#outback gothic

[wren13]

💫 the Christmas Day fit 💫

[wil0]

[andrexi1]

The flame trees are on fire. You leave behind New South Wales. One family stays behind. Their home is still their home even if its burning. You drive away and you run over a Koala. You’ll keep running over Koalas. You try to escape the never never.

[loversveil]

@scribeofpnakotis why must you doxx me like this

we need to make australian gothic bigger. abandoned gold towns because the veins all ran out except one family that refuses to leave. the lack of street signs once you’re 200km away from a city. towns having signs abt whether their water will kill you. the random nuclear waste storage areas. the fact that you have to accept that you will run over an already dead kangaroo or koala anytime you drive somewhere out in the country. every country town having two churches, one protestant, one catholic, and one of the either is always abandoned because everyone else in town ended up just taking one of the sides. the abandoned schools that had to be shut down by the state bc they had less that 10 students. the 2-5 snakebite deaths per year in small towns. the constant catholic imagery left over from the horrific mission schools. everyone using barbed wire as fences. there’s always a fire burning somewhere and you can’t tell if it’s a controlled crop burning or a bushfire because the landlines, are as always, broken. animal bones and skulls just lying around every field because the farmers dont bother to clean them up. the 6 metre deep lakes that go from being drought empty to full overnight despite there being no rainfall. the powerlines are broken again and you still can’t call home

[fatkish]

Hi hun!

If you’re still doing requests could I ask for a Dabi x reader fluff hcs?

Like she’s got adhd and autism and is kinda goth (this is self indulgent lol). By kinda goth I mean she loves the music, culture and has some eery home decor like fossils and skulls etc but doesn’t necessarily look the part (most of the time).

If you have any questions please lmk!!

Thank youuu xx

Dabi x ADHD and Autistic Goth reader

Reader runs a small cafe and bakery. The reader creates bento boxes that you can buy for relatively cheap but taste really good and are made with nutritional ingredients. Some heroes, office workers, first responders and other people who don’t really have the time to make food or stop for lunch often order ahead and pick up food to go.

Reader lives in an apartment above their cafe and has a few employees who are either college students, high schoolers, people with disabilities or any other person who has a relatively small work window and needs money. Their employees are all highly respectful of them.

The cafe is open from 5:00 am to 9:00 pm. The reader spend most of the hours doing the cooking and making bentos, budgeting, paying bills and other tasks that are done behind the scenes. The reader has a quirk that allows them to heal people via food (kinda like the mom from Encanto)

The cafe has a very quiet and calm atmosphere and is very popular among the anti-social groups and those who have sensitivities to crowds and stuff. The decor is very soft-core/comfort and homey styled

The booths have partitions that can completely close with tatami mats and pillows, there are steps leading into the booth area where you remove your shoes and put slippers on. The tables with chairs are in the front of the cafe and the floors are mostly hard wood.

Those who work full time are often quirkless employees who need a stable job and a kind and understanding workplace environment

You met Dabi one night when an employee found him collapsed outback by the dumpsters during closing. When they told you about him, you had them help you move him to your upstairs apartment where you treated what you could of his burns and began preparing food for him

When Dabi woke up to a dark gothic room with Victorian antique furniture that looked like a vampire owned it, he had no idea what he was in for. Expecting some grungy punk ass emo person, he nearly got mental whiplash when you walked in, wearing some cute soft clothes with a smile on your face holding a plate of cutesy food

I picture the reader having a personality kinda like Mitsuri from Demon Slayer. Your cheerful and loving albeit kinda ditzy personality was not what Dabi expected.

“Oh goodie, you’re awake, I was so super worried about you when my employees found you. You looked so hurt and sad, my heart nearly broke just thinking about how much pain you must be in. Oh, here, I made you plenty of food so eat up! I already changed your bandages earlier so just rest, call me if you need anything, I’ll be just around the corner in the living room<3”

You left before Dabi could even get a word in. He looked down at the plates on the tray in his lap that you placed. Seeing all the cute food and your personality made him think you’re either a roommate or you’re some psycho killer with a split personality. But he was hungry so he ate the food.

While he ate, Dabi noticed his burns healing and even his scars disappearing slowly but surely until it stopped. When you came back to check on him and clean up his dishes, he asked about it. You told him your quirk lets you heal people by having them ingest the food make.

After collecting his dishes you asked if there was or is anything he doesn’t like or is allergic to. He told you he hates fish and that he prefers his food cold. You gave him a soft towel for him to shower with and told him where the bathroom was. After that you asked for his clothing size and went shopping for clothes for him

After bringing the clothes for him to his room you left them there. After he took a shower he saw the clothes but didn’t see his clothes/villain getup anywhere. He left the room and entered the living room and asked where his clothes were

You where watching Molang on Netflix and eating tangulu (I hope I spelled that right, it’s cut up fruit on a stick that coated in a layer of melted sugar giving it a hard candy like coating)

You turn to him and after being asked you tell him that you’re washing his clothes and then you’re going to repair them. You offer him some tangulu to which he surprisingly accepts and sits down and you both decide to watch a creature feature movie. You both enjoy seeing the asshole people get eaten by monsters

“Yeah! Get munched, asshole! Oh, sorry, I kinda tend to get caught up in the moment when watch these movies”

“It’s fine doll face”

Dabi chuckles quietly seeing you get so excited about things. He notices how you’re easily distracted but is still wondering why you haven’t said anything about him or why you aren’t seemingly afraid of him, so he asks

“Alright, be real with me for a minute, why the hell ain’t ‘cha afraid ‘a me huh? I mean, I’m covered in nasty burns and yet yer here makin’ me food, takin’ care ‘a me and shit, so what’s up?”

“Hm? Oh, well, just because you look different doesn’t mean anything, everyone hits rough patches somewhere or at some point in their life. I think it’s horrible to kick someone while they’re already having a rough time. You’ve clearly been having a rough time so it’s only right for me to help you out, that’s what people are supposed to do. People should be kind to others no matter what, I might not know you, but everyone deserves to be treated with kindness.”

“Ya’ know, that kinda thinkin’ is probably gonna get ‘cha killed sweetheart. How do you know I’m not gonna kill ya’ ‘er somethin’? I could hurt ‘cha and yer just sittin’ here?”

“I don’t think you’re going to hurt me. I think you’re a good person who’s just going through a rough patch. I’m not gonna ask what you’re going through but just know that my door is always open for you.”

You smile at him and he just sits there dumbfounded. He gives up and eventually you guys go to bed.

Over the next few days you continue to make him food and wait for it to cool down before serving him. He eventually tells you his name is Dabi. You guys get along rather well

When he leaves you tell him to make sure to come back and you even hand him a wrapped up bento. He waves you off and leaves through the back but takes the bento with him

When he meets back up with the league at their hideout he opens the bento to see a bunch of cutesy things. Toga and Twice both notice it and bring it to the attention of the others

Twice is jealous that Dabi has someone who makes him food. Toga wants to meet you and (stab) befriend you. Compress is delighted by the creativity and how well plated the food is. Kurogiri wants to exchange recipes and learn a thing or two from you. Spinner couldn’t care less and Tomura is just frustrated but makes fun of Dabi

Dabi will never admit it, but he loves that you take care of him and he makes sure that you’re safe and that other villains and heroes don’t bother you

(I hope you enjoyed this. The pictures aren’t mine I found them on Pinterest)

[monsterblogging]

Quotes from the Pacific Rim commentary re: Guillermo del Toro's aesthetic decisions

"You cannot do world creation without filling in with texture and detail."

...

"People think that world creation - movie, for example - is the big gestures. But it isn't. It's all this small details. Look at the markings. Look at the vehicles that open the doors. Look at the banners and the markings in the crawler that moves the robot. Everything is full of detail. We designed this."

....

"We going to what I call gothic tech, or goth tech. Which is to go right away into a world that is rusting, that is in decay, where you have the concrete is cheap, the paint is chipping off, the armors in the robots is dented, it's sort of pitted and they feel like knights, like these ancient knights, and we start accumulating, for example, atmosphere."

...

"I wanted the movie to be very romantic, but not romantic in the Harlequin novel sense or the romance novel sense of the word. I wanted it to be romantic in its epicness. You know, I wanted it to feel like an opera. I wanted it to feel dramatic. So instead of doing this in a well-lit street in New York I wanted this first fight to happen in an almost like, the middle of a romantic painting, like Caspar David Friedrich is a romantic painter I adore. And I wanted very much for it to happen in the rain in the middle of a tempest in an ocean where the waves are crashing into them. And the water throughout the movie becomes an incredibly complex expressive element."

...

"We're going to go from the biggest, the widest, to the little bug of a pilot crawling out of the helmet. Isolate Raleigh. You know, we isolate Raleigh. I'm telling the story: Look at the markings on his suit, the burn marks on his skin, those are going to become scars that he's going to carry for the rest of the movie. And I'm telling you this is when we started losing. This was the price for arrogance, this was the price for youth, and we're staining the white with red. I'm trying to build a character not just by the work of the actor, but by the storytelling with audiovisual elements."

...

"And look at this, Raleigh's all introduced in this one color, he'd golden, gold colors, and he's all coated in warm greens and earth tones and the light that is bathing him is always golden, and it's about that color coming together with Mako's dominant color, and Pentecost in this case, which is connected with Mako, which are blue."

...

"So this, we come to the scene where they meet for the first time. And I have color-coded this scene entirely in those two colors, in the blue and the ambers. You know, the bright ambers and the blue, the sort of cyan blue. And this is Mako meeting Raleigh, so the entire thing needs to be color-coded like that. And Mako's blue, because I'm making her origin to the kaiju, the kaiju blue, the blood of the kaiju - but also you will see in a few minutes a memory. A memory that is all color-coded in blue and splashes of red in her past as a child. And that blue has stained her hair. Even her hair has this strands of blue because she cannot get rid of that memory. She carries it in her."

...

"We color-coded, for example, the Chinese robot, we color-coded it red and gold and is patterned after medieval armor, and it needs to feel Chinese in essence, it needs to respond to martial arts movements; its musical theme is very strong."

...

"And here again we have now a robot, a Jaeger, that is designed, a mech that is designed to resemble a T-series Russian tank, color-coded like that, with like a cooling tower from a nuclear reactor on top."

...

"And we introduce Striker Eureka, the Australian Jaeger, which is designed a little bit like an all-terrain vehicle and color-coded with the outback camouflage colors and is the most masculine of the robots, of the Jaegers, of the mech, and is very much testosterone-driven."

...

"We talked about the color red; well, here it becomes very important. We have these characters fighting that is very very color-coded to be warm; we have a lot of reddish art direction here. We color-coded this arena in black and red. The stakes, the wood, the machines, the color of the light hitting the machines, the symbols on the wall, everything is permeated with red. Because again, I wanted red to symbolize sort of the heart. And Mako's going to find her heart and Raleigh's going to find his heart, or life, by connecting with Mako. We saw him bleeding - the last time we saw red with any importance other than the Chinese robot was when he was bleeding in the beach."

...

"And again, red coming in and linking these three characters; these three characters are the heart of the movie, you know. And blood for nobility and mortality is what makes us human. And Pentecost and Raleigh and Mako are the heart of the film."

...

"And now we start bringing, literally, bringing the crazy colors into the film. I wanted to color code this movie, bring it as close as possible to a living anime, or a living incarnation of a magazine that was very important for me growing up, which is Heavy Metal with Angus McKie, Richard Corben, Chris Foss, all these guys working with super primary colors, and I wanted to bring that saturation of colors to this, and for that I needed Hannibal Chau to meet Newt in Hong Kong."

...

"In shooting the film, we then came to the final moment and again, these three characters, Mako, Raleigh, and Pentecost, which have existed in a blue-amber world start to come to a red space, you know? This is the first time we used this red space properly in this film. Other than the Chinese robot, we were very careful with not coding anything in red. But now, at the end of the adventure, everybody's coming away. And at the end of the life, at the end of their life, that is Mako, Raleigh, everybody's gonna find this light is red. And now I can talk to you about the way I sort of organized the three fights for Raleigh. I wanted one fight with the kaiju to be the fight where he loses someone. He loses his brother in the beginning. That's where he bleeds red, you know? Then the second fight in Hong Kong is where he gains a partner. He loses a partner in the first fight, he gains a partner on the second fight. And in this final fight, he saves that partner. So, it's a full circle. I show him in the construction area in the beginning sitting in a sort of throne of concrete, if you remember, when he meets Pentecost; he made an incomplete circle. And here he completes that circle."

[inspector-montoya-fox]

It's always really difficult to choose between An Opera of Fear and A Cold Alliance for my favourite Sly 3 episode, but it's safe to say that Flight of Fancy is easily the most nostalgic. Not because it's rooted in my childhood memories (it is) but in the sense that it shares elements with episodes from Sly 2 during a game which presents the gang at the peak of their career. Let's discuss

I think we can all agree that the series very effectively presents the gang's development, not only as individual characters, but also as a team of thieves. Sly 1 shows the gang as teens during their first set of adventures which sprout from Sly's desire for vengeance. They make many mistakes, they don't really have planned heists or jobs - Sly just casually goes into every level breaking shit and then faces off the big baddie - and they surpass their own expectations of themselves to defeat Clockwerk in the end. Then, Sly 2 covers a crucial point in the gang's career. It felt as if up until this point they hadn't truly fucked up so they went into it being very cocky, especially Sly. And when they got their asses handed to them by Neyla, getting separated tested their individual and collective limits.

In Sly 3, the gang has evolved to master thieves, capable enough to feel comfortable recruiting and as such mentoring strangers and also worthy enough to inherit an entire lineage's stolen loot. This is also shown in the missions, which up in scale and spectacle. It's no longer just "follow this villain" or "pickpocket this person". It's a combination of missions we grew accustomed to during Sly 2 like "follow Octavio and do recon under time pressure", or something completely new. Right off the bat, for example, we send a ferris wheel rolling across Venice squashing guards in its way, like this is just a mission not Thunderbeak or something. Every Sly 3 mission evolves explosions, high-tech and the eventual mini boss-fight.

So it's then a bit surprising to see the gang reverting to their sneakier, more subtle ways during Flight of Fancy. That's not to say we don't have explosions and thrill in the episode (the dogfights, Muggshot vs Carmelita, wolf-riding, shooting literal fucking windmills into blimps), but the way they choose to sabotage the competition due to how delicate its internal politics are creates some nostalgia. Paddling around the sewers in a blow-up rowboat and breaking into the pilots' rooms is very Sly 2. It felt like something 18 year old Sly would do. Also, scaling the Baron's castle harks back to Sly 1's platforming and is reminiscent of how small Sly would seem when approaching a villain's daunting lair.

The design choices for the Netherlands seem primitive too, enhanced by the fact that we're in the countryside. I feel like there's that Sly 1 and 2 rule of thumb at play here, where Sucker Punch chose the aesthetic or genre first and then chose the location. For example, they wanted a spooky level in Sly 2 so they chose Prague which would accommodate the genre through its architecture and gothic character. That allowed them to exaggerate a lot in terms of level design. And it's the same for Flight of Fancy, where we have a spooky castle on top of a very cartoony hill and you can hide under haystacks. Oppositely, the rest of the game's levels seem to have departed from the previous entries' design principle (except Kaine Island, which is fully fictional). It feels as if SP chose Venice and wanted to play up how European it is, or the wilderness of the Australian outback but without any radical stylistic choices. The genres are explored through the narrative, not through design.

Lastly, let's close off with some Thieves in Time slander because it wouldn't be a signature me tumblr essay without it. If we really use the entirety of our brain power and manage to look past all of the game's bullshit, one additional flaw would be how it doesn't consider the gang's development when telling its story. I'm not saying that in the series' fourth game the gang should have been infallible or indestructible due to achieving master thief status in Sly 3, but here the mistakes they make feel so unnecessarily stupid and like shit they wouldn't have done even in Sly 1. Falling for Penelope's schtick twice; Sly letting his guard down during the Le Paradox boss fight after the Contessa; whatever the fuck went down in Arabia... yea.

[cha0ticr0b0tic]

For my mutuals who are into Westerns: you guys have got to check out how Australia has taken and re-invented the genre, they’re somehow even more fucked up than American Westerns. There’s a real Gothic sensibility hanging over the ones I’ve seen – some of that is due to the vast bleakness of the outback, but it’s mostly due to the understanding that much like in America, colonization damaged this place and the scars are still visible. It’s also an incredibly versatile genre – the Mad Max films count, for starters, and the Australian Gothic is a subgenre all its own. Nick Cave is a major contributor. IDK I think it’s very cool to explore what Westerns look like outside of the US

[gabe495]

these are the people who deliver packages to femboy hooters, gothic ihop, tomboy outback etc.

WHO AT THE USPS PITCHED THIS 😂

[sweetsplinteredspirit]

Athelstan was at the church with a kitten carved on it with the young monsignor. Its whiskers were black and long engraved charcoal ; a woodsy smell.

The monsignor was wearing a black suit with white collared shirt. He was a Vanir, a creature of sight. ‘ Gaman at hitta pik, nice to meet you. Mitt navn er Monsignor Sebastian. ‘ Bark powdered his eyes, his gaze rather piercing, Athelstan recognising him to be the same priest who had asked him if he believes in norse. His heart thudded in his chest, where he could feel the cold cross, shy and scared of the other. The cross held significance to him, a flower sword, as he could speak to his son, Alfred through there.

SWEETSPLINTEREDSPIRIT : TUMBLR GENERAL CLASS;

I. Can login and is intact and viewed chrono in blog theme view and navigation in full beauty.

II. Login once a year to retain username.

III.  Capable of posting and interacting without any restrictions.

IV. Can look at current sessions, iOS apps > Apps in account settings, and writing Review to end of tumblr url.

V. Generally can look through each page of blog theme view to see if there is a screening filter on it, as well as tumblelog / postlog view.

VI. Overall Blogroll : Tumblr.

The hollow of the church room was a yawning yggdrasil trunk of tree. He had seen a sighting of this tree once with his fellow vikings. He says to Sebastian, ‘ Morginn, monsignor, ‘ bowing in courtesy. A moment later, he says, gathering courage to continue speaking to the priest, ‘ As I was walking through town, I saw a scarecrow of straw that looked scary. ‘

The town was in a southern gothic forest in the country, where he knows how strange it can be. He remembered he had been crucified by saxons in the harsh outback.

He had escaped to there ; pilgrimaging through the desert, the forest where he splashed through the river, to evade the wrath of high school. He had killed a bully, Matthew, for hurting his rabbit Gyda. He thought the town may frown upon this, so he doesn’t say this to Sebastian.

It was Einmanaor, a day of snow, snowflakes drifting to the ground. He was walking through the bridge where a river was, during his walk, going downtown, and strangely, green blue silk streams were flowing on another black house’s roof - a well connection. The pond he sees ahead is the Well of Urd. He saw a man sitting there, bare feet touching on the black cobblestone.

Sebastian nods at the other’s words, ‘ The scarecrow is a norse god of fertility - we sacrifice a tourist, so the town will prosper. It is a great honour to be chosen. ‘

As they talk, an elderly man is busking on the thatched brown jute stringed ground with a long grey beard, playing the harmonica ; moving his lips in sharp sound. He was sat near the steps of the church, where a priest had been killed ; his ghost haunting the town. He was a resident in a nursing home, in which he felt quite sad and lonely in - pain and paranoia too, as he was a jewish survivor. As he harmonises, he is a beautiful boy, sailing on a ship.

[wil0]

[inthefallofasparrow]

Congratulations to those who have read outback Australian gothic psychological nightmare, 'Wake in Fright' by Kenneth Cook! You are the least represented minority group of voters here, but I feel like Tumblr will still need more data, if it's ever going to understand its user base, so go here or here or here for another poll!

If you've read more than one of these, choose the option that you think is most uncommon.

[andrexi1]

Australian Outback Gothic

- You see the same eastern brown snake on the trail, it only hisses you. You hide under the jacaranda tree. The hisses from the trail are still heard. One day the hissing stops, only the long grass remains. The eastern brown snake is gone. You do not go into the long grass.

- No one knew how they landed on the frontier, the men screamed with “rage”. The flame trees blazed across the bush. A black bird cries death.

You gone walkabout through the northern territory. There is a man who says he’s not from around here. He tells you he grew up here. You wonder if he is a dust eater. No one is from the down under anymore.

- You stop a cabbie. “take me to Queensland” you say. He drives you around in circles. You arrive in Queensland. It doesn’t look like Queensland. You left the banana land long ago. The driver fronts up in Queensland. It’s not the same one you know.

- “Have you ever left the down under?” the man asks. “I was born here I never left.” “Have you ever left the down under?” He asks again. He keeps asking. You realise you are not even in the down under.

- One premier falls on her own sword. The lies were revealed. She wasn’t fair dinkum. They replace her with another. There’s plenty of swords to go about.

[ohmygodshesinsane]

outback nsw gothic

something red is on your feet. you dont look. something red is on your feet. it comes again. finally, you bend down. its the blood of the darling river. sticky.

“back o’ bourke” someone says. you remember the day you went to the funeral for the letter ‘f’. he is dearly missed.

there are old photos of your town hanging in the information centre. there are boarded up windows on the houses outside. you look out. the windows are boarded up now. “it was a bigtime citylike place” says the withered old lady. it has been boarded up since before it was founded.

you are driving west. you lose time. the clock lies. you pass no state boundary. you gain time. it depends on the season. in winter your time is snatched by the greedy mining city. snatched. in summer, your time is rejuvenated. the miners smile. they no longer exist.

sydney. every four years there is a bus trip to sydney. you know everyone in town and nobody has gone on this bus trip. the bus pulls away from the school of distance building. it does not come back.

your aunty is taking your small cousins to dubbo. “For the Animals.” one of them is taken. by a dingo. they roam. its the western plains.

the goats. they are coming. there are millions of them. you have a flashback, to the emu war that you only heard about. the goats are coming. they feed at the sides of the road from hay to wilcannia. they feast on grey nomads.

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

I was reading some of the past asks and had a flashback to driving in the Australian Outback. Which isn’t the American midwest but you would think so. Kangaroos look like cryptids in the middle of the night and the road goes straight for about 40 miles with only the reflectors and brush on the sides of the road. It is absolutely insane and you don’t sleep when you are out there.

Also had a similar experience driving to rural California were our road was closed and we had to stop at a gas station at about one in the morning. Everytime you looked at the cashier something just was slightly off more and more each time. And I though maybe it was lack of sleep and me being paranoid but my friend and mom confirmed that it was just super weird and felt off. Anyways no midwest stories but have felt some fun gothic places throughout the years

Oh man, I would LOVE to drive in the outback, that sounds absolutely wild.

And there’s already something so off about the fluorescent lights and squeaky linoleum at 1 am in a gas station, I’m glad that I’ve only encountered benevolent fey gas station attendants.

[luetta]

you know what, im gonna headcanon and humanise this pixel art vampire chick even more. vampires aren't savage beasts, they're people too. there'd be a reason why one would act in such an animalistic, messy way with their food, and i think i know why. it's cus she's shy and broke. the vampire of old, were feudal lords who owned decadent castles - they were rich. they could afford to enchant vixens and bring them back to their ornate gothic playhouse, dazzle them with wine and extravagant displays of wealth with their many servants. but now? in 2024? ain't no one owning their own place. this chick still lives with her parents and works 15 hours a week at an outback stakehouse. there's no way she's charming an adventurous socialite with her bojack horseman season 2 poster bedroom and a rule of 'no loud noises after 10' in her household.

and also, she's 20 and never had a girlfriend. she's awkward, and shy, sucks at small talk. so she doesn't even wanna do the "my my what a fair maiden you are" bullshit. so, she opts for a more direct method, that doesn't involve any talking! she simply stalks them through the night, and pounces at them from the trees, wordlessly sinking her teeth into their neck and rending till they're dead. no chitchat required. i hope one day we can reach a point of realistic modern vampire depiction, with the categorically untrue stereotype of castle dwelling pick up artist vampires being left in the past where it belongs.

kind of losing my mind over the art of this lifesteal powerup from death must die. she's not just delicately sucking some blood out of someone's neck. she's slain someone, probably with a knife or her own talons. she plunges her hands into them, pulling out chunks of flesh. messily eating it out of her hands like an animal. look at how demure her eyes are, content and devoid of empathy, like wolf at a carcass. the way she's crouched down in the dark, as if just pounced on some innocent girl and shredded her to bits and started devouring her, right there on the path through the woods. i need her