#chatterbones

[blinkbones]

yall were right about that dingy ass bathroom having homosexuals in it

[chatterbon]

Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in 1978. The band was a pioneer of the goth rock and alternative rock genres, and their music is considered a major influence on subsequent gothic, post-punk, and alternative rock movements.

[thestuffedalligator]

I feel like I’ve talked about merrenoloths before but I can’t find any post that says I have, so I’m taking this as an excuse to talk about merrenoloths.

So merrenoloths.

Merrenoloths are my favourite monsters from D&D.

Merrenoloths are a band of yugoloths, neutral evil fiends that live in the lower planes between devils and demons. In 5e lore yugoloths are fiendish mercenaries, always looking for the best opportunity to make the most reward possible, hiring themselves out to other fiends and fighting in the blood war between devils and demons, siding with whichever side is paying the most at the time

Merrenoloths like boats.

Merrenoloths fucking love boats. You can make a contract to hire a merrenoloth and have them captain a boat on the material plane, and they will love that boat so much. That boat will gain supernatural abilities, that’s how much they love that boat.

And officially they’re evil, but literally all they care about is boats. They don’t even like fighting. A merrenoloth “specifies in its contracts that it is under no obligation to fight. A merrenoloth’s first duty is always to its vessel.”

And just look at that Chatterbones Charlie up there. Boat nerd goth twink in his infernal venetian gondola. I love him

[coolyo294]

30

30. Would they smooch a ghost?

sure, why not. one of his companions was a skull named chatterbones so he’s pretty cool with the undead 

[blinkbones]

cons of playing old video games:

no fandom

visuals that aged poorly

pros of playing old video games:

no fandom

visuals that aged poorly

cheap as hell

[blinkbones]

broke: the three musketeers is a stupid title because there's four of them

woke: the three musketeers is an apt title because d'artagnan loses his letter of recommendation in chapter 1 because he can't stop picking fights with everyone and then he has to hustle until page 513/700 to get to the point where the boss of the musketeers finally let him join. his musketeer status was NOT a given

[blinkbones]

aaravos is clearly set up to be The Great Evil Someone Trapped Into a Mirror but they're so beautiful i'll take whatever crumbs of them i can get. grade A fictional baddie

[blinkbones]

watching to wong foo: thanks for everything! julie newmar and blade back to back to experience the full breadth of wesley snipes's gender performance

[blinkbones]

absolutely effervescent to be studying puritans and find out one of the important ppl was named arthur dent. did you fuck up the timeline again hitchhiker boy

[blinkbones]

The three musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

Surprise of the yearrrrrr. This one is truly A Brick and it took me essentially all of August to read it. I often felt a bit discouraged by the pure length of it, which hadn't happened to me in a while tbh. Yet another book from my to-read-pile that I had started reading a long time ago, and started back from the beginning.

I will say: this book is easier and more fun to read than you think. I will say: this book is not for most beginners, on account of Brick. But also, on account of its age. I distinctly remember my first reading experience, ten years ago. I had given it a solid try and given up about a third of the way down. The words were hard for me back then, and so were the sentence structures. And to be honest, even today, I had my online dictionary at the ready.

THAT SAID... It's such a fun and comedic piece of writing that it's actually crazy that it sat in my mind with the reputation of "terrible long book that i don't understand".

The Three Musketeers is basically ADVENTURE. Most of it is just WAHOO ADVENTURE. Feral countryside boy gets into town and immediately pisses off + endears for life the local good bad boy gang. (Actually, the first thing he does is "loose life-altering document and make enemies) They have SHENANIGANS and HIJINKS together. The hero and his friends often get bags of money for their heroics and then immediately lose their money, usually because they can't resist good food, and that's very relatable. There's a sugar mommy episode. It is of course a book with straight characters only but it is also a little bit gay, on account of all that brotherly devotion. Then there's an evil lady but you love to see her win because she's so smart and resourceful. Genuinely Milady is a very fun villain.

This read was a lot of fun for me personally. Also I liked that it was divided into a gajillion short chapters. It made the length more palatable. It's a little bit like watching an old TV show, from back when they made tons of short and kinda equal episodes.

And you're gonna learn new words. I recommend quizzing your local beloveds about it. Worthy summer activity. I'd show up at dinner with my 2-5 words from reading that day, and it'd entertain us for a little bit.

[blinkbones]

grian and joel ought to be called the Carb Commando the way they're grain and beans and setting up bomb traps

[blinkbones]

The Mirror Visitor; A Winter's Promise -- Christelle Dabos

This one I bought on a whim after hearing that it was the cool new French fantasy series in town. And nothing else. So when I picked it up again recently and read 'forced marriage' listed as a marketing trope i uuhhh... Hesitated. For a second. I admit it. The romantasy genre that is popular currently is pretty unappealing to me and I wasn't keen on reading some hetero cringe -- best it delights people who love it and not my picky ass.

Anyway I shouldn't have worried, this is way good. The main character makes for a very good unreliable character and -- yes, YES! -- she's so wholeheartedly uninterested in romance and focused on, well, 'the plot', honestly I can't complain. At all. She's giving aromancy a little bit, and "married to my work" a lot, and I love her for that. Meanwhile the future husband is pretty interesting too, even though he's named Thorn even in the og french, which I find a bit funny, because giving english names to sound cool & handsome isn't effective against english majors.

Like I said I walked in pretty much blind, so I was somewhat surprised to find myself a few hundred pages of court intrigue -- not something I usually go for. But it is surprisingly to my taste, actually! I guess all the spying and lies and subtlety is pretty fun. I'll definitely read the next books. Also I love the cover art. Simple and intriguing, right?

[blinkbones]

The LIveship Traders - Ship of Magic -- Robin Hobb

I remember reading through most of this brick a few years back, but I didn't actually remember the story. I vaguely recalled that Hiémain (Wintrow in the original...? I think...?) made me uneasy bc I didn't understand him, that Althea's story made me feel tense, and that Malta was annoying. OK SO. I HAVE SO MANY NEW OPINIONS.

First of all I hated Kyle with fire in my guts for most of this book. Oh, he's so well written. I just got audibly and vehemently upset at his bullshit several times. I wished for his death many times just because his chapters made me so angry. Great character 10/10 I hope he dies.

Althea made me a lot less scared -- and I guess that's mostly because I'm an seasoned adult now, and in the meantime I discovered I was nonbinary and started living as myself as well... So her (admittedly very dangerous) stunt as a crossdresser and as someone going into a hard job is a lot less scary -- like, yknow, I've kinda lived some of that. And I survived it. So she can, too. I also saw through her naive arrogance this time. She's also a 10/10 character and I like her a lot.

Hiémain Wintrow ooooh Wintrow... I love him. His musings hit very close to home, perhaps especially because I became a recluse intellectual in the meantime lol... I think about what he thinks all the damn time. The tension between his feeling of absolute interconnectedness (like mycelium...) and the discomfort of actually being disconnected from real life. yknow. Touch grass. Touch a ship deck. How your principles strain against everyday strenuous work. How your biggobrain speaking habits can fall flat with regular people who didn't decide to spend months poring over X thought or Y text. And is it all worth it, and should you give up your principles? Or stick to them? Maybe reshape them? The transformation is painful. I loved Wintrow so much and I'm so excited to see what he does next. At the end of this book, he felt like the character with the strongest sense of self out of them all, and in that sense, I suspect he might be the toughest overall. All the others are struggling.

Definitely not least of all our favorite bipolar pirate LOL oh this man. I say bipolar bc that's what my healthcare friend diagnosed him as from my whatsapp rants. He's SO funny and I support him in his unhinged pursuit. I love how he's lucky MOSTLY because he doesn't say what he thinks and people fill in the blanks helpfully. Here's to keeping your mouth shut sometimes. 10/10 also.

Ok I loved every other character as well and the romances are so good actually like... finally some good heteros!! finally some good food!!! google is robin hobb bisexual or is she just that good ,

PS: ok I forgot to update my opinion on Malta: she's sooo annoying 10/10 great character. As a now adult I am so worried, pls child pls listen to your elders a little I beg

[blinkbones]

not too surprising for the creature enthusiast and linguist* that i am but i really enjoyed everything that had to do with interspecies relations in spaceman (2024). spoilers ofc. i thought it was so efficient to combine the visual of a spider with a soothing voice. if the audience had only been me, i think i would have preferred a much more offputting voice and stranger speech patterns (if only an accent! gimme a weirdass accent), but for a movie meant to be seen by many people -- who are not all creature enthusiasts and linguists -- it makes sense to do it that way. i think the spider has a decent chance to gain the affection of all of its audience, despite being so nosy and many-armed. i was so delighted that the final hug was shown like any other hug, while not shying away from the foreignness of the creature. idk man, that's just my favorite thing; to find tenderness in the offputting. as for the movie as a whole, i think it's really quite decent. i enjoyed it even though the theme of the decaying marriage is very far from my own concerns. that's the beauty of good art, right? makes you feel different things, or through a different lens. The narrative structure was satisfying to see unfold; the water symbolism easy to piece together -- and that was relaxing for me personally lol

*asterisk because i have impostor syndrome and it feels extremely presumptuous to call myself a linguist when ive only been studying & working with language for the entirety of my adult life

[blinkbones]

Five 1-season series I watched recently, and why I recommend them/liked them:

Lessons in Chemistry

About the trials and tribulations of a woman who both fails and refuses to conform to the expectations of 50s-60s USA. The show is primarily character-driven and works on a rather… somewhat simplified and exagerrated mindset? It took me offguard at first, but was fine once I settled into the groove. My favorite part was, as I later found out, an addition for the show (compared to the book, which I haven’t read) → the neighbor being a black woman fighting for civil rights. There’s that one chunk that mixes the psychological/personal aspect of getting involved with the socio-political reality of asymmetrical struggles and I… loved how clever that was… I’ll be honest, in that the show is mostly a sort of drama/character exploration and the political painting part of it is secondary. But I mean, the drama is good, I bawled my eyes out a bunch of times, and it’s visually compelling. The protagonist reads somewhat as a modern woman dropped into the fifties and her relentlessness is actually refreshing. It’s a power fantasy in that sense – watching someone smart, fully confident in her own abilities, and what she’s worth, and owed… It’s nice. Just so that we’re clear – this show is the one I’m least confident pitching, because it’s odd in many ways and questionable in some – but I really enjoyed it and I won’t lie about that. I thought it was very good on the moment hahahaha

So give it a go if it intrigues you!! and come chat with me about the neighborhood subplots.

Cherry Magic (anime version)

About an unremarkable salaryman who starts being able to read others’ thoughts because he’s a 30 y/o virgin – but really, it’s actually about someone finding both love and confidence in himself. This is so, so sweet. Pretty funny, too. For all the silliness of the premise, the more profound core of the story is very nicely-wrought, it’s painted with a delicate touch and subtle hues. There are aspects of it that I think will hit harder if you are not a child anymore. I think I would have enjoyed it when I was sixteen, but probably not as much as I did being a worn-out adult, lol. I binged it while I was insomniac with dread, and it made me laugh like a teenager. It’s sincerely very fucking great and if you enjoy romances at all you’ll love it.

Scavengers’ Reign

About a handful of scattered space castaways on a beautiful, wonderful and terrifying planet. If you enjoy science-fiction for any reason whatsoever, I can only make this a very ardent recommendation. It has it all: the alien planet, the machines, the creatures, the cast of characters; but also the wonder, and the fear, never too far from one another. This show is a real underrated gem and I am very serious. For you, tumblr, my beloved freakopolis, it also has it all. I won’t say it – but it has what you want. […] This show is so beautiful. The planet’s ecosystem feels tangible and coherent and new and it’s beautiful and frightening most of the time. There’s something of the primordial awe of coming into contact with the intriguing unknown. Did I mention that this is an animated show?? It’s very good visually too.

Andor

About the birth of revolution – accross the galaxies, people getting tired of imperial abuse, and in the hero’s heart and mind. What I loved most was how grounded it was. This isn’t the usual star wars with god-elect heroes with a destiny. It’s about the sorry little bitches who look at their increasingly corrupted world and decide to try to do something about it. Or end up in there by accident. SO, so good. For that only I thought it was a banger. But then there’s everything else!! The worldbuilding (that prison!!)! The practical effects! The janky-looking tech everywhere! The gorgeous sets (the senator’s house HELLO <<33)! Heartwrenching details! An essayist! Not joking it changed my brain chemistry and there’s a bit of text I want to write down on paper for myself.

Machine

Mandatory « I’m sorry for all you bitches that don’t speak French » because I doubt it’ll get translated, or even subbed, anytime soon if at all. But god y’all are missing out. Machine is a freakishly fun take on the figure of the white woman being kickass through « kung-fu » (looked like every technique under the sun to me lol), yknow, Kill Bill-like? It’s also a very, very fun series about freaking Karl Marx and class struggle. Not joking, literally some fighting interspersed with karl marx quotes and also cycling. Again with a show that lays it on thick and, at first, it takes me off-guard, but I go with the flow and then it’s fucking fantastic. Suuuch a coup de coeur for me. Can’t think of a translation for it, but it means that it struck a chord and became a favorite of mine. Also made me realize I was less aware of where dreadlocks discourse is currently at than I thought (topic for a research afternoon for when I can catch a fucking break…) (bc the heroine has them). Et je m’en remets pas de l’influenceur gilet jaune lol, quelle pépite. Very mad that no one around me watched it.

Honorary mention: Jujutsu Kaisen s2

Total banger. You don't need me to recommend it to you.

[blinkbones]

i didnt really like the last scene of Primal (s2) but thematically it makes perfect sense and i can't be mad at it. Primal, besides being a visual delight of cartoonized gore & character design, is a story about the continuation of life. The second season could not make it more clear, with the emphasis put on the egg-laying scene, managing to imbue the long close-up of a cloaca with a sense of poetic wonder; and even more so, with the darwin episode, in which charles darwin explains primal theory before getting to play action hero. (this episode was honestly so shameless about having fun; it's a gem). This episode being the only one with dialogue that most of the audience would understand, as well as the only one breaking away from the main story, highlights its importance and makes it almost a demonstration of the series as a whole: one that openly chucks historical accuracy to the side to play with the concept of violence as a means of survival. what it doesn't mention, however, is the subsidiary theme of the importance of "family", aka the group one belongs to. It shines through with the main duo, and of course with the subplots of the giant and the vikings. With all this in mind, I can't argue against the thematic coherence and near necessity of the final sex scene--i may not have liked it, but it fits in with the narrative. As the caveman slowly dies from the wounds inflicted by the only being that could beat him (a godlike avenger), mira gazes at his paintings and gets a sense of his loneliness. They have travelled far together and while she may have found her village again, her previous lover is long dead. In many ways, they belong to one another and are "family" already (with the lizards too, of course). It's true that the scene, while quick, does not shy away in a classic fade-to-black--i'd call it off-puttingly intimate--but the series is very adult; it spreads intestines over just about every episode. And most of all, it's not grotesque or ridiculous--it's a tender rekindling of hope, symbolized by the dinosaur-riding daughter in the last images.