#gothic romanticism bastards

[reanimationstation]

i finally drew it

[reanimationstation]

#GRIFFINSWEEP CMON WE CAN DO IT

[dewwydelcra]

As someone who originally came from a blog heavily surrounding 19th century literature, my fondness for Elliott was merely inevitable. Not only becuase he's a handsome dandy but because he's like imitation crab, being something else while being completely delicious trying to be another thing.

I have had to defend these bastards (not Elliott) for years (not really) and I know I came here (the fandom) traumatized because my first expectation of Elliott was to become the partner in crime to a scientific operations where i'd use bodies to fertilize my parsnips! I'm healing now thanks to him (partially).

Elliott is honest and straight forward and isn't afraid to explain himself in situations where there might be misunderstandings. Back on my original blog I had to wonder if one of the gents were trying make a compliment or just gave an insult (and even that is generous), and don't get me STARTED on the gaslighting!!

And the violence, oh lord-they were murderers, either directly, indirectly or not yet! (but then again that's a fault of mine, it's not like i'm fawning over pride and prejudice- actually speaking of mr. darcy-)

Even if he is a watered down victorian dandy I shall accept that with open arms because atleast I know in my heart that he won't call me a pedant or mock me for a love confession or die of shock all because the wallpaper was a certain colour, being a gothic lit stan is a battle. However he, he is the medical tent in which I can be patched up and nurtured back to health. If Elliott was seen as pretentious and snobby then you wouldn't survive the words i've read. He's like the romanticized parts of that era (sort of). He could have been worse.

[cyancherub]

Hello! Hope you’re having a wonderful week 😊

Can I ask, what are some of your favorite books??

What inspired you and continues to inspire your writing?

HELLO ! ! ! ! !i am having a great week!! ;--; i hope you are as well!!

THANK U FOR ASKING!!! my favorite book is despair by nabokov. in terms of style he's my favorite prose writer.. love him to death i think his writing is just beautiful. he can also be hilarious (albeit tongue-in-cheek). i've read almost all his books/short stories, and his memoir.

fav poets are baudelaire, rimbaud, ts eliot. baudelaire is my fav writer of all time - his themes resonate with me most.

love shirley jackson as well for spooky stuff; i think she's great at finding horror in the mundane. love anything and everything gothic. love poe of course. lovecraftian themes (rly wish he werent such a bastard) and landscapes: the outlandish, strange, and unknown. all things otherworldly and fantastical in a dark way. love also epics/mythos regardless of origin. folklore, fairy tales, etc (the darker the origin the better, and when it comes to unsanitized versions of fairytales it's usually dark). greek mythology, panthea across cultures. dante's divine comedy comes to mind too.

i am MOST inspired by the themes of the Decadents (namely,, beauty, indulgence, materialism, luxury) PARTICULARLY!!! where these themes intersect with horror - finding beauty in the evil, disgusting, and grotesque (esp as captured by baudelaire. the sensual dealing of the shocking and repulsive). find me where horror and erotica meet and blur together. (to me there's no real delineation between the two. this extends to art as a visual medium also. one of my fav artists is takato yamamoto, eroguro extraordinaire.) anyway what i mean to say is: IF IT ROMANTICIZES THE MACABRE THEN I AM THERE. !!!!!

[theicarusscientists]

Is this blog on hiatus currently or is there another place to read the webcomic?

oh gosh.. i havent worked on TIS in quite a while! I suppose it is on hiatus. i havent abandoned the project, its just currently on the backburner. i have vague plans kicking around back there, some reworks, maybe a whole revamp, and i want to nail the plot down before i properly begin work on it again. life just gets in the way! im flattered you reached out to ask, truly. i do hope to get back to it eventually, but with college and ever fluctuating focus, it might be a while!

i have some more recent art of them on my main, @reanimationstation , under the "gothic romanticism bastards" tag if youre looking for a little bit more content. all the characters are still dear to me, i just dont have a lot of motivation to draw them as much. i would if i could!

[spyridonya]

Death House Fanon Plot

So, I’m doing Curse of Strahd and working on Death House and checked out the guides. The crunch and atmospheric details are good and using skill checks to get out of the house sounds great.

I am so very, very disappointed with the plot.

It’s horrifically triggery in several, several ways. Still birth, child abuse, child death, body horror, infidelity, misogyny, and romanticizing power imbalances.

And it doesn’t solve the problem it’s trying to fix.

Read below for the rant, cut due to the zillion triggers.

Death House doesn’t have much of connection to Barovia/Ravenloft in general so the plot is the owners of Death House, Mr. and Mrs. Durst who are minor nobility, think Strahd is a dark messiah that will help them and their death cult become immortal. Mr. Durst even writes for help pleading how to deal with his wife after his problematic affair with the maid results with a stillborn child.

Strahd goes ‘nah’.

For reasons, the parents tap into Dark Power Energy and turn into ghouls, forgetting had two kids they genuinely love and locked in their room for safety, and said kids die of hunger. Oh, and you can find a old deed to the Windmill where more horrific things happen. Because it’s the Curse of Stahd.

Anyway, the plot is nonsense. So, two popular creators rewrote Death House plot.

Instead of having the Dursts being batshit insane, Mrs. Durst feels sad and ugly and old and Mr. Durst feels so sad and depressed and that his wife doesn’t meet his needs. So, Mr. Durst has an affair with his young maid that he Totally Does Not Have a Power Imbalance with No Really This is Romantic - see, look there’s a romance novel that’s Exactly Like Them. Mr. Durst knocked up the maid. Mrs. Durst gets jealous and makes a death cult, Mrs. Durst nags her husband to join, Mrs. Durst gets so jealous after the baby is born that she kills the maid, sacrifices the baby, everyone becomes a ghoul and Mr. Durst goes to hang himself -- even though he’s supposed to be a ghoul. The baby then becomes a flesh monster that can never die.

Oh, and they still forget their other kids in the house. And you get a note about Mr. Durst worrying about his kids while his wife now hates them all.

Not only do we have the Unfortunate Implications Affair, Non-Ironic Gothic Horror Misogyny, we now have three dead kids, and one of them turns into an Eldritch Abomination that you probably can’t kill.

And it still doesn’t connect to Barovia any differently than in RAW. The only tangible change is ‘stillborn’ is switched to ‘bastard’.

I managed to fix it a little bit. But that’s for another time.

[reanimationstation]

i forgot to post this oops. they are trying to get along

[acrosstheoldstream]

Punk Academia

[reanimationstation]

needed to draw some bitchy and gay middle aged men for my health

[reanimationstation]

AA OH MY DNDNDJS THIS IS WONDERFUL

Been thinking about this scene from @aspidateasteism‘s TIS.

[the-wonderful-jinx]

E, H, and X! For the ask!

E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?

Well since you didn’t specify a fic, I’ll pick ‘the love you gave is lost’ aka: the one where Strand goes on a bender, drunkenly confesses his love to Alex (for the nth time), and Alex has to pick up the pieces (yet again). 

Mainly because I do want to write a sequel. Or, more technically, a ‘prequel-sequel’. I even have a titled lined up ‘then we walked away just to be okay’ and it would cover the events of Alex dealing with a sad drunk!strand for the very first time: trying to wrangle him in the car, his handsyness, him telling tales of his family and Coralee, and him confessing his feelings for her. 

H: How would you describe your style?

I would describe and compare my style to gothic literature or romanticism: trying to be grim and terrifying , but in a pretty way. To me, TBTP seems like a modern day gothic ghost story, it only feels right to try write fic in that similar style. They go together. Like hot chocolate and whipped cream.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

Nicodemus Silver cAUSE FUCK YOU TERRY I REFUSE TO GIVE YOUR BLATANT AUTHOR AVATAR ANY HAPPINESS OR ATTENTION YOU SON OF A--

-ahem-

Dark!Strand is a strong second as well. Cause fuck that manipulative bastard amirite?

[geek-patient-zero]

Part 1, Chapter 3 (Pt. 1)

Or: Mage Chat at The Club Diabolique

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Death Volume 1

This chapter features a scene most V:TM fans will be familiar with: important vampires meeting in a seedy nightclub to talk about vampire shit.

Thanks to some reckless driving, Dire McCann arrives at Club Diabolique’s front door at exactly midnight. We also learn that he has a late-model Chrysler, but since I’m not a car guy I don’t know if that means anything about him as a character.

Originally an abandoned warehouse, the building had been converted into a disco by several ambitious young capitalists ten years earlier.

There were still discos in 1984? Wait, when did Xanadu come out?

When that craze had died, so had the club. It passed through several hands and incarnations before being bought by the present owner, Oliver Pearson. After several months of extensive interior designing, the nightspot had reopened with a new name, The Club Diabolique, and a new attitude. Converted into a Gothic-Punk haven, with live music, a huge dance floor, and an exclusive “Members Only” upper level, the bar had quickly developed into the hottest place to be in town.

It wouldn’t be a Vampire: The Masquerade story without a shady nightclub in there somewhere. This one, despite its Gothic-Punk theme, has a mixed crowd of patrons. Most importantly are the vampires, as Alexander Vargoss holds court in that members only area, but obviously none of the mortals in the club know about them.

There were rich, middle-aged businessmen wearing expensive suits, accompanied by much younger women dressed to kill in skin-tight designer dresses and five-inch heels. Club Diabolique catered to mistresses and expensive ladies of the evening, not wives. Morals and inhibitions were checked at the door.

I have a hard time believing this club could remain the hottest nightspot in town for very long if they cater to creepy old stiffs cheating on their wives. It’d hurt the club’s image with the rebellious young goth generation the club’s theme is supposedly catering to. Speaking of, we of course have some goth kids. Most of page thirty-one is spent describing them.

They were punks with an attitude.

You can tell this was written in the 90′s because the word “attitude” here doesn’t really mean anything.

Generation X-ers without much money and without much hope, they felt cheated by a world spoiled by their elders.

The kind of subculture that doesn’t mind hanging out in the same club with creepy middle-aged businessmen and their mistresses, right?

This line could also be a good way to describe how many neonates, newly-Embraced vampires, might feel towards their sires and the older vampires. You can easily make a comparison between these fledgling vampires and the disaffected mortal youth they once were, and the connection could both say something about them and help them maintain their humanity when everything else about vampire life, nature, and society is pressuring them to be monsters. But Blood War is one of those V:TM stories that doesn’t focus on neonates.

Their quest for identity had led them down some strange paths.  Searching for meaning in a meaningless world, they turned to the 19th-century Gothic traditions for inspiration. Their look was a mix of black leather and Victorian finery.

A look that probably clashes with the “without much money” description. One disadvantage goths have when it comes to image, compared to punk and grunge, is that being able to afford their fancy outfits out them as suburban middle-class. There’s a whole paragraph describing their look, but I’m assuming you all know what goths look like.

McCann sympathized with the Goths. Most of them were bright, sensitive young men and women trying desperately to cope with a world of diminishing returns. Lonely and bored, they had created a whole new subculture based on a romanticized view of decadence and death.

After that “goths are punks with Attitude® “ line I was expecting the descriptions for goths to be Weinberg talking about how weird the youth of today is mixed with misconceptions like that they worship the devil or something. But this was pretty good. Their disaffection and feelings of hopelessness might be exaggerated, but that’s justified given the World of Darkness’s generally bleak setting. And there’s no mention of the music scene the subcuture came up around, but I don’t think McCann’s much of a modern music person, so it makes in-character sense. And if it’s not perfect, who are we to judge? How many of you on this hellhole of an internet know the goth subculture as anything other than a meme and a fetish?

The most relevant thing about the narration’s description of goths is their view on (the pop culture version of) vampires, and how that clashes with reality. It’s what you’d expect.

Many of them, not realizing the bitter truth behind the legends, fantasized about becoming vampires. Sometimes it happened, turning their dreams into nightmares.

[...]

Their view of the undead came from erotic novels and movies, not the Kindred. As he strolled past them, he uttered a silent prayer that they forever remain ignorant of the truth.

Aw, that’s sweet of McCann. Maybe under that master schemer detective persona beats the heart of a big old softie. Well, no, not at all, but despite being secretly really old he isn’t a dick about young people.

Club Diabolique has a doorman who’s described as “a giant of a man,” even compared to Dire McCann, who is merely big.

Dressed in undertaker’s garb, he exuded an air of restrained menace. This was Brutus, nicknamed the Arbitrator of Souls. In more mundane terms, the ex-wrestler worked as the doorman.

I wonder, does he have that nickname because goths are over-dramatic, or because vampires are over-dramatic?

Brutus is one of those unbribable club doormen who picked who can get in based on a certain criteria beyond “is the person old enough to be here” and “is this guy gonna start shit if he gets inside?” Thing is, no one knew how Brutus decided who gets in and why, and since he’s a huge scary motherfucker no one asks. Given some of the patrons, and the fact that Brutus is one of Vargoss’s ghouls, I’m guessing he judges based on who looks like they have the tastiest blood.

McCann doesn’t have to worry about Brutus, though, since they both know he has an appointment inside. There’s two paragraphs describing the club, but since the plot doesn’t spend any time here, just know that the music’s too loud to talk over and everyone’s there to dance, drink, and sin. And the band playing is called the Children of the Apocalypse, which McCann finds darkly amusing given the news he received last chapter.

Instead we’ll skip to upstairs, at the door to the member’s only area, guarded by a young “looks-eighteen-but-is-actually-a-hundred” vampire named “Fast Eddie” Sanchez, named so due to his skills with a knife. McCann asks him what’s up, and we learn that Vargoss’s guest is “some big shot Tremere sorcerer” and that “word on the street is that bad times are coming.” McCann says that it sound like a good reason for Eddie to keep his knives sharpened.

“I always keep my knives ready, McCann,” said Eddie, seriously, as the detective walked past him and into the next room.

You notice how that quote’s in italics? There’s several different instances in this chapter where lines are randomly written in italics and I have no idea why. The first thing I assumed is that it’s a subtle way of showing that a vampire is using a speech enhancing discipline, like maybe Eddie’s using a Presence power here to sound more intimidating? That’d explain lines of dialogue, but there are lines by the narration that’re randomly in italics too. You can see that here, since the description of McCann walking into the next room is also italicized along with the dialogue. I have no idea what the writer was doing here, and this is the only chapter where this happens.

McCann describes the members only vampire part of the club:

There were a dozen round cocktail tables scattered about the private chamber, with perhaps fifteen Kindred and twice that number of ghouls present. A small bar served whiskey for the ghouls and blood, both human and animal, for the Undead. Neonates, recently embraced vampires, worked as the waiters.

One criticism I’ve heard about the earlier versions of the Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop game is that players, despite being big tough vampires with cool powers, are usually railroaded into being neonates doing low-level schmuck work for the actually powerful Count Dracula level vampires, rarely in a position to do much politicking or even hunting. Superpowered errand boys instead of, you know, vampires. These poor waiters here reminded me of that, though in the tabletop’s defense I doubt you’re expected to work a minimum wage job instead of something more exciting and action packed. In the end, it depends on the storyteller. Also, as the book goes on, I think it unintentionally makes an argument for why campaigns about elders and methuselahs might not be the best idea.

To the rear of the room, on a small raised stage, an undead trio of jazz legends were playing some of their greatest hits for a small but appreciative crowd gathered nearby.

I hope those poor bastards aren’t Toreador, but given that they’re just playing their greatest hits about sixty years after their embrace...

Alexander Vargoss hated rock music and refused to have it in his domain.

Unlike McCann, Vargoss is not down with the youth of (about forty years ago up to) today and hates their “rock” “music.” I was also going to ask why Vargoss holds court in a room over a place he can’t stand, but I figure since he’s a Ventrue he’s compelled to follow the money regardless of where it leads. The member’s only area’s soundproofed, anyway.

They kept the noise outside, and, sometimes, held the screams inside. Humans other than McCann had entered the private chamber. But he was the only one who had ever left alive.

Kindred can drink from humans without killing them, so either the humans killed here are Masquerade threats being dealt with discreetly, Vargoss is a low Humanity bastard, or everyone in the club has bad luck with frenzy-stopping dice rolls.

A stunning redhead was singing with the band tonight. Wearing a green sequined dress that sharply delineated a near-perfect figure, she possessed a deep, syrupy voice that blended in perfect harmony with the three musicians.

Of course she’s hot.

McCann’s never seen the singer before, but she looks “vaguely familiar”, so he asks one of those vampire waiters who she is. Turns out she’s a ghoul belonging to a Toreador named Iverson, whose been visiting St. Louis on business for the last month and is sitting nearby watching her. We’re also reminded by the narration that Toreador are known for their “obsession with the arts.”

“He watches her real, real careful. Doesn’t like anyone else taking an interest in the lady. Can’t say I blame him. She’s good.”

“She’s terrific,” said McCann. “I’m surprised he’s left her mortal. Having her as his childe would really boost his prestige in the clan.”

“I think he’s worried she might lose her sultriness if Embraced,” replied the waiter.

See? Even the Toreador know their art sucks.

The waiter advises McCann to stop gawking and get over to Vargoss’s table. Vargoss is getting impatient and that flashy Around the World in Eighty Days style “arriving at your destination at the exact time” entrance only counts if you arrive in the exact room you’re supposed to meet in. So, somewhat unceremoniously given that this is the Prince of St. Louis, McCann walks over to Vargoss’s table, apologizes for being late, and that’s that. The Prince is there, sitting with his back against a brick wall because he’s paranoid about attacks from behind, along with his bodyguards, ~*~The Dark Angels~*~ Fawn and Flavia, at either side of him, and their guest, a little rat-faced Tremere wizard. We get more random italics.

“You delayed our conversation until this kine arrived?” the wizard snarled at Vargoss, making it quite clear he considered McCann a step below a monkey. The Tremere Clan were not noted for their social graces.

The Tremere guy’s an asshole. No surprise there.

Vargoss seems to ignore him and asks McCann what he thinks of the singer, who we learn is named Rachel Young, but his “icy tone” implies that the wizard’s bad manners have offended him as a host, and the wizard realizes this and shuts up. We also learn that a “closely trusted Tremere councilor” had tried to betray Vargoss a few months ago, but McCann uncovered the plot and stopped him, so Vargoss is especially pissed at he Tremere’s sudden dickishness and general presence.

After some banter about Rachel Young, during which she meets McCann’s gaze from the stage and smiles enigmatically at him, Vargoss chews the Tremere out, warning him to watch his manners or else. He also says that McCann is no ordinary human.

The Prince showing off his pet human, thought McCann sarcastically.

And now the random italics are showing up halfway through sentences. What’s with this? Was there no editor?

What makes McCann “no ordinary human” to Vargoss has nothing to do with his detective skills. Instead, McCann traces “a certain proscribed cabalistic phrase” on the table, presumably with his finger but I’m not ruling out a nearby spoon. The letters he made glow red for an instant before disappearing. It’s not very impressive given the vampire powers we’ll see elsewhere in the story, but it’s enough to prove that McCann is magic. And one of the biggest conversation derailers in the franchise.

“You’re a mage?” he whispered. “Of what tradition?”

“Euthanatos.” replied McCann, naming the infamous Death cult. Several of their number cooperated with the Kindred, lending credence to the detective’s lie.

Hoo boy, mages.

Mage: The Ascension is another game that’s part of the World of Darkness franchise. I can’t tell you much about it since I’d only ever been interested in V:TM. But from what I’d been able to understand from online chat, there’s one important thing to keep in mind when it comes to mages in relation to Vampire: The Masquerade.

You should NOT. TALK. ABOUT MAGES IN RELATION TO VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE.

Mages tend to be way, way more powerful than vampires thanks to having fantastic cosmic reality warping powers or some shit. They’ve also got technology. The Technocracy, which I’ve seen get brought up a lot, have orbital mirrors that can create sun-powered space lasers, and goddamn space travel. On top of the obvious power level arguments this’d cause, the nature of mages tend to lead to more “high-minded” concepts like the nature of reality and finding a way for all of humanity to “Ascend.” Compare that to the Kindred’s pettier goals like hiding their existence from the average mortal, manipulating each other, and seeking individual power. When there’re all these factions of magic mortals reshaping reality and burning things with sun lasers in space, it makes the Kindred and their petty earthly squabbles seem pretty damn stupid and unimportant.

So when you’re chatting about Vampire: The Masquerade, bring up mages at your own risk, unless you want to cause long derails about what the mages would do, how they could solve any big problem for vampires without even trying, why they wouldn’t get involved, how something contradicts the lore of one of the two franchises, why are the Antediluvians a threat in the first place when the Technolocracy can sun laser them from space (and they actually do this to one, read up on The Week of Nightmares), and of course, why someone’s pet vampire can totally beat a mage in a fight. And lore dumps. Pages of ‘em.

Hell, I’m derailing right now, and this post is long enough. Back to the story.

The rat-faced Tremere, shocked and more than little scared to have insulted a mage, apologizes, introduces himself as Tyrus Benedict, and assures that he meant no disrespect to McCann or his “order.” We also get this little bit.

Like most Kindred, he was extremely wary of mages. Those beings foolish enough to cross magicians usually ended up perishing in peculiar fashion. Including the Undead.

Also remember that the Tremere used to be mages, so that’s a another group of even more dangerous people who’d like to stick a foot up the Tremere’s asses.

McCann’s trying not to laugh at the easily fooled vampire. See, he’s lying about being Euthanatos. He isn’t even a mage. He just knows a few simple “parlor tricks” like creating glowing red runes with his finger/spoon to fool vamps like Vargoss and Benedict here into thinking he’s a mage.

The Kindred were masters of deceit and deception. Yet they much too easily accepted the unbelievable when confronted with the obvious. They saw complications where none existed. It was a basic character flaw that Dire McCann understood and exploited quite effectively. And had done so, in various guises, over the milennia.

So. He’s at least a thousand years old, but he’s mortal, not a Kindred. He knows some minor magic, but he’s not a mage...

Also, I’m not seeing how “I’m a Mage, I can do magic” is any more complicated than the truth here.

Vargoss and Benedict have some “blood cocktails” (the whiskey here’s too smooth for a big tough guy like Dire McCann, and the twins, edgelords that they are, prefer drinking from the source) and they finally get down to business. The Camarilla elders sent Tyrus to St. Louis to inform Vargoss of current events in the former Soviet Union. Why Vargoss is important enough to bother informing I don’t know, but McCann has to find out somehow, so here we are.

It all started about three years ago, a year before the prologue.

“...at the height of Boris Yeltsin’s unexpected rise to supreme authority in Moscow, all communications with the Kindred inside the former Soviet Union ceased. In the period of a few days, an Iron Curtain of silence descended across Russia. It was as if the Earth itself swallowed up our brethren.”

According to the wiki, this was called the Shadow Curtain.

The European Ventrue and Toreador clans sent some spies into Russia to find out what’s going on, but none returned. Vargoss doesn’t find this very mysterious.

Vargoss shrugged. “Obviously it was a Sabbat takeover. The Brujah elders in Moscow underestimated the discontent among their kine. Their puppet rulers spent too much money on weapons and not enough on food. Without a strong leader like Stalin to keep the commoners in line, discontent and anarchy flourished. The fall of the government, and the Brujah with it, was inevitable. No mystery there. We saw it take place on television.”

How topical for the early 90′s... I have some opinions about Vampire: The Masquerade’s use of historical and current events, and how vampires were involved with them, but that’ll wait until I get to a more offending example toward the end of the book.

Vargoss thinks that the Sabbat, experts at staging revolutions, caught the Brujah unaware and took over. Benedict says the Camarilla elders thought so too, but their spies within the Sabbat revealed that they lost a half dozen of their own people when the curtain fell. They sacrificed dozens of “packs” to break the “barrier of silence,” but they got nothing. Whatever’s causing the Shadow Curtain is stronger than both the Camarilla and the Sabbot. Vargoss asks what could be stronger than the Camarilla, and Benedict answers. Still in italics, of course.

“The Army of Night,’ said Tyrus Benedict, his voice rising in intensity. An unholy band of demonic Kindred belonging to no clan, they are allied with the forces of hell. The fiends belong to the brood of the most feared sorceress of all time—the Hag, Baba Yaga.”

No, not him.

“She awoke from torpor several years ago and has now reclaimed Russia as her own. Armageddon approaches. The Nictuku are rising!”

The legendary Baba Yaga’s a vampire in this setting, the one responsible for the Shadow Curtain, and yet another one of the Nictuku. When Benedict mentions Armageddon here, he doesn’t just mean because some old and cannabalistic methuselahs are waking up just to annoy them. The rising is said to be a sign that Gehenna, the end of the world for vampires and mankind, is starting.

Again, the Nictuku are 4th generation Nosferatu, completely loyal to their sire, the Antediluvian Absimiliard. And Absimiliard apparently hates his descendants, since he was a vain handsome bastard before Caine cursed him and the ugly little rat people living in the sewers remind him of his curse. It’s said that when the Nictuku rise, they’ll wipe out the later generations of Nosferatu, just as their sire wants. Except, funny enough, for Baba Yaga here. She’s apparently a rebel among the Nictuku, and is said to even be the direct vampiric ancestor of all modern Nosferatu, done just to piss Absimiliard off. Seems she just wants to gain power for herself, which is what she’s doing in Russia.

In short: If the Nictuku are rising, they’re probably going to do Absimiliard’s bidding. And if they’re rising, maybe Absimiliard is stirring too. And if he’s beginning to rise, so are the other Antediluvians. And if that’s happening, boom. Gehenna. Everyone’s fucked.

Going according to Camarilla policy, Vargoss angrily denies that the Nictuku (and what they represent, though that’s left unsaid) exist, that they’re just myths “invented by the Nosferatu elders to frighten their rebellious childer.” But turns out Benedict has photographic evidence. He hands over some photos, informing Vargoss that many bothans Tremere wizards met the Final Death getting them. The Sabbat and the rest of the Camarilla couldn’t figure out what was going on in Russia, but somehow the sneaky fuck blood magic clan managed to get pictures of the cause.

McCann doesn’t get to see them, and thus neither do we. But Vargoss tells us all we need to know.

Vargoss’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the photos. Raising up one particular picture, he showed it to Fawn and Flavia. “She has teeth of iron and six-inch claws,” he stated in hushed tones. “Just as the legends claim.”

It’s enough to shut down any more “Nictuku aren’t real” talk.

McCann, meanwhile, notices that Benedict hadn’t said anything since he revealed the photos, which, come on McCann, it’s not even been a minute. But this is supposed to hint that something’s off, because Benedict is staring at the stage with Young and the jazz trio. Who’ve stopped playing.

Suddenly, they hear Young scream.

McCann and the vamps at the table (except Benedict, the wimp) jump up and face the stage, forming a neat little group action pose that’d make for good promotion material if this were a visual media and not a book.

In one hand, he gripped his machine gun pistol, ready for action. At his side were the Dark Angels. Each of them held a pair of short swords they were capable of wielding with deadly efficiency. Right behind them stood Alexander Vargoss. The Prince of St. Louis was no coward.

Says the book after specifically describing him as standing behind the other three. But, alright, I know what Weinberg’s going for.

“Who in hell’s name is that?” whispered McCann ... “What in hell’s name is that?”

Time to meet the bad guy.

Tall and gaunt, a lone figure dominated the center of the chamber, a few feet in front of the stage. It had not been there a moment ago. Somehow, it had materialized out of thin air. That was what the Tremere wizard had seen. It was a magical feat that challenged even the most powerful of Kindred.

You sure he didn’t just reveal himself after deactivating Obfuscate? Or turn into an animal, sneak in, and change back at a dramatically appropriate time? Or-

The newcomer wore a single garment consisting of a ripped and tattered shroud held tightly in place about his body with moldering white bandages. His chalk-white face was that of a long dead corpse. Ancient, decaying skin stretched tightly across a hairless skull. Paper-thin lips, a beak-like nose, and hollow, gaunt cheeks combined in a look of utter malevolence. Huge unblinking eyes, like the black pits of hell, took in all those in the chamber.

A creature of blacks and whites, streaks of brilliant crimson marked his face, his hands, and his arms. Hands and fingers glowed ghostly red. The bright scarlet of fresh blood. There was no question in McCann’s mind that here stood the Red Death.

And his body seems to be generating great heat, and not in the fun wrestling terminology kind of way.

The floor surrounding the walking corpse sizzled. The vinyl bubbled like lava beneath the creature’s feet. Waves of superheated air rose around the figure, giving it an eerie, unearthly vagueness. The Red Death blazed, but did not burn.

Fire’s a fatal weakness for vampires, and that presumably goes for heat so intense it should make things burst into flame too. If you’re playing the tabletop game, you gotta roll to see if your character will freak out and run from fire or not. So this corpse-looking guy generating heat that can melt the floor with no harm to himself is a big deal. Benedict and McCann hype him up a bit more for good measure.

“In three hundred years I have never seen its like,’ muttered Benedict, still seated. ‘How can such a monster exist?”

McCann wondered the same thing. And he based his observation on a much greater span of time.

Vargoss speaks up, trying to live up to that “no coward” description from earlier.

“Who are you?” The Prince’s voice rang like a bell through the silent chamber. “And how dare you violate the traditions and enter my domain without permission?”

“This is how you face the devil straight up, McCann, you wuss.”

The figure raised its head until its eyes glared directly at Vargoss. “I am the Red Death,” the monster declared in slow, deliberate tones. “I go where I want. Your petty territorial claims mean nothing to me. My will is the only law.”

We’ll stop here for now, with McCann and the vampires about to take on the titular Red Death. He acts tough and yeah, he made quite an entrance, but in the end, who knows? Maybe McCann and the vamps’ll do alright.

[reanimationstation]

I just really needed to draw this

Victor Frankenstein holding a gun to the monster: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit

Frankenstein's monster: can you feel your heart burning? Can you feel the struggle within? The fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. You can not kill me in a way that matters.

Victor Frankenstein cocking the gun with tears streaming down his face: I'M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU

Henry Clerval: hey Victor? What the FUCK does this mean?

Victor Frankenstein: decay exists as an extant form of life.

Henry Clerval: that's a terrifying answer, have a nice day.

[bastard-of-a-bog-being]

📕 Book Review 📕

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

Eyyyy, I read another book! A real one, with words and for adults and everything. This one will go without a cover image, but let’s talk about the book.

A special thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge / Tor Nightfire for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I will be judging this book on its own merit, and not as a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. I have not read The Fall of the House of Usher in ages, and as such, I can say with certainty that this book stands easily on its own. I probably should re-read it, as it’s only forty pages apparently, but I digress. (I did sign up for Poe Daily, so with hope, maybe it won’t be long before I do re-read it)

I found the descriptions in the book to be wholly unsettling, which T. Kingfisher is exceptionally good at. There is a mystery afoot, but it’s not a whodunit. It’s intriguing, it’s Gothic, it is dark and brooding and I believe the uncanny horrors thoroughly and without question. The writing is so exceptional that I am very excited to dive into T. Kingfisher’s other novels. I have full faith in her to unnerve me with beautiful, poetic, but unsettling words and descriptions. I trust in her sense of a slow, drifting horror. I would recommend to not read this whilst eating, which was the mistake I made earlier, and if you will be eating anyway, I'd stray away from cold lox straight from the package. T. Kingfisher does not shy away from her descriptions, no matter how gruesome, and I love her for that.

Alex Easton, our protagonist, goes to visit dying childhood friend Madeline Usher, and is immediately aware that something is deeply wrong. The falling, crumbling house of Usher holds many disturbing secrets, and Alex Easton is determined to learn what has caused the immediate decline of Madeline and Roderick Usher, and their growing madness. Something else seems to be growing too, a dark, uncanny horror slowly enveloping the house and those within it.

My biggest issue with the book is the lore. The worldbuilding. Yes, America and England do exist. It is almost our world. Except, there is Gallacia, and Ruravia. There are Gallacian words, pronouns, a language made up of bastardized loan words from other languages. There is a humor to the Gallacian protagonist’s tear-down of their own country, a snide remark here and there to express the vast differences between places. Perhaps the use of fake countries was a means to hand wave away other things, such as the fictional mushrooms and their way of functioning. The author’s note states it to be a sort of nod to a sort of Ruritania romanticism, something I admit I was not overly familiar with, and decline to directly comment on as I’m not well-versed in that knowledge.

Alex Easton, our protagonist, goes by Gallacia’s genderless soldier pronouns of Ka/Kan, which is probably more confusing when our narrator explains that there are seven sets of pronouns, depending on if you’re a child, a nun, a soldier, a man, a woman, God, etc. however, none of these other pronouns really focus much. Occasionally the pronouns for children (va/van) is referred to, but the others are simply mentioned and then never really brought up for use.

The lore isn’t so much of a problem if this were a bigger book and it was sprinkled in subtly, but the story pauses at times so the narrator, even in the middle of expressing the horror being experienced, can explain the history of Gallacia, or the language, or the alcohol in Gallacia, or whatever else needs to be explained as it comes up. At times it's like the main character pulls down a map of the world and says “I don’t blame you for missing Gallacia, it’s so small on the map. A blip. It’s this many miles from Gallacia to Ruravia, if you take a horse, and a hundred years ago, this happened, and it mattered to the history of the world, but probably wouldn’t affect the story if we took it out and set it in a rural English countryside regardless, or never explicitly stated where in the world we were anyway.”

In all truth, the lore feels more like it exists to explain the nonbinary main character and the pronouns used. Frankly, it almost implies the nonbinary-ness of the character couldn’t exist in our reality, but only in one where many rules had to be made up to make it acceptable. Nonbinary people cannot exist without this country and the concept of genderless soldiers, or so it seems to be. I don’t imagine that was intentional, but at times, with how many times it has to be explained even within the first half of the story, I find it… a little inauthentic, but I understand the place it comes from and I genuinely appreciate the representation nonetheless. It’s not often I even GET a book with a nonbinary lead. I just wish that fact could’ve existed on its own merit, as if it didn’t need to be explained. That Alex Easton is nonbinary, and that’s all there is to it, and it’s nobody’s business but Alex Easton’s.

In a larger novel, original, without hint of America, England, Beatrix Potter (well, specifically her aunt, made up for the story, but it’s still implied Beatrix Potter is also a part of this world), I would’ve forgiven the worldbuilding aspects introduced. Language, culture, neighboring fictional countries… but it is wholly out of place in a short horror novel where a good, uninterrupted flow is important for keeping tensions high. As per the author’s note, T. Kingfisher seemed to very much love the character of Alex Easton and ka’s culture, and must have had fun writing kan, but I can’t help but think those aspects could’ve served better in a full-length original fantasy novel where they would have the time to shine. Had they been omitted, this would have made a magnificent short story that would’ve gone straight to the heart of the horror at hand, without constant pitstops for Gallacia history lesson.

I will avoid spoilers, but highly recommend you avoid this book if you cannot tolerate to read about animal death, death of a friend/loved one, gore, or body horror.

What Moves the Dead will be officially published July 12 2022, and I highly recommend it if you want a horror novel that is reasonably unsettling, descriptive, and perfect for a dreary, rainy day. It’s a short read, at about 176 pages. It’s currently available to preorder, or request it at your local library! (As a library assistant, this is a necessary plug for you to support your local libraries as well.)

[gothic-fiction-in-space]

~ DAVID: THE “LAWRENCE OF SPACE” ~

One of the “men” that was used to “built” David’s character in Prometheus, is the T. E. Lawrence played by Peter O'Toole in the famous movie “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962). Ridley Scott said that David identifies himself as the protagonist of that movie, because Lawrence is a stranger among strangers, as like David is a “stranger”, a “different one” among the crew of the Prometheus. The Lawrence of the movie David is watching at the beginning of Prometheus, endures everything he has to endure to demonstrate that he can behave like an Arab, like a Beduin, even if he’s an English man with no direct experience of war. He demonstrates he can go trough the desert. But there’s always someone pointing out he’s no Arab, he’s English, no matter which clothes he’s wearing. That makes me think about all the David and Holloway dialogues in Prometheus. Holloway asks David why he’s wearing a suit if he’s a robot and doesn’t breathe, David is a bit offended and answered that he’s made to look like a human and he has to wear a suit to look like a real human and help the crew to better interact with him. There is an interesting dialogue between Ali and Lawrence in the movie. Lawrence has just told Ali that he hasn’t the same surname of his father because he’s a bastard son.

Ali: “Seems to me that you are free to choose your own name” Lawrence: “Yes, I suppose I am”

David too chooses his name. Weyland made him choose his name as his first act of self determination. Self determination is extremely important to Weyland, and to the Lawrence of the movie too, and Weyland too likes that movie a lot (see the Ted Talk). David is no “real” son to Weyland, he knows that, he knows he will never be “at the same level” to his creator. But David was made capable of self determination… and we all know how he’ll use it (David: “I wasn’t made to serve”).

Lawrence tries to “integrates” between Arabs but after being captured and tortured by Turkish soldiers in Deraa (because he’s a white man, quite an “esotic”, kind of man, quite handsome for the district governor) he has a dialogue with Ali where he says he wants to leave the revolt and going back home and do ordinary things that ordinary men can do.

Ali: “A man can be whatever he wants. You proved it”. Lawrence (pointing at his white skin): “Look Ali, look. That’s me. And there’s nothing I can do about it". Ali: “A man can do whatever he wants. You said” Lawrence: “He can… but he can’t want what he wants. This is the stuff that decide what he wants”

David is a robot, so, he should only serve humans, but David, once free from Weyland’s programming, manages to “be whatever he wants” (a creator) and “want what he wants” (Elizabeth: “do you want it?” David: “Want? It’s not a concept I’m familiar with”) and even fall in love with a human.

The Lawrence of the movie is also a bit narcissistic, he has a big ego… and he has a “funny sense of fun”. David is pretty vain too. In Prometheus David quotes the movie Lawrence of Arabia several times, but there are few things that remind us of that movie in Alien Covenant too. First of all: David’s face under the hood makes me think about the face of Lawrence under his white robe. David fires a little… signal rocket to save the crew of the Covenant from the Neomorphs, and Lawrence uses this object in his movie too. But the very certain reference is this one: while David is washing himself and cutting his hair, he sings the same song that Lawrence sings in the desert. The song is “The man who broke the bank at Montecarlo”. David is probably singing that song because after hearing that the Covenant vessel has 2000 colonists on board, he feels like he has won the lottery. David really broke the bank!

But why I wanted to write about the similarities between David and the Lawrence of Peter O'Toole?? Because the Lawrence of Peter O'Toole is a ROMANTIC HERO. He really is a romantic hero in the first part of the movie, and in the second part of the movie we see that the newspapers too tried to depict him as a romantic hero figure. What’s a romantic hero? Wikipedia has a very good definition: “the romantic hero is a literary archetype referring to a character that rejects established norms and conventions, has been rejected by society, and has himself (or herself) as the center of his own existence”. It isn’t quite an accurate description of David’s character? Of the David of Alien: Covenant? David was a romantic hero in his disillusioned identification with the Lawrence of his favorite movie, but at a certain point, after Weyland’s death, he’s free to purchase the “dream” to make himself a “true” Romantic hero and rebel to all his creators (humans and engineers). One of the most famous example of the Romantic hero archetype was Lord Byron, the poet that David is erroneously thinking to quote in Alien Covenant. But in Alien Covenant David has shifted… from the Romantic hero… to the ROMANTIC VILLAIN ARCHETYPE (but that’s another story for another day 😉). Byron, Shelley and others Romantic authors wrote about PROMETHEUS. Prometheus was a typical Romantic character, because of his rebellion towards the tyranny of gods, because of his tragic fate. I’ll write about the titan Prometheus next time, because he’s one of the deep connections between the movies Prometheus and Alien Covenant.

(Table of Contents: https://gothic-fiction-in-space.tumblr.com/post/164533391538/table-of-contents-1-the-romanticism-of-alien)

[callejxro]

any kind of victorian/gothic (penny dreadful?) type au O:

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it @seacrowned

strap tf in cuz we’re going into some petticoats, petty-coats, steampunk, romanticism, twas a dark and stormy night type shit! chess is already the classic example of a truly Byronic hero, except this time it’s bi-ronic. ain’t that ironic? well, by dramatic definition, it’s not.

chess would be deeply entrenched in the aesthetics and art of the romantic movement, though he’d be self aware enough to think that they’re all a bit too emo for his liking.

let’s go with the classic victorian drama of the werewolf: a tortured soul cursed with a transformation he cannot control, always fearful of his next outburst. who would be next to go? when will he be caught? why was he cursed with such an existence? all the classical questions which mix a bit of a strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde, frankenstein’s monster, and shelley’s epic poem prometheus unbound

he would also take a page out of the pluck and luck stories of the time: a child of high birth whose family was japed by fate and caused him to be orphaned, only to be taken in by a rich noble and educated enough to become a Proper Gentleman, except he still has that spark of rebellion and dubious sensual flirtation on par with dorian gray. he gets oscar WILD.

his work would be everywhere, as a well-read gentlemen needs to dabble in every art and science. he’s: written poetry, plays, novels, novellas; studied botany, chemistry, alchemy, astrology, astronomy, and engineering; traveled around the globe as a child with the noble master. he’s done everything and been everywhere.

however, he’s still a bastard child, so he is still excluded from the aristocrats whom he’s in company of. the fact he likes to walk out at night to party like it’s 1899 and romances anyone he wishes to doesn’t help. sometimes he also leaves his estate for months on end doing whatever he wants, being severely irresponsible towards matters with his noble, putting strain on that relationship as well. and there’s the fact there are rumors something inside him awakened in these past few years…