#Whalesong (Music)

[lobotomy-maybe-bestie]

i think trans people SHOULD get famous for bad art. i think trans people SHOULD get a major following for things they don't really put their whole heart into. i think trans people SHOULD be huge stars on the internet for decidedly mid quality content with problematic themes.

[spontaneite-fr]

Immediate new project get

Sing...sing a song... A new gene begins displaying on modern dragons! Plus new achievements, den slots, and Ancient parallels appear!

[blood-orange-juice]

There's already Fantasy Russia doomposting, let's have Fantasy Russia wishes too!

We have Balkan and Greek references in the game, so no need to restrict yourself to Russian Empire. Go ham. I'll start.

Name change. Please. It's so cringe currently.

A world quest chain based on Bazhov's tales (miners' folklore mixed with Ural and Slavic fae stories). Non-negotiable.

Trains and trams. Do I even need to say it?

TRDLO. Look at it. Look at it. We can have Western Slavs too and if there's no trdlo I'll riot:

(for the US people reading this: it's a sweet pastry cooked on metal rods over coals, popular street food in Prague, although it was originality Hungarian. eating it on a cold day is an Experience)

Frozen lake sounds, they sound a bit like whalesong.

Sami people. Finnish references in general.

Childe's family's side of his story.

A tired playwright bullied by censors.

Sirin and Alkonost birds! Half-birds half-humans who could put you to sleep or kill you with a song.

A black cat called Behemoth. iykyk.

Pulcinella as an Alexander II reference ("ruling Snezhnaya is not hard but it's pointless").

A giant bridge over a harbour.

Greenhouses. Just giant greenhouses.

Some steppes. A girl can hope.

Bog.

A springtime area near the sea with rhododendrons in bloom.

Space program. If Natlan can be modern then Snezhnaya can have space program. We are going to the moon to poke at a dead goddess (now where have I seen that... hm).

Cyberpunk and medical horror.

Pantalone's Ayn Rand era.

Atonal music.

Linguists.

An ice skating mechanic.

I'm assuming that Soviet adaptation of The Snow Queen (one of the things that inspired Miyazaki to draw) is a given, so here's an obligatory mention.

And, the last but not the least, 6 nations coalition army entering Snezhnaya for humanitarian help after the country falls apart on its own.

Hoyo, please. Allow us to have nice things at least sometimes.

[rxttenfish]

might be slightly manic today because i've done an obscene amount of things, including drawing the wifes being silly :3

kindly imagine miranda saying that "hiiiiiiii" less like how you'd imagine a person saying hi would be done, and more like the whalesong version of whistling. she's a musical girlie.

[dapper-hydra]

A lot of people talk about what makes us human, and I’ve heard them say it’s compassion or the ability to use tools or intelligence or something but a lot of animals on earth have all those traits. One thing I’ve never heard of other animals having is MUSIC. I’m not counting bird/whalesong or anything to that effect because that’s their equivalent of just talking. Maybe it’s music that makes us human? Please correct me if I’m wrong like genuinely please tell me if there’s an animal that does music anyways I’m sure you could train or teach like a chimp to play the drums but could it have perfect pitch? Could it enjoy the music? Could it improvise? Could it figure out that the snare does this and the bass does this? Could it teach another chimp?

edit: @nube-de-lluvia brought up something absolutely HUGE that I can’t believe I completely glossed over, which is the fact that although other animals do music and may have perfect pitch (depending on the definition), they might not EXPRESS THEIR EMOTIONS THROUGH IT like yeah they sing for mating purposes which might show love but like humans sing about Everything they Ever Feel like genuinely any emotion you can name; love, sadness, anger, jealousy, happiness, hell people even sing about beer and trucks and if I missed anything else PLEASE tell me because I can feel my ideas deteriorate while I type

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

Wifiiiiii the rhythm event has Legacy's theme AAAAAAAAA-

Anyway! Hydraulic press Legacy is a yesyes. But I also raise you: Legacy utilizing a wide range of chirps and growls to try to 'sing' to us <3

~ The anon who wanted Kaveh but didn't want Baizhu or Ganyu I am horrible at rhythm games but I want my primos >:)

OH MY MOON AND STARS IT DOES???? WELL NOW I SIMPLY MUST PLAY IT ANYTHING FOR FOUL LEGACY

Foul Legacy's kind is adept at singing, although perhaps not the type humans are used to. he communicates in low whalesongs, haunting melodies unheard to most other species of the Abyss, because they're only for telling those you love how much you adore them. but he also loves listening to you sing the way mortals do, forming words and stories. his songs are more about conveying feelings, but you can do that and so much more with just a few notes, eyes closed and a peaceful smile on your face. he chitters in awe, tilting his head so far that he nearly flops over onto the ground in his attempt to watch you from every angle. you see his wings flutter up and down, matching the rise and fall of your voice as you sing, and can't help but pause to chuckle kindly behind a hand

he starts trying to mimic you, quietly, not wanting to disturb your own songs. but oh, how he wishes he could sing like that to you! all whimsical and lovely and free. so he practices when you're at work, using his memory and the birds outside as a reference. it's a bit gravelly, more growling than your sweet tunes, yet he's proud all the same, rumbling happily and rolling over in the sunlight. when you're half asleep, cradled in his lap before the fire, his claws tracing the outlines of your face, he sings to you. soothing and gentle and quiet. at first it's your music, bringing a soft smile to your face. then his own as you fall asleep, crooning and trilling into your ear until you're comfortably limp in his arms, and Legacy switches to a strong, constant purr

you wake him with a hum the next morning, and the wonderful cycle repeats once more

[st-just]

1. Is there a soundtrack that you really like despite not liking the thing it is a soundtrack for? 2. Favourite winter beverage? 3. Tell me a world building detail, from anything, that's not all that plot relevant but just super neat

many horror and sci fi games. I hae no interest in FPS' at all but the Dead Space OST is amazing for ttrpg background music

low effort: hot chocolate and/or coffee with some extra milk. High effort: warm hard cider with mulled rum butter

In 2010s anarcho-transhumanist cosmic horror rpg Eclipse Phase there''s an entirely benign subculture who put their net worth into buying bodies that are basically photovoltaic space whales and chill out in (relatively) close orbit of the sun communicating through radio wave whalesong.

[rubyfoxfyre]

I have a question about The Riddle of Magic! What does the Umbral Sea sound like when Alastor takes longer journeys through it?

Thanks for the fun question! 🍷

I imagine Alastor is usually so in his headspace he doesn't really think about it, but it would likely be something like the muffled noise when you have in a set of earphones without any music, like the isolation of silence with only the sounds of the self - breath, and a heartbeat.

But at the same time, there is distant echoing like a hum, or ringing - a sound that carries through the dark because of the spirits that are also passing through the Sea. I think spectres would "sing" in their way, like the timbre of whalesong, but also resonant like bells - something that's hard to pinpoint exactly where it comes from.

In terms of a "themesong" for the Umbral Sea, I often think of Alio Die's Transcendental Path for a sort of drifting experience, with the somewhat more focused melancholy of Leyndell as the theme of the distant Horizon, and all the possibilities that lay there.

[foccaccia]

if i were jonah, i would have stayed in the whale. where its safe and dark and beautiful. youre cradled by whalesong and the ocean. gods made the ribs of the whale your jailcage but its better behind bars. his cruelty keeps you from a quick death, keeps you as passenger not food inside the whale, but when you sing to the whale, the whale sings back. what if your prison loved you. what if you stayed in the dark and in the music and let ninevah burn.

[ihavetoomuchhomeworkforthis]

Crazy humans are weird idea I just had while I was brushing my teeth. Okay, so what if our world is the only one where people and animals are designed to be able to create and communicate with sound? Not that the other alien species can't hear or make sound at all, if they step on a twig it still snaps, if they clap their hands it still makes a sound, their breathing can still be audible, and a stampede of elephant-equivalents will still make a thunderous stampede noise you'd need to be able to feel and hear, but what if none of them have vocal cords? What if the closest they can get is a sort of hoarse screech of unconventionally forceful breathing? What if we're the only ones with speech and birdsong?

Alien species communicate through tap-stomp dancing and facial expressions and sign/body language and rhythmic drumbeat patterns and little handpats on whatever surface is available (including themselves).

Nothing could have prepared them for our thousands of languages, the sheer volume we're just effortlessly capable of, the precision and variety and eloquence in the sounds we can produce. The apparent cacophony of birdsong and crickets chirping and cats meowing and lions roaring and dogs barking and whalesong, and just all the vastly different sounds everything on our planet can make. The musical instruments which aren't just percussion and string, but also wind instruments.

Just- what if we were the only ones with speech?

If I were more creative and less tired right now I'd write a mini-fic thing, if anyone sees this and somehow gains that kind of inspiration, PLEASE do, I'd be honored, thank you.

[lobotomy-maybe-bestie]

the last poll i did had only seven votes and was a tie. so pls vote and rb for bigger sample size maybe

[hrodvitnon]

Assorted Headcanons and a Golden Demise sneak peek

Heya! Now that I’ve posted chapter nine, I can finally share a few of the MonsterVerse headcanons that I’ve thought up.

On Tiamat:

Monarch’s profile on Tiamat says that while she can replicate the noises of most other animals in her Titansong, she cannot actually speak. Considering how complicated just plain old whalesong is, I’m easily comfortable saying that Monarch is wrong, and that Tiamat is the only known Titan who can actually, verbally, speak in human languages.

Also, consdering the name of the ability is “Titansong”, in the coexistence or symbiosis timelines, she may be convinced to sing along with humans. And there is no music group that wouldn’t want ft. Titanus Tiamat on one of their songs.

Also, I don’t know fully why, but I have her in my head as having a personality somewhat like a dolphin. She’s the one Titan that can defeat Godzilla in water, in his own element, and she knows it. Playful, but somewhat sadistic.

On the ORCA:

This bit draws from the novelization a little, but in the book, Maddie specifically mentions that the ORCA is cycling through the frequencies of the awakened Titans. So, maybe it can only affect Titans that it scanned and has the bioacoustics of? (this is really so I can add more Titans to the surface without there being plotholes)

On Monarch’s status:

Monarch’s founding has been the subject of a few retcons, and is still being actively changed about with the M:LOM show coming out, but assuming Skull Island’s view is true, Monarch was a pretty small organization up until the expedition. After that, they grew enough to be able to construct the Janjira outpost at the very least, but after 2014 I think there’d be enough evidence of Titans that Monarch would actually become a true, worldwide and supranational organization.

On Jinshin-Mushi:

While the JS-M Primes may have hunted Godzilla’s kind to reproduce, considering how devastating a worldwide plague of them would be, I’d say most Titans would be generally adverse to leaving them be. The parasites would be hunted by everyone else just as fiercely as they do to Godzilla’s species.

On Na Kika:

Canon MonsterVerse gives us very little directly about Na Kika, leaving us to put together the bits we have into a coherent whole. Based on it’s ability to mimic other states, to evade detection, I say it’s as an ambush predator that can even hide itself from the senses of other Titans.

On Titans vs Megafauna/Superspecies

The official definitions aren’t made clear as far as I’m aware, but I’m partial to the distinction being sapience.

Finally, here’s the sneak peek:

---

Ohoho! I really like these, especially the dolphin-Tiamat comparison, fits her very well. Plus her being able to speak human languages has the potential for a lot of mischief and/or terrifying moments.

[brithombar]

finally found a whalesong asmr without music will be working ten hours straight

[supercantaloupe]

repeating myself here i know but everytime i think about dave malloy’s moby dick musical i go a little wild in the brain...genuinely contains some of his best writing imo. like i think the high points of mdamr rival those of octet compositionally and preludes/comet literarily. have you LISTENED to ahab? sermon?? a squeeze of the hand?? plus there’s the variety of the more fun numbers with bosom friend and cetology and stubb kills a whale and the whale as a dish...it’s good writing! it’s good music!! or the numbers that blend drama/emotion with a deceptively sweet tune like shanty and the pacific...and then the serious/dramatic scenes. some of them are fucking gutting, brought to life and emotion even greater than melville’s original prose. whalesong interlude iii/roll on. the pequod meets the rachel (my GD i cannot listen to the pequod meets the rachel without getting weepy. i swear.) but between all the highest highs of the show there’s some deep and utter low points in the writing...i think the script is bloated, the show tries to say too much at once, it’s clumsy and meandering...and ugh, the fedallah monologue...overall the whole product as it is right now makes me so Frustrated cause i see SUCH promise in it (cause there’s So Much there already that’s amazing!!) but the combination of the high points with the lows and all the connective tissue between makes for a messy final product. i really really hope that the show gets revised and revived at some point in the future because i genuinely really want to (and hope to) see it succeed, i think it has something wonderful to offer audiences if it could just find its sea legs (as it were)

[jessakaldwin]

as promised, for an audience of none: under the cut is a compiled list of my favorite 8tracks playlists, which I exported to Spotify several years ago during one of the many, many site shutdown scares. I know that 8tracks still exists, I just find using it unpleasant. Hopefully this has preserved some playlists for other interested folks that like this kind of thing :)

Many of these playlists are missing songs or cover art due to Spotify, 8tracks, or YouTube’s limitations, but I’ve done the best I can to maintain them as they were created! Playlists were not made by me, and the 8tracks users that created them are noted.

Dishonored

Wanton Flesh by boatsong

whalesongs by sovngarde

SOFTNESS DOES NOT SERVE ME-- by unkindness

For all the hard work, there is little reward for her by ledts

echoes lost in the garden by otp (i like all of these but this one is my favorite)

The World Leads Us To Guilt by Caketin

cradle songs of comfort by slabprince

Straight Backed With a Dash of the Future to Hand by Playwrightofthedivine

Rise and Fall by DoctorUpstairs

The Kaldwins by Hilda Emerson

fall down by modernprometheus

Metal Gear Solid

Coming in hot by msarduenna

Unknown Soldier by hoppips

STRANGER WITHIN by cryptovolans

i’m with you by derazzed

kazradio and easy listening by millionfish

the rain is my friend by unclepress

i guess i’ll stay a while by octoling

A Strange Love by It’sJustArcher

people were mean to you by yuriprincess

Bit By Bit/Torn Apart/We Never Win by maarten.j

I idolize you by geneween

show me who you are by derazzed

i’ve got a blank slate by Angela Ziegler

The “Kazuhira Miller Musical Experience” or Kaz’s Chopper Flight Songs by UhPrettyMuch

i just want to find the optimal bra for sniper operations, but everyone here is so rude, and pieces of shit by licensedmagicalgirl

This Dream Is For You by Blassy

Bioshock

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder by feuillyons

rapture kashmir party by thesuperblockhead

Drown In Flame the Mountains of Man by notthehawkeye

cast in the sea by niceworkboyo

you belong to me by sanquinis

Look What You’ve Done To Me by muckyknees

god only knows by entrywound

daddy’s little girl by birdorcages

Star Wars

force sensitive by spookyghost

The Scavenger by Ugly Myfanwy

Homestuck

come on baby, make my day by vaswani

lucky 8reak by affableArcheologist

Misc. Others

The Nature That Is Within Us by ididitfordoug (Hellboy)

New Vegas Dreamland by Malevolentmask (F:NV)

The Long Bubble Bath by MysteriousCat (general oldies)

Dusk by junglebee09 (general vibes)

you’ve gotta jim kirk it by vulcan-ology (Star Trek)

don’t worry. by poetiskt (WTNV)

[helloeezkitty]

Introducing: the Bowhead Whale!

Some facts about the Bowhead Whale (or Baleana Mysticetus):

Bowhead whales can live for over 200 years!

This sadly means some Bowhead whales alive today will have been alive during the height of the whaling industry.

Bowheads almost went extinct during the this period, because they swim slowly, and their oil and baleen was very valuable.

Baleen was used as material for umbrella stays, skirt hoops, fishing rods, shoehorns, and other products in the 1800s. Whale oil was mainly used as fuel for lamps, and for soap.

Bowhead whales live in the very cold waters of Arctic and subarctic. To protect and insulate from the cold, they have a layer of blubber that can be over a foot and a half thick!

This may sound like a huge amount, but Bowheads can grow up to 60 or even 65 feet long, and weigh up to 100 tonnes!

That’s 18-20 metres, and 100,000 kg!!!!

In spite of their size, they can still breach entirely out of the water!

As you might guess from the name, their heads are bow-shaped and very large - in fact, they make up about a third of their entire length! The whales use their skulls to break through the thick ice (up to 60cm/2 feet!) of the Arctic/subarctic seas.

Because Bowhead whales are so very large, they have 2 blowholes instead of just one! They sit next to each other and help the whales get more oxygen (which their big bodies need to stay underwater for a long time).

Interestingly, not a lot of people seem to know that whales and dolphins both do need to come up to the surface to breathe! In the case of the Bowhead whale, they come up for roughly 1-3 minutes to breathe, before diving deep down (up to over 650 feet/200 metres) for normally 4-20 minutes. Some have held their breath for 40 minutes though!

Unlike most other whales, Bowheads don’t have dorsal fins (i.e. the fin you would expect to see popping out above the surface of the water).

This is because they have adapted to the environment they live in. No dorsal fin means less surface area and less heat loss, and makes it easier to swim closely under the ice sheets of the Arctic.

Beluga whales and Narwhals (2 other Arctic whales) are also missing this common trait!

Bowhead whales are baleen whales.

This means instead of teeth, they have baleen plates made of keratin (the same stuff human fingernails are made out of!).

Bowheads have the longest baleen plates of all whales!

Bowheads swim with their mouths open, the baleen plates filter through what they catch, and they mostly consume zooplankton/krill! They eat around 2 tonnes of food a day, and about 100 tonnes a year!

Bowhead whales are very vocal and musical!

“If humpback whale song is like classical music, bowheads are jazz… The sound is more free form” - Kate Stafford, University of Washington

Bowhead whales and Humpback whales are the only 2 who have calls which can be described as songs.

Humpback whales all learn one song each year to communicate with each other, and subsequently learn a new one every year.

Bowhead whalesong is much more improvisatory and varies far more than Humpback, with 184 distinct melodies counted over just 3 years! They are great composers!

Listen here to some Bowhead Whale song!

Bowhead whales are usually found alone or in small pods of 3-6 whales.

Although they are quite solitary, they still like to communicate via song or by breaching the water and can actually be quite playful!

Female bowheads typically give birth to 1 calf every 3-4 years.

The gestation period lasts around 13-14 months. The calf is then fed with milk from its mother for usually around 9-12 (although up to 15) months before being weaned off.

Bowhead calves are born between 13-15 feet long, weighing around 1,000 kg, and within 30 minutes of birth, can swim on their own!

🐳