I am tumbling on and still I am singing my song

Bees!!! Yay bees!!

A seaglass kiwi made from kiwi seaglass

Behind the scenes:

Escape from Heaven

Tiny footsteps echoed loudly through the church until the child kneeled on the floor and looked up, aiming words directly at God, or at least at the high ceiling. As luck would have it, the child caught a glimpse of a figure in red and black with a long forked tail.

“No panic,” the Devil urged from where he was clinging to a thick, slanted wooden beam. “I’m only a minstrel still in my stage garb after thinking it would be safe to speak my own mind during a performance for the city’s nobility. I had to run and hide, and they did search for me, but not this high up—which I think is ironic, in the house of God.”

The child was still staring, and after a moment of silence asked: “Are you trying to break into Heaven, using the beams of the church as a ladder?”

“Actually,” the minstrel replied, remembering how much more effective than the truth stories can be, “I’ve only just become a demon after breaking out of Heaven. Would you be a dear and check whether there aren’t any humans outside, guarding the church? You’ll understand it’s only safe for me to go out if there aren’t, otherwise I’d terribly tempted to corrupt them.”

As the minstrel slipped away into freedom, he said a grateful prayer to his young lookout and promised himself never to waste his talents on an unworthy audience again.

—

Somehow I haven't gotten over the subject of heatwaves yet...

This 15th episode of Paranatellonta on YouTube takes us back to the 232nd edition, Wasteland, from April 2018.

Also want to hear it in Dutch? All my translations come out of my own brain and are read into a microphone by my own voice, no AI involved. Watch the Dutch video here.

Lack of Attack

For so long, a holiday in Oz had been a dream, but now Melia was finally here, happy to check off every tourist trap on the list.

Over a century after Dorothy Gale’s adventure in Oz, many of the places she’d visited were admired daily by streams of people both from Oz and from Melia’s world, celebrating how Dorothy had initiated open contact between both realms. The main attractions were the orchards and flower fields near the spot where Dorothy’s house had landed and the Great Wizard’s palace in the Emerald City, but Melia wanted to have an authentic experience first, and that was exactly what the Deadly Poppy Field offered. Here, both Dorothy and the Lion had fallen asleep, and they might never have woken up if it wasn’t for their friends the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, who’d been unaffected by the poppies’ somniferous scent because they weren’t made of flesh. These days, a team of synthetic staff was always on hand to carry the tourists out to safety, where they’d soon wake up from a refreshing nap.

Melia had been looking forward to that nap for years, and so she was skipping merrily amongst the rows of colourful poppies, waiting for sleep to catch her. She reached the other side of the poppy field and turned back, still waiting, while other humans and animals around her had dropped down fast asleep before they were even halfway through. When she arrived at the start of the track again, she wasn’t feeling sleepy in the slightest, and her skipping faltered. She held up her arm in the Ozian sunlight, studying the glittering of her skin, so similar to the synthetics’ polymer exoskeletons. In thirty-five years she’d never been made aware that she wasn’t an organic life form, so what else was she going to discover about herself during this trip?

—

twelve episodes, twelve contestants - a mix of annoying middle aged sci fi authors, fan fic authors and random people off the street

a variety of against the clock writing tasks, big finish scripts, ability to interact with actors without shouting at them and challenges where you have no budget or doctor for an episode

judged by solely by christopher eccleston

King Par’s Party

It had taken a very, very long drive for Ruby to escape the overwhelming city. Ironically, now that she’d finally arrived in the long stretches of greenery where she intended to hike, she’d give anything to find a car park. Finally, a sign pointed her to where these tiny, winding roads had been hiding one of them. As she got out, she realised that she was standing in the middle of a perfect circle of buttercups…and then the ground gave way beneath her.

Par, the fairy king, threw the very best kind of parties: dancing was, of course, encouraged, but there were also cakes, the freshest mixed juices, and boardgames of all types. King Par—short for Paranatellonta, not because these fairies were particularly into astrology but because he was named after their favourite source of short stories inspired by photos—danced and played with Ruby all night, and she forgot all about the worries in her concrete life. By sunrise, she decided to leave, and the fairy king merely smiled and let her. Oddly enough, the sign pointing to the car park looked very different in the daylight: it hadn’t been so bent before, so worn, so overgrown with moss; the houses shining their lights in the distance had changed their shapes, and the trees and flowers looked untouched by a human hand. Those of you familiar with fairy stories will know that time passes differently in the fairy realm, and that it only ever moves forward, no matter how hard Ruby tried to walk backwards into the circle of buttercups.

“Ah well,” the fairies said, holding out their hands to invite her to another dance, “what would be the point in returning to a time when ‘parking’ had to do with concrete rather than trees?”

—

their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

It's 32°C today, so have a refreshing new Paranatellonta video!

Rabbit's Restaurant was the 152nd edition from July 2016. Almost 10 years old!

Rather read it in text form? Find the original Tumblr post here.

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

Terry Pratchett, in a letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, 22 November 1967

Thank you very much for your letter. The first one that I have received with regard to Smith of Wootton Major. You evidently feel about the story very much as I do myself. I can hardly say more.

the electric mayhem (minus animal bcs hes their kid) arent a polycule, theyre monogamous. but specifically they break up and date each other one at a time. they have a chart.

animal is genderfluid. this is mentioned exactly once bcs kermit calls her he and she starts yelling "SHE/HER!" kermit corrects himself and the show goes on

rizzo made out with gonzo once but he still considers himself straight bcs gonzo is not a guy, he's a whatever. gonzo agrees with this

uncle deadly dated tim curry. it did not end well.

actual emotional scene of gonzo talking about how he feels abt gender. no jokes.

kermit: no matter what, gonzo is still gonzo, and we're always going to support gonzo no matter what gonzo decides- gonzo: kermit. i still use he/him

statler and waldorf wedding episode. theyre divorced by the next

beaker trying to ask bunsen out on a date. in the end it turns out bunsen thought they'd been dating for years.

miss piggy hanging out with drag queens

related, miss piggy starting to present butch and kermit being Really Into It. hes embarassed abt it

pepe begins a story with "when i was a little girl...."

janice decides to start using just she bcs "like, i could never be her"

rowlf mentions having a husband. even kermit is like "??? since when??!"

Mike: here

Dr. Teeth: pronoun check

Animal holds up an auction paddle with their pronouns written on