😭 @imtheecat

hey... guess what my favorite animal is... i bet you can't... cmon.... just guess... guess what it is.... have you guessed yet?

#been a few years since i've gotten to see some of these beauties in person #they rlly do have such intelligent eyes!#cuttlefish #cephalopod #molluscs #favorite animal #marine life

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iguanodont · 1 year ago

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Emerges from my cave to announce I have created a new sophont

Tentatively calling swimslugs for now, as their designs mostly draw from mollusc anatomy. These small, colorful creatures dwell on a high gravity world dominated by shallow golden seas. Electrical engineering came early in their history, inspired by the ability of some of their native animals to generate electrical currents… and their own natural electroreception. The last few centuries have been peaceful and prosperous; their myriad cultures emphasize an exchange of art, culture, and friendly competition to sport the tackiest color schemes imaginable. Due to the high gravity of their world and their own physical limitations as aquatic creatures, swimslugs have a very limited history of aviation and have been generally uninterested in space travel, despite having been digital penpals with another group of sophonts for generations now…

On their biology:

Swimslug life relies on symbioses with two different organisms: a worm and a sessile “tunicate”. The worm (also simply referred to as an ‘arm’) is functionally a parasite; biting into the flank under the gills of its host early in life and fusing with its nervous and circulatory systems. This union allows the swimslug to develop fine motor control over the untethered end of the worm by adolescence. Most swimslugs only host a single arm; two or more become difficult for most individuals to acclimate to and can lead to health issues. Many genetic and cybernetic variations of the arm are available in the current era. The ‘tunicate’ (I will refer to as the Vase) is essential to swimslug reproduction; all parents spawn into the Vase to ensure a safe shelter and a steady current of oxygenated water for the developing offspring. The average swimslug has at least two fathers; the hybridization of multiple sets of gametes is essential to the proper development of their species. Family groups often consist of the egg layer, her family Vase (these can last for generations), and a 3 or 4 mates, though the particulars vary enormously by culture. Their eggs have a relatively low hatch rate; unviable eggs are consumed by surviving larvae shortly after hatching. The Vases themselves periodically produce free swimming larvae that are affectionately kept around dwellings as pets.

Swimslugs communicate by grinding and clacking modified stomach-teeth, as well as percussing on the adjacent ‘oil-sac’ organ that also serves to regulate buoyancy and store energy. They come in a dazzling variety of colors owing to both their complex hybridizations and genetic engineering. Cosmetic nanobots applied to their slime coats enhance their appearance by functioning as artificial chromatophores.

And that’s the gist of em! Many thanks to @nknatteringly for all the idea pitching and bouncing in their early development, wouldn’t have felt half as inspired without ya. Not sure how much further I’ll develop these guys, they exist mostly as a fun diversion to contrast the gritty, low-tech world of the birgs and a love letter to all the sparkly stuff I liked as a kid.

If you’d like to support my art, you check out these links here

———

Patreon

Kofi

Inprnt

#speculative biology #worldbuilding #creature design

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facts-i-just-made-up · 1 year ago

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Un-Vegan Substitutions

Many vegans and vegetarians enjoy substituting non-animal products when cooking meals that would otherwise involve meat, but carnivorous cooks have lagged behind in the substitution field when it comes to finding suitable substitutes for vegetarian and vegan products that can be made with meat instead. Here are a few delicious and similar tasting, similar baking materials:

Tofu - Lard

Flax seed - Bone meal

Mushrooms - Shark cartilage

Marzipan - Lard

Oat/Almond milk - Komodo dragon blood

Quinoa - Gallstones of an American red wolf

Seaweed - Llama or Camel cochlear hairs

Wheat - Lard

Apricots - Lard

Broccoli - Plantar warts

Coconut oil - Lard

Avocado toast - Swill oil on dehydrated mollusc gills

Vegan cheese - Gland scrapings (insect or isopod)

Jello - Lard

Jello Biafra - Lard with Al Jourgensen

#cuisine #food #fine dining #vegan #veggetarian #unreality

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ravewing · 1 year ago

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cambrian period dashboard simulator

redlichiida-realdeactivated0455414

petition to ban anomalocarises from the local sandbar. theyre so fucking big and it's freaking everyone out and me personally ion want a trilobite muncher looming over me when im trying to have a drink.

🪲 trillybite17 Follow

they dont call them the ABNORMAL shrimp for nothing, they're fucking weird

🎸 punkrock-halluci Follow

No, you know what petition needs to be started? One to get rid of ignorant bigots like you. Have you ever SEEN an Anomalocaris ever eat– let alone ATTACK– a trilobite? No, you haven't. Because they DON'T EAT TRILOBITES. Do some fucking research before you say shit like this.

⚜️ splendidmarrella Follow

fyi if you get rid of anomalocarises from public spaces then you will quite literally starve. you know those dead soft-bodied organisms yall scavenge and eat? yeah anomalocaris is the one providing those for you. as a scavenger myself i have been personally impacted by loss of food due to unfair treatment of anomalocarises that have forced them to leave the shallows that i live in and let me tell you eating detritus and nothing else is literally awful. please think twice before you post something prejudiced like this.

🩶 pleurae71 Follow

common hallucigenia + marrella W

ignore the OP, i promise most of us trilobites aren't like them- i don't even know why this is a debate. i guarantee they've never stepped outside of their little rock cave in their life

🌀 xcorynexospikesx Follow

LMFAOO they deactivated☠️

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🫧 cambripuns Follow

What do you call a Hurdiidae without any eyes? A Hurddae!

♟️vampeytoia Follow

actually you'd call it 'uncle maximilien' because my uncle maximilien was hatched with no eyes

💼 stanley-shrimp Follow

Valerie, you and I both know damn well that you do not have an "Uncle Maximilien," let alone one with no eyes. Stop lying on the internet and stop leaving your soft-bodied organism carcasses on my front sandbed. It smells putrid.

♟️ vampeytoia Follow

wow ok mr fun police. just go and piss on my parade like that

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👾 fiveeyedcoolguy Follow

giys i.m tripping bals rn lol. shuld not hv eaten tge 'detritus " browni e from the hallucigna.. i saw thr magic anomllcrais

🪱 pinkpikaiapage Follow

What?? Elaborate

👾 fiveeyedcoolguy Follow

He told me a prophecy

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🦐 apexshrimpy Follow

she cambrian on my period till i explosion

#anomalo talks #misc tag #is this hash tag funny or no?

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🎸 punkrock-halluci Follow

thinking about dying my spikes again. what color should i get?

🍢 leancho852 Follow

Do magenta to match your skateboard!!

🎸 punkrock-halluci Follow

ohh that's actually really smart thanks🙏

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🪨 shalesifters Follow

🧽 the-odontogriphus767 Follow

yo wtf. none of these fuck the landmasses. we're all in the ocean for a REASON

🦪 biofilmer08 Follow

Hey, actually, a few other molluscs and I browse on the microbial biofilm :)

♟️ vampeytoia Follow

🤓

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🕸️ arthropodstemz Follow

reblog if u get around by undulating ur lateral lobes

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📜 g-wiwaxia Follow

Did anyone else happen to see @shalesifters poll on the landmasses (followed by the reblog of the mollusc)? I'd like to think that I was born in the wrong generation. I should have been able to experience the joys of being a land-dweller. I may just have grown tired of being in the ocean every day; quite frankly I just want some sort of change or reform (especially considering the incredulous prices of jellyfish nowadays...)

#Rant #I hope you guys get the idea. I expect some (likely a copious amount of, actually) hate for this one, but regardless I thought that I'd share my thoughts here #I'd like to move to Laurentia

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📸 daily-cambrian-pics Follow

⚜️ splendidmarrella Follow

omg thats me on the bottom in the middle! @romip51212 @kookykootenia look its us from earlier today

🫑 kookykootenia Follow

Woah whatt this is actually crazy

🍤 romip51212 Follow

yo i look rad in that.. changing my header immediately

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🦂 radiodont-radiostatic Follow

DNI if you support any of the anti-anomalocaris propaganda that's circling around. Sick and tired of the twisted lies that are being spread on here. I won't stand for the slandering of my brethren.

#static speaks #dni #will not hesitate to block and report any of you bigoted assholes

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🪼 jlyfsgh224256 Follow

79,343 notes

🍌 nectocarisking69420 Follow

I FUCKING LOVE DETRITUS

🍌 nectocarisking69420 Follow

Yo wtf was i on last night

🍢 leancho852 Follow

You were speaking your truth king. Don't hold back

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🪸 see-you-lagerstatte Follow

thought too long about the big white orb beyond the surface and broke down crying. What to do about this?

#why is it there?????? what is it???? #please im going insane over this

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🐾 catboycanadaspis Follow

born to say "nya!" and meow. forced to consume the coarse particles found on the sediment surface

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🌊 tidal-trilobite Follow

hey has anyone else noticed that it's been harder to breathe lately or is it just me? can't afford to go to the doctor for an exam rn

🦀 clackyappendages Follow

I thought that it was just me! I might sound crazy but have there been less archaeocyathids lately??

🐚 sand-muncher-757 Follow

i've had TWO neighbors pass away from hypoxia in the past month, definitely have noticed the breathing issues too. also i havent seen an archaeocyathid in so long either. so weird😬😬

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#cambrian period #cambrian explosion #cambrian #paleozoic #paleontology #paleoblr #dashboard simulator #anomalocaris #anomalopost #opabinia #trilobite #hallucigenia #wiwaxia #canadaspis #pikaia #possible amrev reference

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rassicas · 2 years ago

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In the splatoon fanbase, there are many misconceptions surrounding the relationship between inklings and water. without fail whenever I mention something related to the topic I'll get replies of "actually the canon is [some popular but incorrect theory]" "no they can do this and this canonically [it's actually a headcanon]" "no its really [something NOA made up]"

so to briefly go over The Facts:

Inklings canonically die when submerged in water. And yes, getting "splatted" is them dying for real, respawning is also an in-universe thing that has existed for at least 2000 years and not just a game mechanic. While the dying in water thing originally came from a game mechanic, it has been repeatedly stated that they incorporated this into the inkling's biology. The water weakness is not because of the water itself being toxic. The reason is based in osmosis. in the process of their evolution, Inklings (and octolings) changed a lot, and one of these changes was the ability to transform between a humanoid and swim form. Doing this transformation requires skin that is a thin, semi permeable membrane [this kind of skin is a trait found in real life molluscs]. The evolutionary trade off is that, because of how semi permeable their skin is, the ink inside of their bodies will bleed out when in contact with another liquid. This is the answer given directly by the series' creator. And here it is confirmed that while the water weakness originated from game mechanics, it is very much became a part of an inkling's in-universe biology. Kind of like how a slug will die if you sprinkle salt on it (for a reason that's almost the same as the inklings), but ultimately needs salt in its diet through the food it eats to live, inklings do drink water and other liquids. Its also not like they touch water and immediately explode, it seems they can wash their hands in it and dip their feet in it and be fine.

Some people think the water weakness is stupid, personally i think its reasonable because Inkling biology is already weird as hell and of how ridiculously advantageous it is to be an ink-based cephalopod. the ink gives them the ability to jump absurdly long distances and cheat death to an extent. they're not losing much by not being able to dunk themselves in water. Anyway point is it sucks that all the relevant canon information on this is one of those japan only things/exclusive to developer interviews and pretty much every time it's brought up in English the localizers make shit up. I plan to make a video about this one of these days, but with how 'controversial' the topic is, and how many little details and connected concepts there are, I've been holding it off because I want to do it right. there's also some specific details that are unclear that I've been hoping would be clarified in the artbook or a dev interview but haven't, I might just have to go for it at this point. for the time being, i hope this post helps clear up a few things!

#splatoon lore #splatoon biology #splatoon #inkling biology #long post #actually surprised i hadnt made a post about this yet #anyway god i do need to make that video to get in depth on every mention of water is like. essay length #not to mention the repeated mentions of osmosis in relation to inkling biology that doesnt make it outside of jp #inklings #biology

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bestanimal · 2 months ago

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Round 3 - Reptilia - Ciconiiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order are the Ciconiiformes, which contain one family, Ciconiidae, commonly called “storks”.

Storks are superficially similar to the unrelated cranes and herons, with a long neck, bill, and legs, but they are more heavy-set. They have large bills, with sizes and shapes that vary between genera, adapted to their different diets. Storks usually hunt by wading in shallow water, but some will also stalk through grasslands. Most storks eat frogs, fish, insects, earthworms, small birds, and small mammals. Some are also scavengers of carrion. Storks live all over the world, except for the North and South Pole. They live in a variety of habitats, and can survive in drier environments than other waterbirds, but they are most diverse and common in the tropics. Many stork species are migratory, and soar on thermals to conserve energy.

Storks range from being solitary breeders through loose breeding associations, to fully colonial, nesting in colonies of a few pairs to thousands of pairs. Some colonies may include other species of storks, cormorants, herons, egrets, ibises, and/or pelicans. Storks use trees in a variety of habitats to breed including forests, cities, farmlands, and large wetlands. Their nests are often very large and may be used for many years, with the pair returning and building onto it each year. Most storks are generally monogamous, but some species exhibit regular extra-pair breeding. Both parents take care of the young.

Like most families of aquatic birds, storks seem to have arisen in the Palaeogene, around 40–50 million years ago, with living genera dating back to the Middle Miocene (about 15 mya).

Propaganda under the cut:

The characteristic feeding method of storks involves standing or walking in shallow water and holding the bill submerged in the water. When contact is made with prey the bill reflexively snaps shut in 25 milliseconds, one of the fastest reactions known in any vertebrate. The stork is also able to sense whether its bill is making contact with prey or an inanimate object within those 25 milliseconds, and it is still not known how they do this.

Openbills (genus Anastomus) are specially adapted to feed on freshwater molluscs, particularly apple snails. They feed in small groups, and sometimes African Openbills (Anastomus lamelligerus) (image 4) ride on the backs of hippos while foraging. Having caught a snail it will return to land or at least to the shallows to eat it. The fine tip of the bill of the openbills is used to open the snail, and its saliva has a narcotic effect, which causes the snail to relax and simplifies the process of extraction.

Various terms are used to refer to groups of storks, two frequently used ones being a “muster” of storks and a “phalanx” of storks.

The Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer) (image 2) is the largest stork, at a height of 152 cm (5 ft) tall and weight up to 8 kg (18 lb). With a wingspan of 3.2 m (10 ft 6 in), it joins the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) in having the widest wingspan of all living land birds.

Although it is sometimes reported that storks lack syrinxes and are mute, they do have syrinxes, and are capable of making some sounds, although they do not do so often. However, their syrinxes are "variably degenerate", and the syringeal membranes of some species are found between tracheal rings or cartilage, an unusual arrangement shared with the ovenbirds (family Furnariidae). Instead, storks mainly communicate by clattering their bills.

The two species in the genus Ephippiorhynchus are unique among storks for having colored sexual dimorphism. Saddle-billed Stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) (image 1) males have brown eyes and small yellow wattles, while the females have yellow eyes and no wattles. Black-necked Stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus) males also have brown eyes while the females have yellow eyes.

Many ancient mythologies feature stories and legends involving storks. In Ancient Egypt, Saddle-billed Storks were seen as being amongst the most powerful animals and were used to represent the ba, the Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul, during the Old Kingdom.

Greek and Roman mythology portrays storks as models of parental devotion. Storks were thought to care for their aged parents, feeding them and even transporting them, and children's books depicted them as a model of filial values. The 3rd century Roman writer Aelian, noted in his De natura animalium that aged storks flew away to oceanic islands where they were transformed into humans as a reward for their loyalty towards their parents. The Greeks held that killing a stork could be punished with death.

According to European folklore, the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) (see gif above) is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. German folklore held that storks found babies in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. The babies would then be given to the mother or dropped down the chimney. Households would notify when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the windowsill. Subsequently, the folklore has spread around the world to the Philippines and countries in South America. In Slavic mythology and pagan religion, storks were thought to carry unborn souls from Vyraj to Earth in spring and summer. This belief still persists in the modern folk culture of many Slavic countries, in the simplified child story that "storks bring children into the world".

#animal polls #so many shoebills show up when you search for storks in the gifs on here #surprise mfs that’s not a stork #that guy’s coming in two days #round 3 #reptilia #Ciconiiformes #edit: wth happened to all my links

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fatehbaz · 2 years ago

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Travel back [...] a few hundred years to before the industrial revolution, and the wildlife of Britain and Ireland looks very different indeed.

Take orcas: while there are now less than ten left in Britain’s only permanent (and non-breeding) resident population, around 250 years ago the English [...] naturalist John Wallis gave this extraordinary account of a mass stranding of orcas on the north Northumberland coast [...]. If this record is reliable, then more orcas were stranded on this beach south of the Farne Islands on one day in 1734 than are probably ever present in British and Irish waters today. [...]

Other careful naturalists from this period observed orcas around the coasts of Cornwall, Norfolk and Suffolk. I have spent the last five years tracking down more than 10,000 records of wildlife recorded between 1529 and 1772 by naturalists, travellers, historians and antiquarians throughout Britain and Ireland, in order to reevaluate the prevalence and habits of more than 150 species [...].

In the early modern period, wolves, beavers and probably some lynxes still survived in regions of Scotland and Ireland. By this point, wolves in particular seem to have become re-imagined as monsters [...].

Elsewhere in Scotland, the now globally extinct great auk could still be found on islands in the Outer Hebrides. Looking a bit like a penguin but most closely related to the razorbill, the great auk’s vulnerability is highlighted by writer Martin Martin while mapping St Kilda in 1697 [...].

[A]nd pine martens and “Scottish” wildcats were also found in England and Wales. Fishers caught burbot and sturgeon in both rivers and at sea, [...] as well as now-scarce fishes such as the angelshark, halibut and common skate. Threatened molluscs like the freshwater pearl mussel and oyster were also far more widespread. [...]

Predators such as wolves that interfered with human happiness were ruthlessly hunted. Authors such as Robert Sibbald, in his natural history of Scotland (1684), are aware and indeed pleased that several species of wolf have gone extinct:

There must be a divine kindness directed towards our homeland, because most of our animals have a use for human life. We also lack those wild and savage ones of other regions. Wolves were common once upon a time, and even bears are spoken of among the Scottish, but time extinguished the genera and they are extirpated from the island.

The wolf was of no use for food and medicine and did no service for humans, so its extinction could be celebrated as an achievement towards the creation of a more civilised world. Around 30 natural history sources written between the 16th and 18th centuries remark on the absence of the wolf from England, Wales and much of Scotland. [...]

In Pococke’s 1760 Tour of Scotland, he describes being told about a wild species of cat – which seems, incredibly, to be a lynx – still living in the old county of Kirkcudbrightshire in the south-west of Scotland. Much of Pococke’s description of this cat is tied up with its persecution, apparently including an extra cost that the fox-hunter charges for killing lynxes:

They have also a wild cat three times as big as the common cat. [...] It is said they will attack a man who would attempt to take their young one [...]. The country pays about £20 a year to a person who is obliged to come and destroy the foxes when they send to him. [...]

The capercaillie is another example of a species whose decline was correctly recognised by early modern writers. Today, this large turkey-like bird [...] is found only rarely in the north of Scotland, but 250–500 years ago it was recorded in the west of Ireland as well as a swathe of Scotland north of the central belt. [...] Charles Smith, the prolific Dublin-based author who had theorised about the decline of herring on the coast of County Down, also recorded the capercaillie in County Cork in the south of Ireland, but noted: This bird is not found in England and now rarely in Ireland, since our woods have been destroyed. [...] Despite being protected by law in Scotland from 1621 and in Ireland 90 years later, the capercaillie went extinct in both countries in the 18th century [...].

---

Images, captions, and all text above by: Lee Raye. “Wildlife wonders of Britain and Ireland before the industrial revolution – my research reveals all the biodiversity we’ve lost.” The Conversation. 17 July 2023. [Map by Lee Raye. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#paleo #ecologies #multispecies #tidalectics #geographic imaginaries #extinction #interspecies #ecoliving

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bethanythebogwitch · 4 months ago

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Wet Beast Wednesday: saltwater crocodile

66 million years ago, reptiles ruled the planet, being the largest, most efficient, and most dominant animals. Then a big space rock ruined that and cleared the way for the mammals to take over. Not all reptiles have forgotten their glory days and there are places where they still rule. Meet the saltwater crocodile, the largest and most dangerous reptile in the world and a reminder of their glory days.

(Image: a saltwater crocodile basking in the sun. It is a large reptile with short legs and a large, angular head with massive jaws lined with conical teeth. It has a long tail and its back and tail are lined with rows of scutes. It is a very dark green, almost black, in color. Its mouth is slightly open. End ID)

Crocodylus porosus is the largest crocodilian and largest reptile alive today. They are sexually dimorphic, with the males growing much larger than females. Most males are between 4 and 4.5 meters (13'1" to 14'9") and 408 to 770 kg (899 to 1698 lbs), but they can grow larger in optimal conditions. The largest specimen on record was found dead and estimated to be 6.3 m (20'8") while alive. The largest captive crocodile was named Lolong and weighed in at 6.17 m (20'3") and 1075 kg (2370 lbs). Females typically reach up to 3.4 m (11'2") and 200 kg (440 lbs), with the largest on record being 4.3 m (14'1"). Saltwater crocodiles have the greatest size difference between sexes of any crocodilian and it is thought that this is due to males needing to control a large territory. Saltwater crocodiles, like other crocodilians, are large, amphibious reptiles with large, long jaws and powerful tails that are used to propel them while swimming. Their bodies are covered with scales and scutes, though they have relatively few of the latter compared to other crocodiles. Their heads and bodies are broader than in most crocodiles, leading to an early misidentification of them as a species of alligator.

(Image: a close-up of the head of a saltwater crocodile, showing how high its eyes and nostrils are and its rough, scaly skin. A small leaf had landed in its snout. End ID)

Saltwater crocodiles have a wide historical distribution stretching from eastern India, north to China and Japan, and throughout the Indo-Pacific and Australasia. Overhunting has led to their range being reduced, with many isolated populations. The largest and most stable population is now in northern Australia. They occupy coastal regions and rivers, including mangrove swamps and estuaries. While other crocodile species can tolerate saltwater, only the saltwater crocodile regularly inhabits it. Their ability to tolerate saltwater has helped them get such a large range. The crocodiles can swim out to sea and let ocean currents carry them to new habitats. Tagging and observation has shown that they are powerful swimmers who can venture over 500 km out to sea, they spend most of their time in the ocean simply waiting to be carried to new feeding ground. Those traveling by ocean will occasionally return to land to warm up and wait for the currents to change. Ocean trips can last so long that barnacles can start to grow on their hides. Saltwater crocodiles spend more time in the water than any other crocodile species, but they must return to land to bask in the sun and raise their temperatures. As with other crocodilians, they often bask with their mouths open. The open mouth helps regulate their body temperature. Saltwater crocodiles are typically more active than most other species and spend a lot of their non-basking hours swimming in search of food or to patrol their territory.

(Image: a saltwater crocodile swimming underwater. Its body is skinny when viewed from the side. From this angle, its lighter underbelly is partially visible. End ID)

Saltwater crocodiles are opportunistic predators that will eat just about anything. Juveniles are restricted by their size and feed on fish, crustaceans, molluscs, birds, and small mammals. As they grow, their diet expands to larger animals such as dingos, emus, deer, boars, and primates. The larger males can take prey as large as water buffalo. Even the largest male will still take small food if the opportunity arises and they have shown some resistance to the poison of the highly invasive cane toad. As with other crocodilians, saltwater crocodiles are ambush predators. They tend to sit very still, allowing them to be mistaken for sunken logs and their eyes and nostrils are high on their heads, letting them keep most of their bodies submerged. When prey comes along, they will attack with their powerful jaws. Saltwater crocodiles have the most powerful bite force of any living animal and their teeth can be up to 13 cm (5 in) long. Prey not killed by the initial bite will be dragged into the water. Crocodiles practice the death roll, a habit of spinning themselves around while biting onto prey to dismember it. Food can be dragged underwater and stored until it starts to rot to make eating easier. Saltwater crocodiles have also been known to jump vertically out of the water to attempt to catch flying prey like birds and bats. They also also been known to use these leaps to try to knock monkeys and gibbons off of overhanging branches and into the water. While out at sea, the crocodiles will feed on marine animals as large as dugongs and sharks. Saltwater crocodiles, especially males, are highly territorial and will fight to defend their feeding grounds. Because of their slow metabolism and lethargic lifestyle, crocs can go months between meals.

(Image: a saltwater crocodile launching itself vertically out of the water to attempt to grab food that is being dangled above it. The front half of its body is sticking out of murky water and its mouth is wide open. End ID)

Saltwater crocodiles mate during the wet season, when temperatures and water levels are rising. Females will select the nesting site, which is usually a stretch of muddy shoreline. She then lays her eggs in an excavated pit and buries them under a mound of soil and vegetation that helps keep them warm. The clutch usually numbers 40 to 60 eggs, but can reach up to 90. The mother will remain near the nest until hatching, which can be over 100 days. When they young are close to hatching, they will emit yelping cried that triggers the mother to dig them out and even help hatch them by gently manipulating the eggs in her mouth. Once hatched, she will carry her young to the water and remain with them for around 8 months as they grow. Despite the protection of the mother, the eggs and juveniles are highly vulnerable to flooding and predation and only 1% of laid eggs will reach adulthood. Once they reach about 2 and a half years, the juveniles will begin to display territorial behavior and will stop associating with other members of their species. Females reach sexual maturity at around 12-14 years and males around age 16. They have a very long lifespan, with reports of crocodiles reaching ages of 70 and older. Most mature females will mate one a year and they do not show mate fidelity.

(Image: a juvenile saltwater crocodile basking on a log. It share the body shape of an adult, but its scales are a light, sandy color with dark patched. Its mouth is open. End ID)

Saltwater crocodiles are considered least concern for global extinction, but they are vulnerable to local extinction in many parts of their range. Habitat loss and poaching are major threats to them. Saltwater crocodiles are hunted for their meat, eggs, and skin, and poaching in a problem in large parts of their range. The most stable population exists in northern Australia due in part to conservation efforts and populations of feral goats, pigs, and buffalo that serve as a plentiful food source. Saltwater crocodiles are one of the few crocodiles that will eat humans. In fact, they are the species most likely to treat humans as prey. Their size and ambush tactics make them highly dangerous when attacking and they are likely to treat people entering their territory as threats. Males are more likely to be dangerous than females. Relocating problem crocodiles is generally ineffective s they or another crocodile usually find they way back to the now empty territory. The best way to avoid attacks is to stay out of their territory. In Australia, warning signs around crocodile habitat have been shown to be effective at reducing attacks. There are an average of 2 fatalities a year in Australia and attacks in other countries usually go under reported. Negative public opinion of the crocodiles has hampered conservation efforts as they are often attacked in revenge killings.

(Image: a saltwater crocodile basking with a radio tag attached to its back, the antenna sticking up. In the background is famous animal conservationist Steve Erwin, laying down in the water and looking toward the camera. End ID0

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sandsorghum · 3 months ago

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Lingering

wc: 3.7k

tags: Nanami Kento x Reader | Canon Compliant | Angst |

a/n: Vignettes of a life with Nanami Kento as a lover.

The details of your lover's work have always been a mystery to you. Something to do with shoveling appalling quantities of money around. Something that painted his face with dark circles and glaring rectangles, shadows hollowing his alabaster cheeks, making him look more gaunt than he really was, as if all appetites had abandoned him.

You knew, firsthand, this wasn’t the case.

But the work, whatever it is, steals the light from his irises, the definition from his shoulders. A silhouette losing shape in the cobalt smudges of dawn. You had learned to keep your eyes and fists closed, around cold sheets and the digits glowing red hot behind your lids, those numbers which never made it past 6:59AM.

You’ve stopped trying to curl your fingers around his wrist to find his warm pulse, met instead only by the chilling titanium cuff of his watch. The sting of his aftershave and the rasp of a kiss rushed against your forehead is the only proof of his presence before it can even fade from your view properly - so you've learned not to look for that outline disappearing beyond the door frame.

You both know if you open your eyes, however slightly, however full of sleep, he will be late. Often, you feel him stare, subtly willing you to test his resolve. And him, well, he has his own little rituals of temptations. It’s the tiniest things; his hint of mint in the crisp air, or the bustle of bristles hissing over enamel, sibilant as the sea.

Your lashes would flutter, slumber receding like the waves; in these twilight moments your gaze is searching, still empty of reproach - but as he senses you stirring, already the guilt piles high in his own, exposed as the shore.

He stands there in the dark, dripping with a mouth full of foam, watching your wakefulness moult into realisation, before the mutual regret retreats, mollusc-soft into the brittle shell of your smile:

“I hope you have a good day, Nanami.”

The bathroom light isn't switched on, but he watches your eyes shut in pincer-tight seams all the same, stifling the clawing in your chest and his with your cheek pressed against satin pillows. Watermarks would show up too clearly against such delicate material, so you make certain they don't.

Nanami knows this certainty too, feels it in your stare perched upon his back as he lathers his face. Several times he's made the mistake of stopping to look over his shoulder. Several times you've made the mistake of not dropping your gaze soon enough, or at all.

Neither of you can bring yourselves to call it a mistake however, when the bed sinks again with his weight, when the airy chastisement bubbles up from your throat against his stubble and soap, as he presses open-mouthed excuses along your jaw, "Just one kiss, darling, a few more minutes won't matter..."

But they do, of course, to the train conductors and his greedy boss and the gluttonous stock market brokers. And so Nanami finds himself forced to switch out the grind and whir of his electric razor to the barely audible scrape, scrape, scrape of a safety razor.

All risk of morning distractions shredded thin as you dream of them and him, dreams uninterrupted, reservoirs of desire dammed behind slumber, never to trickle into reality.

A morning comes when Nanami opens the bathroom cabinet that you keep dutifully stocked with both your necessities. There's ten boxes of disposable blades in the place where you'd normally store his batteries. He stares at it for a long time. For longer than he’d stared at that flyhead in that bakery weeks ago, when he’d first seen and left it.

Long enough to miss the 7am ride, and the 7:15am. Long past the peak-hour surge of last resort private hire cabs as well.

All those minutes did matter. And all the hours to come. And he knows how to spend them, who he really wants to invest them in. Whatever the risks.

Because Nanami's always wanted to see you like this, face glowing with surprise and a smile to rival the sunrise. He gets half of what he asks for, first the surprise, when you stir with the warm brush of his calloused thumbs and starched cuffs, the icy band of his costly wrist watch conspicuously absent. He smiles at the way you squint, perplexed and gripping his tie, anchoring yourself to the waking world, to him.

"Whyre…still here?Ydun have...time…"

"I do." Nanami promises, and he gets more than he asks for, than he dares for - as he always does with you. You press your mouth to him, he tastes your huff as he exorcises your disbelief, your breath an incandescent affirmation in his chest. It takes the midday sun at its highest point in the sky to remotely broach any comparison to your radiance, summoning his scorching touch.

ii.

The details of your partner's work remain a mystery to you. There is still something sharp and severe in his gaze when he stares at his phone, but the disgust dilutes into distaste, his frustrations ceding to a more manageable irritability, usually accompanied by some muttering about a “blindfolded man-child”.

Shadows still rim Nanami’s eyes but he stands a little taller these days. Sometimes stiffer too, when you ask if all of it is worth it. You get the answer just from how rigidly he sets his jaw, an unassailable answer behind the vault of his lips, sealed to yours.

Of course it is, to protect the most precious treasure in his life.

His old job was technically complex - this one isn’t, not really. But it’s still too difficult to explain, too risky to understand.

All he says is, he’s trying to make the world a safer place, and that’s dangerous sometimes.

Nanami doesn’t tell you more than that but you can extrapolate, or speculate rather. There are unfinished paragraphs in splotches of carmine, his bandages the only layer you’re allowed to peel back. So you grow grateful for the nights where the crimson merely speckles his shirt like commas or periods, even when you know they're just ellipses…and there’s no true addendum to the violence. Only epilogues.

The slivers of mornings have been exchanged for eternal twilights. Yes, you wake with Nanami by your side but the nights where you go to bed together are rarer. You hadn’t agreed to this trade-off. You hadn’t agreed to the hurried breakfasts and dinners dragged out over terse, tired, interminable silences - if he came back for them at all.

You hadn’t agreed to becoming far more familiar with the toaster rather than the stove-top. Or to the microwave becoming your most trustworthy, best friend over the expensive custom-built oven he’d purchased. There’s a constant tension in the inventory of your shared kitchen; fresh carrots, courgettes and alliums are reduced to stock cubes, while the jumbo bags of flour dwindle away to make space for value-packs of instant ramen instead. There are weeks when the war spills from your cabinets; you throw out wilted basil, whole cardamom pods, even the garam marsala powder has to go - turned into a solid block from being in the damp and dark too long. You’d almost wept when you had to toss the fenugreek seeds. Too many herbs and spices expired with barely a teaspoon’s dent made in their jars. You don’t even know what some of them are when you send them to their grave, the scuffed, faded labels as decipherable as hieroglyphs.

There was a time you would have asked Nanami but he barely remembers buying them.

The dry cupboards are crypts, the fridge a cryogenic cry for help - if it wasn’t already a morgue, or a self-sustaining mausoleum.

But you persist: Putting on his favourite skirt and that flattering apron, even while Nanami’s is hung in a corner fraying, accumulating dust, you make the decision to don your best smile and daub your wrists with the perfume he gifted you, the one which reeks of his regret, with its base notes of a promise still lingering on your skin; and you wait.

And you’ll wait. And wait.

You wait at the table, the steam growing cold long before the frost turns its keys in the lock and sweeps across your doorway. You rise to welcome him home to the honey glow, to the tungsten-warmth and spring in your step, to a plaiting of fingers and the coil of tongues, to feel the granite cliffs of his lips thaw against the meadows of your thighs.

You rise and you glimpse it, his smile flickering, the familiarity sprouting in your chest, sun-summoned, dandelion-effervescent, fern tangle-firm in solid boughs spreading lush as vast cypress roots below.

You reach towards him, the smile flickers again, his eyes scanning over the feast you prepared for him; the salad of pea tendrils and cauliflower florets, twinkling with the rubies of pomegranate pips. Filets of silver-skinned seabass, grill marks glistening gold with the tender white underbelly of its flesh. A caramel sheen, glass-thin over apple wafer-slices, delicately fanned in a glossy tarte tatin.

“My love, what is this?”

He turns to you, and the lump in his throat is more unbearable than the gnawing in your belly.

“It’s dinner, Kento. Remember those?” you laugh, hating how hollowly it rings through you.

Nanami has not taken more than two steps from the front step.

“Have I forgotten an anniversary?” he asks, tone already dubious, leaden with a quiet dread. “What’s the occasion?”

You approach him hesitantly. “There’s no occasion,” you say softly, “Do we need one?”

You never did, before. This used to be the norm you shared.

But you already know his answer as your question hangs in the air, feeling the despair condense in the room as Nanami’s guilty gaze darts to his phone.

“I’m so sorry, there’s another stake out. It’s an emergency, they want us out on the 10pm train tonight to Iwate. You know I wish I could-”

“For how long?”

“If there was any other way, I’d stay, but my colleague di-”

“How long, Kento?”

“Three days,” he whispers, clutching your hands. “Just three days.”

“Just three days. Right.”

He lets the wintry bite of your response clamp around his heart, spreading fractal through it.

“When I’m back, I prom-”

“Don’t.”

He’ll take your glare, at least you’re still looking at him, even eviscerating him.

“Darling…” The wretchedness of his tone at least indicates how much he’s missed the wondrousness of all he’s sacrificing, that he’s aware apologies aren’t enough. You sigh, freeing your hands to cup Nanami’s face and he leans fully into your touch, soaking in the warmth of your palms.

“I’ll get you a box. Go pack.”

Later, storing the leftovers, you’ll wonder if there’s enough cling film to wrap over your own eyes, nose and mouth. To bind yourself in a chrysalis, so you’d be blind to the clock till Nanami returned and made it home, made this place home again. You just had to wait.

iii.

He has the weekends at least. They’re no longer mere consolations, they are consecrations of the love you give each other. The bed becomes a confession booth, the place where he seeks penance and offers psalms in your name, for his mortal transgressions of being unable to be in two places at once, of letting you slip into this very same bed alone on too many nights.

Nanami isn’t a religious man, has little concept of a Sabbath - but if he did, he’d think it a sin that the grace he finds in you can’t be stretched into Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, would believe it blasphemy that he doesn’t get to worship you throughout the week.

He wonders how you can look both so conniving and innocent in slumber, nestled against his side now. He recalls the all nighters he used to pull at his office, because he didn't know what else to squander sleepless empty hours on; how his colleagues would mock and jeer that he was spoiling the market, gunning so hard for a promotion but nothing could be further from the truth. He had no intentions of winning the rat race. In fact he wanted out of it.

He’d thought maybe he could escape a little earlier if he ran further, ran faster but he didn't get out of the cage, he just stepped into a bigger and bigger maze, not even 25 and already hurtling towards a cul-de-sac, frequently fantasizing about how he might take that shiny new convertible the last pay bump afforded him and accelerate it into a nice solid alley.

But then he’d met you; you, who broke the gridlock in his life, who inspired him to go down his own road. Even if they seemed to lead back to hauntingly familiar paths.

No, he has a reason to look ahead now. He isn’t just trudging on day by day, even as he takes the present in his stride. His future is here.

Nanami is gazing at his future, smooshed into his neck and smearing sticky gossamer threads against his cheek, tiny wheezy noises whistling through their nostrils when his phone begins to buzz. He sighs, reluctantly picking it up.

“Good morning, Nanami-san! Just calling to confirm we’ll be meeting at the warehouse at 11.”

“I’m sorry Takuma-san. I won’t be able to be there after all. Something else requires my attention.”

“Oh, I see.” Ino doesn’t try to veil the abject disappointment.

“But I trust you’ll be able to handle the investigation independently, Takuma-san.”

“Gosh, really? All right, I won’t let you down Nanami-san!”

Nanami clears his throat, adjusting to the ebullient whiplash coming from the other end of the line. Well, he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. He knew his assessments were accurate. He just also knew the junior sorcerer held a particularly high regard for him.

“By the way Nanami-san, not to be rude or anything but your voice sounds a little rough. You’re not under the weather are you?”

“Well…” Nanami looks at you snuggling into a more comfortable position, with his bicep as your pillow, pinning his shoulders to the sheets.

“I suppose my arm is feeling slightly numb.”

“Oh, you should get to the root of that.”

Nanami glances down, containing the snicker in his chest as he hears you mumble something in your sleep. He skims a thumb over the apple of your cheek.

“I believe I will. Take care, Takuma-san,” Nanami says, concluding the call.

The warmth of his future seeps into his bones and Nanami thinks, after all these years, perhaps he can afford himself, and you, more than a little indulgence. He owes you that much. Or maybe he doesn’t have to hoard up all his leave days just to have this as a temporary respite; maybe he can make it permanent, for the rest of his life.

You thought your fiancè would leave most of the details to you but no, Nanami gets super involved with his rather strong opinions about the cake.

“The Sicilian Lemon & Poppy Seed has a moister crumb,” he insists.

You don’t say anything, only throwing a longing glance at the slice of pistachio cake between the two of you, a pout precariously balanced on the tines of the dessert fork pricking against your lips.

Nanami huffs through his nose, “I suppose we can do a fourth tier.”

Your face splits into a grin, and Nanami’s isn’t far behind as he presses bright citrus kisses to your mouth, savouring the light spilling into each other during this lull, quietly thrumming with all the energy of the day ahead of you both.

It’s moments like these that affirm your joint decision to independently organise the wedding was the best one you’d ever made - second only of course, to agreeing to have Nanami in your life forever. The treasure trove of tender interludes made these past few weekends, bustling with errands, all worth it despite their hectic schedule.

Even though the two of you were planning for a modest reception, there was still so much to cross off the list. Handwritten invitations, trips to the florist, checking in with caterers on the menu development. You glance at your phone, there’s still about a dozen vendors to see to. But with your fastidious, generous sweetheart by your side, you’re sure the two of you will be able to settle everything before the big day, and enjoy all this extra time you were spending together.

“We’ll get those pain au chocolats to go, thank you.”

Nanami loops an arm around you, rubbing your shoulders as you adjust your scarf more snugly around your neck against the brisk autumn breeze.

“We’ll need to pick out fabrics for the iro-uchikake next.”

“No wonder you wanted to hit up the patisserie first,” Nanami chuckles, braiding his fingers through yours as the two of you stroll down the street, a swirl of maple leaves crunching underfoot.

“I’m hoping it won’t take all afternoon, but I wanted to make sure we both got a bite first.”

“Good thing we got these emergency croissants then.”

“I thought we’re saving them for breakfast tomorrow?”

“Or I could make you your favourite loaded pancakes.”

You give Nanami’s hand a tight squeeze even as you sigh, “See this is why I couldn’t do the whole white wedding dress diet thing.”

“You hardly need to,” your beloved hums, fingers curling around the plush of those hips he adores so much, flush to his side, in step with you.

“You spoil me terribly, Kento.”

“Well, you’ll have to get used to that quickly, Mrs Nanami.”

An almost unbearable joy surges through your soul when you hear him address you this way. And soon (yet not soon enough) everyone else will call you that too. For forever more, you’d be Mrs Nanami.

After November 3rd, 2018.

iv.

November never arrives.

The end of October brings the end of the world, and the cracking open of one you wish you knew nothing about. One you still can’t comprehend, despite the deluge of information, despite your flood of rage and agony.

There’s only a single, salient fact through all of this - He’s gone.

He’s gone, and there’s nothing to cling to.

No broken mast to splinter through your ribcage, no driftwood that could salvage you as you’re ravaged by the waves. You want to drown, you want to drown, but every day you are spit back up on the shore so the salt can rend through your lungs once more, every day the sun still rips its way through your blackout curtains, a cruel gash of light exposing the stark reality of the empty spot in your bed. Right next to your fingers, curling your fist over the chasm, the space all the more frozen for the dust motes dancing over it.

The chill of the band on your fourth finger sinks into your palm, till you taste metal on your tongue, a mercurial poison in your bloodstream. It burns through you, numbs you. You shiver and you sweat. You close windows, you open them; caterwauls and gasoline fumes and the shrieks of ambulance sirens all bleeding through the panes - You can’t hear any of it over the hollow pounding in the cavity of your chest.

Something clawing at your esophagus, scrabbling to get out. Not a sob. You cannot swallow, throat too parched from not having eaten or drunk in days. You know what it is, it is screaming in your mind - but you will not let the world wrest this away from you too.

You cannot even utter his name, not even murmured into the dark. You refuse to let the shadows steal his syllables, you want them, their rubble, the full weight of them trapping your tongue and his breath, the memory of his breath, its devotion to you, his oaths in your mouth, a vow half-blossomed, a full burden, caught between your lungs for eternity.

The details of your beloved’s work are no longer a mystery to you.

A pink-haired boy with scarlet eyes shows up at your doorstep one day, trying to spare you the worst of it. He tries to tell you who he is, who the love of your life was to him.

He can’t be more than 16, but it’s clear his youth has become just one more casualty from that savage night. In the slump of his shoulders, you recognise Kento’s back, stiff under the weight of all he’d never said, but told you you dissolved, just by being there. You don’t know if knowing would have made a difference. It didn’t matter, Kento had decided, simultaneously selfless and selfish: It was only through your ignorance he’d been able to preserve a semblance of bliss.

But that had been his hubris.

Had he expected you to pick up the debris in his wake, in this eternal nightmare? Did he think his worst fears would never come to pass? That you were worth the risk? You would never get those answers.

If only, if only there’d been ashes. You would have swallowed them whole.

“We…we made rings, out of platinum…” You falter, your desperation rising thick in the air.

Itadori shakes his head, scarred hands knotting around his steaming mug.

“I couldn’t find anything like that…I’m-I’m sorry,” he whispers.

In that wobbling apology, in the tremor of his lower lip which he tries to curl behind his teeth, you see it, on the edge of vanishing, his violent attempt to vanquish the final vestiges of childhood innocence, what Kento had fought and sacrificed to protect.

You don’t have the strength, everything has been drained and sapped from you, the weeks have stretched and stretched you thin, but you gather Yuji in your arms, and this time he doesn’t stop the streaks cascading from those cavernous eyes, pouring into the ravine of your soul.

You hold him, you don’t know for how many hours, wracked and trembling and falling apart, and you clutch at the familiar and the imagined, you hold him, just to feel Kento’s frame shudder and shake against you once more, before it slips from your grasp and memory forever.

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