HORRIFIC

Shadow and Bone + textposts: Kaz Brekker

My mom has been thinking of moving sometime in the future, and she sent me a listing on zillow to look at, right?

And I’m like, “Oh cute, it even has a little in-law suite, that’s nice,” BUT THEN I KEPT SCROLLING AND

Um

UMM

This one was a little bit more challenging to do than I thought it would be – and that was mostly in all the detail (RIP) ,as well as figuring out ways to adapt a Klimt-esque look to Howl. It was really tempting to put him in his pink jacket since it lends itself to rectangular form so well. However I just had to go and make things difficult for myself… because I love his transformed version!

Courage. 

Pigeons can and will fight each other for even the smallest crumb of bread

When a pigeon picked up a bread crumb and other pigeons are nearby it will spread its wings to ensure the other pigeons can’t get close enough to steal the crumb™

The other , bread stealing pigeons might also spread their wings to make sure that no pigeon can steal the breadcrumb before them

They will steal it straight from another pigeons beak

Pigeons have no manners

They WILL fly at you and hover around your head once they realized you’re the one throwing the crumbs

They have no concept of personal space.

Crows on the other hand are civilized.

They will try to get to the crumb first but when another crow has reached the crumb before them they will accept this and leave them be

However if a pigeon reaches the crumb first they WILL go absolutely feral and peck the pigeon until it surrenders the crumb

Pigeons are reasonably scared of crows and won’t try to steal crumbs from their very pointy stabby beaks

Crows will wait for you to throw the crumbs at an appropriate distance because they do have manners

Unlike pigeons they will also watch you and look right into your eyes, expectantly

If a crow looks at you , waiting, and you throw it a crumb it will try to catch it just like a dog would

Pigeons however don’t notice shit until it lies in front of their face or they see another pigeon found something

Crows understand pointing, pigeons don’t

If the crows are satisfied they will fly away

Pigeons are never satisfied and therefore will bother you until the very end (aka. Until you don’t have any bread left)

They always hunger.

In conclusion:

Feeding crows is more fun than feeding pigeons because crows know the rules of society and pigeons don’t.

They eat seeds. Well, they're supposed to, anyway. In practice they eat whatever they can get their beaks on, because it's borderline impossible for them to find the food they're supposed to eat.

Feral pigeons are pretty much all on the brink of starvation. Yes, even the ones in your neighborhood. Even the ones who live in parks and spend their days poaching french fries off of tourists and old ladies.

Imagine if suddenly it went out of fashion to keep cats. Imagine if a couple of generations passed and the only cats people ever saw were feral or stray. They might be sweet and loving, but society and people considered them nothing more than dirty nuisances "infesting" the cities. And imagine if the few kind souls who did feed them fed them only broccoli, because somehow that's what popular culture and film had decided cats ate??

That's pretty much what happened to pigeons. They're domestic animals that've been abandoned as a species. They're trying to adapt, but life is very difficult for them. Even the ones which appear well-fed really aren't. And even people who are kind to them don't usually know how to help.