fun fact: if a fictional character is given too many poorly written romantic subplots that ultimately dont go anywhere, the aromantic community is legally allowed to claim the character as one of their own
its so weird being aromantic. like.. people talk about datign and their desire for romantic connection and i don’t relate in the slightest and like to me not caring about having a romantic partner is normal ,??? but people actually desire romantic relationships?????? like idk.. its so weird to me. like what do you mean i’m in the minority on this
Did a school visit today and asked a group of 8th graders if they could define the term "contemporary art" for me [for context, I work at a contemporary art museum], and one of them said "Is it art that's made with contempt?"
And unfortunately that's the funniest thing a student has ever said to me in 10 years of teaching
The best part about being asexual is knowing that you will never be honeypotted. I often picture myself as a mark in a James Bond movie who has information or something and Daniel Craig saunters up in his sexiest tux to seduce me and I’m just like “No thank you” no matter what he does and then he has an existential crisis and walks away in a daze then sends in Moneypenny cause maybe I just like women and I’m like “hey girl, no thanks” and send her away as well and they just never get the information. I am an immovable plot piece without even knowing it. Sorry James but I defy the tropes of your genre.
At first I read “as an optometrist” and was just ready to accept the statement as is like oh yeah maybe some kind of pun about if people’s views weren’t clouded by hatred and biases they could be normal about aro and aspec in general but then I reread it was like “sigh, time for my nearsighted ass to go back to the optometrist.”
That field happens to be paleoxeno anthropology - the study of dead alien and/or interdimensional people and cultures.
The thing with becoming the top expert in a field of study, is that you often don't set out to become one. Danny just wanted to understand where his parents got the idea that ghosts aren't sapient. So, he read their research.
(Cut because this got long.)
And then, when that didn't answer things (because apparently they'd stopped citing their damn sources after college), he asked his parents what references they used. Which lead to reading those research papers, and looking into their sources.
And the deeper Danny went, the more he learned, the fewer offshoots the rabbit hole had. He started recognizing when authors were citing each other in a loop, when some researcher was plagiarizing a specific other researcher, and he eventually got good at cutting through the "as everyone knows" to the root "I've never read anything except X crackpot's work, but if I say that, you won't take me seriously."
Along the way, he learned that a lot of "ghost" research was cross-contaminated by other fields - aliens, gods, demons, elemental spirits, and basically everything else that wasn't "of this Earth" all got dumped into the same area of "pseudoscience."
Except, aliens were real. There were even alien super heroes - Martian Manhunter was very openly a non-human person from Mars.
So, why were all these papers swilling the same backwash?
Well, Danny found what he was looking for - the ultimate source of his parent's prejudices - a "research paper" commissioned and published to support a proposed law against "illegal aliens." Specifically, a law that would criminalize super heroes who couldn't prove they were born on Earth - Superman in particular.
It was all bullshit. Years of "professionals" were ultimately referencing a single biased "study" into the ability of anything not human to have conscious thought. It was all based on fucking xenophobia.
By this point in his research, Danny had entered college and majored in anthropology - since he was doing the research anyway, he'd may as well get credit for it, right? He'd written several papers on known alien cultures, talked to experts in the field of interdimensional communication (read: magic users), and generally become a known entity in the study of dead non-human and/or non-Earth-based people.
And if he maybe popped into the Ghost Zone to talk to a few "primary sources" for his papers, well, that was why he specialized in specifically dead cultures.
By the time he'd actually graduated, he'd written a (very well received) paper on the inherently xenophobic prejudices present in what he was calling the field of paleoxeno anthropology. He laid out his very well-sourced arguments, heavily referenced established research (and the sources for said research), and ended it with a list of the known crimes of Lex Luthor - the primary source of everything his parents had based their work on.
All in all, Danny was rather proud of the work he'd done. He'd upended the entire field of ecto-biology, started a few debates on the merits of interdimensional cultural exchanges (the idea of Christmas Truce was immediately adopted by the people of Gotham), and gotten a few prejudiced laws challenged.
His parents had copies of his papers on ghost culture proudly displayed throughout the house, and had been overwhelmingly supportive of the new ideas he had brought to their field. Jazz had a newspaper article about the legal changes he'd instigated framed in her office in Arkham - a surprising number of her patients weren't legally human, and were already receiving better care and accommodations now that they were being recognized as people.
But the thing that really made Danny realize he was not just an expert, but the expert, was Superman showing up at his door with a copy of his examination of Krypton's lost subcultures and fringe social practices.
"A few of my family members have entered their "rebellious teenager" phase. On the recommendation of my colleagues, I came here, hoping you could help them "rebel" in a way that helps them feel closer to our people."
Now I'm imagining Danny giving a public interview with a few alien ghosts, and by sheer dumb chance accidentally chose Jor-El, M'yri'ah J'onzz, and Abin Sur.
Jor-El and M'yri'ah were chosen because they were among these present for the last days of their species and seemed to be the most knowledgeable sources Danny could find on what exactly went down.
Abin was chosen because he wanted to also have a Lantern who could give insight into different alien races with their line of work and how the Green Lantern corps handles accommodating for so many different cultures.
One can only imagine how Clark, J'onn, and Hal might feel when they find out who were being interviewed by one Dr. Daniel Fenton.
Danny: Tell me what your day-to-day life was like, in the days leading up to the end.
Jor-El: I just wanted to get my son to safety. I knew there wasn't much time, but (horrifying story about who knew, who was in denial, how normal some people tried to act). I hear he made it, though! I'm so proud of my son, and the good he's doing for his new home.
The Justice League, watching Superman silently crying: What the fuck.
we do need to revisit the wording of "you can't have your cake and eat it too" because i don't think it clearly enough conveys that it's more that you can't simultaneously retain a cake and also get to consume it (which would render you cakeless). for years i was like But why not....it's my cake....?
the unabomber was pedantic about idiomatic phrases like "have your cake and eat it too" and rephrased it to "eat your cake and have it too" (which to be very fair makes sense). fast forward to when he starts writing manifestos. he uses the phrase word for word in his pedantic style and his brother (who has been keeping his eyes on the unabomber shit for obvious reasons) notices the phrase and is like "oh fuck that's my fucking brother no one else fucking says that" and calls in an FBI tip
annaxmalina
baratheonpilled
tangentwithtanner
titsay
kaledo-art
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
