#based on that one trend... its really silly

[tasty-soda-pop]

Everyone theorizing that "Oh gangle will abstract" "Oh ragatha will abstract" You're saying that cause those are the eps we've gotten. You're forgetting who the next episode is supposed to center on. Ep6 is supposedly Jax's episode, and if ep5 was really the silly before the storm, that means next episode is THE STORM, or the start of it at least and I know for a fact that it landing on Jax's ep not after means something. Jax is the storm, and I've known since the beginning that something huge would happen with Jax, because he's the one character kept ENTIRELY SECRET, and I get it that being cagey is just sort of his personality, but it's not just that, glitch and gooseworx have always been cagey ABOUT JAX, even what small info we did get before now goose has said could just be a lie. I've always thought they had to be keeping him such a massive secret for a reason, its because someone massive will happen with him and telling us literally anything before now would destroy that surprise punch the story is gonna deliver. We just finnaly got something on him sure, but that still feels like breadcrumbs, we dont get the full story, not even close. So now with all of that, what if it's Jax who abstracts? Or nobody abstracts because might I remind you we're still not close to the final episode? But what if Jax breaks as we've been seeing a trend of characters breaking in their own ways during their episodes? And what if Jax has to be as secret as possible cause he'll break in bigger way than what we've seen? I think its entirely possible, and honestly I think we've been seeing him crack ever so slightly since ep4 ironically. Those are just my thoughts based on how narratives sorta go, like dont reveal your hand too soon type.

And before you bring up the cake and bowling ball thing I have no clue where y'all got the idea that either of those meant anything crazy symbolic like that, I get this show adds details that get reveals in later episodes but that felt very random to pull from, like you're looking at the wrong frames. Plus killing off a main character before the finale doesn't really make much sense, but lots of theories don't make sense looking back.

[ghostorbz]

GET OUT OF THE RAIN ZIM NOOOOOOOOO

[dalandduh]

doodl a 100 with 1 pls

The Great Numberland Cycle with mama

Alarming implications with mama

mama why are we leaving home,,, mama

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 1x18, "babies and bathwater"

everybody say THANK YOU, DR. LISA CUDDY, for saving the day!

doctor lisa cuddy is a superhero. she is the final hour "i need a hero" montage. she is the patron deity that answers a cleric's "divine intervention" feat in d&d. unlike the rest of the characters, who fall victim to 1x18's central problem, she rises above it; while everyone else makes decisions in a vacuum, despite knowing better, cuddy resists this temptation and saves 4 people's jobs in the process. she also defeats the BBEG like it's fucking nothing.

FUCKKKKK this guy.

1x18 is a strong example of house md's pervasive trend of pairing a very traumatic patient story with a highly personal main-cast story line that always ends up privileging the latter lol. so what if a husband lost his wife in a freak cancer onset on the operating table, after making hard decision after harder decision, and now he has to be a single father? we're much more interested in PPTH taking a $100 million hit to keep house, wilson, foreman, and chase on board, right?

yes lol. absolutely. but the patient plot leaves us with the question, regarding the hospital and the doctors within it: who is the baby, and what is the bathwater? i'll argue that, in our big trifecta's case (house/wilson/cuddy), the answer to this question varies based on who you asks, and it drives some of the conflict. bear with me through the silly language lol.

in being so certain that at least one person will prevent him from being fired, house considers himself to be the baby. the hospital bureaucracy just needs to clear out its dirty bathwater. it seems like, despite his guilt over cameron's decision, house is back to feeling confident that he can't/won't be taken out. people are willing to take falls for him, even when wilson firmly warns against this.

1x18 keeps wilson's answer to the baby/bathwater equation concealed for now. in the first half of the episode, he's just there to level with house and futilely try to convince him not to screw everything up, if such a thing is possible atp. in light of their later scene together, he's shockingly collected here, which begs the question of what his plan was going into the board meeting, if he had one at all.

cuddy, meanwhile, sees the forest for the trees. that is by far her greatest strength, while also the source of a lot of her pain/strife in the show. especially when working so closely to someone like house who, on the wrong day, sees himself as basically every tree in the entire forest. when she votes to keep vogler's money at the expense of house, i think season 1 has done enough work thus far to make it a believable decision on her part. and, boldly, she explains to house that he "is not worth a hundred million dollars." he really isn't.

this notably comes after she did him an important yet hilariously understated favor to keep vogler off his ass, should he find out that house was okay-ing seemingly abusive parents to take their kid home. if we're comparing wilson and cuddy here, then, wilson seems like the most neutral with the least clear intentions. but come the final board meeting scene, where she realizes just how much vogler has bought and gagged the rest of the hospital, cuddy makes the choice to discard the entire baby/bathwater problem. start fresh. without $100 million dollars. cheers!

what cuddy and wilson both agree on in 1x18 above all else is that house is the crux of the baby/bathwater problem, and it would be facetious to claim that cuddy's attachment to house didn't motivate her at all. she's just intelligent enough to, again, see the greater picture in conjunction with her feelings.

this guy can't do that, though. and he will never be able to.

in a scene immediately preceding the revelation that wilson was fired off the board and asked to resign, house makes an assertion about human's biological tendencies re: the mother's choice to die to save her child: "the needs of the next generation are more important." uh. then explain wilson's choice here!

the entire boardroom knew that wilson would vote to keep house on; vogler was so sure of this that he hoped wilson would have missed the meeting altogether. and wilson so flagrantly does just that, without a second thought, that it catches viewers off guard (at least, it did for me the first time i watched the episode). in strictly season 1 terms, we still don't know much about these guys' friendship. we know that they've known each other for a while, wilson gets how house ticks more than most, and the sense that something a bit deeper is there, but without any specifics or sincere textual evidence.

and, for all of wilson's warnings to house about vogler, he was naive enough to think he'd be spared. voting to keep house was so knee-jerk that it cost him a lot (for about 15 minutes of in-episode time). local stupid dumb naive compassionate idiot learns that sometimes caring about someone doesn't always win out in the end:

what i like about the resulting scene between house and wilson is how much it stands apart from how most conversations in house md have gone so far. mired in metaphors/similes (for comedic effect), people speaking around each other, miscommunication abound, house leaving the room at the pivotal moment - none of that is here. for example, while cameron has tried for weeks to squeeze something out of house, dress her feelings up to circumvent his walls, wilson is just angry, and says so outright:

"i got no kids. my marriage sucks. i only had 2 things that worked for me: this job and this stupid, screwed up friendship, and neither mattered enough to you to give one lousy speech."

"they matter."

house is, time and time again, wilson's entire forest, even when he tries to blame house for the fact that wilson holds him in that regard. this is just the first time we see that side of these 2. and house's expression above is the same he gives to cameron after she tries to appeal to him once more, just dialed up to 10. we get the first inkling of how they are each other's respective constants in their lives, too, which is a damning plot line, indeed.

there's even more honesty abound here, too, because wilson cuts through house's uncharacteristic attempt at an apology. house lies and says that if he could do it all over again, he'd change. uh, greg! people don't/can't change, apropos your own philosophy! wilson knows that he wouldn't do it differently, that the result would be the same. looking ahead, the foundation of their friendship being so one-sided, only for wilson to pull You Know What in season 4, blows me away.

i adore this trait of wilson's - his short-sightedness - because it is SO dangerous for house md. it's alienating, self-sabotaging, externally sabotaging, and very much full of love, all the time. wilson wasn't even considering any conditions at all when voting to keep house - their friendship, by nature of it being "screwed up," is unconditional, though it wouldn't have to be if wilson would just Get Up Off The Floor.

speaking of - he immediately flips on a dime and agrees to help house with the patient via his connections as a successful and prominent oncologist. okay. and once the crisis is over, he's drinking champagne out of house's red mug. okay!

this is a good preview into what my recaps will look like when wilson makes himself especially known. it's easy to point your moral compass at the immoveable, endlessly needy northern star that is house, but don't bitch and moan when you get burned for it.

[year2000electronics]

wow. four years old huh. i'll keep this part short but sappy rant under the readmore! happy four years!!

it feels like just yesterday when i watched this series on a whim because my friend kept making jokes about my ocs with hlvrai quotes and then it was so funny and engaging that it pulled me out of a months-long depressive slump... feels like just yesterday that my work was finally being seen by people, yesterday that the summer of 2020 was one of the most interesting summers ive ever had, yesterday when the 2020-2021 school year ended up being one of the most difficult times of my life and hlvrai really helped me get through it. without exaggeration this series has changed my life

yeah we all may have had ups and downs, like a LOT of downs, but ill always consider hlvrai to be very special to me, not just because i love it but because it represents so many good things to me: friends joking around having fun, friends carrying their past experiences with them (gmod rping, an affinity for extensively-planned bits, jokes that could ONLY be made by rtvs with each other, you get it), and how the best things often come from happy accidents, from people who DARE to CARE, because hlvrai is good because theyre not afraid to be silly! theyre not afraid to be stupid and sincere and ridiculous!!

and the most inspiring part to me has always been that hlvrai wasnt made to chase any trends. it didnt come in the wake of anything, it was made, and then after it was made, rtvs pretty obviously made it clear that they wouldnt let their lightning-in-a-bottle series box them in. like everyone on the team is very strongly against ppl being parasocial to them, they dont let people beg them for the funny half life info and references, all that. as a creator its cool to see people doing what they love and not succumbing to any pressure algorithmically or otherwise, especially during the lockdowns, when a lot of other streamer-based fandoms cropped up that had a VERY big 'encouraging being parasocial' problem. its always been nice to have a web series thats just one of many awesome things rtvs has done

hlvrai was everything i could have ever asked for and more, and me myself i was perfectly content with just having the standalone series forever, because sometimes a standalone thing is all you need. but with hlage, bbvrai, and hl2vrai being announced, im still so happy to be here and so happy that i get to keep enjoying one of my favourite pieces of media <3

[wzrd-wheezes]

Carolling - James Potter x Reader

AN- so I had this idea at the start of december based on that tiktok trend that was going around but i kinda ran out of time to write it. I hope its not too late to post this! I was also thinking about doing a remus and sirius version but idk. Anyways! I hope you all had a lovely festive period <3

It was a silly idea, really. One that had come up many times on her phone as she scrolled mindlessly on her commute to work. James was usually the one behind the pranks but today she decided it was her turn. 

Her fingers tapped across the keys of her phone as she typed out the message to her boyfriend.  

“Are you free on the 20th Dec?” 

His response was almost immediate, albeit him being at work. 

“Think so lovey. Why?” 

She smiled to herself mischievously, already anticipating his outraged reaction when he read her next message.  

“I’ve signed us up for Christmas carolling x” 

Once again, James’s response was immediate. 

“What???” 

“Christmas carolling around the village. We’re in a group with 4 or 5 other people. Think we get our songbooks delivered tomorrow. Anyway, got to go – super busy at work. Love you!” 

She finished the message off quickly, revelling in the fact that James was likely stewing in confusion. Her phone pinged again. And again. She ignored it, knowing that in an hour or so her boyfriend would be bursting through the door with a million questions. 

James’s reaction had caught her off guard when he’d stumbled through the door an hour later than usual. 

“Sorry I’m back late, babe. Had to nip to the shop on the way home to pick up some essentials for our big night out!” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth as he bustled into the kitchen, a large shopping bag in each hand. 

“Our big night out?” She repeated, quirking an eyebrow at him. 

“Yeah? The Christmas carolling? Did you not see my texts?” he started to rifle through the bags, “Mind you, you did say that you were busy at work so you might not have seen them. Not to worry though!” 

Y/N slipped her hand into her pocket and fished out her phone, quickly glancing at his messages.  

“Sounds amazing! Shame we don’t have our matching Christmas jumpers anymore :( “  

Below that, another one:  

“omg I'll go to the shop on my way home and get us new ones. Any preference on design?”  

And then a few minutes later, another one: 

“And matching hats too? Or is that too far...?” 

“Oh. Sorry, yeah I didn’t see them-”  

“Don't worry! Look at the jumpers I got us!” He pulled two brightly knit jumpers from one of the bags and chucked one towards her, “I didn’t know whether to just go with a Santa. You know, classic! But then I saw these-” 

“James, I-” She tried to interject. 

“Penguins!” he continued undeterred, “Look at them, babe! I just couldn’t resist!”  

“James, one second-” 

“I’m nearly done,” he chattered excitedly, “And then, you know how you said we were doing it in groups? Well, I bought a pack of six Santa hats so we can all match and then I thought, ‘what if we get cold?’ so I bought some disposable cups for everyone so we can make them all a hot chocolate. Oh! And i got some candy canes-” 

“James. I was joking.”  

For the first time in the twenty minutes he had been home, her boyfriend had stopped talking. He sat the pack of candy canes he had been showing her down on the counter, his brows furrowing a little. 

“Joking about what, love?” He cocked his head at her. 

“We’re not going carol singing. It was a joke. This trend has been going around online where girls tell their boyfriends that they’ve signed them up and the boyfriends always get confused and don’t want to go-” 

“Why would they not want to go? Sounds like a great activity to me...?”  

“Yes, because you’re lovely and now I feel bad.” She starred down at the floor, trying her best to avoid her boyfriend's eyes, “I didn’t think you would be up for it and I thought I'd just string you along for a bit and it would be funny and now you’ve made so much effort.” 

“Oh. Well, obviously I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t actually sign us up but we can still do it, can’t we?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like, we can just go carolling round at our friends houses. Seems a shame not to show off our new jumpers. Did you see that they have penguins on?” 

Y/N just smiled to herself, looking at her sweet boyfriend who was flitting about the kitchen as excited as a child on Christmas eve.  

[andy-wm]

I have thoughts about the Tiktok JK deleted

<<I realise its a few days ago now and you might be wondering 'what tiktok?' but I've been writing in snatches when I have a few minutes so it took a while. Anyway, here it is...>>

A few posts I've read have suggested JK did the silly>sexy Tiktok challenge backwards. That he did sexy>silly instead. That he was being random and funny.

I disagree.

What he did was unexpected, a little left of centre, and for the people who can read subtext, not random at all but very very clever.

I'll tell you why, (It may not be what you think) but first I need to vent about two things:

1. Give the man some credit. He knows what he's doing.

There are some who love JK but who see him as a naive innocent. He is not. He isn't a child or a himbo.

Saying he did the challenge just because it's trending, and he reversed the order of the content for a bit of a joke, is insulting to him as an artist. It would suggest he has no forethought or understanding of himself or his (global) audience, and his decisions are made on impulse with no idea of the consequences.

He's very intelligent and has plenty of experience with digital media and creating content. Besides being involved in producing complex visual narratives as part of BTS for the last ten years, he has directed and produced seven highly polished and professional GFC videos. And don't forget the MVs for Life Goes On. For the October issue of Vogue Korea he took on the role of Creative Director. That's a pretty big deal. So we can assume he knows what he's doing.

If he produces content in a particular way, it's because it enables him to communicate what he wants to communicate.

2. You may not understand the message. That doesn't mean there's nothing to understand.

A heads up to people who can't work it out... your inability to grasp meaning doesn't equate to 'no meaning exists'. Suggesting that people who recognise what he's doing are reaching or delusional is an insult to both the audience who can read this situation, and to Jungkook, who is sharing his message.

Consider a system of writing you can't decode. Lack of comprehension doesnt mean the writing is meaningless, it means you don't understand the language.

Even if you believe you understand what's being said, please recognise that context may play a role too, that it could reveal a richer and deeper message. Don't just assume the easiest (laziest) interpretation is correct.

(You may have guessed, someone suggested I was 'behaving like the cult' when I pointed out that JK's tiktok was more than being funny ... and now I'm mad 🤣)

Vent over. Now back to he topic at hand...

💜💛

What was he was really doing? And why is it not at all random?

Let's take a step back to recall what army has been saying about this...

Almost every interpretation i read suggests he reversed the order (silly>sexy becomes sexy>silly). The reason given is that his tiktok only makes sense if the order is reversed, and this idea is backed up by the caption saying "I go the other way".

But the 'reversed order' theory is based on a hereronormative perspective of what's sexy (and a stereotypical perspective of silly.)

So consider the content of his tiktok from a queer point of view...

For a man in a relationship with another man, the idea that he's with all those women is silly.

It's silly to believe he's got a girlfriend - or several. It's silly to think the womens' names in the song are relevant to him.

He posted this tiktok at a time when he's releasing music that fits the western pop norm of boy + girl, and when rumours of him dating several women at once are rife. The timing is not a coincidence and nor is the choice of background song for this.

All these assumptions and rumours are pretty silly, JK is telling us.

Now let's talk about the second part, the sexy part. Yes it may look silly on the surface, but we have seen him and Jimin make dorky faces at one another when they're flirting. It seems to be the visual equivalent of calling Jimin 'Jiminssssi'.

It's just another way they create distance and avoid 'getting caught'.

Maybe sexy for Jungkook actually is lying on the couch in your sweatpants making corny faces at your boyfriend.

Remember that he puts out 'stereotypical sexy' on command as part of his job so maybe that doesn't feel very sexy to him. Maybe that's work.

In my view (I know this is subject to interpretation) they've been together for years now. This is not the first flush of love. When you've been with a partner for a while, sex is (hopefully) more fun and less serious. Maybe it's about having the confidence to be wholly unselfconscious.

(My partner makes a Pepé Le Pew face at me when he's goofing. No, i don't know why either... 🤣🤷)

But wait, what about that caption?

What about 난반대로 간다?

My beautiful Korean friend (who sadly has zero interest or care about jikook) confirmed the literal translation:

"I go the other way"

"I take the opposite direction".

It's not "it goes the other way" or "this goes the opposite direction". He's referring specifically to HIMSELF.

Jungkook goes the other way.

But it's more than that according to my friend.

It's a bold statement:

"I don't follow the mainstream."

It reminds me of his tattoo ...

RATHER BE DEAD THAN COOL

He doesn't do things just because everyone else is doing them.

"I don't follow the mainstream."

OK. HOLD UP.

This is where it gets interesting.

Then why would he do something as mainstream as a trending tiktok challenge? Especially something as vapid as this challenge?

And why would he tell us DURING that Tiktok challenge that he DOESN'T follow the mainstream?

And then delete it.

Creating content takes time.

And we know he's a busy man.

He's about to release an album. He's doing live performances. He's prerecording for music shows. He's overseas right now... for the fourth time in a month! Does he have time for this??

And he DELETED it...

Did he just WASTE all that time?

No, he did not.

He deliberately chose to do this.

He did it knowing ARMY studies every action, every video, and every media release.

He did it knowing ARMY would already have copied the video before he took it off his profile.

He said on Stationhead that he knows ARMY has it, and is sharing and posting it. He's FINE with that.

So he took the time to create and upload that video. He wants it out there.

He just doesn't want it on HIS page. That's an important part of the story.

So lets go back to the caption.

"I take the opposite direction"

"I go the other way"

"I don't follow the mainstream."

*Said boldly* remember. It's a loud statement, captioning an otherwise pointless very mainstream trending challenge.

So if he's not referring to tiktok itself, or to uploading challenges, what could he be referring to?

...

...

There's only one thing left: Himself.

I take the opposite direction

I go the other way

I don't follow the mainstream

Essentially... I swing the other way.

There's no way a queer man would make that statement and not fully recognise the message he's sending.

As for deleting the video, I'd say he knew it was too risky to leave on his profile, being a celebrity in Korea. He's managing his brand. Deleting it also gives him plausible deniability. He can say he made an error. As I said, he's very intelligent. He knows ARMY will see it and share it. He knows that those of us with a queer eye will hear the message loud and clear.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 And we do hear it. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

[dragonflight203]

My latest DC Comic read is Batman: Fear State Saga.

I picked this one up because Jonathan Crane is the main antagonist and I love the awful little man. I wanted to see how the comics portrayed him.

I can’t say this is good comic, but I enjoyed it. The only apologies I can make for the length is that I enjoy characters that are awful people and this comic is filled with them.

Comic

Title: Batman: Fear State Saga

Author: James Tynion IV

Artist: Jorge Jimenez

Year: 2021

Overall Opinion

An interesting premise that falls flat but nonetheless has very interesting character moments.

The plot in general suffers because it doesn’t challenge Batman. For him, this is just another night of dealing with Gotham’s bullshit. That’s a valid angle in is own right, but the narrative plays out as dramatic moments that don’t land. You can’t have a grand success if you never feared defeat.

There are, however, fantastic character interactions. Any page Jonathan’s on is generally a good page. I also enjoyed Sean and Simon, but I suspect those are more controversial.

The Peacekeeper-01 and Miracle Molly shorts are also very good, probably because they’re introspective rather than grand plots. Characters seem to be Tynion’s strong point.

Art

In general the art work is fantastic. No complaints there.

There is a puzzling portion of Batman #115 where the art style notably changes. I think it might be because the focus is on Molly, but if so it didn’t work. It had me flipping pages forward and back to figure out what was going on.

On the other hand, I really enjoy how in the Miracle Molly short the art style for Mary’s life differs greatly from Molly’s. Good use of the medium to emphasize the storytelling.

General

Main Story

-I love the prominence of women through this story.

Most of the other DC comics I’ve read so far have only had one or two prominent women, typically in background supporting roles.

So having multiple women in this story, interacting with each other, is very refreshing. I hope more current comics follow this trend.

-“I believe in the new Gotham City” is a catchphrase throughout that strongly reminds me of “I believe in Harvey Dent”.

And just like the Harvey, the new Gotham City is doomed to failure because of the faults inherent in its foundations.

Gotham needs to avoid any movement where the motto starts with “I believe”.

-Bat symbols replace swear words. While cute, it’s also silly. This is the 21st century; just put the damn swear words in.

-The FBI acquires Jervis’ tech when he’s comprehended.

This feels vaguely likely a conflict of interest. It certainly gives the FBI a good reason to want Jervis to break out.

-Arkham is outright called prison. So much for a mental hospital...

Montoya: “He was a prison guard in the most corruptprison complex on the east coast! The word ‘Arkham’ is shorthand for ‘poorly run prison’!”

-The term “bat-family” doesn’t seem right in universe. It works as a meta term, but I don’t see the characters – especially not the members themselves – referring to the bats as that.

At best I’d prefer a term like “bat clan”.

-I also feel they were poorly used.

There are numerous group of the bat family and they’re frequently referenced throughout the story.

However, we see them actually doing very little. They don’t even get proper introductions. So having dramatic shots where everyone is present doesn’t feel earned. Why should we care about them in the context of this story?

They should have gone all in with giving the bat family roles or cut them out.

-Batman gets a few speeches that feel out of place.

There’s the one where he and Molly talk on the way to the Unsanity Collective base about how Batman feels and the one at the end with Jonathan about change.

I like the concepts! However, they feel “high level”, rather than personal. It’s how I would expect someone to describe a story rather than their life.

I’ll certainly take this over an emotionally constipated Batman, but I think they could have used a rewrite to make them more natural.

-Why is Jervis barefoot in Arkham? Why is everyone ALWAYS barefoot in Arkham?

-The Unsanity Collective feel odd in this story.

They wipe away traumatic memories so people can become their best selves. That on its own is debatable – there’s an argument to be made that your memories make you who you are.

And Batman does challenge Molly on this when she tries to use the bomb to force it on everyone! He manages to talk her out of it because people can improve even with traumatic memories.

But he also allowed the Unsanity Collective to operate freely before the story and continues to do so after. He doesn’t consider them a threat to the city.

If Batman fundamentally agrees with the Unseen Collective I can maybe see him permitting to operate on the principle that people can choose their own paths, but I’d expect more tension with them than we see. It just seems out of place that Batman allows them to operate so freely when they’re mind wiping people. That can be so easily abused.

Shorts

-The Peacekeeper-01 comic doesn’t quite fit between Fear State #1 and #2.

#1 ends with Sean freaking out and #2 picks up directly from there. The Peacekeeper-01 comic ends with Sean peacefully walking away from his father’s pub.

-The Peacekeeper story does an excellent job of showing how deeply rooted corruption is in Gotham.

Sean watches his cop father beat to death another cop to prevent him from supporting the DA in taking down the (corrupt) commissioner.

Later they go out for treats and his father explains how controlling evil to keep it manageable is a good and honorable thing.

Fighting against corruption so ingrained into society is an uphill battle.

-The Miracle Molly comic hits hard for how mundane it is.

The antagonist is real life – a spouse you’ve disconnected from, in-laws you don’t get along with, an unfulfilling job…

There’s no one thing that pushes Mary over the edge. It’s just the unforgiving daily grind. And I think nearly every adult can sympathize with that.

-It’s a strange choice to put Poison Ivy’s origin story in Gardener’s comic.

I’m curious if this is the first telling of it in current continuity, or if it conflicts with an existing telling.

Plot

-Simon Saint on Crane’s work: “It’s difficult to imagine creating a society trained to expect trauma – whose fear has become so ingrained and irrational that your theory could tip them over.”

Yeah, that’s Gotham. I’d call that Gotham on an average day, really. You don’t need to set this after the Joker war.

-“A-Day” – The gas attack on Arkham that Jonathan used to break out – is frustratingly vague.

It’s blamed on the Joker, but Jonathan uses it to fake his death. Given Jonathan told Simon that his absence from Arkham would need to be hid from Batman to prevent his interference, it’s not unreasonable to assume Simon was involved.

So did Simon do A-Day? Or did Jonathan take advantage of Joker’s attack?

If Simon performed A-Day and used Joker as the fall man, I doubt Joker is pleased. You’d think he have something to say about it. But he never shows up in the story.

And is Arkham gone? If so, will it be rebuilt?

It’s implied at the very end that Arkham was destroyed in the attack, but it’s never made explicit.

-There is something very funny to me that Simon’s solution to masked vigilantes is licensed superheroes.

Obviously the police can’t handle Gotham’s costumed criminals. Some kind of superhero is necessary. It’s just a matter of who they report to.

(Has Gotham forgotten that SWAT exists?)

-Taking over Oracle’s broadcast is a nice escalation of the plot. It shows old tricks aren’t the solution to this problem and that the villain is capable enough to beat the bats’ tech expert.

However, it’s never made clear who took over Oracle’s broadcast.

I initially presumed Simon, but given how badly he falls apart I don’t think it was him. Also, there’s some evil laughter in one of the later broadcasts that isn’t really Simon’s style.

That leaves Scarecrow. It fits his MO of spreading fear but I’m skeptical he has the technical finesse to pull it off.

This point is just.. dropped about halfway through. You’d think Oracle’s tech operations being compromised would be a major plot point throughout, but apparently not. There’s not even any resolution on if its fixed.

-Simon’s positioning of the peacekeepers to the public is clever.

He acknowledges Batman’s achievements – he took on the mob and much of the city’s corruption.

However, with his rise came the rise of costumed crime and he wasn’t enough to handle that. Hence the need for the peacekeepers.

(Again, is there a reason Gotham can’t implement a SWAT team? In some continuities they’ve had one.)

-The program's barely started and Simon's already creating a secret Peacekeeper. That's not promising.

-Batman gives Montoya a run down of the entire plot.

This would be more impressive if the story showed how he knew any of it. How does he know the Magistrate planted the bomb? Or that Peacekeeper-01 is dosed on fear toxin?

-You’d think Montoya’s line here is foreshadowing, but it’s not: “The people need to believe in something – all together. It’s the only way to break them out of this…”

Waste of a very good story hook. That would have been a great resolution to the story – inspiring people to overcome their fear by giving them something stronger to believe in. It’s always been a theme in Batman stories that he’s meant to inspire hope.

-Bruce is furious at Simon for giving Scarecrow power. Interestingly, if not for that he could have seen a future for them in Gotham.

Batman fighting magistrate robots: “There is no future for the magistrate in Gotham city. There might have been if you hadn’t been so careless.

“You gave one of the most dangerous minds this city has ever seen more power than he’s ever had before.

“This city is Scarecrow’s laboratory now. We’re all his test subjects.

“Are you listening, Saint?!

“I will make sure that this city knows whose fault that is…

...Even if it kills me.”

I wish this was followed up on more. What place could Batman see for the magistrate in Gotham? Did he welcome the additional support but oppose the execution?

-In Bruce’s mind, he sees himself as Batman.

Minhkhoa, however, sees himself in a suit – but still wearing the mask.

-The Unsanity Collective built a machine that absorbs trauma and didn’t expect Scarecrow to attempt to steal it?

They might actually be insane.

-Sean I know you’re being mind controlled but please don’t let the mad scientist experiment on you just because he called you a hero.

-The Unsanity Collective being vulnerable to Scarecrow because both of their mind tech is built off of Jervis’ work is well done. Both of those facts are established well before the reveal.

Also, as much as Jonathan wanted credit at the start of this story for his work I feel Jervis should also be submitting a claim. Everyone is using his work. Man could be rich if he got royalties.

-Jonathan shows off his plan to Batman, then promptly throws a hissy fit when Batman attempts to interfere. Jonathan, how did you expect that to go?

-Sean shooting Jonathan is rather funny. And then casually saying he’ll kill Simon, take his position, and possibly keep Jonathan around if he survives.

Everyone wants Jonathan and no one wants to actually deal with him.

Understandable.

-The resolution with Simon is very abrupt. The bat family just show up on his ship and say he’s being arrested.

Given how major a player he’s been in the story, I think this should have been fleshed out more.

-Poison Ivy is very calm about reuniting with herself.

That feels very convenient and because the plot demanded in it. Why would “Queen Ivy” whose all cynicism want to reunite with innocent Poison Ivy?

-Batman is wrong about Sean in their final fight: “Heroes save other people. You’ve only ever wanted to save yourself.”

Sean literally lost an arm and a leg saving two nurses during A-Day. He’s a shitty person, but I do think he genuinely wants to do good. He’s just… Had extremely poor guidance on what good is and is only starting to realize that.

He went from his corrupt cop father for guidance to Silicone Valley tech bro Simon to the Scarecrow. Jonathan is not qualified to mentor anyone in ethics.

It’s an odd thing for Batman to say, as this story pushes the narrative that people can change and choose to do better. Ghost-Maker is a primary supporting character. Sean has already shown willingness to sacrifice himself for others and Batman dismisses him outright.

-It’s a solid twist that Molly wants to set off the bomb as an Unsanity bomb.

The resolution, however, falls flat for me. Batman gives Molly his communicator so she can hear all the positive press about the night wrapping up. This is supposed to be touching but I don’t feel it.

I think it’s because of Batman’s lack of inner turmoil. This has been a long night, but it hasn’t challenged him internally. He still holds the same beliefs at the end of the night that he does at the start; it’s just been a longer night than usual of putting down crime for him.

To make it work Batman would also need to be swayed by the positive news. Perhaps Molly could have spent the night trying to sway Batman to the Unsanity Collective’s vision. He debates her, but is visibly wavering. When she tries to set off the bomb she tells him she knows he sees her vision; he shakes his head and puts the communicator on speaker. They listen to it together and Molly dismantles the bomb.

Batman’s the viewpoint character, so he should experience some growth during the story. Molly’s a good vehicle to do it and the bomb’s a fantastic opportunity. The writing just didn’t take advantage of it.

-Batman WOULD NOT take off his cowl in public. I’ll assume Molly knows his true identity, but Jonathan and Sean are RIGHT THERE and they do not.

-Jonathan agrees to behave when Batman takes him to the asylum so they can speak on the way over. Rather sweet. The Rogues want their bonding time, damn it.

Even more touching is Batman giving Jonathan a mask when he asked. I suppose Batman understands the importance of them.

I would love to hear the therapists opinion on it.

-How the fuck can Molly do time for other members of the Unsanity Collective? Does Gotham even pretend to follow the rest of US law?

-I’m glad Poison Ivy calls Garten out on creating a seed of her. That was an extremely creepy violation of her autonomy.

-Batman says Jonathan hasn’t evolved, but that isn’t true.

Jonathan normally uses fear toxin. He doesn’t use any for this entire story; he uses tech Jervis developed that Jonathan adapted for his own purposes.

I appreciate that Batman is trying to encourage Jonathan to move past his obsession with fear or at least redirect it, but he can do that while acknowledging what Jonathan has already accomplished.

Characters

Jeremiah Arkham

-Simon bribed Jeremiah for private conversation with Jonathan. Huh. Disappointing.

Ethics aside, you’d think Jeremiah would know this would end terribly. No ‘private conversation’ with a Rogue can have a happy ending for Gotham.

-According to Jonathan, Jeremiah is also always listening.

Given Jeremiah runs Arkham Asylum, that’s just practical.

-Credit to Jeremiah: He put Sean on probation for beating the shit out of Jervis.

Strike against Jeremiah: He should have fired Sean on the spot.

-So is Jeremiah dead or not? It’s never stated if he died during A-Day.

Jonathan Crane

-Jonathan thinks Jervis is smart! “He is a strange man. Childish, but roughly six times smarter than any of the usual costumed coterie in Gotham.”

-To create a fear state Jonathan will require “a good deal of burlap, straw, and rope.” Lol. Obviously Jonathan will be doing his lab work in costume, who doesn’t?

-Jonathan wants credit for his work. He’s sick of others using his research and taking the credit.

I wish more had been done with this. Given it’s the intro for the saga, you’d think it be a theme throughout. Maybe what drives Jonathan to turn against Simon, or at least referenced again at the end. But no, this is the only mention.

-Jonathan never sits in the conversation with Simon. He stands, walks around, crouches, leans over the table, but never sits.

It’s probably just artistic choice, but I read it as never viewing Simon as an equal. Sitting would imply this is a business conversation between two men of the same statute and Jonathan never considers Simon on par with him.

-I love that Jonathan has different speech bubbles when he’s the Scarecrow. That’s some extreme compartmentalization.

-Jonathan’s foremost priority is science, but if it incidentally causes some good he’s not opposed. It’s just not a priority.

Scarecrow on putting Gotham into a fear state: “But I hope on some level you recognize the truth. That what comes next is me at my most altruistic. That’s not why I’m doing it, of course. I’m doing out of scientific curiosity. But I sincerely believe Gotham will be better on the other side.”

-I’m cackling. Even before he goes Scarecrow, the papers are already refusing to publish Jonathan’s papers on fear.

-Jonathan’s speech to Minhkhoa is quite passionate. He also looks like a dork during it.

I want to see this man in an anime. You’d know he’d have the time of his life going over the top anime style.

-Of course Jonathan likes to refer to a straw man of abstract fear as a scarecrow.

-Jonathan may actually believe what he tells Sean: “I’m not a bad guy. I’m a doctor. It’s the city that’s bad. And I have the cure.”

Sean: “What’s the cure…?

Jonathan: “You are, my boy. You are.”

I think Jonathan may be genuinely fond of Sean. Not as a person, per se, but as a successful experiment.

If nothing else, I’m sure he’ll cackle with glee and second hand pride when he watches Sean give Batman hell in the future.

-Jonathan enjoys his games with Batman. All the Rogues do.

Jonathan: “I’ll admit, I forgot how fun this is. Keeping you outfoxed… I try to stay above the fray when I talk to my Arkham compatriots… But I can’t lie. It’s a fun game.”

-Jonathan bounces right back after failures. A true scientist – he just found one more way to not achieve his goal.

Jonathan as he’s transported to an asylum: “No. The fear was always there. I was just trying to do something productive with it. Next time I’ll do a better job.”

-Of course he tested his fear bomb on the handlers Sean assigned him because he’s a ‘responsible scientist’.

Jonathan, you awful little gremlin of a man.

Sean Mahoney

-I’m probably one of a handful of people that genuinely like Sean. Even the narrative seems to expect you to dislike him.

He’s objectively awful at the start– he defends his father’s corruption and he beats the shit out of Jervis when he’s an Arkham guard.

However, he does save the two nurses during A-Day. And he says throughout that he wants to save Gotham.

For most of the story Sean is malleable. He follows his father, then Simon, then Jonathan. He slowly becomes disillusioned with each,

It’s not until the end that he really comes into his own and starts to define himself. (Was he ever deprogrammed from Scarecrow’s influence?)

I think there’s potential there. Most likely as a villain, but I could see him as a hero with some work. Well, a lot of work.

-Sean: “I’ll show them. I deserve this! I paid my dues! This city owes me!”

Even on fear toxin, that’s a worrying level of entitlement. Maybe especially on fear toxin. Sean’s deepest fear… is not getting what he thinks he’s owed?

Simon Saint

-Simon is awful. It’s like he objectively knows what the right thing is, but can’t bring himself to follow through on it.

Simon: “We must have compassion for Sean, because he’s a young man being manipulated by a monster. We are a force for good in Gotham city. We want to save him, because we want to save everyone, and bring order to this city. But should that not be possible…

“The Peacekeeper-X armor’s adaptive nanotechnology cost 500 million dollars more than what Peacekeeper-01 is working with. Your weapons will tear through Sean’s armor like it’s tissue paper. And if this goes south, that is precisely what I expect you to do.”

-Simon is crying as he orders the Peacekeeper-X armor destroyed, but does it anyway.

Then he tries to delude himself Ricardo might be alive.

Does this man have any experience with combat?

-Simon does not handle stress well.

Simon after Ricardo’s death: “Gotham city is insane. It is filled with dangerous criminals, and they all should be destroyed. This city should be wiped off the face of the Earth!”

Simon as Sean and Batman fight: “I don’t understand. I spent so much money. Why isn’t this working?!”

Misc

-I can see why Ghost-Maker is so popular. He’s quite funny and plays off Batman well.

-Shout out to Montoya for being sensible. She knows how dangerous Jonathan is with his words and wanted him gagged.

-Garten doesn’t do much, but I enjoyed her. She’s another character that’s well aware of how she’s viewed and accepts her.

I do not, however, trust her. That business with Poison Ivy was not aboveboard.

[centrally-unplanned]

I have been seeing a bunch of buzz recently online about a possible "decline in value" of the ivy league+ degree - Nate Silver didn't start it but he certainly accelerated it. And while there is nothing robust you do see things like surveys of hiring manager opinions out there to suggest its possible, its not a crazy idea even if its far from proven. So assuming its real, why would it be happening?

1: This discourse is obviously happening because of the recent protests at top US schools - essentially its the idea that elite students are hyperpolitical, coddled, and out of touch with reality. This causal path should be very, very silly. The vast, vast majority of students at Columbia are not protesting. They don't really care about this topic! Sure, if asked, they agree Israel Bad Right Now, but otherwise they are busy with finals and job apps. This is of course equally true at most other schools, its just not a mass movement in that way (protesting to be clear rarely is). This is a specific instance of the general trap of selection bias - the visible students aren't the median ones.

Stacked on top of that is the second level of selection bias - the median protestor is not a business major or engineer! They are exactly the kind of students for whom being a politically engaged activist is *good* for their career, not bad, or at least neutral. Schools produce a large diversity of career outcomes, and those students self-select on how they spend their time, there is no "median" student to observe really.

And ofc all of this has to rest on the foundational reality that people are products of their context - jobless 20 year old's surrounded by young peers protest a bunch, that is what that context produces. The large majority of them will become mortgage-paying white collar workers by the time they are 30, this identity will not stick with them. If they become political activists it will, sure! But if you are the hiring manager for Palantir this isn't going to be the trend for your hires. There are "politically liable" hires out there but you aren't going to predict them via the sorting algorithm of "was at Columbia in 2024", that is for sure.

Now, as much as this is a silly idea, humanity are zeitgeist creatures - I can't actually reject the idea that, despite it being silly, hiring managers might use this moment to feel like they are "over" the Ivy League and start dismantling the privileged place their applications currently get. Cultural tipping points are vibes-based, and amoung elites (unlike the masses, who don't care much) Israel/Palestine has an awful lot of tense vibes.

2: Still, I don't think this is explaining those survey results people are throwing around, and I don't think its explained (very much at least) by the general "woke uni" trends of the past half decade. It is instead downstream of wider trends.

There was a time where companies really did want "the smart guy". You could major in English at Harvard, write a good thesis on Yeats, and be off to the trading desk in Chambers St two weeks after graduation. Those days are over - for complex reasons we won't get into - and nowadays people expect their new hires to be as close to experts in the field as they can manage. Students have internships, consulting clubs, capstone projects with real clients, specialized sub majors, the works. These are all ways of saying "signaling quality" has gotten more legible and more specific over time. Why would I choose a Harvard English major over a University of Illinois finance major who did a research internship with our specific Chicago firm on midwest agricultural derivates markets? Students like that exist by the bucketful now, and the Ivys cannot monopolize them. Partially because they choose not to; Columbia could actually say fuck it and make its school 90% finance majors, but they don't want that, they specifically recruit intellectually diverse students. Which means State School finance types will fill the remaining slots slots.

The other reason they can't monopolize is much simpler - numbers. The US has way more "elite" jobs today than it did in the past. Programmers and their adjacencies are the biggest growth sector, but everything from doctors to analysts to lawyers is all up up up. And do you know what isn't up? Undergraduate enrollment at elite schools! Columbia's has grown by like 10% over the past 20 years; Harvard's is essentially unchanged. For, again, reasons, these schools have found the idea of doubling or tripling their undergraduate enrollment, despite ballooning applications, impossible. Which means of course Microsoft can't hire from Stanford alone. So they don't, and they have learned what other schools deliver talent, and no longer need Stanford alone. The decline of Ivy Power is in this sense mathematical - if a signal of quality refuses to grow to meet demand, of course other signals will emerge.

I therefore personally think, while minor, the Ivy+ schools are experiencing declining status, have been for a while, and will continue to do so (though there are offsetting trends not mentioned here btw). But its structural way more than cultural.

[ashirisu]

hey, everyone!

My name is Ley (pronounced like "Lee," she/they) and I'm a fiction writer/editor based in the PNW. I haven't done a proper writeblr intro in a while, so I figure the new year is a great time to reintroduce myself to the community!

— about me

An important thing to understand about me and the way I talk about writing is that this stuff is literally my entire life. Even outside of work, I don't think I have a single interest or hobby that doesn't relate back to storytelling in some capacity. I'm an avid media consumer and critic, and will hyperanalyze just about anything that catches my fancy for more than a minute.

I love science fiction and fantasy, and my goal as a writer is to take all the genres I loved growing up and create stories that are a little more diverse, inclusive, and queer.

— about the blog

I came to writeblr mostly to share my work, but also to find an active community where I can get excited with other writers and talk shop. Marketing is obviously a really important part of the publishing industry, but I get tired of having to filter every thought I have about my work and experiences through the lens of aesthetic micro-trends just to put it out in the world. Sometimes I just want to pop off about scenes I'm proud of, you know?

Above all else, I really just want to connect with more writers like myself, ones who got their start in fandom spaces and are working to take their writing from a hobby into a career. I see you, I am you, I love you, let's be friends!

You’ll definitely see me posting and reblogging a lot of stuff that isn’t necessarily related to writing, so be ready for that. My art exists in the context of my personality and the world as a whole, and I simply do not have it in me to maintain a whole separate blog for silly nonsense and memes. Just consider it a way to get to know the writer as well as the writing!

— about my writing

I write a lot, though most of it is disconnected nonsense. Flash fiction and short stories are where I really thrive as a writer. I don't tend to commit to long-form projects, but I have a few projects that I'll occasionally share details about!

I like to describe my style as "earnest and character-forward," which is a fancy way of saying that I like driven protagonists who think too much and are emotional to the point of it being a character flaw.

My goal is to share more of my original writing moving forward, so hopefully you'll get to see all of this for yourself. If I'm totally honest, though, you'll probably see more of me discussing my work than actually writing it.

— about my projects

Here are the things you'll most likely see me posting about:

Agnomen: A sci-fi retelling of Hamlet and Coriolanus, currently in its very preliminary stages. It is literally my Roman Empire, except it's set on a moon of a planet that I'm calling Jupiter as a placeholder (but please note that it isn't actually Jupiter, as Jupiter is a gas giant and therefore a scientifically impossible setting for large sections of the plot).

Alter Ego: A superhero fic in which not-so-mild-mannered reporter Drew Derrick fights for mutant rights and can't seem to get his act together when it comes to keeping the complicated parts of his life separate.

Untitled Fantasy Project: The very first project I ever wrote, and the piece I return to every so often when writing is feeling more like a slog than a fun hobby. I set a lot of one-offs in this world and follow a few key characters around without them having a real plot.

D&D: I write a lot about Baz, my Wild Magic Barbarian. He's a regency noble with a lot of problems, and I care about him very much. I also have various other settings and characters, but he's my most active PC at the moment and therefore gets the most attention.

Short Stories: Sometimes I write these, and sometimes I like them enough to share!

— tag directory

ley rambles: my (often wordy) opinions about things

ley writes: not necessarily my writing, but talking about my writing

my writing: stories, blurbs, and other content I've written

not my writing: reblogs and creative writing that I liked, shared, and sometimes commented on

[menofprogress]

I knew this was gonna happen the second there was an influx of "jayvik with four kids" content and i need ppl who dont like this trope to understand 2 things

1st: this is a trend that got kicked off by a va making a non-serious comment. That doesnt make it canon and that doesnt mean any and all jayvik fanworks will include this trope. Its gonna die down in like a week, theres no need to get incredibly worked up like "this is ruining their characterisation!!!! Ugh im never gonna be able to enjoy jayvik content again!!". Calm down.

2nd: its possible to be "the friend thats too woke" about this. Just bc you saw maybe three fanarts of mpreg viktor doesnt mean hes getting the "tradwife treatment" and it doesnt mean fans are "lobotomising" him (direct quote). Ive seen this multiple times across different platforms and i kneewwwwww this was gonna happen. I knew some ppl who really dont like the kids trope or mpreg were gonna try and spin this into some fetish/sexist/degrading thing. And its sooo funny that all of these posts only mention the fans "feminising" viktor when ive seen equally as much, IF NOT MORE, posts talking or joking about JAYCE being the pregnant one or the stay at home mom.

You can just say you dont like the trope and move on, im hazarding a guess that MOST jayvik fans arent into mpreg/kidfic. I just think its a little unwarranted to accuse a portion of the fandom of actually quite serious stuff like FURTHERING TRADWIFE MENTALITY based on, what? 5 days of fanart? Half of which doesnt even include the things youre accusing them off and another half being full on joke posts?

PLEASE learn to just say "i hate this trope" instead of trying to find sinister reasons why the trope is bad. And PLEASE ask yourself "is this actually a widespread, underlying problem in the fandom or did i just get annoyed by a handful of slightly questionable fetish fanart?".

Bc tbh im taking this shit personally as someone who thought the "4 kids and a cottage" stuff was cute and just a silly bit of novelty among a whole mountain of other tropes i enjoy this ship in. Bc it is QUITE insulting to get accused of "normalising trad wife mentality" over THIS.

(Btw the exact same thing happened when trans!viktor fanworks became more popular. Ppl who didnt like the interpretation accused others of being "sexist, stereotyping and feminising" for "interpreting the smaller/less masculine one as trans". Just say you dont like it and move on, oh my god)

[basement-buddy]

i have a similar question to the posting art online anon, how long did it take before you really started to see results posting online? ive been doing it for um about a year? or so and havent had a lot of traction! and it can be a little disheartening to have stuff you work hard on end up with 0-1 likes 😞😞😞 im just curious if there is more i can be doing or if im doing something wrong !

Honestly it works out differently for everyone! I have been posting my art online for 10 years next year, and I only really started getting decent attention on my stuff about 5 years ago, and it only actually really turned into huge traction on my IG about say, 3 or 4 years ago now?

Based on that experience alone I think the biggest thing to take away from this is that the hard part is just getting the ball rolling because once it’s going, it snowballs gradually on its own. I can tell you how I personally grew any of my accounts but I can’t guarantee that it’ll work for everyone!

1- Consistent posting, this is especially big if you’re starting out. You don’t have to share big finished pieces daily. Post a 2 minute doodle from your phone! A WIP of a painting you’re doing for school, do a zoomed in sneak peek of that real nice drawing you’re doing in your personal sketchbook. It doesn’t matter, just try and post a little snippet like once every 2-3 days. Never feel pressured to finish a drawing every single day, just share your art journey even if in fragments.

2- interacting with others!!! I’m going to be so honest with you, internet users are very nosy people. Very curious. If you frequently comment, interact with online users you want to be lumped with (in your case, artists), then people will see your account appearing alongside the people they’re following and start checking you out. Leave comments on your favorite artists’ post, ask questions on a post regarding your favorite fandom, etc! At one point in 2022, I got a huge influx of followers simply because I shared a headcanon regarding Princess Jellyfish, and the other commenters that saw it checked my profile and saw that at the time, I had Princess jellyfish fanart on my profile!

3- there’s a lot of people that tell you to follow art trends, while others say only to draw exactly what you want, and in my opinion, only do art trends if you can combine them with your interests and art. Don’t force a trend if you don’t really want to. In my personal experience, engaging in art trends only really works for me if I draw my favorite fandom in place of the meme, or a silly picture of my ocs. Don’t feel pressured to overperform in art trends, either. Just be yourself, do what you do best, and the boost of a trend will push you to people who will actually stick around because they like what you do!

And finally, something to keep in mind, is that LOTS of great artists go under the radar. A follower count does not determine your skill, your worth or your value. You can have beautiful art and very few people will notice for years. Just do what you love, and have fun.

[moonshynecybin]

Hello, i'm very new to motoGP but why is KTM supposedly going to pull out of MotoGP/2/3? Is there a clear reason like financial trouble or legal reasons? At the start i thought it was gonna be only GP but all categories sounds extreme

KTM the motorcycle manufacturer (not KTM racing, who are a smaller part of the company) did really well during covid and then borrowed a bunch of money (THREEE BILLION DOLLARSSSSSS) to open up factories and make more bikes, anticipating that the trend of upward success would continue and that they could pay back their debts. when the bubble popped “post-covid” and they failed to maintain that trend of growth and they DID build those factories, they just owed all of that fucking money back with no real way to pay off the debt. unfortunately. crucially, they’re still a successful company in the sense that they are still selling that baseline level of motorcycles, they just didn’t grow enough to even BEGIN to cover the massive amounts of money that they owe, which is how we get here.

so in order to avoid claiming bankruptcy, they entered into a process called self-administration, which is a restructuring option where they work with the courts to basically cut costs and try to avoid having to pay the full breadth of their debts. the austrian government is interested in this because KTM is a huge employer and a big part of the economy so they don’t want the whole company to go under etc.

in terms of the smaller arm that the company has in motogp, this is BAD, because it seems in general a lil silly to spend oodles of cash on developing a special airplanemotorcycle for an entertainment sport when you owe your employees their salaries from november (when they ENTERED this agreement they owed €40 million in wages to staff. coincidentally, the yearly cost of their grand prix racing efforts is also €40 million according to gpone dot com) and you’re laying off 300 of those employees to boot. so even if they make more money than they spend while racing, they’re still up against bad optics and the option to just. not spend that 40 million euro.

in terms of the lower classes, it looks even more bleak. KTM is a massive supplier of bikes for moto2 and moto3 AND red bulls rookies cup. they’re kind of THE bike for the little guys, and if they leave i really don’t know who is gonna fill that gap! the lower class teams are also kind of famously unprofitable, and render less visibility as an advertising tool than the main class, so i reallyyyyy think its unlikely that KTM maintains their current level of investment, and i really don’t know what other shiny idiot team would step in to compensate.

one of the main candidates to potentially be that shiny idiot is red bull racing, who as an austrian-based company that has seen ENORMOUS success in formula one might be willing to bear some of the cash burden and throw some money at these bikes (like they already do for the rookies cup). unfortunately, red bull management has somewhat recently changed hands into a comparatively less racing-friendly group, and KTM has subsequently denied any chance of a rescue of their motogp project from them. of course, if they lose their involvement with ktm AND with marc in like the same year, their visibility in the sport would DRASTICALLY decrease, so perhaps that will have an impact in the future, but it looks like no

however it should be noted as well that motogp is probably one of KTM’s most effective marketing tools as a company— their slogan is “ready to race,” so i do believe that they really want to remain in motogp (especially if the senior class is turning them a profit), even if that might be out of their reach for now. it looks like they’re definitely pulling out of moto2 and 3, and MAYBE the premiere class, but the logistics of WHEN and HOW MUCH are all largely unknown. ultimately, we will just have to see

[atiianeishaunted]

(same anon as before) how many of your ocs and voltron characters are idols like lucien??

anon just know ilysm this is making me OVERJOYED slash genuine,, first time ever people r actually taking a genuine interest in my silly project >///< for further context on lucien n such, they come from a country i made up (listen it ties, into lore thats essentially a prequel to sonder and everything ?!?!? idk we wont get into it) (wusinthe n acynpaori r the 2 countries, they r neighbors, whole thing,)

ladybird and lucien (twins) are idols, alot of their family members could be considered idols or something similar as their father, marcello, really loves attention to be on him and wants all his kids to be perfect, they all have a public presence in some way!! lucien specifically is inspired by someone who was marcello's first son, died centuries ago (marcello is. immortal) (again we can get into that later) (it makes sense when u know the whole plot), found old tapes of their performances and figured out thats what he wanted to do, its kind of in the family blood atp i suppose?

the culture of wusinthe is very , fame focused and performance based, you can tell by the fashion trends and the way the people dress !! fuyune being the capital or whatever, also speaking of which castiel is very important to the plot too actually we can get into him later if someone asks about him

anyway!!

lance ends up being an idol of sorts as well but not as hardcore as lucien is into it, he prefers to have breaks and such, this is also because of information he finds out later on that kind of kills his rose tinted view of being an idol/famous nodnod

the paladins in general end up being forced into the limelight, lance just embraces it, theres probably a few other idols however i cannot think of them rn unless theyre side characters / one off characters shrug

[fandomsandfeminism]

So, that new Gunbuster Dub

Rewatched Gunbuster yesterday- this time with it's sparkly new dub!

And...this anime is such an experience, honestly.

Like, as someone who has seen a LOT of Gainax and Trigger shows, this show as Anno's directorial debut is super interesting. You can see the DNA of Evangelion (and like, all of Gainax and Trigger's mech shows- I see a lot of Gurren Lagann in it) in there.

Also, the "Science Lesson" shorts at the end are just hilarious. Like Anno couldn't figure out a way to wildly over explain the both REAL and SUPER FAKE science shit, so....here we are! Also, it's exactly what Rebecca Sugar did to exposition dump in Steven Universe, I love it. Also, look at these 80s chibis!

It's incredibly 80s. The space bug design is very Nausicaa (Anno had worked on Nausicaa previously.) One of the girls is from the Soviet Union despite the show starting in the 2020s, which is great. The fact that it's little "Aim for the Top!" catchphrase is a weird mash up of a beloved tennis anime (Aim for the Ace!) and Top Gun is wild. The art and the music is just delightful.

There sheer Runtime to Exposed Nipple ratio is off the charts, and its impact on the infamous anime boob jiggle trend is....notable. It's not even really comical the way that Gainax/Trigger fanservice tends to be? It's just...sometimes conversations happen while the girls are topless. And it's definitely horny, but in a more... subdued/realistic way than something like Kill la Kill.

The fact that the final episode is in black and white might just be an artsy choice, but the fact that the entire climactic space battle is just fucking scans of the storyboards!? Did we spend the entire space battle animation budget on the boob jiggles? How did this effectively happen to TWO of Anno's robot shows?!

But despite all the silliness- the actual like...themes explored in this show are *so interesting.* The way the time dilation is used to explore the sacrifices and the trauma? So often, we see the "soldiers return as changed men to an unchanged home" ala Lord of the Rings. But Gunbuster says "the soldiers, these events still incredibly fresh and hurting, return to a home that has moved on without them" and it hurts SO HARD. Noriko is forever a teenager, and every time she is able to touch base back home she has drifted further and further out of synch with her friends and the life she could have had. First by just a few months, then years, then...well.

It's so much more interesting and emotionally resonant than it has any right to be when the first episode has mechs doing fucking jump rope while Tom Cruise Coach shouts at them through a megaphone.

[s10127470]

What If One Piece had an LA-based Dub? (Part 1)

So recently, I’ve been talking with some friends on Discord about One Piece, specifically about its’ English dubs.

And essentially, we feel like that One Piece hasn't really gotten the best treatment when it comes to English dubs.

Like, we already know the travesty that was 4Kids.

But this also applies to their long-standing and current dubbers, Funimation.

This is probably a controversial opinion, but I don't think they were the best choice to dub One Piece.

Like, yes, they are of much higher quality when compared to 4Kids.

But even then….

For starters, I feel like there's a lot of miscasting here. Even among the main cast.

Probably the most obvious being in the case of Christopher Sabat as Zoro.

He just makes him sound way too old. He's suppose to be a young man.

I can't be the only one who thinks that it sounds too much like Piccolo.

And finally, I feel like Funimation's dubbing is a bit too…..straightforward (if that makes sense).

After rewatching the 4Kids dub, I've grown a sense of appreciation for it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not that good.

But I feel like there’s some elements that they do better than Funimation.

In contrast to the Funimation dub, a lot of the performances have a little more life and energy to them.

Even if they're not all that good…..

One thing I really like is that many of the characters have accents, which just feels right given how the whole premise of the series is about traveling the world..

This is made even better when you get remember the Netflix adaptation, which gave a lot of characters accents, including the main ones!

Plus, 4Kids is just much better at handling the frequent comedic and silly moments.

Hell, why do you think this scene blew up in popularity?

Plus, they did a slightly better job at translating some scenes to English and not having them come off as a direct, one-to-one translation.

It's a little hard to explain, but essentially they keep what was said in the original Japanese version and kinda give their own flair to it.

But with this discussion, being the idea man that I am, it gave me the idea of an alternate timeline.

One where One Piece wasn’t picked up by 4Kids or Funimation.

But instead, it was picked up by Viz Media, who would commission an English dub out of the voice acting capital of the world: Los Angeles, California!

I feel like this alternate timeline would not only give us a much better dub than the other two, especially 4Kids.

But also do the franchise a LOT of favors....

If you know One Piece, you'd known that the series had a hard time catching up in popularity in the West.

It was 2000s. The decade was all about making everything cool, hip and edgy.

And anime was one of the prime contributors to this trend.

Plus during that time, a lot of anime fans had this stigma against Western animation, seeing it as nothing but kiddy shit.

These people are the one of the reasons why we have crap like this.....

And since One Piece is famous for having an incredibly cartoonish art-style and world, it did not do it any favors.

Made even worse with the 4Kids dub, which infamously kidified the anime to absolute HELL.

However, I feel this dub would counteract that.

The dub itself would premiere on June 2nd, 2003 on Cartoon Network as part of Toonami.

And although the would probably have some censorship, it would be NOWHERE near the level of 4Kids.

Plus, from what I've seen, anime that aired on Toonami was able to get away with a lot more explicit content due to it's clear aiming at older audiences.

For the East Blue Saga, the dub would air new episodes every week, Monday through Friday.

That's what we're gonna be covering for this part.

As we go through each arc, I'll be sharing my voice choices for the major characters in each of them.

So without further ado, let's set sail!

Romance Dawn (June 2nd-June 4th, 2003):

Starting off this showcase we have our main star the future king of the pirates himself, Monkey D. Luffy!

When thinking of a voice for Luffy, I wanted him to still be voiced by a female.

And one of the major female VAs, I've come to a tie on who would be good voice for Luffy.

And that tie is between Colleen O'Shaughnessy and Kari Wahlgren.

Between the two of them, I think their voices both perfectly fit the type of voice Luffy would have.

Pretty goofy and silly while still being able to do the more serious and emotional moments well.

And while you can still tell they're a woman, they're still able to convincingly sound like a boy.

I think the coolest thing about this choice would be that in the case of Kari, this would be one of her earliest voice acting roles, as she entered the realm of voicework in the prior year of 2002.

And about a year into her career, she would find herself becoming the official English voice of one of the most famous and revered protagonists in anime/manga history!

Next we come to Koby, who would be voiced by Pamela Adlon.

Oh yeah, let’s talk about that real quick.

In contrast to other anime dubs, this one would primarily feature voice actors typically found in Western animation.

I feel like this would make One Piece stand among the crowd, and it kinda fits since the main character himself does draw heavy influence from the Golden Age of Western Animation.

As for why I choose Pamela, especially since Koby pre-Marines was shown to have a whiny sounding voice, was because I was coming at this with the knowledge of his post-Marines look.

I’m not a fan of how the Funimation Dub gave him a new voice after we were reintroduced to him, whereas the original Japanese version kept his voice actress.

So I wanted to do the same thing they did.

I feel that Pamela was the best option.

She’s known for having a noticeably deeper and hoarse voice when compared to most female VAs.

Hence she’s famous for voicing a lot of male characters, particularly boys.

As for her performance as pre-Marine Koby, it would be pretty similar to her performance as Otto Osworth from Time Squad….which is funnily enough, a Cartoon Network show.

Now we come to Alvida, who would be voiced by Wendee Lee.

And yes, she would voice both forms of her.

Her original fat form, and current slim form.

Now we've come to the second member of the Straw Hats, Roronoa Zoro!

He would be (at least for now) voiced by Ben Diskin.

His performance would be sound like a slightly more serious version of, and I can't believe I'm actually referencing this guy, Ban from The Seven Deadly Sins.

One cool thing about Ben voicing Zoro would be that he would bring a lot of authenticity to the role, since he would've been around Zoro's age at the time of dub's release (20-21 years old).

Also, this would really funny to think about since around this time, Ben was voicing Numbuh 1 and 2 on Codename: Kids Next Door, another Cartoon Network show.

Rika would be voiced by Kath Soucie, essentially sounding like a slightly older Lil Deville from Rugrats.

Helmeppo would be voiced by Jeff Bennett, who would definitely sound like the recent gay shipping icon as of late, Bradley Uppercrust III.

Like, you can't tell me that his voice wouldn't fit Helmeppo like a glove.

And in just you don't believe me, here are some clips to prove my point.

Next we come to his father, Axe Hand Morgan, who would be voiced by Jim Cummings.

And for his role, Jim would definitely use his serious voice that he uses with characters such as Mister Moloch in Project G.e.e.K.e.R. and Hernán Cortés in The Road to El Dorado.

Now to come to Red-Haired Shanks, who would be voiced by Steve Blum doing a Cockney accent.

Yeah, he's basically gonna sound like a swashbuckling Spike Spiegel.

Which actually sounds pretty cool....

As for the rest of the main Red-Haired Pirates.

Benn Beckman would be voiced by Wally Wingert.

Lucky Roux would be voiced by Bill Fagerbakke.

And Yasopp would be voiced by James Arnold Taylor.

And finally, we have Higuma, who would be voiced by Rob Paulsen.

Orange Town (June 5th-June 10th, 2003):

First start off come to the third member of the Straw Hats, Nami.

Nami would be voiced by Kate Higgins.

Who weirdly enough, when it comes to LA voice fan-casting for One Piece, she's always the one to get picked for Nami.

And I can totally see why.

She would definitely fit the character.

Next we come to the big bad of the arc himself, Buggy the Clown.

Originally, I was gonna have Mark Hamill voice him.

But I figured that would've been too easy and too obvious.

So instead, I decided to choose Steve Blum as the voice of the character.

His performance would be pretty reminiscent to that of The Green Goblin in The Spectacular Spider-Man, but a little more silly sounding.

Even his laugh would be pretty similar to Gobby's.

Plus, Buggy's casting choice is pretty funny to think about since as I mentioned earlier, Steve would also be voicing Shanks.

Which would make Buggy's pure adulterated hatred for him even funnier.

As for his main crew members.

Mohji would be voiced by Liam O'Brien, essentially using the same voice he used for Zazz in Sonic Lost World.

Cabaji would be voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, using an Eastern European accent.

And Ritchie would have his vocals provided by Frank Walker.

As for the one notable characters of this arc.

Chouchou would have his vocals provided by Dee Bradley Baker.

And Boodle would be voiced by Tom Kane.

Who was also voicing Professor Utonium on The Powerpuff Girls around this time.

Syrup Village (June 11th-June 24th, 2003):

First we have the fourth member of the Straw Hats, Usopp.

Just like with Luffy, I have two VAs in mind that could voice the God himself.

James Arnold Taylor and Jason Marsden.

Both of them would strike that perfect balance of being able to sound silly while knowing when to take it seriously.

Also, if JAT was voicing Usopp, he would essentially sound like a younger version of his own dad.

Kaya would be voiced by Tara Strong.

The Usopp Pirates would be voiced by Grey Griffin (Ninjin), Colleen O'Shaughnessy (Pilman), and Nancy Cartwright (Tamanegi) respectively.

Jeff Bennett would also be voicing Merry.

Dee Bradley Baker would also be voicing the big bad of the arc, Kuro.

Jango would be voiced by Phil LaMarr, who would doing a what could be best described as a knock-off Michael Jackson impression.

Which, let's be real, would fit the character perfectly.

Phil would also be pulling double duty as Siam, with the other half of the Nyaban Brothers, Butchie, being voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

And finally, we have Gaimon, who would be voiced by Charlie Adler.

Baratie (June 25th-July 10th, 2003):

Starting this off we have Kuina, who would be voiced by Grey Griffin.

Shimotsuki Koushirou would be voiced by Phil LaMarr, essentially using the same voice he uses for Samurai Jack.

Now we come to Johnny and Yosaku.

Johnny would be voiced by Nolan North, while Yosaku would be voiced by Mikey Kelley.

So essentially we have Raphael and Michaelangelo tagging along with the Straw Hats.

Finally, we've come to the fifth member of the Straw Hats (and the last one as of right now), Sanji.

Sanji would be voiced by Josh Keaton.

And just like with Ben as Zoro, Josh would bring a lot of authenticity to his performance (given that he would've been 23-24 at the time)

Also, we all know how Zoro and Sanji are rivals.

This would be funny to think about since this wouldn't be last time Ben and Josh would voice a duo of rivals.

Zeff would be voiced by Clancy Brown, essentially sounding like a slightly more serious Brooklyn version of Mr. Krabs.

We would also have John DiMaggio playing double duty as both Don Krieg and Fullbody.

Ghin would be voiced by Crispin Freeman.

Patty and Carne would be voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson and Tom Kenny respectively.

Pearl would be voiced by Jess Harnell.

And Hawk-Eye Mihawk would be voiced Lex Lang, doing a French accent.

Arlong Park (July 11th-July 31st, 2003):

Starting this off, we have Arlong himself, who would be voiced by Fred Tatasciore, which will be really funny to think about once we get to you-know-who.

As for the rest of main crew.

Kuroobi would be voiced by Doug Erholtz.

Hatchan would be voiced by Bill Fagerbakke.

And Chew would be voiced by Jeff Bennett

Nojiko would be voiced by Michelle Ruff.

Genzo would be voiced by Cam Clarke.

Bellemere would be voiced by Vanessa Marshall.

Which would be really weird to think about since she was on Cartoon Network's latest original series at the time, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, voicing this guy....

Well I'm pretty sure I just ruined Bellemere's death for most of you now since it's hard not her with the voice of Irwin now......

Anyway, Nezmui would be voiced by Tony Oliver, essentially sounding like an evil version of Lupin III.

Or how he was in the original manga....

And Moomo would have his vocals provided by Frank Welker.

Buggy's Adventure (August 1st-4th, 2003):

I don't really have anything to say for this one except that it will be part of the dub.

Roguetown (August 5th-12th, 2003):

Starting this off we have Smoker, who would be voiced by James Arnold Taylor, essentially sounding pretty similar to Walker from Danny Phantom, but without the Southern accent.

Next we have Tashigi, who would voiced by Karen Strassman.

Daddy the Father would be voiced by Jeff Bennett.

Five-Alarm Carmen would be voiced by Candi Milo.

And finally, we have Dragon, who would be voiced by Dave Wittenberg.

Well, that's all I have for now.

It's not the most detailed post I've made, but I thought it was fun to do.

Plus, I always like to showcase by knowledge of voice actors.

Which speaking of, I'm not sure how this post will do since I'm not sure how knowledgeable of voice actors any of the potential viewers are.

But hey, I'll just have to wait and find out.

Anyway, let me know what you think about this alternate timeline I created.

And for the two choices I had for Luffy and Usopp, who do you think would be the best choice for them?

And finally, I really hope @mysticalchildsuit actually likes this post since the last time I made a post about One Piece....they were.....