#challengers from beyond

[trust-and-jump]

"Welcome to the city on the edge of my dog's ass!"

OOPS, SORRY ATOM. I'm here.

If you read The All-New Atom (2008), then of course, you know some of the context. But not all of it. You might wanna read Identity Crisis and Countdown to Final Crisis lol.

#dc comics #comic panels #dc comic panels #donna troy #atom dc #the all-new atom 2008 #all new atom #Jason todd #the monitor #bob #Bob dc #challengers from beyond #dc out of context #ryan choi

[boyfridged]

"i guess I just wanted to be around someone else who might know how it feels… to be living on borrowed time” "way i see it, you and i are out of time" ough always gets to me! society if countdown capitalised more on the theme of passing time... the challengers of beyond as a team of heroes that each individually lived past the end of their myth... their displacement in the narrative, the liminal area they exist within... they should be plagued with imagery of clocks watches hourglasses

#one thing the whole goncharov thing was right ab. #challengers from beyond #51 #dc

[rulesofdisorder]

hey can any dc comics fans tell me which comic has the donna/kyle/jason multiverse team up? just found out that they’re called the cosmic mistakes and that is so funny to me i have to read it

#like i googled it and have found nothing #granted i’m not looking very hard but still #jason todd #red hood #donna troy #wonder girl #troia #kyle rayner #green lantern #cosmic mistakes #challengers from beyond #<<i got that name when i googled. not as cool and fun as the cosmic mistakes #dc #dc comics #mine

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 1: Dread on Arrival

(Part 2)

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #lan wangji #jiang fengmian #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #Yungmeng Jiang Training Arc AU #MDZS AU #The AU name for this idea is something I am 100% willing to change if someone has a better one. #There will be at least 2-3 more comics so *please*. Ideas and feedback welcome. #The core idea behind this AU is that LWJ goes to study with the Yunmeng Jiang sect instead of JC and WWX going to Cloud Recess #But why? Well I imagine Lan Xichen set it up to give LWJ a challenge (more social than skill based) and LWJ rose to it (begrudgingly) #Sort of a 'You've mastered so many Lan techniques but Other Sects have styles that are worth learning.' set up. #Lan Qiren agrees mostly on the basis that...well it's LWJ. Yunmeng Jiang is unruly but LWJ is beyond that riff-raff. He'll rise above it. #This is the story of a boy who thrives on routine and rules spending time in a place that is his apparent antithesis. #Also it is so warm there. He is used to it being cold and what do you MEAN just take off some of my layers? #I just want to see him struggle and flail in many situations. And get him in Jiang Purple. Is that so wrong of me? #(Soaking wet JC is part of my 'JC was born to swim; forced to hold a sword' agenda. Do not remove him from the water) #((Politeness notes: JFM would *not* call LWJ 'lan wangji' nor would LWJ be vocally impolite to a sect leader.))

[variousqueerthings]

a few things i appreciated about the much ado about nothing with dt and ct:

very much enjoyed that they both exhibit loser-behaviour. that is, there can be a risk in this play of making beatrice too right and benedick just someone who's gotta level up to deserve her, but this one really allowed both of them to be brilliant as well as stupid, which is fun because it makes both of them more complex and equal to one another + I think it's fun for an actress to be a little silly sometimes and this role really allows for it, and especially an actress like catherine tate to be familiarly hilarious, which makes the parts where she's deadly serious hit all the harder

I feel like with the doctor and donna, yes it's text that they're not sexually or romantically attracted to each other and I am so very into that of course, but I'm just so happy to see proof that they could shift their tension a little to the left and be pretty damn sizzling -- this especially because donna was a couple of years older than rose and martha and I sometimes feel like people who read romantic and/or sexual context into things do so because they're reading a conventional early-20s youthful sexiness to the female characters. so just having them go "we can be very very sexy with each other if we so desire" was fun

several people have pointed out david tennant in a skirt vs catherine tate in a suit, and i will do so as well, specifically because that was so veeeery t4t bisexuality of them, and i feel like there was a deliberate choice in the party scene to make the audience think about femininity and masculinity as it pertains to sexuality and power, specifically through the lens of these two characters and their equal status with one another. it means that when we get to the more direct confession at the failed wedding, when beatrice is wearing a plunging blue dress and benedick is in full uniform, that feels directly juxtaposed -- the costuming deserves its whole own analysis really, and i'm sure someone's done that, but specifically those two scenes make my brain go brrr

the way it moved from comedy to drama and back again so effortlessly. the way it placed emphasis on certain words in order to give sentences new meanings. simply the general feeling of very deep, deliberate engagement with the text

catherine tate's boobs. they did those costumes like that on purpose, you cannot convince me otherwise

#there's soooo much to say about its understanding of power dynamics and how it uses costuming with bnb to make that #clear to the audience --- yes she'll dress up in a suit at the party but it's benedick that has to challenge claudio #the very consistent clear characterisation of their interplay with each other that felt like it went beyond just speaking the words #it just understood what it wanted to say so well #much ado about nothing #david tennant #catherine tate #shakespeare #also you know they wear these clothes with each other #the queer under/overtones in this production #the fact that they're Equals from the beginning

[coupleofdays]

One of the most interesting Lovecraft stories is the time he participated in a round-robin with some other pulp authors, the story being called "The Challenge from Beyond". Lovecraft's part of the story is about a guy who finds himself on an alien planet, and then in a typical Lovecraft twist, his part ends with the guy looking in a mirror and fainting when he discovers that his mind has been put in the body of one of the centipede-like aliens. This could be a fairly typical ending to a Lovecraft story. What's interesting is what happens next, when his old buddy Robert E. Howard writes the next part. This is how his part begins:

"From that final lap of senselessness, he emerged with a full understanding of his situation. His mind was imprisoned in the body of a frightful native of an alien planet, while, somewhere on the other side of the universe, his own body was housing the monster’s personality.

He fought down an unreasoning horror. Judged from a cosmic standpoint, why should his metamorphosis horrify him? Life and consciousness were the only realities in the universe. Form was unimportant. His present body was hideous only according to terrestrial standards. Fear and revulsion were drowned in the excitement of titanic adventure.

What was his former body but a cloak, eventually to be cast off at death anyway? He had no sentimental illusions about the life from which he had been exiled. What had it ever given him save toil, poverty, continual frustration and repression? If this life before him offered no more, at least it offered no less. Intuition told him it offered more—much more.

With the honesty possible only when life is stripped to its naked fundamentals, he realized that he remembered with pleasure only the physical delights of his former life. But he had long ago exhausted all the physical possibilities contained in that earthly body. Earth held no new thrills. But in the possession of this new, alien body he felt promises of strange, exotic joys."

From what I've seen on Tumblr, I think there are some folks here who would appreciate Howard's sentiment.

#H.P. Lovecraft #Robert E. Howard #The Challenge from Beyond #horror #science fiction #transformation #mindswap

[rainymoodlet]

Kiss Me in Komorebi+ 🌸

[ Second Vacation: Keaton! ]

I had to be fair to dear Keaton and at least let Dan know how good he looked with his longer hair! 😉 These two ended their vacation in incredibly good moods: though they seemed to have an interesting time navigating their Friendly socials, the flirtation between these two was off the charts! Daniel is definitely leaving this vacation feeling like he knows a little more about our dear Mr. Stratton - let’s hope Keaton feels the same!

Part 6 of 6 🌹

@duusheen

#i’m finishing up closing at work fhfhf sorry abt the random ass times on these!! #ts4 #ts4 challenge #ts4 screenshots #ts4 gameplay #ts4 bachelor challenge #sim: daniel #;kmik #keaton stratton by duusheen #|| #these twoooo!! 🥹 they are so very very sweet! #it’s great to see dan let loose and laugh more!! keaton definitely #engages that good ol’ country boy in dan and its so cute to see them working off #each other’s energies!! #they do have fairly good compatibility too… hmmm 👀 #mr keaton is a serious contender folks!!! #but will things move beyond a flirty place?? we shall seeee~ #kmik is going to be posting a bit more regularly on the weekends from here on out!! #but i will probably be more absent than usual (queue’d posts and such!!) #i’m still very invested in kmik but #the pressure to keep posting so people ‘stay interested’ which is plain silly tbh #has me prioritizing the sims and aesthetics and notes over #my sidework that can net me the money i need to have more time to play the dang sims #so kmik is still here!! #but i will be probably a lot less active (not that i really have been pffft)

[chicabear15]

I think it's funny the fandom has accepted Michael being an arsonist because there is no actual 100% proof he's set anything on fire.

Henry set up the fnaf 6 building to burn down and Michael doesn't seem to be aware of this.

In the paper at the end of fnaf 3 it says that while foul play hasn't been ruled out, the fire was most likely due to faulty wiring.

I will acknowledge that Michael's speech being coupled with the burned remains of fazbear frights and the final fnaf 3 minigame in hw1 does have implications of it being foul play but that's only circumstantial evidence.

#five nights at freddy’s #fnaf #michael afton #sorry if this feels kinda disjointed #this thought has been in my head for weeks #and i needed to get it out #also i havent read any of the short stories beyond the first fazbear frights book #anything else i know from fazbear frights or tales of the pizzaplex is from theories #so while i dont think theres anything that challenges this i dont know if there actually is #i do enjoy all the arson jokes #i like the collective character we've made from one actual voice line and a book

[mittensmorgul]

There’s another post going around about this, but tumblr won’t let me reblog it but...

When I read a story written by a human being, I’m not just reading it because I want to read a coffee shop AU with a specific plot description. I’m reading it because it’s making a connection to another human storyteller and seeing a piece of them carved into the words. Storytelling is a human act of sharing joy, angst, tension, resolution, satisfaction. It’s an act of love.

Writing and reading a story isn’t just an act of creation and consumption. I hate that commercialism and AI are reducing it to that sort of transaction. Like oh, you need words on this subject and that’s the end of it. Like what we really needed was just a vending machine we can push buttons on to get a fix, as if the human creating the story wasn’t a factor. That the author’s life experience and views and feelings haven’t infused the words with their own unique touches.

I’ve read hundreds of coffee shop AU’s over the years (and thousands of fics in general). I’ve seen many similar tropes reused across stories, and just like an AI would, I’ve learned things about writing them that I will always carry with me. But unlike an AI, a human author is not just the sum total of coffee shop AU’s we’ve consumed. Even if we used the same prompt, the same sets of tropes, the same characters. I will always choose the human-crafted story over the computer generated one.

Because again, I’m not just looking for a very specific fix via a series of words. I’m looking for a human connection through story.

Unlike an AI, I have BEEN to a coffee shop. I’ve had experiences in coffee shops. I’ve had funny little meet-cutes with people. I’ve accidentally spilled coffee on myself and knocked heads with someone as we both rushed to wipe it up. I know what it FEELS like. The machine doesn’t.

I’ve also read millions of things that aren’t fanfic, or coffee shop AU’s. I’ve experienced things OTHER than going to coffee shops and having meet-cutes. And I know what all those things feel like when processed through my personal human lens of experience, which is different from every other personal human lens of experience.

All the machine can do is spit out what it THINKS a human experience is, and I honestly don’t care about that at all. Fic is not a “product” to be “generated.” It’s an art form that connects us to other people who share the same love of a thing that we do.

People who, even when all writing the same characters in the same setting to the exact same prompt, will all add something or have a viewpoint about something or bring a completely different personality and life experience to the story that no one else on the planet could. That’s what I’m actually reading.

#ai shit #adventures in fanfic #i detest this commodification of art being accelerated by ai tech #as if art was nothing more than a consumer product #i want to engage with art made by people who were driven by a passion to make something and share it with us #not working to an algorithm to generate specific 'content' (and can we agree that reducing art to 'content' is part of the problem here) #and this whole concept of 'death of the author' that has been warped so far beyond what it actually means >.> #it just... makes me incredibly sad to see so many people arguing FOR the use of ai in the arts #like way to miss the whole entire point of what the arts even are #but this reminds me of the fic writer challenge i did one summer... #same prompt same set of tropes and every week a dozen completely different stories from a dozen different authors #because we all took our own unique spin on the subject because that's what PEOPLE do... #i just lament what will happen to that vast well of creativity and humanity that will be lost if everything just gets replaced #by a machine that just keeps spitting out the 'content' it believes the 'consumer' wants... it's just... depressing af

[ghcstcd]

This is a headcanon that I often think about when it comes to Omega:

Did he come before Terzo, or was he the first Ghoul Terzo summoned on his own? Both I feel lend wonderful ways to explore their relationship and devotion and such, and I can never decide which I like more. How do *you* imagine they first met?

I'm a huge fan of the idea of Omega being a part of the Dark Ministry since it's early days.

I should note that I personally like to headcanon that this fictional church of Satan/The Clergy started in the 1300's, Italy. Omega was found, preying on humans, and was given an offer to work for the Clergy.

Hundreds of years later, Omega rides a series of trains from Sweden, to Italy, to pick up two young boys who have just met for the first time. Omega is told they are the second, and third sons of Nihil. They're understandably perplexed by the masked man who knows them, but they've never known him.

But the boys were curious, maybe even brave. With the last dredge of doubt thrown aside, Omega took each of the boys' hands in his, and lead them towards their train car.

#ghost writing #ghost and ghouls headcanons #anonymous #messages from beyond the ask box #tumblr remember my tags challenge!!!!!! #omega ghoul #papa emeritus iii #papa emeritus ii

[trust-and-jump]

Re-reading Countdown to Final Crisis (Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer included)

+get a cool profile picture with Kyle Rayner (the end of the post)!

P. number 2, we continue!

Green Lantern: Instant Karma edition!

That will teach you not to think bad of your teammate, Kyle!

Now the promised pic Green Lantern fans:

[I call Jay, Kyle and Donna (The Challengers from Beyond) Countdown Trinity lol I think I'll start tagging it].

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer #1 (Wildstorm #1)

#kyle rayner #green lantern #countdown to final crisis #countdown presents #countdown presents the search for ray palmer #monitor dc #monitor #instant karma #donna troy #jason todd #red hood #dc comics #Challengers from Beyond #Countdown Trinity #the Challengers from Beyond #wonder girl #cosmic mistakes #dc comic panels #comic panels

[orkidays]

los fucking gringos de mierda quejandose del usmp porque la traduccion no es 100% perfecta me van a volver loca

#gringos callense challenge !!! #the google auto translate captions helped me so much when i was learning english #even though they sucked #how would this discourage people from learning other languages is beyond me #days.txt #negative

[sisterdragonwithfeathers]

I wonder if the gamers and artists and writers and essayists I watch on youtube know that I will literally not watch a video of theirs if it includes 'ai'.

if it even has 'ai' in the title in any context other than examination.

I am not watching that no matter how much I enjoy your videos. No matter how much I believe in your artistic integrity otherwise.

If there's even a chance that you have used the tool(s) that are stealing from so many people, I will not watch that video. I'm not even going to check whether you actually used it or are just using the title as clickbait. I want you to know that this won't sell. That I don't appreciate it. That I won't tolerate it.

I'll watch all of your other videos. but I won't watch that.

#*banging pots and pans* #STOP STEALING ANYTHING EVER FROM ANYBODY HOWEVER INDIRECTLY challenge #feather rambles #shoutout also to my refusal to use the term 'content' as it reduces these people's work to something consumable and meaingless without #an audience to absorb the 'product' #no #no one is on this earth to make 'content' #THEY ARE ARTISTS OR ESSAYISTS OR AUTHORS OR VIDEOGRAPHERS #OFTEN MULTIPLE OF THESE THINGS #AND THEIR SKILLS AND VOCATIONS HAVE MEANING AND WORTH BEYOND BLIND ENGAGEMENT STATISTICS

[kyouka-supremacy]

Does anyone know where I can find the good quality version of this image? It's so frustrating because when cross searching on google it'll tell me the original quality is 850x478, but I can't find a way to download it in that quality. This is another version of the image (I'm guessing it's Mayoi promo art):

But I liked the clean white background one...

#It's cute... #It's got Akutagawa stealing glances at Atsushi #Thought asking was worth a try ;;;;;; #Google cross image search has changed and as someone who used it as I use breathing it's been absolutely heartbreaking. #It makes cross searching images so much harder it's awful #Because before when you looked up an image it suggested you the best quality avaible of that image. #And the search got worse every year but it was still functional you know?? #But now there's not that anymore. There's no “large” “medium” “small” and instead it only gives you “find image source” #Dude I don't want to find the image source. I've downloaded the image I KNOW the source. What I want is ANOTHER SOURCE with better quality #And I used to get it when I was 10 and I used to get it when I was 15 and I sued to get it when I was 20 #And now I don't have it anymore?? It stripes away one of the most powerful search tools on the internet from the public???? #It drives me insane. Like why does internet get worse every year that's not how humanity is supposed to work #Sorry. I needed to rant. This makes every quality-freak media archivist (like me) job harder beyond comparison #Btw if you're looking for an alternative Yandex images still does the work... It's not as powerful search engine as google #and it's often going to miss the particular hidden media (y'know- super niche Akutagawa merch from 2018 and stuff) #But for the rest it does a pretty good job. If anything there's still the best quality avaible option #But seriously looking up stuff for aktgw-daily has gotten so much harder ever since this fucked up change to google lens #and it makes me hate the world. I haven't been able to find a way to reverse it but if anyone more tech savy than me who has any idea- #what I'm talking about can help me. Please please hmu I'll be grateful forever #Sorry for the rant I have a lot of pent up rage over this. Stop making broke people's lives harder challenge #random rambles

[distortedmoondisc]

(Reposting a small informal essay I wrote about this specific line of Vermilion back in july that got lost in my blog. Adding screenshots of my reblogs, which prompted me to write all of this, for context).

Hiiro, who was raised to devote his whole existence to one person and that all his value as an individual is tied to the successful filling of that role. And then someone, the voice of the song—probably Hiiro himself, since he's the one singing this specific line—telling him that "there's meaning you'll never grasp" living as his own, independent person....

And that's just.... I don't know. It feels just so melancholic, for some reason. A sort of existential melancholy. It's reminiscent as to when we're told that we'll probably never discover all the secrets of the ocean or all the secrets about outer space, that we'll never understand 100% a specific topic or matter of study because there's so much information about it, it isn't humanly possible to process it all in a single lifetime. "There is meaning you'll never be able to grasp, there are things you'll never be able to learn or to understand." And that just feels so unfair and distressing, for some reason.

So that makes me think about how the lyrics are implying that Hiiro—despite enjoying his new-found freedom of being Hiiro Amagi, the Leader of Alkaloid, and not Hiiro Amagi, servant of the monarch—he might never be able to fully understand or to enjoy the meaning of his new existence ("there's meaning you'll never be able to grasp"). Hiiro grew up thinking that the rules of his hometown are universal truths and that he must uphold them above everything else—so if the rules tell him that he must dedicate his whole life to serve his brother and that he doesn't have any value outside of that, who is he to deny it? Who is he to fight it? Who is he to interrupt the social norm and the peace of his society? He says it himself in the main story: rules are meant to keep the peace of the community, and peace can only be achieved if everyone does their part without complaining.

So Hiiro already had the meaning of his existence, up to that point, and he didn't need anything else. He was Rinne's servant, he was a member of his hometown, and he was given a mission: to bring his brother, the Monarch, back home to take the throne. It was very clear and simple — but then he met Alkaloid, and all of the idols of ES. He was exposed to the city, to the outside world, to countless different ways of thinking and ways of life. The MDM happened (including Rinne disowning him), and the meaning of his existence was broken. Hiiro is now free, but he's left without any guidance or absolute truths he can rely on a world so grand and contradicting that he can't even comprehend it, and that realistically, he never will.

So what can he do, with a problem of this scope?

What do you do, when all you thought was an absolute truth, actually is not? (and that in fact, absolute truths might not even exist to begin with?) When all the things you learned, the rights and the wrongs, differ from place to place, and from person to person? When you have been left to your own devices to figure out this new world you've been thrown into, that is so contradicting and confusing, all by yourself?

Is this the burden you have to carry, the price you have to pay, to be an independent, autonomous person? (Is this a process Rinne, his brother, also had to go through?)

But then, Mayoi's lyrics in come up, "With the suit of your soul—" and then the rest of Alkaloid sing together—"Persist in your belief."

And this is the part of the song where the existential melancholy gets turned upside down. Yes, Hiiro might never be able to fully grasp the meaning of this new life. Yes, he might never be able to fully understand the new world he's been thrown into, and he will have to struggle trying to navigate it on his own—but the lyrics are pushing him to keep moving forward despite of that. "With the new life you have been given, persist in your beliefs" it's an encouragement, a comforting line. It's Alkaloid (Tatsumi, Mayoi, and Aira) telling him that despite the world being confusing and contradicting and so so vast with multiple wrong and right answers—the best thing Hiiro can do is to be true to himself; to keep tackling adversity and life head on, to try to learn and to understand it as best as he can, and draw his own logical conclusions about it—not conclusions and answers given to him arbitrarily by someone else. And most importantly: that he isn't alone, that he has a group of people that will accompany him along the way, with varying degrees of knowledge about the world, that will complement and support him on his own journey.

And only then, Hiiro will live an autonomous life—and there will be meaning he will never be able to grasp, but that's okay. He isn't meant to, and that's fine.

#i think too much about how hiiro has grown ever since he's become independent from rinne #and also about how challenging his situation must be having to form his own conclusions about things by himself #and how alkaloid is by his side to support him and help him along the way.... #theyre a little family do not separate them #vermilion is an incredible song for multiple reasons but i wanted to talk about this specific part that makes me so mentally ill #hiiro amagi and alkaloid do things to my brain #i love them beyond belief #enstars alkaloid #enstars #ensemble stars #enstars vermilion #hiiro amagi #also ty tumblr for letting me write long post because i tried doing this in a twt thread and got tired midway #my post

[boyfridged]

top 5 comics? (any, doesn't have to be only dc)

ask me my top 5 anything game (that i forgot about for months)

unfortunately it will be dc. (i guess i really should branch out and read more besides it. if you have any recs, please let me know!) i tried to choose complete tpb books rather than runs or sole issues (then the list would look completely different).

Batman: Son of the Demon (1987)

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?/Fugitive (2001-2002)

For the Man Who Has Everything (1985)

Batman: Year 2 (1987) (or the 2017 deluxe edition!)

Batman Special 1 (1984)

or maybe catwoman (1989) in place of the special 1... tough one.

these are stories that i consider perfect (or almost perfect) on their own. as opposed to numerous stories that i'm obsessed with on the account of their potential.

#again would look different if i was including runs & issues #bc obv my most read run is barr's dc with jay. #and then there's countdown. except i don't care for anything but the challengers from beyond so #4/5 batman stories... free me #outbox