Nentuaby's Tumblr — theartofanimation: Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes - blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.

And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child's toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn't even a sophisticated electronic button it's just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that's the gist of it - most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.

Some people have been wondering about the raccoon. Listen. Listennn. Don't ask about the raccoon.

But does the racoon survive the Uruk-Hai? Does he curl up on Aragorn's head, or does he go straight to Faramir? Does he bite Denethor?

My friend. My colleague. My brother my captain my king. I too have been pondering this question, and in my mind there can be only one ultimate outcome.

A few months later

All hail the High Warden of Gondor.

Epilogue: It ADORES Faramir.

I’m going to wear this on my head like a raccoon and show everyone

Twist: it's actually a hobbit.

"Oh, the Ringtail family down in the south of the Shire keep to themselves, terribly ashamed of their tiny feet. They do have an affinity for royalty, though."

Bacon is such a gimme compared to most of their past ingredients… I don’t really mind, though. Sometimes it’s nice to watch cooking game people make a good damn meal, instead of the least-bad thing they can manage in under insufferable conditions.

It’s that time of the year again.