creepy

I think theyre cool. Ive felt baleen before, it's bristly like a broom.

They're cool, no buli

I think seeing the horror in this is valid but all I see is a big pog face because the internet has poisoned my mind.

That being said big inorganic things underwater activate my fight or flight for whatever reason. Not sure why this is fine but if it was say, a statue, it’d freak me out more.

I think they are very weird but they don't creep me out. My terror is on the other side of the size scale. Parasites freak me out.

And on the minute scale - bacteriophages. A bacteriophage is a virus that parasitizes a bacterium by infecting it and reproducing inside it. Something inside my brain refuses to accept they are real and they must be spacecraft or something from sci-fi. Nature makes some fucked up shit.

the ocean deeps is totally weirder than outer space to me. because stuff actually lives there. big stuff, not like tardigrades and dormant microbes in ice pockets. large things that feed on detritus and live in the dark, adapted to incomprehensibly high pressures.

whole ecosystems along the edges of thermal layers, individual leviathans cruising currents around the planet. and it's not silent, though maybe it's quiet across large areas sometimes. but sound travels much farther in water, so there's a network of communication among larger species using lower frequencies.

the ocean depths i think are a perennial source of inspiration for sci-fi writers world building a populated and busy outer space.

Balleen whales are a very advanced and wise mode of being. Biologically, we are not predisposed to investigating grains and locating them into heaps. Balleen is straight up a grain sorter mounted to their faces. In a sense their whole lives are spent making a heap--and what a heap it is--the largest, most successful animals of all time

tell that to the next person who says philosophy isnt important; the more heaped up the animal the bigger and better it is

Completely natural. Those things are big enough to kill you by accident without even noticing. It would be weird to be at ease with them.

Brother they say the same thing about us.

Nah whales have always scared me just from size alone. Like the idea of a blue whale below me in the ocean is terrifying. Cool animals but not near me thanks.

Mind you I'm scared of the ocean in general because it's so huge, powerful and I suck at swimming. The blue whale is much like the sea itself.

Some kinds of mouths creep me out. I got a whole list of mouths I’m not letting near my mouth and a lot of them are ocean-based.

You know how dog water gets all gross and slimy after they go to town on it? The ocean is the planet’s dog water bowl. It’s a slimy goopy salty mess, it’s cool as fuck but it’s gross and I don’t want its mouths near my mouth.

It's some horror tier shit

I had a picture book of cetaceans when I was a child, so I've always thought they were pretty amazing and majestic. I also have a strong connection to the sea from my youth, so maybe I'm just weird like that.

Teethmaxxing and mogging on plankton

For me it’s Belugas

I’m pretty sure there’s a user here who has some sort of phobia with Belugas too

Didn't one of these swallow a kayaker and spit them out?

Baleen is neat. It's like a surfboard that had hair on one edge.