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punksarahreese · 3 years

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Nature | Undertow

Nosdecember day 16 | @neworleansspecial

Marine biologist!Sarah, Selkie!Ava; Sarah goes down to the beach one sunny morning and runs into an unexpected issue

***

“Crockett?”

Sarah emerged from her room, rashguard half pulled down over her swim top, looking for her roommate. The man in question just laughed at her struggle, setting down his coffee cup to help her before she even had a chance to ask. The back of the spandex top had gotten twisted, which was almost impossible to fix by herself; especially when the heat of the summer day already had Sarah sweating.

“What would you do without me?” Crockett teased as he gave the blue material one last tug to make sure it covered Sarah’s back completely. She just rolled her eyes, still thanking him for his help, and gave him a nudge with her shoulder.

“Coming down to the water with me?”

“Can’t,” he replied and passed her a bottle of sunscreen off the top of the cupboard, “Doctor Nkosi wants me to go monitor the African penguins today since their main keeper is out.”

“Have fun with that,” Sarah laughed, knowing the research facility’s resident penguins could be a hassle. Most were there for rehabilitation, save for a one footed female and her mate who couldn’t be released due to safety concerns. They had a habit of chasing the staff around their area or trying to woo them rocks and nests. There was one penguin in particular who loved Crockett, always trying to drag him to a new nesting area she made. They were funny birds to say the least, but neither of their areas of interest when it came to sea life.

“Make sure you don’t stay out all day,” Crockett had slipped into his room to change and spoke a bit louder to be heard through the door, “and take some water, the last thing I need is you passing out from dehydration in the ocean.”

“I’ll be fine, Crockett,” Sarah still did grab a couple bottles of water out of the fridge, shoving them haphazardly into her backpack. The thing was waterproof, for obvious reasons, but Sarah still grabbed a plastic bag to put her phone in. Better safe than sorry, after all. She also added a tupperware in case she found any shells or specimens while out on the water. She was just going mostly for fun but work often found its way into her daily life anyway.

“It’s your turn to cook dinner tonight!” Crockett called, his only reply being a laugh from Sarah and the click of the screen door shutting.

Sarah first made a stop at her turtle nests, keeping her distance at first to ensure she didn’t upset any mamas who may be around. She peeked in the one dune, smiling when she saw there must be over a hundred eggs. Though she knew some wouldn’t hatch, she was excited to see the ones that did later in the summer. Leatherback sea turtles were such an interesting species so Sarah was grateful she would be able to witness their hatching.

She had her surfboard under one arm, not intending to surf but bringing it just in case. The waves were a bit too small that day and Sarah still wasn’t very confident on waves anyway. She liked to sit on the board though, as it gave her a chance to be in the deeper water without having to use as much strength to stay afloat.

She left her bag and towel on the rocks, where she knew she could see it from the water. There weren't many people around anyway and she wasn’t too worried about her stuff being stolen this close to the house. The water was cold, biting at her small amount of exposed skin and making Sarah glad she put on her rashguard that morning. With the leash of her board attached to her right ankle, Sarah waded out into the water until she reached the point where she could no longer touch the ocean floor. She was up to her neck in the salty water by the time she got the courage to dunk her head under, knowing she wouldn’t adjust to the temperature until she acclimated her whole body.

Resurfacing, Sarah pushed back the damp strands of hair that had begun to escape from her braid. The cool water was a welcomed escape from the harsh heat of the late morning sun, which had been the main cause of the week’s ridiculous humidity. South Africa was certainly a different climate than Chicago, especially considering it would be snowing and below thirty degrees back home. One thing Sarah had yet to adjust to was the different hemispheres, since the opposite seasons certainly made summer in December a confusing feat.

After hoisting herself up, Sarah took a moment to catch her balance. Once comfortably straddling the polystyrene board, she watched nature passing her by. There wasn’t anything nearby, obviously, since her venturing out into the deep water had scared away even the most adventurous fish. Still, there were birds roosting on the edge of the cliffs and she could see a blue crane preening on a rock up ahead, its long neck bending with ease. The water reflected the blue sky in a beautiful way, clear enough that Sarah had a pretty good visual of the brightly coloured fish swimming amongst the coral. This was her safe place, which felt more like home than any house or apartment ever had. The warmth of the sun drying her hair, the sound of waves crashing against the rocks; this was peace.

Sarah spotted a pod of seals, ones she often saw basking on the shorter rock formations along the cliffs. She assumed they were in the middle of pupping season, as she saw a couple tinier seals hopping around after the biggest females. Though they weren’t her creature of major interest, Sarah had become rather fond of this pod. They were amusing to watch and she adored the inquisitive dark eyes that would sometimes lock on her from across the beach. She never got too close, though there were a few seals who didn’t seem very afraid of her.

She was watching them from afar, smiling when a pup stumbled clumsily into the water. Seals were definitely not the most graceful creatures but they sure were cute. Sarah probably should have paid more attention to whatever brushed against her ankle but in her mind she just thought it was her surfboard leash moving with the current. A harsher nudge to her knee, tough whiskers poking at her skin, was what got her attention. However, before she could even think of looking down, her board was being tipped over completely.

Sarah was quick to hold her breath, though too startled to close her eyes underwater. Through the blurriness caused by the salty water, she caught a glimpse of a silvery tail flicking past. Heart beating like crazy, she scrambled to grab her board, using it to pull herself back up. By the time she had resurfaced, she couldn’t see whatever had knocked her over but she had a feeling it had been on purpose. It didn’t feel malicious, obviously because she hadn’t been attacked, but the whole situation was odd. She glanced back over at the rocks, catching sight of a familiar grey flipper popping up from the water to tug its body onto a shallow rock.

Sarah watched idly, trying to process what had just happened. It was almost undoubtedly the seal that was very unafraid of her, one that was more grey than the usual warm brown pelts of the cape seals in the pod. She was the only creature in sight with a grey tail, after all, so Sarah had to assume that was the culprit. She didn’t understand, though. Seals weren’t usually so daring around humans. That, paired with her appearance and lack of fear, confused Sarah greatly.

She would have to talk to Crockett about this. Since his research was on the intelligence of marine animals, maybe her roommate would have some logical explanation for this behaviour.

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spectacledraws · 2 years

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Mike looks so polite I can't believe THIS is who messed up spamton.... how are they the same person

YEAH I can’t really decide what my fav interpretation of the sequence of events is, mostly bc it’s confusing to me and it’s all just speculation anyway lol, can’t really make much of a “theory” bc the existence of mike is an unconfirmed theory in the first place 😋. So this is basically like.. a headcanon kind of.. But maybe gaster/knight/whatever contacted spamton and connected him to mike.. so it was kinda both influencing him 👻.. gaster corrupting him into the creature we know and love, and mike just inflating his ego a bit too much

ANYWAY that doesn’t mean mike is totally.. innocent..👁👁 sometimes he’s polite.. and sometimes.. not….. I’m just sayin spamton possibly got some of his “cutthroat” tendencies from an old master

I think it would be cute and interesting if he’s real friendly to kris and toriel bc of the personal nature of the dark worlds location. Like what if a home dark world has a totally different dynamic than a public place like the classroom/computer lab. Some kind of disagreement would happen for him to be a boss at the end 😅 but he’s not a totally bad guy, kinda like queen. so he can go live in castle town. the end ✌️😋 he’s a polite guy who is just a little desperate for. someone. anyone. To find him in the dark after being unplugged for so long 😐

#ask #tw hypnosis #??? I’m sure that’s a thing I guess I better tag it #I dunno what’s goin onnnn #I mean I was like why would gaster just help this random virtual guy become a big shot for no reason and then abandon him #but it might have been some kind of interesting science experiment.. can an email guy become a tv car salesman? let’s find out #or gaster minored in media marketing in college and was like yeah no problem I studied this #that’s hilarious #slight fandom oc infodump alert #im constantly too embarrassed to share about my ocs and also constantly foaming at the mouth to share about my ocs #he definitely would host Shark Tank tho look it up #I’m aware that he could just be an extended mike ditka joke #I saw a football commercial recently and mike ditka was in it and I was like YOU!!!#I’m not tagging main I’m too shy #these tags are getting long #how y’all doin. I’m pretty ok. mondays huh

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sleepless-in-starbucks · 5 years

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Earth, Pluto, and Sombrero Galaxy for the space asks ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥

Earth- Where’s your home?Because I like to be a Vague Shit I’mma answer with America. As soon as I can flee tho it’ll be Canada or somewhere fun.

Pluto- What time is it right now where you are?Hmmmm Triple Kiss I feel like you’re looking to tell me it’s bedtime again hmmmm. But for you’re information it’s about six thirty (by the time I finished the list tho it’s now like. eight thirty ish)

Sombrero Galaxy: Do you have a crush right now?Laughs in aroI do have several platonic crushes/squishes if that’s what you meant tho. And I am treating them just like one should treat crushes: telling no one and never facing my feelings. I’m good at this alright.

And idk if you saw the tags or not but you fell within the 90% chance of getting space Remy ranting because damnit I love him. In this case it’s more like... sneak peak at an idea for a fic I might write one day in the distant future of whenever school stops hating me though.

So it’s losleep because I’m predictable af

Remy who’s gone most of his life slowly having the life stomped out of him

He’s always loved space but no one wanted to listen

Like. Ever.

His rants got shorter and shorter until they just stopped happening

He started wearing his sunglasses both to hide his excitement when someone else starting talking about space (so he wouldn’t get called out or mocked) and to hide his hurt when he was mockingly called ‘starboy’(If anyone had meant it nicely, he would have loved that nickname)

He switched his constellation covered leather jacket for a plain one

By the time he made it to high school he was a whole different person

Dead inside, dead outside, missed half his classes (but still passed them all), sarcastic and generally considered the most infamous bad boy in the school

Logan of course wants nothing to do with him

Remy’s a mess, Logan’s not, and ap courses are hard enough without a bad influence

Remy doesn’t have the zeal or care to chase Logan in this one (which given my love of flirty Remy is so crazy, I know

)But a biology trip to an aquarium ends up with them as bus buddies

Logan expected to hate it but Remy’s normally quiet unless you give him something to sass so the ride there is surprisingly peacefully

And when they get there Remy lets Logan go wherever he wants and look at whatever (Remy mostly came on the trip because the teacher said it was mandatory to passing and he forgot to call in sick the morning of)Logan starts out just looking at the exhibits, pointing out a few facts

Remy doesn’t seem the most interested in what he’s saying, but sometimes his mouth will tip upwards just a little or an eyebrow raise will pass his shades

And Logan takes that positively and slowly but surely starts talking more and more and longer and longer until he finds one sign talking about sharks and just absolutely rants about all the sharks he can name, excitedly, making connections haphazardly as he jumps between species

Remy’s smile is nearly a grin at this point and damnit it’s a good thing he’s wearing sunglasses because the amount of pure adoration in his eyes was rather embarrassing

Logan glances over at him halfway through his explanation of thresher sharks- one he had been happily going on with for a full five minutes- and his speech falters, much to Remy’s disappointment

He mumbles an apology and starts to head for a different exhibit when Remy stops him like ‘??? why you stop’

And Logan looks disappointed in himself when he says he didn’t realize he had been going on so long, he is sincerely sorry, especially since Remy’s stuck with him and hence can’t walk away from his infodumping

Remy’s just ‘honey why would I want to walk away’

Logan is Surprised because like poor Remy no one’s ever wanted to listen to him rant

He tries to call Remy on faking interest and then Remy recites several new shark facts right back at him so it seems he does care

Logan’s still on edge about ranting more in the aquarium but Remy pokes him a lot for more info, and they spend the entire ride back chatting about it (read: Remy slowly falls more and more in love with Logan while the nerd continues to explain every wonder of the deep sea he can come up with)

The school has a whole scandal over the smartest kid suddenly hanging out a lot with the bad boy

They wonder what they’re planning when really every lunch is just a chance to do more ocean info dumping

As they get closer, conversation shifts into more areas: into different sciences, into maths (most of which is Remy squinting suspiciously at Logan for understanding all the formulas), into talking about fashion and movies and everything under the sun, really, except space

Logan’s started to notice how Remy will pause whenever the topic moves to space before skillfully redirecting them into another topic

Logan knows that hesitation- the hesitation of wanting to say so much and fearing it’ll be shot down immediately, a sort of fear that’s not natural so much as it is taught, and he starts to wonder if Remy’s as uncaring as he likes to pretend he is

After all, Logan came to high school swearing off feelings in general, along with ocean talk- avoiding not only a specific type of ridicule but avoiding getting hurt by any insults

It’s not that far of a stretch to assume Remy did something similar, just in a different way

So Logan, using his Big Brain suggests that one of their study dates (yeah they started having study dates a while ago. techincally they’re not dating, just studying/chatting but like,,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah) happens closer to night, sprouting some mostly bs about the brain absorbing more information at night

Remy doesn’t see anything coming so he agrees

They start off studying in Logan’s house but then Logan says he needs a break and starts to head outside

Remy’s confused as to why he’s heading outside but Logan says he likes to breathe the fresh air

When Remy questions why Logan needs to breathe the fresh air on the roof of his house Logan says he likes the height

Remy just shrugs it off and follows him because a) he’s not expecting a trap and b) Logan’s cute he wants to follow him alright

Logan, beautiful smart magnificent Logan, starts casually talking about the stars

He doesn’t know a lot about them, he notes, and then points at a random one and casually wonders out loud about what it’s named

Remy has an answer suspiciously quickly (normally he’d be more reserved but, and I will continue to say this, Logan a Cutie. he wants to impress him)

Logan slowly lures him deeper into the trap by starting with praise (’I didn’t know that. thank you for telling me.’) and follow-up questions (’what’s that one next to it?’ ‘is it a part of any major constellations?’)Remy slowly but surely gets more into it, short one-word explanations morphing into descriptions that morph into histories and exact chemical compositions (or at least what they’re believed to be) and ages and more

At some point he took his sunglasses off to see better and Logan could not be more in love

His eyes are literally sparkling, and now that Logan can see his eyes he sees they’re coffee brown with golden specks like the stars are literally in his eyes, which is a rather romantic comparison coming from Logan, but he’s pretty sure it’s just the truth

Remy’s never been as alive as he is in that moment, and Logan wants the moment to never end, to watch Remy continue to point and gesture and explain, jumping between history and mythology and science, and Logan’s suddenly unsure why he ever questioned Remy’s ability to do so well in school- he’s just always been hiding his reasons for knowing so much

Exactly like Logan did, he glances over for a moment, and Logan was ready to faint at the utter joy on his face, and ready to cry at how quickly it died as Remy shut his mouth like a steel trap

His apology is brief, just a tough ‘sorry’ followed by a ‘we should probably get back to studying...’He tries to leave and Logan grabs his arm before he can, getting him a confused stare that’s both hopeful and pained

Logan askes why he stopped

Remy says something about boring Logan/getting in the way of study time/other miscellaneous bs

And Logan just goes ‘I don’t think you could ever bore me. Especially not with such an interesting topic. And one you enjoy so thoroughly’

Remy’s highkey ‘excuse me lies are mean’

‘good thing I’m not lying then’

Remy: :O

Remy’s further attempts to avoid the issue eventually lead to Logan just stating the obvious of ‘you listened to me infodump about the ocean why can’t I listen to you infodump about the universe’

‘this is different’

‘I find that doubtful’

‘the ocean is really interesting, who wouldn’t want to listen to a rant about it- and hey you looked so cute and happy to, I mean it would be criminal not to listen-’

‘the universe is just as interesting as the oceans, arguably more so. and the way you phrase that, as if you are not just as cute and happy- unarguably more so- is quite misleading’

Remy’s been minorly murdered by both genuine interest in his interest and also that compliment

He finally mutters something about starboy (’but I’m just starboy...’)

Logan’s Confusion and when Remy mumbles how that’s what all the middle school classmates called him he’s minorly (read: MAJORLY) furious

Like yeah he went through the same thing but doing this to Remy ??? illegal

He says so

Remy scoffs

Logan says so again, but with more feeling

Remy scoffs again but with less feeling. He mentions, offhandedly, that is wasn’t really that bad of a nickname- it was the venom everyone had in their tone when they said it that made it awful

Logan Sees An Opening And Makes His Move

He scoots closer to Remy and gently cups his face and turns him to look at him, and softly, so softly, a whisper in the night, lost as quickly as a speck of sand from the top to the bottom of the hourglass in the light wind, he says,

‘then let’s lose the venom’ quietly quietly ‘and you can be my starboy’ a promise, a lovely promise, lovelier than any promise Remy has heard before, so sincere, so perfect, and sworn beneath a starry sky of cloudless night, where every star will hold that promise and watch it too completion, galaxies swirling in beautiful normality as they inch closer and closer like stars too close and spiraling towards each other until they meet, and instead of the vast darkness of a black hole forming something so bright it would sear your eyes right out of your face explodes into existence instead

A lovely night to fall in love and be loved for all of you, even the bits the world tried to force you to hide

#just had to reformat that whole thing #tumblr stop being dumb challenge #also sry #I rant too much I know #I just love the idea alright #and I will write it all #....eventually #the cryptid speaks #the cryptid answers #triple kiss anon #ts logan #ts sleep #losleep #write losleep cowards

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