Executive Director Kanaya’s Log - Update Summary and Vacation Plans

insightsfromagamer submitted:

Executive Director’s Log – April 11th, 2013

After the incident where our Aquarium mascot, John Egbert, accidentally met Vriska during a failed escape attempt, things have been relatively quiet here at the Aquarium. So, to keep things simple, here’s a quick run down of what’s been going on lately.

Aradia has made good friends with Feferi and will often come down and chat with her when on her breaks.

Equius seems to have taken a shine to her and tends to often break out of his tank in order to mingle with the other sea mammals who participate in the shows. He claims the practice Aradia gives the other animals is “Good Exercise”.

Thankfully he’s been spending a lot more time with Nepeta and a lot less time trying to break into the other sea mammal tanks recently.

Tavros has been keeping up his animal care duties just fine. He’s already planning a cake made of fish for Gamzee to celebrate his birthday coming up soon on April 20^th.

I’m sure Gamzee will be thrilled since he seems to have taken a liking to Tavros. Granted, he recently went around and gave all of us a big fat “Walrus Kiss” after seeing Aradia do something similar with the sea lions, but it was only with Tavros that he did it when he wasn’t in “Full-Walrus” form.

Tavros does not seem sure how he feels about that.

Sollux has been monitoring Feferi and Erifish’s health as well as assisting me in my Mertroll Experiments on myself.

He’s really quite fond of Feferi, and I think Feferi is quite fond of him as well. The jealousy on Erifish is extremely obvious.

I often get complaints from Sollux about how that “Mii2erable Liittle Ba2tard” is causing trouble for him in the lab. He did break a pipe after trying to do an escape attempt through the plumbing, only to fall asleep during the attempt which changed him back to his normal Mertroll form.

However, despite Sollux’s grumbling, I think he doesn’t really hate Erifish as much as he claims.

Karkat has been… well Karkat.

Everyone keeps telling me about how much he gripes and complains while on the job. Given the messes he sometimes has to clean up…

…I really can’t blame him.

Although his rantings and ravings are always worse whenever his older brother Kankri visits. Kankri usually works with our other branch that my sister, Porrim, overlooks. This is because that branch is located on the coast and since Kankri is part of the Coast Guard and a member of various Animal Protection Organizations, it’s easier for him to interact there than here.

But he still stops by regularly when he can in order to ensure that our treatment of the mertrolls is fair and that his little brother isn’t causing us too much trouble.  This often makes Karkat often threaten to quit since he considers Kankri to be an obnoxious boor.

Which he kind of is whenever he really gets talking.  I care about the health and well being of sea creatures just as much as the next person, but GOOD LORD!

Nepeta has been making the most of her season pass and VIP privileges that I gave her. She will often come and play with Equius, spend time with Feferi,

and sometimes volunteers to help Aradia or Tavros. It’s quite adorable actually. I’m glad that she’s been able to keep our secret and still be able to intermingle with the others so well. I just hope that she’s careful whenever she plays with Equius.

He doesn’t know his own strength sometimes.

I myself have taken a small step back from my mertroll experiments to give my body a chance to rest. The metamorphic process of going from a human to a mertroll and back again can cause a good amount of strain on the body. While being a mertroll in and of itself is not so much a strain, the constant “Shifting” from one form or another has shown to lead to diminishing nutrients in the body. Certain things like specific Vitamins and Minerals such as Vitamin D and Iron are “Burned Up” whenever a change is initiated. While it’s nothing too harmful at first, constantly changing back and forth can lead to a severe strain on the body, thus requiring it to recover and replenish the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients it lost. With a diet suggested by our head chef, Jane Crocker, I’ve been recover quite quickly and look forward to my next chance at continuing my experiments.

I have a vacation coming up soon and am eagerly looking forward to spending an extended amount of time in my Jellyfish Mertroll form.

In other news, Terezi has been doing an excellent job at keeping the peace here at the Aquarium.

Her primary responsibility as of late, whenever not working on other tasks, is ensuring that Vriska doesn’t try and cause any trouble. She will often spend time bantering back and forth with her at her tank which seems to pacify our resident Diving-Bell Spider Mertroll.

However, she also tends to get into arguments and bantering with Karkat too. It seems like she is always making an effort to connect with very unsocial people. I don’t know if I will ever understand why.

Vriska, oddly enough, has not made any more escape attempts since that one time she left her tank.

Thankfully, my suspicions were correct.  

Her underdeveloped spider-legs were not accustomed to life out of water, which made mobility very difficult for her under normal gravity.

Even so, she made it all the way to the employee locker room when she was found by John who thought she was another mascot worker.

Ever since he helped her get back to the tank, Vriska has been talking about him quite a bit. She keeps saying that she sees great potential in John and that we should promote him to something more than just a mascot so that he can spend more time around the lab.

Truthfully, I think she just wants to see him again. But maybe I might be able to find a way to arrange that?

Ever since we discovered that Equius doesn’t always stay in his dugong form,

it’s made life much more easier on all of us here as he is now causing less damage to his tank (and everything else) because of his remarkable strength.

(Me Especially)

Despite his brother Horuss trying to make something that can help keep his strength in check, Equius still continues to cause cracks in the walls by accident just because he is so ridiculously strong.

But thankfully, with him being preoccupied playing with Nepeta and spending time with Aradia, these instances are becoming less frequent.  The less damage he causes saves us quite a bit on maintenance bills.

Gamzee…

I really have no idea what he’s up to. Not even Feferi really understands why he does some of the things he does. He’s just tends to…

…“Clown Around” a lot.

I also think he’s been spying on me during my experiments.  

That or just staring blankly into space.  I can never tell.

Erifish has been shifting back and forth between his fish form and his original Manta Ray form much more often.

This appears to be due to the fact that he is gradually coming to terms with mingling with humans. From Sollux’s analysis, the cellular change that Erifish undergoes whenever he falls into a deep sleep is caused by him being “relaxed”. Whenever Erifish is extremely grouchy, high strung, or frustrated, he stays in his Erifish form.

But whenever he relaxes, calms down, and is content and peaceful, then he changes back to normal. He’s even woken up sometimes and stayed in his Manta Ray form for a little while.

However, as soon as he sees Sollux, he usually changes to Erifish almost instantly. Jealousy will do Eridan no favors.

Lastly, Feferi has been an absolute darling here at the Aquarium. She is very helpful, more than willing to talk, and her bubbly personality is so infectious that it makes everyone in the lab smile quite often.

She has expressed her concerns about her family back at the Mertroll kingdom somewhere in the South Pacific. She ran away from there because she did not want anything to do with her mother’s plans to make her the next Empress when she came of age. Her older sister, Meenah, was originally going to be the next in line, but she ran away as well long before Feferi did.

I’ve since discovered that Meenah has actually been hanging around our other branch where Porrim works and has actually gotten along quite well with my sister.  She also is friends with Vriska’s sister who is surprisingly not anywhere near as nasty when compared to Vriska.  

During my vacation, Feferi and I plan to visit them both.

And if we’re lucky, they just might be willing to take us to the Mertroll kingdom itself. It would be my first opportunity to try out my Mertroll Form in a non-controlled environment. It might also allow for a better chance at brokering peace between the Mertrolls and Humans. From Feferi’s description, most of the Mertrolls despise humans, especially the Empress. But if I can change into a mertroll and speak directly with her, maybe I might be able to find a way to reason with her.

It’s a long shot, and could be dangerous, but if the opportunity to do so made itself available, then far be it from me to not take it!  And who knows?  Maybe if I’m able to progress far enough in my research, I might be able to bring some other staff members along and have them try a Mertroll form too.  Maybe.

I can not wait for my vacation to start.

Kanaya Maryam

Aquarium Executive Director