#zippermouth

[toonvasion]

Feral Squareinx

HER again?

[zombiemaids]

“I hoped this was what was known as ‘snapping’; I wanted to snap. In a very deep way I felt the need to come unglued. I was too sensitive for this evil world; I wanted a genteel nervous breakdown. I needed a diagnosis. I wanted understanding orderlies with a stretcher and calming drugs, cold cloth on my forehead, and a rug across my lap while I gazed moodily from the sanitarium deck across the magnificent Maine coastline.”

— Zipper Mouth, Laurie Weeks

[polychromaticart]

oh hey i’m not dead, here’s a painted portrait of my oc Emergency to prove it

[deadprocess]

Aint that progress

[gangrelated]

zippermouth creek

[syndromestore]

Korean Cute Blush Face Zipper Mouth Black Sweater

[shinygiraffe-blog1]

New sona to celebrate summer I guess

[hypnofantasma]

Hey Juno! I just wanna ask how a zipper-mouth exactly works, I know these are aliens but you are very passionate about giving explanations in what makes them tick. Soo, how does the musculature work to support the zipper-mouth, does the zipper mouth NEED to extend to the base of the neck or can it just reach to around the middle of the neck, (more related to kwaiz jaws in general) could it split in half and act as 2 separate jaws, I am brainrotting so hard and I want answers about zipper-mouths

Zippermouths are a complex mechanism involving several "muscular hooks" chained along a multi-segmented "split" from the neck/throat.

This is how it gets the name, "zippermouth"! Think of the head and neck area of one such individual as having five types of parts; the braincase, the top/static mandible, the bottom mandible (or jaw), the spinal split, and the "mobile" split(s). The two "normal" jaws are almost always free and able to act as jaws, like on a normal vertebrate animal. However, along the edges where the spinal and mobile splits meet, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of tiny muscle hooks that hide behind the lips.

When together, these muscle hooks fit and weave together perfectly to create the throat. The individual has the full ability to then pull them apart, as if simply opening their mouth, and these hooks will then unhook and allow the jaws to open. They tend to open from the jaws down, hence, a "zipper" mouth.

There can be multiple splits, as long as there's at least the main one (the spinal split) that provides strong neck support to hold everything up. The extension of the zipper also doesn't matter, they can go halfway down, fully down, even down across the body to an extent as long as no organs are compromised.

Even with a zippermouth, thanks to the underlaying muscles, zippermouth havers can still smile on their face like you or i!

REALLY quick shitty doodles but i hope these help in some way!