#and also gadgets & makes shit that will hopefully make the world not die.

[maitaitiu]

me: hrm my brain: new s,torie

[pinkiepiebones]

a good zsasz in battinsons next movie would be god-tier <3 but prob wont happen bc hes also a serial killer and would feel samey after what they did with riddler

As I explained to my mom* after we saw the movie, The Batman isn't yet "ready" for Zsasz. As much as I was searching for ANY hint of the Zsasz family in the background (they were rich too! Matt Reeves you could have used this movie to establish the family name!!)... See, the final straw that broke Victor was losing the last of his money to the Penguin at the Iceberg Lounge. As we saw in the Battinson movie, the Iceberg Lounge is not yet the swanky casino a lot of us know it as. I'm going to do movie spoilers under the cut just in case

At the end of the movie Penguin discovers Dead Gangster Guy's body (Marconi? Maroni? I am frequently bad with names) and imho sees an opportunity to jump to the top of the gangster ladder. IIRC also HBO is doing a Penguin TV show? which could definitely hopefully explore that shift from penguin toadie to king penguin, see the Iceberg Lounge shift from 90s warehouse rave to stately casino. And if it's a single season series with only like ten or 20 episodes, the final episode could have that pivotal moment of Victor at the owner's table, perhaps Penguin making menacing small talk like "Ah, Mister Zsasz, how've you been since your parents died? Staying sober, right? Certainly not leaving pieces of your family's fortune in the pockets of casino owners around the world, eh?" Just some verbal knife-twisting that lays out who Victor was prior to this poker game.

And Victor loses and Penguin laughs and has him thrown out as he's sobbing about how he has nothing now and Penguin maybe shouts "making your parents proud, Vic!" or smth and maybe another patron or hostess is like "he seemed really messed up was it a good idea to throw him out like that" and Penguin's all "Gotham isn't a city for the weak-willed, crybaby billionaires. Oh no, his parents died! Boo-fucking-hoo. Go make something of yourself, or perish. The rules of the world are the same for all of us" or some shit, maybe more poetic. But as he's monologuing maybe it's over the scene of Victor on the bridge, ready to die, and then the mugger comes up demanding Victor's money and Victor grapples and grabs the knife and frantically stabs the guy to death...

And then in complete silence, we watch the shaking, blood-spattered Victor plunge the knife into his forearm, making a line, and then he collapses to his knees, smiling up as a rainstorm starts, and the sounds of the city flood back in to the scene, and the camera ominously pans down to the first tally mark.

AND THEN WHAT WOULD REALLY KICK ASS WOULD BE IF BATTINSON 2 -clearly set after the events of the Penguin series- starts with freshly-promoted Commissioner Gordon leading The Batman into a particularly gruesome crime scene. "Fifth body this week," Jim says. "Throat silt, body posed post-mortem. Same MO as the four from last week, but there's nothing connecting these people." As The Batman analyses the crime scene, Jim continues- "Different ages, genders, ethnicities, jobs- there's no rhyme or reason to it. We're working in a gang initiation theory, but there's no tagging, no chatter-"

The Batman picks up a piece of tape he had placed on the victim's shoulder. A fingerprint is visible in the powder on the tape. He scans it into the Bat Computer on his forearm (c'mon you know he'll have more gadgets) and listens to Alfred give him the analysis.

"He doesn't care who he kills. He only cares about killing" Batman says.

"Who?"

The Batman turns to face Jim.

"Victor Zsasz."

*quick shout out to my mom who always listens to my post-movie infodumps and is now convinced that I have better ideas than most film writers LOL

[system-architect]

i wanna date. luxor

luxor is actually like, super acearo so this all comes from a hypothetical indulgent “what if” world but--

pros of dating luxor:

he is quite the experienced doctor with a background in bio-augmentation/magitech implants and field medicine so u would always b kept healthy... get injured in a fight? no problem.. start to develop the flu? he would notice before you did.. lose an eye? luxor has a new one for you..

he’s extremely tolerant toward ppl he cares about and he’s very low maintenance

always has something interesting to say and is very good at managing problems on the fly.. you’d hardly run into any problems he can’t solve

overall if you’re the “i want to run around tyria adventuring and chasing after the next thrill” type he’s a very good date and good ally whether you’re adventuring With him or he’s someone you return home to a lot

cons of dating luxor:

by god is he snarky. he does not always intend to be snarky but he also just plain doesn’t really filter what comes out of his mouth and he also has a habit for seeing that something is about to backfire or cause chaos but not stopping it anyway

if you don’t like hearing about guns or explosives or gadgets or weird medical technology or anatomical facts, you probably won’t be able to relate with him

he’s somehow the exact mixture of an adventurer and a recluse... he’s gonna be locked in his study for three days straight then the next morning you wake up and find he left a note on the table at 2 AM that just reads “BRB seeing if i can’t yank some more etheric enhanced cables out of the wall at the good ol’ CoE might be gone for one week hopefully will come back take care”

that being said he also makes his money via a combination of selling breachmaker salvage, selling CoE salvage, and designing/creating/implanting magitech prosthetics and enhancements and only one of three things listed here is done legally so that will have to be something you put up with

luxor is a very... headstrong person who has his own ideas about what he’s going to do with his life and himself and anyone who’s close to him is just along for the ride so if you’re not a fan of something he’s about to do it’s gonna be an extremely hard sell to convince him to not do it. he has a very “you either skate or you die” mentality about life

my overall rating is... in a world where luxor dates people, lux is a very sort of esoteric cryptid boyfriend who is a great choice if you’re the type of person who loves to just dive headfirst into chaos and embrace all of the zany outcomes. he’s going to scare you within an inch of your life a lot with all his antics but the beneficial side to this is that if you’re also a hellraiser who’s constantly running off doing weird shit and have quirky interests and hobbies yourself, he will embrace that and you’ll have a sorta life where you both do your own thing completely unchained and free but have each other as a sort of ‘home base’

[anabiosisdiscarnate]

> Cae: Become Vriska’s current favorite person?

> About a week ago, after some shenanigans involving you existing and talking to people and some letters back and forth between Cae and Sparks that you don’t know about.

caepaecaesurae

I suspect it is not particularly politic for me to reply openly, but you havwe my sympathies.

I wvas dead for slightly too long, and recall the difficulties.

anabiosisdiscarnate

It's not your fault  Captor wants to loudly complain a8out me existing, 8ut thanks.

This place is a dump.

caepaecaesurae

Perhaps he could havwe chosen a beta-tester for the afterlife he wvas actually wvilling to talk to.

anabiosisdiscarnate

8ut that would require the effort to actually regul8 this hellhole.

caepaecaesurae

He puts forth effort wvhen he realises he should.

anabiosisdiscarnate

If that's the case then I can't fucking imagine what kind of disaster it'd take for him to do it.

caepaecaesurae

WVhat could he be doing better, aside from hopefully not murdering people?

anabiosisdiscarnate

May8e start 8y not 8eing an idiot and realize that people die and go to his afterlife when they are killed.

caepaecaesurae

I'm still wvorking on that one.

At least there's wvifi.

anabiosisdiscarnate

Which he apparently didn't expect me to use or something????????

I don't get him.

caepaecaesurae

As it turns out, forcing trolls wvith mood wvhiplash to murder people they like makes them remarkably unreasonable and illogical

I think he'll get ovwer it, it'll just take a wvhile.

He can revwivwe the dead, so if you can convwince him you're actually sorry and patch thigns up betwveen you there's a chance you might get in on the prize wvorld thing evwentually despite evwerything.

anabiosisdiscarnate

I don't even *want* the stupid fucking prize world at this point.

He can have his dum8 pixie infested pupa neverland to himself, I just can't take this poor excuse of an afterlife.

caepaecaesurae

If there's concrete wvays to improvwe it, I might be able to swving them if I'm careful about it.

anabiosisdiscarnate

Seriously????????

caepaecaesurae

It depends on wvhat it is, but yes?  You got a rawv deal, and I don't exactly knowv howv to make it better since I'm not going to act Against Captor, but he listens to me a fair bit and I could probably find wvays to drag creature comforts ovwer somewvhere you could reach, evwentually.

anabiosisdiscarnate

If there's literally anything you could do I can see what I can do to keep anything from stopping you.

caepaecaesurae

...Godtier hope player.  Anything I wvant I can create wvith my mind.

I don't knowv wvhat that solvwes, but it could at least get you a block or a small ship or something that doesn't wviggle around too much wvhen you get distracted.

Is that useful?

anabiosisdiscarnate

It'd 8e a fucking 8lessing. This place disappears from me constantly.

caepaecaesurae

I'll need to practice a fewv things before I'm absolutely sure about howv to get something that large to you, but I'll get on it.  If it takes more than a wveek, start bothering me about it, alright?

anabiosisdiscarnate

Alright.

While we're at it, though, is there anything that makes it easier to keep shit in control here.

caepaecaesurae

To keep memories dowvn, and control one's path?

In the bubbles, I relied on focusing my mind towvards memories I wvould prefer to the ones that I wvas currently experiencing.  If I come up wvith a distraction and focus on it long enough and single-mindedly enough, all else drifts off.  As hard as it can be to stop noticing unpleasant surroundings.Some trolls try meditation to prune their thoughts that wvay.

Focusing strongly on a sensory memory helps as wvell.  Food and drink particularly come to mind.

The Artifex makes things that can stabilize reality artificially, but they'll also strip awvay godtier powvers, and I wvouldn't personally trust any gadget he made in your vwicinity.

I wvould advwise not brooding, and trying to keep your mind busy wvhen you can.  I havwe a friend that recommends creativwe wvorks to fill the time, wvith the impermanence of the results as an excuse not to wvorry about perfectionism. I tended to lurk in fond memories, and seek out people in the hopes they had interesting stories to relate. My standards for "interesting" lowvered drastically ovwer time.

anabiosisdiscarnate

I wouldn't trust his shit either! And I also have way too much luck 8uilt up to just give it up like that. 8ut the other stuff might help if I can get this place to fucking cooper8.

caepaecaesurae

The most stabilizing influence I can think of is havwing another mind around.  If you start teaming up, then things stay as stable as evweryone invwolvwed expects them to be.

And evwen wvhen things do shift, the shifts are at least coming from places other than your owvn mind.

I don't knowv if there's anyone you tolerate wvell, but friends are useful.

...On a sidenote, if you can clearly remember being healthy and convincwe yourself your body feels that wvay again, you should be able to suppress any death wvounds you might currently havwe.

anabiosisdiscarnate

If I had some8ody that could do that they'd pro8a8ly 8e here already.

I don't really care a8out the 8leeding sta8 wound, though! It doesn't get in the way.

caepaecaesurae

Some death wvounds are more inconvwenient than others.

...On a sidenote, I think I'vwe entirely forgotten to introduce myself.

anabiosisdiscarnate

Not entirely.

Just mostly.

caepaecaesurae

Aye, wvell.  Small blessings I guess. Do wve prefer formal and dramatic, or cordial?

Also, can you tell me wvhat your computer thinks your coordinates are right nowv?

anabiosisdiscarnate

> Dig up what's apparently your coordinates and send them.

I guess you've earned doing the dramatic one if you want to.

caepaecaesurae

Most people call me Cae, for potentially obvwious reasons.

Howvevwer --  I am also Merchant-Captain Cronus Caesurae Ampora, former Orphaner and Prince of Alternia, Beforus, and Derse, Bard of Hope Ascendant, Eridan's Descendant and Ancestor.

I prefer to avwoid "Dualscar".

I'd look up an obnoxiously large bowving ascii thing but I'm sure tumblr wvould mangle it.

> It took a minute or two to decide on the right gift, the right test, but soon enough.... a copy of one of Mindfang's favored hats, sized to loosely fit how tall he suspected a 10-sweep-old Vriska would be, appeared before her.

anabiosisdiscarnate

I'll try to keep the Dualscar thing in mind.

> Then you magically get a hat and put it on immediately.

> It's actually a little big. Just like the stab wound of yours had mostly closed up from your pan convincing yourself it wasn't that bad like Cae had described earlier, your pan had kind of tricked you into de-aging yourself a little. But you like it better like this.

!!!!!!!!

caepaecaesurae

It got through alright then?

anabiosisdiscarnate

Yeah!!!!!!!!

caepaecaesurae

Excellent!

One proof of concept.

anabiosisdiscarnate

::::)

Something tells me this will pro8a8ly work out.

caepaecaesurae

I think so too.

I think I'll be sending a one-person craft wvith an enclosed cabin, in a captchalogue card. It ought to be easier to keep it from appearing on land or breaking wvhen it lands, that wvay.

I suspect any structure not designed for the wvater wvould break wvhen it hit ground, if it wvas large enough to be wvorth sending.

anabiosisdiscarnate

Pro8a8ly.

8ut

Thank you.

caepaecaesurae

I'vwe been in those shoes before, and they're terrible.

The cobbler should be ashamed.

WVelcome to some aspect of a brand newv wvorld.  Best of luck on the social front.

anabiosisdiscarnate

Again, thank you. So much.

caepaecaesurae

No wvorries chief.