#a selkie pelt keeps all the bits! its more or less the full skin of the beast including bits thatre just plain impractical to tan normally | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mantisgodsaus · 1 year

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New blog moment /pos

Hello! I am here to formally request you may or may not tell me more about this selkieverse. Is it an au where everyone is a selkie (or at least, some bugs are)? Do they just turn into aquatic like bugs instead of actual seals? If actual seals, do you have species picked out for the selkie characters yet? How does it work? Are they even selkies at all? Once more, you don't have to answer if its information you'd like to withold but as local marine biology (mostly seals and jellyfish though) nerd I must know if this may be an au that is like. Right up my alley.

Oh boy, we can answer questions! Technically, we've had this blog for a bit, we just... haven't been using it (we are afflicted with a chronic need to illustrate our worldbuilding and we just Haven't Been Drawing recently).

Not everyone is a selkie, but some bugs are - actual species varies! They're seals, or other assorted... vertebrates, mostly. "Selkie", here, is less referring specifically to seals and more referring to the general category of Bugs With Bonus Pelt. We've got actual species picked out for the selkie characters, but we do want to keep a few under wraps - of the few we can reveal, Leif is a ribbon seal, Mothiva is a leopard seal, Cenn is a yellow-bellied water snake, and Vi... well, her pelt was an ermine.

In terms of how it works - selkies are, more or less, bugs that come in two... pieces, or with two forms. It's genetic, though it can very much skip generations and occasionally appears to manifest from nowhere - generally, you have a few main strains of selkie in an area, maybe with a scattering of other species around. Seals are by far the most common around both Bugaria and The North, and the gene's most common in moths (as far as anyone knows), though it can appear in other species - and, as previously mentioned, sometimes you just get a kid who's a selkie without any previous selkie relatives.

A selkie's pelt isn't present upon hatching, but manifests later - generally either when they metamorphose, in the case of bugs like moths and butterflies, or during one of their first few instars on bugs who do That. It is, functionally, a part of them - a selkie cannot be separated from their pelt for too long, though they can wander farther from it with age and practice, and trying to keep away from it causes fun side effects (like organ failure, and feeling like you're being physically peeled out of your shell, and death).

The pelt itself is, as is typical with selkies, a pelt - seal, or snake, or ermine, or whatever else someone might be. Looks like you'd expect a seal pelt to be - although a selkie's pelt contains a few more bones. Generally, you've got a skull, spine, and ribcage, but it's not uncommon to have a few other bones - they shape the skin, more or less. As is standard, once the skin is donned, they gain the form of their pelt, but the selkie has some control over it - as well as some control over how the pelt moves.

The thing about selkie pelts is that, as they're a part of the selkie, they're functionally "alive" - an extension of the self, an extra limb. Technically, anyone can don a selkie pelt and take on the form of whatever creature they are, but it'll be... strange. Uncanny. They aren't the selkie, and this isn't their form - they're just wearing their skin. Unlike on the selkie themself, the bones aren't going to merge to them properly, they're just going to stick in there, wearing away at their shell until they eventually take it off. A pelt only retains its transformative properties while the selkie it belongs to is alive - once they bite it, it becomes just a piece of leather, though with selkie skin being the only real option as far as skins go, it's still pretty damn valuable dead.

If a selkie's pelt is destroyed, the selkie dies. Likewise, if a selkie dies, the pelt becomes inert. It's a bit like holding a vital organ in your hand - and if the selkie and the pelt are taken too far apart, the connection is severed and the selkie will die even if no damage is dealt to either them or their pelt.

As is standard for selkie mythology, having a selkie's pelt gives you some measure of control over them. Specific degree of control varies, largely based on the selkie - though all selkies can be commanded while you're actively holding their pelt, if they'll keep following that command once you've put it down is a whole 'nother ball park. If you had Leif's pelt in hand and told him to do something, he'd keep doing it even if you put that pelt down later, but if you tried the same with Vi (again, while she had it) she'd stop the second you put it down. With Mothiva, just possessing the pelt is enough - you don't need direct contact, you just need to have it. The effect's at least partially psychosomatic - while it's a direct compulsion with direct contact, anything past that is largely based on if the selkie thinks you should be able to tell them what to do.

The selkie form itself is fairly standard as creatures of its species go, albeit downsized for bug scale. They're around the size they'd normally be relative to a human, relative to an average bug (using an ant as your Standard Human works, here). A selkie is, functionally, both their bug species and their pelt species - behaviors in one form will affect the other, and vice versa. Generally, this'll manifest most noticeably in either tics or diet - a craving for raw fish, an odd sense of territorialism, an impulse to drag dead things to your dumb, bad-at-hunting teammate. It does, however, vary - and a good chunk of selkies do try to keep the fact that they're selkies hidden, especially if they might have reason to fear a stolen pelt.

...this is a whole lot of rambling on Selkie Magic Mechanics and not a whole lot of marine biology, uhh. Hope this helps sketch out the general mechanics for ya! We're always glad to talk about Cool AUs!

#selkieverse #bf aus #selkieverse leif #selkieverse mothiva #selkieverse cenn #selkieverse vi #niko-jpeg #fun fact with standard seal pelts youll cut the flippers and the head off since they don't tan well #a selkie pelt keeps all the bits! its more or less the full skin of the beast including bits thatre just plain impractical to tan normally #also yes fish is a Thing You Can eat its just. not generally a good idea to hunt it as the fish are still Fish Size #leif has the ribbon seal air sac in both forms #mothiva would fucking eat him if she had a chance however she is smaller than him in moth form and he just #entirely lacks any form of self preservation instinct #muze and todd are also selkies but they keep it quiet for dont want their pelts fucking stolen reasons #leif is currently not aware hes a selkie in the first place and hes old enough of one that he has. a Very wide range on his pelt #pelt in question has been hanging up over the fireplace in muze's house ever since an. incident. with grandma muse #they never had the heart to get rid of it. she was Very certain her husband was alive in her old age #you know how it is. a bug gets old and their mind starts to go... always a pity #it does still feel like that pelt is... watching #and it has changed appearance a bit... but who's looking at those old photos anyways?#(leifs pelt has slowly changed color from dark rusty brown to a dark steely blue over the past. century)#(his pelt is not dead but it is Dormant. unfortunately he currently has no fucking clue its even his pelt unfortunately hes stupid)#(also the whole cordyceps thing did scramble his memory access a bit)

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theskyeandsea · 4 years

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Class is in Session || Ricky & Skylar

Location: Ricky and Winston’s House

Summary: Skylar and Ricky meet and talk to each other, seal to seal.

TW: Chronic illness and depression mentions

It had taken far more convincing than Ricky thought it would, but, he had finally managed to convince Skylar to come to terms with what she was. Which meant now of course that he had to start putting together a curriculum for Selkie 101 apparently. Dragging himself laboriously from his spot on the couch he stumbled his way into the kitchen, wincing as the healing wound on his side tugged against its stitches. “Fuckkkkkkkkk” He muttered as he rifled through the cabinets for the coffee, grinding enough beans to start a pot and then leaning against the cold wood of the countertop as he waited for it to brew. It wasn’t terribly long before he heard the sound of tires on the driveway, just in time for him to pull two mugs down and set them on the counter, “Door’s unlocked!” He called out, not wanting to make the trek from the kitchen to the entryway, “I’m in the kitchen.”

Stepping out of her car, Skylar juggled her keys from hand to hand, staring at the house with trepidation. She didn’t want to be here, definitely not after everything that had happened at the dinner only just a few nights ago. But… she needed answers. Ricky had been right about everything, about her teeth, her food, being color blind, the fatigue and fevers and everything. He knew it all. And she knew absolutely nothing. She had to find out the truth. Her backpack thumped against her spine as she let herself into the house at Ricky’s invitation, the weight of the pelt a reminder of what was at stake. She made her way into the kitchen and saw Ricky setting two mugs on the counter top. “Hi… How are you doing, is there anything I can help with?” She asked anxiously, fingers fidgeting with the edge of her shirt as she stood in the kitchen.

Tugging a hoodie from a nearby chair, Ricky shrugged into it and zipped it up gingerly, “Cream or sugar? You shouldn’t really, too much will fuck with your stomach but a little now and again never hurt anybody.” He poured two large mugs full of the delicious smelling coffee and settled into a seat up on the counter, “Come on. Put the bag down and make yourself at home. This is scarier in your mind than it is in real life.” He hadn’t bothered to put his teeth in that morning, he hadn’t been planning on leaving the house and so he flashed Skylar a smile full of his pearly white fangs, “So. You’re a selkie. Like me. Welcome to the family.” He pushed the mug of coffee towards her and took a sip of his own, humming in delight, “Ah caffeine. Sweet delicious life giving caffeine. Thank god it exists.” He’d never really had cause to talk to other selkies who were less experienced than him, and felt like he was stumbling his way through this. Best he could do was just be a friend.

Seeing Ricky’s teeth in the daylight was a shock. Skylar had seen them before, she knew what they looked like, but it still threw her for a loop to see it in the light of day. This was real. It was all real. “Black’s just fine. Um… I guess I can take these out.” She said, gesturing to her mouth before she removed the veneers from her teeth. She tucked them away in the little case she kept in her backpack. It was always a nice relief to have them out; she was used to having them in, but it always felt just a little uncomfortable. Lifting the mug to her lips, she blew on the liquid to cool it before taking a sip. It just gave her something to do other than acknowledge the whole, selkie situation. “Mhm.” She nodded, not really sure what else she could say. Her backpack was still resting on her shoulders, safe and secure. She didn’t want to let go of it, even if Ricky said it was okay. “So… you’re a selkie?” She asked, the word foreign to her mouth.

Ricky watched somewhat nonchalantly as Skylar removed her teeth and tucked them away in a small case from her bag. “Always feels better to have them out. I can always hear just the littlest shade of a lisp when I’ve got them in. I’m just used to talking without them.” He listened to the long stretching silence, determined to let her take the lead on any self discovery that might happen “We…” he correct gently, “We are selkies. Since I’m now more than reasonably confident in that assessment.” Another sip of coffee and he stretched his legs out before tucking one under him, “But yes. I”m a selkie. There’s probably some latin species name for us, but…. Selkie usually just does the trick. Subspecies of therianthrope, or shape shifter, much like a werewolf, though in far more control.”

Skylar took a seat at the counter next to Ricky, staring into her mug as he spoke. They were both selkies. She was a selkie. She was… a seal person. And as much as she wanted to protest against it, to turn off her hearing aids and just pretend she’d never heard any of this, she couldn’t. “I… How. How does it work? If we’re not like werewolves, how does it work?” She asked. “I’ve never been a seal. I wasn’t lying when I said that, I’ve never been a seal in my life. I think I’d remember turning into a blubbery fish eating… animal.” She shook her head. Even as she said that, the confused memories of waking up in her bathtub with the pelt next to her came back to her.

“Well… for one, selkism can’t be passed on through a bite. It’s simply genetic. As to how it works? You’ve got a skin. Your real skin. You simply……. Step into it and return to being a seal. Which I know sounds a little reductive but, that’s what happens. Your body secretes what is essentially lube, and you just pull it on and you’re back to being a seal again.” Another sip of coffee and he nodded slowly, pushing uncooperative curls out of his face, “that… doesn’t surprise me. It sounds like you spent a lot of time not knowing, which means your body put itself into some pretty dire situations to keep itself alive. Which isn’t ideal. That can’t be good for you long term. But… that is in the past now. Now that you know what you are, you can start to live in a way that makes it easier for you to live in comfort.”

“My real skin?” Skylar echoed, the weight of her backpack pressing down against her shoulders. The seal pelt. It was hers. Her skin. That she was meant to just slide into. That wasn’t possible, that couldn’t be real. There was just so much for her to process. “I don’t know anything about this.” Skylar said quietly before taking a long drink from her mug. Staring at her hands, she wrestled with how to talk about her family. “I’m not… My family…” Her words caught in the back of her throat, but she forced herself to continue. “Ricky. I didn’t know any of this because no one in my family knows any of this. I’m adopted. And, less than a year ago, I found out that when I was a baby, my mom found me on the beach with,” Skylar gestured to the bag, “a weird pelt wrapped around me. That was it. No one else was around, there was no note, nothing.”

Taking a long sip of coffee, Ricky nodded slowly as Skylar told her story, “That sounds about right. Makes sense that you wouldn’t know anything about how to survive as one, then. It’s real easy for us to pass as human, teeth not withstanding, but we do require some upkeep.” He hobbled over to the fridge and pulled out the omnipresent place of smoked salmon, “help yourself.” Resuming his seat on the counter he thoughtfully chewed on a piece of salmon while he listened, “Well… it’s functionally pointless to try to figure out the why of all of that. It happened, it’s unfortunate and I can’t help but think there could have been a better way but it happened. Now we gotta figure out how to get you good and ready to face the world as a selkie.”

Not one to pass up the offer of fish, Skylar took a piece of salmon and popped it into her mouth. She hummed in response to his words. There was a lot in her past that she really didn’t want to get into and it was a relief that Ricky didn’t seem to want to hear about it. He knew what he needed to and now… he was going to Mr. Miyagi her into being a selkie? Or something like that? “You said that vampires and werewolves and stuff were real too. Does me being,” She took in a deep breath to steady herself, “A selkie, does that put me in danger? Does it put the people around me in danger? What does it even mean for me to be like this? Am I supposed to go out and just hop into the harbor and turn into some seal thing? Do I need to start learning whale calls? I don’t-- I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information.”

A lot of questions tumbled out in short order and Ricky couldn’t help but chuckle to himself a little bit, “Woah woah woah killer. Slow your roll.” He polished off the mug of coffee and refilled it, “You being a selkie puts you more in danger from humans than from other members of the supernatural community. Except vampires, who love us. We got extra blood. We’re like a supersized combo for them. The biggest danger will always be human hunters. Always.” He ate some more of the salmon and chuckled again “Do I look like I know whale calls? Look at me. But yes. You are. Generally in the middle of the night, and only in places where you know you’re absolutely alone. Consider this your superhero secret identity.”

A superhero identity. Yeah, right. No superhero she’d ever read about turned into a big ball of blubber. And had fangs. Sighing, Skylar rubbed her temples, trying to process everything. The supernatural community. Which meant there was more to it than just the magical stuff she’d seen Winston do and the basics of what Ricky had told her. There was a whole… secret society of people. Supernatural people. And she was suddenly apart of that too. “Human hunters? What do you mean by that? Someone going Captain Ahab on us?” She said, choosing to ignore the thing about vampires turning her into a happy meal. She would deal with that later. “I don’t,” Skylar squirmed in her seat, not sure how to say this. “I’mafraidoftheocean.” She confessed, the words coming out in a quiet jumble.

“Yup. Human hunters. Some of them have some weird pseudo-religious rabid need to cleanse the earth of the monsters…. Which is just weird and wrong on so many levels, and some of them just like to sell shit on the black market. And selkie skins are hella valuable.” That second part threw him for a loop, though. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of a selkie who was afraid of the ocean. “Well…. That’s new.” He scratched at the stubble on his jaw thoughtfully, “Not the end of the world though. We can get you in a swimming pool or pond too. It’s really more about wearing the skin than like ocean deep dives. But…… we might have to work on fixing that fear.”

“A black market? There’s a black market-- wait, they’d sell my skin?” Skylar asked, voice cracking slightly at the idea of the pelt, her pelt, getting taken away from her. She’d spent so long without knowing any of this, of never having her skin. The thought of someone stealing her skin, keeping it from her forever, it filled her stomach with dread. “The ocean freaks me out because of these,” She said, pushing her hair back to show her hearing aids, “I can’t get them wet. If they get wet, I’d have to replace them and I don’t have the money to do that. I need my hearing aids to work.” At Ricky’s reassurance that they could go elsewhere, Skylar shut her eyes, cringing a little. “And… if I told you I don’t know how to swim..?”

“There’s a black market for almost anything. But yes. They’d sell your skin. They’d kill you, and leave you dead and skinless, and your family would have to bury you in the ground because you didn’t have your skin with you. You couldn’t be burned and scattered to the tides, like selkies should be when they die.” No small amount of heat crept into his voice, and he took a deep breath and tamped it back down again, “well. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know how hearing aids work with the transformation. My hearing is bad and all, but I always just leaned on lip reading. Can you remove them? Or are the stuck in like cochlear implants are?” He couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at the last confession, “Believe me. The seal knows how to swim. The woman might not, but the seal does. They’ll take care of you in the water.”

Skylar could hear the emotion in Ricky’s voice and she reached out to hold his hand, rubbing the back of his hand reassuringly with her thumb. The fate he described sounded awful, it sounded worse than anything she had ever imagined. And it seemed like it was something he knew too well. She didn’t want to pry, though. So instead, she nodded. “Got it. Keep my skin secret. And avoid hunters.” She said before pulling her hand back, her face warming with slight embarrassment. Skylar knew she didn’t always like being touched by other people and here she was, violating his personal space. “Ah. Sorry. Um… I can take them out. It’s just kinda scary being outside without them.” She admitted. His words about her seal side knowing how to swim were probably meant to reassure her, but all she could think was, What if he’s wrong? What if she’s not a selkie and all of this is just a delusion?

Skylar reached out to take his hand and Ricky held it tightly, sighing to himself as he nodded, confident she’d understood the gravity of human hunters and the extreme danger they posed. He couldn’t help but make a quiet noise to himself as she talked about the fear of being without her hearing aids and a small smile crossed his face, “Do you know why your hearing is so bad? Why mine is? Why every single member of our species has some level of auditory impairment? Our ears aren’t made for hearing in air. My hearing is amazing underwater. I can hear the sounds of schools of fish moving through the water, the telltale crunch of shifting stone…. There’s no impairment down there. So. I get that fear. But… the other side of the coin is that once you do conquer it, the impairment doesn’t exist below the waves.

As Ricky described what it would be like underwater, a part of Skylar couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like. What it would feel like. To have her eyes opened to a whole new world, to a world that she’d never known she was a part of. The idea of just being able to be free-- it was tempting. It was so tempting. But, as she thought about it, the other side of the coin became readily apparent. If all of her challenges in life were because she was a selkie… if her hearing and her depression and the pain that wore her down and exhausted her every day was part of being a selkie and never knowing… Tears began to well up in her eyes. How could her parents have let her live like that? “You’re saying that if I go underwater, if I turn into a- a seal. I’ll be normal?”

Ricky’s heart broke a tiny bit at Skylar’s question and he took her hand again and squeezed it “Well…. No. Because you’re a seal and the general majority metric isn’t. But. Why would you want to be? You won’t be normal. But you’ll be a new part of yourself.” Refilling both their coffees and smiled, “you’ll be putting another piece of the puzzle in, one that’s going to help you feel more whole. But definitely your health is going to improve. Depriving yourself of the transformation is similar to not eating right or not getting enough sleep. You do it for long enough it’s going to start wearing your body now. But now that you know, you can stop feeling like that because you know the cure for it. “

Skylar bit the inside of her cheek, her fangs pinching together in a reminder of just how different, how strange, how not human she was. All she had ever wanted was to just be normal. To not be a burden. And now, no matter how she tried to spin it, her definitive abnormality was staring her right in the face. Staring at herr coffee mug, Skylar did her best to absorb everything Ricky was telling her. She was in it now and, if she wanted to get through this new life of hers, she would need all the help she could get. “Okay. Okay. I can… I can try. I can try to do that.” She said, unwilling to say the word, “My skin. How do I keep it safe?” Skylar asked, her free hand moving to clutch the strap of her backpack instinctively.

Knowing that this was a monumental amount of information for Skylar to absorb, Ricky sat quietly on the counter while she did, one foot swinging listlessly as he enjoyed the bitter taste of his coffee. “Trying is always a good start. It’s not going to come right away, this is still a big adjustment, but, you can keep trying and keep trying and keep trying and eventually it’s going to be second nature to you.” Hopping down from the counter he trudged over to retrieve his phone from where it’d been charging, bringing up an email confirmation that he went to forward onto her. “There’s a small fireproof safe that’s going to arrive sometime this week. It’s the same kind that I keep mine in. Try not to bring it with you places. Keep it safe, keep it secret, bring it out when you need to transform or if you’re travelling. Never travel outside the city without it. Even if you think it’s just an overnight trip. You want it with you in case you get waylaid or stuck somewhere.”

When her phone buzzed with the email attachment, Skylar stared at it in confusion. A fireproof safe? He’d ordered one for her? He didn’t even know her and he was giving her that? And, and all of this information? It was too much. “How much do I owe you for the safe?” She asked, sliding her phone back into her pocket. “That all makes sense.” God, the fact that she was even saying that was insane. “Keep it locked away and, and, if I go on a road trip, make sure I’ve got it with me. Uh huh. Yeah. That… that makes sense.” She said before resting her head on the cool, clean counter top, her eyes squeezed shut. God. “Fuck.” She mumbled quietly.

Ricky’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Nothing. You owe me nothing. This is something your clan or your family was supposed to do. Teach you this. Help you figure out how to be safe. You apparently don’t have one. So. As the only other selkie in White Crest… you’re part of mine now. If you want to be of course.” Leaning forward he squeezed her shoulder lovingly, “You’re not alone anymore, Sky. You’ve got me… and the giant rambunctious family that comes with that” it was true. His mother’s family was loud and sometimes annoying, but they would have never abandoned a pup on the beach like somebody did to Skylar. “This only seems like a lot because it’s happening all at once. But. It’ll even out and life will be as it was. Just with the addition of frequent transformations.”

When Ricky squeezed her shoulder-- a gesture that would normally make her flinch away-- Skylar found herself relaxing at the touch. Something about it just felt… familiar. Even though she didn’t know him any better than she knew anyone in this town, his reassurance meant so much to her. “A clan?” She echoed. “A family?” The words felt so strange to her, because they meant that the people she had considered her family for so long were anything but. They’d kept the truth from her, caused her nothing but pain and hurt. They weren’t her family. And whoever her… true family, her true clan had been, they didn’t care about her. They’d left her all alone. Unable to say anything more, Skylar reached for her hearing aids, pulling them from her ears. She couldn’t bring herself to listen to this anymore. It was too much.

It was clear to Ricky that they had long since past the point where Skylar was emotionally able to process the conversation they were having, and her removal of her hearing aids confirmed that for him. He refilled her coffee and patted her knee gently, gathering his own mug to head out to his workshop. Before he left though, he caught her eye one last time. Stay as long as you want, my home is yours, he managed to sign out in clumsy sign language. It was a lot for her to take in, but, hopefully she knew she had a place where she was always welcome.

#p: ricky cordero #p: ciis #chronic illness mention tw #depression mention tw #//figured id rather be safe than sorry

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