#this is super cool!!

[crime-soncloud]

Tree!! please add decorations if you want!

[chongoblog]

Me, after forgetting to cut the top off an onion before dicing it: “Aw dammit”

The Gordon Ramsey that lives in my head: “Don’t worry there, this mistake isn’t going to ruin anything. No need to be too hard on yourself”

Me: “Wow, that’s…not what I was expecting”

Gordon: “Of course, you ought to know by now that I don’t shout at cooks just to do so. I do it because the people in hit television show Kitchen Nightmares are putting their services out into the public and claim to be good enough to have the title of head chef. You’re just some guy in your twenties making beef stroganoff for yourself and your roommate. I’m kind of a dick, yeah, but I’m not gonna scream at you for a minor mistake like this”

Me: “Oh….well…thanks”

Gordon: “You’re welcome…cunt…”

[kaasiand]

I wish we had every single game on DS

Not 3DS, just DS. Guys please stop tagging this as 3DS

[markwateneymemorialcrater]

Please note. The orange one is not included because A. He isn’t a billionaire. And B. Calling him obnoxious is too kind for him.

[katsa-calming]

what do the texts say help it wont load right,,

hi tumblr people how does this work . i’m just gonna throw this into ur cage and hope for the best

[coldalbion]

As a disabled person who's loved LEVERAGE and LEVERAGE REDEMPTION since the beginning - for the characters but also the whole ethos of performing acts that help people against crap systems, it's wonderful to be reminded that it springs from reality.

[chloesimaginationthings]

DJ music man thinking about his peepaw from SOTM

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

i think it would be so funny that if in transformers one, instead of cliffjumper getting confused for bumblebee it was the other way around

[prlssprfctn]

Cryptid!Alfred, who is actually immortal. Like, he cannot die for forever - he did once, during the war, and after that... for some reason, he kept coming back, completely without any additional magical help. He sometimes dies again, and then mysteriously comes back on the next morning, as if nothing happened. Bruce used to it at some point, so instead of asking questions (Alfred has no answers, anyway) he just pretends that it is normal. He gaslights kids to think the same. Like, what do you mean he died, Damian? No, he is alrightish. Look in the kitchen, he is making us breakfast. It probably was just a bad dream.

So, when Jason dies and gets back? Oh, Alfred knows his grandson has the same curse/blessing. Because it wasn't the Lazarus Pit that brought Jason back after all, but some strange, unexplainable force. Perhaps, both of them are just bound to end up as guardians, as warriors and protectors - that's why they keep coming back.

...Nevertheless, it doesn't make their family less... anxious about the whole thing. These two from the other side? Oh, they absolutely enjoy their immortal hang-out hours.

Jason: What was your funniest death?

Alfred: I am going to say... that one time, when I was teaching young master Bruce using a hunting rifle, and he accidentally shot me. I came back in fifteen minutes, and, of course, a poor thing was sobbing, but afterwards he was doing all chores for a month. Wonderful days.

Jason: Damn, poor Brucie... My funniest gotta be that one time, when Roy and I got drunk, and I legit jumped off the building because I thought I can fly. Roy had never got sober that quick.

(The first time Jason dies on the family's watch)

Dick, sobbing: Alfred... Alfred... He died! His neck was snapped! How can I live-

Alfred, casually leaning to snap Jason's neck again: Wake up, my boy.

Jason, dramatically gasping for air: Damn, who made me a massage, while I was sleeping?

Tim: What. The. Fuck.

[nebulations]

[ID: Two banner collages. The first features Utena surrounded by photos and screencaps of Akio's tower, real-life towers, and a rose. The second features Anthy surrounded by traditional Japanese art, European art of a princess, roses, and her younger self. End ID]

Revolutionary Girl Utena - Name Games (pt.1/?)

I’ve gone on about a bunch of Bleach characters and how Kubo Tite is a big wordplay nerd who likes to find names that really suit his characters.  It’s fun because his word choices are a little more obtuse or carry certain double meanings than most of his contemporaries working in shounen manga.  But if there’s anyone who’s done a similarly great job with really loading up their character names with implicit, character defining imagery, it’s Kunihiko Ikuhara, creator of Sarazanmai, Yurikuma Arashi, Mawaru Penguindrum, and of course Revolutionary Girl Utena.

So, starting at the top…

[天上]Tenjou [ウテナ]Utena 

 …is our main character.  Her surname, [天上]Tenjou is written with the kanji for [天]“Sky”/“Heaven” and [上]“Up,” which together just kind of reiterate the point in order to mean [天上] “The Heavens” or to be super literal “Heaven Above.”

The name [ウテナ] Utena is written in Katakana* but is clearly meant to evoke the word [台]Utena, meaning either “Tower,” “Stand”/“Pedestal,” or “Calyx.”  This is important because these all describe a core idea but under different contexts.  A tower and a pedestal both serve the same purpose, to allow a thing to be elevated upward, but on different scales: one elevating a whole person upward above other people or buildings, and the other elevating an object upward to a person’s reach from the floor.  A Calyx is the part of a flower where the stem ends and a flower bud begins, it is again a structure the elevates an object upwards, and like a pedestal does so presentationally.  So, Tenjou Utena’s name means very literally…

“Tower to Heaven”/“That Which Elevates Up to Heaven.” 

*if you’re not familiar, Japanese is one unified spoken language, but it has different written forms.  Kanji are the ideographic characters borrowed from Chinese, and each conveys in and of itself meaning as a word, and often more than one meaning and with distinct pronunciations for each.  But Katakana and Hiragana(collectively just called Kana) are syllabic and phonetic, meaning each character only denotes sound, but not meaning.

I guess I should point out that I’m not going to let this slip into being a full blown Utena series analysis because that’s more than I’m ready to buckle in for right now, and I’m sure you all don’t want to sit down to a whole dissertation.  But I’ll try to cover some of the specific meaning besides literal translations as well…

In this case meaning that Utena’s name referencing a flower calyx is of course a direct play into the whole show’s giant overarching use of the rose as a symbol.  as The Calyx, she is what uplifts and presents The Rose(Bride). 

The reference to “The Heavens” is also closely interrelated to the later story character Akio and a series of interrelated Judeo-Christian themes surrounding him.  There is also the more overt fact that he, being the final boss, resides at the top of the observatory tower; a place he explicitly mentions is the highest place on the school campus.  “The Heavens” as a theme are also represented in the reverse fairytale castle, which is a visual representation of the abstract goal for the duelists.

Also the over all reading of her name as “Tower to Heaven” may also be a direct reference to the Tower of Babel and the moral of that myth; that attempts to reach heaven, and to defy god, are to be met with wrathful punishment in the form of being unable to comprehend other people.  Comprehension in the context of Utena being a matter of interpersonal relationships, rather than language.

[姫宮]Himemiya [アンシー]Anthy

[姫宮] Himemiya does just literally read as “Princess” and moreover the indiviudal kanji are actually just two different words also each meaning “Princess.”  This kind of construction is actually pretty common in Japanese compound words; I think it’s a hold over from adapting the written language from Chinese.  Her name wouldn’t read “Princess Princess” just as “Princess” but with emphasis.

And supposedly the name [アンシー]Anthy is actually derived from the term Anthesis, derived from the Greek [ἄνθος] meaning “Flower,” and the suffix [ησις] indicating an event.  In botany an Anthesis is the period of time when a flower is in bloom; not the season for the flower as a species, but the day-to-day time at which an individual flower is actively open.  So, her name isn’t actually one that would have understood meaning even in Japanese beyond just the “Princess” part, but for what it’s worth her name does basically mean,

“Princess in Bloom“/“In Bloom Princess”

or 

“Princess of the Blossom time”

Ikuhara’s absolute peak sensibilities as far as building a nuanced language of interrelated symbols and icons are unmatched.  He’s a master of revisiting established themes from new angles, giving them genuine depth and complexity, and a master of pacing that actually builds an appropriate learning curve.  Some of his more recent series are a bit too short to really do his style justice, but Utena is a wonderful gradual escalation from a truly unassuming first story arc into a finale that operates almost entirely on the level of metaphor and nearly totally abandons the literal.

next post…

[desertduality]

something about the way the hermits try to blend their bases together when they're close by is just really sweet to me. I don't really know how to explain it other than like. it's art. they start out with their empty plots of land and then they shape it and change it and they start growing into each other. the lines blur. it's like they're all given a slab of marble and they carve their own statues but they make the statues hold hands. i dunno.

[steiiaoctangula]

happy birthday slender fella

like the idea that he has no sinister intentions hes just a guy who lost his art in the woods and is also like 9ft tall with no face in a 3 piece. to each their own, though.

[civetcider]

ME AS A BUG, she/her

[p1nkshield]

Prompt idea: Danny has been attending Wayne family dinners for weeks now and he truly doesn’t know how he got this far

Danny has been without a home or a means to get food for a while because of either identity reveal gone bad or Dan timeline shenanigans. Either way he needs to eat. As a last ditch attempt Danny tries to attend/infiltrate a Wayne family dinner. He’s seen the Wayne kids around Gotham and he’s sure that he could look and act the part enough to get in the door and out with some bread rolls at least.

Was it his best idea? No.

But he sure as sugar ain’t firing on all cylinders rn.

And Bruce already has a gaggle of blue eyed, black haired children.

What’s one more?

Batfam of course notices immediately when a whole new kid shows up, grabs some miscellaneous pieces of food and then prattles off some excuse about “not being that hungry.” (Clearly a bald faced lie) And that they were “Going to the library to study for finals, bye Dad!”

1. No one skips out on family dinners. Even Jason was here.

2. Alfred sets the table for everyone ahead of time and the kid had no place to sit.

3. Nobody in this house studies anything beyond case files.

4. Nobody in this house calls Bruce Dad.

Danny thinks he is suffering from success. No matter where he is in Gotham someone picks him up and insists he’ll be late for family dinner which is unacceptable.

Alfred just wants to feed the boy.

The batkids are amused by his efforts to look as though he’s been here all along.

Bruce is drafting adoption papers as we speak.