#Specific Recordings

[batsyheere]

"So, handling your archnemesis," Danny starts. The room falls quiet, heads slowly turning to look at the man as he writes the words on the chalkboard. When finished, the characters somehow both messy and neat at once, Danny places the chalk back down and claps his hands.

"I typically call them fruitloops. Often they're in a better position than you are- older, richer, more powerful. They may have some sort of status that protects them when facing the public."

Tim wondered where Dick was right now, and if he was laughing. His brain was lagging like a computer as he tried to process what Danny was saying, and how seriously a few of his fellow teen vigilantes were taking this.

"Some of their more common tactics are-" the chalk was picked back up, and Danny writes as he speaks.

"Manipulation, isolation, conditioning, and empathy."

MICE.

Tim stares at the board, and quietly slips put his phone.

-What have I done to deserve this.

Enjoy your lessons Tim-

His head thumps against the desk. Conner leans over, gives him a pat on the shoulder but returns to taking notes as Danny goes on to explain the conditioning tactic.

[cheapsweetsrocks]

Happy Bandcamp Friday!

Today, I picked up another two albums, one of my favourites from last year, and an old fave from years past!

Shunka Ryougen by Haru Nemuri was one of my top albums from 2022 (and I really need to get around to writing about it...).

Apparently, the album title roughly translates as 'spring fire lighting the field ablaze', and it's such a heady mix of rapped poetry, experimental rock, and pop with a DIY sensibility (and an awesome vocal range) it's very difficult to categorise.

Spectra, by Northern Irish chiptunes legend Chipzel, is an album that is almost a decade old now, but still feels fresh and current. I've also literally just found out that it's also the soundtrack to an indie video game, but it stands perfectly fine on its own! An instrumental album brimming with brilliant bleeps and bloops, all written on an original Nintendo GameBoy!

[mwagneto]

fascinated by just how much marvel movies (and shows) managed to perfect the formula of making 2 male characters Just gay enough that the fans who want that will go UMMM IT'S NOT BAIT THEY'RE LITERALLY GAY LOOK!!!! but not too gay that homophobes even pick up on there being any subtext let alone get mad. extremely insidious form of bait. obvious examples being fatws and loki and more recently deadpool 3 and now venom 3

[remxedmoon]

seeing eye to eye.

im going to be real i only made this for the sake of the caption. i was proud of it!! aaaa i’ve had the sketch for this done for like… 2 weeks now? i just didn’t really know how i actually wanted to execute it!! and i remembered seeing that one 3d glasses trend on twitter a while back! and i think it worked pretty well teehee :3

also as a sidenote, this is probably the fastest ive ever finished a drawing? this only took, like, an hour. which isn’t that surprising, this is a pretty simple drawing, it’s just interesting to me! and a little funny given it took me 2 weeks to get back to this. i really procrastinated for weeks over this??

anyways!!! here’s some alt versions with both sides! because i think they look cool!

[seochangbingifs]

ATE (2024) 13/∞: Changbin and Jisung in SKZ-TALKER Ep.65

[serikyl]

OCD PSA: Please think twice before adding guilt tripping to any of your posts. You are genuinely hurting people when you do this. There are ways to make people care about things without vile guilt tripping.

[hamable]

8,000 other people have probably already made this joke but I can’t believe that both of Fig’s reality breaking confrontations with Ruben this episode culminated in the fact that she’s been here the whole time

[lucabyte]

warm day

[anxi04]

Tim admits this was… definitely a bad idea. But in his defense he could not be blamed for anything he decides after an intense case. He stayed up for a consecutive 74 hours and then crashed for 2 days straight so… really it's Kon's fault for taking the suggestion seriously.

Tim and Kon are at Olive Garden on a small date, nothing too serious. However like the fool Tim is he's disguised so he doesn't get recognized as 'Timothy Jackson Drake' or 'Tim Wayne' and since he's still very out of it at the moment he's not really putting much of a mask on so the confidence is gone, and he's still so tired so the comprehension is a little… off right now.

He forgot about the dreaded 'how much Parmesan do you want' question for dishes and after a minute it just got too awkward to say anything. So here they are, Tim dying inside while the waiter (who's definitely a meta cause where the hell is all that cheese coming from?) grates the 5th block of Parmesan. Kon is laughing the traitor that he is and at this point it's also a little bit of a challenge on his and the waiters end.

"Is this good enough for your exquisite tastes?" The waiter, Lora (god they are getting a minimum of a 500$ tip), asks him very pointedly while looking directly in his eyes and aggressively grating.

Tim can feel an angel and demon on his shoulder. 'More! A mountain of cheese! All the cheese in the restaurant!' is what his angel is saying. The demon is… cruel in the way they want cheese.

God maybe Tim should've stayed asleep. He stares the waiter in the eyes (uncomfortable but he's had to look Becca directly in her beady eyes and tell her that her ex-husband was wrong for leaving. Tim gave said husband the courage to leave. This is nothing.) and makes a 'go on' gesture.

Tim blinks and suddenly three feet have been added to the height of the cheese mountain and holy shit. Using powers for the most petty reason is 100% what he would do. He respects Lora so much right now.

"Tim.. Hon… You're lactose intolerant that is way more than enough." Once Kon was able to get his breath back he tries putting an end to this madness but Tim is committed. So is Lora, if the way her eyes dart over to Kon in a challenge is any indication.

"No. Lactose intolerance is a weakness and I will train it out." Why is he not backing out oh god what the fuck is he thinking.

"Oh, would you like more help with that? We have some more… brutal cheeses for lactose intolerance. I can grab some mozzarella, or brie, or any other soft cheeses." Oh my god. Tim's gonna die here. He's gonna die cause he's too stubborn. Although he respects the hell out of Lora right now. He's entertaining the idea of her becoming a hero. Or villain. Either would fit.

Anyway. That sounds like a challenge, and Tim doesn't back down from challenges like that. "That would be wonderful, thank you." Eye contact has not been broken. Janet would be proud of him.

Eventually there is a 10 foot tall mountain of cheese on his plate and a ladder next to the table. And now he'd feel like a dick if he doesn't eat it all but also holy fuck he is severely lactose intolerant.

Kon's head is making a dent in the table. Tim will fully understand if Kon needs a break after this.

He can see Lora blatantly staring him down from across the restaurant and well that's just another fucking challenge.

Slowly, (but not too slowly, no that would be showing weakness) he finishes the plate. And honestly he completely forgot what he had originally ordered until he got to the bottom of it and by then it was just such a cheesy mess he can't even tell if it was supposed to be spaghetti or some version of American Alfredo. He eats it anyway.

Lora comes over soon after, fake smile barely hiding fury, and asks if he wants seconds. It's a challenge and Tim doesn't refuse challenges… but Tim is also not dumb and so he declines. He swears he sees disappointment in her eyes.

She lets him pay the bill and tip her (looking at him slightly when he gives her a thousand dollars, which causes him to put down another thousand in her hand) and soon after they're set to leave.

Tim does however hear her say something about using the money to put little rockets on a skateboard instead of something useless like rent and honestly? Tim might have found his best civilian (for now) friend.

They leave Olive Garden 2,043$ less rich (not really) and Tim with a new contact and a promise to personally build her a skateboard that easily reaches 90 mph.

He's praying no one recognized him and he won't wake up to the news calling him out. He could never live it down.

(He was in fact recognized, but by one of the Bat-Clan and when he opens his bedroom there is an absurd amount of cheese everywhere. He blames Jason.)

(It was Damian.)

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[pigswithwings]

I love you - and that's on the record!

[gingermintpepper]

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.

[oicuperp]

he captivates me why does he hold it like that

[firestorm09890]

do you love the city you live in

[aroaceleovaldez]

forever mad that HoO introduced Diocletian's scepter as an object but. gave it to Nico and had Jason promote Frank about it.

Like. Okay here is an object that can summon the dead. It can only be used by a child of Hades/Pluto and a Roman officer in unison. HAZEL IS RIGHT THERE!!!!!

Nico can already summon the dead! He doesn't need a special object for it! Literally IN THE SCENE WHERE THEY GET THE SCEPTER, NICO RAISES THE DEAD. HE'S NOT WEAK ENOUGH THAT HE CAN'T! Hazel meanwhile has never raised the dead before (kind of - she did a little bit like once)! Theoretically she's fully capable of it but she's never properly tried it before! Giving her an object to help facilitate practicing with that would be perfect, especially given the scepter expires after a certain number of uses! Also, since Hazel ends up a praetor in TOA anyways, there's no reason why she shouldn't get promoted to be able to use the scepter all on her own! In fact her getting promoted in the House of Hades would be the perfect place to do so because it's a scene where she's taking the lead and saving everyone else! In fact it's a significantly better place to promote her to praetor over the scene where she ACTUALLY gets promoted! And even if you don't have Hazel promoted instead, then you'd still have it be Hazel and Frank working together to command the armies of the undead, which is perfect because they're a couple and it'd be a great way to show how well they work together!!!!!

LITERALLY THERE IS NO REASON TO NOT GIVE IT TO HAZEL. WHAT'S THE DEAL.

[casualavocados]

I want you to call me in person. I'll only meet with you. I'll only answer your phone calls. I only trust you.

Chen Yi, head of Yiyun Meng: North Hall, with Ai Di at his right hand KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)