GERARD DUBOIS Moby Dick
this is legendary because you as you go you see the photo itself and you’re “oh this is some symbolic / surrealist art” and then the TITLE hits you like a shotgun shell
In case you were unaware, Moby Dick is one of the foundational texts of cosmic horror. The White Whale is a god, maybe even The God. And Ahab Hates Him.
I wish stories of movies and shows could be contained again. I wish characters could live in their worlds for the right amount of time needed to tell a good story and not overinflated to set up for a sequel because too many threads of the original narrative were purposely left unresolved. I miss good stories that were wrapped and finished in a bow, and if it was left with an open-ended ending, it was for the audience to interpret any possible outcome to further enhance the story, not set up for franchises
Justice League, not quite early days but before proper identity reveals, though everyone knows Batman knows theirs, bc he has Opinions™ and Constructive Criticisms™ on their secret-keeping.
The issue is brought up on random occasions. The most notable incident- the Justice League, including Batman, being Drunk for Bonding, and Batman, in a fit of paranoid good intentions because he CARES about these idiots, damnit, why must they be so careless, starts insulting them.
Batman, leaning heavily on the table: “GL, you’re a mess, I don’t even know where to start with you. And Arrow! Your goatee is so distinctive, it’s a wonder no one has called you out on it-“
Green Arrow, also drunk: “Alright, there’s no need to insult my awesome facial hair-”
Batman, in despair: “It’s so ugly.”
Green Arrow: (offended noises)
Green Lantern: “Okay, the only reason you know our secret identities is because you’re a rude nosy bastard who needs to know everything about us like a creepy stalker who needs an ego boost! We’re not stupid, Spooky, we’re just polite. We could figure you out easily if we wanted to. Superman can see right through your mask!”
Usually, Batman would have a good response to that. Something smart and reasonable like “villains won’t care for your privacy, I’m testing you,” or something cutting like “I don’t care enough about you to go digging, I set your secret identity as a training exercise for Robin.”
However, Batman is Drunk, because for some reason imbibing drugs that dampen higher brain function is socially acceptable and often, for some reason, expected, because it’s “team bonding” and “come on just loosen up a bit.” (Also for him, drunk=Brucie)
So what Batman ends up saying is: “I could kiss you full on the lips in my secret identity and you wouldn’t know a thing.”
Superman, plucking the glass from Batman’s hand: “Aaaand that is enough alcohol for you!”
Batman nods. Thank God. He wants to go home and sleep. But first: “Superman, yours is so stupid it’s almost impressive-”
———
Of course, Green Lantern has smelled a challenge. And Green Lantern must annoy Batman. It’s his true superpower. So, the next time they meet (sober) he brings up the issue again.
GL: “So about what you said at the party… the part where you could kiss us full on the lips without us knowing. You still confident in that without liquid courage, Spooky? Bet you your real name you can’t do it.”
Batman, regretting the fact that alcohol has ever passed his lips: “I could do it, but I will not.”
Flash, curious: “Why’s that?”
Batman: “Informed Consent. I will not risk making any of you feel violated, or manipulated, for the sake of a stupid bet and my ego.”
GA, still offended by the goatee comment, trying to back Batman into a corner: “So if we give consent, we’re fair game? Try me, Batman. Even you can’t pull this off. Anyone else game?”
Some of the Justice League laughs, raising their hands.
Flash: “Come get me, hot stuff! I’ll call you out!”
Wonder Woman: “It could be amusing.”
Martian Manhunter: “I would be far too difficult a target.”
Green Arrow: “Not just you. C’mon, Spooky, flirting well enough to get a kiss from me? I’m a classy lady.”
Black Canary: “D-class, maybe.”
Superman, wants a kiss in on the fun: 🙋🏻♂️
“So that’s it then!” Green Lantern says smugly. “Batman, if you can kiss… how many people raised their hands? Ah yes- HALF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, without anyone realizing it’s you, then you win.”
Batman scoffs and walks out, leaving the Justice League in stitches at their joke. Because- Batman? Being good enough at flirting to land a kiss on half the league, without it being forced or awkward, without them recognizing his body language, his voice, his build? How ridiculous!
The Batman is Autistic. The Batman does not understand jokes, especially not ones that are half truths. The Batman has consent, and something to prove.
And Bruce Wayne, billionaire, playboy, and sexy DILF, has targets.
(Please tell me how you think he gets each League member.)
So it’s Bruce
He knows Green Arrow is going to be on super high alert
And he knows Green Arrow will know he knows this and is probably expecting to be left for last
He isn’t first though
No, Bruce is gonna get Hal Jordan first, from SPITE (and watch Ollie staring suspiciously at every man going for a kiss for a week or two)
(Maybe he’s given Ollie a “secret” grindr profile just to encourage a little more attention in general)
(Maybe he does a public Brucie interview about the UST between billionaires in “response” to Ollie judo throwing a hopeful hunk)
(Maybe he includes digs at Lex Luthor being the least fuckable billionaire solely and specifically because it’s funny)
Hal isn’t surprised to be invited to a gala, he’s a test pilot in fucking space, he gets a lot of speaking events
He isn’t even surprised that Brucie gives him a particularly salacious wink; Bruce sets groundwork, he is a well known ho
He’s a little surprised just how easily he’s coaxed into a quick smooch and fondle behind a pillar, but it doesn’t even register as a possible Batman event, it’s just Brucie
It’s just Brucie when he dips Clark Kent behind a bush after a press conference
It’s just Brucie who traps Ollie into a “teasing” smooch to show no hard feelings, Ollie’s totally not actually homophobic he’s just bat-hunting
It’s just Brucie who sneaks a smooch from Dinah at the same event to make it “fair”
It’s just Brucie who places a kiss on Diana’s hand in greeting like he’s swearing fealty, but he usually does that
It’s just Brucie who kisses Clark again in a closet at the next press event (definitely For The Mission and not other reasons)
It’s just Brucie who tearfully thanks John Jones with several kisses after the detective returns Dick to him (Dick a happy and willing accomplice in the smooch-ocalypse)
It’s just Brucie who makes a tour of Star Labs, chats up hot young star Barry Allen, and gets half way through a quickie before being caught specifically so that every single time Flash is mouthy in future he must know Bruce is holding in jokes about speedforce
The Batman is autistic. The Batman is EXCELLENT at scripts, patterns, and putting on all the right social cues to make people think he isn’t
The Batman even puts an updated list on the League forum, updated at the beginning of each month, and Leaguers lose their fucking minds trying to work out when he got each one
Only Clark suspects Brucie, but to be fair, that’s because his JL comm goes off during kiss number six and Bruce shuts it off with one hand
He doesn’t tell the others
after feminism wins boob plate armor is gonna make a comeback but itll be like codpieces are where its funny and sometimes the cups have little faces on them and stuff
personally im walking in the club with two golden sneering gargoyle faces on my chest
I'm using these guys, and if people don't say "What knockers!" frankly I'll lose all faith in humanity.
official boob post
Tw: Horror themes, Gore warning
When Danny gave the order to Fright Knight to bring him the culprit of the dimensional rifts from the DC dimension, he didn't expect him to come back with the decapitated head of an old man and a shaking, catatonic woman, who kept clenching two children against her chest. One was equally unresponsive as her and the other, a four year old, viewed the Infinite Realms with wide, terrified eyes.
The Fright Knight introduced the woman as Talia Al Ghul, and the children were: a revenant (name unknown) and the woman's child, Damian Al Ghul. The Knight didn't bring forward any more information, despite Danny's increasingly desperate attempts to make him talk more.
Danny is only more confused when the four year old has made three assassination attempts on both him and the Fright Knight (EACH) by the next day
When Talia snaps out of it/back into compartmentalisation Damian suddenly makes a lot more sense
Fright Knight abjectly refuses to explain anything, watching in peaceful serenity as Danny is beset by al Ghuls in full kill-or-seduce-as-appropriate
(“Seduce” for baby Damian means “pretend to be normal scared baby until they pick you up THEN STAB THEM”)
(Yes, he tries this repeatedly)
(Yes, Danny falls for it every single time)
Jason, who still has not really worked out what’s going on but is feeling much less ragey, helps Fright Knight make popcorn runs
Talia tells Danny no less than 60 versions of what has happened and none of them make sense
me explaining to the other trainers that apricorns are unknown outside of Johto because of deliberate suppression by the Silph and Devon corporations to present artificial pokeballs as the only means of capturing pokemon and establish regional monopolies after they eliminate renewable sources
(via @itsbenedict)
eternalfarnham replied to your post
you’re in the pocket of Big Ball, I see
there’s no pocket for me to BE in, there’s no LOBBYING involved, there’s no SUPPRESSION campaign because you don’t need one! traditional methods suppress themselves when you make modern pokéballs available. you might as well start accusing AT&T of deliberately suppressing the noble traditional art form of the goddamn semaphore.
not to mention OP demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the market realities of the pokéball industry- Silph and Devon are not monopolies, if they weren’t in constant competition their magic monster domination spheres wouldn’t cost two bucks a pop. the ball spec is a public standard, and Bill Masaki’s storage system based on that standard is an open-source project. they’re only the two largest players because they’re able to leverage economies of scale. you still get smaller operations like the Laverre City Poké Ball Factory, with better regional supply chains and local brand recognition, making room for themselves in the market.
sm FUCKING h at y’all granola-crunching conspiracy theorists. you probably also believe Super Potions cause autism.
Ok, but it is a shame that artisanal balls are basically off the market now. Like, you have to ride the monorail and hike through a half dozen routes just to find someone willing to sell you a Fast Ball. Believe me, when your boss at the power plant needs five Electrodes by Tuesday you are not going to want to make the trip to Alola; you’re going to head on down to the Mart and get some Ultra Balls, which will do the trick but aren’t well tailored to the job.
I’m with you that modern catching techniques are better, not to mention more humane, but there genuinely is a loss from more niche balls becoming harder to find. Maybe someday the long slowpoketail of consumer demand will be met, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that Shellder.
look y’all are missing the point. mass production of silph balls crowding out traditional apricorn craftsmanship is, if anything, more a side effect of the real problem: that capture artifacts are too easy to get your hands on these days. $2 basic balls are a problem. before modern ball tech you had to go to an artisan, yes, but part of their job was to care about who had the power to recruit pokémon from the wild, as a backstop against another Knight of Veilstone coming along. there was a time when you’d never lay a hand on a ball yourself until it was clear you respected pokémon, whether tame or in the wild. but now, a “pokémon journey” is open to practically every teenager, even if they’ve got not interest in treating their team with trust and love.
the worldwide rise in the last century of organized crime and apocalyptic cults who use pokémon as their muscle is a direct result of capture artifacts becoming a mass produced market commodity rather than a mechanism for preserving the sacred trust between humans and the wilderness. it’s a miracle that the powder keg hasn’t already gone off by now.
Oh that is rank historical revisionism - what, do you think artisans’ definitions of “respect” were constructed in a vacuum? We already had rhetoric as far back as the warring states period in Ransei about how only the soldierly classes, overwhelmingly descendants of nobility and taught from birth, had the intangible qualities necessary to “bond” with Pokémon. And when we start seeing apricorn balls develop in Johto, which borders Kanto - Kanto, where we know there’s been extensive cultural cross-contamination with Auroran and Dragnoran expeditions - surprise, suddenly only a small population has the intangible qualities necessary to use them, too.
That notion was, and remains, a tool to limit general access to Pokémon in the interest of maintaining class disparities. I mean, have we already forgotten the Aether Foundation’s pseudo-conservationist nonsense? Their attempt to manipulate natural resources and establish a power base in Alola, while they were modernizing and taking their place on the world stage, was founded on this exact rhetoric of “rescuing” Pokémon from local disenfranchised populations, as if taking Pokémon away from places like Po Town would improve things instead of increasing competition between trainers and decreasing safety.
Do you want more disillusioned kids joining gangs? Because that’s how you get Teams!
Artisanal balls and anyone who supports them are tools of the aristocracy to suppress the common folk. In the days when a ball could only be made by hand by an expert, only the wealthiest could afford pokemon, and as a result anyone not born into the “elites” was forced to be subservient to their “betters” for protection.
The release of the $2 pokeball meant that the balance of power shifted to the common citizens. If any child can wield the power of a god, the military and the government and the wealthiest businessmen have no power over them.
More than that, instead of power being determined by the wealth to acquire pokemon, power comes exclusively from the dedication, effort, and empathy required to train them to high levels and to maintain their loyalty. If a person simply buys their pokemon, then those pokemon will either stay at low levels forever, or refuse to obey the human because there is no respect between them; the most powerful people in the world are those who caught a critter at level 2-5 and then devoted their life to raising it into a world power.
And as a beautiful side benefit of this, standard of living has increased across the board. Since every household has at least one minor pokemon in the family and there are increasing numbers of professional, working pokemon joining cities and other civilized areas and working to improve them, every aspect of economy and industry has been enhanced by their supernatural capabilities. Electricity is generated cleanly and in abundance for everybody. Pollution is cleaned up almost completely and instantly. The production of farms, mines, and workshops is multiplied, even as safety standards improve. Yes, every few years another potential apocalypse comes about and needs to be prevented by a couple of brave teenagers, but outside of those incidents the world is damn close to utopia.
…that was all fascinating to read and I would like to see more like it, please
for instance; what the hell is in lemonade that makes it a more powerful healing alternative to regular potions
Opium
Shipping isn't trying to explain why a relationship is actually canon. It's not even trying to explain why it should or could be canon. Shipping is saying "wouldn't it be funny if these two fucked" and everyone needs to remember that.
and sometimes it's "wouldn't it be fucked up if these two fucked"
I present:
The world is so hostile to tweens.....
Like we joke about how our schools growing up would ban the latest toy trends, but that reality genuinely horrific when you think about it. Like maybe 1% of the bans were based on safety, but the rest cited reasoning like
-"kids were bartering for collectibles" (kids learning about economics and product value)
-"kids were wearing them and the colors were too flashy" (kids experimenting with self expression and fashion)
-"kids were playing with them during lunch and recess instead of using our rusted safety hazard playground" (kids utilizing their free time to do what helps *them* unwind).
Play areas specifically geared towards children and especially towards teens are constantly being shut down. "Oh kids today are always on their phones!" Maybe because
-there are barely any arcades left and even less arcades that aren't adult-oriented,
-public pools and gyms are underfunded and shut down,
-"no loitering" laws prevent kids and teens from just hanging out,
-movie theatres only play the latest films and ticket prices are only rising,
-parks and playgrounds are either neglected or replaced with gear only directed at toddlers and unsuitable for anyone older
-genuine children's and young teen media is being phased out in favour of media directed only at very small children or older teens and adults.
-suburbs and even cities are becoming more and more hostile to pedestrians, it's just not safe for kids to walk to or ride their bikes to their friends' houses or other play destinations
Children's agency is hardly ever respected. Kids between the ages of 9-13 are either treated as babies or as full-grown adults, with no in-between. When they ask to be given more independence, they are either scoffed at or given more responsibilities than are reasonable for a child their age.
This is even evident in the fashion scene.
Clothing stores and brands like Justice and Gap are either closing or rebranding to either exclusively adult clothing or young children's clothes, with no middle ground for tweens. Tweens have to choose between clothes designed for adults that are too large and/or too mature for their age and bodies, or more clothes they feel are far too childish. For tween girls especially it's either a frilly pinafore dress with pigtails or a woman's size dress with cleavage. No wonder tween girls these days dress like they're older, it's because their other option is little girl clothes and they don't want to feel childish.
And then when tweens go to school, the books they want to read aren't available because they cover "mature" topics (read: oh no two people kissed and they weren't straight or oh no menstruation was mentioned or oh no a religion other than Christianity is depicted), so kids are left with books for way below their reading level. No wonder kids today are struggling with literacy, it's because they can't exercise and expand their reading skills with age-appropriate books. Readers need to be challenged with new words and concepts in order to grow in their skills, only letting tween read Dr. Seuss and nursery rhymes doesn't let them learn.
Discussions about substance use, reproduction, and sexuality aren't taught at an age-appropriate level in school or even by children's parents, so they either grow up ignorant and more vulnerable to abuse, or they seek out information elsewhere that is delivered in a less-than-age-appropriate manner. It shouldn't be a coin-toss between "I didn't know what sex was until I was 18 and in college" or "my first exposure to sex as a tween was through porn" or "I didn't know what sex was so I didn't know I was being sexually abused as a kid."
Tweenhood is already such a volatile and confusing time for kids, their bodies are changing and they're transitioning from elementary to middle to high school. It's hard enough for them in this stage, but it's made worse by how society devalues and fails them.
We talk about the disappearance of teenagehood, and maybe that's gonna happen in the future, but the erasure of tweenhood is happing in real time, and it's having and going to have major consequences for next generation's adults.
loudly going "YOU'RE GOOD YOU'RE GOOD" to myself to ward off the memory of every embarrassing thing i've ever done
Tumblr, buddy, listen to me. This is an unprecedented opportunity. You can snap up all of the pie here, and become defacto internet goodguy easy. All you gotta do is... drop the nsfw ban. Unambiguously. Announce that dicks are back on the menu. You want people subscribed the blogs? You want people to actually use your Post+ function? Porn. Let us use it for porn. The youngins aren't joining this site anyway, you're not competing with tiktok. The vaguely horny 20-40 demographic though? You can have that. You can have all of that. Think about it.
Do you know how many pinup artists alone are itching to come back to tumblr, but dont because of the unclear, seemingly arbitrary application of your nsfw policy? These are insanely talented people who are practically begging to give you content. For free. But you gotta change the policy. We can't keep dancing around this. Just think of publicity. The drama. A complete 180. You'd kill it tumblr. You could make it happen. Please.
YES I'M GAY:
faGgot
dykAe (the a is silent)
trannY
i may be stupid
trying to find something out so please rb and give your opinion on these cookies specifically in the tags
I don't know tumblr, what is it? because this empty spot between two posts has nothing clickable for me, so I think maybe you're going through something rn
garte is so much funnier as the grumpy third wheel to harry and kim than he has any right to be. I feel like a good chunk of what people want out of jean post-canon is just… being garte, when garte can’t be there to be garte. and garte literally usurps jean’s potential pet the dog moment. when harry is badly injured and in need of care, his (about to be) former police partner doesn’t step in to help him but you know who does? that iconically grumpy not-bartender who harry has been idly bullying all game. garte is just such a guy but people don’t make him the third member of the team because he can’t be packed into a suitcase and brought along to every post-canon casefic
