This short film reveals the truth about those bored-looking agents at bureaucratic offices: They’re actually fantasy warriors who must quest for the all-important approval stamp.

(via io9)

This concludes yet another Link Dump-o-Rama. Regular posting (and once-a-week Link Dumps) return Monday.

Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo – Fascinating history of women’s tattoo art.

Kkiittttiieess – Series of paintings by Casey Weldon featuring four-eyed cats. I think I prefer these to real cats; they look sorta spidery.

Netrunner – Article about an interesting-sounding card game set in a Gibson-esque milieu.

Gross Science – YouTube series by PBS which relates “Bizarre stories from the slimy, smelly, creepy world of science.”

Skull Ukulele – Make your next luau a little more macabre with this skull-bedecked ukulele.

My Little Pony Haunted Mansion – My Little Pony modder Silverband 7 recreated the “graveyard scene” from Disney’s Haunted Mansion using ponies. It is really rather wonderful.

Blue Q Socks – Novelty socks (mainly women’s, but there are a few for men). I’m partial to these.

Your World Will Never be the Same – “Excerpts from either a memoir by a first-time parent or a post-apocalyptic novel.” The two are eerily similar. (Hat tip to Bruno)

Adorable Circle of Life – Alex Solis’ series of illustrations depicting adorable predators bloodily devouring their adorable prey.

This Artist is Making Haunting Paintings with Google’s Dream Robot – An artist ran some of his surrealist paintings through Google’s new Deep Dream algorithm and it enhanced them in interesting ways.

Xenomorph Hug – This illustration of an Alien cuddling Winnie-the-Pooh is oddly adorable.

Day of the Dead Salt and Pepper Shakers – Attractive shaker set decorated like calaveras.

Charon Spotting – Some guy dressed as an undertaker has been spotted on a lake in Canberra, using a coffin as a stand-up rowboat. I may have found a new hobby.

8 Weird Mysteries of the Internet – A roundup of strange websites and other oddities.

How to Make a Writing Quill – Nice tutorial for DIY quill pens, either as a prop or just because you want to go really old school and write with one.

Neverwear – Prints, T-shirts, and other items based on the work of Neil Gaiman. This new limited edition print is attractive.

Sad Animal Facts – Cute drawings of animals accompanied by a sad fact about each one.

15 Unrivalled Goth Fashion Blogs of 2015 – A blog roundup by Black Rose.

And Then I Vanish – A “surreal motion poem,” along with several stills from the video. If you’re trypophobic I wouldn’t recommend clicking over.

How to Make an Axolotl Cake – I bet you didn’t even know that you needed an axolotl cake. You do now.

10 Silly Hats That People Used To Take Incredibly Seriously – “That’s called a ‘mob cap,’ and it symbolizes a woman’s willingness to beat you to death with a garden rake…”

Viking Ship Fire Pit – ImagineMetalArt, which also fabricates neat things like dragons, made this splendid Viking ship for giving marshmallows a proper funeral.

A Brief History of LA’s “Witch House” – The Spadena House in Los Angeles is a marvelously witchy, and historic, home.

Spiderweb Yarnbombing – Artist Babukatorium covered a tree with a rainbow of spiderwebs.

Heavy Metal Band Name Generator – I’m totally going to start a band called “Johann Sebastian Brain.”

Shakespeare’s Big Four: A Summary – SMBC gets to the gist of the plays.

Punjammies – Loungewear bottoms made in India by women who have escaped human trafficking. These aren’t particularly goth, but they look mighty comfy and they’re for a good cause. (via Burning Prairie)

Scooby-Doo, When Are You? – Fun set of illustrations which imagines how the Scooby gang would dress in various decades. Man, Fred has always been boring.

Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch – The mere fact that there’s a children’s book about Bosch is awesome enough, but this is a story as told by his wildly dissatisfied housekeeper who is damn sick of beehives in boots and pickle-winged fish and that kicks it into awesomeness overdrive.

Marie Antoinette’s Necklace – Tutorial for an attractive “drippy blood” beaded choker.

Every Hitchcock Cameo – Alfred Hitchcock was well-known for making a cameo appearance in every film he directed (including, famously, appearing as the “Before” photo in a newspaper weight-loss advertisement in Lifeboat). This supercut video details them all.

Corpse Brides and Ghost Grooms – Atlas Obscura has a roundup of “marriage after death” cultural traditions.

Soliloquy on B – Patrick Stewart does a Shakespearean turn on Sesame Street. (Bonus appearance with The Count here.)

Jurassic Bits – Spoonflower-printed fabric featuring cartoony iconic images from Jurassic Park. What sets this apart for me is the cartoony Laura Dern digging through the cartoony pile of Triceratops poop.

BEyond Yonder – Site devoted to death midwifery. It includes a virtual school to help others learn to serve in this capacity.

Snark Factory – Etsy shop specializing in jewelry with various snarky messages. I like these earrings.

Tactical Chef Apron – For grilling during the zombie apocalypse. This strikes me as something that would pair well with a Utilikilt.

Exploding Kittens – Successfully-funded Kickstarter for a card game illustrated by Matthew Inman.

Flamethrower Ukulele – Caleb Kraft was inspired by Mad Max’s “Doof Warrior” to build a flame-belching uke.

The Ring Doughnut – Series of doughnut sculptures depicting that creepy dead girl crawling out of a well because why not.

Motifs of the Revival: Bats – Examples of decorative accessories from the Arts & Crafts/Revival design movement.

Will the link dumps never end?!? Not this week, that’s for darn sure.

Crayola Horrors – Flashbak has a roundup of drawings from weird vintage coloring books.

We Are All Completely Fine – Novella which follows the “final survivors” of various horror movie-esque tragedies as they speak to a therapist who finally seems to believe them.

My Beautiful Monsters – Etsy shop full of extremely squee-worthy plush monsters.

Not all Australian animals are deadly… – A description of one of the exceptions. (Hat tip to xJane) Bonus link: Down in the Reddit thread for this, somebody posted a .gif of the way they move when startled.

The Most Metal Deaths in Middle-earth, Ranked – “Gandalf’s death was so metal he came back to life a different fucking color.”

Sort of Coal Soap – The Danish company that makes charcoal water purifiers also sells pure-black charcoal soap in case you want to goth up your daily shower. They also offer black shampoo.

The Entopod – A design student has created a “starter kit” for eating bugs.

Ask the Past – Blog devoted to “advice from old books,” curated by a historian. She’s recently published a related book.

Bat Sculpture – Lovely steampunky metal bat by Igor Verniy.

Eating Dungeons & Dragons Iron Rations – Long video exploring the “iron rations” that feed adventurers in D&D campaigns. This would be a handy resource for LARPing. (via Propnomicon)

The Visit – Bittersweet animated short about “an old woman, who, to the horror of her son, is cooking up a meal in the middle of the night for her long-deceased friends.”

How to Tell if You’re Dead – Discussion of various methods used in the past to determine whether someone was dead or just really sleepy. The use of nipple clamps is a new one on me.

Christopher Lee Does the Timewarp – This short clip of Lee reciting the “jump to the left” bit needs to be a ringtone, stat. (Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

The Six Most Terrifying Serial Killer Families in History – A peculiar subject for a roundup, but I’ll allow it.

The Spy’s Choirbook – A manuscript of choral music given to Henry VIII has been played and performed live for the first time in 500 years.

Cordial Minuet – Description of a very odd online game that could double as the plot for a horror movie.

Geek Knits – You might dismiss this book as too science-fictiony, but then you would miss the stuffed Bunnicula pattern and the answer to the question, “What would Molly Weasley knit for Arthur?” The author talks about the book here, and has also written Knits for Nerds and Knockdown Knits.

THRESHER – Short horror film created as an entry for the “House of Horrors” competition presided over by Guillermo del Toro.

32 Exposures – Les McClaine, who draws the Jonny Crossbones comic, did this short Lovecraft-esque piece. I like the name of the bar.

Tinplate Studios – Neat Etsy shop full of “unnatural science” props like Feejee Mermaids and preserved krakens.

There’s a fun thread over on BoingBoing where everyone is playing Corrupt-a-Wish:

The rules are simple:

I make a wish, and the next person to post finds an ironic way to derive bad consequences from granting the wish, or to otherwise tag a downside to it, and so on and so forth.

Example:

Person 1:
i wish i had a Corvette

Person 2:
granted. you got it real cheap because it was crushed under a giant anvil.
i wish i was the most attractive person in the world

Person 3:
granted. you are the most attractive person in the world, and both sexes now want your body.
i wish i had a big, juicy steak.

Person 4:
granted. how’s your diet going?
i wish i was invulnerable to every kind of harm.

…and so on, with the next person thinking up a Monkey’s Paw-like twist to the previous person’s wish, then making a wish of their own. It sounds like it’d be fun to play with friends, either in person or on a Facebook or blog thread. If my commentariat wants to come out of the woodwork, we can try it here as well.

I’ll start: I wish I had the power to read other peoples’ minds, but only when I chose to do so.

Recycling hardback books into handbags or clutches is a fairly common project: You can purchase them at shops like Gorey Details or Etsy (the ones in that shop are particularly nice). There are also many DIY tutorials available, so if you’ve got a book that you’ve loved to death you can turn the pages into flowers and convert the cover into an attractive purse.

There are some nice, easy-to-follow tutorials at Instructables, Rookie, and Country Living, and Craftser has a roundup of various purses that its members have made. The estimable EPBOT also has an exhaustive post on her quest for “the world’s best book purse,” which includes several helpful tips.

If a handbag isn’t really your thing, you can make a clutch instead: See Kate Sew has good directions for a zippered version, and A Beautiful Mess has one with a snap closure. There’s also an interesting project at Runway DIY which involves hollowing out a space in the pages (as for a “secret stash” book) instead of removing them entirely.

Once you’ve finished the purse, complete the ensemble with a wallet made from a paperback book cover. I’ve got a tutorial for that here, but there’s a simpler version at Hello, ReFabulous!.

1. Thirty-six years after the publication of The Shining, Stephen King published a sequel which follows Danny Torrance as an adult. What is its title?
2. In Egyptian mythology, god of the afterlife Anubis is the son of Set and this goddess, who helps usher people through the “death experience.”
   A) Taweret
   B) Hathor
   C) Isis
   D) Nephthys
   E) Bastet
3. What is the name of the seaside resort town terrorized by the great white shark in Jaws?
4. The (named) fairy servants of Oberon and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth, and who?
   A) Cobweb
   B) Snug
   C) Flute
   D) Quince
   E) Starveling
5. John Bellairs’ The House with a Clock in its Walls begins with a newly-orphaned boy moving to the town of New Zebedee, Michigan, to live with his mysterious uncle. What is the boy’s name?
6. The films The Innocents (1961), Presence of Mind (1999), and In a Dark Place (2006) all tell the story of a governess to two orphaned children who comes to believe that they are being haunted by the house’s former servants. What novella are these films all based upon?
7. This gothic novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne follows the fortunes of the Pyncheon family in the gloomy New England mansion which gives the book its title.
8. Restless, vengeful ghosts are a staple of legends worldwide. What was the name given to these malignant spirits in ancient Rome?
   A) Keres
   B) Lares
   C) Fides
   D) Vejovis
   E) Lemures
9. What animal is the house mascot for Hufflepuff?
10. Which of these is NOT a clan from Vampire: The Masquerade?
    A) Ravnos
    B) Gangrel
    C) Dhampir
    D) Ventrue
    E) Tzimisce

(Answers below the fold)

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