#as for my first experience with reptiles...

[slashingdisneypasta]

Seeing a lizard had visited you unlocked a core childhood memory of mine that I wish to share XD

When I was under 10 years old (I can't remember the exact age), I lived in Atwater, California. One of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it towns, as my parents put it. We lived in a condo, and our house was right next to these big apartments, in fact our backyards were next to each other, separated by a rickety wooden fence. And next to that fence was this tall, plastic fence that overlooked what I saw as a huge field at the time. And me and my brother had actually found a way to get to the apartments yard, through an opening between the two fences that we had to squeeze through, as if we're sliding between two close isles or shelves, if that makes sense? And there was a loose wooden board that we could step through, and we would use that to play with the kids in the building next to us.

Anyways, one day i decided to squeeze through on my own. But then I felt something on my arm. Something that felt like tiny claws. I swear, to little me, this felt like a scene straight out of a horror movie as I slowly turned my head over my shoulder to my elbow (it was outstretched for some reason? XD). And there was this little brown gecko just- right there. I think he was brown with beige stripes? But i didn't get a good look at him before I screamed, scared the poor guy, and scrambled back to my yard as fast as I could 😅

I still feel bad that I scared the critter 😅 he could have been a buddy! This did not stop me from visiting the next-door neighbors, though - the fence adventures stopped when I assumed the maintenance guy of the apartments learned of the loose fence and fixed it up. But yeah, this is my earliest encounter with a reptile, if my memory is correct (I can't remember if this was before or after my parents got a corn snake we named Houdini- take a wild guess how we lost him 😅- but these two instances took place in the same house. One of these two was my first encounter with reptiles)

OMG A GECKO??? XD

Aww. No yeah, it's adorable, but I would be startled too if I found one on my elbow!! XDD Especially as a kid! XD 💛💛💛 Thats such a cute story!!!

And- ...

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...

You owned a SNAKE!??

... and you LOST HIM??? Oh my lord XD Well was a he nice snake? ^^ 🐍🐍🐍

[firfisler-og-snoker]

i love being a reptile dude

[firelord-frowny]

i just applied for a fuckton of volunteer positions at the national aquarium and god god god god god i hope i can snag one of them lmfao i REQUIRE something meaningful in my life that i actually give a fuck about

[kaijutegu]

So. Now that she's home and safe and gonna be ok, I can talk about this.

I almost lost Kaiju. Christmas Day. I was woken up by a phone call from Allison, who will be referred to a LOT in this story. Allison runs the pet store where I board Kaiju. She called to tell me that Kaiju had lost a LOT of blood. (As it turns out, half her blood volume. Humans die when we lose 40%, just so you know. She lost 50%.)

There were no visible injuries, and she had passed a bloody stool. Or rather, a blood clot with some poop in it. She continued to pass only blood when they put her in the bathtub to clean her up. If I'd taken her anywhere else, that... would have been it, probably.

But Allison is an actual miracle worker and knew an emergency vet who was open- on Christmas Day- and could see reptiles. As soon as she called me, she took her to the e vet, where they gave her fluids and oxygen and got her stable. They did some x rays and found... nothing.

In fact, the e vet actually complimented me on her bone density and how nice her toe joints look. Whatever this mysterious haemorrhage was, it was in the soft tissue.

The immediate thoughts were:

Impaction

Cancer invading an artery

Aneurism

Reproductive issues

However, the emergency vet couldn't figure it out, and my vet was out of the country. The e vet consulted with a lot of vets and it was decided she'd go into Chicago Exotics for care the next day- they were willing to see her on immediate notice. Allison drove her over and they did an ultrasound... and couldn't differentiate the mass they found.

So, exploratory surgery it was.

But... she didn't have enough blood for that. She wouldn't have survived... if Allison hadn't found blood for her. Tegu donors were found, the transfusion happened, and was completely successful.

And what the surgery found was completely unexpected. No cancer. No repro issues. No typical impaction.

Instead? Weird white things in her muscles and a partial impaction that seems to be related to a reduction in her ability to properly digest. There are two possible diagnoses at this point. One is visceral gout. This is very strange because in reptiles, articular gout basically always happens first, and her kidneys are fine.

The other option? Weird, potentially cross species parasite she picked up when she was in the Everglades. Something she's likely had all her life, something that was dormant until recently.

I'll know when the pathology report comes back in a week or so.

Anyways! She is doing very well. She is alert and interested in things. She has an incredible appetite, even though she can't have solid food yet. She's on three meds, including one I have to inject. At her three week recheck, we will add a fourth- either the correct anti-parasitic or a medication to improve kidney function, depending on the diagnosis. Currently she's in a hospital cage and she hates it- she can't have any substrate because of the stitches.

The vet says it should take about three months until she makes her full blood volume. Her pack cell count should be at 35%. It was at 7% on the 26th. But by the 28th, it was at 10%. She's gonna be ok. She's tough. My little girl is a fighter, always has been. You have to be scrappy to survive in the wild.

And throughout this entire experience, everybody has told me how lovely her personality is. Through the injections and cloacal probing and everything, she never bit or even tried to. The vet didn't think she even wanted to bite. Like it wasn't a question of wanting to bite and not being strong enough- it's just not something in her behavioural repertoire. She doesn't bite because she doesn't want to. Because even at her most scared, at her most painful, she's still Kaiju, the best tegu to ever live. Love is stored in the tegu, and it continues to be stored in the tegu. We have a long road ahead of us, but she's out of the woods and is going to be ok. We both are.

Also, consider this a MAJOR plug for Curious Creatures in Chicago. I'm never going to board my animals anywhere else.

[ihazyourkitty]

I really try to avoid fact checking people in public comment sections on the internet, but sadly this time I couldn't resist.

There was a reel on Facebook explaining the "sad" reason why cetaceans in human care often receive ice. It's because they're given "dead fish" you see, and these frozen thawed fish contain less moisture than the live fish they eat in the wild, so the ice helps prevent dehydration.

First of all, this is half true. The other half is that many cetaceans just love getting ice.

Supplemental hydration can also include gelatin and squid. The latter two are not unique to cetaceans btw. Squid and specially formulated gelatin based foods are also used in many fish diets in part to provide additional moisture. They also count as enrichment, depending on the context.

In any event, this creator thinks it's sad... that caretakers are providing their dolphins additional hydration? What, does he also think it's sad that they get vitamins? Reptile keepers regularly dust their animals' food with calcium to make sure they don't get metabolic bone disease. Is that also sad? These things are standard zoological practices, not signs of neglect. Wouldn't it be sadder if they didn't do that?

(Reason #423 why framing matters).

"But it's not natural!"

Neither is running on a treadmill, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you. Also, I'm pretty sure ICE is one of the most natural things you could use....

"Well why can't they just give them live fish!?"

Because the logistics of sustaining a live colony for such a purpose would be an expensive nightmare. Do you know how many pounds of fish these animals need to eat in a day? Using them as an occasional form of enrichment might be feasible, but on the regular? Just. No! Tell me you don't know how fish care works without telling me you don't know how fish care works!

It's cruel to the fish, for the same reason that it's cruel to feed snakes live food (assuming they aren't picky eaters). Fish are not just props, they are live animals that can experience stress and pain!

Freezing the fish helps keep it safe to eat.

"Why not just release them back into the wild?"

Because that would also be cruel since they wouldn't know how to survive. Next question.

"How do they get dehydrated when they live in water!?"

Oh man. Oh man oh man.

Cetaceans get most of their hydration from their diet. A quick google search indicted that they can drink some salt water, though I don't know how true that is, and to be clear, their kidneys are likely much more efficient at filtering out salt than ours (someone who knows more about this, please feel free to correct me). Regardless, most of their hydration comes from their food. Lack of food leads to dehydration, both in captivity and in the wild.

But there was one guy who said that dolphins in captivity can't drink the water because it's chlorinated. This is not true. The residual amounts of chlorine left after their water passes through filtration is no higher than what is in your tap water.

(Btw, this is another reason why live fish aren't typically used, because you don't house fish in systems that use chlorine, even in small amounts).

When I pointed this out to the guy, his response was that "most of their diet contains water from the exact same source."

To his credit, he did back down when I pointed out that this was wrong. But come my friends! As a fish person, let me explain to you why this is not correct!

Fish blood chemistry is not the same as the ambient water around them. They would not be able to maintain homeostasis otherwise. You see, their gills and kidneys help them osmoregulate.

Freshwater fish blood contains more salts than the surrounding freshwater, which means the via osmosis, water will enter the body, and unless they can compensate for this, the fish will swell up like a balloon, lose necessary salts, and basically drown. So what do they do? Their kidneys produce large amounts of dilute urine get rid of this extra water. Meanwhile, chloride cells in their gills take up ions from the water to transport into their blood.

Saltwater fish, however, have the opposite problem. Their blood has less salts than the surrounding water, so they need to get rid of extra salt. How? Well, they actually do drink the saltwater, and then their kidneys help filter out the extra salt. They basically produce very concentrated urine. But the kidneys cannot do this alone, so the chloride cells in their gills also help by basically working in reverse. They move extra ions out of the blood.

Elasmobranchs, crustaceans, mollusks and other marine mammals that may also make up some cetacean diets will have their own methods of osmoregulation.

All of this is to say, no, eating saltwater animals does not mean you're literally consuming ocean water, as these organisms have specific mechanisms for filtering out the excess salts.

This is, btw, why you can't just put a freshwater fish in saltwater or vice versa. They will die. Nor is this unique to fish, most organisms adapted for one environment don't thrive in the other.* Case in point: we cannot drink salt water, because our kidneys cannot handle that.

But some animals can! Take the salmon for instance. They hatch in freshwater environments, then move to saltwater, and then back when spawning season comes. How do they do this? Well, there are specific environmental/developmental triggers that cause their bodies to start osmoregulating in reverse. This does not happen instantaneously, however. They need time to adjust. They will migrate to brackish water, and allow their bodies a few days to adjust before continuing.

Some species of fish have higher tolerances for wider ranges of salinity/total dissolved solids (TDS) than others. Fluctuating these levels can actually trigger spawning in some species too! Discus, for instance, can be maintained in relatively harder freshwater than what they'd experience in the wild. But for breeding purposes, it's recommended to use softer water with lower a TDS. Given that discus can be more finicky, however, any of these adjustments should be made gradually.

On the other hand, there might be another species where a more sudden change is beneficial. Tropical fish native to floodplains that will experience sudden onsets of flooding from the rainy season, for instance, may need precisely that sudden rush of freshwater with lower pH and TDS to trigger spawning. Even if spawning isn't the end goal, simulating these seasonal fluctuations can be a very effective form of naturalistic enrichment!

....Oh dear, I went on a very nerdy tangent, because SCIENCE!!!! Enjoy.

*this can actually be taken advantage of in certain treatment contexts! Saltwater aquarists will sometimes do what is called a "freshwater dip", where the saltwater fish is very briefly immersed in freshwater to help rid them of harmful external parasites or bacteria. Usually, it's used when fish are first brought into quarantine. It's not 100% effective on its own, but it's one of the many tools in an aquarist's arsenal. Oh! This can also be used on sea turtles in some rescue situations! Again... SCIENCE!!! >:D

[herpsandbirds]

I love your blog!

San Francisco garter snake has had a special place in my heart since I was about 10 years old and bought my first snake book at Barnes and Noble. Much appreciated post!

Thank you sugarpIum!

have a similar experience with SF Garters. There was an illustration of one on a snake poster I had as a child, and I remember one from a reptiles book i had as well. They always sparked my imagination and interest because of the colors.

San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia), family Colubridae, found in coastal northern California, USA

ENDANGERED.

Photograph by Bonnerscar

[battle-of-the-brothers]

I Feel Like All of Branch’s Big Brothers Are Incredibly Supportive of Literally EVERYTHING He Does, But it's All to Varying Degrees

Branch: *Fixes the TV*

Floyd, wagging his tail: Wow, you’re pretty handy.

Branch, half paying attention: Yeah, well, living alone ya kinda have to be.

Floyd: Do you fix everything around here when it breaks?

Branch: Yup. Every single thing.

Floyd: That's incredible!

Branch, suspiciously: *Turns to Look at Floyd* Am I being babied or genuinely praised right now?

Floyd: Branch, I was the first one to acknowledge that you've grown up. *Chuckles* I'm being serious. What you do takes skill and knowhow some trolls can only dream of having. I'm proud of you.

Branch: *Blushes and Turns Back to the TV* Yeah, well... *Wags His Tail Slightly* Good for you, I guess.

Floyd, knowing he's made Branch happy: Yeah, good for me.

--------------------

Clay: Need a hand with those sticks?

Branch: Nope. I've got everything under control.

Clay: Oh! Alright. What, uh... what are they for, exactly?

Branch: *Sighs with Slight Annoyance* Spears. I may not need to hide from Bergens anymore, but-

Clay: There are still predators out here that you could take down with just one?

Branch: Uh... Y-yeah.

Clay: Nice. Always thinking ahead, that's my baby brother!

Branch: ...Riiiiiight. Anyway, I'm gonna go whittle these, now.

Clay: Okay, okay.

Branch, after an uncomfortable bout of silence: Do you... want to help?

Clay, excitedly: YES!

--------------------

Bruce: And then, after you mix the eggs, you- WAIT, NO! DON'T TOUCH THAT YET!

Branch: *Accidentally Flips On the Giant Mixer and Gets Covered in Unfinished Cake Batter* Whoops.

Bruce: Ah, geez. Brandy's not gonna be too happy about that one.

Branch: Ah, sorry. I'll clean it up and-

Bruce: What? No! You go clean yourself up! You look uncomfortable.

Branch: Please, I've been covered in worse stuff than cake batter.

Bruce: *Chuckles* I'm sure, but trust me when I say it is not fun when it dries. Working with anything sweet doesn't feel good once it dries or compacts.

Branch: I take it you know from experience?

Bruce, grabbing a towel so he can clean Branch’s face: *Snorts* Plenty of it, trust me. *Pauses for a Moment to Appreciate Branch’s Presence* You know I love you, right? Nothing’s gonna change that.

Branch, deadpan: You just want me to feel less responsible for the mess.

Bruce, smirking: Maybe. Or maybe I just want my baby bro to know he's loved, even when he makes mistakes. I don't think enough people have told you that.

Branch, blushing: *Clears His Throat* Being the village recluse kind of makes that a bit hard to come by.

Bruce, finishing up with Branch’s face: Well, now you have people who care about you enough to say it. In their own ways, but you'll know when they mean it.

Branch: Mhm. Alright.

Bruce: Don't worry, Branch. You'll see it someday. Now you should seriously go clean up, Brandy's coming!

Branch: *Yelps and Races Towards the Bathroom*

Brandy, walking into the kitchen: Nice one.

Bruce: Eh, ya learn a thing or two with 13 kids.

Brandy: No need to assure me. You got this, or do you need some help?

Bruce: Nah, I've got it. Thanks though.

Brandy: Any time, love.

--------------------

Branch: *Wrestles Down an Agitated Flockodile That Stormed Into the Village*

John Dory: WHOO! YEAH, BRANCH! YOU KICK THAT CRITTER'S ASS SO HARD IT'LL WAKE UP AND REGRET COMING OVER IN THE MORNING!

Clay, freaking out: JOHN! What the hell are you doing?! He could get hurt!

John Dory: What? Nah, he's fine!

Bruce: JD, he's fighting a giant reptile!

John Dory: And winning! Look!

Bruce and Clay: *Look to See the Flockodile Tiring Out and Falling to the Ground*

John Dory: YEAH! THAT'S MY BABY BROTHER! BRANCH! BRANCH! BRANCH! BRANCH!

Poppy, walking up to the unconscious Flockodile: *Playfully* Looks like you have a number one fan.

Branch: Ugh, don't point him out, his hearing is as good as mine.

John Dory: THAT'S MY BROTHER!

Poppy, giggling: He seems pretty proud.

Branch: Yeah? Well I'm pretty busy dealing with this thing.

Delta Dawn, trotting over with a smile: Don't you worry about that, hun. The Country trolls can take this right off your hands!

Branch: Ya gonna eat it?

Delta Dawn: *Smirks*

Branch, slightly impressed: Alright. *Leaps Off the Flockodile* Have at it.

John Dory: YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH!

Branch, blushing heavily: JD! SHUT THE HELL UP!

Poppy: He's just trying to be supportive, honey.

Branch: In front of the entire village!

Delta Dawn: Hate to be the bearer of bad news, darlin', but that's just part o' havin' a siblin'.

Branch: Can I trade that one in for a better model?

John Dory: I HEARD THAT!

Branch: *Sighs* I miss when I didn't have this big of a support system.

Poppy: No you don't.

Branch: *Glances Over to See Bruce and Clay (Attempting to) Restrain John Dory* Hmm, yeah. I guess you're right.

[kedreeva]

Actually had mice to take to a reptile expo for the first time in MONTHS (between selling out immediately after listing any mice and taking my end-of-year break, I simply haven't had enough mice to make it worthwhile to bring them since last summer!), and had a blast again. It seems like every time I bring them, there's never a single second where there's not someone at my table.

It's very funny to me that I have to put out a sign that says "these are PETS not feeders" and how often someone starts to walk by, sees the sign, and comes over. I actually have a whole Display Sign that has info about my mice, why they are different, how to handle them, and like a dozen photos of some of the beautiful mice I've had, and I catch people stopping to actually read it, too. The font is pretty big, but it's juuuust small enough they have to come a little closer, close enough I can hold a mouse out to them.

I've also learned that people don't always believe me when I say the mouse won't bite or jump off their hand. I see the tension, I see the anxiety. I tell them, they've been bred for this. I have told people, I will pay you $5 if this mouse bites you, I'm that confident, because I wouldn't bring them if I thought they might. But the only thing that really gets through to some people is to just plain show them. Close my fist around them (gently, but firmly enough I can flip them upside down securely), scrub them up, smoosh my face to them, rub a finger on their cheek/jaw/mouth. Nothing happens. At worst the mouse is lightly inconvenienced for a moment. But the transformation that comes over the people who see it is complete and instant. A visual "oh." moment. They relax completely, which makes their handling experience so much better. People straight terrified to hold a mouse in the first place hold out their hands for one. Small children who said no thank you (which I always respect, I have even told parents no, it's okay if they don't want to hold one, we have to respect their no thank yous too) will often ask if actually, can they can hold one?

I had one little girl who held a mouse that was a little squirmy at first because the girl was holding just a liiiittle too tight, and she was having trouble for a few seconds, but I kept an eye on her in case I needed to intervene, and she quickly figured out to be more gentle, and the mouse quickly figured out she was fine actually, and she ended up flopping down in this girl's hand and getting her face and head rubbed while she bruxed for like twenty minutes. I was surprised she didn't go home with a mouse, but I have a feeling I may see her family again.

I also had some guy ask if I wanted to be on his reptile podcast, for the mice, because he never knew there could be a difference between feeder mice and other mice. So I guess we'll see!

[fandomsilhouette08]

These kiddos has been through..so many redesigns, I hope I'm stickin to this one 🤧🤧🤧

My other kiddies -> Next -> Next

Re-re-reintroducing Blare and Blitz the hedgehog, twin daughter and son of The Blue Blur and The Ultimate Lifeform aka Project Sonadow

Meet Blare the Hedgehog <3

80% of Sonic's Speed & 20% of Shadow's chaos powers

Ambivert + Athletic + Into Anime

Is a vegetarian but will settle for a full day meal of cereal

Outdoorsy kid + loves reptiles & amphibians

Acts before thinking in thro in battle

Constantly is compared to Sonic, loved at first when she was a kid but hates it now

Meet Blitz the Hedgehog <3

80% of Shadow's chaos powers & 20% of Sonic's Speed

Introvert + Inventor

Actually cooks like his mama Shadow + Into birds

Online 24/7 + Into Western Animation

Thinks the acts + Precautious kid/ a lil paranoid

He has a need to prove himself, or in other words he doesn't want to be in either of his parents' shadows nor his sister's

Both of their shared interests <33

Once both of their inhibitor rings are off, their powers are shared equally 50/50 with addition to new shared abilities such as destroying living and non living being and creating sonic booms when going fast

Loves to read + watch telenovelas + play video games

Heavily sarcastic like both of their parents(mostly Shads) + speak fluent in spanish

Twins do have a skin care routine + Afraid of needles from the lab experiments with Eggman

Excellent fighters & are good with guns

Twins got figurines in their rooms for whatever their into

Both are into guys + Sweet tooth

Aanndd they can turn to squids (once rings are off)

[llamatail]

bambi rocca for @neishroom gab's 202X class

bambi is my very late spare and the baby sister of the rocca bunch. she was born from an unplanned pregnancy right as i was ending the first generation, don't leave your aging founders around an unattended cow shed folks. i didn't get to play her much as a teen as a result, so i would love to see her thrive in another gameplay. she is chestnut ridge born and raised, where her parents own a ranch. despite having two older siblings, she basically got the single child experience as they are both like fifteen years older than her and moved out when she was still a toddler. her father passed her down his taste for old rock bands and 80s horror movies. she helps around the ranch so she knows her ways around handiwork and farm work, but she's quite clueless when it comes to getting around the city, especially public transportation. she loves most animals except for cats, if she had her way she would have a reptile. she's not the most earnest student, she's that one kid who doesn't seem to own a pencil case and is always asking around for a piece for paper. her parents are hoping she will take over the ranch eventually, but she's not having it. she likes to fix retro consoles on her spare time, and she's focused on getting enough money through odd jobs to open her own repair shop after graduation.

๋࣭ ⭑⚝ traits are tomboy and gamer, asp is towards independence, all cc so can be changed around if necessary

๋࣭ ⭑⚝ sagittarius and single af, her brother got all the rizz genes

📼

[staarboyyy]

Paid in kind

cooper howard [ the ghoul ] x bounty!reader | no pronouns

explicit - minors dni

tags / warnings ; gunplay, breathplay, bondage, spitplay, hairpulling, oral [ m receiving ], throatfucking, wallfucking, creampie, accidental yearning, prolonged eye contact is sexy, switch!cooper is underrated, mentions of past sexual experiences, nondescript reader genitals, rad x as ghoul birth control

summary ; you've been running for weeks, but there's nowhere he won't find you.

word count ; 5.2k

a / n; inspired by the wonderful @ghoulsbounty and @ghoulbrain ! both are such lovely writers, i couldn't help but jump on this old man's bones !! (also as a texan i just had to put a fic out there using my southernisms)

The sun was achingly bright - That was the first thing you recalled. It beat down against the tattered and worn material of what you could manage for clothes, your eyes squinting as they couldn't resist to meet the sky. Everlasting, going as far as you could see - It brought strange comfort to have this one constant in this place, while also being a nice change from the large warehouse you took shelter in. Your feet moved slowly, the gravel against the soles of your shoes shifting with each step, eyes still pinned on the infinite blue stretching above your head forever. Instinctively, you knew being distracted, and taking time to enjoy the small things in this broken world, would be far less than short-lived. Though, taking in slow breaths of the thick air, clogged with the stench of the dirt below your feet and a dry breeze that stung your eyes; So much so, that you hardly noticed the hulking mutated mass moving towards you. It took in ragged breaths, crouched forward, wet tendrils obscuring its surging bloodshot eyes and split-cheeked jaw, messily hanging off the hinges. This action exposed rows of teeth, tattered and yellowed over the years roaming this land - As you whipped your head around, your hand moved with a practiced poise, already hovering over your weapon, itching with the need to draw against this thing that amassed itself towards you. An ear-shattering crack reverberated through the air before you could even finish bearing your teeth, white-knuckling your weapon. The blast was nasty, crushing through the reptile's large skull with an obscene squelch before falling forward to the hot ground with a thud. It lay in the seeping mess of what must be its blood, a dark pungent green, reeking of hot rubber - It stung your nose with a sharp sour tang, churning your stomach as you threw your hand over your mouth, staggering backward from both the sudden onslaught on your senses and the sudden shot tearing through the air.

"Well, well."

Your blood ran cold as the familiar gruff voice came a few yards past the bleeding mess in front of you, your eyes shuddering over the scene to meet the speaker with a widening gaze. He came from around the corner of the warehouse, that man - The one that insisted on shadowing your every move, no matter how far you ran. The soft breeze of the blazing day swept the tattered edges of his long coat, soft jingles following him as he took a few slow steps forward. He had lowered the gun level your face, gloved hands steady on the weapon as his eyes found yours. They were alive - Coherent, a sharp contrast to the little visible skin he showed, stretching scars bound over his cheeks and neck arching down and distorting the grassy texture of his tanned skin. Slowly, his thumb rose, letting it rest on the gun's hammer with a punctuating step.

"Looks like someone's not payin' attention."

You had been on the run for hours, and yet he cocked his head off to the side as his gaze raked over your hardening expression; It was all for nothing, the ghoul hardly affected by the travel you were desperate to turn into escape. Escape from the world that still tangled itself around your neck, pulling you across this wasteland with little, if any direction. Your heart slammed against your ribs, taking in a tentative breath of the nauseating air, keeping your eyes as far from the gurgling body of the reptile. You were hot, hungry, and most of all, exhausted of running. Maybe he knew that - Maybe that's why he chased you, knowing that one day, you would finally give up. The clicking of the hammer being drawn back pulled you from your thoughts, eyes moving to meet the barrel, then scrape back up to him.

"Why don't you just kill me?" It hurt to talk, your throat cut up and raw from breathing the thick radiated air - Still you couldn't shake the question as it pressed past your chapped lips, keeping your eyes pinned on the barrel. It was challenging, how you spoke to the shell of the man. Your eyebrows drew together, focusing past the smoking barrel of his shotgun with an insistent expression. At this, his eyebrow muscles shifted with a slightly suprised chuff.

"So you do speak." The Ghoul. You heard stories, making your way across the wasteland with little you could to make do, falling into bounty work, and getting caught up with bad people - The wrong people. The ones that talked about digging him up, that he would be able to take out the one target that seemingly ruled the wasteland. The Ghoul's voice scraped across the air, the breeze carrying the rough twang in his voice, the jingle of his spurs as he shifted his weight. You didn't care for the stories of your peers; And my, there were stories. Cooper Howard, movie star, face pasted across battered billboards. You also didn't care for the night three men you worked beside insisted on digging him up - But when you saw your face smeared across the radiated land, posters crumbled and pinned messily to boards and the inside of almost every building; You knew he was looking for you.

"I don't know what you want from me," You said in a rasp, unable to dwell on the near teasing tone in his rugged voice, not in this sweltering heat, not with the stifling smell of the creature between you and The Ghoul - The thing, the shell of a man, Cooper Howard; Or at least what was left of him.

"Well - Looks to me, I just saved your life," He mused, clearing the raggedness in his throat as his eyes lowered to your hand. How it twitched over your weapon, tattered gloves hiding bruises and scars. Cooper pushed his tongue to his cheek, head falling slightly to one side as he eyed your trigger-happy fingers strum at your holster teasingly; His mind pulsed with flashing images, the forking of how this awaited meeting would actually pan out. His tongue slid over the grit of his teeth with a slow hissed breath.

"Now, you plan on usin' that thing?"

A beat met you, breath hitching for a moment as he flicked his speculative gaze to return to yours - And just as you caught each other's eyes, your hand moved. Your fingers wrapped over the mangled handle of your pistol, fabric tied over the base for some steadying on your trembling hands; And as soon as you drew, the bullet fired, keeping his eyes on yours as you squeezed the trigger tight. The sound rocketed through the dusty air, his left shoulder falling backward with an unnatural shift, letting his weight fall off to the side as he grunted softly. His gloved hand reached his shoulder, rubbing at the hole now torn through his jacket, hissing through his teeth. You tried to move quickly, the exhaustion cementing you to the hot dirt of the wasteland as your boot heels scraped against the rubble, pushing yourself away from the other. However, it didn't matter now, not as his hand moved from his crooked shoulder to the coiled thick rope slung around his thick belt, wasting no time seeing your sudden urgency to escape.

"Not lettin' you get away again sugar." You nearly made it to your feet as you heard the chilling metal clinks of his spurs, panting as the sun that boiled overhead went dark; Cooper stood above you with a scowl, grasping the lasso now looped around his hands, clutching at the fraying rope with the assured intent to use it. "Now, you best put that toy of yours away. I need you alive." The sharp pull of the lasso whipped through the space between you, taking hold of your throat with a sudden drawn pressure of your quickly swallowing breath. Your hands rose, letting the pistol fall from your grasp as you white-knuckled the rope, now being pulled by it to your feet. Cooper sucked his teeth, tightening the knot with a gruff exhale as your cheeks flushed, blood rushing in your ears in crashing waves. It wasn't choking you per se - Though the pressure spun your head, staggering as he yanked you forward, invasive eyes now inspecting both your growing frantics and the expertly tied knot.

"From how I'm seein' it - I deserve a little kindness for not lettin' that thing tear you apart," You still managed to scoff, even as the rough frayed rope pressed tighter, threatening to take your breath completely.

"Just trading one monster for another," You spoke in a strained voice, eyebrows twitching together as you still tugged at the rope constricting your air, temples pulsing with hot sparks of pain. His lip twitched, eyes darkening and forcing the knot to slide tighter against your throat for just a moment. You choked, breath pulled entirely from your lungs before suddenly falling against the dirt to your knees, ragged coughs pushing between your lips, drinking down gasps of air with a gluttonous groan. Upon opening your eyes, you could make out his boots, and the sound of his soft snickering - He was entertained by it, the way you so quickly fell from challenging him to kneeling, saliva spilling from your lips onto your chin as you coughed on the radiated air, finally able to tear the constricting rope away from your bruised neck. Cooper let it go on, head tilting off to the side with a smug expression before one of his hands met the top of your head. The leather creaked as his fingers spread and tangled themselves in your hair, gripping the locks and yanking back, you had no choice but to rest your watering eyes on his, trying to control your desperate need for clean oxygen.

"You know how many people want'ya dead?" He looked down at you with a blank expression, his jaw shifting slightly as he kept a firm hold on your hair. "Now, I could sure as hell use the caps," Cooper went on, the muscles of his brow shifting as he sucked his teeth. Your mind raced with the many posters you remember seeing, pasted in nearly every store window in Filly - You didn't know the price they set for you, you just knew it was enough to keep your head low and stay far away from any wastelander that seemed a bit too keen on helping you.

"But, I could also see about being paid in kind."

The hot smell of aged leather clogged the wash of dusty oxygen you gasped down in shuddered breaths. He gripped your chin with his free hand, thumbing the pooling saliva glossing over your bottom lip. He looked perversely deep in thought, eyeing the glassy strings as he drew his thumb back, lips parting slightly with a dry chuckle.

"Well ain't you a sight." Cooper sighed the words in a lower tone, as if speaking to only himself. You bared your teeth, jerking your head off to the side with a grunt, the hot sting of his iron grip on your hair causing you to hiss. "Ah, ah. You cut that shit right now," Reluctantly, you squared your shoulders, glaring towards him with a determined expression.

"You've been tailing me for weeks, you know I don't have anything you want." You spoke through grit teeth, making an attempt to reason your way from his grip on your hair, at least long enough to get a better shot on him.

"We both know that ain't true." Silence befell your snarled lips, eyes twitching over changing his expression - It was somber. As close as his mangled face could manage, muscles clenching in his jaw as his eyes sought something distant and familiar. He looked as if he was trying to remember a dream, eyes searching for that connection. How long has it been since he touched another with no violent motive to do so, you wondered. Your eyes softened, a sigh making its way past your cracked lips. Cooper would never admit just how human you were, that familiarity of how your breathing wavered haunting him. The man would not admit many things, that this motive for caps had fallen away weeks ago, that he pictured what this meeting would look like for hours on end; Would you be terrified, fight back as any normal wastelander would? Would you wriggle free of his desperation for a broken connection, even if rooted in malice? Questions like this kept him from approaching you on those nights.

The nights he watched you from afar, making a fire for yourself as you glanced over your shoulder every moment you could, cooking the little amounts of meat you managed to harvest while on the run. He considered interrupting it all, a quiet shot through the night you wouldn't see coming, even going as far as to click back the barrel with an uncharacteristically shaking hand. Though he never did. Even as you slept, and as he held his gun with a ferocious intent to use it, he never even made himself known.

"I saw you." Cooper's grasp on your hair reflected those many nights, fingers twitching, his senses toying with the idea of allowing you to go on or stopping this entire conversation entirely. "I saw you so many times and just waited for the moment you would fucking do it. And you didn't. So please, just be a human for a second and," The man growled, throat rumbling with a charred snarl as he shoved you backward onto the dirt, releasing your hair and wiping the remaining saliva on his glove over his duster. You caught yourself with a grunt - What would it take then? The heel of your palms scrapped into the hot gravel, as you refused to back down. You deserved answers. "And tell me what you want!"

You shouted the last words - If he killed you, so be it. It would just proved to you how much he's lost of himself, the stories, the fuzzy black and white movies you'd heard endlessly about; That you were right the entire time, there was no legendary Ghoul, just a man in pieces reformed by the wasteland. He grimaced at your voice pitching up, hand hovering his holstered gun with an instinctive need to defend himself before glaring down at you.

"Don't look at me like that." He muttered as he watched you push yourself from the ground, grimacing at the throb in your wrists as you knelt with squared shoulders before him. Your lips shaped the words, throat vibrating with the hum of your voice, though they never came to be; What could you say? He wouldn't answer you, and looked at you with pain in his eyes - Your eyebrows twitched, pursing your lips to pacify the pressing questions that threatened to spill. With a slow movement, you lifted your hand, perching your fingers against the worn fabric and leather of his thick belt.

"How do you want me to look at you?" You asked, the question desperate, seeking any answers he would give you. His gaze darkened, head tilting forward to carefully watch your hand, the shadow of his hat cast over his face. A part of you knew he wouldn't answer. Maybe part of you didn't want him to, even as your other hand lifted to slide the coarse leather tail of his belt through the metal buckle, trying your hardest to ignore the holster just off to the left of his hip. As you drew it away, your eyes snuck a glance upwards to meet his eyes. It sent chills through your veins, the focus on his expression a twisted part monster and so painfully human, his brown eyes unable to settle on just one part of you. He hadn't been touched by someone like this in years - Far longer than he could ever explain, let alone remember. His heart stuttered in his chest, lips twitching as a shuddered breath escaped him.

"Like that," Cooper whispered. His voice - Alluring, a deep purr pillowed with a desire. The voice was nearly foreign, the canvas of the wasteland falling away just for a moment; He let himself fall back in time, eyes softening as the familiar pull of his pulse rushed through his veins, the gloved hand that shielded his holster falling away. The warm leather of his glove met your hand, guiding you to him even as his eyes refused to keep your gaze for too long. His grasp on you was soft, his breathing wavering as your palm met the base of his cock, the friction even through his pants eliciting a soft grunt.

Cooper Howard was never a man to beg, even before the wasteland. Though, as he tipped his head back slightly, the word shaped his lips, swallowing back the urge with a clenched jaw. Now was not the time to let his guard down - But your hands were just so goddamn warm. Moving on their own now, your fingers dancing with the rusted zipper and loose button, he pressed his tongue to his cheek, unable to shake the urge. He released your hand and with an animalistically watchful eye, spoke.

"Please." The desperate tone of his growl was not one of demand - It was the need to be touched without scorching ropes, without venomous words, to be human again, even if for just a moment. There it was, you thought. The man in the movies, you could see it in his pleading eyes, in the way his fingers now laced themselves with tremors. He knew better than to be distracted in the heat of the chase, yet in that silent moment, he was helpless. As your touch lingered on the zipper of his pants, a barely audible groan escaped his lips. The coy tug at his clothing was met with barely resisted impatience, his jaw clenching and eyes darting around, warily assessing the safety of your surroundings. With a final click, the last barrier between you and Cooper's now sparking need was removed, freeing him from this teasing torment of anticipation. His cock resembled the rest of his visible skin, scars arching down the stiff base, veins tracing the underside of his shaft, and aching tip beading with arousal; You had your fair share of dalliances across the wasteland, and so had he - Though not like this, your eyes widening slightly as you took in the size of him, how his eyes watched your every reaction. As your hand wrapped around the man's throbbing cock, rugged and needy, hot and pulsating, his breath hitched.

In that moment, you were as much a captor as he was the hunter. The Ghoul's muscles tensed, beads of sweat dewed against his temples; He bit his tongue, silencing the breathy gasps pushed from his lips. Each stroke of your hand along his shaft sent a shockwave of pleasure and agonizing need crashing through him, his lungs straining for breaths that seemed to evade him.

"Shit," Cooper seethed the word through grit teeth, escaping your locked gaze with half-lidded eyes. His cock responded to each one of your movements, his hips stuttering forward in an unpracticed motion as he ached for more. Your thumb breezed over the scabrous tip, gathering the beading arousal now sliding down his shaft with a shudder.

"Like this?" Your lips ghosted over the tip of his twitching cock, eyes heavy as they sought perilously to meet his, letting the hot weight of him press against the soft of your cheek. Hesitantly, his brown eyes found yours, flickering over the wasteland behind you and your tattered clothes, how they shaped the silhouette of your body. His were parted, taking in unsteady breaths with tense shoulders, anticipating your every motion. His eyes were inexplicably human; Perhaps, you thought, for just a moment you could fall into the very same fantasy that he did. That connection, that heat - You craved it just as much as he did. As your tongue pushed from between your lips, you could hear the pleased groan fall from his chest, shoulders rolling back as he yearned for the pleasure you held just over his head.

"Just like that." Cooper gave a slight dip of his chin, shadowing his eyes with the brim of his hat. You hummed at his confirmation, your tongue pressing to the underside of his throbbing cock, generous with your saliva as you slid your mouth to wrap over him entirely. He hissed a chain of curses under his breath, now refusing to move his gaze from yours as his hips eased forward. He wanted more, greedy upon getting the first taste of something so painfully familiar, that heat he craved, the slick warmth of your lips making their way lower around him. Your tongue worked in slow waves, drinking down the salt of his sweat and the sounds you pried from him with every deliberate movement of your head. The texture of his cock rolled over your tongue, the tip now prodding at the soft of your throat, your lips tightening to accommodate the size of him; At this, his hips jutted forward, eyes tightening closed for a brief moment, eyebrow muscles drawing together in a pained expression of impetuous pleasure. He pushed himself deeper, hips now rolling forward in a rhythm he craved, his fingertips tingling as your teeth grazed against the sensitive scarred skin of his cock. "Fuck baby, that's it," Cooper took a heady breath, lifting a hand to his lips and bearing his teeth with a hiss. He took hold of the tip of his glove, swiftly biting down and pulling the thick leather away from his large hand. Warm bare fingers, met your hair, tangling through it with a purr strung tight in the mans chest. You were so soft, hot to the touch, searing his dulled senses with an electric singe he swore he forgot long ago. Glassy saliva slid over your chin, spreading messily over your lips as you took him as far as your throat would allow, the size of him taking your breath. " Christ - Takin' a ghoul's cock down your throat like that," He followed his obscene growl with a shallow thrust, threatening to surpass the limits of your pillowy mouth and throat as he watched you silently struggle for air. He held himself deep inside, each twitch and spasm of your throat working breathy gasps and trembling groans from his shivering body. After a smug moment, he pulled your head away from his length, the sting of your scalp hitching your messy breathing, instinctively moving to wipe the back of your hand against your soaked lips.

Cooper caught your wrist with his still gloved as it rose, swallowing down the biting urge to continue his ravaging of your throat. Sweat traced his jagged features, the shadow of his hat shifting with the glinting sun overhead, his panting causing his broad shoulders to rise and fall. He found himself searching for the words, on the tip of his tongue he could swear it - How long had it been, since he's been run this desperate for someone? His cock tensing and twitching at the simple idea of someone bent over for him? He tugged you to your feet with a chuffed exhale, keeping a firm hold on your wrist to keep your gaze on his. He wouldn't let you go, not now, not as the hunger flamed in his veins, not as he pressed your stomach against the warehouse you once took shelter in. The man pried off his other glove, tossing it to the dirt below your feet. He wanted to feel you.

"Is this what you wanted?" You breathed raggedly, a chuff of an almost smug exhale ghosting past your lips as you rested your cheek against the rusted steel of the warehouse. His hands were invasive, hungry as the rough skin grabbed hold of your waistband, calluses and scars rubbing over your skin as he yanked your pants to your ankles. A glaze of sweat lit your body aflame, his rough palms groping your ass with a shameless groan. "Is this what you pictured those nights you watched me?"

Your words tugged a deep moan from his throat, his bare fingers making their way to your lips; He gathered the left over saliva from your chin, yet your tongue extended to wrap over his middle finger, coaxing him into your mouth with a tantalizing arch of your back. His cock was heavy against your ass, pulsating with a fierce need for release, fingers lathering over your tongue.

"You got a mouth on you, huh?" Cooper leaned down, his length glazed with your saliva sliding over you - He purred in your ear, the throaty bass of his voice stippleing goosebumps over the nape of your neck. He drew his soaked fingers from between your lips, moving to slide them messily against your hole. Your breathing hitched, thighs parting instinctually as his fingers prodded teasingly at your entrance.

Cooper thought of those nights briefly, gloved hand wrapped at the base of his cock as he watched you from afar, teeth crushing into his tongue to silence himself. Cumming to the sound of your voice, the images of you pulsating in his mind wading into his mind, positioned just like this. He chuckled darkly, the tip of his cock throbbing against your soaked entrance. "Arch that back baby - There you go, that's it," He spoke against the shell of your ear, the rough palm of his hand planted at the small of your back, pressing down gently to arch you to his satisfaction.

You don't remember saying his name, though you distinctly recalled the scrawled cursive of navy blue and yellow all over billboards and television screens; There was nowhere he wouldn't follow, there was no way to forget the taste of his name falling over your tongue as he pulled you tight against him, pushing inside you with little hesitation. You could feel him still for a moment, heart staggering in his chest as you cried out. You cried out for him.

"Cooper!"

The man snarled, the palm on your back clutching at your clothes as he pushed himself to the hilt inside of you. The moment your hips met his, he pulled away, then back again. He filled you ruthelessly, pulling your weight against his own just to draw back and fill you again; He clawed at your hips, your lower back, grabbing any of you he possibly could to be sure he'd keep you there. Your head swam with electricity, the slight burn of being stretched so suddenly easing into a head spinning heat, bundling itself tight in your abdomen. Each one of his thrusts stoking the roaring fire in your senses, beads of sweat pooling in the curves of your body as you moved in tandem with the Ghoul.

"Fuck - Sayin' my name all pretty like," He grunted, his head falling back as he pulled one of his hands back, cracking his rough palm against the soft of your ass. You yelped, body flinching at both the sting and the sudden sound, but that seemed to only rouse his hunger for you more. You gasped and arched into the rhythm of his thrusts, feeling the slickness of your saliva and his thickness meld together in a twisted symphony of desire. You pressed against the warehouse, white-knuckled as the pleasure and pain coursed through your body. Every slap echoed in your ears, each time intensifying the sensation, your body clenching around him as you begged for more.

"Cooper, please" You cried out once more, the words tumbling from your lips as if his name was the only thing you'd ever need to say. His hands were tight on your hips, a strangled moan escaping him as he took you. Your eyes fluttered shut, lost to the euphoria of it all. You could feel the walls of your entrance clenching and pulsing around him, the wet sounds of flesh meeting flesh filling the room. The Ghoul's rough hands explored your body as your hips began to meet his animalistic thrusts, matching the rhythm and urgency until you were both moving in perfect synchrony, a symbiosis of lust and need. You clawed at the warehouse wall, your legs trembling as your body inched closer and closer to the edge.

"Shit, I'm- I can't, I'm gonna," You knew it wouldn't be long, the coiled rope of need within you was about to snap. A low growl escaped his throat in response, the sound of it sending shivers down your spine, and you knew he was close as well. A hand gripped your hair, tugging gently, his other hand still wrapped over your hip as he drove into you with renewed fervor.

"Cum for me, baby," He moaned for you, a bated breath on his lips. And so you did, the world shattering around you in a wash of blinding pleasure, the shudder that wracked your body echoing the spasms of your core. You screamed his name once more, the sound guttural and raw, as you shattered into pieces, your climax washing over you like a tidal wave. Each spasm of your inner muscles caused him to shudder, his own release close at hand. You could feel your knees shaking, his body accommodating your limp weight as he kept you close against him.

"Look at you, fucked so stupid you can't even stand, sugar?" Cooper spoke between grunts, his hands lined with tremors as he held onto you with a desperate gasp. "Shit baby," His eyes locked on your ass, watching how you threw your weight back against him with reckless abandon - He clenched his jaw tight, the fire in his mind and senses sparking aflame in a sharp thrust forward. His movements became messy, clinging to you and muttering obscenities, shuddering out gasps as the fire roared inside him. "This what'ya want huh? Get filled up sloppy, by a man like me?" Cooper groaned at your responsive whimpers, tipping his chin forward in a slow nod, the fire crumbling into an explosion within mere seconds. He came with torn outcry, burying himself to the hilt inside you, watching your hips slowly milk all he was walling to give you.

For a long moment, you remained locked together, breaths coming in ragged pants, before he slowly pulled out of you, leaving you feeling both empty and full at the same time. You slumped forward, still clinging to the steel wall of the warehouse, feeling every nerve in your body tingling. The soft clatter of a glass bottle pulled you from the wading pleasure of your mind, eyes slowly opening to see a bottle of Rad X hit the heel of your shoe. You swore his hands were still on you, the heaving of his breaths still on your ear - Though as you turned, kneels wobbling slightly, he had disappeared into the sinking dusk of the wasteland. Your eyes circled the land around you, shoes crunching the gravel as you leaned your sweat glazed back against the warehouse.

"Fuck," You sighed the word through panted breaths, glancing down at the Rad X, and quickly doing a double take upon catching sight of something else. A leather glove, discarded in the sand and gravel. With a hesitant breath, you leaned down slightly, fingers hooking the glove into your grasp. You held the warm leather in your hand, turning it in your grasp fondly.

Surely he'd be back for this.

[likeabxrdinflight]

I think it's possible that this reading of Elphaba's green skin could get lost in the many possible metaphors that could be applied to it, so I want to talk about the very first way I interpreted her skin when I was just a kid.

I had a horrendous eczema as a child. I was born with it. and I'm talking like, scaly red patches, scabs everywhere, flakes of dead skin that looked like dandruff in my hair, constantly scratching myself and bleeding all over my clothes. It was on my legs, my arms, my skull, even my face. It was especially bad around my eyelids. And nothing treated it. I took pills, I slathered myself in creams and moisturizers, my mom used every hypoallergenic detergent and soap she could find. We had dust mite covers on everything, hard wood floors in my room, I was never allowed to have curtains or too many pillows- didn't matter. The eczema persisted.

Thankfully I've (mostly) grown out of it. But you can imagine school wasn't the most fun place for me as a kid. I heard every possible insult in the book- I've been called every version of reptile you can think of, scabby, scaly, gross, ugly, asked if I had chicken pox or measles, told to "put on some lotion" or "take a shower," stared at, laughed at. Because I went to Catholic school I also heard more than one joke about leprosy. On and on it went. Before I was ever called "queer," I was called "lizard skin."

So I probably don't need to elaborate much more on why I related to this line: "Shouldn't a girl who's so good inside have a matching exterior? And since folks here to an absurd degree seem fixated on your verdigris, would it be all right by you if I de-greenify you? And though of course that's not important to me, 'all right why not,' I'll reply!"

I don't want to take away from the racial reading of Elphaba's skin color. Especially now with her being portrayed by a Black woman in the movie. That reading was always there anyways, but Cynthia certainly brings it more to the forefront. She's obviously pulling from her own lived experiences as a Black woman and being marginalized for the color of her skin and the cultural origins of her family and putting all of those emotions into her portrayal of Elphaba, and it's a beautiful thing. It really, really is, and I felt such empathy for that. It shines through so much in Cynthia's performance, especially in "the wizard and I." But I also don't want to lose this reading of it- the disability or skin disorder or disfigurement lens through which you can interpret her green skin. Because that was how I first related to Elphaba, before even the queer reading- I saw a nerdy girl with glasses being mocked by her classmates for the condition of her skin, and I thought, "she gets it. Someone gets it."

[tyrantisterror]

At Sea Without a Map Post-Script

After two months of so, my little writing experiment At Sea Without a Map has come to an end. And because I'm vain, I not only felt compelled to share it, but to talk about it in depth after the fact, so here we are. This is going to be long, though, so I'm not only going to break it into sections, but put it all under the cut for the sake of your dashboard. So go ahead and dive into the depths of the Sea of Monsters with me one more time!

Part 1: Never Stop Blowing Up

The writing process of Wizard School Mysteries Book 3 was really strained - not because of the book itself, mind you. When I was actually able to work on it, Book 3 came together really well - I think it required the least substantial rewrites of any my novels thus far. It's just that real life was kind of beating the shit out of me while I was trying to get it done - or maybe the better metaphor was that it was just slowly but steadily draining me of energy all the time. I'm honestly surprised I got the book out in roughly the same amount of time as the first two - by the way life had been treating me, it should have taken longer.

But when I got done with it I was accutely aware of how tired I was. I still had the creative drive, but fuck I needed something simple as a palette cleanser - something easy, and more importantly, something that was allowed to be bad. I needed something creative to do that was surplus to requirements and fully within its rights to suck ass so long as I had fun making it.

Around this time, I decided to rewatch Dimension 20's Never Stop Blowing Up. Brief explanation of what that is: Dimension 20 is an actual play show, i.e. a recording of people playing D&D and other TTRPGs. I'd say its reputation is built on the contrast of its main DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who makes these meticulously crafted campaign plans, and his chaotic band of improv comedian players who promptly derail those plans spectacularly. Like, a good deal of the show's humor comes from Emily Ashford or Ally Beardsly doing something so off-the-wall that it shatters whatever the scene was going to be and creates a far more absurd and zany spectacle in its place. Which is why Never Stop Blowing Up is pretty notable, because it's the one campaign where Brennan himself is the agent of chaos, fully unleashing his own brand of madness that the players struggle to keep up with. And fuck does he seem to have fun with it.

Of course, all of the analysis above is purely from the outside looking in - it's likely that a lot of the "chaos" is played up for the audience. But still... there is something to the idea of a person who's been working on meticulously structured stories letting loose and just doing something extremely stupid.

So I decided to give myself a Never Stop Blowing Up moment - a short story that would be simple by design, with no standards to live up to or goal beyond "have fun telling a silly little story." I then came up with a few key criteria:

It can't be set in the Midgaheim/ATOM universe. I don't want the burden of figuring out where this story would fit among others.

It's gotta be a romance. People who've read my books might have picked up on the fact that I like to write about people falling in love, for the same reason I like to write about fire-breathing reptiles and friendly monsters (i.e. I use writing to indulge in things I'll never experience in real life). I've only used romance as subplots in my fiction before, and tend to feel a bit guilty if I focus on it too long - like I'm being self indulgent. Well, this is all about self indulgence, so the romance should be front and center.

It's gotta be SIMPLE, episodic even. Not complex plotting required.

I almost chose my xenomorph romance for this, but I had developed its outline to the point where it would be too complex to fit. I then considered a sort of superhero story that could be pitched as "what if Bringing Up Baby but Katherine Hepburn's character is a Harley Quinn-esque supervillain and Cary Grant's character gets turned into some sort of horrifying genetic mutant in the first ten minutes." That one hit a weird roadblock when I got to the character brainstorming phase (the first phase of any writing project I do) - I was trying to figure out what the mad scientist who turns out Cary Grant-figure into a mutant would be named, came up with the name "Dr. Skullfuck," immediately realized that having a character named "Dr. Skullfuck" is a Mark Millar-ass writing move that I could not allow myself to do, but then couldn't stop thinking of the name "Dr. Skullfuck" and giggling, which just brought all thinking to a grinding halt on that project.

(I'll still probably do it someday, though - just, you know, without Dr. Skullfuck)

Inspiration struck again, though. I'd been getting into Epic: The Musical, a musical retelling of The Odyssey, and it put me in the mood for a sea monster story. But, more than that, it got me thinking about one particular archetype from sea monster stories - but that brings us to the next part of this Post Script...

Part 2: It Was Always About Calibani

Ok, so, one of the big changes Epic: The Musical made involved Odysseus's encounter with the sirens, and before you read more of my rambling, I'd like you to watch two animatics for the two songs in question here:

A summary: one of the sirens takes the form of Odysseus's wife to try and tempt him into getting in the water, Odysseus tricks her into giving him directions, captures her and the rest of her kind, and proceeds to have his men slaughter them horribly. In the OG story the sirens don't die - nor does their song involve imitating a man's wife, for that matter, it's just a really pretty song.

This is done for an important narrative purpose - Epic: The Musical is focused on analyzing the moral ambiguity of Odysseus, and how it is constantly challenged by the impossible choices he is forced to make in his attempt to get home. At this point in the musical, Odysseus has decided to stop trying to be a compassionate man, shirking all mercy in favor of utter ruthless pursuit of his goals. These two songs are meant to be unsettling as hell - this is the beginning of a series of heartless choices by both Odysseus and his men that will culminate in the mutiny and complete annihilation of Odysseus's crew, as well as Odysseus himself being so hopelessly stranded that nothing short of divine intervention will save him.

I bring this up because when I first heard these two songs - specifically while watching these two animatics - it, like... it devastated me. I was so horrified and sad, so shaken by it. And part of it was for the reasons outlined above, but admittedly that wasn't the gut reaction I had. No, my immediate reaction was, and I quoute my own broken brain verbatim here: "You can't kill the sirens! They're not for killing, they're for loving!"

...now, those of you who know me are probably not surprised by this very stupid sentiment coming from me. One of my more popular posts is just me talking about how down bad I would be for various folkloric monsters whose whole shtick is "looks like a pretty lady but Watch Out." But as a person filled with immense self loathing and doubt, my brain immediately looked at that very stupid sentiment I expressed and said, "Wait, no, that's fucking dumb, I'm fucking dumb. The sirens are remorseless murderers. These sirens in particular preyed upon a man's love for his wife, who he has not seen in twelve years, to convince him to let them kill him. They are, by all standards of morality, Very Fucking Evil, and if they were not women you would not feel bad about them getting killed."

And as my brain argued with itself over this topic, I got to thinking about the various monstrous/othered sea women of The Odyssey - not just the sirens, but the witch Circe, the nymph Calypso, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. And I thought about the others of their kind in other myths and folktales - selkies, mermaids, etc.

There's an archetype of sea monster that focuses entirely on one specific anxiety sailors are prone to, namely the fact that (for a good deal of human history) being on a boat meant spending a lot of time away from women. The horror of this monster is how it uses that desire for female company to tempt people into danger - like a mirage, it leads you to expose yourself to danger in pursuit of an illusory comfort.

But, unlike real world mirages, these monstrous sea women DO exist in their stories. More than that, they're often, like, sad and lonely. Their narrative purpose is just to be a temptation, but that doesn't change the fact that they do have lives of their own in these worlds. And, softie that I am, I can't help feeling sad for them, especially the ones who actually seem to want the same companionship the sailors they tempt want. Sailors don't stay with their Circes, they don't marry their Calypsos. The sirens live on a barren rock, alone, Scylla is left to wallow in misery at her monstrous form, and the selkie always has to leave for fear of being trapped by a person who won't love her on her terms.

I realized I had my hook for this simple, easy, silly little sea monster romance story: I was going to give a sea woman the happy ending she'd never get from anyone else.

Sailor may be the protagonist, but make no mistake: At Sea Without a Map was always, always, ALWAYS about Calibani.

The goal with Calibani was simple: I was going to set up a fairly standard Monstrous Sea Woman, but where other stories would let her be in one episode of the travel narrative and move on, this one would stick around. She'd be an unambiguous predator of human beings - an open and admitted maneater - but she would have no true malice to her. She, like all predators, eats what she can get to survive, and it just so happens that she's adapted to eat humans. And the story would pose the same question to the reader that my brain posed to me during Different Beast: is there any way you could make a siren-style sea monster sympathetic? Can you make a normal person who doesn't have my particular brain rot look at a maneating siren and think, "You're not supposed to kill her, you're supposed to love her!"

One of the few unavoidable plot points of At Sea Without a Map was that Calibani and Sailor's relationship would become romantic. What kind of romance it was could have varied substantially - it could have been one-sided, it could have been toxic, it could have been far more tragic OR far more comedic. But it was always, always going to be a romance of some sort - the goal of this experiment was to make you, the reader, love Calibani. All else was icing on the cake.

I decided to base Calibani's personality on Miranda from The Tempest - i.e. a sweet girl who is both wordly and naive, who understands the strange setting of our "lost at sea" story far better than the audience viewpoint character does, but views the mundane world of the audience viewpoint character with wonder and naiveté. In fact I almost named her Miranda outright... except I already had a character in the setting I chose for this story who had that name, and as an allusion to the same Shakespearean character no less. So I settled on naming her after Miranda's adoptive sibling (of sorts), Caliban - more fitting in some ways, as Caliban is a fish-human hybrid who is arguable more native to the magic island in The Tempest than Miranda herself.

(Calibani isn't the only Tempest name homage, either - her mother, Sycorax, takes her name directly from Caliban's unseen but oft-spoken of witch mother. Dr. Antonia Warefore takes her first name from Antonio, one of the human villains in The Tempest who hopes to use being lost at sea as a way to perform a coup. And the mothman Iriel takes her name from Ariel, the wind spirit in The Tempest who aids the wizard Prospero in controlling the magic island. If Sailor has a "real" name, it's probably either Ferdinand or Miranda, the two lovers who manage to blend civilization and the wilderness together with their romance.)

Visually, I wanted Calibani to not be any common archetype of sea monster woman, but rather something that evokes the popular images while still being her own thing. She's not a mermaid or a siren or a selkie - she's basically "what if a sea serpent was also a girl." In-universe, she's chubby because she, like all marine megafauna, needs blubber to survive. Out-of-universe, she's chubby because I've found that routinely drawing cute chubby girls is good for my mental health.

Part 3: CYOA

Now, while we live in a post-Muncher society where shame and cringe are emotions only the cowardly should experience, I am nonetheless Very Catholic about expressing my own feelings of, like, liking girls and shit. I cannot help feeling guilty when publicly expressing adoration of women without, like, an excuse - it's gotta be a joke or something, you know? I can't be genuine about it, or else Jesus will beat me with a cane for disrespecting women with my lecherous gaze.

But luckily I've cultivated a loyal audience of fellow monsterfuckers, which meant I had an excuse lined up: if I made this a choose your own adventure type deal, a story with audience participation, then you all would be my accomplices. And Jesus can't cane all of us! He doesn't have enough hands! I found a loophole bigger than his stigmata!

Plus I love collaborative story-telling - there's a thrill in not having total control of where the narrative is going. As Brennan Lee Mulligan must know, there's a joy in having to deal with the chaos thrown your way by letting others grab the figurative ball, even if just for a moment.

Part 4: Offbeat Melody

Since I did not want to set this story in Midgaheim, I decided to steer myself away from a vaguely medieval setting altogether. But I also didn't want to limit myself with the need for "realism" that putting it in a normal sea would require, and making a new setting whole cloth would start pushing this project into "not easy" territory.

Luckily, I had a setting lying around that I hadn't played with in a while, which just so happened to have a location that was PERFECT for the sort of Never Stop Blowing Up style madness I was aiming for. For a few years I ran a Monster of the Week TTRPG campaign called Offbeat Melody, and one of its core setting elements was taking the goblin universe hypothesis in paranormal science (yeah it's a real hypothesis) to an illogical extreme. We had specifically seen glimpses of the Sea of Monsters in Offbeat Melody, i.e. the parallel universe where monsters like Nessie, Ogopogo, Champ, and the like all hail from. Well, why not have a whole story set there? It's literally a universe devoted solely to creating sea monsters - what better place to strand our modern Odysseus?

Offbeat Melody was always sort of a Never Stop Blowing Up project, or at least NSBU adjacent. Some of my most unhinged story-telling moments are in that campaign - you could make a supercut of just the "commercial breaks" in the various sessions and it'd basically be an I Think You Should Leave episode. Taking one obscure corner of its multiversal world and exploring it in detail was perfect for this project.

Part 5: Monster by Monster

With our main romance as sorted out as could be for a CYOA story, it was time to figure out the "episodes" of this sea voyage. I settled on there being ten to roughly align with The Odyssey - just in terms of number, mind you, not in a one-to-one comparison. The first was, obviously, Calibani herself, which left nine more slots for me to fill with monsters. Let's go through them together in brief:

Tree Storks - any lost at sea story eventually has to get its protagonist into an island at some point, but this immediately begs the question, "Why don't they just stay on the island where it's safe?" The answer to that question has to be, "it's not safe there, actually." The Odyssey does this quickly and cleverly with a one two punch: the first island seems safe until you realize the food on it brainwashes you into forgetting everything except your desire to eat it, and the second island is full of delicious sheep but also giants who will eat you just as easily as they eat the sheep. When other islands show up in the story later, you immediately regard them with suspicion, because you don't know HOW they're going to be fucked up, but they definitely will be. My goal with the second episode was to establish the same sort of danger - that land is NOT safe, that islands WILL be fucked up and dangerous in ways you might not expect.

I also wanted to establish that this is not just a sea of monsters, but a very WEIRD sea of WEIRD monsters. It couldn't be any old monster on this island - it had to be one that was unique, unexpected, and maybe just a bit silly while still being menacing.

I've always felt that there's a lot of un-mined horror potential in storks, cranes, and herons - any bird with a long neck and spear-like beak it uses to stab smaller creatures from above. Just imagine yourself in a frog's place in the world - tiny, going about your business, when suddenly something shoots down at you from above and impales you before you even feel the shadow fall over your face. Or perhaps you did see the shadow - some of these birds spread their wings to create shade specifically to attract fish, and then spear the poor little bastards.

Well, what do people often look to islands for when out at sea? Shade - the shade of a palm tree. And palm fronds kinda resemble feathers, don't they? Wouldn't it be both ludicrous and terrifying is there was a stork big enough to mimic a palm tree - and wouldn't that be a DEVIOUS trap for a sun-drenched sailor to fall for? So the Tree Storks were born.

The Globster - I made a list of sea monster archetypes in the early planning for this project, and one I wanted to include was a kraken, i.e. some sort of tentacled sea beast. But I didn't want to do JUST a big squid or octopus, or even a riff on them. I wanted to take the idea of "big sea monster with lots of tentacles" into a stranger direction.

Since the Sea of Monsters is explicitly the home universe of lake and sea monster cryptids, I thought it might be fun if ASWaM's kraken equivalent was a globster - just a big ball of rotten meat. I love drawing monstrous faces, so I decided it'd just be, like, MADE of hideous rotten faces, all melting and congealing together, with its tentacles doubling as the tongues of its many mouths. A perfectly wretched image that, like the Tree Storks, would do well to establish how Fucked things could get in this setting. Plus similar monsters had appeared in Offbeat Melody, which would make for a fun sense of familiarity for the, like, five or so readers of mine who had listened to that campaign before.

Captain Peter & the Dolphin - Another thing I did in the early planning stages of this project was make a list of the different sea voyage stories I know and love, the most contentious of which is The Life of Pi. That's a story that I love on a literal level but kind of hate on a figurative level - its whole theme/message is that doubt is the worst thing you can have, that if you don't commit to believing something with zealous conviction you are a coward. As a person who thinks doubt is valid, that "I don't know" is sometimes the ONLY truly valid answer to a question, I have issues with that message.

But I can't help loving the beautifully ludicrous idea of a non-anthropomorphic tiger sailing the ocean on a big Odyssey of its own. Like, if that story didn't actively hate me for being agnostic, it would be one of my favorites.

So I decided to, you know, just steal the idea of a tiger Odysseus. The tiger in The Life of Pi is named Richard Parker. Richard Parker also happens to be the name of Peter Parker's dad. Hence we get Captain Peter - the figurative son of Richard Parker, if you will. And to ratchet up the absurdity of a tiger Odysseus, I made him a pirate and the sole sailor of his voyage. Somehow, this tiger has manned a boat on his own.

Captain Peter was intended to be the hero of another story - a sign for the readers that it IS possible for a stranded person (or, in this case, tiger) to survive out here. To that end, he had to rescue our heroes from another threat, but not one that would be interesting enough to take the focus off of the tiger pirate. Originally I planned for that threat to just be a big shark, but I ended up liking my shark design too much to put it in a role that small, so I quickly designed a nasty dolphin for the role instead. I think that worked out well, honestly.

Dr. Neptune - Episodes 5 and 6 were the mid-point of this journey, so I wanted the two monsters of those to escalate things significantly. I figured episode 5 was probably a good place to FINALLY give some meaningful exposition on what was going on, and there are a lot of stories about mad scientists doing weird shit on islands in my big list of sea voyage stories I love. So we get Dr. Neptune, a classical brain-in-a-jar mad scientist who's affable enough to give more-or-less accurate exposition but loony enough to be a problem. This also felt like a good spot to remind the reader that Calibani is not just a girl with a tail but rather a Sea Monster herself, and one that we'd been making stronger by allying with.

With his human-but-not-quite nature and cyclops eye, Dr. Neptune could sort of be seen as the Polyphemus of this story, couldn't he?

The Crocodisle - One of the sea monster archetypes on my list was "the island that's actually a sleeping monster," of which there are many in mythology and folklore. My favorite is the Jasconius from the voyage of St. Brendan, mainly because it's more or less benign and actually comes back to help St. Brendan and his crew at the end of the story. I always love when I can find an old story with a friendly monster in it.

When thinking of my own spin on the island monster concept, I remembered the only Magic the Gathering card I had as a kid, which I still have and love to this day: The Sandbar Crocodile. This card already inspired Crocogon's color scheme in The Atomic time of Monsters, but I felt I could go to that well again one more time, and so made a crocodile that wasn't just a sandbar, but a whole damn island to itself. And, like Jasconius, it turns out he's pretty chill.

I did not think of the pun name "Crocodisle" until I was actually writing the chapter in question.

The Femdom Mermaids - These three were a late addition to the roster. When I had Calibani bring up mermaids early in the story, I realized as soon as I wrote her rant about them that we'd HAVE to meet some later on in the story.

The readers had significantly shaped Calibani and Sailor's romance by this point, and I decided that it could be useful to have a chapter that was devoted to showing definitively how these two were good for each other. I thought the mermaids could provide a good contrast: have them act out a seemingly more benign take on the monstrous sea women trope (they abduct our hero to protect and care for them!) only for it to quickly feel MORE deranged than Calibani's comparatively simple desire just to eat him.

The spirit of Calibani's rant about mermaids was taken from weird* girls I knew in high school complaining about cheerleaders, so I wanted the mermaids to look like the sea monster equivalent of popular kids to Calibani's chubby weird girl. Two of them got the names of famous beauties - Helyne = Helen of Troy, Clio = Cleopatra.

(*when I say "weird" I mean it in a complimentary and affectionate sense)

Bob, meanwhile, kinda... rebelled, I guess? Before I had names for them, I listed "bob" by her as just, like, a descriptor for her hair cut, but then I liked it as her name, and once she was named Bob she became more than just a mean popular girl. She was a weirdo too, the little punching bag of the two mean popular girls who did their dirty work and smiled through their abuse because hey, at least they included her. It gave the trio an easily defined dynamic, helped make two of the three more visibly nasty, and gave us comic relief in an arc that could very well have gotten too uncomfortable otherwise.

And I guess it worked - readers REALLY loved Bob, and were very vocal about it, and I realized mid-arc that I had accidentally made her too likable to just leave in this arc. So Bob got to be rescued from her awful friend group thanks to readers like YOU.

Lord Ironteeth - yeah, this was the shark that was too cool to be a minor threat. When I drew his noggin, I realized he would need a chapter of his own, one with gravitas. I decided he'd specifically be the threshold guardian -once we beat him, we'd know for sure how to get home, even if there were a few more threats in store.

Spindle Inc and Sycorax - when I was a kid I used to have this recurring nightmare about being on some sort of underwater sea station that had this huge sea serpent trapped inside it. I'd look at the sea serpent from a window within the station and see it coiling in its tank, only for it to look at me with fury. In that glance I would suddenly realize two things with absolute clarity: first, it was going to break free and kill everyone, and second, we deserved that destruction for what we had done to it. The terror of the dream was less that the sea serpent was going to break free, and more the guilt of knowing that all the mayhem that was about to unfold was our fault to begin with.

I thought that would be fun to homage with the penultimate chapter of this story. OBVIOUSLY the sea serpent was Calibani's mom, obviously the trauma of its capture was why Calibani grew into a predator that specializes in hunting humans, obviously we would have to free the sea serpent despite that running counter to Sailor's goal of getting home. Easy, easy, easy plot point to include.

Spindle, Inc. is the primary antagonistic force in Offbeat Melody, so they easily slotted into the role of the arrogant humans who captured this monster for nefarious and selfish motives. They could tie a lot of other plot threads together too - Dr. Neptune was a scientist who worked for them as a contractor only to get screwed over (i.e. they stranded him in the Sea of Monsters, expecting him to die, and then used his research to make their own base of operations in it), we'd learn of him through a spindle briefcase left behind by some unfortunate rogue agent who got eaten by the Globster while he was trying to escape, hell they could even be one of the possible origins of Sailor themself (more on that later). Very useful villains, Spindle.

The Abyssal Mother - I knew the last sea monster would need a lot of punch to it. I briefly considered just a big whale - the Moby Dick to Spindle's corporate Ahab - but it felt underwhelming after all that came before. So I went for arguably the most dramatic possible sea monster, a full on Cthulhu-style elder god. If you're a frequent follower of this blog, you might know I have particularly high standards for Eldritch Abominations, so I realized this was going to be a pretty big challenge for me to live up to, and decided to keep the cthulhu in question reserved to the last few entries as a result - the less it appears, the less it has to live up to.

I realized I had a good angle when my experiments with the Cthulhu "squid for a head" concept ended up having a face framed in shadow - you know, the same visual that our protagonist has in most appearances. That provided some very juicy parallels between the two that made this final monster feel particularly noteworthy to me, ones that I'll leave you to ponder, since they tie into...

Part 6: Themes

I did not set out to have a theme in this story. I just wanted to make a sailor and a sea monster kiss. That was my only goal.

But I really don't begin with theme in ANY of my writing. I figure out topics I want to address, but for all my novels I feel like the themes didn't start coming together until about halfway through the first draft, when enough of the elements of the story had been set down and interacted with each other enough for me to realize what I was saying with them. A huge part of my second and third drafts for my novels have focused on making the themes of my stories more concrete and unified.

Well, ASWaM is very much a first draft of a story, but it's a simple enough story that I think the theme found itself pretty well despite lacking subsequent drafts to refine it.

ASWaM is about doubt and direction. It's about being adrift in a world that is in many ways hostile by nature, about not feeling like you're where you're supposed to be or even WHO you're supposed to be, and about setting off aimlessly in the hope that maybe you'll find your way to that mythical land of "what my life is supposed to be."

When I began the story, Sailor had amnesia and wore clothes that obscured their identity as a way to make it easier for anyone to step into Sailor's role. Sailor had to feel like You, the Reader, and so we don't know their name, their gender, their eye color, their hair color, even their skin color (note that their hands are always wearing gloves, and their face is always in shadow).

But it also meant Sailor is, well, undefined, at least at the start of the story. Sailor doesn't know who they are, what they are, how they came to be. Sailor feels distinctly that they should be Something Else, should be Somewhere Else, should be Someone Else, should not be who/what/where they are. Sailor is plagued by doubt, by a need to go in a different direction, by a need to be other than they are.

This initially contrasts with Calibani, who begins the story very confident that she is doing exactly what she was designed to be doing and acting exactly like she should be. As they interact, they begin to shift each other in opposite directions - Calibani questions her existence and nature, sometimes to a self destructive degree, and Sailor begins to find something about who and where they are that they like. They find a healthy middle ground together - doubtful enough to want to be better people, but with love for themselves that allows them to not feel the need to up-heave their lives entirely.

I knew at the start that I would build an expectation for there to be some answer to the question of who Sailor is and where they came from, because those are the questions that begin the whole narrative. I brainstormed a number of answers to those questions, but once I got a few chapters into writing the story and saw this theme of doubt developing, I realized I couldn't answer them. From a thematic standpoint, the doubt HAD to remain. So I gave hints to possible answers, bits of evidence to support the possibility of them being true, but never planted a smoking gun that answered it for sure.

Sailor can't know the answer because NONE of us know the answer. Outside of blind Life of Pi style faith, you cannot know for sure that you are living the life you're supposed to live. All you can do is figure out whether you're happy with the life you've got, or if you need a change. Sailor will never know who they are supposed to be, but they did learn who they are, and they love that person now.

For those curious, the possible Sailor origins are:

Occam's Razor: they're exactly what Dr. Neptune theorized, i.e. a human who got stranded in the Bermuda Triangle (or the Devil's Triangle or any other number of paranormal triangles) and fell into the Sea of Monsters. The trauma of that experience gave them amnesia. It's just brain damage and bad luck.

A Spindle Experiment: Dr. Warefore mentions that Spindle has been trying to find a way to make a human who can evolve like the denizens of the Sea of Monsters. Sailor may well be an attempt to do just that, perhaps one they wrote off as a failure and abandoned (they do that a lot)

A Deep One: Sailor is the offspring of one of the denizens of the Sea of Monsters (most likely the Abyssal Mother herself) who has somehow been tricked into believing they are human, to the point where they seem to be human to everyone else, even other monsters. Maybe a human summoned a sea monster to breed with on earth, and Sailor ended up being subconsciously drawn back to the Sea by their blood. Maybe Sailor never actually lived on earth at all, but was only made to THINK they had as part of the transformation into a human.

The Platonic Ideal of a Sailor: the Sea of Monsters is full of archetypal concepts, and arguably a sailor trying to find their way home is just as archetypal as any sea serpent, mermaid, or kraken. Our only proof that humans aren't native to the Sea of Monsters is Dr. Neptune, and he's not as reliable an expert as he claims to be.

This theme of doubt and direction also made the compass more important to the narrative than a simply mechanic for audience participation - a compass, after all, gives direction, and the feeling that Sailor is not where they're supposed to be, that they need to head in a different direction, is ultimately the catalyst of the plot. The compass is, in many ways, the antagonist of the story - the force that keeps Sailor from accepting themself. I realized this a little after I started making the different directions have personalities - initially they just represented broad concepts (North = follow conventional wisdom ala the North Star, South = preserve your short-term self interest at all costs, East = act with curiosity and be willing to take calculated risks, and West = throw caution to the wind and do anything that seems novel and exciting), but over time they became little characters themselves.

Since it was our thematic antagonist, I decided to pepper in some ideas about what the compass might be in-universe - and, in a move that would no doubt frustrate the compass, we also don't know for sure which of those is "correct." Is the compass a poltergeist, some amalgamation of dead sailors who try to steer other lost souls home? Is it a malign entity that leeches off of those desperate enough to seek its aid, living through them while pretending to aid them? Is it a device Spindle made to lure sailors to their clutches, OR to guide their experiments in human/monster hybrids? Was it a cursed item that forced a sea monster to assume a human shape? Who can say - the compass sure can't, it can only tell you a direction to go in.

Part 7: Q&A

Since this was an interactive story, I felt it was only fitting to add one last interactive element to this post-script write up, and some of your happily obliged me by sending in questions.

When I noticed how fast readers were falling for Calibani, I figured there was a good chance we'd end up staying in the Sea of Monsters. By chapter 7, I figured it was more or less a given, and by the end of the Lord Ironteeth encounter I was almost 100% sure Sailor would remain at sea. There was always a chance, though - while a look at the polls shows that the audience got more and more on the same page towards the end, there were always dissenting voices, and the desire to get an answer to the question of Who Sailor Was remained strong, as a number of people kept trying to find angles where they could get that AND stay with Calibani.

I was surprised early on by how easily the audience fell in love with Calibani, to the point where I made a few posts commenting on it. I mean, I shouldn't have been - as I said earlier, I have cultivated an audience of fellow monsterfuckers on here, and I know at least a few of them saw my bait and knew they could get me to be freaky in a way we found mutually agreeable (thank you all again for helping me escape being caned by Jesus for being horny).

Like, we REPEATEDLY ignored developing the plot in the Tree Storks chapter for several days just to spend more time with Calibani - something that I enjoyed immensely (this whole thing was an excuse for me to write and draw a cute chubby sea monster girl as much as possible aftter all) but also knew as a storyteller was not what most would consider a good story call. I like how it turned out, but it defied conventional narrative wisdom, you know? I was surprised.

On the other side of the coin, I was also surprised by how the audience NEVER chose an option that was humorously disastrous. I gave plenty of them, and, like, generally in collaborative storytelling there will be at least one moment where your collaborators decide to do the really, REALLY stupid thing that makes everything spiral out of control really quickly. I figured at least once the audience would choose the troll response, but no, you guys worked hard to keep Sailor and Calibani alive. You refused to let them hurt each other, refused to let them throw themselves into danger, refused to imperil them for your own chuckles. It was very sweet and unexpected.

I say "you refused" but to be fair it's not like NO ONE voted for the troll options - they generally got a handful of votes, just one that was beaten by a landslide of more reasonable options. Hopefully those of you who voted for the troll options enjoyed Bob throwing you a bone by disintegrating Dr. Warefore - that was my consolation prize to you.

Yes. I knew at the beginning that there would be two endings for this story: either Sailor leaves the Sea and goes home, or Sailor stays there forever. Or, you know, Sailor dies as a result of you guys choosing several stupid options in a row, but as stated above you guys avoided those scenarios pretty decisively.

Had Sailor gone home, the following would have occurred: first, they would forget everything that happened in the Sea of Monsters. Second, they would wake up in a hospital, having been found in the Atlantic Ocean by a human-recovery charity run by... oh, isn't that funny, some tech company named Spindle Inc! Spindle would foot the medical bills and even offer Sailor a job, but Sailor would decline because even now they're still not sure what Spindle even does. Sailor would go back to their life and find it familiar and utterly mundane, but not particularly happy. Their father died when they were 18, their mother was never in the picture, they have no siblings. They worked an office job and were sort of a nonentity - that position has long since been filled, but Sailor gets a new job and lives out much the same life: simple, mundane, dreary. Every now and then they get a pang of desire to leave, to go to sea, but they push it out of mind. They never even see the ocean again as long as they live.

Sailor would have gotten the normal life they thought they were supposed to have, the normal memories and name and identity, the mundane life of a normal person. And they just had to trade everything they found in the Sea of Monsters to get it. A question is answered, a direction is followed, but is it the right answer, the right direction?

Well, I think doubt would have remained.

I had a very vague idea for there to be some sort of man-eating giant in, like, a crystal castle. He got cut to make way for the mermaids.

I wanted to fit in a big whale and a giant crustacean, but there wasn't room or an interesting angle for me to want to make room for them. Saved for a possible sequel, I suppose.

I also wanted to have a scene with, like, DOZENS of sea monsters, including some of the ones from Offbeat Melody, but the goal of "this should be EASY you dumbass" made me kill that idea pretty quick.

Thank you!

The primary inspirations were:

The Odyssey and Epic: the Musical

The voyage of St. Brendan

The many "weird shit happens on an island" movies in Toho's filmography, i.e. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Son of Godzilla, Yog Monster of the Deep, Matango, etc.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Boy and the Heron

Ponyo (specifically Ponyo's parents - I wanted Sailor to have the same desperate energy as that wizard who fucks the giant sea goddess)

The Life of Pi

Slay the Princess (perhaps most obvious in the use of second person narration, multiple voices in the protagonist's head, and falling in love with a creature that has tried to kill you at least once)

I'm going to use this to springboard to a related point in a second, but first a genuine yet humorous answer: Yes, absolutely yes, I am enough of a big romantic sap that I would give everything about my life away to be with a person who loves me and explore a world of monsters in a heartbeat. Hell, I would have jumped in the water the minute Calibani asked and died with her fangs in my neck and a smile on my face. I am dumb this way. Do not follow my example.

On that related point, though... Most stories like this, I daresay ALL stories like this that I know of, end with the hero abandoning the fantasy world in favor of reality, never to return. And that seems like the proper choice and lesson on the surface - we don't want to tell audiences to give up their real life in favor of a fantasy, after all. That's encouraging escapism, and that's not healthy!

But, like... textually speaking, the fantastical world IS real to the characters in these stories. And it's often not really an escape - was Sailor's life devoid of conflict and suffering in the Sea of Monsters? Fuck no! It's just that they figured out how to deal with that conflict and suffering - they built skills and a support system, they adapted, they learned how to overcome what was there.

I think it can be argued that sometimes the return to a "normal" world is, in itself, an escape - the idea that your life can spiral into chaos but that's ok, you can just reset everything and go back to The Way It Was and Should Be is just as unrealistic and unhealthy an idea as You Should Escape to A Better World. Sometimes your plans for your life fall apart, sometimes you're thrown into a place you never intended to go, sometimes you have to learn skills you never anticipated needing and ally with people you never thought you'd befriend to deal with problems you never dreamed you'd have to overcome. And sometimes it's ok to look at your derailed life, your Not Where You Should Be life, and say, "Well, I've learned how to live here... maybe I can stay."

Especially if there's a cute chubby sea monster girl who loves you.

Bob was never supposed to appear past chapter 7, but about halfway through that chapter I realized the audience and I myself would be heartbroken if we didn't rescue her. Definitely for the best - she provided some well-needed comic relief in the final chapters.

This is gonna sound snarky, but, yeah - there were 58 choices with four options a piece, and we only chose one of the four. While some of the options would have similar results, almost none would have had identical outcomes. And some would have been VERY different.

Like, to go back to the beginning: when Calibani attacked, we could either throw a net on her, harpoon her, try to drive around her, or hide below deck. We picked the net, but for the other three options:

Harpooning would result in us hitting her in the thigh, causing her enough pain that she collapses on our deck and we, horrified at the violence we committed, just sort of push on. Calibani would be wounded for at least the next chapter, perhaps longer, and significantly weaker (and probably harboring a great deal of hidden resentment while also being genuinely scared of Sailor). She would be vulnerable during the stork attack, forcing Sailor to take a more active role in that chapter.

Trying to steer around her would result in us essentially fighting her with our boat, resulting in the boat capsizing and Calibani getting tangled up in it. We'd wake up alone on Stork Island and have to travel in search of our boat, alone and vulnerable among man-eating trees. We'd run into Calibani again, also beached and in trouble, end up recruiting her to help us get our boat out of the sand.

Hiding below deck would end in a sea storm that leaves us inside our boat as it's beached on Stork Island. We'd fend off the storks alone, and run into Calibani once we get our boat out to sea, as she got away more or less unscathed.

All of these would have majorly changed the trajectory of our relationship with Calibani and our identity as Sailor, despite seeming to have the same component parts on the surface. Now account for how similarly slight changes in the other options could have gone, and we could have had a very different story indeed.

Part 8: Our Girl

I just think she's neat!

[n3ptoonz]

Hello! I saw your most recent headcanon list thing with the Earthrealm guys being caught Slonking it Silly Style™ and uh. I was just wondering if you'd be willing to do something similar with the Outworld guys as well? Obviously you don't have to if you don't want to, but I think it would be neat! Thank you so much in advance! I love your work :)

deep, dramatic sigh. (kidding anon tysm i gush over comments like this ily smoochhhh) also the terminology made me laugh out loud ty for that

Shang Tsung

kinda sorta didn't gaf. who's to say he didn't want you to hear him. the world may never know

you were to report to him about some findings for his experiments and there he was, leaning over the table and straight up cranking it over a bucket (he's odd like that) honestly when you acknowledge your own presence he's like... can i help you?? you see i'm busy???

but at the same time he's like hold up i have a fine specimen here to help me out here...he's leaving here with SOMETHING (studio laughter)

Rain

i don't think he'd care either if you walked in on him. in fact, he might welcome it. he's used to having his own space, but he doesn't mind sharing it with people he's ok with being around. yes that includes you (is it only you? not even he knows yet)

day 8163 of using Rain's arrogance to push my narrative that he's not only in love with himself but how he looks in the mirror. you definitely walked in on him wanking it in the mirror and he'd freeze but recover so quick

ain't no way you're leaving here after you just caught him though. how else will his problems get solved? you went and made him hard all over again!

Reptile

syzoth has two, let's get that out the way. AND he uses both hands for them LMAOO

president of syzoth is a lil subby bitch society. so when you catch him tugging on both and reduced to a pathetic mess from his own hands??? he's frozen and quite literally has no clue what to do. he's sweaty, there's tears in his eyes, and his fangs are much more pronounced than usual

once you give him the green light that you're into whatever tf he was just doing watch him crawl over to you on all fours and hug your legs, practically begging you to touch him

Havik

expect this smug fuck to claim he wanted this to happen. dude was hunched over and going at it behind his own desk, grunting like a cave man who discovered self pleasure for the first time

1000% expect him to demand you help him, but instead it's after he froze for like 5 seconds and then tried to play it off

he would also be internally shocked when agree to finish the job, but on the outside it's like "that's what i thought...now get over here" whole time he's jumping up and down and twirling in his brain

Reiko

it's already rare that he has time to himself and definitely RARELY has time to be with you for an extended period of time, so you catching him when you wanted to surprise him with your presence it triggered his fight or fight LMAO

legit laughed at the thought of him jumping up from his chair hands ready to be thrown...but his dick is swinging PLSSSSSS

he's like well shit now he deserves your help after you almost got two pieced by your own boyfriend...but who's complaining?!

General Shao

this man weirdly reminds me of bowser sometimes. with that being said i think he'd do a BUAHA as a shocked sound when you catch him thwoping the schlong

as much as i can't fucking stand him he does look a lil better in this game i will admit. i'm not gonna sit up here and lie, he def has a HUGE wanker innit. so you didn't miss shit when you walked into his chambers

he would also demand your help. but if you have a lil push back just for fun, he'd eventually say please and be all soft and shit. why? cause it's you god damn it!

Baraka

let's be fr. truly i do not think mk1 baraka would masterbate simply bc he's like depressed all the time😭but for the sake of shits and gigs, ill humor y'all

let's say he hasn't seen you in a while and misses you dearly. he knew you were on a quest for a while, and he was very pent up... so what better way to release stress other than sparring! oh. not enough? time for another type spar 😈

if this were old baraka i'd say he has two 👁️ but since this version of tarkat is a disease let's say it made the skin around his wee like ribbed or something ya SO when you caught him he was in a straight up panic and apologizing profusely but once you calm him down and tell him you're glad he missed you so much, he's like oh shit...well help me out then...only if you want to!

a/n: i did it y'all FUCK. my bad for taking so long to release this i'm a perfectionist to a fault💀

[phi8]

Recently rewatched Gravity Falls with its resurgence online, and I was itching to give my take on an older Mabel with an absolute unit of a Waddles (who is a regular farm pig after all). To go along with this, I also wrote some fanfic: a letter from Dipper to Mabel, about his return to Gravity Falls years after the show. Read it on AO3 or below!

Dear Mabel,

I hope everything is going well back home!  I miss you already, but it’s so good to be back in Gravity Falls too. A  lot has changed since our summer here.

The first week of my internship at McGucket Labs has been amazing. McGucket has really transformed Northwest Manor into a fantastic campus (though he still insists everyone call it “the Hootenanny Hut”)! There are so many  brilliant scientists and engineers here, and most of them have a refreshingly open mind about the nature and use of all the weirdness you can find in Gravity Falls. My experience with all that stuff is already paying off big time. Yesterday some PHD dude asked for my opinion on practical applications of necromancy (I told him it was a bad idea)!

Candy says hi by the way! It’s funny, for me this internship is all the way across the country, but for her it’s practically in her back yard, even though we both got that scholarship. Also, she tells me Grenda is more or less officially part of the Austrian aristocracy at this point? Apparently she and that Marius duke guy got engaged, did you hear about that?? Turns out I’m completely out of the loop with your friend group.

Candy and I have been hanging out with, of all people, Pacifica and Gideon. Can you believe it? Pacifica works at Corduroy Lumber these days. Probably in some misguided sense to get back to her roots, but I think it’s doing her some actual good. Working with her hands has been teaching her valuable life lessons I guess. It makes it a bit weird if Wendy also comes hang out, because she’s technically Pacifica’s boss – but you know Wendy’s cool about that.

Gideon is still running the Tent of Telepathy, so, not all winners. But he’s turned into a more lovable kind of swindler I think, like a younger Stan. He’s honestly kinda funny now (except that he’s taller than me). Wendy also told me he has a thing for Pacifica, and once she did, I couldn’t unsee it. He’s all over her! Pacifica hasn’t noticed, even though they spend a lot of time together. Or maybe she just hasn’t deigned it with a reaction... Either way, both of them are a ball to go for a drink with, whoda thunk.

You also have a lot of hugs from Soos, Melody and the baby (Stan Jr is sooo cute). (Yes, I asked. Melody promised to make you godmother of the hypothetical next child. You owe me.) The Shack is as charmingly ramshackle as it was back when we were here, but Soos finally got the old man stink out. I’m staying in Grunkle Ford’s old secret office because our room was converted to baby chamber. I still haven’t gotten the Bill murals completely off the walls and I have no natural light down here, but I spend most of my time at Northwest Manor the Hootenanny Hut anyway.

Or in the woods! Being back here really was a good move for my Youtube channel, there’s so much more supernatural stuff here than in California, and people are loving it. (I saw you liked my last video, thanks!) I’m currently tracking down what I think is the actual Gobblewonker. I analyzed some detritus samples from the lake, and there were feces from a large reptile present. From what we know, none of the dinosaurs in the mine were aquatic, so my current hypothesis is that it’s an unrelated creature. Especially since, according to my research, the Gobblewonker story dates back at least a century. I also gotta show Ford some of my findings. You know they’ve come across some aquatic monsters in the Bermuda Triangle. (Have you also been getting his mails with scans of the fourth journal? Truly fascinating stuff.) Either way, I’ll keep you posted, and you’ll be able to watch the result online.

Give my love to mom and dad, and Waddles a tummy rub! Awkward sibling sign off, Dipper

PS. Along with the photo’s in the envelope is that stuff you wanted. Be safe with it! There’s a reason it’s illegal in the parts of the forest controlled by the gnomes. But also have fun, I have it on very good authority it’s the good stuff.

[i-m-snek]

I can't believe just how far Sweetpea has come!

She's still looking for her forever home, she is always going to have some issues in general from her MBD, and may never fill out to look 'normal weight'. She can't be on any loose substrates due to a weaker digestive system, again, due to MBD/prior starvation. I am looking for someone fairly close (Arizona, United States. I will not be shipping her due to her size, even in a large box if it's flipped over she wouldn't be able to get herself back upright.) Who has a lot of prior experience with bearded dragons. *I will not make exceptions on that, she is not a starter reptile* She also struggles to balance on branches, so any climbing apparatus needs to be low to the enclosure floor. Personality: She loves basking in the sun outside, her favorite food is red bell pepper, but she will eat the heck out of different types of squash as well. Zuchinni and yellow squash are her main foods currently, she'll also eat collard greens, just less enthusiastically. She hasn't turned her nose up at any bugs at all, she'll eat crickets, hornworms, dubia roaches, BSFL, etc. She's a cuddle bug, as her name implies. If you set her on your lap she'll nap for hours! She's slowly starting to be more active and use her legs more, and I'll often watch her march around her enclosure before settling for a nap. History: Sweetpea was bought as a subadult by a 16 year old kid, who swore to his mom that he'd care for her. Well, as it goes in these situations, the kid cared for a month before losing interest and feeding her -maybe- once a month. She didn't have proper UVB lighting, which made it impossible for her to metabolize her food and she slowly declined over time. Eventually the mom went into his room and found her, nearly on deaths door. Genuinely thought she had starved to death, but noticed her eye movement. She posted in a panic on facebook and someone saw it and contacted me. I almost didn't go get her because I thought it was a case of the dragon being in brumation and the owner not knowing they brumate. Beardies are a lot of work and I didn't want to add to my plate unless absolutely necessary. But I am so glad I did go get her. I had never seen such an emaciated bearded dragon in person before, and took her in as a foster immediately. The first two weeks I was scared I'd wake up to her dead, she refused all offers of food, I had to blend her food and syringe feed her very slowly every day as to not overload her organs. She wouldn't even look twice at live bugs, she had no appetite. Not only that, but she had 'rubber jaw', where after so long without UVB or calcium supplements their jaw just. Turns rubbery and flexible, so she couldn't chew at all. After about two weeks of syringe feeding, being under uvb, and carefully measured calcium supplements, her jaw strengthened enough that I was comfortable offering her solids. I had to put it directly into her mouth, but she started eating solid veggies. From there I taught her to once again eat on her own, and it's been uphill since then! Requirements: You -have- to have experience with bearded dragons, at least a couple years of owning an adult. She is a special needs dragon, and will likely never be a fully healthy dragon again. You have to have at least a 4 x 2 x 2 enclosure ready to go. She has to be kept on solid substrate (Sadly) such as tile or paper towel, as said earlier she cannot metabolize any swallowed substrate due to her weakened digestive system. I know its a lot, but she is a special needs dragon who has suffered so, so much. She deserves to have a happy, healthy life from now on with someone who knows what they're doing. Because of my requirements, I am not asking a rehoming fee. But I -am- requiring video or photo proof that you have experience with dragons, and proof of enclosure.