Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 14

Every Dredge Aberration (2023), Part 14

Collapsed Viperfish

Encyclopedia #157

Aberrant form of viperfish

Description:

A rejection of the light - or a return to the ways of the deep?

Comment: Well then. I was content to assume the former on my own. After all, many deep-dwelling fish can endure a horrific strain from a quick ascension to the surface, but no, I was denied that peace of mind by the second half of the description. It is harsher learning that to some, the Deep’s ways are a full-body prolapse.

How to catch: Much the same as the previous entry. Abyssal rod, open sea. Simple enough.

Skeletal Moonfish

Encyclopedia #158

Aberrant form of moonfish

Description:

Chittering bones still operate a ghostly body impossibly devoid of organs.

Comment: And yet they stay bound in a new ghostly skin. Imagine if the organs were all unharmed, merely now transparent to the eye. Or don’t, the fish is every bit the same seeming abomination.

How to catch: I admit with no reservation that this (and the one below) is a fish I stooped to baiting out and using atrophy for over scouring for many natural spawn points. They aren’t impossible to find, just few and far between, and especially tricky to cast in. See, moonfish are one of the more dangerous quarries to seek, combining the fact that they are strictly nocturnal and only found in the open ocean. An underwhelming challenge for the experienced angler, it still remains hazardous to linger so far out in the night’s fog if you consider yourself still wet behind the ears in this place. Mechanically, you’ll only need an oceanic rod to pull them up. Keep your wits about you and your lights on.

Beaked Moonfish

Encyclopedia #159

Aberrant form of moonfish

Description:

A rocky body that bears the scars and scratches of things from below. A crushing beak, a tool of its own deep terror.

Comment: Letting you know that the maximum size of this specimen can top out at about a meter and a half long. It speaks volumes to the strength of this animal to be able to swim on with all the added weight.

How to catch: ^^^

Congealed Rattail

Encyclopedia #160

Aberrant form of

Description:

The flesh of this deep dweller has turned to a thick ooze, secreting an oily gel that covers its entire body.

Comment: Probably with the texture of hagfish slime. A revolting change, but one that cold serve a new survival advantage against predation. Except from us, of course.

How to catch: Drag them forth from the very deepest corners of the wild sea. This creature knows nothing but the pitch black of the hadal zone.

Charred Sunfish

Encyclopedia #161

Aberrant form of

Description:

Scales chipped and flaking, its crackling body is hot to the touch.

Comment: That’s a crispy pancake right there. Does the deep burn? Perhaps this is a similar case to the ailment of aberrant tarpons we saw before in the twisted strand. Sometimes their boons make the kiss of the sun… unwelcoming to their new bodies. A common mola would frequently bask at the surface as a natural behavior, and such habits may die hard.

How to catch: True to name, the ocean sunfish prefers the open waters, and sunlight. All you will need is an oceanic rod and definitely your spyglass to track a good spot down.

Glaring Sunfish

Encyclopedia #162

Aberrant form of ocean sunfish

Description:

Ocular tongues watch from socketed mouths. Each offers its own form of deep pity.

Comment: It’s like looking into the face of an angel… an emissary of the fathomless, gazing with sympathy to the unworthy. Why? Because they’ve seen what’s coming.

How to catch: ^^^

Zim being ate but in the manner of a rat infected with toxoplasmosis being eaten by a street cat that’s missing half an ear

Okay but the internal dynamics of Zib as a fusion are a fantastic thing to think about because this beautiful paradoxical cross-ways power imbalance in which Zim is both a helpless captive in Dib's mind and an overpowering, corrupting influence, all at the same time

That’s wonderful to hear because I took more pics of that fella at the time

We literally didn’t know what robber flies were until encountering it so imagine a whole room of professional skeeter deleters in an enthralled circle around this bug. Obligatory PS to followers in case they find one of these: they can apparently bite. Really painfully. I didn’t know at the time and was either lucky or very unthreatening to the critter that it let me handle it like this. They’re extremely cool predators and kind of like bug vampires, catching prey mid-air and literally hanging from a perch to drink them like a spider.

Also huge thanks to @jack-of-all-inverts for letting me know that stag was in fact Lucanus capreolus

Other job-related honorable mentions:

Two lined spittlebug

European hornet

grasshopper sitting on a coworker

Barn spider

Annnnnnnd this thing

Thought @onenicebugperday would appreciate this but so I had been working as a pest control technician for mosquitoes over last summer. Obvs that much time outdoors lets you come across a lot of critters, and I decided since i haven’t had that job anymore since November it’d be fun to put together a little highlight reel of the other bugs I came across on the clock.

First off we got an impressive katydid

A quite photogenic snail

My favorite local wasp species, a cicada killer

A much more common and large red wasp

Local hanging thief. Absolutely badass looking robber fly who somehow got into the office building

Another robber fly encounter, this one was busy having a snack on a red wasp it has caught

BMSB that I would usually not like to see, but this one was literally in the middle of molting into the adult form and I loved how it looked like a forbidden peppermint

What I am going to guess is a very handsome stag

And of course, my actual target. Mosquitoes are certainly no uncommon sight but I managed to catch this one freshly emerged out of the pupa and that’s kinda neat

(Asian tiger to be specific, not native here but they sure be flourishing)

*coughs * aHEM…

It’s not “if GIR had a gun” it’s “if it ever occurred to GIR to use the city-leveling arsenal he already possesses outside of brief threats in duty mode”

To anyone in here thinking that Zim would try to wrestle away a glock from GIR, the show itself has several moments of the exact opposite happening, in fact: Zim trying to upgrade GIR’s military capabilities only for the little guy to immediately disarm himself in favor of nonsense like filling his jet thrusters with tuna fish. GIR is violent and dangerous not in a “toddler wielding a gun” sense but in a “toddler putting every small animal or strange object it finds in its mouth” sense. And in the case of GIR “getting a gun” as in gaining the motivation and competence to actually those devices on Zim or any other character in the show, we had “GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff”, and thankfully the series survived it.

Zim, GIR, and Minimoose all have weapons practically stitched into them that could probably vaporize you in an instant, stuff that would put any Earth arsenal to shame. What they don’t have is the competence to wield them well.

[Image ID: A book next to a significantly larger book. The first book is labelled “Invader Zim”. The second is labelled “Invader Zim if GIR had a gun”. A small section of the second book’s pages are shaded blue and the rest is shaded red. There’s a colour code guide at the bottom, showing that the small blue section represents “conquering the Earth” and the big red section represents “trying to get the gun off GIR”. End ID]

Dib idly humming Flibba Dibba Hoinka Smeedge (it’s still stuck in his head from the whole Florpus adventure) at the Skool and Zim groaning when he recognizes the tune. Shouts at him to cut it out immediately. Turns out at some point that song was basically the space equivalent of “Friday” or “What Does the Fox Say” and he could never stand it. The lyrics are also absurdly vulgar in another language.

There’s no weirdness he could stoop to make himself suspicious of being anything but what they already see: the bizarre foreign kid who says or does out of pocket shit sometimes because he’s just like that™

It’s the moment you realize that, to the rest of the Skool children, Zim is their very own Rolf.

That’s insanely funny.

yeah it sucks that all the kids in dib’s class are mean to him but imagine if there was a kid with a skin condition in your class and some other kid tried to beat the shit out of him for it daily… id be mean to him too