glarnboudin

[glarnboudin]

'Three gleaming orbs seem to gaze back from the unmistakable visage of the saddled triclops (Pseudoculocervus triops), a fairly common ungulope from the temperate grasslands and plains of South Ecatoria. But its unusual looks belie an even stranger truth: what appears to be a third "eye" in the males is actually a scent gland they use for marking their territory, which, during the breeding season becomes so engorged with musky secretions that it grows large and shiny to almost resemble an additional eye in the middle of its forehead. The size and prominence of the organ may also play a role in sexual selection, as it is the males with the largest and most prominent scent gland that attracts the most receptive females.

The local calliducyon societies that share its territory hold this animal to great cultural significance, seeing it as a symbol of wisdom and enlightenment. The emergence of its "third eye" is viewed as a sign of its supposed ability to see into the deeper realm of the spirits and forces that govern the world. As the males rub this scent gland onto rocks, logs and trees, leaving behind a pungent reddish stain, some legends describe the male triclops as being so horrified of its supernatural visions that it weeps tears of blood, also making it a symbolic allegory to one who learns an unpleasant truth.'

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[glarnboudin]

Okay but can we talk about the fucking A+ pun of 'crocodisle'?

At Sea Without a Map pt. 37

(damn, you guys wanted to talk to the croc even more than you wanted to fuck the fish!)

"Oh fuck," you say as the massive reptile's head emerges from the sand. Maybe it's a vain hope that this sea monster will be reasonable like Calibani, or maybe it's just your urge to be polite, but you stick your head out of the captain's cabin and shout, "Sorry, Mr. Alligator-"

"Crocodile," Calibani corrects you. "Only crocodiles have the snaggletooth smile - alligators have overbites."

"Crocodile, right. Sorry, Mr. Crocodile! We didn't mean to wake you up! Our boat just got stuck in the sand, and we were-"

I KNOW YOU.

The words thunder inside your brain as the crocodisle turns its massive head around to face you, its enormous snout locked closed in a snaggletoothed grin. It takes you a moment to realize you didn't hear the words so much as you thought them - or, rather, something else thought them into your own brain.

SHIP-BUILDER. WHALE-KILLER. HUMAN. YOUR KIND ARE MISCHIEF MAKERS WHO SWIM AGAINST THE CURRENT, AND CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE SEA IN YOUR WAKE. I KNOW YOU.

"I-I'm not making any mischief, honest," you protest. "We just got stuck is all-"

"it's true!" Calibani shouts. "Sailor is a nice human! They tried to save me even when I was going to eat them!" She clasps her hands together and shouts, "Please, don't hurt them!"

The crocodisle cocks its head to one side, its sharp pupils fixing on Calibani as she stands next to you in the captain's cabin.

A SERPENT? A CHILD OF SYCORAX, NO LESS. YOU TWO ARE AN ODD PAIR.

"Child of Sycorax?" You look at Calibani for an explanation, but she just stares back at you, apparently just as confused as you are.

The crocodisle shifts further, and as it does the sand covering its body begins to break apart and slide off its back and into the water, revealing more of its pale yellow scales.

I WILL FREE YOUR SHIP, HUMAN, IF YOU TELL ME WHAT YOUR BUSINESS IS HERE IN THE SEA.

Well, you got your wish - the giant crocodisle is talking to you. Now you just need to know what to say, and for that, you consult your compass.

(Dialogue time! Pick the topic you'd like to discuss in greatest depth, and feel free to suggest questions for Sailor to ask in the replies.)

[glarnboudin]

[glarnboudin]

@a-book-of-creatures That's because the escutcheon is a trilobite!

Sketch for the ‘Royal Hammerers’ coat of arms (the Geological Survey of Great Britain) by William Hellier Baily, 1849

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160932705000761

[glarnboudin]

HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL AAAAAAAAAA

The creature who fell in love with the light

[Watercolor and gouache, based on ‘The Fog Horn’ by Ray Bradbury]

[glarnboudin]

Metal Dragon Cookie.

[glarnboudin]

Oh these are gorgeous! They feel like something right out of oldschool D&D as well!

I've been working on these on and off for a while, mainly due to getting sidetracked with other things. These are some ideas for some other types of false dragons that roam around the headworld.

mainly I was leaning into something that resembles the types of dragons that come up in medieval manuscripts/ 18th-19th century etchings, while also trying out mixing some other types of natural armor to get away from using only scales for dragon armor. So there's a mix of chitin, turtle shell, and armadillo plates.

[glarnboudin]

Today's catch. Horrors from the murky waters that i call home! Swarmers: Small fish, big jaws. These things are nasty, like, real nasty. They dont care if their prey is alive or rotting, they just go savage over it in mass numbers and leave a perfect clean skeleton after a few minutes. They're found in rivers, swamps, bogs, oceans... Swarmers dont care about acidity or salinity, they only care about eating... though they're not fond of cold water on the slightest. Hated by fishermen for eating their catches and loved by many people for their taste, Swarmers make for a good toothy meal. Fried and served with a hint of lemon! Leeches: Slimy, gross and slippery. Disgusting fish that even dragons dislke, as they'll latch on using their second pair of jaws onto anything that comes across them and try gnawing on their bones. Demand for these fish is rare, but their roe is fantastic. Served raw with a bit of soysauce and flax seeds ontop, ideal side dish for a premiun steak! Lampreys: Do i even have to say something about these? they look ancient, they probably date back before the Cataclylsm. They use a suction cup like mouth to attach themselves to marine dragons, bigger fish and whales. They are abhorrent, but luckily they dont pose a threat unless you're stupid enough to put one on your face. In that case consider half of your face shredded by a bony tongue and millions of little teeth. They can be grilled over a campfire, their taste is similar of cod, a nice oily and flakey meat. Others like to ferment them as they develop a more bitter-sweet taste, they reek like urine tho.

[glarnboudin]

i think that killing a dragon should have catastrophic nuclear-fallout level environmental consequences tbh. their blood should scorch and wither the earth with fire and poison, the toxic fumes released as they decay should choke the land and all nearby living creatures, and the entire landscape where they fell should be transformed into a blighted wasteland where bleached leviathan bones loom upwards out of the ground as a warning that can be seen from miles away, the boundary markers of an exclusion zone.

[glarnboudin]

war and hate on planet venus

[glarnboudin]

Since we're getting into "did you know that Santa's eight tiny reindeer are a reference to the eight legs of Odin's steed?" season once again, remember: while there are some elements of Christmas (or Hallowe'en, or Easter, or...) observations that are probably pre-Christian in origin, before one believes any of that this-is-really-100%-just-a-Pagan-holiday-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off stuff, one must consider all of the following possibilities:

Our earliest known records of the cited pre-Christian practices were written down by some random Christian monk centuries after the fact, and we genuinely have no idea how accurate this account is, to what extent the apparent similarities with Christian practice are due to the author deliberately or unwittingly putting a Christian spin on it, or indeed, whether they were just making shit up.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Christian writers who were bent for prefiguration theology (i.e., the idea that the Bible echoes backwards in time and pre-Christian religious practices were unwittingly imitating future Christian practices).

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Protestant writers who believe that all Pagan deities are Satan in disguise, so they think that if they can prove that Catholic practices are secretly Pagan in origin, that proves that Catholics are secretly Satanists.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by overzealous mythographers trying to prove that all mythology and religion throughout all of human history is secretly a single unified monomyth; if it's pre-Victorian, expect shades of prefiguration theology, while if it's post-Victorian, expect a lot of stuff about the Collective Unconscious.

A bunch of 19th Century proto-Fascists were trying to construct a pre-Jewish cultural identity (and considered Christianity to be tainted by association), but didn't want to give up any of the fun rituals, so they made some shit up about how it was still okay to do Christmas because something something Odin, or whatever.

A bunch of early 20th Century Pagan reconstructionists filled in the gaps in their understanding of pre-Christian ritual with culturally Christian assumptions, then turned around and pointed at their own accidentally Christianised reconstructions as evidence that Christian practices are derived from them.

A bunch of late 20th Century self-help manual authors tried to break into the occult bookstore market by uncritically repeating any or all of the above.

Someone on the Internet just made it up.

[glarnboudin]

It's fascinating how a lot of Evangelical Christian anxiety about Satanism seems to be rooted in the unspoken idea that if the Devil gathers enough worship he'll depose God and become the new God, because that's not the party line in any major religion, but it is how it works in Dungeons & Dragons.

[glarnboudin]

Saving My Fanfiction Work

Due to the recent events in the United States. To clarify the recent events being Trump becoming president of the United States, Project 2025 more than likely going to be integrated. If you are not familiar with Project 2025 I urge you to look it up.

Along with the KOSA bill that has many problems and it has passed the senate now needing the finally vote in the house, which both are majority red. Go here to learn more on why it needs to be stopped and how you can. This is another component that will harm our communities. Go to: stopkosa.com

With all of its harmful plans some of the plans are to take down/restrict internet sites that have LGBTQ+ communities that means communities like the fan-fiction communities/sites in the United States.

I am only giving resources to those inside and out of the US in case they banned sites that hold fan-fiction. Better safe than sorry.

Being that I live in the US the possibly of mine and many others Fanfiction has the possibly of being in danger. Therefore I'm giving you recourses. (I'm not leaving or stopping my writing, I'm here for the fight!)

For those wanting to save my fanfiction, I give you permission to download them off of AO3 and to be used for your personal collection. Meaning, your eyes only. To clarify I’m saying this as others have asked if they could download my fanfic so for those who would like to you can.

If you do not know how to download them many others on online have tutorials on how to download them and add them to our phone libraries.

Here are some links to tutorials:

Downloading Fanfic

Adding to Iphone & Android Library

Adding to Kindle Library - Video on How (On TikTok)

Adding Book Covers (At the bottom) - Good EPUB Cover Changer (I use this)

Types of Files and What they mean

Please stay safe out there! Remember to follow the rules below.

DO NOT share the downloaded file anywhere online.

DO NOT repost the downloaded file under your name.

Fanfiction is protected under copyright law when plagiarism is involved. If you plagiarize my work, either a piece or whole in any language, I will take legal action. Inspiration or the same idea does NOT apply to this, only word-for-word plagiarism in any language.

♥ mx-pastelwriting does not consent to their fanfiction being copied, copied & credited, translated, used in videos and/or audios, screenshotted, used in AI, or reposted on any other platform without permission.

♥ mx-pastelwriting does give consent to "reblog," sharing links to direct work, and being in recommend lists.

Please stay safe out there friends! I love you so much! Know that there will always people that love you and in for the fight to make sure you are loved!

[glarnboudin]

Click Here for the Form

The form will be closing on Nov 23nd at 11 pm MST.

Want to know more? Read about the zine here!

Interested about being a contributor but not a moderator? Contributor applications will open on Nov 22nd so make sure to follow and keep an eye out for that!

[glarnboudin]

Jules Verne novels are the opposite of The Twilight Zone. “if three guys went to the sea floor in a submersible vessel and they saw every kind of sea life imaginable, wouldn’t that be fucking sick? hi i’m Jules Verne” mf

[glarnboudin]

A monstrous leech-like being. Despite its fearsomeness, an unseen hero managed to secretly lay out the creature's death, ending its terror.

[glarnboudin]