rastropoetico

[bodysnatcherrrr]

'A grown man now, and he had still never succeeded in throwing away a single sliver of so-called ‘wisdom’ that had been relentlessly drilled into his mind up until he managed to move himself out of the home and out from under his Daddy’s thumb. Every word still stuck rattling around in his skull.'

[badoccultadvice]

Cryptid Alerts

Some cryptid reports that are circulating lately. Be aware of your surroundings.

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Salt Heart Press's Confirmed Sightings Triple Feature

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Confirmed Sightings, out June 1st from Salt Heart Press, serves up the cryptid stories you’ve been waiting for. It includes three novellas: “A Piasa for Christmas”, by Bridget D. Brave; “eyeofmoth.exe,” by P.L. McMillan, and “Once Upon a Time in Turu,” by Ryan Marie Ketterer. All should be familiar from other HOWLS anthologies, including Aah! That’s What I Call Horror and Collage Macabre.

Each story offers a different tone, setting, and voice. In “A Piasa for Christmas,” airheaded Kaycee discovers the love of her life: an interdimensional, all-powerful god; the novella kept me laughing til the throat-punch. Brave’s innovative structure—series of blog posts, including complaints to the commentariat—and unreliable narrator lend themselves to some serious shenanigans. 

Switch gears for “eyeofthemoth.exe,” where McMillan serves up a gory-but-heartfelt sci-fi. Elevator pitch: Mothman in space. She nails it, not only narratively, but emotionally. You’ll care about these corporate-slave spacemen. With an emotional wallop and some serious scares, the novella dishes out complex characters and non-stop action. 

Switch gears again for a detective thriller set in a city of cryptids. Fans of both will enjoy this one from Ketterer. With a Bigfoot detective, a Mothman gang, and a jackalope victim, “Turu” twists to an ending you never saw coming. 

Brave, McMillan, and Ketterer bonded over their love of Piasa, truly. Cryptid fans will love this novella.

[whereserpentswalk]

Most interdimensional entities that humans consider horrifying demons and eldrich horrors actually consider humans pretty dangerous unless they're actively trained fighters. Your average extraplaner being isn't used to dealing with a species that evolved to hunt in groups, and developed to survive in violent scenarios.

Most final girl situations happen because young entities deeply underestimate that humans have such a strong will to live, and are willing to fight back agasint a stronger foe. Most older entities keep at bay for this very reason, which is why you just see them stranding around being creepy.

That pale long limbed cryptid you spotted in a subway station moved so quickly because it doesn't want to end up near you. That shadow person whose hovering over you in the woods is trying to observe you, but it will teleport away if anyone comes near it for a good reason.

And that doppelganger that's standing by your door at night just wants to observe you too. He was smart to try to copy your roommate's face, but he doesn't realize how good humans are at recognizing eachother's faces, and that his copy will be disturbing to any human who sees it. And he got way to reckless with his movements and bad attempts to imitate human speech. Trying to trick the human who he wants to study into coming to his dimensions is an even bigger mistake, especially since he didn't realize how quickly the human would catch on. He's soon going to learn things he should have read up on before hand: humans will try to attack things they're afraid of if they can't run away, humans can use almost any hard object as a weapon by holding it and swinging, and that those decorations on your wall are called 'swords' and were not originally designed as decorations...

[juicyolpickle]

Loch Ness monster

[oliveoilcorp]

DARLIN’ AND HER OTHER NAMES, PART 1: MARTA

The first installment of my new werewolf-western-horror-romance comic is available now on gumroad and itch.io!

www.darlincomic.com

90 pages, mature readers only.

DARLIN’ is intended for mature audiences. This comic contains elements which some readers may find distressing, including: 

murder, gun violence, animal cruelty and animal death, blood, gore, body injury/horror, nudity, and language.

Please proceed mindfully.

Title designs by Binglin Hu.

(Thank you to friends, family, patrons and readers for your patience and support during the making of Part 1! 

I also want to give my immense thanks to Tin House, Mineral School Artist Residency, Artist Trust and MacDowell for providing time, space and support during various stages of Part 1’s progress. It means the world to receive validation for this weird little self-published project.)

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

My mom bought me this book for Christmas

The Resurrectionist by EB Hudspeth, a fantasy field guide full of anatomical illustrations of monsters and cryptids.

The musculoskeletal systems are fun to look at, but not nearly as in-depth as I would have liked. If you have more than a passing knowledge of taxonomy (or in my case, access to Wikipedia), a lot of the details fall apart under scrutiny

The harpy has four upper limbs connected to one shoulder girdle; it shouldn't have arms, only wings

The sphinx is not classified as a mammal, but is still somehow in the family Felidae with cats (and like the harpy is also drawn with only two girdles despite having six limbs. I will give the author credit for giving the sphinx a keel for the wing muscles to attach to)

It lists the Hindu deity Genesha as a cryptid, which is a no-no.

Cerberus is also explicitly not a mammal, but somehow still a canine (literally in the species Canis with wolves, dogs, and coyotes)

Both mermaids and dragons are listed as members of the order Caudata; the only extant members of Caudata are salamanders, which kinda makes sense for dragons, but not so much for mermaids (also, the author keeps playing it fast and loose with cladistics; both mermaids and dragons are in the same order despite being in different classes, and while dragons are explicitly said to be amphibians, mermaids are given the fictional class mammicthyes, which means mammal-fish. At that point, why not just call mermaids amphibians? Why make up a fake latin hybrid name?)

But what bugs me most of all is the classification of the Minotaur as its own order of mammal when in mythology it is explicitly described as a hybrid of two known species (made possible only by the cruel machinations of the divine, but still)

To use actual taxonomical nomenclature, the minotaur's species would be B. taurus × H. sapiens (specifically B. taurus♂ × H. sapiens♀; there are, to my knowledge, no legends of H. sapiens♂ × B. taurus♀). That's how ligers, tigons, mules, zorses, pizzly bears, narlugas, etc., are described.

If I had written this book, I would have leaned more into evolutionary biology. Most land animals have four limbs because they all evolved from boney lobe-finned fish, which split off from the boneless sharks and rays millions of years earlier, so any six-limbed vertebrates would need to be descended from a fictitious category of six-finned fish which would either be an offshoot of boney fish/tetrapods (I guess they'd be hexapods, though that term refers to insect arthropods), OR a precursor to boney and cartilaginous fish that both clades split away from much earlier (it's easier to lose structures than to gain them, so it makes more sense for a six-limbed ancestor to spawn four-limbed descendants than the other way around).

Think about how different elephants are from humans, and humans are from aligators, and aligators are from penguins, and remember that they all evolved from the same ancestor tiktaalik, an amphibious fish that existed some 375 million years ago. Imagine a precursor six-limbed species and how diverse all its descendants would look after 400 million years. Save for the occasional instance of convergent evolution causing two unrelated species to independently evolve similar body plans to fill the same niche, tetrapods and hexapods would look nothing alike. There would be very little recognizable overlap between the two. A six-limbed "pegasus" would not look like a real world horse, and a six-limbed "dragon" would not look reptilian/dinosaur-ish, for much the same reason that giraffes don't look like frogs; they're just too distantly related. Bonless sharks and boney fish and whales/dolphins all have similar looking bodyplans only because their environment requires the same hydrodynamic shape, while terrstrial vertebrates are much more physically diverse.

[readwanderlust]

[ghostsandmermaids]

Podcasts To Listen To If You Like OFMD

Today is the anniversary of the finale of Our Flag Means Death season 2. One whole year without our favorite pirates :( But if you miss OFMD as much as I do, I have some podcast recommendations I think you'd enjoy!

If you want more queer pirates:

Trice Forgotten

Trice Forgotten is a found-family, pirating adventure. Alestes puts her head down working as a merchant, couriering deliveries and carrying travelers to destinations across the seas. Only, her travelers gradually become permanent crewmates, until she realises her ship has become a floating museum, laboratory, vault of repatriated ‘treasures’ and chef’s kitchen. After spending most of her life with the understanding that nothing changes, no matter how hard you fight, Alestes is faced with a choice: Will she use her new network of allies to build safe harbour and potentially a future for her new community, or will she once again put her head down and drown in her sea of excuses…

Queer neurodivergent pirates of color! Found family! Homoerotic sword fights! What else do you want? (And they even talk about OFMD in one of the Below Decks episodes!)

The Ballad of Anne & Mary

It's 1721, and London is abuzz with news of notorious pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, currently languishing in Newgate Prison. It’s the perfect time for debt-ridden journalist Nathaniel Mist to exploit the public appetite and ghost-write a sensational (and hopefully best-selling) history of pirates. But as the balladeers and gossips on the streets of London build myths around the blood-thirsty, perverse lady pirates, Mist is forced to reckon with the real Bonny & Read… Featuring musical sensation Christina Bianco, actress and comedian Sooz Kempner, Hamilton star Karl Queensborough, drag legend Le Gateau Chocolat, and more.

If you can't get enough of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, listen to this podcast musical about them!

If you want more queer comedies:

Welcome To Night Vale

Welcome To Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Turn on your radio and hide.

Okay, it's a horror comedy and can be creepy at times, but it's also one of the few shows that have made me laugh as much as OFMD.

Starship Q Star

When a space agency sends the “first all woman and non-binary crew” on a blatant PR mission to Mars, they inadvertently end up the last six humans in the universe. Lead by Co-Captains (and exes) Aurelia and Sim, Starship Q Star follows this madcap crew on their quest across the galaxy in search of a new home… which is basically one hilarious mishap after the other.

I suppose if you found the absolutely two perfect ex-girlfriends and sent them to Mars, then they could potentially… co-captain?

If you want more queer historical comedies:

Fawx & Stallion

London, 1889. When the residents of 221B Baker Street leave town for the weekend to solve one of their most famous cases, no one is left to clear a poor housekeeper’s name of a crime she didn’t commit. Well, no one except for their neighbors at 224B…

Tonally, this is probably the closest to OFMD. I started this podcast yesterday and fell in love with it immediately. If you like OFMD and Sherlock Holmes, please check out Fawx & Stallion!

The Kingmaker Histories

On the 19th of February, 1911, in the Valorian Socialist Republic, an assistant tailor named Colette Geise experienced a migraine that ruined her life. This is a historical account of what happened next. THE KINGMAKER HISTORIES is a steampunk weird fiction podcast about being gay and doing crime, brought to you by the freaks who brought you Less Is Morgue.

Alternate history + magic + comedy + queerness. Do I need to say more?

If you want more (queer) rom-coms:

Me and AU

When Kate “ACunningPlan” Cunningham sparks up an online friendship with a fellow fanfiction writer it seems like the perfect distraction from a summer stuck in her hometown of Kamloops, B.C., not to mention the coming terrors of her final year of university and the Real Adult Future beyond. (Seriously, please don’t mention them.) After all, Hella--Enchanted is funny, smart and writes canon-divergent werewolf fic like no one else. She’s everything a fandom could ask for. But… what if she’s everything Kate could ask for, too?

Me and AU is not only an adorable sapphic rom-com, but also a love letter to fandom! Go listen to this, it's so cute!

Life With LEO(h)

A sci-fi(ish) romantic comedy podcast starring a repressed lawyer, a criminal client, a pesky sister and her fiance, an infuriatingly sexy coworker, and an android in the mood for love. Jeanine Bell​ is a robotics intelligence lawyer whose laser focus on her career has come at the expense of her romantic and social lives. After successfully keeping AI genius Penelope Lane out of prison, Jeanine receives the gift of LEO(h),​ an android with Synthetic Sentience. LEO(h) is Loving, Empathetic, Optimistic, and (only sorta) helpful. He's programmed to love Jeanine. He’s also very, very illegal.

I'm only two episodes in and already so invested in this story! Jeanine and LEO(h) are absolutely adorable.

(Note: as far as I know, the main romance isn't queer, but there are other queer characters in the show.)

If you want more queer found families:

Hello From The Hallowoods

Darker than your dreams, and farther North than you remember, there is a forest where life and death meet… Come walk between the black pines! In this award-winning queer fiction podcast, a cosmic narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. It's a bittersweet story that explores queer identity, horror genre tropes, and finding hope in humanity's last moments.

Did I only add HFTH to the list because it's my all-time favorite podcast and I want more people to listen to it? Maybe. But I also genuinely think that if you like OFMD, you are going to love some of these characters. Check out my fandom manifesto if you want to learn more!

Starfall

Starfall is a fantasy audio drama about the adventures of the Carouvel Traveling Acting Troupe - a theatre troupe that uses magical items to create illusions for their shows as they move around the Falstenian Empire. The story begins as the troupe is joined by Leona, a young warrior with a mysterious past and even more mysterious powers. With their new guardian in tow, the troupe traverses the continent, encountering the dangers of humans, fae, and greater forces alike, all while still trying to put on a good show.

Remember Stede's fuckery play in S1E6? Now you can listen to a fantasy theatre troupe put on magical plays! How cool is that?

If you want more of the cast:

Kisses in the Dark

Against the bright lights of Blackpool, a supernatural killer is at work and a dark and dangerous love affair begins… A sinister, disturbingly romantic seven part podcast drama written by Marty Ross (BBC’s Catch My Breath & Ghost Zone and Audible’s The Darkwater Bride) and starring Con O’Neill (Chernobyl, The Batman) and Rhiannon Clements. A contemporary Gothic horror tale set against a background of life on the narrow edge between Pleasure Beach and wild cold sea, between secret desire and a deadly evil. Also starring, Kyle Rowe, Pamela Mayoss, Steven Gidwaney, Patrick Price & Ryan Clayton.

Con O'Neill plays one of the main characters!

What Will Be Here?

In What Will Be Here?, five friends send a rocket to space with a collection of recordings on it that document the world’s decline, the stories they want to tell, and their efforts in building this rocket to get their message to the stars. They wonder what their world will have become by the time their message is listened to. At its core, this show is about living and creating when things feel pointless. It's a story that came out of the pandemic, and the landscape in which this story was written and produced greatly influenced how it turned out. What Will Be Here? is set on earth 200 years in the future, where large-scale crises are fully normalized. But despite the bleak backdrop, this story is one of hope - of overcoming challenges, of making things that might be temporary, but also things that might be launched into space and continue on forever.

Vico Ortiz plays one of the main characters!

Dungeon Masters

Dungeon Masters takes a behind-the-curtain look into the world of Dungeons & Dragons, told through the lenses of the creator of the game, Gary Gygax, played by Wil Wheaton and of private investigator, William Dear, played by Jon Hamm, a swashbuckling tough guy in 1979. Gygax guides the audience through this incredible true story as our Dungeon Master, as we follow Dear on his quest to find Dallas Egbert, a Michigan State student, who supposedly disappeared in the steam tunnels under his university while enacting a real-life version of D&D. What Dear encounters on this journey and ultimately discovers, defies all expectations, and changes the culture as we know it.

Kristian Nairn plays one of the main characters!

The Diaries of Netovicius the Vampire

Neto is an artist first, an immortal vampire second, but for now he's being kicked out of his Beacon Hill apartment in Boston Mass. That's where we begin, but more than a year into this audio-series I can't believe the journey Neto, and me, the creator have been on. But that's a longer story than I can get into here. For now, I hope there is something in this audio-series for you. It's about vampires, but ultimately it's about recovery, from trauma, from alcoholism, even from cults. It asks: Does time really heal all wounds? Featuring VAs known for Valorant, Diablo IV & Overwatch

Written and performed by Hugo Pierre Martin!

The Cryptid Factor

Three best buddies - Rhys Darby, Dan Schreiber, and Leon 'Buttons' Kirkbeck bring you The Cryptid Factor - a podcast dedicated to all things weird that are yet to be defined by science. Since 2008 they have passionately (and often awkwardly) been discussing 'cryptids' and monsters like Yeti, Chupacabra, Bigfoot and Nessie - as well as weird news of the world, UFO's, Time travellers, robots and space stuff. Though they take these pseudosciences as seriously as they can, they struggle to take themselves seriously at all. Hosted by comedian and actor Rhys Darby, star of top rating podcast 'No Such Thing as a Fish' Dan Schreiber - and Pulling it all together is their best friend, 'Buttons'. If anything goes wrong, it is probably his fault.

Rhys Darby is one of the hosts!

Date My Abuelita, First!

From Executive Producer Wilmer Valderrama comes a dating show that proves abuelita knows best! Host Vico Ortiz alongside our resident abuelita, Liliana are ready to meet their match! Three single contestants will compete for a date with one lucky guest. Through speed-dating rounds, hilarious games, wildly silly and genuinely heartfelt introspections, and grandmotherly love, one contestant will either be a step closer to love or be sent back to the apps. Abuelita holds all the cupid power, so let the chispas fly!

Vico Ortiz is one of the hosts!

[kadalsaurus]

my interpretation of mokele mbembe cryptids

[worldgonewrongpod]

Coming Tuesday, May 7- Episode 5 of World Gone Wrong, where we go...deep into the history of Chicago's underground.

www.audaciousmachinecreative.com/world-gone-wrong

[cryptid-manor]

[ham103me]

Ok hear me out. We’ve all seen the comic with Spock on the porch in Iowa, he comments on the fact the corn is closer to the house than it was that morning, Jim just smiles and tells Spock to come in, we all know that one, yeah?

Now picture Jim convincing Spock to go on shore leave with him:

Jim: “You’ll get to study an unknown-to-science being!”

Spock: “On Earth? Jim, what creature is left on Earth that has not been thoroughly studied?”

Jim: “You’ll see! Just don’t whistle at night and don’t open the door after dark.”

(Jim clicks CONFIRM on a cabin in the woods in Appalachia)

One Terran month after their shore leave ends, a team from the VSA secures funding for the Appalachian, Earth Research Project. Classified.

I need a list of Appalachian cryptids to fanfic this out!

[whereserpentswalk]

Hermit crabs are weird animals. They don't make their own shells, they steal them. If you live in a coastal city like I do you'll be somewhat familiar with weird creatures that live in the ocean but aren't fish. And sea snails don't shed shells, they only leave behind shells when they die. Hermit crabs are living in corpses basically, sometimes long dead corpses.

So when you did. Mabye something will want your bones. The hard parts of your body you leave behind after the soft parts are all gone. Something that doesn't have bones of it's own to enjoy and to keep it steady.

And whatever takes your bones won't do it out of disrespect. It needs those bones just like you once needed them. Those bones will keep it safe and alive just like they once kept you safe and alive. It's not a human taking them, but it's still something that will use and love those bones just like a human would. And you don't need them anymore.

So mabye, if you're ever near an empty beach in the winter, or a forgotten bit of rock under a bridge, or a mostly empty subway station in a coastal neighborhood, leave some human remains out. There's something that might be living there that could use them. Not as a sacrifice, but as a gift to a neighbor.

[cryptidsofwakemoor]

Chapter 11 - Gratuitous Waffle Violence

Matchstick uses eating utensils to varying degrees of success, while Tikki draws up a roommate contract.

~*~

Mystic

Morning comes again, as it always does.

And with it, the spicy smell of a hot drink, as the catalyst to his waking.

Sitting on the rug next to the couch is another mug of the hot 'cider' Tikki made the previous night- but he can smell something else, too. The scent of the only other hot drink he was familiar with, the one the scientists in the lab carried around sometimes. It was earthy and bitter, but not in an unpleasant way.

Clinking noises from the kitchen, and plap plaps. Tikki must be awake, and making something.

Spooky

Slowly he unfolds himself, lanky legs stretching out from under the blankets followed by his upper torso and arms, his bones popping. He wasn't used to sleeping on something quite this soft... Sprawled out on the couch, he turns his head to try and see what Tikki's doing, but all he sees is her back as she prepares something just out of his view.

He was almost reluctant to get up, but the smell of the cider beckoned, and his mouth was feeling dry. He leaned down and scooped the mug up from the ground, holding it carefully in both hands and slurping noisily.

Mystic

"Wow, your bones sound like glow sticks," Tikki comments, back still turned. "First time you're sleeping on something soft?"

She tried to hide how much the thought pissed her off. Who was responsible for taking care of this kid in the 'lab'? They were shit at their job. Probably on purpose, which made her more angry, which forced her to stuff that feeling away for another molotov cocktail that surely wouldn't detonate later.

"I made you more cider- sounds like it did the job last night," she continues, not waiting for a response. "You should start drinking more regular water after this, though. Can't have you dehydrated, and you'll get more energy back if you eat properly. Which probably means I shouldn't be giving you too much sugar, but ehh..."

Tikki eventually turns back around, this time carrying a platter over to a strange contraption on a rotating spit. She flips it open, and pulls a set of puffy, boxy discs from inside. Loading up a plate with four separate discs, she sets up a second platter with only two, and lathers them in a translucent golden-brown syrup. With a march in her step, still wearing her colorful fish pajamas, she goes back to the living room that seemed to their designated eating space for the moment.

Tikki holds out the plate to him, complete with the utensils he wasn't sure how to use, and sits with her own.

"You're going to want the cutlery for this one," she says, smirking as she sips from her hot drink. "It's very sticky without it. Then we can start talking plans for whatever you're doing."

Spooky

He took the plate and was just about to pick up the food with his other hand, though he stopped dead in his tracks when she warned about it being sticky. Remembering the nectar tubes outside, he was reminded all too well that ‘sticky’ meant having to wash off.

Not really keen on taking another bath so soon, he considered the metal instruments that were given to him along with the disc- a long, flat one and another one with four prongs. Tikki had used the pronged one just yesterday to eat the, uh... theeeee omm... omelet! Yeah, she stabbed it and used it to pick it up. Didn't seem too hard.

He sat down and put the white disc in his lap, wrapping his fingers around the handle of the pronged utensil until he was holding it in his fist. He then lifted it and stabbed it more viciously than necessary into the food disc at top of the stack, attempting to pick the whole thing up with it. The puffy food was soft despite its crispier outside, though, and fell off the utensil, landing with a syrupy plap back on the stack and lightly splattering him in the stuff.

He slouched forward a bit in response, his brow knit together as his eyes regarded the stack with a rather grumpy look.

Mystic

Tikki snorts into her mug, clearing her throat before setting it aside, and picking up her own utensils.

"You have to cut the waffle, first," she explains, taking the fork and poking it, then cutting into it with the knife in the other hand while the plate rests on her lap. "You can use the knife, or the edge of the fork if you're lazy, like me."

Tikki then does just that, using the side of the fork to cut another square of her food. It takes a bit more wiggling, but once it's free, she pops it into her mouth just as easily.

"I'll get you a wet napkin after we eat, don't worry about it."

Spooky

He huffed out a breath and picked up the knife in his other hand, holding it just about as clumsily as he did with the fork. He stabbed the stack with the fork once more, then stabbed his knife into it as well, awkwardly sawing back and forth with it until it scraped noisily against the plate.

He stopped, grimacing at the sound but... there weren't any pieces free yet, so he wrenched the knife to the side and started sawing again.

Yeah, he was definitely going to need a napkin.

At last he managed to get it into smaller pieces... He stabbed those, carefully lifted them up to his mouth, and finally was able to take a bite. His eyes widened. While this whole utensils thing had been a bit more complicated of a way to eat something... It was so fucking worth it! The... bread? was nice and crisp, and the syrup was way better than the sugar water in those flower tubes. Prior annoyance forgotten, he licked his chops and went to stab another piece.

Mystic

Tikki shakes her head in mild amusement, eating some more of her own waffles.

"You might have an easier time if you're a bit more gentle about it," she says, smiling tiredly as she lifts her mug and takes another drink. "Moving harshly is what splattered the syrup. One sec-"

Tikki goes to the kitchen, grabs a napkin from a rung, and soaks it with a bit of hot water. Returning to the couch area, she holds it out to him.

"Here- you can wipe off the syrup with this."

Sitting back down, she hums, finishing her own two waffles in short order.

She waits quietly while he eats, drinking more of her mystery drink.

"So..." she says, finally breaking the silence once he's had time to work through the stack of waffles. "What's your plan going forward, Sticks? Do you have an idea of what you want to do?"

Spooky

He paused and looked up from his plate, his cheeks visibly stuffed with waffle and syrup dripping from his mouth. Then, still wide-eyed, he looked past her, not really at anything in particular.

Plan going forward? He'd been on the run for a while now, technically free even if he was being hunted, but up to this point it felt like his days had to be almost entirely devoted to his continued survival. If it wasn't hiding, it was food and water he was primarily focused on.

Now that those needs were met, though...

Now what...?

His eyes focused on her again, and he looked almost as if he was expecting her to continue on with what she wanted him to do, but no instructions were forthcoming.

Feeling lost, he gave a noncommittal shrug and went back to eating.

Mystic

Tikki hums, frowning a little.

"Okay, maybe that was a bit too broad," she acquiesces, cleaning a bit of syrup off her plate with the fork and nibbling it off the tines, almost literally chewing over her thoughts. "Anywhere in particular you want to go? You don't have to stay in this town if you don't want to- from the sounds of it, you seem pretty scared. I can help, but... I don't know, I guess I just feel bad that you seem so afraid all the time. You shouldn't have to be."

She felt a little bad pointing it out, but it needed to be said. She was observant. She'd seen him running for cover in the trees, acting like exposure to the world for even a fraction of a second meant certain death. Granted, she had no idea which 'lab' was responsible for... this. Whatever they'd done to him. Who knows, they could be near town.

"...it- reminds me of how I used to feel, early on," Tikki explains, scratching at one arm. Her pointed fingers catch lightly on the silver scales that faintly dust over her regular teal ones.

Spooky

With his waffles now gone too, he stuck the end of the fork in his mouth for a minute as he tried to think. When he took it back out again, the tines were red hot.

"Where else...?" He mumbled, looking down at the syrup puddle on his plate. It wasn't very reflective, but he could see the vague circular shadow of his head in it, blocking out the light that would otherwise be making it shine.

He truly didn't know any other place in this world, and it had taken a while just to get used to this one. Maybe it would've been better to just have kept running until he was far away, but even on the outside it seemed like he couldn't really escape. How long would he have to run until he didn't see that logo anymore? Until he knew he was out of their reach?

"They're ehn... ev... everywhere," he added.

Mystic

"...oh."

Tikki seems saddened by this, frowning as she looks down at her own empty plate.

"...I'm sorry," she says. "I know I didn't have anything to do with it, but- well, somebody has to say it."

...

"...who did it?"

Dangerous question to ask. But then, it was dangerous for her to simply have him in her home, and she seemed fine enough breaking that rule.

Spooky

He slid his fork around in the syrup, though he made no move to lick it or anything- it was just movement for movement's sake.

He was clearly hesitant to answer... Not because he didn't trust Tikki by this point, but moreso that he was afraid. Perhaps irrationally so, since it wasn't like it would summon them to just utter the name of it... But knowing that didn't ease his paranoia any. Still... if he was going to stay, she deserved to know, if only so she knew who to avoid too...

After seeming like he wasn't going to say anything, he finally opened his mouth and spoke again, this time in a whisper.

"Aria."

Mystic

...

"...wait."

Tikki says nothing for a moment as the gears turn. She sits up, removing a small tablet device from a pocket on her pajamas. She taps at it for a second, staring at the screen on the front as a light comes on, casting faint illumination on her cheeks.

"Aria, as in- the megacorporation? The company that does appliance and tech delivery, and is a giant monument to the follies of capitalism?" Despite almost none of these words making sense to him, Tikki seems to be getting incensed the deeper she goes, so it must have communicated something accurate to the true Aria conglomerate. "Ugh. Figures it would be a giant business with its fingers in so many pies that it could pay to get away with murder."

It was truly sad how little of an exaggeration that statement was. Tikki had no doubt in her mind that if this kid stayed where he'd been before, and proved not useful enough to whoever deemed the criteria, they could have simply erased him. Be done with him and act like he was never there- against his will or not.

"You can't leave, then," Tikki continues, thinking. "Otherwise, you'll get caught by the vainglorious manchildren with too much padding in their wallets. I'm certainly not going to turn you over to that. So... do you want to stay, then? Again, I don't have much, but... I have a roof and a couch, and I'd like to think I'm pretty good at avoiding the public eye."

Spooky

There were a lot of terms being used that were flying over his head, but as he leaned to try and get a look at her screen, his wide-eyed, anxious reaction upon seeing the logo was all it took to confirm it for her.

He stared down as she scrolled through the results, his shoulders tense.

While he had been developed in their labs, the fact remained that he didn't understand the full scope of what Aria was. How could he? He had seen computers before plenty of times, but he'd never been allowed to use one himself. He'd never had money before, to his knowledge. The smiling, corporate facade of this company was just baffling to him, it painted a friendly picture so alien from the place he was used to that it gave him a severe sense of tonal whiplash just to think about it.

Listening to her, though, was kind of cathartic even if he didn't know some of what she was saying. Her anger was a small comfort to him, and it made him feel less alone in the world to know he had at least one person who had his back in this case.

Even though he was worried about what they would do to her if they found her, let alone what they would do if they found out she'd been hiding him...

At this point, the question wasn't whether or not he wanted to stay- he did, very much so. The question was really more like 'am i willing to risk Tikki's safety?' Tikki was the first and only truly friendly face he'd encountered... that he... didn't struggle to recall from an old memory, anyway.

On one hand, it would be dangerous, but on the other... He was a weapon. If they did track him down, or did anything to hurt Tikki... He would make them hurt too.Or worse.

Looking back up at her with a more resolute expression, he nodded.

He wanted to stay.

Mystic

Tikki smiles, pleased with this response- and kind of relieved.

“Oh good,” she exhales. “I wanted to give you the choice, but I won’t lie, I was probably going to worry about you a lot if you left.”

Tikki sets her plate aside and claps her hands together.

“Then, I guess we gotta draw up a roommate contract. Y’know- lay down some terms so we’re both comfortable.”

She leans over to rifle through a drawer of the cabinet set under the silent television, removing a yellow paper pad and pencil. Snapping the paper out flat, she places it on her knees and starts writing, talking while she does so.

“I’ve never had to share a space with someone that wasn’t a sibling before, much less on land, but I think I can handle that. Since this is my house, here are my terms: One, obviously you don’t have a job, so you can’t pay rent. That’s fine- but you’re going to have to help me around the house. Managing a space for two people is a challenge on my own, and in the process, I can teach you how to take care of yourself. Like laundry, cooking, etcetera... I’m not going to be your maid, but you’re not going to be mine, either. Could be helpful in an emergency, like if I get um- indisposed. Basically I’m just saying we help each other, okay? Two, you don’t sell out my uh-“

Tikki scratches behind her neck.

”-medical condition to any authorities. I’m not even normal by non-human standards, but hey, neither of us are very normal, are we? It’s like we’re made for each other,” she jokes.

Tikki finishes writing her notes, tapping the pencil on the paper before her gaze slides over to him.

“Does that sound fair? Anything you’d like to add, any rules you want to lay down?”

Spooky

The corners of his mouth quirked up a little at her relieved response, though it quickly turned to a look of surprise when she grabbed a paper and started talking about a 'contract'. That was a word he'd heard before, he was pretty sure, but like most things he overheard in random conversation snippets from scientists, he didn't have enough context to really understand what it meant.

Listening to Tikki though, he was able to figure out that it seemed to be some form of agreement. Wasn't sure why it had to be written down though... Maybe so both people wouldn't forget it?

Idly licking the syrup from his plate as he watched her write, he did his best to follow what she was saying- he wasn't sure what a rent was or what 'indisposed' meant- but he was able to grasp the main idea of it. 'Help each other' seemed reasonable enough.

Second part seemed obvious enough to him that it didn't really need to be written. After all, he did already promise that he would keep the secret! But if she felt better writing it on the paper too, well, that would be alright.

It sounded fair enough, so he gave a nod to that question, though when asked if there was anything he wanted to add, any rules he wanted... He got that far-off look in his eyes again and set the plate back down in his lap, immediately paralyzed by choice. While in the lab there were a lot of decisions he wished he could make in regards to his living situation, like no more ‘resilience testing’ chambers or shackles, or no more jabbing metal shit into his back... It didn't seem like Tikki's house had anything of the sort, and he'd only been here for one night.

What could he want that would apply to this place? He glanced over at Slithers as if to see if he had any ideas, but as Slithers was an inanimate plushie, no suggestions were forthcoming.

He gave an awkward shrug to Tikki. There was only one thing he could think of that was super obvious, but if they were gonna write everything down, might as well.

"Hh... Hide me... from Aria," he said.

Mystic

Tikki nods, not questioning the request in the slightest.

“Good, we’re on the same page.” She puts a line on the paper between her points and his, writing ‘Stick’s Rules’ above his section. “We can add more if you think about anything later.”

Tikki finished writing, and signed it with a looping scribble of some sort.

“I do have a guest room,” Tikki explains, sheepish all of the sudden, “but it’s- not furnished. I never had a reason to buy a second bed, and I was… kinda using it as my indoor hiding place when I change? So unfortunately that room isn’t usable right now, cuz it’s just kinda an empty box. Maybe sometime soon, though, once I save up enough money, we can set you up in there? Apologies in advance for any damage to the room. It’ll take a while, so you can have this living room as your space until that day. I don’t use it much anyway, the fireplace dries out my scales.”

Spooky

He blinked, perking up a little bit in intrigue. A room of his own?

His cell back at the lab had been very sparse save for restraints, and it was more part of a larger room with heavy duty viewing windows separating them. Needless to say it hardly felt like a space to call his own, not with so many eyes on him.

He would gladly take an empty cameraless box over that, at least it offered some privacy. In the meantime, though, the living room seemed nice.

...Why was it called a living room, though? Didn't seem like it was alive, any more so than the rest of the building at least. Weird...

Still, the thought of staying in it was kind of exciting- it was warm, had a lot of stuff to look at, there were good smells from the kitchen, and he liked the fireplace. It was probably a good thing he didn't have any scales to worry about drying out.

...That did remind him, though. Tikki was a fish lady. Weren't fish supposed to live in water? There was an aquarium at the lab. He'd only seen it a few times in passing, but it was a rare spot of colors and visual interest in an otherwise mostly monochrome environment, and he probably could have watched it for hours if they'd have let him. There were fish in Tikki's room too, though that tank wasn't nearly as big, nor populated.

The only water he'd ever seen Tikki in, though, had been the pond outside. Did she normally go in there when it wasn't iced over? Hm...

That in turn made him wonder about the place she said she was from before. Picking up Slithers and looking down at its beady lil' eyes, he thought for a moment before asking: "what's... Sea?"

Mystic

Tikki blinks. Her eyebrows raise when she realizes what he was asking.

“Oh- the sea! It’s a large body of saltwater, just a few miles away, also called the ocean. You can’t drink it, but the water is home to a lot of colorful fish, animals, and plants. My people live there- in your tongue we’re called ‘mermaids’. There are some of us that can live in rivers, but most of us live deep in the ocean. It’s my-“

She pauses, the cheer dissipating for a brief moment. When she speaks again, it’s muted.

“-was my home.”

Spooky

It didn't escape his notice how her expression seemed to light up when she started describing it, but faded so quickly at the mention of her leaving. It was... very clear she hadn't wanted to go. Something had forced her to leave. Whatever the reason was, it probably prevented her from going back, too...

Remembering Slithers's purpose, though, he lifted the plush up and nudged her shoulder with it, trying to hand it back to her.

"...don't like water..." he mumbled, sliding his hand over the nape of his neck. "liked... watchin' fish, though." His voice was still weak, but it was at least sounding a little better today, and not as much like he'd been gargling gravel.

Mystic

Tikki glances over in confusion as she feels something squish against her. Then she smiles, seeing the plush. She takes it and gives it a small hug.

“Thanks,” she mumbles. “You’re a good kid.”

A sigh.

…after a few moments, she places the plush back on the couch next to him. She appreciated the gesture.

“Yeah? Fish like watching us, too,” Tikki says with a chuckle. “You gave the guppies a big spook when you woke us up. They’ve been babbling about you all morning. They think you’re some kind of giant walking eel.”

Tikki stretches her back, grunting as the vertebrae pop a little.

“Any other questions you got for me? Since we’re laying all cards on the table now, might as well, I guess. You already know my biggest secret.”

Spooky

There it was again, that odd chuffing kind of laugh, the best he could manage currently. Eels were those noodly ones with all the teeth, right? He only really saw them poking their heads out from rocks in their tank for the most part, but they looked kind of goofy. The mental image of him poking his head out of a rock and opening and closing his mouth a lot just struck him as way too silly not to laugh, despite the state of his voice.

"Tell 'em sorry," he rasped, coughing a little from the laugh. He didn't mean to spook them, but at this point he was kind of used to that reaction.

That did remind him, though, of something else odd he noticed the night before. "...I couldn't h- hear 'em..." he whispered, trying to give his voice a break. He'd seen them swim towards Tikki, and they seemed to be the ones to wake her... but surely enough, he'd only heard the bubbling of the filter at most.

Mystic

"Oh don't worry, I did," Tikki giggles, sipping from her mug. "Guppies aren't the brightest, and thought your glowing eyes meant you were a predator there to eat them or something."

Hearing him whisper and cough, she reaches over and pats him on the shoulder.

"It's okay, take it easy on your throat. You'll probably need several more days of resting your throat and drinking cider or tea with honey to heal whatever damage you may have."

Tikki takes his mug, which was now empty, and goes to refill it in the kitchen.

"I'd be surprised if you could hear them!" Tikki says idly. "It's a mermaid thing- we can talk to fish, and understand them. They're not always intelligent, it can depend on the individual, or even type of fish. Usually larger fish are smarter- bigger brains to absorb more information, n' all. Anything that's not a fish, like turtles or otters, are harder to communicate with; not quite the same language."

Spooky

Huh... That sounded pretty nice, talking to animals... even if only a certain type of 'em. He'd seen a few animals at the lab, and plenty more of them while roughing it outside, but they didn't seem to like him. They usually ran away before he could even get close, which made sense for the wild ones, but even the domestic ones that were perfectly fine with being around humans seemed to freak out when they saw him. Which sucked, because they were cute, and it seemed like it would be nice to pet them...

His gaze drifted down to his hands, and his eyes fell half-lidded as he sighed. Yeah, right... Probably better that he didn't, he'd probably just crush or burn them by accident or something...

He didn't notice Tikki returning until a refilled mug entered his view, and it almost made him jump for a second.

Mystic

"I don't blame you for being skittish," Tikki says, somber as she hands him the refilled mug. "I don't know your full story, but I can imagine you've been through some hell. It's okay if you need time, there's no shame in it."

Leaving him to his drink, she picks up the contract and folds it, tucking it into a pocket on her pajamas. Hands now mostly free, she grabs his abandoned plate and stacks it on top of her own to go clean.

"Which reminds me- you've been kinda running around in tatters for a while." Tikki looks over her shoulder from the sink. "You need clothes besides- y'know- a blanket. Are you fine with hand-me-downs? Just nod yes or shake your head for no, to save your voice."

Spooky

He looked over his shoulder and tilted his head at the term 'hand-me-downs', having never heard it before, but... he did know what clothes were, and while the blanket had been doing okay at keeping him warm, it was a little annoying to have to hold it around him with his hand to keep it from falling down...

Also, a quick look at the shorts he'd been in since before he'd even escaped- now threadbare in places and torn in others- told him they were definitely not going to last much longer.

Not wanting to go completely without, he looked back up at her and nodded quickly, his face faintly glowing in embarrassment.

Mystic

Tikki accepts that answer.

“Awesome. I’ll see what I have that fits- might be a little big for even you, since I’ll need to pick something not form-fitting, but you’ll grow into them.” She gives him a quick, wry smile. “As if you’re not already a beanpole, heh.”

True to her word, once Tikki finishes with kitchen cleanup, and walks back off toward her room and disappears again for a few minutes. He can hear the distant clatter of moving drawers and the creak of hinges on closet doors, along with a faint plastic clicking noise. Eventually, she emerges with a small armload of cloth.

“Got some sweatpants and leisure shirts that’ll probably be fine,” she says, rifling through them before lightly tossing them in his direction. They land on the couch cushion with a pff. “Mostly just comfort clothes. Go ahead and use the bathroom whenever you want to change.”

Spooky

He made a face at the beanpole comment as she turned back around to finish up in the kitchen. Beanpole? What does that even mean??

When Tikki left to get the clothes, he looked himself over front and back, trying to figure out what she meant. The moment he heard her returning, however, he quickly stopped and pretended to just be chillin' out with his arms loosely crossed instead.

When she unceremoniously tossed the clothes on the couch next to him, he was quick to start checking them out. On top of the pile was a big shirt that, when held up, had a drawing of an orange animal sleeping in a red box, with a blue blanket draped over them, and the words 'I HATE MONDAYS' on it.

He blinked, before shrugging and tossing it back on the clothes pile. He then scooped the whole thing up in his arms and went off to the bathroom to get dressed.

~*~

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[juicyolpickle]

Live stages of my oc Tina who’s species now has a name (void dweller) I wanted to root this character more with spec biology and think about how they may have came to be.

The larva is the first stage of any void dwellers life, they seemingly resemble beetle larvae but unlike any insect larva these are abnormally big and stand around 3 feet tall, have see-through skin, and have 5 feet.

Not much is known of the actual origin of this larva and what point in history they appeared, all is known is that none have been found outside of caves. So far only 7 specimens have been found throughout the 38 years of their discovery. All being in separate locations and even different countries.

The larvae are extremely resistant when it comes to lack of food and will feast upon slat clusters found in cave systems. Once the larva come across any organic material such as a body of any animal, the larva will gorge itself with anything that they have. This will activate a dormant period within the larva and won’t move or do any activities within the 5 month period, throughout this time the larva will become noticeably bloated and enlarged. After this period of inactivity a fully formed pale creature will sprout out of the larva’s body.

This gross pale fetus was not part of the larvae conciseness but is a completely new individual on its own and unlike butterfly’s with metamorphosis, the larva was used as it’s vessel.

Depending on what the larva ate, the genetic material varies on the individual. Here is a visual example of different void dwellers. The only thing in common that they may share is the loss of skin around the face and in some cases the whole body, exposing the muscle and skull. They all begin to loose their eyelids within age leaving the eyes fully exposed with deep dark sockets.