The bats have left the bell tower!

Arlo, they/he/it it's always spooky season

[gar-trek]

Out of touch Spock Thursday 

[bibblesaysgayrights]

btw i read monstrous regiment and i think it's one of the best discworld books i've read so far. it can be read simultaneously as a commentary on misogyny and differing standards based on gender and war AND a possibly unintentional exploration of transmasc experiences. like one of the characters has expressed as male literally most of his life and went back to his family as a man, which is both a really good commentary on how differently men and women are treated and how the standards for 'gross habits' are vastly different for men than for women but also it is literally someone who's been presenting masc their whole life finally returning to their family as themself.

ALSO it handled the female characters so well!! most pieces of media that have women in positions of power make them good and moral, but monstrous regiment treats them as people, who, when in an environment surrounded by stupid masculine ideals and having to conform to those, will fall into the same stupid patterns!! it treats women as people who can be utterly stupid, belligerent and hardheaded and it was so refreshing.

also the jokes are really good, it's an entertaining read and presents all those topics (including the utter devastation that was brings, the propaganda used to coerce people into fighting, which are both REALLY heavy things!!) in a way that is easily comprehended and keeps your attention.

terry pratchett was such a good fucking writer istg

[mattpresents]

How do you know you're not Asexual? Maybe you just haven't met the right nobody.

[aroaceenjolras]

This "allosexuality" thing is just a phase. You just need to have really bad sex, and then maybe you'll change your mind.

[academic-vampire]

𝔯𝔢𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔢𝔯

[oathtoblood-deactivated20260708]

[parkayquarts]

when the regiment is monstrous

[spartagulosus]

This seemed appropriate. Not really jmarty though so I hope it counts. Ace day 6 of @jonmartinweek

[dungeon-bitch]

[dragongirlbunny]

saw a post on bluesky about reimagining The Iliad as a mecha war and that idea goes unbelievably hard. achilles in his legally distinct gundam cutting through dozens of enemy suits. aggamemnon in his gold-plated mech. paris using a long range sniper rifle to exploit a design flaw in achilles' armor. the gods are all various megacorps who have a stake in the war bc it'll impact their profits.

[sepublic]

I do think it’s interesting how the novel Dracula is meant to be a modern setting from its perspective. It’s very much that genre of story about an ancient fantasy archetype finding itself in a modern setting, complete with the rules-lawyering that often comes with modern parodies (that isn’t to say the stories of Olde didn’t have fun with loopholes either though).

Except Dracula is a story that plays itself straight. The vampire himself is not stupid. He’s possibly the oldest vampire of all which means he upgraded from animal instinct and mindless echoes of past memories to someone who’s regained his critical thinking skills. The story begins because he’s already adapted to how the modern world works now by hiring a solicitor who understands modern laws.

He knows now that he doesn’t have to march into London with an army like he used to; He can just buy property and the laws of London are forced to respect that. Similarly he’s already experimented in and discovered loopholes to vampire rules and limitations; Vampires are bound by the permission of owners so he simply uses his solicitor to buy and own a bunch of properties. If he needs to be invited in, Dracula hypnotizes someone to let him in.

Vampires need to return to their grave every dusk/dawn (whichever comes sooner), which causes their coffin to act as an anchor that limits how far from it they can travel? Dracula simply rations the earth of his grave into fifty coffins and spreads them across London so his range becomes exponentially larger.

All of these things make the story almost come across as a deconstruction and it might just be! It’s just that Dracula the novel became such a trendsetter that people nowadays see it as playing things fully straight. It almost feels as if the novel is written with the idea that readers have a basic understanding of vampires and their rules, so part of the thrill comes in the revelation of how the titular vampire is working around these rules. Likewise I’ve heard it used to be a trope in English literature for a traveler to visit some foreign land with a monster and escape by going home. But here the foreign aspect of the story is just the first (and final) arc; The monster’s plan hinges on coming to the UK itself!

So yeah. Dracula isn’t stupid and he reflects the idea that people of the past had just as common sense as the rest of us, they just had access to less/inaccurate knowledge and things worked differently back then. Dracula would be like… That bit of someone showing a medieval peasant a meme as they comprehend it perfectly and aren’t even wowed by the Doritos. If Dracula was set in the 21st century he’d probably understand social media well enough to become an influencer if he wanted to, though the issue of being invisible in cameras wouldn’t help.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Alright tell me in the tags, what’s Your Poem? That poem you heard once and it has dwelt within you ever since?

[skittypilled]

so i put my hands up theyre playing my song the evil skull flies away

[infectiouspiss]

those two scottish cunts are mad for walking 500 miles and then 500 more but when you think about how much an uber costs they start talking sense

[mother-meri-deactivated20260530]

agnostic Trent Reznor: you (hypothetically) get me closer to. Something.

[heavensenthousepet]

you learn something new everyday. unless you're a historian. then you learn something old

[melonisopod]

[chechula]

Monstrous Regiment fellows for Ari ♥

Carborundum, Polly ‘Ozzer’ Perks, Maladict, Igor, ‘Shufti’ Manickle ♥

[podcastwizard]

you don’t realize how important lunch is until you’re wandering around thinking about how unloveable and untalented and uniquely cursed you are and then it’s 4pm and you finally eat lunch and you go Oh. oh right.

[podcastwizard]

lot of people commenting on this post like "who eats lunch at 4pm that's a terrible time to eat lunch" yes. that is the point. 4pm lunch is inadvisable. 4pm lunch is not the ideal. 4pm lunch makes the mind demons real.