#whale corpses

[spookygibberish]

Funeralworms comprise a genus of Juggernaut characterized by a heavily-built, serpentine form, the absence of eyes, a single pair of broad, paddle-like forelimbs, and a prominent array of individually articulated, crushing jaws. They are employed in the disposal of organic materials, the production of high quality fertilizer, and the reclamation of Ibis tissue from corpses. The latter function earning them a central role in Bibat funeral rites, hence the name.

In Bibat, it is believed that Ibis tissue, while a powerful creative force in life, is equally capable of corruption, especially when touched by death. It is therefor not adequate to bury the Ibistouched, since Ibis tissue, if allowed to decompose, has the potential to render the earth fallow and breed illness. By consuming the Ibistouched dead, Funeralworms collect the Ibis tissue from the flesh, freeing it from corruption, purifying it, and accumulating it in their bodies to be returned to the Oracle System. It is mandatory that the corpses of all dagnyds, Sansin, Thrones and Throne-children both headless and unbodied alike, be fed to the Funeralworm. This is not a necessary funeral rite for those who are not Ibistouched, but the devout often choose to have it preformed upon their death. If a funeralworm is not available, cremation is an acceptable alternative.

Funeralworms are semi-aquatic dagnyds that reside entirely in special pools (bymūt)constructed for their housing. At their least elaborate, bymūt are little more than shallow ponds dug into clay soil, but they are often encircled by a low, stone fence with an offering platform at one end, and a chamber for dung collection at the other. These pools are usually located several kilometers from areas of habitation, although many larger cities have grown to encircle bymūt that were originally constructed a more acceptable distance away. These tend to be the most elaborate of their kind, ending up with bespoke temple complexes erected around them. As the functions of the Funeralworm are deeply linked to Bibat customs, their husbandry is entirely handled by Sansin, though the service they offer is a public one.

The design of the bymūt is necessary for the survival of fully mature funeralworms, who are not only so large as to be incapable of freely moving over dry land, but risk being crushed beneath their own weight without the support of water. Newborn funeralworms, at about a meter and a half in length, are the most mobile of their kind, and often attempt to escape their bymūt to explore. This is usually permitted (with supervision), as such young individuals have limited processing capacity, and rarely exist in a context where the sole burden of waste management relies on them. Many Sansin are sympathetic to the plight of the Funeralworm, and see little purpose in restricting the movement of a creature which never approaches agile at any age, and for most of its decades long life will be confined to a single small pool.

Despite a life spent entirely in water, Funeralworms are entirely air-breathing, and are not particularly good swimmers. They are protected from flooding by the high fat content of their bodies, which renders them buoyant and unlikely to drown. The greatest risk floods pose is temptation. Rising water allows Funeralworms the opportunity to travel freely from their bymūt, and many die after becoming stranded once the water level recedes, especially those which are particularly old and heavy.

[uwmspeccoll]

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: fossil records, ravens, and layering with dg nanouk okpik

This week we feature Alaskan poet dg nanouk okpik (b. 1966). Born in Anchorage, okpik is Inupiaq, Inuit, though she was raised by a white adoptive family. She’s taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts and served as resident advisor for the Santa Fe Indian School. Her most recent collection blood snow was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The poems featured here are drawn from her first collection, corpse whale, published in 2012 by University of Arizona Press as part of the Sun Tracks series. Sun Tracks was established in Tuscon in 1971 to highlight the creative work – writing as well as visual arts – of Native Americans. corpse whale won an American Book Award and the May Stanton Award.

In his foreword to corpse whale, Arthur Sze highlights the layering of time in okpik’s poems, and suggests a “visionary quest” for some eternal element at the core of the work: “Past, future, and present co-exist, and this underlying conception of time strengthens the mythical elements in her work.”

Speaking with Southeast Review after the release of blood snow, okpik explains Sze’s profound influence on her own work – she studied with him at the Institute of American Indian Arts – and the way her poetics is shaped and layered by such influences, as well as her travels: “my diction is a composite of these travels and many stories told. It is comprised of beauty and the agony of man’s struggles. In eight types of symbolism that come naturally to me. I let the writing speak for itself.”

View other posts on Natives American/First Nation Women Writers.

See other Women’s History Month posts.

–Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern.

[revllz]

I never see these images on this website so here you go, enjoy images of my beautiful amazing wife

^ this wasn’t clicked in originally but it did show up the post so have a fun thing to just idk use as a reaction image

okay now bad to hibernation bye

[kashe86]

Motherfuckers talk too much about the Megaladon as if it’s the scariest thing to ever exist in the ocean and “ooo wouldn’t it be nuts if it’s still alive down there today!?”

As if there weren’t vastly more terrifying animals already living down there.

I present: The Humboldt Squid.

Don’t think it’s all that scary next to a gigantic great white shark?

Well… it averages about 5ft in length (i.e. about as long as most people) and weighs an average of 110lbs.

They travel in shoals of 1,200 individuals, have a reputation of being aggressive towards humans (although this may only be under specific circumstances), and have been seen migrating as far north as Alaska from the warmer waters off of Mexico.

Colloquially, they’re sometimes called “Diablo Rojo” or “Red Devil” for their tendency to flash red and white colors while attacking.

Fuck the (extinct) giant shark, there’s much scarier things in the ocean as is already.

[merakiui]

ooh, Mera!!! any tips to seduce Jade?

In the context of TMDG (because Jade is so seduced in the fic), I think it boils down to a few key things that will leave Jade absolutely smitten:

✧ have the same crazy energy as him. You're passionate about and obsessed with Floyd (wrong eel in Jade's humble opinion), while (unbeknownst to you) Jade is very infatuated with you. The two of you are so unhealthily obsessed, so in a way it's like a mirror reflection. And Jade likes that sort of energy. You always liven up a room because you're so genuinely, painfully you. Also, he just likes being able to tease you when you're in the middle of monologuing about why Floyd is so perfect lol.

✧ engage in the weird flirt-banter Jade likes to have with you. Is he flirting? Is he threatening? Is he foreshadowing????? Is he plotting something???????? You can never know, but ooooo does it get his blood pumping when you snap back with your own witty retorts. Similarly to how Floyd gets hyped for a fight or a challenge (if he's in the mood), banter leaves Jade an excited wreck, especially if you can't come up with anything good and so you default to: "stupid, sly eel" or "asshole eel" or any insult placed before eel. He thinks you're so cute when you're insulting him.

✧ know little things about him. Though he doesn't like being transparent, he is immensely touched when you remember certain details about him (details he would have thought were easily forgettable because you're so focused on Floyd and everything he is). So when you bring up the mountain lovers club or his interest in mushrooms and you show genuine curiosity for these hobbies of his? Oh, he wants to marry you right now!

✧ you sort of have him wrapped around your finger. He's like a big, scary guard dog who is collared by his overwhelming attraction to you (metaphorically, of course, but then he wouldn't mind it in the literal sense) and if you were to tug on his leash he'd come padding forwards. He's just so whipped for you, and there's something enticing to Jade about this fragile human having so much power over him. He would kill for you, sacrifice everything for you, drop everything and elope with you, carve out his heart to please you. So why do you continue to chase after Floyd? :(

✧ be yourself and don't hold back. Jade likes unfiltered, shameless you. The you who treats failure like it's the end of the world when it was really just one small blunder. The you who is so wrapped up in an uncertain romance. The you who eats his cooking and grades it accordingly, lowering the score when he annoys you out of petty childishness. The you who is so easy to please when he puts on Floyd's voice. Every part of you captivates. Even the sides of you that are ugly and not the healthiest, he loves those just as much.

✧ there's so much more I could write, but just know he is in love with you and doesn't want you to change for the world. <3

[qliphothtako]

the devil with sunset-colored hair

[encrucijada]

i wanna write about angels

[enbycrip]

[shadowsayshi]

thinking about the potential of whale falls in the soul eater universe ...

[spider-artdump]

[anime-ships-all-good]

Kizami Yuuya x Mochida Satoshi x Kishinuma Yoshiki

Corpse Party

[terra-tortoise]

do emperors only form at the moment of death or cpuld you hypothetically move 3 long dead imp bodies together and create an emperor? dragon corpses must exist bc 1) emperors 2) earth flight cairnstone rest skeletal dragons. what are the funerary rights of each flight?

[louisdotmp3]

it's too sunny and beautiful to be at work today i have to GO. i need to be laying on a beach reading a book doing my crochet u know

[eldritchcircus]

Six Sentence Smunday

(I realized just now it’s Six Sentence Sunday and today is in fact Monday but shhhh)

Thanks for the tag @bubbles-the-banshee

How it works:

Writers: post (approximately) six sentences from something you’re working on. If you aren’t ready to do that, add six sentences to your WIP.

Readers: challenge yourselves to leave a six sentence comment or give a writer a six sentence prompt. (or a total of six sentences for the day)

Fans and creators alike: reblog a fandom post and add some love in the tags. Aim for 6 posts - or 6 tags. Whatever you can manage.

From the upcoming collection of short stories about the world of Grim the Clown:

Bearhead (WIP), 350 words so far (just gonna post the whole thing haha!)

The guard was one of many, and he was made by the reshapers from the flesh of his mother, after the fires of her death finally cooled and the noxious acids no longer fell from the skies. They scraped the flesh that would become him and his siblings from the joints of her shattered spine as it crawled mindlessly away from where she'd fallen. Her charred and smouldering head came to rest under their ancient mountains, and they built the land up over her twitching corpse, to calm her shudders and to protect her from those who would desecrate what remained of her. He was not made to protect her from others, though he sorely wished he could be big enough to do so. He was made, the reshapers told him, to protect everything from her.

Her fall, and subsequent death, had eradicated much of the life here. If anything came too close to the places where the stone and soil shielding her body were thin, they told him, her very body would kill them with its mere presence, soaked as it was with the energies of a place far outside the world where he was made. The guards were made to be large, compared to the tiny skittering things that survived the destruction she'd wrought with her passing. They were made to be frightening, because the tiny things were too small to understand meaning or warning. They were made to be wanderers, patrolling the vast expanses that fell under their watch.

The reshapers spent eons teaching the guard and his siblings. There were lessons in traveling far, from one point present to a distant point across the world. There were lessons in seeing much, identifying not just what was visible but that which wasn't. Some of his siblings were instructed to go all over: places where molten rock spewed forth, places where the haphazard and loveless graves of everything that had been killed by his mother lay open to the sky, places where the threads of life and death and time entangled too neatly and allowed strangeness to thrive.

[sigmadecay]

I have to figure out what I want my new back patch to be…

[viscericorde]

well exquisite corpse is done! now it's house of leaves time baybey