#pseudo

Prophecy Stones(Goethite Pseudomorph after Marcasite) from the White Desert in Egypt

This means that goethite has replaced marcasite , but the resulting goethite retains the external shape or crystal form of the original marcasite

📹: Coloradogemworks

Ooooo h I love hi!M

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If there’s one place on your journey that ranks last on the list of locations you’d revisit, the swamps of Zenozoik would have to take home the trophy.

Pseudo moves silently through waist-deep water with an eerie level of stealth, barely causing more than a ripple or two as he glides through narrow channels and cuts between slime-coated rocks and waterlogged trees.

Evening has dragged the world around you to a lazy plod. Somewhere far in the distance, you can see the sun flirting with the horizon line, casting its golden rays of light over the island like a final farewell, and in turn drawing great clouds of insects from the water’s surface. The air around you is alive with buzzes and chirrups and fluttering wings that flit about your heads, and the most you can be bothered to do is bury your face into the solid spine you’re pressed against, wrinkling your nose at the sticky sheen of sweat clinging to his honeyed skin as you stifle a yawn.

“Comfy back there?” gripes the voice of your gruff chauffeur.

Hypocrite, you muse with a soft snort. He’s the one who’d been adamant about hoisting you up onto his back the moment you tried to wade through the first six inches of water and suffered a minor stumble.

‘You’ll only slow us down,’ he’d cited, even as he knelt as low to the ground as he could and took you gingerly by the wrist, guiding you aboard his musclebound back.

Smirking against a notch of his spine, you give Pseudo’s waist a playful squeeze with your thighs and twist your head sideways, sucking in a gulp of warm, muggy air. “You know, I really don’t mind walking,” you point out for the umpteenth time.

Underneath you, his whole body jumps as he blows out a dubious scoff.

“The water’d come up to your neck,” he grunts, removing a hand from your knee and slipping it under your rear instead, gently nudging you higher up his spine, “You’d be grabbed and pulled under before you could even scream for help.”

Mildly perturbed, you coil your arms further around his thick neck and hike your legs up, curling your toes away from the water’s murky surface with a shudder. “Oh god.”

Pseudo offers a hum of concurrence and adds, “Why’d you think the Kid chose to fly instead of hitchin’ a ride?”

Together, the pair of you crane your necks back to try and spot the little mess of tar-black feathers zooming through the crimson skies overhead, sensibly keeping well above the swamp and all the horrors that might dwell within it.

“Well, if I had wings, I’d probably fly too,” you huff wistfully, “Save you having to haul me through this shit, at least.”

“Yeah, wouldn't that be nice,” he mutters.

Chewing on your lip, you dare to ask, “... Aren't I getting heavy?”

“Oh yeah. You’re a lump,” he pretends to complain, letting his shoulders slouch an inch or two under your weight, just enough for you to feel them droop.

If you weren’t so tired, you might have aimed a swat at the back of his distended skull. “Seriously,” you remind him as you rest your cheek against the Hermit’s neck and gaze sleepily out at the foliage inching by, “if you need to put me down-“

“-No! No, uh…” he cuts in a little too quickly, trying to cover the blunder by clearing his throat, mindful of how his grip has tightened around your knees, “You’re fine. Besides, there’s some higher ground nearby where we can set up camp. Won’t take long to reach it.”

“Mmm. Okay,” you yawn, nestling yourself closer by crossing your ankles over each other in front of his stomach and folding your arms around his neck, still conscious enough not to squeeze the air from Pseudo’s throat. You can’t imagine he’d appreciate that.

Perhaps if you were just a little more aware however, you’d notice that the Hermit’s gentle breathing stutters to a halt when you press in close, and his movements through the water pause for all of a second before they start up again. You might even have caught the rust-coloured flush that creeps up the base of his neck to settle in the tips of his ears, warming them further in the humid air.

Saberhorn’s not just a rhinoceros beetle, he’s a European Rhinoceros Beetle. He also has a pair of little insect arms that he can’t really use—one is missing a hand.

What the fuck is Shadowraker? Raspy Cricket.

Clampdown’s a fiddler crab. It just fits.

Grimlock’s a giganotosaurus now

Razorpaw’s a fossa (and swelter and glacius are lemurs)

Logically Psuedo would be a cuttlefish or orchid mantis… but like… Earwig…

Quillfire is a North American Porcupine (no design changes)

Scatterspike is a Crested Porcupine (quills make a mohawk on her head and back)

Crazybolt is a bearded dragon

Slicedice is a monitor

Flamesnort is an armadillo girdled lizard

I’m making Drift a triplechanging beetle. Deadlock was a beetle. Drift avoids transforming into his original alt mode at all costs. The tip of his horn is the same as his crest.

New Vertebreak design! (More snake-like features. Same body type. Slit pupils, forked tongue, more distinguished fangs rather than a mouthful of sharp teeth. Actual hands/arms! Has a built-in backpack-type thing that opens and has his original arms, letting him have more hands to work with.