#baron system

[en8y]

[IMAGE ID: four horizontal flags with nine stripes; each flag has an icon of three kitchen knives on a rack, in the center. the left one is red, the middle one is black, and the right one is bright yellow. the middle stripe is twice as large as the rest of them, which are equally sized. the first flag has these top three colors: black, dark red, and medium red. the second flag has these top three colors: dark red, red, and tan. the third flag has these top three colors: black, red, and very light grey. the fourth flag has these top three colors: dark red, tan, and very light grey. each flag has these bottom six stripes: bright yellow, off-white, bright yellow, bright red, black, and white. END ID.]

butchevaniron: a gender connected to being a butcher vanity baron; this gender is connected to butcher vanity, butcher vanity aesthetics, baron aesthetics, loud tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be masculine, but doesn't have to be!

butchevanironess: a gender connected to being a butcher vanity baroness; this gender is connected to butcher vanity, butcher vanity aesthetics, baroness aesthetics, soft tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be feminine, but doesn't have to be!

butchevanirony: a gender connected to being a butcher vanity barony; this gender is connected to butcher vanity, butcher vanity aesthetics, barony aesthetics, steady tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be unaligned, but doesn't have to be!

butchevanironist: a gender connected to being a butcher vanity baronist; this gender is connected to butcher vanity, butcher vanity aesthetics, baronist aesthetics, silent tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be nonbinary-aligned, but doesn't have to be!

@radiomogai @liom-archive @obscurian @fem-mogai @horrormogai

[unfortunate-collective-hcs]

Marius Von Raum would be a deer if he were an animal!

[bambiraptorx]

I have to wonder how Draxum came to the conclusion that putting ooze in mosquitos was like. The way to go. Like did he actually think that through? Did he genuinely think that using giant bugs to mutate people would be the best way to do it? Or did he just hyperfixate on mosquitos and then devote a decade of work to making them part of his plan for annihilating humanity

[hephaestuscrew]

Clara's father being an Earl means that her family outranks Baron DeVries' family in terms of the hierarchy of the nobility. DeVries - a mere Baron, the lowest rank of British nobility - is constantly making references to his family's heritage and history and the responsibilities that come with it. Meanwhile, Clara - the daughter of an Earl (which is two ranks above a Baron) - actively avoids mentioning her aristocratic heritage and is making every effort she can to construct an identity and a life that is separate from that heritage. DeVries' adventuring is a continuation of his family's legacy; Clara's is a rejection of her's.

[bina-a-k]

Yes, I was drawing this for 2023

[nox-in-a-box]

Rewatching The Princess Prodigy for my girl Vivian. But the magical aspect of this episode intrigues me. We're introduced to an entirely new form of magic: magical music! I like how it works, with sheet music being the written spell (at least, I think that's how it works?). I also find the idea of being able to steal someone's musical talent to be interesting.

Here's my theory: Baron von Rocha is a sorcerer who specialises in the field of magical music. This type of magic is lesser known and not commonly practiced, because though it is extremely powerful, even more so than wand magic, it requires one to practice their musical skill to a great extent.

Baron von Rocha decided to go into this field of magic, wanting to be a more powerful sorcerer, but he was too impatient to take the time to master it on his own, and wanted greater power more quickly. So he discovered a shortcut: the spell he uses in the episode to steal musical talent. This spell is of course shown in the episode to have a downside: the stolen musical talent fades, and it probably fades quite quickly. For this reason, he keeps having to find the most talented musicians and singers to steal talent from.

Adding more to it with, well, sort of a headcanon: that magical music is one of the subjects at Hexley Hall; an elective that lots of students take, enticed by the promises of great power, but discouraged by the effort required. After all, it's not as simple as learning a spell. You have to know how to play instruments first, or sing.

This class is probably where von Rocha actually first started this theft business. Instead of giving up like any other frustrated student, he instead stumbled upon a spell; one that would give him the great power he wanted, with none of the required effort. He tricked fellow students who were better than him into performing the spell, giving him the musical skill he needed and making the other students quit when they found themselves suddenly lacking all their built-up skill. The teacher thought he was a prodigy, but truly he was a fraud. And he kept doing this for years, stealing the skill of all the skilled musicians he could find, even stealing from songbirds!

Now, if only he had spent all those years actually building his own musical skill, ha.

Going to relate this with his presence in Day of the Sorcerers now: After losing all the stolen musical talent at the end of The Princess Prodigy, Baron von Rocha has found himself back at square one, with little musical skill of his own and therefore little power. He quits magical music and decides to simply do wand magic instead, the mainstream branch of sorcery. When he gets the opportunity to have a powerful item like a medusa stone, become king, and take revenge on the princess who ruined his career, of course he'd take it!

Magical music gives you potential to be a great sorcerer, but only if you're willing to put in the time and effort required. Which Baron von Rocha, unfortunately, was not.

[possuminabathtub]

The System of Pretending Everything is Fine Ch 7 - Brunch & New Friends

 “Welcome,” The English was accented, something Eastern or Central European, but just ambiguous enough to not point to a specific country. 

  “Yelena,” Nicky greeted, popping up from where she’d been tucked beneath her workbench with a tablet. 

  Yelena wouldn’t say she was suspicious of Nicky, necessarily. But there was something else to her, perhaps it was the eyes. She was intelligent, dangerously so, and there was a weight that went along with it. A knowing that festered in the back of her brown eyes, of precisely what her two hands could do. 

  It was a look she saw often from Red Room graduates. A look she saw in the mirror. 

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” Nicky admitted honestly, while Yelena stepped closer, focus split between her and the talking computer. “Ah, I was waiting until she was done to introduce her to the team,” She explained, unprompted. 

  “Who?” She asked, though given the Avengers history she had a feeling she already knew. 

  “M.I.S.K.A.,” Nicky replied, “It stands for Multipurpose Integrated Software Know-it All, but I just like the name,” 

  Yelena let out a laugh. The name sounded too sweet for a program with so much knowledge, with predecessors like Ultron. Such power could be a massive liability, could spell destruction for far more than their team, and she had given it a cute little nickname. 

  “What have you created?” She asked, tone sharp with cynicism. 

  “An assistant, nothing more, nothing less,” Nicky’s tone left no space for argument, and when she looked at her, she could see the steel of her jaw, the set of her shoulders. Confidence. Stark had been confident too. “I would be the last to create another Ultron,” 

Ch 7 - Brunch & New Friends

[northwest-by-a-train]

.

[mollysunder]

After s1, for a not insignificant amount of time I thought about how PnZ could implement a hextech rail system. I know it's one city-state and they don't even really have public transportation except like some elevators and a kind of tram car between the Topside and Zaun, but I don't care!

I liked trains too much growing up to not think all those airships are an inefficient means to do trade, and that includes with the Hexgates. Sure once the shipment arrives in Piltover an airship can fast jump in seconds to its destination through the Hexgates, but the supplies have to make it TO the Hexgates first, and then travel back at a normal speed. And on top that they're still sending AIRSHIPS. Those airships can't carry nearly the same amount of cargo as a train can in one go.

Of course all of this literally doesn't matter in the slightest bit to the show, it's just something that captures me because Piltover's supposed to be steampunk... but it's got no trains. Blimps, hot air balloons, and the like captured the imagination of many in the era that inspired the genre, but trains and railway expansion were literally a key innovation that defined it.

I still think about the implications of a Hexrail Terminal. The first regions that would let Piltover set down tracks in for intercontinental system. The new cities that would spring up in junctions. The tracks would runes carved at specific checkpoints to accelerate and decelerate for specific routes. The trains themselves would be fitted with large hexstones that would act like bullet trains in reaction to the runes on the tracks.

And of course there's also train culture related stuff. The PnZ equivalent to The Music Man's opening song, Murder on the Shuriman Express, Hexrail robberies, and Silco diversifying his portfolio as not just a chembaron but a robber baron too!

[en8y]

[IMAGE ID: four horizontal flags with nine stripes; each flag has an icon of a robotic arm in the center. it is outlined in dark red, with red-orange, orange, and light yellow accents. the middle stripe is twice as large as the rest of them, which are equally sized. the first flag has these top three colors: black, dark red, and medium red. the second flag has these top three colors: dark red, red, and tan. the third flag has these top three colors: black, red, and very light grey. the fourth flag has these top three colors: dark red, tan, and very light grey. each flag has these bottom six stripes: red-orange, off-white, red-orange, light orange, orange-yellow, and bright yellow. END ID.]

anitronaron: a gender connected to being an animatronic baron; this gender is connected to animatronics, animatronic aesthetics, baron aesthetics, loud tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be masculine, but doesn't have to be!

anitronaroness: a gender connected to being an animatronic baroness; this gender is connected to animatronics, animatronic aesthetics, baroness aesthetics, soft tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be feminine, but doesn't have to be!

anitronarony: a gender connected to being an animatronic barony; this gender is connected to animatronics, animatronic aesthetics, barony aesthetics, steady tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be unaligned, but doesn't have to be!

anitronaronist: a gender connected to being an animatronic baronist; this gender is connected to animatronics, animatronic aesthetics, baronist aesthetics, silent tones of macarshric, and macaranhood/shriekhood! can be nonbinary-aligned, but doesn't have to be!

@radiomogai @liom-archive @obscurian @fem-mogai

[impybutt]

Blue Pen is his default journal colour simply because he fell so hard for his own wholesome masculinity that I decided he can be as mean as he wants in an emergency.

Introducing Soft Touch, human name: René.

I had to cap his busted horn with yellow gold, for the conductive properties, otherwise he's just WAY too sensitive to spirit activity.

We're sober as a nun right now, Michél (blorb name: Weaver) is just WAY too German to not be frothing with rage at all times. NEO NAZIS!? ON MY MOTHERLAND!? POINT ME AND FIRE, I THOUGHT WE SOLVED THIS IN THE 40S WITH HITLER'S LITERAL SUICIDE

Thankfully René is still Convict enough to remember that Australia is a British penal colony, and white guys need to mind our manners. Mum is brown enough to be Roma, try the other side of the Berlin wall.

Ugh. Sigh. Did you know that some white people change colour after birth? We could have passed for Mexican before the blue eyes and blond hair. It took a couple months.

Remind them that I get Locked In syndrome and my paralysis demon is a dead tuxedo cat, Dominic buried him with her bare hands after he was put down. Tail up for the beetles, and everything.

It was a Fae burial, but I think all feral cats are Fel :3 He gave Mishy a tear to mlem before it was time to go 💙

... Wait, I just remembered They have Husky energy and a Doberman shaped blorb. Y'all heard this over the phone once, Ahem:

TUXEDO CAAAAAAAAT!

Don't let your homunculus get lost in the back rooms! If you see Crooked Man, that's René without his mask on, he's horrifying to behold! Lord Beelzebub's Ghost speaks Fly because he's Golgothan!

Shout out to The Real Rohunt for teaching us how to argue Critical Race Theory.

I wasn't going to bother waiting for the Scots to stop killing each other over the privilege of being the best at killing each other. Germans are introverted. Dame Maggie Smith would know what's up.

ay yo waddup young Greenman 😎

SNOOP I'M-- oh, wait. That baby harness XD Mate I remember what YOU said about Trump. Donald Glover probably has you by the testicles, where do you think he learned Monkey Takes the Peach if not the East Indies?

aaaAAAAND SNATCH

[outbreakperfected]

me logging on january 7th for revenant act 3 and having eido look me directly in the eyes and say "go run the exotic mission five times to complete the seasonal questline"

[oasystem]

just some drawings of our partners persona and us

and also baron of the baronies

[bambiraptorx]

what if i made draxum a cane user what then

bonus: a couple of rough cane designs because I haven't decided what kind he would use (mostly depends on what he uses it for/how often, but I do know he would color coordinate it with his armor lol)

[kadencactus]

I can't stop thinking about the end of the wolf dogs' match on tuesday and the only way I can move on is to write a frickin essay sooooooo

HERE WE GO

The fact that bron breakker canonically has the fastest spear in wwe but was able to stop before taking out corbin AND still took the time to check if corbin was okay is the kind of in-ring storytelling I live for

We could have had a full-on accidentally spear - like we saw with roman and rock on saturday, like we've seen with other tag team finishers a hundred times. The wolf dogs could have lost because corbin got cut in half and bron was left outnumbered

But instead we get this moment where bron stops just in time, then seems confused about what just happened - almost like his body stopped on its own before it could hurt his partner. The confusion instantly turns to genuine concern for corbin. And corbin just stares at him, probably because he just saw his life flash before his eyes

It would have been so easy to have one or both of them get angry over this mistake. They're heels! They formed this team on the premise that they're both assholes! They were trying to kill each other just a handful of months ago!

But they don't get angry. Because at their cores, underneath all the eye-rolling and slapping and bickering, they care about each other more than anything. They lose because deep down they value each other's well-being more than retaining the gold. Maybe they didn't even realize the depth of it until right here in this moment

I'm 100% over-analyzing something lasts maybe 3 seconds. But to me it says so much about the bond they've formed. Such a bittersweet but beautiful way to end their nxt run

[firstumcschenectady]

“Provisions” based on Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9

I was reading a commentary on Luke and I realized I’m “getting” Pilate more and more these days:

Josephus’s accounts of Pilate’s confrontations with the Jews confirm that bloodshed was not uncommon: Pilate’s troops killed a group of Samaritans climbing Mt. Gerizim; Pilate introduced Roman effigies into Jerusalem; Pilate seized Temple Treasury funds in order to build an aqueduct.1

I don’t appreciate having a more visceral understanding of the experiences of ancient Jews in oppression by the leaders of the Empire, but here we are nonetheless.

I have been convinced by Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Walter Brueggemann that the Bible sets up a contrast between human systems of oppression and domination and God’s aims for systems of wholeness and interdependence. Various entities play the role of “oppression and domination” in different parts of the Bible. Egypt and the Pharaoh get to be the first and primary example of oppressors.

Egypt and the Pharaoh oppress the descendants of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and then God intervenes and frees the people. The people learn dependence on God and each other, and then get to settle into the “Promised Land” where they live in mutuality with sustainable practices and relative equality for a nice long time. 400 years or so.

The next example of oppression in the Bible is the Ancient Israelite Kings, perhaps none more so than Solomon. Once the people get a King, they get high taxes, forced labor, and class differentiation, not to mention kings who think they have the right to do whatever they want regardless of settled laws. The people are oppressed by their own Kings, mostly, although there is some debate about if that oppression was “better” than some others.

Then the next big oppressors are the nations who capture Ancient Israel and Ancient Judah, Assyria and Babylon. We hear more about Babylon, and it Babylon that features in our Hebrew Bible lesson today.

Isaiah 55 comes from the time of exile, when many Ancient Israelites were exiled in Babylon. While the exiles were taken away in waves and returned in waves, we often summarize the exile as lasting about 70 years, which means that most of the people taken into exile died there and most of the people who ended up returning had never been “home” before.

Today’s passionate passage dreams of the joy of homecoming, and contrasts the oppressive systems the people knew in Babylon with a return of God’s dreams back home. Walter Brueggemann writes:

The poet makes a sharp contrast between old modes of life under Babylonian authority and the new offer of life with Yahweh. The initial verse, perhaps in the summoning mode of a street vender, offers to passerby free water, free wine, and free milk. This of course is in contrast to the life resources offered by the empire that are always expensive, grudging, and unsatisfying. Israel is invited to chose the free, alternative nourishment offered by Yahweh.2

The thing is, the author of Isaiah 55 knows that not everyone will make that choice. The people who were thriving in Babylon were likely going to stick with the oppressive regime that benefited them instead of trying to live out God’s dreams. Others would stay because they just didn’t believe things could be any different. Despair kept them in place.

Whenever I encounter this passage, I’m drawn like a magnet to verse 2, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” This just has so many layers of truth. One is probably too literal, but in these days of ubiquitous processed food designed to create cravings without satisfaction I take the passage as a reminder to eat food that satisfies. Similarly, why do we spend money on cheap plastic gadgets that we’ll eventually tire of and trash?

More spiritually though, this passage guides me to reflection. What am I spending time, money, or energy on that doesn’t actually matter? Where is my labor being wasted? What good things is God wanting for us that we’re too distracted to attend to? What things that we have and hold dear might actually be getting in the way of what need or what would be great for us? What do I think of as “bread” that is really “fluff” and where do I seek satisfaction where I’m really being exploited?

The premise here is that God wants goodness for the people. Satisfying food that everyone can access, labor that builds up life and doesn’t drain it, delight, love, hope, a clear sense of God’s closeness, mercy, complete and utter wholeness and freedom. Contained within though is the reality that even when that kind of goodness is offered, people don’t always take it. Probably, at least in some ways, we don’t either, and God invites us to goodness again and again.

And to turn away from the things of death and destruction, from cheap tricks that distract us, from oppression and evil in all forms. So that we, and all, can move towards life.

Of course, we never get to do that in a vacuum. While we’re trying to learn how to live into God’s goodness, and let go of the things that don’t satisfy or bring life, we have to do it in the midst of a world where domination systems exist and oppression is present. Sometimes those are heavier than others, which I think we have already noticed today, but they’re never gone (at least in Western societies, I think some indigenous societies were and are quite different.).

By the time of Jesus the domination system of oppression was the Roman Empire version, and it was about as brutal as usual. While we hear Jesus talking about two incidents – one where Pilate had killed a group of people and one where a wall or tower collapsed and killed a group of people – I think the author of Mark was probably talking a lot more about the destruction of Jerusalem itself. There are profound questions being asked here, generally amounting to “are people who die in random incidents killed because God is punishing them for sin?” to which Jesus answers, “no!” And yet, Jesus says, unless things change and people engage differently with each other it will keep happening. Which, I’ll say, is true. For the early Jesus movement, there was a sense of urgency in this, perhaps because the early Jesus movement had also just experienced the massacre and destruction of Jerusalem and had a strong sense that the world was ending.

The end of our passage is also meant to bring urgency, but it also brings grace. The desert climate of Israel isn’t an easy one to grow anything in, there isn’t spare land or spare water for trees that don’t produce fruit. And yet, the gardener intercedes on behalf of the tree, asking for one more year to nurture it more deeply and see if it is able to fulfill its purpose.

I love that it reminds us that when we aren’t able to “fulfill our purposes,” we too may need some gentleness and nurture to give us a fighting chance. I love that it reminds us of a good way to treat others who are struggling. And I notice that the end goal is a tree that bears fruit, so that the people can eat from it.

Jesus and his followers get accused of being gluttons, drunkards, and violators of the Sabbath because they eat when they’re hungry and drink when they are thirsty. Jesus tells stories about fig trees, and wanting them to make figs so people can eat them.

It feels a little bit like the fulfillment of Isaiah’s dreams of what it would be like for the people who returned from exile. There was in the time of Jesus a plenty powerful oppressive system in place, but Jesus and his followers just ignored it. They lived as if they were responsible for and to each other, and savored life. This wasn’t a simple way to be, and it definitely had consequences, but I think it was a faithful way to be.

In the midst of systems that seem to push people down, one of the strongest forms of resistance is to eat bread that satisfies AND share it! To simply refuse to participate in oppression and instead participate in enjoying the goodness of life that God offers, and inviting others to do so as well. To find what satisfies, and share that too. To live God’s mercy.

Come to the waters, beloveds of God. You are not obligated to drink the oppressors’ poison, you are are invited to eat and drink and be satisfied and whole. Receive the provisions of God. God’s goodness remains, no matter what the oppressors have to say about it, no matter what they do. Thanks be to God! Amen

1R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke in” The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol IX, editorial board convened by Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) Commentary on Luke 13:1-9, page 270.

2Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), page 158-9.

Rev. Sara E. Baron  First United Methodist Church of Schenectady  603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305  Pronouns: she/her/hers  http://fumcschenectady.org/  https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 23, 2025