#superb imagery

[mariocki]

Army of Darkness (1992)

"Are all men from the future loudmouthed braggarts?"

"Nope. Just me, baby. Just me."

[spirngakawening]

The Truth About The Moon is so good it has no rigjt i cannot

[devourable]

➶ the butcher

sfw | tags ; nb!yandere butcher x gn reader (only prn used for reader is ‘you’), yandere behavior/tendencies, stalking, butchery (duh), violent imagery/ideation + implied violence

i dont see explicitly nonbinary yanderes much at all so im here to change that bc us offgendered mfs can be are crazy too 😌 sorry if this kinda sucks bc i finished this up while half asleep

you always felt there was something… off. about the 24 hour deli you always passed by.

it seemed to always be empty, aside from the butcher who was constantly at work inside. chopping meat, severing flesh from bone, every action executed with nearly clinical precision. did they ever do anything else? how were they always so busy with so little customers?

you could never understand. but as much as you were put off by the strange little store, curiosity gnawed at you with equal strength.

because of that, the day you entered the shop for the first time late one night, you left all of your concerns at the door.

unbeknownst to you, the butcher had been watching you long before you ever entered their deli. they always felt your eyes on them when you passed by their store — your gaze just felt so different from others. electrical, almost. they always knew when you were nearby. you must've felt it too, right? the connection you had?

but poor rhodes, they could never just approach you! you never stopped by and you didn't even know their name. they never had an opening to meet you formally. it'd be such a shame to scare you off...

thus, they were content with watching you from a distance. they ensured you never noticed their dark eyes following you, only daring to observe you passing in their peripherals or looking in your direction after you had walked far enough away. how wonderful your appearance was... a lovely sight that always brightened up the monotony of their work days. it was so fun to see you go about your life, it satisfied them enough to not mind your lack of connection.

though, sometimes... they couldn't help but imagine the animals they were tearing apart were the folk they occasionally saw you talking to. to tear their skin off of them, cut them into filets and send them far, far away from you... they ideated about it more times than they'd admit. why did you have to interact with others in front of them?

the day you actually entered their shop was a day they'd never forget. they thought they were dreaming when you walked in, shivering from the cold of the night seeking warmth and food in their establishment for the first time. you'd started a new job, see, and your shift ended well after everything else had closed. you were forced to forgo dinner and you were starved. so rhodes' butchery was the only place nearby you could visit.

you were intimidated by them, admittedly. their hulking frame, blank expression, and rough voice combined with the blood and gore constantly clinging to their apron was enough to put anyone on edge. but they couldn't be that bad, right?

their rampant emotions were hidden behind the unwaveringly neutral expression they always held, and you were none the wiser to their thudding heart and the slight tremble in their hands as they took your order.

the exchange was simple enough — you ordered a sandwich and something warm to drink, they made it for you, and you'd sit in one of the few chairs scattering the deli's entrance to enjoy your food and try to wind down after your shift.

and just like that, a routine was established.

you got to know rhodes as you continued to visit their place of work. they weren't scary, just awkward! or so you told yourself. but they were so easy to talk to — albeit not the best conversationalist, they were a superb listener. they'd devote their full attention to you every time you spoke to them, not daring to breathe a word so they wouldn't interrupt your lovely voice. they'd learn everything they could about you during your conversations. how you were gradually getting used to your new job, how it was a good thing they were open so late, how you were grateful for their work... things that they'd replay in their mind over and over again when you left.

you never really thought much of it when rhodes began giving you food on the house, using various excuses from not wanting to have to reopen the register to having conveniently already made your favorite sandwich earlier that day for a canceled order. you were friends now! of course they'd want to do you favors.

you also never really thought of it when the coworker who you'd complained about to them a few times stopped coming to work, either. they made an enemy out of so many people at your job, maybe they got fired? it wasn't any of your business.

rhodes had no clue how they'd get closer to you just yet. but now that you were seeing them regularly, they didn't mind settling for making your life a bit easier.

in any way they could.

after all, no one was going to question a butcher for having bloodied clothes.

[mouseonamoose]

I absolutely loved Demonology. It was an extremely generous gift to the fandom and to the GO mythology as a whole. I loved how you fleshed out Aubrey as a real character and the story being told through her perspective was so effective and clever. I was amazed at how true to the character of Crowley you were so that you were able to write him so authentically into new scenarios. Each chapter was such a surprising and original adventure but with a beloved friend. I loved the humor and pain in this story and so glad it wasn't any shorter than it was. Also, I was reading it at the Denver airport when Crowley made that quip about Aubrey's smell so I felt very connected to the story at that time, very funny private moment. I think this was the most enjoyable story I have ever read and also, got me to see why I personally related so strongly to Crowley. I have found validation as well as escapism from the perennial grief I feel at this time of year. So thank you thank you thank you.

I also read the Aziraphale story, which I felt had some very funny, LOL moments and was heartbreaking. I do wish that you had felt the freedom to write a healing journey before you saw season 2 and the stuckness that Aziraphale was still in. I think it can be really cathartic and beautiful to imagine what it would take for them to become healed. That was the magic of the Crowley story because you actually delivered the answers you promised which is so rare in any book. You showed us the magic that it took with trust and time and expression for Crowley to restore his heart.

I'm going to go back and read the story all over again.

The imagery that stuck with me the most was Crowley wedged up in the corner of the ceiling, and also the most glorious chapter where he shared his poetry with Aziraphale. Also I am a plant lover so all that stuff with the tree and Bud was just phenomenal.

You are an extremely gifted writer and I hope you continue to write and publish and I really, really hope you write some more stories from this universe. If there are any others please please let me know!

Oh, thank you. I'm blushing! I am so grateful that you found both valuable, and shared this with me.

I think, having done both Demonology and Angel-Centered now, I have come to this conclusion: anything but a satisfying resolution for Crowley would have been a disservice to his character; anything but unsatisfying heartbreak for Aziraphale would have been a disservice to his character. I don't mean this at all in a harsh way, regarding Aziraphale, and I have no doubts that he and Crowley both will have a well-deserved Happily Ever After. But, in therapy? And especially within the confines of the sort of fanfic I was writing (e.g., as much as possible, avoid adding to canon; as much as possible, only extrapolate and comment upon canon)? What other sort of option could there be, for Aziraphale?

I don't know.

Or maybe I'm just experiencing the same bittersweet frustration about Good Omens, right now, as everyone else, and that's clouding my thoughts.

You sent a follow-up message, clarifying you'd appreciate recommendations for other Good Omens fic. I am terrible at providing recommendations, unfortunately, but I hope others will be happy to offer some. There is one I can think of, though! Factory Settings is superb. I'm blown away by the clear confidence in the plotting and characterizing. I wouldn't mind it being our S3.

[sitp-recs]

Between the Power Lines by @tackytigerfic (M, 3k)

For Harry Potter, all roads eventually lead to Draco Malfoy. Or: this is not an AU! It's just Harry and Draco meeting by chance in an imported food shop in Connecticut and going on a road trip together. Featuring motels, cacti, Americana, and a hefty dose of pining.

In New Orleans, they got drunk on Bourbon Street, and Malfoy danced on his own (arms bare, laughing; Harry could have watched him all night) and later on, so late it was almost morning, they let themselves into the St Louis Cemetery—Malfoy unpicking the lock so sweetly—and walked around until the sky was pink-edged with the promise of another day’s heat. Then they sat on the steps of a crypt, watched over by sightless eyes of the statue of an angel. She looked exhausted rather than sad, Harry thought, and that made a lot of sense when he thought about his own longstanding, dull-edged grief.

It’s been ages (or 2 years) since I last wrote a rec for Tacky (I usually write for other readers, except when I’m reccing friends - then I write for them) and their birthday was the perfect excuse to put my reccing muscles back to work. I almost bailed out because I know this is one of T’s own faves and “what if I don’t do it justice?” but that tired angel banner has been sitting in my drafts for 3 long years and it deserves a proper rec!

Where to even begin? Anyone who knows Tacky is aware of their superb prose - rich and nuanced, compassionate, effortlessly funny, with a strong sense of place and a soft spot for suds scenes and filthy m-rated sex I mean devastating romance. Their writing breathes heart and personality, very much like Tacky themself. So knowing that this fic came out exactly as they intended it to should be enough to make you go read this right now, but in case you need further incentive, see below all the reasons why this oneshot is so special to me:

1. The *vibes*: if you thought that 3k is nowhere near enough to build the sexiest, most intriguing Americana atmosphere you’ve seen, think again. The aesthetics are impeccable here, decorating the beautiful and strange landscape - cacti and cheap motels included - into something peaceful and desolate, an overarching melancholy making it even more compelling. The dialogue is brilliant but the silences are just as loud and meaningful, with a quiet intimacy and a dreamlike quality that make you feel as if you're intruding a memory.

2. The romance: at this point everyone and their dog know that pining!Harry is Tacky's jam - they luxuriate in making us all suffer with him until the realization that Draco has been loving him back all along slaps us in the face. Harry is so stupid and desperate and wanton, I love it. And the way Tacky reinvents this delicious trope to make it work in new angsty ways blows my mind. Imo the slow burn is particularly effective here, a feat in any 3k story, because the narrative gives us so much character insight. We learn all the little things that make these two lonely boys tick as we watch their ever-changing perception of each other evolve from a tentative truce to reluctant confidants to a comfortable, easy love that comes naturally and earned. We often get those bits of information from imagery and emotions alone, no dialogue needed, and a road trip is the best way to explore those dynamics in a smooth, unhurried pace.

3. The journey: this is truly an immersive journey, not only physical as we keep jumping from one destination to the next, but also emotional, as we learn more about their vulnerabilities and desires the more they gravitate towards each other. This story shows that being far away from home can be both freeing and grounding, when you’re stuck with your hot enemy someone who knows about your darkest hour. It gives you the chance to heal and visualize a different future without forgetting your past or letting go of that which has shaped who you are. I love their chance encounter and how this poignant 30k love story is told in such impressive economy of words.

TL;DR: if you’re a short form fan and prone to melancholy like me believe me when I say it doesn’t get any better than this. The whole road trip shebang mixing grief, romance and nostalgia wrapped in Tacky’s lush writing is a gift to any reader and an elegant work of art. Enjoy!!!

[demigoddessqueens]

I’d like to request one of the Vox group with a member who is the most “ordinary” in that they don’t have any magic or special powers as they are human, but they are almost supernaturally good at fighting. They can wield any weapon put into their hand with expert technique and have superb tactical knowledge that puts even longer lived races on the back foot. How would such an ordinary yet extraordinary person be with this group of weirdo’s?

This is Belmont-Black Canary levels of badassery!

A/n - ok, all bird imagery aside I know who I’m picking

Vax’ildan

Ok, hear 👂 me out

Aside from the ones with enchanted/cursed weapons, god-affiliations, and Vex’s quote “cause we both now you used to lie about fights”, I feel like Vax would be impressed with battle tactics

Sure a dagger can slow someone down, especially if they’re bigger, but you’re self with a blade, rope, knife is a sure guarantee to take them down

You’re like the walking encyclopedia of battle tactics, and it helps the party against rival mercenaries and when it counts against the Chroma Conclave

In a oh so smooth attempt to flirt with you, Vax feigns curiosity about your fighting styles, wanting you to teach him

Of course you always win practice spars, and he blames his blush on the heat

Hook-blade, long bow, dagger, short swords, long sword, grappling, hidden blade, broad sword, you sometimes rattle off your knowledge and Vax is just sitting there like “uh, uh 😃”

even the rest of the party sees it

PLUS once he gets the Vestige armor, Vax does come to you because he has no idea what’s going and it scares him, and you’ve never seen such fear in him

Even when you spend hours telling him more about what said armor entails, the pit in his stomach doesn’t entirely go away, but at least coming from you, it feels more welcoming to accept

[obstinaterixatrix]

Lady of the Shard is a comic about an acolyte in love with the goddess she serves. 

Note: This comic contains content that may be objectionable to some readers.  Discretion is advised. 

[Spoilers] Content warnings include:

body horror imagery sexualized manipulation/mind control forgiveness for an abusive character

happy femslash february here's a... webcomic-type thing with a lot of pages, but I'd clock reading time as definitely probably under half an hour (?). it's a classic, ggdg released it in 2016 and it kind of defies description. like the summary says, lady of the shard is about an acolyte that falls in love with a goddess. they are also in space. the art is very unique and super cool--ggdg formatted it for fullscreen desktop itchio viewing, and they use the medium VERY well with color and composition. there's a lot of truly superb tonal dissonance with serious life-or-death stakes and the acolyte being just a little guy that endears herself to like. every powerful woman she meets. it's so funny. it's SO funny. I think all the time about the end where [redacted] just goes 'wow you're pretty stupid huh.' lady of the shard is a very striking story that posits: sometimes being cute and stupid is enough. if it's one you can read I definitely recommend checking it out.

regarding the warnings, heed them in general? it gets somewhat heavy but I'd say the tone overall lighthearted without what I would consider gratuitous focus or depiction of the content warnings. I'll also clarify that the abusive character that gets forgiven is not the love interest.

ggdg is currently on tumblr at pallisia but that account isn't centered on their work as ggdg--at the moment they're working on a vn, which I'm looking forward to ^^

[oddygaul]

Zenless Zone Zero

Well, I’ve been playing the shit out of this game, so fair warning, there will be significant brainrot ahead.

Overall, I really dig it. I’m a huge mark for character action games, and well-done life sims tend to suck me in; Zenless Zone Zero is nailing both those aspects pretty damn well. In fact, it’s nailing them well enough that… how do I put this… it starts to slip into the territory of being A Good Game Generally, rather than just a gacha. And while this is a big accomplishment for ZZZ, this also puts it into direct conversation with other full-price games, resulting in its gacha elements causing more friction than Honkai Star Rail’s ever did*.

*I’ll be comparing this to HSR a lot, because I play way too much of both and they’re made by the same developer. I recognize that it is pretty odd and potentially even problematic to A / B compare them when I could be looking at the game through the lens of, you know, Gaming At Large. But hey, that’s why this is a subjective journal and not a holistic review blog! It is what it is.

So, the aesthetic of this game fuckin rules - it’s like, late 90s to early 2000s VHS-core. The main characters run a Blockbuster, for Christ’s sake. Presentation-wise (and systems-wise, and, hell, music-wise), ZZZ is obviously borrowing a lot from the Persona series, but like… great? I’d love it if more things cribbed that style and made it their own, from the confidant hangouts, to the small but comfy explorable areas, to the dynamic menus with edgy character poses. The character design itself is all superb, all the way down to the crowd NPCs - some the shopkeepers here have cooler designs than the main characters of some other games. Even aside from the designs, ZZZ is doing a lot with lighting and color desaturation that really lends it its own unique vibe. They actually have a cohesive artstyle in here! wild.

The presentation of the story is also killer. Sure, a decent chunk of the conversations are just models lip-flapping at each other - although they at least emote and pose a bit here, unlike the Star Rail dialogue scenes with their demure princess waves. In the main story, though, we get not only a heap of fairly lengthy cutscenes, but also this really cool comic panel-style presentation.

I feel like there was a bit of a trend in the PS3/360 era of games to present a game’s story in this comic panel / storyboard style. I understood the motivation: games increasingly demanded a more involved, consistent storytelling approach, rather than the ‘One big rendered cutscene at the beginning and end’ they used to get away with, and the generation’s increased visual fidelity meant that doing even basic, in-engine cutscenes took a lot more resources to make something half-decent. In Spyro the Dragon on PS1 you could get away with a fun little 15-second gag with a barely animated polygonal yeti or whatever; in the PS3 era, you were going up against tryhards like Metal Gear Solid 4. Amidst this landscape, the pitch of having your illustrators pretty up some storyboards and put them in the game sounds like it’d save a lot of work - plus, consoles were finally outputting a high enough resolution that this sort of flat image wouldn’t be compressed to hell.

Thing is, I always kinda hated that approach. In some cases, I think that’s the popular opinion - I fuckin love Bayonetta, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone defend its weird slideshow cutscenes. Even in games where the execution is perfectly fine, though, it rubbed me the wrong way. I think of Infamous - objectively, the art’s solid and fits the tone of the game, and the motion graphics aim to capture some of the dynamism typical cutscenes would provide. Despite all that, it still feels cheap to me - all of the panning, effects, and graphic imagery feel like they’re trying to polish up something that inherently doesn’t fit.

In ZZZ, though, I’m loving every one I come across. It’s obviously still done for efficiency reasons - there’s already a handful of characters that exist only in these panel scenes, saving the team the effort of having to model and rig them. But the freedom this allows for staging and storytelling is huge; the characters are more expressive here than anywhere else in the game, and we’re able to see situations with huge crowds and new locales much more often than would be possible in typical cinematics. And the illustrations are genuinely good, too - full of character, cool poses and creative compositions/angles.

if everything actually had to be modeled, there's no way we would've gotten Legally Blonde Nicole

Plus, the cutscenes are constant, and boy do I love the animation here. It feels so rare nowadays for a high-budget game to do stylized 3D animation of this ilk. Your biggest budget games are all going for the cinematic look, and pushing realism as much as they can - and while I know an immense amount of work and craft goes into animating something like The Last of Us, boy, I just could not care less about something so lacking in flair*. Even bigger properties that use a stylized artstyle these days, like Breath of the Wild, still tend to lean towards fairly naturalistic animation. Zenless Zone Zero’s cutscenes, on the other hand, spin and stretch motherfuckers around like we’re back on the PS2, are filled with forced perspective, and I am absolutely living for it. It’s not even reserved only for bombastic action scenes, either - we get honest to god character acting-focused conversation cutscenes.

*Seriously, take me back to the Naughty Dog that animated Jak & Daxter. Jak’s hero animation is top tier to this day

Of course, the combat animation slaps too; each of the playable agents is absolutely dripping with character. Even characters whose designs initially left me cold won me over once I saw the amount of care put into their movement and combo strings. It’s honestly shocking to me that this is the same studio that made Genshin Impact, a game I dropped after about 2 hours because of how lifeless all the animation felt*. Unique run cycles for every character, actual non-human designs, the flourishes everyone has when stopping mid-combo to snap them back to idle, the absolute synergistic audiovisual bliss of the parry… it’s really impressive stuff from a young team.

*Same studio in name only, totally different team, I know, but still

Mechanically, I have some mixed feelings about the combat as a whole. Zenless Zone Zero is, without a doubt, aiming to present complexity and depth as a team battler - that is to say, it’s more about team synergy, tag combos, and knowing who to use when, rather than soloing as any particular character. Nonetheless, I really would’ve appreciated individual characters having a bit more depth to their movesets; a jump, a launcher, cancels, anything. As outstanding as all the animation work is, there’s some characters that only have a normal attack string on square and one special attack on triangle. Like, sub-Dynasty Warriors level of complexity here. It’s rough.

This is where ZZZ’s gacha nature gets a bit ugly: so far, more complex kits and skill expression are mostly locked behind rarity, which is kind of scummy. In Star Rail, for the most part, 4-star characters are defined as such due to their numbers: they still have mechanics and complexity, they just aren’t tuned as high as the limited characters. Hell, in some cases they have more complexity. Ruan Mei is an almost incomparably stronger unit than Asta, but Ruan Mei’s play pattern is fucking boring: you use skill every three turns when it runs out. Asta, meanwhile, basically has her own risk & reward minigame that demands more thoughtful SP management.

In ZZZ, on the other hand, the lower-rank characters straight up have less going on in their kits. Nicole has like… one tech, sorta. Anby has one single animation cancel to chain her normal into her special quicker. Lucy’s only skill expression is choosing whether to tap special or hold special. Meanwhile, Zhu Yuan, a limited character, has a normal string that bounces between melee and ranged attacks, can be dodge-canceled at any point in the combo to branch into variations of the string, and a hold-normal attack string that’s completely different and has the same branching dodge-cancel tech.

It’s one thing to lock raw damage and meta viability behind a gacha, but locking the characters that are mechanically more interesting to play straight up sucks. If I hadn’t been lucky enough on the standard banner to pull exactly the two characters I find the most mechanically satisfying, I don’t know that I’d still be playing - and this is the point where ZZZ begs comparison to other, non-live service character action games. Sure, it’s probably not fair to compare a random A-rank’s moveset to Devil May Cry V’s iteration of Dante, a feature-creeped nightmare of a kit 3 console generations in the making. But what about Sengoku Basara Sumeragi, my personal character-action GOAT? By all accounts a mid-budget title, yet it offers 40 full characters chock-full of more unique mechanics and animation cancels than you can shake a stick at.

Fuck, can we please get a new Sengoku Basara? Please? I’m desperate out here. I’ll take anything, y’all.

There’s also the inherent issue that plagues every action RPG (usually deftly avoided by the character action genre), which is the delicate balance of player success depending on the numbers vs actual mechanical skill - a balancing act made even more noticeable due to the gacha genre-standard of characters taking weeks of grinding to level up. This is a topic for another day, but suffice to say, a big part of the reason Honkai Star Rail works for me as a very pretty version of Cookie Clicker is because of the Autoplay option. In Zenless Zone Zero, if you’re not willing to grind out the same mob fight for a week or two, you’re gonna hit an endgame roadblock of doing chip damage to a boss you’ve mechanically mastered because you’re underleveled, and boy, that never feels good.

For all those issues stemming from the gacha, I will say, it’s great that the story missions let you use the characters that are actually supposed to be present for those missions, even if you don’t own them. Aside from how nice it is to have an opportunity to put the whole roster through their paces, it goes a long way for actually getting invested in the story. Honkai Star Rail’s storytelling is a hot mess for many reasons, but it’s always particularly jarring rolling up to a sidequest at like, a local theater troupe with a wanted space criminal, the sitting president of a completely different planet, a ten year old child, and a shirtless cyborg cowboy, none of whom have canonically met each other; ZZZ’s approach sidesteps this issue. The proxy angle even provides a pretty valid diegetic explanation for why agents that don’t know each other might be working together.

Now that we’ve sort of meandered back to the story after talking about animation led us on a long detour - the story is surprisingly solid. In particular, I really appreciate how straightforward the writing is. I don’t know if the issue lies with the original text or the localization, but Star Rail’s dialogue, even in simple missions, tends to be incredibly meandering and overstuffed; ZZZ is a lot better about letting all its characters talk like actual humans. It also helps that the plot so far is a lot more grounded, and spends more time focusing on each faction’s group dynamics rather than the overarching plot. These games live and die by their characters, so leaning into those strengths is a smart move.

Zenless Zone Zero is, unfortunately, fully in line with Hoyo’s weird conservative politics - in particular, 1.0 and 1.1 are absolutely stuffed full of copaganda. With how many safety regulation jokes they made at the construction company, I initially hoped they’d lampoon the police faction a bit, or make a commentary on how comically heavily armed New Eridu’s police force are. In a vacuum, Zhu Yuan shouting combat lines like “Stop resisting!” or “Freeze, hands up!” while blasting someone with her gigantic, ‘JUSTICE’-emblazoned rocket launcher shotgun feels like it ought to be satire. Every time we talk to the officers, though, it’s just line after line about their solemn duty to protect the people of the city, how essential and important they are for the community, and so on and so on.

This wholehearted embrace of the world’s current power structure is something Zenless Zone Zero approaches in nearly the exact same way as Star Rail. In both games, your playable character is someone that’s sort of operating outside the law - in Star Rail, as the maverick organization that is the Astral Express, while in ZZZ you work as an illegal proxy. Despite this setup, any time the protagonists come into contact with a governing body, they are no less than thrilled to help them enforce the will of the law.

In Star Rail, you aid the local governments (one of which is an undemocratic monarchy) in committing massive cover-ups to hide their failures from the populace not once but twice. In ZZZ, you aid the police to an obsequious degree - playing along with them to not arouse suspicion is one thing, but helping them organize a fucking community day on Sixth Street? Fuck that. Hell, said community day is even shown to initially be DOA because none of the local residents trust the police - and you best believe we get two full scenes of the MCs changing the resident’s minds, resulting in them spouting shit about “Oh, it was our fault for judging the police too harshly - they really do have our best interests at heart!”

is it tho

There’s an argument to be made that the N.E.P.S. are a little different, given that they exist in a post-apocalyptic world with monsters popping up every day - and ZZZ’s copaganda is certainly a little less flagrant than something like Spider-Man helping the NYPD install civilian surveillance networks in Insomniac’s Spider-Man. And, sure, perhaps this can help excuse why they post fully armored, rifle-wielding soldiers in the Lumina Square DMV, and provides some justification that their existence is more helpful than the real world’s civilian-murdering property guards.

Thing is, though, at every turn you’re hit with dialogue and situations which make it clear that, no, they’re the normal cops. Every other sidequest seems to involve calling the N.E.P.S. in on somebody or helping with an investigation, and for every time we see them handle ethereal activity, there’s two instances of them being called in for petty property theft or something similarly minor - even the playable character has heaps of dialogue choices threatening to call the police on someone*. Much like Star Rail’s reactionary politics were strangely at odds with the ‘blazing a new path’ ideals of the trailblaze, Zenless Zone Zero’s obsession with the police puts a damper on its underground, counterculture aesthetic.

*Including a case where both options threatened this, leaving me without a non-narc dialogue choice.

illustration by Lv01KOKUEN

And finally… I don’t know where to fit this in, so I guess it just goes in its own little section at the end here. Lots of people, myself included, have touched on the Persona inspirations - and they’re certainly significant. One thing I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention as a huge influence is Yasuhiro Nightow’s Kekkai Sensen / Blood Blockade Battlefront. From its sense of style to its worldbuilding, ZZZ damn near feels like fanfic to me. Hell, it’s right in the name - BBB? ZZZ? And this is on top of the dimensional crossover / big city vibe, the retro fashion, the different factions. Victoria Housekeeping might as well be Libra 2.0 - Von Lycaon is a damn near perfect 50/50 expy of Klaus and Stephen Starphase. And then Belle / Wise, who assist these powerful fighters in a noncombat role just like Leo, also turn out to have some sort of special magical eyes granted to them by untold powers from within the dimensional rift??

I’m here for it, don’t get me wrong - love Nightow. But that can’t be coincidence, right?

[delusionalisted]

Lenormand vs Tarot vs Oracle

“What’s the difference between Lenormand, Tarot and Oracle cards?”

It’s not uncommon to mix these decks up, especially Lenormand and Tarot, but let me tell you: if you read Lenormand like you interpret Tarot, you’re faking and tampering your divination session. Not to mention, you’re the cause Mademoiselle Lenormand is rolling over in Her grave.

Mademoiselle Lenormand was a gifted woman, since childhood She was capable of hearing, seeing and foretelling many events. She had a gift, She wasn’t just a “diviner” in the modern meaning of the term, She was mostly a medium with superb intuition. Growing up, She designed a divination deck, HER divination deck; only Her was capable of interpreting the imagery with the utmost accuracy, everybody in France (and Central Europe) knew about M.lle Lenormand.

Did She only rely on Her deck for fortune-telling? No. She was well versed in other divination areas, the most documented one was Chiromancie, also known as “palm-reading” or “palmistry” in English. With the aid of visions, palmistry and other divination methods, She was able to accurately fill the gaps the cards (especially in short spreads, other than the Grand Tableau) left behind.

So what do Lenormand cards answer to / are best suited for?

Like I said, Lenormand’s cards give you a straightforward answer, you’ll never catch them sugarcoating the truth. They won’t tell you about the background aspects of your query, they won’t dive into the fears, hopes, feelings, thoughts or outside energies of the person involved. It is important to mention, that Lenormand’s cards CANNOT be interpreted alone. You need a minimum of 2 (3 would be better).

Now an example: “What does James think of me?” The Man, the Birds, the Garden. James thinks you’re the chatty person in your friends’ circle. Subject, verb, object. Simple as that. Pretty French, no?

Why do they differ from Tarot cards?

Tarot cards were used for spirituality in Italy. They were created to give insightful and full-length answers to anyone seeking either “otherworldly” wisdom or Earthen knowledge. They were a tool for divination through and through.

With Tarot cards, you’re able to discern major events (Major Arcana) from minor obstacles, zodiac signs, places, thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, etc. by just looking into the cards. Every card in a tarot deck has a fixed and an intuitive mechanic, meaning that you can translate every and each card separately, you can pull just one card and get your answer, you can adjust the meaning of a card by looking at the other surrounding it, and you can design a spread that aids you in understanding a situation for the better. You can do whatever you like with Tarot, it all comes down to the contract and pact you have with your deck.

“If Tarot cards can give me an insightful and in-depth answer, what do Oracle cards do?”

Oracle cards are whatever you make of it. They are best used alongside a tarot or Lenormand spread, but nothing forbids you from pulling an oracle card in the morning, get your cryptic answer and start off your day more confused than you were after the Big Nap.

Oracles and Sybils are… the prophetesses of divination. They give you a cryptic answer that you have to discern with your intuition (if you just pull a card) or you discern their words with the aid of a tarot spread, which will point out what’s the core subject or domain you need to focus yourself on.

I will probably articulate more about Oracle cards in another post when I’ll be ready to share it, but in the meantime, this one should cover the main aspects on why and in what these divination techniques differ one from the other.

[dungeonclown]

Dungeonclown D20 “Rankings”

In quotes bc i love pretty much all of them and just had to post this for posterity and if one of my friends asks which season(s) to watch. [Bullet Points not in any particular order]

Level 0: did not finish

Pirates of Leviathan (lovely cast but i couldnt get all the way thru due to audio quality issues from being the first remotely recorded show.)

Shriek Week (gabe hicks)

Coffin Run (didn’t hold my interest)

Level 1: I Really Like This 😊

Fantasy High Sophomore Year (i love this season, literally the only downside was the livestream format. No!!)

Fantasy High (OG - we’ve come so far)

Tiny Heist (i mean, so darling, so funny. what so u expect)

Mice & Murder (better quality for remote but could tell the cast would have killed it in person since the zoom call situation is a big barrier)

Misfits & Magic (very cute and wholesome. Spaulding forever)

The Seven (needed more episodes to tell the story!!! wish they had sets and minis; covid problems)

Neverafter (love the themes and imagery, such a good study on storytelling.)

Dungeons & Drag Queens (fave sidequest character art and minis, mainly so impressed by brennans skill as a gm for new players/roleplayers)

Level 2: I Absolutely Love This 🤩

Fantasy High Junior Year (first show watched as it was airing, best FH yet, mary anne skuttle what more could u ask for)

Unsleeping City Part 2 (literally only downside is being filmed remotely. Breaks my heart they couldnt do this in person since this season is so special. BUT - got to see character art and illustrated backgrounds which was really fun)

A Crown of Candy (goddamnit brennan)

The Ravening War (goddamnit matt)

Mentopolis (superb cast w great chemistry and just lots of fun idk man i just think theyre neat)

Burrow’s End (fucking incredible storytelling by aabria, the cast, the crew w sets and minis and SHADOW PUPPETS goddamn.)

Never Stop Blowing Up (so stupid so joyful im just happy to be here)

Level 3: Has a Special Place In My Heart 🥰

Unsleeping City (some of my all time favorite characters and i just love how deeply these people love and understand New York City. Its the molecular structure of NYC in a show and its special)

Escape from the Bloodkeep (the first season i was like I Have To Stop Immediately And Share This With My Family. Every character is perfect. Every NPC is perfect. The minis and sets are darling. Every day i think about Hamhead and about muh hert)

A Court of Fey & Flowers (i just love them, i never thought id be invested in regency shit but if you put it in the feywild and add goblins and hobgoblins and owlbears and idiot bird people and shit im so down goddamn. Killed it. Absolutely killed it. Also gorgeous sets and costumes and props??? Gagged.)

Level 4: Rewired My Brain Chemistry 💀

A Starstruck Odyssey (screaming, crying, throwing up. The energy of these people being in person after covid creates a truly incredible maelstrom of dumb beautiful bozo shenanigans. id give a kidney for more ASO content. I Love This Show. And that it was based off of Starstruck is so fuckin special. This setting is amazing. also big barry syx is the exact bullseye of character im obsessed with that it makes me feral to think about him. I was going to joke that he was made in a lab specifically to appeal to my big beefy sex idiot himbo mercenary sensibilities but thats exactly his backstory and im mad about it)

[artifacts-archive]

Funerary Vessel

Maya

AD 700-800

This cylindrical drinking vase is a superb example of low-fired Maya ceramics. The artist used water-based clay slip to paint over the lighter clay base to create the rich red hues of the hieroglyphs and background of the narrative scene. The imagery painted on this vessel illustrates three important members of the Maya pantheon. The first is most likely a scribe. Two figures are seated across from the scribe on a throne decorated with cosmic symbols identifying their place in the heavens. The figure directly across from the scribe is Itzamna, the supreme Maya god, known as the paramount sky deity who invented writing. Behind Itzamna sits the Moon Goddess, identified by the crescent moon directly behind her.

source

[ghost-bxrd]

I hope you are feeling better after your surgery!!!!! and since you were talking about the digging up the grave… (literally just my favorite literary/cinematic trope(I love gothic horror))

Jason’s been dead and buried for a while now, the dirt has compacted, and grass has grown over the plot, but Bruce has to get to his son. He starts digging, ripping up the grass, clawing at the dry, rocky silt as the night stretches overhead.

His son is seven feet underground, and he’s running out of air. Bruce has no shovel, no tools on him, and there’s no time to call or try to find one. There’s no time to think, only dig.

He’s about a foot deep when his fingers start to crack, blood mixing in with the soil. The dirt gets into his mouth, on his face, in his clothes, he is covered in the stuff by the time he hits three feet deep. If Bruce was aware of time, he would know that he had been here for two hours, and he wasn’t halfway there.

Five feet and Bruce is completely below ground level, hunched over as he keeps digging, digging digging. If he crawled out of the hole, he would see the beginnings of dawn peeking over the horizon. If he crawled out of the hole, he would be abandoning Jason again. He keeps digging.

Seven feet, bloody, cracked hands.

And an empty coffin.

Anyway sorry for the long ask, if u like this feel free to use it for whatevs, just couldn’t get the worms out of my brain (also sorry if it is incomprehensible, I am a little high rn)

Yes I’m doing much better already! Thank you 💚💚💚💚

And gothic horror is dear to me 😩

I LOVED this snippet!!!! I’m definitely saving it for later!! The imagery alone this evoked was superb in a gut wrenching kind of way. Thank you so much for sharing it 💚💚💚💚💚🙏✨

[enhypendiaries]

The ENHYPEN Lore

Is it not such a fascinating subject?

I have always been in love with ENHYPEN's artistry from the moment their debut trailer was released. The filmography was mesmerizing and flawless as if it was some cinematic masterpiece. Oh how I love to be the theorists that deduces, infers, and gives meaning to the imageries on films, but that was something I unfortunately was poor at.

However, influenced by my literary inclinations, I was rather more drawn to ENHYPEN's narrations. I looked forward to every narrative in ENHYPEN's discography, eager to listen to what they present next. The writing is superb and wondrously poetic. Complemented with the members' impressive narrations, enhypen's narrative discography is a museum of art.

In this continuing series, I will delve into a literary interpretation of ENHYPEN's narratives chronicling their lore. While this is not a full-blown theory in itself, I hope that this could offer some help to our resident theorists while demonstrating the fantabulous writing of these narratives.

Table of Contents

✧ Introduction & Debut Trailer

✧ Border: Day One

✧ Border: Carnival

✧ Dimension Duology

✧ Manifesto: Day 1

✧ Dark Blood

✧ Orange Blood

[mostremote]

What are some of your fav eversnow fics by other authors? What do you like about these stories the most?

In no particular order:

Scars (imaginarycircus) - Brief but intriguing sadomasochistic treatment of Snow and Katniss' relationship, with the receiving of scars as a dominant act.

Magnificent Obsession (MasterofAllImagination / @terribleoldwhitemen) - Sadly abandoned, but an excellently written retelling of the films from Snow's PoV with an impeccable command of his character.

o rose, thou art sick (@thefudge) - Dreamy drug-filled erotic treatment of Katniss' abduction with exquisite imagery and a superb perversion of Katniss as Diana.

flowers of flesh and blood (@the-heartlines) - Hardcore sexually violent treatment of a Katniss/Snow marriage with an unabashedly sadistic Snow.

The Paradise in the Distance (Isaiahas / @noidreallyrathernot) - Post-canon slowburn romance, exploring isolation, grief, and codependence in charting the romantic development of these characters' mutual obsession.

[arbitrarygreay]

Symphogear attack names

@mimeparadox alerted me to the fact that Kirika's attack names are crimes against linguistics, so I started looking at all of the Gear users' attacks. Much thanks to the wiki, which helpfully compiles not only the attacks, but their title cards, the romanization, and the original text!

I'm only looking at anime attacks. From "least cringe" to "Kirika":

Miku: Two-character Chinese phrases. Short, sweet, dignified.

Hibiki: Cheating because she doesn't get attack name cards at all. See post-ranking paragraphs.

Mid-tier: Maria/Tsubasa/Kanade tie. These girls are chuuni, but are relatively self-aware enough to have some restraint. However, Tsubasa might actually be one tier up by a sliver. She's getting away with some shit by doing hers in foreign language calligraphy, but see the post-ranking paragraphs.

Chris: Name that rock band! Golden spot of delightful indulgence. I dare anyone to not smile whenever MEGADETH PARTY shows up like an old friend. Chris has one (1) genre on her music player, and she doesn't give a fuck.

Shirabe: [greek alphabet letter]-style: {[spinning reference] AND/OR [cutting thing/action reference] wrapper addition/s to make it chuuni}

Kirika: Aforementioned CRIMES AGAINST LINGUISTICS. Build a desired phrase. May or may not include kana-ized English referencing a western fictional character. Add chuuni Japanese as necessary. Find phonetic syllables in Japanese that can be represented by tortured kanji readings that fit desired meaning. Substitute other kana with English alphabet letters. Featuring such great hits as:

災輪・TぃN渦ぁBェル

愚焔・PぇtttE炉

断殺・邪刃ウォttKKK (did you know that you spell Jabberwock with "t"s? that's how Kirika rolls, death)

兇脚・Gぁ厘ィBアa

So, like, there are indications that these aren't relic-defined names, but things that the girls themselves came up with. The strongest evidence for this is Gungnir, which has three users across the length of the show. Not only does the show make it explicit that Hibiki is coming up with the attack names herself, as they are called "Hibiki Style", but even the two who are using Gungnir as intended, Kanade and Maria, have their attacks names tailored to them. Kanade's all involve the "∞" sign, which don't show up in Hibiki or Maria's attacks.

Maria and Chris also both present even stronger evidence, as the rare users who have performed attacks across two different relics, and their tailored quirks are present in both. With Gungnir and Airgetlam, Maria's attacks feature the "†" sign splitting capitalized English. With both Nehushtan and Ichaival, Chris features rock band references in Old English font.

And this isn't even getting into the NONSENSE when combo attacks enter the fray, as each girl's naming quirks get thrown into a blender. Not only do we have Shirabe and Kirika throwing their Greek-letter-tortured-kanji-random-romanized-letters shit together into the likes of "禁合β式・Zあ破刃惨無uうNN", but then you add Maria's cross-capitalized-English-chuuni, and get "禁結終Ω式・爍機†TRINITY".

Another canon case of an attack evidently being named by a person is S2CA, which is short for "Superb Song Combination Arts", despite the fact that it makes zero sense in Japanese, where "Superb Song" is "Zessho". Forced acronyms transcend the curse of Balal!

(Tsubasa sidebar: so if we're assuming that attacks are named by their users, then the likelihood that Tsubasa's attacks are actually more chuuni in the original Japanese goes way up. Tsubasa doesn't know what normal is! Her baseline standard is the Kazanari family, and her ninja idol manager! Not to mention that her main transformation song is already borderline self parody in S2. Japanese imagery, sword, sword, blade, sword, blade, blade, I am sword, sword is me, etc. Maria and Kanade's attack names are constrained by being only 1-2 English words. Tsubasa out here throwing out flowery whole scroll calligraphy. Every added character brings her closer to Shirabe and Kirika's level.)

You may notice that this ranking suspiciously seems to follow the level of lack of blood family and divorce from civilian life. Chris, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika are all orphans who were coerced into exploitation. However, Maria still had Serena, who overtly shares her surname, which suggests blood ties (they still don't share Anastassia's surname).

One step further on this, though, is that Chris was yet still closer to Kanade's situation in that she did know who her civilian parents were before she lost them. The Yukine surname was never in question, which is not necessarily the case for the Receptor Children. It's possible that some of these kids may have chosen their surnames for themselves after being freed from captivity.

Which would explain why you can get a Gundam-ass name like "Maria Cadenzavna Eve", which makes little to no sense in terms of ethnic name origin. Maria is Greek+Latin via Hebrew, Eve is English via Latinized Hebrew, and then Cadenzavna is a nonsense mishmash of Italian and Eastern European.

"Kusanagi Motoko" from Ghost in the Shell is a pseudonym (admitted canonically in 2nd gig), which is something like "(plain) Jane Excalibur". It seems obvious to me that "Akatsuki Kirika" and "Tsukuyomi Shirabe" are similar. The music/sound-based given names apply across most all of the Gear users, but I can easily see these two goobers picking the edgiest surnames (with shared moon connotations!) for themselves. Which, per the first half of this post, is reinforced by how chuuni their self-defined attack names are. (Meanwhile, Maria loses her little sister called Serena, and then replaces her with two girls with moon-associated surnames, eh. Maria, the Eastern European who would have been more likely to watch a dub of an anime than the sub, and wore that odango hairstyle as a child...)

[lola-andheruniverse]

I'm sure a lot of long time Carylers already know and love this one, but I'm going to rec "Three Little Birds" by fairiesmasquerade. Set at the prison, it's a combination of rewriting the Governor's attack plus natural disaster plus exquisite Caryl. Plus fairiesmasquerade was one of the founders of the Nine Lives Archive and is sorely missed.

If you're newer to the fandom and haven't discovered this story yet, what are you waiting for?

Hi, @subversivegrrl!!

Thanks so much for your contribution! There's no better way to end our "old but gold" week than by recommending a Fairies Masquerade/caryl classic! It's truly an amazing story written by someone who dedicated a lot of time, energy and love to give all of us a safe place to enjoy our ship and post our fics.

Three Little Birds is posted on our beloved 9Lives and on AO3.

Summary: She didn't hear anything. No voices from inside the prison, no walkers, no birds in the trees, not even the wind made a sound. Without speaking, they both turned, aimed their weapons and stood, shoulder to shoulder, watching the tree line. Something was coming.

Rating: M / Mature

Chapters: 13

Word count: 59217

Published: October 22, 2014

What I love most about this fic is how real and alive everything feels like. FM did a superb job on creating very emotionally-driven imagery, mastering the "show, don't tell" rule of writing. Carol and Glenn just listening the silence while on watch and the juxtaposition of Daryl going upstairs and Carol going downstairs are two scenes that got me on the edge of my seat and stayed with me long after I finished reading it.

Dear fellow caryler, if you've been here a while, this is a sign from the universe for you to re-read this great fic. If you've just arrived to our little fandom, please, please, give this one a try. You won't regret it!

"Old but gold" week is officially over and it was so fun to revisit/introduce some of them with you all! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Stay tuned because I'll post a new signal boost for our next week recs. As always, sending you guys love and caryl positivity vibes. Caryl on!