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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year ago

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Tableskills: Creating Dread

I've often had a lot of problems telling scary stories at my table, whether it be in d&d or other horror focused games. I personally don't get scared easily, especially around "traditionally horrifying" things so it's hard for me to recreate that experience in others. Likewise, you can't just port horror movie iconography into tabletop and expect it to evoke genuine fear: I've already spoken of being bored out of my mind during the zombie apocalypse, and my few trips into ravenloft have all been filled with similar levels of limp and derivative grimdark.

It took me a long time (and a lot of video essays about films I'd never watched) to realize that in terms of an experience fear is a lot like a joke, in that it requires multiple steps of setup and payoff. Dread is that setup, it's the rising tension in a scene that makes the revelation worth it, the slow and literal rising of a rollercoaster before the drop. It's way easier to inspire dread in your party than it is to scare them apropos of nothing, which has the added flexibility of letting you choose just the right time to deliver the frights.

TLDR: You start with one of the basic human fears (guide to that below) to emotionally prime your players and introduce it to your party in a initially non-threataning manor. Then you introduce a more severe version of it in a way that has stakes but is not overwhelmingly scary just yet. You wait until they're neck deep in this second scenario before throwing in some kind of twist that forces them to confront their discomfort head on.

More advice (and spoilers for The Magnus Archives) below the cut.

Before we go any farther it's vitally important that you learn your party's limits and triggers before a game begins. A lot of ttrpg content can be downright horrifying without even trying to be, so it's critical you know how everyone in your party is going to react to something before you go into it. Whether or not you're running an actual horror game or just wanting to add some tension to an otherwise heroic romp, you and your group need to be on the same page about this, and discuss safety systems from session 0 onwards.

The Fundamental Fears: It may seem a bit basic but one of the greatest tools to help me understand different aspects of horror was the taxonomy invented by Jonathan Sims of The Magnus Archives podcast. He breaks down fear into different thematic and emotional through lines, each given a snappy name and iconography that's so memorable that I often joke it's the queer-horror version of pokemon types or hogwarts houses. If we start with a basic understanding of WHY people find things scary we learn just what dials we need turn in order to build dread in our players.

Implementation: Each of these examples is like a colour we can paint a scene or encounter with, flavouring it just so to tickle a particular, primal part of our party's brains. You don't have to do much, just something along the lines of "the upcoming cave tunnel is getting a little too close for comfort" or "the all-too thin walkway creaks under your weight ", or "what you don't see is the movement at the edge of the room". Once the seed is planted your party's' minds will do most of the work: humans are social, pattern seeking creatures, and the hint of danger to one member of the group will lay the groundwork of fear in all the rest.

The trick here is not to over commit, which is the mistake most ttrpgs make with horror: actually showing the monster, putting the party into a dangerous situation, that’s the finisher, the punchline of the joke. It’s also a release valve on all the pressure you’ve been hard at work building.

There’s nothing all that scary about fighting a level-appropriate number of skeletons, but forcing your party to creep through a series of dark, cobweb infested catacombs with the THREAT of being attacked by undead? That’s going to have them climbing the walls.

Let narration and bad dice rolls be your main tools here, driving home the discomfort, the risk, the looming threat.

Surprise: Now that you’ve got your party marinating in dread, what you want to do to really scare them is to throw a curve ball. Go back to that list and find another fear which either compliments or contrasts the original one you set up, and have it lurking juuuust out of reach ready to pop up at a moment of perfect tension like a jack in the box. The party is climbing down a slick interior of an underdark cavern, bottom nowhere in sight? They expect to to fall, but what they couldn't possibly expect is for a giant arm to reach out of the darkness and pull one of them down. Have the party figured out that there's a shapeshifter that's infiltrated the rebel meeting and is killing their allies? They suspect suspicion and lies but what they don't expect is for the rebel base to suddenly be on FIRE forcing them to run.

My expert advice is to lightly tease this second threat LONG before you introduce the initial scare. Your players will think you're a genius for doing what amounts to a little extra work, and curse themselves for not paying more attention.

Restraint: Less is more when it comes to scares, as if you do this trick too often your players are going to be inured to it. Try to do it maybe once an adventure, or dungeon level. Scares hit so much harder when the party isn't expecting them. If you're specifically playing in a "horror" game, it's a good idea to introduce a few false scares, or make multiple encounters part of the same bait and switch scare tactic: If we're going into the filthy gross sewer with mould and rot and rats and the like, you'll get more punch if the final challenge isn't corruption based, but is instead some new threat that we could have never prepared for.

Art

#tableskills #horror #spooky #halloween #the magnus archives #dm tip #dm advice #dm tips

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aimmyarrowshigh · 4 months ago

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Preparing for AUgust

I'm still determined to salvage 2024 in terms of getting writing done, so I'm prepping for AUgust already. It occurred to me that someone else might be interested in a list of 100 AUs, so here you go!

Accidental Marriage AU

Alien AU

Android AU

Angel/Demon AU

Apocalypse AU

Archaeology AU

Artist AU

Assassin AU

Bakery AU

Ballet AU

Band AU

BDSM AU

Book Store AU

Bounty Hunter AU

Camp Counselor AU

Castaway AU

Chef AU

Child AU

Circus AU

Coffee Shop AU

College AU

Conductor AU

Choreographer AU

Coworker AU

Criminal AU

Cult AU

Dancer AU

Death AU

Demigod AU

Detective AU

Dimension Hopping AU

Deejay AU

Doctor AU

Domestic AU

Fake Dating AU

Fashion Designer AU

Firefighter AU

Florist/Tattooist AU

Gardening AU

Ghost AU

Haunted House AU

High School AU

High School Reunion AU

Historical AU

Horror AU

Hunger Games AU

Immortal AU

Jury Duty AU

Lawyer AU

Library AU

Magic AU

Mechanic AU

Medieval AU

Mermaid AU

Model AU

Modern AU

Murder Mystery AU

Musical AU

Musician AU

Neighbor AU

Office AU

Omegaverse AU

Paranormal Investigator AU

Parent AU

Photographer AU

Pirate AU

Podcaster AU

Porn Star AU

Restaurant AU

Road Trip AU

Role Reversal AU

Roommate AU

Scientist AU

Soulmate AU

Spy AU

Star Wars AU

Student AU

Teacher AU

Theater AU

Thief AU

Time Travel AU

TVA AU

Undead AU

Vacation AU

Vampire AU

Veterinarian AU

Victorian AU

Waiter AU

Wedding Planner AU

Werewolf AU

Western AU

Wings AU

Witch AU

Wizard AU

‘90s AU

‘80s AU

‘70s AU

‘60s AU

‘50s AU

‘40s AU

#fandom #fanfiction #AUgust #alternate universe

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horizon-verizon · 1 year ago

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Image Credit: PlayStation

The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of 'The Last of Us Part II'

A past Israeli wrote this 2020 article and got into how The Last of Us: Part II to "both sides" its story into a fatalist, status-quo-preserving ideology that nevertheless supports Israeli/Zionist actions in the Mid East by revealing the Israeli military infrastructure AND its stereotypes/racist mindset towards Palestinians. It also mentions the twisting of Judaism, the Holocaust, and how Israelis view themselves.

The article (all of this is the entire thing, not mine!):

The real horror in zombie fiction is usually not the legions of undead, but the frailties and cruelties that they expose in the living. The differences between stories in the genre come from the specific fears and frustrations that they render into their metaphors. The Last of Us Part II fits perfectly within these genre conventions, but what's different here is its sources of inspiration.

The Last of Us Part II focuses on what has been broadly defined by some of its creators as a "cycle of violence." While some zombie fiction shows human depravity in response to fear or scarcity in the immediate aftermath of an outbreak, The Last of Us Part II takes place in a more stabilized post apocalypse, decades after societal collapse, where individuals and communities choose to hurt each other as opposed to taking heinous actions out of desperation.

More specifically, the cycle of violence in The Last of Us Part II appears to be largely modeled after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I suspect that some players, if they consciously clock the parallels at all, will think The Last of Us Part II is taking a balanced and fair perspective on that conflict, humanizing and exposing flaws in both sides of its in-game analogues. But as someone who grew up in Israel, I recognized a familiar, firmly Israeli way of seeing and explaining the conflict which tries to appear evenhanded and even enlightened, but in practice marginalizes Palestinian experience in a manner that perpetuates a horrific status quo.

The game's co-director and co-writer Neil Druckmann, an Israeli who was born and raised in the West Bank before his family moved to the U.S., told the Washington Post that the game's themes of revenge can be traced back to the 2000 killing of two Israeli soldiers by a mob in Ramallah. Some of the gruesome details of the incident were captured on video, which Druckmann viewed. In his interview, he recounted the anger and desire for vengeance he felt when he saw the video—and how he later reconsidered and regretted those impulses, saying they made him feel “gross and guilty.” But it gave him the kernel of a story.

“I landed on this emotional idea of, can we, over the course of the game, make you feel this intense hate that is universal in the same way that unconditional love is universal?” Druckmann told the Post. “This hate that people feel has the same kind of universality. You hate someone so much that you want them to suffer in the way they’ve made someone you love suffer.”

Druckmann drew parallels between The Last of Us and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict again on the official The Last of Us podcast. When discussing the first time Joel kills another man to protect his daughter and the extraordinary measures people will take to protect the ones they love, Druckmann said he follows "a lot of Israeli politics," and compared the incident to Israel's release of hundreds of Palestinians prisoners in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011. He said that his father thought that the exchange was overall bad for Israel, but that his father would release every prisoner in every prison to free his own son.

"That's what this story is about, do the ends justify the means, and it's so much about perspective. If it was to save a strange kid maybe Joel would have made a very different decision, but when it was his tribe, his daughter, there was no question about what he was going to do," Druckmann said.

Naughty Dog and PlayStation have presented Druckmann as The Last of Us Part II's creative lead and public face. Game development is a highly collaborative practice that demands the backbreaking labor of literally hundreds of programmers, testers, writers, and artists, all of whom make creative contributions and without whom a game of this size and scope would not exist. So while it's impossible to pin a big budget video game's themes and inspirations to one person, parallels between The Last of Us Part II and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict manifest in the final product, not just in what Druckmann has said in interviews.

Besides the familiar zombie fiction aesthetics of an overgrown and decomposing metropolis, The Last of Us Part II's main setting of Seattle is visually and functionally defined by a series of checkpoints, security walls, and barriers. There are many ways to build and depict structures that separate and keep people out. Just Google "U.S.-Mexico border wall" to see the variety of structures on the southern border of the United States alone. The Last of Us Part II's Seattle doesn't look like any of these. Instead, it looks almost exactly like the tall, precast concrete barriers and watch towers Israel started building through the West Bank in 2000.

The history and power dynamics of The Last of Us Part II's Seattle map to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well, if viewed from an Israeli perspective.

The main faction in Seattle is the Washington Liberation Front (WLF), known as the Wolves. The broad strokes are that after the outbreak, FEDRA, an emergency militaristic government agency, took over the city. With food shortages, constant fear of infection, and FEDRA's increasingly brutal measures of keeping order, an insurgency rose: the Wolves. They were outmatched, but prevailed with a series of hit-and-run attacks, assassinations of FEDRA officers, and other guerilla tactics. Eventually, FEDRA abandoned the city and ceded control to the Wolves, who in turn implemented an equally harsh (or harsher) regime.

In one in-game note, a FEDRA commander in Seattle writes to Central Command to explain that he has lost the city to the Wolves, which he describes as terrorists. Here, there are parallels to early Zionist organisations that fought British rule in the region. These organizations were also described as terrorists, and leaders of those organizations later became leaders in Israel, much like how Isaac, the leader of the Wolves, came to control Seattle. Other in-game notes, scenes of urban ambushes, and the bodies of executed FEDRA officers laboriously walk the player through the cliche "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

Once Isaac and the Wolves seized control of Seattle by violent means, however, the same means were used against them by another group—one that uncomfortably matches Israeli caricatures of Palestinians.

Most of the Wolves regime's restrictions are directed at a post-apocalyptic religious sect called the Seraphites (the Wolves call them "Scars" after the ritualistic scarring of their faces). These Scars vexed FEDRA as well when it was in control. The dynamic in the city when the game begins is one of conflict, escalation, and a broken truce. The Wolves, like FEDRA, leverage more resources and raw power, while the Scars rely on surprise strikes against Wolf patrols, and a zealous willingness to die for the cause.

To run through just a few key ways in which the Scars uncomfortably reflect some Israeli stereotypes about Palestinians:

The same note from the Seattle FEDRA commander that bitterly says the Wolves are in charge explains that it's now their responsibility to not only feed and shelter the people of Seattle, but deal with the "religious fanatics," referring to the Scars.

Later in the game, Ellie finds a location called "Martyr Gate," where the Scars' spiritual leader apparently died, indicating a religious significance of a specific and disputed location, and emphasizing the notion of martyrdom as central to their culture.

The Scars are able to get around Wolf patrols and various barriers around the city via an elaborate, secret system of bridges between skyscrapers. These function as a kind of flipped version of the underground tunnels Palestinians use to bypass Israeli blockades and other means of limiting free movement in order to get supplies and carry out attacks on Israel.

The Last of Us Part II goes to great pains to impress that it sees no innocent players in this conflict. It's not just that Isaac and the Wolves seized control of the city by vicious (but necessary) means—the society they've built, prosperous and protected by the walls of Seattle's CenturyLink Field, is buttressed by fascism and cruelty to an outgroup. The Wolves' bountiful crops exist to feed an army that ventures far beyond its territory to punish the Scars. Its kennels of adorable dogs are just disposable weapons. Isaac leads from a forward operating base that sits atop torture chambers. After a truce fails, the only way he can imagine peace is through the total annihilation of his enemies.

It is not a peaceful or just society, or even a sustainable one in the long run, despite its perseverance and resourcefulness. It is one that is doomed to collapse because of an inability, or unwillingness, to resolve a perfectly resolvable conflict.

This conflict comes to a head when Isaac decides to push deep into the Scars' land to finish them once and for all. We don't get to see how the battle ends or who comes out on top, but we see Isaac die in the fighting, and get the sense that the battle is so brutal and bloody, whatever survives is not worth keeping.

Rather than step back, cooperate, and seek truth and reconciliation, the Wolves and Scars keep seeking revenge for past grievances in a cycle of violence that eventually ends them both in literal fires sparked by hate. The game's message seems to be: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," another cliche that The Last of Us Part II indulges in by taking away Tommy's eye at the end of the game for seeking revenge for his brother Joel.

A "cycle of violence" is a tempting way to interpret this conflict, or any conflict, because it signals careful nuance while quietly squashing more difficult conversations. By suggesting that since both Wolves and Scars are equally implicated and equally in pain, we are free to stop thinking about the problem. All parties include both good and bad actors. We're all human. Both sides.

This common, centrist position on violent conflict, while better than absolute dehumanization, is not coincidentally a world view that allows conflicts to drag on forever. Suggesting moral equivalence and a symmetry in ability between sides also invites us to throw up our hands and give up on better solutions because of implied and unexamined perceptions about "human nature." Indeed, the game is unrelentingly cynical, and this cynicism animates most of the 30-odd hour experience. Whereas Abby and Ellie find interpersonal resolution at the end, the game seems content to leave the question of community-scale cycles of violence as a regrettable fact of human existence. Even if the Wolves and Scars meet their mutual end, the game leaves us with the knowledge that a resistance group from the first game, the Fireflies, and other groups, are regrouping and gaining strength. The cycle continues.

Despite the lengths it goes to, The Last of Us Part II can't help but reveal that its perspective is firmly rooted in one side and not the other.

Seattle is so clearly inspired by Israel and Palestine without naming either, but it does notably spend time presenting Jewish identity. One of the first things Ellie and Dina do when they arrive in Seattle is explore a former synagogue. It's a short scene, maybe 20 minutes out of a 30-plus hour game, and it serves as a kind of a Jewish experience amusement park ride, bombarding the player with references and history as Dina and Ellie walk around a bimah, find a Torah, and so on. Almost the entirety of this section is spent explaining Jewish identity as that of survivors in the face of other groups that want to destroy them. In the span of those 20 minutes, there are three separate references to the Holocaust.

Survival in the face of persecution is a pillar of Jewish identity for good reason, and has been since before the Holocaust. It's also one that is relevant to the characters in the game, all of whom are survivors of a zombie apocalypse. But this is only one aspect of Jewish identity. The Last of Us Part II doesn't spend any time exploring, for example, Talmudic traditions which define so much of Jewish notions of justice and scholarship. Instead, in a non-optional section of the game, it spends a significant amount of time telling the player that Jews are always persecuted and fighting for survival. This is not wrong, but it is serving a specific purpose in the ham-fisted allegory about Israel and Palestine that is The Last of Us Part II, much like the Holocaust is cynically leveraged by some to justify Israel's actions.

This sermon is notably delivered by Dina, who is Jewish and serves as the game's moral compass. Dina is pregnant, dreams of a life of peace, and tries to turn Ellie back from her murderous quest. When Ellie chooses to pursue it anyway, the heaviest price she pays is that Dina leaves her.

The more moral characters in The Last of Us Part II all want to escape cycles of violence rather than reckon with them. Lev and Yara want to escape their cult. Owen and Mel want to get on a boat and sail away from Seattle. Dina wants to walk away from the mess and live on a farm secluded from the rest of society. Even our main characters, Ellie and Abby, after far too much suffering, essentially end their emotional journey when they decide to walk away from revenge.

It's certainly true that individual lives get wrapped up in larger conflicts in horrible ways. Cycles of violence exist in practice as escalations and retributions. A defining feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the macabre bargaining over which violence is worse. Images of exploded public buses are presented next to collapsed buildings and children being pulled from the rubble. Armed factions swear to deliver retaliation over specific incidents, and do.

But "cycles of violence" are a poor way to understand a conflict in a meaningful way, especially if one is interested in finding a solution. The United States, for example, hasn't been at war in Afghanistan for almost 20 years because it's trapped in a "cycle of violence" with the Taliban. It is deliberately choosing to engage with a problem in a way that perpetuates a conflict. Just as the fantasy of escaping violence by simply walking away from it is one that only those with the means to do so can entertain, the myth of the "cycle of violence" is one that benefits the side that can survive the status quo.

In The Last of Us Part II's Seattle, Scars and Wolves hurt each other terribly, and the same can be said about Israel and Palestine. The difference is that when flashes of violence abate and the smoke clears, one side continues to live freely and prosper, while the other goes back to a life of occupation and humiliation. One side continues to expand while the other continues to lose the land it needs to live. Imagining this process as some kind of symmetric cycle benefits one side more than the other, and allows it to continue.

As a result, The Last of Us Part II never quite justifies its fatalism. As Rob Zacny wrote in his review and again in his closer examination of The Last of Us Part II's ending, at the end of the day Ellie's journey of revenge seems especially cruel, even idiotic, because we are never given a good reason for why she keeps recommitting to it. Acts of cruelty along the way, like Ellie's torturing another character to get information, are presented as inevitable. This seems to be The Last of Us Part II's thesis: humans experience a kind of "intense hate that is universal," as Druckmann told The Post, which keep us trapped in these cycles.

But is intense hate really a universal feeling? It's certainly not one that I share. I, too, have seen the video of the 2000 mob killing of the Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, and it's horrific. Yet, my immediate response wasn't "Oh, man, if I could just push a button and kill all these people that committed this horrible act, I would make them feel the same pain that they inflicted on these people," as Druckmann said.

This is not a universal feeling as much as it's a learned way of seeing the world. There are many other ways to react to that video: compassion for the victims, compassion for the killers, questioning why these soldiers had to drive into the West Bank in the first place, questioning what would drive a mob to this kind of violence. Revenge and hate is just one option.

The Last of Us Part II is an incredible journey that provides not only one of the most mesmerizing spectacles that we've seen from big budget video games, but one that manages to ask difficult questions along the way. It's clearly coming from an emotionally authentic and self-examining place. The trouble with it, and the reason that Ellie's journey ultimately feels nonsensical, is that it begins from a place that accepts "intense hate that is universal" as a fact of life, rather than examining where and why this behavior is learned.

Critically, by not asking these questions, and by masking its point of view as being evenhanded, it perpetuates the very cycles of violence it's supposedly so troubled by.

#not asoiaf #israel and palestine 2023 #israel #zionism #fiction vs reality #fiction writing #tlou #tlou part 2 #tlou part ii #articles #article

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ribbibbledibbles · 7 months ago

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I am a massive fan of zombie media. Have been for years now. I binge watch zombie shows/movies all the time, having exhausted Netflix' UK cataloge. I listen to any zombie-flavoured podcast that comes along, read any undead based books I can get my hands on, hell I even did the whole Zombies! RUN! thing for a little while. All of this to say, it's a big part of my life.

And I think I've figured out the root of it.

I'm the youngest in my household, meaning my mother was rather lax with rules, and I has unrestricted access to the internet. Which included such delights as BBC iPlayer, the driving force behind my, now crippling, zombie media addiction.

I was scrolling through iPlayer one day, hoping to find something to watch. I was a big fan of game shows, regularly watching the Challenge channel on TV, so I was perusing the game shows on hand.

Then it showed itself.

I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse.

A definitely rigged (in hindsight, not to my 12 year old mind) game show in which contestants had to survive several days and challenges in a zombie infested shopping center. Think Zombieverse but British and about a decade earlier. It was due to be taken off iPlayer soon, so I watched it over and over again. It wasn't overly gorey, but gorey enough that I knew my mother wouldn't let me watch it if she knew, so I have kept it a secret for the last 9 years.

I wanted more, though. Game shows wouldn't cut it anymore, I needed zombies to scratch that little itch in my brain. Not long after ISAZA was taken off iPlayer, I began my search. That's when I found the masterpiece that would kick my zombie obsession into overdrive.

Dead Set.

A limited zombie series aired on E4 in 2008, made specially to run after episodes of Big Brother in the run up to Halloween. In the work of fiction, the zombie apocalypse breaks out during an eviction night on big brother. The housemates face tricky dilemmas and life or death situations.

If you have not watched Dead Set, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO SO. It's such a great show and holds such a special place in my heart. I've watched it countless times, and it'd utterly brilliant. There's funny bits, thrilling bits, and the overall craftsmanship of the show is just gorgeous for the time.

It also has zombie Divina Mcall. What more do you want from a zombie show?

I, again, watched that in secret for years Finding new shows along the way. That was it, two shows and my zombie mad self was changed forever.

What show started your zombie fever?

#zombie #zombie show #all of us are dead #aouad #! ☣ ₊˚✧ aouad .#dead set #i survived a zombie apocalypse #shows #get to know me #this is what giving your child free reign on the internet turns into #znation #z nation #my zombie story

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sunnydaleherald · 10 months ago

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The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, January 27th

WESLEY: Fascinating. A hart. CORDELIA: It's not a heart, it's a bambi. And we expect him to read this teeny tiny print? WESLEY: No not h-e-a-r-t, h-a-r-t. A male red deer or staggard. Often associated with rural mysticism. GUNN: Yeah, they all got animals on them. Probably just a bunch of demon bedtime stories.

~~Through the Looking Glass~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Long Winter's Nap by Rabid_X (Xander/Oz, E)

Comfort + Cuddles = 2 Happy Vampires by Kandiii (Spike/Drusilla, G)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Shadow Over Hellmouth, Chapter 102 by Tuxedo_Mark (Buffy/Tara, E)

Forever My Willow Tree, Chapter 7 by Eagleblaze (Willow/Tara, E)

Tomes of the Apocalypse: Conquest, Chapter 24 by v_o_x (Xander/Spike, M)

Xander the Teenage Witch: Something Wicked, Chapter 8 by v_o_x (Xander/Larry, T)

Buffy The Princess Consort, Chapter 3 by MattanzaMFedora (Buffy/She-Ra, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power crossover, M)

For The Dark, Chapter 5 by CharcoalTeeth (Buffy/Faith, E)

They Know Exactly What We're Here For, Chapter 5 by MadeInGold (Angel/Riley/Spike, E)

Back undead and little again, Chapter 3 by AnkiKind (Angel & Spike, M)

Straight to the Heart, Chapter 3 by QuillBard (Buffy/Faith, M)

Blasphemy, Chapter 2 by wickedrum (Robin Wood, Buffy/Spike, T)

The End of Destiny, Chapter 3 by ConstantCommentTea (Angel/Cordelia, T)

angels of small death, Chapter 1 by ohdearsansa (Buffy/Spike/Drusilla, E)

The Undine and The Landman, Chapter 4 (complete!) by holetoledo (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Afterburn, Chapter 8 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

In Any Life, Chapter 3 by Spikelover4ever (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Lie to Me, Chapter 1 by In Mortal (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Rules of Engagement, Chapter 8 by all choseny (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

It's Easy Time, Until It's Not, Chapter 18 by hulettwyo (Buffy/Spike, G)

Love Lives Here, Chaper 14 by Passion4Spike (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Coming Through, Chapter 7 by hulettwyo (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: Angel and Wolfram & Hart doodles by bethabw (worksafe)

Fanvid: Giles and Buffy || Are You Bored Yet? by Lucy Whiskers

Fanvid: Buffy + Spike - Rodeo (lyrics not worksafe) by All Choseny

Fanvid: Angel&Wesley | Crawling Through The Window by 1SnoWhiteQueen1

Fanvid: Btvs Season Two Tribute by Faith Victoria

Artwork process video: BUFFY x LEIA - Buffy the Vampire Leia by Splintered Studios - The Art Of Stephen Quick (worksafe)

Video: Characters Who Kill God by Tale Foundry (Buffy part starts from around 11:05)

[Reviews & Recaps]

ReWatch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - S7, the end by kimannebb

Video: Afterlife-Slayer Sunday by Jane Talks Buffy

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 5 OVERTIME | TWASM by T Watches A Scary Movie

Podcast: Grave S6 E22 (Buffy and the Art of Story Podcast) by Lisa M. Lilly

[Recs]

Fic recs: Best Part by spuffyduds and Girls’ Night Out by magista recced by February Fangfest

[Fandom Discussions]

the reason faith didn’t come into btvs s7 earlier is because it would’ve made buffy summers way too gay by antlerslayer

Comics aside, what job do you guys genuinely think Buffy would go into? by corvidyus

Should Buffy have stayed in heaven? answered by medievalfantasist

“Pangs”: I’m always so conflicted about this episode by kat--writes

I think that Morticia and Gomez should adopt every Buffy character into the Addams family by musingsfromthelagoon

i HATE the part in Buffy when Buffy sees Giles in his wizard costume by musingsfromthelagoon

The Scoobies and lying to themselves by garfan

Restless by txtrigg

Willow question by Tsole96

Riley's Dorm by daydrunk_

Was the Buffy episode "Smashed" magic inspired by the recent hit comedy (at the time) Sabrina? by Tsole96

In seven seasons we had many hangouts and yet for me they never topped the library by Sink_Rude419

The computer class makes no sense by Tuxedo_Mark

Xander & Dawn (spoilers for comics) by Both-Artichoke5117

First time watch along with The Normies by __ButWhy__

Rewatching for the nth time... I have thoughts by Illustrious-Double33

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #angel the series #ats

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coffin-flop · 5 months ago

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Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements is a fantastic collection of short scifi stories written by a variety of social justice activists

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson is so intricately plotted, I really enjoyed the world building in it, the back of book blurb says "The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways — farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother. She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends."

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland is a YA alternative historical fiction zombie novel in which the American Civil War is interrupted by a zombie apocalypse, and a young Black woman must find her way in a world where the living may be more dangerous than the undead. (it's the first of a duology)

Everfair by Nisi Shawl is a steampunk alternative history, which explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had adopted steam technology as their own. (also part of a series)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline is a great ya dystopian book about a world where people have lost the ability to dream and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors.

The Getaway by Lamar Giles is a very intense YA dystopian horror that takes place in the future, in which a teen boy and his family work and live at a Disney-esque resort, which provides safety from the upheaval in the outside world.... until the trouble in the outside world gets worse and the most rich members of the board and up moving in and locking the resort down, leaving the families who live & work on the resort at the mercy of the wealthy board owners who control it.

Not a book and not exactly scifi (although some of the stories are scifi) and not always anti-colonial (but a lot of the stories have anti-colonial themes) , I really love the Nightlight Podcast hosted by Tonia Ransom, which is a podcast of horror stories by Black writers and performed by Black actors

not fiction, but semi-related nonfiction I'd rec is Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction by Sami Schalk

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin or that Babel was too heavy-handed just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

#book recs #i lean so heavily on horrror and also ya whoops

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sloppilyeatinggrapes · 10 months ago

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Tried out first episode of Camlann, an audiodrama about the post apocalypse with arthurian themes.

After first ep... seems like the end of the world woke up an undead king arthur who knighted people to be inheritors for the roles of his previous knights, and now they are all trying to survive as society collapse under.... dragons?

I really liked the soundscape and acting, it felt really natural! And the fact that we just got THROWN into the action, that the setting is not immediately clearly given to us but merely hinted at I really appreciate. I have high hopes for this one!

If you are the creator of the podcast please do not read this thread, I don't know if I'll end up liking your show yet u_u

#audiodrama #livelisten #podcast #camelann

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joncronshawauthor · 6 months ago

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🧟‍♂️🎸 Listen to Punks Versus Zombies - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival FREE Audiobook (Episodes 1-32) 🎸🧟‍♀️

🧟‍♂️ Survive the Zombie Outbreak with Tommy and His Punk Rock Band 🎸Join Tommy and his bandmates as they fight their way from Berkeley, California, to Philadelphia in a desperate attempt to reunite with his family. But zombies aren’t the only danger lurking in this terrifying new world. As they journey across the ruins of America, they’ll face unimaginable challenges and discover the true power…

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#action-packed zombie drama #binge-worthy zombie series #character-driven zombie story #Denver zombie encounters #free audio drama online #gripping zombie narrative #immersive zombie audio #Kansas City apocalypse #post-apocalyptic audio drama #post-apocalyptic survival podcast #punk rock apocalypse #Punks Versus Zombies free audiobook #survival strategy podcast #thrilling apocalypse adventure #undead survival tactics #zombie and human conflict #Zombie Apocalypse Audiobook #zombie horde battles #zombie survival series

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monstersoutofthecloset · 5 years ago

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When life fades away and death is too shy to step forward, the ROT creeps in...

Featuring “Deathless” written by Emma Johnson-Rivard and performed by Lucille Valentine, Tal Minear, and Shriya Venkatesh; and “After” written by Nicole Calande and performed by Dallas Wheatley (credited as Sarah Wheatley), Kim E., Taara Rangan, Max George of Scream Kings, Cole Burkhardt, Maxx Fidalgo, and VXN.

Featured music included “Hazy Darkness” “Castle Lost,” and “Drafty Places” by Eric Matyas; “Chantier Navals” by LJ Kruzer. Additional sounds were created by Jay_You, nixeno, and frankum. Sound design by Mariel Calande and Cameron Seagraves.

Monsters Out of the Closet is a podcast that features horror and horror-adjacent fiction and art created by LGBTQ+ artists.

Subscribe at Apple iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, or wherever you get podcasts. You can also follow us on Twitter and Tumblr, and you can support us (and our artists) through Patreon!

#episodes #podcast #horror #lgbt #lgbtq #zombies #undead #rot #fiction #post-apocalypse

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daysincetheindefinatehiatus · 1 year ago

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Ok ok ok I gotta pitch Hello From the Hallowoods or else I will throw up. Do you understand?

If you like, horror, and are queer, this is honestly a great podcast for you.

The story is told to you by a god, who’s partner made humanity and is now dead. His heart is somewhere up north in the ice caps essentially bringing humanity closer to their own doom than they were naturally bringing themselves. The world is ending but this god, called Nikignik doesn’t want the world to end because as insignificant as humans might be to his kind, they were the last thing his partner made. A good part of the overall story, while not about Nikignik is also still tied into him deciding to not just be a passive observer of what’s going on, into someone who takes action to get what he wants. He essentially goes from someone documenting human existence to in small ways, trying to preserve it.

Every night, Nikignik tells us dreamers 3 stories from the perspective of a large scoop of characters. As well as an interruption from your friendly neighborhood evil corporation trying to hasten the end of the world for profit.This is where things get complicated, especially in the beginning, because although; everyone’s story is connected in the big picture, thats not immediately obvious in the first few episodes. Also each characters has their own personalities, goals and motivations. Even the characters you think are just one off tend to be expanded on later. In the beginning I really do just recommend choosing like one character to pay special attention too (tm).

This is the aspect though that also provides a whole hell of a lot of diversity, and you can tell that Mx. Wellmen notices a gap in said diversity, they tend to try to remedy it as best they can in realistic ways that don’t hinder the show in any way. A lot of the shows diversity is also intersectional too, which is always good to see.

You get elder crossbow wielding lesbians, a hijabiwoman who also does magic, witches who are various flavors of queer including but not limited to gender-fluid, aromantic and werewolf (?). There’s a non-binary Frankenstein’s monster and a transmasc ghost too (they’re my favorites) as well as an absolutely lovely amount of found family. You also get the undead learning how to read!

The villains also tend to be compelling in really personal ways. You get a lot of religious zealots thinking that the end times are near and God is testing his creations so they must do their best to rid the world of sinners, and monsters, even at the expense of their own children. You also get evil corporations motivated to greed. This also means that when the bad guys are defeated, it’s extremely cathartic. Mx. Wellmen also does a great job writing religious trauma, and extremism.

Death, even of evil characters doesn’t get written off as trivial either. It’s never just a way to move the plot along. It does deeply effect the other character’s emotions, actions and goals. You really can see the way it affects them throughout the rest of the show.

You can also normally expect for horror podcasts to lean rather hard into the doom and gloom aspect of the end of the world, and while that does happen for sure, there’s also this sorta underlying twinge of hope to it. Like yeah, things as they are currently are certainly are ending, but that doesn’t mean that humanity can’t rebuild and make things better on a systemic level.

For a horror podcast it is just remarkably hopeful in a way that is super amazing for my dumbass brain to make the stupid happy chemicals instead of wanting to die and feeling like the world is gonna end all the time. There is a good deal of social commentary in it, but never in a way that makes the dreamers feel like nothing we do, in the pre apocalypse world matters.

Beyond the plethora of amazing representation for LGBT, poc, and disabled communities. There’s also just cool stuff for your avid horror fans. We’ve got references to classic literature out the wazoo. We got Frankenstein, we got Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: we got the Monday’s child reference. We get eerie twins and ghosts. It’s just… amazing.

To top it all off, the podcast doesn’t have ads. Every now and then Mx. Wellmen will shout out other podcasts, usually when their cast voices for hallowoods show as a treat, but those aren’t payed for slots. Mx. Wellmen is entirely funded by their fans, and they create the entire show from writing to producing. It’s truly amazing that the quality of this show is as good as it is, when it’s being made in its entirety by 1 person, and funded by the audience.

I just love this show so much. Go listen to it before I cry about it.

My favourite way of choosing podcast to listen to is seeing people being batshit crazy, extremely enthusiastic, writing serious interpretations and silly posts about it, posting fanart, etc.

So, audio drama folks, please reblog this and write me some amazing stuff about your favourite podcasts. It can be honest recommendation! Maybe some blorbo thoughts about your fav character! Or deep reflection about themes and motifs! Whatever you would like to share with someone but didn’t have a chance to. Don’t worry about me knowing what you talking about, just pure your little podcast heart for me, pretty please. (And of course as always official podcast accounts are welcome to join!)

#hfth #hello from the hallowoods #for those who know this blog #please know this show filled the void KFAM blasted a whole into #it’s much more genuine than KFAM ever was all things said #and just so so good

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