Au~u~dience...Hi. I decided to give my characters a day off and take a look behind the scenes, talk about the lore of this universe. No quality, no hard thinking for me. Just a casual stream of info. If you're not interested in lore and just want to see Rick finally [spoilers], then...heh. Have some patience.

Let's start with something recent: Inkopolis Plaza. You're gonna love it. Once upon a time it was a popular place, a shining magnet for inklings and sealings with ambitions. Turf War HQ, best shops to satisfy the need of every squid from the bottom to the top of freshness level: clothing, footwear and accessories for fashion and battle; weapons and training and - of course - the famous perk rolling urchin. But around 6-8 years ago Inkopolis Square was built and Turf War HQ was relocated. Plaza turned into the ghost town. Shopkeepers left with no profit to make. But the place began to attract different kinds of fish. Kids with tough life, banned from turf; looking for drugs or places to be.

Nowadays this place is a heaven for every troubled teen and adult rejected by society - a motherfucking flux of anarchy with all kinds of sexual, brutal or even narcotic adventures. Want some easy sex and new feeling in bed? Welcome to Plaza! Want to reach the sun and talk to rainbow dragons? Welcome to Plaza? Wanna get your hands or eyes get soaked in blood?! In that case Plaza wants to know your location. Illegal games/ sports like gladiator arena, battle royale Turf War with no respawns...or even 'Kukushka'(worse than Russian Roulette. Just google 'Kukushka - officers game'). Why is this place still up and running? It's simple - money. Fish with ambitions, money and power are interested in this place existing in its current form. No law, no restriction, gangs and posising freedom. Be aware of gangs tho. They're dangerous.

Couple of words about residents of this fishy ghetto: Mostly inklings, in some cases raylings, urchins. Jellyfishes appear only on special occasions like making a deal or having some important meeting. There are also groups of sharklings, acting like a neutral gang, but we'll get to them in a minute. Atmosphere of racism and intolerance makes Plaza extra dangerous for octolings to visit or even be near that damn place. If you're eight limb ink sucker like Rick and don't want to get in trouble, then Plaza is off the limits of ya, squiddo.

And now let's talk about the elephant in the room, or rather shark in the room. Sharklings. Imagine what would happen if you combine stereotypes about bodybuilders with mako shark, human and bitch slap them into the evolution pit. And then feed resulting abomination with energy drinks. I'll give you a hint - you'll get sharklings. And boy oh boy, evolution did a number on those bastards. Big bad mako sharks are gone. Another not so common type of fish in this city of dreams. Grey skin with white line on the middle, shark teeth, average growth of 2 meters, beefed up body of bodybuilder and a gang of small tails with properties of tentacles. There is supposed to be a joke about hentai, but their hair looks more like a plush toy.

There's one stereotype about sharklings to note: 'Shark sleep only in a coffin'. Too lazy to stay in one place. Is it a part of the shark legacy or evolution to generously shove a nuclear plant down their ass upon birth? Some even think they bleed with caffeine. Spoiler alert - they don't. One can see untamed energy in their eyes with a wide creeping smile. Not many of them live in Inkopolis, but they're often seen in Plaza putting their energy to 'use'.

I dunno why, but Greeks were the source of inspiration for them. All this addiction to sport and physical activities both good and bad; culture builds around beauty of the body and strength. Ironically for species that evolved from cold blooded sharks they have a hot, boiling character. Call one of them weak and you might start digging your own grave. Respect is their currency and they value that. Want their respect? Show them that you're not the one to fuck or be good at physical sport with and they'll respect you despite your race.

Inklings and octolings instinctively seek violence which is why they seem obsessed with Turf War. After all this is a result of their social evolution, a way to blow off some steam and solve conflicts. Don't mention the Great Turf War though, consequences of that 100 years old mess still remain fresh in the minds of the older generation and affect modern life. Those who don't play Turf are more likely to be a mean jackass and have social problems. And before you point out on Helena - her backstory will be told soon. I'm not gonna talk about how inklings like to stay up at night, have fun and sleep all morning. That stuff is unchanged. Do they die in water? Cod, who gave you that idea, Nintendo?! Unless water is filled with toxic waste or salt nothing will happen. They can swim, take shower, dive in and do all kinds of things normal human beings can do in H2O.

And now the most important stuff: the world after the year 2064. What happened to our dirty blue platen after all those horrible events like Chernobyl's Crimson Forest in 2020, Equestrian conflict in 2034 aka the first Syndicate war, China's catastrophe in 2040 and other stuff that I should cover in my original books...Unless you read this in future and you already know what happened….Ahem!

'Winter is coming' said no sealing ever, cus they never saw snow to begin with! Life is everlasting summer with a 25 hours day cycle; most of modern civilization is located in Japan islands archipelago and Asia's coastline near the Sea of Okhotsk and Japanese Sea. Most of the planet is in equatorial zones or nearby. Don't forget about shifts in tectonic plates over 12 millenia. North America has gone Rapture and went underwater. Eurasia, well….uh. East side is a fucking desert. Everything from the Ural mountains to the Great Chinese Wall is buried in dust and sand. No desert plants or wildlife, no ruins or any echoes of civilization. Nothing but sand. No wonder why rising sea level caused a war between races for inhabited land.

Africa merged with South America and some islands. Entire continent and water territories around it are overpopulated by salmonds. Plus they're fully colonized Australia. You might want to hear about Salmons and how different they're from vanilla's squid eating jackass we kill for their eggs aka power source. GJ Nintendo, make us assist with enforced child slavery even before their birth.

In my world they're a race of isolated savages with pretty solid infrastructure, overpopulation problems and religion designed to solve that in quite a clever, yet immoral way - the 'Great Journey'. Every 70 or so years they declare a religious war with everyone else till their numbers fall low enough for stable existence. The goal is simple - capture more land with the max possible amount of friendly casualties. What's so terrifying about them, you ask? Imagine you have to fight seemingly endless hordes of sentient creatures. And they won't moan the fallen brothers and sisters you've killed. They won't feel pity towards you. They'll just wipe you out of existence and take your place. Military is always in conflict with them. At least there's one benefit in neverending meatgrinder between salmons and the world - their eggs. Expensive but really popular food products.

I should also mention evolution. How the hell did sea life manage to evolve to the level of humanity in just a couple of millenia?! Was it a natural or artificial process? The answer is 'yes'. It's complicated really. Remember I mentioned Crimson Forest(Mysterious mist that occupied reserve Red Forest(sometimes called Rusty Forest), an anomaly that affects the flow of time and bends reality around itself.) and 25 hours day cycle? Basically after the mysterious death of humanity a series of similar anomalies ravaged the earth, affencing time flow of everything in path. You can say sealife received a speed bost for horeshit knows how long. Why were humans in the underground weren't affected by it? Maybe they were, but they didn't notice any changes as they were too busy working on creating Tartar.

Last, but far from the least. Let's talk about YOU, my reader. I often ask for opinions, feedback, critique. Yet only a select few have enough BALLS to talk and help me out. You might think 'Meh, others will do it' or 'I'm bad at providing feedback'. Well, guess what? Others think the same and expect you to do their job. I'm not asking for something complex or ground breaking. Just write a couple of nice words, appreciate the writer for his hard work, tell him what you like/dislike about the part you've read and feel free to continue your life! It's that easy! And it has its effects. It's nice to see people care about my work, it motivates me to keep on going. And suggestions, pointing out things to improve - this is the ONLY way for writers to become better. Help me and I'll provide you with good stuff to read.

By~ the~ way. My eng is rusty, especially with grammar and tenses. And before posting for your eyes to see, each part requires a second opinion of a person I can trust. Someone, who сan unleash her private gang of parrots to go full grammar nazi on my 'creation' and then tell me how pathetic my current draft is (joking). Yep, it's her - Miss Lauren G. aka Isalover. Look at her, sitting disappointed by you for not respecting our hard work, drinking some expensive shit and waiting for Animal Crossing.