Rob Secundus

@robertsecundus.bsky.social

1034 Followers 588 Following

failed academic, excommunicated catholic https://robsecundus.substack.com/

"One Night Only- Singles Opening Night Event"
Bane: no one cared who i was till i twanged the bow [beat] CIA: If I threw you out of this plane, would you die? Bane: It would be extremely offensive CIA: You're an understanding Guy Bane: To Zeus
Absolute Batman punts a child
DG: Speaking of books—did you start it? DL: Oh. Yeah. I uh. I started listening to the audiobook. DG: What do you think??? DL: Oh, I love it. It’s so. it’s a book! DG: What’s your favorite part??? DL: Oh, uh, it’s gotta be, the dungeons, definitely. I love those dungeons. And how he, uh, crawls through them. I’m uh, I’m not very far.
Take 6: The Odyssey (2026) is a movie where Anne Hathaway’s and Robert Pattinson’s faces are really really big if you see it in Imax
Take 5: The Odyssey is a Prequel to, Sequel to, and Rejection of Oppenheimer
Take 4: The Odyssey (2026) is Christopher Nolan cornering you ata party to explain his theories about the Bronze Age Collapse and how Homer fits into all that
Take 3: The Odyssey (2026) is Tom King shit For those unaware, Tom King is one of the most successful writers in superhero comics working today. He got his start by writing a graphic novel about CIA Agents in Iraq, and playing up how he, himself, was a CIA guy in Iraq, and so he has Seen Some Shit. This made him a Cool Guy, cool enough to write Batman. Unlike nerds, he’s experienced some of the stuff that Batman has. And maybe did warcrimes?13 Maybe he did warcrimes and is really sad about it? And that makes his stuff deep? Anyway. That’s his ethos, and that’s what a good chunk of the movie felt like, to me. Odysseus is very often framed like a War on Terror veteran who saw his men do evil shit and feels real bad about it.14 Zendaya is Athena because Zendaya was some innocent lady that he watched his men behead, in Troy, at the same time they knocked down an Athena statue. Every time he sees Zendaya, he’s having a PTSD flashback to watching someone else do warcrimes.
Take 2: The Odyssey (2026) is Troy 1.5 A lot of the changes the movie makes are just kind of baffling. Clytemnestra just stabs Agamemnon, rather than catching him in a net. Odysseus and Penelope never talk about their secret treebed. Helen doesn’t try to lure Menelaus and Odysseus out of the horse, nor does she drug everyone when Menelaus harshes the vibe of the party. Nausicaä and the Phaeacians are just…not in the movie, functionally replaced by Calypso asking Odysseus “do you remember things, now that I’ve stopped drugging you? Please have another flashback now.” Neither is the shade of Achilles (nor most of the shades in the Hades episode). Any of these edits in isolation are fine, but the end-result is the a lot of the texture of the poem and its characters are lost. Helen and Menelaus are less complicated. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon are more boring (as is Hades). Nothing substantive replaces the very evocative bed at the heart of Odysseus and Penelope’s home.6 But some of the changes are intelligible. Remember Troy (2004)? Troy, infamously, attempted to do a kind of Gritty, Realistic Iliad, cutting out all those pesky gods and magic rivers.7 The result is pretty boring.8
Take 1: The Odyssey (2026) is a somewhat sincere adaptation of The Odyssey (750 BCE) that makes a few interesting changes The film opens3 with a bard chant-shouting a kind of fragmented-variation of the openings of the Illiad and The Odyssey: “a face. a fleet. a war.” etc. At the head of the hall, behind a screen, Penelope sits weaving; within the hall, the Suitors are carousing and bullying Telemachus. In a few minutes, Eumaeus is talking about how he’s a really loyal swineherd, and both he and Mentor and Mentoring Telemachus. Argos is there, waiting for Odysseus’ return. It’s the stuff you know! From The Odyssey!
Baja blast maxing
5/8 2026
Stephen Wacker replaces Ceebs, Marvel Comics moves to LA.
10/10, though as time goes the more I think it and Returns deserve to swap
61/170
Death
a padded cell with books and a desk
I know that college administrators, as a whole, fear spending money on anything that might actually lead to students learning something, but I also know you love, above all else, getting donors to build random bullshit on campus. I’m willing to bet the latter desire outweighs the prior phobia.
Analogue Proposal 1: The Humanities Reading Lab Most students today would rather cheat than read a book or write a paper. Most students today3 would rather spend their time scrolling than reading. Your average college freshman is more likely to have planned a school shooting than to have read a novel in the past year.4 As noted in the reporting linked above, students quickly give up when faced with the “Old English” of 20th century literature. Reading is at once boring and anxiety-inducing to the typical student. This is why the situation seems so impossible to instructors: you can’t force students to do something that they find emotionally/spiritually/psychically painful. Or so people think, because we also all know that if you stick someone in a room with nothing but their own thoughts and a method for electrocuting themselves, they will choose to electrocute themselves.
Three years ago, I promised an American reader that I would translate “Megami Tensei” into English myself. In order to fulfill that promise, I am publishing this translation. However, since contractual matters were resolved this month, my partner and I are in discussions with an overseas publisher regarding the translation. My translation is not polished enough as English. But it is faithful to the original text. I hope it will help a translator I trust understand my Japanese. And I believe that translator will turn the sequels to “Megami Tensei”—"Warrior of the Demon City” and “The End of Reincarnation”—into wonderful English novels. Therefore, I will remove this text by the end of July. In the meantime, I hope you will take the time to savor what “Digital Devil Story” is all about.
3k words
Kiryu Eva
iPhone message that I need to have eleven fucking gigabytes of storage open
5k words
assault on precinct 13 ‘76
I think maybe the reason more families aren’t planning on taking their kids to see SUPERGIRL this Fourth of July weekend is that it’s about an army of interplanetary pedophiles
Ranked 142 in superheroes
Supergirl
a handsome monk skeleton talks about the video essay "Aesthetic Deception," asking, "Is [this video essay] right?" His raw charisma motivates you to subscribe
Finally, just because the executive order has some lawful applications and can survive a facial challenge does not mean it is lawful across the board and immune from nar- rower legal challenges. Besides addressing temporary vis- itors, the order also denies the benefits of citizenship to chil- dren born in this country to parents who make their permanent home here, but do so in defiance of federal im- migration laws. The government insists that aspect of the order can survive any possible legal challenge, too, because individuals can secure domicile in this country only if they do so in compliance with federal law. See ante, at 57–58, n. 10 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). About that, however, I harbor doubts. Perhaps Wong Kim Ark does not squarely foreclose the government’s posi- tion. After all, that case addressed a child born to parents who lawfully resided in this country. Still, I wonder: Is a child born here to parents who have long chosen to make this Nation their permanent home not a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment solely because his parents’ pres- ence violates statutory law? If those parents are not domi- ciled here, then where are they domiciled? And if the an- swer is nowhere, how can we reconcile that conclusion with this Court’s longstanding recognition that every person is domiciled somewhere? See Desmare v. United States, 93 U. S. 605, 610 (1877). Because the executive order is not facially invalid, these questions may not be properly before us. But their answers are undeniably important to a Nation committed to a view of citizenship open to all children born here to parents who can call this country their home.
Post-Script: The Shin Megami Tensei Enjoyment Roadmap EDIT: Forgot to include this, originally! Apologies! Stage One: Persona in its entirety Persona 5: Royal Persona 4: Golden Persona 3: Reload Persona 3: Portable (Female Protagonist Route) Persona 2: Innocent Sin16 Persona 2: Eternal Punishment Persona 1 Stage Two: Modern Interlude Metaphor ReFantazio Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance: Creation Route
panel 1: nancy, grumpy, in bed. Fritzi says "you've got a big test tomorrow-- I want you to get to sleep early and be well-rested--- good night----" Panel 2: Nancy, gesturing: "It's still LIGHT out--- shouldn't you be saying "good day"??? Not gilchrist's best
top panel: Nancy returns to her blasphemous display one last time then: sluggo pretends to drive the batmobile. nancy insults the cardboard box he's using. Sluggo retorts that his box is "better than what you've got," but Nancy, clever Nancy, gets the last laugh, by proclaiming that she's got "Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane." On 9/11, of all days, nancy? for shame
TLDR: apparently in Gilchrist Nancy, fritzi marries the dweeb on the right. I have seen the comic where they get married approximately 1200 times this week. The comic is largely about how Gilchrist loves the Beach Boys. It is possibly the word strip I have ever read Panel 1: Caption box: SEPTEMBER 11th. Sluggo and Nancy hold hands in prayer at the dinner table. In the fourground, one of their idolatrous candles returns Panel 2: The second candle stands in front of Fritzi, who is holding the hand of the kind of guy who you'd imagine really enjoys guy gilchrist comics. Behind him is a folded american flag, presumably from Sluggo's Army Family of Army Veterans, two of whom seem to act as Sluggo's Dads in the Gilchrist run.
TLDR: Things wouldn't have gone down like that if sluggo had been there Panel 1: Sluggo and nancy crying. Narration: "This summer, we visited the sept. 11th memorial near Shanksville, Pennyslvania-- the rock marks the final resting place of United Flight 93" Panel 2: an extremely buxom and melancholic fritzi, in a skintight, black sleeveless dress, her head bowed, next to the memorial. Narration: "Looking at the chiseled names, the handmade cards, the peaceful field-- our hearts and minds became overwhelmed with emotion-- God bless all the heroes of 9/11 and their loved ones-- and God Bless America"
the idolatrous altar recurs, now colourized
sluggo and nancy pray at an idolotrous altar they have created in the image of the twin towers
nancy, sluggo, and many other children are at a Shaq event. Sluggo says that he hopes Shaq sees his note. Nancy opines that this is unlikely, given the size of the crowd. Then a man that we can only imagine must be Shaq, given the context, but whom looks nothing like shaq, appears. Sluggo doffs his cap, revealing that he has written "You rule, Shaq" on his bald head. The ostensible Shaquille O'Neal responds "HEY-- Thanks, Little Dude"
Fritzi tells nancy to go to sleep early, since she has a big test in the morning. She says "goodnight." Nancy retorts that she should say "good day" because the sun has not yet set. Not Gilchrist's best.
to panel: Nancy returns to her blasphemous display one last time then: sluggo pretends to drive the batmobile. nancy insults the cardboard box he's using. Sluggo retorts that his box is "better than what you've got," but Nancy, clever Nancy, gets the last laugh, by proclaiming that she's got "Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane." On 9/11, of all days, nancy? for shame
apparently in Gilchrist Nancy, fritzi marries the dweeb on the right. I have seen the comic where they get married approximately 1200 times this week. The comic is largely about how Gilchrist loves the Beach Boys. It is possibly the word strip I have ever read.
Things wouldn't have gone down like that if sluggo had been there
the idolatrous altar recurs, now partially colorized
sluggo and nancy pray at an idolotrous altar they have created in the image of the twin towers
nancy, sluggo, and many other children are at a Shaq event. Sluggo says that he hopes Shaq sees his note. Nancy opines that this is unlikely, given the size of the crowd. Then a man that we can only imagine must be Shaq, given the context, but whom looks nothing like shaq, appears. Sluggo doffs his cap, revealing that he has written "You rule, Shaq" on his bald head. The ostensible Shaquille O'Neal responds "HEY-- Thanks, Little Dude"
the above tweet
same as above
joker persona 5 but it's me
Persona 5 Royal on steam sale for $18 or Persona 3 Reload, 4 Golden, and 5 Royal for $36.
email saying my credit score went up, somehow
Jenny Maxwell, head of education at Superhuman, the A.I. company that makes Grammarly, called the race between detection and evasion “ultimately, a dead end.” Editors’ Picks In Her New Podcast, Ina Garten Is Hoping to Get Messy What to Know About Exercise and Joint Replacements Under a Turtle Shell, a Stunning New Home for Shakespeare “Bigger cat, bigger mouse,” she said. Instead, she urged educators to accept that most future writing would be produced in a partnership between artificial intelligence and human discernment.
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