#fucking love eastern european folktales

[side-sidecast]

Hi! What's the spookiest thing that monster Hunter has encountered? I love all manner of horrid beasts personally <3

so far? a fext isn't the spookiest, but for me it's definitely the most terrifying. a fext is an undead creature born from folktales form bohemia and moravaia (this is just off the top of my head it might be incorrect) regions, around today's Czech Republic, during the 30 years' war. essentially they are 300 year old zombie soldiers who can only be killed by glass bullets.

those are the things that have actual backing in folklore, and now come the things i added to patch plotholes. i decided that they should imprint on people and stalk them, across countries even. their bodies and minds kind of rotted through the years and the only initiative left in them is to kill imperialist soldiers. and Rokus's coat just happens to make him look like one

[ilikereadingactually]

looking back, because libraries taught me about assessment

imo reading is NOT about quantity, and NOT always about quality. reading is about the pleasure it brings, and that's it! there's no reason to feel shame about what or how much you read, if you are enjoying yourself. that said, for me, i can see the place reading has had in my life changing by looking back at lists of what i read. over the last decade, my pleasure reading decreased by 93%, and the last three years were the lowest (gee, i wonder why). but i did read some really excellent books in those three low years, and i want to start this blog with a shoutout to them before i dig into what i've been reading in 2023.

this is a long post, so here's what you'll find below the cut:

Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

The Ascendant Trilogy by K. Arsenault Rivera

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

The Tensorate Series by Neon Yang

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Book of Boy by Catherine Murdock

The Scholomance Series by Naomi Novik

Judas by Jeff Loveness and Jakub Rebelka

The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir

Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

absolute standouts in the wide field of fairy- and folktale retellings. though i list them together here, they're standalone books that feel connected to me by virtue of style. both feel timeless and a little bit dreamy even as they are rooted in solid, practical, sturdy detail. both pull from Eastern European (and in the case of Spinning Silver specifically, Jewish) folklore and culture. both subvert the story you think you're getting several times before the end, in ways that delighted me. try them if you're into folk magic, women getting things done, and compelling ensemble casts.

The Ascendant Trilogy: The Tiger's Daughter, The Phoenix Empress, and The Warrior Moon by K. Arsenault Rivera

the SCALE of these books! and the STAKES!! i started reading the first one on a whim while i was sitting in the sff section of a bookstore waiting for my friends to be done chatting, and i had to go back to the counter and buy it so i could keep reading it. this is an East Asian-inspired fantasy world, which is always refreshing to me, though there were one or two aspects of the worldbuilding that i bumped on as being on the line between in-universe fantasy racism and real-world racism. i'm not from or deeply educated on any of the source cultures involved, so take that with a grain of salt. but oh, these lesbians live in my heart. i still think about Shefali and Shizuka and their epic, bittersweet story on the reg. THEY'RE TWO PINE NEEDLES, OKAY? T^T try them if you're into queers saying fuck homophobia, horse girls and flower girls, fated/doomed-ish love, fantasy politics, or cliffhangers.

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

taken on its own, this is a charming and thrilling mystery story filled with fantastic characters, and it glitters in my mind like sunlight on water. i adore Elizabeth Wein and everything she writes. but i was a little nervous to actually read this book, not out of any fear for its quality, but fear for my emotional state. this is a prequel to Code Name Verity, one of my favorite books of all time, and also the book that has absolutely wrecked me the hardest. i don't think i will ever be able to reread that book. i read it when it came out in 2012, and i STILL can't actually think about it without crying, i am crying as i type this. i have never been so devastated by a piece of fiction, and i was worried The Pearl Thief was going to be hard as a result. and it was, kind of! but also felt nostalgic and kind of sweet to me in a way i wasn't expecting. so! if you read Code Name Verity, read this! if you didn't read Code Name Verity and you have the fortitude for a gorgeous and compelling and tragic and horrifying WWII story about two best friends, read that one first. if you don't have the fortitude for that and never expect to, The Pearl Thief is worth reading on its own. try it if you like historical mysteries, the Scottish countryside, or possibly unreliable narrators.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

compact and so beautiful! the kind of science fiction that is so grounded in the emotional struggle of real life that it makes even the most fantastic elements seem real too. Binti comes from a culture based on the Himba people, and her struggle to both break away from her culture and to retain it in her life is extremely compelling and pays off in such satisfying ways. and the sensory details of this book have stayed with me for YEARS! there are some horror elements too, which are sometimes my thing and sometimes not, but in this book they were pitch perfect. i have the complete series in my tbr pile next to my bed, i am so looking forward to reading the rest this year. try this if you like the terror of space, interspecies bonding, Africanfuturism, or defying restrictive systems.

The Tensorate Series: The Black Tides of Heaven, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, and Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang

i'm so pleased that these novellas are all together in one volume now, because they're so so good and one at a time doesn't feel like enough, it's like eating one piece of popcorn at a time. NO! I WANT A FISTFUL! another East Asian-flavored fantasy (i like those, can you tell?) full of really fascinating magic and terrible politics and monsters and people doing gender in cool ways and romance and tragedy and an ensemble cast of characters who were each distinct and delightful to me. i'm SUPER eager to read Neon Yang's newest book, The Genesis of Misery, it's on my list for this year. try Tensorate if you're into unique magic systems, gender fuckery, twins, prophetic visions, or social and emotional struggle that pays off.

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

this book won the Newbery in 2021 (an extremely well-deserved recognition) and entered my life at a time when i was still working "temporarily" from home, and i have a distinct memory of reading it while riding my stationary bike, and just weeping so hard i had to cut my workout short. an extremely lovely, family-centered story made magical by Korean folktale elements, giving it a pleasing feeling of cuddling up at home when it's stormy outside; there's danger and fear and thrill but also safety and love. Try this one if you've been waiting all your life for magic to happen to you but are a little afraid of what you would do if it did, had a grandma you loved, or if you're into tigers.

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

i don't read much nonfiction because i find it a lot harder to focus on, but this book was really fascinating!! this is exactly what i always want nonfiction to be: presented in an order that builds my understanding, with stories and anecdotes and narrative elements to hold my wandering attention interspersed with just really interesting information and theory. i can't restate the arguments in detail anymore, but the tl;dr stuck with me: that as much as humans impact the environment around us in bad ways, we also create new opportunities for nature in our wake. it gives the sense that there are ways forward through the irreparable alterations humankind have wrought on the earth, and that in fact finding those ways forward might be the only way to coexist. it's a really interesting take on the future of the earth, when that topic is so on my and many minds. try it if you are into mushrooms, the venn diagram where ecology meets capitalism, or worry about our and the earth's survival.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

GOSH this book was right up my alley!! really beautifully written, a small contained story that was at the same time incredibly broad in its questions, a tightly limited pov, just charming and wonderful and sad. i love many flavors of sad books, and this one was a hopeful sad, a gentle sad. i cried a lot! i loved Klara so much, really felt for her and with her, and rolled around in all the complicated and chewy implications of her presence and consciousness and personhood. also somehow though i own several of his books, i had not yet read any Ishiguro, and this one really confirmed for me that i should get back to those other ones i've been holding on to in my tbr. try this if you're into existential quandaries, dramatic irony, the implications of artificial intelligence, or sweet cinnamon rolls too pure for this world.

The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

ok listen. i was a Catholic teen, and the bits of that i have hung onto are a love for the aesthetics, the music, and the lore. so this book DELIGHTED me. what could be more fun than a sweet kid who can talk to animals going on a quest with a mysterious pilgrim to steal relics of St. Peter? what i did not expect was to be so cleverly led, and to straight up burst into tears when the suspicion i'd been harboring finally paid off. i love a book with a reveal!!! i love a book filled with charming heresy! i love a medieval setting! i love a mysterious prickly character who is soft inside! what a delight. try this one if you also love any of those things.

The Scholomance Series: A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

this is where i put my bookseller hat on, because these books are not precisely my thing, but i can easily see whose thing they are, and also they're good!! Naomi Novik is back at it again with the white vans. she just has a way of writing that keeps me in it, even when she's not writing for my tastes specifically. there are many fun and familiar elements here, with interesting twists and perspectives to keep it fresh. love a mean and cranky narrator, love to see characters building ride-or-die friendships, love a magic school story. i had some trouble in between the second and third books, i felt a bit like she had written herself into a corner regarding the magical world outside the school and i wasn't sure how she was going to get out of it, but the third book did most of the work i wanted it to do. try these if you are into het romantic storylines, school stories, scholarly magic, the younger generation changing the world, or you like reveals to confirm all your strong suspicions rather than blow your brain up.

Judas by Jeff Loveness and Jakub Rebelka

hell yes, we're harrowing hell. this graphic novel is everything i love, stunning art, subtle writing, angst, and turning maybe the most well-established story in Western culture around like a prism to see other angles. "maybe Judas got screwed" isn't a new perspective, but it's one i could see represented again and again and never get tired of it. i stared, i cried, i drank it in. try this if you like comics, you've ever shipped Jesus/Judas or were a Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar kid, or you're into interesting visions of the landscape of Hell.

The Locked Tomb Series: Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, and Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

MY CURRENT FAVORITE BOOKS OF ALL TIME, likely to stay in my top ten forever!!!!!! what can i even say about these books. they're wild and twisty, funny and devastating, clever and super readable to me. i understand in a general way that they are not for everyone, but they are SO VERY MUCH for me. queer space catholics with magic and swords, huge ensemble cast, a world that gets bigger and weirder and closer as you go. these are books that are stunners on the first read, but continue to hold up on the second, and third, and fourth, and keep revealing new layers of foreshadowing and reference and allegory. i think to some folks they come off as pretentious or tryhard, but they don't read that way AT ALL to me. these books are my weirdo friends that i would tuck in bed with me at night if they were a little less likely to papercut me in my sleep. i am already planning to have some of the many beautiful words in these books tattooed on my body. i am in a constant state of high frequency vibration awaiting the fourth and final book of the series. try these if you're looking for something very fresh and you're willing to go with the flow, if you like a million incredible twists and lots of depressed and unstable women and plots that resist "typical" relationship storylines, if you're queer and you want to see a world with 99 problems but homophobia doesn't exist, if you're aspec, if you like a little horror and a little suffering, if you enjoy Kiwi slang...honestly just try them, and if you don't dig the first 10-20 pages of Gideon then maybe it's not for you but if you DO then you won't be able to put it down anyway. OH! and the audiobooks are spectacular too!!

[nadekofannumber1]

Another elaboration of world building in this au is

Climate change started occurring rapidly in the years apparitions reigned supreme physically empowering them greater than before. Because of technological development there’s a rush to cement oddities as real before people stop believing and they become fake, in hopes to manipulate them as a force of power. Most of that attempt at oddity subjegation happened interpersonally and between closer or more controlled areas by Europe. Though Portuguese sailors and such were still making it to Japan not all of that info was set forth but with time the weather seemed to start getting worse. Individually many started to see the illusive existence of the oddity it just so happened in Japan that person had connections and that became a sociopolitical war. Even in years of Japanese reunification, a storm of the people was brewing. Eventually after hearing of a “huge sea monster” heading their way many Tokyo area citizens had decided the only way to escape any of this was mass immigration.

Though what truly happened is a mystery (being developed in my mind)

Anyway this world has a lot of conflict of authoritarianism and pseudo war time development (I don’t want to write abt a war, feelings of pre war tension however!) (I love writing abt fake politics but real politics are often scary/bad.)

(I locked this to Europe mostly to keep up the fantasy of it all, I’m thinking that maybe this takes place in a more Eastern European place bc I wanna fuck with vampires and Eastern European folklore is cool but I might aim for something more generic bc I love playing with my toys) (hanekawa partook in fae food but still eats human food bc flavor doesn’t matter to her, they also gunned for her name but she has had many names so they couldn’t take that from her, they respect that grind, I think a cat-síth would be a fun choice but that’s celt lore). (I just vibe with the witch that could become a cat (some readings (also they could only do it 9 times and some think that’s where that myth is from)), soul stealing (some readings), house blessing (some readings), king of cats (one folktale), and wish granting (referring to big ears))

It’s not my most elaborate au, but that’s bc I made it to draw Nadeko in a priests outfit and later decided that I wanted a vampiric Tsukihi to hang out with her bc it’s funny.

Also this period of technological development is useful if I wanna throw yotsugi in here bc electricity making corpses move (something they’d show at carnivals and freak shows) and works like Frankenstein + the mix of beliefs abt Japanese doll lore and the general rise of tech/automatons is fun!

NADEKO LOOK OUT

NADEKO RUN

NADEKOOOOOOOO

I had more written here but then I lost the dataaaaaaaaaaa….

TLDR a decent amount of Japanese ppl had to move to Europe bc things happened. History has changed in ways I’m not explaining now.

The printing press and uniform paper sizes exist.

They have been giving law enforcement low vampirism for low immortality in exchange for sworn loyalty to officials that may not even be immortal, it’s more about the control and having someone who can enforce the same values as you live and be healthy for a long time + bound by loyalty. The initiation of families into this system is part of it, Koyomi ran away, Tsukihi isn’t a vampire but seems to mimic it somehow.

Nadeko found out that koyomi isn’t cursed and rebounded from thinking that the family suddenly becoming immortal and moving somewhere nicer didn’t actually take away the only ppl she ever truly bonded with. Nadeko found this out bc a snake incident did happen. The snakes she killed’s skins came back to life to punish her by tearing her apart procedurally every time she did the shrine thing. Koyomi did find moving living dead snakes. After that, Nadeko tried to learn scrying to figure out and observe others but ended up just making a contract with a self made demon via personal rituals. Nadeko became a demon without a portion of the self realization she would’ve normally gotten so she stalked through the forests as a monster, an exorcist was called and she got a seal put on her. Nadeko felt so saved by the wandering specialist/exorcist that learning to do those was a priority as everything can always be normal as long as Nadeko can force it to via exorcism. Tsukihi arrives in town to go play games with her bestie, Nadeko is inventing new types of demon hunting techniques but does not find any bc Nadeko lives and excessively boring life that’s making her start to lose it. Their conflict results in her parents great disapproval and so Nadeko runs away to find some place to hire her and in that time Gaen finds Nadeko, Nadeko as part of the run away plan cuts the hair. Tsukihi is happy to tag along bc ever since Karen became a vampire she’s been doing her own shit.

This nadeko still wants to draw comics but doesn’t think this world would be ok with it, it’s something to work on.

This may not be fully compatible, and if it feels too incompatible simply imagine that this is the two RPing on a forum.

[thestalkerbunny]

Wow. Just WOW. The reception for Grandmother Beetroot (aka Granny Beets, Babushka Beets) is IMMENSELY MORE THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE???  It's become my most recognized comic I've done with currently over 11,000 notes in just a few days. WOWIE!! What a reception!

So I thought I'd do a little chat here, based on reading these comments and what have you.

-The Master list of The Lineless Comics can be found here! (be warned, there is animal violence, domestic violence, suicidal implications, murder, etc. These are not tame fairy tales. We're putting the Grim back in Grimm's, okay?) Not all of them are fairy tales-some are just stories I thought up, or dreams I’ve had and two of them technically are dnd stories and one is a song from my childhood. More of them are being made; so the list will grow in time.

-Grandmother Beetroot is yes based off that vine about the dog 'leetle russian lady....blease give me some beets'. But she is also based off the folktale of Baba Yaga and other European Witches-who range from helpful to harmful. She isn't based on any real folktale or story, she's an amalgimation of a dog from vine and russian stories wrapped up in a grandma wrapper.

-Why Borscht? Borscht is a very common soup in Eastern Europe and was orginally made from Hogsweed (a plant) from what I’ve read and was regarded as a peasent's food and was later popularized by using Beetroots. Borscht is often served post funeral wakes, for relgious events, as well as around christmas time. Basically, beets are a very hardy plant and when you live in an enviorment where everything says 'fuck off' and dies in the smallest cold snap, and all you have are beets to eat, Borscht is what's for supper.

-Grandmother can be defined as a cryptid, or a fae, or a witch, or just your grandma, anything really. That's the fun thing about these stories, you do your part on thinking about what everything means exactly.

-The Lineless comics in general are basically my tribute to fairy tales, folk tales, traditional myths and the songs I grew up on-usually they have hard moral lessons to them.  They say 'write what you want to see out in the world' and I think we need to bring some harsh moral lessons back in our story telling.

-Everyone's opinions on Beetroots and the soup Borscht in general are all valid-I personally am not fond of beetroots myself. They are very much an aquired taste apparently.

-I’m very glad some of ya’ll saying that Granny Beets reminds you of your grandmas in a way. That means I’m writing old ladies correctly.

-All ya'll in the tags saying 'thank you grandmother' got me in stitches.

-You are all Grandmother Beet's grandchildren. It is unavoidable. You will be loved, you will have the snacks and you will be listened to by this very tall beet loving dog fairy creature witch lady.

-Grandmother Beets loves you all very very much.