#the crow wicked player

[mateushonrado]

Legacy of the Crow

Status Post #11210: Let's face it, the first film IS a tough act to follow.

The Crow (1994)

Eric Draven (Brandon Lee).

City of Angels (1996)

Ashe Corven (Vincent Perez).

Salvation (2000)

Alex Corvis (Eric Mabius).

Wicked Prayer (2005)

Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong).

[angrykittybarbarian]

A list of things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard:

!Beware of spoilers if you want to go into this game blind!

Word of advice: I truly think that it is better however to play this game fully informed or else you are in for a big shock.

The dialogue feels artificial.

What do I mean by that? From what I have observed the dialogue between Rook and the companions is unnatural. This expresses itself in lack of emotional expression or too much of the same in an unfitting situation. But for the most part it's the first resulting in the companions never being truly mad at Rook nor expressing such feelings towards them whatsoever. Instrad the dialogue seems to function like a simplified explanation of things and events around you to make sure you understand properly and don't get fancy ideas like interpreting a situation through your own personal lense and take away an understanding the devs did not explicitely want you to have.

The game has strange priorities in terms of exposition.

The game has companions and NPCs either state the obvious in a slow and clear pronounciation or doesn't give necessary background info at all.

For instance it has the Veiljumpers state that Arlathan Forest is dangerous as multiple members of their organization are being carried away and injured, as if the player wouldn't conclude this fact by, I don't know, engaging with the game? At the same time it doesn't provide who these Veiljumpers are exactly and how they know of Solas and the true character of the Evanuris as these facts are not common knowledge among the people of Thedas.

Rook and Varric seem to have an established history but we never get to see how they met and what they did together. We don't get to build our relationship with Varric as Rook like we did as Hawke or the Inquisitor. We have to pretend it's magically there.

Which brings me to my next point: the game doesn't care for established lore and replaces it with a nonsensical version

Said Veiljumpers, including Bellara, consist almost entirely of dalish elves who have an extensive lore surrounding their pantheon, religious ohilosophies and principles. Their gods are the Evanuris, also called the creators. Elgar'nan is the Allfather in this pantheon while Ghilan'nain is the Mother of Halla in dalish tradition. This should have lead to conflict with Rook who is fighting these very gods. Instead the elves seem the accept the fact without second thought.

The same goes for Davrin who somehow identifies Ghilan'nain as the Mother of all Monsters while it remains unclear from where he takes his information.

On the flip side human Andrastianism doesn't seem to play a role at all. The game does not explore what rise of the elven gods means for the belief in The Maker. The human companions don't comment on it either and the templars have seemingly vanished.

The Antaam are waging an expansionist war without command from the Arishok now. Despite the Qun being a highly disciplined doctrine that values firmly set roles and chain of command above all else, the entire qunari military arm is somehow able to act without order and war amongst themselves.

But wait, there is a word for Qunari who behave like this already established. Tal Vashoth! So the game is basically claiming the entire qunari military went rogue.

The Antivan Crows, hitmen for hire, who buy kids from the slave market to raise them to be obedient killers and use trorture to reach this goal and are willing to kill said members if they go rogue or mess up a job, are the good guys now who protect Antiva's streets from harm.

Ferelden and Orlais got swallowed by the blight and whoever rules Orlais got assassinated by the Venatori anyway which renders the entire questline of Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts pointless.

And appearantly Morrigan slept around a lot now and Shaper Valta from the Decent dlc has become a statue in Kal Sharok?

The devs lied about previous choices not mattering

It becomes clear that the devs may have had a certain world state in mind when writing the story. This becomes clear when Harding talks about the Inquisition's spymaster being Charter but also mentioning Leliana. But we all know Leliana was the spymaster. So if the position fell to Charter there must have happened something that forced Leliana out of the position, like being named Divine for instance?

This impression is further cemented by the attitude of the First Warden towards the Inquisitor. It was stated that the First Warden had no high opinion of the Inquisitor. But why? They never met before. Could it be that the First Warden could be holding a grudge because of a specific decision made at Adamant, possibly the banishment of the wardens by the Inquisitor?

This is not even complete as I have not finished the game yet. But lord, this is a lot already in the beginning. At this point a miracle needs to happen to to render the points above meaningless but it isn't going to happen.

Part 2

[temporalhiccup]

In an effort to ease out of burn out and try to feel real and human again I'm digging around old games and seeing what would be fun to tinker with. For most of my games they get to at least an Alpha Build/Playtestable stage, but Never Break The Chain is one of the few that didn't quite manage to get that far (though it honestly wouldn't take that much more I think!)

Never Break The Chain mechanically and emotionally is a response to The Eventide Club, which was @jdragsky's response to Apocalypse Keys.

It's clear that this game is partly a love letter to jay dragon's design and how it makes me feel, and I wrote this during a time when I was insecure about my design. I was reeling from the idea that my games were too emotional to be enjoyable, that strangers were never going to like the games I create. (Typical Capricorn, even the way I work through my shit has to be productive in some way)

Every player character is made up of two components: a Musician Playbook and a God Playbook. It's my take on the very popular idea of fallen gods feeding off divine worship as musicians. I wanted to create a really fun and emotionally intense game (inspired by how famously messy Fleetwood Mac and other bands can be, definitely The Wicked + The Divine too).

It's been three years since I took a look at this stuff and it's fun remembering the mechanical shenanigans I was up to: tightening chains, breaking them, creating halos, shattering them, etc. I'll tinker a bit with these mechanics and see what comes of it.

The more complex of the playbooks are the Musician ones. What remains of the divine is raw and simple, ever fading and barely there. In comparison, the Musician playbooks are a chance for me to explore some truly messy human stuff.

Here's the Musician playbook, The Mask, it's mostly intact from the last time I touched it years ago. I just tightened a few options here and there.

I'll spell out the inspiration for this playbook: David Bowie, specifically the maddened Bowie interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 1975.

Bowie was famous for his different personas, and you can see some of them represented in the masks below: Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Halloween Jack, the Goblin King, and the Minotaur.

This playbook is an exploration of what it could have been like for Bowie exploring these different personas, based on various events written about or talked about in later years, offering points of tension and intensity (deconstructed and awaiting creative input, like always) and hopefully creating explosive moments of playable drama.

I do think this playbook leans most into Bowie's contentious phase as the Thin White Duke. This was a man who was clearly breaking apart on stage, underneath the thinnest veneer of a persona that was holding itself together with a white-knuckled grip. Other personas were haunting him, discarded or never worn. Station to Station is my favorite Bowie album on most days, and his live performances of its music are almost painful to watch (while impossible to look away from).

I think, if we ever get this to playtest, I'll probably leave this playbook mostly as is (barring some mechanical tweaks that will be applied to all playbooks maybe) and just see where things go.

The Mask

You understand better than anyone that music is a story, and that performance is a mask well worn. You have created several Masks and stories over the years, and the Masks have recreated you. But as you seek fame and fortune, will the Mask become more real than you ever could be? One day you'll wake up and there won't be anything of you left, just a blank face both empty and signifying nothing.

Your Name

(Choose 1): A completely made up name that is never questioned, an appropriately dramatic name, a single initial that no one pronounces properly, I change my name every few months, a series of letters and numbers that only makes sense to my fans, a name that is as enigmatic as it is beautiful.

Your Look

(Choose 3-4): A painfully sharp and pale business suit with splatters of paint and blood on it, shades that almost no one has ever seen me take off, hair dyed into every imaginable color, the cruelest smile, the kindest eyes, an intoxicating scent, small and delicate tattoos that tell all my secrets, the body language of a predator, an unexpected scar, something else that betrays my mortality and weakness.

Your Role in the Band:

(Choose 1-3): Lead vocalist, lead guitar, muse, song writer, fuck buddy, everybody's ex, the face of the band, I'm here to look pretty baby

Choose the Mask you currently wear, one Mask you discarded, and one Mask that threatens to consume you.

I am an alien from a dying planet and harbinger of an inescapable apocalypse, my music is wild and haunting

I am royalty from a fictional past and deride the love I desperately need, my music is rhythmic and romantic

I am a rebel leader from a dark future and I shall orchestrate a dystopia of our own making, my music is hypnotic and delirious

I am the fae king who grants ill-cast wishes and offers dark bargains, my music is ethereal and manipulative

I am a serial killer who turns willing victims into impossible art pieces, my music is violent and eerie

I am a fallen angel, on the run from divine hunters and mortal lovers and only you can save me, my music is soft and beautiful

I am a broken doll mimicking life, perfect and made to fulfill your every desire, my music is naive and inviting

I am a warrior from another time and place, only you can heal my wounds and recreate my fate, my music is loud and lustful

As The Mask I gain 2-4 tokens when I:

Hide my true feelings behind a Mask

Ask someone to wear one of my Masks, for now

Give a part of myself to a Mask

When you gain your fifth token:

The divine music swells within you and seeks release. You cannot gain new tokens until you choose one:

Go to another band member and take off your Mask, reveal something vulnerable and raw about yourself. If they reach out to touch your real face, they break a chain. If they do anything else, break one of your chains.

Reflect on the god you once where, and create a new Mask to contain that memory. Your power wanes, crack one halo.

The Mask's Chains:

A whisper that comes from my mouth but doesn't sound like me at all

An embrace that promises more than it should

A kiss that comes dangerously close to unmasking me

One of my Masks on someone else's face

A song I wrote that will weaken a single Mask

A Mask I created that takes a life of its own

A Mask someone else creates to imprison me

Someone I love wearing my true face

The Mask's Move:

When you put on one of your Masks to tell its story, describe how you embody it and how you draw others into your spell. Spend tokens and roll.

On an 8-10 You are in control of the Mask, choose one:

A part of your Mask becomes more real than real, create a new Chain that reflects this.

A part of your true self gives way to the Mask, one Halo becomes whole again.

Someone is inexplicably drawn to you, you have them wrapped around your finger, for now. Say who they are and place a chain on them. If they're a band member, they place a chain on you as well.

On an 11+ The Mask begins to consume you, and you cannot tell the difference between art and reality. Choose one:

Another band member must become a part of your story, both of you place a chain on the other. For now, you are obsessed with crafting a Mask for them to match your own.

One of your fans is convinced the Mask is your true self, you cannot outrun them. For the rest of the scene you are at your fan's mercy. Describe how their obsession for you draws out something painful and real from you. When you return in a future scene gain the chain: an obsessed and dangerous fan

On a 7- your sense of self shatters and the Mask bleeds through. Until you regain your sense of self and remember you are not your Mask, you cannot perform. The Audience will tell you what happens next.

At the start of every session:

Spend a moment with your Masks and consider who they are and what story they have to tell. Choose one:

Put down the Mask you're currently wearing and pick up another, why does this one call out to you?

Change something essential about one of your Masks, what part of you refuses to bend or break?

Create a new Mask, based on someone you're obsessed with and yearn for. What does it feel like when you pretend to be them?

[waywardsou2]

Logan Howlett X Coverartist!MaleReader

Summary: Logan didn't even know why he went to this stupid concert. It was so damn loud and his senses were overwhelmed. Not to mention the only available place was in the mosh pit with all the sweaty chaotic bodies swarming around him. It sucked.

Word count: 1k+

Tags: concert, implied past trauma, strangers bonding, no dialogue, implied M! reader

Logan didn't even know why he went to this stupid concert. It was so damn loud and his senses were overwhelmed. Not to mention the only available place was in the mosh pit with all the sweaty chaotic bodies swarming around him. It sucked. But all he wanted was a distraction.

He pushed himself to the front of the crowd up against the fence that kept a gap between the stage and the crowd. He hoped maybe up here he could find some respite but everywhere he turned there were just more bodies. At least the music was loud enough to drown out everything else. Every other voice and memory in his head.

Maybe that's why he came here. To drown the voices, push their head under the water of sound and hold them there until they suffocate.

It was something. The music was pumping a song he didn't quite recognise but the best filled his ears so it was better than nothing.

He watched you and your band on the stage. This song was more tame than ones you had in your arsenal so you weren't jumping around like usual. More bopping back and forth to the beat as the notes rang clearly from your mouth.

You and your band were a cover band specifically but you were notorious for coving songs like you were the original band. You finished the last note of Adele's 'Fire to the Rain' before the music died down. The crow cheered for your performance and you held up the hand with a microphone in it. They cheered louder as you smiled, your chest heaving with the effort of pulling full breaths of oxygen back into your lungs.

Your curls were gathering in large ringlets and sticking to your face as sweat had begun to cover your skin. It felt gross but it meant you were having a good time so you didn't mind. Your tank top stuck to your chest as well outlining the faint muscles you had underneath.

Your black loose jeans swayed around your ankles as you walked. You knew the next song that was coming on. This crowd was going to go nuts.

As your keyboard player began with the opening notes of 'Ride' by Twenty One pilots. The crowd began going wild. Even louder than before, if that was even possible.

But all Logan could do was watch as you took several deep breaths in. Re-warming up your lungs and abdomen for this next song.

This one he knew.

It was one he listened to often. Having been born in the 1800 he had heard a lot of music over the decades. But this was one he liked the most. Unlike his usual collection of 70s rock, jazz and mix and match 40s swing music, he loved it none the less.

He watched as you stared out over the crowd as you begun to sing. Your voice low but powerful. Full of life and emotion as you let each word roll off your tonge.

Your eyes scanned the crowd as they always did. Watching the faces of fans come together to form a symphony of joy and excitement. The feeling would never get old. As your eyes fell to the front of the stage you saw a man. Couldn't have been older than 30 with wicked mutton chops, a crisp leather jacket and brown eyes that were such a beautiful shade you were sure someone had carved then out of an oak tree. His hair was most intriguing if all. With the edges curled up into little waves. They almost looked like cat ears from up here.

He wasn't really your type. But you couldnt help but look at him and marvel at his looks. His body was tense but he gave the illusion of calm with his nonchalant demeanor. His arms resting on the metal fence that keep any unruly fans from you and your band members. As the song went on your eyes couldn't help but fall back to the man over and over.

His gaze was hard. But not cold. And every time you looked he was looking at you.

What were you thinking of course he was. You were performing on stage in front of a crowd, everyone was staring at you. As usual that thought gave you the shivers.

Slowly the tension in the song built up. The guitar and drums fell away with only the keyboard and synth left. Your vocals ringing clear and true like a church bell. As the song reached its peak you yelled out the long note. Singing with all of your heart. This song had always meant so much to you. Not that you knew exactly why. You bent over and closed your eyes as your voice strsined but didn't break to hit and hold the note.

Logan listened intently as the background music faded and your vocals rang out for the peak of the song. It was his favourite part. The one that helped him feel the most. Helped him to remember that he was human, mostly. With a heart that still beat like anyone else. It didn't matter that his bones were msde of Anamantium or that he had retractable claws not dissimilar to a Wolverines.

He watched as your eyes closed as you inhaled one last time ready for the long note. Something in him told him to breathe deeply. And before he knew it he was matching your tone and singing out the note a long with you. All other sound faded away except your harmonising voice. Your mezo alto with his bass. It's was beautiful the way your voices wrapped around eachother like a double helix of musical symphony.

For a moment the crowd completely disappeared. The floor emptied, no moshers in sight. Only concrete floor. No happy fans yelling from the bleachers. No strobe lights and fancy displays. Just you, Logan and your voices.

But as the notes fell away all of that came rushing back with a crash. The noise flooding back like a broken damn. People kicking his legs as they jumped and pressing up against him as they clumsily flailed around. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from you as you opened yours.

As you closed your eyes the last thing you saw was the man still standing by the fence. His own face beginning to scrunch with the effort of sounding out a note this long. He was singing with you. The two of you were singing. His voice mixed with yours. Despite the roar of the crowd you could hear it. His voice ringing loud and true along side yours. It was the only thing you could hear. Just the two of you. In perfect harmony.

The emotion of music had the power to pull the two of you together. It was strange and magical.

You finished the song and knew your gig was up for tonight. You hoped before the night was truly through, you would get to speak to the leather clad man from the mosh pit

Let me know if you want a part two!

I also take requests if anyone is interested

[sp0o0kylights]

S4 Starts with the Demobats Attacking the School / Rejected Stobin Time Travel AU Bit

Eddie's hunched over the table, fingers held up in wicked claws. His hair hangs down as he tilts his head, voice pitched to the maniacal tone of the villain he's finally unleashed on his players. 

This is it. The big reveal, the prelude to the boss fight. His players have worked hard to get here, and they stare raptly, caught up in the rising horror of betrayal and terror that Eddie's been weaving around them.

This whole campaign took months to reach this point. His glee cannot be contained and so he channels it into his villain instead; cackling madly before throwing himself upwards, one hand covering his face but with his fingers splayed to showcase one wide eye. 

"Now you see your fatal flaw!" Eddie crows. "Pick up your weapons and--"

He slams one hand down on the table. 

"--fight --"

He slams his other hand down. 

"--for--"

A third bang, far louder than Eddie's own echoes through the room. 

Hellfire as a whole jumps --Dustin screaming and Jeff shouting--as Steve fucking Harrington bursts through the drama room's door. 

"Why the hell don't you have your walkies!?" He thunders as he flies in, face furious. 

Fury bolts through Eddie like lightning, so fast it leaves him temporarily light headed. 

"Steve!" Dustin yelps at the same time Mike pissily shouts his name. Both leap to their feet, as Harrington, chest heaving, slams the door behind himself. 

"We have a code red!" Harrington spits, eyes focused on the younger Hellfire members. He fumbles with the door for a moment, long enough for Eddie to realize he’s trying to lock it, before the ex-jock strides into the room. 

It's not until Steve gets closer that Eddie registers the bat with nails in it. There's a dark, tacky liquid leaking down the sides, little bits of something rancid clinging to some of the nails. 

A metallic scent that screams 'wrong wrong wrong!' and oh God. 

It's blood.

Real blood, not the fake stuff Eddie once bought for his Dracula costume. 

"The Party--" Dustin hisses, head flying comically between Steve and the rest of the table (but most noticeably, down at Eddie’s end, where the older Hellfire members reside.) 

"I suggest you read them in or whatever Nance calls it, Henderson, because they're involved now." Harrington says, deadly serious. 

Sinclair’s face scrunches up in confusion. "What do you--" 

Something screeches outside. The noise raises every hair on Eddie's neck, and temporarily stuns the room into silence.

An echoing scream answers, just as inhuman as the first. 

Harrington winces. "Give em the cliffnotes version man, there's a bunch of bats outside."

"Bat bats or--demobats?"

"What do you think, Mike?" 

"Fuck." Sinclair hisses under his breath. 

"Anyone besides me have any weapons?" Harrington asks and he sounds like he's not hopeful for a yes but is asking anyway.

"Yes Steve, we all brought guns to school. Mines in my locker!" Mike snips, and Harrington levels him with that annoyed look mothers everywhere somehow seem to know. 

"I've got my slingshot." Lucas chimes in, patting his backpack. "I uh, I don't go anywhere without it anymore." 

Harrington nods, once. His faze ticks up, sweeping across the room to the older members. 

"Alright. Anyone else?" 

"A knife." Jeff admits after a long pause, his own eyes trained on Harrington's nail bat.

Grant shakes his head, and Gareth, usually the loudest of them, is silent. 

A static crackle makes everyone jump, before a tinny voice comes through. "Steve, are you there? This is Nancy." 

"Hey Nance. We have an Upside Down situation at the school."

A pause then; "it's not just the school." 

"Shit." Dustin hisses. Then adds; "Scale of one to ten, how many bats would you say are outside?” 

“Too many.” Harrington answers, running his free hand through his hair. It’s a soothing motion, Eddie has watched Steve enough to know that, but this time something’s different. 

Less “shit I flunked my chemistry final” and more frantic, “we’re losing the baseball game and also Hargrove’s being weirdly aggressive again.”

Not that Eddie witnessed such events, just that he had….heard about them.

Sure.

He’ll go with that. 

xXx

Wheeler Jr yelps, sliding as a demobat swoops down and beats at him with its wings. Teeth snap close to his head, missing his ear by inches. 

He twirls, arms waving madly, until Harrington grabs him, keeping Mike's head down with one hand and jamming his nailbat toward the creature with the other. 

The two of them manage to make it into Eddie's van, half falling half jumping, Gareth and Grant slamming the door behind them as demobats dive at them. 

"Gun it!" Gareth calls and Eddie does so, the lurch sending Henderson and Jeff tumbling to the floor. 

Eddie watches in the mirror as Mike, the most antagonist of the freshman when it comes to Harrington, clings to the ex-jocks shirt for a moment. 

Steve's hand has left the back of his shirt, though now Eddie can see his grip has changed to more of a tender hold on the kid. Something familiar and comforting. 

"I got you." Steve says quietly and it's only because Eddie's got his attention split between him and the road that he catches it, and the way Mike presses his forehead against Steve's shoulder for a moment before finally sitting up. 

Which just confirms what Eddie already knew--for all his bluster and guff, Mike was one of Harrington's too. 

xxx

--This is where It turned into the  “failed time stobin time travel AU- but I like this part and you need the above for it to make sense so TWO IN ONE--

xxx

Speed running the beginning is starting to become the easiest part, if only because Steve finally knows exactly what to say. 

"They're not a part of the party." He mimics Dustin's voice before pointing a finger at him. "We have exactly sixteen minutes before the damn demobats attack you can fill them in in Eddie's van." 

The very same Eddie who looks positively aghast. "You actually believe this?"

"Oh absolutely." Dustin says, scooping his nerd crap into his backpack. "Trust me, Steve's not creative enough to come up with something like this on his own."

"Hey." Steve says in warning. 

"Also he only gets bitchy like this when something’s gone really wrong." Dustin ads with a look that might have been apologetic--if one squinted and looked at his face sideways. 

Lucas, Steve's new favorite, slides slowly next to him. "You sure you're okay?" He asks quietly and Steve pats him on the shoulder for being the only one to care. 

“Not at all.” He answers because fuck, he really, really, isn’t. “In the meantime, I need you all to listen very carefully.” 

Mike already has his mouth open, patented bitchy look on his face and nope, no, Steve is not letting him derail this conversation.

He let that happen by accident once and Steve’s learned his lesson since. 

Pointing at Mike, Steve starts firing instructions. “Do not, under any circumstance, try to fight the bats. They can and have lifted you right off your feet and I will not be jumping for you again.” 

Steve’s finger ticked right, to Lucas. “Luc, I know you have your slingshot and a handful of shit to fling in it. You need to sprint to Eddie’s van, then get set up to start shooting so the rest of us have cover. Got it?”

Lucas, Steve was pleased to see, had already dropped into ‘shit’s fucked’ mode. He nods, his own nerdy gear long packed away. He digs through his backpack now, looking no doubt for the slingshot. 

Steve was baking him a damn cake when all this was over. 

“Gareth.” He continues, pointing at the next guy down the line, watching as he jumps out of his skin (and then looks mad about it, as if it was Steve’s fault he’d flinched.) “You’re weirdly good at counting the bats, so I’m gonna ask you to keep doing that man. As well as keep an eye out for anything ground level, we got surprised by a demodog last time.” 

“Shit, really?” Mike groans, throwing his hands over his eyes in frustration. 

He was ignored. 

Steve skips over Eddie entirely, knowing all too well how much of a trap addressing him could be. “Grant, you’re best on the radio. Once we are securely in the van I need you to call for Nancy and give her an update on what’s happening. 

Grant at least, comes onboard immediately, nodding his head and standing. 

He got an absolute look of betrayal from Eddie and Gareth for it, but hey that was yet another thing to be addressed later. 

Here, Steve slings his own backpack down and off his shoulders, taking the first thing he has in it, out. “Jeff,” He calls, before holding up the box he’d pulled out. “This is a medkit. You know how to use it, so you get it.” 

Steve doesn’t toss the box to him this time, instead putting the kit on the table and sliding it over. 

Hesitantly, Jeff takes it, eyes darting between Steve and Eddie. 

“And Dustin--” Steve says with an air of finality, yanking the second item he’s been looking for out of his backpack, “take off that damn Weird Al abomination and put this jacket on. For some reason the bats keep locking onto it.” 

“They want my shirt?” Dustin asks, but does as told, seeming far too delighted at having been given Steve’s old swim team jacket. 

“Uh.” Eddie starts, rising to a hunch over the table, head partially tilted. 

Steve was pretty sure he did that because he thought it was intimidating (or at least, perhaps was a bad habit because he did it way more often then he didn’t, but that was a thought for Not In The Beginning of The Mess Steve.) 

“We have five minutes left before they attack.” Steve says, right over the second (and far more aggressive) “Uh.” 

“The van isn’t locked, which is just so safe considering all the drugs in it, Munson.” He can’t help himself, throws the pissiest, most disapproving look he has in his arsenal at a now gaping Eddie.

“No matter who gets to it first, one but Eddie or myself drive it, understand?” 

“Oh so now you’re fine with Eddie’s driving!?” Dustin doesn’t stomp his feet but Steve has known him for a while now. 

The foot stomping behavior wasn’t one he grew out of until just last year. 

“Considering what we’re about to face yes, absolutely I am.” Steve counters rapidly. “Eddie drives like a demon and that’s exactly what we need right now.” 

And oh. He’s going to have to say things like this more, because the shocked look that overtook Munson’s face is delightful.

“I’m taking the rear, because I have the bat.” He holds his weapon, watches as the older members of Hellfire finally seem to register what it is. “Everyone got the plan down?” 

“Harrington.” Eddie finally starts, voice positively frigid in fury, and Steve is prepared to mouth what is no doubt the line Eddie’s about to say (much like Dustin, he too rarely deviates lines in the beginning) “What kind of game do you--”

Right on cue, something inhuman screams outside. 

The bats are here. 

“Bicker later, Munson.” Steve says, locking eyes with Eddie. “Goal for now is to survive.” 

xXx

The run to Eddie’s van consistently remains to be one of the worst parts of the entire day (minus the other various parts where someone inevitably bites it, thus resetting the entire damn time loop.) 

The initial plan had gone smoothly. Lucas reaches the van first, then uses it as a shield while he provides cover with his slingshot. 

The little group of Jeff-Dustin-Grant and Eddie all manage to reach it at about the same time, with Steve able to pull the bats off them with a couple of well timed whacks of the nailbat. 

This is where everything goes to shit. 

Once again, Mike tries to take the spot of “first to die” by swinging his fist at a low flying bat. The tail of the thing immediately catches his wrist, using the momentum of the movement to swing its teeth towards the freshmen’s face. 

Steve reverses direction, and knows immediately he won’t be there in time to prevent an injury.

Curses hard, and winds up to swing, right as Gareth snarls out; “Hell no!”

He’s closer to Mike, and despite already having one bat swooping madly at his head, manages to grab the one attacking Wheeler right as Mike trips over his own feet and falls backwards. 

A stream of yells and ‘fuck you!’’s follow as Steve bends to yank Mike up, then carries on as wings beat frantically around Gareth’s head. 

The other bat dives, latching onto his hip right as Steve manages to grab the one Gareth’s holding. Takes it from him as Gareth screams, trying desperately to rip the demobat that’s gotten its teeth into him, off. 

Practice makes perfect, and perfect in this case, is slamming the fucking demobat onto the concrete hard enough to stun it before slamming it to bits with two hard strikes of the nailbat. 

Steve isn’t sure how long it takes him to do it, but between Gareth’s screaming and the shrieks of more incoming bats, he knows he doesn’t have much time. 

He’s not losing someone. Not here, right at the start. 

Not when he already knows how to play out this part. 

Gareth manages to rip the creature off himself, and Steve takes it from there, snatching it out of the younger man’s hands and repeating the fling-and-smash move he killed its brethren with. 

Does it fast enough that he’s back at Gareth’s side before the guy starts to collapse downward, tears streaming down his face.

“I’ve got you, you’re okay.” Steve tells him, pulling him close and forcing Gareth to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Put hard pressure on it man, hard, then we’re gonna run for it.”

“Can’t--fuck---” Gareth pants between hard breaths. Blood’s soaked soaking into his jeans, and a glance at it shows it’s a bad bite. 

“You can.” Steve tells him, already pulling them both forward. 

It doesn’t go well. 

Gareth almost goes down twice, leg buckling, and Steve grits his teeth. Knows neither of them are going to make it at this rate. 

“Gary!” Someone screams. He can’t quite tell if it’s Jeff or Eddie, but either way, Mike and Dustin have leapt out of the car, flinging rocks and whatever else they can find into the air. 

“Careful!” Steve yells as one nearly belts him, but at least it causes enough of a distraction that he manages to toss the bat ahead of himself, wincing at the sound it makes as it hits the ground. 

It’s close to Dustin though, who thankfully, takes his cue and snatches it up. 

“Stay!” 

It’s a command, and Steve says it like a command. The last thing he needs is for Henderson to go charging into a hoard of demobats, especially not after Steve’s witnessed Eddie dying to them on at least five separate time loops. 

If not here, then later. 

He can’t think about that now though, not when Gareth’s hissing in pain, fingers clutching onto his shirt like a lifeline. 

(He is, he realizes, Gareth’s lifeline. The younger man won’t make it unless Steve gets them to the van. 

The bats would take him as their sacrifice and if there is one thing Steve was sworn to stop, it’s people sacrificing themselves--or others.) 

“Take a breath.” Steve instructs, before bodily swinging Gareth in front of him.

Ignores the yelped cry he makes, and stoops down to get a good hold around his knees. 

Grunts as Gareth, having figured out what’s happening, circles his other hand around Steve’s neck as he lifts the smaller man up into a bridal carry. 

Ignores the choked sobs that escape Gareth as he does it. The fucking bat bites hurt and what they’re doing right now is no doubt jostling the shit out of the wound. 

He’d be crying too if it were him, not that anyone can pick him up like this. 

(Deliberately forgets to recall the two times he’s died precisely because of that. 

The knowledge that if he’s injured, the amount of people who can drag him to safety solo is numbering close to zero isn’t a helpful one right now.

Neither is any other thought beyond pure focus on getting Gareth into the van.) 

From there it’s a matter of running and not falling on his fucking face--or on the guy currently bleeding on him. 

They make it though, a fact Steve is very grateful for. 

Hands reach out, all of them pulling Gareth in while Steve hustles the rest, not slowing down until he slams the van door shut and yells for Eddie to gun it. 

“Jeff, medkit!” he says, but Jeff, bless him, is already on it. 

Grant’s speaking into the walkie he’d been given, Nancy’s tinny voice a soothing balm on Steve’s nerves as he, Dustin and Jeff get Gareth laid out in the van best they can. 

“Where am I going, Harrington?” Eddie calls from the front, having floored the van the second the doors had slammed shut. 

“He’ll be okay.” Steve soothed quietly, one hand going to squeeze Mike’s shoulder, the other looping around Lucas. 

If there’s one thing he swears he will be, through every loop, it’s supportive of the damn kids.

They deserve to know someone is in their corner, even if they don’t always believe him. 

[dailydemonspotlight]

Agrat bat Mahlat - Day 120

Race: Qadištu

Alignment: Neutral-Chaos

October 4th, 2024

Now, for something completely different. While some may consider the Qadištu to be a scary quartet, I personally consider them utterly fascinating, and easily my favorite of the bunch is absolutely deserving of being mentioned in this month of spooks. She's not only an unholy prostitute, but also a witch, a crow, and a character who gives me so much gender envy it drives me insane- Agrat bat Mahlat, a demon from Jewish myth who is said to be the daughter of none other than Lilith. The dancing roof demon is a surprisingly obscure creature, all things considered, but this doesn't mean there isn't a lot to dig into with her, so let's begin this dance of death.

Agrat, Lilith, Eisheth, and Naamah all actually have quite a bit of overlap- all four are angels of prostitution, as well as being mentioned each as the wives of Samael, but there do appear to be some differentiating factors between each of the Qadištu. Agrat bat Mahlat is first mentioned in Yalquṭ Ḥadash, a work of rabbinic literature that mostly appears in relation to Agrat, at least from my research. While I can't actually get the original copy of the work due to fact that I can't read the language, the demon is also listed, thankfully, in her original epithet within the Jewish Encyclopedia of Demonology.

To paraphrase the text, Agrat appears on the eves of Wednesdays and Sabbaths to bring myriad destruction alongside eighteen demons, named as 'messengers of destruction.' Her name literally means 'Daughter of Mahlat,' as bat is a word used to connect a daughter to her parent. According to the compendium and a treatise by rabbi Nathan Nata Spira, Mahlat was the name of Ishmael's daughter, who was exiled to the desert after being discovered as a witch. While in the desert, Mahlat ran into and mated with a demon named Igrathiel, who ended up fathering Agrat, beginning her exploits as, well, a demon.

Another thing Agrat bat Mahlat is known for is her appearance in Zoharistic Kabbalah, a collection of books going over several different aspects of Jewish thought and history, at least from what I can tell. Within the text, Agrat is listed alongside the rest of the Qadištu- Lilith, Eisheth, and Naamah- as being an 'angel of sacred prostitution' as well as one of the four mates of archangel Samael. Agrat herself is given the same amount of focus as the rest of the group save Eisheth (as it's somewhat ambiguous if she's even a member or not), and she's portrayed on the far more wicked side of the angels in Jewish myth, sometimes even being called one of the queens of demons. It's complicated, as is her role, as she's been pitted as being very morally grey.

In Zoharstic Kabbalah, Agrat and Lilith visit none other than King Solomon as prostitutes, and Agrat offers him the ability to commune with several spirits that, after the fact, would be sealed away into a lamp and tossed into a cave near the Dead Sea. After a while, the lamp was found by one King David, who used it to summon Agrat and ended up sleeping with her after likely either a bit of bargaining or some bewitching on either end. At the end of this one-night stand, Agrat then bore him a son in the form of a demon- none other than Asmodeus. Yep, she's Asmodeus's baby momma. I wonder how he'd react if he saw her in 3D? This later seems to have become a general theme with Agrat, as, according to the compendium, men could be seen trying to summon her to get her to sleep with them, but I doubt she delivered very often.

In terms of design in SMT, Agrat bat Mahlat is probably my favorite of the already strong collection of designs in the Qadištu- she fulfills such a good role in being both intimidating and beautiful, and I adore the calls with her witch's hat and crows wings connecting her to Mastema, who is a character who is a major player throughout her arc in the game. I'm not sure where her umbrella comes from, but it's a really fun detail that ties a lot of this already fantastic design together, and makes the second in command of the Qadištu an insanely memorable character.

No clue why she looks so stoned though. She might've eaten the forever weed brownie.

[grimbanes]

kaz brekker being a menace! six of crows edition;

kaz and matthias underrated moment: “were you always good at locks?” “no.” “how did you learn?” “the way you learn about anything. take it apart.” “and the magic tricks?” kaz snorted. “so you don’t think im a demon anymore?” “I know you’re a demon, but your tricks are human.”

Kaz’s grin was as sharp as a razor. “Thank goodness we’re proper thieves. We’re going to do a little shopping and it’s all going on Fjerda’s tab. Inej,” he said, “let’s start with something shiny.” - chapter 28.

“when we get our money, you can burn kruge to keep you warm,” kaz said. “i’m going to pay someone to burn my kruge for me.” kaz fell into step beside him. “why don’t you pay someone else to pay someone else to burn your kruge for you? that’s what the big players do.” - chapter 19.

“please tell me kaz hasn’t gone missing again,” nina said. - chapter 37.

kaz marvelled at his own stupidity. dumber than a pigeon fresh off the boat and looking to make a fortune on the east stave. - chapter 45.

“son of a bitch,” he exclaimed a second later. rollins held up his watch chain. a turnip was hanging from the fob where his diamond-studded timepiece should have been. “that little bastard-“ then a thought came to him. he reached for his wallet. it was gone. so was his tie pin, the kaelish coin pendant he wore for luck, and the gold buckles on his shoes. rollins wondered if if he should check the fillings in his teeth. - chapter 46.

They blew up the lab, he’d thought as the debris rained down around him. I definitely did not tell them to blow up the lab. - chapter 38.

The harbour had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world. She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and got drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him. - chapter 38.

“And get me clean clothes and fresh water.” “Since when am I your valet?” “Man with a knife, remember?” He said over his shoulder. “Man with a gun!” Jesper called after him. Kaz replied with a time-saving gesture that relied heavily on his middle finger. - chapter 13.

At any given time he had at least two knives stashed somewhere in his clothes. He didn’t even count this one, really - a tidy, wicked little blade. - chapter 13.

“This is disgusting.” kaz shrugged. “Only disgusting thing about it is that I didn’t think of it first.” “These men aren’t slaves, kaz. they’re prisoners.” “they’re murderers and rapists.” “and thieves and con artists. your people.” “nina, sweet, they aren’t forced to fight.” - chapter 6.

these are just some favourites from the first book that made me laugh very loudly.

[bracketsoffear]

Guys please please don't let Mr. Eaten lose. He literally has a mass following of life-destroying (on a very personal level) candle cultists. He is as much textbook Desolation as The Substitute is textbook Stranger.

Also, here's some relevant quotes:

"In the wicker of a candle-flame, in the stir of still water, in the soft tick of hours before dawn, there is a voice. Listen, and it will ask. Do as it asks, and you will regret it."

"Why? In God's name, why? What can you possibly hope to gain? Stop now. Before it's too late." --Flavor text for the Seeking Mr. Eaten's Name quality

"Game Instructions: "Seeking Mr Eaten's Name" is a story of misery, obsession and self-destruction. It doesn't play by the same rules as the rest of Fallen London. It is capricious, difficult and very unfair. And there will be no happy ending, unless you abandon the quest. Don't begin the story unless you are prepared to regret it."

"At a later point in SMEN, Seekers may send social actions to betray their friends. Accepting a betrayal will make a fellow Seeker very happy, and it is unlikely that you will need to wait very long to find someone willing to send one to you."--Fallen London Wiki, on how to begin SMEN by being betrayed

"It will place a charge and a burden on you.

Game Instructions: This will begin a storyline that you will later greatly regret. Don't do it.

Hunger, like the distant call of crows

This will burn in you until you find what I was: until you inscribe it on yourself."--"Accept a single crumb of bread," referring to a gift Mr. Eaten can personally give you on Sackmas

"Though you will forget it when you wake. Even the memory of the visit will be erased. Lacre cannot bury the law."--"Accept the name" from Mr. Eaten on Sackmas

"The well gapes This is the last time. The walls of the well are studded with chunks of glass-sharp obsidian. You knew it must be so. But if you bleed to death before you drown, it will be for nothing.

You leap into the mouth of the well. You're halfway down before an obsidian blade tears through your shoulder. Cold black water around you, […] Your body fights you. […] Six times you came back up. Not this time. Seven is the number."

"Tonight the beat of your heart has found a new rhythm. The number. It will be your blood and your breath."

"[Another player] has set St Destin's Candle in your window. Or so they claim. It’s not even real. It’s something imagined in an empty space. But it has hollowed you out like a rotted nut."

"Now we have the wax, which is the streak beneath our skin, and the wick, which is the faith we have skeined, and the tinder, which is the harm we have done to those who loved us, and the flint, which is the name, the Name, the treasure of music stilled. Now. It will hurt, we must render ourselves a little, there will be scars, but one more scar, what is that?"

"What is a secret? Only a truth untested. You've given up so much (and yet so much remains: shhh, we won't speak of it; there are never no secrets). Of the tested truths, a few fragments remain. A knife. A word. An hour. A cup. A candle. A promise. And now, a question."

"You are always and still a moth to folly's candle."

"Do not forget, do not forgive. Do not forget, do not forgive. Do not forget.

A rich red murmuring

When you lift your teeth from their wings, only then, only then."--"No Restitution For the Drowned Man"; "their wings" refers to the Masters of the Bazaar

"The due must be paid. Share a secret, expose the blameless, let their name be burnt.

It is written here, on the betraying papers: dead, the voice from the well, dead as stone, dead as time, dead as between. They want him forgotten. He will not be forgotten. The wax is his flesh. The flame is his eye. The due will be paid."--"Hate"

.

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Matt Damon's interview w/ GQ (13 December 2011)

Wicked Smaht

Is there friggin' anything Matt Damon can't do? As the action hero/leading man/activist/Oscar-winning screenwriter/sitcom revelation/Internet meme finally makes the transition to Serious Director, we're about to find out

By Zohar Lazar and Amy Wallace | Photography by Ben Watts

-

I'm ducking Matt Damon. We're supposed to meet at the Central Park Zoo ticket booth precisely at noon, but I'm not there. I'm thirty feet away, standing behind a huge oak tree, keeping watch.

Cameron Crowe, the director, has urged me to try to get a glimpse of the 41-year-old actor when he doesn't know I'm there. "Matt's fans relate to him as an older brother or a member of the family. And that's how he relates to them," Crowe says, recalling how during the shoot of their new movie, We Bought a Zoo, he liked to do reconnaissance on Damon as he signed autographs and interacted with his public.

The Boston native, who now calls New York home, can be reticent in interviews, reluctant to reveal too much or get too personal. I want to observe him in his natural habitat, and I imagine that my stealth will be rewarded with the kind of unguarded moment that can only be viewed in the wild. As minutes pass, however, and I don't spot him anywhere, a thought looms: This is Jason Bourne I'm hunting—the master of evasion. What if Matt Damon is ducking me?

Stepping into the open, I sort of wave my notebook like a journalistic homing beacon, and suddenly there he is, all smiles. "Hi, I'm Matt," he says, extending a hand. He's in jeans, a gray waffle-y long-sleeve T-shirt, and what look to be brand-new black Puma sneakers. He has a knit cap pulled down to his eyebrows, which makes it easy to notice that his hat and his eyes are exactly the same blue. He's taller than I thought he'd be and exactly a quarter inch taller than the man standing next to him: a gray-haired, bespectacled guy in pleated chinos and a baseball cap.

"This," Damon proclaims, "is my dad."

When Damon the younger pulls out a credit card to gain us entry to what we will all agree must be the smallest zoo on earth, Damon the elder (his name is Kent) observes wryly, "This is the first time the son buys the father a ticket to the zoo. When has that happened before?" Whereupon the son grins big and says, "There's, like, a disturbance in the Force!"

"Come on," Kent says. "Let's go see the polar bears."

As we set off, I'm immediately struck by the constant cross-generational ball-busting between father and son. For example, the story of when 12-year-old Matt announced his intent to play point guard for the Boston Celtics.

Kent: I said, "Matt, I have to tell you a little bit about the real world."

Matt: My favorite player was Tiny Archibald, and he goes, "You know they call him Tiny because he's six foot one." He told me that he was the tallest Damon to ever evolve at five foot ten.

Kent: Five ten and a half, by the way.

Matt: Used to be, man.

Kent: Not that we're sensitive about it.

I mention something Crowe has told me about Damon's performance in the new film, in which he plays a widowed father of two who buys a ramshackle zoo. Crowe singles out a scene in which Damon talks to an ailing Siberian tiger through a chain-link fence. In the script, the tiger was supposed to be supine, but the minute Damon delivered his first line, the cat got up, snarling, and came toward him with menace. "Most people would have said, 'This isn't funny—put a chain on that thing!' But Matt stays in," Crowe told me, explaining why that first, unexpected take is the one he used in the final film. "You see him flinch but stay in."

Hearing this, Kent gets a mischievous look: "So you were brave?"

Matt shakes his head and rolls his eyes. "Cameron was telling stories about how I was brave in the face of a caged tiger," he says. "He was working it."

"Bunch of b.s.," agrees Kent. Which is when I realize that we may still be talking about who's the bigger man. Standing in front of a 90,000-gallon tank containing Gus, the zoo's half-ton polar bear, Matt describes borrowing a bike from his elder brother, Kyle, and discovering (when he couldn't reach the pedals) that Kyle has much longer legs. "We realized if you took his lower body and my upper body, we'd be, like, six foot three," Matt tells his dad, who readily concedes that Matt is long of torso. "You have a neck," he tells his son. "I don't even have a neck." At which point, Matt nods and says simply, "It's true." If you measured the smirks on their faces, I swear they'd be precisely the same size.

···

When I tell the director Steven Soderbergh that I'm writing this piece about Damon, he responds with faux derision: "Why? He's not doing much." (Damon was in five movies released in 2011, and he's appeared in more than thirty-five films since his breakout role as an emaciated addict in 1996's Courage Under Fire.) Soderbergh has directed his friend in six of those—Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen; Che: Part Two; The Informant!; and Contagion—and most recently has cast him as Liberace's lover in an HBO biopic slated to shoot later this year. He calls Damon "probably the least vain person in his position"—meaning movie star—"out there. He has no interest in protecting any sort of idea of himself as an actor."

What he does have, however, is an interest in using his power as an actor to champion the underdog and right what he perceives to be wrong. He has thrown his full weight (and his money) behind a charity, Water.org, that seeks to provide sources of clean water to the Third World. Over the years, he has spoken up about public-school teachers (he supports them), the middle class (he thinks they're getting the shaft), and President Obama (he feels he's not delivering on his promise). At the White House Correspondents' dinner this year, Obama responded directly, saying, "Matt Damon said he was disappointed in my performance. Well, Matt, I just saw The Adjustment Bureau..."

Damon tells me he didn't see that speech live but got thirty e-mails from friends the next morning and watched the president's remarks online. "I have to say, it was pretty funny," he says, getting in his own dig: "Whoever came up with it, it was a terrific joke."

Recently the director Michael Moore called on Damon to run for president, which he says he will never, ever do. Which may be for the best, given how explicitly he pokes fun at his own image. In appearances on late-night TV and on shows like Entourage, he seems to relish being pompous, arrogant, goofy, even profane. Tina Fey says he approached her at an awards dinner and said he'd like to be considered for a cameo on 30 Rock. ("We don't let people slide," she says, "once they make a mistake like that.") Whether impersonating his pal Matthew McConaughey for David Letterman ("In today's scene, I think it would be a good opportunity for me to take my shirt off....") or pretending to be screwing Sarah Silverman on her then boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's show (On the bed, on the floor, on a towel, by the door, in the tub, in the car, up against the minibar!), he seems to have an intuitive feel for comedy.

"A lot of stars/serious actors try to put some weird 'comedy sauce' on their acting. Matt doesn't put anything on it. He says the lines honestly," says Silverman, whose Emmy-winning music video, "I'm Fucking Matt Damon," nearly melted the Internet after it aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2008. Whether it's comedy or drama, she adds, "he has that Meryl Streep thing where he always blows your mind, and you just want to watch him and watch him. He doesn't need a fancy accent or a fake tooth to play a 'regular person.' He just eats normal and gets a not-expensive haircut."

···

Scott Rudin, the ber-producer who worked with Damon on the Coen brothers' True Grit, says he's been a "crazy stalker fan" since he read Good Will Hunting fifteen years ago. And Rudin's regard for Damon has only grown, he says, as he's watched the actor carve his own path through Hollywood.

"He's done such great things with his stardom," Rudin says, recalling how Damon turned his nonleading role in True Grit—the buffoon with a romantic streak, LaBoeuf—into "the beating heart of the movie." There's something about Damon—a melding of his talent and his public persona—that gives him a "compact with the audience," Rudin says. "And he retains it, whether every movie works or doesn't."

With the Bourne franchise, which has earned more than $1 billion worldwide, he has proved his box-office clout. And then he turned his back on it, at least temporarily. What other A-lister would have walked away from the fourth Bourne film (and an estimated $20 million payday) because, he says, he and director Paul Greengrass felt that the tight timetable set by the studio would endanger its chances of being good? "That's a pretty striking move," Rudin says.

Damon says they had no choice. "If you look at the first three movies, we kind of pounded that idea of identity and amnesia into the ground. We really got everything out of it that we could. So to reboot it, we need to come up with something completely new," he says, explaining why the eleven-month turnaround that Universal Pictures wanted didn't feel doable.

Another Bourne film is in the works, however. Tony Gilroy, who wrote or co-wrote the first three films, has written and begun directing the fourth, The Bourne Legacy. The movie is said to exist in the same world as the previous three, but it introduces a new main character, played by Jeremy Renner. Damon says he learned about the project one day while surfing online. "It was a surprise," he says, though he doesn't sound particularly miffed. Not yet, at least.

Damon tells me he thinks Gilroy is a great director (Michael Clayton, Duplicity) and that he admires Renner. And because Damon fully intends to make another Bourne movie someday, he says he's "really pulling for this one, even though I don't have anything to do with it. Selfishly, it's bad for me if that movie doesn't do well." He says he still feels "inoculated" by the franchise—as if it protects him from having to do anything that could be bad for him. "It feels like I can swing freely, like a baseball player—just be relad and really do the things that I want to do and not worry, because I know there's another one out there."

Later, though, Damon will wonder if maybe he has become a little too relad. Because suddenly, as we sit on a bench in the afternoon sunshine, he takes a major swing at Gilroy. Damon says that back in 2001, when the first Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity, was still in postproduction, Gilroy saw a rough cut and got worried. "The word on Bourne was that it was supposed to be a turkey," Damon says. "It's very rare that a movie comes out a year late, has four rounds of reshoots, and it's good. So Tony Gilroy arbitrated against himself to not be the writer with sole credit."

Typically screenwriters use the Writers Guild's arbitration process when they feel they've been denied credit unfairly. This time, Gilroy wanted to share the credit (and the blame), Damon says, "to have another guy take the bullet with him." And so someone named William Blake Herron is now cashing residual checks on Bourne, just like Gilroy is. (Actually Damon may have gotten his chronology wrong—one source says Herron initiated the credit dispute, but that Gilroy didn't oppose sharing credit.)

Gilroy wrote Bourne 2 as well: The Bourne Supremacy. Then, Damon says, for The Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the franchise, Gilroy struck a deal to write just one draft of the script, take no notes, do no rewrites, and get paid "an exorbitant amount of money."

"It's really the studio's fault for putting themselves in that position," Damon says. "I don't blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It's just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It's terrible. It's really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left."

Gilroy's lackluster work left the production in chaos, Damon says. "We had a start date. Like, 'It's coming out August of next year.' We're like, 'Hang on, we've got to figure out what the script is.' " In the end, the shooting script was written under extreme deadline pressure by George Nolfi and Scott Z. Burns, with input from Greengrass, Damon says. And then Gilroy raised another challenge. "Before the movie came out, he arbitrated to get sole credit," Damon says, disgusted. The WGA looked into it and turned Gilroy down. (He shares credit with Nolfi and Burns.) "That was just a little bit of justice, I have to say," Damon says.

A representative for Gilroy referred all inquiries to Universal Pictures, where spokeswoman Kori Bernards reiterated the studio's support for both Damon and Gilroy. "We could not imagine replacing Matt as Jason Bourne, which is why we're so excited Tony's script creates a fantastic new character in The Bourne Legacy and also leaves open the option for Matt to return.... Tony has done everything we've asked of him on each of the Bourne films, and his work has been a huge asset to the franchise."

···

"Are you spying on me?" Damon says into his cell phone, which has just vibrated in his pocket. He's talking to his wife, Lucy, and he's also looking right at her. The petite, dark-eyed beauty is standing forty feet away, on the other side of a low fence.

"Do you want to see a polar bear?" he asks Lucy, his voice playful and delighted and warm as melted butter. (If he bottled that voice, lots of women would pay thousands of dollars an ounce and pour it all over themselves.) But Lucy isn't budging. Damon turns to his dad and me: "She says, 'I've already done the zoo.' "

They met in 2003 in Miami, where Damon was shooting the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You, in which he and Greg Kinnear played conjoined twins. The movie was a god-awful flop, but boy, was there an upside: Luciana Bozan, an Argentine-born bartender with a 6-year-old daughter named Alexia. Once they met, Damon—who'd been romantically linked to actresses like Minnie Driver and Winona Ryder— was done looking. They married in a civil ceremony in 2005 and promptly (very promptly: Lucy was pregnant when they wed) had three more girls of their own: Isabella, now 5, Gia, 3, and Stella, 1.

Meanwhile Damon and Ben Affleck, the man he calls his "hetero lifemate," remain as tight as ever. The two have a production company, Pearl Street Films, and Damon lets slip that they are developing a biopic about James "Whitey" Bulger, the onetime godfather of the Irish Mob in Boston, who was on the lam for sixteen years before being apprehended last June. Damon will play Bulger and Affleck will direct. But that won't be for a while yet. First Damon must finish Elysium, a sci-fi picture directed by Neill Blomkamp, who made the acclaimed District 9.

Then Damon will direct himself. Beginning sometime in early 2012, he is going into preproduction on an as-yet-untitled movie he's writing with John Krasinski, of The Office. They met and hit it off when Damon did The Adjustment Bureau with Krasinski's wife, Emily Blunt. Krasinski shared his script idea—about a salesman (Damon) who visits a small town and experiences something that changes his life—and the two started working together on the weekends while Damon was shooting We Bought a Zoo.

"I just found writing with him really easy—like writing with Ben," Damon says. We've stepped briefly into the penguin house, which smelled like you'd expect a place filled with the excrement of sixty-five large birds would. ("The penguins were great, by the way," Damon said as we fled. "Thank you for that.") Now we've detoured past the red panda toward an enclosure that houses three snow leopards. As we wander, I'm struck that Damon appears to approach this major career shift much like he seems to do everything else: without much apparent angst.

To be sure, he is thinking a lot about how to apply the lessons he's learned during the two decades he's closely observed almost every great director alive—in addition to the ones we've already mentioned, he's also worked with Eastwood, Redford, Scorsese, Gilliam, and Van Sant. DeNiro and Affleck have advised him, he says, on the challenges of directing and acting at the same time. Damon's not naive: He knows that if he sucks as a director, it will be a very public failure. "There are just too many decisions over the course of too long a time, and if you're not a truly great director, you just can't hide," he says.

So why do it? "When I first started getting work, I felt like acting was the most important thing," he says. "But the more you do it, the more you realize that in the end, the director has all the power."

"Clint says all the time, 'Let's not fuck this up too much by thinking about it,' " he says, referring to Eastwood, with whom he's done two films, one of which (Invictus) got Damon an Oscar nomination. "That's his approach, and some people love it and some people hate it, but he doesn't do too much hand-wringing about it. I'd love to do what Clint does."

Certainly, Damon hasn't been a hand-wringer when it comes to acting. Instead of simply "protecting the beachhead," as he puts it, sticking with action roles (and cashing the big paychecks), he has used the Bourne franchise to afford him the freedom to do lower-paying, noncommercial work that he finds worthy, often in supporting parts that don't get his name at the top of the call sheet. ("There are no small roles," he explains, winking at his dad. "Only small actors.") He played an energy analyst in Syriana, for example, Stephen Gaghan's 2005 drama about the forces driving the oil industry, and narrated the Oscar-winning 2010 documentary Inside Job, about the financial meltdown. For Soderbergh's The Informant!, in which he played a self-deluded whistle-blower who lies as much as he tells the truth, he gained thirty pounds, grew a doltish mustache, and wore a hairpiece. Oh, and he took a greatly reduced salary as well.

"I haven't made him a lot of money lately," Soderbergh says, noting that Damon's agent, Patrick Whitesell, "jokes, 'Whenever the phone rings from you guys, I know we're taking a haircut.' "

The Ocean's movies pay pretty well, Damon insists—"I think you get half your quote." (Which, if reports can be believed, would be about $5 million for Damon.) But even in those, which ooze glamour, he plays an oddball. And that, he says, is just the way he likes it. Given his castmates, he says, it's the only way to make a splash.

"Look," Damon says, "if you want to try and GQ it up with George and Brad, good luck! That's pretty rarefied air, and you're not going to bring more charm than those two, so you've got to find something else."

···

We're sitting near a throng of barking sea lions when I ask if he's read A Visit from the Goon Squad. He hasn't. "What is it?" he asks. "I've never heard of it." "It's Jennifer Egan's book," I say, pulling the slender novel from my bag. "It won the Pulitzer this year."

He laughs. "I'm like, 'I've never heard of it.' You're like, 'Well, it won the Pulitzer, dumb-ass.' " I explain that I brought the novel not to shame him, although that's kind of fun, but to show him a chapter that spoofs the very thing we're doing: a celebrity interview. In addition to being hilarious, the fake magazine profile in Egan's book—it's about a made-up actress named Kitty Jackson—drops a few real names, including Damon's. Kitty is said to belong "in the category of nice stars (Matt Damon) rather than of difficult stars (Ralph Fiennes). Stars in the nice category act as if they're just like you (i.e., me) so that you will like them and write flattering things about them, a strategy that is almost universally successful...."

I hand Damon the book. Keep it, I say. I don't tell him that in it, the journalist ends up trying to rape the celebrity-profile subject—in Central Park, no less. I don't reveal the book's suggestion that celebrity profilers are, metaphorically at least, having their way with their subjects. Because that would be kind of like saying that while interviewing Matt Damon, I'm also fucking Matt Damon. And as we all know, Sarah Silverman got there first. Here, Damon and Silverman on the making of "I'm Fucking Matt Damon."

Matt: Jimmy Kimmel and I had this kind of fake feud going.

Sarah: Every night at the end of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Jimmy would say, "Sorry, Matt Damon, we ran out of time"—a joke that started because in the early years of Jimmy's show, the lead guest would be, like, the man with the longest leg hair in the world.

Matt: So the producers called me up and said, "Would you ever consider coming on and we'll do a bit? We'll finally get you on, and then we'll run out of time, and then you and Jimmy'll do a whole fake fight." And I was like, "Oh, that's funny." So I came on, and I did this whole fake fight with him as they're rolling the credits. And then we did a thing for The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, a fake trailer in which Guillermo [the security guard who has become a regular on Kimmel's show] ends up in my movie, and I say, "Wait, now you're trying to bump me from my own movie?" Then the question was, How do we beat that?

Sarah: For Jimmy's fortieth birthday, the plan was to have a show where all the guests and bits were a surprise.

Matt: Sarah was going to come out and say, "Well, happy birthday, but there is this one thing that I should probably tell you."

Sarah: Two writers, Tony Barbieri and Sal Iacono, had the idea that it should be a song.

Matt: We shot it really quickly. I was in Miami, and I think we met at the Delano Hotel at seven in the morning, and we were done by ten. It was a tiny production: one camera, a couple of backup dancers. We recorded the song in the closet. They put sound blankets in there and a microphone, and I recorded my part. After it was over, I had to go to a parent-teacher conference for Alexia, and I was like, "What the fuck did I just do? Holy shit. I can't do this shit anymore. I have kids. This is crazy. They're going to see this."

Sarah: The video was actually shelved for many months because of the writers' strike. We dusted it off and aired it on Jimmy's five-year-anniversary show instead. I remember that night: Jimmy and I were brushing our teeth before the show, and he was like, "I'm so excited for your surprise—I hear it's great!" I didn't want him to psych himself up too much, so I was like, "It's a 'funny video,' you know?" Jimmy loved it, which was nice.

Matt: After the thing ran, I went to pick Alexia up at school, and one of the teachers came out and had seen it and said, "Oh, it was great, it was really good," and then I realized, "Okay, it's okay."

Sarah: The fact that it became this viral thing was very unexpected. It's funny—though our names will forever be linked, I really don't know him personally. I mean, if I see him somewhere, he gives me a warm hug and hello, but I don't have his phone number or anything.

Apparently, Damon doesn't just collect famous friends. Which makes sense, since his relationship with his own celebrity has been fraught. While he understands that profiles like this one play a part in marketing his films, he has at times been difficult when interviewers have tried to talk about anything more personal than global politics or film theory. The last time this magazine profiled him, in 2007, the writer resorted to describing the "excruciatingly long and loud—like, racehorse long-and-loud—piss" he took in a trailer lavatory, because "it was the most interesting thing he did over the course of...three hours."

Crowe has a theory about Damon's elusiveness. "Matt's a guy who skewers pretension. Hourly and by the minute, nothing is going to get pumped up into some lofty thing with Matt around," the director says. "It may not be as subversive as him trying to be tricky about not letting the interviewer get to him. It's more that he would skewer the guy that you mostly read in celebrity interviews. He laughs at that guy. He's very careful to not be that guy."

With me, he hasn't been that guy. He's been forthcoming—way more forthcoming, he already realizes, than he meant to be. Damon has very pointedly skewered someone—Gilroy—who he feels unfairly pumped himself up. And he regrets it. As this story is going to press, he'll call me to clarify: "If I didn't respect him and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn't have cared.... My feelings were hurt. That's all. And that's exactly why I shouldn't have said anything. This is between me and him. So saying anything publicly is fucking stupid and unprofessional and just kind of douchey of me."

But that will come later. Now, at the zoo, his phone buzzes—his wife again. It's time to pick up their daughters from school, so Damon, his dad, and I head for the exit. There we meet up with Lucy, and we all walk briskly east, toward a huge chauffeured black Yukon XL that waits to whisk them away. Before we can get to it, though, a paparazzo suddenly charges toward us, his camera raised. He's not exactly menacing, but he's persistent, trying to herd Damon and his family into a single frame. Most movie stars of Damon's stature would have said, "This isn't funny—put a chain on that thing!" But Damon smiles a tight smile. "Here," he says politely, "you can take a shot of me and my pop." Damon stays in. You see him flinch, but he stays in.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Idea

Play a party of Kenku scoundrels (rogues, artificers, tricky fighters) going on different criminal missions in D&D 5e. Also, play the same characters as Tengu in Pathfinder 1e, using some of those unique classes like alchemist or swashbuckler to capture the same ideals. Also, play the same characters in the game Corvid Court, where bird type and skillset are both important in stealing trinkets. Also, play the same characters in Blades In The Dark, humans who wear crow-like masks as part of their gang symbolism.

Rotate which game you're playing on a weekly basis. Your players are in a world that blends all these settings together - magic rituals and high-class heists, wicked spirits and dreams that push them into conflict with all sorts of factions. See if the rules affect the tone from one session to the next!

[goalhofer]

2023 Chicago Cubs Players By Nationality

American: 28 (Cody Bellinger, Brad Boxberger, Nick Burdi, Jeimer Candelario, Pete Crow-Armstrong, José Cuas, Michael Fulmer, Yan Gomes, Ian Happ, Kyle Hendricks, Codi Heuer, Nicholas Hoerner, Brandon Hughes, Mark Leiter; Jr., Luke Little, Nick Madrigal, Miles Mastrobuoni, Julian Merryweather, Ethan Roberts, Todd Smyly; Jr., Justin Steele, Marcus Stroman, James Swanson, Jameson Taillon, Mike Tauchman, Hayden Wesneski, Jordan Wicks & Patrick Wisdom) Venezuelan: 2 (Adbert Alzolay & Daniel Palencia) Dominican: 2 (Alexander Canario & Christopher Morel) Mexican: 1 (Javier Assad) Canadian: 1 (Jameson Taillon) Panamanian: 1 (Miguel Amaya) Brazilian: 1 (Yan Gomes) Japanese: 1 (Suzuki Seiya)

[nxthingtxwn]

//Blog playlist re-made in SCM Player

A Symphonic Metal Tribute to Steven Universe by The L-Train

Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows

Addict by Silva Hound

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage The Elephant

Bokura Wa Ima No Naka De by μ's

Bowsette by The Chalkeaters

Connect by ClariS

D City Rock by TeddyLoid

EASY LOVE by Sumire Uesaka

Enemy by Imagine Dragons

Friday Night (Coco Mix) by GGalactigal

Girl at the Video Game Store by Parry Gripp

Here's to Never Growing Up by Avril Lavigne

Hyrule Circuit from Mario Kart 8

I Really Want To Stay At Your House by Rosa Walton

Ink That by Johnny Atma

Kainé/Salvation from NieR Replicant

Let You Down by Dawid Podsiadlo

Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne

Never Fade Away by Olga Jankowska

No Mercy by The Living Tombstone

Nothingtown by The Offspring

Oath Sign by LiSA

Pokémon Theme (Metal Cover) by Jonathan Young & Jason Paige

POWER by Kanye West

Remains of the Day by Danny Elfman

Riot Rhythm by Sleigh Bells

The Rockafeller Skank by Fatboy Slim

The Rumbling by SiM

Shut 'Em Up by The Prodigy vs Public Enemy

Sirius by Eir Aoi

Song of the Ancients (Devola) by MONACA

Tales of Souls from SoulCalibur III

This Comes From Inside by The Living Tombstone

Vital by Mizukku

Warriors by Imagine Dragons

Weight of the World (English Version) by J'Nique Nicole

The Yandere's Puppet Show by Acid-Notation

Your Reality by Jillian Ashcraft

Zetsubou Billy by Maximum the Hormone

[enruint]

it's electrifying when gloved hand slots in between that of her companion,    foreign claws holding her tenderly,    within grip laid something carnally dangerous    ━━━    a curiosity best laid out in whispers behind velvet curtains.    delicate is the way free hand is placed upon bosom,    fingertips resting upon ornate jewelry while the simper    that blooms upon crimson blessed tiers    is one that's coated in playful ambiguity.    many are the masks the swan queen wears,    many are the layers    this serpent of eden    swaths herself in and golden is the apple she offers to any daring to gaze upon her.    kira,    her crow upon the windowsill,    had long opened delectable lips to take a bite from the gifted bleeding fruit    ━━━    a contract signed in blood.

time seems to slow down when    frosted blue meets the sharp lavender    that danced within the witch's eyes.    how the waves swept across visage,    followed the high hills of cheekbones,    down towards    the bow of tiers she wished to part    like one would do when picking petals apart.    a vision unlike the swans she kept under diamond studded wings:    kira,    a beauty sharp and detached,    like the moon upon the   water.    easy to admire but unable to be caught,    but here the prima donna was determined to pull that pearl out of the sky and adorn herself with it.    adorn herself with all that the witch was.    take her apart and    finally understand why thunder reigned within her own chest    whenever gazes would meet,    why poisonous smile grew ever only more wicked when pulled towards the witch. to unravel.    to simply know.

when voice reaches her ears it's as if she's ripped away from an illusion,    forced to return to the lights,    song and dance;    the dream she created herself.    yvette shapes herself into kira's side,    shamelessly,    playfully,    holding tightly upon arm as they descend down spiraling staircase.    from the     starless night where the witch reigned    they stepped out into the glow of dazzling light,    here were yvette held court.    the music that surrounds them    are the waves    upon which her swans move,    the steps her guests take and where she now guides her partner-in-crime in to.    ❝   ah,    you sure are a delight.    how you must have    all the girls    wrapped around your pretty fingers.   ❞   dulcet is her voice,    a melody it is,    where she was the snake and it's charmer simultaneously.    ❝   now, as for our players within this particular play    ━━━    ❞    voice is carried away by hidden laughter while head is lowered,    angling herself fully into the crow's space,    whispering in an ear as copper ringlets daringly mixed with a curtain of black.

❝    a rich pig who has some    interesting artifacts    hidden in his treasure.    foolish enough to boast about it.    look at him,    the one currently trying to get attention of my swans,    in the obnoxiously brown top hat. truly,    who allowed him to leave his house like that   ?  ❞     she's sharp tongue,    mockery.    ❝   that woman watching us right now is planning to hire your group,    you must take it.    she is of no interest to me but her mother is.    a debt must be paid and i wish it to be delivered by your hand,   darling.    ❞   yvette pulls herself away from the witch,    instead gloved hands reach for the other's,    holding it as if they were treasure itself.    without warning does    the prima donna    pull the single person she would ever want to perform for deeper into the dance floor,    claiming her spot upon the stage    ━━━     pouring her sunlight,    her spotlight upon kira.   ❝    remember,    you are my lead actor.    this play i've written would you not see to it's end   ?  ❞   hand finds a shoulder,    the other securely holding that of kira,    heels sliding across the floor as she pulled the witch into a sudden dance.   ❝   a finale worthy of my name.   ❞

amidst the lights and splendor, there is naught that could rival the intrigue that the prima donna before her elicited from the witch. yvette was akin to the celestial bodies by whom all others envy, to whom the stars look to amidst the blank canvas of the endless void, orchestrating the waves of song and the dancers who partake in it. yet akin to the moon, there is little known about yvette, other than praises coated in glamour, and speculation by other minds who are not nearly as curious as the witch herself. ❛     flattery only when deserved, of course, my lady.    ❜ the witch offered with a melodic hum, a glimpse of canines offered as she smiled. ❛     and as a host as gracious as you are, you deserve all and more.    ❜

she had come there with the expectance of a spectacle, for she would not have come here with anything but. there is a certain hunger in her eyes as she looked down ❛    all this for me? you shouldn't have. i'll do my best to put on quite the show for you, then. they'll be running like mice in a maze, though not many are lucky enough to have one as opulent as this one.    ❜ a hand, delicate despite the sharpened edge, takes the hand held out to her. the witch goes to stand beside her, placing yvette's hand on her arm as she began walking. ❛    i can think of no greater pleasure than being at your side. perhaps you could tell me a little more about the vermin you've collected?    ❜

[calling4glaives]

Here's a link to Part I. Let's continue with our look at Nyx's apartment.

What Nyx does have a lot of is books. He has this shelf and stack of books, and there’s another one by the front door. Two out of three shelves in this single-room apartment are filled with books. Are they mementos from Galahd? Is this just how Nyx prefers to spend his time? By the way, the first picture here is the opposite view of the very first image in part one, and shows the front door by which Nyx will leave to report to the Citadel. So you've seen most of the apartment at this point!

So if that's the front door, what is this door?

It has too high of a threshold to be a closet, and seems to have a lightswitch beside it. Might it be a very tiny bathroom, the kind where the whole thing doubles as a shower? It could also be a very tiny porch, but bathroom seems the most likely.

Next to the bathroom is this metal stand. There’s one in the back room of the arcade where Libertus meets the rebel bombers, as well, but that doesn't help us much. Our first thought was it’s an incense burner, perhaps, or maybe a very large candle stand. There’s no wick, but that looks like it might be melted wax, maybe from an oddly-shaped candle. For when the power goes out? Or religious purposes? In so sparse an apartment, surely it has some sort of significance. Do you have ideas for us? Drug paraphernalia?

Speaking of odd equipment, this set of items on the desk is interesting… My best guess is a shaving kit . I hope he’s not drinking from the shaving mug, though! Any other guesses? Why does he not do this in the bathroom? Where there is presumably a mirror? Long experience?

Okay, here’s the actual incense burner, and it’s very fancy. Any guesses as to whom this winged figure might be? There is smoke rising from it in several scenes, so we know it's not just decorative.

The other item in front of Nyx’s shrine/corkboard seems to be a simple votive candle, perhaps for lighting the incense, perhaps for the light. If hearths are so important that they’re used in the glaive battlecry, the fire could be a simulation of a central hearth in an apartment-safe way, though it’s not always burning like a hearth should be.

He does have an oven, it seems, which might also count as a hearth. He seems to keep the place impressively clean, for all that it’s run-down.

Over both windows are a set of iron bars. At first we wondered if the bars were part of a fire escape, but it looks like they are much closer than that, though it’s a bit hard to tell because the window is frosted. Might be a sign of the state of the neighborhood, or it might be to deter wandering glaives from warping in while drunk. It's a bit odd because Nyx's front door doesn't appear to even have a deadbolt.

Nyx has a very small, bare-bones TV, but he doesn’t actually appear to have a cell-phone and this is the most technologically advanced item in the apartment. It seems to have built-in speakers for peak efficiency, which might make sense with the janky wiring situation going on here. There doesn’t appear to be a game system or video player connected, not that we see anything that could be played on them, but the man does appear to have three chairs and three tables, so he seems to entertain guests despite that. Is this a different tech route indicative of Insomnia, or just a Nyx/Galahd thing?

Below the TV are two boxes. If we assume the rear door is a bathroom, that means there isn’t a closet, and we always see the same outfit on the clothesline. If Nyx has any other clothes (spare uniform parts, real socks, underwear) presumably they’re in one of these boxes. What might be in the other one? (Note that this picture is before Nyx gets Crowe’s effects, so that’s not one of the boxes).

Well, that was a lot of information! Let us know if we missed something (other than the corkboard) or any ideas you have! We’ll be back with a closer look at the neighborhood and Nyx’s board later this month.

Good luck with your creating!! Hope this helps!

[themorphinefae]

OM and demon mythology

Since I am a games lover and demon-based games are, of course, one of my favorites, I was curious to ask the OM players what are their thoughts about the masquerade ball event.

The cards we have for this particular event depict Asmodeus, Satan, and Mammon. We have two sides for each card and the other side shows the tree demons wearing masks inspired by Japanese mythology. This is not my field, so I am sorry if I am going to say something inaccurate.

The sad thing is the game does not explore these aspects, even if the game has supernatural nuances. I don't want to complain though, since this is a gotcha game that has other priorities. For that reason, I am going to share my ideas with you, hoping you can find this post if not interesting, at least entertaining. Let's begin then.

Asmodeus and the Kitsune mask: I like this association since Asmodeus is, despite being a demon, an entity that represents love, sexuality, kindness, and closeness to human beings. The kitsune is a spirit well known for shapeshifting and living in a very close relationship with humans. These foxes are also known for shapeshifting to beautiful women the majority of the time, which is another thing that can be associated with Asmodeus since he represents beauty and feminine energy.

Satan and the Oni mask: originally I mistook this mask for a tengu, but as one of you pointed out, Satan's mask symbolizes an Oni. An Oni can be a demon, but it is not necessarily evil. Usually, it is portrayed with a red, black, white, or even yellow body. Initially seen simply as souls of the dead, the Oni became, especially when referred to as kishin, a wicked soul with a hunger for human flesh. According to mythology, it can cause calamities such as plague, war, or earthquakes. It is believed to change his form to a handsome man to better allure its victims. As a demon, Satan can have lots in common with this entity. Surely his wrath is what combines him with this particular demon (thank you @o-n-i-c-h-a-n for your account).

Mammon and the crow/Karasu mask: we already know thanks to the game that Mammon has a strong relation to crows and ravens. He has a lot in common with these animals. He is not only attracted to precious things such as coins, jewelry, and similar, but he is also a trickster-like creature and very smart. Yes, he is. Since he represents the trickster archetype such as Loki and Hermes, who are not by chance protectors of thieves, he is very smart indeed. As for the mask he's wearing in the card, we can assume that represents Karasu or Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow. This creature is already present in the game as a helper for the mc and a symbol appearing as an emote in chats. This creature is often a guide for those who see it and that is particularly true for Mammon since he is not only a guide for the mc but also a protector in general.

As I said I am not an expert on Japanese folklore, for that reason feel free to correct me or add something to this post. Maybe you have noticed some details I didn't see in those cards. I am eager to know your opinion on that! If you are curious to see the other cards, you can find all the cards on this useful website:

you can find all the cards you are interested in just by searching for the character, rarity, or attribute.

Sources for the post: Picken, Stuart D. B; Historical dictionary of Shinto.

[freakshowrefugee]

Note: I have decided to ignore the many faults of Bayonetta 3 (story, pacing, etc.) and attempt to enjoy what I can of the game, because life is too short and shitty to focus on the things I hate. These are some notes about the gameplay, as I challenge myself to finish the game using only Color My World (this is a personal challenge for my second play-through). Maybe someone will find this useful? Or at least entertaining? But this is mostly a me thing lmao

Color My World

The first thing I noticed is that these new guns lack the oomph of Scarborough Fair. I noticed this with Love Is Blue in Bayo 2 as well, the hits felt much less weighty, and 3 continues this trend. Imo 3 is better than 2 due to the fact that the enemies aren't constantly blocking every attack that isn't in Witch Time or a Wicked Weave/summon.

For some reason CMW can no longer shoot indefinitely if you keep the Kick/Punch buttons pressed. They will shoot some bullets then stop, and it never stopped feeling... awkward. Like it wasn't by design.

Use of Demon Slave is OBLIGATORY when maining CMW, both for the stagger and because defeating most enemies would take you an eternity otherwise.

Launching the smaller enemies up and wailing on them in the air is still a VERY viable strategy, and feels quite good. CMW seems to automatically follow launched enemies as long as you are actively attacking.

Madama Butterfly

A great summons—good speed, good mobility, good stagger-rate. Her special attack (the kiss) is actually great. It's op but it also has a VERY long wind-up, which prevents you from spamming it indefinitely. She is a great all-rounder.

When she gets enraged this queen is absolutely lethal. Extremely aggressive and will outright ignore enemies and target you specifically. I haven't enraged TOO many summons but she is definitely in my top 3 when it comes to rampages.

Butterfly Masquarade

I think controls should be tighter. As it is, the movement is a bit... floaty (haha kill me), and with the platforming sections and Umbran Tears the shortcomings of the control scheme becomes very obvious.

The movement speed could be faster. It is noticeably slower than Panter Within and Crow Within, which, again, gets frustrating when you're chasing around Cats and Crows and trying to race against time with the Rememberance of Time clones (why did they fucking bring back this gimmick man???). I think that this Masquarade specifically could benefit from a triple jump or something like that. I know that I could use other Masquarades. I often do, in fact, but imo intentionally kneecapping a method of gameplay in order to FORCE the players into using other things is cheap as fuck. Again, really personal thing that will probably not resonate with everyone, but it be like that when you're tired and brainstorming lmao.