blacknedsoul-blog

[blacknedsoul-blog]

I realized I explained that like shit, so please allow me to rectify (and sorry for the lack of response, life gets in the way of my hyperfocuses more often than I'd like).

That particular quote I say because I think Lenore has, as a character, tremendous dissonance on three different fronts regarding her relationship with Annabel. But to begin to explain that, I have to remember this:

So, for this to hold up, we have to assume something else about the way the characters recover their memories: they have their feelings, opinions and worldviews intact, but they don't know why they have them. (..) So yes, Lenore is in love with Annabel, but she doesn't know why she feels that way about her and also doesn't remember the things one learns about another person when establishing a relationship dynamic.

I'm starting from this assumption because it's the only way Annabel's attitude toward Lenore at the beginning of the comic makes sense to me. Or, in other words, Lenore has her feelings intact towards Annabel and a “vibe” of what their relationship was like.

This can be noted in their first stolen moment in the arboreum: With Lenore being passive-aggressive when she is upset with Annabel (something we see when they talk privately after Lenore burns down her house), being nice when Annabel shows a more vulnerable side (which we see in the flashback of her saying goodbye), blushing and getting nervous when the two have some closeness (like when they first meet and in the same flashback as the previous example) and teasing her like an annoying little shit (like in the flashback where Annabel confesses to her that her biggest fear is going crazy).

The thing is, Lenore doesn't know why she has such strong feelings for Annabel because she doesn't remember exactly what the nature of their relationship was (and, for whatever reason, doesn't imagine they were a romantic couple).

So, what's the crux of the matter. In their first stolen moment, Lenore is very relaxed in conversation until this moment:

And there I think it all starts to become a mess for her because the three fronts of problems she has about it start to collide.

First: because I think “Lenore wants her Annabel back” in the sense that their relationship didn't used to be like this. We readers know that, even if Annabel is a really private and sneaky person, she was always open and transparent with Lenore. Something that, for obvious reasons, doesn't happen in Nevermore.

I think Lenore feels like something here doesn't sit right with her and, the worst part, is that it's her broken memories she's not even able to say exactly what the thing is that's bothering her so much. But the look on her face when Annabel tells her that it's okay for there to be secrets between them tells me that something in that sentence made her deeply uncomfortable.

And that's not going to stop until she gets them back more memories, can look at her previous relationship with Annabel as a whole and realize this gigantic dissonance between how their relationship used to be and how it is now, at least, in this respect. And that there must be a good reason for that (hopefully).

Then there are the memories you mentioned that put Annabel in a not-too-favorable lens and, finally, that the unbeatable queen charade and Annabel's actions in Nevermore cause her enormous distrust.

So, you have Lenore struggling with all these underlying feelings that lack the context for her to get a good understanding of what's wrong with her, a dissonance between the relationship she feels it should be in contrast to the relationship they are having now and Annabel's shady actions, coupled with the fact that she is actively hiding things from her and boom, you have a cocktail of disaster that, in my view, makes Lenore's attitude coherent (even if in order to say all this you have to assume not too nice things about her as I commented in my previous response).

I swear Lenore's the biggest personification of Katy Perry's Hot N Cold song I've ever seen WHEEEZES

This isn't going to be very nice to Lenore, and in general the "remembering in pieces" mechanic, so just don't click read more if you don't want to see me tear into it thanks.

Like I know we all love to call Annabel a manipulator, and she is, but THIS MOMENT is kind of egregious as fuck to me.

The audacity to call her a monster (AND mad) to her face and then comfort her when she reacts badly over it

The audacity to look at her like this:

and then immediately after do this:

Why is she even saying "I don't know what I'd do with myself" if she's not supposed to remember that they were close?

But then why would she be acting like this if she DOES remember that they're close???

The worst thing is that it's so obvious how Lenore cares for the Misfits but when it comes to Annabel it feels cheap? Like it doesn't feel like there's any connection there other than "I remember I'm supposed to love you but do I actually?" rather than there being any genuine emotions involved. (Is that the point???)

WHERE is the delusion? The "Annabel must have surely had a reason—"

WHERE is the trust?

WHERE is the loyalty? <- truly my biggest gripe because Annabel is so fucking devoted I cannot let it go, I can't LMAO

WHERE is her not actually being as mad as she SHOULD be despite all of her misgivings and thus making Duke and Pluto suspicious as all hell?

Lenore has never ONCE given Annabel the benefit of the doubt and I understand that in the beginning when she knew nothing, but now? NOW? After THIS

Clear realization?

At some point I have to think that the flashbacks we're shown are not things they remember in canon unless we're explicitly shown them waking up to it because THIS

does not make sense otherwise.

Lenore WHY are you not losing your mind here? After saying that you're done with Annabel's whole game?

Go crazy go feral???

Annabel gave you the same reasoning, Lenore. Why are you tolerating this from him? You were manhandling Annabel and inches away from pulling a gun on her but now Duke has Annabel by the throat and halfway past a balcony railing and you're just TALKING?

Lenore tell me. Tell MEEEE!

Is it because Annabel treats it like a "game"? She's being playfully and giggly rather than being serious and "there's no other way" like Duke, even though she said THIS

before.

That's the worst part, really. Annabel has been VERY transparent the ENTIRE time and yet Lenore gets mad over her doing exactly what she said she'll do.

Conclusion to my rant:

What do they remember, what do they NOT remember? I don't know!

Annabel is devoted to the depths of hell even to her own detriment but is that because she remembers or because she's just Like That™?

Lenore is full of doubts and perpetual suspicions, and is willing to call her a monster to her face, but at the same time she sprouts "I don't know what I'll do without you." and jumps off balconies. Is that because she remembers or because she's just Like That™?

What is going ON

It's been a week, give or take, right? So they remember, what? 5 days worth of memories? Unless they remember much, much more than just a singular happening a night?

It feels inconsistent at best and utterly pointless at worst.

Just show us the flashbacks as an outside thing, it didn't have to be organically connected to their Nevermore storyline,,,,OR have them remember everything only when they first go Specre

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Finally! Time to sit down and answer this post. I must say I really enjoyed reading it, I like to talk about the flaws of the characters I like (because that's what makes them interesting!).

First of all: I think that feeling Lenore gives you is 100% correct. That it's like she has this sort of switch where she seems to be really pissed off at Annabel until suddenly she's not. And I think that's not a flaw in the writing, but something that's inherent in Lenore's character.

I will clarify that to explain why I think it is this way, I have to throw some dirt on Lenore. One lime and one sand, I guess.

Okay, let's start with one thing, no matter how Annabel may find some of these things attractive traits, the reality is that they are pretty fucked up character traits:

Lenore isn't just impulsive. She's a pretty reactive person (she rarely has the impetus to start anything, she just reacts to what's going on around her).

She refuses to relate to the world in terms of power. This is positive because she doesn't take shit from anyone, but negative because she is unable to see the power she wields over people (this is especially true in her relationship with Annabel).

Lenore has extremely strong convictions about people that, at times, make her fail to see important things about the people around her. For this, the important thing is that Lenore thinks of Annabel as an unbeatable queen who has everything under control at all times.

And this the most important thing: Lenore does not stop until she gets what she wants. This in Annabel's own words. So we can assume that she, indeed, doesn't let go of something when it gets between her eyebrows.

Sso, for this to hold up, we have to assume something else about the way the characters recover their memories: they have their feelings, opinions and worldviews intact, but they don't know why they have them. I say this because of all these scenes where Lenore is “uwu” around Annabel in Nevermore (an attitude we also saw her in life). So yes, Lenore is in love with Annabel, but she doesn't know why she feels that way about her and also doesn't remember the things one learns about another person when establishing a relationship dynamic. This is important.

Along with this, there is a strange distrust of her that, unless something else has happened that we don't know about yet, I would blame on this:

Because this is where it starts to get dense.

We know that Annabel wants her Lenore back, but we talk little about the fact that, presumably, Lenore also wants her Annabel back: the Annabel she could read no matter how much she played dumb, the Annabel who would give herself a chance to be vulnerable with Lenore and confide in her about intimate things. Things that, perhaps, she doesn't confide in anyone else. Instead, at Nevermore…

Every time Lenore tries to get answers, Annabel shuts down. This isn't what's supposed to happen: she's extremely attracted to her and Annabel keeps telling her that Lenore is important to her, but then…why won't Annabel stop leaving?

And that's where I think the reason for her behavior lies:

Yes, this is cute, but when you remember that Lenore doesn't let shit go once it gets between her eyebrows, it stops being so cute. Because what Lenore wants is for this charade to be over by yesterday and Annabel to stay by her side.

First she expresses to her that she's going to miss her.

Then saying that this situation makes her suspicious.

Then offer affection and a space to talk calmly.

And when the Duke thing blows up, Lenore is upset enough to go on the offensive: if Annabel isn't going to give her what she wants, she's going to push her up against a rock and a hard place until she gives in. She wants this to end now and she's not going to stop until Annabel does what she wants.

The Arboreum Stolen Moment Electric Bogaloo is full of scenes like that: of Lenore pressing Annabel to tell her what's going on and getting more and more frustrated with the evasions she gives her. When the answer isn't what she wants to hear, she doubles down by calling her a monster, telling her she's mad, and dumping all her frustrations on her. Look at her face in this scene, she looks confused when Annabel starts crying.

I think Lenore immediately moves on to comfort her because, again, this is not what was supposed to happen. Lenore wanted Annabel to give in and tell her exactly what happened after she pushed her hard enough, she wasn't supposed to break down and start crying like this, even doubting (with good reason) how important she is to Lenore.

She wants to push her to "stop being so unreasonable", she doesn't want to hurt her.

As if that's how it works.

Lenore's attitude makes sense when you look at it from the lens that she's willing to give all the affection and understanding in the world if she feels Annabel will let her. But at the exact moment Annabel refuses to give her what she wants, she will start pressuring her to give in to her demands.

So, yes, she gets the Doki Dokis when Annabel is vulnerable, in danger or extends an olive branch in the false rivalry setting. She will become aggressive, inflexible and refuse to listen to anything but what she wants to hear when Annabel plays the queen role.

Under this premise, Lenore is a demanding, codependent partner with boundary issues. At best, she is so overprotective that she unwittingly borders on controlling, and at worst, she actively pushes Annabel's autonomy by refusing to listen to her because her desires are beyond the circumstances in which Annabel finds herself.

For a change: because Lenore has issues with authority and this idea that Annabel is an unbeatable queen (a misconception that, by the way, Annabel encourages), she also can't even conceive that Annabel is doing all this because she has no choice and not because she wants to.

And the saddest part is, the way things are going, she's not going to realize the damage she's doing until it's too late.

So…yeah, I guess there aren't many ways to see Lenore's attitude as consistent and still think she's a white dove who doesn't break a dish. Now, honestly? I like her that way, otherwise she would seem like a really boring character to me.

Anyway, this was really long and thanks for reading.

I swear Lenore's the biggest personification of Katy Perry's Hot N Cold song I've ever seen WHEEEZES

This isn't going to be very nice to Lenore, and in general the "remembering in pieces" mechanic, so just don't click read more if you don't want to see me tear into it thanks.

Like I know we all love to call Annabel a manipulator, and she is, but THIS MOMENT is kind of egregious as fuck to me.

The audacity to call her a monster (AND mad) to her face and then comfort her when she reacts badly over it

The audacity to look at her like this:

and then immediately after do this:

Why is she even saying "I don't know what I'd do with myself" if she's not supposed to remember that they were close?

But then why would she be acting like this if she DOES remember that they're close???

The worst thing is that it's so obvious how Lenore cares for the Misfits but when it comes to Annabel it feels cheap? Like it doesn't feel like there's any connection there other than "I remember I'm supposed to love you but do I actually?" rather than there being any genuine emotions involved. (Is that the point???)

WHERE is the delusion? The "Annabel must have surely had a reason—"

WHERE is the trust?

WHERE is the loyalty? <- truly my biggest gripe because Annabel is so fucking devoted I cannot let it go, I can't LMAO

WHERE is her not actually being as mad as she SHOULD be despite all of her misgivings and thus making Duke and Pluto suspicious as all hell?

Lenore has never ONCE given Annabel the benefit of the doubt and I understand that in the beginning when she knew nothing, but now? NOW? After THIS

Clear realization?

At some point I have to think that the flashbacks we're shown are not things they remember in canon unless we're explicitly shown them waking up to it because THIS

does not make sense otherwise.

Lenore WHY are you not losing your mind here? After saying that you're done with Annabel's whole game?

Go crazy go feral???

Annabel gave you the same reasoning, Lenore. Why are you tolerating this from him? You were manhandling Annabel and inches away from pulling a gun on her but now Duke has Annabel by the throat and halfway past a balcony railing and you're just TALKING?

Lenore tell me. Tell MEEEE!

Is it because Annabel treats it like a "game"? She's being playfully and giggly rather than being serious and "there's no other way" like Duke, even though she said THIS

before.

That's the worst part, really. Annabel has been VERY transparent the ENTIRE time and yet Lenore gets mad over her doing exactly what she said she'll do.

Conclusion to my rant:

What do they remember, what do they NOT remember? I don't know!

Annabel is devoted to the depths of hell even to her own detriment but is that because she remembers or because she's just Like That™?

Lenore is full of doubts and perpetual suspicions, and is willing to call her a monster to her face, but at the same time she sprouts "I don't know what I'll do without you." and jumps off balconies. Is that because she remembers or because she's just Like That™?

What is going ON

It's been a week, give or take, right? So they remember, what? 5 days worth of memories? Unless they remember much, much more than just a singular happening a night?

It feels inconsistent at best and utterly pointless at worst.

Just show us the flashbacks as an outside thing, it didn't have to be organically connected to their Nevermore storyline,,,,OR have them remember everything only when they first go Specre

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Social climbers and the relationship with power: Ada's tragedy

You buddies don't dimension how much I raised my eyebrows when I saw this scene:

Ada climbing on top of a deer (a very typical symbolic representation of noble masculinity) who is trying to fiercely shake her off while she desperately clings to him with all her might...

And is THAT what makes her have a flashback of her relationship with Tamerline? Buddy, I'm putting on a hat to take it off.

Anyway, this means I have enough material to talk about Ada.

Social climbers and power

Ada is, apparently, a social climber: she longs for a social space to which she feels she is entitled, but to which she considers herself not to belong. This is something that can give us clues about her socio-economic situation in life: social climbers are extremely common in spaces such as, for example, the child of a first generation of professionals or of parents who have been able to provide better economic passages despite not belonging to social elites.

So, one thing to be clear about the way Ada relates to people in general is through this lens: the way she tries to move up socially (i.e. to power) is through her relationships with people, if she is close to a person who has power or belongs to an elite, then she is accessing these spaces. If that person does not have it, then she uses the relationship to reassert the position she wants to have.

Ada's personal tragedy is that this way of relating to the world puts her in an extremely vulnerable position with respect to her interpersonal relationships because, if they were not asymmetrical from the beginning, she makes them asymmetrical. It's as true that Ada gets into complicated relationships willingly as it is that she is a victim of people like Tamerlane. You know, the same logic of tragedies.

So let me do a little review of all the relationships Ada has had in the comic, how they go and what is the pattern they follow.

The triad of discord

There are three things that all of Ada's relationships have in common (except one, but we'll get to that): 1) She seeks to get some sort of validation from the other person. 2) She tends to push the person's boundaries, even if they were explicitly stated. 3) Even if the person has some degree of affection or sympathy for her, Ada will never be her priority over other things. Be these things other people, personal desires, etc, etc.

So let's review this a bit.

Let's start with the bastard of Thomas Tamerline. If anything their interaction during chapter 110 makes clear to us is that the guy is quite explicit with the fact that this relationship is purely sex for him (and he possibly enjoys the degree of control he exerts over her), Ada repeatedly tries to get some validation or affection from him and the guy barely complies with the bare minimum.

That he ends up murdering her indicates that, regardless of motive, he sees her as an inconvenience to his personal desires that must be gotten out of the way and, as the icing on the cake, puts the responsibility on her.

Now on to Prospero. His resemblance to Thomas is obvious enough to understand why Ada would be attracted to him and constantly seeks to touch him or be near him, no matter how much Prospero tells her that he is not interested in her. This is an attitude she has even before Annabel encourages her by saying that “Prospero is just being shy”.

Eventually it happens what it does: Prospero is fed up with her and doesn't hesitate to tell her so to her face. We can argue whether or not he's justified in being this cruel, but by the standards of this argument that's irrelevant: the important thing here is that Prospero doesn't care about Ada's feelings enough to be nicer.

Let's go now to Lenore. Ada is extremely mean to her until Lenore demonstrates that she was able to pass the maze test on her own. This is, in Ada's eyes, a demonstration of power and she, as she is wont to do, will not pass up the opportunity to get on the good side of a person who could be a potential rising star.

This is cut short by her same group, but they reconnect at the mansion trial. Since Lenore is not interested in relating on power terms (for better and for worse), here they have the opportunity to share on more equal terms on both their parts. Yes, Lenore is also doing this for personal reasons, but it doesn't take away from the merit.

Ada ends up overstepping boundaries and betraying Lenore at the end of the trial. And after she learns of her Ada's involvement in Duke's kidnapping, well, all she has to say when Pluto fills her in is says that shitty relationship is strangely appropriate.

Yes, Lenore may have come to have some degree of affection for her, but Ada is no more important than her friends and after getting into something like that, to hell with her.

With Annabel things start to get more interesting. These two have a cocktail of projection and resentment between them: Annabel is all Ada wants, so she treats her like a pretty accessory that gives her status (something that definitely oversteps Annabel's boundaries, even if she hasn't expressed them because it doesn't suit her) and, to Annabel, Ada is little more than an important piece she can take advantage of.

This take it with a grain of salt because there are some “buts.”

On Ada's side, that she seeks help from Annabel when Montresor is being a fucking psycho is an indicator that she felt, at least, protected by Annabel. But as is often the case with her, the plan Annabel is carrying out is no more important than Ada, she just lets it happen.

Twice. Under the circumstances, Annabel chooses to help Prospero over Ada.

However, Ada is not indifferent to Annabel: she is definitely furious with Montresor after what he did (In fact, this is the only scene so far where we have seen Annabel exercising any form of physical aggression)., she is uncomfortable when Prospero is mean to Ada, and there are a few small frames where she looks at her with sincere pity.

But again, that won't make Annabel prioritize her over her own plans.

Finally, we come to the most interesting relationship here.

Ada definitely cares about Morella, but that won't make constantly denigrating her a reaffirmation of the position she believes (or wants) to have: making comments like Morella's food “is poor.” Ada pecks at the boundaries with a stick, yet these things -for some reason- don't seem to bother Morella, who is able to see the good in her despite her bad attitudes. Until she stops doing it because not only participating in Duke's kidnapping, but also trying to play cool by making excuses is out of bounds even for Morella.

But an interesting thing happens here too, remember how Ada is never a priority for anyone? Well, for a moment in her relationship with Morella it looks like this is going to be different. Morella makes a feeble attempt to defend her when Montresor makes her bark and puts a shield in her face when Prospero attacks her in the mansion trial.

Unfortunately for Ada, Morella is someone too lacking in backbone and too concerned with following the rules to stand up for her when it really counts.

After Ada manifests and bursts into tears, she pushes Morella away from her with a shove.

Morella says she wants to help, but all it takes is for Poppet to remind her that she needs to get back the Merits she lost for Morella to finally give in.

The two people Ada considered her friends have left her: Annabel has chosen to help Prospero and Morella has left.

That's when Montresor enters.

And here begins the first break in Ada's toxic pattern of relationships...but not for the better.

Ada and Montresor

Oddly enough, these two are a good match...for horrible reasons. Montresor, like Ada, is a social climber who uses interpersonal relationships to get closer to power, only in a different way: where Ada sticks it to people who hold power, Montresor uses others to reassert himself in a position of power. So, Ada feeds Montresor's ego, while he can pretend to like her enough to keep Ada happy.

Because yes, Ada and Montresor's relationship fulfills most of the bad patterns in relationships that Ada usually has: she seeks validation in this relationship and Montresor definitely doesn't prioritize her (she constantly has to compete with Will for Montresor's attention, for example). But the important thing here is that, for once, Ada isn't the one constantly pecking at the other person's boundaries: it's Montresor who does it.

He pushes her around, teases her, calls her by other women's names, and it's probably only a matter of time before this starts to get worse. What's interesting is that Ada is able to get upset when this happens, unlike what we see in the flashback to her relationship with Thomas.

So there is something changing here.

Conclusion

I'm not sure where this is going to lead, but one thing is for sure: Montresor is a reflection of a toxic pattern of behavior that Ada has in her relationships and if she's starting to get uncomfortable with it, it's not just because the abyss is staring back at her, but because she's getting herself into a situation too similar to her relationship with Thomas to not know how it might end.

Add to that this:

This is the first time in the comic that Ada has had such a selfless gesture for another person. And that selfless gesture is something as big as putting herself in danger to save someone. As if all this wasn't enough, it's been to save Annabel: one of the two friends who turned their backs on her when she needed them.

I don't know if this will be the start of her character development or we should interpret it as deathflags placed over her head, but one thing is for sure: whatever is going to come out of here has quite a bit of potential.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

If I can stick my finger in the wound: it also makes you understand why Lenore just can't accept that Annabel is hiding something from her and won't tell her what the fuck is going on or what she's up to. Annabel has always been honest with Lenore, she has always let it be known that no matter how annoying or fussy she might be, she would always come back to Lenore's side. But now? Now no matter how much Lenore worries, begs or gets angry; Annabel refuses to tell her why things must be this way.

THIS MOMENT!

The framing. The way Annabel hesitates. The way Lenore effortlessly pushes her to go beyond her stated boundaries. It just solidifies it in my brain that Lenore absolutely made Annabel worse™, in the sense that Annabel was able to drop absolutely every single reservation she used to hold, and I love it.

My two beloved schemers, you almost outwit the game 😔 you were so close...!!!

(And now in the present, I believe the ultimate tragedy [for me, for me] is that Lenore, without her memories and traumas that made her who she was, is acting in direct contradiction to how she used to be in life and it's BREAKING MY HEEEART)

bonus: this panel is fucking gorgeous

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Buddy, I am now convinced that Annabel has hidden somewhere a copy of Les Fleurs du mal in its original language. Bonus points if she has the 1857 edition, which means she has the complete uncensored version (there are some racy poems, some poems explicitly about lesbianism. Some fall into both categories).

Annabel Lee, talks about ladylike behavior, while reading the most scandalous book of her century… the legend you are, Annabel

[blacknedsoul-blog]

To me this shit has been eating my head for a while, I mean, the emotional kicks and regrets Lenore is going to have when she gets the full picture is going to be one thing (and not a pretty one).

When she learns that Annabel's silence is because the Deans fucked with her memory (and she refused to believe them), when she learns that Annabel's warnings about not getting attached to people are grounded because to love someone at Nevermore is to put them in danger, when she learns that she stuck Duke behind a wall to protect her, and when she learns that she got her most fucked up fear in her face.

The drama is going to be strong.

oh, so originally lenore knew that it was annabel's biggest fear, yet she didn't remember that or didn't care much TT

at first I got so caught up with excitement for the new episodes and flashbacks that I forgot they're in their divorce era now...

[blacknedsoul-blog]

I think you'd like Your Throne webtoon

(A google search later)

You are absolutely right. Thank you very much for the recommendation!

[blacknedsoul-blog]

The guy who was going to marry Annabel if no one better came along is the one who killed her and Lenore

Daily Reminder

WE HAVE 3 DAYS TIL NEVERMORE IS BACK

Question: What's a theory about Nevermore that you believe?

My is that I 100% believe that Eulalie is a Japanese-American that was killed during WW2 because of the hate and prejudice toward Japanese people during the time

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Nevermore is a gothic tragedy. Part II: Supernatural Brides

I had set out to finish this saga of essays before Nevermore came back. And then I realized that all the fucking references I have on hand were going to require at least one essay for each. Which means a total of…at least four parts.

So I made it my goal to finish at least one. And since we're talking about tragedy, it seemed logical to continue with the gothic novel.

Before I start, I have to make a little disclaimer: most of my sources come from Spanish material that I'm not sure I have an English translation because they are loose essays I have from my college days and prologues to books from different publishers that are dedicated to publishing gothic novels. If you understand Spanish, I'll be happy to pass the material on to you if this interests you. But if you only understand English, I'm afraid I only have two sources for you: Supernatural Horror in Literature, an essay by H.P. Lovecraft on the foundations of cosmic horror that reviews the history of horror in fiction and The gothic quest a book of about 400 pages that describes in detail the history of the gothic novel, I hope the density of that work compensates for not being able to deliver more finished information.

Brief (seriously VERY brief) history of the gothic novel

Here is something a bit tangled, because the Gothic novel goes hand in hand with many of the topics of the literature of romanticism (literary movement with which it shares time) and it is also necessary to understand some historical and architectural issues.

Let's go by part: Romanticism is a literary and artistic movement that formally emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century (it is estimated that the first works of the same are dated from 1770, approximately) consisting of three parts: the so-called pre-romanticism, romanticism as such and late romanticism.

Anyway, even from its beginnings, this movement emerges as a series of anti-classical ideas that sought to recover folkloric and medieval elements, were obsessed with the inviduality of creativity, nostalgia for nature (something that would later become nostalgia for the time before the industrial revolution), considered passion and sentimentality as the creative axis and in general were looking to Greek tragedies and other fantastic tales as a source of inspiration.

This clashed with the strong Christian values of the time and the rise of technological advances. A contradiction that is present in the works of this literary movement.

Another important historical fact that is necessary to understand is that this kind of novel gets its name directly from Gothic architecture. These works were intended to take place in castles, monasteries, mansions belonging to ancient families and medieval cemeteries. The reason is simple: the Goths were considered shitty architects and many of these buildings had been abandoned for decades if not centuries by 1700, so you could walk down a path and simply find an ominous monastery or the remains of a mansion and if you asked someone where it had come from, they would probably tell you about 15 different versions, but all involving dead people and ghosts living there. As you may have gathered from the above, the writers of this period were eating this stuff up with fries.

It is with the convergence of all these elements that Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto was published in 1764. A text born from a nightmare that this man had in the castle of Strawberry Hill, a neo-Gothic property that belonged to him. The novel is mediocre at best, but it lays all the groundwork needed going forward: ominous ancient places full of legends where the crumbling architecture is a reflection of the moral and emotional corruption of the characters.

Feminine entities

One thing in which the Romantics differ from the Gothics is their view of love. In this era, love is perceived as a kind of force that is above the characters, something so beautiful that it is capable of making them completely lose their minds (this is tied to the concept of the sublime. And where the romantics embrace this concept as something beautiful, the goths say “this is fucking disturbing”.

For this reason many gothic stories are up to their necks in supernatural brides: beautiful ghosts dressed in white, beings that we consider references to nymphs who only need to whisper in the ears of their victims to become obsessed with them and, above all, vampires. Vampires whose description you will have in detail because the narrators of these stories spare no words to point out how beautiful they are.

Because these supernatural brides are there for one thing and one thing only: to make our sad male hero lose his mind with the power of their impractically long eyelashes. Sometimes they love them honestly and deeply, sometimes they are insidious, evil and lying; on more than one occasion both alternatives are true at the same time. But the reality of things is that, in the end, the love of these supernatural brides ends up completely destroying the unfortunate object of their affection.

If this seems a bit sexist to you, that's because it is. There's no argument here and it's not worth delving into any further.

I've talked about Annabel as a vampire before, but this time I want to talk more in detail about two issues: how supernatural brides work and the consequences for the protagonist of having a relationship with her and the similarities this story presents to a particular job.

Love and death

What is a ghost? A terrible event doomed to repeat itself over and over again. An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead that seems at times still alive. A feeling, suspended in time, like a blurred photograph, like an insect trapped in amber. El espinazo del diablo, Guillermo del Toro (original quote in Spanish)

One interesting thing about this whole thing is, too, that while the attitudes of many of these supernatural brides may remind you of variations of a succubus (you know, a female entity that is there for and to seduce), the reality is that the gothic novel is steeped in religious puritanism, so these ladies (most of the time) don't usually need to be sexual with their love interest/victim to get their attention. They usually only need a single glance.

If you think I'm exaggerating:

Never gaze upon a woman, and walk abroad only with eyes ever fixed upon the ground; for however chaste and watchful one may be, the error of a single moment is enough to make one lose eternity. 

The dead women in love, Théophile Gautier

Another thing is that these supernatural brides are usually here at just the right time to skillfully grope the weaknesses of their beloved lover and victim: Are you a feisty guy who thinks he's not afraid of anything? Well, the spirit of the water that will end up bewitching you dwells in a mysterious fountain that no one dares to visit out of fear (Ojos Verdes, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer ESP/ENG), Have you just obtained eternal life by making a pact with the devil but are a little terrified of what might await you in the solitude of immortality? The beautiful young girl just revived by your own hand has opened her eyes and both you and she know in this one look that you will spend eternity together (The Skeleton Count, or The Vampire Mistress, Elizabeth Caroline Grey), Have you just moved here from Naples and are feeling incredibly lonely? Well, it turns out you have a beautiful neighbor who also seems interested in you. By the way, she's practically a poisonous plant (Rappaccini's Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne).

Examples like these are plentiful and most end in three ways for the victim of their affections:

Death.

Madness.

Or eternal mourning for having lost her despite having been a victim of deceit or manipulation.

In Lenore's case, her “supernatural bride” appears after the incident in which she rips the wallpaper off the wall: if flowers symbolize feeling alive, she doesn't need them. There is no need for flowers because she is irreversibly withering away.

And when all seems lost, she receives a visitor.

Annabel is a ghost in Lenore's life. The fuzzy silhouette that represents the one thing that made her happy during her confinement, her last glimmer of sanity in a situation where she could no longer hold on without breaking. A specter whose shadow Lenore has been obsessively chasing since a previous life. And every time she manages to reach her, something snatches her away: Annabel goes back to a place where Lenore cannot reach her with her hands.

This is the sad fate of supernatural bride lovers. Because for the gothic novel, when love transcends death it is not a reason to rejoice: the character's life has been permanently disrupted and all that remains is a feeling that is beyond reason. Love becomes the cruelest and most terrible of punishments.

Carmilla

If you're still here with me and you haven't read Carmilla yet, I highly recommend that you do because if you like goth lesbians, this is exactly your shit.

But just so we're on the same page: Carmilla is a short vampire novel published in 1872 by Sheridan Le Fanu in his collection In a Glass Darkly. The plot is about Laura, a young woman who lives in a proper gothic castle located in Austria and her life will be disrupted with the arrival of a beautiful young woman her age named Carmilla.

Both Lenore and Laura live in almost complete isolation barely accompanied by maids (And, in Laura's case, her father) in a huge estate that is surrounded by an appropriately dense and slightly terrifying forest. Now, the reason they are both here is different: where Lenore is locked up against her will, Laura simply lives in a place that is difficult to access.

But let's make a slightly insidious reading here.

One of the first things we know about Laura is that the maids she lives with, despite being fond of her, consider her “a bit touched in the head” and the incident where Carmilla enters the room when Laura is a little girl is completely dismissed for this reason.

Laura is 19 years old when all this happens and at no point in the play is it mentioned that she has any suitors or intentions of getting married, a bit strange for the time in which it occurs. One would assume that the reason for keeping her so isolated is precisely that Laura's father doesn't think his daughter is particularly sane in the head.

As does Lenore.

Add to that the fact that they are both grieving. Lenore for Theo's death and, in Laura's case, for learning that the daughter of a dear friend of her father's has died in strange circumstances and, although she did not get to know her, this fact affected her a lot.

Anyway, sooner rather than later this almost supernaturally beautiful young lady of her own age shows up and kicks in the door saying she wants to be friends. Carmilla through a carriage “accident” near the property and Annabel requesting a meeting to get to know her.

In both cases, the dynamic established is the same.

On the one hand, we have a young lady who looks completely ecstatic at this pompous and definitely somewhat deranged creature. Laura spares no words in explaining to the reader how fucking beautiful Carmilla is, how important she is to her and how much she loves her. And Lenore, well, Lenore does this:

On the other side, the supernatural (girl)friend returns her affection with the subtlety of a kick in the teeth:

Annabel is a little more subtle than Carmilla was before she and Lenore were a thing, but we still see her get super physically close (something she doesn't usually do with other characters in Nevermore, so this is something she only does with Lenore).

Fun fact: that gesture with the fan means “I'm shy, but I'm interested.”

Unfortunately for our comphet-filled protagonist (because she watches THIS and still thinks they're “good friends”) her days in the company of this girl end in tragedy. Carmilla is eventually unveiled as a vampire and killed, while Lenore sees Annabel leave and, taking into account that they are both in Nevermore, subsequently sees her die.

In both cases, the protagonist's life has been scarred by her supernatural (girl)friend: neither a year-long trip abroad nor a new group of friends can take Laura or Lenore away from the memory of those happy days that are now irretrievably tainted.

Conclusions

I think one thing that has happened to me writing this now that I seriously pulled the rug out from under me regarding the amount of references in this comic and it has been non-stop bullshit. They're all still framed within the genres of tragedy and gothic novel, but even with this essay I've fallen short on some topics.

I don't know when I'll continue with this saga because it really involves going through an awful lot of material, but I can at least say one thing for sure: the amount of detail it has is, honestly, quite impressive.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

And this is the song that plays softly in the background

Poppet's classes be like-

[blacknedsoul-blog]

In that order:

- Indeed, in the authors' illustration Annabel is not embodying Clara, she is dressed as they typically dress the dancers in Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

-About the other thing: it's a strange thing. It used to be that the Nevermore authors were really into fandom, now they're much less so, and given that the comic comes back in January, I assume they're busy doing other shit. But in general they are known to look at fanarts or read theories (I don't know if they read fanfics), like ... they're like the Deans, they don't appear much but occasionally look at what's going on out there, that's the reason people can assume they watched the fanart.

lookit all these copy cats, stealing ideas!

Don't they know a super important person on the interwebs bagsied first?

lookit the blatant disrespect?

Who do they think they are? Do they not respect the rules of ''i licked it first so its mine"?

Once its been AU CLAIMED!! Nobody else is allowed to make art or perform it. Thems the rules, I'm afraid. I don't care about it being a 130 year old tradition recreated in myriads of ways, genres and mediums across the world for decades, nobody else is allowed to play in the sandbox. Refund the tickets. Everyone go home. What is the world coming to when everyone doesn't respect the claiming of AUs? The audacity. I'm clutching my pearls.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Okay, let's take it one step at a time: we can agree that both illustrations are similar only in that 1) they are the same characters and 2) they are both from the Nutcracker.

Even the approach is different: in the AU Annabel and Lenore embody the characters, even Lenore has a much more colorful and toy-like appearance. On the other side, the authors' illustration is more like "yeah, someone hired these two for the Nutcracker ballet, look how cute they look".

We can also agree that fandoms doesn't work that way. We have band AUs galore, I think there's like 6 or 7 fanfics where Annabel is a vampire and the like.

That said.

I can see why this person is uncomfortable. These aren't random people within the fandom, but the authors of the comic. I can see why this situation would make this person feel upset, especially when the authors before have always explicitly said when they do something that has already been seen within the fandom (like the bunnybel apocalypse). This is, of course, assuming they have seen it (something likely because the fandom is small).

And again, we can agree that fandoms doesn't work that way, but I wouldn't discount this person's annoyances.

I think the reblog you did is much better for your point, because I think the sarcastic mockery of the first one only adds fuel to the discussion.

lookit all these copy cats, stealing ideas!

Don't they know a super important person on the interwebs bagsied first?

lookit the blatant disrespect?

Who do they think they are? Do they not respect the rules of ''i licked it first so its mine"?

Once its been AU CLAIMED!! Nobody else is allowed to make art or perform it. Thems the rules, I'm afraid. I don't care about it being a 130 year old tradition recreated in myriads of ways, genres and mediums across the world for decades, nobody else is allowed to play in the sandbox. Refund the tickets. Everyone go home. What is the world coming to when everyone doesn't respect the claiming of AUs? The audacity. I'm clutching my pearls.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Hi buddy! Thanks for this, it will be a pleasure to read it! :3

Unspoken - Hyporion - Nevermore - Red & Flynn (Webcomic) [Archive of Our Own]

Merry Christmas everyone 🥳🎄

Especially to @blacknedsoul-blog , hope you enjoy your Secret Santa gift!

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Secret Santa Gifts

Well, these are my gifts for @eloquentteagoblin. I hope you like them, buddy! I decided to go for the cute part of your preferences and, since I couldn't decide which ship to focus on, I preferred to make a small drabble of White Raven and another one of Willspero.

Have a great Christmas! And thanks to @nevermorgue for organizing this.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Fun fact: it's really hard for me to really dislike a character. That only tends to happen when a character is boring (which is, for me, the worst sin a work of fiction can commit) and in Nevermore I don't find any character to be so, although there are definitely some (like Theo or the Deans) who for now are more like “plot devices” than characters as such I do wish Montresor was less unbearable though, it makes me want to shake him like Prospero did every time he speaks but the son of a bitch does his job so well that I can't help but like him

Nevermore tier list go brrr

(There is no character order within the tiers, just about. The only row where the characters are in order of favourite is the S tier. Everywhere else I just slapped the characters into their respective rows)

Here's the link, pls reblog with yours :)

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Nevermore themed cocktail: Harlequin

Information

A cocktail with a sweet and dry taste, apparently light, but with a high alcoholic content. Thinking about Duke spectre made me think of grabbing between the contrast between this funny circus clown and how he can tear you apart, so I had in mind this sweet, but high alcoholic cocktail with a dry mouthfeel.

Ingredients

1 ounce - 30 ml of red wine (I used cabernet)

1 ounce - 30 ml of brandy

2 ounces - 60 ml of cocoa liqueur 

⅓ ounce - 10 ml of gin 

Ice

Preparation 

Half fill an old-fashioned glass with ice.

Place the ingredients in the glass 

Stir with a spoon until the glass is chilled 

Notes

Although it can be shaken in a cocktail shaker, it is n

[blacknedsoul-blog]

I think this is the collective hc I tend to disagree with the most. An extremely important part of the construction of the Addamses as individuals in all of their portrayals is that they accept ANYONE as a member of their family. For them to have trouble accepting Enid because she is colorful would be completely out of character for them.

At best they might be a little confused or cry about "their baby is growing up", but to not accept Enid? That would never

If we go by official sources, that is Addams Family Values, Enid would not be accepted into the Addams family as Wednesday's spouse, not because she is a wolf or a girl, it's just that Enid wears pastel colors and they could never forgive her for that. I'm just saying.