Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

mayahtx:

punkmicheal:

my parents didn’t raise me to order something expensive when someone else is paying

*me on dates*

ablogoffeels:

ocalinson:

BERNIE SANDERS IS OFFICIALLY OUT OF THE RACE HE IS NO LONGER A CANDIDATE - HE DOES NOT WANT YOUR VOTE. HE WANTS US TO VOTE HILLARY TO DETRUMP THE TRUMP - GET YOUR BERNIE OR BUST RHETORIC AWAY. CLEAR IT FROM YOUR MINDS. VOTE HILLARY. GIVE HER ANY NUMBER BOOSTS YOU CAN. I DON’T CARE. USE YOUR FUCKING BRAINS. PLEASE.

Ok, but also, do people not realize how much bernie accomplished despite not getting the nomination???? In the end, Bernie did what he wanted to do all along. He shook up the DNC despite their plays against him. He got the Democratic party to adopt THE most progressive platform in HISTORY!!! He made people stop and think and adopt and protest and force the Democrats to notice; he changed the game. He’s already made a huge impact. I would’ve loved him to receive the nomination, but we have to face the reality. If you write him in, or don’t even fucking vote, Donald Trump, the farthest thing from what Sanders believes in, will win because you’ll split the democratic vote. So if you’re a die hard Bernie supporter like you say you are, don’t throw away the work he has done. Don’t throw away his success. Vote Clinton. 

dyinghistoric:

onceuponaprime:

weresquirrel:

noseforahtwo:

belowbedlam:

milkdromeduh:

khiravaggio:

toddypalmpie:

mainmanblackdynamite:

suprchnk:

bippyfingers:

suprchnk:

suprchnk:

what was your least favorite core literature book

think mine is still gatsby

Of mice and men. I will always hate Of Mice and Men.

always

The Catcher In The Rye most trash book ever

^yeah, gatsby was terrible too tho

I liked gatsby because the narrator thought everything that happened was bullshit too. I HATED catcher in the rye though.

All of the books listed here I hated with a passion, but none more so than The Catcher in the Rye. GOD.

I had to force myself to read that shit. Anything by Steinbeck is a basically a sleeping pill.

The Scarlet Letter. I never even read Gatsby, still not sure how I passed that section tbh.

The Awakening. How did my eyes not roll right out of my skull while my ever-so-earnest English teacher rhapsodized for two weeks on Kate Chopin? 

There is a burning hatred in my heart for anything Hemingway.

Does not help that my professor last year spent two months with the old fart’s metaphorical balls slapping against his chin.

THE AWAKENING
My english teacher went on about what a feminist piece it was and how well written it was and it really just made me want to stab myself in the eye because it was neither of those things

The Awakening and Grapes of Wrath

G o d i hated grapes of wrath
I don’t think I finished it

GRAPES OF GODDAMN WRATH.

Oh God did anyone else have to read You Can’t Go Home Again?  It was WORSE.  700 pages of inane and plotless rambling.  Fucking murderous.

janey-jane:

entrenous88:

No, but seriously, Scotty and Keenser are going to be such proud uncles to Jaylah as she rips her way through the Engineering track at Starfleet Academy

#can you imagine scotty and keenser pouring over her written comms?#and putting up pics of jaylah dominating at combat training?#and giving her advice that she takes SUPER SERIOUSLY#and sending her really weird care packages#of vegan haggis#and these really hard smelly biscuits that emit tiny eeping sounds#which are treats wherever keenser is from?#star trek found families

YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES. I AM HERE FOR ALL OF THIS.

batcii:

psa if you ever meet me in real life I am really sorry for how much I swear like it’s really not a joke I have a mouth on me like a fuckin sailor and I can usually turn it off around adults but if you’re under thirty five I will likely throw one ‘fuck’ in for every three words that leave my mouth it’s shocking

thorinsmut:

bemusedlybespectacled:

le-claire-de-lune:

Leverage episodes I wish we saw:

• the everyone meets hardison’s nana job 
  

• the accidental acquisition of a baby job
  

• the canon OT3 we’re not being coy like in the Rundown Job job
  

• the one-off not quite canon within the story supernatural/fantasy elements job
  

• the fake a cryptid (either bigfoot or el chupacabra) job 
  

• the circus job (I really want to see Parker the acrobat)
  

• the explain how their clients even find them job. Like seriously do they advertise??? How does this work???
  

Hardison’s Nana comes to them because some fake debt-collection agency is hounding her for bills she already paid (or rather, that Hardison paid, via the Bank of Iceland). She is played by Nichelle Nichols. There is at least one Star Trek reference.

YES I need this like breathing. Nichelle Nichols is Nana now. Nobody can convince me otherwise.

And the circus job! No one can tell me that the entire crew wouldn’t get in on the circus job and be really into it.

Parker as an acrobat trying to get used to the idea that people are supposed to see her when she’s performing, and then getting into it and loving the applause when she does something extra fancy and death-defying with her ropes.

Eliot randomly is an expert at fire-juggling, because of course he is. He performs shirtless. The crowd goes wild. Never has there been so much thirst in a single room.

Sophie as the fortune teller. Sophie as the fortune teller who’s way too good at her job and has to tone it down a little bit because she’s freaking people out. She also does the knife-throwing act with Eliot, posing beautifully while he throws knives around her. She knows he’ll never miss.

Nate, of course, is the barker. “Step right up, step right up. See the beautiful, the death-defying…”

Meanwhile Hardison is behind the scenes bringing the technology into the 21st century. The light show to go along with the choreography has never been more beautiful, the sound system has never been so good, and the rigging has never been more safe. Also there are bugs everywhere so he can listen in and catch the bad guy, but that’s almost secondary.

In the end Eliot gets to fight the circus strong man, Sophi out-cons the bad guy, and the plan comes together like puzzle pieces falling into place right at the end so you can hardly believe it worked. Just like a good performance should.

They give the circus back to its tearfully grateful original owner and drive off into the sunset–ready to con another day.

Parker keeps her sparkly spandex costume.

GIVE IT TO ME

emissary-architect:

me: i feel awful in so many different ways. I have no idea how I’m supposed to cope and process everything that’s happening.
me: turns to my ocs
my ocs: sweats
me: jaws theme

rainbowrowell:

teacupdream:

vandigo:

bitch-jerk-assbutt-teamfreewill:

one-lastmiracle:

intangible-rice:

When I was 17 my appendix ruptured because I thought I was just having period cramps and didn’t go to the hospital so don’t tell me PMS symptoms are no big deal

this actually happened to me during my math final and i didn’t think anything of it and when i was later admitted to the hospital my math prof was asking me ‘you didn’t have to take the final! why didn’t you tell me it hurt?!?!’ and i told him i’ve had cramps worse.

he gave me 100

This is actually an extremely common occurrence simply because in sex ed they don’t teach you how to tell the difference between menstrual cramps and other more serious pains. The way to tell the difference between cramps and appendicitis is that while menstrual cramps are generalized toward the middle of the stomach below the belly button, pain from a swollen or burst appendix will start in the middle of the stomach and relocate to only the lower right side, even lower than menstrual cramps, and is a very localized pain. It also comes on extremely suddenly and will worsen over time or when you make a sudden movement, like a cough or a sneeze.

Basically, if you’re feeling any sort of pain, even if it’s menstrual cramps, don’t hesitate to tell the school nurse or a parent, or if you’re out of school and home even make a doctor’s appointment. Chances are if your cramps are that bad there’s something they can do to improve that as well.

I am boosting the shit out of that reply, because I am twenty-fucking-five years old and did not know how to tell the two pains apart

Adding another diagnostic tool! This is something we use in the ER called the rebound test. Basically, appendicitis and cramps react differently to certain things. If you’re still not sure if you have cramps or appendicitis, take two fingers and press them into your abdomen where the pain is (try repeating this on the lower right quadrant of the abdomen just to be sure.)

When you press in firmly, it will probably hurt. Here’s the test: LET GO. Does it get better or get worse? Appendicitis will immediately hurt worse when you let go. Cramps will not. Go to the ER if the rebound test makes it worse!

THE REBOUND TEST IS REALLY IMPORTANT.

My husband got sent home from the ER with a rupturing appendix. When he came back and was rushed into surgery, the surgeon was super angry – “Why didn’t anyone do the rebound test?!”

littlestartopaz:

asmilinggoddess:

there was a post about musical star trek where spock is the one guy who doesn’t understand how everyone is singing and harmonizing but i say no

bones as the one guy who doesn’t understand why everyone is singing and what the hell is this choreography. because i want you to imagine this. bones getting very confused and going to ask spock what the hell is going on and spock turns around and starts singing too

@buddhistmamaduck @words-writ-in-starlight @twistedangelsays

anglophile-rin:

castieliscuterthanjesus:

o-ri:

does anyone else secretly have that “i liked it before it was cool” complex but wont admit it

it’s more along the lines of “you guys were fucking making fun of me for liking this before it was cool” kinda complex

Also a “I super excitedly tried to show this to you years ago and you brushed it off and now you think you introduced it to me and that is infuriating” kinda complex

adorkablebarry:

me as a writer: Oh no I can’t write that, somebody else already has

me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier

picklesquash:

bonesbuckleup:

D’you guys think that anytime someone questions anything about Sulu’s flying capabilities he has a split second where everything goes red and the disembodied haunting voice of Christopher Pike comes drifting out of the fog to say, “Is the parking brake on?”

#YOU KIDDING ME SIR#sometimes Hikaru wakes up in the night in a cold sweat#and next to him Ben doesn’t even bother fully waking up to say#‘the parking brake’s not on babe go back to sleep’ (via bonesbuckleup)

murhuedur:

Just think while you been getting down and out about Caesar’s use of the Ablative Absolute and Cicero’s lengthy speeches you could have been getting down

TO THIS

SICK

BEAT

*starts scanning a line written in dactylic hexameter*

VIRGIL, MY MAN

raptorific:

Ever since I did my post about how Thomas Jefferson would go to hell, people have been like “can you do Andrew Jackson too” to which my answer is a resounding HELL NOPE. That dude will LITERALLY MURDER ME and the fact that he’s dead WILL NOT DO A THING TO STOP HIM BECAUSE HELL CANNOT HOLD HIM. Like, most U.S. Presidents are murderers by proxy, but this dude was a LITERAL SERIAL KILLER WHO LIKED TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY. He is responsible for the only time in American History that the president’s bodyguards had to save the ASSASSIN’S LIFE from the PRESIDENT. You know how we called Nixon “Tricky Dick” because he was a liar and we called George W. Bush “Dubya” after his middle initial and we called Abraham Lincoln “Honest Abe” because he was a pretty above-the-board type of guy? They called Andrew Jackson “Old Hickory” because he liked to BEAT PEOPLE ABOUT THE FACE AND BODY WITH HIS CANE. Like he was absolutely a genocidal maniac who apparently only held the office of President because everyone was too afraid to ask him to leave but now that I’ve said that, I want you all to know that if I’m found beaten to death with a blunt object, I can save the police the trouble of investigating: It was former U.S. President Andrew Jackson come back from the dead for revenge. 

nakedbrownie:

Combeferre, a professional chess player, organized a small tournament at Musain that no one showed up to except one very hungover guy who wordlessly sat across Combeferre and checkmated him in under ten minutes and that’s how Les Amis met Grantaire.

outofcontextdnd:

-The Swashbuckler, running full speed at his buddy.

dayanknight:

sprinkle-dicks:

piercethefvck:

If you’re suffering from depression and are looking for a sign to not go through with ending your life, this is it. This is the sign. We care.

If you see this on your dash, reblog it. You could save a life.

Just in case you don’t think it can actually save a life, this is a message I got in my inbox after reblogging this post

Please to any of my followers who might be thinking of this in light of the recent events, I care about each and every one of you!

roachpatrol:

this is coleus. for reasons that escape me, it grows in seventy fuckzillion bizarre alien colors, from neon pink to white, and is very close to unkillable. additionally, it propagates extremely well through cuttings. you know it’s coleus if you touch it and it is just a little bit soft, with a juicy stem, and it grows in bunches with alternate paired leaves, and has sort of ‘embossed’ veins that stick out on the bottom of the leaf but are creased in on the top. 

when you see coleus growing in a planter you can reach, look both ways to see if the coast is clear, then pinch off a little sprig with your fingernails. you need at least two leaves, though four and a centimeter of stem is best. keep the clipped end moist, like in a water bottle or wet napkin, and get it home fast.

fill a soda or beer bottle up with water. pop the stem in. put on a windowsill to get some light. in two or three days you’ll see little roots starting (make sure to refill the bottle periodically), and in as soon as a week you can plant it, though a month is a good time to wait. you can also keep it in a bottle indefinitely, though green and brown bottles are best for that, as it will block sunlight and cut down on algae growth.

coleus that wants more water will have very droopy, limp leaves, so it’s easy to know when to water it. after it’s been watered, the leaves perk back up in an hour or so and it looks happy. coleus are very dramatic plants.

enjoy your coleus collecting! don’t get caught. if you do, don’t show them this post. 

some-wayward-daughter:

softjoly:

blkbutchprincess:

I would love to see more representation of interracial relationships where neither partner is white

i like this screencap because it looks like BB-8 is officiating their marriage

awed-frog:

Honestly, though, the best part of teaching Greek mythology is that soft ‘huh’ coming from behind you as you’re finishing up a diagram of the gods and the relationships they have between them.

“Is something wrong?” you ask, turning around while you try, and fail, to clean white chalk off your fingers.

“It’s just,” the boy says, and then he blushes a bit, because people taking Latin are usually good and shy and the last thing they want is to get into a fight with a teacher. “Those two characters here - aren’t they both men?”

And okay, at this point everybody’s paying attention except the resident class child - that one girl who still has to uses four different colours for everything she writes and will get upset if you point out she should only use black or blue when filling in exams. So, yeah, you look at the boy, and then at everybody else, and then you turn back, pretend to check.

“Yes, they are,” you say, frowning, as if you never had to answer that question before.

“So why is there a double line between them?”

“Because they were in a relationship at some point. Double lines are for sex, remember? Single lines are kids and parents, and double lines are lovers.”

Someone giggles. The two kids whose parents bring them along to weird art exhibitions - the ones who’ve grown up hearing frank political discussions and the occasional dirty joke - are now looking collected and a bit smug. The others are losing it, and fast - they look at the board, as if only just noticing the thing, and then at you.

“So, they were like, gay?” someone else asks, and it’s always a girl asking this question, because ‘gay’ is just something boys aged 14 and a half never use - a Voldemort word, something that’s on your lips today and on everybody else’s tomorrow.

And this, of course, is the moment you’ve been waiting for - what the lesson was actually about. You wouldn’t plan a lesson around that, but you will mention the subject if it comes up, and so you start talking, about all of it - about sexual orientation being a cultural construct, about the Greek language not even having a term for ‘gay’ and ‘straight’, about warriors falling in love with each other and neglecting their teenage wives, about the fact our society is still coming to terms with something people have known in their hearts for millennia - that there’s no choosing and no free will, not about this. About how the most important thing is to respect yourself and each other, and the rest doesn’t matter all that much.

Statistically, in every class there’s a kid who’s struggling with this. Maybe two. Here things are not as bad as they could be, but it’s still hard, especially when you’re fourteen and you think you may be the only one and you don’t want to be different and how the hell can you even have a conversation about these things, with anyone?

And sometimes when you talk about these things - and dedicated teachers will find a way to include this speech somehow, because you never know who might need an ally, and who might need to hear it said out loud - teachers who loves their kids will mention the issue when discussing Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare and the Iliad - sometimes you see exactly who these kids are. Sometimes you see them looking at you, wide-eyed and fearful and yet full to the brim with that Go on look that’s so endearing on any kind of student. And sometimes all you see is their floppy hair, because they will keep scribbling in their notebooks and pretending like this is uninteresting and embarrassing and Oh my God, but the tips of their ears are getting red, and you find yourself hoping they’ll get a hug today, because they really need it.

elliewants2write:

lianabrooks:

Not: You might be rejected.

Not: You’ll have a few rejections.

Not Even: Well, if you’re only mid-list worthy you’ll have at least twenty rejections.

You want to get published? Fine. You need to accept that every single day of your career will have rejection.

Everything you write will be rejected.

Every book you publish will be hated.

Every character you love will be degraded.

Every hour you put in – the blood and sweat and tears – will be dismissed as “…talentless hack who doesn’t know how to string a sentence together.”

Millions of people will never read your book because they can’t read at all.

Millions of people will never read your book because they don’t speak the same language as you.

Millions of people will never read your book because they hate your genre.

Millions of people will never read your book because they don’t like fe/male authors.

Millions of people will never read your book because they didn’t get into it.

Billions of people will reject your work. They will mock you. They will dismiss you. They will talk trash about you.

You. Will. Be. Rejected.

It doesn’t matter. You aren’t writing for the millions. You are writing for the one.

The one person who tells you your book made them cry because it spoke to them.

The one person who tells you your book changed the way they saw the world.

The one person who tells you your book was the only light in a dark time.

The one person who tells you your book inspired them to be something more.

You are writing for them.

They will wish they could take your characters to prom.

They will read your book after their mother’s funeral.

They will curl up in bed with your book on a cold night after their first real break up.

They will turn to those pages time and again to revisit the places they love.

You’re going to get rejected. And you’re going to take that punch square on the chin and not ever back down because you know who you are writing for. Because you know it takes more than a pretty font to make a book work, you have to be willing to take the rejections. You have to go into this knowing you will fail a million times with a million readers, and that it doesn’t matter because you aren’t writing for them.

Keep your chin up. You are someone’s favorite author even if they don’t know it yet.

this is amazing!!!!!!  <3

artiestroke:

splintercellconviction:

giraffepoliceforce:

I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.

They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.

Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

“Hippopotamus.”

This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned 

ink-splotch:

- Within her first week at Starfleet Academy, Jaylah hacked into the environmental controls and security systems of her dorm– because she was bored and twitchy, because she didn’t know what to do with a home she had not taken apart and re-wired herself. 

- She broke into the cafeteria after hours and told herself it was just to see if she could. She skipped class to go wander the streets and build a map of the city, of these concrete canyons and glass-and-steel cliff walls, of which way she would run if she needed to. She played her music too loud. Kirk wrote her from deep space, further and further away as the months and maydays of their mission moved on, to ask if she was trying to beat him in demerits earned in an Academy tenure. She took that to mean he approved.

- Jaylah had had a big brother, once. Elah had taught her about engines, about how to wrestle, and a lot of really terrible jokes, once. But Scotty walked her through the Enterprise’s engines, when she was rebuilt and shining. They got grease and fluids all over their overalls. Kirk and Spock sparred with her while they waited for the Enterprise’s next mission to come through– Academy martial arts and Vulcan holds and corn-fed Idaho brawling tricks. Uhura provided the bawdy humor, parsed out smugly at the edges of social gatherings. 

- They had set the ruins of the Franklin up as a museum, tucked into the floating bubble of Yorktown. Schoolchildren would take field trips to wander the halls of her house. They invited her to the opening ceremony, cut the ribbon while she and the Enterprise crew were still wandering, limping, through those clean curving streets, but she did not attend. 

- Instead Scotty showed up at her doorstep with a bottle of Scotch stolen from Chekhov. They played her music so loud it shook the walls and earned them a dozen pissed off texts from Bones and a single sternly disapproving note from Spock. They ignored them all and toasted the Franklin, a good lady, a fine home. 

- When Jaylah boarded a transport ship for Earth, for California and San Francisco and the Academy that lived in the shadow of that golden bridge, the whole surviving crew of the Enterprise came out to the loading dock to wave her good-bye. It had been so many years since she had known any faces so well, living, other than her enemies’. She pressed up against the window and watched them– peach and blue and brown and black and green– disappear. 

- No matter how hard she fought and hoped, she had thought she would never get off that planet. The moment she saw her father go down, she had thought she would never be able to survive that stab in his gut, that light that went out of his eyes. She had been small, willow limbs and shaking hands, and she had thought she would never see another sky again. 

- She got up early on cold mornings and walked through the swirling San Francisco fog. She greeted the sun as it climbed up over the Bay and burned the sky back to blue. 

- The crew pooled their credits and bought her a motorcycle for her next birthday, to replace the one they’d left on the planet. Jaylah had left a lot of things in that boneyard. She drove the steep streets on her humming bike and felt like perhaps she had not left everything. 

- When Jaylah took the Kobyashi Maru her final year, she watched her classmates complain and rant afterward about unfairness, about no win scenarios. She did not speak up, just took her results and left. The lesson was one she had already learned, already buried in herself. Sometimes you cannot win, no matter how good you are, no matter how brave, no matter how much you love your daughter and want to live and live and live for her. Sometimes all you can do is die the best way you know how. 

- (When the ruckus had finally died down on Yorktown Base, after the smoke had settled, after the crowds had parted, Jaylah had seen Demora Sulu run to her father’s arms. She had seen Hikaru kneel in the rubble and lift his daughter into his lap and hold her safe in his arms. She had thought, I would have died for this. I am alive, and I am glad, but I would have died for this, I would have, I would have died for this)

- (Her little sister Jessy had been about Dem’s age, the last time Jaylah had seen her alive). 

- She didn’t declare an emphasis in her Academy studies for two years. Scotty thought she should go into engineering, because as a traumatized, escaped child she had reverse-engineered repairs on the Franklin that could only be matched by his own genius. Kirk thought she would make an excellent command officer. Uhura, impressed by how she had taught herself Federation Standard from the Franklin’s logs, made sure the communications department paid friendly attention to her. 

- Instead, Jaylah took the introductory classes for every field of study in the Academy, ignoring the disapproving cries of her guidance counselors. In combat she was years ahead of her peers. She found languages easy, but their technical underpinnings were unengaging and confusing. In engineering she was gifted, but decades behind the state of technology. Scotty had happily dragged her through the Enterprise’s rebuilt engines, but her heart and her blackened fingers would always belong to engines lifetimes older.

- The Enterprise crew were on their second five year mission when Jaylah graduated from Starfleet Academy. They gathered in the main mess hall, all the crew that had survived the Enterprise’s first death, and the new crew members who had heard stories of this adopted daughter of the ship for years. They live-streamed the ceremony. Scotty wore a ‘PROUD BIG BROTHER OF A STARFLEET GRADUATE’ shirt Sulu had hand-lettered for him. Bones opened a bottle of good ol’ Earthside bourbon and pretended not to tear up when her name was called. 

- She wore medical blue.  

- After years of Academy schooling and medical training, Jaylah stepped onto a Starfleet ship, her badge pinned to her chest. The corridors curved into the distance. The lights hummed and lit up as the ship floor murmured under her feet. It felt like coming home. 

- But there were no rocky hills out her shipboard window, no dull sky, no shimmering shield to hide her from her enemies. There was just space– black, cold, endless; brilliant, star-studded; full of discovery and danger and things worth dying for. She was ready to boldly go. She was ready to bravely go. She had thought she would never see another sky and here she was, older than her oldest brother had ever gotten to be, with hands that could defend lives and save them and heal them. The universe was spreading out before her, endless stars lighting the skies of endless planets. She was ready. 

unpretty:

unpretty:

unpretty:

tim drake’s snapchat is 90% him making bruce wayne do normal middle-class american things and filming the results. popular youtube compilations include the one where they’re at denny’s at two in the morning and tim keeps trying to get bruce to order a moon over my hammy just so he’ll have to say it, the one where they’re at disneyworld and bruce gets increasingly frazzled culminating in him actually physically picking up gaston for reasons no one can entirely recall, and everyone’s favorite series “bruce wayne doesn’t understand walmart”

having thought about it the best part is probably when a pranking fails because bruce has such a bizarre patchwork of knowledge/skills and it does not occur to him to hide most of it. tim puts a ghost pepper in bruce’s food but bruce just eats it like nothing is wrong. the same thing happens with the chocolate-covered crickets. it turns out bruce can lick his own elbow. bruce can lasso a runaway robot lawnmower like it’s a calf at a rodeo. whenever tim expresses shock that bruce knows how to do something he says “i did go to college, tim” as if that explains anything and it becomes a meme. whenever anyone does something fucking absurd it just gets tagged “i did go to college, tim”.

The camera came uncomfortably close to the face of a man ignoring it. He was very good at it. He was reading a book about, of all things, the history of denim. It was not the sort of book that made it easy to ignore cameras, but he remained stoic.

The caption said helpfully: [been doing this for 30 mins]

“Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. We need to go Walmart. Bruce. I need it.”

“Ask Alfred.”

→→→

“It’s a surprise for Alfred.”

“You can’t surprise Alfred.”

“Bruce, please.”

→→→

“It’s not a matter of permission, I’m saying you literally can’t surprise Alfred.”

→→→

[he hates when i say that]

“Bruuuuce.”

“No.”

“This is bullroar.”

Bruce finally set down his book with an expression of the most profound disgust.

→→→

[oh no now we’ll be here all day]

“—either curse or don’t, just commit one way or the other instead of—”

→→→

The camera took its time panning over a black BMW.

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

→→→

[after this he took away my music privileges]

Bruce was driving, looking stoic again. His face lent itself well to stoicism. The radio played, at high volume, “Sandstorm” by Darude.

→→→

“I’ll play something different this time.”

“You had your chance and you blew it on a meme.”

→→→

[SJGJDH;FUKC 😂😂😂]

“I’m boooored.”

“Hi, bored,” Bruce said, eyes still on the road, and Tim groaned loudly. “I don’t give a shit.”

The view shifted and audio clattered as Tim dropped the phone, barking a laugh.

→→→

The phone was wobbly as Tim followed Bruce into the store. “Can I get a trampoline?” he asked, camera pointed to one outside the store.

“We have three trampolines.”

“But I want that one.”

→→→

They were in the chip aisle. “Have you ever had a Dorito? One Dorito? In your whole life?”

“I am a person. I eat food for people.”

→→→

The camera followed a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos into the cart.

“We’re not getting those.”

“We need to get sour cream, too.”

“No.”

“You’ll love it.”

“No.”

→→→

Tim had put the seatbelt of the cart’s seat, intended for toddlers, around a giant plastic jar of orange cheese puffs.

“I thought you were getting something for Alfred.”

“I’m getting groceries while we’re here.”

“None of this is food.”

→→→

[$3 pickles blowing his mind rn]

Bruce was holding a gallon jar of pickles with an expression of incredulity.

“—costs extra to not waste food?”

“It’s Walmart.”

“Even taking into account the economies of scale—”

→→→

[putting his degree to use in the pickle aisle]

“—it just makes no sense even as a loss leader, unless the goal is to drive the competition out of business and hope they don’t go bankrupt in the—”

→→→

[i think he’s buying a pickle company??]

Bruce had every appearance of furiously texting on his phone, or possibly composing emails.

→→→

[lmao he did]

Bruce was now on his phone, looking impassive as ever as he contemplated the giant jar of pickles.

“—the business itself is perfectly sound. Yes. Obviously. Dead serious. Look, if you—”

→→→

Tim put a gallon jug of ranch dressing into the cart.

“Absolutely not.”

→→→

Tim was in the frozen section, his reflection visible in the glass.

“I bet Alfred would love some pizza rolls.”

“Your lies demean us both, Tim.”

→→→

Bruce was standing in the toy aisle, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I understand the concept of blind boxes perfectly well, thank you.”

“Then why are you acting confused?”

“Why does Thomas the Tank Engine—”

→→→

[🌈🌈🌈]

Bruce was making a face of disgruntled bafflement at a display of baby clothes.

“—disturbed by the amount of aggressive heterosexuality being foisted on these babies.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “What about the gay babies?”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking but I’m unironically concerned.”

→→→

[gotham pride]

The camera panned over a display of hero-themed hats. Most of the Batman hats had sold out, while the Superman display was nearly full. It panned back to Bruce, who was taking a picture with his own phone.

“Who you texting it to?”

“Friend in Metropolis.”

“Metropolis sucks.”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

→→→

[no escape]

The camera peered out slowly from behind a clothing display. Bruce was surrounded by enthusiastic and friendly women. It was impossible to tell what they were talking about.

→→→

[???]

Bruce was holding a dress up against himself. The women around him seemed delighted and were nodding their approval.

→→→

[i’ll strike while he’s distracted]

Tim dropped another two four-movie collections of Shrek on top of the considerable pile he’d already amassed. He panned up to check that Bruce had not caught him before grabbing another.

→→→

[busted]

While Bruce put DVDs back on the shelf, Tim surreptitiously grabbed a Shrek coloring book.

→→→

[he’s gonna get a fish]

Bruce was frowning at the wall of fishtanks in silence. Finally he said, “These fish are very unhealthy.”

→→→

[HE’S BUYING ALL THE FISH]

The man attempting to help Bruce looked baffled. Bruce gestured to the entire display of fish with a nod. The man shook his head. Tim brought his phone close to a betta, blue and red with a tattered and graying tail.

“We’re here to save you,” Tim stage-whispered to it.

→→→

Bruce was now engrossed in conversation with multiple employees.

“—if I bought some tanks — they’re much too small but as a temporary measure — we could transfer them directly and it might be less distressing for the fish.”

“Maybe I could get one of the big dolly carts from the back?” one young man suggested.

→→→

The low camera angle suggested Tim was trying to be surreptitious.

“—for trying to unionize is completely against the law,” Bruce was saying, his voice low. He was helping three other employees transfer fish into large plastic tanks.

“At-will employment,” one woman said.

“We’d have to prove that was why they fired us,” someone clarified. “Otherwise they can say it was for no reason.”

“You’re shitting me.”

→→→

“—fucking with my hours hoping I’ll quit.”

“What? Why?”

“If they fired me, they’d have to pay unemployment.”

“That’s why they won’t let me work full-time.”

“What the fuck.”

→→→

[omg he’s stealing the employees now]

“—in Gotham, but there’s more opportunities outside of manufacturing if you’re willing to move.”

“Wait, so do you mean like for management?”

“No, no, that’s the starting wage for someone working assembly, quality control, that kind of thing. We’re all unionized, none of this at-will bullshit.”

“So if I—”

→→→

The woman from earlier was showing Bruce her phone while the others continued moving fish.

“You painted this?” Bruce asked. She nodded. “That’s fantastic. Are you showing it anywhere? I know a guy with a gallery — actually I know pretty much everyone with an art gallery in Gotham. I think I have a friend who’d really love this, if you don’t mind me making some calls for you.”

→→→

Four more employees had joined the menagerie.

“—almost always hiring in Gotham. People are always moving to cities with fewer evil clowns.” Everyone laughed. Tim snorted. “Employee insurance totally covers acts of supervillainy, though.”

→→→

[trying to crush the revolution]

The employees had not dispersed. In the distance, someone managerial was talking to Bruce. He looked much less amused than Bruce did.

→→→

[THEY CALLED THE COPS]

Tim had switched to the selfie camera, his face pure glee. He turned bodily to show the employees wheeling out tanks of fish out of the store, police lights in the parking lot.

“The manager tried to make Bruce leave but he insisted on paying for his fish and he wouldn’t stop giving people better jobs so the guy said it was corporate espionage and threatened to call the cops and Bruce called his bluff so he did it.”

→→→

[WE’RE BANNED FROM WALMART FOREVER]

Bruce was laughing with the police officers about something. The manager from earlier had been joined by men in suits. None of them looked happy. Some of the employees from earlier were yelling and flipping them off. One man pulled off the shirt of his uniform and started setting it on fire.

→→→

Bruce was on the phone in the parking lot.

“They’re small, most of them are tropical. You can figure out what they are when you get here. How is that racist? I’m not suggesting you already know them, I’m well aware you don’t personally know every single fish—”

→→→

“Either you take these fish or I toss them in the sewer and Killer Croc can eat them. It will be a merciful death compared to what they were getting. It doesn’t matter where I found them.”

→→→

[i’m not allowed near toxic waste]

Tim held the betta from earlier in front of his phone, bringing it dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Bruce had hung up, but seemed to be dialing another number.

“I’m keeping this one,” Tim said.

“Fine.”

“If I drop him in toxic waste do you think he’ll get powers?”

“We’ve already had this discussion.”

→→→

[the pettiest man in gotham]

Bruce was on the phone again, looking out at the empty field beside the Walmart parking lot.

“Yeah, just buy the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely sure. Green Market’s doing good, we’ll build another one of those. Can we put up a billboard while it’s under construction? A really big billboard.”

→→→

“First of all, if it’s in writing, it’s libel. Second, figures taken directly from their report to shareholders aren’t defamatory. What’s the most they could even sue me for? See, that’s nothing. Bad PR for them, good for us, it's—”

→→→

Tim had switched to the selfie camera again, and was using a sparkling purple filter that made his eyes look huge. He backed into Bruce so that Bruce’s face would be in the shot. “Bruce, look! You’re a pretty pretty princess!”

Bruce raised an eyebrow as he looked at his face on the screen. “I’m always a pretty princess,” he said seriously.

→→→

[he picked the music this time]

Bruce was driving again. He was listening to 100 Little Curses without any apparent irony. This did not mean there wasn’t any irony.

→→→

[i named him wally]

The Walmart betta was now in a tank that held at least a hundred gallons. His underwater castle was resplendent. His tail had grown in, a shimmering gradient of red and blue. Bruce could be seen in the background through the tank, sitting on the couch and reading a book.

kidpxv: