affirmations
i am a complex organism brutally engineered by uncaring forces of nature
i am a product of billions of years and trillions of deaths
i am building a machine greater than myself
i am able to make phone calls and appointments
Jules of Nature

#extradirty
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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i don't do bad sauce passes

Janaina Medeiros
d e v o n
NASA
styofa doing anything

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todays bird
will byers stan first human second
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

titsay
art blog(derogatory)
RMH
tumblr dot com
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
wallacepolsom
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@theungrumpablegrinch
affirmations
i am a complex organism brutally engineered by uncaring forces of nature
i am a product of billions of years and trillions of deaths
i am building a machine greater than myself
i am able to make phone calls and appointments
1. “Raven” was an occasionally-encountered name for a girl in the contemporary period, and “Ebony” would be at least recognizable as a name. The other elements of this name are flatly atypical.
2. During this part of the War Period, this character’s hairstyle would not be considered shocking, but it would be viewed as garish and nonconformist.
3. A contemporary music performer known for a melancholy style of music and a gothic and dramatic aesthetic. The title of the work probably comes from one of her songs. However, her aesthetic and attitude has little in common with that in this work, being much more conventional and less garish.
4. A member of the contemporary band “My Chemical Romance”, also notable for a “gothic”, melancholy, and macabre aesthetic
5. i.e. the speaker considers him to be handsome and attractive; despite the pornographic material later in this work, the word “f_______” is here used only as an expletive.
6. Vampires as romantic figures had been increasing in popularity over this period, with a trend away from malicious monsters towards seductive but more benevolent figures, romanticized by their capability of being terrible.
7. Strangely, despite the characterization of this character as a Satanist, “witch” should here be characterized as having meaning similar to “wizard” and not “idolater”, “sorceress”, “maleficar”, or other practitioner of what we today recognize as “witchcraft”. The background material to this work constantly faced accusations of being satanic by an uneducated reactionary public to whom the difference between technology, wizardry and witchcraft was not meaningful (”witch” was sometimes even considered a female equivalent to “wizard”!), which completely failed to diminish its popularity.
8. It is important to understand that “goth” as an aesthetic, counterculture or subculture had a completely different meaning in the contemporary period than it does today – what remains similar is the love of the melancholy, the macabre, the dramatic, the romantic, and contempt for conventionalism. In the mid-to-early-late War Period, “Gothic” people were associated with contempt for morality, certain types of sexual display (usually of a shocking and sometimes fetishistic type), various forms of concupiscence, and a fairly significant connection to the occult and even to outright Satanism, though the latter was all but universally an affectation (this is true of most Mid War Period satanism). See contrast on p 321, The Gothic Movement In the Catholic Church. Moreover, the “gothic” aesthetic as described by this character is a stunted and over-the-top form that has also been corrupted by the counterculture-commericalism that was universal in the Late War Period.
9. A clothing store mostly specializing in counterculture-commercialized and faddist apparel. Critics accused it of being a mercantile vulture that fed by turning more honest and vivacious countercultures into fads.
10. It was almost unheard-of for women in the Mid or Late War Period to wear corsets, but they appeared in the Gothic subculture (which itself heavily borrowed from sources such as Victorian-era clothing, including mourning dress). However, what Enoby is describing is probably not actually a true corset, but a “corset top”, which is essentially a laced bodice. Either would be worn with neither chemise nor overblouse.
11. Probably a nondraped skirt that barely passes her wrist.
12. Hose, stockings, or tights in the form of a wide-open mesh
13. Probably not actually military issue boots; these were tall, heavy black leather boots with lacing all the way up.
14. This character’s outfit would be considered inappropriate for school in the Late War Period, but not shocking to Late War Period mores except by its garishness.
15. Originally meant students at a university-preparatory school; with the extremely high percentage of students seeking to attend university in the Late War Period, this came to mean a subculture of young people who adopted a highly conventionalistic and professionalistic attitude and sought admission to the prestigious and traditionalistic universities in the Eastern United States, often without academics being their true passion. Such people were often viewed as social climbers and sometimes attracted contempt from both their less-professionally-oriented peers and from those who were true intellectuals.
16. Also known as “giving the finger”; a very rude gesture in the War Period as it is in ours.
18. This phrase went through considerable popular memetic mutation (as did the entire tract): “It was _______ <weather> so I felt ________. A lot of _______ stared at me. I ________ them.” See extra material 34c.
17. I.E. “How are you today?”, “how are you feeling?” as a greeting.
extremely funny to me that harley quinns real name is apparently harleen quinzel, a name that sounds less real that harley quinn. they should do that with more comic characters. batman real name batthew manning. daredevil real name darius devilson. doctor strange real name. well okay that one doesnt count.
I have some very good news for you about Black Bolt's real name
NOW THATS WHAT IM TALKIN ABOUT
ok note to self i gotta leave the house regularly so that i dont feel like im slowly transforming into an evil fucking shadow clone of myself
So as it turns out your sense of self doesnt exist in a vacuum. You gotta actually use it and bounce it off of other people like echolocation to see where you are as a person and shit. So if you dont regularly interact with other people the echoes just get weaker and weaker and before you know it your personality is a blurry fucked up fog clone of its former self. which it sucks because this makes it really hard to interact with people again but yknow
Counterpoint: I'm an evil fucking shadow clone of myself and it rules.
You don't want elves to exist. You don't want to deal with 400 year old "fandom moms" that write 50,000 word long "oh you sweet summer child" replies and will record a feature length callout video because you posted an untagged picture from the 11th doctor who show and she "is still on the second doctor and hasn't had the time to keep up with the new stuff and you're totally spoiling it." If you think current genwunners and "new thing bad, it should be like old thing" kind of people were there live for original Shakespeare.
in the future, we have computers that are basically super effective counting machines, and the counting gets so complex we can use them to communicate and display images and play music. some people make music entirely on a computer. there are these things called vocaloids, which are computerized voices that you can make sing whatever you want, and the companies that make them like to create characters to go along with each voice. this one is named miku. it's a Japanese name. yeah the Japanese will open the country back up eventually. now, we also have these undergarments called binders. they minimize the appearance of breasts and some people find that nice for gender purposes. yeah we've written a lot about the sociological concept of gender since your time. women can vote now too, it's crazy. now stay with me. there's this street in New York city called Broadway that has a ton of theaters on it and it's famous for really big musicals. and one musical is about you and your buddies rapping together. well rap is a type of music black people will invent after we make it illegal to own them. yeah sorry not sorry about that. anyway that's you
I NEED A SICKO… im holding out for a sicko till the end of the night ..and hes gotta haha and hes gotta say yess at the window with a look of delight
I’m watching Splash (1984) which is a romcom about a guy who falls in love with a mermaid, and when she chooses a human name she chooses Madison and guy says “that’s not a real name, but alright” which seems to imply that Madison was not a name until at least the 80’s and all girls named Madison are actually named after the mermaid. thought you should know
I think...you might be right
what the fuck
much like the way "Gary" owes much of its popularity to actor Gary Cooper, born Frank James Cooper, who took the name on the advice of his agent who got it from the town of Gary, Indiana, which was named after American industrialist Elbert Henry Gary, who also gave his named to Gary, West Virginia.
In the 1700s, writer James McPherson discovered a work of ancient Scottish epic poetry by a bard named Ossian. Ossian's work became incredibly popular across Europe; he was hailed as an equal to Homer. In particular, Napoleon was major admirer of Ossian's, and named his godson Oscar after a character from the poem. This Oscar eventually became King Oscar I of Sweden, which popularized the name Oscar overnight. It remains a common name to this day in many countries, despite the fact that it is now broadly known Ossian was a hoax and that James McPherson wrote the supposed ancient epics himself.
"Wendy" first appeared as a given name in Peter Pan.
shit ton of people are repeating the thing about hayao miyazaki saying AI art is an "insult to life itself" and just as a reminder he was talking about the zombies that team made that were intended to be scary in how much they shook, but instead reminded him of his disabled friend. the insult to life itself was referring to the team trying to make scary real symptoms that people live with.
it was a quote about ableism. if he has said other things about AI type stuff, that is a different thing. but that specific quote was about ableism.
this is the full quote.
the boys at the dojo are skeptical of my "Gentle Hand", the new technique i learned from an ancient tome. they say all kinds of shit. "it'll never work", "i don't see the tactical advantage here", "what you're doing is already a thing and it's called a handjob", etc. but we'll see who's laughing when i've revolutionized martial arts forever
One of the ways that people make fun of originalist interpretation of the constitution is "séance with the founding fathers", but damned if I don't think that's the coolest possible premise for a legal system.
There are a bunch of guys floating around in the afterlife, and the government has a whole branch devoted to communing with them to get their interpretation of an increasingly-distant society that has moved on in terms of science, culture, and demography? You have to explain to Madison what a router is? You sit Hamilton down and break the news of 9/11 to him?
So many places you can go with the idea, it's really solid from a worldbuilding perspective. There's even a term for it, necrocracy, rule by those who have died. And it bakes in all these conflicts about the direction of the world and who has the ultimate say in what happens next.
And every time I see someone deride originalism with "séance with the founding fathers" I get distracted by the worldbuilding of it.
"Why does Batman need to be a billionaire?"
"He has to fund the Justice League. They often have a space program."
"But couldn't he do more good if he just invested-"
"The Earth is routinely invaded by aliens, gods, and the forces of an extraterrestrial god of tyranny."
He has, like, three charitable organizations he funds, named after his father, his mother, and Alfred.
Between both Bruce and Batman’s contributions, Gotham should be a better city than it is, and the only reason it isn’t is DC Editorial Mandate that basically says Gotham has to get worse and worse and worse or there’s no Batman stories they can tell (and, obviously, they have no other characters besides Batman).
There’s a reason Batman thinks the city is literally cursed.
I want to see Bruce Wayne go off
"Oh, oh, just charity my way out of dealing with the Penguin, a living, breathing 19th century Marxist's cartoon of the bourgeoisie? Just fund anti-Clayface measures? Crack down on corporations who put out shapeshifting cosmetics? What socio-economic pressures turn botonists into actual fucking dryads?! What inspires anti-animal terrorism? THAT'S NOT EVEN A REAL KIND OF ECO-FASCISM!"
For the record, Gotham is canonically curse, because it sits on some sort of evil swamp. I think.
There are like, half a dozen curses. The Lazarus Pits are leaching into the water, Slaughter Swamp is an unconnected body of water a few miles outside of the city that also ressurects people (see Solomon Grundy), the Bat-demon Barbatos and his followers (the Court of Owls) have been fucking up the city psychically and financially, the malevolent influence of the warlock Doctor Gotham's tomb in the center of the city, the madness hypersigil of Amadeus Arkham (in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth), there were several outposts of subterraneans and aliens beneath the city during the Silver Age, constant chemical warfare that makes it the equivalent of a WWI trench managed by MK-ULTRA, it's in New Jersey, and I think God just hates it
tired: Batman could do more good by running charities than by fighting criminals
wired: Batman could save literally every other city on the planet simultaneously with the amount of effort and resources he’s pumped into Gotham, which is a lost cause, but this is his city damnit.
Inspired: Batman’s diligence is containing the menace that is Gotham’s madness from escaping too far from city limits.
For all his billions, for all his activity, for all his efforts, Gotham is a bonfire fed by the madness of mortal people, cultivated by dark powers and just existing there makes living souls like kindling for it. And left to its own devices,it’d become a breeding ground for supernatural unrest that no mere social service system or social awareness of activist campaign, no government program, no actions of a singular vigilante, could ever hope to undo.
Batman is single handedly if need be but fortunately not alone so often, holding back the noxious psychic influences of warp and wyrd entities and what they do to the very environment and landscape through the power of sheer, unbridled humanity.
Ascended: Gotham is containing Batman, because the forces of evil, consciously or not, have figured out that if let loose, this motherfucker and his sprawling adoptive family would've solved every crime in the world ever, so they throw literally everything they have at his home town in hopes that he stays there.
Because they were foolish and let Alan Scott escape. They aren’t making that mistake again.
What if Gotham is the pump?
Like. What if, because Gotham is such a shitshow, anyone looking to improve their lives has their eye on being able to move out of Gotham, so whenever Bruce Wayne's charitable endeavors come somebody's way, they take it, pack their bags, and move the fuck away, and take that money with them.
Meanwhile there's an ongoing influx of people to Gotham primarily because they're flat broke and real estate in Gotham is dirt fucking cheap because it's a shitshow, and there's always places hiring because 1) they've got Bruce Wayne money to try to make a difference, 2) there's no shortage of places that need to be fixed up a little, and 3) villains are always in the market for new henchpeople.
So you're a broke millennial from any other town in the country, and you have student loans, a job that hasn't kept up with inflation, and your landlord has raised the rent three times this year so far and it's eating up two-thirds of your paycheck. You look for housing on the internet and discover that one-third of your paycheck will get you the mortgage for an actual house in Gotham, a house you own and will never have to deal with your scummy rentjacking landlord again. And Wayne Industries is hiring, and so are sixteen different disaster remediation places, and six staffing services with a sort of weird vibe to them but they offer benefits, since when do temp agencies do benefits, and sure the crime rate is high but the rest of the world's heading in that direction anyway, especially if you're homeless, which you're gonna be in like four months if that jackass your landlord raises the rent one more time, so get in losers, we're going to Gotham!
And you settle into your bigger-than-expected apartment and get a job that brings you a comfortable paycheck and you learn to live with the terrorist attacks and the explosions and the gunfire and the neighbors and the drunken billionaire swimming in the restaurant fountain, and you pay off your student loans, buy a car, suffer a few months' unemployment when your boss goes to jail for trying to assassinate the mayor and then your partner loses their job for a few months when the office gets smothered in a jungle's worth of climbing plants and you develop hospital bills when you both get caught in a hallucinogenic terror gas eruption at the mall, but hey, you'd be homeless by now in any other city, so you live with it.
And then it's a few years later and you're wanting to start a family, but the neighbor three doors down owns pet hyenas and the park was firebombed last week and someone froze all the water pipes and you crashed your car into one of the impromptu ice sculptures and you'd really like your kids to grow up in a normal city where they don't have to receive advice like "don't talk to strange plants."
So you visit one of the social work offices and get yourself a bit of assistance, save up your money, sell your house for the price of a down payment to the sort of incoming fool you were six years ago, and use your polished resume to get yourself a job someplace that doesn't have What To Do If Clown Attack on their safety training syllabus.
You came, you left, and Gotham remains. A shithole.
guy types out a rage filled response on the internet. but before posting it goes on a long walk to calm down. during his walk he gains a new appreciation for life and his role in it. he comes home, rereads his pending response, and clicks post.
aspirational
"There's no way in hell there was an actual supervillain who actually called themselves-"
"No, no, not officially - we came up with the name when we were assigned to find them, and we were kind of taking the piss, but it's still a good name. It was before your time - they had the power to-"
"I don't want to know what their power was."
"No, listen - their power was that they could summon a pie and throw it at someone."
"Oh. Oh, well, okay - that's the greatest supervillain you've ever fought? Doesn't sound like much."
"But that was the thing. They could throw a pie at someone and it would never miss. So long as they could see their target they'd hit them. We eventually found out they could throw a pie at someone who was on live broadcast, miles away."
"Jesus. Okay, I think I see the issue. But it was still, like. Pies, right?"
"Oh, for sure, it was never poison pies, and they could only summon a pie every 15 seconds so they couldn't drown someone in meringue. But - do you remember Murgatroyd Bentley?"
"Sort of, he was president when I was a little kid - something, something superhuman rights, and he was the guy who nuked Saskatchewan, right?"
"That's the guy. We found out about this guy after the Humboldt Crisis, because after that, whenever there was a live broadcast with the president - the state of the union, addressing congress, the Christmas tree lighting - a pie would splatter across his face every fifteen seconds."
"…Is that it?"
"Hon, it was everything. You haven't lived until you've seen the president try to talk about dignity while being smacked in the face with a banana cream. By the end of term, he refused to show his face in public, and he resigned in quiet disgrace. There were a few other pieings for a few years, but nowhere near the amount that took place when Bentley was president, and eventually they stopped. We never found out who or even where this person was.
"And that - more than anything - makes them the greatest supervillain I've ever had to deal with. Because they didn't do much, but they did it loudly, they did it consistently, and we never caught them."
"...How hard were you trying to catch them?"
"Not very."
"And you decided to call them Dr. Creampie?"
"We were young. The president had just bombed Saskatchewan. It was a weird time. Honestly we took what we could get for laughs."
Been a really long time since I've watched Daredevil but I do remember coming away from it feeling like it presented a pretty compelling internally-consistent moral justification for the vigilante thing. You're not planet-crackingly powerful, it's just that you can hear, in detail, every awful thing your neighbors are doing to each other, every night that they're doing it. You can't not know and you can't pretend not to know and when the kid tells you the next day that he just fell down the stairs you can't fall back on the provided ambiguity to absolve yourself of your responsibility to act. Semi-relatedly, you're really really good at martial arts. Start the clock
In most giant robot media, the robots are either mechanisms or devices, with a few of the more daring examples pushing into apparatus territory, which is fine as far as it goes, but I feel we're badly under-served in terms of giant robot media where the robot is a contraption.