#Promise City
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What is Promise City? An Examination of the Modern Lie
It was the middle years of the 21st century. As the world fell deeper into disorder and chaos, a resolution was passed by the UN - build impenetrable fortress-cities, one for each region of the world. Sworn to perpetual neutrality and serving as a grand, living repository for all cultures and peoples, Promise City is the jewel of the United Nations Megacity initiative, and home to upwards of eighty nine million people.
It is called home by people from every corner of the world, who speak every language, making it a wildly diverse place. The City was planned from the ground up, fanning out from its centre in the First District, now called the High Rise.
The City is divided into 13 Districts, each of which serves a different purpose. From the desolate and collapsing streets of the Basilissa Exclusion Zone to the highly pedestrianised and narrow backroads of Nihonmachi District, the purpose and peoples of the City can change on an almost street-to-street basis.
Most of the Districts are partially built on or straddle the river Vitae, a huge estuary which has been artificially widened as the years have passed to accommodate the continuous traffic going to and from the City's major industrial centres and the ports of the world. It didn't start with the name, but was rechristened when its expansion began, for from the beginning it was intended to be the City's primary artery, the vein that pumped its lifeblood to its heart.
The dream of Promise broke under the weight of the modern world as the global scene made slow steps towards order and peace and a new agent of governance emerged. It took cues from the chaebol conglomerates of the Korean republic, the zaibatsus of the new Japan, the oligarchic kleptocracies of Russia and the runaway monopolies of America.
It became something new, with power transcending that of national governments. It became the modern multinational corporation, an organisational and logistical superstructure with fingers and operations all across the globe, their origins swaddled in mystery and their servants in the hundreds of thousands.
The concept of the nation-state is now a joke, a foreign idea taken seriously only in corners of the world that the average metropolitan never needs to think of. And the worst part? The people of the ever-shrinking middle class were more than keen to look the other way, as long as the wages were good and the abuses were just out of sight.
In Promise City there emerged three corporations of supreme importance.
The first was Byzantion Security Systems, an electronics, military technology and communications magnate. It was the first among equals, the largest company in all the world.
Second to it were two, ÆSIR Arms and Machinery and Tlalocan Ltd., companies which both survive on the military-industrial complex that has ripped the third world asunder. Each was like a kingdom, an empire unto itself, their CEOs like Gods among men. Their employees numbered in the indirect millions, in every corner of the earth, in every business imaginable. In the modern age, it is almost impossible to do business without crossing one of the Three, or, failing that, without crossing another of the major corporations in the world.
Their positions as the leaders of the world seemed unshakeable. They could not be touched, no matter what resistance was mounted against them. Public or private, it seemed like nothing could be done to halt the corporations.
Then came October 21st, 20XX. Judgement Day.
The City ground to a halt that cold autumn afternoon, forced to watch as a monstrous machine brought entire blocks down in its rampage. Thousands were killed in the District of Paxtonville and the High Rise almost immediately, and further thousands were displaced all across the rest of the City.
With the sudden and violent dissolution of the Byzantion Group by its former CEO/CSO Alexios Konstantinatos, a power vacuum unlike anything as seen in living memory was suddenly created in every corner of the globe.
Infrastructure totally broke down wherever Byzantion’s influence could be felt, the company’s assets were suddenly fair game to anyone who could scrape up the funds and hundreds of thousands of people, involved with the corporation at every level of production and distribution, were suddenly without work.
The world economy quickly crashed with this essential link in the global chain removed. It’s been a year and though the company’s rivals have moved fast, they are only now starting to put the pieces of the world back together.
Trade is still limited to short distances through motor convoys and trains, with international shipping having all but ceased except in cases of extreme duress, such as the humanitarian crisis and complete breakdown of civil order faced here.
In the rubble, the UN has stepped in to revive the now-paralyzed City authorities and rebuild the City’s domestic law enforcement unit, the Promise City Police Department (PCPD). However, their influence is far from absolute - running the streets are gangs of every shape, size and stripe, from typical criminal groups preying on vice and need to organised groups of political agitators and to fringe sects of complete extremists.
There is no more global order. Stability is a myth, a thing of the past. Rubble and seemingly endless corpses have done nothing to stymie the ambitions of pushers and hustlers, those obsessed with status and wealth. At the end of the day, there are still plenty of jobs out there that need doing, and plenty of people willing to risk it all to do them. The world is rudderless, the City insane…
… and in this madness there exist chances one can only dream of.
#cyberpunk#fiction#unreality#future#city#futuristic#Promise City#original character#sci fi#urban decay#literature#ttrpg#mecha#high tech#low life#tw: disasters#tw: mass casualties
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PROMISE CITY IS DREAM/NIGHTMARE/MEMORY/OBLIVION/NEVER SLEEPING/LONG GONE/LOOKING TO THE FUTURE/SHACKLED TO THE PAST/ALIVE WITH VOICE AND SONG/A HUSK ANIMATED ONLY BY ITS DEATH SPASMS/ONLY JUST BEGINNING/THE END AND DEATH
LET IT SING TO YOU.
we should talk more about cities that are vampires. cities that are cold and wet and sink into your bones and stay there. cities that are hungry and want to live. dead cities that dont know they're dead and suck the life force of their people to maintain the delusion. cities with harbors that are actually mouths; one-way entries. cities that are devastatingly lonely and see consumption as love
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This is what the dynamic was like
#my art#sketchy sketch#arcane#silco#vander#silco arcane#vander arcane#zaundads#vanco#sadihasdias I can't stop#i am not that into turning this duo into a trio#and downplaying some of the themes and dynamics established earlier on#the political and freedomfighter stuff. Now it's a promise to a keep etc not a fight between two different views on how to handle#a difficult thing as breaking away from oppression and becoming independent and free#and not in individual level but as a whole community/city#and neither of them did it 100% right but both did some things right#anyway haha lol gay
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#thepandaredd#pandaredd#dcverse#dcau#dc comics#dc movies#Gotham City#bribery makes gotham go round#joker promising to pay off student loans is the quickest way to get a team of lawyers#gotham judge#gotham lawyer#joker's new lawyer
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klik goes on human removal therapy. a human is removed
this is a silly little one off comic for the therian HRT stuff goin around!! i do have somethin cookin in the back of my head for an actual thing but in a pretty different direction. so this is my hat thrown in the therian HRT, featuring KLIK the GOBLIN (my sweet evil cheese i love her)
and dont worry for kilk shes a certified thing she can always become somethin else
as for dr erian. well he was fucken up a lot of meds and i dont think kliks gonna do any worse
also based on @ayviedoesthings animal hrt (i am shamelessly tagging aheehee agiggle)
okok have a nice day drink water go lick a bug or somethin
#i swear ta god if the image quality doesnt work#im gonna eat a hat#im gonna do it#ill eat that hat i promise you#my art#digital art#therian hrt#animal hrt#otherkin hrt#dr erian hrt#dr erian#hyper city#gun goblin#klik
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Going through my screenshots and Halsin in the background is just-
#babygirl I’m so sorry for bringing you to hell#and the city tbh#we can go roam the forest after this I promise#give you all the honeycomb I find#halsin#my screenshots#bg3
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In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.
Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.
Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.
And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.
And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.
All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.
Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.
The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?
The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.
#ginger rambles#ginger chats about greek myths#greek mythology#It's Zeus Apologist day actually#For the record Jason is my personal favourite of these guys#The argonauts are extremely underrated for literally no reason#And Jason's wit and sheer ability to adapt along with his piousness are traits that are so far away from what usually gets highlighted#with the typical Greek warrior-hero that I've just never stopped being captivated by him#Conversely I still do not understand what people see in Achilles#I respect him and his legacy I respect the importance of his tale and his cultural importance I promise I do#However I personally can't stand the guy LMAO#How do you get warned twice TWICE both by your mother and by Athena herself that going after Apollo's children is a bad idea#And still have the audacity to be mad and surprised when Apollo is gunning for Specifically You during the war you're bringing to His City#That You Specifically and Exclusively had a choice in avoiding#ACHILLES COULD'VE JUST SAID NO#I know that's not the point however so many other members of the Greek camp were simply casualties of Fate in every conceivable way man#Achilles looked at every terrible choice he could possibly make said “Well I'm gonna die anyway 🤷🏽” and proceeded to make the choice#so hard that he angered god#That's y'all's man right there#I left out Perseus because truthfully I don't actually know much about him#I haven't studied him even a fraction as much as I've studied some of the other big culture heroes and none of this is cited so i don't wan#to talk about stuff I don't know 100%#Anyway justice for Zeus fr#Gimme something give me literally anything other than the nonsense we usually get for him#This goes for Hera too btw#Both the king and queen of the skies are done TERRIBLY by wider greek myth audiences and it's genuinely disheartening to see#If y'all could make excuses for Achilles to forgive his flaws y'all can do it for them#They have a lot more to sympathise with I'll tell you that#(that is a completely biased statement; you are completely free and encouraged to enjoy whichever figures spark joy)#zeus
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Whenever I talk about Kim and Harry getting married I inevitably get people in my notes saying things like "they wouldn't get married because no one is married in Revachol anymore" which like sure but also that is definitely a doomer hyperbole. Judit is married, plaisance is married, and Billie and Tommy. Lilienne was married too, and so was Trant. Plenty of people get married in Revachol, and besides that, we know that Harry *wants* to be married. He wanted Dora to be his wife. He still refers to her as his ex-wife and is so incredibly disappointed when he finds out she wasn't. Jean said "no one is married anymore" and that's become like some irrefutable Canon people have adopted but you have to remember Jean is one of the most miserable cunts in the game, of course he's gonna be pessimistic about this *especially* since it was said to Harry, the guy he spends most of the game antagonizing.
I guess my point is that I refuse to believe Harry wouldn't want Kim to wife him up first chance they get just because of a grumpy ass comment made by a dude with the world record for largest stick up ass.
#I promise you its okay to let your faves be sappy I promise you marriage is not actually a crazy concept#just bc the fictional city is a hard fuckin place to live#disco elysium#harry du bois#kim kitsuragi#harrykim#kimharry#jean vicquemare#and I'll give a little grace just bc maybe yeah they couldnt get married because of homophobia#but not because no one gets married period#thats a goofy take
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12 year old tim realizing robin’s not coming back to gotham and deciding that it’s Batman’s fault so he has to ruin the little bit of sanity and peace of mind Bruce has managed (read: struggled) to keep in his grasp:
#tim drake#dick grayson#robin#dc robin#bruce wayne#batman#tim drake is a menace#tim drake was and still is a die hard Robin fan before anything else#so he 100% thinks Damian’s funny when he’s not the one being targeted#there’s mission reports with comments in the margin like ‘nice 👍🏾 do it again’ and ‘650000000/10 🎉’ and Bruce hates it sm#it starts with a mild explosion and psychological fuckery and ends with a prank war with city wide structural damage#Bruce sees Tim and Damian getting along and starts sobbing in the batcave#It was 12 year old Tim Drake and his 67 alt twitter accs against the world (Batman) when dick left#For the two years dick refused to stay in Gotham I promise you batman’s anonymous tip line was just 325 ruthless insults from tim everyday#Imagine bruce trying to figure out which of his rogues keeps photoshopping terrible .5s of Batman then mailing it to the gcpd#just to find out it’s some fucking middle schooler with a bowlcut from bristol#Tim drake is unhinged and petty#Like it gets so bad that gothamites (even the rogues) have picked a side in this mostly one sided beef between a middle schooler and batman#I want internet beef between a middle schooler and a 29 year old med school dropout bruce ‘I am the night’ wayne#Bruce is foaming at the mouth whenever someone opens Twitter next to him#and batman is breaking your clavicle if you mention twitter in his hearing range 😭#Batman showing up at Tim’s windowsill: take down all your accounts rn and im calling your parents 😡🦇#Tim pulling out a ouija board: let’s see if your parents answer before mine 🤨#I made yj on the sims so they could fight the jl and I was like middle school!tim drake w/ a twitter acc???
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I was mispronouncing Sae's name in my head for months and I refuse to correct myself now
#the reo-barou one is so hard to understand I PROMISE ITS FUNNY#a lot more otoya here than i meant to#blue lock#bllk#bllk textpost#bachira meguru#isagi yoichi#yukimiya kenyu#nagi seishirou#barou shouei#oliver aiku#sendou shuto#aikusen#otoya eita#karasu tabito#mikage reo#nagireo#zantetsu tsurugi#manshine city#fc barcha#barcha vs manshine gonna go crazyyy 🔥 (a character I'm rooting for will lose either way)#itoshi sae#ryusae
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Ask me why, why, why I'm like this
#doodles#mdzs#the untamed#Xue Yang#I promised I'd draw someone else next#I didn't say I'd leave Yi City#Bastards growing on me
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it may be 10 pm but that doesn’t stop obasi nation!!! just finished these doodles hehe 🦍
#i promise my next art will not be apes#monstatrons art#monster art#monster#obasi adebowale#creature#creature art#original character#oc#sketch#character art#gorilla#gorilla oc#ape art#ape oc#blade in the city series
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Sight of a Star - Blue-ish Star Ryōshū and Don Quixote
#HERES HOW BLUE-ISH STAR BELIEVERS CAN STILL WIN I PROMISE#Rendering sucks but I do like how these look very much. I hate drawing armour. big fan of dramatic shadows however.#but! as for justifications:#B-iS is an abno regarding what one so desperately wants but cannot have - possibly connecting to Blue Star and the paradise-like place-#people wish to reach by throwing themselves into it. though what is offered by B-iS is a much less refined yet as tantalising#given the text of 'The irresistible allure is almost tearing you apart' and the less refined bit being implied by both design#[jagged edges of the actual blue shape and legs like dolls - both unlike BS' much rounder and more naturalistic design]#in short it's the manifestation of impossible dreams - for Don this is her quest for a just knighthood in the City of all places#and for Ryōshū [though idk her source] it is her final work of art - the Hell Screen#when approached one's body is 'pushed away' as if a manifestation of how it is unachievable. at least it is for them#'To be truly blue the one with the true blue must be left alone in one’s blueness.'#is what I interpret as: 'to truly dream the dreamer must be left to one's fantasies'#dreams by nature do not intersect well with reality. all their flaws will be shown and they will crack under the pressure of the real world#it is why the dream pushes them away. to preserve itself. also probably has something to do with how DQ also has void dream#and this abno gives pride boosts in its event. and I personally see pride as a sort of 'self assurance' or 'self above others' so to speak#as to chase ones dreams one must think themselves the exception. as the one that can persevere over the City#plus the HP damage and the various juxtapositions in the 'forward' option may be in reference to how dreams and reality don't mix.#harming those who chase them. though all the same the 'backwards' option shows that simply tossing them aside shall hurt in its own way#to think oneself 'impure' enough to give up on chasing it is all the same resignation on your uniqueness#as for the gift: the name is possibly to do with how lower stars seem easier to reach. and the effect of damage at minus SP....#going insane dream chasing?#but to take ones leave allows for it to be left behind without any further effects. you did not look at your dreams. acknowledge them at al#but are you better off like that? not dreaming? forgetting that brilliantly unfinished star?#but anyways I hope you liked my rambles. also this abno and everything related to Blue Star is so tastefully C flavoured that I love them#and fun fact! when I was first generally mapping sinners to unfightable/EGOless abnos I entirely forgot Ryōshū somehow. which led to this.#they don't have weapons they just kick real hard and it works well enough#limbus company#ryōshū lcb#don quixote lcb#🎠🚬
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more post session brainworms of the cowboy, things have not in fact gotten better and he's in fact more tired then he's ever been every single week <3 now with added trauma triggering!
Virgil Lawrence | He/Him | 212 Years Old | Ex-Sabbat Brujah Vampire
Session/Image Context below:
finally got his coterie mate's crazy tremere ex dead and gone, and then had to listen to a baby sabbat brujah's entire life and family collapse around her. also he got a new knife for free (by being stabbed)!
PoV you're the Boston Prince (who totally deserved this) and have been in office 100 years after your predecessor was also killed by being thrown off a building by the same cowboy.
PoV you're a coterie member who pissed off the already EXTREMELY on edge and furious brujah by rebuking his attempts to suicide bait you and he just drew his 10+ pool revolver.
damn hard to stay keeping it together when you see and hear the ghosts of your kindred loved ones all around you all the time and in the words spoken by those around you, without anyone meaning to do it
#my art#virgil lawrence#BRUJAHS CANT BE HAPPY IN OUR CHRONICLES#the boston prince showed him photos of his old vampire gang's skinned faces mounted in a museum somewhere in boston#and the photos had the prince giving HIS SIRE AND LOVER'S FACE bunny ears#so honestly kinda justified with throwing him out a window of a high rise#but then also he thought he was finally getting let go by the tzimisce and. turns out he's now part of the personal coterie of a fae lord#which means he's just in ANOTHER type of captivity now and won't be allowed to leave because he's 'property' of the fae now#and everyone is talking about how they're all bonded together now and a 'family' and#ALL OF HIS TRAUMA TRIGGERS ARE BEING HIT AT ONCE RIGHT NOW on top of general overstimulation and too many people and being in a city and#shoutout to my STs promising “virgil will have fun soon” and its been like 3 sessions since that promise and he still isnt having fun DFKHH#artists on tumblr#digital art#digital drawing#original character#vtm art#vtm oc#vtm brujah#vtm sabbat#vampire oc#vampire: the masquerade#vampire#cowboy oc#cowboy art#cowboy#tw: blood
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‘The rate of which I make art for AO3 fics in the library VS. the rate of me adding in new fics into the library’ makes an unfair battle. 12 pieces in and 90 fics (and counting) in store…. This is not a war I can win….
P.S. I make them simply to decorate my Apple Library with AO3 fics I like (self-indulgence). The drawing is dependent on my mood + what I felt like drawing/trying out, and the content of the fic. It is as subjective as it is NOT indicative of what the fic is like. I highly recommend you check the following fics out yourself.
Links to the fics:
City of Sunshine
see you on the other side;
Like a Promise
All That Hate
Grief
Under the Surface
#durarara#izaya orihara#shizuo heiwajima#city of sunshine#see you on the other side;#like a promise#all that hate#grief#under the surface#this took so long and for what#i’d kill my art if it’s a killable object#do not let me into the kitchen. ever.#i love city of sunshine but all those details were unintentional#most painful rendering ever#mild spoiler: for syotos i didnt mean to have shizuo there…. but izaya looked too lonely so (dies)#im sorry call me the studio that made drrr anime bc i was NOT faithful to source materials#for like a promise i actually couldn’t visualize where it is (anatomy who) so i just balled it im sorry#i fumbled all that hate so bad i can never encapsulate how much i like it GOD i’m going to combust out of misery#i fumbled grief as well nothing is going my way#surrealfix i cant do it justice im sorry#under the surface…. saranghe#(fumbled)#not tagging the van gang or celty because they looked too ugly in my style#i cant taint the tag#sorry if i failed you guys#it will happen again#popaart
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I’d love to meet Kiefer Sutherland one day but…
I know for a fact I’ll be a nervous wreck, shy, not knowing what to say and worried I’d breakdown and embarrass myself in front of him…curse my shy, overthinking and self conscious nature 😭
#kiefer sutherland#the lost boys#David tlb#woman wanted#dark city#the cowboy way#24#jack bauer#the bay boy#kevin trapped in silence#Young guns#promised land#crazy moon#brotherhood of justice
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