Caterpillars don't count!

They're larvae!

I meant like maggots! Maggots are not cute.

Tell that to Otet.

Does she think maggots are cute?

Kinda yeah. Don't tell the clean castes, but she has a very abridged sense of what's gross.

That's a diagnoseable disorder, yanno.

Not for aliens!

Good for aliens!

Again don't tell the clean castes but aliens don't really have a disgust reaction to corpses as long as they're not like actively rotting.

Wow, really? Like, I got used to it, but I was kinda "yikes" at first.

A fresh corpse--well, a basically intact one, if it's like in pieces that's gross too--but, like, if they look like they could be sleeping, there's no basic disgust reaction to knowing they're not.

Huh.

I dunno, it could be different for other people? But, like, open casket funerals are a thing, so it's not that different for that many people. But 'what's gross' is mostly not a preoccupation we have once we're old enough to stop shoving mud down each others' shirts.

Wow, the concept of an open casket funeral is wild.

And people mostly get cremated on Genosha but that's because we don't have enough space to waste on a cemetary, downbelow a lot of cultures bury their dead whole and then visit the graves to remember the dead.

There's places where we bury dead people here. Most places have shifted to cremation but around here we're filling the catacombs since they can't be used for anything else for ages anyway and shifting as they get full. There's not really a way to visit though.

We have catacombs some places. I went to one once on an educational trip. I thought it was sad, so full of the withered bones of anonymous dead...

...

Wow. Speaking of things not to tell the clean castes.

Haha, yeah. They'll be all BUT DID YOU SHOWER.

I was seven--uh, almost two, our years are the length of one of your seasons. I have showered in the fourteen years-slash-seasons since this trip!

But there is a set of specific theologically approved kinds of soap! And a five hour process!

Yeah fuck that. My pain tolerance having been developed for magic I just found it easier to have the offending tissues literally removed and replaced after touching things at the north pole.

Hardcore.

I don't want to spend five hours showering! That sounds like such a horrible waste of time!

I've never tried it personally. It does sound tedious.