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fishyfishyfishtimes · 7 months

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What Is and Isn't a Fish: a List

A list of the animals I discussed in my fish essay, but for those who don't want to scroll through paragraphs of text to find out if an animal is or isn't a fish. Just CTRL+F your way through here!

I'll add onto here more animals whenever I get asked about them being fish. See my fish essay here!

Some notes before you proceed:

Yes, all tetrapods are fish! We are phylogenetically fish, as we are and our ancestors were lobe-finned fish! "Fish" in the phylogenetic sense is a paraphyletic group if you try to exclude tetrapods, so it is frankly impossible.

How come tetrapods aren't listed as fish then? Long answer, read my essay. Short answer, me and other fish accounts tend to operate on the morphological definition of fish, so does most of the world. Here I use the morphological definition of "fish".

Fish:

Jawless fish

Hagfish

Lamprey

Cartilaginous fish

Sharks

Dogfish

Whale shark

Chimaeras/Chimeras/Ghost sharks

Ratfish

Ray

Stingray

Skate

Ray-finned fish

Teleosts

Catfish

Eels

Moray eel

Seahorse

Sea dragon

Lobe-finned fish

Coelacanth

Lungfish

Not Fish:

Crustaceans

Krill

Shrimp

Crab

Crayfish/Crawfish/Crawdad

Lobster

Spiny lobster

Triops

Mantis shrimp

Barnacle

Isopod

Copepod

Shellfish

Mollusks/Molluscs

Gastropods

Sea snail

Sea slug

Snails and slugs in general

Sea angel

Sea hare

Sea bunny

Cephalopods

Octopus

Squid

Cuttlefish

Nautilus

Inkfish

Bivalves

Clam

Mussel

Scallop

Oyster

Chiton

Chelicerates

Horseshoe crab

Sea spider

Water mite

Diving bell spider

Cnidarians

Jellyfish/Sea jelly/Jelly

Coral

Sea anemone/Anemone

Siphonophores

Portugese man o' war

Echinoderms

Sea cucumber

Sea pig

Feather star

Sand dollar

Sea biscuit

Sea cookie

Brittle star/Serpent star

Sea urchin

Starfish/Sea star

Comb jelly

Lancelet

Tunicates

Sea squirt

Salp

Annelids

Bristle worm

Bobbit worm

Spoon worm

Giant tube worm

Bone-eating worm

Sea mouse/Sea mice

Feather duster worm

Christmas tree worm

Leech

Flatworm

Amphibians

Salamander

Amphiuma

Mudpuppy/Mud puppy

Waterdog

Olm

Axolotl

Siren

Frog

Toad

Tadpole

Caecilian

Reptiles

Sea snake

Water snake

Snakes in general

Sea krait

Turtle

Snapping turtle

Softshell turtle

Sea turtle

Terrapin

Marine iguana

Crocodilian

Crocodile

Alligator

Caiman

Gharial

Bird

Penguin

Seagull

Loon

Swan

Mammals

Whale

Orca

Baleen whale

Toothed whale

Dolphin

River dolphin

Porpoise

Narwhal

Beluga whale

Sperm whale

Pinniped

Seal

Sea lion

Leopard seal

Elephant seal

Walrus

Sirenian

Manatee

Sea cow

Dugong

Otter

Sea otter

Beaver

Hippo

Platypus

Muskrat

Water shrew

#fish guide #fish essay #marine biology #fish #fishfact #fish facts #biology #zoology #long post

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enbysanavi · 5 months

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Resident Lovers: Angie and Daniela

Daniela and Angie have some concerns:

Warnings: Vomiting, intoxication, heavy scar description

The last thing Daniela thought she would find in her dorm room was her strung up, always prim and proper roommate drunk off their ass and crying in the kitchen. She would expect this from someone like Angie but not them.

Hesitantly, Daniela crouched down to her roommate’s level and gently pried the bottle of unnamed alcohols from their hands. “Hey, did you get into Angie’s alcohol stash and mistake it for… juice or something?”

Looking up slowly, the scholar gazed at Daniela with blurry eyes that did not at all seem focused. “Danni? When did you get so… spiny?” They giggled. GIGGLED?!

Daniela smiled with an exasperated huff. The last thing she would ever expect the scholar to do would get drunk off their head and giggle. “Let’s get you sober again.”

They shook their head quickly, and just as quickly regretted it when their face screwed up and promptly emptied their stomach over their chest. “Oh…” They groaned and leaned their head back on the kitchen cupboard.

Daniela sighed internally, at least that speeds up the sobering process a bit. Picking her roommate off the ground without getting vomit on her was easier said than done. Slowly, Daniela carried her roommate into their shared room before dumping them onto their bed. “Okay, I’m going to take off your shirt-“

She was cut off by a gasp from her drunken roommate who swatted her hand away from their buttons. “You can’t! I’m seeing someone… I think? I don’t remember if it’s this time or not.” They muttered and stared up at the ceiling.

Daniela took this as a sign to just get them out of their vomit covered shirt. After all, surely they would be more appreciative when they wake up in the morning and not smell like throw up that marinated over the night. Or what remained.

But when Daniela started to unbutton their shirt, getting vomit on her hands anyways, she noticed deep shiny scars that decorated their front. Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw just hot ragged their scarring was. Long gashes that ran down from their neck and down to their stomach, bite marks around their stomach and neck and even… bullet wounds?!

Maybe it was the smell of the vomit that caused her to stagger back, that had to be it. Daniela wasn’t at all squeamish at the sight of blood, that was Bela, but just seeing the uptight and forever working roommate that had declined hanging out in favour for doing whatever work they did on their laptop, it astounded her.

The door to her room suddenly slammed open when Angie stumbled in, nursing a bottle of her famous and most liked vodka. She looked at Daniela with drunken confusion before seeing the passed out roommate with their shirt wide open just starfished on their bed.

“Daniela! I would have never thought that you-“ Angie suddenly lunged at Daniela, messily smacking her arms and standing between the two.

Daniela easily held back against Angie’s onslaught of drunken attacks as she tried to explain herself over Angie’s words. “Daniela, I found them drunk! I’m not trying anything with them, you know me too well for that!” She snapped a bit more aggressively than she meant.

Angie stumbled back, hitting the passes out roommate and looking back at them. A loud gasp came from Angie as she looked at Daniela and then back at their roommate. “Did they get mauled by a bear or something?!” She screeched.

A heavy sigh came from Daniela as she ushered Angie out of the room and closed the door behind her. She would just have to apologise to her roomie later about their vomit covered shirt.

Daniela turned to Angie who had somehow sobered up in the few seconds that she had turned away. Angie was now standing with her hands on her hips, glaring down Daniela. “Did you know about their battle scars??”

Daniela shook her head and sat down on the bar stool at the island. “I’m afraid you walked in on my reaction. I’m just as surprised as you are.” She sighed and rested her head on her hand, to her disgust was covered in vomit.

Angie giggled at her disappointment in herself before taking a seat beside Daniela who was now leaving over and washing her hands in the sink. “So, do we just not mention this?”

Flicking her hands dry, Daniela shrugged and sat back down. “You know them. Have you ever actually seen them exist around alcohol? It’s just weird.”

“You got that right.” Nodding her head from side to side, Angie looked back at the door leading to their bedroom. “I say we save them the embarrassment but offer a hand incase they have some sort of deep rooted trauma from their battle scars.”

Daniela hummed absentmindedly as she thought back to a few moments ago. “It would be rude to bring it up. Let’s just pretend nothing happened.”

#resident lover #nonbinary #daniela dimitrescu #angie beneviento #fanfiction #alternate universe

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malaisequotes · 10 months

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“Wanna wager I can name a thousand different sea creatures?” “Um—I’m not—” “Starfish, sea bass, wild Alaskan salmon, pufferfish, spiny fish, pomatomus saltatrix—which is Latin for bluefish. You got your tigerfish, dog fish, other kinds of jellyfish...”

Our Flag Means Death

#Our Flag Means Death #Television #Quote

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ms-scarletwings · 5 months

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Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 9

Savage Baracuda

Encyclopedia #127

Aberrant form of baracuda

Description:

It thrashes about ruinously, jaws snapping and tearing its own flesh apart. A body sundered by ravenous hatred.

Comment: It can’t go unsaid that source did a strangely phenomenal job on the art delivery with this. The description as well, since it invokes to me another disfiguring madness I’ve seen before.

How to catch: A Day-swimmer found in shallow shoals in the Stellar Basin.

Concertina Baracuda

Encyclopedia #128

Aberrant form of baracuda

Description:

Its body extends, then collapses together with each gasping breath. Nature dissected into mechanical motion.

Comment: Your childhood accordion fish paper crafts, brought through the stark filter that is reality.

How to catch: ^^^

Gazing Shark

Encyclopedia #129

Aberrant form of hammerhead

Description:

Huge bulbous eyes move about on large fleshy stalks, siphoning energy from its body. Its search is not over.

Comment: Disfigurement and intrigue aside, what makes this mutation particularly notable is its bounty- starting at base of $425 per head. Prior to the discovery of The Pale Reach, this was actually the most valuable individual aberrant available in the sea. Measuring by value per inventory slot, it still holds second place for most profitable catch in range.

How to catch: Giving one of the biggest bang for a buck, a couple of these could go a decent length towards your next ship renovation. As with other large sharks, hammerhead spawns are few and far between at oceanic depths. This species called the Stellar Basin its home. While it will be available night and day, it may be worth risking a trip or two into the fog after this beaut, for the slightly raised chance of an aberrant appearance. As with any abominable fish, bait and the fishing tools from the deep can only help in your search. Before anything else, a sturdy and spacious hull must be considered before seeking out the beasts, keeping in mind their 9 Slots of cargo requirements.

Crown of Nadir

Encyclopedia #130

Aberrant form of crow

Description:

A fractal gateway, reaching beyond the abyss. From its maw whispers a call from below.

Comment: It resembles uncomfortably the crab pot boon from one of the shrines- Mouth of the Deep. Perhaps one of these was involved in its construction. Despite this creature’s association with the water, “Nadir” is a celestial term. In the astronomical sense, it directs to a point on the sphere one stands on directly under the observer’s current location. It means below one in the sense of the lowest bottom possible, and taken from the literal Arabic, “opposite”. For pondering’s sake, if symbolic link from the name “crown of thorns” is to Jesus of Nazareth, ask yourself what more fitting a name could be given to this cosmic perversion than Crown of Nadir? I have no answer, myself.

How to catch: Must be captured by a large enough crab pot. Requires 9 squares of inventory and is only found at depths of 5 meters or shallower in the Basin.

Entangled Crab

Encyclopedia #131

Aberrant form of blue crab

Description:

Glistening purple strings sprout from solid rock, tying and untying themselves. They fall way and whither, making way for new knots.

Comment: Could barely be recognized as the crab it supposedly once was. A lovely color of sea spaghetti, at least, and this is a good thing, since the painter will be wanting one towards unlocking the royal purple pigment.

How to catch: Dwells the same depth and areas as the crown of thorns starfish, while only taking up 2 slots, making it suitable for smaller traps if checked frequently.

Imperious Lobster

Encyclopedia #132

Aberrant form of Spiny Lobster

Description:

Iridescent purple feelers recoil from the dry air. Sacs of violet fluid embedded in its carapace begin to drain.

Comment: No answers in sight as to what this fluid is, or its purpose, but there has been discovered a much better function- mixing into a stylish new coat of paint for the fisherman’s vessel.

How to catch: A pot catch that actually does not overlap with the zone of the previous two. Place traps between 5 and 50 meters in the Basin.

#dredge game #body horror #grotesque fish #aberrant fish #fish horror #primal reference #scarlet talks about things

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bethanythebogwitch · 11 months

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Welcome back to my series covering the real life origins of all non-fish aquatic Pokemon. Today we will be finishing generation I. See the first part of Generation I here and the fish of generation I here.

The Krabby line are crabs. There’s really not much more to them than that. Well Kingler having one claw larger than the other is a reference to several species of crab with that trait, perhaps most famously the fiddler crab.

(image: a male fiddler crab)

Fiddler crabs, of which there are many species, have evolved a form of sexual dimorphism where the male has one claw that is much larger than the other. Males use their claws for sexual selection, both by waving the claw to attract females and fighting rival males. The crown of spikes on it can reference many spiny crabs, especially the king crab.

(image: a weird looking hedgehog king crab)

Gigantmax Kingler’s massive size and long, spindly legs could be a reference to the Japanese spider crab, which has the longest legspan of any crab. The bubbles are there because crabs will blow bubbles over their gills while on land.

Starmie and Staryu are stylized starfish and much like real starfish, they are radially symmetrical and can regenerate any lost arms as long as the center is intact. Real starfish have such efficient regeneration that if you cut one in half, as long as enough of the central disc in intact, you will get two starfish.

(image: a starfish)

Starmie and Staryu are heavily implied to be aliens, meaning they are likely also a reference to the common five-pointed star and shooting stars. Starfish have been compared to aliens before due to how strange they are to our vertebrate-centered view of life. Most starfish have five arms like Staryu, but a few have more, like Starmie (they still have 5 radial body segments, just more than one arm per segment. The line’s tendency to swim by rapidly rotating their bodies and their good speed stats could reference propellers and shuriken. The gems flashing, acting as their hearts, and firing beam attacks may all reference the flashing chest-mounted gems found in the Ultraman series.

I covered Magikarp in my fish posts, but didn’t cover Gyarados then as I don’t think it’s a fish. I think it’s a combination sea serpent and eastern dragon. It has the serpentine, limbless shape of sea serpents and the whiskers and carp connection of dragons. Eastern dragons are generally considered benevolent, but can be extremely dangerous when angered. They can also typically fly despite being wingless, fitting Gyarados having the flying type and actually flying around the sky in Legends: Arceus. Eastern dragons are often depited as having long barbels like those of carp and catfish.

(image: a depiction of a Chinese dragon)

Gyarados evolving from Magikarp is a reference to a Chinese legend where a carp that jumps over a waterfall will turn into a dragon. If Gyarados has the appearance of an eastern dragon, it has the violent temperament of a western dragon. It’s violent and easily angered temperament is similar to legends of sea monsters attacking and destroying ships. Side note: Gyarados’s English name was originally going to be Skulkraken, which is one of the most metal things I’ve ever heard. Mega Gyarados looks a lot like carp streamers, which makes it amusing that the form based on a wind sock loses the flying type.

(image: a bunch of carp streamers)

Lapras is one of my favorite Pokemon of all time and its origin is suitably interesting. It’s based on famous lake cryptids like the Loch Ness monster, which are often depicted as looking like outdated reconstructions of plesiosaurs. Plesiosaurs were marine reptiles that coexisted with dinosaurs, but were not dinosaurs themselves. The most famous plesiosaurs, which Lapras is based on, had long necks.

(image: a fossil reconstruction of Plesiosaurus)

Outdated reconstructions of plesiosaurs, often depicted them as being able to hold their necks out of the water in what is often described as a swan neck pose, much like Lapras’s neck. We now know that their necks were not nearly flexible enough to do that. I initially thought that Lapras’s shell was a reference to sea turtles, but it turns out it comes from the placodonts, close relatives to plesiosaurs who had bony plates on their backs that in some species developed to look a lot like turtle shells.

(image: a fossil reconstruction of a turtle-like placodont)

Some placodonts also had bony protrusions on their skulls, much like Lapras’s horn. Lapras’s neck and rideability could also reference the mastheads of Viking longships. Lapras being very intelligent and singing is a clear reference to whales. In early generations, Lapras was endangered due to overhunting, which could reference species like the right whale, who were badly overhunted and have never fully recovered. Gigantamax Lapras having that shell shape and sheet music lines makes me think it’s a reference to that shell-looking musical instrument from the 2nd movie.

Alright, we’re talking about Vaporeon now, so I expect you to be normal about this, ok? Like the other Eevees, Vaporeon is a mishmash of various animals. Like Eevee, it has dog, cat, and fox traits, but it also adds dolphin and fish-like traits. We actually have the word of one of the designers, who says it was designed with mermaids in mind, hence the combination of mammal and fish traits. It may also represent transitional forms between land-dwelling animals and cetaceans, such as Remingtonocetus or Kutchicetus.

(image: peleoart of Kutchicetus by Nobu Tamura)

The fringe around its neck is the aquatic form of Eevee’s neck ruff, but also makes it look like a sea-lion. No, not the real animals, but a lion mermaid used as a heraldic symbol.

(Image: a sea-lion)

It may also be one big catfish pun. Vaporeon’s ability to turn into water could reference mythical water spirits like naiads.

Omanyte and Omastar are based on ammonites, prehistoric shelled cephalopods that look very similar to, but are not closely related to, the modern nautilus.

(Image: paleoart of an ammonite. source)

Like the nautilus, ammonites could float in the water column using gas-filled chambers in the shell, contrasting the Omanyte line, who are usually depicted as bottom-dwellers. Ammonites would have had the shell opening pointed horizontally, with the tentacles used for grabbing food and a siphon used for propulsion. The Omanyte line instead has the shell opening down and the tentacles used to crawl around. Like any proper cephalopod, Omastar has a powerful beak that it uses to eat. Ammonites first evolved in the Devonian period and made it all the way to the end of the Cretaceous, where they met their end along with the non-avian dinosaurs.

Kabuto is a mix of the horseshoe crab and trilobites. Horseshoe crabs (which you can read about here) are still around now, but they are considered living fossils (a misleading term as the species alive today are not the same as fossil species). Kabuto looks like the carapace of a horseshoe crab, minus the second body segment and tail.

(image: a horseshoe crab)

Horseshoe crabs also have two large eyes on the top of the shell looking up, just like the two dots on Kabuto, and more eyes on the underside looking down. Trilobites had segmented bodies while Kabuto doesn’t. Upon evolving, it takes on some major praying mantis inspiration, but at the same time, it looks a bit more like a triobite. Its head looks like a cephalon of a trilobite, possibly one of the genus Cheirurus, which had some large spikes on the cephalon.

(image a trilobite fossil)

The body is segmented like a trilobites. Kabutops also takes inspiration from eurypterids, relatives of horseshoe crabs that had segmented bodies and large limbs used for hunting or swimming.

(image: a eurypterid fossil)

Kabutops’s head also looks a bit like a samurai helmet (and the Japanese word for helmet is “kabuto”), and that combined with its sword-like limbs may give it some samurai influence.

Finishing out gen I is the Dratini line, which serve as counterparts to Gyarados. They are also based on a combination of sea serpents and eastern dragons, but while Gyarados is destructive and violent, the Dratini line are reclusive and gentle. Like many eastern dragon myths Dreatini and Dragonair live underwater and/or behind waterfalls and Dragonair has weather control abilities. Dragonite switches to a western dragon, with 4 limbs and wings, but still retains some eastern dragon traits with its serpentine body, ability to live underwater, antennae that look a lot like barbels, and generally gentle behavior. Interestingly, Gyarados has the eastern dragon look but western dragon behavior while Dragonite has the western dragon look and eastern dragon behavior.

Next time, I'll cover the aquatic Pokémon from generation II. In the future I probably wont have to split generations up like this as the other gens don't have as many aquatic mons to cover

#pokemon #pokemon biology #marine biology #zoology #animal facts #paleontology #aquatic biology

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dinosaurvalley · 1 year

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messy brinicle redesign :) i scrapped the whole spiky mane thing cuz it just looked weird to me lmao, gave it a real brinicle as a horn and a spiny tail. also wanted to add starfish to the design cuz of that one clip of the brinicle freezing all those starfish. i wish the cold affect was still a thing cuz in my redesign id add that it gets too warm outside of the valley and will be slower. i think thats all :)

#joseph art #sso #ssoblr #star stable online #magic horse #one of my tamer redesigns considering my dragons and fish but cut me some slack im pretty tired #and its been a while since ive made a redesign. ive been designing stuff for my own story recently

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sillie82 · 2 years

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‘What are you whittling?’

‘This... will eventually be a harpsichord.’

‘Really?’

‘No, it kinda resembles a sharp carrot. Wanna wager I can name a thousand different sea creatures?’

‘Uhm, I’m not--’

‘Starfish! Sea bass. Wild Alaskan Salmon.’

(loud explosion)

‘Puffer fish. Spiny fish.’

‘Fuck the beach!’

-Our Flag Means Death 1.02: A Damned Man

#our flag means death #lucius spriggs #nathaniel buttons #lucius ofmd #buttons ofmd #ofmd #a damned man #nathan foad #ewen brenner #my gifs #lucius my precious #right on queue

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kingslayerstew · 10 months

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some animals i saw this week ^_^ blue spiny starfish, common wall lizard, crepuscular burnet moth and what i assume is a juvenile common toad

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whatpandorasaw · 2 years

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Red spiny starfish in the waters of Tenerife, Canary Islands

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tickletricky · 2 years

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Tidal Waves

Mini-Fic: The Hunting Trip

A/N; This was a requested drabble with ‘slight romantic undertones’ but I royally fucked that up. With good reason, though, since this takes place after Tidal Waves Chapter 3 Part 2.

Summary: Moon invites Sun along to his usual hunting spot, only to discover... uh... Sun, have you ever hunted for your own food before in your life?

Words: 1067

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When Moon asked Sun to go on a hunting trip with him in an attempt to bond, he hadn’t quite expected this. Was he not carnivorous like himself? He watched Sun in a mix of charm and concern as he clumsily swam, seemingly overwhelmed by the school around him, getting smacked in the face in a quite unflattering manner by one of the fleeing trout — but Moon found it amusing, barely muffing a giggle behind his hand. “Oh, this is very funny to you?” Sun crossed his arms, failing to fake up an angry expression in time before he began to laugh in turn.

“It’s okay, it’s okay! Nobody’s perfect, I just… I thought you ate fish, too.” “Oh, I do, I just…” Sun fixed one of his spiny fins on his forearm back into place after the spines crossed over each other. “We warm-watered folk usually just let the humans feed us,” he admitted, and Moon let off a second, warmer chuckle. “You want help?” “Maybe. Yeah.” And Moon smiled gently. “Come on. We can always find another school. I can give you some pointers, and… maybe you won’t look like a weird starfish this time.” The shark gave a toothy grin at his own comment, and Sun gasped in mock offense. “A starfish?”

Moon felt himself playfully shoved, and he laughed, feeling a warmth blossom in his insides. “Okay, okay, fine. A not-weird starfish.” “Not any better, you rude little shark, you!” “Come on, your Majesty,” he commented sarcastically, feeling a connection between them spark as they smiled gently towards each other, and Sun followed Moon’s lead as though he’d been doing it his whole life.

The trip there seemed to spill over into the edge of eternity. Moon hadn’t realized how physically close they’d been during — and he’d been sure to give Sun his space. And yet it felt as if Sun’s fins might brush against his scales any second now, and he shuddered with anticipation at the thought. He was trying to figure out these feelings — the way he felt warm around Sun. Like nothing bad could happen if he just stayed by his side.

Especially when he felt like a pole was driven through his throat if Percy even so much as spared him his gaze.

“So, Mr. Dark and Mysterious, where’d you come from, exactly?” “Oh. Well-” Moon would’ve frozen on the spot, with the way that Sun was swimming in tandem with him, just beneath him and smoothing his scales without a care to if he might scratch his own delicate ones, like flower petals rubbing up against tiger teeth, and it completely melted him down in his touch.

“Well?” Sun looked at him expectantly, sunlight glinting in those teal eyes of his.

“I- uh… the Trench.” Sun’s fingers stopped dead in their tracks, and he leaned closer, his voice dwindling smoothly to an intrigued whisper. “The Trench? You know the rumors, right?” He moved his fingers up to make a shushing motion to Moon’s mouth, drawing a hesitant trill from his throat.. “You’d better keep that to yourself. I don’t know what Percy might do to that unsteady reputation of yours if he found out...”

“I have a reputation?”

Moon spoke with almost an innocent curiosity, but in reality he could not bear to do anything but keep swimming in that hypnotic tandem, his arms dangling limply at his sides.

“Everyone has a reputation in the ocean, moonflower. I guess gossiping just isn’t so important where you come from.”

“Well… what’s mine?” Moon asked cautiously, only to get a warm smile from this person who he felt so…

“Everyone’s unsure. But to me, I think you’re misunderstood. In fact…”

Sun paused, tracing one of the scars on Moon’s shoulder, near his collarbone, feeling him freeze and shiver. “I think you’ve got quite the story. I’d like to hear it.” “Oh, I’m sure it’d just-... Bore you to death.”

“Maybe you misunderstood me. I don’t want to hear your story for the plot, moonflower.” “O- oh?” All of a sudden, Sun’s face was a lot closer, their noses almost touching. “I want to hear it because you’re in it,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around Moon’s neck.

It was no understatement to say he’d known Sun for quite a while. Years, actually. He had been Moon’s definition of ‘best friend’, someone who never really found him annoying as he thought he’d be. He’d always been a charmer; in reality, a weekend friend, who he’d had less and less of a chance to hang out with in recent times. But for these years of quiet warmth to amount to floating in the water, looped around each other like this?

Moon hesitated, pulling back the first time, but smiled and huffed, closing the distance between their snouts. “Is that a yes?” Sun asked softly, drawing a soft trill from the shark and beginning to smooth down the scales on his back when he heard it. “I knew it.”

Moon hung there in the water, content until he heard his stomach grumble. “Mmm… What about the food?” Sun giggled to himself. “Oh, I knew you’d ask. Come on, it’s my turn to be teacher.”

Sun’s hold on Moon slipped off gradually, until his fingertips slid off his arms and he turned himself around to dig around a small cave carelessly.

“Hold on- ow!” Moon heard a snap and immediately came to investigate, seeing a bit of crimson seeping out of Sun’s arm, but with a wince, the brighter mer pulled the chunky brown crab out of the cave. “Spunky little guy.” He chuckled, smashing its head down and off with a single, swift motion, and Moon looked on in mild horror, but it faded as Sun carefully pulled out the meat from its now-limp pincers, offering it to his shark friend who took it gingerly as though he might hurt Sun if he didn’t. “You’re…” “Bleeding, I know,” Sun chuckled airily, rubbing the wound lightly and wincing. “Oh!” “This is pretty deep. You’re okay, right?” Moon held Sun’s arm delicately, wiping the blood off from around the edges with caution, shivering when he felt a hand stroke down his head. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. Don't worry yourself.”

“Where to now?” “I think we should stay here for a bit,” smiled Sun, pulling Moon closer by his grip before relaxing into the still waters.

#mermoon #mersun #fnaf mermay #my fnaf merfolk au #tidal waves fanfiction

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cloudbattrolls · 4 months

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Mercy

Ginger Mycoba | Bukit Berongga | Present Night

Ginger threw up a magical barrier sphere as they raced down the hill toward Thrixe. It wouldn’t hold forever, or if he tried to break it on purpose, but they had to contain whatever was going to happen as best they could.

They felt resistance as it shot through the ground as well, but with a push of effort, they felt it complete and seal them and Thrixe in.

The containment zone was about a quarter mile across in every direction, barely visible except as a translucent bluish shimmer in the air. No living or undead being could come in or out now, and no magical or eldritch power could leave.

As a bonus, it would block any tech or magical scrying that might be trying to see what was happening within it. The only way to witness what would come was with a troll’s own eyes, but Ginger wouldn’t advise that to anyone.

If it weren’t for the mental protections granted by their mantle, they’d be screwed.

As Thrixe caught sight of them with his dozens of eyes, his expression was…pleading. Fevered, wild, but miserable and supplicating, his tendrils moving erratically in small, weak flops and twitches.

Ginger stopped as they reached the sand, fifty feet or so from the suffering hybrid.

“I…don’t know…what’s happening to me.”

The slow, labored words were barely comprehensible. The usual even, moderately deep voice Thrixe had in troll form was thick and distorted, and Ginger had to strain to make out what he was saying, even though he spoke from multiple mouths.

“You’re sick, Thrixe.” They said bluntly. “You were infected on purpose. Don’t know why, but I’m gonna find out.”

“Sick…?”

The word stretched out into whispers and gurgles from the mouths. Which, Ginger noticed, were starting to lose their shape, as was the rest of him.

Thrixe cried out, a deep dirge of loss from all his voices.

“I can’t…don’t want to hurt…”

His whole body begun melting down, rippling and warping as it begun spreading into black ooze and streaming over the shore.

“Stop me.”

It was barely a whisper, and Ginger drew their sword just in time to block several spiny, lashing tendrils of violet and black.

Though far bigger than the sword, the dull gray blade had a sheen of whitish energy that made the tendrils stiffen and crack, bleeding and oozing as they fell to pieces.

The ooze tried to cling to Dunny’s hooves, but with a disdainful snort, the horse stomped all four of his legs and blasted the black matter back from himself in a perfect circle, blood and scar tissue now spreading across it.

The sand itself rippled and distorted, turning to something more like sludge…then back to sand again, cycling through the states of matter erratically.

Ginger countered by willing the bacteria of all the life in the sand to multiply, to hold it together, and to make it so toxic and sickened that if Thrixe tried to mess with it, he’d poison himself.

They added some viruses too, the tiny DNA hijackers working their way through taking over their other infected life.

He tried to engulf them and Dunny in a mass of writhing, blackened starfish spines. The horseman let it press closer…so they could swing their sword across it in a perfect arc, making the spines brittle, withering them to dust as they brushed against their armor.

Their mount whinnied piercingly, the noise counteracting the deep and agonized hum of the maddened hybrid and making the spines near him disintegrate into blood.

Ginger took the brief reprieve to gallop away, knowing they had seconds.

Thrixe wailed so loudly that it briefly stunned them, wincing behind their helmet as Dunny flattened his ears.

The air began to boil. Its aeroplankton multiplied by the thousands and millions, becoming more lashing ribbons of black ooze rushing toward the horse and rider.

Ginger tore their facial mask off, then killed the plankton - enough for them and Dunny to breathe as they gasped, lungs heaving, but they only made a small breathable space.

The ooze began to weave together into a black crust in the air, blocking out the moonlight.

The water began to change as well, becoming black and viscous, rising up into shapes that constantly broke and reformed, vaguely like sea creatures, but…wrong.

Things that had never been on Alternia. Should never be.

They detached and came for Ginger as Thrixe’s song became stronger and louder, the Choir in so much pain he could not help releasing it into the world.

The horseman felt the weight of his agony vibrating in their bones, and gray tears ran down their marred face from the song.

Still they raised their sword to slash at the creatures, which shifted and displaced around them, lashing at their armor and…corroding it, where they touched.

With a raspy voice, Ginger called a spell, making their armor all detach at once and hover around them, leaving the hemoanon in only their tank top and pants.

They flung them into the reeking, snapping mass, turning them into small bombs of contaminated shrapnel, coming apart and causing the constructs to scream as the air crackled with ozone and they dissolved into chunks of flesh and spores.

As Thrixe flailed in confusion, his massive tendrils grasping for them, Ginger had Dunny race away as they felt their viruses finally grow numerous enough to use.

A corona of white and blue magic surged through the now utter darkness surrounding them, the sky now gone from sight, as Pestilence bore down on the Choir’s very cells.

The hybrid might be half horrorterror. But he was still half troll, still partially worked according to biological law.

Just like the plants around the medical tents, his body could be turned against itself.

Thrixe screamed and Ginger’s ears bled as they gripped Dunny so hard the horse bucked a little, but the horseman held firm even as their body shook from fear and pain.

Thrixe fought it. His regeneration tried to flush the attackers out. But that was the thing about viruses, why the common cold always came back: they could keep mutating, over and over again, as much as they had to so they could do their work.

Ginger had made so many different kinds, along with bacteria to feed on the hybrid’s flesh as his immune system failed, piece by piece.

They could barely move. Dunny could barely move, the animal bleeding from his own ears as well.

They urged him forward.

One step at a time. One more step. Small, persistent hoof prints in the sludgy sand as Ginger took deep breaths.

Ignore the blood dripping down their neck. Ignore the black ooze pressing closer again, their magical aura the only light now as Thrixe’s bioluminescence began to dim, began to die.

The starfish monster was smaller now, his black ooze spreading across the sand and sea beginning to retreat, to retract back into his body. He moaned and whispered and hacked in his voices, curling up where he had crawled out of the ocean.

Ginger slowly, heavily got off Dunny. They walked over to what seemed like the closest thing the hybrid had to a head right now, a mass of tendrils with more eyes than the rest of his body.

Violet and yellow eyes that looked up at them hazily, yet with a sense of relief despite the pain.

They raised their sword.

“I gotta kill you a little. But it won’t stick.”

They slashed down, hacking him open, scattering the diseased flesh into melting pieces. They carved through the hybrid until he was nothing but scattered flesh and black ooze.

Ginger dripped with sweat by the end, wiping it off their disease-marked forehead with a similarly scarred and pitted hand. All they wanted to do was take a nap.

Nope, now it was time to -

The whole beach shook, and Thrixe’s pieces with it. Ginger nearly fell over, barely managing to stay standing as they looked around in bewilderment.

Trolls. Hundreds of humming trolls were pressed up against their barrier, eyes vacant, now partially crusted over with black.

The hemoanon would swear Thrixe’s pieces shivered.

Ginger went to mount Dunny again, as fast as they could drag their exhausted body, but it was too late.

The trolls had broken the sphere. They swarmed in and gathered up all of Thrixe’s pieces as the horseman of Pestilence watched helplessly, utterly spent by taking down the hybrid.

They managed one last thing: a tracking, scrying spell, in the hope they could witness whatever was about to happen.

They nearly fell unconscious, only the support of their horse keeping them upright.

But they had to get back to their staff. To Quinne.

To Leshwi.

The horseman of Pestilence slowly, carefully made their way back up one of the hills of Bukit Berongga, thinking of their olive assistant.

It was so easy for anyone who worked for them to die, no matter how well they protected them.

They tried not to get attached even to the staff they liked, because they knew how likely it was that they wouldn’t last too long. It was a distraction from their work, an issue to be avoided.

But hey. They’d just come pretty close themself. Maybe they should relax a little.

Thrixe might be about to die, who knew.

“Sorry, buddy.” Rumbled the fatigued horseman. “You’re on your own now. Don’t know what Cyvell’s gonna do to you, but I’m sure it won’t be pretty. Good luck.”

It wasn’t as if he could hear them. Kind of a useless thing to say.

Yet as they came to the top of one of the hollow hills once more, a hot wind blowing around their unusually bare skin, Ginger still hoped that the hybrid could make it out alive.

That he too could return to the people he loved, whole once more.

#cloud writes #ginger mycoba #thrixe varzim #harbinger #I actually wanted this fight scene to be longer but I realized it didn't make sense for it to be since ginger is trying to end this quickly #and thrixe is mostly acting on instinct #so it is what it is. I still had fun writing it #penultimate part! almost at the end now!

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