The card lies flat, and a popup owns its screen

- icon LEFT of the text: every card is 62px at a fixed top, fully over
  the crowd — the stacked layout hung its lower third over live court,
  and the art draws bigger this way, not smaller
- nothing draws or ticks under a modal: a card raised in the same beat
  used to burn out dimmed beneath it — it holds and plays after

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

gameplay.js

@@ -1326,12 +1326,6 @@ export function update(dt) {
     updateZombies(dt);
     return;
   }
-  // A card can wait before it shows. The chapter card used to land on the same frame as the boss
-  // died, so the biggest gore burst in the game happened underneath it and nobody ever saw it.
-  if (G.card) {
-    if (G.card.wait > 0) G.card.wait -= dt;
-    else { G.card.t -= dt; if (G.card.t <= 0) G.card = null; }
-  }
   if (G.shake && (G.shake.t -= dt) <= 0) G.shake = null;
   if (G.netRipple && (G.netRipple.t -= dt) <= 0) G.netRipple = null; // the tape settles
   if (G.zoom && (G.zoom.t += dt) >= G.zoom.T) G.zoom = null; // scripted punch-in (render applies it)
@@ -1351,6 +1345,14 @@ export function update(dt) {
   // late in a run — the weapon modal is first-sight-only, so once you have seen a tin the label
   // flash IS the announcement, and the trainer's popup was eating it every time you were wounded.
   if (G.flash) { G.flash.t -= dt; if (G.flash.t <= 0) G.flash = null; }
+  // A card can wait before it shows. The chapter card used to land on the same frame as the boss
+  // died, so the biggest gore burst in the game happened underneath it and nobody ever saw it.
+  // BELOW the modal return, like the flash: a card raised in the same beat as a popup used to
+  // burn its whole life dimmed-out underneath it — now it holds and plays AFTER the dismissal.
+  if (G.card) {
+    if (G.card.wait > 0) G.card.wait -= dt;
+    else { G.card.t -= dt; if (G.card.t <= 0) G.card = null; }
+  }
   for (let i = pops.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) if ((pops[i].t -= dt) <= 0) pops.splice(i, 1); // reaction pops decay
   crowd.cheer = Math.max(0, crowd.cheer - dt);
   G.idleT += dt;