#i might be able to find some old art of it if i go digging

[girljimmyenjoyer]

Ykno whats. Funny. I used to draw selfcest of myself when I was younger. Whenever I felt especially bad. Because I was like "WELL I would love me and treat me kindly!!" Funny as hell.

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Plan

So the poll is still running, but I think I'm safe in saying there's sufficient interest, so I'm going ahead and typing up a "how we're going to do this" thing, which I will schedule to post after the poll ends properly. As of the time I'm writing this, over 500 people have voted for the "yes I want to draw things" option, and I had been expecting to get maybe a dozen, so we definitely have enough participants. Let's get started then:

Our Source

I had originally planned to translate an Old or Middle English bestiary, but haven't been able to find a good one -- the best option I was able to dig up only has thirteen critters, which I feel like isn't enough to really have fun with. I was debating the idea of translating a Latin one -- this would have been far more time-consuming since my Latin is terrible, but also I do need to practice it, so I figured it evens out -- when I found a solution that doesn't involve me spending hours and hours on translating.

It seems that when Aberdeen University created their digitized version of the famous Aberdeen Bestiary, they released it under a Creative Commons license. (Assuming I'm reading their copyright policy correctly; I'm not a lawyer.) It does not seem to specify whether the transcriptions and translations they attach to the scanned images are also covered by Creative Commons, but since all of those are already freely available online through their website, I can't imagine they would have a problem with me posting them here as long as I provide attribution (which I am hereby doing right here on this post) and am not using it for commercial purposes (which I am not).

The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few pages, but there exists a very similar manuscript, the Ashmole Bestiary (they're sometimes called "sister" manuscripts), which is not missing those pages. And I happen to have a translation of the Ashmole Bestiary in hardcopy on my bookshelf, so I can just use it to fill in the gaps. Edit: whoops, the one I have is the Bodley Bestiary. They are in the same bestiary "family", though, so it still works well enough. (I think that should qualify as "fair use", since I'm only taking excerpts and not using them commercially.)

The upside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that it means when I round up all the art of each critter, I can include their very nice illustrations alongside the reveal of what animal was being described.

The downside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that since it already is free online, people might be tempted to "cheat" by looking up the entries and finding out what animal they describe. For that, please see the next section...

Guessing the Animal

Guessing what animal is being described is not the point of the exercise. (Feel free to have theories and whatnot, but please keep them to yourself so as not to influence the artists.) If you see an entry and think, e.g., "oh that's describing a raccoon"*, and then you create a picture of a raccoon... well, you could have done a perfectly good raccoon at any point and didn't need this framework to do it. So just don't worry about what animal is meant, and do your best to draw (or paint or stitch or whatever else) based on the description! You're not getting ranked on accuracy and there are no prizes forthcoming, so... just have fun with it.

*Example chosen as something that will, for obvious reasons, definitely not be in a 13th-century European bestiary.

Edit after starting to type these things up: some of these are going to be super easy to guess, though, to the point where I don't know how possible it'll be to block out prior knowledge. Sorry about that.

General Procedure

I'm going to schedule a post every Monday (I'm thinking of queuing them for 6pm Eastern Time) with a new entry. It will be the translation of an entry from the Aberdeen Bestiary with all references to the animal's name replaced by a randomly-generated nonsense word. (Henceforth to be referred to as "nonsense-names". I'm Googling* each one before using them so I don't accidentally generate one that actually means something.) These posts will all be tagged maniculum bestiaryposting, so you can follow that tag if you want to make sure you see them.'

*Later Note: Did you know that if you search dozens of nonsense words within a short span of time, Google makes you prove you're not a robot? Repeatedly?

Anyone who wants to draw the critter being described should do so. (You are encouraged to describe your thought process re: why you've depicted it the way you have.) You can put it in its own post, or reblog the description with an image, or however you want to do it. Then tag your art with the nonsense-name I've given to the animal.This will let me and others find it. (You should probably employ copy/paste there to make sure the spelling is the same, since nonsense words are hard to spellcheck.)

A week after posting the bestiary entry, I'll go through that tag and round up all of the art contributed. Then I'll put the images in a big post (or series thereof, considering how many people might participate), along with an @ and a link to your original post.

If you want...

to not have your work included in the round-up post

to have only a link to your post included and not an image

to have me include a link to your website / other social media / etsy shop in addition to or instead of your tumblr

to have other information included alongside your work

anything else along those lines

... then just say so in your post and I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability.

I will also include, at the end of the round-up post, an image of the creature as depicted in the Aberdeen Bestiary and what it is actually called.

All posts I make on this will be collected at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting so that people can look at previous ones without scrolling through the tag.

Various Notes

I'm going to trim out any religious digressions in the original entries -- bestiary authors had a habit of adding stuff like "and the raccoon is symbolic of god in such-and-such fashion, which teaches us...", and I just don't think that's relevant here.

The entries will also be presented in a random order. This is because they're sorted into categories in the original text, so if I don't change the order we're going to get stuck with, e.g., a few months of All Birds All The Time.

You should all be aware that the animals described are not guaranteed to be, you know, real. There are several entries describing animals that straight up do not exist -- some of which are mythical creatures familiar to most people, others of which are extremely obscure.

Explanations of the animal's name within the entries will be redacted.

If other animals are mentioned within the entries, they will not get replaced with nonsense-names. Originally, I was going to make the switch globally, so that if, e.g., the entry for "raccoon" read "a raccoon is about the size of a possum", and the random generator had decided that a raccoon was a balzikhear and a possum was a flunggrish, the "raccoon" entry would now read "a balzikhear is about the size of a flunggrish". However, I decided that it will cause more problems than it solves to obscure any comparisons to other animals -- so the name-switch is now localized only to the specific entry. A possum is a flunggrish only in its own entry, and remains a possum everywhere else.

I was originally going to do one post for every single entry, but there are a lot of them and they vary wildly in length & quality. So I've cut it down to exactly 52 posts, meaning that if I queue them up for once a week, this will run for roughly a full year.

Most of that cutting-down mentioned above was done by combining a bunch of the really short entries into categories -- the last half-dozen posts in this series will be group entries. You can choose to make art of any of them that strike your fancy, or do a group portrait, or just ignore them --I dunno, I'm not a cop, do what you want.

I did also directly cut some, mostly domesticated animals because there's a somewhat different approach to them based on author and audience familiarity.

So yeah, that should cover everything.

[mynamesaplant]

What Lurks in the Dark

Posting here, but also posting here on AO3 in case reading on Tumblr's not your thing!

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Summary:

Dawn finds herself stuck in her mer form. What's worse is that she's been having nightmares.

Content Warnings:

This fic contains blood, violence against children, and PTSD.

Notes:

Thanks once again to all the inspiration from monsoon-of-art on Tumblr and their PLA Mer AU. They are forever a font of knowledge and inspiration.

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Dawn never realized just how dark the ocean got at night. She was usually back on land with man made light banishing the dark back to its dark corners. The sea has no such luxury. Since being stuck as a mer, her dark vision has gotten a lot better so seeing isn’t really the problem. Her swimming and internal navigation was leagues better than before, but neither clan fully trusted her to be on her own just yet. Still so small and inexperienced to what lurks in the ocean. At least one clan member was with her at any given time, trying to prevent her from scratching at the patchy fur.

“Just be patient.”

Calaba’s chiding did not stop Dawn from trying to steal away and dig her sharpening claws into the uncomfortable, and frankly unsightly, adult coat disrupting her previously pristine white fur. She knew everyone was secretly excited, and she was too, she loved to spend time with her mer family… But this felt like one more little taunt from Arceus.

One day with Ingo at the shoreline, he commented that her coat looked longer than usual and a little darker in some spots. Dawn couldn’t say she noticed, but he scooped her up and set her on the rocky outcrop, withdrawing her flute from her bag. The song sounded… wrong though. Even Ingo’s face quirked in confusion, leaning down to look while Dawn twirled the flute in her hands.

“Your flute looks different.”

It looked very different from his. It looked more like a shell and as blue as the sea. He had never seen anything quite like it.

“Why am I not changing back?”

The minor note of panic was not lost on Ingo. Dawn was peering into the holes to see if something was stuck or if it was damaged in some way, but she didn’t see anything that would prevent her from playing and the magic from working to change her back into her human form. He extended his hand out.

“May I see it?”

She placed the flute down and Ingo brought it closer, squinting to look for the same things she had. He picked it up with delicate fingers and turned it over.

“Why don’t we take it to Warden Arezu? I’ve been told she has dexterous hands, so she might be able to do more than I would.”

Dawn had found that agreeable at the time, but they went to the Diamond clan’s settlement the following day and Arezu found nothing amiss. Adaman also took a crack at it but was about as successful as the previous three. Now bordering on hysterics, Dawn went to all the wardens to seek any assistance and the only ones who provided her with any real insight were Calaba and Sabi.

Calaba was a little more straightforward but cynical. The old warden remarked that if the gods that power the flute’s magic did not want her to return to her human form, there was nothing to be done but wait or accept the inevitable. The idea that she would never go back to being human made Dawn shudder. She enjoyed being a mer sometimes, but she preferred having legs and eating cooked food.

Sabi was more cryptic but provided a glimmer of hope. Dawn did her best to wade through what the youngest warden said to get to the crux of the matter, not that Sabi made it remotely easy. What she got from their exchange was that she should go to the drop off and just ask for a straightforward answer. As if Arceus would really just answer her questions without being as cryptic as the Diamond clan warden.

Ingo had planned to accompany her, but Adaman and Irida ended up being her escorts, the area bearing more spiritual significance now since the events of rising tides and the attack of the many-armed serpent.

Unlike all the times she had tried playing to revert back to her human form, the flute played perfectly, and a voice rose from the depths, booming and alien, but somehow also familiar, to the ears of the mers.

You summoned us, chosen?

Dawn felt the clan leaders press closer to each of her sides. Irida’s upper lip curled back to reveal sharp canines and blue eyes hooded by her furrowed brow, ear pressed flat to her head. Adaman’s tail restlessly stirred up the water, his ears twitching which made the scales shimmer and flash in the dim light, and his gills flared and flushed a dark red.

Dawn knew both of these reactions were signs of aggression and warning. The girl took a deep breath and said as loudly as she could into the dark expanse of sea below her.

“Why is my flute not working?”

There was a long pause before the voice responded.

What do you mean? You just played the song to garner our attention.

“You’re right, I did.” Dawn was trying not to sound frantic, trying so hard to be patient to get the answer she needed. “When I play the song that turns me back into normal, it doesn’t work. It sounds wrong.”

Another pause – even longer this time. She half expected the voice to ask her to play, which she was fully willing to do (regardless of the consequences of being so deep and being a poor swimmer).

Observe your coat, chosen, and tell us what you see.

Dawn twisted herself around and looked down at her tail. She took in the little splotches of gray staining the fur. She ran her fingers through it and felt that it was somehow uneven, just as Ingo had observed. The two clan leaders also took a closer look, about as unsure as Dawn as to why a god couldn’t just be forthcoming about an issue for once.

“Oh… Oh Dawn! Your molting!”

“I’m what?”

She barely had time to say as Irida wrenched her around, fingers nimbly working through her uneven fur and producing a tuff of fur between her claws. Adaman scowled and helped Dawn into a more upright position, the suddenness of being jerked around had given her sort of a head rush and she appreciated the Diamond clan leader for righting her.

“You’re getting your adult coat!”

Lady Irida is correct. The flute will not work until you have gone through your molts, chosen.

And thus, it went. Dawn was stuck in her mer form. Her fur slowly – almost painfully so – dappling with dark gray flecks as the snowy fur turned more of a smoky gray with the passage of time.

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Stuck in the water with not a lot of options, she swam up the river that led to Jubilife and hollered at one of the guards to get the professor. Laventon might not be able to help, but he might be able to offer advice.

“My word,” he exclaimed, kneeling by the water as about half of the village was held back by the Security Corp. “Dear girl, why haven’t you played your flute yet?”

She explained morosely what was happening and Laventon’s brow furrowed. He agreed that it was a conundrum but, as predicted, had no solutions for her. His recommendation was that she remain in the water because trying to stay on land would be far too complicated for her in her current condition.

“How am I going to eat? I always ate here.”

“Well, I suppose you could keep swimming back here and someone can fetch you something, but I imagine that might grow wearisome depending on how long this lasts.”

Dawn tried to keep up with it for a while, returning to Jubilife twice a day, but the trip became exhausting within the first few weeks. The clans were coaxing her to stay closer by, she was burning so many calories trying to get back when they could feed her just as well as Galaxy Team could. Eventually, she agreed with them. She did not realize she would be stuck there for the next few months.

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Dawn hadn’t always been afraid of the dark. The key word there being always. She had been afraid of the dark as a little girl. She remembered her mother putting a nightlight in her room, a little rotating light that displayed the stars across the ceiling of her room, but that had mostly subsided when she got older. Now she had entirely different reasons for being afraid.

She didn’t realize it at first – that this fear was gripping her so tightly once again. Not until she was out near dusk and Gaeric had tried to insist they do a little bit of hunting with him and Ingo.

“Gotta pull your own weight you two. Now, come on. You can set up and check yesterday’s traps.”

At first, she wasn’t opposed to the idea. She took it as an opportunity to get used to swimming with low levels of light and to trust the way the water feels against her body, like Iscan and Mai had tried to explain to her.

“You can feel the current. Sometimes it’s warmer or cooler, but they’re like invisible guides. There is so much you can learn just from the feel of the water.”

Although neither warden was too far away and the task at hand wasn’t particularly difficult, as night began to blacken the water, Dawn felt something inside her constrict. Suddenly everything felt harder to see and she froze, muscles screaming in pain because of how immediately they locked up. She didn’t understand! Maybe… Maybe something venomous stung her?

“Dawn!”

It was not Ingo’s voice she heard first, but Gaeric’s. The mer barreling towards her and quickly assessing the situation. All he could tell was that she was struggling for some unknown reason. Maybe not enough air? Her pupils had shrunk to a fraction of their normal size, her head wiping around wildly. Gaeric scooped her up and moved for the surface, Ingo not far behind.

Her body was rigid – cold like a sheet of ice – and Gaeric was surprised when he felt her shaking against his palm. Ingo was trying to talk to her, trying to figure out what happened, but all they could hear was her teeth chattering. She was gingerly pried away, leaving bloodied scratches in Gaeric’s palm, and Ingo took her back to the settlement to let a medic look her over, but nothing was wrong.

“It seems as though she experienced a shock of some sort.”

That was all they could conclude unless Dawn had something to add, which she didn’t. The girl was actually rather embarrassed by the whole affair, her time with Galaxy Team shining through in her assurances that she would not be a burden to the clans. Well, now she felt like a burden. Ingo swiftly silences those worries. These were unusual circumstances and completely out of her control. She had accepted his half scolding, half reassuring speech, and tried to put the incident out of mind. A few weeks later, that’s when the nightmares started.

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Dawn felt the darkness pressing on her eyes, her heart pounding so fast and loud that she was positive that he could hear it from her hiding spot. This area wasn’t even that deep. In the back of her head, she heard an unhelpful Laventon monologue about cephalopod ink and how it was used as a defense mechanism. Not this time though. This time it was meant to confuse and disorientate.

The eerie silence of the water only severed to make her trembling worse, forced to wait until he made a move. Her only defense seemed to be her small size and the flute clutched tightly in her hands. She could not stop the scream that was wrenched from her throat as long, clawed fingers probed the crevasse, and a burning amber eye illuminated her hiding spot.

“Come now, chosen one.”

The words came across bitter, but also a touch playful. He was going to enjoy toying with her for having what he never could – for being the exact thing he mocked, which he craved to be. All his prayers. All his devotion. All his effort. Yet, the Almighty picked this puny, insignificant, blaspheming child? Volo was going to mince her and offer Arceus’ favored up as a sacrifice to the many-armed serpent – Giratina would enjoy that. Volo all but assured her of her inevitable demise.

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Dawn sat bolt upright, swallowing a scream that had been part way out of her throat. The sleeping pups and adults around her were not roused, she was still nestled safely beside Ingo’s flank, and there were a few smoldering fires around the space that provided a warm glow that reminded her of a sunset.

“Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning. Red skies at night, sailors delight.”

Laventon had playfully told her. Dawn pressed herself closer to Ingo, gripping the fabric of his parka tightly in her fingers, and forced her eyes shut.

“Go back to sleep.” She mumbled to herself, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “Go back to sleep. Just go back to sleep.”

She did eventually, but her mind was still plagued by vague nightmares of sheer cold and oppressive darkness. Thoughts filled with slime and decay, sharp mouthfuls of teeth and suckers hiding deadly hooks cutting into her with ominous laughter filling her dreams.

This fitful sleep did not go unnoticed.

Ingo was a little too direct about it, asking her if she was alright and if she slept well when they both knew she didn’t. He couldn’t help it. It was in his nature to get to the heart of the matter and try to be as helpful as he could. To his surprise and dismay, she lied to his face.

“I slept great! Now, what’s on tap for today?”

At first, it was only occasional. Ingo had trained himself to be attuned to the subtle changes in her sleep and would draw the girl a little closer when her dreams were tipping into nightmares. Even if the knowledge made his skin crawl, he had to accept that Dawn just didn’t feel comfortable divulging her thoughts just yet. He could understand in a way. They were similar in that regard. It was hard for him to place his reliance on others, even if that was against his better judgement. Especially since his clan already found behavior like that weird, as they had always had one another to lean on, Dawn’s experience was entirely unique to her.

All mers had growing pains, he knew he must have even if he couldn’t remember precisely, but she probably did not have the words to describe it. The language was her biggest barrier. Everyone tried to be understanding, but sometimes it did not come across that way. So, Ingo relied on patience and the knowledge that Dawn was a smart girl – impulsive at times, but smart – and she would come to him when she truly needed him.

He wasn’t the only one to notice, however.

Calaba and Palina noticed the dark circles under her eyes, but did not know how to properly address it, especially since Dawn wouldn’t even talk to Ingo about it.

Calaba offered her some remedies. Tinctures and oils that had helped growing pups in the past through their growing pains, those growth spurts often accompanied by sleepless nights.

Palina made an effort to make more food that she liked to help her feel a little better. Who couldn’t have a good night’s sleep with a full stomach of your favorite foods? Dawn accepted them, but the restlessness continued.

Gaeric’s solution was the same as Mai’s, just stuff as many activities into a day to exhaust her and she should sleep soundly. It worked at first, the girl instantly passing out when it was time to rest for the evening, but even though Dawn was thoroughly exhausted, it did not stop.

Lian, Arezu, and Sabi were all of the same mind that what she needed was a good distraction because she was homesick, so the younger wardens spent hours playing with her.

Arezu, always fond of grooming sessions, chattered endlessly as Dawn dozed, half listening to what she had to say but mostly finding brief interludes of sleep between Arezu’s stories. Both methods, like all the previous ones, had been temporary. Adaman personally found all these tactics to be a waste of time.

“Give her to Melli,” he had jokingly told Iscan when he had made a suggestion to have her lay out in the sun. “He can sound like the droning of bees and cicadas, that’s sure to put her to sleep.”

The problem was that nobody knew how to broach the topic, not with Dawn immediately withdrawing into her shell by denying there was a problem anyhow. Irida had learned that firsthand. Dawn flinched at the question and stammered out that she slept just fine. The girl wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

If it was so obvious, then Dawn needed to do something about it. She stole away and returned to Jubilife to ask the professor for his advice. Everyone would scold her later for vanishing without a word, but she needed some time alone to think and seek advice from someone she trusted even more than Ingo.

“Restlessness? Hm, I usually find a nice cup of warm tea usually sends me into a nice sleep. I can try to get you a cannister of tea leaves, a cup… a pot to brew it. Do they have fires at these settlements?”

“Yes, I cook all the fish I catch over them.”

Dawn had to admit though, it was becoming more and more tempting not to wait until she returned to the settlement to have a meal. The idea still grossed her out enough not to, but sometimes she watched Gaeric eating something he had just caught with such vigor, that she had brief moments of morbid curiosity.

“Fascinating! I will have Rei gather up all the necessary supplies. I must ask, are you still filling out your research book?”

She nodded and withdrew a notebook from the standard waterproof bag provided to every Survey corp member. He beamed when she handed it over, thumbing over the worn pages, wrinkled from drips of sea water and bleached almost as thoroughly as her warden friend’s coat. Her illustrations were always exquisite, her notes not nearly as detailed as Rei’s, but Laventon appreciated them anyway.

“Professor, has… Has anyone seen or heard anything about Volo?”

Laventon tore his gaze from the book and looked down at the girl. She was not looking at him, tapping a finger on a rock and taking great interest in her patchy tail, attempting to appear uninterested.

“No, unfortunately. The commander had the team scouring the lands and, per our agreement with the clans, they would keep an eye out for him in the waters.”

“Okay.” Her voice was strange. “Just curious.”

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A frigid limb, colder than all the water in icelands, coiled around her. Tighter and tighter until all the air was crushed out of her, a stream of bubbles escaped her and rushed away, showing her the way to go. She could not follow. Sharp teeth dug into her. Cutting her. Making her bleed. She couldn’t even scream.

“Look at me now, chosen one.”

Dawn was jerked through the water, placed eye to eye with a man she had confided in, she had trusted him – how could she not? He had been so kind. She met a sinister grin and two unblinking yellow eyes. A pair of suns filled with nothing but malice as Volo’s grip tightened around her. There was a horrible crunch.

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Dawn woke abruptly with such a fear and pain gripping her chest that she was completely unable to stop the scream from escaping her. She was still disorientated from her nightmare to realize the hand curling around her was not the one she thought it was. She screamed again, sharp claws slashing into the palm, and, when that didn’t stop it, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into flesh.

“Dawn! Dawn – You must relax. It’s me.”

Although the person cringed, they scooped up her body with her other hand. She could feel the bitter tang of iron on her tongue, a growl reverberating through her throat when she was plunged into darkness. She didn’t want to be in the dark! She needed light! In her utter panic, she did not recognize the familiar scent and the warmth and gentleness in the touch. Just blood and dark and salt and a tension that was more than bone deep, something woven right into every fiber and nerve. She couldn’t even form intelligible words, just sobbing and screaming. The enclosed space smelt so much like blood. When that smell hung so heavy in the air, death was approaching. Nothing could survive without its blood.

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Her tail has been stained pink, the water swirling with blood that sure to draw sharks. The threat was gone. The many-armed serpent (what had Volo called it? Giratina?) lifted her to the surface as one last act of penance before sinking back into the depths. She wasn’t even sure what happened. She didn’t know what she had done to defeat Volo and the ancient serpent. It was the same for the other gods of the deep. All she knew for sure was that she was alone.

She turned onto her side and coughed up water and blood, the mix burning her throat. Hot tears stung her face as she wailed into the hands, the dim light of her namesake began to stain the inky sky from black to blue… The same colors her bruises were sure to have. Every move hurt. Each breath felt like someone jabbing a knife between her ribs. She lay there, bleeding out and condemning herself for ever trusting him.

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“Dawn!”

A deep rumble shattered through her memory. That… That was a familiar voice. She remembered where she was. Who she was with. Her tail was still itching like crazy because she was molting, and she was stuck in this form.

She lowered her shaking hands, red painting the tips of her fingers, a fresh wave of tears coming to her eyes as she realized just who she had hurt.

“Ingo… I didn’t… I’m sorry!” He heard her stifle a sob and gingerly brought her closer, telling her it was okay. It was just a bad dream. “B-But it wasn’t!”

What did that mean? At times, he wished he could be smaller, just to hold her close and tell her everything was alright. Why did she have to be so small? Now that she wasn’t trying to claw her way to freedom, Ingo’s grip loosened a bit and he bowed his head to look down at the poor, distraught child in his hands. She was openly weeping, fumbling at the marks she had made and repeating the same apologies over and over.

He kept his back to his clan mates, trying to give her a bit of privacy. Although he knew their stares and murmurs were not malicious, he could still feel a deep instinct to protect Dawn swelling in his chest, practically hunching over when he felt them pressing against his back and sides. A growl not too dissimilar to Gaeric’s rumbled from his throat, warning them to back off now.

What had gone wrong? The evening had been pleasant enough. Irida had kindly invited the surveyor to join them for an evening chat that had evolved into some pleasant communal time. Grooming, chatting, eating, drinking, and, finally, sleeping – Irida had quietly insisted he and Dawn stay because they could use a little bit of “group time,” as his leader had so delicately put it. It had been relaxing. Even Ingo had to admit it was nice to just rest with his clan mates, knowing everyone was full and safe and at ease.

Now that relaxing atmosphere had turned tense. They all knew she was experiencing her own difficulties, but never had they resulted in such an intense reaction.

“Ingo,” Irida said over his shoulder, a hand coming to rest on his elbow, and he almost jerked his arm away from him. “We’re here to help you… and Dawn. We just want to help.”

The warden swallowed thickly, the growl dying back as he forced a breath. Throwing a glance to his leader from the corner of his eyes and then back to Dawn, who had buried herself in his parka, gripping, ripping, and staining the pale fabric with each fresh wave of sobs. This was not something he was going to be able to resolve on his own. All their attempts separately hadn’t been fruitful – their young friend was not alright. Something had shaken her down to the very core and she didn’t know how to tell them.

Dawn flinched when his thumb flicked over her back, the motion meant to be comforting but her nightmare, her memories, of facing off against Volo and Giratina… She didn’t feel safe here. Not anywhere in the ocean. At least on land she felt like she was in control. She knew her body and mind on solid ground, but not here.

“I-I’m sorry - I hu-hurt you!”

It wasn’t her fault, he tried to assure her. She had been in the throes of a terrible nightmare and terrified out of her wits, so he harbored no resentment or anger toward her, but he did need to know why. He needed to know so he could help her. All this child had ever done and accomplished had been on her own and now, even with a support system ready and able, Dawn did not know how to share her burdens.

“What were you dreaming?”

“Ingo-”

“Dawn – please, what were you dreaming?”

She was sinking lower and lower, trying to avoid his gaze when he raised her up to his eye level. No more beating around the bush. He needed to know. He needed to help her. Dawn flattened herself against his open palms, covering her head and cowering under his scrutiny, a sharp keening sound peeling through the space which made everyone’s hair stand on end. That was what pushed Irida and the other wardens to surge forward, offering comfort and gentle appeals to tell them what had her so petrified.

Lian and Calaba were far too small (by comparison) to get close enough to comfort, but that didn’t stop either of them. The younger warden scrambled up Ingo’s back, not that the orca mer even notice with all this focus on Dawn, and clambered up to his shoulder, balancing there rather precariously before scooching himself down Ingo’s arm to wrap Dawn in a tight hug from behind. He was not usually so touchy-feely, in fact he usually hated to infringe upon other people’s space and vice versa, but there was something so awful about seeing his friend crying.

Calaba barked at Gaeric to pick her up, she could offer some herbs to help settle her nerves, then maybe they could get some answers. Although his palm was crowded, the elderly warden insisted she be put down next to Dawn. Once she was safely situated, she removed her pack and began to rummage through it for a few things for her to chew on. Willow bark and some wolfsbane for pain. Ginkgo leaves for clarity of mind. Lavender and chamomile for anxiety. Lord Ursaluna had been so kind as to gather these things for his warden and her clan to keep them healthy, this would be a good opportunity for Calaba to flex her medical muscles, so to speak.

That left Palina, Gaeric, and Irida; all anxious and keenly aware that they could not solve the problem, at least, not any better than Ingo could. Their speech all overlapped, which ended up being more disorientating than anything else, the largest warden shooting them a withering glare that silenced them all. This was Ingo’s pup.

It took nearly forty minutes to coax and answer out of her and it had only been a single word – a name. Volo. There was a chorus of growls, a collective of hackles raised from the mere mention of the man who tried to ruin everything. Dawn had not spoken a word to anyone in the clans about the incident. The one called Laventon had taken it upon himself to meet the clan leaders and explain that something had happened to Dawn. It hadn’t been his place to get into the nitty gritty, but he warned them about a man, Volo, who had been the source of all the unrest in the region.

“He allied himself with a creature, Dawn thinks its name is Giratina, and riled up your gods. He got an artifact similar to Dawn’s to transform…”

Irida and Adaman glanced at each other, the latter’s scarred eyebrows quirked with concern and the former’s arms crossed tight over her chest. They could tell this was serious since the professor was not asking them such unusual questions. Last time they had come near shore, Laventon had impulsively started asking about diet and social habits, grabbing their fingers to compare and contrast the webbing between their fingers.

Nothing.

His eyes looked tired, his cheeks particularly pallid and gaunt, like he had not been taking proper care of himself. The humans were still dealing with the ramifications of the flooding, the clans had taken it upon themselves to offer what food aid they could while the water continued to recede from the lands. This was serious.

“He’s dangerous and at large.”

Laventon warned them, his tone grave and his fingers nervously fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve. They were asked to keep an eye out for him, the professor giving a description, practically spitting out like venom.

Ingo wanted to ask her to explain, but he could already predict the results. He wanted desperately to know more, he still held a gut-wrenching pain in him from his inaction when Dawn voluntarily revealed her secret and now, he was finding that Dawn was dealing with some lingering trauma.

“I w-want to go ho-home.”

Her sob echoed through the cavern, her request plaintive and wobbly, and the Pearl clan exchanged looks. Dawn couldn’t go back to Jubilife, not yet anyhow. With no legs, she would find living on land particularly difficult, and the humans would not know how to help her. Ingo would have to deny her request, at least temporarily.

“Not tonight.”

He said, trying to be gentle as he denied her, and everyone flinched when she wailed. She was just a scared pup, she needed reassurance – she needed their presence and comfort. All it took was a quick glance at each of his clanmates and they all wordlessly slumped to the ground.

Gaeric took the base of the pile without hesitation, resting his head on Palina’s flank when Ingo settled to the ground with his hands clasping the three mers carefully. With Palina on one side and Irida, who was draped over Gaeric’s tail, on the other, Ingo leaned back against Lord Avalugg’s warden, just as sturdy as his lord. Setting Calaba, Lian, and Dawn down on his chest, the eldest warden asked to be placed between Gaeric and Palina, Ingo setting her down just as Palina rested her head on Ingo’s tail and Irida on his side.

“Don’t lay on your dorsal fin. It’s already bent.”

Calaba growled, so Ingo manipulated himself in such a way as to not crush the fin in question. Lian refused to budge, holding Dawn tightly, and nobody tried to separate them.

“You’re safe here.” Ingo rumbled, placing a hand over the two kids to keep them from moving around too much. “I promise, you’re safe here.”

The surveyor knew he meant it. With him and Gaeric here, this was by far the safest place in the world, but it was hard to dispel the fear and the tears still dripping from her eyes. She listened to the reassuring beat of Ingo’s heart, so much louder than she thought possible in her ears, but it did help her focus and drown out all the other noises.

“If you have any more bad dreams about Vo- … That guy, I guess I’ll just have to remind you that I’d take on a chump like him any day.” She heard Gaeric’s voice distantly, not catching him say under his breath. “Anything for you, kiddo.”

“We would never let anything happen to you.”

Palina echoed his sentiment, casting her eyes toward the mer she treated like a little brother, and he pointedly wouldn’t look at her. A feeling of pride bubbling in her chest because Gaeric was trying to reach out to an outsider.

“Like Ingo might say, safety is a top priority. Especially for pups.”

Dawn shut her eyes tight when Calaba said that, feeling another sob catch in her chest. Lian was mumbling something into her back, the words might have been muffled, but the sentiment was there.

“You’ll always have a place here, Dawn. We will all do our part to keep you safe.”

With that final assurance from the clan leader herself, Dawn finally felt the panic in her chest loosen and a wave of fatigue roll over her. Slumped against Ingo’s chest, her exhaustion finally catching up to her. Dawn had a blessedly dreamless sleep.

[maleyanderecafe]

The Snake's Taken a Spouse (Visual Novel)

Created by: Games_of_CrimSin

Genre: Romance/Survival

This game is actually fairly fun all things considered and I enjoyed it. I think that some people might pass on this one because of the art, but honestly it reminds me a bit of DOL in some cases, especially with the Great Hawk and Shimil is adorable. This game is r18 though you can toggle off r18 things in the intro. You can find more at @gamesofcrimsin (which btw if you are reading this, I will literally redraw your sprites for you if you would like).

The story starts out with the MC walking around in the forest, only to stumble upon a naga person when hearing a scream. Their tail is stuck under a rock so the MC helps them out. Seeing as this is the nicest thing that someone has done to the snake person, they immediately tell the MC they want to marry them. A bit freaked out, the MC stumbles backwards and passes out, only to wake up in the snake person's den. This snake person promises that they will be able to love each other given time and goes out to get the MC a mattress to sleep on and a fire.

From then on, it runs mostly like a time management game where you can do anything from prepare food to nap, to wait, to try to escape. There are about six different endings that you can get through different means, but first I'll summarize Shimil's history as we know of.

The MC can ask about his name, introducing himself as Shimil. You can ask him about his species, the nagas. Shimil tells the MC that the nagas and humans used to live on the surface together, but the two hated each other, so the nagas of old hid underground so that humans could never bother them again. The MC asks why Shimil isn't underground, and Shimil states that he was banished because he couldn't do anything right and was burden. Comforting him will cause him to cry as he did try his best, but was never enough. The MC also finds a drawing on the wall and asks Shimil about it. Shimil carved it into the wall, trying to draw his mother and sister. Shimil talks about the two, how they were great at everything, how they were able to know what Shimil wanted or needed through body language and how strong they are. The MC picks up an object in the other corner, which Shimil frantically tells them to be careful with. When the MC asks Shimil about it, Shimil tells the MC that it's a toy that his parents got him, and that he loved it a lot. His sister gave it to him before he got exiled and even snuck in to grab his pickaxe. He reveals also that his dad died when he was younger, which is why he didn't draw him on the wall. This thought makes him cry, wanting to be able to draw them better.

There are a couple of endings, staying with him will make him happy, trying to escape may lead to failure. The MC can also dig footholds to climb out if timed correctly, or get rescued by a search time (though I couldn't get this ending because the timing is pretty finicky). Causing him to go out for the MC a lot makes Shimil go into a deeper sleep, thus being able to successfully kill him with the pickaxe, and finally, Shimil will kick the MC out if they break his toy (but it also breaks my heart).

I actually was more expecting a visual novel in the traditional sense because most of the entries seem to be of that style, so this was a nice change of pace. Like I said, it reminds me of the Great Hawk from Degrees of Lewdity, where you're sort of trapped with an animal creature that doesn't quite know what humans like or do but is doing their best to accommodate which is very enduring. Like the Great Hawk though, I do wish there were more interactions with Shimil besides what was given, though it's understandable since it was made for the game jam, so there probably wasn't a lot of time to implement a bunch of features (though I did see some of the notes in the script file for more endings.) If I were to make suggestions to add more features, I'd really like to hear more about Shimil's past or just get the chance for them to talk to each other about different things, such as Shimil sharing more about his culture or perhaps the MC sharing about their life as well. They could teach each other games or talk about other things that they might like. Just to really make that stockholm syndrome kick in. Of course, it would be great to do other things besides, eat, sleep, asking him to get things and having sex as well, since I'm sure it would get boring down there if it's all they could do. More endings are always great as well- I'll be honest, I just kept having sex with Shimil just to see if it would make a different ending or have different dialouge, but it would be pretty funny to see him have a proper reaction to that.

I'll be honest- Shimil is really cute. I really like the more sad and pathetic type yanderes that try their best and honestly listening to Shimil's backstory about how he was exiled and how he believes he's useless is really heartbreaking. It's also pretty sad that the nicest thing anyone has done for him was to save him from a giant boulder and even when trying to turn him down, he seems really happy that he's gotten so many compliments. He probably really misses his family seeing that all he has left are the things that he's gotten from home and a crude drawing, something that he often has to throw away (especially the pick axe) if the MC attempts to escape or hurt him. It made me really sad when the MC just broke his only toy since it was one of the last things he had left from them, so it's understandable he throws the MC out afterwards. Shimil is only really cruel when the MC is cruel to him and he honestly endures a lot of it, generally being more shy and reserved when the MC snaps back at him or attempts to murder him in his sleep which can lead to him raping the MC while the two try to sleep (though again, you have to be really cruel to him for this to happen generally). I can't really blame him since he doesn't have anyone and is just lonely, plus again, the MC is just outright cruel to him at this point when he's trying hard to provide food and other things for them.

I think overall, while the game is pretty good, the biggest drawback is likely the art. It's not... the worst that I've seen, but I can see why people might be turned away from it. There are some glitches in the code as well, sometimes with Shimil jumping up into the wrong position or some sort of error occurring, but they don't seem to be very big problems. Pretty much I feel that if the sprite art were improved, it would make the game a lot better since the design for him is pretty unique all things considered.

Overall, it's a pretty fun and short game. I hope to see more of Shimil in the future because I like his interactions and the history of nagas is actually pretty interesting and I hope there will be other endings for it. I'm gonna throw a bunch of redesigns for Shimil after this because I think he is fun to draw.

[mrakobulka]

I don’t normally share personal stuff on my socials as it makes me feel awkward talking about myself knowing people are here for my art, but I'm at a point where I need to let things off my chest and make some changes to how I go about my work. This is going to be a long rant.

I’ve been a commission artist for years and I cherish people trusting me with their characters and paying for my work. I set up rules for myself to ensure that I'm trustworthy, like prioritizing commissioned art over personal and completing each piece in a few weeks to a month. Despite having depression for several years, I’ve mostly managed to stick to those rules and felt proud about it, but it’s been increasingly hard to do so in the last few years due to my country’s politics and aggression. It became even harder now when personal matters got in the mix as well

Last October my grandpa suffered a stroke, which led to him passing in December. As if that wasn’t enough grief, around the time of his funeral I also found out that Marusya - my loyal feline companion for the last 19 years - is suffering from kidney failure. As I began adjusting to the new rhythm of life dictated by her condition, the universal cat distribution system decided not to wait for her passing and threw Anfisa my way - a stray that hid in the common hall of my apartment complex while temperatures outside went as low as -16C.

I know taking another pet when already struggling with a sick senior cat wasn’t the smartest move, but at first I planned to find Anfisa’s old owners or get her new ones. Unfortunately, the stray problem in my city is huge and I ended up keeping her as I couldn’t throw her back into the street. While I understood that taking care of a stray would bring more vet bills into my life, I felt confident at the time that I was financially able to handle it, but Anfisa brought with her a surprise pregnancy that I had to eliminate to avoid adding to the stray problem. In order to do that I had to dig into my savings.

Even though I still manage to juggle vet bills and my basic necessities, the last few months have been incredibly draining for me financially, mentally and physically. Taking care of my cats’ health, I’ve completely neglected my own and ended up having to deal with several medical issues that surfaced as a result of stress. On top of that, I’ve also completely neglected the need to create for my personal enjoyment, which has led to my mental health worsening as well. I felt like I couldn’t afford drawing for myself as vet bills kept piling up and I needed to take more and more work to manage while sticking to my rules and keeping my commissioners satisfied. 

I’m sharing all of this just to explain my current situation and the mindset I ended up being stuck in. I don’t want anyone to feel bad for giving me work as I wouldn’t be able to make it this far without the support you give me <3 Still, I realized that my own relationship with my art and my workflow became detrimental to my physical and mental health and, if anything, damaged my ability to complete commissioned work in time more than helping it. Add to that the infestation of genAI that’s been happening recently and the horrible algorithms killing engagement that slowly destroy my motivation to share my art at all (some of you might have noticed that I barely post on twitter now and completely neglect my other platforms).

With all that said, all I want to do is let people know that my commissioned work will be taking longer than usual to be completed for the foreseeable future as I don’t want to force myself to work on art in the moments when I’m struggling with either physical pain or mental turmoil. I would also like to ask you to be understanding if you see me post personal art, make adopts or take more commissioned work before yours is completed. Unfortunately my current circumstances demand emergency funds every now and then and I can’t help it + I need to take a breather every now and then. All I can promise is that I’ll never bite more than I can chew and will deliver everything I owe in due time.

I know this was a long read, but thank you if you stuck till the end and I hope my ranting won’t turn you off my artwork : ‘ D 

And to add some positivity to my rant, here's cat tax:

Calico one is Marusya and white/grey one is Anfisa

[ghostennit]

September is National Recovery Month! 

I planned to do my first lineup of charity streams this month but ended up not doing so due to… a lot of reasons. But I still wanted to talk about it because awareness, education, and destigmatization of substance abuse disorders means a lot to me! This, along with mental health awareness (since both often go hand-in-hand), are things that I’d someday like to build my whole online presence around. 

These topics are often taken lightly and I think it’s something that should be handled with a lot more care because you never know who in your communities are fighting with what. Like me.

I’m a recovering drug addict and the day I made my first tweet as a vtuber was the day I decided to clean up. If it were not for Tree, Rue, and Aoka, I would not be here. If it weren’t for all of you, I would not be here. If I had not connected so hard with streaming, I would not be here. I know exactly where I would be… and it’s far, far, far from glamorous.

This is very scary to type out and admit. I’m scared of what you all will think. But I want to be honest with you. I feel like I owe it. And I’m excited for some of the plans I hope will come to fruition. I hope this works the way I hope. I hope you think differently about those who suffer from substance abuse. We don’t choose this. It finds us, digs into our souls, takes away our greatest fears, gives us exactly what we want… but all at a very high price. A price we don’t understand the first time we try it. 

We think we’re invincible. We think we’re in control. We think it will be okay. But it’s not. 

Substance Abuse Disorders (a way of thinking about it that I want you all to get comfortable with) is often a symptom of other mental health disorders. Despite struggling with the hard shit for years, I actually did not know this. And this is where I’ll lead into my second topic…

I am bipolar. I have been presenting symptoms of bipolar disorder since about 17 years old but I did not even consider that I had it until I was about 28 when I approached my PCP about potentially being ADHD. He gave me a very informal “well, actually…” after several assessments. I thought I was just depressed, anxious, and maybe a little distracted. I thought the rest of my symptoms were normal and I just sucked at managing them. This was during the peak of covid, where getting a psych appointment was impossible. After several months of trying, I gave up. As many of you might know, it was only recently that I finally got my appointment and was officially diagnosed. I’ve been on meds for the first time for a little over a month now and it’s been extremely difficult. The side effects have been horrible, and as some of you might have realized… I’ve been a little all over the place lately. 

I’ve beaten myself up to the stars and back about ever fucking with hard drugs. Finding out that addiction is a side effect of Bipolar was very comforting. Finding out that Substance Abuse Disorder was a real thing was eye-opening. Maybe I’m not a fuck up. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what I go through. This is just a little part of why I feel like education and destigmatization is incredibly important. Until informally diagnosed, I had a lot of misconceptions of what exactly the disease entails. Most people assume it’s constant mood changing. One minute you’re happy, the next you’re sad. That’s partly true. Instead it’s minutes, It’s days. It’s weeks. It’s months. It’s months of not being able to get out of bed. It’s months not being able to brush your teeth. It’s months of performing so poorly at your job that you’re lucky you still have it. It’s months of feeling worthless.

Then all of a sudden (but sometimes slowly), you’re the best. You’re the greatest. Everyone likes you. You’re doing amazing at work. Your social life is booming. You’re making art. Everyone loves you. You don’t need to sleep. You’re special. You’re too good for it. You’re powerful. You’re clever and exceptional. You can read minds and you’re smarter than everyone else because you know nothing is real and nothing can hurt you. You’re on to them. You’re on to them.

And that’s only some of it.

Anyway, like some of you might have realized from reading this… or following me on twitter recently… I’m manic as fuck right now. I could monologue about this for hours. So I’ll wrap this up.

I’m about 9 months sober now. That’s painful to admit if you do the math and consider when I started streaming. I feel like that admission will let some people down. But relapse, while ugly, is a normal part of recovery. I’m proud of where I am. Prior to streaming, I hadn’t gone more than a month for a few years. I’m proud of me. No matter what, I’m proud as fuck. 

So anyway, yeah. Let me tie this up because it’s long as shit. I love you so much if you’ve read this entire thing. I love you so much if you’ve ever supported me. I’m picking up the pieces of who I used to be and I actually feel like I have help doing so.

The plans I have to implement all of this into my streams will be small at first. You probably won't even notice some of it.

I'm going to be very honest. I think it’s important that you see the ugly sides of all of this. I want you to know the signs, the symptoms, and understand. I want you to be able to help a friend or be able to help yourself. I want you to think twice when you haven’t heard from that one pal in months. I want you to think twice when you see someone walking down the street who is clearly out of sorts. I want you to change the way you think about both mental disorders and drug use.

Thank you. Big fucking thank you.

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

Life in the Ordovician

(top left: Endoceras; top middle: Promissum; top right: Pentecopterus; middle left: Aegirocassis; middle right: Bumastus; bottom left: first land plants; bottom middle: Sacabambaspis; bottom right: Arandaspis)

Art by:

Bumastus - Obsidian Soul

Promissum, Aegirocassis, Sacabambaspis - Nobu Tamura

Endoceras - AStepIntoOblivion

Pentecopterus - Patrick J. Lynch

Arandaspis - Christian Darkin

First land plants - Tahoenathan

After the Cambrian Explosion we reach the “Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event“ or GOBE (which, admittedly, sounds a lot less catchy than Cambrian Explosion).

The Ordovician starts directly after the Cambrian about 485 million years ago. Life really started to diversify during this period and came up with a lot of new and more modern forms (as far as you can call something that‘s 485 million years old “modern“). Groups like gastropods (slugs and snails), bivalves (shelled marine invertebrate) and brachiopods (shelled molluscs like clams, oysters, etc.) started to gain prominence. It really is a shame that, as a vertebrate myself, I am biased to things that also have bones and therefore won‘t talk a lot about those critters (maybe at some point i have to dig deeper into them). I can however tell you that those groups became very important to marine ecosystems and that the brachiopods especially are characteristic for the “paleozoic fauna“ in contrast to the “cambrian fauna“. Also, the fact that paleontologist distinguish between those two should give you a hint as to how impactful the GOBE really was.

Trilobites like Bumastus, which first originated in the Cambrian, were doing very well and diversified further. Most of them were bottom dwelling and relatively small, but the biggest ones, which lived during the late Ordovician could reach up to 70 cm. Just like the gastropods, bivalves and brachiopods, they were mayor players of their time, and just like them, they get concerningly little attention in relation to how big of a group they were and how important they were to our Earth‘s history. Although, I suppose I am part of the problem here, because I could go into deep detail about them right now. I‘m just not going to. Maybe some day…

While the trilobites were running around on the ocean floors some of the earliest chordates slowly turned into fish. They were of course a very basic type of fish. We call this group Agnatha, which translates to “no-jaw“, because, well, they didn‘t have jaws yet (they did have teeth though). Some jawless fish are still alive today, the lampreys and hagfish. They are truely disgusting, slimy, blood-sucking, eel-like creatures. The extinct jawless fish include the conodonts like Promissum. For the longest time scientists had no idea what kind of animal conodonts were, because the only parts of them that fossilized were their cone-shaped teeth (that‘s also where they got their name). Those teeth however were found everywhere and they are very important fossils, because by looking at them geologist can determine from which geologic age a fossil site is. Relatively recently we then started to find better preserved fossils, that revealed that conodonts where also eel-shaped and had big eyes. The other type of extinct jawless fish were the Ostracoderms like Sacabambaspis or Arandaspis. They are usually better preserved because their heads were covered in boney armor which fossilizes much better than the wiggly soft bodies of the conodonts.

One of the biggest names of the Ordovician was Endoceras, a shelled cephalopod (related to squids and octopus). And by big I mean that this weird ice cream cone was more than 3 m long. Another famous group that got their start during this time are the eurypterids, the sea scorpions, like Pentecopterus. Neither were they real scorpions (they were arachnids though, so close enough), nor lived they exclusively in the sea as there were a lot of fresh water species. There are some suggestions that they might have been able to at least briefly walk on land and breath in the air. They were also some of the biggest arthropods that ever live. Pentecopterus for example was about 1.7 m long and it wasn‘t even the biggest eurypterid (we‘ll get to that one later). They weren‘t all massive, but sizes of 1 m and more were not rare and to be honest, that‘s already way to big for any bug of my liking.

While all those new linages arose they slowly outcompeted many of the Cambrian weirdos I talked about last week. Some held on longer than others though. The Radiodonts (Anomalocaris and friends) declined during the Ordovician, but it was also the time during which we see the biggest one of them: 2 m long Aegirocassis. It was a filter feeder, so basically a giant whale of its time.

As all of that was happening in the oceans, another revolution happened quietly on the shores of our early planet: We see the very first land plants. Those early plants would have been non-vascular plants (vascular tissue is basically the plant equivalent to blood vessels; and it had not developed yet). They would have looked similar to mosses.

Even though those early plants wouldn‘t have looked very exciting, they would have put a lot of work into terraforming the world. It is believed that their photosynthesis lowered carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and that this might have caused temperatures to drop, turning the late Ordovician into an ice age. We know for certain that this drop in CO2 levels and temperature happened. If it was actually caused by the photosynthesis is another questions, though. Another suggestion, that also makes plants the culprits, is that their roots increased the erosion of rocks and this erosion involved the reaction between the rocks and CO2 from the atmosphere. Another reason for increased erosion could have been vulcanism creating a lot more “new“ rocks to erode. An (to my ears) absolutely wild theory is that the earth actually didn‘t cool because of lower CO2, but instead got hit by a gamma-ray burst, which sounds like something out of a scifi-movie. Apparently a gamma-ray burst is an intense energy beam, that is caused by a supernova (I really know nothing about space…), and it could have stripped our planet very quickly of our ozone layer. As ozone is a greenhouse gas, just like CO2, that would have also caused a cool down.

Whatever it was, at the end of the Ordovician the earth froze over. Drastic changes in temperature usually lead to extinction and that was the case here as well. The Late Ordovician Mass Extinction killed around 85 % of marine species, which is a pretty big deal when you consider, that almost all species at the time were marine species. It is often seen as the second-worst of the mayor “big 5“ mass extinctions (we’ll get to all the other ones in the future, don‘t worry about it). But, unlike many other mass extinctions, it didn‘t have a mayor impact on the fauna and most groups of life recovered and re-diversified after the extinction. But that‘s a story for another time.

Again, all the info from wikipedia. I got some stuff about jawless fish here.

[web-spinning]

Could we get some general spy headcanons? :) he's like my favorite, but you never see any of him!! Some angsty ones would be nice too because I love to see my favorite characters suffer!! If they're not suffering, they are hogwash, ya dig? Thank you!!

A / N- This turned out to be longer than I accepted. Well, have le Spy. Hope you enjoy!

General Spy headcanons.

- he might seem like a gentleman, but he's a total douchebag; his insults are like putting salt into an open scar, they're very vulgar and usually meant to attack the person's very personal life,

- doesn't come from a rich family. Had to take several jobs after he turned 18. All that hard work is what really got him to the point he could afford anything he wanted,

- he loves paintings, has lots of classic ones in his room. He managed to steal at least one of these from an art gallery, to which he used to go quite often,

- when he was younger, he was a hopeless romantic. He hoped to have a family with a woman of his dreams...then he really grew up, and realized he won't be ever able to sit in one place for a while with his profession,

- about the profession, he wasn't always a Spy. How did he become one then? An Australian sold him an old, kinda broken copy of the Spytron 0015. It cost barely cents, and he decided to buy it out of pure curiosity. Once he came home and tried it out, he was in absolute awe,

- he firstly used it to sneak onto private meetings of his hometown government,

- he would knock out the mayor's right hands, and disguise as them. He did it multiple times, until he got caught. He wasn't caught by police, but by an organization working with Spies. Rest is history, 

- after some years of work, he became known in the French business. Known enough to start a career in U.S.A, 

- even though the language was hard to learn, he eventually got the hang of it, 

- he stopped trying to find love. Instead, he would go on different rampages after work, 

- the bars in Boston were his favorite place, 

- and there she met her, his petite chou fleur...one of the many women and men he called that name when seducing them, 

- and it happened...leaving out the details, he got a phone call the next month, 

- " What do you mean with me? You could have it with any men! Why me? ", 

- he sounded rather disappointed to the possible news of being a father, however, he began to look on the bright side, 

- maybe it was time to put the dream of a real family into reality?after all those years, 

- he even visited her again several times...and quickly got rid of his dreams entirely. He didn't want to raise seven other boys which weren't his. He coldly left her some money, and moved out to another state, 

- he became a general agent, who was known in the business, 

- when around 23 years later the Mann Co. was looking for new mercenaries, he was contacted as one of the first ones, 

- moving to New Mexico wasn't difficult for him, considering how many places he lived in before, 

- however, it turns out he was a bit late, 

- he was suppose to be assigned to Team Vanguard, but someone has been faster than him, 

- he got sent down very down the line, and got assigned into Team Fortress, 

- there, when he first met all the mercenaries we all know...he was disgusted to say the least, 

- a loud kid, a mad scientist, big guy with gun, drunken cyclop, old bald robotnik, mumbling abomination, a screaming patriotic fanatic and a bushman that uses jars with his own liquid to fight aren't his dream colleagues, 

- he was forced to stay by their side to get paid,

- he regretted even applying here, 

- on one of the first days, the mercenaries had been sitting in the common room, talking about their families and countries, Spy was sitting back and only observing, not talking, 

- Heavy put on a photo of him with his sisters, Sniper took out a photo of him with his parents, Engineer proudly showed off a picture of him with his father, and Scout decided to join in. He put a picture of him, his mother and one older brother on the table, 

- and Spy immediately recognized that woman, 

- he had never forgot her, not once,

- at first he swallowed in, and decided to join the conversation, 

- " Is that your mother ? " 

" Yeah, it is! She's the sweetest! " 

" Remind me...how old are you again? " 

" Twenty three. Why you askin'? ", 

- and it hit Spy like a train. His son was there, talking to him, 

- that was an awful feeling, 

- at some point later on however, he asked Medic to run a DNA test for him. He wanted to be sure, 

- coming to a bright side, some light stuff. Spy has all of his teeth removed and replaced, but his original set of teeth were well...he had buck teeth, much like Scout,

- Pyro terrifies him, he always needs to be at least two meters away from them,

- his favorite member of the team is Engineer. He feels like Dell is the most sane person out of all of them,

- he holds great respect for Miss Pauling,

- all that training in Expiration Date wasn't because Scout asked nicely, it was because he wanted to spent his last hours with his son,

- although being French, he prefers whiskey over wine,

- and most importantly, he hates baguettes. 

[bipbopdepmop]

howdy

i'm anton. i am just a silly little guy who might be lurking in your walls at any given time. (/j)

pronouns: he/they. mostly he, but we silly as they too :3 this blog posts/reblogs MCYT. specifically hermitcraft and the life series. (there's some other stuff too but not nearly as frequent). also lots of memes n stuff i sometimes reblog hermittshipping / trafficshipping. beware. dni if proship or just. generally gross

we subscribe to the philosophy of (see below) here!

passive aggressive blinky by @/stiffyck &lt;3

additional sideblogs:

@crookedgrifter <- homestuck sideblog. go read homestuck @/davejade-daily <- we draw/post homestuck jade harley/dave strider. i am a mod on this! note: it is kind of dead. oops. @/impulsesvdoodles <- i forgot to link this here. i run this as well. there's another blog that i have that im not linking here. if you see it in the wild, it is me! not a fake.

feel free to:

send an ask! standard be nice, don't send weird things, etc. spam like/reblog. go nuts, i'll see it and go wow, they had fun! i'm glad they liked that Thing so much. send art requests. will not draw nsfw/suggestive. will draw hermitcraft and/or life series! probably not ships though. = i don't really tag triggers, peruse at your own risk.

masterposts: alien cowboys au (silly au by @/stiffyck, @/bigb-enthusiast, and me!) link only works on desktop..

media filtering list: here so you can filter non-mcyt posts and/or spoilers for certain medias!

tags (that i never use) and more below the cut!

major tags! warning, my tagging system has fallen by the wayside

#reblog <- this tag is new. to find any reblogs from before nov 9 2023, search #rebop #my art <- this tag is new. to find my old art (anything before nov 9 2023) search #bipbop art #my writing <- i write. sometimes. #talk <- random posts, talking, whatever. this tag is new as of nov 9 2023. to find my old posts, search #bipbop rambles #asks <- ask tag. this tag is new. to find anything from before nov 9 2023, search #ask bipbop #liveblogging <- is what it says on the tin. sometimes stupid comments about the video i'm currently watching

tags i use mostly for myself!

I forget these all the time so this is staying here AKSJLALDJ

#for later <- things containing information i want to be able to dig up later #rotates in brain <- things that I love forever and want to be able to see again #art to scrutinize <- art for me to stare at later and try to figure out what's going on there in an attempt to study how to draw an stuff :D #videos of all time <- any sort of video or clip that I liked and wanna be able to find again. idk. #shenanigans <- for my frieeends yay!! #posts of all time <- famous tumblr posts or things that were funny

[smoments]

✧ part 7: memories of a stranger // a satosugu reincarnation au

chapter 7: it was you

Satoru would never admit it aloud, but he’s starting to panic.

He’s down to four days to finish his portrait, and he hasn’t even decided on a subject.

It’s embarrassing, really, the level of desperation he’s fallen to; he’s on the floor, the carpet digging into his knees as he flips through old sketchbooks he brought with him to his dorm, searching for scraps of inspiration that might be able to give him an advantage.

If anybody were to ask him why he’d chosen art as his major, he would have shrugged indifferently and replied that it was easy and not a complete bore. Perhaps he’d throw in that his family had enough money for him to be able to choose something cushy to settle into for the rest of his life, a career that was just enough for him to insist that he was doing something with his time, but not so excessive or draining that he wouldn’t want to go to work in the morning.

He wouldn’t have told them that everything else he tried came so quickly, so effortlessly to him, that he quickly tossed it aside. He tried sports in high school, but it was always the same pattern for the sole reason that there wasn’t much that was difficult for him physically. Once he’d surpassed everyone else on his new team (which he did without fail), he took a second to examine the view from the top.

He never did find out what was so great about it.

His more dedicated teammates seethed with resentment, obviously enraged that some douche who didn’t even care about basketball or volleyball or soccer or whatever could so easily do what they’d worked for their whole life, and unleashed their anger by hurling passive-aggressive comments in his direction when he was around (though he was sure said remarks were less classy when he wasn’t). He didn’t necessarily disagree with their frustration - after all, he probably would have been pissed too had he been in their positions - but he also didn’t really know what they expected him to do about it; it wasn’t his fault he was better than them.

In contradiction, most onlookers practically idolized him, surveying his every move with such awe in their eyes that if his ego weren’t already so well-developed, it would have surely gone to his head.

Neither was particularly moving to him, and he rarely lasted more than a few months.

After that, Satoru tried pouring all of his energy into academics, but he quickly found that he didn’t need to; even when he was half-assed about assignments, he easily outdid his peers. Plus, he wasn’t particularly good at healing others, the way Shoko was, and he didn’t have any long-standing mysteries about the world that he wanted to solve. He’d confided this in her one day as they neared the end of second year and she prepared for her finals, living on coffee and four hours of sleep and snapping at him often, and she’d slammed her textbook shut, her chair sliding across the ground with an unpleasant screech.

“Well, I don’t know, why don’t you go be a goddamn artist or something, Satoru, and leave me alone!?” she’d said angrily, and then nearly stumbled from standing up so quickly in her half-alive state. He couldn’t exactly be mad at her once he saw that, and so he gave her a rare apology and left her to study, wondering whether she could be on to something.

Shoko was remorseful when her exams ended a week later and she finally got to sleep through the night, and Satoru, who knew she didn’t mean any harm by her words - after all, what was wrong with being an artist, other than the fact that it was something he could only pursue thanks to his wealthy background? - hadn’t been especially wounded by them anyway.

Even so, it was that same day that he began painting, and he was immediately engrossed with the idea of putting his thoughts to paper in a way that didn’t involve the limiting nature of words. He could capture so much through art, create pictures through which such intricate ideas and emotions were woven, and some people wouldn’t have the slightest idea what it could be conveying and others would appreciate and understand it - an open-endedness which he adored.

Sometimes, he sat on the floor of his bedroom, surrounded by canvases stacked upon canvases and sketchbooks flipped open to used pages, and he reveled in the feeling of what he’d created, breathing in the crisp scent that encircled him. He soon expanded to landscapes, animals, abstract art- anything he saw was fair game, whether in his mind or otherwise.

However, at the very beginning, there had been one thing he was unable to dispel from his mind. His hyperfixation was portraits, and the subject was always the same.

He inhales sharply as he stops on the first page of his oldest sketchbook, his fingers reaching out to trace the curve of a face. The pads of his fingertips brush against the rough paper, and he tries to remember how to think.

“Suguru.”

His voice is a breath, a whisper that carries such weight he could crumple to the floor if he wasn’t already there.

His eyes fill, and he realizes through his daze that this is the second time he’s cried in the past year, probably longer- and that in both instances, it’s been because of the same person.

He buries his face into his arm, gritting his teeth to contain the sobs rising in his throat as silent tears roll down his cheeks.

Satoru should feel vindicated at the fact that he’d been right - it couldn’t have been their first encounter, because meeting strangers didn’t make you feel like your chest was being hollowed out and meeting strangers didn’t make you feel like you were being born for the first time and it didn’t change the whole entire way you saw the world, coloring everything just a little bit brighter.

Instead, he just feels vulnerable, scared. He can almost understand why he blocked out the memories.

Because it’s easy to make excuses for recognizing someone’s face; you saw them in passing and your brain held on to the shapes of their features, sprinkling them into your dreams; they looked like someone you’d met before; they were your long-lost childhood friend.

But to be able to capture their likeness, for their very essence to flow from your hand and into existence through pure memory - and in this case, without memory - such a thing requires an entirely different level of intimacy, one that Satoru couldn’t make excuses for even if he tried (he wonders if Suguru will be able to).

His chest heaves as he kneels over the sketchbook, the carpet that blankets the floor of the dormitory rough against his legs. It was hardly a few years ago. How could he have forgotten?

How could the way that his pencil moved across the paper as if of its own volition and how the tension vacated his body, replaced by an overwhelming sense of purpose, have slipped his mind for even a second?

How could he have failed to recall the way he would gaze around at the countless images of this dark-haired stranger, how delicately he touched the fabric stretched across the wood frame of his canvases?

How could he not have immediately recognized Suguru that day, and how had he ever recognized him?

How did he know about the circular black studs that adorned his earlobes, the way his bangs fell over his face- and how did he decide that his black pants flared out around the thighs? How did he capture that soft smile?

When did he decide that he was looking at Satoru when he smiled like that?

He can’t explain the familiarity that extends even beyond his face- the way he speaks his name, how his self-sacrificing nature seems to grace Satoru so naturally, how he’s willing to inconvenience himself so greatly for his sake without so much as blinking.

If it had been anyone else, Satoru would have thought that he must be crazy- that he must be stupid for caring so deeply about someone like him. But he wouldn’t dare attach such a simple, crude attribute to someone like Suguru, because it would be insulting to whittle such a person down to a word like that.

He sniffles, the fabric of his sleeve growing damp, and lowers his hand again.

His heart is elastic, but his mind has hardened with resolve.

Satoru stands, a little wobbly, his fingers tight around the binding of the sketchbook. He picks up his phone to dial Suguru, a number which he received just days ago, and stares down at the screen for a second. Before he can make a move, it begins to vibrate in the palm of his hand, and he nearly drops it. Quickly, he moves to press accept, bringing it up against his ear.

“Satoru. We need to talk.”

-

The rain begins after Satoru steps out of his dorm.

He’s just barely out the door; he could go back. His key is still tucked into his pocket, and it would take all of thirty seconds to return for an umbrella.

Instead, he continues traversing the steps down to campus, the light drizzle of rain steadily growing in strength - soon, it pounds against the sidewalk like little pebbles of glass, soaking through his hair, his skin, the fabric of his clothes. He picks up speed until his footsteps are audible even over the claps of thunder in the sky, not sure whether his decision speaks to his emotional investment in the task at hand or simply how little he cares for his own well-being.

When he arrives at the park, that same one - a simple stretch of grass with the kind of play structures that he probably would have loved as a child had his family let him learn what it was to be one - he takes a second to catch his breath before taking a seat on one of the benches, staring at the concrete beneath his damp shoes and feeling incredibly stupid.

It’s pouring rain; anyone else would certainly have decided to change meeting places, if not call the whole thing off.

But this is Suguru.

He didn’t bring his phone; again, he doesn’t know if this reflects his trust that Suguru would follow through or his stupidity. The only thing in his grasp is his sketchbook, hidden beneath his coat, which he tucks into his pocket as he settles.

Satoru’s breathing deepens, slowing and evening out. The rainwater beats down on his head and shoulders relentlessly, and though each gentle breeze makes him flinch, he lets the storm wash over him, convinces himself it doesn’t bother him- until the sensation pauses abruptly. The pattering still echoing all around, he lifts his head to find the black lining of an umbrella blocking out the vast sky.

Through damp white lashes, Satoru shifts his gaze to the fingers clasped around the handle, then up to the man in front of him.

His tall, dark silhouette is lined in a silver glow from the light of the moon, and his soft smile makes the stars that Satoru could have sworn were just glittering against the night go dim.

He is as beautiful as the first day he saw him.

He is as beautiful as the day he lost him.

“Satoru.”

[lake-archive]

Track 2

Fandom: Hypnosis Mic

Series: Secret Archive

Characters: Saburo Yamada, Gentaro Yumeno

AO3 Link

Track 1 - Track List - Track 3

The information was rather widespread and hard to dig out… At least for the regular person browsing the internet. And even then it was sheer luck when coming across it as it was hidden in the corners of the internet. One would have to dig somewhat deep… Or have the necessary skills to navigate through the deep web. This was not exactly an information too hard to come across if you knew where to look for it. Saburo did not even have to take a second guess when having caught wind of the rumor to be honest. A secret archive, located at a university, perhaps the one location where no one would suspect a thing. After all, universities had very prized possessions so having an entire archive guarded would not be something too out of the ordinary. What if the relics from hundreds of years ago went missing after all? And the cover was perfect, just say it was government funded. If they were behind it then there had to be more to it! Certainly! And thus the decision to make his way to Shibuya was an easy one. Sure, he had to secretly skip classes but Saburo was certain that none of his brothers would find out about his secret, little detour to a university. Jiro was Jiro, he would probably not have much of a clue. As for Ichi–Nii… Well, it might be more complicated but he was busy too, maybe he will not notice as well. Besides, one day could be forgiven, couldn’t it? Yeah, just this one day to reveal the secrets of this archive Saburo had read up on!

In fact, he had gotten to work quickly a few days in advance. He made sure to gather as much information as possible beforehand, when it was the least crowded and even downloaded a map of the university itself, and partially constructed it. The only thing not listed would be this archive but that was no surprise. Wouldn’t be much of a secret if they listed it out of the blue. If the information was correct, not even most of the professors knew of its existence. And if they did, it was said that they had no idea where (nor did they have any interest to look through it which was… Well, fair, he couldn’t deny). But he had been able to dig out some pointers from eye witnesses who had spotted some people sneaking around campus, as if trying desperately to not be spotted. And it was always around the same building, one of the literary facilities. And it was always the same name which had been dropped, or names. Some professors but not much of something Saburo could do something with. Then again, not like this was going to be important to begin with. What mattered was that the witnessed reports were independent from another and matched the descriptions. So it was trustworthy information he most likely came across. No, he was certain. And while there was no exact spot, he knew that it had to be around said facilities the literary students would study in. Not an unfitting place perhaps, especially if the Chuohku was storing documents. No one would ever suspect a thing. 

And yet, Saburo had not expected for this place to be so massive. Was that really necessary, for some books? Ugh, it was more than massive… There’s not that much to study, just read up some old book and— Ah wait, he had no idea. But it was still hard to imagine, grasp even. The field of literature… Well, not like it mattered in the long run. He was here for some—

“Oh my? I thought thou art too young to attend such a place. And it is a bit far, is it not?” A voice would throw him completely off however, nearly forcing him to throw the phone in his hand on the ground in fact. But he managed to catch it as he was throwing it right in between his hands… If this thing is broken, that would mark the end for the search, something he could not afford at this very moment. 

He turned around shortly after, not expecting to see who he saw at this moment, a face Saburo knew… Somewhat. A member of Fling Posse after all, how could he forget? “Huh? You are—”

“One of the several students attending this humble university.” He interrupted quickly with a light smirk on his face, leaving the middle schooler in shock for a moment.

“Wait, you’re studying here!? But aren’t you—”

“Well, that’s a lie.”

Ah, a joke… And an unfunny one at that. It made Saburo look at the author rather deadpan while trying to regain his composure. “A… Aha… Then what are you doing here?”

“I think I shall ask thou this question first. Should thou even be here?”

Ugh, that was one annoying thing about Gentaro Yumeno, his questions yet him not being honest all the same… Or it was hard to say. Saburo never had a good feeling when looking at him and preferred avoiding him altogether if need be but that is difficult now. And being put on the spot by a guy like Gentaro… He didn’t like it.

“That… Ey, how about you answer first! You—”

“Art thou here for the mysterious archives as well?”

A quick expression of shock was perhaps visible on the young boy’s face, being rather taken aback. “H… How did you—”

“Oh my? It was nothing but a mere guess but thou know of it as well.”

This… Was something. But it made Saburo’s gaze sharpen a little, a little suspicious for a short moment. “And how do you know?” He even asked.

“A bird has told me~”

“Is that another lie?”

“Who knows~”

Ugh, he was not being very specific and it was getting on his nerves, admittingly… How would this guy even know about it? Unless—

“I assume thee and I art sharing the same goal then, art we not?”

“Same goal? What do you mean?” 

“There is a reason thou art here for the ever so mysterious archive, is there not? Thou art in luck, I am also searching for these archives.”

“You? What business do you have there?”

“Is it that important? Especially when they say that four eyes see better than two?”

“Th… That…” Ugh, it was hard to admit but he had a fair point… Was he trustworthy though? Saboru did not have much of a good feeling… Well, it was not bad either but…  Then again, they had been working together before, kind of… Sort of… And there was no track record of anything either so… 

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Oh, but thee do.”

“I— Listen, I got no time to waste so may as well get this over with. I don’t have forever.”

So he was more or less stuck between discussing this out or dragging someone along… And dragging someone along sounded like the quicker option, not discussing the hell out of it… Much to his own dismay.

Track 1 - Track List - Track 3

[milos-journal]

Hello, fellow Mary thinker. Saw your piece of art focusing on Milo's phone call in Milo's tape and it made me realize something. If the planned plot of TribeTwelve was still in mind back then, then that means Mary would've killed Milo before her death. Which means she willingly made the choice to go see him despite everything she'd just done. My question is; why would she do that if at least ONE bit of her wanted to see him. Yes, she could've simply wanted answers BUT notice how she chooses instead to defend herself instead of stubbornly insisting answers like she did with Noah in Phone Call with Mary Asher. It's only at the end when she realizes she's probably going to die that she tries to stall and convince Milo they need to work together. It looks like Mary saw the gun when Milo brought up what he knew and while she did shift around, obviously debating on whether to run or not, she didn't. We'll never know the exact emotions behind those No's, but I just thought it might be a cool idea

TW: TRIBETWELVE

ok, i know this was sent to me a couple days ago, but i want to dig into this because YES YES YES FELLOW MARY ASHER THINKER OKAYYY HIIIII. also for those reading, extra tws for death, abuse, and other tribetwelve/milo's journal typical triggers.

what i find interesting about milo's tapes is that i don't believe that mary actually kills milo before? or, at least, she gets close and pussies out, unless this was changed later in the document and i didn't notice.

i also don't even wanna get INTO what this all implies about robert asher, but that's severely off topic. mary gets close to killing milo, but no dice. although, that asterisk has no visible note attached anywhere i could fine, and could mean this was completely subject to change. however, gonna be real, doesn't change much about how i feel about it. just because she didn't finish the job doesn't mean she didn't nearly kill her fucking son. also i do believe posession still somehow had to be involved or some other whimsical form of fuckery, because how else would milo be able to stay alive with his throat gouged the way it was?

but i have to address the actual topic here rather than beating around the bush: why did mary approach her thought-to-be-dead son rather than running? her whole character is running, it'd make sense for her to just hang up while she can, pack her bags, and get as far from her old place of residence as she could.

what i find my personal answer to be is that she has two mildly contrasting character traits. while she only knows how to burn bridges and run, she also is burning with knowledge on her situation. the fact milo may have information on mr. scars (someone who, according to her notes, had been horrifying and stalking her since childhood). her curiosity, her drive to want to know more, to eradicate as much of the collective as she can, overtook her want to run.

even more interestingly, i think its fascinating the one time she DOESN'T run is the one thing that kills her, the one time she doesn't burn a bridge.

idk, lmk if u have more to say or if this is incomprehensible. fellow mary thinker i am GETTING U I AM GETTING U (/j)

[glitchyred]

hey, a friend let me know you were looking for OG glitchy red thread. i might have the screencaps and a bunch of old creepypasta lost media on my old hard drive if you don't mind waiting a few weeks for my partner and i to finish going through his storage unit. i wanna say someone on deviantart originally posted the screencaps somewhere? i was into pokemon in 2010/2011 and was following the original /vp/ thread. i also remembered the supposed OP posting a screenshot of his firered game glitching and if i'm right and it's not archived then that really sucks, even if photoshopped it added a lot of immersion to the story. it was 4chan and all anon though so who knows. :( there was also anon ("drawfag") fanart in the thread that someone claiming to be OP approved of and i will eat my own hat if i'm wrong about that because i vividly remember it! it was glitchy attacking fire!red. there were also a lot of wholesome (by 4chan standards) comments about how some people only turned off their game after they got their protag to a pokemon center or somewhere safe, which i vividly remember bc it was the whole reason i kept up with the thread lol. feel free to ask any questions. i'm seriously freaking out right now, i had no idea anyone else was even still into this stuff!! i follow the fnf mod community and didn't even know there was a whole pokepasta mod at ALL!

sorry this is all i can offer for now, i haven't even used tumblr in like 10 years but thank you for the nostalgia! should i play false red? if i don't respond it's because you lost me to hypno's lullaby.

Holy SHIT thats awesome!!! I would love if you shared anything you find so much!!!! I lament over how much lost media there must be in old creepypasta forums so often, this fandom is smth I'm so passionate about. Also I could be totally wrong (I wouldn't be surprised if there's multiple pieces depicting The Nightmare Scene) but it would be crazy if you're referencing My Favorite Glitchy Red Art lol. My tablet's download folder is super unorganized so it'll take me forever to dig it up but I know I have it somewhere I'll upload it with reblogs off if I find it. Also that bit abt the wholesome comments is adorable NDKWJJD

Anyway yeah!! The pokepasta community is very small but thriving. FNF: Lullaby isn't the only FNF mod for Pokepastas (I can't. Remember the names of the others off the top of my head but you should be able to find them easily lol) and it's where the majority of the fandom is at rn! I don't hang out on that side of the fandom much but I love. The Lullaby song for Strangled Red it's So good. Also I would recommend False Red for anyone who likes Glitchy Red, it's very much a spiritual successor intentionally or not. It can be a little hard to track down these days so here's a download link if you or anyone reading this needs it.

Tysm and keep me updated!!

[httplovecraft1890]

Spy x Family WMG

So something that I don't think I've seen people really talk about in Spy x Family theories is how Anya will inevitably be forced to tell Yor and Loid about her powers. There are lot of ways that it could be done, but I think one of the most appropriate would be in relation to Operation Strix... but perhaps not in the usual scenarios some might imagine that to happen (fessing up to Damian she can read minds, Loid desperately needing intel that only Anya is able to glean, etc.). There are a lot of parallels between characters in Spy x Family, and I'm aware that there's very little evidence for it at this time, but I'd like to direct people's attention to character art choices by Endo. Please note that while I haven't read the manga yet, I have looked at the wiki and absorbed things through Tumblr, so apologies if something is off or I'm not fully informed on something.

It's rather difficult to find a good picture of Desmond showcasing this, but something that greatly interests me is the fact that he has two scars on either side of his head in direct parallel to one another. Similarly, Anya's hair was styled in a similar way in the past, as are her horn hair pins/clips that she has in the present. It's entirely possible I'm reading far too deeply into this and especially so for a character we know almost nothing about but I suspect that this is purposeful. Let's explore that a bit, shall we? The introduction of Bond isn't just to complete the image of the near picture perfect nuclear family (seriously, we're only missing the other 1.5 children bit and it's likely that a baby will be born or adopted by the series' end to round it out, I feel); instead, I think he performs a much more important function: it showcases that in this world there are a lot of powers related to the mind that exist and it obviously isn't something unique to Anya herself. Ostania's human experiments were something that were even mentioned during wartime but have very clearly continued either in the not too distant past or are still ongoing. Anya's designated number, 007, while a cheeky nod to James Bond also indicates that the scientists had previous subjects - some of whom might very well still be alive. I suspect that Desmond is one of them or at least I could see him having been an esper all this time. One of the few character beats we know for certain about him is that he apparently finds it impossible that human beings can truly relate to one another. On one level, there could be numerous reasons for that; he would certainly be old enough to have fought in the Westalis-Ostania war (a parallel to Twilight's life) and he could very well have lost those important to him while away on the front lines, echoing Yor's personal history (it's quite interesting to me that we haven't had a mother mentioned at all for Demetrius or Damian and their age gap suggests a possible second marriage). The other thing is that, to me, raising the stakes in the narrative itself would be for Anya to finally get her wish to go to Damian's house... and she proceeds to find out Papa's target is just like her, perhaps immediately giving everything about Operation Strix away if he can actively dig around in someone's memories rather than just reading thoughts like they're on a teleprompter. Suddenly, Agent Twilight/Loid is in immediate danger and even possibly Yor if the Garden aren't on the Ostanian state's side. Even if none of what I suggested about his life is true, then his seeming distrust of others could very well be framed that for him there's no filter for other people and who they really are, and if not that, then I could see him feeling smugly superior to those he sees as beneath him. The National Unity Party is reactionary; such ideas are baked into it. Spy x Family likes having layers to its characters even though it's primarily a comedy manga/anime. Our heroes have been given shades of gray, sometimes quite dark, and I suspect that Endo will do much the same for its villain. That isn't to say that Desmond's beliefs or person ultimately turn out to be good but that there is almost certainly a reason for why he thinks the way he does, perhaps one that's more than a little sad. Never being able to truly see the good in anyone when you can see all of their misdeeds would be an excellent way to showcase that IMHO.

[solradguy]

Anon who wanted to contribute to the fandom here, thank you so much for the recommendations on what I can do!! I do have two more questions though if you are alright with answering those.

When it comes to perseveration, what do you think is in the most dire need for it? I am thinking of creating a site dedicated to persevering a sole aspect of the media in Guilty Gear, I just don’t want to accidentally have it focused on something already wildly saved already.

And for my second question, when it comes to digging up media, where do you recommend I begin? Are there certain sites or apps that can help me find GG lost media? Or are links to places to look something the lore server also provides?

Yeah, no problem!! I'm still pretty new at GG media preservation compared to most of the other people doing it, but I don't mind sharing what I know ^^

Honestly probably the interview articles, then the scanned stuff, followed by the .ROM rips, and then the sprite/background rips. The music is by far the most archived part of GG. ArcSys apparently basically never files takedown notices so the OSTs are uploaded everywhere lol

I don't think the lore server has website links for this kind of stuff but there are a few sites that I end up returning to for stuff occasionally. Readmore again because there are kind of a lot haha

Oh, a quick note before you dive into this: Avoid Blade (gear-project on here; sometimes Blade Highwind elsewhere). He used to do some old preservation stuff and work on translations/lore documents but he has a reputation for purposely manipulating or misinterpreting the canon, on top of just generally being racist and trans/homophobic. You'll see his name often on old forums/archives. It might be worth saving his stuff for shiggles but that's your call.

I'm heading out for the day here soon so I'll answer this now but if I think of anything else while I'm out, I'll reblog it when I get home and add on to it.

Archive.org - The bae. Most of the lore server (myself included) upload our projects here. Mostly scanned works but a few .ROMs are on here too. The Wayback Machine can be used to find lost stuff from defunct Geocities pages or, if you're really good, you might be able to find old/dead GG fansites hosted outside of Geocities.

GuiltyGear.ru - I have no idea who runs this site but its last update was in 2015. Has a bunch of art/sprite rips, archives of old official fankits, WinAmp skins, just like a lot of old interesting stuff. I have a feeling I'm gonna hop on one day and they aren't gonna have renewed the domain and it'll be dead so I've saved a good portion of the things uploaded here but would like to doublecheck some day. It wouldn't hurt to also maybe make a backup of it, imo.

FightersGeneration - Active general fighting games website. Has a bunch of loose scans, sprites, art for GG though. I don't think this website is in danger of going down anytime soon, but it could save you some trouble of going to archive something and double checking to see if FG has it first, though FG's archives for GG are not comprehensive since they do other fighting games too.

Vimm's Lair - Still active .ROM archive that's been running since 1997 (!!). Also not in danger of going down any time soon but it's another reference to see what has and has not been preserved already. Their page for GG has icons next to what .ROMs they're missing.

The Dustloop forums - These seem to be entirely inactive and searching them is a pain in the ass but I've found some cool stuff on here before just from poking around. Might lead to some ancient fan sites to run through Wayback Machine.

This is a touchy topic for some, but it might also be interesting preserving old fanfiction from FF.net and ao3 (and old forums/fan sites). This is a form of art that is often overlooked when people talk about preserving fan content. Since most authors are still active, I wouldn't touch anything from maybe like the last idk 10 years or so? But anything older than that is entering "danger of becoming lost media" territory, imo. No idea where you could upload these if you decide to back them up though...

[marypsue]

4, 5, & 19 for the writer's ask meme?

[from this meme]

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

I'll never tell! (Of the ones that I'm actually still intending to finish, 6 fanfics and 3 origfics, with option to resurrect one hiatus'd origfic.)

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

Now seems like as good a time as any to bring back that idea that I had and wrote approximately six paragraphs of without any context or plan, which was 'Lilo & Stitch AU of Thor: Ragnarok, where Darcy Lewis is Lilo and Hela is Stitch'.

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

I'm gonna give you one from...the continuation of the light of all lights, the Stranger Things AU of Dracula that I decided in May I wanted to write juuuust a couple more scenes of, which then promptly bloated into thousands of words. Because that's what fics do. (FYI, if you're doing Dracula Daily and this is your first time reading Dracula, the premise of this fic draws on some stuff that hasn't happened yet in the novel's chronology.)

Mina digs her fingers into her knees. The stiff denim of her jeans squelches slightly, the last of the saltwater cold against her fingertips. There hadn’t been time, had been too much danger, to even think about going home for her swimsuit. She’s regretting going into the water fully clothed now, of course. But she hadn’t wanted to strip in front of the boys. Too prim or too shy or too much of both to skinny-dip in the quarry on graduation night, even when Lucy’d begged her to join them in the ice-cold water. And still too prim or too shy or too much of both to let Art Holmwood see her in just her underwear. Even with Jonathan’s life on the line. Even with Lucy –

The image is burned, seared, forever into Mina’s brain. She recoils away from it, the same way she had in the pool, not wanting to see. Wanting to remember her best friend happy and laughing and warm and beautiful and alive, not wanting to remember –

It’s too late for Lucy.

But it might not be for Jonathan.

The pool, the makeshift sensory deprivation tank, had been Dr. van Helsing’s – Bram’s – idea. His design. It was a crutch. A signal amplifier, to help focus Mina’s mind, to broadcast it across whatever impossible distance lies between her and her absent friends.

And it had worked. She’d seen, where before she’d only ever been able to hear fragments of Jonathan’s voice. She’d found him, curled up shivering in a corner of the old treehouse where he’d taken her for so many picnics. The treehouse they’d jokingly called their castle. They’d made elaborate, unserious plans about moving into the treehouse together, before the house, before the proposal, long before Jonathan took that fucking night security job down at the lab. They’d laughingly considered it as an option, if they couldn’t find a place they could afford to rent on a teacher’s salary and a law student’s lack of one. Considered it as a home.

To see it rotting away in a deep, unnatural twilight, black decay eating through all of its walls and making the floor slant and skew, had been almost as frightening as seeing Jonathan so pale and thin and hollow-eyed, so ragged and so desperate. But Mina had seen it, as clear as though she’d been standing on that slanted floor. Had seen Jonathan, had heard his quiet voice humming their song to himself under his breath as he tucked his windbreaker tighter around himself. Had knelt on the boards of that floor so she could reach out to him –

She’d needed the pool to be a signal amplifier, before she could find Jonathan. Before she could find what was left of poor dear Lucy.

But they’re an entire world away.

It has many names. Telesthesia, to the scientists. Remote viewing, though it be more old-fashioned. The children of the flower called it ‘astral projection’, and believed it the gift of an enlightened spirit.

Mina chances another glance between the two guards. Both of them are still paying her an uncomfortable amount of attention.

Oh, well. It can’t be helped.

Mina turns her eyes down onto her knuckles, and tries to concentrate.