i implore you all to look at the waterlogged project on inaturalist. check this shit out
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
So Xu Wu is one of the new cephalopod monsters but after closer examination it might not be a cephalopod and instead something else, but what exactly I don’t know.
Baby Xu and Nu and their eggs for comparison. Xu’s have little butt mouths but are otherwise just nubs with more nubs while Nu actually look like baby/flapjack octopus.
Cross section of Xu’s arm in comparison to a Nu arm and actual octopus arm and starfish arm.
And a look at the mantle, mouth (note that there isn’t a beak), and some kind of indent at the top of the head which could be an oriface? Something else to note is that the underside of the arms can “close” like a starfish and the tentacle tips can basically 3d print blades of hard dry mucus. So yeah Xu Wu looks like an octopus on the outside but under the hood it’s something else.
Meanwhile the only extremely weird thing about Nu anatomy wise is that the mantle is a little small and the siphon points backwards, but we can probably handwave that last one as not the end of the digestive tract being backwards but rather the siphon just kinda loops back 180 degrees. Also you never see under Nu’s mantle in the fight anyways so it’s probably not too terribly important a detail and just something the model designers did to make the job a little easier for the animation department (the cephalopod rig already pushes what the RE engine can do).
Possible explanation for Xu’s oddities hidden below because story spoilers
There could be the possibility that the ancestors of Xu Wu got into some gene editing materials when moving to the ruins of Wyveria to eat their genetically amalgamated homunculi, thus supremely fucking them up.
1$ flea market score. Tiny glass 1960s perfume bottles. I love them.
Painting I did based on this poem :)
Got yur hat cowboyy!!
Let's munch with mama
in a moment, everything can change
Final/Part 4: Messing with straight hair!
Cool goat.
('tis a reference)