#not a fantastic explanation

[19871997]

connor mcdavid // fantastic mr fox

[internetgiraffekid1673]

ThePandaRedd Appreciation Post: Bill and Ted

This is me screaming into the void that I think my two favorite characters in the comic scene are Ted and Bill from the Pandaverse (the comics universe created by ThePandaRedd's tiktok skits). I freaking love these two because they are hilarious and I gotta say it somewhere.

Consider this a ThePandaRedd appreciation post.

Bill is a very long running Pandaverse character and is a professional henchman in Gotham City. He has been henching long enough to see the formation of the goonion, have batman steal so many of his bones that they're kept ground up in a jar, see the rise and graduation of every robin, batgirl, or other, and become so tired that he can backtalk his most consistent employer---the Joker.

Bill is a jaded henchman, mostly in the job because it's the easiest way to get money in Gotham, and because he's kinda in too deep to quit now. He's one of the best advertisers the goonion has, strongly discourages other people from henching in Gotham, and has so many residual medical issues from getting brutally beaten up by the batfam that he just doesn't care anymore. While he is regularly employed by the Joker, he has also been seen working for the likes of Penguin, Black Mask, and Bane, presumably when the Joker is in Arkham. Most other characters treat him with some instinctive respect for having stayed in the Gotham henching game this long, and he could absolutely go toe to toe with Superman if not just easily secure some Kryptonite and whoop his ass. Fortunately for Superman, Bill sticks to the Gotham scene.

Ted, meanwhile, is a relatively new character, and he has recently moved to Gotham from Coast City (where the Green Lantern lives). Suffice it to say, he is not aware of all of Gotham's idiosyncrasies and is still learning the wheel. If Bill the henchman is to be believed, Ted dropped out of the high school they both attended and may or may not have moved to Gotham for ease of employment.

One of his first appearances was when he'd just joined the GCPD and was trying to covertly get some info on the villain scene by asking Bill about how to start a career in henching. While Bill did not discover that Ted was working for the GCPD, he also gave away pretty much no valuable information since he instead launched into a rant about why anybody would be so suicidal as to try to START henching in Gotham City. His most recent appearance has him presumably out of a job again and noting some of his findings about Gotham as a Coast City Transplant (batburger's overrated, gang territories are gerrymandered, Robins are scarier than Batman, you'll be gifted with a water filter a gas mask and a gun upon moving houses if you send advance notice, etc.)

So, why are these two gag characters from a comic book tik-tok creator my favorite comic book/comic adjacent characters? Because they do exactly what they are designed to and narrow in on the every day.

Comic Books are a sci-fi/fantasy genre that focus on impossible stuff happening, frequently at a pretty grand scale. And while it is super cool to read or hear about stuff like Batman and his adoption problem or Superman being a basically god while still being the most human ray of sunshine ever, that's not even close to my favorite stuff.

No, my favorite type of media to consume is the kind where we get a peek into the everyday of someone in a vastly different circumstance from ours, and feel just how normal they are. I find a lot of comfort and humor in recognizing that even in very unfamiliar circumstances, there will still be simple, everyday things that persist.

Bill might be a goon in a city with some of the most insane and terrifying vigilantes ever, working for some of the most insane and terrifying villains ever, and the city is explicitly a commentary on the general shittiness of urban environments like New York, but that's not what he cares about most of the time. Instead he's busy explaining why you shouldn't smoke to his fellow goons, or dealing with the fact that his employer won't keep a reliable schedule, or having a crisis that he regularly has to run away from a 12 year old dressed like a traffic light or else die trying, or trying to convince people to mask up during quarantine, or promoting that fellow goons "do bad shit safely." And I like to think that if I somehow ended up as an evil goon in someplace as nonsensical and dramatic as Gotham City, I might respond similar to Bill after a while. And that level of normalcy and sanity persisting in such a fantastical environment is both very funny and very comforting. Human nature will persist.

Ted is similar. Everybody who has experienced moving cities knows that it can be disorienting and confusing and even a little scary as you try to figure out how things work, but you'll figure it out regardless and probably have a fun(ish) time doing so. Ted shows that the same principle applies even when those differences get cranked up to 11 and include superpowered and/or impossibly determined and crazy people. He makes my own experience moving cities where I joke and complain about the differences feel validated and it's just so funny to see someone react so normally to such an abnormal situation.

Ted's experience is something that can actually he applied to my own life, like when I learned about Rural vs. Urban stupid zoning laws or trying fry sauce after moving to the mountain west and having to defend my stance that it is an abomination. So seeing someone like yourself doing the EXACT same thing in such an insane circumstance both strikes a chord of truth and makes me laugh myself to the floor.

I also really appreciate that the PandaVerse in general has connected lore for what is basically a gag series used to affectionately parody comics. Something about people actually caring about their jokes enough to make connected lore makes me so so happy.

So thank you ThePandaRedd for creating Ted and Bill, continuing along with them, and making me smile.

Seriously, all this was to say that ThePandaRedd is cool, you should go watch his stuff, and that Bill and Ted are hilarious.

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

based french turnabout airlines fixed the time zone problem by just straight-up inventing an overseas territory of borginia in the pacific ocean called "nouvelle-borginie", which is where the plane takes off from, thereby solving the otherwise ridiculous problem of a plane taking off from a european country, flying to a country in asia to refuel, then turning around and landing in france, a different european country

[mangoes-and-mothman]

i think its so interesting that lassiter seems so efficient and good at his job when shawn isnt there. the show always reminds us in dialogue that lassiter is "head detective" but we only ever see him truly fulfilling that role in the absence of shawn. it really puts in perspective how incomparable shawns detective skills are.

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: September 4

“Paint My Face” by The Devil Makes Three

[redux-iterum]

On the topic of deer, if a human or a car were to kill a deer in the Clan territory, and the cats found the carcass right afterwards (so they know it's fresh, not rotting or sick) would they eat it? Since its pretty much inconceivable that the cats could take a deer down themselves, I feel like outside forces would be the only way this scenario could occur.

It's an amusing thought to imagine a Clan just gathered around a deer carcass having an absolute feast for as long as it lasts.

It's got to have happened at some point - or at least they grabbed a bit of it for the Clan. Just tear off chunks of the thing and bring it home. Good meat oughtn't go to waste!

[anti-dazai-blog]

y'know, it's kinda ridiculous that dazai eventually won without much difficulty. in recent chapters of the manga, we witnessed for the first time that dazai was struggling so hard, which showed him less omnipotent than he was, and more human at the same time. but it turns out that he was making a fool out of fyodor all along!!!! he lost to the power of alliance!!!! ...excuse me? then what was meursault arc all for?

i love bsd, but there are too many things that annoy me, and the flaws of the series are rarely talked about. so im reaaally happy to see you criticizing the series. i love your blog sm, please never stop posting!! 💕

YES EXACTLY!!

Dazai’s omniscience does NOT help humanize him. All that it does is give him more accountability in everything that happens. He doesn’t get the luxury of pleading ignorance because at this point, the story has made that no longer believable. 

No matter what, Dazai knows everything all the time, doesn’t make mistakes in his plans and strategies, and is capable of anything. If this is the case, which I said it was semi-jokingly in the early days of this blog, he really can be held accountable for pretty much anything and everything happening. Which I’d really rather wasn’t the case.

One of the main themes of bsd is humanity. No one’s special or perfect, everyone’s a human being trying their best to get by. The Meursault arc did a pretty decent job of humanizing both Dazai and Fyodor, two characters who were previously shown as (intellectually) flawless, by having them struggle in their battle of wits against each other. Having both of them mess up or miscalculate in some way made them seem like real people and not just two algorithms playing chess. 

Having Dazai reveal in this final episode that he knew everything all along, everything went according to his plan, and there was never any challenge to begin with entirely defeats the purpose of the arc. What are we supposed to take away from this? That Dazai automatically wins any fight because he’s Dazai? That removes all stakes. 

Why continue watching a show if you’ve already been told that one specific character will always win—and not only that, but it won’t even be a struggle for him to get there, because he knows everything about everything all the time. 

I really, really hope that this was an anime-only ending. Asagiri can still fix this. Admittedly, bungo stray dogs has always been character-focused rather than plot-focused, so while I trust Asagiri to handle the characters better than this, I’m not really sure what to expect plot-wise. But I’m gonna hope for the best.

[vulpinesaint]

ABOUT TO CRYYYYYY. OH MY GOD....

[lord-squiggletits]

Panels that are stuck in my mind giving my Pharma-obsessed brain something to chew on like a rawhide again and again.

Ratchet in the heat of the moment calling Pharma a horrible Autobot/doctor, but later in a calm scenario, NOT talking to Pharma, saying that "most of his life he was a fantastic doctor..." MMmmmmdhjggjghkjhfkjfd

[jesncin]

We all know how you guys feel about evil twin archetypes, so any thoughts on Cobalt Blue? Found out about him fairly recently and LORD his backstory feels like a telenovela

I just briefly read up his wiki and WHOA WHAT IS THAT BACKSTORY, haha. It's interesting, from these DC evil twins (Ma'alefa'ak for J'onn and Golden Boy for Johnstantine) so far, a lot of what makes them not work for me is their often unfounded hatred for their twin. Especially when it's "assigned hatred since birth" it's funny seeing the narrative force these twins into projecting any kind of hatred on each other.

Malcolm/Cobalt Blue got his revenge already by killing off the doctor that separated him from the Allen family, but then? By circumstance of Barry having a better life he just decides to hate him too, haha. Very similar to Johnstantine deciding to hate his unborn twin just because John weirdly projected his twin having an easier, better life than him (which,,,is factually untrue, his twin didn't even get to be born). It's all so drama~

I think it's cute that Flash fam has generational twins though! It's often forgotten in twin representation that it's an inherited gene and therefore tends to occur in a family multiple times!

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I made a meme do you leik it :)

[merriclo]

can video essays please go back to being like. an actual thesis. or a genuine discussion. or a proper explanation of events and concepts.

[hopeinthebox]

late to the party as per but finally giving this one a go - AND pestering some music favs with a tag <33 @cordiallyfuturedwight @banghwa @thvinyl @aprylynn @pauls-mccharmly @monismochi @thatredwine @huhfeatjhope 💜 and anyone else who fancies a go

[thedreadvampy]

imo anti-intellectualism doesn't just mean reacting against academic language or "having enough of experts" it also means crucially reacting hostilely to attempts to learn or to make ideas and knowledge accessible.

what I mean is if somebody explains something in simple language and your response is to call them stupid for doing so, or, more commonly, to mock people for needing a common language explanation, you're not fucking helping.

part of tackling anti-intellectualism and wilful ignorance is making learning and understanding accessible and rewarding. widening the conceptual gap between Academia and The Regular Man just encourages the idea that academic thought is elitist, irrelevant or untrustworthy. the counter to anti-intellectualism is academic accessibility.

(that doesn't mean 'everything should be understandable to everyone' or 'nobody should be using technical language or highly complex ideas' bc things like technical language and specialist conversations and academic communication exist for a reason and help move things along with specificity and depth.

and yeah some people still just have no interest in learning and will get mad about not being invited to a conversation they have no interest in.

but. the minute you start sneering at people for not having heard of an idea or not yet having figured out how to understand it, or talking shit about attempts to make knowledge more broadly accessible and comprehensible, you are not on the side of knowledge. that's all bb thanks 😘)

[kazamajun]

I hope there never is a fully English or fully Japanese dub for the Tekken games, the representation of everyone being authentic to their primary tongue in the majority of cases is way more meaningful and tbh as someone who can understand multiple languages + the majority of my friends are polyglots, I can't even agree that it's 'unrealistic' lmao

[iris-nonsense]

I... i don't think that's how it works... what do you mean magma can burn fire like ???