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gallusrostromegalus · 6 months

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The Van Has Officially Declared It Spooky Season

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I've got my parent's van for the week and it seems determined to establish my status as The Local Cryptid by terrorizing an innocent 7-11 clerk.

...I might need to back up a bit.

My mother is an eminently sensible woman who knows herself well, and when The Plauge hit, she knew she'd need some sort of mentally and physically engaging craft project to keep herself from going insane and massacring the local zoning and water management boards (even if they have it coming). So she and Dad acquired a utility van and converted it into a camper van because while they love camping, they're past the age where their joints and immune systems will tolerate sleeping on the cold ground in a nylon tent.

They did a terrific job of it and my mom taught herself woodworking and carpentry and now the van has it's own cabinets, fold-away dining table, and removable queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress. My Dad was already a computer engineer, but he learned the dark magics of automotive software and electronics to install after-market backup cameras, a media player that would take a terabyte hard drive and a solar-powered battery and outlet so they could wake up and just turn on the kettle and griddle for breakfast without having to exit the van into a cold morning on an empty stomach.

Truly, the height of Camping Luxury.

My parents are both in their mid-seventies and my primary life goal is to be at least half as cool and hale as they are when I get old.

Anyway, they take it out at least a dozen times a year and it works fabulously, but, being as I am on good terms with my parents and also finishing the process of moving house, I've been borrowing it to move large and cumbersome objects that will not fit in the back of my equally lovely but minuscule Honda hatchback.

It's a Great Van. Very easy and comfortable to drive. Stunningly good MPG for it's size. The best cruise control I've ever had in a car.

It's just also. Quirky. Mischievous, even.

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If this van has a fault its that it bears the unfortunate affliction that all lightly used white utility vans have in that the combination of an utter lack of branding features and the large dent/scrape I accidentally put on it while trying to escape a Denny's last Thanksgiving means that this vehicle is one addition of a Badly Spray-Painted "FREE CANDY" on the side away from being the sort of vehicle you see in an edgy horror movie.

It's got the same issue that Doberman Dogs have where they look like the sort of creature that likes to snack on toddler's faces whilst actually having personalities made of marshmallow fluff. This vehicle is unnecessarily menacing and I think nothing short of an airbrushed Epic Van Wizard will correct this. People see this van pull up and lean over and squint suspiciously at me when the driver's side door opens, and then look moderately confused when, instead of Charles Manson, a small, potato-shaped creature with neon purple hair and a statistically unlikely assortment of dogs emerges.

My own two dogs, Herschel the Hanukkah Goblin/Corgi and Charleston Chew The Taco Dumpster Dog, Do Not Like The Van. Even with the bed in it, they have a tendency to slide and roll around in the back, and both WILL chew through dog saftey belts or other attempts to secure them in there.

On the other hand, my house mate's dog, an exceptionally tall standard poodle whom we lovingly call "The Creature", loves the Van because SHE wears her doggy seat-belt with only mild complaining and gets to sit up in the passenger seat like A People.

Also like A People, The Creature likes to stand and walk around on her hind legs. It doesn't hurt her and it's entirely voluntary, but every so often I will feel a hand on my arm and instead of my husband or friend, it's a canine that's taller than I am on her hind legs who wants to stare at my face with soulful, concerned eyes. The Creature's favorite thing is that she is exactly the right height for me to hold her arm in Genteel Fashion and walk around the pet food or hardware store with her like I'm a count escorting a debutante around a royal ball.

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As it stands, I am set to inherit this vehicle whenever my Honda gives up the ghost, and I fully intend to paint an Epic Van Wizard on it when that time comes.

The other peculiarity of The Van is that while Dad did manage to successfully install all his after-market electronics, not all the electronics get along. Sometimes, they fight for Dominance. The Terabyte Music Player and the Backup Camera have a particularly contentious relationship, and turning on the music has about a 25% chance of turning on the backup camera as well, and turning on the Backup Camera is equally likely to turn on the music.

Firthermore, The Van has a favorite song.

I am not kidding that Dad filled an entire terabyte hard drive with music and the software to sort it via the radio controls, but of all the Early Boomer Dad Rock (Kingston Trio over The Eagles) and Irish Folk and Symphonies and the entire discography of Weird Al Yankovic, The Van's favorite song- The one it picks to play as victory music every time it beats the Backup Camera at their weird electronic game of rock-paper-scissors -is The Liberty Bell March by John Phillip Sousa.

You all know this song already.

...but in case you've forgotten the tune:

youtube

Yeah.

The Van's favorite song is the goddamn Monty Python's Flying Circus Theme Music.

It does not play this song at a normal volume.

Every time I turn on the Backup Camera and it manages to turn the music player on as well, The Van insists on absolutely blasting this nonsense on at the maximum volume it's physically capable of producing, which I know is loud enough to be heard from the Denver International Airport's Pickup zone when they Van decided to start playing it from the economy lot about half a mile away.

Perhaps it's The Van's way of honoring the aesthetic sensibilities and sonic enthusiasm of Mr. Sousa.

...I can't help but wonder if the purpose of an Epic Van Wizard is to control this sort of faerie-like malarkey, and channel these chaotic energies into things like Spell of Don't Break Down In Nevada or Enchantment Of Always Have Good Parking.

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So last Friday the 13th, I get a call from my friend and housemate, at said airport.

It's roughly 11PM at night, and I have already retired for the evening. I am in the exact minimum of clothing required to be a decent housemate and not scandalize the neighbors should I happen to walk by a window. My feet are up. There is a cat in my lap and fictional British people murdering each other in highly inventive fashion on the tv. -But my friend has returned from her friend's wedding,and either American or United Airlines has managed to lose her luggage, including, among other valuable possessions, the keys to her car. ...So she cannot just drive home as originally planned.

There are, as luck would have it, her spare set of keys not eight feet from me.

Being a good and decent person, I agree to bring the spare keys to her so she may get home before daybreak and not spend a semester's worth of tuition on an uber across the greater Denver traffic jam.

Being also that she Loves Activities, and it's her mom we're going to pick up, I elect to take along The Creature.

I am primarily focused on remembering how to get to the airport and not leaving my friend's spare keys on the counter, so I throw on a pair of flip-flops, step outside, remember that it's AUTUMN and my minimal evening attire is not sufficient thermal protection, step back in, grab the first coat in the closet I lay hands on, pull it on, check that I have her keys again and leave.

The trip to the airport is largely unremarkable, save that it becomes necessary for me to put on sunglasses to drive, despite it being nearly the witching hour and almost entirely darker than the inside of a cow.

It's necessary because this blissful darkness of night is violently punctured by a startling number of cars that seem to have installed miniaturized but no less powerful lighthouse bulbs in where their headlights ought to go so the oncoming traffic and sports cars that insist on tailgating me in the slow lane alike illuminate the road and my mirrors with the kind of radiance I'd normally associate with the arrival of a Seraphim.

I arrive at the distant highly discounted airport car lot where my housemate is waiting, deeply apologetic. It's nothing. I say. Once I see that your car starts up, I'm gonna go to that 7-11 across the way that I parked in front of, get a slurpee or something and I'll see you at home.

While she is retrieving her vehicle (an equally eccentric but much more stately Subaru that is old enough to be elected to congress) I rifle through the loose change in the glove box and discover that I have exactly $6.66 in small bills and coins. The Subaru, continuing it's long voyage into vehicular immortality, immediately starts up.

Upon her return, we all remember that my friend had all her camping gear in the backseat of the car and there is no room for The Creature to ride home with her parent, so I again assure her it's nothing, and will just take The Creature into the 7-11 with me. She is trained as a service animal and needs the practice after the plague.

I wave my friend off and turn to enter the 7-11.

I promptly trip over the jutting back bumper of The Van and fall, cartoonishly, face-first onto the sidewalk.

Fortunately, I have a lot of practice falling on my face, and have learned not to throw my hands out but instead cover my face, so my unexpected self-inflicted attempted curb-stomping lightly scrapes my hairline and nothing else -my sunglasses even stay in place- and I get up and resume my quest for a slurpee.

It's well known that the airport is a lawless place, and the 7-11 across from the discounted airport parking at the stroke of midnight is no exception.

I know it's the stroke of Midnight because there's one of those Audubon society bird-call clocks that makes bird noises, and my arrival is heralded by the twittering call of a Summer Tanager. I am almost charmed enough by the unusual choice of chronological device to excuse the exorbitant Airport-adjacent mark-up of Slurpee prices. I stand at the machine for some time, trying to decide on a size for the price and guess what the fuck "Blue Lighting Blast" is supposed to taste like.

The Creature is being Very Polite but is somewhat agitated, I assume because she *just* saw her mother for the first time in three days and then she LEFT with no explanation, so The Creature is on her hind legs, staring woefully into my eyes, asking to be escorted around the 7-11. Even though that's not what she's not supposed to be doing, there's nobody else in here, so I let her hang off my arm and discuss various Slurpee Flavor options with her.

We eventually decide on an experiment in which I try a Small Blue Lightning Blast, and discover it tastes a bit like licking a nintendo cartridge but in a pleasantly satisfying way.

I go up to pay and realize something is amiss.

The Cashier is a young man staring at me with wide eyes, one had over the register and the other wrapped up in his rosary.

I look down at myself.

In my haste to reunite my friend with her spare keys and service animal, I had left the house in the following accoutrements:

Flip Flops. Not matching. It's below freezing outside. That last part is not particularly odd footwear for the weather in for Colorado, but it's an important detail for the rest of the ensemble.

Assorted scrapes, bruises, cuts and welts on my arms and legs that come with doing outdoor work and living in a house with three dogs and a fully-clawed cat that all want to be in my lap all the time. It's cold out, so vasoconstriction has pulled the blood away from my skin, a trait that served my ancestors well during the last Ice Age, but leaves me with pale skin to contrast the various wounds and I look like a corpse that fell out of the back of a pickup truck.

The black Bootyshorts with "CRYPTID" painted in bright red gothic font across my ass, that @theshitpostcalligrapher gave me for my wedding present.

A peculiar but extremely comfortable garment that straddles the line between "Lacy Camisole" and "Industrial-Strength Sports Bra" like the Ever Given straddling the Suez Canal. It is also Bright Red. with black accents.

The Jacket I had grabbed out of the closet, which is in fact, a black Velour Dinner Jacket.

The Tokyo-Ghoul inspired reusable anti-covid mask a friend made me with the set of Coyote Teeth.

My sunglasses, which are shaped like a Halloween Bat. The lenses are the wings and the body is the nose bridge. It is ALSO bright red.

A Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle that I have been audibly affectionately calling "Dear Creature" who is hanging off my arm like she's my Prom Date.

The Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle is ALSO dressed up in a black Dog Sweater that has white bones printed on it to look like its an X-ray jacket showing off her skeleton.

I look like I am taking my Very Fancy Werewolf Girlfriend to a particularly casual Dinner Party for Vampires, but the thing that's really selling it and probably alarming the kid the most is the fun accessory I acquired in the parking lot not five minutes earlier:

The "Small Scrape At my Hairline" is actually a painless but PROFUSELY bleeding head wound that I had somehow entirely failed to notice covering my face, neck, decolletage and magnificent cleavage with blood like a Tarantino Film Extra.

This does explain why The Creature has been delicately trying to use her bodyweight to push me down onto the floor for the last ten minutes. So I don't injure myself while we wait for the paramedics she hoped this kid called to arrive, you see.

The Creature has such a High and Naive Opinion of humanity.

I decide this social situation is already fucked, and the only way out is through, and with haste, before I start dripping on the floor.

"Hi there!" I say cheerfully, to indicate this is a visually alarming but not terribly serious situation. "Just a Small Slurpee!"

The Cashier has entered the relevant code into the register before I finish the sentence. His gaze flicks off me just long enough to look at the total, and he grips his Rosary harder.

$6.66

"Oh cool! I have exact change!" I say, taking the money out of my as-yet-unsanguined pocket without looking and slap it down on the counter. "You have a good night and be safe out there!" I wave, leaving.

I get in The Van, mortified, buckle The Creature up, and as I make to leave, I have to put it in reverse, which automatically turns on the backup Camera.

It also turns on the music player.

I make eye contact with the cashier as the dulcet tones of John Phillip Sousa boom from the van hard enough to make the windshield and the windows of the 7-11 rattle for the nine-and-a-half seconds I have to wait to be able to turn the volume back down. Not knowing what else to to, I give him a thumbs up, and leave.

Anyway, now I know what my Future Van Wizard has got to be dressed like, and what their familiar is.

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If you enjoyed this story, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Funny Stories book on Patreon

#Family Lore #Dogs #It's Halloween babey #friday the 13th #blood mention #I hope that kid had a good night and at least one of his friends believed him #Long post #Video

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keirahknightley · 6 months

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Costume appreciation series: Addams Family Values (1993) dir Barry Sonnenfeld

Costume Design by Theoni Aldredge

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why-is-it-always-autumn · 1 year

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hey why are the Van Helsings always the Vampire Hunting Family in modern Dracula stories. Abraham Van Helsing might be the guy who knows stuff but his family is off in the Netherlands and/or dead and totally uninvolved in the plot. Abraham's great-great grandson has no reason to be doing backflips and chopping off heads or whatever

You know who is a family who hates Dracula so so much and would totally teach their kids how to hunt vampires? The Harkers. Give me a modern vampire story where the protagonists are about to die when out pops Quincey Arthur John Lucy Abraham Murray Harker the Fifth, armed with a giant knife and an encyclopedic knowledge of train schedules

#dracula #jonathan harker #mina murray #cant decide whether its funnier if theres just one kid per generation whos the bearer of the Curse #(name derived from the entire og polycule+ van helsing) and everyone else just has normal names #or if everyone in the family has at least five middle names just in different orders

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spielzeugkaiser · 9 months

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How it started-

How it's going!! They are a family and I am!!! also draw the hug you want to see in the show but they are forgiven because them meeting in brokilon was still soooo tender my HEART-

#the witcher season 3 #the witcher #geralt of rivia #geraskier #jaskier #the witcher spoilers #(at least discussed in the text)#they've come such a long way and I'm still sitting here like 🥺🥺🥺#man if you think of the timeline (which is so whack) Geralt and Jaskier have SEEN things #they have been going on for more than twenty years #they are FAMILY and that gets me so bad and I'll draw the whole squad probably tomorrow but!! look at them #somehow the end of season 3 is everything I wanted from season 1 when it came to those two because it had some S1 vibes again with the duo!#but it was so much more heartfelt and tender and not even an ounce of Geralt being seemingly annoyed of Jaskier just-#clenches fist #I'm so basic for still loving them so much but I simply do and will never stop 😔#but I gotta say I loved the yenralt this season too I can finally see it and it was very sweet at times

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puppetmaster13u · 29 days

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Prompt 261

“So is no one going to talk about the eldritch space child or…”

“I mean, do you want to get between a child and Batman? I think the only one who could even get close right now is Superman…”

“No you’re right, I think- oh my god the eldritch space child is playing with batman’s bat-ears and he’s not doing anything about it what the fuck I thought only Robins could get away with that-”

#DCxDP #DPxDC #Prompts #Alfred is Clockwork #AndCW having adopted Danny means Danny gets to meet his new big brother from another timeline #Bruce (Once Alfred confirms) is absolutely attached within moments #Autistic bois unite & talk for hours about hyperfixations #Clark has had time to make an entire homemade pie at this point #No Danny isn’t ghost king nor is Clockwork Cronus #Bruce: I have only had a baby brother for 5 hours but if anything happens to him I will let my kids break all the rules & kill everyone her #Signal: Yeah definitely Alfred’s he glows like him and everything #The rest of the bats: Alfred does what now-#Danny with dozens of big star eyes to Bruce: How would you feel about sisters #Bruce holding 3 children & 1 young adult: I am big brother now #Alfred scathingly says that Someone in the family *cough Jazz cough* will at least finish college & get their degree #Sometimes CW enjoys turning off his future-vision and vibing as a mostly-mortal #And Gotham is an old war buddy of his (Yes Gotham is the city equivalent of an Ancient) from the [Redacted] era of the Realms #And xer son & daughter are adorable- Bludhaven & Arkham love the vigilantes lots

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originalartblog · 9 months

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worse than a cockroach

#dazai has 'died' at least once (55 minutes) but actually twice (dead apple) before and he keeps coming up with new one-liners #he'll figure out the coolest one for when the real deal happens (on his death bed surrounded by his friends and family at 90)#in the meantime he lives for the drama #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd fanart #bsd dazai #bsd dazai osamu #bsd fyodor #bsd fyodor dostoevsky #bsd spoilers #bsd manga spoilers #bsd 109 #nawy's comics

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aunmenosheteroenespanol · 12 days

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2.12 Chimney Begins - 2.09 Hen Begins - 2.16 Bobby Begins Again - 7.04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered

Tommy's family arc

#911 #911edit #911 abc #911 show #911 spoilers #911 season 7 #tommy kinard #evan buckley #evan 'buck' buckley #kinley #bucktommy #kinkley #tevan #pick a ship name you guys and thanks for picking tevan the most correct name #anyway analysis time!#looking back with Modern Knowledge tm about why tommy acts the way he does in the past... babygirl you were so closeted I'm so proud #babygirl was back there getting into narnia #he was so resistant to letting go of the pseudo-family he'd found at the 118 in chimney begins #even tho it was a good old boys club that he knew he really didn't fit into he was making himself fit because at least it was something #but then he let chimney in and then hen came around and he saw a very queer person being openly queer and not giving a fuck what they think #and I think his behavior in that episode was trying to support hen as much as he could without outing himself #because like. how do you give up years of relative safety with people who do care about you they just won't like you anymore if you're *you #then he meets buck in s7 which is like 10-20 years later timeline is fake and he's like oh. this is what unconditional family is #and he's like oh. maybe I can come back. maybe I can be part of this again somehow. maybe we've both grown enough #or at the very least he'll be close to something he never believed would really happen for him #rant over tevan my beloved tim minear pillow cold both sides god bless #my edits

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httpiastri · 1 month

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this is now my roman empire

"ollie, are you with us?" "ah- i see my team!! but i don't know where… ah, i see them there!!! 😁😁"

#the prema family ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ i love this so much #love them all #ollie my cutest baby :( im so proud already #but also so nervous for the race aaaaa #at least he looks less nervous than yesterday!!! 🫶#f1 #formula 1 #formula one #f2 #formula two #formula 2 #ollie bearman #prema racing #ferrari driver academy #scuderia ferrari #ferrari racing #jeddah gp 2024 #jeddah 2024

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mohabbaat · 27 days

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the british royal family is going through it.

#kate middleton #british royal family #(i hope at least one person gets the news through this post.)#uk politics

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deadsetobsessions · 3 months

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What Do You Have There?

A knife!

Danny plunked the butter knife in its pedestal of importance. The nice thing about having a billionaire vigilante for a... foster is the amount of money Danny was allowed to drop on his hobbies. For example, his extensive collection of souvenirs.

They're not just any old regular souvenirs. No, no, no. That would be so boring! No, these souvenirs, he obtained from the various muggings, knife fights, and various other situations he's been in ever since he was dropped ungraciously into Gotham.

The butter knife? Damian. Precocious, stabby Damian who he had startled into the stab instinct. A point of pride, really. Danny knew Damian was good at fighting! It was practically, in ghost terms, a super enthusiastic hello! Yes, the butter knife would be kept in the well lit part of the wall. Alfred had told him to stay home today to recuperate. He didn't need it, since the wound would heal in an hour or two, but he'd take staying at home any day.

A couple of hours later, well into the afternoon and right before what Danny knew to be their patrol hours, Danny had a visitor.

"Danny."

"Oh, hey, Damian! What's up?" Danny turned around to see Damian hovering awkwardly near the door.

"I am here to... check upon your wound. It is imperative that it gets proper treatment."

Ancients, Damian was exactly like those alley kids. He just ate a thesaurus instead of the drawling accent the alley kids picked up. Which meant Damian endeared himself to Danny pretty quickly. Like a little ghostling.

"Oh, I'm good. See? No blood is leaking out of the wound." Danny held up spotless bandages.

Danny watched Damian step into his haunt- his room- with a pleased hum. Damian inspected the bandages and stepped back with a sharp nod of approval. His eyes flicked to the wall that Danny was rearranging (again) and did a double take at the butter knife in the middle.

"Is that the butter knife I stabbed you with?"

"Why, yes, it is!" Danny beamed.

"Why on earth would you display that?"

"Because you stabbed me with it?"

"That makes absolutely no sense, you simpleton! When someone stabs you, stab them back!"

"That would be mean!"

Damian spluttered. Danny tugged the kid closer to the wall, cheering inwardly as Damian didn't shove him away. It might be because he was exaggeratedly wincing as he moved his "injured arm" but Danny has learned to take a win where he could find them, especially with ghosts. Not that Damian was a ghost, but he sure acted like one.

"Do you want to see my collection?"

"Your collection?"

"Yeah!" Without giving him time to answer, Danny barreled ahead. "So this is the knife you stabbed me with. Which, by the way, was an awesome show of strength and accuracy."

Damian grimaced. Danny continued blithely, secretly memorizing Damian's reactions to laugh at later.

"And this is the knife those guys stabbed me with that one time Cass found me. And this one is a bullet someone shot at me down by the docks. I think I interrupted some kind of meeting?"

Damian's jaw had a slight tick to it that would have been a baffled frown on anyone else.

"And when was this?"

"Oh, like a week ago."

"What? When did you go to the docks?!"

"At night. I couldn't sleep."

"And you went to the docks?! How did you even get there?!"

"Walked," Danny lied, like a lying liar. He floated, obviously, but none of them knew that. "Anyways, this is a law book! Someone threw it at my head!"

"Hey, guys! What're you doing?"

Danny and Damian turned around.

"Richard? Brown? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Bruce wanted me to come back for the weekend," Dick said. Danny knew it was code for "something's going down and we need back up." Man, he still couldn't believe they didn't know he knew they were crime fighting vigilantes.

"Same!" Stephanie said. Danny was glad to see that her wounds from "cartwheeling in the manor" were healed.

"I see. Danny was showing me his collection of... objects people have used as weapons against him."

"What?!"

"Yeah!" Danny beamed, completely innocent. "Come on! I'll show you!"

With that, Danny continued to ramble. He just knew that the way Dick's and Stephanie's smiles strained would give him a good laugh for weeks to come. "And this is the glass bottle a drunk tried to shank me with in Crime Alley, and this is a knife the Red Hood himself threw at me."

Dick interrupted, face stiff. "Hood threw a knife at you?!"

"Yeah, but that was because my kids broke into his safe house and I was trying to get them to stop looting the place. And he didn't know I was a kid too, so he aimed a gun at my head. He shot at me too, but I couldn't go back to get the bullet, or else it would have joined my collection." Danny grabbed a box and shook it, metal rattling inside.

Dick smiled sweetly, Stephanie and Damian inching away from it.

"Oh, wow, I see!"

----

In his apartment, Jason shuddered. He grabbed his guns.

"Something's wrong. I just know it," he muttered to himself.

----

Danny smiled innocently as he described the horrific, near death events he got his souvenirs from.

"This is my bullet box! Man, Gotham has a lot of gun fights. I got shot so many times!" Danny complained, shaking the box like a rattling toy.

"Did you know Danny snuck out to go to the bay?" Damian snitched immediately, like a snitch.

"The Bay?! Danny! You know that's where people dump bodies, right?!" Stephanie poked him in the arm.

"Yeah, but like... I wouldn't die. And besides! I missed my friends!"

"You mean the minions you made in Crime Alley?" Steph asked. Danny pouted, eyeing the way Dick's gaze roved over his souvenirs and paling the more he realized how often Danny "got hurt."

Damian bumped a shoulder against Dick's arm. Danny returned to the conversation.

"If anything, I'm their minion." He said, remembering the times the Alley kids sent him on food runs.

"Fear Danny, the overlord of street rats."

Danny snorted. And- "Oh! Yeah, there was like a weird owl looking guy? And then they stabbed me with a finger and I kept it because woah, cool talon looking thing, right? And then they threw a bunch of those tiny knives at me? And then they just kind of vanished? Gotham is so weird."

And now, with all of them pale and stressed out of their minds, Danny swung a devastating blow called guilt trip.

"And that's the batarangs!" Three heads swung over to the line of batarangs. "Those vigilantes kept throwing them at me! One of them even hit me in the arm. Those things are sharp, man."

"Uh. Which ones?" Stephanie asked.

"Hm?" Danny hummed obliviously.

"Do you know which vigilantes?"

"Oh, it was like... the purple one. And the sword one? And like the one with the yellow insignia in the middle. And... all of them, I think? Except for signal. That guy's cool."

Stephanie and Damian had matching veiled looks of guilt. Dick shot them a sharp look. Danny decided to deal the last bit of damage to Dick.

"I'm glad you guys are way less stabby than the general Gotham public though, butter knife incident aside. At least I don't have to worry about you guys getting into danger, right? If you guys got hurt like my family did... I don't know..."

Danny smiled-squinted at them, channeling Cujo at his cutest and saddest: when he doesn't get to eat off of Danny's plate. So, pretty sad and pathetic.

"Uh, yeah." Dick said, guilt splayed all over his face. "Alfred said dinner was almost ready."

"Yes," Damian cleared his throat, looking away. "We shall partake in Pennyworth's hard work."

"Ahaha!" Stephanie laughed, nervously. "Welp, let's go bother Tim!"

Falling into step behind them, Danny grinned.

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jhonnyhotbody · 21 days

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It gets ransacked every week

This was them b4 they got their wives

#It's hard to eat that many calories okay #and who wouldn't want Alfred's leftovers #even if his dead rn #Stealing is bad #This post does not condone stealing #B4 the married speedster got married they had at least a singular spring cheese in their fridge #bart allen #Stealing from a rich is okay tho #wally west #flash family #This applies to stealing from Oliver #batfam #batman

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fictionadventurer · 9 months

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I have to talk about Chester Arthur. His story makes me go crazy. A mediocre president from the 1880s who's completely forgotten today has one of the best redemption stories I've ever heard and I need to make people understand just how cool his story is.

So, like, he starts out as this idealist, okay? He's the son of an abolitionist minister and becomes famous as a New York lawyer who defends the North's version of Rosa Parks whose story desegregates New York City's trolley system.

Then he starts getting pulled into politics and becomes one of the grimiest pieces of the political machine. He wants money, power, prestige, and he gets it. He becomes the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, the most feared political boss in the nation, a guy who will throw his weight around and do the most ruthless things imaginable to keep his friends in power and destroy his enemies.

Because Arthur's this guy's top lackey, he gets to be Controller of the Port of New York--the best-paying political appointment in the country, because that port brings in, like, 70% of the federal government's funds in tariffs. He gets a huge salary plus a percentage of all the fines they levy on lawbreakers, and because he's not afraid to make up infractions to fine people over, he is absolutely raking in the dough. Making the rough equivalent of $1.3 million a year--absolutely insane amounts of money for a government position. He's spending ridiculous sums on clothes, buying huge amounts of alcohol and cigars to share with people as part of his job recruiting supporters to the party, going out nearly every night to wine and dine people as part of his work in the political machine. He's living the high life. Even when President Hayes pulls him from his position on suspicions of fraud, he's still living a great life of wealth, power, and prestige.

Then in 1880, his beloved wife dies. While he's out of town working for a political campaign. And he can't get back in time to say goodbye before she dies. Because he's a guy who has big emotions, it absolutely tears him up inside, especially because Nell resented how much his political work kept him away from home. He has huge regrets, but he just moves in with Roscoe Conkling and keeps working for the political machine.

And then he gets a chance to be vice president. The Republican Party has nominated James Garfield, a dark horse candidate who wants to reform the spoils system that has given Conking his power and gave Arthur his position as Port Controller. Conkling is pissed, and he controls New York, and since the party's not going to win the election without New York, they think that appointing Conkling's top lackey as vice-president will pacify him.

They're wrong--Conkling orders Arthur to refuse--but Arthur thinks this sounds like a great opportunity. The only political position he's ever held is Port Controller--a job he wasn't elected to and that he was pulled from in disgrace. Vice President is way more than he could ever have hoped for. It's a position with a lot of political pull and zero actual responsibilities. He'll get to spend four years living in up in Washington high society. It's the perfect job! Of course he accepts, and Conkling comes around when he figures out that he can use this to his advantage.

When Garfield becomes president, Arthur does everything he can to undermine him. He uses every dirty political trick he can think of to block everything that Garfield wants to do. He refuses to let the Senate elect a president pro tempore so he can stay there and influence every bill that comes through. He all but openly boasts of buying votes in the election. He's so much Conkling's lackey that he may as well be the henchman of a cartoon supervillain. On Conkling's orders, he drags one of Garfield's Cabinet members out of bed in the middle of the night--while the guy is ill--to drag him to Conkling's house so he can be forced to resign. He's just absolutely a thorn in the president's side, a henchman doing everything he can to maintain the corrupt spoils system.

Then in July 1881, when Arthur's in New York helping Conkling's campaign, the president gets shot. By a guy who shouts, "Now Arthur will be president!" just after he fires the gun. Arthur has just spent the past four months fighting the president tooth and nail. Everyone thinks he's behind the assassination. There are lynch mobs looking to take out him and Conkling. The papers are tearing him apart.

Arthur is absolutely distraught. He rushes to Washington to speak with the president and assure him of his innocence, but the doctors won't let him in the room. He gets choked up when talking to the First Lady. Reporters find him weeping in his house in Washington. Once again, death has torn his world apart and he's not getting a chance to make amends.

Arthur goes to New York while the president is getting medical treatment, and he refuses to come to Washington and take charge because he doesn't dare to give the impression that he's looking to take over. No one wants Arthur to be president and he doesn't want to be president, and the possibility that this corrupt political lackey is about to ascend to the highest office in the land is absolutely terrifying to everyone.

Then in August, when it's becoming clear that the president is unlikely to recover, he gets a letter. From a 31-year-old invalid from New York named Julia Sand. A woman from a very politically-minded family who has been following Arthur's career for years. And she writes him this astounding letter that takes him to task for his corrupt, conniving ways, and the obsession with worldly power and prestige that has brought him wealth and fame at the cost of his own soul--and she tells him that he can do better. In the midst of a nationwide press that's tearing him apart, this one woman writes to tell him that she believes he has the capacity to be a good president and a good man if he changes his ways.

And then he does. After Garfield dies, people come to Arthur's house and find servants who tell them that Arthur is in his room weeping like a child (I told you he had big emotions), but he takes the oath of office and ascends to the presidency. And he becomes a completely different man. His first speech as president mentions that one of his top priorities is reforming the spoils system so that people will be appointed based on merit rather than getting appointed as political favors with each change in the administration. Even though this system made him president. When Conkling comes to Arthur's office telling him to appoint his people to important government positions, Arthur calls his demands outrageous, throws him out, and keeps Garfield's appointees in the positions. "He's not Chet Arthur anymore," one of his former political friends laments. "He's the president."

He loses all his former political friends. He's never trusted by the other side. Yet he sticks to his guns and continues to support spoils system reform. He prosecutes a postal service corruption case that everyone thought he would drop. He's the one who signs into law the first civil service reform bill, even though presidents have been trying to do this for more than ten years, and he's the person who's gained all his power through the spoils system. He immediately takes action to enforce this bill when he could have just dropped it. He becomes a champion of this issue even though it's the last thing anyone would have expected of him.

He oversees naval reform. He oversees a renovation of the White House. He still prefers the social duties of the presidency, but he's respectable in a way that no one expected. Possibly because Julia Sand keeps sending him letters of encouragement and advice over the next two years. But also because he's dying.

Not long after ascending to the presidency, he learns he's suffering from a terminal kidney disease. And he tells no one. He keeps going about his daily life, fulfilling his duties as president, and keeps his health problems hidden. Once again, death is upending his life, and this time it's his own death. He's lived a life he's ashamed of, and he doesn't have much time left to change. He enters the presidency as an example of the absolute worst of the political system, and leaves it as a respectable man.

He makes a token effort to seek re-election, but because of his health problems, he doesn't mind at all when someone else gets the nomination. He dies a couple of years after leaving office. The day before his death, he orders most of his papers burned, because he's ashamed of his old life--but among the things that are saved are the letters from Julia Sand, the woman who encouraged him to change his ways.

This is an astounding story full of so many twists and turns and dramatic moments. A man who falls from idealism into the worst kind of corruption and then claws his way back up to decency because of a series of devastating personal losses and unexpected opportunities to do more than he could have ever hoped to do. I just go crazy thinking about it and I need you all to understand just how amazing this story is.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #i thought about his story again this morning #and was once again struck by the desire to chase people down and make them understand just how amazing this story is #and instead of harassing random strangers i decided to inflict it on tumblr again #my original essay was rather too long and dry and tangled up in too many other details #and didn't quite capture the 'i want to chase you down and look you in the eye and make you freak out about this with me' vibe of this stor #this still doesn't quite capture it but at least it's shorter #and prevents me from rambling to unsuspecting family members #sorry for inflicting this on you again but what else am i supposed to do?

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