insert cooler title

“Why”:

ok so this is a drawing of the north american cryptid known as the “fur-bearing trout”. it is basically the same thing as a regular trout, but it has a coat of fur.

(fun fact: there is an Icelandic variation of this creature that seems older. but i have specifically chosen the North American version for this piece.)

the second image is called the “shaved” version because it is just a regular picture of a greenback cutthroat trout. if you use Duck Duck Go to search for “greenback cutthroat trout”, you can even find the exact reference i used (lol!). no one literally shaved this fish within canon, but i think it’s a funny way to refer to it.

i also just really like the way these guys look, so when i was drawing this i made the “shaved” version first.

“How”:

if we get more technical, this is a depiction of an offscreen event from a story concept that I have been obsessed with for a while. i semi-regularly make vague references to it across my blogs because i think it’s funny :]

so this is the moment where a tertiary character finds/fishes up a fur-bearing trout. he provides it to one of the main characters. it is evidence that a new multiverse convergence event is occurring and sets off the plot (aka the current stage of that main character's overarching plan)

“Why” level 2:

it's this type of fish because the whole story/multiverse/whatever is based entirely on the topics covered by one specific youtuber that i was really into in 2020. she made one video about the fur-bearing trout. some of her most popular videos are about strange/obscure fanfics. in the comments section someone was like "lol someone rewrote this fanfic to include [youtuber and her topics]! it's so funny you guys should check it out"

upon reading it, it was kind of bad? like gross-out humor involving the youtuber, not that funny, etc.

Of course, being the noble soul that i am i thought to myself, "what if someone wrote an actually good fanfiction that involves elements of these videos (and doesn't include the actual person because that was unpleasant)? how would i do that?" this is my joker origin story.