Le Petit Frimeur

But get this: The same premise every time, but in wildly different times and places. Victorian England, the gentlemen went fuckshit with some nice sherry, wrote some questionable letters, worked together to compose an absolutely idiotic thinkpiece essay and sent it to the local newsprint (the publishing of it must be stopped) and for some reason there's an ostrich.

A troupe of travelling performers in the late Kofun period wake up in the stables of an inn, and the main plot point is the little beast sleeping on someone's chest. None of them have ever seen a cat before, but one knows enough to tell that those are imperial pets, and whoever's fucking cat that is will both be capable and willing to kill whoever stole it. So they'd better fucking return it.

poem is my cat is sad by Spencer Madsen

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Conversations in Italian, circa 1976-1996

every time i read this post this is what i see in my head

I will also have a sorceror in my employ. When a hero or a renegade or a political rival is in a situation where I can safely kill them, they will instead be turned into a bird and added to my aviary. I would not brag about this; it would be a complete secret, known only to me and my sorceror. In situations where I capture multiple people working together, only one would go in the aviary;the others can be imprisoned or killed or whatever. If they escape and I reacquire them later, another one can go in the aviary. The point here is that nobody going in the aviary can safely assume that another bird in there is their teammate.

Because I would be trickling real birds in there, too. And I would train some of them to do 'intelligent' things like tap out prime numbers or scratch shapes into the dirt with their beaks. I would train some of them to pick at the locks and bars as if they were trying to escape. I would not train them all the same way, or train many of them at all.

Sometimes, a new bird goes into the aviary -- fellow revolutionary? Or just a bird? Is it trying to communicate to you that it's human, or just being friendly and imitating you because that's what smart friendly birds do? People would develop opinions and theories over time. They'd amass in a group of the smartest ones, pretty sure that they're closest four or five friends are humans, are using their invented little language of wing-flaps and trills with a human mind behind it... but can they ever really be sure?

Most people, when going into the aviary, would assume that all of the birds are captured enemies. So why are some of them hard to have ongoing communication with, to learn about, to plan with? Are these the natural communication barriers of someone in a bird body, or does being a bird make them stupider over time? Will that happen to them also?

Sometimes, if I capture a pair, I'll imprison them separately, then turn one into a bird and put them in the aviary at the same time as a real bird that's trained to have a couple of their partner's mannerisms.

When I interact with the birds, even in private, I won't secretly mock them or make clever veiled references to their past or act at all like I remember that they were once human. They are my birds, that I imported at great expense. And I've brought a treat for them; some fresh fruit, and another friend to share it with! A new bird!

Never finished this series ^ of putting all the ghosts in each ghosts' era....

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