#like the dead parrot sketch

[aurorasleepsin]

Love this post.

It starts off with a very reasonable argument for being scruffy after being alone hiking- Good job Op.

Then there is a drawing to illustrate the excellent point. Even better way to literally illustrate your very good argument.

But

There is a raccoon on his head.

And you ask yourself, is that a raccoon skin cap like Davy Crockett and children in 1950s America wore. You hope not, but that is probably the most reasonable explanation.

But you are not alone.

The raccoon is too good not to mention. Too good not to have a backstory. Too good not to have a story.

Until it is a full fledged part of the friggin trilogy of the LoTR movies.

He is the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but without the plot to murder the prince.

He is a character of Shakespeare stolen from Ovid to now grace our dashboard as the Raccoon we needed and deserved in LoTR. He is of the people. He is folkore within beloved literature. He is

I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.

My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813

*electric guitar riff*

And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like

[hballegro]

ill be chillin and then my brain will start goin IT'S NOT PININ', IT'S PASSED ON! THIS PARROT IS NO MORE! IT HAS CEASED TO BE! IT'S EXPIRED AND GONE TO MEET ITS MAKER! THIS IS A LATE PARROT! IT'S A STIFF! BEREFT OF LIFE, IT RESTS IN PEACE- IF YOU HADN'T NAILED IT TO THE PERCH, IT WOULD BE PUSHING UP THE DAISIES- ITS RUN DOWN THE CURTAIN AND JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE! THIS. IS AN EX-PARROT.

[beardless-bearded-vulture]

Dodo sketches from Joris Joostensz Laerle, in a ship's logbook from 1601-1603. These were the first drawings of a live dodo, and the only ones drawn on Mauritius. Apparently another dutch name for the dodo is "walgvogel", disgusting bird, because despite hunting them for food, not everyone thought they were that tasty :^l The logbook was on display at the temporary exhibit at the Allard Pierson museum

Closeups of these sketches and the sketches of a (likely) dead dodo:

Joris also drew other birds that later went extinct: The mauritian parrot, the red rail, and the Mauritian pigeon

The closeups of the sketches are from the Atlas of Mutual Heritage, where you can find more sketches and information about the logbook

[diloph]

SOMEBODY, PLEASE, SAVE THE MONSTERS

I’m picking my way through some of the Aliens novels/comics in the post-Prometheus/Covenant era and maaaaan, does the quality of them vary.

Like retcons of movie-era, Dark Horse-era and AVP-adjacent (to say nothing of the things like the noncanon DC crossovers) are one thing, but there’s bits that they just straight up contradict each other within the same timeframe.

For example, in a recent-ish comic, Russ Jorden, Newt’s father, turns up in a cryotube beneath the ruins of Hadley’s Hope. He’s still infected and dies at the end of it... despite the fact that Newt has already seen him die with her own two eyes in the recent-ish novel, River of Pain.

Had this not been the case, you could quite logically say he was infected, frozen, somebody else birthed the Queen and the job’s a good’un. How he survived the fucking nuclear explosion is another gripe, but I digress.

It’s putting me off. Other future prospects don’t look like solid purchases, sadly. I’ve not gotten to them yet, but apparently there’s stuff like a human using the Black Prometheus Goo to turn into a Xenomorph Queen with all their faculties, the goo somehow infecting the Xenomorphs despite the fact that it subtracts from them as bioengineered killing machines hinted to been birthed from the stuff...

Then again, the last one I read featured an extended Boris Johnson/Brexit parody, a space battle and some hate towards the Dead Parrot sketch, so we’re evidently grasping the stupid ball that the Predator dropped, apparently...

It’s making the silliest of the Dark Horse stuff look sensible and that’s a hell of a feat.

[mellohiizz]

another small sketch dump because parrot's ep was crazy in a sense of how many duos and interactions between characters we got.

i'd like to apologize to every person i told that havoc duo was dead. they're alive, and well. (probably still divorced, though)

[ducktoonsfanart]

My artworks during 2024. - My drawings and my most viewed works over the months of the past 2024

Once again, I wish you all the best in 2025 and a Happy New Year 2025 as well as the upcoming Chinese New Year!

Sorry for my delay in posting this last month, because I had a lot of troubles and commitments and simply didn't have time to post my most viewed works by month. I did post about my drawings I did last year and my description of my experiences over the past year. See this: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/771518951479967745/summary-of-my-art-in-2024-i-wish-everyone-a-happy

Although I already have my retrospective from my post here: https://ducktoonsfanart.tumblr.com/post/771397567733022720/2024-tumblr-top-10

Without going into too much detail, I'll just say thank you very much for the support you gave me last year because I wouldn't have done this without you. Of course, like every year, this year I will publish my drawings that I did last year and which received the most views with the most likes and reblogs. The only thing that will count is the review of my drawings during January 2025.

January 2024 - Happy New Year! - Celebrating New Years in Brazil or some tropical place with Donald Duck, his family and his friends - The Three Caballeros - Quack Pack AU - Duckverse (my version) - 52 notes (likes, reblogs and comments)

Also Duck Dodgers and Duck Avenger - Green Dodgers and Green Avenger - Ducks crossover - Meme - My version - 43 notes

February 2024 - John D. Rockerduck and Jeeves (Lusky) with Rockerduck’s family plus Donald and Scrooge - Duckverse - Gift for my friends - 39 notes

Also Donald and Daffy Duck with their wives and children in China - Happy New Chinese Year - Year of the Dragon - Crossover Duckverse and Looney Tunes and Tiny Toons - 38 notes

March 2024 - Donald Duck and his family mourn the dead in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack and bombing - Donald Duck and his family in Moscow (Russia) and Belgrade (Serbia) - Duck comics - Duckverse - 46 notes

April 2024 - Foghoron Leghorn with Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner - Pepe Le Pew and Penelope Pussycat - Looney Tunes - Cartoons - 46 notes

May 2024 - The Three Caballeros Together Again - My Redraw - The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos Movies - Duckverse - 45 notes

June 2024 - Birthday party for Donald, Daisy and Della Duck! - Happy Birthday Donald, Daisy and Della Duck - Ducktales 2017 - Duckverse June - Week 1 - My Version - Gift for my friends - 70 notes

July 2024 - Happy 90th Birthday Donald Duck! - Donald Duck and his family and friends - Tribute to Don Rosa (Happy belated birthday to Don Rosa) - The Duck Who Never Was - My redraw - Duck comics - Duckverse - 58 notes

August 2024 - Quack Pack Summer - Huey, Dewey and Louie vacationing with their sisters, cousins, brothers and friends and girlfriends in Hawaii - Quack Pack AU - Summer - Duckverse - Quack Pack - My version - Gift for my friend - 42 notes

September 2024 - I have 6 sides - Cartoon and Comic Edition - Meme - Crossover - Donald Duck and The Three Caballeros, Looney Tunes, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Woody Woodpecker, Sponge Bob Squarepants, Tom and Jerry and Garfield - My version - 43 notes

October 2024 - José Carioca (also known as Zé Carioca) celebrates his birthday and the holiday of his country (Brazil) with his family and friends - Ze Carioca Comics - The Three Caballeros Month - Feriado - Día Festivo - Holiday - Família - Familia - Family - Duckverse AU - My version - 27 notes

November 2024 - Quack Pack Kids (Preteens and Teenagers) and Young Adults (Boys and Girls) - My sketches -Game, Well-To-Do-Duck, Wild, Friend(s), Cultured, Emotional, Obscure and Nostalgic Duck (s) and FREE SPACE DUCKS (plus geese, parrots, rooster and pigeon) - Duckvember - Quack Pack AU and Duckverse (Donald Duck and Ze Carioca comics, Ducktales, Darkwing Duck and Quack Pack) - My style - 35 notes

December 2024 - Quack Pack and Goof Troop (A Goofy Movie) together again - Donald Duck meets Goofy - Max Goof comforts Louie - Max Goof with Huey, Dewey and Louie as teenagers - Duckverse and Goofyverse (Dogverse) - My style - 37 notes

And finally my most viewed drawing is:

Darkwing Duck and Duck Avenger (PKNA) with their families as superheroes in action (redraw) - Darkwing Duck, Duck comics and Quack Pack AU - Duckverse - Happy my birthday! - 78 notes

Of course, anyone who is interested can check out my art blog here and thank you all for this.

Once again, happy holidays to everyone and a happy new year 2025!

If you have any impression of what you liked the most and what you didn’t like about these drawings, feel free to say so.

Feel free to like and reblog this! And keep following me! :D

Just don't copy my ideas and my designs of these characters without mentioning me and without my permission. Thank you!

[storybenderstudios]

*shoves this TERRIBLE sketch of human Ajaw at certain people (cough, @sapphireshineauthor cough) and runs like my life depends on it* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok so finals are arriving, plus all my classes decided that their last test before finals just simply had to be one week before said finals, so I'm literally swimming in tests right now.

And projects. Lots and lots of autoethnographies and lots and lots of Biology haikus. Nice. Not a lot of drawing time, since I've been prioritizing my gaming (400 free primos from exploration with saurians that can fly, this is literally the fastest I've ever explored a region. Fontaine can't come close.)

So explaining the design... Since Ajaw is sort of a rogue, I went with the treasure hoarders' bandanas, bcs, aha, Dragons hoard things. Also I went with a colorful (eventually) patterned tunic because Ajaw would be a parrot if he was IRL and he seems like the type of person to wear orange with purple on a daily basis and think he look cool. I'm dead serious. (nothing wrong with purple and orange when done right, I'm talking neon.) And that's pretty much it. I'm still not sure how much I like this. As it turns out, drawing a pixel dragon and turning a pixel dragon into a human version are two entirely separate beasts. Same goes for dragon Kinich versus human Kinich. My fucks are given. Wtf these two have no right to have such unforgiving designs.

Anyways, the hydro dragon, Monsieur Neuvillette returns December 10th, and with my 55 pity, 108 wishes and a guarantee, he's coming home! Yay! My only concern is that since I'm f2p I will have to skip Mavuika or Citali....or both, because Arlecchino is rumored to be coming back in the same banner as Mavuika... Fuck this terrible banner system.

[yonderghostshistories]

Actually i think there was a family guy cutaway which parodied the MPFC opening intro

https://youtu.be/PVTM5pCPax0?si=yI5GAlJryFvLdQ8V

Also there was a cutaway gag about how one of the characters idk which forced Meg to watch the lesser known/"unfunny" (???) stuff python made but Meg didnt like it because shes a girl, so yeah, unfunny sexist gag...

Plus South Park paid homage to Monty Python also . I think its great how MP wasnt really parodied because frankly i think it would be shitty n not rlly funny ... Glad i could help you out !

Thank you kind anon!!

oh yeah I saw the intro a while ago, but still thank you for linking it here!!! I found it was really cool and I like the aesthetic of it frfr!!

Plus the slightly longer version w/the It’s Man in the beginning

Ok so I just watched it, and tbh….idk how to feel about it tbh. Why does Meg not liking Monty Python have to do with her being a girl? I’m a (cis*) girl (*who’s currently questioning their gender but am somewhat certain that I’m transmasc, but still my point stands) and I like Monty Python, hell I think most of MP’s somewhat “unfunny” material is still kinda decent in a way (but again that’s just me personally lol). Is the joke supposed to be that girls don’t understand nor find MP funny? If it is, then that’s clearly a false assumption, as me and many of my online friends (who are mostly girls (plus boys too), as well as queer and trans, non-binary & gnc people) find it really hilarious fr! Again the joke in the cutaway gag doesn’t make sense imo, maybe I am missing smth in the joke and if so do let me know!

Also yes I am aware that some people aren’t into Monty Python or that it isn’t their personal preference, and that’s totally ok imo like I’m cool with that (even if it does baffle me lol 😂) Overall tho this cutaway gag just doesn’t make that much sense imo. I haven’t watched that much Family Guy tbh (only some episodes here & there from time to time, including some clips) but uhh yeah. Thank you for reading this really long ramble of mine on dissecting on that one particular ehh MP cutaway gag lmao 🤣

Link to the video btw :

Oh yeah fr!! I’m assuming you’re referring to the time that South Park (and Matt Stone & Trey Parker) were featured in the 30th Anniversary Special of MPFC from 1999 (called “Monty Python Night”), where the South Park team paid homage to the “Dead Parrot” sketch, with Kenny as the Dead Parrot (or rather, the Dead Friend), Cartman as Mr Praline, and Kyle as The Shopkeeper! It was very funny fr tbh and I love how (animated) Terry G pops up near the end lol 😂

(plus Matt & Trey apparently uhh “kidnapping” Terry G’s mum, also in the 1999 30th Anniversary special “Monty Python Night”)

ALSO ALSO

South Park’s animation style as a whole is an homage to the Terry G paper cut animation style too, which is really cool fr imo!!

ALSO ALSO Also

Eric Idle was featured in the movie “South Park : Bigger, Longer & Uncut” (1999) as the character Dr Vosknocker !

Also anon I get where you’re coming from on the thing of not there being any Monty Python parodies as they would probably not be that funny and also kinda shitty. Yeah ig that’s kinda true. However, I’d personally still be interested in seeing an actual parody of Monty Python tbh, but again that’s just me personally lol.

Again thank you dearest anon for this lovely ask!! I deffo love & appreciate it frfr 🙏❤️

[thehistoryone]

Hey! 💚 I'd like to ask, if that's okay, how did you get into Monty Python? I'm curious :)

Ooh good question! I mean being British monty python is a big part of culture/comedy over here and they've influenced lots of my fav stuff (six idiots). Also we once did the entire "what have the Romans ever done for us" sketch in a class assembly haha. so yeah I'm pretty sure I watched life of Brian first cuz I'd seen clips/refs to it and then saw some of the famous sketches (dead parrot/lumberjack) and went from there 😁😁

[gacmediadaily]

Dan Merchant is a veteran writer, producer, director best known for SyFy’s Z Nation and his documentary feature Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. His latest series Going Home is produced in association with Sony AFFIRM Originals for Great American Pure Flix. 

We don’t like to talk about death in America. Oh sure, we’re fine with death in our entertainment so long as we don’t have to talk about it. We sit entranced as our favorite TV doctors valiantly battle the ultimate foe with Hail Mary surgical procedures and impassioned cries of “Get me 10cc’s of morphine. Stat!” Every existential threat is met with aggressive, decisive action rather than contemplation for as every TV viewer knows there is no greater shame for the TV doctor than to lose a patient (especially one portrayed by a featured guest star). 

That was my conclusion, anyway. Now, my family didn’t do any better when it came to acknowledging death. We didn’t talk about it, even when people died. I grew up going to church and I’d heard talk of heaven but the “Auntie Marge is in a better place now” party line was contradicted by the sad faces and somber mood at her funeral. Puzzling. But at the age of 8, television provided valuable illumination when PBS aired Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch: I soon understood Auntie Marge was “no more, has ceased to be, expired and gone to see her maker.” She was, indeed, an “ex-aunt.” Eavesdropping on Michael Palin and John Cleese as they debated death was oddly reassuring and, on quiet nights, I still catch myself “pining for the Fjords.”

Fast forward to present day, I now have the pleasure of talking about death at work every day. The conversations are startling, refreshing and deeply meaningful. I should explain I’m not a grief counselor or a mortician, I’m the creator/showrunner of the tender drama Going Home which follows hospice nurse Charley Copeland (Northern Exposure’s Cynthia Geary) as she walks her clients “home” to their final reward. 

Now in our second season on Great American Pure Flix, Going Home may be the only medical drama in TV history NOT trying to save the patient and that is a surprisingly beautiful thing. At Going Home we talk about death a lot – and not just on screen. We talk about death in the writer’s room, at the table read, after the rehearsals, between takes, at the grip truck, in the make-up room – it seems everybody has a story to share, obviously. We’ve all lost loved ones.  

And while it may sound counterintuitive, Going Home’s hospice stories give life. These stories of hope, grace and compassion are deeply rooted in our shared human experience which is, I think, why they’ve connected so profoundly with our audience. I feel humbled to be telling these kinds of stories, the ones that remind us that we are all the same. I once interviewed SNL legend and former U.S. senator Al Franken for a documentary and he told me: “I like to make entertainment that rewards the audience for understanding how human beings operate.” A worthy goal, right? 

After watching season five of Fargo, I think Noah Hawley would give an “amen” to that. Have you seen the finale? Damn! Spoiler alert: the closing thirty minutes is among the most impactful faith-based content I’ve ever seen. Deeply moving. Hawley earns it too, building all season to this inspiring, scandalous act of “turn the other cheek” forgiveness. The beauty is simply stunning, but that’s what stories of redemption do. Thanks Noah, well done.  

Now, I wish there was a better label than “faith-based.” It’s not very nuanced, which is a shame because it’s been a terrific season for faith-based entertainment; from the box office bonanza of Jim Caviezel’s Sound of Freedom to Dallas Jenkins’ The Chosen debuting their fourth season of the first-ever television series about the life of Jesus IN THEATERS (and THEN going to streaming and THEN to broadcast because, well, give the people what they want) and, finally, Amazon Studios has just announced a bold partnership with Jon Erwin’s The Wonder Project to create “universal stories of love, triumph and spirituality.” 

So, what does Amazon know? Amazon knows everything! They have dimensional consumer-based analytics and those analytics have affirmed what some of us storytellers already knew: there is a huge audience hungry for stories of love, forgiveness, reconciliation… and even death. These stories of hope put life into the world and remind us of who we are to be and, please remember, at the end of the story, love defeats hate. I know it’s true, I just watched it on a television show.

[discordapples]

PT. 2 | Poltergeist Tears

Word count: 2.3k (10 mins read)

Characters: Livia Novik, Laurence Novik, Fastidio.

Summary

Imprisoned within the treacherous labyrinth of the poltergeist, Fastidio, Livia Novik endures the sinister whims of her captor. Reduced to a mere plaything, she clings to her plan of convincing the entity to shed its tears for her, inching her ever closer to resurrecting her dead brother. In a startling twist, the tables turn, and Livia emerges as a formidable opponent.

Read the second chapter below.

TW: Mild mutilation, cursing.

Livia | Hogsmeade, Late August, 1893.

A tangle of mangled chairs ceils over Livia Novik’s head as she races through the mansion.

The corridor chases her, slinking upon itself like a limbless centipede. It pushes her forward; the floor rolling under her feet. 

She runs faster, then cuts left around the angle of the corridor. Passing the threshold of a yawning door, she finds herself in yet another blind room. 

The door slams behind her. 

“Lumos.”

The tip of her wand throws a garish glare that washes her retinas with pain. 

On the four walls, mirrors parrot themselves into infinity. 

She folds her palm around her wand and allows her eyes to adjust to the light. 

She is surrounded by hundreds of raven-haired girls who stare back at her. Wicked smirks here, mournful pouts there, their irises the same olive green as hers, all wearing her golden locket, the one her brother gave her, all sporting on their left cheek and neck the patch of burned flesh she loathes to look at.

 A laugh rumbles through the walls. The sheathing groans as if it will collapse.

Livia looks up, aware of the thousands of rooms pressing around her. 

Will she ever get out of this maze?

She has been at it for five hours, judging by Laurence’s pocket watch, but she has no way of knowing if the poltergeist can alter the flow of time in this world of its own design. 

Her throat is raw with thirst and exhaustion drives needles at the back of her skull. 

She has to push forward. 

Her fingers rove about the looking-glass, following the tiny cracks like she would the dashes of ink on a map. 

At once, all of her mimics start whispering. 

Amidst this labyrinth of infinite reflections. Seek the key to liberation, defy all imperfections. Through shards of glass, find the clue concealed, for only truth shall guide, your freedom revealed.

“The key to liberation,” she mulls out loud, her heart ramming against her ribs. “Defy all imperfections.” Sweat breaks on her forehead as the solution sketches itself into her brain. “Shards of glass… Fuck.”

Above her head, the poltergeist’s despicable jeer drives cracks through the ceiling. “A worthy playmate. But does she have what it takes to win?”

Livia bites down on her lip, crouches in the corner and lifts her wand before her. “Reducto.”

The mirror shatters and snows on her. Grabbing a mutilated piece, she stands up as her reflections burst into laughter.

Flames fill the room behind her. 

Illusions? 

She feels no heat on her back, but the idea alone is enough to send tremors into her limbs.

The images of that terrible night visit her in their cruelty: Laurence’s fists slamming into the sashed window, a heap of smoldering beams hissing angrily behind him, the stench of peat singing its way down her throat, thousands of nerve endings exploding with a harrowing pain, the stink of her own hair melting away. 

Shaking, she lifts the shaving to her scarred cheek, her heart fluttering like a wild bird against the bars of its cage. 

Pain blisters as soon as the glass bites into Livia’s skin. Blood purls, slinking over the slope of her jaw, and the tang of wet copper fills the room, oppressive—sickening.

Her teeth grind together as she slowly shaves the scarred tissue from her face.

Her progress is slow. Excruciating.

Tingles skitter to her fingertips.

White inkblots swarm around her like angry gnats.

She will faint if she keeps going.

Dropping her improvised scalpel, she bends forward, heaving. 

When she lifts her head again, her scar is intact; the sundered flesh basted back in place by the poltergeist’s witchery. 

“Have I broken you yet?” The entity whistles into her ear, its frigid hands raising the hairs on her shoulders.

Livia cannot see it, but she feels the mass of gelid air roaming the skin draping her clavicle, her nape, her scalp.

“You’ll never get out of here,” it taunts, a necklace of cold closing around her windpipe. 

The entity’s hold is feathery, however, an ethereal brush against the pit of her throat.

Her copies in the mirrors have vanished. Now all Livia sees is a boundless darkness, so thick and inky, it eats at the light emanating from her wand, gulping it whole.

“You’re mine.” The voice ghosts over her lips. 

“Not until you bargain with me,” Livia says. 

She has been waiting for this moment. Five hours solving the poltergeist’s pathetic riddles, running through a snarl of corridors, making herself interesting.

Designing the perfect prey is as minute an operation as brewing a potion. 

A dash of wit, a lick of brazenness, a smidge of distress, a hint of hopelessness.

Spirits crave for life, Livia, her brother, Laurence, told her as they planned her time with the poltergeist. They envy each throb of a beating heart. They long to have another taste of love. Even hate is better than nothingness, but lust and fear… Lust and fear are honey to the dead tongue.

A curl of breath wings up behind her ear. “What can you possibly bargain with, living one?”

“My life,” she says, her blood cataracting through her temples. “Let me ask you a riddle. If you solve it, I will stay here with you forever. Send me through a hundred more mazes, watch me wither with thirst or have me lure innocents into your trap—do whatever you want to me.”

Immaterial fingers key along the notches of her spine, enticing a shiver that climbs up to her nape. “And if I fail?”

“You’ll give me your tears and let me go.”

Although she cannot see it, Livia can hear the smile in the entity’s words. “Deal. Ask away, living one.”

She takes a deep breath, the conundrum rehearsed with Laurence until she could recite the words as fast as she would her own name. “I am born from nothing, yet always remain. Unseen, untouched, beyond human domain. I have a beginning, but lack an end. Infinite and eternal, my essence transcends. I exist in all places, yet never can be. Forever elusive, an enigma to see.”

Silence cotters into the room. 

The entity’s fingers have gone from her chine as it ponders over her aporia. 

For it is exactly that: an aporia, an impasse—a puzzle defying logic.

The kind she and her brother, Laurence, used to concoct to ease their boredom. 

Time slips, aching forward, and in its flow, Livia can almost taste the poltergeist’s irritation. 

When, at last, it speaks, the voice is half-cautious, half-convinced. “Love. Love is the answer.”

A smile plays upon Livia’s lips. “You are incorrect. The answer is time.”

“No,” the entity hisses, its anger blustering through Livia’s hair. “No, it has to be love!”

“Love isn’t born from nothing,” she says calmly. “It isn’t elusive or eternal or infinite. It certainly isn’t beyond human understanding.”

Aerial fingers scuttle along her arms, her neck, through her hair, the touch custodial, soft, tender. The voice comes, wheedling. “Stay with me, living one. Together, we would lord over this world and send fools into the arms of madness.”

Her lips curl at the attempt. “I believe you owe me your tears.”

A force pushes her against the mirror. Cracks slither through the glass. Livia gasps with the pain, but she weathers it.

So close, she is so close. 

“You are a fool, living one! Poltergeists don’t cry.”

“You are right,” Livia concedes. “But humans can, and I can make you one, if only for a time.”

The voice that comes is curious. “Why would I want to be human?”

“So you could know what a kiss feels like. Have you never wondered about it? You chanced ‘love’ as the answer to my riddle. Surely it has been on your mind, you have asked yourself what it was to feel loved. What if I could show you?”

“I... No.”

“You can conjure rooms at will, stretch corridors endlessly, but nothing compares to the bliss of being kissed. An eternity spent without knowing this feeling is not worth living.” Livia whirls around, unsure from which corner the entity observes her. “I can turn you into a human and you can dance with me. A boy, a girl, and their own pocket of existence. I will kiss you, or you will kiss me, and you will cry for me.” She swallows in a dry throat, hoping that her words find their mark. “I will leave you for a while, but I’ll come back… You have an eternity to spend and I have a brother to save. My absence will be a trifle to you, a drop in the ocean. What say you, immaterial one?”

“Will you swear to come back if I accept?”

In this instant, Livia tastes the victory on her tongue. “Kiss me and convince me to come back.”

A cold lick of air touches her cheek. “Make me human then.”

“Look into the mirror,” she says, crouching to grab a shard of glass. She drives the edge against her palm. The slit weeps blood. She presses it against the mirror, closing her eyes. “Touch me through the glass.”

There is a thrum through her palm, a lash of fire smoldering through her wound. When she opens her eyes, she is faced with a flaxen-haired boy with eyes an elysian blue. He is dressed in blue-damasked samite and a flourished red silken cravat. 

For a trickle of seconds, the poltergeist takes in his new body, his fingers caroming over his clothing. Livia extends a hand, and his arm materializes through the mirror, slipping through the barrier as if he shrugged out of a shroud. 

When his hand touches hers, the room shifts. The looking-glasses vanish, so do the dust of splinters, and they find themselves in a deserted ballroom, under the coy light of the chandeliers.

Violins warble and flutes chirp and their fingers intertwine. His hold is strange, not quite material, akin to holding an empty glove, but already he presses against her back and leads her into a waltz.

Livia’s heart flutters in her breast, and even if he has no blood to pump through a mesh of veins, a flush vines behind his cheeks. 

His mouth hovers close to her ear, and he breathes her smell in, and they twirl on the checkered floor in a shiver of silks, and when the music fades, when the boy’s eyes connect with hers, he leans in for the kiss and she yields it to him. 

He explores her mouth gingerly, as if the illusion is a piece of porcelain that will ruin with his urge, but it is there, interred underneath the reluctant gestures.

An urge to call upon and mold.

Livia’s arms loop around his neck and she draws him in, her tongue parting his lips with none of his prudence. She moans, a whit of heat paddling between her thighs.

It is a strange thing, to be kissed by a phantasm, but Livia takes it. Why wouldn’t she? It is a victory, and victories are best savored in excess.

When she breaks their embrace, she does because her lungs burn with the lack of air.

The boy’s eyes turn vitreous. “Is this love?” He asks her, his voice cracking.

“No,” she says, pulling her wand from her pocket. “This is lust, and it’s but a taste of love.”

A pearl-colored tear slips past his eyelid, and Livia catches it with her wand. She opens her locket and watches the silvery drop roll on the pure gold like a bead of mercury, then lifts her eyes to him. “You have to let me go now…”

Tears stream freely on his face; thick and milky like trickles of molten wax. “When will you come back?”

Livia culls the substance from his cheeks with a thumb and graces him with a smile. “When I have the Promissum Mortis, and thanks to you, I’m one step closer to finding it.”

* * *

The sun has long been washed away by the ink of night when Livia climbs back into the carriage.

“So?” Her brother, Laurence, asks her. 

Her thumb presses against the locket. 

In the low light, Laurence is but an outline, his translucent shape more akin to air simmering than a full-fledged apparition. 

He is fading a little more every day, and Livia wonders if he will disappear completely before she has time to find the relic.

She casts a spell and a shy light glows awake. Laurence’s phantom is made of asperities; the burn scars covering most of his aspect. He no longer has hair or eyelashes or brows. 

He no longer looks like her brother, and the artifacts of the boy he was can only be found in his voice. 

His eyes rove to a distance shrouded in gloom. “I can’t follow you there,” he says. “To Hogwarts.”

“I know.” Her hand hovers before him. His fingers slip right through her palm, leaving a cold imprint. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you, Laurence.”

He graces her with a faint smile, difficult to make in the low light. “You lived a full year on your own when I wasn’t yet born.”

“I don’t have memories of it. You were always with me for as long as I can remember.”

He nodded, melancholy painting his features. “You are late to your sorting ceremony.”

“As if any of this matters.”

A neat line draws itself between his brow bone. “Life matters, Livia. In the pursuit of restituting mine, don’t forget to live yours.”

“I’m the big sister, Laurence. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

“But I do. I always will. The dead are left with nothing else but concern for the living.”

The carriage startles and groans, wheeling through the cobblestones streets of Hogsmeade.

Livia reclines in her seat, her eyes going to the road ahead. “And what are the living left with but the lingering pain of those who fell out of life?”

[commonguttersnipe]

Imagine if Monty Python's Flying Circus was filmed in, like, the "Peep Show" POV style, w/the characters' inner monologues and all!

For example, think of the Dead Parrot sketch if it was filmed in POV. I can imagine Eric Praline's inner thoughts becoming more and more angrier and Bevis the pet shop owner's inner thoughts becoming more scared and desperate as he tries to find more excuses.

What do personally think of this idea?

I would definitely watch this.

I now want an Office-style documentary but it's just about the Gumbys

[superbdragoncollection-stuff]

There's a joke, for Europeans a hundred miles is a long way, for Americans a hundred years is a long time.

People in the Balkans were killing each other in the 90s over crimes committed in the 1600s.

Turkish people still refer to a famous battle from even earlier like it was yesterday

And the French and the British still hate each other

And the Dead Parrot sketch has an ancestor from the 4th century.

So your assessment is 100% correct XD XD XD

medieval lit is really fun. there will be a footnote that is like “nobody knows what the author meant there and scholars have been debating it for centuries” 

[poemarsviner]

Can [Concept]

Last week we had planned our tin can concept. I knew I wanted my pie, but I wasn't sure on the inside. I made a few design ideas, and settled on one main idea.

Here were my ideas, three of them together. Two have a bird and one has a skeleton hand on it.

After discussing the concepts, I decided on the middle one with the bird halfway out of the pie.

Considering that my pirate is a zombie, I wanted an undead theme for my parrot as well. I considered a skeleton, sketched here. Unfortunately skeletons are incredibly hard to sculpt, so I'm not doing that idea.

Here is a sketch of the side view of the can, although the parrot would probably be smaller in the can.

Here is my top down view, the first concept of it.

Here was some information I had written about the concept. I added the peck marks later, as you can tell from the diufferent pen but I believe it fits the theme, like the bird is trying to peck itself free.

Kyrstie recommended we create a label, so here is my concept. It's supposed to fit the vibes of a really fancy company who puts a lot of 'love' into their food but of course, this is a dead whole parrot.

After talking to Kyrstie about sculpting, I eventually decided to have a zombie parrot. Patches of normal parrot but with rotting sections and possibly a part of the skeleton showing. I think this will be achievable and I look forward to the final result.

[themirokai]

Do Today’s Youths know the Dead Parrot Sketch? I feel like Monty Python isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it was (they were?) when I was A Youth.

There’s a post going around about how stupid the word “unalive” is and one of the reblogs lists a series of alternatives, most of which are verbatim from this sketch.

If you haven’t seen it before or (like me) haven’t seen it for a long time, enjoy!

[bloodgulchblog]

After Kilo Five talked so much about how old and frail Parangosky was and how she’d die rather than retire, the rest of Halo insisting that she retired feels like a coverup.

Or the dead parrot sketch.

Or both!