Love that buton with the funny arrows

they're from the indie mystery visual novel 'of the Devil', also known as "toxic yuri Ace Attorney", which takes place in the year 2086.

main character Morgan is a criminal defense attorney with old-fashioned tastes and a vested interest in maintaining her privacy despite the cyberpunk surveillance state of it all. she's prone to obsessions, perfectionism, and gambling addiction.

her rival is Emma Rockford, the district attorney who prosecutes many of her cases. she's an intelligent, bespectacled woman who Morgan may or may not be in love with. Morgan also finds her far too observant for her liking.

Morgan is assisted by the deuteragonist, Serra, an optimistic young girl who happens to be a highly advanced android. among other things, Morgan investigates the death of her creator. the relationship between Morgan and Serra is a large crux of the story.

also of note are Farah Reyes and Qasim London, a pair of homicide detectives Morgan interacts with frequently as a matter of course. Reyes is a young hothead with a cybernetic eye. London is an older man who makes up for his lack of work ethic with experience.

I've been obsessed with this game and its cast for some time now. I recommend it to everyone. it's on Steam, and the first episode is free.

if you're at all interested in murder mysteries, cool women, or peak fiction, please consider checking it out. also share this post so more people play it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2739630/of_the_Devil/

I don't remember the details but I recall how the guy had the looks of a rough life written all over him, ragged clothes in contrast to the police officer's pristine uniform - though obscured by motion blur as he was rapidly approaching with hateful intent - and the much finer burial clothes of the deceased. A small, skinny man with black hair, holding onto the bottle that's about to be confiscated like it's something precious to him.

I felt like something wasn't adding up and went to the comments to see if there was additional context that was missing from all this, and there was: The son and the father were Romani, and at least at the time it was still very much a tradition in Swedish Romani culture to bury the dead with little gifts - not necessarily extravagant or expensive, but things that the lost loved one would have liked.

Had to go find the photo, it's indeed Swedish. Taken by Åke Borglund and photo of the year 1958, apparently.

The photo comes from an article on a Swedish Romani funeral in Karlstad (a city 300 km west of Stockholm). The text is pretty exoticising and othering, I won't bother translating the whole thing. But I will relay the most interesting information.

First of all, the deceased man is Josef Dimetri (1903-1958), who was a Romani chief. From what I can tell from the Swedish censuses, he left behind a wife and six children, ages 18-31.

Which means that the photo is a bit deceptive on its own - the chapel is still empty there, but the article states it was taken shortly before the rest of the guests arrived. Because there were plenty of guests - and there are more photos of them!

The article doesn't explain why the police was there, but it says they had to step in and break off some fighting and arguments that broke out between guests, which is more likely what they were there for (rather than just inspecting bottles). They can also be seen talking to spectators in the last photo, so staving off curious or hostile people might also have been a reason.

But that's the thing. She doesn't exaggerate or grotesqueify or alter people's bodies to fit some standard. (Except insofar as she draws different species differently, and those are exquisitely practiced to ensure they have the same diversity of appearances that humans do.) She just presents people exactly as they are, complexities and oddities and all.

Phangs Trio Modern AU!

But no. He parsed the desperation in my tone and nodded like, sure thing, girlypop, just don’t hurt yourself.

ID: Three photos side by side showing a blue-nitrile-gloved hand peeling away the paint over the plastic shell of an ant bait trap before peeling it off the wall. When flipped over, the ant trap has instructions for installation, replacement, serial and batch numbers, and the date 2005. /end ID.

Phantasm

Reverie

maiden

lunatic

twilight

phantasmagoria

dream

illusion / illusory

paradise

boundary and any variation thereupon

Incident