Hi!

taking the wet cat out of the torment nexus and throwing him violently into the woods

crashing his submarine into a lake. letting him wake up drowning normal style and get rescued by a stramger perhap..

got two twelve hours and an eight hour and then my one day off will be mostly spent trying to unfuck my housing situation

injury guide below for ryland

- "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" carved somewhere near the entrance to show Ryland isn't even in hell yet

- super windy but he gets through the 2ndCircle (Lust) pretty easy (he just times when the gusts of air come through, hiding behind rocks to avoid getting pushed back, and notes it makes it feel like the tunnels are a throat and the moon is trying to blow him out of itself or just straight up breathing??)

- 3rd Circle (Gluttony) is a larger area and their seems to be some kind of rain happening? The cave has its own clouds! Weird. Ryland breaks through the clouds (but sees things in them he doesn't trust) so he resists drinking the "water" from the rain before continuing his descent

- 4th Circle (Greed) things are getting more weird. He isn't seeing things. Ryland is sure the boulders are moving toward each other. They make him nervous and he hurries onward despite finding the first useful metals that the COI has seen in ages. He kind of regrets using a sample container just to send up some gold (which is valuable bc it can be used for electronics!), though. This time, he takes some for himself to try and bribe someone later in case they don't give him his freedom. This backfires and he is sent back down, trusted far less for hiding his total findings

- he has to cross another damn river (Styx) which he drinks from and becomes angrier (he is in the fifth circle aka wrath after all) and he loses himself slightly to the anger, almost throwing one of his sample containers. instead, he settles and collects the water in a container to take back later. he's worried if he comes back with just one sample they'll just send him back down, so he trudges through the river and it gets more and more rapid. he swears the rocks under him move and he is lost in the current, thrown off a waterfall and awakes washed on the shore of the Sixth Circle, how radio going crazy like "HEY ARE YOU FUCKING DEAD WHY DID YOUR TETHER GO SO FAST" and he's like "i'm aliiiive... ow"

- the tunnels are more beautiful (more like rocky's ship!), but it's all getting hotter for some reason. grace gets a picture of the "gates" he finds and the shutter sound alerts something?? he knows he is in danger and is terrified but finds an eden talisman sort of "held" by stone? grace breaks through the rock and grabs the talisman. he noticed inside the rock are what look like fossilized human bones and realizes he just broke someone's hand. he finds out equipment with a recording that basically goes "yeah they sent us down here to die. trust me. cut your tether and tie something to it. climb the wall. they only way up is to keep going down"

- 6th Circle (Heretics) Ryland feels safer bc of his talisman but is now with a broken tether and scared as fuck bc there are random fires in this weird more crystall-y cave area. he is like "okay my brother said to be careful and not trust my eyes. the reflections are false. i have to keep going" and by the time he gets to the next circle he's like "this is impossible. this isn't right. i shouldn't be able to get this far down. something is wrong. i want to go back" but he knows he can't. he forces himself forward, and gets burned somewhat bc his suit wasn't made to take the heat. to his horror, the suit is now melted slightly. he doesn't understand why, but he can breath in the tunnels. he isn't dying. or maybe he's already dead. he doesn't know. he takes off the suit partly bc it's heavy and slowing him down. he keeps the bag for his samples, his camera, his fucked up flashlight, and does his best to make sure his legs are still protected as he goes forward, the top half of his suit now missing so he has to carry the tiny flashlight he ripped off of it. limited light on it. he uses the camera to see and is glad he can't see bc holy shit the walls look like they are screaming

- 7th Circle is Violence. Ryland has filament flashbacks and the death of the last tree. He keeps seeing the faces of those gone in the walls and the wind carries their voices. he is feeling hot and cold and isn't sure if he is well. he drags his feet forward. he ends up going through a THIRD RIVER, this time some kind of boiling blood and carefully collects a sample but the blood burns his hand slightly and he feels incredibly sick after touching it

- He ends up in a grove. He thinks he's hallucinating. He finds the trees are petrified and broken glass talismans. they are his brothers. they didn't get farther than this. he clutches his own and finds it has a crack. he doesn't understand why. he weeps for a while bc good god he is so fucking scared but moved forward

- the ground becomes barren sand and the heat is so intense as he walks the sand seems to turn to hot as fuck glass. it looks like fucking kaleidoscope tunnel. ryland is losing his fucking mind. he doesn't know if he is going down anymore. he just doesn't want to boil alive. he moves forward, and what looks like living stone drags him down into the 8th circle (to "safety") where he sees... a light. a light at the end of the tunnel. the rocks are almost normal again. was it all in his head? he doesn't know. he enters literal trenches (it is the circle for fraud. get in the trenches grace.) and he's lying to himself the whole time telling himself that everything will be okay and to his horror the radio connects and he's like "YOU SHOULD BE DOWN HERE. YOU. NOT ME. I DON'T DESERVE THIS. I TRIED TO STOP IT." and he keeps going, and he runs forward, stumbling and having to crawl as the tunnel becomes smaller. he finds a break in the tunnel and finds someone with a COI scientist who is part of the wall but more importantly he finds sample containers in her untouched bag. she has a water sample, which he drinks bc he is so, so thirsty and he feels anger again. (oops. bad water)

- he uses the anger water to move forward bc he feels like he needs it keep going. he barely makes it through a fucking tar-like pit and is covering in black gunk but he is not going to fucking stop. he is almost free. he just needs that fucking light

- he deals with horrible creatures and the snake-like things try to bite him but only one can break through the tar solidifying on him and he realizes he is ACTIVELY PETRIFIYING and rushes more toward the 9th Circle

- he uses the fire he can find to try and melt the tar off him (bad choice but he isn't thinking right) and he starts coughing out blood (he is falling apart and thinks the tar is holding him together)

- at the edge of the ninth circle Grace just lets himself roll down the hill to something weird. he is so hot he melts through what he finds to be ice. he thinks it is helping him. he things he might be okay. he's so cold. it's so cold. something under the ice is grasping for him. calls him traitor. he pushes on and out onto the flat plane of ice. he shivers and has to crawl. it would be beautiful if he weren't actively dying. the core of the moon. he made it. a lake underground. he collects a sample of the ice and sees bodies frozen in it. at least, he thinks they are bodies. he doesn't know. he doesn't know anything. there is a massive stone structure at the very core. ryland doesn't understand what he's looking at. it hurts his head and mind but he knows he has to climb it. the structure was reflecting light from above. there is a way out.

swap au is rotating slowly…

there is the soldier, poet, kindred spirit flavor which could make for an interesting time

Not yet- I usually can’t draw bc my hands get tremors pretty often.

Here is a kinda loose guide on how mermaids, sirens, and octopus caecalia are built tho

Main differences are the ear area, tail area, and mermaids lacking pectoral fins

In human form everybody looks pretty canon compliant w/ the movie save for slight points to the ears of the mermaids/sirens that go in water often

Also the aquatic gang pretty regularly wear skirts bc it’s easier than getting rip-off pants for when they want to yeet themselves in the water

I guess my question is what is rocky? My question comes from the hunting scene where they all went to the ocean for a bit and hunted some fish on group and it mentioned rocky was off to the side keeping watch ready to ink the area so... is rocky a squid? I am confused, also what does he look like? Maybe the others too? Don't think I saw a direct description of their tails aside from Eva (we love a fic where she gets to be happy) wich btw absolutely love her in this story it's so cool (ofc she would be a siren why wouldn't she be 😭)

Anyways love the fic and will become violent because of it. thanks :D

Eva is a mermaid!! Ilyukhina is a siren tho :)

Simon: Back then, I thought that nobody was listening to me,

Simon: but before everything went to hell, I told her—

Simon: “Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter how far I run—

they’re still gonna find me.”

Simon: So, yeah. Sometimes I’m angry.

Simon: Sometimes I’m thankful.

Simon: No way in hell Eden’s finding me way out here, y’know?

Grace: …yeah. I’m glad she listened to you. Even if…

Simon: Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a bummer.

Grace: It’s okay.

Simon: thanks for listening.

specifically like if the ellie rocky situation was switched as well

thinking about it not being a blood moon but still a moon. but there are tunnels.

grace is originally exploring with a rover or something, but the tunnels get narrower and they don’t make sense

they are changing. they move. there is something wrong with the moon. grace swears he sees faces in the walls. screaming faces, humans limbs made of stone that writhe. maybe some minotaur and labyrinth vibes for him like he’s tied by a red cord to where he is supposed to go and has to tie what he finds to the cord and tug so it can get dragged out even though he can’t. he sees the light disappear in the tunnel as he is dragged down into a void.

he has to get out of his ship to squeeze through some passages

there is a new light at the end of the tunnel. the light he heard about in the sm-8 logs he found.

he just has to reach it!

and when he does he ends up with swap au simon! the light brought him to a savior! yippee!

lots of horrifying cave diving times for grace in the swap au

Seems working on two-three stories at once is fine but like i gotta stop burning both ends of the candle

focus will remain on mermaids and soldier, poet, kindred spirit.

pre-astrophage au or just plopping simon into a no astrophage au tempts me

specifically as like the pinhole god doing a fuck you after simon punches it in the eye or something

like he wants to “go where stars are” but more so it’s tied to his line about how he was like “what’s more likely, a couple stations disappearing or everything else”

so simon wants to “go back” to wherever the stars and planets went but the pinhole god is like “hmmm not specific enough. random year and universe. throwing you there actually”

so simon is yaay not in that much danger but also “wtfwtf wtf” bc mars isn’t colonized and the year isn’t right and blah blah

…hmm i think i saw somebody mess with him actually getting back to where the planets and such went tho and i do think it’d be neat to mess with that too

a world that wants to know where everyone went. oh but there was time fuckery wasn’t there.. god the stations going missing for like 21 years to them but no time passed to the planets… to the people of mars and earth and the other colonies they were never gone

it was like the blink of an eye

that could be a fun title for it since the pinhole god looks like That

“Blink Twice” could work since simon said something like “why can’t it happen again” about the disappearance thing

i’m tired and incoherent slightly but i enjoy rotations of it seeming to the planet-dwelling people that the stations n stuff were only gone for a “blink” even though for those in space it was for 21 years

so many stories tempt me

“salt in the wound” comic under read more (tw blood and injury)

I FUCKING LOVE SELKIES (also very normal)

but the subspecies name is a little deceptive, my friend! They’re a type of siren with a unique build (sort of like how cacaelia are consodered special mermaids)

[On a side note, in world and in the lore they really should be sorted as their own subsection aside from sirens! so should caecaelia!! and the leviathans!! but the system of division was made by humans and is heavily flawed!!! this is partly due to how few are available to observe/study… and due to intentional misinformation being spread so that hunting could continue… among other things]

salt in the wound comic is gonna be simon having a nightmare of grace finding out some things about him and reacting… well, understandably bad to some things

so, congratulations! one of the people staring intently at your fish tank has dropped an eel into it and will not be doing anything to remove her. it's fine I promise.

(in all seriousness tho you write so well!!! it feels like I'm sitting in the room with the characters sometimes. rmr to drink water and thank you for posting it for people to enjoy!)

I HAVENT HAD PLAIN WATER IN SEVERAL DAYS I COMPLETELY FORGOT THANK YOU /GEN