#rather fitting really

[sameboot]

Simon petrikov coping FAIL compilation

[canisalbus]

Well, after some several hours i finally finished this. I used the "Kermes" art as a reference. Im doing another, but that im wanting to change thr colors. The sun was something that i wanted to draw because of your arts that has some red background. dunno why, but my first idea was drawing machete with Dante's clothes or Vergil.... i hope you liked it :)

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[ajcrawly]

No skeletons or constructs of any kind on the Mithraeum which leads me to wonder what kind of unholy chore wheel they're operating under. We know everyone cooks (more or less) but who is doing dishes. Who is dusting the ossuaries. How many decades of accumulated grime have to build up before Gideon, Saint of Duty, pulls on the marigolds and gets to work.

[qalrey]

🦋🦋🦋

[queenlucythevaliant]

Okay gang, here's a silly little game. I've assembled six teams of blended Narnia and Tolkien/LotR characters. Here they are:

For bonus points, tell me in the tags where you're going on your road trip, who has what role (driving, snacks, aux) on the road, and what you'll stop off and see along the way

[haunted-xander]

I shall protect you

[lunarharp]

pretty & cute witch men

[strangerinthelight]

Thought a little too hard about if Loki and Mobius were reunited and finally had what they wanted, and were then torn apart once again by some insurmountable force, and I honestly have a feeling that if Marvel ever brought them back that’s exactly what they would do

[mollysunder]

Shimmer & The Glorious Evolution: A Love Story

We can see how a specialized high quality strain of Rio's shimmer can alter the biology of living organisms to make users produce their own shimmer, as is the case with Jinx. So what will happen now that Rio's specialized shimmer has been exposed to an artificial life form, i.e. the hexcore?

What Has the Hexcore Done Without Shimmer?

Prior to the hexcore's exposure to shimmer infused blood we've only seen it capable of releasing short bursts of massive energy when Viktor experiments with it.

When exposed to human blood the hexcore reacted by "consuming" a drop of it. The blood effected the entire magical dimension the hexcore connects to by turning it to a shade of purple similar to the plants found in Singed's cave.

Later we see that this newly blood infused hexcore's magic turned purple and is able to not only react to organic matter such as plants, but stimulate their growth in turn (not for long of course). The affected plants also take on the purple tinge similar to the hexcore's magic.

What Have We Seen the Shimmered Hexcore Do So Far?

Once Viktor exposed the hexcore to his shimmer infused blood it was capable of producing a longer lasting stable state with its test subject twice. Initially, what exactly happened to Viktor's leg was up to interpretation, but later on animators in Bridging the Rift confirmed that Viktor's new leg and hand are made of metal.

This means that the hexcore took Viktor's flesh and shimmer infused blood (more than the first time) and exchanged it for an arcane/shimmer configured metalic replacement. His skin is gone and we're looking at what his muscle has been converted to.

The transmutation of Viktor's hand and leg into metal could have only been facilitated through the use of shimmer. It was likely the remaining shimmer in Viktor's system that prevented him from being absorbed into the hexcore. Without a sufficient amount of shimmer, a regular human hand does not equal a shimmerized arcane metalic hand. The flesh, bone, and blood of an entire adult woman and a pitance of shimmer is worth the hand it provides.

What Will Happen Next Season?

The further the hexcore directly interfaces with organic matter the more similar it becomes in appearance and ability to shimmer. Where it improves health and strength at increasing biological costs. Once Viktor realizes that he's missing the "Inspiration" rune, the rune matrix will finally be complete and reach a "stable" state.

A "stable" state could mean the hexcore could reliably interact with and alter organic matter like Rio's shimmer is capable of. Based on the notes Sky left behind, her research focused on plant biology. In theory, a "perfect" hexcore could not only stimulate plant life to grow impressively, they could be durable enough to survive in extreme environments like Zaun.

While there is evidence that shimmer and its byproducts can enhance plant growth, especially in Zaun, there is a catch. Any plant affected by a hexcore corrupted by Rio's specialized shimmer would be altered in a way that makes them capable of being producing shimmer independently.

Just from Viktor's experiment with a hexcore exposed to a single drop of blood, the plants began to glow purple like the plants Rio would eat and break down into shimmer. Except, like Jinx the hexcore would pass down its own strain to the plant subjects that's compatible with the hexcore's "exchange" requirements.

But why would Viktor want to create plants capable of producing MORE shimmer for Zaun. Simple! Without shimmer you can't get... The Glorious Evolution. It's already been mentioned that Viktor's limbs have become metal, and to make his transformation complete he'll need more shimmer. For others to become like him, he needs more shimmer.

but...

Who Would Be Willing to Follow the Herald's Path?

Shimmer addicts like Huck and those who live in the sump with dying flesh and residual concentrations of shimmer in their bodies could be "healed" from their state of deterioration through the hexcore.

In Bridging the Rift we actually saw an unfinished clip of Viktor reaching his metalic hand to reach out and grab the face of a shimmer addict. Upon further inspection of the unidentified character's scars, we can guess this is Huck.

There's also the underlying culture of flesh sacrifice in Zaun, which is actually in the same vein as the Church of the Gloriously Evolved. In League, specifically through Camille's lore, the Church of the Gloriously Evolved actually exists outside of and likely before the Machine Herald came to the scene. The Church's roots even stretch into both Zaun & Piltover.

They believe that you must sacrifice something close and dear (like diseased flesh) with the faith that something better will take its place. Splinters of this organization likely made Silco an object of worship admiring his power and assuming the shimmer he brought was the miracle they sacrificed so much for already. Without Silco and his shimmer, Viktor and his hexcore would become the Church's new object of adoration as they bring shimmer AND immediate transmutation.

Finally, there's Sevika. In the tarot seen, Sevika drew a winning hand with a pair of card, Death and The Magician, that resemble Jinx and Viktor respectively. The scene may foreshadow that Jinx and Viktor will be the trump cards to win her Zaun's independence. But How will that work with Viktor?

You could argue that Sevika could bring Viktor in to repair her arm, but there's an entire industry backed up by a chembaron, Smeech, to fulfill that need. Viktor's going to need to bring something new to the table to be brought into the fold, and that could be shimmer infused plants and the "healing" properties of the hexcore. And I'm sure Sevika's pragmatic enough to know that for Zaun to survive Piltover's retaliation she'll need to bolster her resources in manpower and shimmer... lots of it.

Whether Sevika will be able to handle the cult of personality around the Machine Herald, especially if Jinx ends up siding him is a whole other discussion.

[venti-death-watch]

so glad the hearth timeline is like… slightly more understandable than before. previously i had freminet down as being given to the hearth at about 5, arle killing the previous knave when he was about 8, and the twins being taken in a few months later at about 12 when he was still 8. for my au, that makes them about four years apart, which feels slightly large of an age gap but ultimately it works better than making them a year or two apart.

apparently, canonically arle was 16 when clervie died at 16, 17 when she killed the previous knave, and then spent an unknown amount of time in prison before becoming a harbinger and taking over as the director of the house of hearth.

freminet was taken in during the year between clervie’s death and crucabena’s death. the twins were taken in a few months after that.

if freminet was taken in at 5-6, the twins taken in around 9-10, that keeps the age gap between the trio as well as explains the ~10 year gap between this and canon. that would make freminet 15-16 and the twins 19-20, which fits them really well. i wish arlecchino was older, though; she definitely feels older than ~27.

[meg-does-art]

rip lineage-based names ig

[kaurwreck]

OH YOUR VERLAINE AND RIMBAUD POSTS AND THE TENDENCY OF ASAGIRI TO FLIP FLOP THE MENTOR/MENTEE OR ADMIRED AND HOW RIMBAUD WAS THE YOUNGER ONE BUT IN BSD VERLAINE WAS SOCIALIZED BY RIMBAUD

With Rimbaud and Verlaine, it's worth remembering that bsd!Rimbaud is Verlaine. His skill is Illuminations, but he gave Black #12 his birth name, Paul Verlaine. bsd!Verlaine was not originally named Rimbaud, but his youth, passions, and duality are Rimbaudian, while bsd!Rimbaud's more coddling temperament, at times paternal and at times impassioned, and last sentiments for bsd!Verlaine, are seemingly references to irlVerlaine's poetry about irl!Rimbaud. (Such as Watercolors: Green, an English translation of which I shared in a separate post.)

Notably, Verlaine published Illuminations on Rimbaud's behalf and influenced the content and arrangement that was published. His legacy is often related more to his relationship with and publication of Rimbaud than his own poetry, according to the journal articles I've been reading. bsd!Verlaine's Brutalization incantation also comes from Arthur Rimbaud's Les Sœurs De Charité.

But the bsd iterations of Rimbaud and Verlaine aren't wholly distinct either, each carrying fragments of the other, sometimes blurring together. That, too, is a homage to the philosophies of the irl!poets. For example, Rimbaud, at times, writes from Verlaine's perspective in Une Saison en Enfer.

Rimbaud's poetry is also marked for its dialogic perspective-shifting, and he wrote through and lived within a philosophy of ambiguity, duality, and self dissection (at least during his youth):

irl!Verlaine, too, had a dual personality at times:

So, I don't think Asagiri flip/flopped Rimbaud and Verlaine's roles; I think he's commentating on, illustrating, and interpreting where their poetry, legacies, and passions became thoroughly entangled, as filtered and processed through bsd's themes. I think Asagiri enjoys plucking tragedy from reality and asking, "What would it have taken for them to have found reason and purpose absent any?"

That said, I also don't think Asagiri is ever really inversing mentor/mentee roles, even in regard to Akutagawa and Dazai. irl!Akutagawa was not irl!Dazai's mentor, he was a profound influence who lived and wrote just prior to the era of modern Japanese literature in which Osamu Dazai made in his name. I think Asagiri is commenting on (i) where they were deeply alike in mind and heart, which is why Dazai found solace and reflections of himself in Akutagawa, and (ii) on the stylistic dexterity Dazai could have lent to Akutagawa had he been in the position to do so, specifically regarding the way Dazai intepreted the I-novel genre through perversions of the truth as a means for expressing sincerity and gut-wrenchingly raw autobiographical candor without flaying himself apart the way Akutagawa seemed to when bullied into confessional literature by the cultural zeitgeist.

(Akutagawa was criticized for his sharp brilliance since the era was consumed with confessional literature, in comparison to which Akutagawa's stylistic precision seemed to many distant and aloof. Parasocialism is older than Christ, and BookTok is a descendent, not the progenitor, of corrosively vapid takes.)

The choices in bsd are playful but sincere inquiries into + conversations with the works, legacies, emotional turmoils, and overwhelming humanity of the referenced authors. But, while I think there's immense profundity in call and response, especially across eras, literary cultures, and artistic mediums, I also think Asagiri is more consumed by revelations than reflections.

I'm also not so sure whether we can call Rimbaud socialized by any contemporary connotation of the word—

[yourbuerokrat2]

AU, where the Continuums law does not include Capital Punishment (making one of their own a mortal) so instead of turning Q into a human he is sentenced with even for a Q, a very long time of solitary confinement. The first person he goes to once he gets out of his prison is the one he has thought about and missed the most in it: HIs capitaine Jean-Luc Picard.

Said 'capitaine' is now faced with a Q who he has seen about a year ago but who clearly has not seen him for ages on end and who also has become more mad than usual. And who now suffers from separation anxiety.

This is not exactly the result the Continuum had wanted, but it certainly is a result that makes Q less of nuisance and a danger to them so they don't really care.

[utilitycaster]

one of the most interesting reveals this episode is that arguably Ashton's approach to the titans is closest to FCG's approach to the Changebringer - jumping in without a lot of information based on a desired lifeline or connection - except FCG went about it, ultimately, in a much more careful way that was perhaps irritating to some of the people around them, but was never actually harmful to themself or others.

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted significant new governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard [of Shrewsbury] married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

-J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[schnaf]

day 23 aka THE COUNTDOWN IS OVER - jungsu's past birthday brrrr ppoppos