#psycho pass layout

[serexvu]

psycho-fes 10th anniversary

[pfpanimes]

⌕ psycho pass - shinya kogami.

like or reblog if you save/use.

[canmom]

Last season's anime: Frieren episode 7-10

Shit I guess I'm full on liveblogging this one now.

This time we have episode 7 dir. Naoto Uchida (known for work on Mob Psycho 100), episode 8 dir. Tomoya Kitagawa (who also directed ep. 2), episode 9 dir. Kōki Fujimoto (key animator on a whole buncha stuff, this is his debut as an episode director), and episode 10 dir. Nobihide Kariya (who debuted not so long before as an episode director on Bocchi).

So at the end of the last post about Frieren, I commented that I found the demons underwhelming as antagonists, and hoped they would have their motivations fleshed out some more beyond 'ontologically evil baddies'. Well.

lmao.

So Frieren and the gang are travelling. We get a lot more on the Great Mage Flamme, who is Frieren's mentor figure. At this rate... she's probably gonna turn out to still be alive or some shit.

They roll up in another ridiculously picturesque town. The backgrounds in this show are apparently based heavily on the concept art paintings of Seiko Yoshioka, who gets credited under various roles including 'layout designer' and even 'worldview illustrator'. She did a crazy amount of work to design all the different settings, giving them distinctive cultural motifs and architectures and colour palettes and so on.

Since this town covers a whole four-episode arc, we get a number of different views of it. There's definitely a reasonable amount of historical care put into the design of those city walls - even sketchy and in the distance you can spot the hoardings and appropriately narrow crenellations, as well as the machicolations on the tops of the towers. (Though unfortunatelly some of those details seem to get forgotten in the later episodes.)

The streets in the town seem kinda wide and clean but it fits the austere vibe. The main thing I'm wondering is what exactly they eat in this town - it's triple-walled in hostile territory without much in the way of farmland in sight, or indeed roads that aren't tiny.

I'm pretty sure they built a model of at least parts of this town in 3D, because as well as certain 3D tracking shots (unfortunately hampered by the lack of any parallax mapping on the floor)...

...we also get shots like this one, which feature a crazy 3-point perspective:

I wouldn't say it's impossible to draw this, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to block it out roughly in 3D and then paint in the details.

Mind you, that's not even the wildest perspective we get in this episode. Check this out:

Absolutely bananas. I love it.

But tbh the praise I have for this arc is pretty limited to this kind of technical stuff. Let's get into the story. (Though you can be sure I'll have more to say about the animation!)

At this point the story shifts gears from this fairly low-key exploration of grief and the passing of time, into more standard action anime territory.

Shortly after arriving in this town, our heroes discover that it has been infiltrated by demons in the guise of peace emissaries. Frieren attempts to attack immediately, but she allows herself to be subdued rather than harm the guards, so off she goes to jail.

Luckily, wizard jail still has pretty generous visiting hours, so she's able to explain the deal with demons to the gang. Frieren declares that demons always lie to gain an advantage over humans, illustrated through a flashback in which a young girl demon begged for mercy, only to betray the townspeople a bit later. Having been proven right, Frieren summarily executes the girl.

I think it's worth comparing this storyline to a couple of other similar storylines in other works of fiction.

First of all, in NieR Replicant/Gestalt, there is the story 'The Little Mermaid', which was adapted into a segment in the game in the remake. A postman takes pity on a girl on a shipwreck, not realising that she is a terribly powerful monster who is struggling to maintain her human appearance. The girl starts killing people to try to maintain her connection with the postman. Eventually, the player shows up and discovers what's been going on. Their intervention provokes the girl to revert to monster state and there's a big boss fight. However, at stake in the fight is the girl's identity. Depending on how you play the boss fight, there are two possible endings, and both of them make overt parallels between the monster girl and your party member Kainé, and one portrays the grief of the postman who cannot let go of his affection for the monster.

Secondly, the second episode of last year's Tengoku Daimakyou features a woman who is trying to protect a monster which she believed to have taken on the consciousness of her son after it ate him. The monster has been curiously non-hostile to the woman - she persuades our protagonists to back off, and they agree. Then it abruptly kills her! Oh shit. Fight scene, they kill the monster, etc.

But as they depart, the protagonists are left discussing whether the monster could really have had the son affecting its actions, whether it was just drawn to prey etc. The monster's motivations are left distinctly unclear, and the protagonists conclude there's no way to know the truth. Throughout the rest of the season, the exact nature of the monsters remains an open question.

In both cases, we either know or it is strongly implied that the monsters are fundamentally human, or derived from humans somehow. A certain amount of effort is spared to try and at least raise the question of the monster's subjectivity, and even if a monster has to die, they play it for tragedy.

So, let's return to Frieren. We're introduced to the demon girl. She ate a kid, but she staves off execution by pleading for her mother.

The villagers decide to give her a chance to atone. Before long, she kills the village chief who took pity on her. Frieren's party show up and she does small Shaft head tilt...

She's no longer pretending and talks in a much more level voice. She explains that she wanted to give a replacement daughter to the family of the girl she ate, by removing the village chief, for the sake of living in peace. This goes down about how you'd expect. Frieren goes ahead and kills her. As she's dying, Frieren asks why she called for her mother when demons don't raise kids. The answer she gets:

She is surprisingly forthcoming on this front, and honestly, self-preservation is something like an understandable motivation. The impression you get from this flashback sequence is a being that is amoral, and encountering humans as something alien and, honestly, kinda threatening. Why she killed the girl in the first place is an open question - they explicitly say that the demons don't have to eat humans. Even if she kinda felt like it, you'd think she'd be able to figure out it would be an unwise move.

But as far as the show is concerned, the point of this flashback is to establish one thing: demons are lying liars who lie. Frieren is the only one who knows the truth, which is that you must shoot them on sight.

You might think the show would leave some doubt about whether Frieren is justified in having such a severe attitude towards the demons - is she just prejudiced? But nah we go pretty much straight into the demons saying 'Frieren is right about everything, now let'ss discuss our evil plan'.

Props to this guy (he has some longish German name I can't remember) for making this random bench feel like a throne though. Like on some level he's just soft-voiced evil anime aristocrat guy but he does pull it off.

Anyway, one thing definitely doesn't seem to add up. Frieren says that demons are solitary creatures who speak in a human voice only to deceive, but the demons seem to be pretty happy to natter away to each other when no humans are around and express all sorts of thoughts and even express (fairly reserved) emotions. The boy is arrogant, the girl is protective of her boss, etc. The guy is a smooth liar and manages to wriggle out of being killed by the earl by playing the 'we're the same, let's put an end to this' card. But we're constantly reminded it's fake, he's a lying liar who's ontologically evil.

I think the super-deceptive adversary with no qualms about telling any lie is something that can be done well to create an incredibly paranoid scenario. I can't believe I'm mentioning ratfic again in the space of two posts, but this is something Worth The Candle performed very effectively. Though honestly the fantasy of the perfect manipulator who plays everyone like a fiddle is a recurring device in fantasy.

Here... the acting is strong on our main sussy demon dude. But as a worthy adversary, he's not super convincing. He lets his underling run off and get killed, and his response when the jig is up is to reveal that he's super OP and kill everyone nearby, except the governor, who he tortures. So the manipulation angle seems questionably motivated, like he wants the earl to lower the barrier so the demon army can come in... but you're kind of left wondering why he didn't already just go and kill everyone in the city since nobody who isn't Fern or Frieren can touch him. I guess he's trying to get that low chaos route.

I won't continue the beat-by-beat summary. There is a cool fight scene in Frieren's jail cell though, which has some well-integrated 3D. Frieren totally no-sells the boy's attack and cuts his arms off. Lotta dismemberment in these episodes! The main demon guy has some tasty blood-based powers, lots of monofilament whip slicing imagery (also a thing in Tengoku Daimakyou oddly enough). In general the action scenes in this show continue to be super tight. There is a pretty cute bit where Stark is trying to free the earl and can't cut through the rope holding him to a chair, the earl is going 'leave me', and I was sitting there going like 'why not destroy the chair', and then Stark does. So props for that.

Towards the end of ep 8, we learn that Frieren is actually a suuuuper scary battle mage. She was the one who researched the demon killing spell. OOooooohhh.

Seems our demon guy hasn't changed his style in 80 years lol.

And she did not think it too many.

So we already knew that Frieren was part of the party that killed the demon king, the last living person who knew Flamme, etc. etc., so it's not exactly surprising to see once again that she's kind of a big deal. What we seem to be setting up here - or at least maybe I'm just hoping for something more than 'only our hero is wise enough to know coexistence is impossible and a war of annihilation is the only option' - is to suggest a parallel between Frieren and the demons. They're incredibly long-lived, they love to obsessively study magic, they both have a very cold affect, they're calm under fire. If it turned out that Frieren is a demon that would be a fun angle, but I don't think it really tracks. Rather, the framing is suggesting that, when confronted with demons, Frieren is not so different...

We get a title drop in any case - turns out the anime title is an in-story title for its main character. In Japanese: 葬送のフリーレン Sousou no Frieren. 葬送 is translated by jisho.org as

attending a funeral procession; seeing off the deceased; burial of someone's remains; observing a burial​

The fansub I'm watching translate it (when used for the character) as 'Frieren the Elegy', which has about the right vibe! In the context for the show title, they translate the same phrase as Frieren: An Ageless Elegy which involves a little more interpolation, but I think it works. The official English title is Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, which is very direct but not a bad subtitle at all. Then again, maybe the bar is in the floor since 'Delicious in Dungeon'.

Anyway, after all that setup, we finally get the big fight episode. Because you see, in contrast to the earlier story which skipped over decades in a montage, this arc spans a whole four episodes. It's not badly done, but it's definitely feeling much more like a standard fight-driven show at this point.

We also meet Aura, one of the demon generals. She looks like a youngish girl and has a habit of doing the sanpaku eye smirk.

Her schtick is that she has magic scales that let her dominate people. Then she cuts their heads off and walks their corpses around. This is represented by a big army of suits of armour, mostly rendered in CG. They've done some kind of filter to make the linework less even, but the difference in shading style is quite noticeable.

From there it's a lot of 'my gambit vs your gambit' and 'who has more mana'. The fights are, without doubt very nicely animated, although the CG castle set used for the big camera moves feels a bit... lacking in detail compared to the gorgeous painted backgrounds. Anyway, Stark wins his fight by the power of GUTS and DETERMINATION, and Fern wins her fight by being a fast analytical type who can stay cool under fire and also knows Frieren's special demonbuster spell. Though a lot of Fern's fight is just kind of both participants standing still with impassive expressions shooting either blood or big laser beams at each other or zipping all around the castle.

Of course, the major turning points in the fight hinge on flashbacks to moments with mentor figures. This is an anime, and more specifically, it's Frieren.

One thing that is interesting is that the 'point of view' indicated by internal monologue often moves from Fern to the demon guy. We get to see him try to think through how to beat her, unsuccessfully. By contrast Stark's fight takes Stark's POV. I don't think we're expected to sympathise with the demon exactly, it's a way of underlining just how badass Fern has now become thanks to Frieren's levelling up regime.

I admit Frieren has lost me a bit by this point. It's not that it's bad at being a fight anime, it hits us with a whole series of stylishly composed and strongly animated cuts. Not novel necessarily, but absolutely well-executed. But it's not a very interesting direction to take the story! I don't care about this town, we'll be leaving it in an episode or two anyway, and the only named character in it is the earl. I wanna know more about the demons but what we get is kinda just a succession of Guys With Powers. He can make his blood fly around and stab people. She can copy anyone's moveset. He has a monofilament wire. She has a magic scale that mind controls you if she has more mana.

So how does Frieren beat the magic scales? ez. It's kind of spelled out as soon as they introduce the scales, but they spend a whole episode explaining how she's been using a relentless mana retention regimen for the last thousand years to hide her power level so that demons underestimate her. It kinda belabours the point lol. Like it kinda has to because if it doesn't try to make a big deal out of the mana hiding thing, you're just left with 'Frieren wins because her number is bigger'. But... Frieren wins because her number is bigger.

I don't hate fight-driven anime. They can be a ton of fun. But honestly, after the emotional impact of the first few episodes, taking it this way seems like it's wasting the early show's strengths. But, I hear episode 11 sees the return of Keiichirō Saitō as enshutsu, and it's said to be one of the best episodes in the show, so I'm not gonna drop it! It's certainly more than pretty enough to be worth watching through to the end.

There is a good amount of nice stuff in this last episode. The pseudo-Roman town is a cool depiction of a different material culture a thousand years prior to the main story. The 'field of flowers' magic is called back as a specific invention of Flamme - Frieren's whole deal is to kind of go around doing things to commemorate dead people and it turns out the flowers thing lets her do it twice over! We get to set up some parallels - Frieren could intuit that Flamme was a super OP mage, and Himmel could do the same for her.

We also get some worldbuilding stuff about the demons: they have to constantly display their power level to determine their place in the demon pecking order bc they're soooo individualistic. This seems a little dubious to me - like are the demons really so dumb? Is 'hide your power level' such an incomprehensible concept? It seems like it would lead to some kind of Diplomacy-like situation where other demons would team up to take you down.

Honestly, I think what bothers me about all this is like... I don't like the concept of an ontologically evil monster at the best of times, but the demons are obviously not mindlessly malevolent with no inner lives. They talk and scheme and feel things (such as 'proud of their magic'). They have an honour system. But the narrative doesn't quite seem to be able to acknowledge that this is what it's doing. Besides levelling up their magic, we have no idea what the demons want, still, except that it seems to involve killing humans sometimes.

Anyway! kvin has an article about this section, so if you'd like to read about who did which bit and how they worked together resourcefully and where the storyboard creates imagery of separation and so on, there ya go! It sounds from this article like the manga gets a better handle on what it's trying to do with the demons later on, so I'll hold out hope.

[ashiemochi]

anubussy - x

✠ Anubussy ↳ sorry, i don't want your touch ↳↳ it's not that i don't want you

➶ pairing: OC x Leon S(exy) Kennedy. ➶ genre: fluff, more angst, gore, longer smut/suggestive themes ➶ word count: no

NOTE: ✠ = time skip ✠✠ = switching povs/characters

prev -> next

Moving through the building reminded her of her family’s facility when she had first arrived – lost and confused. Back then, she’d make turns and depend on suicide notes to tell her where to go. 

This building didn’t have a map layout or anyone who wrote a note before passing – So Ah was just following her captain and shooting any of Arias’ minions along the way. She resisted the need to pick her phone up and call Leon. As far as the situation goes, he might be too busy fighting for his life to answer her.

“Why doesn’t this place have any map lying around?” She muttered under her breath, annoyed at the sense of being lost. 

“Why don’t we ask Arias when we bring his ass down?” Chris muttered back, almost sharply at the hatred he had towards him.

So Ah looked at him from the corner of her eyes, “Think he’d tell us?”

Chris huffed lightly, his hawk eyes scanning the long corridors. These villains seriously needed to add more life to their hideouts or underground facilities. They all looked the goddamn same.

A voice came over the PA, “Nice to see you again, Mr Redfield – and I see you brought a guest with you.”

So Ah blinked at this, hiding next to Chris behind the wall who whispered to her confused self, “Arias.”

“Thanks to Professor Chambers, we made the virus much stronger.” Arias continued, “If you could stick around for, oh, another twenty minutes, you’ll see how strong.”

Chris shared a look of shock with her, realizing what Arias had done to his friend, and he knelt down to set the timer on his watch. While he was doing that, So Ah kept her eyes out in case any enemy pops out from around the corner. 

“I can’t wait for you to meet the new and improved Rebecca. The question is…” Arias seemed pleased with himself before his voice dropped an octave, “Do you have it in you to kill her?”

So Ah picked up on Chris’ nod and went after him down the corridor, panting faintly as she stayed caught up with his quick and long strides. 

“My army of the dead will change the world for the better. It will correct the imbalance caused by recent wars.” His voice echoed all over the building, making the soldier and the agent grow more and more on edge, “Maybe if you can stay alive long enough, you can watch me as my B.O.Ws bring down the most powerful nations… One by one.”

Chris growled under his breath, “You belong in a nuthouse, asshole.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not crazy.” Arias assured, something heavy in his tone, “I want revenge. I’m sure you understand that, Miss Han So Ah.”

So Ah slowed down at that, eyes widening as she breathed heavily, and looked up at the security camera. How could he have known – wait, the H-Virus. Chris stopped in the distance, looking over at her with furrowed brows. 

“I must say, it’s an honour to have a member of the Hans here, it really is a pleasure.” Arias mused, a slight smirk on his lips, “I apologise for the mess. I wish we could've met in a different circumstance – maybe if you get out of here alive, I’d be happy to give you a tour.”

Every single scream and shout of pain echoed in her head, reminding her of all the people she had taken. Their lives hung on her shoulders, looming over her like a long shadow. She didn’t want to relate to a psycho like Glenn Arias. 

She refused to. 

Chris gave her a knowing look, silently telling her not to listen to him. She shook her head, shutting her eyes for a moment to ignore the buzzing of the chip and she joined up with Chris. 

“It’d be a grand tour just looking for you.” She mumbled.

Rounding the corner, they skidded to a stop at the horde of zombies rushing and stumbling towards them. 

In an instant, Chris started shooting them and So Ah did as such, aiming at the furthest ones with precision. Sure, the Matilda could only do so much, but she was landing headshots perfectly. Sometimes she’d aim for the legs to drop them down. 

Adrenaline filled her veins as Chris bee-lined through the corridor, following him as he went. By the end of the hallway, it was split in two with the walking dead on both sides. 

So Ah hitched her yelp, dodging a swiping hand before shooting the zombie. There were more than she could count but she stayed close to Chris. If push comes to shove, she’d yank the incendiary grenade from her belt – that she definitely did not steal from the Osprey and just borrowed it – to set shit on fire. 

She heard a clatter of an empty magazine behind her, catching her attention. She was extremely surprised to see Chris casually suplex a zombie and her eyes located his rifle in one of the infecteds’ hands. 

Hastily, So Ah holstered her gun and then yanked the weapon out of its hands and the sharp blade at the end glinted under the pale lights. Oh, she should’ve gotten one of these instead.

She sliced the zombie’s neck, making it stumble back just as Chris stood up. He gave her a grateful nod, taking it back to reload it and shoot the last few ones.

So Ah returned to her gun to help him clear them out, unaware of the ones closing in from behind. A waft of hot breath brushed the top of her head, sending unwanted shivers down her spine and she nearly got a whiplash turning around. 

She stumbled back with a gasp, “Shit!”

A sound of a motorbike entering the hallway was the last thing she’d expect in his situation – but it was also the one she needed the most. It meant one thing, and one thing only. 

The last two zombies dropped to the ground, bullet wounds on the back of their heads, and the bike halted to a stop next to the wall.

So Ah visibly lit up at the sight of Leon showing up unscathed and she ran up to him with relief in her big eyes. 

“Leon, you’re okay.” She voiced her happiness.

Leon exhaled roughly as he got off the motorcycle, feeling the care oozing from her as he gave her a light-hearted judgemental look, “Missed me already?”

Her cheeks turned red at this and he looked over at Chris, walking up to him, “Sorry I’m late. Had to take the stairs.”

A giant question mark appeared on top of her head.

How in the hell did he use the stairs with that giant ass bike?

The elevator dinged at the end of the corridor and a horde of zombies stumbled out. 

Another giant question mark appeared.

How in the hell did they use the elevator?

Leon glanced down at her standing next to him, seeing her eyeing the infected. She looked up at him, nodding as she tightened her grip on her gun. Leon returned the nod, unbeknownst to her, feeling nostalgic fighting by her side.

He ticked his head to the charged zombies as if going ‘after you’ to Chris. 

God, was this day ever going to end?

The zombies snarled as they charged at the trio. One zipped in between Chris and the couple, separating them. Chris was forced to be in the opposite corridor, leaving them in the other. 

As Leon was taking care of the one in front of him, gunshots were heard behind him. Each bullet he shot was to the head or the neck, and by throwing his eyes over his shoulder for a moment, he could see his wife was mimicking him. 

It felt strangely good having her around again; it gave him a reason to push through this mission.

A hand gripped his ankle and Leon twisted it around, going on a deep kneel and shooting the zombie in the head. The muzzle of his Sentinel Nine was tinted red at every shot he took, he was never so focused before.

Meanwhile on the other end, So Ah had her hands full. These zombies; they reminded her of the ones she had seen at the H-Outbreak but the ones they were dealing with were more animalistic. They were attempting to grab her and sometimes they’d latch their gross hands around her ankle which she’d shoot and back away to place some space between her and them. 

Subconsciously, Leon and So Ah stuck to each other, helping the other kill the horde. At some point, Leon went flat to the ground as she shot the one behind him and he did the same to her; from between her legs. 

Was it silly? Probably – but whatever to stay alive. 

An inevitable click came from the Matilda, urging her to reload it. As Leon kept the creatures at bay, So Ah hurriedly took out her last magazine to slam it into the gun but a zombie gripped her wrist, emitting a hitched gasp as she was yanked. 

Leon’s ears instantly perked up to her, eyes snapping to the girl – he fully assumed that rotten teeth would’ve sunk into her flesh by now, but she was still fighting. Her lips formed a snarl, releasing her gun to let it clatter to the ground only to reach underneath her jacket.

Then his heart skipped a beat at the sight of the handcrafted dagger he had gifted her years ago. 

So Ah pressed her arm against the zombie’s neck, not allowing him to bite into her other arm. From behind, she kicked back the walking dead, putting her whole strength and focus on their knee. A loud audible crack emitted from the one at the front, making him fall with a groan and the others nearby stumbled and toppled over.

She switched her attention back to the first one, having had enough of his snarling; he was also the last one in her part of the corridor. Gunshots from Leon’s side and guttural groans from hers, she was vaguely aware he had killed the ones on the ground.

The dagger glinted for a second before she sunk it down into the zombie’s head, deeply. The blood splattered onto her cheek when she yanked it out, letting him drop to the floor. 

Her chest heaved at the adrenaline, unaware of how tight she was holding the magazine in the other. Her quick eyes searched for her gun through the basically a rug of deaddead bodies.

Chris’ rifle slid to her side and he picked it up, standing with the other two. He had blood drops all over his attire, similar to Leon and So Ah. Her once soft-coloured knitted jacket looked like it needed a twenty-four-hour wash to get rid of the grime.

“Rebecca’s running out of time!” Chris shouted, panting heavily.

Leon threw him a quick glance from the side, “Then let’s split up!”

“You go!” So Ah urged Chris, gripping the handle of her dagger tightly, “We got it here!”

Chris gave them a curt nod and went off, shooting the zombies out of the way. So Ah huffed under her breath, finding her gun next to a zombie on the ground. It was growling and waving its arms around from under the heavy bodies on top of it. 

She twirled the knife to a correct grip and she brought it down, flinching to herself at the burning sensation at the back of her neck.

That was when Leon caught a glimpse of something shining on her finger; the ring. It sent an electric shock to his own, setting his veins on fire at the feeling. It threw him back to their wedding and that angelic appearance she had when they were exchanging rings. 

When their highly respected friend said; “You may kiss the bride”, So Ah practically bounced in giddy, kissing Leon with her hands cradling his cheeks. He couldn’t help but chuckle, pulling her close by the waist. 

That day was one of the many memorable events and possibly, one of the few happy memorable events. Every night for over two-hundred-and-thirteen days, the memory repeated around his head like a carousel. 

It was unfair. 

It was so goddamn unfair.

Growling in audible frustration at the whole situation, Leon took down the rest of the zombies from his side. When the last body dropped, So Ah stood up, taking her dagger out and looking over at Leon. The silence was so loud it was deafening. 

His back was facing hers, his chest visibly heaving and his hands were clenching by his side – of course, his finger was off the trigger. He wouldn’t look at her when she slowly made her way towards him, worried he might’ve gotten hurt or even worse, bitten.

“Leon?” She asked gently, almost nervously. 

His sharpsharp ices were glaring harshly at the ground. She still wore her ring. She never took it off. How could she? 

After all she had done, she still cherishes something so broken? 

So neglected?

How dare she make him think that the chemistry was still alive and more than ever between them?

More growls emitted at the end of the hallway, finding yet another horde sauntering from the stairs. Her hand hovered over his arm, stepping back with a dreadful feeling crawling up her back.

“Le–”

“Go find Chris,” Leon ordered lowly, reloading his gun and turning partially to look over at the zombies, “I’ll finish up around here.”

“What – no–” Her eyes widened, shaking her head, “I can help.”

“Now’s not the time for you to be stubborn, So Ah.” Leon snapped, staring at her darkly, “Go. Now.”

So Ah went quiet under his eyes. The conflict was more than evident along with something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Hesitantly, she looked over her shoulder at the zombies. 

Instead of listening to him just yet, she hurriedly grabbed his hand to set her dagger on his open palm. Leon blinked at her action, brows forming a deep crease in the centre.

“What–”

“Just so you’d have a reason to come back,” So Ah said, pushing his fingers to curl around the handle, “To return it to me.”

His hand twitched under her touch and she held his hand for a moment. 

“Be safe.”

It was evident she didn’t want to go and leave him to deal with those feral creatures alone. With this line of work, death was looming from every corner, forcing you to treat every day like it might be the last.

So Ah stood on her tiptoes, planting a faint peck on his cheek, her cinnamons softsoft and utterly worried as she whispered, “Please.”

Leon watched her step away from him before jogging past him, picking up her gun from the ground as she turned the corner. Her footsteps gradually grew distant. The sound of the snarls took his attention away from the heat rushing up the sides of his neck and to his ears at the lingering kiss on his cheek.

Leon holstered her knife into his belt with a faint scoff – a chuckle. Ticking his head to the side at the charging zombies, he held his gun, aiming it at them. A newfound determination and hope within him.

“Better make this quick.” Leon quipped wittily, “I got something to return.”

[thedragonofbadasstemple]

A little late but was tagged by @klutenpetter to do a thing! It supposed to be 9 each of like games, TV, movies, etc that you enjoyed for the first time in 2023, but like him I'm just gonna do nine piece of media overall. I'll do my layout of pictures, showcasing each one via the character(s) that were my favorite from each piece of media, and in the order in which I saw them (approximately).

Buddy Daddies, Jan 2023. Super cute original anime. Really enjoyed the QPR thing the MCs had going on. You don't get a lot of found family media like that.

Golden Kamuy, March 2023. I was sick with the flu and binge read the entire series in like a week. LOVED IN. Filled with beefy studs and its a fun ride from start to end!

Psycho Pass, May 2023. I got into cyberpunk recently and gave this a whirl. Really enjoyed the first season, not so much everything that came after tho LOL.

Komi-San, June 2023. I'll be real, I never would have picked this for myself to watch, be me and boys have been watching stuff together and this was a pick from one of them. My first impression was this was just another dumb waifu bait show, but honestly its super cute and super funny. I enjoyed it a lot and can't wait for season 3!

Yakuza Kiwami, June 2023. I started Yakuza Zero, got halfway through and then stopped in 2022, and finally finshed Zero and got through Kiwami last year. I enjoyed it way more than Zero. I really enjoy Kiryu as a character and hope to start the next game soon!

Undead Girl Murder Farce, July 2023. A seasonal anime I picked up and enjoyed greatly. I think its a fun use of public domain characters and the OCs were delightful. I hope we get another season! It was a real sleeper hit for the season I think.

Columbo, August 2023. Yeah, I watched my first episode of Columbo because of a mystery kick UGMF put me on. The first episode I watched naturally was the first episode. I watched another episode on Christmas. I really enjoy this character, I wish I had more free time for this.

Slay the Princess, November 2023. An indie game I've had my eye on for a while because of ManlyBadassHero. The full thing came out and I really enjoyed it! I highly recommend it if you like spooky and romantic things.

Good Will Hunting, December 2023. Its a classic movie, and its been meme'd to death, and yet I've never watched it before now (Its not [my] fault). On my flight to Spain the plane had tablets built in for every seat where we could watch movies and stuff so I took that opportunity to watch a bunch of films I had never seen before (others were Top Gun, John Wick, and Elemental (which I saw in 2024 but otherwise I enjoyed it the most, a morbid curiosity/hate-watch that I loved unironically). I also got halfway through Mission: Impossible but ran out of time.) I'd recommend giving this a go if you haven't seen it. Its a classic for a reason and might give you dark academia peeps a good time LOL.

For this I'm tagging @solanum-iycopersicum, @netnettart, @shinladyanarki, and @the-jar-of-dirt.

[hellishjoel]

fic author self rec

When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

tagged by the beautiful and talented @undercoverpena (personal kylee note: I'm very thankful to have found a place on the fanfic writing side of tumblr, amongst very kind and talented writers. I only started writing on here in july, and though I've had some ups and downs, it's a hobby that brings a lot of happiness to me at the end of the day. thank you for reading my works and I love you guys :))

✨ talk me down

JOEL MILLER

AH! talk me down was my first fic on here and it totally blew up, I couldn't believe it! I'm really proud of it since it was my first attempt to write smut in FOREVER and I was expecting it to get absolutely no response, but imagine my shock when I watched so many lovely people respond to it by screaming in the tags!

✨what happens after

JOEL MILLER

I feel like what happens after really gave me the chance to reflect on my progress as a writer. I'm really proud of the layout of the story, jumping between present and the previous night with fluidity. no smut, but lots of feels! I'm always afraid to write something with no smut because of the lack of interest for readers who are just looking for porn without plot (which is totally fine!) but I remind myself that this is just a hobby to entertain myself and I don't really care about the reception of it, just the craftsmanship!

✨table for two - slow shift

FRANKIE MORALES

my tft friends I see you! this was my first time writing anyone besides joel miller, and WOW how much fun have I had writing this series! making the environment of a shitty diner and sleazy player frankie morales was a blast! can't wait for many more chapters!

✨psycho - say my name

JOEL MILLER

psycho is a really precious character to me, she feels like my hot unhinged alter ego. her chapters have always been based off requests, so it's been a great way to incorporate my little community! the brat x brat tamer dynamic is a blast to write and I wanted to take this chapter to show the depth of joel and psycho's relationship, that they have their ups and downs but they're also very ride or die.

✨cinnamon girl - off to the races

JOEL MILLER

how could I leave out dbf? cinnamon girl! my first ever series! sometimes it's hard to write because I feel like there's a lot of expectations with it, and I honestly have no idea where it's going to go, but that's sort of the fun is navigating their relationship, the secrecy, the limited time of summer, etc. but dbf was hot for summer, let me tell you that!

no pressure tags, sorry if you've already been tagged, I'm super late to this trend lol @perotovar @bageldaddy @joelsversion @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @agentmarcuspike

[thedubiouspeach]

New Layout New Me!

I think it's only fair that since I've been nothing but an enigma on this site that I properly introduce myself!

Hi! My name is Bliss! I'm a 25-year-old LGBTQ+ & Neurodivergent writer. I am a Jhin main first and a human never. My fixation is primarily Jhin-centric, but I tend to hop across a multitude of fandoms!

Said fandoms include:

League of Legends

Baldur's Gate 3 (Astarion-centric interest)

Psycho-Pass

Jujutsu Kaisen

Sonic The Hedgehog

91 Days

Sun Haven

Buddy Daddies

Blue Exorcist

Yuri On Ice

Kuroko no Basket

Soul Eater

Dragon Ball Z

Steven Universe

Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

Suitor Armor

Gangsta

Castlevania

I'm a hopeless romantic and throw together ships whenever possible because it's fun and I enjoy exploring dynamics. I sometimes find myself in Rarepair Hell and it is of every fault of my own.

Current ships and their ship names if they have one in my mind's eye:

Jhin / Rakan - Golden Lotus

Jhin / Pyke - Red Water Dreams

Jhin / Yone - Method Acting

Jhin / Yasuo - Freelance Artists

Jhin / Varus - Sacrilegious Shots

Jhin / Vladimir - Crimson Affairs

Jhin / Pyke / Rakan - Weight In Gold

Jhin / Rakan / Yone - Standing Ovation

Jhin / Rakan / Yasuo - Travelling Show

Jhin / Pyke / Rakan / Yasuo / Ezreal / Akshan - The Men Pile

Irelia / Xayah - Kingslayers

Irelia / Xayah / Akali / Nilah - Sparring Practice

Irelia / Xayah / Akali / Nilah / Neeko - Battle Born

Xayah / Sett - Fisticuffs

Shusei Kagari / Shinya Kogami - Kissed Knuckles

Satoru Gojo / Kento Nanami - See No Evil

Hiromi Higuruma / Kento Nanami

Satoru Gojo / Kento Nanami / Hiromi Higuruma

Yuji Itadori / Megumi Fushiguro

Yuta Okkotsu / Toge Inumaki - Speak No Evil

Jun / Dr. Wornhardt

Jun / Vaan

Dr. Wornhardt / Jun / Vaan

Jun / Vaan / Donovan

Jun / Van / Donovan / Dr. Wornhardt / Darius

Rei Suwa / Kazuki Kurusu

Ryouta Kise / Yukio Kasamatsu - Kisamatsu

Daiki Aomine / Taiga Kagami - Kagomine

Kotaro Hayama / Shun Izuki

Kotaro Hayama / Taiga Kagami - Hot-Head Express

Katsuki Yuuri / Victor Nikiforov - Victory/Victuuri/Victuri

Shadow the Hedgehog / Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonadow (duh)

Goku / Vegeta

Rin Okumura / Renzou Shima - Cotton Candy Complications

Shiro Fujimoto / Mephisto Pheles

Nero Vanetti / Angelo Lagusa - Russian Roulette

Katara / Zuko

Trevor Belmont / Alucard / Sypha Belnades - The Usual Suspects

Death the Kid / Crona

Pearl / Bismuth

Sapphire / Ruby

Boundaries:

I won't participate in ship discourse. I just won't, it's not worth it. I have my reservations on certain things and Imma keep it to myself.

What I will do is participate in fandom, fandom activities, and the occasional discourse about the shows/games/comics themselves!

Interests & Hobbies:

When I'm offline I tend to read here and there.

I write mostly romantic/ship-related fanfic and even original works with original characters! Occasionally, I post poetry when I'm in A Mood(TM).

It's an absolute delight to talk about all of my characters that I've taken so much time to craft <3

I make playlists on Spotify and Youtube based on stories I've written, favorite characters, favorite ships, and original characters! I'll be adding those links to my Carrd once I have them both up-to-date c:

I'm not entirely sure what I should be posting on Tumblr? This site is very awkward for me and I feel a tad isolated every time I open it. So if anyone has any ideas of what they'd like to see or a better way to be more engaging drop me an ask!

I might make a post for snippet requests and whatnot that y'all can choose from as well! It'll take a bit, but it'll be up eventually lol.

If you wanna find me anywhere else like Twitter, AO3, Commaful, Wattpad (Idk why, but it's an option), and more then you can find my Carrd in my bio!

Thanks for reading this far and getting to know me! If you have any questions then you know where the ask and DM buttons are c:

[mentally-creative]

Imma do a quirky thing and start posting my little stories every day

Starting with my Winchester Mansion based story:

It started at a party. It always starts at a party. I met a guy and we got some drinks, the usual, but I made a grave mistake after meeting him. I left my drink unattended on the coffee table to go to the bathroom. He didn’t give off psycho vibes so I just drank it. After a few more sips of my drink, I blacked out. Now I know what you’re thinking and no I wasn’t drugged for the sake of sex but something much worse. When I finally came, I found myself in a living room. I looked around and the house’s layout made zero sense. Staircases lead into walls, doors with nothing behind them, windows to inaccessible rooms, the list goes on and on. I didn’t know what to do but I knew one thing for sure, this is not where I passed out. My head was pounding. Great not only am I drugged and brought to a maze house but I’m also hung over. Just then I heard another voice call out “Is anyone out there? Hello? Am I alone?” I couldn’t just leave this girl hanging

“Hello?” I called back

“Oh thank God!” she yelled “I’ve been in here for weeks I think”

The panic started to rise inside me at her words

“Weeks?” I manage to choke out

“Yeah, this sick bastard has me chained up in here. He keeps telling me that help would be here today. I’m guessing that's you?”

“Doubt it. I’m super hungover and lost”

“I think that's the point,” she says so matter-of-factly it’s almost startling.

“Ok. I’m going to try to get you out. Just keep talking about literally anything and everything.” I call to her

“Ok I can do that,” She says before droning on and on about her life. I follow the sound to a door. No way it was that easy, and it wasn’t. I swung the door open just to be greeted by a brick wall. Wonderful.

“My name is Sabrina by the way,” she said pulling me out of my focus

“Kat.”

“That’s such a pretty name” I thank her and she's back to just talking. I spot one of the window rooms and I see the top of someone's head at the edge of the glass. The closer I get to the glass the louder Sabrina gets. Of course.

“Sabrina?” I call to the girl in the room she notices the shift in volume and looks up.

“Kat?” she asked her eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out of her head.

“Hey, there are no doors.”

“You think I didn’t notice that?” Sabrina’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Just then a voice seemed to come out of nowhere “Hello Kat. It seems you’ve met Sabrina.” He lets out a laugh. “How about you check under the window sill there?” I look and I find a note, a hammer, and a knife. The note said, Hello Kat. I have given you everything you need to escape our lovely Winchester Mansion. All you have to do is make a choice. You can either break the glass and stay with Sabrina or you can kill her and escape. Have fun. XOXO Gavin. So I did what I had to. I don’t remember much but I do remember the glass shattering and blood, lots of blood.

“So Miss Blancher, you’re telling me that you did in fact kill Sabrina Waterhouse?”

I shudder at the memories “Yes but only because I had to”

“Ok, Katrina Blancher you are under arrest for the murder of Sabrina Waterhouse. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law” he said putting my hands behind my back.

[xskittles]

[dielfs]

tenho dois lados Putinha safada Homem.

[waterrr]

🔭 : ͟͞=  📜 お手入れ “ 🗻 * to: @gojy ◌ 。

[serexvu]

ginoza nobuchika and shinya kogami from psycho pass

[pfpanimes]

⌕ psycho pass - ginoza nobuchika.

like or reblog if you save/use.

[canmom]

Animation Night 152: Shinji Aramaki

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Animation Night! Tonight I'm running late as ever, but I have a curiosity to present to you!

CG in anime is generally speaking a dirty word. Something to be tolerated, or begrudgingly acknowledge it wasn't bad. Exceptional studios such as Orange (of Houseki no Kuni [AN97], Beastars and most recently Trigun Stampede) may escape the stigma by cleverly integrating 2D layouts, but they're surrounded by a wasteland of CG (often on Netflix) that is mechanical, awkward and just unappealing.

The style of CG in anime also tends to be designed towards imitating, or integrating with, traditional animation. Cel-shading is the order of the day, established all the way back in GitS:SAC with its tachikomas and helicopters. And generally speaking, that's a good approach! When it's not followed, as in the case of Psycho-Pass season 3, the results often look very jarring.

But there are exceptions to every rule!

We covered one of them back on Animation Night 85, with the bizarre Square-Enix project Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, which tried to apply the then-very new technique of motion capture to create something like a movie-length videogame cutscene. And this is the start of another strain of Japanese animation (perhaps not anime! depending on whether you define anime in a geographical or technical way) - the feature-length CG animated film.

Let's start with Shinji Aramaki, who has spent decades trying to bring anime fans around to the idea of CGI. Aramaki got his start back in the 80s, doing mechanical design on OVAs like Megazone 23 and Bubblegum Crisis. He debuted as a director with Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 (1987), and in 1989, he became the third director of the constantly-reinventing-itself Megazone 23, following on from Ishiguro and Hirano (AN103) on Part I, and Itano and Umetsu on Part II. So, an old hand at the past way of doing things.

In the 2000s, Aramaki returned to direction jumped on CGI, directing early CG animated films such as Appleseed (2004) in cel-shaded style, following Gainax in adapting the dense Masamune Shirow manga, and its sequel Appleseed Ex Machina in 2007 which started moving the stylisation away from cel-shading. In this time, full-CG movies were still very new; Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children dropped only in 2005. Aramaki continued to drill into full-CG with a mecha series Viper's Creed and a Starship Troopers sequel film. From that you can probably get a sense of his taste: he likes mecha!

The results received mixed reviews, as often about the technology as the movies themselves. The first Appleseed inspired Toshio Suzkui of Studio Ghibli to declare it would revolutionise animation, which doesn't seem to have been entirely borne out.

Still, when Toei decided to do a new CG adaptation of Leiji Matsumoto's renowned Space Pirate Captain Harlock (Animation Night 146), famously first taken on by Rintaro, I suppose Aramaki must have seemed a natural choice. If Appleseed had been made on the cheap, Harlock was the opposite, costing 3 billion yen as the most expensive Japanese CG film (and maybe animated film?) evaaaa, surpassing CG-heavy megaprojects like Eva 3.0+1.0, Otomo's Steamboy and In This Corner of the World. Toei clearly had big ambitions for the return of Harlock.

So. The style of this Harlock resembles more closely videogame cutscenes, or the films of Square Enix's Visual Works, than Aramaki's past films: realistic materials and lighting, only mildly stylised character designs. In contrast to the 'aliens everywhere' maximalism of the original Leijiverse, this film puts a more antiheroic Harlock in conflict with a human government, in the context of space colonists attempting to resettle Earth and fighting a big old war over it. Which isn't to say there's a shortage of alien superweapons, dark matter, and plans to reset the entire universe. It sounds pretty wild.

Following Harlock, Aramaki would continue to direct CG, including a cool take on an Eva launching for a short film for the Animator Expo, and then perhaps his most infamous creation: a sequel to GitS SAC, in SAC 2045, which brought in a plasticy CG style in place of the beloved traditional animation that proved... divisive at best. But this didn't stop him; his most recent work is a Blade Runner TV series, titled Black Lotus.

Alongside that, he continued to work on adapting Appleseed, rebooting the story yet again with Appleseed α in 2014 with CG studio Sola Digital Arts - indeed, Sola is pretty much Aramaki's studio, with almost all of their works directed by him.

Shirow's series, a predecessor to Ghost in the Shell, deserves a better introduction than I can write tonight - but it's the territory you'd expect: post-apocalyptic cyborgs in a bleak world. Far more than the others, α - which is something of a prequel, telling how the main characters came to the city where the story is set - was highly praised for its exceptionally detailed animation and mocap, though not so much its plot.

I admit, I'm taking a big chance on both these films. Neither managed to make much impact on release, but I'm definitely curious to see this anime that isn't 'anime'. (My original plan was to make this a story about a specific CG studio, but I decided it would be better to put the Final Fantasy films side by side on a night when I can write a proper history of FinFan!)

Animation Night 152 is going live now at twitch.tv/canmom. I'd love to see you there!

[honeyysan]

I was doing fine without you, till I saw your face; now I can't erase 🎱

[fruitdropss]

i’m too consumed with my own life are we too young for this? ꒰ reqs ꒱!!