Ominous Mayhem Sad Boi - Spotify, 2022
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today’s isopod is Armadillidium vulgare “Orange Vigor,” an orange mutation of the common pillbug or roly-poly.
they still show yellow scrawls and varying shades of base color like the wild gray form, with males tending to be dark and patternless and females brighter and with more markings.
If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading
if you fuckers do the skeleton war shit again this year we’re deleting the website for real
there is still time. there is still time. until your bones are in the fucking ground there is still time.
https://twitter.com/profannieoakley/status/1357768408671027202
This thread is gold… make your own here: https://htck.github.io/bayeux/#!/
Spiny lobster feeding time! These guys are generally pole-fed since they're scattered all over their exhibit, but a few have learned that they get fast and easy food delivery by waltzing right to up to the feeder. That being said, it becomes more of a drive-thru window when you've got other hangry lobsters behind you!
the year was Two Thousand and twenty-four. I took a puff of my Electronic-Cigarette, inhaling the vapours. my mobile terminal buzzed in my pocket, a flat slab of microchips and glossy touchscreen. I ignored it....... probably another Electronic-Mail
Ever see a depiction of St. George and the Dragon? It's pretty fair to say if you've seen one, you've seen them all: Georgie on a horse stabbing a flailing dragon creature, princess piously kneeling in the background, vague landscape alluding to the homeland of the artist's patron.
The most varied part is the dragons. No one had a real definition for the thing, it seemed. For your pleasure and entertainment, I have ranked some medieval depictions based on how impressive George's feat seems once you see the dragon.
Paolo Uccello, 1456
This is a terrifying beast. The hell is that. Uccello was one of the first experimenters with perspective, so the thing also looks surreal, like it's taking place on Mars, or a Windows 95 screensaver. I would not want to fight that, I would not want to be tied to that. (Sometimes the princess is tied to the dragon for some reason.) 10/10
Horse thoughts: Maybe if I look at the ground it will be gone when I look up
Unknown artist, c. 1505
This is a rare change of form for the dragon; it's the only one I've seen actually flying (or at least falling with style). It doesn't look particularly deterred by the spear through its throat, either. Also, George looks appropriately nervous. On the other hand, it hasn't got teeth, it seems to be fuzzy rather than having scaly armor, and George is bolstered by his army of Henry VII and his children, most of whom definitely didn't actually die in infancy. Still, wouldn't want to fight it, wouldn't want my pet sheep near it. (Sometimes the princess has a pet sheep for some reason.) 9/10
Horse thoughts: I am so glad I wore my mightiest feather helmet for this
Raphael, 1505
We are coming to Dragons With Problems. This guy looks about comparable in size to George, and does have wings, but doesn't seem to be using these things to his advantage (and has he only got one wing?) And how does he deal with the neck? He does have a comically small head, but holding it up with such a twisty neck seems complicated at best. But most egregiously, he is doing the shitty superheroine pose where he is somehow simultaneously showcasing his chest and his butt, with its unnecessarily defined butthole (more on this later) (regrettably). 8/10 bc it's Raphael
Horse thoughts: AM I THE BESTEST BOI? AM I DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB? WE R DRAGON SLAYING BUDDIEZ
The Beauchamp Hours, c. 1401
We had a spirited debate about this one at work. Again, the dragon has gotten smaller, and this one hasn't got even one wing. He's basically a crocodile. So the debate became: would you want to fight a crocodile if you had a horse and a pointy stick? Would the horse trample the animal, who can't get on its hind legs, or freak out and throw its rider? Would the pointy stick be enough to pierce the croc's thick hide? In this case, George seems to be controlling his horse and putting his pointy stick in the dragon's weak spot, so we can be impressed by his skill and strategy. However, his hat is dumb. 7/10
Horse thoughts: Dehhhh
Book of Hours, c. 1480
Here we have the same kind of croco-dragon, but George's focus on his strategy has gone out the window. He's flailing around, not even looking at his target, he's about to lose his pointy stick, he hasn't got a hand on the reins, and his sword seems to only be poking the invisible dragon over his shoulder. All he's got going for him is that his hat is slightly less dumb. 6/10
Horse thoughts: Yay, new friend! Come play with me, new fr- what is happening
Final dragons put behind this Read More for your safety:
Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1432
I'm thinking this guy is at least semi-aquatic. Webbed feet, wings that seem more like fins, bipedal but top-heavy, jaws that seem more for scooping than biting. Maybe she's crawled up here from the nearby body of water to lay her eggs, and this is all a big misunderstanding. Moreover, George's dagged sleeves seem entirely impractical for the situation. 5/10
Horse thoughts: i got my hed stuk in a jar and now it is this way forever
Unknown artist, c. 15th century
I hate this. I hate everything about it. Why has it got human eyes and teeth. Why is its nose melting. Why has it got a dick on its face and balls under its chin. The fin/wings are back but they look even more useless. Also, George is shifty as hell, schlumped over in his saddle with his bowler hat thing over his eyes. The baby dragon at the bottom eating some hapless would-be rescuer is kind of metal. 4/10 at least the thing is gonna die
Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Crack
Book of Hours, c. 1450
Remember what I said about the buttholes? First, sorry. Second, yeah, we're back to that. I'll admit this one is less about the danger from the dragon itself than the very specific choices the artist has made. They didn't need to do that. It's a lizard. They don't even have. And it's like they had an orifice budget and they skipped an exit wound for the spear to focus. Elsewhere. It's so detailed. And George had an even dumber hat. 2/10 take it away
Horse thoughts: I Have Smoked So Much Weed
Book of Hours, c. 1415
This is just bullying. There isn't even a princess. That is clearly an infant. Look at that smug look on George's face as he swings his sword that's bigger than the whole little guy. This is the equivalent of when DJT Jr. hunted those sleeping endangered sheep. 1/10
Horse thoughts: ....yikes
And this is the previous one, but now the baby dragon is cute. He's chubby. He's got toe beans. He's Puff the Magic Dragon. His eyes have already gone white, implying that George is just kicking its corpse around for funsies. What's the difference between the dragon and the lamb in the background? That the dragon is dead, like our innocence. This George is truly deserving of the dumbest hat of all. 0/10 plus one more butthole for the road
Horse thoughts: Perhaps it is we who are the buttholes.
A collection of 26 nightmarish vintage Halloween photos from the 1930s.
As someone who struggles with disordered eating thoughts a lot I will forever appreciate Dungeon Meshi for giving me the scene where Laios kicks Toshiro's ass before saying outloud that the reason he won is because he's been eating(and resting) and Toshiro hasn't.
In a world that is so fatphobic it absolutely demonizes needing to eat to the point we have whole entire adult humans who think being hungry is a sign you're addicted to food it means everything to me to have a show say "cooking and eating is not only fun, rewarding, and a way to bond and share/preserve our cultures, it is a necessary part of life that makes your body stronger, you cannot save yourself or others if you're starving, you gain nothing from denying yourself food" like...Dunmeshi is such a breath of fresh air. No fat jokes, no "oh tee hee I gotta watch my weight" comments, no fucking moralizing any type of food as bad or unhealthy, fatty meats and fried foods and carbs being shown as just as nutritious and valuable and necessary as vegetables and salads, the show even having a part talking about how eating isn't just about being full and you can still enjoy food even if you aren't doing it for nutrition or to sate hunger, and Laios literally proving that there is nothing noble in starvation and denial of our base needs....goddamn. I love this story so fucking much.
This animal was requested!
“Our culture suffers from terminal brainworms when it comes to artistic expression. We are under the impression that art is something ‘special people’ do, and to do it well makes you a genius and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning-off of ‘the art world, for artists,’ from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.
You see, for most of history and in current cultures that do not have this psychological disorder, you do not sing because you’re a singer, you sing because you’re a person—it’s fucking singing! Religious institutions are one of the last places that we still understand that singing is an innately human participatory social act, not the exclusive domain of fuckin’…Ariana Grande.
The result of removing this stigma and arbitrary qualification required to do something as simple as draw or dance isn’t just less self-hatred, less insecurity, less anxiety, better community, better connection to your body, more holistic communion with others and the world around you, and simple indulgence in your fundamental humanity—it also results in categorically better artists.”
CJ the X, 7 Deadly Art Sins
A Mélange of Miscelaneous Lizards
My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum
Pencil sketch only this week, due to various reasons I didn't get the opportunity to ink it (this was finally going to be my second attempt at Mike Mignola's style), maybe I will repost later if I have the time and energy to tackle the inking at a later date, but I wanted to get what I did have up.
Original description and a couple of brief notes below the cut;
Nglushogog
The Nglushogog is so called because it has the face of a frog.
Lots of inspiration from leopard geckos, particularly in terms of its tail.
Hrutdearya
The Hrutdearya is a lizard which goes blind when it grows old; it enters a crack in a wall and, looking toward the east, it bends its gaze on the rising sun and regains its sight.
A bit of inspiration from skinks and anoles here.
Rukhgarukh
The Rukhgarukh gets its name from its colouring. For it is adorned on its back with shining spots like stars. Ovid says of it: ‘Its name fits its colour; it is starred on the body with spots of various colours’ (see Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5, 461). It is said to be so hostile to scorpions, that the sight of it paralyses them with fear.
As this is the most aggressive and actively described of the three, I went for something with a good gape display, in this case a monitor lizard, with star-shaped osteoderms on its back. It's menacing another strange creature that might be familiar...
Reblog if you’re 30 or older
This is an experiment to see if there really are as few of us as people think.You can also use this to freak out your followers who think you’re 25 or something. Yay!
Thanks Mac, and I feel like we all had a lot of fun with this one, particularly with the Hreakgleav and a couple of others!
A lot of these track really well (I absolutely love the description of the Klethghrom/peacock), although I feel the author might be being overly charitable about the Burngraega/Swan's song (I assume this ties in with the old fable about swans singing sweetly before they die?)
Couple of extra takeaways;
The Hrongnewit / kite was an interesting one, a ubiquitous scavenger in the middle ages in Britain (think a cross between seagulls and pigeons, but a lot faster), now fortunately making a comeback (I actually saw one a couple of weeks ago!). They're not that small, but maybe the 'puny' refers to its spirit (compared to some of the other bold and glorious birds of prey we've come across in our bestiary odyssey)? Regretfully, the use of the term 'shite-hawk' in the middle ages appears to be apocryphal...
There's also the Lokfotreag / Hoopoe (at least they got the colour right!). I wanted to give something a hoopoe-like crest here, but I wasn't expecting this descrption to be for that particular bird...
I've started feeling a little defensive of the hoopoe, to be honest - 'the filthiest of birds', associated with demons and black magic. They're just little guys! With cool crests and rad orange plumage and an awesome 'upupu' call...
Then I did a little bit of research and found out that they are violent birds with oil glands that stink like rotting meat, the chicks can direct streams of excrement towards predators, live in a dirty nest and regularly practice cannibalism on one another...
Fair enough then... 😐
Bestiaryposting Results: Miscellaneous Birds
So! This is the first in our six-week wind-down of Bestiaryposting, where we run through the Honorable Mentions that appear in the Aberdeen Bestiary but didn't get their own post here because the author of the Bestiary and I have different goals.
If you don't know what any of that means, you can find out at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.
To see the entry our artists are working from, click here:
To see the entry people are drawing now, so that you can potentially join in, click here:
Art is below the cut, in roughly chronological order.
@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) decided to do Literally All of the birds. I am fascinated by the detail here; I particularly like the pose on the Hreakgleav, and the feathers on the Klethghrom. I would direct anyone trying to figure out which is which to the linked post, which contains a key and brief descriptions of each.
@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has also given us a tree full of birds. The explanation in the linked post of which is which and what they were inspired by is illuminating (pun not intended), so check that out. I especially enjoy the interpretations of the Klethghrom and the Lokfotreag. (And thank you for providing alt text.)
@wendievergreen (link to post here) has drawn three of the birds in their always-charming style. For explanations, close-ups, and individual treatments of each, please see the linked post. I really like the tail on the Hreakgleav and the... frankly insane look of the Klethghrom. (Also thank you for providing alt text.)
All right, we're going to identify these rapid-fire because there are a bunch of them and I'm not going to hand you a whole-ass essay here. Readers are encouraged to add their own commentary.
Tluftasong
The manuscript identifies this one as "night owl", but I've seen other sources refer to this entry as the "night heron". I'll leave that one to people who know birds more.
Lokfotreag
This is the hoopoe. Which, as listeners to the podcast know, you can trade to demons for perpetual access to great parties. The illustration is very cool, and seems to show the young birds rejuvenating their aging parent.
Hurrashbeg
Really love the Stylized Plant, of course. One of the things that really strikes me about medieval manuscript art is how particular things that Definitely Don't Exist keep cropping up in different manuscripts, looking pretty much the same. Like, unless this is by the same artist who did the Rutland Psalter, it shows an interestingly consistent artistic tradition -- I swear that's the exact same plant, and in a couple other places in the manuscript they have the exact same wyvern.
Anyway, those are clearly magpies. I don't know why they're being shot at.
Konchilkuk
This one didn't get an illustration, but it's the woodpecker.
Wobrahfmet
Yep, that sure is a raven. They actually have a really long entry, but it's mostly about what they symbolize.
Hrongnewit
This one is the kite. Yeah, that looks pretty believable.
Klomurgrae
This is... apparently the ibis. Also, from the context of the entry, I think it's intended to be standing on a snake. Neither of those look like the things they are supposed to be.
Zagsmenrok
This is the blackbird. I have no explanation for why it's brown. The illustrator clearly has access to black ink.
Hreakgleav
Yep, that's very clearly an owl.
Wahrembeag
It tickles me that these are right next to each other, because there's a moderately-well-known Middle English poem called "the Owl and the Nightingale". This is pure coincidence; they're not together in the bestiary, there are a few birds in between.
Oh yeah, this is the Nightingale.
Sarbrufeat
This is the heron. The illustration seems broadly correct, but do herons come in white? That's an egret, surely.
Keltrumram
This is the coot -- doesn't look like one to me, but maybe the artist and I are familiar with different species of coot. Readers may recall its cameo in the Eagle entry; its own is unfortunately rather shorter.
Grozfarwat
Meet the quail. I was initially confused, but apparently the plume thing I associate with quails is not actually common to all species of quail. So... yeah, good quail.
Mortelgeng
Very definitely a crow.
Burngraega
Also very identifiable, here's the swan. Head and beak seem a bit flatter and wider than I would expect, though.
Klethghrom
This was basically the poster child for "too obvious to get its own entry". Here's the peacock.
And that's it for this week, it's late. Talk amongst yourselves, or tell me what you think about all these birds.
the past few days my brain keeps thinking about that "TIL a baby was named Diot Coke in 1379"
I'd felt an absence of Ishmael in the narrative since the chapter about Queequeg's coffin, like he never recovered from that, he tapped out of not just that experience but the whole story, and now I know why---
And I also can't stop thinking about Ishmael joking about sailor's wills and these two in particular leaving each other everything and half of what's mine is yours and Queequeg with his coffin saved him
Details of the museum of folklore and magic-Falmouth Cornwall
Hey you know that song that goes na na na na na na na na na na na na na na
What’s the first song that just came to your mind?
King Frederick of Sweden received a lion as a gift and was so proud of him, that in 1731, when he died, the king wanted him preserved, but there was no taxidermist available, so he began to decay. They finally found one who likely had never seen a lion before, so this is what the king received back. To this day, King Frederik's Lion can be seen at Gripsholm Castle, a former royal residence that is now a museum in Mariefred, Södermanland, Sweden.
The taxidermist based his work on a Lion of Medieval Art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_of_Gripsholm_Castle