#horrible beast

[dinosaurkitkatz]

Horrible beast!!

[ghostopossumlives]

Fingerfishers are a species found on an unclaimed mossrock planet in the Spickle-Neemon territories. (This planet has been visited and noted by many pathfinding expeditions, but is away from Hopping paths and has not displayed any recourses accessible or plentiful enough to have its ownership debated) The Fingerfishers are the most noteworthy thing on the planet due to their unusual and frightening behavior.

A Fingerfisher's body is composed of cells with tough walls, giving it a hard green-wood texture. It has a stiff, sturdy pill-shaped body, from which extend six stiff booms connected on ball joints. The middle four booms are tipped by a flat, circular bulb from which branch four "fingers" each. These vaguely resemble a fingered hand like those found in the many Progenitor species, but Fingerfishers are unrelated to Progenitors and the structure is similarly unrelated. These contain a complex series of valves that pneumatically operate the "fingers". The Fingerfisher has muscle cells in the rest of its body, but the fingers are hollow and fully pneumatic, allowing for alarming speed with which to navigate their jungle environment and spear prey of their sharp fingertips. The air used for the fingers is generated by powerful muscular organs within the center body that store enormous amounts of pressure. When severely injured in the body, Fingerfishers may destructively explode. There is one eyewitness account of a Fingerfisher exploding for seemingly no reason, though there is not enough information to determine whether this was the result of an unseen injury or disease, a symptom of severe stress or exertion, the culmination of a congenital defect, or a deliberate action of incomprehensible motivation.

The booms at the front and back of the body hold the cephalic and reproductive bulbs, which externally appear rather similar, but are internally very different.

The cephalic bulb has four shiny black eyes that protrude high out of the skin when active, but retract deep into their slits when the Fingerfisher is asleep. The mouth is made up of two saw-like mandibles, normally concealed by a set of stiff fleshy lips. The saws have little mobility, and rather than snapping, they oscillate against each other rapidly to shave meat into ribbons and flakes. This allows the food to be more easily dissolved by enzymes secreted by the lips. Food has to be reduced to a liquid form to pass through the Fingerfisher's stiff narrow neck.

Fingerfishers primarily eat small swimming or flying creatures speared on their fingertips which can be quickly and completely gotten into their mouth, but will happily go after larger prey if they encounter it. Getting the food into their mouth quickly is important because of what I have alluded to, but not yet adequately explained about Fingerfishers. That being the incomprehensible mix of social and antisocial behaviors exhibited by the species.

Fingerfishers live in colonies of twenty to several hundred members, which is perplexing because they seem to be wildly antisocial creatures beside this fact. Fingerfishers will, whenever the opportunity arises, use their spears to steal food directly out of another Fingerfisher's mouth. They will attempt to parry their parasite's attacks, but neither will retaliate after the food has been consumed by someone, they will just resume hunting. It doesn't appear to be an act of resource sharing because they always resist the attacks, but it also has shown no signs of hierarchy, dominance, submission, or individual temperament being involved. They just all try to steal food from one another yet continue to remain together.

If a particularly large prey item is captured, the Fingerfisher will attempt to flee with its catch to hide in a tree or cave. If it fails in this, it will be lucky if it is able to eat a scrap of its catch when the prey is obliterated in the ensuing frenzy.

Fingerfishers do seem to be intelligent enough to understand the results of a frenzy and attempt to avoid it when hunting. A dramatic example of this was a Monkot spacer who, after their shuttle crashed and they were separated from their group overnight, accidentally walked into the midst of a sleeping Fingerfisher colony and survived despite encountering a Fingerfisher amongst them which was awake. We cannot assume the intentions and thoughts of non-speaking creatures, but according to the Monkot, the Fingerfisher stalked him through the sleeping colony, slowly, with their eyes locked to one another.

"It was clear that the same conclusion had been reached by both parties, though not a sound had been made. If Vel woke the sleeping monsters, Vel would be devoured by a hundred horrible mouths. However, if the beast woke the sleeping monsters, Vel would be devoured by a hundred horrible mouths, ninety-nine of them not its own. So, silently, slowly, the two creatures slinked through the roots, and branches, and fingers..."

This afforded the Monkot the opportunity to reach a small cave opening through which he was able to escape the encounter and later surface far from the predators.

Fingerfisher antisociality is not limited to stealing. They occasionally kill each other when irritated, and unlike most social species this doesn't impact other Fingerfishers in any observable way. An example was an instance when several Fingerfishers were perched around the opening of a cave from which a swarm of flying creatures would soon be exiting for the evening. One Fingerfisher was approached by another, they fenced for a moment during which the observer lost track of which had begun in what position, but the result was that one threw the other off of the cliff onto a rock far below, where it exploded. Remaining Fingerfishers carried on as if nothing had happened.

When s Fingerfisher dies, nothing is done with the corpse. It is simply ignored and stepped over by the other Fingerfishers. Given their other behaviors one might expect them to butcher and eat the body, but there has never been a single observed instance of Fingerfishers engaging in cannibalism. The body is always left to decompose where it fell undisturbed. Sufficiently large scavengers that approach are speared and eaten, but this does not appear to be an act of protecting the body, simply the Fingerfishers doing to the scavengers what they'll do to any creature.

Fingerfishers have no known vocalizations, but they do sometimes tap their hollow fingers together to make a wooden knocking sound. The meaning of this is undetermined.

On the rear boom of the Fingerfisher is the reproductive bulb. This body part contains a womb at the back of a flexible mouth. Fingerfisher genetics indicate they reproduce sexually and are cosexual, but no penis or testicle equivalent have ever been identified. The method by which gametes are introduced to the womb remains entirely unknown. When a Fingerfisher does become pregnant, the offspring develops in the womb until it becomes large and active enough to pry open the membrane that seals the reproductive mouth. The infant Fingerfisher spends a period of time during which it regularly escapes from the womb and attempts to wander it's environment and hunt worms and very small creatures.

During this time its fingers are encased in a protective membrane, and its body remains connected to a yoke with an orifice through which the mother's prehensile umbilical cord can reattach.

The baby constantly tries to escape from its womb, usually succeeding at night and when its mother is hunting. During this time it will try to hunt and steal food for itself, such as worms, but baby Fingerfishers are not exempt from the stealing, and adults, including its own mother, will try to steal any food it finds if they think it is a big enough snack for themselves. When the mother wakes up or is full, she will search for the baby and catch it with the reproductive mouth and reattach the umbilical tentacle. This continues until the baby gets strong enough to rip its fingers out of their bags, allowing it to stab at its mother and stop if from rewombing it.

After breaking their finger bags, the baby Fingerfisher will typically feed on worms and minnows. Consistently across studies, fingered baby Fingerfishers have been observed in shallow water spearing minnows while an adult Fingerfisher waits above them and spears any large fish that approach the baby. It is unclear if this is the adult teaching or protecting the baby, or if the adults are merely using their baby as bait.

Ghostopossumlives

[catschimericalcreations]

the Easter Bunny wishes you an Abominable Good Friday!

tip jar

[pinereport]

Comic page practice from a while ago!! :))

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

fuckin. ORANGE BOY update. i am so stressed i feel so bad. he’s been getting up by hopping up from the top of the neighbor’s fence to my second story windowsill, he took two thirds of a water spray bottle right to the face before he left. that cat was SOAKED. me yelling and hissing and clapping and shining a flashlight in his face and gently poking him with a broom did nothing but after the fiftieth spray of water in the face he decided to leave. i think i need bird spikes or something on that windowsill and i have to talk to my neighbors about blocking off the top of the fence. this is so fucking ridiculous.

[marxistmiku]

this is our daughter weeno who has every disease

[caretaker-au]

Even though the Horrible Beast was described with words instead of illustrations, this is the final concept for chapter 09. As you can see, we never put together a polished character sheet; it’s still pretty cobbled together!

[followthebluebell]

Waking up and choosing violence