#city overlook

[mothmiso]

Brașov (2) (3) by graeg

[adventurealldays]

[heybiji]

"This city… you give everything, and you know what they do? They take it.”

[overlookcity]

[beefsleaf]

tgcf is a comedy because xie lian, a god, goes to heaven and has the worst time ever he's the laughing stock of all three realms and just miserable but then he finds a home in hell where his hot rich boyfriend is waiting for him in his beautiful castle and everyone loves and respects him

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Adding on to my The Batman post, I forgot to mention how much I adore the way they handle the no killing rule. In terms of plot, I don't think it's mentioned at all as a sticking point. He won't kill and that's that.

But there's one particular scene. Carmine and Selina. Bruce has just punched Carmine to the ground, saving Selina's life, and is now trying to wrestle the gun away from her. She tries to convince him. "He has to pay!"

And right here is where I thought that stupid classic line was gonna be. I could see it coming like a freight train. "If you kill him, you'll be just as bad as he is." But then... I'm wrong. It doesn't happen. Instead, Bruce makes a very different statement.

"You don't have to pay with him. You've paid enough."

And with that, he gets the gun and Carmine is arrested. There's no moral high ground, there's no shitty logic.

Bruce has seen what The Roman has done. Who he's hurt. What he's taken away. Selina's mother. Her girlfriend. Bruce's own parents. He knows better than anyone the need for revenge. For justice. But he also knows that this man before him, lying bloodied on the floor, has taken enough. He's taken their families, their morals, their innocence. But he doesn't get to take away their lives. He doesn't get to have that power.

And then Carmine is shot and killed anyway so Selina got what she wanted in the end either way.

[starry-bi-sky]

okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.

So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).

Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021 Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021 San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021

Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.

Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)

Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.

It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.

[clarissaweasley-10]

reblog if you love both Keefe and the other characters equally (or to an extent equally).

[ruvviks]

All That's Left follows two journalists and their friends in post-apocalyptic United States as they travel from the fallen east coast megalopolis Opportunity back to Los Angeles, crossing through a harsh wasteland overrun with zombies— only to find out that there is a lot more life left than what the protected cities want them to believe. On their journey they meet dozens of people living their lives as peaceful as possible away from military forces, corporations, and corrupt governments; and they learn that the same mutated ghouls that took down Opportunity are spreading rapidly through the country, destroying everything in their path. Will this finally be the end of the world as we know it?

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[howlsmovinglibrary]

my current experience of reading Jade City for the first time is watching myself get attached to a Ned-Stark coded man, and wondering how badly this is going to end for me.

[ninjanissie]

last night's Masks game was fun. Two player characters impromptu exchanged phone numbers. And then immediately after being fired by her mentor, one came crying to the other on the phone

[mothmiso]

Nightscape (2) (3) by maaasaaa415

Via Flickr:

(1) (2) Yokkaichi (3) Mizushima     

[heybiji]

[rhysintherain]

@blackjackkent's liveblog of BG3 has inspired So Many Thoughts about the Emperor and Raphael and how they compare as characters.

It's come up that the Emperor's character writing could be intended to portray very different motivations based on how the player character responds to it, but personally I don't think that's it. At its core, I think the Emperor is being honest about its motivations: it only wants to survive. What it's not saying is that it will do anything to achieve that end, at the cost of anyone in its way. And the best tool it has to do that is the protagonist.

Its conversations with the protagonist always remind me of abusive relationship dynamics. it plays nice as long as that works, and changes tactics when nice doesn't get what it wants. It constantly reminds you that you need each other, that you couldn't survive without it, that it is the only one you can trust. It offers moments of vulnerability to lure you in, then tries to cut you off from any allies or courses of action it doesn't approve of.

The thing about abusive relationships is that they only turn violent and confrontational when the abuser doesn't get their way. Violence is a last resort, and most abusers prefer to manipulate people without it. Some people go years without discovering their abuser has the capacity for violence, because they never confront them on the control they exert.

And that's exactly how the Emperor relates to the protagonist. If you never question it, never choose a path it doesn't like, you never get pushback. As long as you play by its rules it has no reason to change tactics, because what it's doing is working.

It's only when the protagonist's aims clearly don't match its own that it resorts to threats. It's only when you call the Emperor's bluff, tell it you know it doesn't care about you, that it shows you the truth about its relationship with Stelmane.

Because the truth is, it only cares about its own survival and freedom. And it's very skilled at the game it's playing. It has a profound ability to judge what the protagonist needs to hear, and show them what they want to see. If you want to see a friend who transcends what a mind flayer is supposed to be, it plays that part flawlessly. If you see through that, it has other methods of control at its disposal.

And the Emperor is brilliantly written as a manipulator. It can convince you that it's been on your side all along. It leaves just enough doubt that you might never know the truth. It preys on trust, and exploits the protagonist's willingness to believe in the inherent goodness of people. It expresses trust and vulnerability to the protagonist, anticipating that they will return that trust in response, regardless of whether it can be trusted.

And the cool thing about Raphael is that he's a very similar type of character. He also knows that being nice gets you further than being dangerous. The difference between them is that Raphael isn't quite as good at it: he has a temper, and is quicker to drop the mask. He has an ego that won't let him tolerate even the slightest resistance without breaking character. He believes in bribery over trust, and it makes his act easier to see through. The protagonist can express the same doubt in both of them and get threats from Raphael and disappointment from the Emperor, which pushes them away from one and towards the other.

And one of the striking things about BG3 is the sheer range of dangerous people it throws at your party. You have the tyrant queen, who took power through betrayal and maintains it through disinformation. The power-hungry boss, who offers what you want only until his rise to power is threatened. The abusive parent, who sees his children as possessions who exist to entertain him. The political climber, who treats his loyalists as pawns in a long game of personal gain. The sadistic elite, who's never had to hide her cruelty to those she controls because that's what authority means in her social circle. The loving father, who cares so little for the rest of the world he'd burn it all down to keep his daughter safe.

It's all excellent writing, but the Emperor might be the masterpiece. You can play out the whole story without clearly seeing how it fits the pattern. It can be your loyal partner, standing at your side and protecting you from all those dangerous people.

But it doesn't have to be. If you question its protection and loyalty, it can also be your worst enemy, determined to use all your shared struggles and deepest secrets to tear you apart.

[mayvaava]

I saw Wicked yesterday and it was pretty cute, I’d have liked it more if I were normal about The Wizard of Oz, but I am not. So, it was cute.

I like the strange little poly thing they have goin on, tho it feels close enough to the ol love triangle trope that I was a little irritated, but it was fine

It was very well produced, and as far as modern major Hollywood movies go, it was very good

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.