#ta!bill

[littlemoonflowr]

who is this ugly ass

[theforswornelite]

[zhenni12]

Pyramid Steve has invaded my brain

[spaciebabie]

springtrap but he has claws and he slowwwwwly sinks them into youi while holdoing you close purring softly hes not eveb truing ta hurt you on ourpose justtrying ta keep you as close as possible and get you ta stay put for just a few more seconds oohohohhh ohhh hospital hostpital hospital. emergency room hospital

[kulerrrr]

Uhh art summary

[demi-pixellated]

all grown

[casebasket]

twelve x bill x nardole the dynamic

i put it in the tags but then was like you know what? i'm right:

doctor has tenure. absolutely abuses it. can only speak in lectures has no other life skills he can never leave academia

nardole's done. nardole's never getting his thesis done because his supervisor is. that

bill still has hope and some semblance of work life balance but will slowly learn that while she loves the discipline, the old guard never retires so she's never going to move up she's going to be student forever and live exclusively on grants (this part is less bill and more grad student) god bless

[unsolicited-opinions]

Re: your post about the Ezra Klein, Coates interview, and specifically the analogy you drew about civil rights; I’m kind of confused about how you came to the conclusion that the Palestinians haven’t tried doing nonviolence. Did the march of return not count? Furthermore, moral sobriety did not convince the American public that black people weren’t inferior. I think you calling Coates a polemicist was incredibly uncharitable and shows apathy to the point that him and Klein both agreed on: that Israel is an apartheid state.

Thanks for the comment. I'll presume your good faith and return the same in this longish answer.

You wrote: "I'm kind of confused about how you came to the conclusion that the Palestinians haven't tried doing nonviolence." 

Your confusion may be a result of the fact that I neither said nor implied this. What you're doing here is called a straw man fallacy.[1] 

What I did say was that Civil Rights activists led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Congress of Racial Equality were utterly committed to nonviolence. You can tell this is true by how they never committed acts of terrorism. 

You wrote: "Furthermore, moral sobriety did not convince the American public that black people weren't inferior."

I don't know what "moral sobriety" is. I don't know what moral inebriation would be, either.

I certainly didn't claim that moral sobriety accomplished anything and this is another straw man.[1] 

What I did claim was that the principled nonviolence of the Civil Rights Movement impacted public opinion sufficiently to get the  Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed. 

This is from the transcript of the Coates/Klein conversation[2]:

TA-NEHISI COATES: I can’t accept that your interest in a true democracy was destroyed by violence from your partner. I just can’t accept that. First of all, I think even in this rendering that we have here, I suspect that there are reasons for why that suicide bombing even happened.

'You' here refers to Israel. Coates is saying that Israelis must not be committed to peace because violence from Hamas derailed Israeli public support for a peace process. If this is true, why is it not also true for the Palestinians? This seems to me like both a double standard and terrorism apologetics.

You wrote: "...I think you calling Coates a polemicist was incredibly uncharitable…"

Coates himself acknowledges this. Here's a long excerpt from the transcript [2], keeping his comments in context:

EZRA KLEIN: Did you go around with anybody who would say, no, we’re doing the right thing here. Or even we’re not doing enough here.

TA-NEHISI COATES: No.

EZRA KLEIN: Why?

TA-NEHISI COATES: There are things in this world that I see that I just don’t want to hear the justification for. I just don’t think can be justified. I don’t want to hear — I don’t know what I can glean from a justification for — and I’m talking about in an American context — segregation.

I don’t know what necessarily I can glean from a justification for enslavement by hearing somebody like interviewing somebody and say, tell me why this is legal. Some things come down to, for me, just a moral decision. And I actually think journalists do this all the time. I think we all draw a line somewhere about what we feel is out of bounds and what we feel is beyond.

For me, I was willing to entertain probably a debate from people who were anti-occupation, but maybe not necessarily anti-Zionist. Maybe it would be classified as liberal Zionists even. All the way over to people who thought Zionism was a terrible idea and the worst thing that had ever happened. The justification for settlements was outside of my frame.

EZRA KLEIN: But that does wipe out all of Israeli society almost, right?

TA-NEHISI COATES: I was concerned with what I don’t know. And what I haven’t heard. And for me, Palestinian voices have been pushed so far out of the frame. Like that is the thing that is hard to access. And I think this is open for critique. But I made a conscious decision, frankly, in the language, you know what I mean?

Later in the interview, Coates returns to Klein's criticism:

COATES:... this was just a decision I made. OK, who am I not hearing from? Who have I not heard from?

And so that necessarily means marginalizing a portion of it.

Coates openly acknowledges that he decided consciously, deliberately, to ignore the parts he didn't want to hear in order to protect the narrative he wanted to focus on. He states that this is open for critique…which is what I'm offering. I haven't been uncharitable in any way. 

You wrote: "...and shows apathy to the point that him and Klein both agreed on: that Israel is an apartheid state." 

That's a third straw man[1]. Look again. How did my post start?

I agree with Coates and Klein both that the circumstances for Palestinians in the West Bank can be compared to apartheid. Israel within the green line can't be described that way, but the West Bank, in my opinion, can be described that way.

I think the West Bank settlements are indefensible. They are shameful and wrong. Israel could have protected its security without building settlements clearly meant to eventually annex the land into Israel. I have nothing but contempt and condemnation for them. 

Coates and Klein, however, also agreed about what would happen if Israel unilaterally pulled out of the West Bank as they did in Gaza in 2005. Again, here's the transcript:

KLEIN:...If we ever pull back, if we do what we did in Gaza, and allow this to be self-governed, an army will be raised, and what happened on 10/7 will be a small preview of what will be coming for us eventually.

That doesn’t make anything happening in the West Bank right. It doesn’t have any effect on the morality of it whatsoever. But it is the politics of Israel that somebody is going to have to deal with at some point or not. And then we’re just here. I’m not here to tell you I’ve come up with some answer. It’s just one of the things that has to sit in the pot.

TA-NEHISI COATES: Yeah, I don’t disagree with that at all. I don’t disagree with that at all.

Given this agreement between Coates and Klein that Israel pulling out of the West Bank unilaterally without enforceable security guarantees would result in disaster, what would you have Israel do? If it was up to me, I'd start with making water distribution fair in area C of the West Bank.

Now that I have defended my reasonable and supported criticisms of Coates from three straw man comments, I need to mention that the same category of error Coates gives us had a mirror image this weekend in Bill Maher.

BONUS GRIPE: Bill Maher does the same kind of thing as Coates, but in a mirror

Did you see this?

Set aside for a minute that Maher condescending to Chappell Roan and Roan's audience won't change any minds and set aside that Maher continues to be a living avatar for Peak Boomer Asshole Behavior - and what we're left with is a narrative about Israel/Palestine which is made to seem reasonable only by consciously, deliberately, dishonestly choosing to leave out utterly essential information. They're both writing for confirmation biases. There are only two differences between what Coates did and what Maher did:

1. Maher leaves out essential information about the Palestinian concerns and Palestinian realities while ignoring or downplaying Israeli failures…while Coates leaves out essential information about Israeli concerns and Israeli realities while ignoring or downplaying Palestinian failures. 

2. Coates at least ADMITS, when pressed, that he's doing this. Maher, smug prick that he is, does not. 

They're both wrong. It's assholes running the Israeli government, assholes running Hamas, assholes running the Palestinian Authority, and assholes running the Iranian government- and NONE of these parties has honestly sought peace for at least a couple decades. (Iran and Hamas have never sought peace.)

And with their deeply dishonest determination to serve their narratives by leaving out half the story, neither Coates nor Maher are helping elevate the conversation and fumble towards truth or resolution nearly as much as Ezra Klein does with consistent intellectual honesty.

[1] https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-ta-nehisi-coates.html

[godsfavoritescientist]

bill doodles, shaded edition

[doopn00p]

Happy Birthday to this wolf guy here!

[skylar-325]

currently on chapter 296 of erha and so close to having a mental breakdown WHEN DO THINGS GET BETTER. BRING MY BBY BACK BRUH IM BOUTA SUE

[littlemoonflowr]

tried to make ta!ford's ref less visually cluttered than bill's but idk if i like it

[x-heesy]

𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕, 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚣

𝙾𝚞𝚛 𝚠𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚜𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚖 𝚒𝚜 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐 😑

Public school, battle grounds

Two students, come around like

Loaded soldiers, packing heat

Inside a shotgun, gun click

To the beat, down

We shoot you down

We come around

And when we blow off that trigger, get down

We shoot you down, we come around

The gun goes click, click, click

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

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Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims is we 'bout to lose?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims, how many victims?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims is we 'bout to lose?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims, how many victims?

No vendetta, seeking fame

Bombs and bullets, it's just a game we play

Baby soldiers, baseball field

Inside a shotgun, gun click

To the beat, down

We shoot you down

We come around

And when we blow off that trigger, get down

We shoot you down, we come around

The gun goes

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims is we 'bout to lose?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims, how many victims?

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

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Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Have fun

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims is we 'bout to lose?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims, how many victims?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims is we 'bout to lose?

Get up, ready, mark, shoot

How many victims, how many victims?

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

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Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta

𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖚𝖒𝖇𝖎𝖓𝖊 (𝖋𝖊𝖆𝖙. 𝕭𝖎𝖑𝖑 $𝕬𝖇𝖊𝖗) 𝖇𝖞 𝕾𝕶𝖄𝕹𝕯

[episodicnostalgia]

Batman: The Animated Series, 138 (Nov. 13, 1992) - “Christmas With the Joker” [Production order #02]

Written by: Eddie Gorodetsky Directed by: Kent Butterworth

This is the episode where…

The Dynamic Duo race against the clock to capture the Joker on Christmas eve, so that Batman can finally watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (yes, seriously). Oh yeah, and there are also innocent lives at stake. Then again, two of those are cops so… let’s just say there are lives at stake and leave it at that.

The Breakdown

It’s Christmas Eve at Arkham Asylum, as the inmates work happily together, decorating the communal Christmas tree (aw!). And who should climb the ladder to mount the star? None other than the Joker himself. And if you’ve already guessed that he’s about to employ the time-honoured tradition of converting a tree into a literal-rocket, with which to launch himself through the roof, and toward freedom, then you guessed right! In fact, that’s surprisingly accurate of you.

Meanwhile… Robin has made a shocking discovery, Batman has NEVER seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life!’ [Evidently, Robin has been under the impression that the brooding vigilante billionaire he works for is a big “Holiday Spirit” kinda guy.] So, since the criminal element seems to be taking the night off (probably catching up on their gift wrapping), Robin convinces his begrudging partner to watch Jimmy Stuart oppose the ruling class. Unfortunately, at the precise moment the Dynamic Couch-Potatoes turn on the television, The Joker successfully hijacks EVERY channel (to be fair that happens a lot in Gotham), to broadcast his very own live Christmas Special!

So here’s the deal: the Joker has kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, Detective Harvey Bullock, and news reporter Summer Gleeson to stand in as his own surrogate Christmas family (since he has none of his own), who he intends to murder on live television unless Batman and Robin successfully complete a list of deadly tasks at inconvenient Locations. The tasks in question involve A) preventing a train full of passengers from hurtling over a blown-up bridge, B) Shutting down an observatory that’s been repurposed as a laser-cannon (obviously), C) defeating an army of giant weaponized robot-nutcraker-soldiers at an abandoned toy factory, and finally… D) preventing the three hostages from falling into a vat of molten liquid (classic). Unsurprisingly, Batman comes out on top, but not before taking a pie to the face, serving a stark reminder that victory always comes at a price.

Anyways, with the Joker subdued, our heroes head back to the mansion to finally watch ‘It’s a wonderful life,’ whereupon they reflect that life IS pretty Wonderful! …Which, as anyone who has seen the film would know, is a remarkably tone-deaf takeaway for a billionaire to arrive upon. Hopefully Alfred can use this as an opportunity to begin a more constructive dialogue.

The Verdict

I loved this episode as a kid, mainly because it featured both Robin and the Joker, and also because I was (as are most children) easily impressed. Sarcasm aside, I’m not going to come down too hard on this episode, but it’s a fairly weak entry of a generally top-tier show. It doesn’t help that the animation is sloppier than usual, especially when you compare it to the Pilot (this one being produced immediately after). To be fair, each episode was produced by different animation houses, and sometimes the preferred ones were booked up. Consequently, the quality in animation could fluctuate a bit, particularly during the first season which pumped out a whopping 60 episodes. Nonetheless, this is some of the gnarlier animation on the show as a whole.

I’m more inclined to forgive sloppy animation when a story is strong enough, but ‘Christmas with the Joker’ comes up short in that department too. Again, it’s a perfectly suitable episode for kids, and about as inoffensive as you can get, but the actual plot is pretty damn thin, and little too silly for my taste. I'm perfectly happy with a more whimsical story when it's done well, there are a decent handful of episodes that lean on physical comedy quite effectively, but this outing feels more like an off-brand Looney Tunes special featuring batman; The gimmicks are a lot zanier than usual, and the gags all feel more-than-a-bit tired (although I’ll give points for the pie-to-the-face bit).

Perhaps I’m being a bit of a Scrooge about it, but this one just falls a bit flat for me. At the very least the episode is responsible for giving us Mark Hamill as the Joker (and Loren Lester as Robin), so I’ll take the silver lining, but I think don't think it’s unfair to rate this at…

2 stars (out of 5)

Parting Thoughts

Dastardly Logistics/1 - 'O TannenBOOM: I’ve often thought that supervillains always seem to have alarmingly unencumbered access to funds and resources. It’s one of those conventions I’m perfectly happy to embrace as part of the fun, nonetheless I can’t help being amused by the implications of all these elaborate weapons and death traps. Take the Joker’s Christmas tree escape-rocket, for example. It’s not exactly a small “tree,” so how did he build it without anyone knowing? What are the logistics of smuggling a fuselage and jet propulsion system into a prison for the criminally insane, and then assembling and disguising it, without anyone noticing? Did the guards not find it odd when they found a three story fern that no one ordered? Or did he replace the real tree with his Faux-Tree, and if so, what happened to the original?

Dastardly Logistics/2 - The Animated Conspiracy: Obviously the Joker is paying people to do these things for him, considering the whole episode takes place within the timeframe of a single night. Still, I’d be curious to know how he manages to secure funding for all this. I don’t doubt the money is stolen, but I find it hard to believe that he’s laundering it from his cell in Arkham. Where would half of this stuff even be manufactured? The way I see it, the majority of the Bat-rogues must all be backed by a mysterious sponsor, pulling the strings from the shadows. Whatever the truth may be, there are unanswered questions lying in the heart of Gotham City, pointing to an insidious plot that predates even the ‘court of owls.’

Hey Robin, are you high? How in your right mind could you POSSIBLY be surprised that your partner, a man famously known as the “Dark Knight,” who regularly employs torture tactics during his illegal interrogations, would somehow give a flying fuck about ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ This is the same man who put you through rigorous combat training, some of which presumably took place on-the-job against opponents with loaded firearms, while you were still an adolescent. And you’re surprised he hasn’t seen your favourite movie? I would have been utterly shocked if he had. Maybe take a break from your combat drills, and invest a little more of your energy brushing up on the observational skills your mentor is so famous for.

[spaciebabie]

yk i think it would be really healing personally if several US politicians dropped dead out of nowhere tomorrow

[sk1fanfiction]

Chapter Nine: Red Rum, Red Hands

Oh, he’s spotted it,” said Blaise from behind her, his voice giddy with anticipation.

“Who?” asked Parvati.

There was no answer, because Harry and Cedric both seemed to dive in unison, robes snapping in the wind after what must be the Snitch near the ground, far too small to see.

“Now, the technique Potter’s using’s called a Spiral Dive—” Blaise began.

“Shhh,” said Parvati, almost dangling over the railing. “They’re so close!”

The two Seekers were neck and neck, hands outstretched, pressing themselves flatter against their brooms—

Then they both pulled up. Hard. The Snitch must have slipped away.

“Well, wasn’t that hair-raising?” called Lee, and the stadium cheered in approval. “It’s still anyone’s game, sixty to eighty, Gryffindor to Hufflepuff — but Johnson’s currently doing her best to make that score even.”

The tension in Harry’s shoulders as he rose was clear even from far away. The Gryffindor stands yelled encouragement, but he seemed indifferent, unhearing as he watched the swarming chaos of red and yellow below. Cedric looked similarly contemplative.

And then, it happened.

Cedric dove.

“Diggory spotted the Snitch!” called Lee. “With Potter in pursuit — no, where’s Potter, why’s he just sitting there? Earth to Potter!”

“Why isn’t he following?” asked Parvati, the wind from Cedric plummeting blowing her hair back from her face.

She was right; Harry was just sitting there, casual as you please.

What if something’s wrong?

“Wronski Feint,” Blaise supplied. “At least, that’s what Diggory’s attempting. But Harry knows there’s nothing down there.”

Indeed, Harry’s face was tilted towards the sky, scanning the clouds with a tense, quiet determination.

Is that really what he’s doing?

Gryffindor plays Hufflepuff, but, believe it or not, Harry and Cedric's last match-up is far from the most exciting event this Saturday. Read from the beginning at FFN|AO3!