white-throated-packrat

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RIP

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having pet stick bugs is fun because every so often i will hear the distinct sound of several stick bug falling and ill go to check on them and find them all in a pile on the ground of their enclosure and i have to figure out if theyve just decided that its floor time now or if they kept mistaking each other for actual sticks again and bundled together the ceiling until gravity got the best of them.

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DxP REWRITE - Gray Haze

Alternative title: “The moment when the sun peeks through the clouds” 🌥️

This might be Ingo’s most famous line in Legends Arceus. Along with the reference to Chandelure, this was when it was made clear that this isn’t an ancestor - this is Ingo himself.

He doesn’t linger very long on these memories in the moment, just commenting that “it appears much still lives on in [his] heart”. Now though…

—

🔼 Diamond x Pearl REWRITE 🔽

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Do you think Bruce Wayne would flirt with Benoit Blanc?

I think if Bruce ever found himself in a situation to meet Benoit Blanc, to his great chagrin, it’d be as Brucie Wayne. He’d be on some rich fuck’s island under cover when a murder happens and it’d be killing him that he can’t break cover to get a closer look at the body. And then along comes Benoit Blanc and Bruce decides, well he’s Brucie right now, it’d be weird if he didn’t flirt a little.

And hey, who knows, if Blanc likes him maybe he’ll let Bruce tag along and get into places Brucie wouldn’t normally be if he wasn’t trying to seduce this weirdly accented, tall glass of deductive skills. (And maybe he’s enjoying it a little more than he should, but technically he’s on vacation so…)

Blanc, of course, catches on and thinks Bruce has something to hide and is keeping him close because he thinks he’s either the killer or in on it.

Except that’s not what the evidence or instincts are actually telling him. Not really.

But he also can’t ignore the fact that Bruce managed to trip and fall directly into the filing cabinet in the office, causing the drawer to fly open and reveal the evidence Blanc’s looking for. Or that the billionaire has a slightly delayed reaction to seeing blood. Not much, but enough for Blanc to notice.

There’s also the way he keeps making suggestions that on the surface seem benign, but are nevertheless intended to lead Blanc toward where his own instincts are telling him to look. So either Brucie is one of those killers who likes to be involved in the investigation because they want to make sure you’re noticing their ‘genius’ or because they think they can control the narrative by being helpful, or…

“Y’know something, Mister Wayne…”

“Benoit, please,” Bruce says with a slow, seductive smile that unfurls like silk over rich velvet. “How many times do I have to ask? Call me Bruce.”

“… Bruce. You’ve been so remarkably helpful.”

“Oh, you know me. I always aim to please.”

Bruce’s smile takes on an electric edge that makes Benoit’s thumb slide to the gold wedding band on his ring finger. He’s a married man, he’s a married man…

“I can’t help but wonder, though,” Benoit says, matching Bruce’s smile for a knowing one of his own. “Don’t you get tired?”

His tone is off, he knows it is because Bruce’s expression doesn’t flicker, not even a jot. It’s just unnatural enough to be telling.

“Tired of what?” the younger man asks, just the right amount of cheerful confusion in his voice and an adorable title of his head like a puppy to make you miss the sharpness behind his eyes. The way his body is coiling tight. Ready for a fight.

“Of pretending,” Benoit says, lifting a cigar to his mouth, making a show of patting down his pockets for the lighter. “I know I surely do. It grates on a man, always being underestimated. Everyone thinking you’re not as sharp as you are. Not as clever, not as quick. It must be a relief, I think, to finally be seen…”

The hand that had been rummaging in his pocket shoots out, aiming for Bruce’s perfect face. Bruce deflects it, twisting Benoit’s hand in a viper-like move Benoit hasn’t seen since…

“Ra’s doesn’t train just anyone,” he says, acutely aware of how much Bruce’s expression has changed without so much of a flicker of muscle. How sharp and hard the angles of his face have become. How deadly. “I confess, I didn’t see it at first. You’re very good, Bruce. I never would have put two and two together if you hadn’t twisted Haggart’s elbow the way you did when he tried to grab Maxine.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “Take that as a compliment from one detective to another… Batman.”

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I'm pretty sure there are people allied with the 'Alliance Defending Freedom' that would like to reverse Loving vs Virginia, if only they could find the right case.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/magazine/scotus-transgender-care-tennessee-skrmetti.html

because of this will the supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges? and if you responded and bring up that old post from 2016 I'm aware about that but that was more about Trump and presidents being the ones overturning the decision and even with that point you brought up that even if he appointed a judge who lean towards anti-lgbt, that's still wouldn't happen even though I feel recently the supreme Court majority seems to be behind Trump fully on certain things.

If you've read that far back in my blog---which, wow, that is some real commitment there, pal---then you know that for a case to be brought before any court, it must be justiciable. There must be a legal injury to the plaintiff, one within the authority of the court to resolve. Additionally, the case has to make it through the lower courts, then be appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Court must make the decision to hear it in full rather than denying certiorari. Therefore, the Supreme Court can't simply issue a statement to the effect of: "whoopsie! actually, we made a mistake with Obergefell, never mind that whole gay marriage thing." There is a process to follow, and it can take years, even decades, to undo Supreme Court rulings.

That said.....could it happen? Yes.

If you've read that 2016 post linked above, you know that I reference Roe v. Wade with a truly laughable amount of confidence, given that it was overturned in 2022 with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The Alliance Defending Freedom is active and vile, one of the major actors behind the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling as well as Dobbs. I would be entirely unsurprised if they have a gameplan for Obergefell; if there isn't a working group within the ADF right now discussing how to weaken, restrict, or overturn it, I will eat my hat. (I checked the wikipedia page for US v. Skrmetti, just to see if they were listed---they weren't, but that doesn't mean they weren't present, invested, helping draft the original anti-trans legislation or fund the litigation.)

We do know what the Supreme Court is set to hear before the session adjourns. (This tracker from the nytimes is helpful, if you want a quick summary.) It includes some staggering issues---birthright citizenship, racial gerrymandering, whether religious students can 'opt out' of class discussion with LGBTQ+ themes; plus the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare is back on the docket again. We won't know until the next session whether the court wants to reconsider Obergefell, if they'll have adequate, justiciable grounds to do so at that point.

Maybe if you're lucky, they'll focus on mifepristone and prohibiting inter-state travel for the purposes of abortion. Or hey, they can always stick with birthright citizenship, give themselves even more teeth---build on the Bush-era rulings about torturing non-citizens in extrajudicial prisons. Chevron is already dead so they're free to fuck up the administrative agencies, but I hear the limited powers of the presidency are just a bummer, maybe think about expanding those....

Look, when I made those posts nine years ago, it took me a little less than a week to recant---I described myself as "singing ‘cockeyed optimist’ wearing rose-colored glasses" when that wasn't what the moment demanded. That kind of Pollyanna energy is still not helpful. Nevertheless, I can't avoid a certain pang of sadness in reading Elie Mystal's article on the ruling, realizing that he's shifted register. He talks about the case as joining the anti-canon of Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson with full awareness that he may not see its reversal. Mr. Scott did not live to see the Civil War, let alone the 14th amendment granting him and his Black contemporaries the citizenship they sought. It took 60 years to get to Brown v. Board of Education and the acknowledgement that separate can never be equal. It took 20+ years for the government to apologize for Korematsu and the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII---the Supreme Court itself only recognized its error in 2018. And these are the headliner cases; never mind that court rulings often function as death by a thousand papercuts, giving the justices plausible deniability should they ever be confronted with the misery they rubber-stamped.

So could it happen with same-sex marriage? Well.

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The American housing crisis is a theft, not a shortage

Economics From the Top Down: Since Reagan, the US has been on a massive policy of redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich.

By returning this stolen money, the US housing crisis would evaporate. No, I’m not kidding. If the United States were to undo its experiment with rampant inequality and return the distribution of income to the levels found in 1970, the housing crisis would disappear.

via

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This absurd yarn is 45% cashmere, 55% silk. I have never worked with anything even remotely like it - no cashmere, no silk, and definitely nothing so thin as 92 wraps per inch. Ninety fucking two.

New, it originally cost £200/kg. A very, very kind weaver in Scotland was de-stashing and sent me 5 kilos for £50 total (plus shipping).

I have many dreams for it but right now I mostly have screams. I have no real idea how it will behave in weaving, so I've wound a small warp for some sampling and a scarf. This is 3.5km of yarn (a bit over 2 miles) and it weighs 119 grams (a bit over 4 ounces?). For those of you playing along at home, each 1kg cone is thus 30 kilometres of yarn (nearly 20 miles). It does not feel like any other yarn I have ever touched.

Because it's so thin (difficult to handle or even see) and so valuable, I am using it with a "dummy warp" - I have left the remains of the baby blanket warp on the loom and then I tie the new warp to it, thread by thread by single fucking thread. This means I don't have to set up the loom all over again and almost none of the fancy yarn will become "loom waste", the unweaveable section of warp at the end of a project. But it also means tying every knot, perfectly in order for each end of both the old and new warps, without the cat getting too interested.

24 knots down, a mere 1000 to go...

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clark and bruce are often drawn so similarly that the only thing telling them apart is their clothing. really love that dan mora draws them so that their features are actually distinct

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[The Little Things]

<<More Comics

I found this really old comic. You ever spend so much time with someone you just know what they like?

There is a second part to this, but I need to reformat it. Did you want to see it? Yes🔼/No🔽

Featuring Daki by @anime-grimmy

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I just did this.

All you have to do is fill out your name, address, phone and email fields (required for all letters/emails to the U.S. Congress), and hit 'Send'. The email is pre-written (I personalized it a bit, but you don't have to), and it is automatically sent to your senators.

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This paints such a beautiful picture

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Check out the bonus panel on the site!

SMBC ◆ PATREON ◆ INSTAGRAM ◆ BLUESKY ◆ STORE

Buy this comic as a print!

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*From r/geometricnightmares: Geometric nightmares are "a specific type of dream, often occurring during illness, that involves shapes or objects, themes of infinity, pressure, an overwhelming sense of unease or terror and anxiety, a void and incomprehensibly large or small objects, and/or a crushing silence."

They're kinda hard to explain; check out the subreddit for some examples.