What Are Ukuleles Made Of?

Reason #6,382 on why I don't want children:

My 4 year old nephew had diarrhea this morning and his mom had to clean up the mess. Twice.

It was a dark and spermy night...

I love showing people a picture of my cat for the first time and they go "aww" and then I say "her name is Pigeon" and they go "aww her name is PIGEON" bc this knowledge has made her cuter

did not everyone get a lecture from their dad to have a firm handshake? like sir what am I supposed to do with this limp fish you just handed me

Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable

““It was so annoying when it started and so sad when it stopped””

— TechnoDad, about Techno making noise at 2 am

Danny always knew tax evasion ran in his veins. His parents hadn’t been the most… morally sound of people, and less so as ecto-scientists.

He just didn’t think their lessons would ever result in a criminal empire that spanned the entire city and then some. Danny hadn’t seen it coming. His parents definitely wouldn’t have.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne. Mr. Fox.”

Danny ‘the Phantom’ Fenton sat down across from a rather tense looking (to Danny’s enhanced senses, anyways) Brucie Wayne and his right hand, Lucius Fox. He smiled pleasantly, matching Brucie’s vacant smile with that touch of Midwest suburban mother smile.

With his acquisition of multiple Gotham companies, his rather newly established Fentom Co. became one of the largest holding companies in Gotham, the first being Wayne Enterprises and the second being Drake Industries. After months of constantly working his butt off while fending off assassins, reforming Gotham’s slums and cleaning up some of the streets, and taking care of his nest of street kids, Danny garnered enough power to even stand close to Wayne Enterprises in terms of financial powers.

The topic of this meeting was, of course, the proposed merger of Wayne Enterprises’ Medical R&D division with Fentom Co.’s pharmaceutical department. Usually, Wayne Enterprises wouldn’t even consider such an offer, as their Medical R&D division was the most well funded and least likely to be part of a Rogue’s scheme- and therefore most beloved- department of the same nature in Gotham. However, Danny had something the other offers didn’t.

Blackmail.

His overly polite smile widened as Bruce’s mask twitched. His eyes slid over to Lucius Fox.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’ve heard much about your genius in… research and development.”

By that, Danny meant that he knew Lucius Fox helped develop Batman’s tech.

He did a lot of stalking that week. It felt rather… invasive, even if he did get a bunch of juicy secrets.

You know what they say: dead men tell no tales… but halfas are generally blabbermouths.

“Is that so? It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Fenton.” The man quickly glanced between the youngsters, accurately predicting that this might have something to do with Bruce’s active nightlife.

“Yes, it is such a pleasure to meet you.”

Wow, Danny didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone sound both so perky and dead inside at the same time, except for Susan at Gotham High’s bake sale.

Bruce wishes he could be a Susan. He’s at best a Becky.

“Will you be staying, Mr. Fox? You’re the head of the R&D department, correct?”

“Ah, yes-”

“Oh, Lucius! I think you had an appointment with the finance department right now! I heard Sally talk about it, you know!”

Lucius Fox sent an unreadable look at Bruce before rallying.

“Oh, it must have slipped my mind. My apologies, Mr. Fenton, it seems as though I can not skip this appointment.”

“That’s alright. I suppose it gives you… plausible deniability… should things go wrong, haha!” Danny allowed his smile to widen a little further than natural. Bruce tensed but Lucius Fox simply politely smiled and left the room.

Ignorance is bliss and all that, Danny amusedly thought.

As the door shut with a click, Bruce dropped the vacant Brucie smile and sighed.

“What do you want,” he gritted out. Danny wasn’t about to let that slide, not after he spent the better part of this month wrangling Bruce’s problem children.

“Ah, it must be because I’m from the Midwest, Brucie, but where I come from, we value these things called manners.”

You uneducated jerk, he doesn’t say.

Danny leaned back in his chair, loosening his smile into something relaxed and sharp.

“…” Oh, boy, Danny could just hear the other man’s blood pressure rising. “What is the purpose of your visit, Mr. Fenton?”

“Relax, Brucie,” Danny sing-songed in a non-relaxing way. “I’m just here to discuss a possible merger that I’m sure you’ll agree to, and give you a couple of updates on your… wayward bird.”

He heard Bruce take a slow, controlled breath. “Very well. Where. Would. You. Like. To. Start.”

Danny ignored the gritted out sentence. He passed a contract to Bruce, who took it like he was handling a live bomb.

“Here’s the proposal, Mr. Wayne. Please, look it over.”

He watched as Bruce looked over the contract with an eagle eye before lowering it, scrutinizing Danny.

“This is… very fair.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. Of course it was fair. Danny wasn’t interested in exploiting the Waynes, despite them being very able to afford it.

He’d brought fifty manufacturing sites for pharmaceuticals, and offered up a building where both companies could send their workers. He provided top notch security- that definitely didn’t have any talons on staff, what were they talking about?- that came from his own security division. Granted, most of them were reformed and trained goons, but hey, creating jobs can only help Gotham’s economy and help break the cycle of poverty, right? Guaranteed by the Wayne name and, most importantly, uncompromised medicine that was accessible to everyone would be a damn good start. He’d also have Penguin’s empire to distribute it to those who couldn’t make it to a clinic or a store, and there were plans in there to work with and establish contracts with Gotham’s welfare department. Well… once Danny finished replacing them with people who wouldn’t try to take a cut of the funds and actually cared about the people. He was thinking… the multitudes of poor grad students and parents that need income. He’s in the process of building childcare centers and…

It’s a good thing he managed to save money from the taxes (thank you, Gotham’s morally ambiguous tax experts that were in desperate need for clients! He could do it himself but having a team of accountants at the ready was seriously so helpful.) because ancients knows the government weren’t about to step into Gotham and help the people here. He needs so much money to pull all of this shit off and a lot of it has to be clean.

Danny inwardly sighed and marked another thing onto his to do list.

Make money laundering fronts.



“Of course, Mr. Wayne. You didn’t think I’d come in here demanding money, did you?”

“I considered it.”

“I am, in fact, trying to help Gotham. You might not agree with my methods, but I’d rather not damage Wayne Enterprises when it’s doing so much to help the people.”

Ugh, he was doing too much work. Danny just wanted to- hah- chill at home and read bed time stories to his kids.

Bruce Wayne, the specific blend between Brucie and Batman, regarded him silently. Danny felt like he went up a few notches in the respect ladder.

Nice.

“You’re a criminal.”

“Says the man in the bat-suit breaking into places and assaulting people.”

Bruce’s hands spasmed around the contract. Danny smiled at him, taking a sip of the coffee they’d prepared. Oo, nice!

“Ah, I heard you’re adopting- pardon, fostering- Tim Drake. Getting empty nest syndrome, Brucie?” He slipped back into using Bruce’s first name. The proposal was formal. This… was very much not.

“What about it?”

“That’s very kind of you. Speaking of which, well, of your birds, I was wondering if you remembered what I asked you to do.” Danny continued, not giving Bruce a chance to reply. “Didn’t I ask for you to keep your birds in line, Brucie?”

The CEO straightened even further, form filling out to be Batman’s imposing figure. “I did.”

“No, you didn’t. Do you know where your charge is, right now? No, not the formerly dead one,” Danny tilted his head, smile shrinking.

“Don’t you dare do anything to Tim. I swear, if you even lay a hand on a strand of his hair, I’ll-”

“Sit your Armani clad ass down, Bruce.” Danny snapped. “Your son’s in your office. I don’t harm children, and your assumptions are deeply insulting. Threaten me again, Bruce, and I’ll make sure you know exactly how much I know about your birds, your cousin, and the commissioner’s daughter.”

Bruce snarled but leashed his anger just enough to sit back down. He itched to go check on Tim, but leaving a threat like Phantom unwatched felt inherently wrong.

“Your other son,” Danny continued. “Is doing quite well. He’s learning that he has hobbies again. He’s actually working under me, you know.”

“He’s what.”

Oh, yeah, that tracks. It figured that Jason wouldn’t tell Bruce about anything. He’s still conflicted about his death. Danny got it.

“Ah, that’s precious information. You’ll have to offer something of equal value if you want to know. There is, on the other hand, a piece of information I’ll give you for free.”

Danny paused for the dramatic effect. It was lost on Bruce, the ultimate drama queen of this world.

“The League of Assassins are hanging around Hotham lately. It’s getting tedious, getting rid of them. I suggest talking to your old flame, you know, with words and what little communication skill you’ve got rattling around in your noggin to get them to pull back. Her interest is… unnaturally focused on Jason.”

Danny read the dark agreement swimming about Bruce’s face and inclined his head. “Should negotiations fail, rest assured that Jason will be protected.”

“…Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. Go ahead and discuss the contract with Mr. Fox, I am sure you’ll find little problems with it. Ah,” Danny stood up, fixing his suit jacket. “And you should probably check up on Timothy. He’s probably having a great time in your office, Mr. Wayne.”

“I’ll see you out.”

“Of course.”

Having Batman escorting him out should probably be more intimidating.

Danny stood in the elevator, waiting for Bruce’s contemplative silence to put itself into words.

Sure enough, “What… what kind of hobbies does Jason have now?”

“I’d tell you to ask him, but you two aren’t on speaking terms, are you? He likes books, of course, but recently, he’s found an interest in glass blowing. He made quite a bit of progress on his attempts at sun catchers.”

“I see.”

Well, Danny’s not about to step on that landmine any more than he has to.

——

“Danny.”

“Oh, hey, Jason. Sit down, we were about to have dinner.”

Jason clambered into the window. Danny sighed. He had a door, but by the way Jason never used it, it was like the door didn’t exist.

“Mind telling me why the old bastard showed up on my rooftops with a bunch of glass and glassblowing tools?”

Danny smiled. “No idea.”

“Uh huh.”

Danny placed a hand on his chest and put on his best woe-is-me expression. The teen’s face twitched in annoyance. “Doubt? At me? Why, I never!”

A bread roll thwacked him in the face.

Me, telling my family for the 50th time: i will never have children

My older sister, immediately: I predict that to be false

...good to know my desires are being taken care of

I mean, yes, I could have put all that in a single post, but an increasingly unhinged self-reblog chain has better dramatic pacing.

Okay… I’m going to rant about one of my colleagues and his reaction to Captain Marvel…

So please… watch out for spoilers and don’t read this if you haven’t watched the movie, and watch out also for some idiotic man… but I’m so pissed I have to let it out somewhere, and I’m sorry, it has fallen upon you all. Feel free to ignore.

So, my collegue went to see Captain Marvel this weekend too. And he is the perfect definition of evil… (honestly, he was okay before but now I’m so mad at him…).

So basically, we talked about the movie at lunch, and there was several things that bothered him. But I will spare you the details, and get to the point.

It all started because he thought Carol didn’t have such a great evolution through the movie, and that she was pretty much perfect at the beginning and still perfect at the end (which was not something wrong to say, only debatable, and I tried to debate with him on the matter, which is where it got out of hand).

So, I explained to him that there was actually a development of the character, as she started as a soldier forced to obey orders and control her emotions to a hero who listens to her heart and accepts herself fully instead of trying to fill up the case that had been created for her. But most importantly, it was all about emancipation : as a woman who had been told all her life that she couldn’t do this, and that, and that she should be more like this or like that, and then as a warrior to whom, once more, people dictated how she should be, the moment she controlled fully her powers was when she rose above it all and was merely herself, without all this toxic talk and pressure that had prevented her to live up to what she had always been capable of. And that was when she became a hero.

And here is when he pissed me off.

Because he was like :‘It’s a little exagerated to see it like that. She wasn’t always brainwashed and controlled.’

So I rose up to that and reminded him all the flashbacks where since childhood people tried to mold her into what a girl should be for society.

To what he replied: 'Hey, it’s a movie, it’s not that bad in real life, especially today. It was worth at the time the movie took place but today it’s not like that.’

To which I replied an aghast : 'Yes, it’s still like that. You just don’t know it’s still like that cause you’re a man, and you were not confronted to this problem, but trust me, as a woman, I can tell you that it’s still relevent.’

And if I already wanted to slap him with his previous answer, I wanted to punch him with the next remark:

'Now, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, it’s not what happens anymore.“

Like… the guy had the audacity to tell ME, a woman, that he knew better than ME how women are treated.

He then started to give me a thousand arguments about how there was actually 0 sexism in our society and that on the contrary, it was harder for men than for women.

I tried to fight back, and I’m sorry to have to admit that I lost it at one point and merely walked away before I would lose my job for punching a colleague. I wish I could say that I made him change his mind, but he was too stubborn and got me too angry for me to do that.

And he calls himself a feminist.

And I realized today that this kind of guy is a dangerous enemy for us, who wraps it all with sugar, and doesn’t see women as inferiors as such (at least that’s what he pretends), but will do whatever he can to stop any progress in our favour because he will find that it’s not 'fair for men’.

He did have the audacity to tell me that the fact that women are on average less paid than men was not true and a mere manipulation of numbers… we had a movement at my workplace for Women’s International Day, and were encouraged to leave our workplace at 15h40 instead of 17h30 because after that hour we are not paid, if we compare ourselves to men (I couldn’t leave that early because of my experiments, but I did leave earlier than usual). Like… it happened at your workplace. We received emails about it. And you are denying it?!?! On which planet are you living man?!?

Oh, I almost forgot that beautiful moment where, when I talked about the flashbacks and that they were examples of all these things she had been denied or mocked about because she was a woman, he clearly didn’t get the point of the movie, because he was like: 'well, she does fail everytime…’

No, man, she doesn’t fail, she GETS UP AGAIN. And that’s why she’s a hero even before her fists can throw energy. Because she fights against it all. And that is also an example that shows that EVERYTHING is more difficult for us, because of this behaviour men have towards us. He obviously didn’t agree with that explanation (I wasn’t surprised at that point).

Now, one last bit that pissed me off so much too was that he didn’t like the fact that she was so powerful. He was like :'what about Thor and the rest of the superheroes then?’

So I replied with an earnest: 'well, they’re still there. And they’re still great. And they still have powers. She’s just BETTER than them all. It doesn’t mean that they’re individually less powerful, she’s just MORE powerful than them all.’

He was very grumpy about this explanation, and was comparing her to Thor. And he was basically saying that the rest of the heroes would be useless with a character so powerful. To which I answered with a simple example :

Thor is the GOD of Thunder. He is more powerful than Hawkeye or Captain America, for example. (He did agree to that).

Now, Thor is MUCH MORE powerful than the rest of them, let’s be honest. I gave him some examples of his powers and he gladly agreed that he was stronger than Steve, for example. I then asked him if he thought that Steve was useless and not interesting. And he said no. I asked him if he thought that because Thor existed, the Captain was made uninteresting. And he said no.

So I brought upon him the truth: Carol is merely to Thor what Thor is to Steve. They are all interesting characters and they are all useful in different ways, one is simply more powerful than the other.

Even with this flawless logic I couldn’t bring him to realize that he was just not accepting it because she was a woman… (and it was clearly the case, trust me, it was actually the problem here).

I also told him that Thor would be the first fangirling over Carol and her powers as the example of anti-toxic-masculinity that he is. And he wasn’t convinced here again (clearly, he doesn’t understand the characters at al…)

So… sorry for the long rant but I am still pissed at him. And he is just such a dangerous guy in the end because he acts like he’s all for equality between men and women and everything, but as soon as one is stronger than a bunch of men, it’s the end of his world. And he is one of the sneaky ones who seem to be okay at first but will then slow down everything we try to improve. So fight the sneaky ones too, ladies. We need to bring these ones down too.

On the other hand, a friend of mine is a huge fan and he has spent the weekend repeating how Carol was amazing and it was awesome to finally have a superhero movie led by a woman that filled the theater with some real feminism the right way. And he too can’t wait to see Thor fangirling over Carol. He is one of the good ones, and I love him a lot.