#Wayfarer Archetype

[thisaintascenereviews]

Best Of 2023

Well, it’s that time, guys, gals, and non-binary pals — it’s the end of the year (well, it’s already the beginning of the new year now). My buddy Jake and I collaborated on a piece that talks about our favorites of the year, but I wanted to write a bit of a companion piece, in case you didn’t want to look at that, and just wanted to know what my favorites in order were, or if you wanted more detail on what I think of these albums. I won’t waste time, let’s dig into the honorable mentions first, and I’m only going to write maybe a sentence or two on these albums, since I don’t want this to be super long. The honorable mentions are in no particular order, either, I don’t rank those, but the top ten will obviously be just that — a top ten.

Spencer Sutherland - In His Mania

This is the newest album on the list, or at least newest that I found, and Spencer Sutherland is what I call a traditional and old fashioned pop artist with modern production, and that’s what his debut album sounds like. It’s incredibly catchy, fun, and grandiose, but also sounds timeless, and he has a killer voice.

Nita Strauss - The Call Of The Void

Guitarist Nita Strauss came out with her second album, and instead of it being purely instrumental, she included a lot of guests in terms of some of the biggest names in hard rock and metal, and this album kicks a lot of ass.

Thy Art Is Murder - Godlike

Controversy aside, the new album from Thy Art Is Murder is an album that sounds like the way I remember deathcore sounding. Not to sound like an old man, but these days, a lot of the genre is about how heavy and brutal you can get, whereas a lot of what I listened to back about 15 years ago is more about just having sick riffs, solos, and killer vocals. This record reminds me of that, and their new vocalist is pretty damn good.

Honey Revenge - Retrovision

This past year was a theme for catchy and fun albums that got my attention, and one of the first ones I found was Honey Revenge’s debut, Retrovision. These guys take 00s pop-rock and add their own flair to it. I really enjoy this album and I’m excited to see where they go from here.

Broadside - Hotel Bleu

Speaking of which, Broadside had a good year with their new album, and second album with Sharptone, but they took their sound into a mixture of pop-rock, 80s pop, and pop-punk. The album is pretty damn good, and has some of my favorite cuts of the year, but it does lose me a bit with how off the wall it can get. It doesn’t flow as well as it should, but the styles they utilize here are pretty good.

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

I’ll be honest, folks — I haven’t gotten that metal for the majority of 2023. It’s not that it was bad, and like I said in my piece with Jake, I just didn’t find enough that I really connected with. There were a few exceptions, including Thy Art Is Murder’s latest, but Blackbraid’s second album, aptly titled Blackbraid II is a great mix of black metal, indigenous music, and even some hints of thrash and traditional heavy metal.

Wayfarer - American Gothic

My other favorite black metal album of this year is the new Wayfarer album, American Gothic, and if you wanted an album that takes country, Americana, and black metal, as well as lyricism about the Wild West and the realistic history of the time and region, you’ll love this.

Boys Like Girls - Sunday At Foxwoods

Boys Like Girls are back with their first album in 11 years, give or take, and it’s a good 80s-inspired album that has some slick hooks and reflects a lot more of lead vocalist and songwriter Martin Johnson’s project The Night Game. If you enjoyed that project, you’re sure to enjoy this one.

The Electric Mayhem - S/T

The Muppets had a pretty good year in 2023, especially with The Muppets Mayhem on Disney+, but the band released their debut “album” injunction with the show, and it’s a good little covers album (with a few originals in the mix) performed by the Electric Mayhem, and what’s great about this album is that it feels as though it’s performed by the actual band and not the performers of the characters along with session musicians. This album is just a bunch of fun all around.

Aesop Rock - Integrated Tech Solutions

I hadn’t listened to hip-hop much of 2023, but if there’s one album that I wanted to hear, it’s Aesop Rock’s Integrated Tech Solutions. This is a record that shows that Aes has nothing left to prove, as he’s got a relaxed and melodic flow, lyrics that are both insightful and observational, and a concept that doesn’t make much sense on the surface, but if you dig into it, the concept works a lot better.

Spiritbox - The Fear Of Fear

Spiritbox are back after two years, at least if you don’t count their Rotoscope EP from last year, but they put out a new EP entitled The Fear Of Fear. It’s a great EP that takes elements of their previous projects and combines it all together to make for a relatively short but engaging experience that is sure to leave fans wanting more.

Archetypes Collide - S/T

Archetypes Collide is a metalcore band that has a lot in common with bands like Linkin Park, Bring Me The Horizon, and other metalcore / alt-metal bands, especially ones with a pop sensibility like, because they have elements from a lot of different styles and put it all into a blender. This record is a ton of fun, despite not having much of a unique identity. If anything, hopefully their next album throws some more unique ideas into the mix.

Wind Walkers - What If I Break?

Wind Walkers is a band that Jake showed me, actually, and these guys follow in the same footsteps, although their new album (and first in five years) What If I Break is a generic record that does what it does well, and that’s kind of about it, although it does sound really nice and fans of this style should enjoy this quite a bit.

Cannibal Corpse - Chaos Horrific

Cannibal Corpse released a new album this year, and it was a hell of a good time. Chaos Horrific is the name of it, and this record is more or less what we’ve gotten before, but this record has a lot of passion, fury, and fire in it that I can’t help but enjoy quite a lot. Cannibal Corpse is one of the first metal bands I ever got into, and it feels fitting to put it onto my list, even if it’s the honorable mentions.

Caskets - Reflections

The last honorable mention I’ve got is from another band in the post-hardcore vein that has a pop sensibility, and their second album, Reflections, sort of dials down on the R&B elements of their sound, but the pop elements are still there in full force and they rule.

That’s all the honorable mentions I got, so let’s get into the meat of the list. I don’t want to go into too much detail, because I already did in Jake and I’s piece, but I still wanted to talk about these albums in one way or another.

10: Tyler Childers - Rustin’ In The Rain

Country has a bit of theme on my list this year, and the first album on my list is Tyler Childers’ Rustin’ In The Rain. This record is a nice nostalgic-sounding album that reminds me of a lot of the 1950s and the 1960s. Childers himself even said that this album was his idea of him auditioning for Elvis Presley, and it works quite well. I came back to this record quite a lot, because of how catchy and nostalgic it was.

9: Paramore - This Is Why

Paramore came back after a six-year hiatus, and they changed their style yet again by turning into a post-punk band and it sounds great. A few songs don’t do as much for me compared to the rest, hence why it’s lower, but the stuff that’s great is truly fantastic. If there’s one band that can pull off reinvention, it’s Paramore.

8: The Maine - S/T

The Maine dropping a really solid album wasn’t on my bingo card in 2023, but here we are. Their self-titled album from last year was a slick and catchy slice of 80s pop-rock that worked wonders for me. This record is my favorite of the bunch with this similar sound, including the new Honey Revenge, Broadside, and Boys Like Girls albums.

7: Seth MacFarlane & Liz Gillies - We Wish You The Merriest

A Christmas album in my top ten of the year? Say it isn’t so, but indeed, it is. I really enjoyed this record when it dropped in November, but I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit the last couple months. I’ve been playing a bit of Christmas music, and this is the album on the rotation. I wrote a full length review of this, so if you want to see what I thought of that album in more detail, check that out, but I do really enjoy this album, nonetheless.

6: Colter Wall - Little Songs

One of my other favorite country albums this year was the new Colter Wall record, Little Songs. Another nostalgic sounding album, this one worked more so for me, because of its lyrical content and Wall’s deep baritone. I absolutely love the sound of his voice, and how unique it is, but this record feels like it came right out of 1955 in all the best ways.

5: Beartooth - The Surface

Alright, top five time, and in that spot is Beartooth’s The Surfqce. An album that is both heavy and optimistic, I love this album and how it came out. I’ve been a fan of Beartooth for the last few years, and their last couple of albums where they’ve gone into more hard rock and pop sensibilities have worked wonders for me. This record is no exception, as it’s heavy and catchy. Hardy makes an appearance, too, and for as much flack as his last album got from a lot of online critics (the album, The Mockingbird & The Crow, isn’t thaaaaaat bad, but it’s fine), he does great here. This record is a whole lot of fun, though, and I’ve been playing it quite a lot throughout the year.

4: Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Weathervanes

Jason Isbell’s latest record is a behemoth of a record, as its lyricism is some of the best I’ve heard all year. Isbell’s vocals are the some of the best I’ve heard all year, too, but this record is some of the best Americana, country, and heartland-rock I’ve heard all year, too. This record gives every band member a chance to breathe, but every song is potentially the best song on the record. This album isn’t as higher, only because the top three on my list are more so personal for me, whereas this isn’t a personal one for me, although a lot of stuff on this record is very poignant and insightful. A lot of very relevant topics are brought up here, including addiction, abortion, school shootings, and racism, but it’s done so in an interesting way.

3: Zach Bryan - S/T

My top three this year were no contest. Zach Bryan’s self-titled is an album that caught me by surprise; this record is such a personal yet insightful look at someone’s mental and emotional state, but this record is wonderful. It’s a bit long, clocking in at around an hour, and a few songs feel like filler, but for the most part, this record is gorgeous. Bryan’s voice is utterly fantastic, and his lyricism is unmatched. These songs are some of the best of his career, too, and I’m so glad that a few of these songs were hits, even if they ended up being minor hits.

2: Metallica - 72 Seasons

For my top two albums of the year, these are albums that mean a lot to me, because of the bands that put them out and what they represent. The first one is Metallica’s new album, and their first in seven years, 72 Seasons, but this record is important to me because Metallica is the first metal band I ever got into a decade ago this year. I’ve been able to experience two Metallica albums live since they came out, this being one of them, and I’m also a lot older now. This is a great example of album where the band can do whatever they want, and they really do that by taking on multiple styles in this record. Metallica is the biggest metal band, if not the biggest band period, in the world, so they can truly do whatever they want.

1: Fall Out Boy - So Much (For) Stardust

This was a no-brainer — my album of the year is Fall Out Boy’s latest. They’re not only my favorite band, but they really hold a special place in my heart. This record is a long time coming, too; this is their first album in five years, and they went back to basics with So Much (For) Stardust, ultimately looking back to the past but also thinking forward. I don’t want to talk about this record too much, as I wrote extensively about it when it came out, and since then, but this record is a monumental one. It’s good to have Fall Out Boy back, especially with this new album.

Cheers to 2023, folks, let’s see what 2024 brings.

[endpaperfaire]

Harold James. Metamorphosis - Aminata, 2021

Harold James Makeup

[fallingsatellive]

⩝

This isn't just an essay about my archetrope identity; it's also the explanation for what it even is.

I've tried to narrow it down, I've tried to separate it, and I've tried to find convenient ways to define it. I explained it as having multiple distinct archetrope identities that were closely related—"wanderer," "mimic," "opportunist" "shapechanger"—but they aren't distinct. Most archetropes will say their archetypes are things like knight, or unreliable narrator—I don't think mine is inherently different or more internally complicated in any way, but the problem is that most archetypes and concepts have words that mean them. Everyone knows what a knight is. No matter where and how long I pored over the dictionary and Etymonline, I couldn’t find one single word that explains what I am. I had to realize that it's the very fact of what it is that makes an existing word or phrase impossible. So I made my own.

I call it Wayvariance. It's a portmanteau of sorts, between the words "wayfar" and "variant." A wayfarer is obviously a traveller or explorer, but the etymology of way (to mean the course by which something occurs) and fare (to mean to wander, to be/exist, or even simply just to go) implies a connotation of someone who doesn't just travel, but who's defined by it. Variance originally meant only the act of undergoing change. Its meaning of diversity, difference, came later; a result of inevitable change. The way evolution is a constant course of change, meaning inherently that it's also existence in infinities.

Wayvariance is being a wanderer. Not because I travel a lot, but ontologically. I always leave. I leave both physically and existentially. The wanderer grows bored with home, with comfort and familiarity. Not just bored. Sick. Sick to its stomach. Being in one place for too long creates a miasma. I could find something to hate about anywhere I end up. I've lived in enough places in a short enough amount of time to feel that anywhere I go next is implicitly not a place I'll stay for very long, and to feel like even just three years is a crazy long amount of time for me to spend living somewhere. A new city to become part of is my version of someone else’s return to a cozy childhood bedroom. But I never really am a part of them, I know by now. The homebody is a river carving canyons over eons. The traveller is always the fish.

"I would tell you about the ocean if I had a moment to stay and chat. But those other places call again and we will never see each other after this. I seem to be the only one who recognizes this. You say ‘keep in touch’ like I have hands and not fins."

I go where I go. It’s a matter of perspective whether it's freedom or being towed by an invisible rope to unknowable destinations, I guess. I choose to appreciate it, but only because I couldn't ever choose to stop it. To drift through existence. The word “plankton” etymologically traces back to the Greek for “wandering.” Plankton are defined as any creature which does not swim purposefully, but rather is carried by ocean currents. Am I purposeless? Rootless? Is this why so many people think their roots are their purpose? I never knew what it was like to have either. No wonder I'm anti-zionist as a Jew. Doikayt doesn’t just mean hereness to me, it means anywhereness. There is no soil or stone with my names already carved. There are no waters that whisper for me, only to. You get it.

Which is all to say: the difference between a wanderer and someone who is lost is only a matter of deciding that what you are is a conscious choice rather than being haplessly dragged along by the universe. Either way, there is no end and no source. I don’t even know what to say when people ask where I'm from. Whatever works, who’s asking?

Wayvariance is being a shapeshifter. One who changes. Not just their shape, too, but their whole self. Recreates the self. In fact, it’s my only constant. The one thing that will never change about me is that I will always change. I know that I'm trans because I seek radical physiological transformation more than any other reason. I cannot live a whole life without knowing what it feels like to be so drastically modified; not even out of a frenzied sense of curiosity, but out of an unavoidable instinct. I crave change, and I need it. The wanderer grows bored with home, with self, body, mind. It needs to leave. Stagnation kills me, like mosquitoes breed eggs in the still waters of my life. My name isn’t the same as it was 3 years ago and it won’t be the same three years from now. Even the way I write or draw is inconsistent. Even the way I type. An example: it wasn't a mistake to switch from digit to word when writing the same number just now. I felt like it—but I can't explain why.

Shapeshifter transforms the body and the mind remains intact. Wayvariant, on the other hand, becomes. Embodies. Change does not even have to be from the inside out. When I put something on myself—a name, an answer, an image, a character, a preference—it seeps into my epidermis like the ink of a tattoo until the only way to remove it is with the regular moulting of my feathers. I can't relate to stories of fictional shapeshifters because I can’t imagine turning into something physically but not becoming it in my entirety. What do the words mind, heart, body and soul mean? They are all equally mutable and impermanent. I have identified as otherkin for nearly eight years and I don’t have the same kintypes I did when I first realized, not because I was wrong about being a fox, but because I became a badger instead. Not even the same kintypes I did half that time ago, not because I was wrong about being a badger, but because I became a cladotherian instead. Queer, but never wanting to call myself “against labels” or “still questioning” just because I was aroace femme-presenting nonbinary and now I'm a butch bi man. You get it.

I used to relate to the phoenix. But there's no dramatic blaze of fire or victorious rising up from the embers for me. I don't need to burn to exist in the ashes of everything I used to be. Maybe someday a sapling will grow from them instead of a bird. If there was such thing as consistency, I would consistently be changing. But there isn’t. So when I grow into a tree, I certainly won’t be a bird anymore.

Wayvariance is adaptation, and by extension, survival. Sometimes Wayvariating is like being the last survivor of an apocalypse because you refused to die more like a cockroach than a hero, but that’s OK, you’re used to the loneliness. Sometimes it’s change that’s evolution at such a rapid pace it doesn’t need generations, only you and a certain willpower. Was there a reason the bird needed to suddenly be a tree in the first place? Sometimes Wayvariating is like chewing your leg off to get out of the trap. Backed into a corner snapping and hissing, it’s not very heroic either but I’ve always been more like a wild animal than that particular archetype allows for.

That also means Wayvariance is mimicry, inherently. Mimicry is survival. An adaptation. Some creatures will mimic a coloration of a poisonous species to deter predators. Some creatures will mimic the beats of a human interaction, perfectly memorized and choreographed to avoid being noticed. Some won’t even realize they are the only one in the room who’s having to pretend to be human. For a lifetime. They just know that snapping and hissing don’t protect them as well as dancing and laughing do. So I learned how to dance and laugh, but not because it's funny.

A terrifying concept for humans to think someone in the room might not be the same as them, but somehow smiles and speaks like them all the same. Like it has learned their behaviors, their patterns. A horror movie monster. One you don't notice right away, even speaking to it. What is it scheming? A great evil? To hunt, kill, devour? To make innocent humanity its victim?

Why would an animal have to pretend to be poisonous if it was the one who was bloodthirsty?

Wayvariance is opportunism. That’s also an adaptation. A Wayvariant is an animal that can survive on any diet, in any biome, because it takes what it can get while it can get it. That’s being a generalist. For a wild animal, at least. A sapient person's version I guess would be called eclecticism. My preferences are wide enough that I may as well not have any. Being a generalist means I say I “don’t play favorites” and I say I “have no taste” in things because I never know what to say when someone asks me my favorite type of movie, or game, favorite genre of music, what’s your dream job… where would you like to live? No answer, for me. Every answer. I could find something to love about anywhere I end up.

I also endeavor to diversify the self, too. Not just my options. It’s not just about differences. It’s about encompassments. It is difficult for me to make my self small because it naturally desires so many things. Therian, but struggling to whittle myself down to as socially acceptable a polytherianthropy as I can muster even if some people can only imagine I'm struggling to “maintain so many conflicting identities.” Autistic, and having special interests in topics some people find so impossibly broad like “art” that I have genuinely, not joking, had my disability fakeclaimed over it. Archetrope and having a 'type so conceptual and expansive as this that I need to make my own word for it. You get it.

Which means Wayvariance is to contain multitudes. It is not a contradiction for me to contradict myself. It comes easily because I'm not just OK with being confused or confusing, I embrace it. I don’t understand how others would find being "your own opposite" hard to wrap the mind around. Asymmetry? A walking paradox? Maybe in the eyes of others. Multitude eyes see those variating evolutionary infinities behind themselves. You can be both the desert and ocean. You can be snow and fire. You can be the desert and the ocean but not both at once. You can be snow and fire, but neither snow nor fire. This is so normal to me that it’s tricky to explain. When I write or do art, a million projects open at once that I chip away at over time across the board works better for me than putting all focus into one; if I'm playing three games, or watching three shows or reading three books at once, I finish all three before I would have finished just one if it was the only one. Something about the variety keeps my attention better than hyperfocus ever could, even with the autism/adhd combo. I liked having a million thousand nested links on my blog because there’s something about labyrinthinely navigated lists that makes more sense to me, and something about having different sideblogs for different topics that doesn’t. And I'm plural. No need to expound upon that one. Plural in more than one way, even. Plural in different ways that don't stay consistent. If I expound anyway, it's because I can't help it. You get it.

Wayvariance is ambiguity. I revel in it. I love those stupid link labyrinths, but I also like having nothing in terms of information that's accessible at all, even difficultly, because obscurity is my nest, where I feel safe. Vague isn’t uncomfortable for me, if anything, it’s familiar. Uncertainty is like a lullaby and a confident answer to a question is like waking with a start from the sensation of falling; you know the feeling—jarring, sudden. I'm not insecure when things don't make sense, though I know others sometimes see it that way if I'm nonsensical too often. I never feel more secure than when things don’t make sense. If there was such thing as home, mine would be the strange and ephemeral, and the antichronology of dreams, and enigmas. But there isn’t. So I am always waking up somewhere time exists, and you know the feeling, jarring and sudden. Making myself understood sometimes is like a fool’s errand, especially because way too many people think being esoteric is always a choice. I make an entire new word to describe my archetrope identity and then write an entire essay trying to explain it, because (as the modern adage explains) “human language is like trying to nail down the ocean” and unlike some, I am not human, I am the fish called to seas and from river to river, never with the privilege of walking back onto dry land where words lie.

G-d, why the hell was I an English major.

Wayvariants are outsiders, foreigners wherever they go, from across oceans to their home towns to the inside of their own heads. I am, after all, a wanderer, and I always leave. I leave both physically and existentially. Because I always leave, I also always arrive. I am a stranger wherever I arrive. Both physically and existentially. And a journey inevitably always changes the traveller. If I ever were to come back home, I'd be a stranger there too.

But like I said. There is no such thing as home.

[connorsnothereeither]

Welcome to Connor assigns all his characters a version of the song “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” because I realised it was a funny thing I could do:

Ulysses = Poor Man’s Poison

Like most of PMP’s music it’s got that slightly sinister, really heavy quality to it. But the song itself if still inherently somewhat hopeful and ethereal, and I think it really fits the weight of Ulysses life, and the way he things moving on, and moving home feels.

Daniel Thorns = Johnny Cash

There’s something about Dan that just strikes me as a Johnny Cash vibe. The lone wandering man archetype. The low, almost spoken lyrics accompanied by the guitar, with the very earthy feel, it’s just very Dan.

Leopold = Ashley Johnson & Troy Baker (The Last of Us Part II)

…I don’t know how much I can say or how much I even need to say. The version feels so much more personal and somber, and feels like a contemplation of death far more than the others, and it just… really fits.

Virgil = Andreas Scholl

The strings? The vocalization? The almost operatic and contemplative nature of the piece? Absolutely. It’s such a different departure from the other characters but so is Virgil, in a lot of ways. When I picture these songs I picture them to like, cinematic scenes or AMVs and I can just so clearly picture Virgil playing his violin to this, intercut with shots of him doing things.

[idrellegames]

Not an ask. But thank you so much for the aspec representation in Wayfarer. It's so refreshing to see an alloaro character like Veyer that is canonically alloaro and isn't the character archetype that sleeps around a lot and you just hope that they are around but then they eventually gets "fixed" by love. Anyways thanks for being awesome.

I so very rarely see alloaro characters handled with respect in fiction since it's so easy to boil their traits down to "noncomittal person who sleeps around until the right person comes around and fixes them". It's the flip same of the same coin as romantic asexuals, where the character gets boiled down to "inexperienced person who has never had sex until the right person comes around and fixes them."

Sexual attraction and romantic attraction are so often tied together as a single experience. And it is this way for many people, but not for everyone. Just speaking generally as an ace person, my experience is that aromanticism and asexuality are more palatable for non-acespec folks when they're treated as something that goes hand in hand. But being aroace isn't the only way to be aromantic or asexual - there's a huge variety of way people experience attraction and calling treating romantic and sexual attraction as the same thing is a disservice to everyone (even for allosexuals whose sexual orientation may not match up with their romantic one!).

Within the context of storytelling - at least in western writing - there's a narrative demand to meet certain expectations otherwise the trajectory may fall flat and be seen as unfulfilling. A committed relationship that includes both romance and sex is typically the desired end goal with fictional relationships (look at any romantic comedy, even going back to Shakespeare - Shakespearen comedies always end with a wedding). You can also look to the prevalence of the OTP in fandom - there's a desire to see your favourite characters get together in a specific way and to have that relationship come to fruition. And it is quite fun! I don't mean this as a knock against it - I enjoy OTPs myself, I love romance in fiction so much. I love a satisfying romance arc. Most of my OCs for video games have relationships and its a focal part of their character development.

But this does mean that aromantic and asexual people often sit on the sidelines because they don't fit perfectly into that type of story structure. So it can be very difficult to include them. They blur the lines of the format. They make it a little messy. They don't match the expectation.

I think with aromantic characters, too, both writers and audiences don't know what to do with them. There's always this lingering sense of disappointment that romance is off the table, that their arc isn't going to culminate in a committed relationship. Even in the world of IF and gaming, we don't have terminology to classify aromantic characters who can have some kind of relationship with the player character because the terminology is Romance Option (RO) or Love Interest (LI). Wayfarer's character roster is evidence of how much of a stumbling block this is - Aeran and Veyer are included on it as "romances", even though they aren't in the traditional sense (Aeran falls into the "conditional" label, Veyer is in the "tryst" one, but neither of them are technically "romances" in the traditional sense).

As for Veyer themself, they aren't interested in romance. They are in their 60s, they've been around the block a few times, they know what they do and do not want. They know what their life is like and what they can and cannot commit to due to outside factors. They may be smitten with people they find interesting or intriguing, but romance or long-term commitment isn't a part of that.

This doesn't mean that they can't be compassionate or genuinely care about their partners or enjoy their company, they're just going about it in a different way.

[siena-sevenwits]

Jan 6 - Day 7 - Fortnight in Books

Most memorable character:

How can I pick? A few that come to mind:

Eugenides, Costis, and Attolia (Queen's Thief series) - Eugenides is such a strange and fantastic trickster archetype who's full of mercy. Costis is one of the the most endearing pov characters I've run across. Attolia is made unforgettable by her story, and I will never forget scene on the stairs, or the dance and the stolen hairpins.

Harriet Vane (Gaudy Night) She takes my breath away with how real and complex she is, how subtle and effective her arc. I would be so intimidated by her in real life but would wish to heaven I wasn't.

Will Hardy (Wayfarer) I couldn't help but like him, a country boy in 1820's London for the very first time, with, um, superpowers.

Iphigeneia and Achilles (Iphigeneia in Aulis) This girl becomes the epitome of courage and strength over the course of her play, and her parallel arc with Achilles is INCREDIBLE.

Schmendrick and Molly Grue (The Last Unicorn - reread) I love them. I love them so dearly. Schmendrick I project on, and Molly is real.

Ratty and Toad (The Wind in the Willows - reread) Toad was one of my childhood favourites, and I find I still love him. But this reread really gave me an appreciation for Ratty, the courageous poet full of imagination but also love for the ordinary, common sense but also the ability to hear what the wind is saying in the willows, and who does not fear Pan.

Lucy and L*ckwood (censoring so Meri can still see this post if she wants to - I don't think it's an issue in this case.) These kids are homemakers in the truest sense of the word. (But someone should probably get them some help!)

Kate Sutton (The Perilous Gard) I want to be her.

Piranesi (Piranesi - reread) I'll never forget him. Never. Welcoming the albatross with arms open like a cross.

Janner and Kalmar Igiby (The Wingfeather Saga) These boys made me sob with the truth of their story.

Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Treason) Especially for the sake of his conversations with Watson, his south Irish accent and expressive voice, the revelation that he taught maths at a "university of the Jesuitical persuasion on the continent," and the scene in the coffeeshop. Oh, and raiding the dark room. Oh, the consternation Watson feels when he realizes that Moriarty is just naturally a more congenial person to get along with than Holmes is.

Larry, Mother, and Spiro (The Corfu Trilogy) As these are fictionalized versions of real people, I'd best be careful to be respectful in how I talk of them. But oh, gosh, the fun.

Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) What a shame her inner life is so misunderstood by the general pop culture.

Helene Hanff and Frank Doel (84 Charing Cross Road) Again, real people, and not even fictionalized in this case. But i loved both dearly.

Most annoying character:

Captain Creech (The Corfu Trilogy) Hands down. Eventually I skipped every passage he was in and refused to read it. This character was portrayed in a horrid manner, and I greatly hope he was not based on a real person. He existed in story only to be disgusting, and I was clearly expected to be charmed by him, or find everyone's reactions to him funny, or something. Ugh.

[avisafterall]

Valerie Coronado 🌊

first attempt at a character collage! which im doing instead of writing! yippee! anyway, it’s garish because im not an artist and certainly not a collage-er (?), but it’s so fun so who cares

Valerie is one of my favorite archetypes in fiction - a trickster, mask bearer, just a straight up liar sometimes. In the years that I've had these characters, Valerie, like all the others, has kind of shifted across different personality types/roles, but what's always remained constant is that she's wickedly smart and likes to keep the scope of her observations to herself, tucked away until she can use them to her advantage. She's a strategist above all else, and the most fun thing about her character, for me, is that those strategies aren't always used to win. Sometimes the aim of the game is just to prove a point.

A part of writing I really enjoy is researching the cultures or backgrounds that my characters originate from (twofold - their ethnicity/nationality and which part of the story's main setting they grew up in/are coming from, since they're all there at the start of the book). For Wayfarers, this is a teeny bit complicated to implement because the world is fictionalized, but still very doable and very fun! Valerie is Brazilian but mostly grew up on the equivalent of the US East Coast, which has been an interesting contrast to reconcile - the tropical, industrial São Paulo vs. quiet, sometimes frigid northeast Maine. One of my favorite things I've found while researching Brazilian culture(s) is the tradition of giving the first slice of cake to a guest of honor/loved one on your birthday! So sweet, and connects to a detail I love about Valerie - she's very reserved and a bit rusty with displays of affection, so her fondness for her friends (whether she calls them that or not) tends to peek out through little actions and gifts. Nothing loud, nothing showy, but always personal and meaningful.

Valerie is quite enigmatic and first glance would suggest she much prefers solitude and familiarity, but underneath her carefully withdrawn exterior, she's wildly ambitious and curious. She's been in one place for a while now, but she's mulled over the idea of traveling somewhere new (and preferably sunny) for a long while. (Lolha's recruitment offer, then, is very convenient.)

Some songs that I think suit her:

Metaphor - The Crane Wives

Ouroboros - Charming Disaster

Show You a Body - Haley Heynderickx

November - Sparkbird

Too Sweet - Hozier

[akashasananda]

TwinRay on Mystical Activations and the Evolution of Consciousness - A Transformational Journey

Set sail on a remarkable journey of self-realization under the guidance of TwinRay. Traverse the intricate pathways of mystical activations, revealing the sacred connections that intricately intertwine in the tapestry of your life. Amidst the spectrum of spiritual exploration, you find yourself at the heart of a transformative voyage—one that calls upon you to rise above the ordinary and ascend towards the luminescent realms of awakened humanity.

In the realm of mysticism, the concept of mystical activations serves as the catalyst for your metamorphosis, a cosmic dance with the energies that swirl around you. These activations are the whispers of the divine essence, urging you to unravel the layers of your being and step into the fullness of your spiritual embodiment and mastery. As you delve into the recesses of your soul, the vibrational frequencies of the universe harmonize with your essence, aligning you with the eternal truths that have echoed through the ages.

Picture the process as alchemy—the ancient art of transmutation, where the base elements of your consciousness are refined into the gold of spiritual wisdom. Each moment of introspection and contemplation acts as a crucible, catalyzing the fusion of disparate elements into a harmonious whole. This alchemical dance is the key to unlocking the gates of divine union, a sacred marriage of your earthly self with the higher realms.

Guided by spiritual teachers who embody the archetype of master healers, you traverse the landscapes of your inner world. These luminous beings, like celestial wayfarers, illuminate the path to ascension with their profound wisdom and unwavering love. Their presence becomes a beacon, guiding you through the labyrinth of challenges and initiations that mark your journey towards higher consciousness.

In the course of this transformative journey, initiation serves as a milestone—a metaphysical turning point where old layers are shed and new facets of your being are unveiled. With the help of TwinRay the process becomes a rebirth, propelling you into an elevated plane of existence. Free from the constraints of the past, your spirit soars, embodying the universal drive that fuels the constant progression of the cosmos.

The evolution of consciousness is not a linear trajectory but a spiral dance, where each step forward is a return to the essence that lies at the core of your being. Universal love, the cosmic glue that binds all of creation, becomes the guiding force in this dance of awakening. Love, not in the limited human sense, but as a radiant force that transcends time and space—a force that unites all beings in the tapestry of existence.

As you traverse the landscapes of your soul, you come to understand that the divine paths are myriad, each unique and yet interconnected. The labyrinth of existence is a tapestry woven with the golden threads of synchronicity, where every encounter, every experience, is a note in the symphony of your awakening. The universe speaks to you in symbols and signs, inviting you to decode the language of the cosmos and align with the flow of divine energy.

Your journey becomes a sacred pilgrimage, a quest for the elusive grail of self-realization. The terrain is not without its challenges, for the path of the mystic is often a solitary one. Yet, in the solitude, you discover the richness of your inner landscape, and in the silence, you hear the whispers of the divine.

Under the spiritual auspices of TwinRay, you begin to perceive eternal truths that unfold like ancient manuscripts, speaking the language of the heart. These truths are lived - not learned - and can be known in the tranquil moments of divine union. The illusions fade, and your soul's vision becomes clear, acknowledging the interconnected synergy of all existence.

In this sacred dance of evolution, you become a vessel of light, a channel for the energies of higher consciousness to flow through. The boundaries between self and other blur as you realize that the enlightened humanity you seek to manifest is not a distant utopia but a living potential within you.

As your journey unfolds with the assistance of TwinRay, you'll learn that spiritual transformation involves daring to step into your own shadows. This process mirrors the moon's phases, alternating between periods of illumination and darkness. Embracing these shadows becomes an essential aspect of your mystical activations, serving as fertile grounds for profound personal growth. Guided by experienced spiritual teachers, you traverse the challenging terrains of your inner world, learning to confront dormant aspects of yourself with kindness and acceptance. This dance with your shadows paints a picture of continuous evolution rather than a completed masterpiece, signifying the endless unfolding of your spiritual journey.

In the tapestry of spiritual exploration, the concept of divine union takes on a multidimensional aspect. It transcends the union of self with the higher realms; it extends to the interconnected web of all life. The realization dawns that every sentient being is a unique thread in the cosmic fabric, contributing to the symphony of existence. This expanded awareness brings with it a profound sense of responsibility—a recognition that your journey is intertwined with the collective evolution of humanity. The enlightened humanity you seek is not a solitary endeavor but a collaborative dance where each soul contributes its unique notes to the cosmic melody.

Under the tutelage of TwinRay, your spiritual journey unfolds like a blooming lotus, each petal symbolizing a stage of mystical activation and consciousness evolution. As a beacon of light, your transformation radiates high-frequency vibrations, influencing not just your own existence but the collective consciousness of our planet. This symbiotic dance of awakening, where personal transformation impacts the cosmic tapestry, signifies your generous contribution to the world around you.

[earthling-wolf]

Pe: Mythology

Humor: Sanguine

Historically, the moral character of the Pe type was best encapsulated by Humorism as the Sanguine temperament. Such a temperament was classified as enthusiastic, optimistic, playful, and jovial but also imprudent, impulsive, and indulgent. Moreover, while this does not capture the essence of Pe's metabolism, it certainly describes the emotional states evoked by it when it is felt in excess. This temperament was believed to originate from having healthy and thick "blood," which, if we exercise some imagination to account for the medical ignorance of the age, represented youthfulness, vibrancy, vitality, animation, and a ruddiness of the skin and cheeks. The sanguine temperament was affiliated with springtime, fertility, and rebirth, corresponding with Pe's generative ability. As a character, it was often depicted as a man playing a flute or instrument and, at other times, as a dancer or lover wooing a woman. In terms of chronological age, it was affiliated with Infancy, which corresponds to this function's archetype of the Eternal Child.

Archetype: Puer/Puella

In mythology, the explorer function is symbolically represented as the Puer/Puella archetype, a wayfaring eternal god-child carrying no shackles or life responsibilities. The Puer roams the world freely, always on the move and looking for new subjects to dally with. Because of this nomadic nature, contacting this god is always a chance encounter and can signal good fortune or the beginning of chaos. One example of the Puer can be seen in the story of Peter Pan, whose arrival foreshadows great adventures filled with magic and wonder. Another example of the Puer can be found in Pan, a half-goat Greek god of fertility and sex who roams the fields while playing music on his pipe and who incites crowds into mirth and dance. Pan depicts the Trickster, who also appears as a crafty and mischievous fox/coyote playing tricks on others simply for amusement. Unlike other gods who boast temples of worship and carry great power, the Puer is a different kind of deity that is easily underestimated. While not physically strong, he relies on cleverness to upend things and get his way. The Puer represents the chaos the world needs to function and exists as an eternal challenge to the King's order.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

favorite books of 2021

in chronological order because there's simply no other way to sort them

The Death of Vivek Oji (Akwaeke Emezi) - a novel as much about life as it is about death, as a Nigerian family tries to make sense of their enigmatic child's death. Vivek Oji was somehow even more tender, gutting, and mystifying than Emezi's debut novel, Freshwater, and firmly cemented them as one of my new favorite writers.

Tampa (Alissa Nutting) - a prickly, nauseating novel detailing a chillingly remorseless middle school teacher's sexual abuse of one of her male students. an acerbic and excellently crafted modern Lolita that turns a sharp eye on the double standard often afforded to female abusers - especially those who, like the novel's subject, are attractive, white, and married to police officers.

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights (Molly Smith and Juno Mac) - hands down my favorite nonfiction of the year, written by two sex workers from an explicitly socialist, anti-work perspective. if you're confused about the difference between legalization and decriminalization, wondering whether anti-sex work legislation actually helps survivors of trafficking, or a generally looking to be a more educated ally to sex workers worldwide, start here.

The Daevabad Trilogy (S.A. Chakraborty) - a series of doorstopper fantasies set in 19th century Egypt and drawing heavily on Arab and Islamic mythology to create a sweeping story of magic-fueled political intrigue. but despite its incredible scope, what really sold Chakraborty's epic series for me was the deft handling of her three lead characters - an savvy urchin turned princess, a naive and noble prince, and an ancient, tormented warrior - that turned them from familiar archetypes into fully realized creations whose stories were resolved with breathtaking perfection.

Red at the Bone (Jacqueline Woodson) - a little gem of a novel that dives deep into two families brought together by an unexpected pregnancy, exploring the grief, economic strife, and generational trauma that complicate their lives. as always, Woodson's writing is simultaneously deep and delicate, incisive and insightful.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers) - a bittersweet and beautiful send-off to Chambers' Wayfarers series, and arguably the best one yet. five strangers of different species are caught together at an outer space truck stop after a technological accident, and - as if so often the case in Chambers' stories - a heartfelt conversation about the nature of life, compassion, and celebrating difference as much as similarities ensues.

Living a Feminist Life (Sara Ahmed) - I first read Sara Ahmed's concept of being a "feminist killjoy" somewhere in the middle of undergrad and was gripped immediately by her crystal clear articulation of the struggle to stand steadfastly by one's principles even in instances where it would be much more simple and pleasant not to. having finally found my way to this book, I found so much healing in her unflinching anger and resolve, and especially resonated with the chapter describing the thankless and frequently infuriating nature of doing "diversity work" in higher education. I'm greatly looking forward to reading Ahmed's 2021 release Complaint! that details her decision to leave that line of work behind altogether.

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (Akwaeke Emezi) - Emezi once again establishing themself as masterful in everything they set out to write with a blazing bruise of a book that delves into the epic depths of their struggles with depression, embodiment, and sudden literary stardom. it's also very much a writer's memoir, exploring Emezi's profoundly spiritual drive to make a life as a storyteller in spite of every obstacle. a confrontational gem of a memoir.

The Chosen and the Beautiful (Nghi Vo) - I read three books by Vo this year and all of them were dazzling, but this queer, magic-infused reimagining of The Great Gatsby truly knocked me on my ass. told from the perspective of Vietnamese adoptee Jordan Baker, this novel is packed full of furtive glamour and fiendish charm, told with a style that perfectly captures the smothering heat of one strange, sexually-charged summer.

The Monster of Elendhaven (Jennifer Giesbrecht) - an absolutely perfect little black pearl of a story, following a scheming sorcerer and the monster who desires him through a tale of power, revenge, devotion, and depravity.

Superman Smashes the Klan (Gene Luen Yang) - a great graphic novel from my best frenemy Detective Comics Comics, revitalizing an old Superman adventure through a smart modern lens. I liked this story so much that it made me start seriously thinking about devoting some time to keeping up with comics again in 2022, and that is NOT a small feat.

The Girl Who Kept Winter (Giao Chi) - an unexpected delight recently translated into English after being released over a decade ago in Vietnam! I anticipated a straightforward fantasy romance, but what I got was even better: a world filled with master martial artists and convoluted family drama, populated by a vivid cast of characters who swing wildly from star-crossed romance to slapstick comedy at a moment's notice. it's difficult to describe how reading this novel made me feel except to say that I was never not having fun.

Milk Fed (Melissa Broder) - I inhaled this sumptuous novel in a single afternoon, unable to pry myself away from Broder's story of insecurity, desire, and appetite. truly this was the year I fell in love with contemporary fiction, and Milk Fed made for a sumptuous dessert.

Iron Widow (Xiran Jay Zhao) - if you haven't heard about this book you must be living under a rock. I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the hype, but it was impossible not to fall instantly in love. our protagonist Zetian is absolutely electric - furious, bloodthirsty, utterly pragmatic and out for revenge. there's nothing she won't stoop to - including becoming an influencer!!! - to get what she wants, and I can't remember the last time finishing a YA novel left me so excited to see what will happen next.

[lailoken]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but could you possibly name some common symbols/signs of the witch father and deities related ? animals, plants, things that could represent him ? ive been having dreams about the devil, with black wolves and odal runes and I'm trying to figure it out. thank you in advance! :^)

When you say Witch Father, I assume you mean that where the Man in Black is concerned? Just because there are multiple entities that one could call “Witch Father,” and not all of them are necessarily that intimately related to one another. Though, I believe many share the title of Man in Black.

Where the syncretic, archetypal Witch Father of Traditional Witchcraft is concerned (Horned Lord, Faerie King, and Master of the Wild Hunt,) there is certainly abundant overlap.

Several examples of omens and signs that are traditionally associated with the Witch Father, as Dark Wayfarer, include:

Serpents,

Corvids,

Hounds,

All manner of horned beast (Stag, Ram, Bull, etc,)

Pretty much any black animal,

Bones,

Doorways,

Crossroads,

Brambles.

& Dreams of death and/or physical transmutation.

[drowningmoonstudios]

Our Inaugural Post

Hello friends! We have fled Twitter for the safety of this blog. If you like tabletop roleplaying games, especially indie ttrpgs, then you're in luck. Drowning Moon Studios is a small press, tabletop roleplaying game publisher with a mission to make tabletop roleplaying games friendlier and more accessible to new players.

You might have seen some of our games, but just in case you haven't, here are three of our most popular titles:

Follow Me Down is a tabletop roleplaying game for two players, inspired by the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the mythology of the Greek underworld. It uses the Powered by the Apocalypse rules engine and is designed to be GMless, with each player portraying two roles during the course of the game; their character, based on the archetype of Orpheus or Eurydice, and the Fates, directing the action from afar (in what would normally be the GM role).

You can purchase a digital copy of Follow Me Down. A print version will be available in January 2023!

A tongue-in-cheek, d6 tabletop roleplaying game about magical maintenance workers in a sprawling, technomagical city. One part The IT Crowd + one part Ghostbusters, the Municipal Order of Technomantic Engineers (MOTE) battle high-stress and low wages to make sure their city never sleeps.

Have you tried turning your summoning circle off and on again?

Mage to Order is available in both print and digital versions!

Wayfaring Strange is an original diceless tabletop roleplaying game that explores the concepts of hidden highways, urban legends, folk magic and survival in liminal America. Players portray Wayfarers, people existing on the fringes of society doing their best to survive, or even thrive in a shadowy, dangerous underworld ripe with unknowable power.

Wayfaring Strange is coming to Kickstarter in February 2023, but for now, you can download the free ashcan here.

If any of these games sound interesting, feel free to visit the Drowning Moon Studios website, or join our mailing list for more information!

[ganymedesclock]

Something I think is really interesting in especially as storied and archetype-laden a genre as classical fantasy is the oddity created by ostensibly counterpart archetypes that are not handled the same way. That’s a bit of a heavy statement so let me explain.

Imagine Prince Charming. We know this character so well we usually make fun of him. But briefly, discard all irony and return to the core of the character: gleaming and debonair, elegantly mannered but of fiery passion, duelist and romantic and impeccably dressed. If possessed of a vice, may be arrogant, but come on, if you’re Prince Charming, you know you’re hot stuff.

Prince Charming is usually presented as the male equivalent to the female Noble Princess- but the truth is, these characters are not the same. They may have qualities in common, but they are handled and utilized differently in stories. 

This may have a frustrating root- because of assumptions made about men and women, what a woman should be and what a man ought to aspire to- but it need not be only taken as a frustrating bug in the system. Archetypes, after all, only exist meaningfully in fiction as ingredients on the chef’s table. Some of them might nauseate, but others are perfectly good, if you just trim off some bits and mix them up with new friends.

Imagine, with no jokes or subversions, a female prince charming. Gleaming smile, court mannerisms, gold brocade and tailored historical suits with a fencing rapier and a wit just as quick, impeccable hair and understated jewelry, possibly dressing ‘down’ as a conspicuously stylish hunter or wayfarer to get some adventuring on but she’ll do just a nicely in her fancy doublet and white gloves.

And likewise, imagine without mockery, a male princess; soft-spoken, sheltered but wise, compassionate and mystical, beloved by his people, earnest and profound in his desire to help. Precious, vulnerable, and yet compelled with the bravery to move mountains and challenge boundaries, wrapped in airy and shimmering layers that give him an ethereal or ghostly sort of presence, bare or slipper-shod feet that grace the earth untarnished.

Because if the truth is we think different things about ‘a king’ as opposed to ‘a queen’, if the Empress and Emperor in tarot have different meanings, and we take that together with the truth that men and women can be, and are, anything within the bounds of human capability and even beyond that in the land of fiction- then you can get a lot of intrigue out of tropes you might think are too tired to play straight merely by reminding yourself that an evil wizard and a wicked witch are not the same archetype... and nobody said a wicked witch HAS to be a woman.

(Now, this is a lot of fun, but it is also worth being careful about! You may have to rethink stuff while mixing up your character archetypes like this- it can’t necessarily be a total cut-and-paste job. Always make sure when rehoming your tropes that you are careful they play nicely with your character’s other qualities- or, play badly in a way that is significant and done on purpose.)

[dwellordream]

“Legend has it that the erotic historical sprang, full-grown and kicking, out of the head of Kathleen Woodiwiss and stormed brazenly onto the romance novel scene. Between 1972 and 1974 romance sales were down, publishers were looking for a new formula, and Nancy Coffey of Avon books discovered Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower (1972) from a stack of unsolicited manuscripts. Longer than other romances then on the market, its sexual encounters were more graphic and violent and there was a grandness of design, involving extensive travel and high adventure, heretofore unseen. The sweeping popularity of this new formula electrified the whole market; hundreds of thousands of romance lovers became burningly obsessed.

Soon after Woodiwiss’s resounding success Avon came out with Rosemary Rogers’s Sweet Savage Love (1974), giving the new formula one of its names: the “sweet savage” romance. What was it about the “bodice-ripper” that caused such a historical break, a radical shift in romance formulas thereafter? Their essential charm stems from their erotic dangerousness, their near-pornographic sexual violence, and their eroticization of travel, of the world and all its exhilarating experiences. In fact, experience itself becomes erotically dangerous, a sublime reaching toward transcendence, or a final movement toward a heroic and ecstatic death. 

The formula hinges on the elusive and cryptic hero who gestures toward the endless possibility of erotic darkness. Brandon, the hero of The Flame and the Flower, emanates ominous blackness: hair that is “raven black,” skin that is “darkly tanned”; he “sweeps” the heroine “with a bold gaze from top to toe” (31). His desires turn on cruel mastery and imprisonment of the heroine; his evil actions set him apart from earlier mass-market formulas as a character singularly unredeemable: “He had the look of a pirate about him, or even Satan himself” (31). “Tall and powerful he stood, garmented regally in black velvet and flawless white. He was Satan to her. Handsome. Ruthless. Evil. He could draw her soul from her body and never feel remorse” (92). 

The erotic fantasy of being subjugated—terrified and trembling—by such an archetypal enemy figure hinges, once again, on his subjugation at the end of the novel by his love for the heroine. He tumbles from masterful demon lover to having a body that is pale, that trembles, mirroring her physical terror upon first meeting him. “The breath caught in Brandon’s throat. He went pale and suddenly began to shake. He cursed himself for letting a mere girl affect him this way. She played havoc with his insides. He felt as if he were again a virgin, about to experience his first woman. He was hot and sweating one moment, cold and shaking another” (152).

Tossed from one passionate, self-decimating extreme to another, the hero of the erotic historical embodies a grandness of contradiction distinct from other romance formulas, particularly earlier ones, and his dramatic transformation from distant, cold villain to burning lover whose world resides in the heroine is more violently exaggerated than in any other romance genre. It is this excessiveness that pulls the erotic historical toward the genre of pornography.

 Both genres tend to repeat again and again the point of supersaturation of meaning—with pornography this point is penetration, and with the erotic historical it is the passionate frisson between the hero and heroine. Steve Morgan, the hero of Sweet Savage Love, cynical gunfighter, ever-wandering killer, is so full of dark experience and secret doings that his past is never finally told and resolved. Steve’s life as a homeless fighter does not change with his final transformation into a lover; he takes the heroine along with him on his travels, and she herself becomes a vagabond and fugitive. 

In the erotic historical, distinct from other contemporary mass-markets, the lovers remain outside, wayfarers on the margins of society. In all the heroes of this genre, we find something of Rhett Butler from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) (itself an early classic of the erotic historical genre). A perennial influence on enemy lovers everywhere, Rhett introduces us to the cynical libertine who hides an interior of deep disappointment. He self-destructively gestures again and again to his fallenness, goading society to cast him out more and more: “Suppose I don’t want to redeem myself?” Rhett asks. “Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed” (240). 

A ruined idealist, he has before him a world void of real truth, of strong principle and moral rectitude; thus he tumbles into the abyss with an unimaginable grace and charm. Rhett presents us with that common twist on the erotic outcast character: the dandy. He wears “the clothes of a dandy on a body that was powerful and latently dangerous in its lazy grace” (179). We often encounter the dandified dangerous lover, as we see with Oscar Wilde’s characters (and Wilde himself and his fellow Aesthetes), the Byronic hero in the popular imagination (and Byron himself), and many characters from contemporary romances (particularly the erotic historical and the regency genres). 

This performance of eccentricity, showiness, and bold statement expresses a sense of mastery over social codes and gestures—a mastery to the point of deconstructing them. Exaggerating such social expressions performs an ironic disenchantment and, to reference stock Romantic ideas, a sense of self so singular that, even visibly, he “stands out.” To “stand out,” though, asks for witnesses to self-exile; the dangerous lover “confesses” his disappointment in a world too shallow for him; his only recourse is to parody this lack of soul. To be superficial on the surface is to point to and, at the same time, hide an interior. 

Confession is eroticized with dangerous subjectivity: the secret depth of the soul is unveiled to the beloved and the beloved only, and when it’s exposed the fact that it can’t be represented is uncovered. Such is the paradox; the lover says: “Here is the depth of my pain, see how it can never be understood.” Yet the dangerous lover’s infinite subjectivity is infinite only insofar as it is confessed and witnessed—its very presentation guarantees its unrepresentability. As Barthes affirms of the lover: “ . . . passion is in essence made to be seen: the hiding must be seen: I want you to know that I am hiding something from you, that is the active paradox I must resolve: at one and the same time it must be known and not known” (Lover’s Discourse, 42). 

What the dandy expresses with his style is that his style can never represent him. While Rhett is a rascal, when he loves he is the best of men, but he must hide this because, more than any other man, he feels he has failed on a grand scale. Maintaining complete indifference for the world and in the world is essential, otherwise his hell will cut deeper, his lacerated interiority will be exposed to further wounding. The world mirrors his subjectivity: a lost cause. Only the heroine witnesses his depths of strength and hence also the depths of his final despair. All others see only his reckless, insolent façade. 

With Rhett we are reminded of the self emptied or the absence of being—his eroticism sets before us our own death, our own darkness. Scarlett describes her first encounter with this erotic: “He was like death, carrying her away in arms that hurt. . . . She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon hers. . . . Suddenly she had a wild thrill like she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement” (940). Barthes writes of this craving to be engulfed or annihilated as part of the lover’s discourse. It is a dying without the pains of dying, “the gentleness of the abyss” (11) where responsibility no longer holds one in its clutches. 

The beauty of erotic death is replayed in another classic dangerous lover narrative, as well as an early and influential erotic historical—Edith M. Hull’s The Sheik (1921), considered by some to be the first romance of the twentieth century. The sheik of the title kidnaps, rapes, and holds captive an aristocratic English girl. Again the inexorable divide: the mysterious, ruthless leader of a roving band of Arabs and the subjugated, enslaved English girl. The sheik has “the handsomest and cruelest face that she had ever seen. . . . He was looking at her with fierce burning eyes that swept her until she felt that the boyish clothes that covered her slender limbs were stripped from her” (56–57). 

She observes that “ . . . his face was the face of a devil” (141). His subjectivity has the hiddenness of danger: “The man himself was a mystery. . . . She could not reconcile him and . . . [the] dozen incongruities that she had noticed during the day crowded into her recollection until her head reeled”(79). He has exiled himself from his aristocratic English origins; he wanders the desert incessantly. Redemption from self-inflicted loneliness comes finally through true love. His only escape must be from outside, through a transcendence which he can’t possibly see beforehand because it is so exterior to any kind of solution he could find for himself. 

The lover brings the caesura, the utter surprise of an interruption of restless being. As an outsider love narrative, The Sheik ends with the declaration of love signifying a pact to wander together as homeless voyagers. The Sheik makes fast the chain that links the erotic historical with pornography (and we will see everywhere these links between the dangerous lover romance and pornography, particularly in the nineteenth century). Even though Hull’s story is not sexually explicit—in fact, on the page we only read about kisses—she rewrites and romanticizes a popular nineteenth-century pornographic narrative.

The darling of nineteenth-century pornographers, the story of an exotic foreigner—a Turk, a sheik, a pirate, a brigand—enslaving and raping a pale and supplicant English virgin provided the ultimate titillation for the English gentleman reader. The anonymous The Lustful Turk: Scenes in the Harem of an Eastern Potentate, published around 1828, provides us with a famous example of a pornographic version of The Sheik. The narrative of The Lustful Turk, up until the all-important ending, is essentially the same as the sheik romance.

 Of course, with the romance the ending is everything: in The Sheik, the transcendent sphere of love “redeems” the brutality of the hero, casting a rosy glow of forever back on all sadistic acts. The pornographic version merely repeats, unrelentingly, the act of penetration, of possession. No transcendence here: meaning flattens out into a repetition which could sustain itself forever.”

- Deborah Lutz, “The Erotics of Ontology: The Mass-Market Erotic Historical Romance and Heideggerian Failed Presence.” in The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative

[tybaltsjuliet]

nicky’s archetype playlists, 09/11: the avenger.

there is no more new frontier.

(listen.)

i. mine was not to reason why; mine was but to do and die. at the end of the world, or the last thing i see - you are never coming home, never coming home.

country roads (me first and the gimme gimmes) // horse soldier, horse soldier (corb lund) // battle cry of freedom (bryan sutton) // know your enemy (green day) // hammer to fall (queen) // hell's broke loose in georgia (bryan sutton) // the nineteen stars of heaven (kronos quartet + laurie anderson) // lorena (john hartford) // idumea (sacred harp singers) // in the pines (lead belly) // the ghost of you (my chemical romance) // the mercy seat (nick cave and the bad seeds) // ride to death (carter burwell; from true grit)

ii. no more strife! go find it in the hearts of other men. loaded up my toolkit with every hateful instrument; now here we are thirty years later.

welcome to the black parade (my chemical romance) // cry, little sister (gerard mcmann) // the killing moon (greg laswell) // golden and green (the builders and the butchers) // the highest judge of all (joshua henry; from carousel) // i'm always walking as somebody else (american murder song) // werewolf gimmick (the mountain goats) // high regard (the story so far) // bad moon rising (credence clearwater revival) // these boots are made for walking (pure hell) // dirt universe (chelsea wolfe) // getting into knives (the mountain goats)

iii. don't you know my name? you've been so long. sure as god made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

doolin-dalton (the eagles) // death to my hometown (bruce springsteen) // cat people (putting out fire) (david bowie) // god's gonna cut you down (the gaslight anthem) // strawberry fields forever (jim sturgess + joe anderson; from across the universe) // miss missing you (fall out boy) // one against four (carter burwell; from true grit) // S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W (my chemical romance) // damn these vampires (the mountain goats) // desperado (the eagles)

iv. lay down your law books now; they're no damn good. whether or not it was always going to be this way, it only mattered yesterday.

streets of laredo (johnny cash) // battle hymn of the republic (joanna smith) // doolin-dalton/desperado (reprise) (the eagles) // don't let the sun go down on me (miley cyrus) // farewell, angelina (joan baez) // 21 guns (green day) // topeka (ludo) // song for ted sallis (the mountain goats) // wayfaring stranger (jack white; from cold mountain) // was my brother in the battle (kate + anna mcgarrigle) // the last resort (the eagles)

+ bonus: far beyond horizons i have seen, beyond the things i've been, beyond the dreams i've dreamed, are the things i've done - in fact, each and every one are the way that i was taught to run. waitin' for the light to shine (daniel jenkins; from big river)

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 21 of 26

Title: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4) (2021)

Author: Becky Chambers

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonists

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 8/15/2021

Date Finished: 8/22/2021

Gora is an unremarkable planet. It has no natural life and few resources to speak of. In fact, its only use is its proximity to more interesting places. Over the years, it’s become a waystation, notable only as a temporary stop for travelers as they wait for their spot in the wormhole queue. 

The Five-Hop One-Stop is a small, family-owned rest stop on Gora. Three travelers— a marginalized nomad, a military contractor, and an exiled artist-- lay over at the Five-Hop awaiting the next stage of their journeys. But everything goes horribly wrong when repair work on an orbital satellite causes a cascade event, destroying the planet’s communications. Now stranded on Gora with debris raining down from the sky, the travelers and hosts must live with each other while cut off from the rest of the galaxy. As they learn more about one another, each is forced to confront their personal struggles… and challenge their perspective on life.

Speaker had a word for how she felt right then: errekere. A moment of vulnerable understanding between strangers. It did not translate into Klip, but it was a feeling she knew well from gatherings among her people. There was no need being expressed here, no barter or haggling or problems that required the assistance of a Speaker, but errekere was what she felt all the same. She’d never felt it with an alien before. She embraced the new experience.

Content warnings and spoilers below the cut.  

Content warnings for the book: Non-graphic sexual content, child endangerment, ableism (if you squint; it’s not malicious), references to warfare, discussions of intergenerational trauma re: colonization (not the scifi kind), prejudice and xenophobia, recreational drug use. 

I’ve had a mixed experience with Wayfarers, which is unusual for me. I can’t remember the last series I read that fluctuated so much in terms of personal enjoyment and (in my opinion) quality. People as a whole seem to enjoy this series more than me, hence the multitude of awards and glowing reviews. I liked book two, A Closed and Common Orbit, because of the focused narrative and dedicated development of two lead characters. But the first and third books suffered from an overly large cast and reliance on generic archetypes. When a series is built on character development and plot is a secondary concern at best, those characters have to be outstanding. And to me, they usually weren’t.

But in this fourth and final book, I felt that Chambers finally hit her stride. On a surface level, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within has striking similarity to book three, Record of a Spaceborn Few. Both are virtually plotless novels which do deep dives into a cast of characters. What sets The Galaxy apart is its execution. All three leads have unique and compelling personal conflicts. An underutilized strength of the series is its creative aliens; something Chambers takes advantage of here with a fully alien cast. Finally, this book hinges upon interaction between the three leads, something sorely missing from the previous book. 

In these reviews I often seem critical of ensemble casts. But when done well, I actually prefer them to singular narratives. The main hurdle is having consistently interesting characters across the board. When there’s one or two characters I prefer over the others, I usually struggle with the novel. There’s an inherent sense of disappointment when leaving a favored character’s POV. For me this affects my overall enjoyment of the story. But when I like all of the characters or they all have something interesting going on, ensemble casts are great. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is successful in this regard because I thoroughly enjoyed all three perspective characters. In no particular order…

Speaker is an Akarak, a birdlike scavenger species introduced as sympathetic antagonists in the first book. Going in, we know their home planet was colonized by the Harmagians, which has caused irreparable harm to their culture. Robbed of their homeworld and forced into the margins of GC society, the Akarak are nomadic, and many of them rely on banditry in order to survive. We have seen very little of them besides that. The Galaxy expands their lore a lot; their short lifespans, their incompatible biology with other sapients, and the resulting generational trauma from centuries of colonial exploitation. Speaker’s arc in particular is about dealing with the prejudice she encounters daily, adjusting to acceptance after being othered for so long, seeing things from a new perspective, and persistent worry for her twin sister Tracker, who she’s been separated from due to the events on Gora. 

The Aeluon Pei is actually a recurring character; she’s Ashby’s love interest from the first book. Here we get a more intimate view of her as a person. In particular, she struggles with living a double life. She works a prestigious yet dangerous job among her people, running cargo into critical warzones. But her affair with Ashby (a Human) is a huge cultural taboo among the Aeluons. If her colleagues discovered her romantic relationship, her life as a cargo runner would be over. The double life is wearing on her, because she loves both aspects of her life, but knows that it can’t go on like this forever. To make matters worse, she goes into “shimmer”, a once-in-a-lifetime fertility period, during the events on Gora. This adds a layer to her struggle; does she do her duty to her species and produce a child, or does she pursue what she really wants? 

Finally, there’s Roveg, a Quelin. Like the Akarak, Quelin haven’t received a whole lot of development in the series. In the first book, they’re portrayed as a xenophobic insectoid race, and their role is unambiguously antagonistic. Roveg is the polar opposite of that. He’s something of a renaissance man; an appreciator of fine art and dining, who designs artistic sims by profession. He delights in meeting aliens, befriending them, and learning everything there is to know about them. His arc centers around his exile from Quelin society and all the hidden pains associated with that. Chief among these is a mysterious meeting he has to make— which the Gora disaster obviously complicates. 

Complementing the three leads are the Five-Hop’s hosts; a Laru mother and child named Ouloo and Tupo. Similar to the Akarak and Quelin, we haven’t seen many of the Laru (who I always picture as fuzzy dog-giraffe hybrids). Ouloo struggles to be a kind and accommodating host in the wake of disaster. She’s also forced to confront her own prejudices, especially regarding Speaker, the first Akarak she’s ever met. The two initially have a lot of tension, but grow to be great friends over the course of the novel. Her child Tupo is a nonbinary character using xe/xyr pronouns throughout the novel. Xe’s basically a Laru teenager, and super endearing. I love xyr natural curiosity and naiveté. Definitely the “heart” of the group. 

Interaction between these characters is the bread and butter of this novel. There’s very little action; instead it focuses on their differing perspectives and life experiences. It’s a gradual build as the characters grow more familiar with one another. The epilogue is brilliant, because we see the long-term effect of these characters meeting. Despite interpersonal conflict in the story, Speaker inspires Pei to make a specific decision. From this decision, Pei realizes she can help Roveg with his meeting. As a result of this, Roveg is inspired to help Speaker based on one of their earlier conversations. His help fundamentally alters Speaker’s perspective on life— and there’s an implication it will reach beyond that, to the Akarak as a whole. It’s a cascade effect, but rather than the disastrous version that happened on Gora, it’s a positive social change for the leads. That’s the kind of literary parallel that really fires me up. 

I do have a few criticisms of this novel, minor and otherwise. The first is, I wish the tension between Speaker and Pei was more strongly built throughout. While I’m glad the novel isn’t all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to the character interactions, their conflict goes from an idea in the back of one’s mind to an explosive event. This is something of a nitpick because it’s otherwise well executed. I especially like that despite their interpersonal problems, they work together in the climactic events of the novel without sacrificing their respective principles. 

My other criticism is a series-wide observation. Wayfarers is optimistic to a fault. As such, it’s pretty rare that we see true evil or even bad behavior in this series. On one hand, it’s nice to read something where the characters are people who want the best for everyone. But there’s a lot of dissonance here, because there are MASSIVE social problems with the GC at large. For example, we see the effects of xenophobia, war, slavery, and colonialism, but the ones who perpetuate these issues are faceless. If Chambers wants to portray good characters, that’s fine, but it strikes me as odd to build complex social issues into your society, yet exclusively portray groups of morally good people. Why would a society full of such nice, helpful groups also marginalize the Akarak, or create an entire caste of slave clones to sort through their junk? This approach comes off as a desire for nuance without committing to it. 

This trend continues through the final book. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is clearly a COVID-19 response novel (“we’re all in this together”!)— but everyone is blameless, and the government response is reasonable and timely. That’s just not how it worked in real life. So many people were (and still are!) selfish in response to COVID, often outright endangering others. Practically every government botched their response for the sake of money, leading to mass death worldwide. If Wayfarers has similar social issues to the real world, why would the response to a disaster be any different? It’s an ongoing contradiction; the Wayfarers society is simultaneously utopian and flawed, and it’s hard for me to suspend my disbelief. 

As an individual novel, though, I really enjoyed The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. Like all the other books in the Wayfarers series, it’s a standalone and can be read on its own. My experience with this series has been up and down; I recommend the second and fourth books, but I’d skip one and three if I ever do a reread. There are things to like about Wayfarers in terms of worldbuilding and the creative ideas behind all the different aliens. Characterization is hit or miss, but the hits are great, and this book in particular knocked it out of the park. Chambers’ prose improves a lot over the series, and it’s nice to see how she develops as a writer. As I’ve mentioned, Wayfarers has gotten lots of positive feedback, so it’s possible you will enjoy it more than I did. But I’m looking forward to reading something new.