#it both swaps between all of them and exists for all of them simultaneously.

[wisteriasymphony]

how is it that i was thinking about that fuckass loser luka earlier and then thought “wait i can’t remember. what is juleka like in tweos” AND THEN YOU POST JULEKA ART

uhm. because i have access to all of my nation's minds. (except for the part that would let me distinguish between anon asks. that power i am still honing)

I should really post more TWEOS!Couffaine stuff though! Same with DJWifi/Nicaliyah. They deserve more. especially Aaliyah. i just have this perfect idea of her in my head and then i draw her and like.. i can't get it across the way i want, which sucks because i worry it comes across like she's my least favorite/not as developed as her own character when she is. She likes bagels and is a go-getter and loves documentaries and is the nonfiction girl to Adrien's fiction boy (in an antagonistic way lol) and is the true brains behind the Ladybug team and--- she's super cool. and i undersell that a lot. lol

AN-Y-WAY. yes i am psychic but also i like the validation of asks so like. if you guys want to see art of the side characters you have to ask or i won't know. but i will know because psychic powers, but i will pretend i won't because i'm a bitch. unless you tell my yourself then i will do it. yep.

[qweerhet]

the other thing is like. being perceived as a failed man isn't inherently incompatible with being perceived as a failed woman; trans people of all genders are perceived as both, to varying degrees and with varying contextual intent. transmisogyny covers a whole host of intersection points of misogyny, including being seen as a failed man, yes, but also being seen as a subclass of woman (able to be categorized as a woman when convenient to deny access to something, but inherently a woman that does not have access to womanhood, a woman that is not a woman but is being maliciously categorized as a woman, in a twisted form of malicious compliance), and also being seen as a failed woman in certain contexts (this most commonly happens to trans women who have chemically and/or surgically transitioned and regularly "pass" or are read as women by systems & individuals).

failed womanhood is a particular social class; it's not "this person tried to transition to womanhood but i don't see [her] as a woman," it's a class of women who step outside of gender bounds in a mirror to the failed-man class. women who are infertile or otherwise refuse to bear children, women who are testosterone-dominant, severely disabled women, women who do not intentionally present femininely. and like--yes, trans women who are perceived as women regularly get slotted into the "failed woman" class--tma people of all genders who are perceived as women regularly get slotted into this class--which does not deny the fact that a significant portion of tma people are not perceived as women by systems or by individuals.

and like--again--it's contextual! someone can simultaneously be seen as a failed man by her parents & doctor, and be seen as a failed woman by the people she goes to school with. the same person can swap between categorizing you as a failed man and a failed woman based on what's most convenient for them to support their presupposed biases and deny you access to resources. (and quite frankly, it's difficult to tell when this is malicious compliance and the perception is entirely artificially affected vs. when it's deeply internalized bigotry and the perceptions are genuine, but both do exist and both are different manifestations of deeply-embedded societal narratives.)

"transmisogyny is solely based on the societal categorization of transfems as failed women, and transmisogyny has no links to societal perceptions of men" genuinely doesn't make much sense when considering the cis women who are categorized as failed women & how they are treated--i think of my developmentally disabled classmates in sped, who experienced degendering violence because of their status as failed women, and i see certain parallels. being seen as sexually predatory, violent, uncontrollable, angry--all an area of overlap. but there's unique factors as well; failed women are treated as childlike, as in need of condescending & coddling education on proper gender roles, as in need of deportment, they're treated with the intention of softening them & leading them to femininity. adult failed women are treated as children long, long past childhood.

and trans women who are perceived as women regularly experience those things, particularly if they're also gnc in some way, but also just by virtue of being incapable of reproducing in the cisnormative way. simultaneously, though, there's unique aspects to transmisogyny in its "failed man" state; being treated as an adult long before it's developmentally appropriate, being reprimanded with the intent to "toughen you up," being treated as in need of masculinizing, needing to learn to enact violence and repress emotion, being backed into social corners to try to get you to violently lash out as ~education~ on your role in society.

those are not things that happen because someone is being, in that moment and by the structures enacting those things, perceived as a woman! some of them are even mutually exclusive, at least simultaneously--the same action cannot both reinforce that you are a misguided child undeserving of agency who needs patriarchal agents to teach you how to live and that you are a pathetic predatory wretch who needs to buck up and live up to your role as a powerful patriarchal agent! you can swap fluidly between having these experiences in life, but they're still experiences that are dependent on you being perceived differently at different times.

[leopeiros]

Merlin, but Voltron

Both my Merlin and Voltron fixations returned simultaneously, so what better way to feed them than to detail out an entire Voltron au for Merlin. (BBC Merlin)

Main Roles

Protagonists

Firstly, Merlin and Gaius are taking the role of Allura and Coran respectively. Balinor, therefore, takes the place of King Alfor.

Arthur takes the place of Shiro as paladin of the Black Lion.

Gwaine swaps with Keith, piloting the Red Lion.

Lancelot becomes the pilot of the Blue Lion. (this one made me giggle a bit)

Leon, Elyan, and Percival, unfortunately for all those who enjoy them, are getting sidelined at the current moment. Mostly because there's three of them and only two lions to juggle between them, and I can't accurately assess their characters well enough to chose who would get which. (jokingly, i considered making them the mice)

The Green Lion instead goes to our lovely lady Morgana.

Meaning the Yellow Lion goes to Gwen, the most rational person now in space.

Antagonists

This gets a little more.. vague, than I'd prefer, mostly because the antagonists of the BBC Merlin series are a tad more spread out than a single race or kingdom/empire. Therefore, while Zarkon is still the predominant threat of the au, his generals and whatnot will be antagonists recognizable from BBC Merlin.

Backstories

Merlin

Merlin was the illegitimate, and only, child of King Balinor. He was recognized into the family the moment his father learned of his existence. Merlin was born with the same incredible talent for manipulating and controlling quintessence as his father. But with his father busy most of the time, he was mostly taught to control these powers by one of his father's most trusted advisors; Gaius. When the war began, Balinor put Merlin in stasis against his will to keep him safe before scattering the Lions across space.

Arthur

Arthur grew up with his mother and father. His father, Uther, was the primary benefactor of the Galaxy Garrison location that Arthur attends. His mother, meanwhile, was a talented pilot before she and her crew went missing during a space mission gone awry. After this incident, Uther pulled his funding near-immediately, and was the main reason behind the coverup, having pushed for the Garrison to look as little into the disappearance as possible and to instead mark it as pilot error. Arthur, snooping inside of his father's study one day, discovered this tidbit of information. Wanting to figure out the reason behind his mother's disappearance, he enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison behind his father's back.

Guinevere 

Gwen began attending the Galaxy Garrison after her brother, Elyan, went missing on a mission to space. She had suspicions that the Garrison was involved in covering up what truly occurred, or at least willfully conducted a shoddy investigation. She enlisted the help of her childhood friend, Morgana, to help her investigate.

Morgana, Gwaine, & Lancelot

Ward of Uther Pendragon, Morgana began investigating both the man and the Garrison at the request of her childhood friend, Guinevere.

Regarding Gwaine and Lancelot, I have no real backstory for them yet, considering I'm making this up as I go at an ungodly time of night. Might try and figure out something for them later, but no promises on that front.

Miscellaneous Info

Morgana's mother, Vivienne, is Altean. She was not on Altea when it was destroyed. She was initially captured by Galra soldiers, but one took a liking to her and hid her away. When they were close to being found out, her Galra lover put her into stasis to hopefully be freed when the war was over. He then died creating a diversion away from where she was hidden. Unbeknownst to both of them, she was pregnant when she was put into stasis. Bla bla, Morgause is born. Morgause is taken in by Haggar as she shows great potential. Vivienne later flees and crash lands on earth where she meets Uther Pendragon after disguising herself as human. Affair occurs, Vivienne gets pregnant with Morgana. After Morgana is born, Vivienne admits to Uther that she isn't human, and Uther doesn't take it well. He hands her over to the Galaxy Garrison for research purposes, but does not reveal that he had a child with her. She probably dies while with the Garrison, idk.

Mordred will probably be an Altean/Galra hybrid as well.

Ygraine and Elyan (and possibly Leon and Percival) were part of this AU's version of the Kerberos mission. Ygraine does not survive this, but Elyan does. (Or, alternatively, she does survive, and a few chapters later sacrifices herself for her son or something, as things like this tend to go.)

Aithusa has two potential applications in this AU. Either an A.I/Robot like Pidge's Galra drone, or an actual creature. Either option works. Either way, Aithusa's favourite of the bunch is obviously Morgana. No clue what to do about Kilgharrah though.

In the end, this AU is just a funny little idea I had, generally inspired by A Casual Tuesday - Spagoleon - Voltron: Legendary Defender [Archive of Our Own] which is a DRv3 Voltron AU. It's far more fleshed out than this fledgling au though.

[couchcandy]

Psych x Community ??

I love psych and i love community so this vague concept of them existing in the same universe has been floating around in my head. 

The key connecting factor being the references to Shawn/Britta’s similarly eclectic off-screen pasts. They're close in age so I'm like okay - it would totally be possible for them to have known eachother/dated/whatever at some point before. 

psych aired from 2006 - 2014; Shawn born 1977

community aired from 2009 -2014; Britta born 1980

(Take these two quotes just as an example but it's referenced casually throughout both shows)

Britta’s Dad: I mean, every time we get too close, you run off. We sent you a birthday card to your apartment in New York, and the next week you’re setting fire to a Jamba Juice in San Jose.

Britta: How long is that gonna stick with me?

Britta’s Mom: Until arson is legal, sweetie.

Gus: Shawn, you’ve had fifty-seven jobs since we left high school.

Shawn: Yes I have. And they were all fun. But this one takes the cake.

Gus: Oh yeah? Better than the acupuncture clinic?

Shawn: I didn’t realize experience was necessary.

Gus: What about the summer you spent driving the weiner mobile?

Shawn: I did that for the hot dogs.

I think they fit somewhere in the ballpark of each other's types, both sluts(affectionate) and it makes sense for them to have crossed paths at some point during Britta's “anhercists” days. 

So that establishes a link between the groups, but what would it be like if they interacted? Take the arbitrary scenario; Shawn and Gus have gotten themselves and by extension the SBPD into another whacky shenanigan somehow who cares how i'm not writing this

I imagine initially everyone in the study group has a more or less positive impression of Shawn because he's charming, (with the notable exception of…you got it! Jeff)

JEFF

In typical jeff fashion is immediately threatened by Shawn because he has to be the coolestmostlikeabledude™ in the room at all times while simultaneously has to act like he doesn't care so he's quietly seething and - hey what's this new dude doing here making all my friends laugh that's my job! i must now make it my life's mission to prove this guys a fraud and reclaim my status no matter how much a fool i make of myself in the process (a la: advanced documentary filmmaking)

BRITTA

Normal standard “hey old friend” situation, remember when we *insane thing involving multiple felonies and property destruction* haha anyway let me introduce you to my friends - 

ANNIE

immediate skepticism that Shawn is able to sidestep pretty quickly by being charming/flirty (NOT in a gross way *hisses at the jeffannie shippers*) Her reaction being like when the dean “swaps bodies with jeff��� or after abed’s don draper impression.

ABED

Knows Shawn isn't really psychic but goes along with it/doesn’t point out that Shawn’s hyper observant because he's invested in watching the psychic/cop show formula play out. He would! and I would too!

(quote from 5x03 Basic Intergluteal Numismatics):

Abed Nadir: [Pretending to read the crime scenes as a psychic] I see a man... using a social disorder as a procedural device. Wait, wait, wait, I see another man. Mildly autistic super detectives everywhere.

TROY

Obligatory: “you’re wrinkling my brain right now” and just general fascination, awe, and wonderment. Asks Shawn to tell him his future

SHIRLEY

Immediate judgment on Shawn's practices not being christian enough for her standards, but easily swayed to liking him once he picks up on something and comments on her ex husband being an idiot to lose her or something

PEIRCE

Does his peirce thing and tries to seem impressive and fails, something level five laser lotus blah blah - u get it thats enough on him 

THE DEAN

Is facilitating the psych crew being there because it might bring in good press for greendale and he def does the hand on shoulder thing when he meets him you know the one - omg and totally is into Lassiter furrowed brows “im packing heat” Carlton, please. – lassie is Not Amused™ 

CHANG

This depends on what point in community canon this interaction takes place because season 1 chang would prob be normal(for him), but like season 5 Chang would do/say something so insane and so chang that i can't even come up with it

As for our psych guys, Gus points out how weird and fucked up and bizarre Greendale is meanwhile Shawn is LIVING for it - signs them up for the Dean’s PA announcements class, and “Gus! buddy! I hope you don't mind. I used your credit card to sign us up for The History of Ice Cream. Come on, it starts in 20 minutes ! :D” Gus: “Shawn! >:0”

Lassie would just nonstop point out all the health and safety violations- he doesn't want to be here- calls a lot of people hippies, generally grumpy demeanor and we love him for it.

Starburns terribly hits on Jules - gets rejected, proceeds to try and sell her drugs - gets arrested.

[enkephallic]

Queer Sexuality in Limbus Company

My not very coherent mini-thoughts.

Playing Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina, I had an impression that PM often wrote women who would end up entangled in the lives of several people and lead them down a twisted path (Carmen), use their strength to make a name for themselves for perceived good (Kali) or just Absolute Strength for what it is (Garion). In addition to this, the female characters in lead roles of the games would wittingly or unwittingly shift the narrative to bring havoc upon the male protagonist's reason to exist (Angela to Ayin, Angelica to Roland).

This can be seen in Limbus Company - Kromer ruins what was Sinclair's normalcy. Catherine pulls a Carmen. Ryoshu's relentless pursue of artistic anatomical destruction. However, a key difference between Limbus and the previous games is the incorporation of classical literature, and its figures into the narrative. This creates an interesting blend of PM-style characterization and gender/queerness in the source material.

Demian and Moby Dick are good examples of this. Both can be read from a queer lens - Demian can be interpreted in several ways, from a psychological journey of awakening to a story of understanding one's own identity (sexuality and gender is also encompassed in this). Most of the book focuses on Sinclair's internal self and his growth, with periods of both with and without Demian in his life.

The most notable difference is the lack of homoromantic tension present in the book. Book Sinclair is tormented with dreams of Kromer hurting him, until he dreams of being forced beneath Demian and feels 'ecstasy' while suffering gladly under him. His complex feelings towards Demian encompasses more than love, while simultaneously evoking queer themes to many readers. It is difficult to argue the same for Limbus Demian, who certainly leans more heavily into the symbolic mentor role and questionably human.

This could be due to Sinclair's journey being far from complete. The book gets rid of Kromer very early, and it's only the start of his growth as a person. Perhaps we'll see more of Demian and Sinclair's relationship unfold, though right now there isn't much of that happening.

On the other hand, Ishmael and Queequeg leans quite heavily into the book duo's closeness. So much so that Queequeg saving Tashtego in Moby Dick is adapted into an Ishmael-Queequeg interaction. Moby Dick features a close bond between them described with the words 'marriage', and goes on to feature them sharing a safety rope that would bind their fates together if one should fall. These aspects, prime for queer reading, are picked up on and detailed in Canto 5.

What's more, there are many narrative and characterization choices that could have been made to tell their story. In PM fashion, the genders are swapped and both Ishmael and Queequeg are women. All of the female Sinners are genderswapped versions of their counterparts, while the male sinners are as-is (not adapted female to male). The decision to adapt Queequeg into a woman along with Ishmael is a choice that allows the preservation of queer reading - they could have chosen to keep Queequeg male, but did not. Conversely, Kromer was swapped into a woman from her book counterpart. The reason why is unclear, but the gendered 'genderswapping' in PM has a lot of avenue to explore in.

In many ways, Limbus defies gacha traditions including gendered conventions employed in larger games (gendered attire, implied sexualization) which can be attributed to their indie-ness and nonconformity. The most notable one would probably be how they handle romance - many playable gacha characters do not hint at heterosexual relationships, while Heathcliff straight up has the most twisted love affair with Cathy. Some games with female fanbases create strong bonds between male characters, while keeping female characters catered to their male fanbase. The opposite can be seen in Limbus, where straight relations are hinted at the most (or outright established) while male-male friendships aren't very prominent within the Sinners. There's some resentment (Hong Lu and Heathcliff) and improvement (Sinclair and Heathcliff), but not really any One duo that stick out.

[clownprince]

Batjokes in Batman: Last Knight on Earth

I'd highly recommend reading LKOE before reading this meta, but I'll quickly summarize utc (spoilers, obviously).

Basically, Lex Luthor challenged Superman to a debate for evil versus good. Luthor won, Superman died, and the population picked off most of the superheroes. The remaining superheroes had a final meeting to try and decide what to do. The public was outside the hall. Batman opened the doors and let them in. They massacred everyone. Batman survived but barely and when he recovered his mentality was broken. He returned as Omega to try and save the population by acting as a dictator, essentially. The story follows Joker (who stayed alive as a severed head, somehow) and a Bruce Wayne created by Bruce's perpetual Batman machine, on their quest to stop Omega and save the world from being mind-controlled.

So, an idea that I've heard quite a bit is that Joker loves Batman, not Bruce. I've always been of the mind that it's more complicated than that.

A major theme in Batjokes is the idea of duality, Batman and Joker as opposing forces who complement each other. "You complete me." There are different interpretations of this idea, both from creators and fans. In The Dark Knight, Joker loves Batman because in Joker's own words, he's "too fun to kill". Joker is fascinated by Batman, and his interactions with Batman satiate his sensation seeking/need for stimulation. 

Scott Snyder frames it as more of an ideological battle: "... the romance between them for me has always been this sense of them locked in this dance. 'We love each other. We can never leave each other. I am the other half of you. You complete me.'"

And then there's the aspect mentioned in Endgame: "fighting for meaninglessness but giving meaning by virtue of the fight." Engaging in this ideological battle with Batman gives Joker a reason to continue existing; it gives him a purpose in a reality he perceives as cruel and absurd and ultimately futile.

There are different aspects of this and different viewpoints and they're all valid. But I interpret the whole "you complete me" thing in somewhat of a different way.

To me, it's more like: I love you because in another world, our roles our swapped. I love you because you care about everything and everyone so deeply even though it doesn't matter in the end and you know that. I love you because you experienced the same kind of world-shattering trauma that I did, but rather than giving in to the futility of everything and embracing the chaos of the universe, you chose to fight back. I love you because you choose to try and save everyone even when logic says it's impossible, because you keep getting back up even when you know you're just going to get knocked right back down again. I love you because the world told you "life is meaningless" and instead of accepting and internalizing that, you said "then I'II create my own meaning". I love you because you are everything that I'm not. 

I've always believed that Joker loves Batman for his humanity, for his hope and faith in his fellow people and his desire to help, his striving to make things better and to save people even if it doesn't ultimately change anything in a major way. But as I said before, it's complicated. I think that Joker is simultaneously frustrated by Batman continually trying to save everyone, in part because it's pointless to him, but also in part because of how it reflects on him and his worldviews. He hates the possibility that his way of dealing with the meaningless of everything is wrong. His nihilism is a survival strategy and not something he can easily let go of. Hope, optimism, and belief in the goodness of people are not luxuries that he can afford.

In a very real way, Batman embodies what's left of Joker's hope. Batman represents the possibility that people can go through the worst the world has to offer and still retain their compassion and belief in other people and desire to make things better. I think that's one of the reasons Joker pushes Batman like he does, and also one of the reasons Joker wants Batman to break his no killing rule on Joker specifically and not someone else; he doesn't want to be alive in a world where Batman is no longer a source of hope. I also don't think that he can admit this to himself, if he's even consciously aware of it.

Joker's conflict with Batman is his way of clinging on to hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe he's wrong. Maybe kindness and compassion and trying to help isn't futile. Maybe not everyone is bad, maybe people are deserving of help and the faith that Batman puts in them. 

Joker is so traumatized that he genuinely cannot allow himself to have that kind of hope again. It's a common thing with complex trauma to have negative core beliefs about the world and humanity in general. Joker's nihilism is a coping mechanism. He cannot allow himself to be anything other than nihilistic, he can't afford the luxury of hope because if he dared to hope and it backfired it would break him (or that's his perception, at least). This is kind of echoed in TKJ, although you could argue that's more about trust. I think it's both.

I think that Joker loves the part of Batman who wants to save everyone, who puts on the cowl with the intention of not letting anyone else go through what he experienced as a child, who has compassion for even the worst of his rogues, just as much as he loves the part of Batman who is violent and pathological and wants revenge for what he went through. And he wants Batman to get the joke, i.e., accept that everything is meaningless and stop trying to fix things when it's ultimately futile, and stop trying to help people when they're fundamentally bad. But he also wants Batman to keep pushing back, to keep trying to prove him wrong.

Unfortunately, there isn't much evidence for this in comics (largely because not a lot of creators dare to tackle what's going on in Joker's mind and instead just use him as a chaos edgelord villain). The closest thing is this excerpt from TDKR:

You could make an argument that Batman keeping count isn't an expression of him caring about the victims, but l've personally always interpreted this quote as meaning "I love you because these people's lives mean nothing to me, but you care about every single one I take."

Asiide from TDKR, LKOE is one of the only comics that actually has some evidence for this idea. 

This is obviously a reference to Bruce holding the door open for the mob of people. But you could also interpret this as a metaphor for a lot of things. Really any of those concepts I mentioned that Batman represents/embodies and that Joker denies himself, like hope, optimism, belief in the goodness of people, etc. So what he says next, "It's why Bats was always the best act in town in my opinion!"

You could also interpret this in a few ways. One is that he's saying that Batman was the best act in town because he was crazy, and Joker derived entertainment from that. But you could also interpret it more as Joker loves Batman because he would hold the door open, because he believes in people and he because he tries to save people, tries to help even if its dangerous or ultimately doomed.

Here we have Joker finally allowing himself the luxury of hope. He allows himself to believe in Batman's cause. And just prior to this, Joker took Tim's old Robin robot suit, which is significant of in itself. Obviously it varies with the person behind the mask, but the actual role of Robin represents the lighter side of Batman's crusade. Hope for the future, childlike optimism, belief in people and belief that things could be better, that people's actions do have the capacity to make things better. Batman needs a Robin to avoid getting sucked into a pit of anger and vengeance and despair. Aside from the human connection, needs someone to remind him of the lighter side of things.

So obviously having Joker take up this role when he usually represents pure nihilism and chaos, the idea that life is meaningless and people's actions and efforts to change things don't matter in the long run... It's a role reversal that shows how Joker and Batman's dynamic has been forced to change in this post-apocalyptic world. Earlier, Bruce says that Joker can't be Robin because Robin "was just a good person trying to help." Whether Joker fits that description is debatable, but he certainly has changed.

Joker's character development is further emphasized in this page, staring at his old costume, what he used to represent and fight for with his reflection showing where he is now. You could also argue that the next panel with Joker talking about the echoes is him trying to comfort Batman in his own way; that's more debatable but it would fit in nicely with the idea of him filling the role of Robin.

"All I've ever do is tried to challenge you, make you stronger. If you ever broke, you weren't worth it. But this time... this was it... you'd fall if you didn't see." For all the times Joker has said that he wants Batman to be in on the joke, for him to see that everything is meaningless and that what he's doing as Batman is insane and won't help anything because people are not good and don't matter anyway…. Well, imo this quote shows that it's not the entire truth.

The key here, I think, is in the quote "if you ever broke, you weren't worth it." Joker wants to push Batman to the point of breaking, but he doesn't actually want him to break. He wants to challenge Batman and his worldview, but if he ever actually changed his worldview to match Joker's, if he actually stopped trying to change things for the better and gave in to the idea that everything is meaningless, then he wouldn't be worth it.

He's constantly pushing Batman to try to get him and break, to see the joke and stop trying, but also if Batman stopped trying, if he stopped being a source of hope and stubborn determination in the face of a meaningless universe, Joker wouldn't have the same interest in him.

As stated in the I Am A Gun arc, without Bruce Wayne, Batman is just hollow anger. His hope and compassion and desire to help are what differentiate him from all the other dark angry edgelord vigilantes out there. Bruce Wayne is the soft, tender, hopeful human part of Batman.

Joker does love Bruce Wayne, or at least parts of him. He just either isn't necessarily aware of it, or can't bring himself to admit it under normal circumstances.

The circumstances in LKOE are anything but normal, though. Usually Joker wouldn't be able to admit this, that he values Batman's belief people and his has hope and faith and compassion and softness. But things have changed.

Omega is a Batman who has broken. He's lost his faith in people. He's lost his hope. The only way he can imagine a world that isn't violent and awful is by mind controlling the populous. He doesn't believe that people could be good enough to make the world good. He's become a dictator rather than a source of hope.

Omega has given up on the world, and he's trying to create a new, better one. But the thing is, Batman would never give up on the world as it is. He would try to save it regardless of whether his quest to save it is doomed, and regardless of whether it even wants saving.

I think this really encapsulates what Joker both loves and hates most about Batman. In a world that says "I have no place for your optimism, there is no room for your point of view and your futile attempts to save everyone in this meaningless, doomed world", Batman says "I'll make my own place. I'll try to save everyone regardless of whether it's doomed to fail and regardless of whether it's ultimately meaningless or futile. I'll make my own place and my own meaning."

Joker's Batman would hold open the door. Because Batman believes in people, has faith in them and their goodness. And Joker knows this, and he loves and hates it.

Ultimately, Joker is the one who helps talk Bruce into not giving up in his fight against Omega. He's usually advocating for the futility of trying to fight for good or trying to change anything, so this is clearly an inversion of that.

As for Joker's apparent hatred of Bruce Wayne; I could make a whole additional meta about this but basically I think it boils down to jealousy and fear of being abandoned by Batman. He hates that Batman is spending time with and energy on people other than him and he's afraid of becoming insignificant compared to the Batfam, essentially. He sees Batman growing as a person in the sense of him making connections, and he feels like he's being left behind because Batman is changing but he isn't. And then there's the jealousy; Batman has connections and people who care about him but Joker has no one.

While LKOE isn't canon, I would argue that Snyder's characterization of him and his motives is consistent enough to generalize across all of his work. So with LKOE in mind and the idea of Joker loving Batman's hope and compassion but not being able to admit it, and him framing it as an ideological battle as a way to rationalize it so he doesn't have to admit to himself that he loves Batman for the softer parts of him (in addition to his darker qualities ofc). There are some examples that hint at this, too.

Here we have Joker admitting he doesn't want either of them to win. To me, this has always read like Joker wants to believe in Batman's message, he wants to believe that things are meaningful and that people can be good but he can't, and this eternal fight is his way of preserving a shred of hope and creating meaning for himself. He doesn't actually want to win, he wants to push Batman and see him continue believing and being a source of hope and trying to change things even though Joker is trying to break him and his worldview. It's almost like every time Joker challenges Batman's worldview and he doesn't break, it gives Joker just the tiniest little additional bit of hope.

And then we have this. It's not as direct as LKOE, but I think the sentiment of Joker loving Batman for his caring and trying to change things and making his own meaning in the face of a meaningless universe is very much present in this panel. I suppose you could read this as sarcastic or trying to make fun of him, but I still think there's at least a shred of truth to it.

So, while LKOE isn't canon, I still consider all of this to be accurate to Joker's character in general, including in canon continuity. Although you're more than welcome to disagree with me.

[tobiasdrake]

Saw The Marvels last night and have been trying to organize my thoughts ever since.

The best part of the film is the chemistry between its leads. Kamala, Carol, and Monica bounce off of each other well. Kamala in particular brings a lot of charm to this group that helps break down the emotional walls that Monica and Carol both have on display.

Where the film struggles is in finding things for these characters to do. The plot is one of the simplest Marvel's ever put-forward; No more complex than "There exists a bad guy and we must defeat her because heroes defeat bad guys," with no twists or turns along the way. We didn't get her the first time. We didn't get her the second time. We didn't get her the third time. But by Thor, we got her the fourth time!

That's basically it. The story consists of fighting Dar-Benn, then going to the next place where we will fight Dar-Benn. Although Nick Fury and Kamala's family provide several great moments to the film (including a hilarious but consequence-free sequence where S.A.B.E.R. forces must be rescued by a litter of Flerkens), the straightforward series of consecutive boss fights offers no opportunities for characters outside our core trio to influence the plot in any meaningful way.

It's really just these three characters carrying the weight of the film, so their dynamic better be gold.

Fortunately, it is. It absolutely is.

This also puts a lot of pressure on Dar-Benn. As a boss fight, she needs to be able to believably juggle three superheroes at once, one of whom is the most powerful MCU character of all time. Here, the film falters. She seems just like every other Kree bad guy, but with a special MacGuffin to give her Dragon Ball Z Power Levels so she can throw punches at Carol's weight class.

She bodies everyone constantly in the fight scenes but it never feels like she should be giving them all so much trouble. It has that vibe of when a solo hero's villain has to be a team-up bad guy for an arc. Like, normally Spider-Man can handle Doc Ock easily enough, but he needs to be an Avengers villain now so suddenly he's powerful enough to take down Thor and the Hulk simultaneously.

Dar-Benn is helped in this endeavor by the film's special gimmick. Carol, Monica, and Kamala constantly swapping places with each other is a cool element that provides both plentiful comedy and some awesome moments, especially as they learn to take advantage of it.

It's also not explained very well and is barely integrated into the plot. It's a weird thing that the Quantum Bands suddenly started doing to to them one day. They learned how to go with it. Then, once the story was far enough along, it stopped of its own accord. More "Sure, I guess this might as well happen" than an interesting new metaphysic.

The story seems either sorely underwritten or utterly butchered by reshoots. Heavy emphasis is placed on galactic worldbuilding and expositing lore than on putting its characters through an emotional and thematic journey.

That's not to say there isn't an emotional journey, mind you. Monica and Kamala's stories are more or less relegated to reacting to Carol. Their parts in the plot are defined by how Carol has respectively influenced them, for better and for worse. As much as the title bills itself as a team-up, this is unambiguously Carol 2. Kamala and Monica are static characters, primarily working to help examine Carol by offering their respective lenses.

But that examination goes deep, and in directions it's rare to see a story willing to take its protag in. Especially a superhero story.

The Marvels primarily interrogates Carol's loner behavior. Carol is Marvel's most powerful hero, but that doesn't mean she can't make mistakes when she takes too much on herself. The unilateral decisions she makes on behalf of others keep blowing up in her face and making things worse. She has to learn to stop talking for five minutes and listen to what other people think.

Which is the central narrative function, both for Kamala and Monica's presence here and for the mechanical decision to handcuff them to Carol's wrists so that she can't run away. It all serves to develop Carol into someone who sees the value in leaning on others, and teach her how to chill for five minutes.

The film also tackles some heavy subject matter with Carol's greatest mistake. This is the thing that's haunting her, and it's a genuinely tragic political mistake. One that world leaders have made many times throughout history.

In short, Carol thought she could bring peace by breaking into the hostile enemy state and decapitating their leadership. She didn't understand that you can't just snipe the king and bail. That leaves a region in chaos. Without prolonged reconstruction, this kind of destabilization can have devastating consequences not only for the destabilized nation, but for everyone else around it.

Unfortunately, while it would be good to see the impacts of this on more than just Carol, we don't. Not really. The only other character impacted is Dar-Benn but. Like. The loss of Hala has turned the Kree from an imperialist people who conquer, enslave, and exterminate worlds into an imperialist people who conquer, enslave, and exterminate worlds. It's a lateral move from what they were doing before to what they're doing now.

The Kree might throw out the name "Annihilator" here and there but it's all lip service. They're more or less the same Evil Overlord bad guys they've always been. Dar-Benn even gets an opportunity for nuance at the very end, but decides she'd rather kill herself out of spite instead. For as high as the stakes are raised for these battles, they have the energy of "Titanium Man is robbing the diamond store! We must stop him from stealing all of the precious jewels."

That a throwaway line at the end assures us that the affected planets - despite Carmen Sandiego stealing their oceans and atmosphere - are inexplicably fine also contributes to this feeling more like a Saturday Morning Cartoon episode than a cinematic blockbuster. Everything resets to status quo in the end. Well, except Monica, who's been drafted for the next round of multiversal shenanigans.

All things considered, this movie felt middle-of-the-road for me. There's a lot here to like but it needed more time in the oven.

Unfortunately, it's also headed for a far harsher reception than it deserves. The SAG-AFTRA strike meant actors aren't doing the usual talk show circuits to market the film. Between that and the film's heavy reliance on Disney Plus homework for its core appeal, it's struggling to find an audience. It's competing with Incredible Hulk and Ant-Man this weekend for lowest opening in Marvel history, which undercuts its legitimate charms by quite a lot.

Hopefully Marvel won't take the wrong lesson from the film's underperformance. But who am I kidding? We all know what studio executives are like.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 08/07/2023

I've won, but at what cost

Season 6 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume FF

Ripped by eg_9371

Requested by @undertale-vs-fortnite-who-wins

Season 6 of SiIvaGunner is immensely interesting to look back on, as it sort of carries an air of melancholy throughout. Though it had its fair share of average SiIva events, it was a season that, perhaps as a sheer coincidence, both began and ended with very important farewells. The Season's ending is a story for another time. Today, we're here to mourn the loss of GilvaSunner, the channel that arguably laid the groundwork for VGM on YouTube as a whole.

As I'm sure many are aware, GilvaSunner - thats with an L, not an uppercase i - was one of the leading channels for accessing video game music on YouTube, particularly from Nintendo music, in the 2010s and late 2000s. The channel's branding, thumbnails, description and mission statement of providing quality above all else were all things adopted by SiIvaGunner, both to help sell the original idea of impersonation whilst also building on it as a form of parody. The two existed in harmony, with GilvaSunner mostly inactive and SiIvaGunner existing as a giant tribute to video game music on the site as a whole. Through an increasingly heated copyright battle between himself and Nintendo, the channel admin of GilvaSunner was eventually forced to close the channel down, officially commencing on the 4th of February 2022. With him, a giant archive of video game music was lost, alongside all the voices and comments that had once occupied each and every upload. It didn't matter that the content that was lost wasn't original: In a way, an entire community was lost that day.

On the day of GilvaSunner's deletion, the entire SiivaGunner channel paid its respects through an event. The event posted several dozen rips in just one day, with per-game batches uploaded simultaneously to mirror the upload schedule of the original channel. In the end, it was all capped off with rips from Tengami: the very game that GilvaSunner and SiIvaGunner's header image is sourced form.

As the event's final rip, I've won, but at what cost (known otherwise as Loneliness - Tengami on the YouTube channel) holds that melancholy feeling more than any other that day. The rip initially appears to be the typical SiIva melodyswap medley, only it doesn't swap to any of SiIva's own themes. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road, Super Mario Galaxy, Mother 3: The track throughout all its melodyswaps celebrates everything that the original GilvaSunner channel itself loved, what its most remembered uploads were, and gives them an exceptionally emotional touch through the source track. Its only at the very end that Snow Halation from Love Live is added to close the theme out, as the visuals and song both fade.

Divorced from its original context in Love Live, Snow Halation on SiIvaGunner has to me always held weight as a theme of hope and revival, as the theme that originally brought SiIvaGunner out of the Reboot in Season 1. Arguably, its the theme most emblematic of the passion found in SiIva audience, from its initial hatedom to the wave of people now woefully attached to it - myself included. In mourning Gilva's closure and moving on throughout the 6th season of SiIva, Snow Halation playing here feels like a passing of the torch - as a reminder that, though we've lost one, the passion and spark of the SiIvaGunner channel refuses to ever let it die.

A cherry blossom falls

Death's embrace

A new beginning

[green-t-ea]

V2 QUESTIONS?? CAN DO, CAPTAIN

PLEASE PLEASE TELL ABOUT WHAT'S UP WITH V1 HAVING THE WHIPLASH. HOW DID THE CLAIR DE LUNE FIGHT GO. DID THEY KISS IMMEDIATELY OR DID IT TAKE UNTIL GREED OR LATER

Okay so! So!

You've seen in my art that sometimes v1 has the whiplash, sometimes the knuckleblaster, and sometimes V2 has the knuckleblaster or whiplash, ect! The reasoning is kinda multi-layered

Robots have a different morality to humans angels ect. They have been built to be torn apart and to put themselves back together without a moments notice. The machines don't actually care if they have lost parts or not, the goal is simply survival.

V1 stole v2's knuckle blaster after the clair de lune fight, V2 is not vengeful because of this surprisingly, it's normal to try and collect tools weapons and parts that will make survival easier, so V2 dosent hold a grudge that v1 took his arm, v1 beat him, then took the greatest weapon he could from him. BUT because of how V2 is designed the knuckleblaster is incredibly important for how he is built to fight. So V2 builds the whiplash arm to compensate and goes chasing after v1 to try and get it back.

Yet there is no true malice because of this. Robots don't hold grudges, so swapping parts like that is actually very common place.

Now after V2 is defeated in greed v1 most likely takes the whiplash as well, (V2 survives the greed fight in my little version of events because I say so) by the time V2 catches up to V1 in heresy however v1 has an enormous arsenal of weapons. In fact v1 has to many to juggle at this point, between the 3 arms and the pistol, shotgun, railgun, rocket launcher, nail gun, and all of the alternates of these guns he has way to many different options that are slowing him down. (And by this point both bots have kind of realized they would much rather work together then fight one another because each time they fight they get much closer to death). V1 decides to give V2 the knuckleblaster back, and from then on the two frequently trade arms around (except V2 refuses to use v1's arm because it's much much to small on him and he sucks at parrying) hence V2 sometimes having 1 or 2 right arms interchangeably

Okay for your other questions now even if I did sort of give some of it away already

The clair de lune fight was an absolute shit show. Up until this point v1 and V2 haven't interacted much, they knew the other existed (V2 was trained off footage of v1, and was compared to it very frequently, while v1 has never before seen V2 but did know another v model was in testing before the fall of man). So V2 was already in a position of rivalry with v1 from the get go, while v1 had no fucking idea who V2 was and why it looked the same as him. As v1 does his first reaction to seeing a robot burst through a window was immediately to go "I want that Twink obliterated" and to try and kill V2.

V1 ends up beating the shit out of V2 until he drops his arm in defeat and runs away.

Unfortunately these 2 gay robots did not kiss right away, after the clair de lune fight V2 did very quickly realize he enjoyed getting his ass kicked by V1, decided he needed to get his arm back but also that he wouldn't mind brawling with v1 again. (V2 is very very gay) while v1 was to busy kicking Gabe's ass and getting his ass kicked in return to think about V2. During Greed is the point where v1 kind of realizes that V2 is low-key flirting with him. V1 is a little busy still trying to figure out how to flirt with Gabe. And by the time of the heresy fight V2 and v1 are kind of sort of together and definitely in love even if they haven't so much discussed it, and both of them are simultaneously trying to flirt with Gabe. Both of them are the others wing man.

[ebonysficcollection]

BNHA Fic Recs: Family/Friendship Feels

make this feel like home by carolinaa

The Todoroki siblings all come together for Christmas for the first time in years when they hear that Endeavor will be out of town during the break. Very painful, but also the most realistic depiction of estranged siblings that clearly love each other, but don't know how to act around each other. Fantastically written, and it's told from Natsuo's perspective, which is a refreshing take on this genre of Todoroki family recovery fics.

Tickets to the Todoroki Trauma Drama Are Buy 1 Get 1 Free by miniongrin

Touya and Fuyumi are twins and get body-swapped and learn about the lives they've developed since being separated and grow closer as a result. Fucking hysterical, great characterization of Fuyumi specifically, and surprisingly sweet and sad when it wants to be.

journey to the past by aloneintherain

When Izuku's classmates are pro heroes, they time travel back to when Izuku was little and save him from villain attacks repeatedly over the course of his life. This is heartbreakingly sweet. It shows all of Izuku's baggage and loneliness while simultaneously giving us the best friend bonding that is Pro Hero Class A playing with baby Deku. It's like getting an ice cream after getting decked in the nose.

Confusion by bortzy

Todoroki and Kirishima bonding over being gay. That's kind of it, but it's cute. I like Kirishima and Todoroki being friends. It's just uncomplicated friend stuff.

Movin' Out by momojirounation

Todoroki and Yaoyorozu not knowing how to function so they ask their partners for help. Very cute and funny, I love platonic Todomomo, and also they're both autistic, which is just--yes.

i. shaky hands by rexcorvidae

Izuku has chronic pain on account of being the human embodiment of poor impulse control, so Dadzawa steps in and helps him deal with it. It's just nice. It's just nice seeing people treating Izuku well. It's vicarious catharsis.

If We're Being Honest by thequeenofwhump

Class 1A is hit with a truth quirk that causes them to spout "fucking word vomit" for almost a month, and because no one can lie, all the couples get together in, like, the first chapter, and it's great. It's hilarious, especially the internal narration of the characters, and there's a lot of really good friendship moments between everyone involved, and I do mean everyone. It's not just the usual angst-ridden characters like Todoroki and Bakugou. I have a whole review typed up for this bad boy, but I'd say it's worth a read.

Imperceptible by lunarecrypt

A Hagakure-centric fic was something I did not know I needed, but now I'm glad I have it. Hagakure needs stealth advice from Todoroki, and she finds out the barest bones of his backstory and why he is the way he is. I always love fics about less popular characters, and I especially love them when they're told from the perspective of an underappreciated character. I really like Hagakure, and I wish there was more available content about her.

Terrible Twos by PotterheadAvengerDemigod

Midoriya is hit with a Quirk that de-ages him back to when he's four years old, and since Bakugou is the only person he knows and remembers, Bakugou has to babysit him. Tooth-rottingly adorable and features Bakugou struggling not to swear in the presence of innocent baby Deku, lest his friends hit him over the head with a rolled up newspaper. It's great, fucking love it.

all according to keikaku................. by carolinaa

Kirishima gets sick of Midoriya and Todoroki's pining, so he decides to flirt with Todoroki in an attempt to not-so-subtly force Midoriya to confess by taking advantage of Midoriya's competitive streak. The characterization is really solid and features teenagers being teenagers, with all the hell that is high school put on full display. I just love it when class 1A is depicted as just the most Gen Z kids to ever exist. This fic is almost literally every conversation I've overheard or been apart of in homework group study sessions. It's great.

(Honestly, just go read everything by this author).

bff (brother friend forever) by carolinaa

A collection of snapshots showing Iida and Uraraka's friendship, where they're really just bratty siblings that love each other just so much. As always with this author, great writing style, fantastic characterization, and hit me in the fucking feels.

(Seriously. Read everything by this author. Especially if you want good Erasermic and Todo-family fics).

[fostopia]

hi............. if you are up to it i would very much like hearing about your ocs

** 11/20/23 edit: IM USING THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO POST THIS

* Funfact! I only remembered about this ask now because my friend asked me about the same ocs and it came to mind so I’m picking the old draft back up

Anon you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into

Fun fact about me dear readers I have over 278 oc’s (11/20 edit: now 347) and counting all are fully developed too. However, we’re gonna focus on the ones I posted previously

The ask to make my day OKAY

BACKGROUND

Was on a whiteboard with a bud and he made the joke about throwing a baby he was holding, I told him to do it and drew ‘C supports baby throwing’ which lead to the "#cforpresident" hashtag being drawn by him. This silly little thing promptly dissolved into a full fledged au because none of us are capable of being normal

There’s three universes sorta associated with this au, and there’s no actual name to it— it just.. exists.

PRESIDENT C

The first version of this character in this AU, C (no real name here, just C) is the President [It’s sorta unconfirmed what the fuck he’s the president of but we kept making the joke of him being POTUS so maybe the canon world in this is just… our irl world.] My man’s Vice President is unconfirmed because my bud Sarah who ‘ran against me’ swapped to swat last second so.. guess there is no Vice President. C had a husband (Ace), got married before he entered office and got unlucky cause his spouse is fucking dead. He’s sorta just tired of this shit™️. In this world monster begins aren’t rare but they’re not exactly accepted, even more so if you look dangerous. C is a shapeshifter with his default look replacing his head with a ball of black matter; it’s an odd substance, as it gives off a look of a black hole but you could literally shove your hand into his face and bam your arm is in a weird kind of pocket dimension (this can only occur when he allows it though, so don’t try it you’ll punch the President.)

His other look, however, is much more human but simultaneously is used far less. That look is defaulted to a demon, and although he can change aspects none are permanently and he’ll always revert back to the demon look Oh yeah President C is morally good but he has cannibalized a vampire-bat shifter so, sometimes his morals are off.

His backstory is pretty sparse, I don’t have any ideas for his family life before presidency; he just showed up running for President and gained popularity real fast. He’s very advanced with his shapeshifting, he can use it to become people and even objects or full animals. His main team consists of Orin, the swat captain, and Sarah, who’s a rank below Orin. Sarah’s very responsible and very underpaid while Orin is horrible irresponsible and uses Sarah’s payment on Panda Express. President doesn’t let that slide when he finds out; but otherwise he has a good connection with them both.

TYRANT C

This one was a ‘what-if’ personality/role swap of the President C au; instead of being the morally good, demon presidents— Tyrant C (still just C here) is the morally corrupted, sheep president. Just like President, he’s a shapeshifter with the base for being the black matter head one; however he generally uses the humanoid sheep one more often as a way to seem more innocent and harmless— like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

He’s fuuucked up, his whole point is gaining power and he’s lucky that the force that follows him is so loyal. In this one he had a husband as well, Zander (Ace’s alternate universe self), however the two married purely for tax benefits, the fact that it would help C’s campaign to be a queer president. They were a tragic case of right time, wrong person. Although both of them had truly loved each other to an extent (C didn’t know what love felt like so he hasn’t realized at the time while Zander was constantly bouncing between love and hate) both of them kept fighting. Tyrant was the one to act first but trust me, if Zander had lived longer, he might’ve killed Tyrant first.

He gets away with it because corrupt fucker, however he quickly finds that he needs somebody else to fill in for the spot that Zander had earlier; somebody to bounce ideas off of— and who better to than his SWAT captain, Orin. Orin is a huge simp. He’s actually responsible here however Sarah’s personality doesn’t swap and instead she just doesn’t like Tyrant too much. So, Tyrant decides to seduce Orin to get him wrapped around his finger because really; if he’s got the swat captain he’s got the power of his team too… yeah no, he falls in love on accident. Then he’s forced to acknowledge that this is what love feels like.

He’s a lot less good with his shapeshifting; only able to shift between his void matter and the goat one with even that taking to much energy as he wasn’t able to use them as he grew. He’s a man cut off from the world, however not from sorrow and guilt the same way President did.

Tyrant’s meant to be much more complex than President; his backstory includes shit like abuse from parental figures, cult shit, and with him having been raised with so much negativity he’s completely convinced that this is how everything has to be. Violence and evil have always been his normal; he was a kid groomed into a mindset that never left until he felt something beyond anger for the first time. He’s fucked up, he’s done some real horrible shit, but he doesn’t know that being good is on the table. He’s at a point where learning to grow won’t do anything to reverse years of trauma and anger. Tyrant has regrets he can never voice due to his nailed in beliefs, he will never be able to fully accept that he had loved Zander, that the king sized bed in his home feels too empty. He can’t acknowledge the way he makes two cups off coffee sometimes, one just the way his fiancé used to drink his. He can never come to terms with the fact that he regretted killing him. He can never accept that he misses his parent despite their abuse, that deep down he wishes he were still their little boy oh so willing to help mom and dad out with their ‘buisness’. Tyrant wants to, really, he does. However, some people aren’t capable of accepting that reality. He grew up within a world that called him a monster, and he was merely giving back what they had started.

[tempest-toss]

GOI File: Troupe of Shadows

this is a long one

Brief Overview: The Troupe of Shadows is a Group of Interest taking the form of an anomalous traveling circus. A fierce rival of Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting, they have reigned a unique balance of terror and enjoyment, although that is subjective.

History: The earliest recorded history of the Troupe goes back to the ages of castles and monarchies. A European king had approved a traveling band of performers to perform in his kingdom. Their acts were fantastical in nature: flaming head juggling, turning shadows into living creatures, a lady duplicating herself before the crowds eyes. The leader of these travelers was known as Lady Midnight, and she managed to catch the eye and heart of the princess, and reciprocated those feelings. The prince meant to wed the princess was angered, and lied to to king, spreading rumors that the performers were there to usurp the kingdom. The princess heard and successfully managed to have Lady Midnight escape, but not before she had to witness her performers be executed; her heart broken more by the fact that the performers remained loyal to her until they perished, not giving away where she might be.

Years would pass by as a hidden escapee decided to get revenge for the mass execution of his fellow performers. He studied as much as he could, until he gained the ability to forcibly anomalize people. With this power he created his own group and lay siege to the castle. Realizing her love was in danger, lady Midnight appeared, to attempt to talk down her former ally. He accused Lady Midnight of betraying the group, and a battle ensued. Depsite the number advantage, the man lost all of his minions, and engaged in a 1 on 1 battle with his former leader. This battle would be fatal for both of them, as their final attack, a banishing magic struck them both at the same time, and reaped their lives. The only part of them that lives on is a slice of their moralities, embedded in an article of clothing.

From this clothing piece a curse would befall the wearer. They are granted abilities to create a new group of performers, and must travel around the land, performing for the masses. After a time ranging between 16-25 years, the clothing, powers, and position must go to another whether willingly or not. Additionally the morality will swap between leaders. Morally pure to corrupt to our to corrupt and so on. The wearer's pre-existing morality, if against the current cycle, will conform to match up with it.

Currently the article is a top hat, and is worn by a woman known as Ringleader Regina. The cycle of morality is on the corrupt side, and she is making a case for being the cruelest ringleader the Troupe of Shadows has ever seen.

Key Individuals: Unfortunately, due to the nature of the ever-changing cast and their elusiveness, it is not definitely known who is a part of the Troupe. An interview with SCP-888 will be needed to know this information. We do, however, know who the current ringleader is.

Ringleader Regina, as mentioned prior, is the current leader of the Troupe of Shadows, and is a very cruel leader. She is reported to delight in the pain both physical and psychological that she inflicts upon her troupe. With the ability to anomalize entities, control their minds, and lure people closer akin to the Pied Piper, she is hard to approach, and even harder to defeat.

Incident Reports and Known Interactions with the Foundation: Due to their elusive nature and consistent movement, attempts to reach them are hard, and due to not wanting to be contained, the Troupe has made few moves to engage with the Foundation. Reports are included but shortened. Full reports can be accessed by the archival computers.

September 3rd, 19█5, August 4th 19█8, May 12th, 196█; on three unique occassions agents Drizell, Research Aide Jackson, and Dr. Driscoll experienced simultaneous days where there were gaps in their memories and their wallets were lighter. Given that these three never partook of drugs or alcohol, it was determined something was afoot.

Incident Report ToS 2a-2b: The Troupe fo Shadows was peacefully detained and sent to Site-███, where they performed many shows. However, a night before the leadership was to change, the then leader, Madame LeBlanc, breached containment alongside the troupe, leaving behind a hand-written apology, promising that it was safer if they left before any blood was shed.

Incident Report ToS 13-S: On [DATA EXPUNGED] SCP-978, "The Desire Camera" was stolen following an atack by the Troupe of Shadows. During their time owning it, the Troupe made a doppleganger version of the camera, with the anomaly to capture the deaths of the taker. SCP-978 was later recontained.

Incident Report ToS 24-A-C: A vehicle containing SCP-888, "The Spider-Boy" was derailed by the Troupe, causing the deaths of Agents Straum and Hoffman, and the capture of SCP-888. A rescue operation went live and Agents Sing and Zimmerman were sent to rescue him. This resulted in 888 successfully hotwiring the Foundation vehicle as Sing and Zimmerman were already turned into clowns to serve Regina. On his second day of traveling 888 was attacked by the very agents meant to help him, now know as Bing Bong and Giggles the clown. 888 critically wounded them and successfully escaped, eventually being found and brought into Foundation custody. The bodies of the clowns were absent when the cleanup crew arrived.

On July 23rd the son and daughter of Agent Mossdeep and Higgins vanished after visiting a Troupe of Shadows performance. The agents joined a search party and were eventually able to locate them again, but they was already made into sideshow performances. They were successfully recovered and made official SCPs, bearing the titles of "The Most Beautiful Thing" (daughter) and "The Blood Puppet" (Son).

Interactions with other Groups of Interest: The following is the known list of GOIs the Troupe of Shadows has interacted with.

Brunshire Academy for the Anomalously Gifted, Deer College, and Kretchmar College: Negative terms. The Troupe of Shadows has frequently kidnapped students and made them performers. All schools have their alumni seeking the students that have been taken.

Dr. Wondertainment: Unlike Herman Fuller, the Ringleader decided to attack the Wondertainment factory to abduct the Little Misters. This siege failed thanks to the very individuals the Troupe wanted to abduct.

Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting: Negative terms. The Troupe and Circus are fierce rivals that often end interactions with bloodshed. It's unknown if this animosity still exists after the Circus's leadership change

Snapdragon Smugglers: The Troupe frequently exchanges goods and services through them. It's rumored that the Troupe hands off low-performing acts to the Smugglers to sell.

Gallery a la Mort: A Ringleader once tried to buy "Easel". Unsuccessful.

Serpent's Hand: Mixed feelings. Ringleader Corrin has donated books and the statue of Lady Midnight to the Library. Years later RIngleader Jezebel attacked the Library and cursed the Book of the Troupe, causing all its pages to fall out and be scattered throughout the world

Church of the High Moon/Children of the Deep Woods: Antagonistic. The Troupe has kidnapped members and forced them to perform.

Flora Fighters: Antagonistic. The Troupe has tried numerous times to kidnap a single member. All ended in death.

West Virginia Bug Committee: Interactions have been made in the past, mostly antagonistic. Several bug-related performers vanished and joined the Committee, most likely a jailbreak.

Final Opinion: The Troupe of Shadows is a highly dangerous Group of Interest that should NOT be engaged with on your own or without permission from the higher ups. If you come across the Troupe, evacuate your location immediately and contact the nearest Foundation location.

You cannot defeat the Troupe, do not risk becoming another asset for them to use and abuse.

[anasui-at-disneyland]

Concepto Xelor/ Xelor Concept:

Los Xelor tienen algo de variación dependiendo de la versión que se mire, mientras que en Dofus son momias, en Wakfu son representados como seres mecánicos (que siguen siendo momias en el fondo), pero un factor se mantiene y es el hecho de que son cronomagos, y el concepto del pasado y futuro es lo que use para el diseño.

Con el concepto de paradoja en mente, quise dar la impresión de que ambas Xelor existían dentro de un mismo espació/cuerpo simultáneamente, siendo la base una momia como en Dofus, la cual con el paso del tiempo ya tiene sus vendas curtidas y sus prendas se han desgastado con el paso del tiempo, manteniéndose solo pedazos que se han quedado suspendidas en el tiempo por la influencia de su magia, mientras que sus adiciones como el ojo izquierdo y la armadura están completamente diseñadas con la estética de los Xelor de Wakfu, en especial la armadura, la cual esta diseñada para tener la apariencia de un búho (la pechera es la cara, a lo largo del torso están sus alas, y su cola tiene una forma de agujas de reloj).

Me gusta pensar que a lo largo de los siglos, Xelor han tenido el control del tiempo (al fin y al cabo esa es la esencia de la clase), pero en cada punto de tiempo lo hacían de manera distinta:

Xelor de la era Dofus: Magia, la cual puede realizar con su mano izquierda.

Xelor de la era Wakfu: Tecnologia, la cual puede controlar con su mano derecha.

Si bien ambos son conceptos que entran en conflicto, el balance de ambos es lo que le permite controlar su arma el cual es un gran martillo...

Los Xelor no son una raza que brille por su fuerza física, por lo que la magia le permite mover el martillo para realizar daño masivo en combate cercano, mientras que la parte de tecnología le permite utilizar sus mecánicas, las cuales son 12 pequeñas esferas con las cuales puede cambiar de posición tanto ella como su martillo para conservar la teletransportación clásica del Xelor.

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Xelor has some variations of their concepts between Dofus and Wakfu, while they´re mummies on Dofus, on Wakfu they´re represented as mechanic beings (which are still mummies on the inside), but there´s a factor that still remains, and that is that they´re are chronomages, and past and future is what I used for her concept.

With paradox concept in mind, I wanted to give away the image that both Xelor exist on a same body/space simultaneously, using a Dofus' mummy as a base, who the time passage has made her bandages stain and her clothes to wear off to the point there´s only parts that remain suspended on time due to the influx of her magic, meanwhile other additions like her left eye and her armor are fully based on Wakfu´s Xelor aesthetic, mainly her armor, which is designed to resemble an owl (the chestplate is it´s face, the torso side are it´s wings and the tail also looks like clock hands).

I like to think that through history, Xelor always had a control over time (after all, that´s the class´ esence), but on each point in time, they controled it by different means:

Dofus´ Xelor: Magic, which she does with her left hand.

Wakfu´s Xelor: Technologu, which she does with her right hand.

Despite both concepts being conflicting with each other, balance between them allows her to control her weapon, which is a huge hammer...

Xelor aren´t a class who´s highlight is physical strength, so they use magic that allows them to swing around the hammer to deal masive damage on close combat, while the technology part allows her to use it´s mechanism, which are 12 spheres, which she or her hammer can swap places with to keep Xelor´s classic teleport.

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Su diseño esta basado en mis Xelors Paradox-Gal (Dofus) y Clock-Fixer (Wakfu), usando los concepto de pasado, presente y futuro para su diseño, como en Xelorium.

Her design is based both on my Xelor Paradox-Gal (Dofus) and Clock-Fixer, using the concepts of past, present and future for her design, like Xelorium.

Dofus:

Wakfu:

[dustedmagazine]

John Surman — Words Unspoken (ECM)

To progress from being an adequate or good soloist toward the coveted realms of greatness involves increasing narrative subtlety. Telling a story is fine, but moving from phrase to phrase carrying forward those minute details in which worlds are distilled is quite another program. Then, there are the felicities of ensemble playing. While by no means mutually exclusive, a great soloist is often not a great ensemble player and vice versa. John Surman does both, wonderfully and in a unique voice; Words Unspoken, his new quartet album, is the proof that makes the pudding well worth sampling.

Surman’s bassless quartet includes guitarist Rob Luft, vibraphonist Rob Waring and drummer Thomas Stronen. Even on the most up-tempo tunes, the rhythm section provides that gorgeously airy sound for which ECM has become lauded and stereotyped. In this context, given the fact that each player transcends instrumental preconceptions through a continually morphing ensemble approach against which Surman is free to emote. It can be difficult to judge whether guitar or vibes, or both, buttress and swirl around Surman’s mellifluous baritone on the title track. Try the windy swells and crystalline curves at 2:05 to experience the full-blown ambiguity. By way of complete and utterly joyful contrast, sample “Onich Ceilidh,” where, at 4:49, Surman swaps out his soprano saxophone and provides a bassline via continuously shifting bass clarinet articulations as Waring and Luft skip along in rippling counterpoint with Stronen expressing foundational alacrity. Surman’s compositional lines support this integrated approach; “Belay That” slides along in sinewy seconds and more forceful open intervals, saxophone and guitar shimmering against each other in timbral accord as Stronen shows himself to be a wonderfully facile time drummer, his touch as light as it is precise.

Indeed, like time and temporal suspension, even constructing these solo and group boundaries borders on falsehood. As with the 1970-75 Miles Davis aggregates, this quartet’s concept of soloing is amoebic, the boundaries of accompaniment blurred at so many strategic points. If Waring’s repetitive riffs opening “Pebble Dance” do not constitute a solo, then neither does Stronen’s timbrally rich rhythmic “melodies” anticipating Luff’s simpatico stealth groove at 1:01. Even that vamp is both rhythmic and melodic, open harmonies in play as they so often are throughout this collection of Surman compositions.

Then, there is Surman’s soloing, a perfect foil to the accented rhythms, modal areas and scalar melodicism of his compositions. Dig the way he slides so gently but with such purpose up to the two notes at 2:34 of “Flower in Aspic” or builds tiered crescendos on the same pitch 3:52 into “Bitter Aloe,” his clarinet a fountain of pitched nuance and color. Maybe best of all is the glissando 2:19 into “Pebble Dance.” Surman’s soprano slides gracefully, effortlessly, up to a note that falls just between the cracks, a blue note transmogrified, a pitch existing within and just beyond itself, inhabiting two cognitive spaces simultaneously, like his music does. As always, Surman is at home in any genre or style he chooses. Every track is a landscape in flux, and every album a series of them. For nearly six decades, Surman’s restless explorations have bolstered and defied genre categorization, but beauty persists. Beauty of tone, of timbre, of compositional conception and ensemble deployment, often an inward and reflective beauty, have been mainstays of Surman’ daunting and, happily, still growing and consistently superb discography. Much of it lives in the ECM catalog and may its entries multiply!

Marc Medwin

[ayejayque]

Understanding what investment banking is

This is a fascinating portion of finance as a whole. All big-time banks like JP Morgan, Citi, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and Chase Manhattan have investment banking divisions that have existed for a very long time. Their average age is around 150 years. Even though these investment banking institutions have been around for a very long time, people do not understand their functions as well as the need to have them around.This is not a new profession. Its jobs are very highly paid. The purview of their activities is huge and often intermingles with the activities of other financial institutions. This is the reason for people not understanding investment banking at large. In this blog, I will try to explain investment banks and their working in plain terms. Savings that are Mobile The industrial sector is always on the lookout for funds. Companies always need to establish factories, and build plants and offices but lack the money to do so. The household sector always has had surplus savings, all save a minute percentage of their income. Their money needs to be invested collectively, and this makes it profitable. Otherwise, they won’t be able to invest productively.When the individuals join their resources, the pool becomes huge enough to fund these companies. The main area of investment banks is to mobilize savings. This enables better functioning of companies. The world is now a global village and the boundaries are fading fast. Finance integrates everything regardless of location and boundaries. This opens up opportunities for investment banks. This way, the group savings can be channelized across all sectors and all companies.Many companies raise capital from international financial markets. Investment banking is vital to the strength and growth of the economy. The household sector gets the highest return possible for its collective investment. Simultaneously, the financing that they provide, has possibly the lowest cost. Commercial banks in competition with investment banks Investment banks and commercial banks both provide capital intermediation. This confuses people to differentiate between the two. A very thin line separates them. Commercial banks provide only debt finance only in short-term and medium-term nature. Investment banks provide equity and debt financing. Their debt is short-term to very long-term in nature. Commercial banks own their lending. Failure to pay back will render the banks responsible. Investment banks operate as play agents only. The meeting of the lenders and the borrowers is ensured by them. They do not own the funds that they lend. So, bad loans, if any, have no ownership. They operate on commissions only. In some countries, the same institutions cannot undertake commercial as well as investment banking functions. The menu of investment banking activities Investment banks engage in a range of activities. This includes raising capital too. Nowadays investors like to invest in equity shares worldwide. For this, investment banks have equity research desks, which give detailed buy and sell-side investor analysis. In this sphere investment banking intersects the functions happening in mutual funds & credit rating agencies.Sometimes, capital is also raised in a foreign currency. For this, the investment banks hedge currency & risks. Derivative instruments do this for them. There are such derivative counter services in Investment banks. This makes them act like agents. Sellers of a currency can use the whole network to find someone interested to buy that currency. Complex contracts like futures and swaps are also conducted by them.They help organizations issue securities. This involves underwriting the share issue. So, the shares unsold to the common man are bought by investment banks. This allows the issuing authority to be sure of selling their securities. They then can focus entirely on their area of core focus.All capital-raising activities come under the umbrella of investment banks. Most activities done by investment banks are common with other financial institutions as well. These services are sold to the public as a bundle. This is why they access these services from investment banks. Read the full article

[theterribletenno]

Avatar, the Digital Construct Warframe

This should be fun. So the funnest fun fact about Avatar is that her point of inspiration was Deepfake AI generated images of warframes, in particular images like these.

I generally discourage making a warframe aesthetic-first because it tends to make shallower more disconnected kits based on "What abilities should a warframe that looks like this have?" instead of "What's a core playstyle or mechanical concept I want to create?" So I avoid making warframes based on art. But I'm making an exception for Avatar, and I'm going to put extra effort into her playstyle and ability synergy.

Health: 75 (225 at rank 30) Shields: 150 (450 at rank 30) Armor: 75 Energy: 150 (225 at rank 30) Sprint Speed: 1.15

Passive: While Avatar is standing within 3 meters of an enemy that is currently under the effects of an electric status proc her shield recharge delay is decreased and her shield recharge rate is increased by 50%. Additionally, Avatar possesses 200% overshields capacity, granting her a maximum of 2,400 overshields.

Ability 1: Irresistible Image, 25 energy. Avatar creates a digital construct in her own likeness, a holographic double that attracts the attention of enemies and tricks them into provoking its counterattack. Creates a stationary copy of Avatar which cannot be damaged and lasts for 16 seconds, attracting enemies in sight to attack it while absorbing all damage. Damage absorbed is accumulated and stored briefly before diminishing over time. Stored damage is multiplied by 3x, converted into pure electric damage with 15% status chance, and dealt to a the enemy closest to the Irresistible Image every half-second with a maximum range of 35 meters. Every tick of damage dealt by this ability consumes 2.5% of its stored absorbed damage. Up to four instances of Irresistible Image can be active simultaneously. When Irresistible Image expires it produces a flash of light and color that blinds all enemies within a 10 meter radius for 10 seconds, leaving them vulnerable to melee finishers. If Avatar recasts this ability while targeting an existing Irresistible Image within 35 meters with her crosshairs she will instantly swap places with the Irresistible Image

Ability 2: Garden of Light, 50 energy. Avatar projects a field of energy which takes the form of beautiful crystal shards and swirling lights at her current location with a 10 meter radius which lasts for 16 seconds. Enemies within Garden of Light's area will be dealt 150 electric damage with 20% status chance per half-second. Damage from this ability is doubled on enemies currently suffering from an electric status proc. If there is an Irresistible Image within the Garden of Light 30% of damage absorbed by the Irresistible Image will be added to the Garden of Light's tick damage. Up to four instances of Garden of Light can be active simultaneously. When Garden of Light expires it produces a flash of light and color that blinds all enemies within a 20 meter radius for 10 seconds, leaving them vulnerable to melee finishers.

Ability 3: Blink, 75 energy. For a split second, Avatar turns her body into pure energy and moves at the speed of light, instantly traveling up to 50 meters forwards, or in her current direction of movement. This ability cannot pass through terrain. When Avatar uses Blink enemies within a 6 meter radius of both her starting and ending position will be dealt 500 electric damage with 30% status chance and all enemies within 2 meters of her path are dealt 250 electric damage with 20% status chance. If the starting and/or ending position of Blink is within 3 meters of an Irresistible Image or within the area of a Garden of Light it will trigger the blinding flash which would normally be associated with the ability's expiration.

Ability 4: Augmented Reality, 100 energy. Blurring the line between the real and the imagined, Avatar projects a massive display of holographic crystals and flowers over her surroundings, the light and color changing everything it touches into her sacred kaleidoscopic domain lasting for 12 seconds. Within the 45 meter radius zone of Augmented Reality Avatar's ability damage is increased by 100%, Avatar & her allies' weapon damage is increased by 50%, Avatar & her allies' shields gain +20% damage resistance, and Avatar & her allies are healed for 10% of their max health & shields per second. Healing from this ability can grant overshields.

Subsumed ability: Garden of Light

Signature Weapons Ametrine: Although it may not seem like the most exotic of weapons, the Ametrine is Avatar's signature rifle which fires electrified rounds. Flexible, strong, and with a deep well of ammunition the Ametrine is almost too aggressive to be in the hands of a beauty like Avatar. Primary auto-spooling rifle, deals mostly puncture & electric damage with moderate slash & impact. Large magazine & ammo reserves at the cost of a slow reload. High fire rate at the cost of low per-shot damage. High critical chance and very high critical multiplier at the cost of low status chance. While Avatar has Ametrine equipped her Irresistible Image's damage gains critical chance and multiplier equal to Ametrine's. Ammolite: While resting on a warframe's back, the Ammolite seems like nothing; a handle, a surprisingly wide hilt, but no blade. But when drawn the Ammolite ignites its hard light holographic blade, a weightless sheet of energy whose size takes enemies by surprise. Greatsword style heavy blade melee weapon, high attack speed & unusually long reach at the cost of low per-hit damage. Deals mostly electric & slash damage with low impact and very little puncture. High crit at the cost of low status. Slide attacks with this weapon release a ring of energy around the player that deals pure electric damage. While Avatar has Ammolite equipped using Blink triggers this weapon's slide attack proc at her destination point automatically.

Closing Notes: Avatar was pretty fun to design. I wanted to give her abilities a lot of synergy, and while it is a little perplexing that she mostly functions as a point defender who *also* happens to have a long-range teleport, I think I built enough features into the teleport to make it feel like it belongs. Her signature weapons are named after two gemstones and aside from that I didn't really hide any fun easter eggs in her kit.