#oscar the ball python

[wisteriagoesvroom]

LOL I can imagine for vampire au Lando starting to third wheel Carcar and so even though turning Franco is a complete accident he can’t feel too guilty bc he uses it as an excuse to hang around someone else, and somehow he learns more about vampirism lore through a human grad student than he’s learned in his whole life (he’s lived a long time, lots of info to absorb). Then also, if you don’t mind my ask, what do they all do for jobs/how do they get money and would Franco keep studying ?

HELP this is so cute. ok. norpinto-frando vampire au for those who aren't up to speed...

Lando starting to third wheel Carcar and so even though turning Franco is a complete accident, [Lando] can’t feel too guilty bc he uses it as an excuse to hang around someone else -> screaming cus, absolutely. random associated headcanons for this... i'll rewind a bit:

carlos is the oldest vampire, like, moorish/medieval era. he met lando while they were both at a masquerade ball in the early 1600s and smelled each other right away (carlos like wood and ink, lando like gas lamps and wet stone).

lando is an tudor era vampire. like he actually knew shakespeare and said he was one of the best viral marketers of the era

oscar was turned in the early days of the australian penal colony, he's like first or second generation white australian but he refuses to be called british. he moved in to the house because the rent was cheap and he doesn't feel the need to live extravagantly -- even though he, too, is $$ loaded $$

oscar didn't move in until about two decades ago - very short by vampire standards, to them it feels like yesterday - but carlos and oscar are basically They Were Roommates atp even though they squabble con-stant-ly

their neighbours think they are a new age-y polyam group but because the people who live opposite them are students, nobody ever hangs around longer than a year to remember them or dig deeper

so franco definitely brings a fun funky fresh dynamic

he learns more about vampirism lore through a human grad student than he’s learned in his whole life (he’s lived a long time, lots of info to absorb) -> things that baby vamp!franco teaches lando include

tiktok trends, like how to make ur teeth comically large in photos. lando finds this hilarious

how to use venmo

creating a roster on google docs for who needs to do what house chores

jailbreaking an apple watch so it doesn't read their pulses (they don't have any), but it will remind them of the moon phases and when they might be extra hungry to feed

at one point franco actually puts his academic skills to use and helps lando hunt down some of his family tree, because since lando was turned and it's been so long, he doesn't remember much about them : ( so one of franco's little gifts to lando is helping him trace his heritage

what do they all do for jobs/how do they get money and would Franco keep studying ? -> i love how practical-minded you are. um well let's say this fictional supernatural creatures' market mostly runs on barter trades and goodwill agreements. the entire house sometimes just gets lazy tbh so lando or carlos will just dig into one of the old chests of random shit and pull out an antique and go: "do we think this is worth anything?" then they take it to an antiques dealer who is also a mage (alex albon) and there is a 1 in 25 chance that the antique is actually is worth something, so that bankrolls them for another half a year or whatever.

carlos makes a lot of noise about being "an art dealer" just because he sold a goya painting to a museum once.

oscar is a man of industry, of the "newer" world (australia) etc etc so he spent the 80s and 90s learning C++ and Java and Python so he legit just codes for a living. or when he feels like it. oscar has helped launch at least a dozen startups under various pseudonyms and one of them is even a blue chip company by now. he doesn't do it for money tho. he just does it cus he likes a challenge, and otherwise fights with carlos too much. when he isn't coding he likes to tinker and fix things just for fun. like, he legit knows how to fix a boiler and stuff. his familiar is definitely a grumpy orange neighbourhood cat.

franco keeps studying!! he is such a nerd that he's like "i can totally learn everything about anything now, and i could in theory do like 20 masters degrees, and nobody can stop me"!! then lando is like, "well you might get bored of it after a while or burn out". but franco insists he will not. in fact with his enhanced neurological abilities he goes on an academic bender trying to fast forward through an entire harvard's undergrad degree's worth of material in a week, and he ends up faceplanting on his desk. and then poor lando has to go and find a fresh chicken or something to kill and revive franco 'cus franco wore himself out too fast being a bb vampire with accelerated mind powers.

franco promises never to do that again (but of course he will continue to do it once in a while, and everyone still looks after him in his lil study hangovers because he is so very nice. also he taught them how to use venmo.)

and. one time. franco is like. "i can't find this rare sonnet do you know what library i could maybe locate it in" and lando is like "wait i know that one" and pulls out an honest to god original copy that he at some point got laminated in the early 80s. and franco is like. "um i think this should be in a museum??" and lando is like "yeah but i gave them a copy of this, cus i spilled ink on the corner of this in 1603 after a really good night out" and franco is like "???? ok ????"

then lando swans off to moodily stare at the moon or some shit.

[truedarkhunter]

A look at Snake's snakes

I noticed there were more up-close looks at some of Snake's ophidian friends. So I took a few moments to stare at them and try to determine the species. Some are very likely, others are best guesses, but it's still a fun exercise. I started with the notes online with the kuro fan-site then expanded them.

Johnathan is a rattlesnake (called the “Old Man” by the others.) Likely a Western diamondback given the ridge over the eye.

Emily:  Kingsnake (false coral snake)  She has the red touching black, so false-attack.  The bands are wider than on Milk Snakes. Bronte:  Looks to be about 2 feet long and has a pale body and dark spots.  Belly is pale.  Guesses:  Could be a hognose snake, a night snake, or a variety of brown snake.

Donne:  Very small snake.  Can subtly reside at the top of Snake’s ear when travelling (Guess:  Common Krait aka “Karait”– the small, but deadly brown snake from Rikki Tikki Tavi.)

Goethe:  Orange snake, white spots, round eyes.  Childish and friendly (My guess:  Leukistic boa or python)

Keats:  Depicted both with a pattern on his back and as an non-patterned snake.  Often used as a guide.  (Sheds often?)              (Guess:  Ball Python or other python based on uneven loops of the pattern drawn and the thickness of the tail tip.)

Oscar:  Shiny two-toned green snake with a dark back, lighter stomach.  Tip of his tail is dull grey.  Tongue is blue.  Oscar has a rough temperament and speaks like a young man.  (Guess:  Red-tailed green rat snake. It has both the blue tongue and sometimes has gray tails.)

Webster:  Zig-zagged, cross-banded pattern, 4-5 markings atop head, slit pupiled eye.  From Queimada Island (Snake Island, home of the Golden Lancet/Golden Lancehead Pit Viper.)  His poison can kill a human within 30 seconds.  (Guess:  Golden Lancet. It’s the only place they live.  Webster is just a strongly patterned one.)

Wilde:  Black-and-brown spotted python, largest of Snake’s snakes.  Widest part of his body measures between 4.72” (12cm) and 5.12”(13cm) and his head is relatively small in relation to his body.  (Guess:  Boa Constrictor based on loose loopy pattern.) Head small in relation to body only the size of a small fist. 

Wordsworth:  Dark brown snake with lighter brown and black crossbands.  Has straight belly bands.  Speaks like an old man and is quite knowledgeable.  (Guess:  Eastern Copperhead.  This snake is not that dark on the body, the markings are a strongly open diamond shape and the head is strongly colored.  However, there is a clear band over the nose and past the eye that isn’t present on the copperhead.  Tail is thick.  Could be another constrictor.) Unnamed:  Black Mamba killed by Patrick Phelps in Book of Murder.  It’s highly venomous, from Southern Africa. 

                     Victims die within an hour of being bitten.  Black mambas are the fastest land snakes in the world and                      excellent tree climbers.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

what do you think james, cordelia, alastair, thomas, matthew, christopher, anna, ari and lucie’s favourite animals are?

obviously we know matthew has oscar (lil baby🥹) but what do you think they’re most likely to have as pets?

and why?🤭

Some of these have canon favourite animals from their original introductions that came with the Charlie Bowater character cards!

Cordelia -> Persian cat. Can totally see her keeping one as a pet. She adores both her and James and is super snuggly.

James -> Wolf. Unfortunately there is no ethical way to have a pet wolf. I think he is happy to have the cat with Cordelia and he loved her very much.

Matthew -> OSCAR. If he got a second pet, which I don't think he would, maybe a hamster that likes to zoom on a wheel. Or a guinea pig!

Alastair -> Hedgehog. 1000% will die on the hill that he'll adopt one eventually. I put it in a fic or two, called the hedgehog Farzin. It immediately loved Alastair because he is a hedgehog whisperer.

Thomas -> Owl. But he can't have a pet owl and is, like James, more than content to share Farzin with Alastair. Also he and Alastair will definitely have 2 cats I said what I said. I call them Meowcchiavelli and Shakespurr in A Ribbon of Dream.

I don't remember the other's canon faves so am going to make them up because I'm too lazy to put in the work.

Ari and Anna obviously both have Winston. But I think they also both really like snakes and reptiles, so they'll get a ball python and also a bearded dragon at various points in their lives. Since they're having a kid, the bearded dragon will probably be more immediate because those things are harmless.

Christopher and Grace would in an alternate world probably not have a pet because of all the experiments happening in their home. It might not be safe for animals. However I think they both love animals and regularly go to their friends' houses to pet them.

As it stands in canon, I can see Grace with a black cat. I have one and feel ~witchy.~ I think Grace would enjoy that. The cat would be like her familiar.

[bambambambino]

Howdy, I'm Ross, 26. I go by He/Him pronouns. I'm in the SW, loving the fauna and flora of the desert and those beautiful pockets of absolutely nothing but nature.

I'm a dog enthusiast, hopeful future trainer.

I have two dogs

Ross's Sir Gentle Giant "Kaine"

Jody's Dame Tiny Dancer "Mugsie"

Their tags will be #Kaine and #Mugsie

I also have 4 cats: Smitten, Lava, Ru and Morton. They will make appearances occasionally.

Last but not least, I have a ball python named Oscar. He is less likely to make appearances but he might pop up here and there.

My Instagram and Twitter are both DesertHowling!

Thank you for joining me and the animals here, hope you enjoy your stay!

[newmsies]

my plans the second i move into a place that allows pets and i have the money to get them are to get two cats, bunny, and ball python.

The cats gonna be Morris (older kitty) and Oscar (the smallest kitty i can find /j ), the bunny is gonna be Spot, and the ball python is gonna be Joseph because this is the closest I'll ever get to a rattlesnake

[barbtheball]

Hi there it’s me, Barb’s dad. Proceeds from this will go directly to help keep Barbara and her rack mates happy and healthy. Barb’s in shed right now expect newer content soon.

[nabsthevulture]

Take a look at my reptile son

[oscartheball]

[cometkid]

so I got a new friend

[stage-props]

My sister’s snake Delilah

[sixelxven]

ooh boy

neurodivergents tag all the special interests/hyperfixations u went through this year

[jewishdainix]

So about those last two main character, what are there names and just general info?

I actually don't have names for them yet but ~

Racha (he/she/they) = when Ray Oscar and Nimerr were already on their quest they ended up one time in a kingdom full of various types of snake people and through shanenigans ray ends up in prison where he meets Racha.

Ray quickly finds out that she's in prison not because she's a thief but because she punched his half sister. Her explanation? He was helping her friend who came back from the dead (they became friends after she was reanimated) run a multi level marketing scheme as a completion with the multi level marketing scheme of the other guy who was brought back to life by the same person that brought back her.

Anyway, the mlm of Racha's friend was revealed and while Ray's half sister was trying to arrest the friend, Racha punched her. Ray has about as hard of a time processing this information as you are right now.

After that Ray and Racha escape and she joins the team. Yay.

They're nonbinary, their hair is this type of snake (piebald ball python I believe)

and their skin is also the white scales. They vibe well with Ray since A) Ray appreciates anyone who punches his sisters (even though this snake girl isn't mean like Kaira) and B) both of them and Ray think that their ends justify the means, even though they are more chaotic than Ray

Twigst (He/him) : The group takes a trip to the floating candy island (before they meet Racha) to get a mcguffin or something where they have to blend into a candy people party (Nimerr casts ilussions so they look like candy people). At the party Ray and Oscar get in a conversation with Twigst, who is a sugar person. Oscar leaves to help nimerr with the plot and after some more conversation Twigst invites Ray to dance. Then plot happens and Twigst sees from the side their shanenigans and after they leave the island he decids to follow them.

After some time (after Racha joins the team) he catches up with the group and they have to fight a weather monster that makes it rain. Oscar and Racha get hurt, Ray's leg gets hurt and he uses his wings to protect Twigst, who is semi unconscious, from the rain while Nimerr kills the weather monster using abyss scholar magic. After that Ray yells at Twigst for coming after them, Nimerr calms him down, and Twigst joins the team!

Using some shapshifting magic Nimerr gives him a necklace that shapeshifts him into a human so he won't die from water. He and Ray kiss eventually.

[maddness-and-myths]

Nothing to do with the blog but I thought I’d introduce you to my reptiles

This is Oscar my leopard gecko

I swear there isn’t a thought between his eyes

And this is Buchanan my royal python (also called a ‘ball python’… depends on where you’re from)

He’s my favourite

I don’t know why I felt like doing this just- *sighs* now you know I like reptiles I guess

[toasty-bat]

Fun pet facts because I got bored and researched

Oscar: apparently white labs are less common than I thought, and come from a double recessive gene. It took two recessive genes to make our one in 20,000 toasted marshmallow of a dog. We love him

Little Man: we knew he was albino but we didn’t actually know what morph he was, so I went looking and I’m about 90% sure he’s a black pastel morph! They’re what most people think of when they think of “ball python” but it’s cool to find out.

[marvelousmatt]

The Accidental Comedy of Matt Berry

The star of IFC’s detective-series spoof ‘Year of the Rabbit,’ famed for his booming voice and over-the-top faces, never set out to be funny

Matt Berry as Detective Inspector Rabbit in 'Year of the Rabbit.'  Ben Meadows/IFC

If you know Matt Berry from his most famous roles — such as The IT Crowd’s idiot boss Douglas Reynholm, Toast of London’s pompous struggling actor Steven Toast, or the preening and lascivious vampire Laszlo on What We Do in the Shadows — talking to him over the phone is sort of like meeting his un-evil twin. Where his characters are outrageous and inappropriate, Berry is circumspect and gentlemanly. While they pronounce every word as if they’re doing Shakespeare in the Park, with a ponderous theatricality, his signature rich baritone comes over the line from London sounding muted by comparison. It’s as though he’s playing the straight man in a sketch of his own life.

Whatever absurd and profane notions he has rattling around in his head, Berry saves them for his work. His latest offering, IFC’s Year of the Rabbit (a collaboration among Berry, producer Ben Farrell, and writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil), is a send-up of the period detective shows that are a staple of British television. Set in Victorian times, it centers on his titular character, Rabbit, a cranky copper who bumbles through every episode but slyly solves the whodunit in the end — a kind of gruff, English Columbo in a waistcoat. In the “why not” fashion typical of Berry’s comedy, the character is missing an eyebrow (a trait the show repeatedly explains away with the intentionally unconvincing line that it was chewed off by a dog last Christmas). He’s named Rabbit — his actual first name, with no surname — not because of any correlation with, say, the Chinese calendar, but because… well, just because.

“His father couldn’t be bothered giving any of the kids any normal names, so he just named them after animals and then left them outside a church,” Berry says matter-of-factly, as if Rabbit and his father are real. Pressed on the matter, he adds, “We have a huge history over here of these shows, Agatha Christie and stuff, and they all have these names, Inspector This and That. I just wanted to do something stupid with that — give him an animal name and not anything else. So he really is as earthy as you can get in that way. There’s nothing fancy about him at all.”

Rabbit is an inveterate boozehound with a colorful vocabulary. He beats up a schoolteacher on career day to demonstrate interrogation techniques to the children. He tells his rookie partner that the way to keep warm during a wintertime stakeout is to piss himself. He describes the London of his day as “a rat eating its own babies. Babies made of shit. And once it’s eaten its own shit babies, it shits them out again.” He is paired, reluctantly, with two bright-eyed and bushy-tailed colleagues to form a crack investigative team, a juxtaposition which only underscores his baser qualities.

“He’s basically trying to hide the fact that he’s incredibly hungover and not firing on all cylinders,” Berry says. “Whereas his younger sidekicks won’t be, because when you’re that young, you know, you get over a hangover by like 10 o’clock in the morning. I wanted him to be dull, in terms of reactions to things, but effective.”

Robert Bathurst, Matt Berry, and Harry Peacock in Toast of London. Photo Credit: Kuba Wieczorek/IFC/CH4

Ineptitude and buffoonery are much more the calling cards of Steven Toast, whose massive ego blinds him to his own failings. He is an oblivious object of mockery at the hands of his voiceover producers, a pair of douchey hipsters named Clem Fandango and Danny Bear, and his mistress, Mrs. Purchase (wife of Toast’s acting nemesis Ray “Bloody” Purchase), looks eternally bored during their trysts. His long-suffering agent has to force him to become a laxative pitchman, yet he complains that she’s not scoring him Oscar-caliber roles.

If Toast is the character closest to Berry’s heart, it’s for good reason. Despite a brand of humor that seems firmly rooted in the British tradition — the surreality and silliness of Python, the cartoonish prurience of Benny Hill — Berry, 45, maintains that he wasn’t especially interested in comedy growing up. He cites as his primary influence not comedic greats such as Peter Sellers or contemporaries like Steve Coogan, but “straight actors, people that normally weren’t trying to be funny.” The more “mannered” and “self-important” the star, Berry says, the funnier he found them. The line to Toast is clear — especially in his puffed-up diction and bizarrely exaggerated pronunciation of ordinary words (such as his praise of guest-star Jon Hamm’s “charismaaaaaaaeeeeeee”). Imagine the famous outtakes of a drunk Orson Welles filming a Paul Masson wine commercial, and you’re on the right track.

Berry’s career in comedy came as a complete surprise to him. He grew up in the hamlet of Bromham in Bedfordshire, about two hours north of London, in a wholly unartistic family who had “normal, decent jobs,” he says. “My mom was a nurse, my sister went into law — nothing like what I ended up doing.” Still, his parents were totally supportive — worried, but supportive — as he stumbled through temp gigs and patches of unemployment as a young man.

He was far more interested in painting and music — and, in fact, today is an accomplished musician who’s recorded eight studio albums (prog rock-ish, inflected with funk) as well as the scores and themes to numerous TV series, including Toast. That show’s frequent musical interludes, gonzo song parodies a la Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, speak to Berry’s true comedic beginnings. In between stints at the London Dungeon — a haunted-house experience where actors play figures from gruesome corners of the city’s past, like Jack the Ripper — he managed to book solo gigs as a singer-songwriter. But he found that spiking his performances with humor won over a crowd.

Natasia Demetriou and Berry in What We Do In the Shadows.  Byron Cohen/FX

“I was playing before comedians, and the gigs just seemed to go quicker and better if I put some comedy into the songs or the bits in between the songs,” Berry says. “I only did it so I’d fit in with what was going on after. Then I really got to like it.”

Fellow performers Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness noticed his act, and cast Berry in a horror/sci-fi spoof they created called Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. From there, his television career exploded, with recurring roles in several series before his breakout in 2007 with The IT Crowd. Despite a nomination for “best newcomer” at that year’s British Comedy Awards and a 2015 BAFTA for Best Male Performance in a Comedy for Toast, Berry insists he doesn’t have any particular aptitude for the form, and draws a blank when it comes to defining his style. Mostly, he chalks it up to timing (“Whether it’s music or comedy, that’s the most important thing for me”) — as well as a lack of training.

“I’m not held back by any sort of rules and regulations in terms of performance,” he says. “I’ll just do what feels natural, and because nobody’s said in the past, ‘Well you can’t really do that, because of this,’ you just do it. If it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, you just try something else.”

He does acknowledge one foolproof stylistic flourish that may be deeply ingrained: a true relish for the scatological and sophomorically sexual. See: Laszlo’s vulva topiaries, or the preposterously elastic faces Toast makes while he’s shagging Mrs. P (“Hang on — my balls are about to fizzzz!”) or pleasuring himself to old-timey images of women in military uniforms. A key moment in Rabbit involves the inspector having a pocketful of dog poop.

“I suppose that’s the British toilet humorist in me,” Berry admits. “It doesn’t matter where you go in Europe, toilet humor is enjoyed by all. Being from the U.K., it’s in you, like, from birth. You know, if you’re little and people are laughing at something all around you, it kind of sticks. If it’s something that my granddad laughs at and my dad laughs at, there’s a good chance that I’ll laugh at it, too.”

[barbtheball]

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