#but i think i like the light novel more in terms of world-building and how more realistic Lyla feels as a character

[shidoukanae]

there are some scenes in the light novel i really wished made it to the manhwa. of the ones i liked so far:

-Prince Tyrone trying to fight Lyla by throwing a snow storm at her and Paris stepping in to stop it sheerly because he felt like it. Which then proceeds to him learning Lyla's name and following her, freaking her the hell out as she tries to navigate not gaining his interest, and which then leads him to connecting the dots and sending her to Fian

-Paris apparently fighting off other people from approaching Fian and even going to his father and telling him not to put Fian in with the Kylon Imperial Knights bc he didn't want Fian to be swarmed by humans

-Helene telling Odelia and Tyrone to shut up when they insulted Lyla. I'm so upset these scenes aren't canon (tho obviously it's understandable why they aren't) and i hope Helene in the manhwa gets to protect Lyla like this sometime in the future

-Fian takes Lyla out for a ride during the festival in his dragon form. which was adorably cute

-Helene approaching Lyla and asking her if she was sad about her mother's passing, patting Lyla affectionately and telling her "it's okay to be sad" only to end up crying when she leaves, much to Lyla's shock

-Helene telling Paris that she wants Lyla dead because she doesn't want to look at the girl and remember things she wants to forget but can't erase herself bc apparently memory erasure isn't a thing. This is not a spoiler because it's an AU as fuck thing from the manhwa im 100% sure. but yeah Helene's fucked up as a character and she might not be telling the truth here bc so far the LN is making her feel like she could be a liar but i honestly can't get a read on her in the LN aside from the fact she's probably messed up af

-on that note, Paris kneeling to Helene and pledging loyalty to her was really neat. The actions he took before it though...well let's just say i like the manhwa's take on their talk about Daniel more :>

-Helene being unhinged. God do i enjoy her being unhinged. If you think manhwa her is at all unhinged, oh you don't know the half of it

-also Paris bickering with Helene at the hunting festival banquet by saying "at least i don't try and kill my siblings" after she snarked about how close he was to his cousin was such good use of tension. Im really enjoying that they both feel like they're on their toes around each other in the light novel and that Paris both is fascinated with Helene like in the manhwa but also he tries his best to "nope" out of helping her and her demands

-Helene watched Lyla still the Dragon's Heart Fragment from the Imperial Vault and knew she took the fake. It's all but implied she was the one watching Lyla steal it (tho not much has really come of that funnily enough)

[undreaming-fanfiction]

My Blessing

Back when Eddie was still human, he used to think it would be incredibly cool to be a vampire. Child of the night, Nosferatu, all that stuff from his beloved books. He would be untouchable and the people who wanted to hurt him just for being different would wither away and die of old age while he'd still be the same. Maybe he'd visit them in their dying hour and sneer at them, taunt them as they were about to see what awaits beyond. All of that used to sound so good.

As he's learned during last 80-ish years, being a vampire sucks (no pun intended).

He sees it all. World wars. AIDS epidemic. Satanic panic. More and more pain, people wasting away before his eyes. The music is cool, but he wonders if he'll grow tired of it all. Eddie is still young, he doesn't want to believe that this is all there is. But each year, each decade makes him more and more hopeless.

And he's so, so lonely. He still has Wayne, his vampire uncle (he categorically denies the term "father" or "maker"), but he sometimes too resigned, too used to all the pain and violence. He doesn't know many other vampires and making any sort of a connection with a human is painful to think about. People are so fragile.

He's always loved turning into a bat and just flying around the city, avoiding the curious eyes of humans and finding lone vantage points, observing the night life on the streets. One of his favorite spots is on top of the Harrington bank, a building from the 1920s with old bronze statues and old, tall windows. He started visiting the ledge in late 1980s, sometimes spending the entire night there. He'd land on the ledge and turn back to his real form, plopping down next to a statue of a young man. It's so human-like, Eddie forgets it's just an object, a piece of art, and talks to it. He tells it about the stuff that has been happening in the world, all that's fucked up but also the good things, how he saw a group of girls chasing away a stalker of a random lady, a homeless guy giving his last few bites to a stray dog. How a kid he used to know in the 80s is now all grown up and has children of his own. He sometimes wonders who made the statue, but there is no signature, no mark, just that pretty face looking down at the street, lost in thought.

It's on a stormy night in 2022 that it happens. Eddie lands in his favorite spot, lights up a cigarette (immortal lungs are a great thing to have) and talks to the statue, as always. Tells it how he actually wrote a novel and got it published, summers are long and the daylight doesn't kill him but it sure hurts, rambles about how he got Wayne his first flannel shirt and it was love at the first sight. The rain is thick, heavy, but Eddie likes it, it makes him feel a bit more alive. He hears thunder, closer and closer, but the lightning is probably somewhere behind him, he doesn't see it.

That is, until it hits the statue, and Eddie panics because sure, it was just an object, but it was like his friend, it was a constant in his life, what is he going to do-

And then the statue straightens its spine and groans.

Eddie's cigarette falls somewhere into the streets and burns a hole in the umbrella of a lady bitching about the undeserved help provided to the poor. Not that he notices. His eyes are glued to the statue that stretches its arms and runs its fingers through the thick hair that suddenly has color, a sun-kissed brown, and then it turns to Eddie and smiles.

"Oh finally, I was waiting for ages to introduce myself. Hi. Thanks for keeping me company all those years. I'm Steve. Steve Harrington."

Eddie shakes the offered hand in daze and mutters "Eddie, Eddie Munson" before promptly turning into a bat and...what? Does he want to run away? Does he want to shriek his little heart out and never come back? Probably not. Not with Steve smiling at him like he's the best thing in the whole world. So he just lands on Steve's outstretched hand and squeaks "Still Eddie Munson, only pocket size."

And Steve, bless his heart - does he have one? Do statues have hearts? - just laughs and tucks Eddie under his old-fashioned jacket to protect him from the rain. "Oh, I know. The first time you landed here and turned back, I thought I'd finally gone crazy."

He opens a window behind them and climbs inside with Eddie, a window that's always been dark, the only dark room in the whole building. And then they talk. Well, Steve does.

That's when Eddie learns the room is Steve's, preserved, stocked and cleaned throughout the decades. That he's the only son of the founder of the bank, Richard Harrington, now fortunately long dead and burning in hell. That even before the Great Depression hit, the bank was facing difficulties and Richard Harrington decided to make a deal with...something. Something ancient and lurking in New York, something feeding off the misery of people living there.

That's when Eddie learns that Richard Harrington offered his only son to preserve his fortune.

He just stares as Steve shrugs, retelling his story as if it was no big deal, finding a change of clothes for both of them in a huge closet full of things both old and new, a strange blend of fashion spanning last century. "It was a deal for one hundred years. One hundred years of prosperity for one hundred years of...that. I guess my father felt a little bit guilty afterwards because he included in his will that I'd always have a place to come back to. This room. And some financial security too, that's what he'd said before he passed away. He used to talk to me through that window sometimes, after my mother drank herself to death."

"Uhhh." Edward Munson, ever the eloquent fantasy book author, has nothing better to say.

He turns back to Eddie, smiling at him and offering a black t-shirt. "I don't think he knew I could hear him, that I heard and saw everything. Still, nice to know he cared...as much as he was humanly able to." The smile doesn't falter as he adds: "I don't want to sound pushy, but maybe you should turn back to change clothes? You're still wet."

And oh, Eddie is still a bat. Yep. With a sound that sounds like a plop, he transforms back and takes the t-shirt. "Thank you. Steve. Uh. That's  fucked up, man," he offers lamely.

"Oh yeah, it sucked. Well, used to," he nudges Eddie, tossing him a towel when he sees his hair dripping on the floor. "But then you started showing up. Talking to me." Now his smile is slightly smaller, sad, and Eddie wants to visit Richard Harrington's grave and punch his remains, build them into a bird feeder, revive the asshole and kill him again. "It was just...so lonely. I had no way of telling you, but when you started visiting and just, kept showing up, almost every day, it felt like a blessing."

Eddie swallows, his throat suddenly dry. "A blessing?"

"Yeah." Steve turns to him and the sincerity in his eyes is so intense Eddie feels like turning into a bat again and flying in circles, shrieking into the night. "You were my blessing, Eddie," he says as he squeezes his hand.

And Eddie just stares, his undead heart breaking for this boy, cursed just as horribly if not worse than he is. "You know I'm not...not human, right?" he whispers but his hand doesn't leave Steve's. "I guess you can probably tell from the bat thing, or that I'm literally the room temperature-"

"-or the fact that you once told me that it's a shame I'm not alive because I look delicious and you're sure my blood would be too," add Steve with a mischievous smirk.

"Uh. Shit, yeah. That too," Eddie stutters, trying to recall all the embarrassing stuff he told Steve during the last thirty or so years. "That...doesn't bother you?"

Steve snorts in laughter and shakes his head. "You literally thought I was a piece of bronze an hour ago, man. Does that bother you? Did you prefer me when I didn't talk?"

Eddie scoffs at that, offended. "Hell no. You were just a pretty face, but now you're a pretty face with a ton of personality. I...you know, you were my blessing too, I think. Even if you couldn't answer, I didn't feel as much alone next to you. Is that weird to say?" 

The squeeze of Steve's fingers gives him the answer he needs, but he still melts inside when he hears "not at all. I just hope you won't get bored of me now that I'm...different," he whispers, staring at their joined fingers. "You'll probably find me boring. I don't know much about what's going on outside. I could watch and you told me a lot, but...uh. The world seems so hectic and fast-paced, it will probably take me a while to catch up."

And Eddie has to laugh because that worry is so strange to hear voiced out loud, as if Steve being alive, breathing and next to him, as if that made him something less. "Oh just you wait, Steve. You spent over thirty years listening to me ramble, now I'm expecting at least thirty years of your monologues so we can be even. You know my dirtiest secrets now and I'm a man with a thirst for knowledge. Really," he adds because the young man next to him is still silent, "you have nothing to worry about. I've kept you company and you have done the same for me...and it works for us. So what's a little confusion about these modern days? Come on pretty boy. I will be your guide."

Steve gives him a smile that is so radiant Eddie thinks it should hurt, it should burn him like a torch, but it's just warm. Kind. "I can work with that."

Steve is the only human Eddie ever turns. He expects to agonize over it for much longer, to feel guilty, but Steve has already lived longer than he has and he still has thirst for life that is infectious, something that drives Eddie to join him, try new things, not mourn what is lost to time but be thankful that he has the chance to see it all. He finally wants to participate, to join the world again, not just observe it.

The first time Steve turns to a bat, he ends up flying in circles in absolute ecstasy, laughing and making the weirdest somersaults and loops. Eddie could watch him forever and the best part is - he can. And he does.

But before all that, Eddie brings Steve to see Wayne, to introduce him to his only family. Wayne shakes his hand and gruffly laughs: "Well, look at that. My boy has finally moved on from that statue."

Without missing a beat, Steve smiles at him and announces "oh not at all, sir. I'm the statue."

Eddie has some explaining to do, but for now, he just laughs.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

Annabel Lee Whitlock: The Hypocrite, the Vampire and the Femme Fatale. A review of archetypes

Good news: I'm on vacation. Bad news: I'm on vacation.

And that means rest. A positive externality. But on the other hand, it also means that my brain, which is constantly thirsting for stimulation, has lost eight hours of activity a day that it has to fill with something. You know what happens to orange tabbies who suddenly become quiet and behave as if possessed by all the demons of Ars Goetia? Well, sort of.

So my brain in need of stimulation decided to dust off my college notes and talk about archetypes, because it's a thorough enough job to keep me away from climbing walls or checking random stuff on the Internet for 10 hours a day.

What is an archetype?

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, an archetype (a "type character") is a writing model that describes a role and has certain characteristics.

The term was coined by Honoré de Balzac, a French writer obsessed with what he called "micro-history. His life's work, "La Comédie humaine", is a massive collection of more than 80 novels, which, when read, will give you more information about that historical period than any theoretical book on the subject.

You may not know this sir or the protagonist of "Illusions perdues", but you do know the archetype that Lucien Rumempré represents: a young from the provinces, full of dreams, who moves to the city only to discover that the lights are there to dazzle and distract from the misery.

But at the same time, the characters that come to mind are likely to be very different from the good Lucien. This is because the archetype is a different construct from the cliché.

If I had to explain the difference, I would say that the cliché is a recipe, while the archetype is a mold.

If you follow a recipe, you will always get results that are very similar, even if you make small variations in the recipe. But if you have a star cookie cutter, the contents of the cookies can be quite different: no one would dare say that a chocolate chip cookie tastes the same as an oatmeal cookie or a gingerbread cookie. Even if all three are cut in the shape of a star.

So I'm going to do a little review of the archetypes that Annabel notices. The differences, the similarities, and let's see what comes out.

The Hypocrite

Not "hypocrite" in the sense of a personality, but in the sense of a way of behaving in the world: The Hypocrite is a character whose way of relating to the world is a pantomime, whose role is to build themselves up to fit into a system (which, by the way, they despise). If they don't have what you want, they will at least pretend enough to make you think they do. Usually for personal gain.

The founder of this archetype is Julien Sorel, the protagonist of "Le Rogue et Le Noir", the most famous work of Stendhal, one of the most prominent writers of the literary realism founded by Balzac.

Julien is this poor boy, but smart enough to memorize the Bible, which makes him seem educated enough to get him a job as a tutor in a rich house, and eventually a priest's cassock.

A more modern example is Nick Wilde from Zootopia. This fox has decided that if he alone can be a con man, he will be one, though he desperately wants someone to see him as an individual beyond that. He hates the system that condemns him, but he wants to be a part of it and will play by the rules he is given in order to profit.

Annabel, like Julien and Nick, has built her entire identity around being what is expected of her, in her case a perfect Victorian high society lady. Something that has given her a tremendous amount of knowledge about how people move in such circles. And from her point of view, people are the same everywhere (Miss Marple would be proud of her).

And in this oppressive context that fosters an environment where people kill each other, she knows what currency to give in return for loyalty: people will look for a leader, someone competent, someone who knows what they're doing.

Annabel has no idea what's going on, what awaits them outside the Nevermore gate, or even if there's a way to escape. But she can pretend to know. The quietest person in the room wins, and she's the one who takes the prizes to achieve her goal. The performance is justified as a means to an end.

Another thing that characterizes stories with a Hypocrite as a relevant character is the exploration of the consequences of this lifestyle: identity is consumed by the role, the line between actor and character is lost, and the Hypocrite is often faced with the reality that they have put so much of themselves into the character they are playing that once it is exposed, there is nothing underneath, or at least nothing worth saving.

In Annabel's case, this is expressed in her utter horror at not being trusted by Lenore. She puts her hypocrisy at the disposal of her lover and comforts herself with the reward of her affection, but Lenore's love for her is the only thread that binds her own identity: that Lenore does not trust her means that the role has completely consumed her, the complete confirmation that she, as an individual, is no longer a disturbed poseur.

Related to this point, we have the final transversal line in the conflicts that Hypocrites tend to have: loneliness. When all their relationships are based on a carefully rehearsed performance, the Hypocrite knows that they are alone in the world, that no one really knows them, and they are usually so deep in the role by this point that they don't want to (or can't) leave it. The longing for honest relationships overlaps with their self-destructive tendencies.

As much as Annabel insists that it's her and Lenore against the world, that her life is meaningless without Lenore, and that she is enough, these phrases indicate that Annabel is painfully aware of how she is perceived by others, and though she tells herself that Lenore's love is all she needs, it seems more like a mantra to keep her sane than a reality.

As you may have noticed, the main difference from the usual Hypocrite is that Annabel has Lenore. A bit like Nick has Judy. But Nevermore is a story that takes the psychology of its characters much more seriously, so while Nick just needs someone to reach out to in order to form honest relationships, Annabel passes because she has no fucking idea how to form an honest, healthy bond.

That Annabel is extraordinarily self-destructive, emotionally dependent, and so afraid to step outside the box she knows so well are, in this light, natural consequences of the Hypocrite lifestyle.

The Vampire

Here we must make a leap to another movement: during the Romantic period, the Gothic novel was at its best, and it was Edgar Allan Poe who squeezed out the last drops of what this genre had to offer.

Now, looking at the bibliography, Annabel does not have much in common with the gothic heroine (that is something Lenore takes care of), neither on an aesthetic level nor on a value level. To find her in the works that inspire her, one must look in a slightly different direction: the female vampires of gothic fiction.

Aurelia ("Vampirismus" by E.T.A. Hoffmann), Carmilla ("Carmilla" by Sheridan Le Fanu), Clarimonde ("The death woman in love" by Théophile Gautier), the vampire in the poem "The Metamorphosis of the Vampire" by Baudelaire, the three vampire women, and Lucy ("Dracula" by Bram Stoker).

All these characters have something more in common than their fangs: they are beautiful women capable of making anyone who sees them fall completely into their arms, as opposed to their role of making the one they have chosen as their prey "fall".

The Gothic vampire is practically a succubus, but much less sexualized than one might think. Although many of these works, with the exception of the poem by the good Baudelaire (an author who should be fed separately on these matters), spare no pages in describing how beautiful they are, neither do they overly sexualize them, nor are they particularly flirtatious: even Clarimonde is dedicated to simply being there and letting her presence alone do the work.

This is something Annabel shares with the gothic vampire: though physically gorgeous, the framing in the comic doesn't tend to focus on her as an object of sexual desire, her beauty is highlighted, but in a way that is more akin to an ethereal or unattainable entity.

This is due to a mixture of two things: the Gothic novel is steeped in Catholic puritanism, and even if it is to present a villain who uses her attractiveness as a weapon, the erotic component is subtly exposed, and the vampire's angelic beauty offers a contrast to her status as an antagonist: beautiful on the outside, insidious on the inside.

This is another thing Annabel has in common with the gothic vampire: she is aware that her appearance gives her a haughty, elegant, and dignified air, identifiable enough to earn nicknames like "Queen" or "Queenie," and she knows how to capitalize on it. This contrasts with the darker parts of her personality.

Another thing that terrifies romantics about vampires is that these fangirl succubi possess a quality that makes us 21st-century readers raise an eyebrow because it's supposed to make us uncomfortable: a deep, honest, and sincere willingness to be affectionate.

In context, this makes sense: the vampire is a representation of sin, temptation, and lust. So their affection is something that leads the object of it away from the path of morality (this is the 19th century, this is really important).

I understand that because of the vampire's role in all of this, she is a devoted lover. Incredibly devoted, in fact: Clarimonde is Romuald's sugar mommy (no, I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating either), and Carmilla never stops showering Laura with affection and attention, satisfying this girl's craving for companionship after living in isolation.

Annabel does something similar: there is a genuine interest on her part to reach out and connect with Lenore, and in scenes like this, she goes out of her way to show her that she is an amazing person in her own right, rather than being her brother's shadow.

All kidding aside, I think of the archetypes I could find to analyze Annabel, this is the one that fits her best, even though she is not, well, literally a vampire. She seems to have several things in common with Carmilla in particular.

The Femme Fatale

We all have a more or less clear idea of what a femme fatale is: this extremely attractive, sexually active, badass woman who is there to make the male character's life miserable and has a 50% chance of smoking fine cigarettes with a cigarette holder. This is…partially true, but also highly inaccurate.

Although these characters can be traced back much further in mythology, this archetype gets its name and very specific form from Raymond Chandler, the founder of the noir novel. I'm not going to go into too much detail on this topic, as entire books could be written about it, so let's just focus on what's important.

The thing to understand about the context to understand the Femme Fatale is that we are in the 30-40's and although she has many more rights than 19th century women, the decadence shown in these works emphasizes that she is in a macho context where every single rule of the game is stacked against her. This is something that Femme Fatale is acutely aware of: no matter how well she plays the game, she will always lose.

This is something that Annabel shares with this archetype: she is very aware of the rules of the game, she knows backwards and forwards how the world works, so she is also aware that they are too heavily stacked against her to ever win. All she can do is resign herself, play the role as best she can, and find small distractions to cling to like a burning nail so as not to lose her head altogether.

Therefore, the Femme Fatale's approach to life is this: if the rules are stacked against her, that means she has the right to do whatever it takes to survive. These tactics usually include manipulation, deception, exploitation, and, of course, making the most of her sexual attractiveness because, unlike the vampire, she knows how to flirt and use sex as a weapon. What needs to be kept in mind here is that for this character archetype, the use of these wiles comes not because she is factory evil, but as a coping mechanism within a system she cannot win against. If this ultimately makes her a villain, it's more about her role within the story in which it plays out than anything about the archetype itself.

Here's an interesting difference between the Annabel we see in Lenore's memories and the one we see in the present day of the comic: Annabel used to be willing to play by the rules, but the thing she learned from Lenore is that cheating is more than possible. As a result, her attitude has become much closer to that of a Femme Fatale, using her extensive knowledge of the rules to her advantage, going with the flow for personal gain. Her methods are much closer to those of the Hypocrite (especially since we haven't seen Annabel use her body or affection as currency yet), but there are definitely similarities.

Another thing about the Femme Fatale (when she is NOT a villain) is that, like the Vampire, she operates within a duality: an exterior built to be sexy in a somewhat intimidating way (which is why the aesthetics of many of these characters can be interpreted within BDSM culture), but with some goodness in her heart. A really clear example of this is Vivian Sternwood from The Big Sleep (the first novel on the subject published by Raymond Chandler): her own father describes her as "rude, demanding, clever, and quite ruthless," and Marlow, our detective, will have a long series of uncomfortable encounters with her. But by the end of the novel, when he is faced with the same choice Vivian must have made in the past, he cannot help but realize that despite everything, this woman would rather keep painful secrets than harm her family, whom she loves dearly.

So if you're wondering why the framing of scenes like this looks familiar, that's why.

Add to that the three layers of how her aesthetic works: an angelic appearance for when she needs to play dumb, her gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlboss bullshit face for when she needs to demonstrate authority, and framing where it should make you directly uncomfortable.

Looks are one of the strengths of Femmel Fatale's performance. And it's one of the strengths of Annabel's performance.

Conclusions

One interesting thing about looking at Annabel in this light is to realize two things: first, that many of the archetypes her character seems to take notes from are often in the role of antagonists or, for that matter, villains. 

The other is that these archetypes are quite well ordered and connected: the gothic vampire is the inspiration for the Femme Fatale of Noir (her beta version, if you can call it that), and the Hypocrite shares a historical writing period with many female vampires. From her conception, Annabel is constructed in a fairly orderly fashion, and believe me, that's a huge contrast to what's going to happen with Lenore (which I'll get to soon, but I need to brush up on my picaresque novel notes). 

The last thing I want to point out in this review is this: unless you're a Nick Wilde-style Hypocrite, Hypocrites and Vampires in general tend to have utter destruction in store for them. The Noir, for its part, puts us in a situation where the Femme Fatale, even if she wants to change, is generally too deep in this tangle to get out. 

So what I find interesting about Annabel in this regard is:

This is actually THE scene that shows us Annabel timidly stepping out of the scheme of things. She doesn't seem to want to change, in fact I'd bet she's terrified to change, but even though she's repeating her father's toxic pattern here, she's also breaking it without realizing it. 

It's too early to tell if we'll see Annabel have some sort of redemption towards less harmful behavior, or if we'll end up seeing her become a villain altogether. But I'm really curious to see where this story goes with all of these elements.

[atundratoadstool]

I know you've listed the character ages already, but what about physical descriptions? I remember Van Helsing being described as having red hair and blue eyes and I know Lucy's a blonde, but that's it.

Stoker is both frequently very spartan in his physical descriptions of characters and obsessively interested in detailing their facial features owing to his zealous belief in the thoroughly racist science of physiognomy. Here's a breakdown of what we know in the text plus some notes on how these features possibly operate in relation to Stoker's views, experiences, and research:

[CW: Spoilers and a fair number of mentions of Stoker's inescapable racism/antisemitism under the cut.]

Jonathan Harker: Jonathan is barely described but in possession of hair that turns white over the course of the novel. He possibly has a beard or a lot of stubble following the unfortunate yeeting of his shaving mirror. Like many of Bram Stoker's hunky lawyer protagonists, he's more often describing characters than being described by them.

Mina Harker: She is described by Seward as "attractive," "sweet-faced," and "dainty looking." She also has eyes that blaze like "pole stars," which is a very common description in Stoker's greater body of work (See: Stephen Norman in The Man and Teuta Vissarion in Lady of the Shroud) and match with his rapturous descriptions of real world actress Geneviève Ward. While it isn't as common a denotation of willfulness and determination as aquiline noses, it's generally used to indicate female characters who are very hardcore and may obtain a gun. Her skin is light enough for the red mark she obtains to be clearly visible upon it, although I will note that Mimi Salton from Lair of the White Worm is both undeniably a Mina 2.0 and mixed race/darker skinned, which might be worth considering in the realm of headcanon given how frequently Stoker just recycles characters and their physical attributes.

Lucy Westerna: She's pretty, and her weight and appearance definitely fluctuates over the course of her illness. Her hair is laid out in "sunny ripples" while she's alive. She becomes a "dark-haired woman" while undead. This frustrates many many critics and commentators. It's been proposed that the "sunny ripples" just refers to the gloss on her dark hair. It's been proposed the blondeness/darkness hair is an indicator of her innate goodness/evilness... like Smurfette (which has--again--some Stoker-typical racist implications). The most obvious Doylist explanation is that Stoker cannot track characters' hair color much as he cannot track all his dates.

Jack Seward: Strong jaw. Nice forehead. Immense lunatic asylum. He's also mentioned as being thin in comparison to Renfield and Lucy thinks he's handsome (although obviously not as desirable as Arthur).

Arthur Holmwood: His hair is curly. He is tall. He is also a hottie, as attested to by Lucy and by Jack (who finds him very manly as he kills his vampire fiancee).

Quincey P. Morris: I haven't recalled or been able to look up any major descriptors. He apparently carries himself like a "moral Viking" (as Jack attests in the midst of commenting on yet another friend's manliness). I went into some detail as to how he reads in terms of race here and how it might mesh with Lucy's comparison of him to Othello.

Abraham Van Helsing: After the Count, he's the most thoroughly described character in terms of physiognomy, and that physiognomy... is more or less the spitting image of Bram Stoker as he describes himself (...you know, Abraham "Bram" Stoker, who has the same first name as this super genius great-at-everything character). He's got sensitive nostrils, big forehead bumps, a nice jaw, a big mouth, a strong build, and red hair. I wrote a comparison between him and Stoker here. I will also note that the forehead bumps are a phrenological feature denoting creativity and that Jonathan remarks that he apparently has eyebrows incompatible with self doubt.

R. M. Renfield: He appears to be swoler than Seward even if his swoleness is to no avail against Dracula.

Dracula: There is a lot to unpack with Dracula. He has an aquiline nose, which is one of the absolutely most significant recurring features in Stoker's greater corpus (See: The Judge from "The Judge's House"; Solomon Mendoza from The Watter's Mou; Don Bernadino from The Mystery of the Sea; Joy Ogilvie from Lady Athlyne; and Edgar Caswall from The Lair of the White Worm), and this trait was shared by his boss and Idol Henry Irving. It undoubtedly has physiongomic significance to Stoker, who seems to use it to denote command and leadership, although it is worth noting that Cesare Lombroso mentions aquiline noses as a feature of murderers and that many critics have pointed out its potential connections to Stoker's antisemitism (and specifically the suspicion regarding Jewish immigrants in the wake of the Jack the Ripper killings). Dracula additionally has a "domed forehead," which can paradoxically be associated in physiognomy with both high intellect and mental feebleness. His sharp teeth are a trait Stoker associates with "a militant instinct" (Lombroso, again, connects them with murderers) and are described in much the same way he describes Alfred Lord Tennyson and Sir Richard Burton's teeth, although he took notes from Sabine Baring-Gould's Book of Were-wolves in which sharp teeth are a werewolf trait. We also have pretty explicit evidence that Dracula's unibrow, pointy nails, and hairy palms are also from Baring-Gould. Overall, Dracula seems to be a real hodgepodge of physiognomic traits that seem to haunt Stoker's work, racist criminological theory, and actual folklore.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

[ Find me on Insta or Goodreads ]

🦇 Fledgling Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD Describe the book you're currently reading only using emojis (reveal the book's identity with a follow-up comment). 🦇 Raisa of Upper Earth has only lived a life of privilege & acquiescence. Ever dutiful, she accepts her father’s arrangement of her marriage to Lein, Crown Prince of the corrupt, volatile lands of Lower Earth. Though Lein is a stranger, Raisa knows the wedding will unite their vastly different worlds in a pact of peace: an infusion of Upper Earth technology will usher in the final age of enlightenment, ending war between humans forever. Newly released from imprisonment, Nada of Lower Earth has found her own calling: disrupting the royal wedding. Convinced her cousin Lein’s alliance with Upper Earth will launch an invasive, terrifying form of tyranny, Nada sets out undercover to light the spark of revolution. When Raisa goes missing a week before the wedding, all eyes turn to the rebels, including Nayf, Nada’s twin brother, a fugitive on the run. Can the revolutionaries take action before this new age of enlightenment steals free thought & will from all?

💜 S. K. Ali has single-handedly revived the YA dystopian genre with this fantastical fantasy novel. The author's first step into the genre is layered with subtext, making it a revolutionary, relevant story for our time.

💜 Since there's SO much going on in this story, I've decided to change my review format (let me know if you prefer this breakdown or my usually lengthy paragraphs!): ✨ Characters - 4: There are almost too many POVs, but each character has a distinct voice, purpose, & drive. I would have preferred more time with Nada & Raisa together; their friendship, while short-lived, had the strongest potential for sparking change between the factions & character growth between both women. ✨ Plot & Pacing - 4: The beginning is a bit slow, namely due to flashbacks, but once it gains momentum, it's a rush. I know some people would have preferred chronological order (focused on the twins & Musaid), but I think the flashbacks revealed pieces of information as needed, which better builds suspense & intrigue. ✨ World-Building - 4: More detailed explanations would have been helpful, especially in defining certain terms & tech. Context clues only help so much in a sci-fi/fantasy novel. ✨ Romance - 4: One primary romance drives the story, with the possibility for others. The romance between Nada & Musaid is beautifully heartfelt, the flashbacks demonstrating the build from the moment they first met. Some small part of me hoped for a Nada/Raisa romance instead (sorry not sorry!), but I do think they found their friendship when it was needed most. I'm a bit confused by Lein's sudden focus on Raisa as his fiancee at the end, when his previous intent was to use her as a puppet. ✨ Mystery/Suspense - 4: There are a few mysterious left for the second book, & while there's suspense, it's not as heavy as I'd hoped. It seems like everyone's parents are holding onto secrets yet to be revealed...that, & Lein's hint at a fire he potentially caused. ✨ Tone/Prose - 4: There are a few awkward sentences, namely at the story's start, that nearly threw me out of the story. That, combined with a few awkward switches to passive voice, seemed out of place for this writer.

Can we talk about, "The marvel of being unprogrammed. The marvel of tracking your own thoughts, arriving at your own beliefs, seeing for your own self what the truth really is." Also “Of course everyone is programmed; of course we are shaped by what exists around us. But at some point, when we fledge, when we seek freedom, we should decide on our programming. We should choose who writes our code.” This is a book that needs to be discussed in schools. Do you realize how much we've already been 'programmed?'

🦇 Recommended for fans of The Lunar Chronicles, An Ember in the Ashes, & Uglies.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🐦 Sci-Fi/Futuristic Dystopian 🐦‍⬛ Duology 🧣 Muslim Coded ❤ Multi POV / Found Family 🧣Colonization & Repression 🐦‍⬛ Resistance & Revolution 🐦 Political Intrigue

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #Fledgling

💬 Quotes ❝ By our records, shall we resist. ❞ ❝ A bird flies to us in the midst of war & desolation, bringing a seed of peace. For, while it is true that within every civilization are seeds of its destruction, there are also seeds of its upliftment scattered in the chaos— but only some can find & carry those seeds. ❞ ❝ She knew he’d learned the song for her. She knew the performance had been for her. It spoke words he couldn’t say clearly. That’s what love poems are for. ❞ ❝ None of us asked to be born into the circumstances of our lives. ❞ ❝ “Of course everyone is programmed; of course we are shaped by what exists around us. But at some point, when we fledge, when we seek freedom, we should decide on our programming. We should choose who writes our code.” ❞ ❝ The marvel of being unprogrammed. The marvel of tracking your own thoughts, arriving at your own beliefs, seeing for your own self what the truth really is. ❞

[kryativelogos]

Cinder's Racial Ambiguity Frustrates Me (Spoilers for The Lunar Chronicles)

Hi hello long time no post! I haven't had a chance to really consumed any media until just recently so I'm finally back with another review!

Today we're gonna talk about The Lunar Chronicles, written by Marissa Meyer, and published in 2012. I had read this novel back in 2015/2016 when Fairest and Winter were newly released and had the opportunity to reread it (albeit in audiobook form) these past few months. Buckle up babes, I have a lot to say.

I wanna just say right off the bat that in terms of world-building, plot, and even character design, this story still holds up quite well from when I read it the first time. From how each character gets their own time to shine and development, to how they all connect with one another, I loved seeing the major plot unfold and how it concluded so nicely.

But I do want to discuss something that has bothered me from the first time that I read this series and still does after reading it a second time: Cinder's race.

Now you may be wondering, why do we care what Cinder's race is? Well, I'm Asian, Singaporean to be specific. And it would be great if Cinder's race was Asian/Chinese as the website, as the author, and as most people in the fandom believe to be. However, I am skeptical for this to be the case at all.

We don't know what race(s) the Lunars are.

They're an "evolved" race of humans that have magical abilities. Even Meyer herself states that the ethnicities start to blend because it's so far in the future. It's already quite difficult to pinpoint specific ethnic groups just in the royal family.

Queen Channary had olive skin and dark brown hair which could be a myriad of ethnicities and races although I'm heavily inclined to believe that she is/was South/Southeast Asian due to her name being taken from the Khmer dialect found in Cambodia [evidently in the wiki]. Even Queen Jannali was described to have had tan skin and chestnut colored hair, which again, says nothing about her race, but her name was taken from the Aboriginal language [also found on the wiki] so that may count for,,, something. Essentially, following Cinder's lineage, we already have little evidence to support the idea that Cinder is Asian, let alone Chinese.

Cinder's description in the book did not help her case (and I believe Meyer attempted to retcon this later on, like, look at the new covers - she looks so [East] Asian, but then you read the description in the actual book??).

Her first description in Cinder was tan skin, angular body, and mousy brown hair. Mousy implies, light brown. Literally look up "mousy brown hair" online, you'll see a bunch of eurocentric, white women. No Asian that I know, naturally, has "mousy" brown hair unless you dye it or it is heavily sun-bleached (which has happened to me but still not light enough to be considered "mousy", I could have safely called it brown). Cinder was also told by the end of the book, that she was found in Europe. You can see that as someone who's been wanting an Asian MC would be disappointed with finding out that ah, she must be European (and later, more than likely, French). Even if Cinder was Wasian, I believe genetically, the dark hair would have been dominant. I can't say the same for the tan skin since she was outdoors a lot and Asian folks do tan quite easily in the sun and remains tanned for at least 6-8 months.

I would love for Cinder to be Asian, I really would, but all of this evidence just keeps her race too ambiguous personally. I can't seem to get over the "mousy brown hair". If not for this particular descriptor, I would 100% believe Cinder to be Asian. But because we don't even know Channary or Jannali's race with only their names as some kind of clue to Cinder's background, we will never know for sure.

I don't think it helps that a majority of fanart I see of Cinder has very eurocentric features, which draws me back to her thinking she's French/European. It also bothers me that while Winter and Iko get rather well-written descriptions of what they look like (aka black), we can't seem to get one good description, showing some form of Asian representation that I'm sure many of us are grasping at straws for, of the main character of the series. So many of us are still hoping that Cinder is Asian simply because she's living in New Beijing (which I will be making another post at some point about how I, personally believe, is a poorly designed/created city in terms of world-building) but she's literally adopted from Europe (Luna if you wanna get technical, see the first point).

I know my points are kind of moot and there wasn't much warrant for me to go on a tirade about a fictional character created in 2012. But this is important to me as a WOC, as an Asian girlie who so wants to connect to a character that looks like me, that was written to look like me; but I feel cheated and the ambiguity makes it hard for me to fully love Cinder as much as I love the other characters (if anyone is asking, my favorite characters are Winter and Scarlet). If anyone else has thoughts about this or has something to prove to me once and for all that Cinder is Asian. Please send it my way.

PS I wish I had a physical copy to directly quote the book, but again, my second reread was through audiobooks, so I can't reference pages at all atm. Sorry about that TuT Hopefully I can get my hands on a copy from the library soon so I can edit this post with direct lines.

[ear-worthy]

“Digital Folklore” Podcast: Where Scary Meets Smart

Podcasting is a safe space for all varieties of monsters. There are more than 175 podcasts about zombies, 47 about werewolves, at least 200 about witches, and 34 about vampires. In two of those podcasts, the co-hosts believe themselves to be vampires. I don’t recommend attending their live shows.

The new Digital Folklore podcast has an entirely new and unique take on monsters. This new immersive podcast shines its light on digital monsters. The first episode, which debuted this week, takes on the internet myths of Slender Man and Momo. As the show notes reveal, “this episode introduces us to two monsters who were birthed on the internet but couldn’t be contained there.”

With topics ranging from the absurd to the unsettling, the Digital Folklore podcast is an accessible and entertaining way to learn about folkloric concepts and societal truths.

Immersive podcast is a term thrown around carelessly these days, like woke and cancel culture. But Digital Folklore delivers even more than expected. The first episode was like a rich symphony of sounds and sonic texture.

The sound design and production here is pure ear candy. There are sonic layers that are incredibly intricate to pull off. This sound team doesn’t need video to saturate listeners in its lurid world.

The background music is appropriately ominous, drifting into the creepy. The two co-hosts are superb at enhancing the macabre mood, and the storytelling makes the listeners feel as if they’re at a campfire listening to scary stories. Then the narrative introduces listeners to a series of experts who offer a lesson in ostension, monster theory, and moral panic.

If you think, this is the podcast version of a cheesy horror movie like M3gan, you’re wrong. Listen to co-host Perry Carpenter during the first episode: “There’s a concept in Folklore. It’s called ‘ostension’ and it describes something very much like this. How the stories we tell push into the real world. It’s like the idea of manifestation. It is a building of a bridge between our imaginations and the physical world. But what about when manifestation actually happens? What about when we bring things into existence that we never really wanted to exist? When something horrible manages to cross the bridge”

Speaking of the co-hosts, there are insanely good.

Perry Carpenter is the founder of 8th Layer Media, which produces the show. He’s the author of two books and has published way too many research papers and online articles. Perry is also the creator and host of the “8th Layer Insights” podcast, which explores the human side of cybersecurity. His day job is that of Chief Evangelist and Strategy Officer for cybersecurity training company, KnowBe4.

Mason Amadeus is 8th Layer Media’s creative director, lead audio engineer, and other co-host of the Digital Folklore podcast.

Mason’s background in audio began as a hobby before he transitioned into an eight-year, multifarious career in terrestrial radio. Amadeus is also a freelance podcast producer, voice actor, sound designer for live theater productions, and collector of tedious hobbies.

Carpenter and Amadeus (doesn’t his name sound like a character from a Dan Brown novel?) gel nicely together, plunging listeners into the universe of internet monsters with a mixture of intellectual curiosity and spooky theorizing.

Unless you believe the show is all about scaring listeners and eliciting that dopamine blast of anticipation, be forewarned. The show hews closely to mundane facts. In the first episode, for example, the hosts mention a murder in Wisconsin of a young girl by two young girls who believed the victim was Slender Man. But the hosts ground that internet meme when they interview an author who explains that one of the perpetrators was an undiagnosed schizophrenic whose visions included that of Slender Man. Rather than a case of supernatural intrigue, it’s tragically another case of the failure of our mental health care system.

The production studio that created Digital Folklore is called 8th Layer Media. The company is just entering the podcasting space with one other podcast called 8th Layer Insights, which takes listeners on a multidisciplinary exploration into how the complexities of human nature affect security and risk. Topics include cybersecurity, psychology, behavior science, communication, leadership, and more — “delivered in a focused, easy-to-digest, and creatively lighthearted fashion.”

Its next podcast to be released is My Podcast Journey, where Carpenter and Amadeus offer to give is a full peek behind the curtain, ‘open sourcing’ their entire process, as well as interview and learn from other prominent creators. Covering everything from tools and workflows to business and logistics, this show aims to give a pragmatic, useful, and deeply-detailed look into every aspect of creative work.

Carpenter and Amadeus call themselves “analytical weirdos” and the term fits snugly on them. Consider how they came up with the name of their media company, 8th Layer Media.

“In the field of information technology, there is a concept called the ‘OSI Model’. It describes seven abstract ‘layers’ which computers use to communicate across networks. From the physical/electrical (layer 1) to the visual/interactive (layer 7), it is a useful tool for considering the technical aspects of a network — but when thinking in terms of security, the OSI model neglects the most crucial factor: People. The 8th Layer.”

Aren’t these the perfect two people to create and host the Digital Folklore podcast about internet monsters?

[chryzuree]

Memoriiiiiiiie I am CRAVING art rn tell me about a story (movie, show, book, what have you) that changed your LIFE tell me about the art that changed how you perceive the world and how you CREATE I am DYING over here

yk, at my core, i think what rlly affected the way i approach all stories was 1) kingdom hearts (my proclivity for aus started here, i’m abt 98% certain… i was like, “wait, we’re allowed to mix and match ideas? we’re allowed to put anime in disney?” and then ran with it. also, power of friendship & the belief that light will prevail, even if dark briefly succeeds… it’s good. + we sent aqua to hell after she accidentally saved the main villain possessing her friend’s body ✌🏻😘 big win for me!), 2) wh13 (monster of the week format mixed with deep character moments, showing how characters should seem like real, struggling ppl in order to drive personal interest forward along with the story), & 3) the night circus (jst,,, for how magical it is, in general).

as for things that have a permanent effect on how i perceive the world.. hmmm. i feel like all stories i’ve ever consumed rlly does that! there’s so many tiny things that i jst notice now bc of reading the way every different author will write the mundane. atm, i’m thinking of ending things has rlly been affecting me this year, on acc of the fact that i’ve lost a lot of ppl/been rlly lonely & it’s story abt how important even the most lonely, reclusive person has a life that’s treasured, and how tragic and horrifying it is when it’s lost to suicide.

also atm, some stories that i jst canNOT let go of are joe hill’s novels… i’m finally reading the fireman and oh god, it’s so good. i love the way he writes ppl in general—jst how loyal and kind they can be, even in fucked up, supernatural adversity.. i was literally telling juno this morning that i’m heartbroken that after i finish this book, i’ll be caught up on all his novels/short stories. i just love the rich world-building he does and the way he writes characters that are a little broken and how they manage to come to terms with their brokenness + learn how to improve themselves.. sighing <3 ((also, learning abt his writing process + marissa meyer’s has rlly jst helped me push forward and write more. letting myself have a messy, ugly, scribbly notebook rlly does get some of my best ideas out there!))

obvi i also have to say dead meat 🫶🏻 the podcast has helped me start to take apart horror elements and correlate them with the human condition (my therapist helps sometimes, bc she loves me and supports my journey to writing fucked up shit that’s all abt love and gore and horror ✌🏻), and the kill count helps me think of gruesome kills and scares i want to incorporate in the future.

[fairytimestudio]

Glassheart DEVLOG 2

8/6/2023

PROMOTION, MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Lets start with the non-game related stuff...

In an attempt to get the word out about the game, I spent most of this week setting up my socials as well as putting up more content for the game. If you're interested in seeing more artwork related to the development of Glassheart and other stuff I work on in my down time you can find me on Instagram and Twitter.

Though with all the stuff that's going on on Twitter or X or whatever it's called nowadays I'm a wee bit reluctant to post anything there.

I also made a Linktree. Here she is:

Her name's Rita and she's a Leo.

ART

In terms of art I haven't got as much done this week. I did a bit more work on Anya's room and began solidifying the aesthetic I was going for. Basically each region of the world will have it's own sort of colour scheme and for Hedona that scheme is blue, pink, green and yellow (and some lavenders).

I want Hedona to feel dreamy and fairytale-like so I'm using a lot of pastels in the art. I also love how Anya's deep purples and blacks contrast with her bedroom and the rest of the cottage. It makes sense for a characterization. Speaking of Anya.

I also gave Anya a bit of a makeover from her first look. Due to her shifting role in the story I gave her a darker outfit with purple and black being the main colours and dark green and gold being an accent.

before, Anya was supposed to be you archetypical princess character. Kind, good-hearted, a little on the meek side but still had a rebellious streak to her. Think a Princess Aurora or Cinderella. But due to a drastic change to the stories themes her personality had to follow suit.

Instead she plays the role of the witch or evil stepsister within the narrative(or at least that's how she's perceived).

I also wanted to add some drama to her face so I gave her a bit more eyeshadow as well as some glitter. I wrestled with the glitter because I felt it might look out of place in a story but came to the realization that I don't care and I want everybody that where's makeup in the story to be well acquainted with glitter.

I also worked on the logo for FairyTime studio. The official logo is the second one though I might change it. We'll see.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ianthe Rosingbird (@ianthefairytime)

And now onto the music!

MUSIC

So, I'm a solo dev. Let's remember that when we listen to some of the tracks I've come up with.

But seriously these are rough, basically just a few motifs and melodies to help guide me when I actually beginning making my songs but here they are.

I was inspired by again, golden age Disney music namely Once Upon a Dream and Snow White's Wishing Well song. That certainly isn't coming through now but I'm still in very early production with these pieces. I composed them with a music box instrument because it helps me focus on the melody and also I fucking love music boxes. My logo's actually based on a Polyphonic Music Box I fell in love with and just have to have one day.

Basically, I want the music to feel magical and nostalgic and I hope I'll be able to capture that when I actually start the composition.

WRITING

I've mainly been focusing on world building this week as well as determining the role that certain characters will play and the new Version of Glassheart.

Basically this story's gone through 3 phases and I'm currently trying to smoosh some other projects I was working on into this one but here's what I came up with.

Glassheart takes place in a country called Hedona at two opposing colleges seperated by a bridge:

The Garden of Crowns; The college Anya and the bulk of the cast attend and Wellwood's Cross; this is the opposing college that often times finds itself in competition with its neighbour. While the rivalry between these colleges can often seem light-hearted; there's real animosity between the two tribes especially fuelled by the adults.

This rivalry is further exasperated when Anya Torre, whose father is a well known alumni of the college, decides to offer her Blade to Bravis Swanthorn, a student of Wellwood's Cross and it's crowned champion in the sport of sword fighting.

She is branded as the Treacherous Blade and ousted from polite society with no one to defend her, not even her beloved half-sister, Beatrice Prine. She resigns herself to playing the role of a villainess and takes up refuge in Toad Cottage far off from the colleges and close to edge of the woods.

This is where the story begins to take off.

Now one thing that important to note about the world is the idea of Blades and their wielders. Essentially, a princess(which in this world refers to any young woman of a certain age) is able to draw a power out of her heart and manifest a blade that can be used in battle. Think Revolutionary Girl Utena.

There are two measures used to discern the strength of a blade: Sharpness - Which refers to how sharp and strong the blade is Lightness - Which refers to how light the blade is to hold.

The best blades are described as being "near-Glass" as no blade has ever managed to be fully classified as glass.

The elusive glass blade or Glassheart, is a blade so sharp and light that it has the power to tear through the fabric of reality and manifest the wielders thoughts and desires into existence. A power coveted by the Armed Guard; the protectors of Hedona; The Goddess Body; a group of outlaws that practice arts banned by the High Council of Alchemy and of course the Witches whose motives remain unknown.

I haven't yet began working on the metric to actually calculate all of this stuff but I think I'll have more to say about blades in a future DevLog.

The next DevLog will also feature some character descriptions just to get you acquainted with the main cast.

GAMEPLAY AND CODE

So for the coding aspect of the game I mainly focused on navigation. Basically the way the exploration works is that I've put some points in the shape of a box to indicate where the doors are. When the player hover's over that space fairy dust pours out of the wand to highlight that you're hovering over an interactable area. When you click this spot you're transported into a different room.

Different character's might be in different rooms so you'll be able to interact with them in the exploration phase in order to get relevant information.

Another thing I worked on was essentially just reducing the effects I was using in Gdevelop5. Basically when you use too many effects it can slow down the game down and while a visual novel isn't that resource intensive there was some lag in certain areas that I wanted to fix. I'm already using 3 effects to help sell the vintage look:

-Old Film to provide some noise -RGB Split for the slight chromatic aberration and -Blur(Kawase Fast) to make the art look less crisp

Too many effects as it is but totally worth it imo. But you can be the judge of that.

Outside of that I don't think there's much more I can say about the art or the game so I think I'll leave it there.

Thanks for reading all this and I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Ianthe

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Hikari no Ou - Episode 1 - Thought Post - SPOILERS!

This first episode did a great job of balancing it's exposition. There was just enough showing through moments like Touko looking at the goddess statue or Rin wearing the mask and watching Touko leave. 

But at the same time, we got told about certain aspects, which explain more of the "rules" of the world they are living in. They knew which things needed to be shown and which things needed to be told to give us a good balance, and then we also got excellent moments like when Touko had the lantern, and Rin tells her she is wasting the "fire" that she had. That scene also had Rin stating quite bluntly why she hates Touko. 

Both of these bits of information are then reinforced through later scenes, like when we see the machines arrive with the fuel and the abovementioned scene with Rin and the mask. It helps reinforce the world building, adding proper layers.

I also really enjoyed the small detail stuff like how this society has started naming their children using fire and red related terms as a way to bless and protect them from real fire. That just seems really realistic. Also, the narrator makes it clear that the past used to be more "modern" and we can still see remnants of this in things like Koushi's umbrella and a girl in the city wearing a more Western style outfit.

When it comes to the visuals, mood, and atmosphere, I almost got a bit of an Ookami vibe to it. The music, I think, really helped in this area to provide a feeling of a modern day folktale or lore, but with touches of more modern technology, which is an interesting mix. The art style also has this slight sketchy look to it, which also fits in with that whole atmosphere and really does make the series feel like a novel, which this is based on (iirc) come to life. The imagery in the ED really highlights this as well (the visual and colors almost remind me of Mononoke (the 2007 TV anime series) too:

The use of light and weather to set mood is very nicely, and subtlety done. As are the simple transitions and small moments dedicated to the nature and scenery. They all help with the world building and setting the appropriate mood:

The short, brief black screens with the name of the focused character (first Touko and then Koushi), combined with the OP imagery like this:

Makes me think that we are getting a dual protagonist approach, with one male and one female. I really like approach (that’s an aspect of Fruits Basket that I always enjoy). I look forward to seeing if their two stories will end up meeting. I feel like they must.

The voice acting is also great in this series. Very natural sounding, which I personally tend to enjoy more over more...animated voice acting. The more produced and fake sounding stuff found in most anime series, tbh. After having lived in Japan and hearing natural spoken Japanese, the way Japanese is often acted and spoken in anime bugs me a bit more nowadays. I can ignore easily enough when I really enjoy a series, but finding one that doesn’t rely on that too much or often is a breath of fresh air.

The last thing I want to comment on is the character writing. This first episode did a very good job of simply establishing the characters. From the way the papermaker talked about Touko, we can get a sense of how the village, as a whole, likely feels about her right now. From the grandmother's brief words about Fire Hunters, we can get an understanding of how the world these characters live in view that line of work, and from the two men's brief interactions with Touko on the machine we can see their difference in approaches to Touko (a gentle, soft touch approach vs a hard love type of approach).

We also have some extremely good female character writing with the aunt. She has a stern look about her and knows how to use that, as well as her knowledge of the world, to get the paper that Touko would need from her journey. She is never shown being intimidated and is very intellectually bright. But, we also see her being very understanding and gentle with Touko over the mistake Touko made. 

This is a great level of complexity for a female character, especially for one that may not even being a returning and major character. It leaves me feeling very hopeful about Touko's future growth and development as a character too. It helps that I also think they did a good job of showing how she is a nice and kind girl - respectful - but she is determined to make amends for her mistake and won't back down or show fear, even when it is made clear that she may die on the way to the capital. There a solid foundation for her character, with room for her character to grow and develop a more distinct personality along the way. I am really excited and interested in seeing that!

[tehamelie]

The first thing I notice, after getting used to thinking as an adult I won't have a job, I'll have an apartment all to myself, and I'll be a girl - so that's why the boys are so shitty to me, because they can tell even twenty years before I can - is all the books. Four bookshelves full of books, piles of them on every flat surface, and I think most of them are comic books.

'Grown-ups read comics?'

'I feel bad for those who don't. Actually a lot of people don't read at all. But don't go thinking we're superior, I don't read a whole lot either. See those stacks on the table? Those are not books.'

One of the bookshelves, as well as almost all of the generous amounts of clutter closest to the work station in the center of the room, the things she has closest at hand, turn out to be movie discs. I'm a little disappointed, but at least it's still stories. Stories still fascinate me.

'Books are more intense, they take more effort to get into. Movies give more instant gratification, more mindless pleasure you can just have waft over you while you're spending your energy writing,' she tells me, guiltily. 'But then, I have some hard movies too, ones that demand the full attention of your senses, and that do stuff even comic books can't do, that tell stories in ways only movies can. We could watch one of those if you like.'

That's a novel idea. I can't believe it, so of course I want to see it. But thinking of things I can't imagine, my eyes wander again over that work station, that I saw at first only as an abstraction - a desk with things on it and a big chair in front of it. I see now, most of those things are a machine, a big humming engine with a bunch of glowing lights and several bunches of wires connecting it to the wall and to more glowing devices, like a Lego spaceship out of my dreams.

'Right, we didn't see a computer up close until we were like thirteen. I remember the first thing I thought to do with it was open a text document and write down a conversation, the way you expect to be able to talk to a computer in a science fiction story. I convinced it to start building me an army of robots to take over the world and I was honestly disappointed it didn't work. But would you like to see what it can do?'

I do. She taps a finger on the typewriter and the engine changes its hum and the TV reacts, sort of like magic. On the screen a myriad boxes open up, boxes within boxes, I get the sensation of worlds within worlds and can immediately understand why being able to move through this virtual reality would give the impression of infinite power at your fingertips. She moves through it easily, dances through the worlds faster than I can read their names.

It seems she has mislaid the thing she's looking for. Isn't that always how it goes when you want to show someone something? But after a minute of confused muttering I'm shown a kind of canvas, where I'm assured it's all for free and, even though it's hard, I need to stop thinking in terms of wasting paint or paper, because here where those are digital, they're infinite, and we can just try over and over again.

Endlessly beautiful patterns of light following where I drag my finger (or "mouse pointer") through the dark, it's certainly a staggering experience. I play with it for easily an hour, even as I notice my host thinking furiously. I can imagine she's plotting out what sights might interest me most in this infinite novelty machine and it must be tricky. It's beyond me to even fantasize about the possibilities, I'm tired of even thinking of the ways I could mix intensity and exposure and fuzz of these Neon Flames, it's starting to feel a bit like that dream I had where Mom left me at the border of the neighborhood with five paths to choose from all leading to unknown lands where I'd have to walk alone.

'If I have to decide what to do while I'm here,' I say, 'I'd like to read a book.'

'Oh, sure. I've got a few I know you'll like, they're in English but I can help you translate. I should have known all this would be uncomfortable. Or, wait, this is just a thought, but would you like me to decide for you?'

Deciding to leave the decisions to her would still be a decision, right? But it's the easier one. It's like I'm not walking alone. With Old Amelie at the controls I listen to music that rips my heart out, and read strange stories I'm excited I'm going to write and learn about "memes" and stories implied in a single snapshot, and "videogames" where you go inside of a story or even make up your own stories of motion and battles and strange sights, and we even start making our own game. Everything is less scary to try when you're not alone.

imagine you as a child, rummaging around in the current version of your room. what would they be drawn to?

[imanbenerrabeh]

i really enjoyed your video: “the art of seasonal reading”. it’s interesting in how you approach reading/selected books and want to do that for myself. however since where i am from i don’t have climatic seasons like the northern/southern hemisphere, i’d like to use your suggestion of “season of life” and select books based on my current emotional state of life. i’m feeling listless (currently unemployed & struggling with finding a job) and my days feel me with boredom and i feel quite unambitious. do you have book recommendations that may resonate with this bleak state i’m in? it can be fictional, journals, classics etc. it can also be something that gives me more hope for the future.

also what the books you’ve chosen for september now that summer has come to an end? how do u contemplate the autumn?

Hi, thank you for your kind words. I'm happy you liked my video! I am sorry to hear that you are going through a rough patch. In my personal experience that is exactly when reading can be most useful.

It is when we feel pain that a book can be as comforting and soothing as a spoonful of cough syrup going down a sore throat. Just how nature rots and withers, then blossoms and decays just to do it all over again through the seasons - we also have phases of light and strength, balanced with times of loss and turmoil. This is just to say that phases of hardship are natural. They're the necessary winters that precede the growth of the spring. It is easy to forget how similar to nature we are! Everything is cyclical. Seasonal reading is the awareness of these cycles, and you being mindful of your state of mind is a beautiful sign of consciousness. To be fully awake, both when we are the most serene and the most frustrated, is a miracle of nature. Reading can heighten that feeling. Books can be grounding, and give us a sense of direction. They occupy the empty negative space in our mind and accompany us through all phases of the cycle - the springs, and the winters alike.

Seasonal reading for what you're describing, a time of distress and lack of purpose, can manifest in many ways.

Realistically, you could read books to escape this feeling. Books with intense world building, which many science fiction and fantasy novels have, are perfect for this. Escapism is not a long term solution to negative mindsets, but it can be a start. A way to take a break and rest, truly tune everything out. It can be a time of distraction, the kind that later invigorates the spirit. Maybe reading something superficially exciting can be uplifting enough to get to the hard work needed to find a renewed sense of purpose.

Another realistic approach is the one where books provide sympathy. If I feel angry, reading something that resonates with my anger can be validating and reassuring. A relief that can release every bit of the negativity we hold inside us. Reading novels that describe struggle can be an important step in allowing the hardship to manifest instead of suppressing it and ignoring it. Again, just like with escapism, leaning into these feelings has to be temporary because doing so can get things stagnant. No sense of direction can arise, although the catharsis of reading about exactly what we struggle with can be the burst needed for positive change.

Finally, in times of self doubt I would say that reading philosophy is the best way to practice seasonal reading. When our current life does not align with our ideal life, books can distract us and they can soothe us temporarily. But, most importantly, they can inspire us to move forward and past this season. For some, reading philosophy means to read Plato. That's not what I mean, or not only should I say. To pick the philosophical books that might actually help you in this season, you have to first think about what is making you so restless. If you're dealing with feeling weak and helpless, reading about stoicism might help. If you're dealing with loss of meaning, reading about absurdism might help. What matters here is to get yourself thinking, so that the brain is stimulated enough to produce good ideas that will help you in your struggle.

I do not know your taste in books, but I can make a few safe suggestions!

To temporarily escape the pain, read something complex! I suggest "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky. The novel is about making mistakes, but also about redemption. It shows both how evil and good we can be at our core no matter our free will, and how important it is to be aware of ourpower to decide. It's about faith.

To find a reflection of your feelings, read something gloomy like "Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" by Haruki Muarakami. It addresses loss, grief and the vice of letting pain consume you when it catches you unprepared.

To find hope and prepare to move past this grey season onto one full of life, I recommend "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius. It's a diary of stoic lessons on how to deal with pain and be stronger. Along those lines, I also recommend "Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca.

We are never alone. In life there is always a book we can read and as we read it its voice can guide us through anything. I hope this was helpful and that you know how natural it is to go through phases of struggle. As you read, you both heal and contemplate - so read until your eyes get tired, and soon the winds will change.

P.S. I don't fully know yet what september or fall will have in store for me, but I am sketching out and drafting ideas as august comes to an end. I will very soon report back when I have an answer to what autumn means to me!

[slowd1ving]

.・゜゜・NAVIGATION

about me .゜ call me res! I go by he/him and I'm 18. I typically write longer fics but could probably drop some headcanons and drabbles later down the line! usually my fics are more plot and world-building based but I do write nsfw occasionally (sometimes I write plot solely so I can get to that lmao). I generally stick to writing for male/neutral readers but might eventually write for female readers too (genderfluid legend) - but male readers are more of a priority due to the content drought for them. honestly went awol on here for a while because I post more on ao3 but I decided to bring my newer works here too <3 so enjoy the blog

fandoms I've written for .・ in the past I've written for bleach, genshin, and jjba. some of my newer stuff includes that's not my neighbor, twisted wonderland, more jjba, and some itsv i wrote when it first came out. however, check out the current interests section to find out different fandoms I might write for in the future, as well as the requests + asks section :)

current interests ゜・ started playing honkai star rail recently, honestly really enjoying how interesting the character stories are. some manga I'm currently reading include blue lock, jjk, sakamoto days and jjba. I read a wider variety of manhwa and novels though, including orv, lookism, how to fight, return of the mad demon, solo levelling, concubine walkthrough (really recommend this one), legend of a northern blade... I can't list them all since I've read over two hundred lmao (please ask me for fic recommendations I've got so many) in terms of my other hobbies since I do have a life (I hope this is obvious) I like art, history, and the sciences (fuck I use so many science metaphors in my work...), so if you ask for scientist!reader... yeah you know what's up

things of note •. yeah don't follow me or interact with my work if you're racist, homophobic, ableist, or if you don't believe in a free palestine. idc who you are that's an immediate block.

requests + asks ・゜ I write as a hobby and honestly just to blow off stress! currently am doing my studies in a myriad of subjects and have lots to do, but my ask box will be open; just keep in mind I may not reply immediately (sorry about that). I probably won't be able to write longer fics but less than 2k is light work fr, especially if it's something like headcanons or drabbles or things of that nature. again, will write for neutral/male readers so please keep that in mind when requesting. my ask box will be open for just discussions or other things :) as mentioned previously, I write for male/neutral readers, but I might extend it to female reader eventually (or depending on the fic idea?? really does depend). while the majority (all...) of my work is x reader, I don't mind doing character x character I won't write any weird ships (no incest, big age gaps, just weird ships in general), and I won't write nsfw of aged-up characters that are minors in the original work!! in terms of fandoms you can request for, any of the aforementioned should be good, I just may not be very familiar with the character so it might take a while to find their 'voice' to write for. however!! if the fandom in question has not been mentioned above you can send a request anyway because I've extensively consumed media so I'll have at least heard of it (probably/hopefully)

what I'm currently up to <3 as of june, I'm continuing my jjba long fic and currently redoing my entire blog (my older posts look so UGLY omfd). debating whether to make a side blog for just discussions and stuff?? I'm also thinking of medium/plot-based fics for other fandoms to give myself somewhat of a refresh I'm fresh out of end of year exams but still have a lot to do elsewhere so this blog is going to be my proverbial terrarium to nourish and take care of so I don't lost my sanity

OLD MASTERLIST ゜・★･ﾟMASTERLIST

TAGS FOR NAVIGATION (will continue to be updated) [navigation] for things like masterlists + the navigation post (this one) [masterlist] for masterlists [res ･ﾟ writing] for any of my writing [old writing] for my old stuff that my og followers know me for

[megsbooklr]

Read in March & April 2024

Second part of my bi-monthly updates ^^

In no particular order:

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis - I've had this small book on my shelves for 15 years... So, congrats to me for finally reading it :D Anyway, I liked it and was pretty amazed by how accurate it still is in terms of describing the issues of faith, conscience, making excuses, etc.

Why I Swore to Never Hire a Goon (Except in Emergencies) by JF Lee - a short, fun adventure in the Jianghu with found family vibes and way too many cats xD

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo - simply brilliant! As great as the first novella in the series, if not even better! Aside from the emotional impact, I loved the lore about the neixins and the Singing Hills Abbey!

Stars of Chaos vol. 1-2 by priest - I'd forgotten how much I liked this novel until I started re-reading the official English translation :) I love how rich the world-building is, how our characters are given a lot of space and time for growth and also how all the problems of the main relationship are fully acknowledged. Volume 3 is coming soon ^^

Thousand Autumns vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi - well, someone had finally understood the futility of their previous actions, eh, Yan Wushi? :D Last volume to be released in July!

The Imperial Uncle by Da Feng Gua Guo - yeah, this one broke me. I loved it and hated it in equal measures. I'm still hurting just by thinking about it (even though it ended relatively well). And yes, I would read it all over again, because apparently I'm a masochist... :D

Onmyoji and Tengu Eyes vol. 1-2 by Yoshiko Utamine - a small niche gem of Japanese light novels, it's got everything I love: urban/rural fantasy, bromance, characters with a lot of mental baggage to unpack, a supporting environment, mysteries to solve... and I've still got one more volume to read! ^^

7th Time Loop... vol. 1 by Touko Amekawa - yes, I watched the anime and I fell for the power couple and the time loop, obviously :D I love how serious and dark this story gets at times. And, along with Rishe, I'm really curious to find out how the war had actually started!

[rhetoricandlogic]

REVIEW: Inscape by Louise Carey

Book Reviews

January 27, 2021

By James Tivendale

I received an uncorrected proof copy of Inscape in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Louise Carey and Gollancz.

Inscape is a high-quality cyberpunk thriller that’s set in a futuristic version of London following an event called the Meltdown. Throughout the novel’s pages, we follow Tanta, a young CorpWard, which is essentially a trainee spy for the InTech corporation. It doesn’t take long for the action to start and in the very first paragraph, we are made aware that something important is about to go down. Through her Inscape, Tanta is informed that she is acting as team leader for her first mission – a red assignment – which is the initial sign that something is seriously wrong.

The mission is a disaster, a contingency which they couldn’t pre-empt causes the deaths of two of Tanta’s colleagues, with another being gravely injured. The whole incident raises many more questions than answers, and Tanta, who barely makes it home alive herself, will do all she can to shed light on the mysteries and conspiracies that surround this tragic night.

Inscape is a gripping and thought-provoking SF debut and I can’t think of anything negative to say about it. Carey’s cyberpunk world features a cold war between two rival corporations, mind programming, mind-wiping, and Inscapes which I’d describe as being a bit like an iPhone for your mind. The Inscapes are really intelligent pieces of kit with built-in GPS, silent MindChat, Zoom-like screen share, amongst many other applications, and you can swipe notifications away that you want to ignore. What was enjoyable to read about, but also quite tragic and harrowing, is that nothing Carey presents is that far-fetched. In fact, I was picturing the events happening here as being as little as twenty years in the future, with some of Carey’s enhancements and advancements actually being very conceivable ideas.

Tanta is Inscape’s main character and I had a great time following her. In this first of a trilogy, she discovers a lot about herself and changes drastically from the first to the final page. There is a lot of self-contemplation and reflection by our lead as events cause her to question her past, present, and reality. She is the top CorpWard and she has been raised to be a weapon for InTech. She lives, breathes, and loves her corporation. She is also in a nice and loving long-term relationship with a sex worker.

In addition to Tanta, there are two other point of view characters. One is Cole, an expert programmer who has had a great amount of his past erased from his memories. Throughout a large portion of Inscape, he is acting as Tanta’s partner as they look into the mystery of what happened on that chaotic night, and even venture undercover together in rival corporation territory. The duo had great chemistry and it was excellent to read about how they get to know each other whilst also getting to know themselves. The other point of view perspective is that of Director Jen Ash. She is Tanta’s senior manager and has overlooked her training and upbringing. Tanta will do everything she can to impress her.

I’ll wrap up my review by saying that Inscape is an impressive SF action thriller. It presents a disquieting and eerie vision of what may come, made even more haunting by the fact many of the leaps Carey’s made from our now to her future don’t come across as ridiculous or far-fetched at all. Inscape is a well-written, intriguing and exciting debut that has a fine finale and works neatly as a standalone. The strengths of the story and the world-building leave lots of potential for the future of the trilogy, and I will be continuing Tanta’s dystopian tale.

[transcendersmedia]

Making Relation Games

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the games we make, and what kind of games we want to make. When we started the new company this autumn, we also did a lot of business planning, working on the brand and so forth. Doing that kind of work is something I really enjoy, since it puts a frame around what we do, and makes everything more clear.

When it comes to our games, we plan ahead a lot. That means that as one game is in production, we’ll plan what the next game will be, and also have some ideas about the project coming after that. When choosing what to work on next, we always have a lot of ideas for projects to choose from (and the planning will always change, but that’s to be expected). The selection criteria for a new project looks something like this:

Does this project fit within the Transcenders Media frame: do the themes and mechanics line up with the kind of games we intend to make?

Will this project build on something we’ve previously done, design- or technology-wise?

Will this project steer us in a direction we want to go and help us become the company we want to be?

This way of thinking has also made it easier to see a recurring pattern in the game ideas that make us the most excited, the ones we tend to give a green light: They are almost exclusively centered around relationships. And that has led me to believe that (at least for the time being) Transcenders Media make games about relationships, and that’s about it!

Why make games about relationships?

Now, this is a huge question. Why do we do the things we do, really? As artists, there are most often some themes that are extra interesting to us, that we will always come back to, and explore over and over from different angles and aspects. For me, people and relationships have always been that kind of topic, something I can see even going back to my childhood and the stories I used to draw and write back then (and yes, I was pretty melodramatic as a child, too. This is from when I was seven years old).

The same themes occur also in the novels I’ve written: they’re about how to relate to yourself and others, how to connect and receive what you need. So the topics are kind of given, but different media forms offer very different opportunities on how to go about exploring the subject matters. And that’s where I think games are specifically interesting, since the player will be the one deciding on what to do in the game: it’s in their hands to decide how to use the device we have given them. They will explore the game world and, in this case, the possible relationships they can have in the game, from their point of view and experiences. Which means that, apart from regular gameplay mechanics, elements such as player psychology, projection and preferences will come into play, and I think the relationship between the player and its avatar becomes extra interesting in this case.

Relation Games

In the kind of games we make, the main point of the game is to relate to the characters in the game world and affect the relationships you have with them. This objective could be woven together with other gameplay objectives, or it could be the only objective the player has. 

There are specific genres of games that most commonly revolve around relationships, such as dating sims, visual novels and some role playing games. I haven’t found a good overall term for relationship centered games in game design literature of any kind (please let me know if you’ve seen any). But as I need a term for it I will call them relation games going forward.

I had quite a hard time choosing between relation games and relation sims, so I asked ChatGPT to argue for which one was the better option. I got the below response, which I do think makes sense. But when thinking about it, I chose to use the broader term relation games, because I want to encompass games from different genres and with different gameplay elements, and I felt that using the term sim would be too narrow.

And that’s it for now! I’ll write more about relation games and the inspirations, tools and technologies for making them further on. Also, feel free to let me know what you think about this topic!