dean is literally making a pancake breakfast in the kitchen right now and he can see cas out the window, reading poetry while lounged in that crappy little rowboat floating around aimlessly on the water.
That I forgot to! Post! I think! Mostly drawn up in... October 2019; Anything related to housing drawn Literally Just Now
I had some Thoughts and Such about early Inkfish society a while back and started to draw them, and forgot about it pretty quickly. I do not have numbers but in general this is an era directly before Inklings and Octolings had made contact with each other. Both had developed the use of stone tools and similar building techniques independently, though Octolings had also been making some advances in pottery making that they later passed on to Inklings. I did not draw these tools because I burned out.
Under the cut is a really long rant with pictures about the details I had more ideas about, like Clothing, Housing, and Slight Ideas about early Inkling and Octoling social structure, under the cut to save ur dashboards:
Clothing
Typical Inkling clothing tended to be quite minimal, if they wore anything at all. Most clothing simply consisted of roughly woven plants, wrapped around the waist or made into a vest or cloak if the weather required some coverage from the sun. More than that as everyday clothes was a little bit of a luxury, seen in more larger tribes. Shoes and additional body coverings were used when going into heavily planted areas and wet shorelines. The most valuable clothing were full fish leather parkas and trousers, as fish leather is waterproof and can offer protection against rain, or allow coastal fishers to safely wade into the sea a little. There weren’t that many of them made because of how much work and fish it took to make them, so they were used sparingly and with great care. Even MORE valuable were clothing made from Salmonid leather, but Inklings did not usually specifically target Salmonids in search of their hides as it was deemed too high risk. Most Inklings during this era did not have much in the way of “cold weather” clothing, as their preferred range didn’t see that significant of a drop in temperature even in the winter. The best they usually had was adding plant fiber vests and trousers.
The baseline attire for most Octolings especially inland was a simple tunic (?) made of rough ramie cloth. They’re hand-woven, so they’re rather rough - Here’s a link to a recreation of the process I’m talking about, making small cord straps for demonstration purposes. They usually saved cloth making for the winter months, where they stayed holed up inside their homes all season. Leather made of fish and reptile skin was also used, but they were prioritized for use in footwear and water protection wear first. As they lived further north than Inklings, they did actually have cold weather attire. In the absence of mammals with warm fur that humans used to make clothes from, Octolings had to get a little more creative. To create winter coats, they took tighter-woven and layered ramie cloth, or if available, leather (usually reptile or fish derived), and stuffed them with down feathers plucked from their meals. Some experimented with sewing in dedicated pockets on the inside of the coats to place heated rocks inside so that they could stay out in the cold longer if they needed to for emergencies. They made bedding and blankets in a similar fashion.
Housing
Caves were highly valued as homes, but as populations increased and people traveled for new territory it became more common to build homes themselves. In both Inklings and Octolings, dugout/pit type homes were pretty standard, though there were variations in the construction.
This type of building was commonly built by Inklings if they could find level ground to build on. These were shallow, wide holes with relatively low and level roofs, often with a pit dug around the entrance to prevent rainwater from entering the home. They didn’t usually make fires inside these structures, so many houses did not have any major openings for smoke ventilation. They were Not very strong against strong storms, but such is squid life, I guess.
Digging into the sides of slopes were fairly common in both Inklings and Octolings. Inklings tended to dig shallower but more numerous holes to house multiple families within a small area. Octolings, who did not live in large communities, dug as deep as they were able to with the structure and ventilation in mind, in order to have Maximum Warmth during the winter months. Octolings burned fires inside their homes, so they tended to have higher ceilings and always had an opening somewhere to keep the smoke from suffocating them.
Deep vertical pit homes were built by Octolings, though they didn’t exactly prefer it. The roofs on their pit homes had to have a steeper slope in order to prevent snow from piling up during the winter and possibly causing it to collapse. It usually required help from neighbors to build as ancient Octolings preferred to live in smaller family units. (That probably led to some Neat Events and Cultural Stuff, but that’s a different rant)
There were other types of structures but these are the most standard and also I’m tired of drawing Architecture
Misc Stuff bc I don’t know how to organize the rest
Inklings formed larger multi-family tribes and divided up work among adult members. While the parents were expected to take the main responsibility for their own children, child rearing was still fairly communal and it wasn’t uncommon for larger tribes to have dedicated “babysitter” roles to take charge of the children. Youngsters weren’t explicitly asked to move out unless the territory was getting cramped, but many still tended to move to neighboring tribes.
Octolings on the other hand usually stuck to one family per territory, with the eldest surviving child inheriting the land (if more than one from the eldest clutch survived to adulthood, the clutchmates sorted out inheritance in their own way). They mostly kept to themselves for most of the year, and met up with neighbors (which tend to be close relatives anyways) to trade items, stories, and ask for help occasionally. Older teens/young adults moving out to start their own families were the absolutely most social folks around. There were expectations in place for youngsters passing through established territory, but they could usually expect some form of aid if asked for. Ancient Octolings weren’t hostile to strangers, they just didn’t like mingling All Of The Time like Inklings did.
Both Inklings and Octolings are carnivores, and (still) eat a mostly meat based diet. In ancient times before effective trade routes were established, those living near the ocean naturally depended more heavily on aquatic animals, while those living deeper inland subsisted mainly on birds and reptiles. In addition, Inklings and Octolings have enjoyed certain plant based foods as a treat throughout their existence. Inklings Fucking Love Fruit, but didn’t tend to eat much else plant wise. Octolings enjoyed fruits and berries as well, but they also went for the young shoots, leaves, stems, etc of certain plants during the spring, though possibly more for some ritual purpose than for the taste. They typically ground up these plants with stone tools to eat as a rough paste, as they have no teeth to chew and grind leaves with.
The study of the era of cultural exchange directly following this period had been obscured in awkward silence for the century after the Great War, but light is finally starting to be shed upon the subject once more. Pre-War material holds that when the two species started to meet, Inklings introduced domesticated pheasants to Octolings, and in turn Octolings taught Inklings how to make cloth and pottery. Agriculture was not practiced by either species until some time after early Inkling and Octoling societies had started intermingling, though there is evidence to suggest that both species had groups that had begun tending to existing patches of useful plants during this era. Pre-War consensus held that the development of "proper” agriculture was a direct result of coordinated cooperation between Inklings and Octolings.
As per usual, I do not know how to close this off. Thank u for reading this long ass thing
