#you can Rot or you can get Mummified

[glamourslime]

Time for everyone on planet Earth to look at my dragonsona forever, as drawn by the excellent @friedunicornstudio

You Will Look At Them

[fiddles-ifs]

[ID: A banner-style graphic featuring a coyote's open mouth on a dark black background. Orange all-caps text near the bottom of the image reads: "happy birthday Greenwarden." /end ID]

Happy birthday to my firstborn problem!! I'm trying really hard to not think about how long it's actually been, but to celebrate Greenwarden being mysteriously old I'm posting a former Patreon snippet! I'm also announcing that 1) I quit me day job, and 2) I'm going to be compiling a bunch of Greenwarden shorts that would have gone up on Patreon if I had kept it up. More on that to come when I get all my ducks in a line.

GRAVEROBBING AND NECROMANCY FOR DUMMIES

Marianna & Tracker. 16+. Grimdark Fantasy AU. Scofiddle Pepper Rating: Bell Pepper.

Content Warnings: Blood, minor wounds, implied mind-control, mentions of death.

Mausoleums always have a certain smell — mold, mildew, cracking damp stone. The decay of rock and mortar, but never flesh. The sarcophagi are tightly sealed with both wards and wax, partially to keep the smell at bay. No air, nor Light, nor hands will ever creep inside them. The Silent Mercies do their grim work and do it well, keeping them locked up tight. Then they leave — that's the extent of their dues to the dead.

They can count themselves lucky. Corpses don't exactly make great company. Particularly when some of them are itching to come back.

You can't help but feel like there are eyes on you, your torch cutting through the dark, damp guts of the tomb. An intrusion. Indigestion. The violent, flickering orange light makes the shadows greasy. You'd use a magelight, but you're already dancing on the razor-thin line between bravery and stupidity; you don't want to risk waking something. Someone. 

They were people once, allegedly, but you know what pride morphs people into.

Particularly powerful necromancers resist even the cleansing fire of holy Light, their sentience existing in each molecule of ash, slowly piecing themself back together with sheer will and hate. It may take hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, but eventually they will come back. So, the Temple does what it can. The liches are bound, still conscious, and placed in a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is sealed — with prayer, with wax, with chains and locks both physical and magical — and a mausoleum built around it. The Silent Mercies make their rounds indefinitely, strengthening the wards and installing ever more complex locks. Hundreds of years turn into thousands.

The hopeful end result is a stark raving mad lich warlock that will, if all goes well, blissfully prefer the judgment of the Light before they suffer one more second of silent, unmoving, stagnant solitude. Time and again the methods of the Temple are proven effective. Terrifying, and effective. Most choose to vacate their own bodies than live in the dark for an undetermined amount of time. Unable to move. Unable to see. Slowly withering away, mummifying, rotting in your own skin. Whatever you’re going to find will not be human anymore – if it was ever human in the first place.

You cross the dusty, time-ravaged stone floor to the sarcophagus at the far end of the room. It's a short walk. Mausoleums are traditionally small, most especially the ones outside of temples, reserved for the vilest of the old guard, the lichkings who dared to try and defy death. Beings that rejected humanity, even rejected immolation, and should not under any circumstances be within spitting distance of a residential area.

Zoning laws: the bane of all undead tyrants. 

There's only one — which is nerve-wracking. It sits placidly on a raised dais set with small, half-melted candles, as if it’s waiting for you. A frozen slime trail of old wax meanders down the dais, caught in time. The thrum of magic tickles your fingertips. Brushing, like a cat would, up against your palms and skittering up your arms. Both a beckoning and a warning. Temptation.

It's wrong. A singular coffin is like finding a singular roach. Not wholly uncommon, but it sets your teeth on edge. 

It means one of two things: either the Temple managed to burn the master’s undead servants, even the stubborn ones. Or, worse – they’re afraid of what it might do with nearby corpses, even sealed away.

Your arms itch. You set your torch in a conveniently placed wall sconce and start working to get your mind off things.

The Temple of Light may not like to admit it, but what they do is magic. The prayers wielded by their paladins and clerics are incantations; the talismans created by their monks are charms, woven out of somewhat less mathematically inclined sigils. Magic. They hang and burn people for it in the streets, but it keeps their mausoleums tightly locked and their church in power.

Like any spell, a prayer can be broken with a little bit of reverse engineering. And you are very good at breaking things.

Maybe it's the uniqueness of your situation, or maybe you were just created with something special, but seeing the patterns in the weave and weft of magic comes second nature to you. Almost like a physical thing. A golden projection of arcane artistry.

It's a complicated spell; the Woodsman lived hundreds of years ago, long enough that even its very name was forgotten. The ward is centuries of layers, each one getting more and more complex as the Silent Mercies learned what incantations and motions were most effective at keeping the dead at bay. Trails of cold, melted wax dripping down time. A beautiful puzzle, just for you. You're always half-giddy, knowing that you may very well be the only one who can truly see the work, the history behind it, and that you might be the only one smart enough not just to break it to pieces, but coax it open.

Enough. You need to be fast.

Your forehead tenses, brows knit as you start reversing half a millennia of spellcraft. Delicately, slowly, you work out the motions, but in reverse. A twist of your hand, fingers curled, your arm moving in hypnotic diamonds and stars and spirals. Shapes designed to trap and contain. The fingers on your other hand open and close in the same fractal rhythm half a canto ahead, parsing out the right steps in the dance before you walk the dancefloor.  You're a conductor, ripping carefully crafted sheet music to shreds. The torch flickers.

There's no sound but your own short, elated huff of laughter when your hand slides into place at the ward's terminus. Deep in your hindbrain, a lock falls open with a satisfying click!

“Don't move.” 

Oh. That's a sword — you feel the tip of it caressing the nape of your neck. Slowly, carefully, you raise your hands to the sides of your head. You’re unarmed, and thankful you have gloves on.

“Turn around.” 

It’s not like you have room to argue.

You’re face-to-face with the tip of a shiny, well-polished blade. The silver coating makes your back teeth itch. You feel it vibrating, still coming down, hypersensitive to atomic changes in the air. You’re also face-to-chest with an extraordinarily tall cleric in their classic white and gold armor. An immediate, violent chill settles into your spine.

She’s hard-faced, hair cut bluntly short; she gives you the impression that her only expression is scowl. You prepare yourself to fire and run. It’ll set your research back months – maybe even a year – but you’ll live.

“Explain yourself.” You’re taken aback by that – you do a quick three-point look around the room and with your head and then spread your hands out a little further.

“I mean,” you say, “I think we both know I’m not supposed to be here.”

She doesn’t like that. Her hands choke a little tighter around her sword grip, leather squealing and platemail clicking as she shifts even deeper into a fighting stance. The sword gets a little closer to your face. A sweat breaks out between your shoulder blades.

“You’re a mage.”

“And you’re a cleric.” Impasse. Stand off. Stare down. Neither of you are willing to make the first move – maybe she’s hoping for a peaceful resolution. That you’ll go gracefully to the stake.

Fat chance, but something changes when she opens her mouth to reply.

You don’t like the look that falls over the cleric’s face – wide eyed, eyebrows to the hairline, mouth half-open. The blood leaving her face. The slight tremble in her steady hands. Fear.

Slowly, you twist your neck to look behind you.

The Woodsman’s coffin is open – a deep, yawning blackness slides out of it, liquid trapped inside thin film. On the coattails of the light-drinking sludge, a skeletal hand slides, damn near leisurely, out of the sarcophagus. What follows is a horror of ancient science. Half human, half… something else.

The antlers crown its head, but the head is canine, deep pinpoints of light inside empty sockets. Mummified skin knits across bone, thin as paper and patchy in places. Its teeth are bare to the world and yellowed with centuries. You watch the slick, black flesh form an amorphous mass beneath the skull, the arms nothing but bone haphazardly slapped onto an overgorged slug.

You were hoping it wasn’t in there – everything you’ve learned told you it had probably vacated its body years ago. There had been no activity for so long – no plague of nightmares, no major possessions, no strange activity in the flora and fauna  – and yet. The Woodsman slithers out of its unlocked tomb on a tide of melted void-flesh, rises on it until it has to bend, its shoulders scraping the ceiling of the mausoleum. It opens its mouth wide – skin and gristle clinging to its jaw in loose strings – and shrieks.

It’s shrill and piercing. You’re concussed, briefly, slapping your hands over your ears. You feel it – in your head. Scraping the inside of your skull, dark wordless whispers in your hindbrain. It knows you. It sees you. It’s in your head.

The cleric pushes you behind her, nearly to the door in the tiny mausoleum. You’re confused – still concussed. You don’t run.

“Go!” She shouts, swinging and hacking at the growing sea of rotting flesh. She swings too wide – the silver-steel scrapes against the walls of the mausoleum and sparks. The Woodsman just keeps growing. One by one, the candles and torch are swallowed whole. A deep, endless black. A tidal wave of nothing. 

You’re not about to argue. You turn tail and run out the door.

Two steps past the tomb, you stumble to a stop. A quick, hard-breathing glance behind you lets you know that the cleric already isn’t doing well. She’s fighting like an animal, punching what she can’t cut. Every slice is swallowed up by more reeling, lightless flesh. You still feel the Woodsman’s scritching little claws, furrows in your soft, pliant brain. Every iota of you recoils away from it. But that cleric – she let you go. 

You look down at your hands. The dark leather gloves, fingertips worn, the edges frayed.

Shaking, you slip them off your hands and leave them in the grass.

You grab the back of the cleric’s breastplate and yank her back into fresh air, swapping places in one smooth transition. You don’t know what she sees. If she notices the dark, blue-black corrupted skin of your hands or the bright runes squirming over your arms while you reach deep in yourself for something destructive. The bands around your wrists and throat mark you as a Thing – something broken loose. The Woodsman tugs at your tattered ghost leash with an interested spiritual hand, head cocked. Your programming demands you kneel for consumption, and your knees twitch before you get yourself back under control. You almost see a wink of recognition.

Little homunculus, the Woodsman whispers, curling around the base of your skull like a cat, so far from home.

“Shut up,” you say, and light up the room.

The Temple of Light has claimed the lichkings reject holy fire and immolation – they just haven’t tried something hot enough. Your fire is pure destruction, white with heat, blinding against the greasy black corruption sludge coating the walls. The Woodsman shrieks – pain, rage, confusion. Spikes of pain explode behind your eyes, and you burn them away too.

You wade through the muck, scorching it all to ash, beating the Woodsman back until it tries to seek refuge again in its sarcophagus, huddling in the pit. A child taking refuge in a cellar.  Curled at the back of a cell. Useless, useless.

You reach out with a flame-licked hand and clamp down hard on its muzzle.

“Shut up,” you hiss, and watch fire make cracks in its skull. It rakes your arms with bony claws, opening bloody gashes in your flesh. The blood sizzles and evaporates almost instantly. 

The Woodsman’s head explodes with a loud crack, bone shards ripping through the skin of your cheek. The rest of it goes limp in a heap. What’s left, you turn to coal dust, just in case. When you’re done, all that’s left of the Woodsman is a greasy soot stain coating the floor, walls, and ceiling. It’s a little gruesome. Reminds you uncomfortably of blood.

You coax the flames back in, lower and lower, wobbling with exhaustion, until a comfortable, warm dark swallows you. There’s light in it – ambient, soft reflections of the moon outside. The sarcophagus is a welcome resting spot, using its high lip to stay half-standing. Even then, you see little spots in your vision, the edges going blurry. A few drops of blood slide out of your nose and splatter on the ground. Your ears are ringing.

“You’ve got red on you.” You jump.

The cleric is standing there, wiping blood and slime off her face. One of her eyes is nearly glued shut, an open wound on her brow pouring red down her cheek and under her collar. You give her a once-over before you weakly tilt your chin up.

“So do you,” you say. She nods – holds out her hand.

“Marianna.”

Cautiously, you cross the floor on shaky legs to take it, and give her your name. The one you picked for yourself – it feels nice. To introduce yourself, for once. She almost crushes your hand. You’re comparatively weak.

“You saved my life, mage,” Marianna says. You grin with a mouthful of bloody teeth, an acknowledgement.

Then, your body finally gives up. You’re blissfully unconscious before you hit the ground.

[shittybundaskenyer]

✹ ▬   𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐍, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

rating: Explicit

pairing: Arthur Morgan x F!Reader

summary: You want some love and Arthur gives it to you selflessly.

warnings: high honor Arthur, reader thinks she doesn’t deserve love, touch-starved, smut, porn with feelings, fingering, gentle sex, love confessions, angst and hurt/comfort, daily overdose of metaphors, can Arthur please hug me?? I really need it

word count: 2355  

a/n: i wrote this in a few hours bc i couldn’t sleep and wanted to feel loved. pretty much all of this is self indulgent rambling about love, spiced with some lovemaking, but i hope you like it guys! <3

MASTERLIST   |   ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

The sunlight lays down on the gently rolling waves, water and thousands of tiny, glittering stars, sun-mirrors, father and mother of all life, silent lovers meeting halfway. Their union paint streaks of white light onto the bottom, over round stones scraped smooth, over rainbowlike fish scales and hidden imprints of a forest long since dead, mummified in slate and rock. 

That's how he meets you. 

With the force and gentleness of the sun.

It feels too close. The heart of a star's birth, flames swirling into ribbons of heat, his heart the epicenter, rumbling, crumbling, and you get scorched, slowly, like how rot burns a fallen tree into rich earth. Bugs and fungi and critters latch onto the bones of your ribs, prying them away, open, until there's a hole wide enough for the sunlight to get in. Love, love, love. A word both too weak and too strong to capture what you mean. It catches on the tip of your tongue like a fallen droplet of sweat. Salty-sweet. 

Arthur kisses you, and fuck…

The light gets in.

His lips, your lips, a song, a ballad, a poem, a killing, a fight, an embrace. 

Get in. Let the light get in. Inside. Put it inside me, your light, put in everything, I want to feel whole, just a little, just what you can spare.

"Shh," he whispers, and you don't realize, not until the soothing gentleness of his voice, that you said it all out loud. Quiet, barely audible babbles. A confession. A lie. The barest truth that is so raw it still bleeds fresh crimson. "I gotchu sweetheart."

Dread fills you for a second, the realization of what you've done. No, no, no, no! Not like this, you didn't want to say it like this, how could you? You ruined it all, the naked vulnerability of the moment, the thin veil of peace that descended upon the pair of you when Arthur pulled you into his arms and then pressed you into a patch of soft, yellowed grass. 

I ruined it, goddamn ruined it.

But Arthur doesn't back away. Instead, he presses a finger to your chin and smooths out the crease that is forming there, a foreword of tears. He kisses you instead, again, softly, choking your tears off and making you hiccup into his eager mouth. He swallows it eagerly, your sounds of desperation and disbelief, and after a few tortured seconds, your shaky sigh of relief. 

"What do you want?" he whisper-kisses, barely parting from you, hands coming around your head, caging you in. A cage made from arches of bone and flesh and sun-worn skin, overarching the frozen heap that is your body. Between cracks of striped blue cotton fabric and horse-smelling leather, the light glints in. 

Christ, you don't know. 

You never know how to answer a question like this. It's simple. It's the most difficult of all. 

You want just this, just like how he wants it, it doesn't really matter, because you're finally not alone and he's warm and after days of cold rain the sun peeked through the clouds and the snow-capped mountains. You want everything. You want to tell him to leave and never come back. You want him to go and be happy. You want… you hope maybe he can be here, with you.

Arthur waits, and the tears prickle your eyelids, bubbling, bitter globs of liquid sorrow, getting weaved into your eyelashes like autumn dew over blades of yellowed grass. 

He coaxes the answer out of you. 

A thumb on your cheek and kisses. Many, gentle presses that draw a path down the side of your nose, the corner of your mouth, your brows. He traces them again and again, like how wild animals walk the same path to a river day after day. He waits, because he wants to, because he chose to, because maybe you're worth the time he sacrifices for being with you. 

You ain't—

Shit, this is harder than anything you've ever done. 

Admitting a want is like admitting a sin. The altar is the meadow around, below, the beating flesh of the earth, and the priest is the sun, listening, always listening. 

You confess. 

Broken, half-sobbed syllables. 

Somewhere, between words of pain and fear and the curse of being alone, always alone, his name. 

Soft. 

Kind. 

Some angel disguised between a horde of devils. 

"Whatchu really want, honey?" he tries again, because you're avoiding the question. 'Course you do. That's the only thing you've learnt like an instinct, like breathing or eating, because you had to. Because it was always convenient. 

I want—

I want—

You. Us. Something more than me. 

"Whatever you can give me," you press out between trembling lips and too-close teeth. 

That's enough. That's fucking everything he wanted to hear. 

Arthur gazes down at you, blue-green eyes swirling wild, a summer storm that somehow swam over to the cold days of October, lightning and thunder and showering rain. The sun has seen enough. Sins and confessions and love. She dips behind a puff of white clouds, and that's the exact moment Arthur leans to you and takes your lips like how he always wanted.

Because he did. 

And he does. 

So much it burns.

There's a bare second you think you'll cry, but the warmth blooming somewhere in a deep hidden part of you makes the tears evaporate. Your own personal sun, a star being born, the force of its explosion making the bones in your chest rattle and ache. You shudder against him and he grabs you, kneads your flesh, makes it warm—no, hot, in their wake, makes it tingle and buzz like a swarm of bees under tired skin. 

His tongue swipes your lip, his lashes tickle your cheek, and then another wall crumbles and falls, weaved in by flowering vines—choked by them. You let him in. The door of your heart, the poorly patched-in hole in your defenses, the seam of your mouth. He invades, like a force, like a storm, like a thousand horsemen tasked with a siege. 

He invades, and he's welcome here.

You let him lick into your mouth, let him map out the shape of you, let him kiss you until there's no breath left in your lungs and no space between your chest and his. You feel his heart against your breast, beating wild, bucking like a mustang caught on a rope, and your own flickers alive, a fire stroked back to a flow of summer-colored flames. 

"How much ya want?" he mumbles between two kisses, a softer and a passionate one, the kind that ignites the torch of unholy needs of the flesh. 

How much of what?

"I don't know," you pull away, shy, shy of this cursed want inside you, but the fire is already roaring, and there's no river that can stop its towering flames. A spark can jump over. 

"Will ya take everythin' if I offer?" he noses along the side of your face, presses a kiss where your ear meets your jaw. 

Your bodies aligned, like constellations, have power in them. 

Power that can be released, that can be reigned. Like horses. Born wild and free, only tamed proper by those who are worthy. 

Arthur offers you that. 

And you feel the urge to cry again.

"What if I want to? Does that make me greedy?"

Arthur almost chuckles. You feel his smile pressed to the crook of your neck.

"I have many sins, darlin'... This ain't one of them."

And he's back, because he can, because he really wants to, and you kiss and kiss until he wedges himself between your legs, just to feel even closer, just to show you . 

There's a simmering fire there, embers he blows whiskey on as he settles, and Christ , he's hard, and he knows, because he grinds it to you, he makes it catch aflame proper, makes the crushed seed of love bloom into a flower. 

You grow wet between the thighs, and he knows that too, because you feel his smile against you, the insistent firmness of his hands grabbing parts of your flesh, the fat on your hips, even through your riding coat and thick jeans. 

"Can I touch ya?" he asks, peppers gentle presses of his lips above the collar of your shirt. 

You're already doin' that. 

Why ask anyway when I'm yours?

"You can do anythin'," you whisper back, finally brave enough to slide your hand up to his nape, brave enough to slip your fingers into his hair. "I'd let you do anythin'."

"Don't say that or I'll—," he bites back the rest, but you feel his meaning when one of his hands goes down to your belly, to the seam of your pants to dip in. 

Wait, this is—

You never thought you could—

"Or you what?" you prompt him to finish, distracting you from the way he carefully makes space for his fingers in your jeans, almost carving it out for them, until he can slip trigger-calloused fingers into coarse hair on your mound. 

There's a noise. 

A squeak. A whisper-shout. 

A sigh of surprised relief. 

"Or I can't hold myself back," he murmurs and he fingers the spot where your folds part, just above your clit. 

"Then don't."

You know what you want, and this is already so much more. 

Arthur's eyes jump back to you, but there's no mirth of a joke in your gaze. You're dead serious.

He kisses you for it, hard and needy and passionate and you finally learn to reciprocate, to take what he offers. 

Arthur tears at your pants, pulls on the buttons, makes you wiggle them down enough so his hand can fit. It's so broad, so warm, but your thighs are warmer, and softer, and he touches them with the greed of a young thief that wants to steal the moon off the night sky. 

"Please, please, please…" you babble, and he obeys, parts the seam of your cunt that glistens surprisingly wet after such a short time. "Touch me, stuff me, I don't care," but you don't have to plead for more. 

I don't want to feel this empty.

"I gotchu, darlin'."

He pushes two fingers in, and you cry and sigh and keep whispering his name like a chant. He slides them deep enough to stretch good, to make his palm grind against your clit, and he moves them, slow, hard, and then faster when you start to sing like an early songbird, cunt squeezing and squelching and sucking him back greedily every time.

"You're so pretty," he says to you, leaning in again to steal a kiss, to make you believe he's sincere with his words. "So goddamn clever," another kiss, a lot softer. "So goddamn perfect for me."

You feel like the red string of fate is wrapped around your throat like a cord, choking you, barely reborn from the womb of the earth after sinking too deep. But Arthur… Dear, gentle Arthur pries it away. Makes the bruises fade, the red string still tight on his own neck.

He moves his fingers and you don't have time to think. His palm grinds over your mound, clever circles, and your want tickles over the crease in it, clear and white, and his fingers are thick with it too, sliding back and forth, apart and together, making way for something more. 

"Want you inside me," you tell him, leaning close to his ear, and he nods, makes it a mission to have you, even though he first wanted to draw this whole thing out. There's no time. Not enough before your walls try to build themselves back together. 

"How?" 

"Don't care," you pull on him, on the soft hairs on his nape and he kisses you in return, a reassurance. You reach for him, tug on the buckle of his belt, the front of his pants. He muffles a groan into the side of your neck, marks the place of it with a gentle peck. 

You both move.

There's no grace in the movements you two make—you turn to your side, legs still trapped from mid-thigh down by your jeans, but it's enough for Arthur to tease the head of his cock between your folds, the angle making it hard to push in at first, his clothed chest heaving against your spine, his breath puffed into your shoulder.

But when he finally fits—

When he finally embraces you from behind… 

There's no chance of this being a one time thing. It's love. Love, love, love, love. Thick, slow, glorious, just like the way he takes you, just like how he picks away the pieces of you until there's nothing left but the naked buzzing rainbow-edges of a soul. 

Your naked soul. 

And his, slowly wrapping itself around.

You make love out under the sun and the clouds and the azure sky. They're witnesses at the trial of your heart, feather light now, the truth spoken by hands and lips and the cradle of hips. 

You love him, so goddamn much. 

You try to say it with the embrace—with your hand grasping his over your belly, with your leg weaved between his own, with your cunt swallowing him deep and making him stay: a church, a mansion, a home. You can be that. For him, you can.

You let the light in. 

He shines, and you gather all of it, hoard it, deep down in your chest where blood and flesh beats wildly. 

And when he shudders against you, his cock pulled out and pressed between your thighs, thick and spurting warm over the small patch of naked skin—he comes back, with his hand and his mouth, praising you and fingering you until your climax makes your leg cramp up and your tears to spill.

The sun judges you and finds you innocent. The sky, the clouds too. Your soul dances above somewhere, over the autumn meadow of browned wildflowers and yellowing grass, intertwining with his, as one soft phrase rolls off his lips, "you're my own missing light, sweetheart."

[y-rhywbeth2]

Fun fact about creating mummies (the undead monsters in D&D, not the real world embalmed dead) also known as tomb guardians - the process must begin while the subject is still alive. The ritual calls upon the Negative Energy Plane, replacing the Positive/Life energy in the victim with Negative Energy and slowly killing them and causing their flesh to dry out. Also their internal organs are all removed and stored away. The horror and agony of the whole process, as the body is slowly and horribly murdered - while the soul and mind are trapped within it, aware of every moment and feeling themselves die, unable to escape - causes the resulting undead creature to have an "unholy hatred of life."

If the guardian underwent the process voluntarily, you get a Greater Mummy, who has spellcasting.

On the bright side, unlike most undead they smell quite nice due to the resins and incense used. More than can be said for most undead, who are rotting.

(As in reality, not every Torilian culture wraps their mummified dead in linen)

Also it was practiced in Ancient Netheril, and considering all of the above, plus the fact that Bhaal was Netherese, I can see why he decided this would be a fun tradition to pass onto his followers, even when they're not members of cultures that traditionally preserve their dead.

Also mummies think vampires are obnoxiously melodramatic and unhygienic.

[serpula-lacrymansss]

Nice night tonight.

Cold night- the best kind.

I know it's not really a popular opinion, but I've always preferred colder climates to warmer ones. In hot weather, the heat feels inescapable, pushing in from all sides. I hate feeling sweaty, being damp all the time is the absolute worst. It feels like rotting.

In hot and damp climates, a body can decompose to the same level in a couple of hours that it takes a cold body several weeks to.

It's been cold, but also wet, though, so I'm not sure.

Of course there's other factors, in the woods scavenger animals would get to you before you had the chance to rot. But in somewhere like the desert you could be mummified totally.

What's really interesting is what happens to the body in different chemical environments, though.

Sometimes, when a body is left in an alkaline environment, it forms a soft, grey, greasy substance all over the skin. They called it adipocere, from the Latin 'adeps' (fat) and 'cere' (wax).

Adipocere forms through a process called saponification and tends to develop when body fat is exposed to anaerobic bacteria in a warm, damp, alkaline environment, either in soil or water. This process is also sometimes called soap-ification, and it will stop the decay process in its tracks by encasing the body in this waxy material, turning it into a 'soap mummy.'

Pictures under the cut

The two most famous 'soap mummies' are the 'soap man' and 'soap lady,' who are now housed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Mütter Museum respectively.

The soap man, Wilhelm von Ellenbogen, who died of yellow fever in 1792 aged 63.

Born in Philadelphia and was buried there around 1800. The body was discovered in 1875 during the digging of a train depot foundation.

The woman, who's surname was also Ellenbogen, but whose first name is unknown, died in Philadelphia, died also of yellow fever in 1792, aged 25-35

She was buried alongside the soap man, so she was also dug up in 1875.

Makes you think.

[merakiui]

HOLY SHIT-- I CAN'T BELIEVE THE BLESSING WORKED!!!! anyway, CONGRATULATIONS ON BRINGING JADE HOME 🎉🎉🎉 Eel lovers really do be eel HAVERS ✨✨✨

On another note, i've been sketching your idea of SK! Jade ever since u answered that one ask (he's been rotting in my brain that long ssdskdjkdk) and this is just a smol thing that's sittin in my wips, so yeah, i'm dumping him here <3

Anyway, congrats again for bringing the mummified boi home!!!

I WAS SO SURPRISED!!! The minute I saw the purple light I thought, omg heyyy's blessing worked!!!!! Thank you so much for providing me with luck!! <3 Eel lovers do indeed become eel havers!!! 🎉

ALSO OMG?!?!??! I GASPED WHEN I SAW THESE MASTERPIECE SKETCHES WHOA!!!! he looks so handsome!!! I'm in love with your art style and how you draw Jade! Σ>―(〃°ω°〃)♡→ Also, "love is stored in the shrooms." 🥺 so cute... he looks so happy. our beloved murder eel hehe.

AAAAAA and the piercings!!!!!! OOOOOOO ignore me while I simp. Get you a man who can do it all: cute, professional, hot, and mysterious. I want to be the cigarette between your lips, Jade. Please just one chance. OTL

Thank you again for the congrats and for blessing me with your beautiful, amazing, wonderful, perfect, [insert more lovely adjectives here] artworks!!!! 💕✨ To return the favor, I will present a little exchange from the upcoming chapter:

[stellanslashgeode]

Hey Geode! You know all the things about this - I've been wondering, what actually happened with Luminara's death? I think I had the issue where she got blown up/Order 66'd in the old Republic comics, but I didn't watch the last season of Clone Wars or Rebels (I know I know) and reading wookiepedia seems unclear. She got killed? Captured? Killed but then the empire kept her body around a la those weird preserved Jedi in Kenobi? Just if you feel like explaining and have time of course. :D

Finally, my time has come. Someone needs clarification on Mirialan facts!

I'll try to be concise. The Order 66 scene in RotS was supposed to be much longer, and they made animatics for both Luminara and Barriss being shot while commanding their clone troopers. This was in 2005 so the Temple Bombing arc hadn't happened yet, both are in good standing with the Order.

Luminara is finishing up a briefing when the order comes in and she gets a couple of hits in the chest. It's pretty definitive.

That scene gets cut but is illustrated in the Revenge of the Sith comic adaptation by Dark Horse in 2005.

Between 2005 and 2013 The Clone Wars happens, and Disney buys Lucasfilm. Everything not in the visual media is not Legends and didn't happen in Canon. Now Luminara is one of Schrödinger's Jedi, they could be both alive and dead.

The first project Disney spins up is Rebels, which is about Depa's Padawan, Kaleb. It takes place in 5 BBY, ~14 years after Order 66. There is a plot where the Empire puts out fake anti-Imperial propaganda broadcasts to lure in both potential rebels and surviving Jedi. At this point Kaleb is trying to take this kid as his Padawan but it's not going well because Kaleb wasn't even a knight in the first place. They see one of these broadcasts where Luminara is alive and in prison garb, and they are told the location of the prison. Kaleb thinks great, now this kid can be trained by a Master. They go to rescue her, but once they get to her cell the vibes are off. Luminara is sitting on a bench sad and not speaking. Then she stands and walks to a casket with a glass window in it, at the side of the cell. She walks into the casket without opening it (she's a hologram) which is shown to hold her mummified corpse. Sheev somehow found a way to kill her but leave part of her soul intact to call out though the Force to other Jedi.

As it stands now, we don't know how she died or when, just that she's a pretty dry gal in 5 BBY. It seems like they would need her at least mortally wounded and captured to perform whatever ritual they did on her, but who knows?

[cuppa-chai-chatter]

AAAAA okay these films WHACKED the mini-hyperfixation button!!! here we go

SO Cecelia Condit (the director of both Possibly In Michigan AND Beneath The Skin) based both short films off her real life experiences??? I watched an interview with her and went wiki diving and WOWZA

uhhh TW for like. murder? and a suicide attempt.

so from what I can find online, Cecelia dated a guy for about four years. His name was Ira Einhorn, but in her video Beneath The Skin she calls him Ike. Before she dated him, he had an ex girlfriend named Holly Maddux. They had split it off not long before Ike got with Cecelia, but in her video she says it was pretty mutual. So Ike and Cecelia date for about two years, at which point Ike tells Holly that if she doesn't come get her things from his house he'll throw them out. So Holly comes from New York to get her things and isn't seen after that. Ike is investigated for obvious reasons, but police don't have enough evidence to search further.

Two years later, an investigator hired by Holly's family finds out the people living under Ike's apartment have been complaining about a "rotting smell coming from the closet ceiling". Presumably he brings this to the police, because not long after that Ike's house is searched and they find a trunk in his closet that has the decapitated and partially mummified remains of Holly. Cecelia says that the head was shoved so far down into the chest cavity that it was originally thought to be missing.

Cecelia says in an interview that her art projects (in particular PIM) really helped her heal and move on from things, which makes me think the scenes of Sharon dreaming of being a corpse is probably a representation of survivor's guilt (though that's just my personal, non-professional thoughts) because Cecelia goes into how she wasn't mad about Ike killing Holly, but how she was mad about what Ike did or didn't do to her. Even though I've never personally experienced survivor's guilt, my long term SPIN about psychology has given me enough information that it's awful and takes a long time to heal.

Anyway, Ike (aka the Unicorn Killer because Einhorn means unicorn in German) skipped bail and was a fugitive for 17 years. He lived in Europe, married, and was finally extradited to the USA in 2001 after a lengthy and complicated extradition process. He tried to kill himself at one point to avoid jail. He just recently died in jail in 2020.

Cecelia says in her video how the blankets that Ike would give her when she'd stay over laid on the chest that Holly's body was in. The only reason she couldn't smell the corpse was because she was on medications at the time that took away her sense of smell.

Despite that all being extremely fucked up, it puts Possibly in Michigan in a whole new light. A lot of the strange symbolism suddenly makes a lot more sense and I'm glad Cecelia has found healing through her films.

Also, some more light hearted funfacts.

Cecelia only got permission to film in the mall before opening time by sitting in the mall office and refusing to leave before she got permission.

The guy who plays the Prince Charming was a friend of one of the actresses. Cecelia mentioned they'd need a knife and he pulled one out of his boot. Cecelia jokingly said "oh, do you have a gun too?". He did.

According to one comment on YouTube, Cecelia is down with the idea of Sharon and Janice being in a wlw relationship. I haven't checked this for myself because there's a bajillion comments and it's 3:30 AM.

Cecelia named Arthur that because it sounds like "Art Her" and she wanted to represent that art is sometimes used against women to put them down. She is also the person who wears the creepy mask in the mall scenes!

[fazscare87]

Fazbear World- (decomposed) Michael Afton

Michael, you don’t look so good…

This is, or was what Michael Afton looked like in his final stage of “decomposition”. As you can see from Mihcael's wound, when the Scooper hit Michael, it eviscerated his abdomen and chest, badly. It not only tore through his flesh, but it completely broke the front of his Ribcage and sternum, it also took out organs like his stomach, intestines, lungs, and heart, all in one go. Ennard had to slightly tear away a few more chunks of hanging flesh on Michael when the hole was a tad too small. But once Ennard was inside, Michael's chest closed up due to the remnant healing him, but it was scarred and a darker shade than the rest of his body Elizabeth/Ennard left certain bones and a few organs in Michael to keep the same relative shape when she was inside of Michael. Leaving things like his Ribcage, pelvis, arms, and leg bones, she also never particularly touched Michael's skull or brain. The remnant was able to seal up the gaping hole the Scooper left, albeit, caved in a little bit. Elizabeth was able to wear Michael for, almost a week, but he started to decompose, badly. Some of the people in Town either didn’t recognize Michael or knew it was him but stopped speaking to him for a bit. The remnant could regenerate all his organs and bones, but the problem was that Ennard was obscuring everything, so nothing could regenerate. Seeing just how badly Michael was rotting, and how she was preventing the Remnant from Elizabeth decided to eject from her brother's body and hide in a storm drain, leaving Michael to fall limp. Michael was left on the ground for a few moments, during the whole time his body had been used… Michael, was still somewhat aware of everything that had happened, he couldn't see. he couldn't hear, or talk either, but all that time, he could think. But right now for almost a week, he was hearing for the first time, he was hearing Circus Baby’s and Elizabeth’s voices, in sync, saying, “You won’t die”, over, and over, and over again, until, he stood up, his spine and ribcage had regenerated thanks to the remnant, he was somewhat blind at first, and everything seemed slightly muffled and echoey, he couldn’t smell, he couldn’t exactly talk, couldn’t breathe due to a lack of lungs, yet he felt just fine without air, his whole body felt almost completely numb, and after a few moments, he regained his sight, but when he saw his hands, his feet, and the rest of his discolored and disfigured body, he was horrified and went to hide home as fast as he could. His mind was racing, not knowing what to think, it was a miracle nobody saw him, and even the ones who did see him didn’t get a good look at what he looked like, that was probably for the best anyway. When Michael got home, he locked himself in his room and closed all the blinds to his windows, he didn’t want anyone to see how he looked…

The only person he did allow to see him was his father, William was shocked by how disfigured and ghastly his son looked, he was horrified, though that was for Michael’s sake, in actuality, while William was shocked to see Michael still alive despite knowing Remnant grants nigh immortality, he was surprised to see how Michael was holding up. William was actually interested to see just well the Remnant would be able to heal Michael, since he seemingly didn’t have that much. The process took time, it wasn’t as fast as William’s healing, but it was still doing its function. Michael would have blood flow through him again, his bones, teeth, hair, and organs had completely regenerated, his skin was mostly back to normal albeit a little pale-ish but not that noticeable unless someone looked for too long, and he even got his muscles back. However, there were a, few things that the Remnant wasn’t fully able to make look normal. Michael's hands and feet, as well as a little bit of his lower forearm and lower calves, were still purple-ish, and looked mummified, it was almost like he had gangrene on them, but they functioned just fine. Michael’s chest had healed up decently, but it left a huge scar behind down the middle of his body, from his collarbone to his lower abdomen, his ribs also slightly protruded like he hadn’t eaten in weeks, but it wasn’t too noticeable actually. As for his face, his cheekbones slightly protruded, and his eyes looked slightly sunken in too, these scars were permeant but other than those factors, Michael looked like his old self again, and to hide his scars, Michael would wear longer clothes and gloves.

The process as a whole took almost a few weeks at best, but that was mainly for the more severe wounds, while some things took a few days to heal.

Hope you guys like it and have a Faztastic day! ^^

[deathsmallcaps]

Thinking about a fucked up house based on this post and that one house in Pennsylvania with the dead animals in the walls

The attic is for hiding shames

Basements are for the dead

Closets are for skeletons

And the queer thoughts in your head

The garden is where you grow

Flowers to pretend control

The well is for whispering secrets

Who will tell? Not that wet hole

You have a dining room

But it’s mostly for show

The kitchen is for defleshing

Your pies get lots of compliments though

The bathroom holds the only mirror

For every prisoner must have one window

The mudroom incites madness

With the dirt’s constant flow

The bedrooms, guest and personal alike,

You feed and stall your nightmares

The walls are full of mummified watchers

As they are deafened by the creaking stairs

The living room is haunted

By the people who never say hello

The laundry room can never really wash

All the blood off your clothes

A million other things are falling apart

The porch is collapsing, the hall is dusty

The doors always slam, the windows too

And the pantry is rotting and musty

The shed is full of evidence

That can’t be burned away

The chimney is stuffed to the brim

With what? You shall not say

Once you moved on like the others

Realtors say, “There’s good bones in this house!”

Yes, and the bad ones are in the yard

In blood, the new people will souse

Just like your family did

Until you were the only one

It keeps cycling and cycling and cycling

What ghastly fun!

[bigkickguy]

Ok but like the funger mold apartments feel very different in my mind after ending C ?? (spoilers + crazy rambling below)

I assumed the mold was the direct result of the ritual but what if it's not? So hear me out - you are working through the puzzle in there to try and get the effagy - and you need the 4 of those to get to the tower and complete the ritual and 'win' but we know from perkele fight and the sulfer end that rher was not really running this show anyway?

So why would a cult that is super excited about death and murder and all that fun stuff encase people with mold and just mummify them there? The journal of the mad man doesn't mention mold at all either...?

It's possible it's a set up by Pe'rkele and the sulfur cult as part of the fun but it doesn't seem similar to the kinds of worship or other rituals that sulfur god seems to be into? The goal i thought was to ferry souls into the sulfur pit so they can suffer and be reborn or what not?

We know from what Nas'hrah mentioned when examining the sulfur symbol that knowing the name of a god means they are still in power Somehow. People in the setting still know the name Rher and poketcats still have stories recorded and other things that people Know about?

So what if the mold isn't from the sulfur god at all but was from Rher? Rher is still trying to stop whatever ritual the sulfur cult is pulling here? Rher is still about stopping new gods forming?

If you're running under the crazy thoughts that i am where the blank soul that Daan has can be used for some form of replication or possession (like in his not-really-moonscorched end?) then making a trap that would prevent him or other important people from reaching the tower would still serve that purpose?

It just feels too off to me that the sulfur god and followers who seem to revel in pain nearly as much as death would make a way to kill a whole apartment of people so... peaceful? You just kind of sit still and die in your sleep in there? It feels like it goes against their usual methods idk Also if the implication of stiches and Daan's designs are that he tried to idk reconstruct his dead wife or anything? (literally flying entirely off of speculation he could have just lost that shit in the war haha) Elise's body was not like covered in mold when he got back - she was torn up or otherwise fucked up as a corpse. And that was either the Baron's sulfur ritual or Elise's? (running under the assumption that the blue face paint that they share with per'kele is all from them being in the sulfur cult and that you have to die to join puts Elise back on the 'could be totally into this sulfur shit' zone) So why are they so different from the mold apartments?

If the symbol for the god of the depths can show up in the beehive house with a little book and such in there - why can't rher also fuck shit up with some fungus? And if you want to think about it from a turbo deranged perspective (im going full blast on crazy theories here) why is all of the mold white specifically? It is cool aesthetically, absolutely, but rher is also a similarly completely pale moon as depicted in the story. Outside of the surface deformation like craters for eyes and the mouth canyons - there are no other surface changes on that moon good. There is no color variation or anything? Almost like... ...being covered entirely in white mold...? (also kinda fits a theme line of like rotting away while trapped unable to become as powerful as the old gods in the new gods trick setup? sitting around stuck and waiting to die slowly and quietly? Kinda similar vibes hmmm) IM GOING CRAZY THINKING ABOUT RHER AND THE SULFUR GOD DONT MIND MEEEEE

[blackbackedjackal]

Hey i hope I'm not bothering you but I have this coyote tail (the coyote was roadkill) and it's very dirty. It's got some dirt, sticks and there's like bodily fluids cuz they were rotting a bit. But, yeah I don't really know how to clean it off. Also what's the best way to preserve the tail? Should I put it in salt and borax and like mummify it? Also is there a way to keep bugs from trying to get to the tails? I had a coyote tail before (I bought it from a store) and a bunch of beetles ended up living in it :( sry if I'm bothering you! I'm a newbie to all this stuff lol

So the best way to preserve it would be to tan it yourself. By skinning and splitting the tail you'll expose the skin that can then be fleshed by scraping it with a metal spoon. From that point you can dry the tail with salt or borax and it'll be preserved, but once the tail is fleshed, salted, and dried it's ready to tan anyway! The fur is also cleaned during the tanning process so it'll get any residual dirt and blood out of it.

The best resource I can recommend are the guides on TruBond's site. They have complete guides how to use thier tanning produces in a free PDF that you can download. Again, you don't have to tan the tail at all to preserve it, it's just the safest method to guarantee the tail is cleaned and won't attract bugs.

I use Bedlam Plus every few months to spray all my furs, taxidermy, and mummified critters. It works on anything from dermestid beetles to clothes moths and I haven't had any issues since I started spraying my hides. So once you do have the tail dried, lightly spray some of that over it and it'll be good to go!

Hope this helps!

[transskywardsword]

A Moth Drawn to a Flame - Chapter Two Preview: Three Chairs and a Breakfast Table

Much is discussed over breakfast.

"“Did you sleep at all?” Kodah said as she watched Link make his bed. She’d long since stopped trying to convince him to let her do the housekeeping.

‘Yes.’ It wasn’t technically a lie; Link had managed to get in an hour, maybe two, but most of the night was spent staring at the ceiling rolling his conversation with Sidon around in his head. A celebration for the Champions’ sacrifice. It certainly didn’t feel like a sacrifice. It felt like his friends being butchered, bodies abandoned to rot. He never found Revali’s body, likely flung off Vah Medoh after his… passing, but he’d found Urbosa. Headless, gutted Urbosa, mummified by the heat and sands, and had promptly emptied his gut. Thinking about it still made his stomach hurt.

His friends had been butchered like wild animals, like vermin. There was nothing noble about that.

But then, could he even call them friends? Could you claim to love people who you had less memories of than you could count on one hand? Though, the memories had been coming to him more lately, quicker and with greater ferocity. They frightened him. He both hated learning about the man before him and was desperate to know all he could. Did he have to be that man? Was that what was expected of him? He wasn’t sure, but Zelda seemed ecstatic every time he mentioned a new memory, so surely that must mean that was who he was supposed to be. It felt wrong, being him. But what else was he supposed to do?

There was a knock on the door, and Kodah turned to open it, and squeaked when she did.

“Your Majesty!” She said, voice three octaves higher than normal, and dipped into a curtsy. Sidon gave her an easy smile.

“Please, Kodah, it is too early for pleasantries.”

Kodah let out a high pitched giggle, smoothing her crest, and nodded. “Of course, your Majesty. How can I help you?”

Sidon turned his smile towards Link. “I was hoping to speak with you, actually.”

Link’s jaw tightened. He tilted his head in obvious question, and after a bit of nervous tutting, Kodah slipped out of the room.

“I was wondering if you’d like to join me for breakfast.”

Link was tempted to say no, to make Sidon sweat after hearing about his little 'champion celebration', but looking at him—looking up at him—made the anger shrivel. Just a little-- he wouldn’t let it go all the way, was too stubborn for that-- but he could see the reflection of the light from the luminous stones that made up the Domain, all still glowing in the dawn, on Sidon's scales. It gave the edges of his scales a pale lilac glow, like swift violets back lit by the rising sun. The Zora fidgeted under Link’s gaze, small and only barely noticeable, but Link had spent the last year beside Sidon, and he knew what to look for: his head fin twitched just the slightest in a semi circle, making elegant loops hidden by the natural flex of the massive muscle. His gills furled and unfurled softly, barely perceptible, and he pulled his shoulders back almost enough to be odd looking. Almost. Link suddenly felt guilty for making Sidon fret—yes, he was tying Link down to the Domain, ripping him away from his ward and Princess, and planning some fucking party to honor the brutalization of people Link loved (had loved?) but at the end of the day, he was still barely of age."

For the full chapter, read A Moth Drawn to a Flame on Ao3 here:

[gwenkatana]

I have mizushipping and blueshipping brain rot and since I’m on hiatus from writing at the moment, I will exorcise these thoughts on here.

I want to see mummy Kisara. Imagine Sofia Boutella’s mummy but it’s Kisara. In my mind, when Set became pharaoh he had Kisara mummified and commissioned for her a tomb fit for a Queen.

Now, I have several ideas for Mummy Kisara. One is that as a consequence of Seto going into the afterlife to duel Atem, he now has to contend with Kisara being brought back to life with the ability to summon the BEWD and he can no longer do it. Seto now has a Mummy with god-like powers as his protector and you can imagine how well that goes.

In a similar vein, as a consequence of DSOD, Seto is now cursed to have Priest Set’s ghost with him in the living world which can possess him. Priest Set’s goal is to revive Kisara. Because if anyone is going to revive their dead love and be successful, its gonna be Priest Set.

Another idea is to just give Priest Set and Kisara the plot to the 1999 The Mummy. Kisara is killed because she’s feared to be too powerful. Set wants to bring her back to life but is stopped before succeeding. Set’s mummy wants to come back to life/power so he can bring back Kisara.

Also, let’s have Kisara be the vengeful mummy too. Priest Set is the one to die instead and now she wants to revive him and is not letting anyone get in her way. You try and stop her and you have to contend with a BEWD.

Lastly, an angst twist on the first idea, Kisara is revived after DSOD and has the power of BEWD again, but all Seto wants is the BEWD back. Kisara realizes this and refuses to return to Japan with him. Kaiba has her lover’s face and his memories but not his heart. Seth loved her for HER not for her dragon. The angst for Kisara, seeing someone she loves again but it’s not them. They’re someone different. This was honestly inspired by how Gunn wrote Star Lord’s feelings for Gamora in GOTG volume 3. The feels, man. The feels!

The thing with some of these ideas is that I’m unabashedly rooting for the mummy to be brought back 😅 But I just want more of Set and Kisara, okay? 🥺😭 But also why not have sympathetic mummies? We need more of those.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

You’re a 1000% right about you always need to be polite to the public. I work at a wildlife hospital that can get 60-100 intakes a day. So we probably get 2x that many phone calls. And yes, a lot of people wind up harming or killing animals in their ignorance. And it’s soul crushing and infuriating because a lot of it seems like common sense (no sir, it’s very bad to feed a rabbit KMR for 3 weeks. Maybe don’t cut off a Robins leg with scissors because it was broken). But I can easily turn that into a teachable moment. Explain why it’s wrong without making them feel bad. Make them understand what to do next time they find an animal that needs help while also building good will in the community. It might not seem like a big deal to people who aren’t in this line of work but it is. And like you pointed out, these people have a crisis they need help with. If you make them feel like shit, the next time they might not help the animal at all or try to rehab it themselves.

Yep. Brandi and Mario have been at this for years allegedly and they genuinely neglect many animals in their care. There have been instances of them not finding deceased reptiles until the body was completely rotted and mummified, they have private videos cuddling baby raptors, they posted this—

Yes the last one is several young owls in a chicken coop (which is below legal minimum caging standards) in full view of a domestic dog and goat among other animals. It is unlawful to house rehab birds in a cage with only one layer of wire as they can reach or be reached through it.

Overall just terrible people who hoard animals and think they’re gods gift to man about it.

[gnougnouss]

What happens when we die ??? Checkmate atheists !!

@bean-cakes

Don't you know ? If nobody burn you, you rot. Or get mummified. Stuff like that. It's common knowledge?

"but that's just my body !! What happens to me!!" You Are Your Body. There Is Nothing Else. Your thoughts are a bunch of electric signals in your brain. When you die, the signals stop. That's it. There is nothing else, there isn't any reason to think there is anything else. You might as well asks "where do my heartbeats go when I die" they go nowhere they just don't exist anymore. "Why am I conscious" because being who were conscious had more kids who had more kids so the ability to think complex thoughts and think of yourself as a person or whatever passed down. Same reason as why you have ten fingers. You do understand the theory of evolution right ? You see how the ability to think complex thoughts might be an advantage to stay alive ?

The universe is big and long, things that can happen happens and if nothing stop them they keep happening. We are alive because we are not dead yet. It's all very simple theists just love to overcomplicate things.