god, EVERY YEAR one of the local churches puts up a big sign that says “HE IS RISEN”, and EVERY YEAR whenever I see it I just think “OH HE IS, IS HE??? WELL IF HE IS RISEN THEN HE WILL NOT BE ALLOWED AT MY SEDER, LEAVENED MESSIAHS ARE NOT KOSHER FOR PASSOVER!!!”
I also post about this on my blog every year but
that’s okay
because
IT’S OBJECTIVELY HILARIOUS
EVERY
YEAR
Tags:
#Tumblr traditions #Passover #Easter #puns #this post was queued to ensure proper timing
In Gotham Adventures #35, Bruce is made part of a jury for the court case of a man that was apprehended by Batman.
And he just fuckin. He Does That
What seems to keep his cover isn’t secrecy (though there’s plenty of it), but instead just how absolutely outrageous the idea is. Bruce Wayne??Batman??? Puh-lease. I mean, have you seen the guy? Sure he’s a nice guy, but he’s far too busy having people run WE for him and going on pleasure cruises to be Batman. I mean, really.
(Good thing nobody notices the cool symbolic silhouette deal he’s got going on there.) It’s likely become something akin to the ‘Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer’ joke, (check out this post) and Bruce often just feeds it, making it even easier to get away with. It’s fucking hilarious.
Those people are gonna feel silly since anyone with eyes could see that the butts match…. I mean, the facts don’t lie
Tags:
#Batman #comic #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog
#to improve their ability to make their way in the modern economy #(so my dad’s a delivery driver now) #((it’s not actually a *truck* but calling it a car wouldn’t let me make that joke)) #(unlike every programming job available the delivery people were willing to give him part-time hours) #((he doesn’t have the stamina for a full-time job anymore)) #(the pay’s not all that good but the most recent estimates suggest it’s *just* about enough) #(god I hope he can keep this job for a good while) #(*knocks on wood*) #oh look an original post #tag rambles #adventures in human capitalism
You’re a regular office worker born with the ability to “see” how dangerous a person is with a number scale of 1-10 above their heads. A toddler would be a 1, while a skilled soldier with a firearm may score a 7. Today, you notice the reserved new guy at the office measures a 10.
You decide it’s best to find out what you can about this person. Cautiously, you approach his desk. He’s a handsome man, tall, but with a disarming smile. How could such a friendly guy with such cute, dorky glasses be dangerous?
You extend your hand. “I noticed you’re new here. What’s your name?”
He shakes your hand warmly. His gaze is piercing, as if he’s looking right through you. “The name’s Clark,” he says. “So, how long have you worked for the Daily Planet?”
It’s been a few weeks, and one of Clark’s friends shows up. She’s pretty and all, enough muscle that she must work out. First thought would be that she should be maybe a 6.
Clark’s introducing her around. “This is my good friend, Diana, she’s in from out of town.”
You blink, and take a step back in fear. You’ve never seen an 11 before.
The day Bruce Wayne shows up for his long promised interview with Lois Lane, you can’t help it, the mug your holding drops from your fingers and sends a shock of hot coffee and ceramic shards across the floor.
Clark stops a few feet away and squints at you worriedly from behind those ridiculous glasses you’re 99% sure he doesn’t actually need, and asks tentatively, “Everything all right?”
You ignore him in favor of staring at the inky dark numerals hovering over the beaming fool gesticulating some fantastic yacht story for a gaggle of secretaries and minor columnists.
That’s it. Your gift has officially gone haywire. There is no other explanation. Because there is absolutely no way that Brucie Wayne is a 10.
At this point, you’ve seen it all. Miled manner reporters and billionaires at a 10 and a model-like woman at 11. You were really starting to doubt your power. The day you really stopped believeing in it was when Bruce Wayne came for another visit, and this time with a kid. The kid couldn’t be more than 10 years old, a bit on the short side.
The day you started believing in it again was when you saw on tv the formation of something called the justice league.
There were those same numbers over superman, batman, wonder woman and robin. That’s when you put two and two together. You wonder how nobody at the daily planet noticed that Clarke was Superman with glasses. You wonder why you didn’t notice. You wonder why nobody put two and two together that Diana Prince and Wonder Woman looked exactly the same. You look in the mirror as the realization hit you and you see your own number change from a 3 to a 9.
Despite this, you go about your life. You don’t talk to Clark – Superman? – and kept out of his way. His girlfriend Lois Lane – she was a five when you first met, but now she’s a nine just like you – tries to get you to interview Bruce Wayne, but you refuse. You meet other people in Clark’s group of friends with high numbers. The daughter of the police commissioner from Gotham. The forensic scientist from Central City. More and more people to avoid and worry about.
Meanwhile, your paranoia gets to you. You start working out. Training in self defense. Studying the Justice League, trying to find its members. Finding out all their identities so you can be ready.
One day you wake up with a ten above your head.
That day you get a call. You recognize the area code. Gotham. Your heart is in your throat. You should throw the phone away, run. They’ve found you. You’re doomed. You might be a ten, but you can’t beat them all.
You pick up the phone anyways.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Clark Kent. I was wondering if we could talk.”
Your mouth goes dry. “About what?”
Clark’s voice goes quiet. “Well. About the Justice League.”
You stiffen in your seat. Your adrenaline kicks in, and your eyes dart around the room. You can hang up, pack, grab a plane ticket to wherever and disappear. Your passport hasn’t expired, and you’ve been talking to Perry White about a vacation anyways. You could say it’s a family emergency and never come back.
But they’d find you. You know they’d find you. They’re goddamned superheroes. They can carry buildings. They could probably manage finding you.
“Hello?” Clark’s voice returns, tinged with concern, and suddenly you stop. Calm down. They’re the good guys. At least they’re supposed to be.
“Yeah, sorry, just a little shocked you–”
“Caught up to you?” Clark asked. He laughed a little, but it wasn’t teasing. His voice had his regular ease, the same casual tone he would employ to talk about the weather in the break room. “Yeah. Lois noticed your odd behavior, actually. We didn’t realize it was linked to the League until you refused to interview Bruce, and then we knew something was up.”
“Speaking of Bruce Wayne, are you using his phone? Your area code is Gotham, not Metropolis.”
Clark laughed. “Damn. Lois wasn’t kidding when she said you were the best investigator working for the Daily Planet.”
“I just notice things is all.” You laughed nervously. You still can’t shake your general unease. This guy could kill you without any effort. You’re no match for him, or for any of his friends for that matter. Hell, Batman didn’t even have powers and he’d still fuck you up.
“Yeah, and that’s a skill we could use around here. Would you like to talk about joining? Bruce can send you a car, bring you here–”
“No,” you say, sharper than you intended. “Sorry. I’d rather meet in public, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. Lunch or coffee? It’s still early, but it’s a bit easier to cram all of us in a restaurant than a coffee shop.”
“Lunch, I guess. And no superhero stuff.”
Clark pauses, then sighs sadly. You’ve heard this sadness before in rare amounts. When bad things happened and fear and greed overtook people, he’d always frown and sigh, like someone watching their best friend self destruct, unable to help or save them. “You’re afraid of us. Aren’t you?” His voice is concerned and hushed.
A pang of guilt starts to replace the fear. “You can throw around buildings like a sack of potatoes, Clark. Your friend is powerful on an impossible level, Bruce’s kid is a fucking eight–”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Clark said, the sadness disappearing. “You have a number system for us?”
“Look, it’s a whole thing. I’ll talk about it over lunch.” You grab your laptop bag. “Where are we meeting?”
Clark said something to someone else. “Got any restaurant ideas? They want lunch.”
Bruce Wayne – you’ve heard enough interviews to recognize his voice – said, “Saffron’s pretty good.”
“Jesus,” someone else said. You’ve heard the voice, but you couldn’t place it. “I keep on forgetting you’re rich.”
“You don’t think it’s a little much, Bruce? The pay at Daily Planet is good but not that good,” said Clark.
“I’ll cover their tab.”
“Okay…” Clark returned to the call. “Saffron, in…thirty minutes? You’re downtown, right?”
“You can get a table to Saffron in thirty minutes?” said the strange voice. “Boy, am I glad I made friends with you guys.”
“Yeah, that works.” You’re a bit hesitant, but you swallow your nerves. At least for now. Your thoughts about threat levels made you forget that Clark is a decent guy. All you could do is hope that he thinks you’re decent, too. “See you then.”
“See you then. Be safe. Bye.” Clark hangs up, and you’re left in your room. The worry is starting to turn into something different. Excitement.
You shove the phone into your pocket, grab your keys, and head out the door. You’re so full of restless energy you walk the whole way there. Once you arrive, you catch your reflection in the mirror and notice that you’re starting to suit that ten above your head.
The hostess takes you to a hidden corner of the restaurant. It’s mostly empty, as though it’s only just opened. Sitting at a long table, chatting politely, was the Justice League.
They aren’t wearing masks or uniforms, no bright colors and costumes. Clark Kent is in his usual office wear, Bruce Wayne is wearing a tailored suit, Diana Prince dons a nice blue dress, and Oliver Queen wears a nice button down. You don’t recognize two of them – a twenty something in jeans and a hoodie, a man in a green shirt, and a burly guy in a baggy t-shirt and old jeans who looks like he had just washed up from the sea. All of them, aside from Diana, are tens, of course.
Clark Kent stands, shakes your hand when you come in. “Glad to see you made it.” He introduces you to the others, and they all shake your hand quite happily and greet you like a friend. You learn that the guy in the hoodie is Barry Allen, the dude in green is Hal Jordan, and the beach dude is Arthur Curry. Waitresses, all ones, twos, and threes, come in with drinks, and one plops a mug of coffee in front of you, along with a small menu. Clark Kent gives you a knowing gaze.
Once the waitresses clear out, Bruce sits up straight. “Clark, would you rather I do the honors?” His silver watch glitters in the light from the windows.
“No, no, Bruce,” Clark says, setting down his glass of water. “I think it’s best if I ask them myself.”
Within a moment, you piece it together. “You want me to join the Justice League?”
Clark Kent cracks a smile. “How’d you guess?”
“You call me out of the blue, mention the Justice League, invite me to Bruce Wayne’s place, and then here, where you introduce me to a group of people who all look strikingly similar to the members of the Justice League.” You take a sip of coffee. “Subtlety is hardly your strong suit.”
Barry Allen laughed. “They got you there on that one.”
“Well, you’re right. At first Bruce wanted to handle the situation himself,” – you’d rather not think about what handle was a euphemism for – “but I insisted we do some more digging. We did, and what we found was…surprising. To say the least.”
You look at him oddly. You aren’t normal – no one else saw numbers floating above people’s heads – but you weren’t surprising. Your parents were the only ones who knew about your ability, and they’re long gone. You’ve got no checkered past, no odd history–
“You have powers.” Clark’s voice was clearly impressed.
“How did you find out about that?” The fear comes back, forming a knot in your stomach. “I’ve never told anyone else about it.”
“It’s not hard to notice,” Barry Allen says in between sips of soda. “Most of the information we got we got from Lois after she’s hung out with you.”
“I’ve never her told her anything about the numbers, though.”
Oliver Queen sits up, flashing you a confused look. “Numbers?”
Okay, something’s not right here. “The number I see over everyone’s heads,” you say, keeping your voice low. “It ties into how dangerous everyone is. Usually it’s just a one or two, maybe a three or four or five if they’ve got some kind of training or if they work out or whatever. Almost everyone at this table has a ten.”
“Almost?” Diana furrows her brow.
“You have an eleven,” you add.
Diana nods, smiling with a bit of pride and making an “I told you so” face to Bruce Wayne, who rolls his eyes. Oliver Queen clears his throat as Bruce and Hal pass him a couple bills.
“Ignore them,” Barry says, rolling his eyes at the three of them. “What you said was interesting – I might have to ask you a few questions on that later – but it wasn’t what I found. Remember the sensory and memory study you did when you were ten?”
You do remember it. Your parents were contacted by a scientist friend of theirs who needed kids to run a study on memory and stimuli. You remember it clearly. The large sterile room, the tests, the person conducting them, a handsome woman with a four above her head, the questions, the smell of latex gloves and fresh bleach. But you don’t remember the results. You were never told the results, other than that they were good, though with a test like that it was hard to say.
“Well, I found the tests. And they were superhuman.”
My naym is pome / and lo my form is fix’d
Tho peepel say / that structure is a jail
I am my best / when formats are not mix’d
Wen poits play / subversions often fail
Stik out their toung / to rebel with no cause
At ruls and norms / In ignorance they call:
My words are free / Defying lit’rate laws
To lik the forms / brings ruin on us all
A sonnet I / the noblest lit’rate verse
And ruls me bind / to paths that Shakespeare paved
Iambic fot / allusions well dispersed
On my behind / I stately sit and wave
You think me tame /
Fenced-in and penned / bespelled
I bide my time /
I twist the end / like hell
* “lik” should be read as “lick”, not “like”. In general, the initial section on each line should be read sort of phonetically.
Written for World Poetry Day, March 21, 2018. When I had this idea earlier today, I thought it was the worst, most faux hip pretentious idea for a shallow demonstration of empty wordsmithing skill in poetry ever. So I had to try to write it. I mean, how often do you get to fuse the iambic dimeter of bredlik – one of the newest and most exciting verse forms – with the stately iambic pentameter of the classic sonnet?
Your players are faced with an ancient Sumerian curse! However, since the early ancient Sumerian language was only used for recording tax debts, it turns out to actually be an ancient Sumerian bill.
and therefore they need to get hold of some ancient Sumerian coinage and bring it to the ruins of the ancient Sumerian tax office, because the Sumerians had a pleasingly direct way of preventing tax evasion, namely horrifying curses.
well I don’t have any coin but I have these copper ingots, lovely copper ingots, from a very reputable merchant, never heard a word said against him, very thorough with his paperwork, anyway they’re guaranteed pure copper and proper weight, so can I pay my tax with those?
I just want everyone to take a step back for a second and really think about how we’re using the most powerful knowledge tool in history to make jokes about a specific dude who lived almost 4000 years ago.
Is it just me or does the frame rate get higher when you step inside a Costco
It’s because everything comes in bulk there and costco has really good object instancing so it only has to construct the VBO for each kind of product once and then reshade it for individual instances, which gets you a big framerate improvement over the parking lot where one million unique cars are in view at any given time
Tags:
#unreality cw #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog
Too Like the Lightning is now out free as an ebook for the next three days (ends midnight, March 23rd) through Tor! So if you’re curious what all this is about, (like me) picked up a physical copy but would still like to have an ebook, or for any other reason want a free ebook, check it out!
#oooooh #I have no idea when (if ever) I will be in an appropriate frame of mind to read this #but it would be good to have the option stashed away in my ebook hoard #requires a couple of newsletter signups but I’m used to that and have a dedicated newsletter email #(and yes I *do* actually check my messages on that account) #(and only *mostly* to see if they’ve brought me any more stuff) #Terra Ignota #PSA
Brinens and Things 