#fatal phantom

[polterrrgeist]

Some things for an old friend's fic/AU? It was called Fatal Phantom, I don't remember the context for these but I think it was something along the lines of Fenton/Phantom being 2 separate people and Phantom not entirely being accepted by Jack and Maddie as a member of the family

[incorrectelswordquotes]

Code Sariel: life... is an egg Fatal Phantom: explain Apsara: has chickens in it sometimes

[seaweeeeedcat]

He is the one!

[lgbtelsword]

catgender chungs !

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC: Homme Fatale

Noun. homme fatal (plural hommes fatals) An ultimately seductive and dangerous man; a womanizer.

On a bit of a Film Noir kick right now, so blame that

Imagine, if you will:

Danny, a private eye in Gotham, ever the hard boiled detective, sitting in his dark office, drinking coffee you could use to tar a roof. The office isn't in a good neighborhood but rent still ain't cheap. He's fixing to get a new case on his desk soon

Enter one Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprizes. He walked in shirt unbuttoned dangerously low in a suit sharp enough to cut yourself on and bags under his eyes to large to be counted as carry on. Mr. Drake has a job for him, one he wants to keep quite, and one important enough that he's willing to add a couple zeros to Danny's usual rate. This job is a dream come true... almost too good to be true...

or

Tim Drake aka Red Robin(yummm) needs plausible deniability on a case tied to his civilian identity and so hires a PI and lays down a trail of clues for him. All the while playing up the Noir tropes to flirt with the cute detective.

why doesn't he just take care of it as Red Robin? Shhhhh... the detective is cute and he's having too much fun playing the homme fatale

Bonus: Immediately after wrapping up Tim's case Kon walks into Danny's office dolled up in a vintage dress, period appropriate makeup done, all to play the part of the Femme Fatale and do the exact same thing Tim did. Does he know Tim literally just did that? Maybe, maybe not

[wunidz]

ALOT OF PAPS!!

[femmefatalesmag]

Vol 1 No2 1992 | Sybil Danning

[filmnoirfoundation]

Grab your valentine and join us for NOIR CITY Seattle, February 14-20—this year at SIFF Cinema Downtown. This year’s program shines a spotlight on women whose cinematic legacy is entwined with the rise of film noir. Twelve of the 18 films screening will be presented on glorious 35mm including the Film Noir Foundation’s restoration of Cry Danger as well as a new 4K restoration of Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady. Many of the films star the actresses profiled in Muller’s 2002 book  Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir,  which is being reissued in April 2025 in a newly revised and expanded edition.

FNF founder Eddie Muller will present all screenings February 14-16, with local noir experts and authors Vince and Rosemarie Keenan taking over hosting duties February 17-20. Enjoy their expert takes and tidbits of film noir facts in their introductions each evening!

Join us on Opening Night, starting at 5:30 p.m., for a special performance by the Dmitri Matheny Quintet, performing jazz from the silver screen. Lyrical flugelhornist Matheny will be joined by his all-star band prior to the screening of The Narrow Margin. A NOIR CITY Seattle tradition not to be missed!

Schedule, tickets and passes are available here.

[fdelopera]

Welcome to the 54th installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 115 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part II of Chapter 23, “Intéressantes et instructives tribulations d’un Persan dans les dessous de l’Opéra: Recit du Persan” (Interesting and Informative Tribulations of a Persian in the Underside of the Opera: The Persian’s Narrative).

This section was first printed on Monday, 20 December, 1909.

For anyone following along in David Coward's translation of the First Edition of Phantom of the Opera (either in paperback, or Kindle, or from another vendor -- the ISBN-13 is: 978-0199694570), the text starts in Chapter 22, “It followed me, went where I went, and it was so silky-smooth on the ear that I felt no fear,” and goes to, “On that occasion, I also discovered the secret tunnel which led to the spring which trickled out of the wall, the cell dug out by the Communards and the trap which acted as Erik’s short cut down to the third level.”

There are some differences between the Gaulois text and the First Edition. In this section, these include (highlighted in red above):

1) Each chapter in the Gaulois publication is one number ahead of the chapters in the First Edition, due to the inclusion of “The Magic Envelope” chapter in the Gaulois.

2) Compare the Gaulois text:

…je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis avec Erik pour ignorer combien quelquefois, avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

Translation:

…I myself had studied the subject too much in days past with Erik to remain unaware of how much, with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.

To the First Edition:

…je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis : avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

Translation:

…I myself had studied the subject too much in days past: with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.

3) Compare the Gaulois text:

cet air terrible

Translation:

that terrifying look

To the First Edition:

cet air de menace enfantine 

Translation:

that look of childish menace

4) Compare the Gaulois text:

demanda-t-il en reprenant son air enjoué 

Translation:

he asked, regaining his cheerful air

To the First Edition:

demanda-t-il en prenant un air aimable 

Translation:

he asked, taking on an amiable air

5) Compare the Gaulois text:

fin juillet 1909 

Translation:

late July, 1909

To the First Edition:

fin juillet 1900* 

Translation:

late July, 1900

* NOTE: The First Edition incorrectly states that the newspaper article in question was dated July, 1900. The article that Leroux was likely referencing was this front-page piece, "Le Dé-Tham vient de nous tuer,“ which appeared in Le Matin on 28 July, 1909.

6) This text appeared in the Gaulois, but was removed from the First Edition:

au bord d'une rivière 

Translation:

on a riverbank

7) The text highlighted in blue above indicates an anachronism in Leroux’s narrative. As we recall from Chapter 8, Erik abducted Christine on the same night that he caused the chandelier to crash. In this chapter, however, the Persian accuses Erik of causing the chandelier crash some time before he abducted Christine.

8) Compare the Gaulois text:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre… je peux bien te le dire !… Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !… Il était très usé, le lustre… et je n'étais pas chargé, n'est-ce pas ? de le réparer.

Translation:

"Ah!” he laughted, “the chandelier… I can tell you about that!… The chandelier, that wasn’t to do with me!… It was very worn, the chandelier was… and I wasn’t responsible for fixing it, was I?”

To the First Edition:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre… je veux bien te le dire !… Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !… Il était très usé, le lustre…

Translation:

“Ah!” he laughted, “the chandelier… I will tell you about that!… The chandelier, that wasn’t to do with me!… It was very worn, the chandelier was…”

9) Compare the Gaulois text:

fatal nocher

Translation:

grim ferryman of the Underworld

To the First Edition -- NOTE: this is a typo:

fatal rocher** 

Translation of this typo:

grim rock

** NOTE: This is the typo to end all typos! Read more about it here.

ALSO NOTE: Coward (mis)translated this typo literally as “wrecking rock.” In fact, the other major English translators who worked from the First Edition text also (mis)translated this phrase.

A notable exception is Lowell Bair, who based his 1990 translation of The Phantom of the Opera on a later abridged French edition of Leroux's novel, which corrected several of Leroux's First Edition typos, including "fatal rocher." Bair translated "fatal nocher" correctly as "the grim ferryman from the Styx." Unfortunately, since the French edition that Bair was translating from was abridged, Bair's translation is also abridged. Other than being abridged, it is one of the better English translations of Leroux's novel.

It is baffling why the First Edition translators didn’t sense that this was a typo, because "fatal nocher" was a common French literary phrase used to describe Charon, the grim ferryman of Hades in Greek mythology. It should have been easy enough to guess that the First Edition had misprinted the "n" as an "r".

The job of a translator isn’t to highlight an author’s mistakes; it is to make the author look their best in another language. It is not ethical for a translator to translate a typo literally without context. The First Edition translators should have rendered the phrase correctly, and then mentioned the "fatal rocher" typo in a footnote.

As it is, all the First Edition translators have transformed Erik from the "Grim Ferryman" into into a "Grim Rock." It would be a cool band name -- Erik could be the "Grim Rocker" -- but it's still not what Leroux wrote or intended.

10) Compare the Gaulois text:

S'ils avaient vu seulement ce dont Erik était capable

Translation:

If they had only seen what Erik was capable of

To the First Edition:

S'ils avaient su seulement ce dont Erik était capable

Translation:

If they had only known what Erik was capable of

11) Minor differences in punctuation, capitalization, and italicization.

Click here to see the entire edition of Le Gaulois from 20 December, 1909. This link brings you to page 3 of the newspaper — Le Fantôme is at the bottom of the page in the feuilleton section. Click on the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn the pages of the newspaper, and click on the Zoom button at the bottom left to magnify the text.

[4noki-vns]

The Art of Asset Reduction: VNConf 2024 Write-Up

This is a write-up for my Visual;Conference 2024 talk on asset reduction: presentation of scenes with reduced art labor.

I will discuss how to reduce production requirements via various methods of asset presentation and staging, walking you through case studies of existing visual novels. This talk will guide you to answer the question: How do I fulfill my project scope without asset bloat?

This is an art talk that assumes you have already scoped down your story and have created a list of scenes that you need. This is not a talk about scoping down your game's story.

You have scenes you need to make. How are you going to make them (and with style)?

Abstraction

Cut-ins

Reduce

Reuse

-

I. Abstraction

I start off with abstraction as a reminder that visual novels are a combination of visual and novel (amongst other aspects)

Abstraction

Abstraction is a strong tool for bringing focus to the writing, highlighting ambiguity and setting the mood with colors.

Examples I mentioned in my talk include:

Black screen

Solid colored screen

Sky BG

Of Components

The mood-setting power of abstraction also extends to scenes with characters, especially CGs.

As again, abstraction draws focus to what you choose to emphasize: the characters.

(FLOWERS -Le volume sur ete-)

They are gay. Thank you for coming to my VNConf talk.

-

You can similarly abstract characters.

(Lachesis or Atropos)

Consider representing irrelevant characters (e.g., NPCs) as silhouettes. The reader can fill in the details within the shapes themselves.

Silhouettes are especially great for crowd scenes where you want to draw focus to the main characters.

This will be a recurring theme:

What do you really need to draw?

-

II. Cut-ins

One common not-quite full screen piece of art you'll see in many visual novels is the cut-in.

The cut-in typically consists of the:

Item/focus

Frame

And is often for topics such as objects or small animals, which may exist in the scene but may not be within the same frame of reference as the background and sprites.

The separate framing informs the players that the item is "separately framed."

(Who is the Red Queen?)

For example, this small bird is not huge and would not be the size of a character's head even had a sprite been on screen.

The Foreground-Backdrop Heuristic

Cut-ins make strong use of what I refer to as the "foreground-backdrop heuristic."

(Shikkoku no Sharnoth)

A general backdrop informs the reader of a broad location or scene (especially if characters are present). Then a more specific foreground (the cut-in) informs the reader of the specifics.

As the foreground cut-in is in a different frame, the pairing of the two helps create a mental model of the space in the reader's mind.

Cut-ins can be used for:

Backgrounds (mix and match foregrounds with a backdrop)

Reduced CGs

Presenting existing assets in a different frame of reference

CG variants

Try tackling your visual presentation in a layered, comic book-esque fashion with cut-ins!

Just be careful about clutter.

Whether you want to go for the layered cut-in style, the 3d stage cinematic style, or a combination of the two, make sure you have a vision before you jump in.

SD CGs

I had to make an obligatory mention of SD "super deformed" CGs in this talk, so here it is in the write up as well.

(Grisaia: Phantom Trigger Vol. 1)

SD, chibi. However you call these, they're great for playful scenes that might require more art than your classic sprite-background combination.

What SD CGs do best is that they:

Fulfill the role of a CG

Are easier to draw than fully rendered non-chibi art

Can be distributed to different artists to reduce artist workloads due to style difference

Just keep in mind that a simplified CG is still a CG and thus may lack reusability.

Consider what scenes really need a CG.

-

III. Reduce

Now, consider asking yourself: "Does what a player does not see need to exist?" (mostly applicable for games with opaque UI)

Yet, what you need to draw is what you need to draw. How can you reduce the work in what you need to draw?

One option is:

Palette Limitation

You've heard of gray scale games, but don't forget about other ways of limiting your palette to reduce workload.

Dramatic, mood setting color power

Less rendering work

(Sona-Nyl of the Violet Shadows)

A similar idea can be applied to NPCs for a more detailed take on silhouettes.

-

IV. Reuse

Lastly, please remember to be economical and reuse assets as necessary. One of the great joys of cut-in BGs, for example, is reusability.

I had to give an obligatory mention to CG variants in my talk, such as:

(Fatal Twelve)

However, overall, you never know when you'll want to use various components of your art elsewhere such as intermixing CG and sprite art.

Please keep your working layers if possible.

Other reuse examples:

UI (especially in episodic games)

Gameplay (e.g., Kogado's rhythm game)

Consider asking your programmer to work on a framework to reuse, reducing repeated code work.

-

Conclusions

All in all, you can make your game.

And it doesn't need to be hellish on your budget or timeline.

If you take anything away from this talk, let it be to:

Prioritize reusable assets

Maintain aesthetic; avoid clutter

Display important scenes

Do not scope up; aim for a set goal

A scene can be presented in many stylish ways, some of which will suit your workflow better than others.

So, go on. Make your game!

-

Interested in my works? Find me on itch:

And check out my newsletter:

-

VNConf 2023 Talk Write-up:

[annon-guy2]

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Guest Character Poll

[jet-engine]

The second chapter of "Fatal Attraction" has been posted. In which, Vlad has a panic attack, and the Guys in White catch up to him. Oh boy...

Also, this fic is a three-shot now, I decided.

Fanfiction

AO3

[halloweenhauss]

even demons were once angels 🪽

[velvetsorrows]

[p5x-theories]

Various combat BGM. Pretty sure all of these have been posted already except the instrumental Wake Up Your Hero, but this way they're collected together.

(All this music has the same source as the first post!)

[powdersugarangel]

In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came