#is this even funny I don't know
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Here's funny bit I came up with
Sorry for the really bad drawings and text it's almost 10pm and I got school tmmr
I might finish it if it's wanted
Kinda cringe but yolo
What the text saids since my handwriting is bad
Alastair's mom : thank you so much for taking care of my son
Lucifer : it was well worth it to be graced by your presence
Lucifer to alastor: you could almost call me daaaddd
#hazbin hotel#alastor#hazbin hotel lucifer#is this even funny I don't know#I have a math test tomorrow it's so over for me#hazbin art#can you tell who i wanted to draw
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the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again
#yeehaw#1k#5k#10k#posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours?#also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that!#unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference#edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense#also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags#1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now#he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic#2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign#like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock#3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing#it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is#extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once#it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life#i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about#Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect#if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it#aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week
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Can we talk about the kind of woman Applejack attracts.
#SHE JUST WANTS TO DO CHORES#pony posting#THERE ARE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE AREA#THAT DESIRE HER CARNALLY#my little pony#everyone wants Applejack is such a fun trope#mlp#applejack#rarity#autumn blaze#mlp fim#countess coloratura#rara#cherry jubilee#mlp gen 4#mlp fanart#friendship is magic#I don't even know the name of these ships dfhbdh#I will not hear arguments that Autumn blaze does not classify as a beautiful woman. she's a mythical being#tortured by thirst lol#so fucking funny.#Rara's “childhood friends that grew UP��� thing is so funny.#rarijack is peak but I think its funny that theres more beautiful women into her.
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Someone's last crush didn't live up to the hype 😬
#yes fyodor literally called dazai by name a second ago what of it#WHY did he say it like that!! ''atsushi i'm going home to sleep come with me 😘'' WHAT#i don't even know if this should count as ship art it reads more like fyodor's obsession with dazai grasping at straws to bounce back#up next: fyodor's past flirting with natsume TRUST dazai was the also a bounceback bf#bsd#bungo stray dogs#bungou stray dogs#bsd fanart#bsd spoilers#bsd manga spoilers#bsd 119#bsd atsushi#bsd nakajima atsushi#bsd fyodor#bsd fyodor dostoyevsky#nawy's comics#i tried to get something out of this comic but i have so much trouble being funny these days i'm so dissatisfied with everything😔
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Yeah, Kris is definitely NOT alright.
FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT
MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)
#undertale#deltarune#utdr#crossover#crossover comic#undertale fanart#deltarune fanart#twin runes#twin runes comic#twin runes au#kris dreemurr#frisk#and we arrived at the breaking point#i know the last pages have been very depresso but i swear once this arc is over we'll get right back on track with the funnies#but first we have to deal with some DRAMA#imagine what it would be like if some otherworldly entity took over your body#and suddenly you start making friends and patching up old friendships#Something even your mother is proud of you for#even though it's not YOU doing that#you'd feel like people don't like YOU but only that parasite in your body#because without it you're just that creepy kid next door#you'd feel like the world would be better without you#at least that's what Kris must be feeling right now#i DO wonder what's up with this cave though#it clearly is NOT the exit#and what's with those markings outside and inside the cave?#hmmmmm
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I was reading some transformers fanfiction and it's a solely underutilized idea to have humans and Cybertronians be in a symbiotic relationship. In nature all the time big animals will rely on smaller animals' help.
For example humans could give repairs, clean them, and help them reach smaller places. Cybertronians can give transportation and protection of course. They're emotional benefits too; humans are really nice soft things to touch and humans like having big robot friends :3.
So I'm imagining transformers realize how useful it is to have a human partner around so they start going around trying to get one. Anyways this leads to shenanigans of course and a lot of cracky moments.
Suspiciously nice looking car in a driveway with its door opened: ....
The random human who owns the driveway: ...
Human: *turns around* Screw that! I'm not becoming part of the human distribution system today, no sir I am not.
Cybertronian: *sad beeping noises*
#transformers#autobots#it be very funny if humans are the equivalent to cats for transformers#noah x mirage#there's no war but there's still beef between autbots and decprticons#spelled that wrong i know#Megatron#he even wants a human#so he keeps trying to steal ones#optimus prime#bumblebee#i only know stuff from fanfiction so please don't judge me to much#sam witwicky
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cobs destroys mephone's objectsonas
#inanimate insanity#mephone ii#ii mephone#steve cobs#mephonex#not gonna tag anyone else#I haven't slept in 24 hours the episode sent me into a frenzy#still feel like I'm freaking out now but I'm too physically tired to keep losing it over the show lol#this stupid doodle thing took me six hours to draw I don't even know why. I draw so slow it's not even funny#ii spoilers#inanimate insanity spoilers#ii 16 spoilers#oh my gosh I just realized I forgot the spoiler tags I'm so sorry
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happy solvermas
#cause t. no actually if christ is the son of god and the solver is god then it'd be like uzimas#quick sketch i pulled out of my ass yesterday to see if i could get myself out of art block/burnout/whatever ive got going on#v was added after cause i had no idea how to work her into the scene#implied nuziv or something look man im just desperate about this ship#and i dont know how to draw fluff or whatever#im so bad at romance i dont know how to express it#but i've been desperately trying to draw nuziv for the past months#i think this is actually like some of my best linework yet im really satisfied with everything right now#been a long time since i've felt that#turns out the “stop overthinking every pixel of the expressions and just draw the approximation the audience will get the jist” approach wo#ks#something something n is the star of their life. tree light chrismtas#it is taking. All of my restraint right now#to not be So Mean to all of you#You Don't Even Know#I Could Do Something. I Might Still.#art#murder drones#murder drones uzi#uzi doorman#murder drones n#serial designation n#murder drones v#serial designation v#murder drones cyn#i need liam to explain whether cyn and the solver are the same person already so i can tag them appropriately its driving me nuts#oh yeah cyn got a plush core to chew on by the way#the idea of giving her a chew toy was rolling around in my head and i think its a very funny visual so here we are
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Ellie and Raven have a complex relationship
So! This is an AU where Dan is Trigon, and Ellie joined the Teen Titans. It's not really a Story, but I thought it was funny.
...
Robin: I have a Question for the two of you.
Ellie: What's up?
Raven: Hm?
Robin: You guys call eachother Sisters, Cousins, and in one case you called eachother Aunt and Niece. What's your exact relation?
Ellie: Well that's tricky. See, my Dad is the King of the Infinite Realms, and his true name is Danny. Raven's dad is Trigon, but his true name is Dante.
Robin: And are Danny and Dante brothers?
Raven: No, not technically. See, Dante is an Evil Alternate Future Version of Danny, so they are technically the same Person. But then Dante came to the past, got beaten by Danny, and got shoved into a Mortal body for a while.
Ellie: If that was all, they we could just call eachother Sisters or Cousins. Our Dad's are technically the Same Person, but they consider eachother Brothers.
Raven: Except Ellie isn't a normal daughter.
Robin: What? How?
Ellie: I'm technically a Clone if Danny, not his Daughter. So I'm simultaneously Raven's Sister, Cousin, and Parent since I'm a Copy of a version of her Dad, but I could also be considered her Aunt since Danny and I called eachother siblings before we decided I was his Daughter.
Raven: So Ellie is my Sister/Cousin/Aunt/Mom/Dad.
Robin: ...what the hell.
#Dpxdc#Dp x dc#Dcxdp#Dc x dp#Danny Phantom#Dc#Dcu#Just thought of this while thinking of my Dan is Trigon post#And I found it funny#Ellie could be considered Raven's Mom since she is a Clone of an Alternative Future version of her Dad#Of her Aunt since she used to he considered the Sister of an alternate version of her Dad#They have fun with it#Nobody knows exactly how they are actually related#They don't even really know#On some Technicalities Raven and Ellie could be considered the Same Person
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I apparently have an affinity for drawing grizzled old men and their psychopathic exes
#I've never drawn Stanford Pines before#except for when I was in middle school I think. I don't know#has someone done this already? who knows#if they have please send it to me#I just find this meme so fucking funny man I couldn't resist#I haven't even read Bill Cipher's new little diary yet#I just knew in my bones. I had to draw something#stanford pines#ford pines#grunkle ford#bill cipher#gravity falls#my art#digital art#meme#billford#I suppose#fanart#gravity falls fanart#the book of bill#the book of bill fanart#artists on tumblr
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don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au
this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--
his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!
So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.
Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.
Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.
And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.
Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.
Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.
He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?
Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.
Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.
They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.
Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.
He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.
His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.
Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.
It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.
He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.
Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.
He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.
He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.
Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.
It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.
It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.
"I've become my grandfather."
#dpxdc#danny fenton is not the ghost king#dpxdc crossover#dp x dc#dp x dc crossover#danyal al ghul au#dpxdc au#dp x dc au#dpxdc prompt#ive been playing cult of the lamb recently and you can tell#anyways i thought this was funny to think about. its specifically danyal al ghul bc that makes it even funnier#tfw you accidentally become a cult leader. rip to you danny you have a cult following#not at ALL an accurate depiction of a cult but i still think its funny. innaccurate cult depictions. ur in too deep to change it now danno#sam and tucker: hey dude... this is a cult | danny still learning how to People: what. no. these are all my friends and refugees.#his inner circle are all Insane about him they just show it in different ways. Sirius is as equally zealous as the rest they just don't#show it as much. which has mistakenly convinced danyal that they are the more logical one. no danny. they would kill for you#danny: i am being hospitable | sam: you created a cult | danny: i am being hosPITABLE#i dont like ghost king aus but i love danny being in positions of power it just has to feel earned. 'accidental kingdom acquisition' is my#favorite trope it just has to be done correctly. 🫵 build that bitch up with your bare hands and not realize until its too late you fool#'becoming a world power by accident and im in too deep to back out now'#danyal. a raised assassin (has no threshold for normal behavior): *sees utter devotion towards him* yeah this is fine and normal.#danyal: yk i dont see this ending horribly. *goes and collects more followers* yeah this is totally cool. welcome to the constellation#danyal: *saves a few people and houses them in his lair* (everyone liked that [to a worrying degree actually])#his inner circle: my moon! | danny: my stars :]#danny: ive become my grandfather. | danny: ... | danny: idk how to feel about that honestly.#those poor cultists that kidnapped antares were subjected to a 3hr tangent about 'the radiance of the Moon and his resplendent generosity'#before danyal found him and got him home. who were the cultists summoning? who knows! but they got Objectively the Worst out of the#constellation to summon by accident. actually they're all bad there's no picking who. they're all various amounts of Unhinged Danny just#Never Realizes It because he is also Unhinged and thinks some of this shit is normal.#like yeah thats totally normal behavior he has no questions whatsoever. this seems like Typical People Stuff.
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Cite your sources.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#jin guangshan#jiang cheng#lan wangji#mianmian#Jiang Cheng stays quiet after JGS says his foul little lie about WWX not respecting or liking him.#And because it's an audio format there isn't any other information we get on what he does.#Probably sit there in silence. Fermenting on his festering abandonment issues.#I think JC has a bit of a delicate heart when it comes to the last few things he has to hold on to.#And damn if JGS can see right into that weakness. He's got a mercury tongue. Silvery and poisonous.#I know LWJ makes his rebuttal more for preserving WWX's face than reassuring JC.#But I also know they *did* team up in the past and they do have a lot in common. And canonically can't stand each other.#They are my funny little duo and I'm the one drawing the comic. I can bake my own crumbs.#Would LWJ actually comfort JC? I don't think he knows how to comfort anyone actually. Not even himself.#JC is struggling so badly in this meeting. I'm glad there are other people in this awful meeting to tag in while he has a quiet cry.#Who's ready for Mianmian to go off next comic? Let's give a 'GET HIS ASS GIRL' to our queen!
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Connor: [Reading chat] "Tumblr loves you, by the way." That's great to hear. Shoutout to the girls.
#ConnorEatsPants#Don't ask me for context I barely know the context. I just logged in a bit ago#''Shoutout to the girls'' very funny comment after the other dude couldn't even name 3 girls#Didn't watch it myself because idk if it's actually Elon or not I don't want to listen to any misogynist ranting#but I heard Connor roasted the hell out of him so that's good to hear#January 3 2025#Connor
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I'm sorry. Let's... change the subject.
Joong Archen as FADEL and Dunk Natachai as STYLE THE HEART KILLERS | EP. 5
#joong archen#dunk natachai#joongdunk#the heart killers#the heart killers the series#fadelstyle#lana.gifs#thk.gifs#fadel being like “i don't want people to risk their life... by dating a man with such an unstable career so i spare everyone from it”#and it's funny to me that even if he didn't know the truth i have a feeling style is the only man on earth who would take this explanation#lowkey hate this coloring please don't look at it too much#esmetracks#userrlaura#rinblr#raeblr#forfive#userbon#usersasa#uservix#useragatha#usermambo#userrzey#tuseryoo#tusermona#tusersilence#tuserjovana#userspicy#tuserhidden#tuservic#ninisdarlings
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In the middle of a Justice League meeting, Batman feels a tug on his cape. He looks down to see a little boy who could easily pass as one of his.
"Erm," the boy starts. "I frew up."
#dp x dc#dc x dp#dpxdc#dcxdp#hyper prompts#don't ask me why this prompt is so funny to me#i truly don't know#there is no context for this within my brain#this scene is a singularity that won't leave me alone#and strangely i don't mind#i honestly don't even expect many people to see this#but i feel i would be truly depriving the world of something great if i didn't share this#so enjoy
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Pls give recommendations for Odd books 🙏
Here we go, a list of literary oddity :) This post contains majestic spheres, alien taxonomies, cruel subway polytheism, a fourth-dimensional cat, disturbing earthworms, infinite space football, existential mussel terror, a Parisian absurdist time loop, and a picture of a telegraph-pole-man-cheetah. I'm not exactly recommending these books, in the sense that I won't take any complaints if you find them more odd than good, and some of them transcend the concepts of good and bad anyway.
• The Other City, Michal Ajvaz. It's all like this:
• Contes du demi-sommeil, Marcel Béalu ('Half-asleep tales') —is the book that prompted my post about stories that have no ambition or justification beyond being odd. I'm sad that it hasn't been translated :( One of the tales is about a strange opaline sphere that rolls on the road. It doesn't accelerate when the road becomes a steep slope but continues rolling majestically. At one point it floats away towards the sky. Someone wonders if it was the moon. Someone else says authoritatively "It was an angel's egg." Everyone is reassured by this explanation. The whole thing feels exactly like remembering a dream you had. There is also a man who reads too much and whose body atrophies so only his head is left and his wife puts it in an egg cup for better stability.
• Leonora Carrington— The Skeleton's Holiday, or maybe the Hearing Trumpet. I've read them so long ago but I think the latter is the one with the old ladies and nuns? There's also a guy who was murdered in his bath by a still-life painter because he said there was a carrot in one of his paintings, but it might not have been a carrot? It's hard to remember details from this book without feeling like I might be making them up. Bonus Leonora Carrington painting which kind of feels like a short story:
• The Codex Seraphinianus, of course. I wish there were more bizarre encyclopaedias out there.
Also I love this review:
• Sleep Has His House, Anna Kavan —I really liked the way this book used language; making life feel like a fever dream even more than in Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream (which I really liked too.)
The eye is checking a record of silence, space; a nightmare, every horror of this world in its frigid and blank neutrality. The actual scope of its orbit depends on the individual concept of desolation, but approximate symbols are suggested in long roving perspectives of ocean, black swelled, in slow undulation, each whaleback swell plated in armour-hard brilliance with the moonlight clanking along it . . .
• The second half of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where things get stranger! I remember the hand-shaped castle with eyes and the city of amnesiac former emperors and the miserable ugly worms who cry all the time out of shame then create beautiful architecture with their tears...
• The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan. This is the one I had in mind when I talked about a 'museum of the strange, but one you wouldn't want to be trapped in after closing time'. Another book that made me feel uncomfortable in a similar (good) way was Edward Carey's Observatory Mansions, the protagonist of which is a man who curates an odd private museum and can't stand the sight of his own hands.
• Oh, speaking of uncomfortable, and hands—He Digs A Hole, by Danger Slater. To me this book was in the more-odd-than-good category but I liked its refusal to have a coherent philosophical meaning. It's about a man who can't sleep so he goes to his garden shed and saws off his hands and replaces them with gardening tools. Then he starts digging a hole. And then it gets weird. (Read at your own discretion if you have a worm phobia; there's some body horror featuring sexually aggressive earthworms. And then it gets disturbing.)
• 17776 — Someone sent me an ask a few years back to recommend this online multimedia narrative to me and I really enjoyed it! Here's the summary, borrowed from the wiki page: Set in the distant future in which all humans have become immortal and infertile, the series follows three sapient space probes that watch humanity play an evolved form of American football in which games can be played for millennia over distances of thousands of miles. The work explores themes of consciousness, hope, despair, and why humans play sports.
• Saint-Glinglin, Raymond Queneau —the author admitted that this book presents some "internal discontinuities." I didn't like it much but I respect the talent it takes to write a novel where everything feels like a random digression, including the key suspenseful scene that matters to the plot. The one digression I loved had to do with the way the narrator is existentially horrified by various sea creatures. It's like he dreads them so much he can't help but think about them when he should be telling a story.
The oyster... This gob of phlegm, this brutal way of refusing the outside world, this absolute isolation, and this disease: the pearl... If I conceptualise them even a little, my terror starts anew. The mussel is even more significant than the oyster and even more immediately admissible in the domain of terror. Let us indeed consider that this little sticky mass whose collective stupidity haunts our piers, consider that it is alive in the same way as a cow. Because there are no degrees in life. There is no more or less. The whole of life is present in every animal. To think that the mussel, that the mussel has, not a conscience, but a certain way of transcending itself: here I am once again plunged into abysses of anxiety and insecurity.
Near the beginning he philosophises about what would happen if a man and a lobster were the only two survivors of the apocalypse. The lobster would break the man's toe and the man would say, "We are the only beings that remain on this devastated Earth, lobster! The only living beings in the universe, struggling alone against the universal disaster, don't you want to be allies?" But the lobster would disdainfully walk away towards the ocean, and "the sight of the inflexible and imperturbable lobster pierces the sky of humanity with its unintelligible claws." (I can't overstate how little this has to do with the rest of the book.)
• Autumn in Beijing, Boris Vian —needless to say the story does not take place in autumn nor in Beijing.* To the extent that it can be said to be "about" something, it's about people trying to build a train station in a desert with tracks that lead nowhere. (I just went on goodreads to check the title, and it's actually called Autumn in Peking in English. I also discovered that it was featured in a list of Books I Regret Reading. I liked this book, but I understand.)
(* French writers love doing this—like when Alphonse Allais said about his 1893 book The Squadron's Umbrella "I chose this title because there aren't any umbrellas of any sort in this volume, and the important notion of the squadron, as a unit of the armed forces, is never brought up at all; in these conditions, hesitating would have been pure madness.")
• The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins—I fear this one makes a little too much sense for this list, but you can't say it isn't weird; and I loved it and recommend it any chance I get.
• The Eleven Million Mile High Dancer, Carol Hill —this book was so wacky and made me laugh. I've not yet managed to successfully recommend it to someone; its brand of odd didn't resonate with the people I know who've read it but that's okay. You could say it's about a woman astronaut whose weird cat disappears into the fourth dimension (or the quantum realm?) and she goes to space to save him—but that makes the book sound more straightforward and less messy than it is. Her cat leaves her a note before he disappears:
• The Bald Soprano, Ionesco —fun fact, there's a tiny theatre in the Latin Quarter in Paris where this absurdist play has been staged every night for nearly 70 years, with the exact same set design and costumes and everything, like the actors are stuck in a time loop. They celebrated the 20,000th performance this year! There's an actress who has been playing her character for 40 years and said joining this theatre was like joining a religion. I've been going to see this play as a New Year tradition with my best friend since we were 14, so I love it madly, though I wouldn't say it's good, necessarily—the author said it was about "absolutely nothing, but a superior nothing."
• Statuary Gardens; or Les Mers perdues (apparently not translated) by Jacques Abeille. This man is obsessed with weird statues. Unfortunately I find his writing style rather dull—I feel like he takes strange ideas and makes them feel mundane in a bad way...! But his books still have a nice, quiet, oneiric atmosphere, and images that stayed with me, like a solitary gardener trying to grow stone statues in the depleted soil of a walled garden. Here are some illustrations from the second one:
I'll look into some of the books recommended on my previous post! (and I agree with the people who brought up Cortázar, Borges, and Junji Ito. <3) Some potentially-odd books I have on my to-read list: Clive Barker's Abarat, Goran Petrović's An Atlas Traced by the Sky, Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper, Jean Ray's Malpertuis; Jan Weiss's The House of a Thousand Floors; Brice Tarvel's Pierre-Fendre.
#ask#book recs#i know i've made some of these sound barely readable but it would be risky to oversell them#it's funny how indignant i felt when i first thought that saint-glinglin didn't exist in english translation even though objectively it#wouldn't have been a huge loss and i don't think english speakers are clamouring for more crustacean existentialism after sartre's lobsters#but they should get to choose not to read this book!
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