#her inspirations include Victor Frankenstein

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

So I said a couple of months ago I would have to make up a Rise Villain to fit a super specific scenario I had for When The World Crumbles. (Ie the only canon that would've fit the role before was Baron Draxum but this is post his redemption arc and while I could do brainwashing why not create someone new)

Well

Her name is Dr. Theodora Bloodmoon

She and her two assistants Katrina and Anastasia will become a nightmare to fight. Not because their strong, no no no...

Because all it takes is an injection to turn the turtles against each other.

One little poke to reduce them to animals.

Hungry, blood thirsty, cannibalistic animals.

If they survive then they'll have to face the Armagon

[ghosts-to-reid]

Neo Gothic: The Bibliography

These are meanings/refernces made in Neo Gothic, for those who may not have delved into the genre asmuch as they'd like...

This post is in reference to my series 'Neo Gothic' and as such some definitions are written towards to context of the story, this isn't a fool proof guide to the gothic, only a guide for my readers.

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5

References are in order of their mention, starting with part 1. Some are my definitions, other are from the internet.

The Gothic: A literary genre that combines Romance and Horror, Characterized by horror, Mystery, and gloom. Solidified as a genre by Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto.

Dracula: 1897 Cult Gothic Novel about vampire Dracula, who haunts a group from London, trying to turn or kill them.

Lucy Westenra: Mina Harker's best friend in Dracula, She is fed on, then turned, and eventually killed by the group. She was considered promiscuous due to her many suitors. She is given blood transfusions, however we now know the science behind these transfusions are outdated. She is finally killed in her vampiric form by beheading and a stake through the heart.

Carmilla: 1872 Predesscor of Dracula, it follows an isolated young woman who befriends a woman who turns out to be the vampire who has been drinking from her breast for years...

Carmilla (Character): An ancient vampire, often interpretated as a lesbian. In the novel, her death is achived by finding her resting place (her tomb), beheading her, and driving a stake through her heart.

Ann Radcliffe: Gothic author, known as 'The Enchantress', she published many acclaimed gothic novels in her time, including The Mysteries of Udolpho, she also wrote many essays that were published after her dath that have become acclaimed for their insight.

Rosemary's Baby: 1968 horror film directed by Roman Polanski, following a woman who is being victimised by a satanic cult.

The Exorcist: 1973 film directed by William Friedkin, following a girl who is possesed by an ancient demon.

Creed (Barbra): Professor of Cinema Studies, wrote collection of essays named "Monsterous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanlysis"

Abjection: subjective horror, or someone's reaction to physically or emotionally disturbing subject matter

The Yellow Wallpaper: 1892 Novella by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, follows the descent into maddness of a victorian woman perscribed a "rest cure"

Dracula (character death): He is beheaded and stabbed through the heart, afterwards turning to dust.

The Castle of Otranto: 1764 novella by Horace Walpole, tricks reader into beleiving it is a true story of an ancient catholic family in italy, who are victim to spiritual haunting due to their transgressions.

Castle of Otranto Death: At the start of the novel, Manfred's (The villian) son is about to marry the virtuous Isabella, however in a tragic turn of events, he is crushed to death by a giant suit of armour, the helmet becoming stuck.

Frankenstein: 1818 Novella by Mary Shelley, follows Victor Frankenstein in his abjection after playing god, and bringing life to mixture of corpses.

Annabelle Lee (poem): explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are envious

Raven: Inspired by the poem, 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe

Terror: Psychological fear, feeling like you're being watched/Thinking you heard noise.

Horror: The physcial reaction to fear, a scream, the unsettling shake when you're scared.

Sanguinary/Sanguination: involving or causing much bloodshed.

Sanguinary Rosebud: Reference to Angela Carter's short story "Lady in The House of Love"

Sublime: The state of all striking awe of the natural world.

Gothic Heroine: The gothic heroine is often characterised by her lack of agency or control in her situation. Often in a vulnerable position, she is often targeted by the immoral.

Naturalist: naturalism, in literature and the visual arts, late 19th- and early 20th-century movement that was inspired by adaptation of the principles and methods of natural science, especially the Darwinian view of nature, to literature and art.

Byron: Lord Byron was a romantic poet in the 19th century, well known for his sexual escapades.

Dr Bell: Bell was the last name used in the Pseudonmys that that Bronte sisters shared when publishing.

Dr. Purcell: one of sheridan Le Fanu's pseudonmys

Quarles: One of Edgar Allen Poe's pseudonmys

[hollowed-theory-hall]

how did voldemort make that snake baby body thing that he used before he got his real body back? did they use bertha to birth it or something?

Well, Bertha birthing the malformed babymort is definitely an... image, so thank you for that...

But I don't think that's what happened.

In Alchemy the concept of a homunculus: a miniature human created through Alchemy, existed for a long time. This concept is thought to be one of the main inspirations for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in which the creature is brought to life with Alchemy (she never explains the process but Victor Frankenstein is mocked by the university professors for reading Paracelsus — a pioneer in Alchemy and medicine in the 1500s). So, the idea of creating a miniature living form is one that people have been theorizing about for a while (even before Paracelsus).

The documented recipes we have for a Humonculus are not that far off from what you suggested, being made by "impregnating" a female animal (cow, monkey, or horse in the ones I've read) with human semen and animal blood and then feeding the pregnant animal more animal blood during the pregnancy until it births a homunculus. There are some variations on this recipe but I don't think that's what Voldemort and Wormtail did in Harry Potter (if they did, this would be more disturbing than how you make a Horcrux, which I don't think is the case).

The main reason I don't think the homunculus was "birthed" is because of how birth works. To create a living body you need three things:

Body

Spirit

Soul

Now, when a body is born, including in these homunculus recipes, it is born with all three. It has a body, a soul, and a spirit that binds them. This works for what alchemists are usually after when creating a homunculus because they are creating a whole new life form, but this doesn't work for Voldemort. Voldemort as the wraith already has a soul, so he doesn't need a soul. Having the body "born" with a soul of its own would only make it harder for Voldemort to possess and use. So I believe he created the body by other means, to make sure it was empty and only his.

So what did he do to create the homunculus?

When it comes to ingredients, the only confirmed ones we have for Voldemrot's homunculus-making potion are:

Unicron Blood

Nagini's venom

Let's approach this by the three components of life described above:

The Unicron blood is a spirit component which is representative of the elements water and air. Something that makes sense for a pure liquid that brings someone to life from the brink of death. This is to mak the body alive and allow Voldemort's soul to stay in it without killing it (like with Quirrell).

Nagini's venom, I think, is there to represent the soul, sort of. Usually, snake venom would not be a soul component, but because Nagini is a Horcrux and binds Voldemort's soul to the world of the living, I think anything that came from her would help bind his soul to the body. It's more like it makes the body capable of being possessed by Voldemort without dying like most of the animals he possessed. Basically it'll make the homunculus fit to hold Voldemort's soul like Nagini can.

What's left is really where the body itself came from?

Now, there are a lot of options for this, from clay or any mix of earth and water (the salt, the body is a mix of earth and water, in terms of the elements it represents) or a corpse or corpse parts, which represents the same.

the description:

It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face — no child alive ever had a face like that — was flat and snake-like, with gleaming red eyes.

(GoF, 640)

From this description, it doesn't look like the homunculus was made from human bones or corpse parts. I think it was made from dirt, water, Nagini's venom, and human blood. I added blood into the mix because of the "dark reddish black" color which sounds like the color of blood or clotted blood (or blood mixed with dirt), so I think it was part of the mix. The scales are due to Nagini's venum being in there and perhaps even snake shedding (which could be part of it, we don't know. I think it's likely as snake shedding represents death and rebirth, which is what Voldemort is going for).

Then the unicorn blood was used to bring it to life and bind Voldmeort's wraith (soul) to it. I don't think Bertha had anything to do with this form.

If I were to guess other likely ingredients, I'd say yew ashes. Yew trees, besides being connected to Voldemort personally (via his wand) and therefore personalizing the body further are symbolic of raising the dead and immortality. Birch ash is another likely ingredient as birch is known as life-giving and to ward against lightning (the killing curse). Now, the reason I mention ashes specifically is because the white fine-grained ash that you get when burning a plant repeatedly and extracting all moisture from it, is the salt of that plant — it's the body. This is therefore the part of the plant you want when using it to sculpt a new body.

So, the ingredients are basically:

Water

Dirt

Nagini's venom

Nagini's shed skin

Human blood

Birch ash

Yew ash

To create the clay of sorts to sculpt a body from. Then you feed the new body the unicorn blood to give it life and allow Voldemort to possess it.

[thealmightyemprex]

Halloweenathon :Frankenstein the True Story

So tis the last film of spooky season ,and while I didnt end on the note I wanted to (I might do a special review for Ginger Snaps or save it for next year ) I did find a good film to wrap up the month and it was a good Halloween movie .An epic 3 hour retelling of the classic tale of Frankenstein !!!!

In this 1973 Two Part TV Movie ,Victor Frankenstein (Leonard Whiting ) ,after the death of his brother William becomes obsessed with bringing life from death teaming up with the sickly Henry Clerval (David McCallum)who has been experimenting on such a subject ,seeking to make man,however Clerval finds a flaw in their process but dies before he can tell Victor who uses Clervals mind for his creation ,a beautiful man (Michael Sarrazin),while a sinister figure named Polidori(James Mason ) seeks to use Victor and his creation for his own purposes

Now this is one of the most unique takes on Frankenstein I have ever seen .IT takes influence from every major Frankenstein before it .It takes from the book,the two James Whale films from the 30's and Hammers FRankenstein series ,but mix it all to be really its own thing .I love the twist of the creation being beautiful but deteriotaing into a more monstrus figure .The film is also heavilly queer coded ,the connection between Frankenstein and the creature is protrayed almost romantic,I think it is clear the monster is in love with Victor .Unlike other versions the Monster NEVER harms Victor ,his victims are either self defense ,accidental ,those who wronged him......OR in some cases seem to be jealousy .The queer themes I feel come the cleares when Elizabeth confronts the Monster near the end ,and I find it very apparent in the ending .Also there are some wonderfully twisted scenes

The films cast includes notable names as John Gielgud ,Agnes Moorhead ,Margaret LEighton ,Tom Baker (Pre Doctor Who ) ,Michael Wildling ,and I think the most notable is Ralph Richardson as a blind violinist ,all in good supporting roles .David McCalum steals his scenes as Victors desheveled colleague and mentor Clerval..Jane Seymor is wonderfully unnerving as Polidori and Frankensteins creation Prima .James Mason plays the purely villainous Polidori ,a take on Pretorious from Bride of Frankenstein ,and no surprise he makes for an entertaining villain .Nicola Paget is probabbly my favorite cast member ,being very meciinary in her goals to protect Victor from consequences and her disdain for the creature he created .Michael Sarrazin is VERY good as the creature,still having menacing moment but honestly selling the tragedy of the being .And at the head of the cast is Leonard Whiting as a young ambitious and tragic Frankenstein,and one of my favorite takes on him as he realizes his mistakes,and I am fascinated by him and his creatures relationship

I will say this was paced for TV to be aired on two nights so that might affect enjoyment it is a bit slow

OVerall,I love this film,might be a while before a rewatch but it is one of the best Frankenstein movies Ive seen

Oh it also inspired Interview with a vampire and I think thats neat

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie

@theancientvaleofsoulmaking @countesspetofi @princesssarisa

@amalthea9 @filmcityworld1 @barbossas-wench

[amkalus]

~~~

Figured I'd introduce myself properly to this wonderful community! I am Ann (26). Primarily interested in exploring archetypes, symbols, and fairy tale elements plot-wise, as well as physical and mental health issues character-wise. I write fantasy and science fiction (and occasionally historical fiction).

About me:

Majored in Psychology and English with Creative Writing (English is my second language)

Writing is basically my lifeline, I get depressed if I don't do it

Infatuated with myths, legends, folklore—and history

Questionably obsessed with the mad genius trope [I blame Victor Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, and Gregory House for this]

In love with the sea and all things age of sail [I went for a swim during a black-clouded thunderstorm on a cold September afternoon once, that's how down bad I am]

Can't write a short story to save my life [you shall only find novels beyond this gate, traveler]

My WIPs:

Oh boy, I've got a lot of them, but I'll share the main ones briefly. [bonus, emojis for vibes lol]

The Sea Whisperer (finished, 122k words) 🌊⚓🌩️

Already have a post about this YA adventure fantasy (seek #The Sea Whisperer) and planning to add some more, but here's the premise once more:

The fishing village of Galacair has been the only home Earwyn’s ever known. Between the mysterious illness that plagues her and the villagers who consider her cursed, surviving gets harder with each dreary day. But there are whispers coming from the sea which ceaselessly beckon her, and an ominous vision of a calamity that haunts her dreams. Earwyn fears they could be a part of her illness too, and that madness has befallen her. The only one who seems to know something about it is Galacair’s lighthouse keeper, whose tower is as strange and remote as he is.

Wrote this story because I wanted to bring some awareness to PCOS syndrome and the difficulties of living with it. But also because of my aforementioned love for the sea, including tall ships, shanties, and magic.

I've been querying for this one for 6 months with no success. Likely to undergo new revisions/editing.

The King's Steward/The King's Embroiderer 🗡️❄️🔥

A loose retelling of a quite obscure Nenets fairy tale called Kotura, Lord of the Winds with a Skyrim-esque Scandinavian-inspired medieval setting. A sort of fire vs ice battle going on. Definitely in the YA range. Very likely to be a duology!

Aira Alderkvist knows she's destined to become the kingdom's best and most beloved embroiderer, in the court of the king. She met him once when she was a child, alone by the snow-clad woods, and no one believed her. But she will finally prove her skill and that her story was true at the upcoming obeisance.

In the capital city of Vallholm, Sorena Froradottir prepares to abandon her post as a steward imposed on her against her will, and flee. However, on the night of the king's obeisance where noblemen and commoners gather, jarl Ravnan Jarnsen unexpectedly usurps the throne. Sorena must decide between deserting the kingdom in the hands of a tyrant rumored to be using forbidden fire magic... or leave, and find a new life unburdened and free.

So far I have 18k words written on this and a detailed plan chapter by chapter, which I will hopefully stick to (doubtful).

To All the Royal Subjects in the Land (working title because this is too long and cringe?) 🍁🕸️🎭

This is basically a dream project for me, for I have always dreamed of writing fantasy comedy. Only, I played myself cause medieval-based comedy is hard as hell? Honestly, though, I absolutely love wracking my brain with it. You can't be a writer without being at least a little masochistic, I think.

This is an NA/Adult fantasy rom-com [Mrs Maisel meets Beauty and the Beast], and a gender-bent version of the Russian fairy tale The Princess Who Never Smiled, in which a clever traveling jestress who values her freedom above all faces a joyless Prince.

Soon after entering a kingdom where joy and laughter are forbidden, Sarai realizes she'll be forced to break a foul spell if she wants to leave. And she grudgingly agrees. But it promises to be no easy task when this withering kingdom is caught in endless autumn, the Prince's odd, mist-veiled castle seems to be crumbling each day, and his knights are ever-so eerily quiet.

Will likely share more about what this story features in other posts! This is currently sitting at 22.5k words.

Sentinel Chronicles Series 🚀🌌✨

This one is probably closest to my heart. My first project ever [started writing this series 7 years ago], and have a detailed plan for 5 books in total, with more spin-offs for a side character very likely to appear later.

The first book [Transcendence] is finished at 96k words, and the second is written halfway. Transcendence is Star Trek meets House MD adult science fiction. It's a space adventure with aspects of science mixed with philosophical elements and a dash of humor. I have a very found-family-centered theme here with the crew. And a (very) slow-burn romance that would spread over the 5 books.

The story follows eccentric science genius Ashton Axolem as he attempts to take on scientific issues beyond his understanding with the help of Doctor Amelia Harper, who, like everyone else, is convinced mixing madness with science will never result in anything good. But her close encounter with Axolem leaves her questioning her understanding of both madness and goodness.

Will probably be blogging a lot about this one because I've had years to form it in my mind lol

Thanks for reading, that was a bit long! Hopefully, I set up some sort of tag system for all those WIPs soon.

[readingoals]

Getting ready for the Booklr Reads Australian challenge. These are a selection of Aussie books I own (fiction on the left, nonfic on the right) which I'll be choosing from during the month. I'm a mood reader so I have no idea what I'll actually end up picking but I'd like to get through at least a few of these.

List of titles and brief descriptions of each is below the cut for anyone looking for ideas for their own Australian reads.

The open book is The Tea Chest by Josephine Moon (my current read.) It's a rather sweet novel revolving around four women who's lives in Australia have been disrupted and who come together to open a tea shop in London.

A true History of the Hula Hoop by Judith Lanigan The book weaves together two parallel stories, one of Catherine, a struggling Aussie hula-hooping performance artist, and the other of Columbina, a feisty 16th century Italian female clown travelling through Europe with the first ever commedia dell'arte troupe, while also weaving in the history of the hula hoop.

Without Further Ado by Jessica Dettmann A romcom inspired by/paying homage to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, in which the protagonist loves the Kenneth Branagh adaptation and finds her love life mirroring the plot.

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne A romance inspired by Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in which Victor Frankenstein's sister Angelika is anxious for love and decides to take matters into her own hands and create a suitable suitor.

Empires by Nick Earls This novel spans continents and centuries. It's split up into 5 parts, each occurring in a different time and place, but which all intertwine and connect. It's about two brother from Brisbane who've lead separate lives, but its also about humans in strange and difficult times, the way people see themselves, and the interconnectedness of all things.

The Tea Ladies by Amanda Hampson A cosy mystery set in 1965 Sydney. It follows a group of tea ladies who work in a fashion house getting tea and biscuits for the staff. Until a murder occurs in the building and the tea ladies become accidental sleuths.

Top End Girl by Miranda Tapsell Larrakia Tiwi actress Miranda Tapsell's memoir about her work and life as an Aboriginal woman and how she combined both when creating the film Top End Wedding.

Girt by David Hunt A humorous look at Australian history, from megafauna to Macquarie. Full of strange, ridiculous and bizarre stories.

Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia's Jazz Age by Deirdre O'Connell This is the story of the Sydney and Melbourne legs of American jazz band The Colored Idea's ill fated Australian tour in 1928. It's about the international rise of African American jazz, the history of Australia's entertainment industry and modernism in the arts in Australia, and the influence of the White Australia Policy beyond immigration issues.

Flash Jim: The Astonishing Story of the Convict Fraudster Who Wrote Australia's First Dictionary by Kel Richards This is a biography of conman, pickpocket and thief James Hardy Vaux who was sent to Australia as a convict. Not only does it go into explanations of his numerous crimes but also the origins of Australian English as Vaux also created a dictionary of the criminal slang of the colony, some of which can still be seen in modern Australian language.

Great Australian Mysteries by John Pinkney A collection of Australian true crime mysteries including inexplicable disappearances, unsolved murders and scientific enigmas.

Notorious Australian Women by Kay Saunders This book celebrates the lives of some of Australia's most fearless, brash, and scandalous women, including bushrangers, courtesans, and writers, amongst others.

[classiclitbracket]

Welcome to The Classic Literature Bracket!

Moderated by @sorrel-scribbles [she/her, minor] and inspired by @ultimatehistorical, @riordanversecharactertournament, @baldguy-fight, @spnepisodebracket, @classic-lit-couples-showdown, @ultimate-poll-tournament and so many more!

***VOTING HAS STARTED, SEE PINNED POST***

Important Info:

Submissions will be open one week (March 15-22), but will stay open if I have less than fifteen submissions or close early if I receive more than one hundred.

The current plan is a 32 entry bracket, but I will consider doing a 64 entry one if I get enough interest/submissions.

There will probably be a couple of preliminary rounds before the actual polls come out, because there are a couple of authors whose work I expect to see multiple submissions for.

Propaganda is welcome, but please wait to submit it at least until the first preliminaries come out (this can be done by using the ask box or making your own post and @ing me)

If you have questions feel free to submit them to the ask box!

Friendly competition is fine, but I will block you if you can’t be civil with one another!

Voting/Submitting Guidelines:

The goal here is to determine which is the most classic piece of literature. You can vote based on your personal favorite, what you think had the most cultural impact, what is the most popular or timely today etc. 

I DO NOT want to see any moral complaints. Many of these authors/works were racist, sexist, etc. and I fully condemn that, but we can separate the art from the artist and still understand the importance of/enjoy the work despite its flaws.You’re free to not like/not vote for a book due to offensive material, but I don’t want to see tags/comments/asks saying “you shouldn’t have included x because it’s racist” or “nobody vote for y it’s misogynistic.” This isn’t “which classic lit book is the most morally correct”.

Submission Criteria:

The book must have been published between 1600-1970 CE

It must be written by a European (Russia/the Ural mountains to Ireland, not including Turkey/The Ottoman Empire), Canadian, or United States American*

The book must be fictional and considered a novel (no short stories, plays, poetry etc.)

You can’t submit a book already on the auto-inclusion list

You can’t submit for an author already on the auto-inclusion list as I’m only allowing one book per author

You can submit a series together (ex: Sherlock Holmes) or an individual book from the series (ex: A Study in Scarlet), just make sure to specify in the form

Up to five submissions per person, but you can only submit each book once

You have to make your submission through the google form (below). Submissions in comments, asks, etc. will not count (sorry, but I need to be able to keep track).

*on the Eurocentrism of this criteria: There is so much amazing Islamic, African, S./E. Asian, Pacific, and South American literature out there, but I feel it really merits its own bracket by someone who understands the material more and that it wouldn’t really get the fair chance it deserves in this bracket anyway as I expect it to be American and Brit Lit heavy as is and more people will come out to support those books so I might as well just limit the criteria off the bat.

Auto-Entries:

The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen

The Metamorphosis-Franz Kafka

Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte

Little Women-Louisa May Alcott

1984-George Orwell

Frankenstein-Mary Shelly

Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

Sherlock Holmes-Arthur Conan Doyle

Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsty

Submissions Here ⇊

[aviculor]

I'm watching Birth/Rebirth, the new release I mentioned. Because it just came out recently, I'm going to spoiler tag my thoughts.

Oh my god, Celie IS played by the same actress as Carla from Scrubs! Judy Reyes! I knew it!

Rose is like a female Herbert West but even more clinical and asocial. I love when a piece of media has a woman who is a mad scientist and an offputting freak. I'd let her masturbate me in the bathroom.

Celie and Lila's story is so incredibly sad and compelling. The way the last time Celie saw Lila was when she was dropping her off with Pauline so she could go to work, and Pauline couldn't contact Celie when Lila got sick, and when Celie's phone was working again she heard all the voicemails including a message from Lila...it tugs at your heartstrings. It's tragic.

I know how blatantly obvious it is that Rose stole Lila's body because that's literally the premise of the film, but her behavior is just comically incriminating. What, you didn't think far enough ahead to have an alibi for when someone asks you where the body went? Also, how dumb would Celie have looked chasing Rose down and waiting outside her apartment and forcing her way inside if Rose's behavior wasn't related to Lila's whereabouts?

"Your daughter's genetic profile made her a perfect candidate for an experimental treatment I've been working on." "For meningitis?" "For death."

Crossing all kinds of ethical lines, I love it.

"Dignity and motherhood don't always line up". Another great quote.

The symbolism that Rose ended up sacrificing her reproductive system to bring Lila back into this world is not lost on me. Lila was figuratively birthed again. Rebirthed, you might say. Coupled with how Lila seemed to stop recognizing Celie as her mother and Rose became uncharacteristically warm and nurturing towards Lila. Which is especially jarring considering how the aforementioned sacrifice was due to her repeatedly...umm, "homebrewing"...stem cell serum.

Basically, motherhood is the overarching theme of the whole film. It's interesting how Writer/Director Laura Moss took inspiration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as many people would interpret Victor and his creation as being father and son. This predicates that acts of "creating life" are all equal, be it birthing a baby or resuscitating a corpse. Which circles back around to what I just said about Rose effectively being Lila's second mother.

...Which segues into how Rose and Celie's situation has undertones of a same-sex relationship. Celie moves into Rose's apartment when she learns about Lila, the two begin caring for one another, they're both Lila's mothers in literal and figurative senses, and Rose (involuntarily) stops going to bars to give men handjobs and getting herself pregnant after the "relationship" starts. Rose does not come off as being attracted to men, being completely emotionless about collecting sperm samples as well as other small details that code her as a lesbian. But most egregiously, when Rose was hospitalized, Celie got the staff to break confidentiality by saying they lived together and that was met with "Oh. Oh."

The whole "What would a parent do to save their child?" Psychological Horror aspect that Pet Sematary had, this film is all that. Distilled, in spades, turned up to 11. I really liked it. I can't even spoil anything about the last act. Go watch it yourself. It wowed me a lot more than the last Shudder exclusive film I saw.

[davisexplainableart]

(~September - October 27, 2023): Eddy's Costume Mishap:

So you're probably wondering, "why is Eddy from 'Ed, Edd n Eddy' wearing a costume of Weasel from 'I Am Weasel'? And why does he suddenly turn into his costume?"

Well, allow me to explain.

On October 28, 2016, Fridays aired a night full of specials, including "Billy & Mandy's Jacked Up Halloween", a 1-hour "PBS Kids GO!" special about an evil gas that haunts the CN City, and more.

But one special that really stuck out to viewers was the premiere of a big "Ed, Edd n Eddy" Halloween special called "The Costume Tragedy".

Now before you say anything, don't worry. Nobody dies in the special, I was just really bad at making titles.

This special came from a line of EEnE episodes that...

Take place after Big Picture Show. And...

Have a slight pinch of supernatural circumstances added.

With this special, a random witch decides to mess around with random trick-or-treaters, by creating a spell that affects the moon. This effect causes anyone within a rather large radius of where the spell was cast to turn into their costumes.

And this spell just so happened to be casted near Peach Creek Estate, the cul-de-sac that the Eds live in, so it affects them too.

Here are a few of the costumes that the characters are wearing:

Ed is dressed as Frankenstein's monster, so once he's affected by the spell, his way of speaking changes to be more like the monster (not like it was all that different to begin with).

Edd is dressed as Victor Frankenstein himself, due to being too eager to correct people about the misconception of who's who.

Eddy is dressed as Weasel from Cartoon Network's "I Am Weasel", which was the same costume he wore during the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays Halloween Party. The reason he wore it is because his parents didn't want to get him the costume he wanted because they thought it was too scary, so they made him dress as something more "safe and cute".

Sarah is dressed as a black cat. When the spell affects her, she assumes that Ed is responsible (since Ed's stupidity had caused other supernatural things to occur in previous episodes).

While Rolf doesn't wear a costume, he once again has his shirt off (just like in the previous Halloween special, Boo Haw Haw). It probably has something to do with his "Gathering of the Fungus" tradition. However, with no shirt, the spell sees this as a werewolf costume. After he's affected, Rolf is left in fear, not wanting anyone to see him like this. This probably has something to do with his tradition, but I'm not sure.

Also, sorry that the last panel in the 1st page ended up being off model. I have no one to blame but myself for that.

And one more thing, this artwork was inspired by a TF drawing related to "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" that I can't find anywhere.

[blackfeathercourt]

Character Inspirations

HI thanks for the tag @gingernutbiscuit!! ^^

I don't think I've ever taken direct inspiration from other characters when creating my own! So here's some characters that could've inspired my beloved Nocmos.

Not tagging anyone but if you see this you're welcome to do your characters! some explanations and a blank version under the cut :)

Making start with Twilight Sparkle! So the obvious thing is that they're both autistic bookworms with a special talent in magic, which is already enough. There are also similarities in their stories - how they both were so caught up in their studies that they made it into their adulthood without making friends... but became fiercely loyal to them when the friends actually turned up ^^

Gandalf follows next because. magic. They're both powerful, stubborn, and a bit mary-sueish if I'm being honest. Nocmos will definitely become like him if she lives for thousands of years lol.

Varuni Arvel could serve as an inspiration for Nocmos because of their general aesthetics and initial stance on religion. Varuni is a high-ranking Apostle which Nocmos also aspires to be, and before the events of the Clockwork City questline they both treat Sotha Sil with unquestionable reverence. But by the end of the story, they reconsider their views on worship! I should really make them friends.

Ok I'm so sorry for including a Marvel character, but. Doctor Strange and Nocmos share similar traits as well as some points in their story. They're aloof, assertive but also like, really intelligent. Because of an accident, they become disabled and find help in a newfound... interest.

Speaking of accidents, yes I picked Victor Frankenstein. He comes from a respectable family who has certain expectations from him, but follows his own path, creating something dangerous he loses control of. Which is all true for Nocmos - but her "monster" is a construct. However, it only hurts her, unlike Frankenstein's monster which hurts everyone but him.

and finally Sun-in-Shadow. Unsurprisingly, it mostly concerns Nocmos's period of life when she was climbing the ranks of house Telvanni ^^ a process which brought out their ambitiousness and cunning. Resulting in some losses, too.

Alright here's the blank version <3

[thewardenofwinter]

Character Inspo Tag

Tagged by the wonderful Nopal over at @writernopal! Thank you so much, here is their post with some absolutely insane character combinations lol

(also some of these are not characters but real people but I wanted to include them anyway)

Rules: List your OCs and the characters that inspired them!

Very gently Tagging: @sam-glade @elshells @zestymimblo @crowandmoonwriting @captain-kraken @indigowriting @rownanisntwriting and @eurydicefades

Give No Quarter

Circe

Circe of Aeaea (Greek Mythology)

Gamora (Guardians of The Galaxy)

Golsifteh Farahani (Actress)

Wonder Woman and Talia al Ghul (DC Comics)

Sypha Belnades (Castlevania TV show)

Yennefer (Witcher)

Aya/Amunet (Assassins Creed: Origins)

Mix together mommy issues, witchcraft, and ancient knowledge in large bowl with a gilded dagger you get Circe.

Adam Bonny

EDWARD FUCKING KENWAY (Assassins Creed: Black Flag)

Trevor Belmont (Castlevania TV show)

Charlie Hunnam (Actor)

William Thatcher (A Knight's Tale)

Jack Sparrow (Pirates of The Carribean)

Westley (Princess Bride)

Flynn Ryder (Tangled)

You let a BLONDE MAN speak to you like that??? Ceo of 'maybe if he were a little less fuckable we wouldn't be in this mess.'

Henri Bellamy

Ichabod Crane (Sleep Hollow TV Show)

Chris Cornell (Musician)

Julien du Casse (Assasins Creed: Black Flag)

Dracula (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)

Armand (Interview with the Vampire 1994)

The only Frenchman to ever exist, the rest are fake. Don't let anyone lie to you.

The Resurrectioners

Samara Dombroski

Isabel Dodson (Constantine 2005)

Selene (Underworld Series)

Victor (Umbrella Academy)

Sidney Prescott (Scream)

Sarah (The Craft)

Pretty much the human personification of what happens when you gain too much Insight in Bloodborne.

Nazriya Akkineni

Theodora (The Haunting)

Morana *gasp* (Castlevania TV show)

Zoya (Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse)

Satine (Moulin Rogue)

Nancy (The Craft)

Jennifer (Jennifer's Body)

God only made her 5 feet tall because was afraid of her being too close to him.

Zekiah Rush

Chyna Parks (ANT Farm)

Janella Monae (Actress)

Belle (Beauty and The Beast)

Rachel (The Craft)

Karen (Blade)

Resident walking encyclopedia. If you give her a bookmark she might propose to you on the spot.

Dmitriy Mikhailovich

Dmitri Pisarenko (Actor)

Morpheus (Sandman TV Show)

Levi (Attack on Titan)

Viktor (Arcane TV and for his design ONLY that weird mix of a czech/russian accent fucking kills me)

Men with big noses and dark hair>>>>> Frequently pretends he doesn't speak English so people don't talk to him.

What We Undertake

Dolores Clive

Dolores O'Riordan (Singer)

Mina Harker (Bram Stoker's Dracula book)

Edith Cushing (Crimson Peak)

Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice)

Being the village freak isn't easy but someone has to do it.

Charles Morrison

Alan McMichael (Crimson Peak)

Hercules (Hercules)

Thor (Marvel Franchise)

Milo Thatch (Atlantis)

I wouldn't call Charlie a himbo per say because he's actually quite clever, so I guess he's more of a 'golden retriever nerd with really weird interests.'

Vincent Karloff

Thomas Sharpe (Crimson Peak)

V (V for Vendetta 2005)

Jason Dean (Heathers)

Edward (Edward Scissorhands)

Victor Frankenstein (Mary Shelly's Frankenstein)

Voted most likely to disappear under mysterious circumstances in high school.

Reading some of these combinations is giving me whiplash.

— M. Warrin

[waateeystein]

My Victor Frankenstein Inspired D&D Character

So this is a little different, but I wanted to share my Victor Frankenstein-inspired D&D character with you all! (Requested by @frankingsteinery)

This is Temperance! Temp is a tiefling alchemist artificer, and I've been playing her semi-regularly for almost a year now. I am being intentionally vague about details because a few of my co-players are on here so I don't want to spoil anything that has not been revealed to them yet. I am also including a few art pieces I've done of Temperance for your viewing pleasure :)

Temperance has a fraternal twin sister named Prudence, and to make a long sorry short, the two of them spent most of their childhood/teenage years in an orphanage. And after a dragon attack destroys their hometown, they split off to new adoptive families, until ten years later when they reunite with each other and their adoptive siblings. This is where our campaign essentially started. (And for more context, we play in a homebrew setting which is fantasy based but has a lot of modern/cyberpunk-y influences.)

But how is Temperance like Victor you may be asking? Well, she is very different from him in many ways, but here is how she got her Frankenstein story. In the ten years on her own, she was a medical prodigy, and very quickly passed through med school and earned her Ph.D. in Orthopedic surgery (eat your heart out Victor lol.) Like Victor, she was highly interested in the humanoid body and wanted to figure out how life could be created. So in secret, she created Eve. Eve was created to be a sort of companion to the lonely Temperance, but tensions between the two heightened, ending in a violent encounter. Temp's creation was discovered quickly discovered afterward. Because of the innumerable ethics violations in creating her, her medical license was revoked, she was shunned from her professional community and was forced to shamefully return home to her sister.

In the time since the campaign started, the group has gotten bits and pieces from Temp about her and Eve. Most of them assume that Eve is the reason Temp is missing a horn. Eve also sends a frightening package to Temp and Pru, containing a threatening note and a set of eyeballs that match those of the twins. Temp also assumes that Eve is actively trying to hunt her down and possibly kill her.

This is the threatening note, which was a physical note my DM created and gave to me at one of the very rare irl sessions of our game. This note caused so many problems it was fantastic.

Unfortunately, I do not have any art to share of Eve at the moment. Because the other players have not encountered her yet and because of other more pertinent campaign things happening, I don't want to accidentally spoil what she looks like. But when I have the art and the time comes, I will absolutely share it here!

I do however have a Spotify playlist for both Temperance and Eve if that's your Jam. I think it's pretty good, and it was really fun giving it to the other players with no context before they learned about Eve (then giving them Eve's to speculate on after she was revealed.)

In conclusion, playing a Frankenstein-inspired D&D character is super fun. This is obviously just one way to go about it, but if y'all have your own versions I would love to hear about them. Frankenstein and D&D are my two favorite things right now and combining them makes my brain go brrrrrrrrrr.

[statecryptids]

Another book review! I was hoping to post this back in October for spooky season, but work and class got in the way. So I'm posting it now to start off the new year.

MARY'S MONSTER

written and illustrated by Lita Judge

The common story of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein is that she conceived the plot during a ghost-writing contest while she, her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley, and her sister Claire were staying at the manor house of Lord Byron and his personal physician, John Polidori. Some might add that she took inspiration from an experiment in galvanism she had witnessed a few weeks earlier.  But Lita Judge’s evocative book, told through prose poetry, posits that the novel grew for many years within Mary’s mind, sewn together from the tragedies and drama of her life. It grew from the deaths that surrounded her: her children; her neglected sister; Percy Shelley’s abandoned first wife; and Mary’s own mother who died giving birth to her. It grew from her feelings of estrangement towards her once-beloved father who did not approve of her romance with the young poet.  It grew from the anger of her sister Fanny “shackled by illegitimacy and despair”. And it grew from Percy Shelley’s own growing madness “because society loathes him for his beliefs”. Out of these parts Mary made her creation, so Judge writes, stitching them into a greater whole just as Victor Frankenstein assembled his creature from corpses.

The book is told in first person from Mary’s perspective, giving the reader a personal connection with her pain and her joy. At critical moments the voice of her creature also emerges as an extension of her. A literary child just as precious to her as the biological children she lost.

Central to Mary’s story is her turbulent relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley. How they came to love each other and fled to Europe to try to build a life through loss, ostracization, and Shelley’s growing mania. Equally important to the narrative is Mary’s relationship with her sister Claire, who travels with the couple and shares in Mary’s pain and joy. And, then, of course the book depicts the fateful ghost-writing contest at Byron’s chateau, when Mary’s creature finally comes to life and speaks with his own voice.

The book gives context to some of the more macabre events in Mary’s life, such as when she first makes love to Shelley on her mother’s grave, or how she rescues his physical heart after he is cremated and keeps it in her writing desk for the rest of her life. Both acts keep her deceased loved ones close to her.

Judge’s evocative black-and-white illustrations accompany and enhance each poem, steeping the book in a gothic aesthetic. This is a passion project for the author, undertaken- as she explains in the afterward- while she struggled with pain, fatigue, and isolation during a long illness. “I have represented the details of Mary’s life,” she writes, “by weaving the actual events (as documented in her journals, copious letters, and later biographies) with the themes she and Shelley wrote about in their creative work.” The author does acknowledge that, although this book draws from facts, it is a dramatization of Mary’s experiences.  Judge provides an extensive bibliography for further reading, along with a list of what the characters themselves read, to provide some context for their lives. She also includes short biographical notes of what happened to everyone later in life.

You can get a copy of Mary's Monster at Bookshop.org. Or, like, Amazon if you want.

[multifandomhoodies]

Fic Stats Meme

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words. Thanks @theydjarin for the tag! :)

Most Hits

From the Same Star - (T, 45.3K, Dinluke and Finnpoe) with 5,741 hits

It's been six weeks, four days, and 21 hours since Leia Organa has last heard from Poe Dameron. She can't lose him. He's too important, to the Resistance, to the war effort, to her. She has no options left but to contact the one person she believes could find him and rescue him. The Mand'alor has been living in retirement with his husband and their son, but he's her last hope. In short, the ruler of Mandalore and Jedi Master Skywalker help locate Poe Dameron. What they don't expect is to bring others back with them.

Second Most Kudos

rite of movement - (E, 3.4k, Dinluke) with 277 kudos (actually tied for first place but it would have been FTSS again)

Luke was only at this self defense class because Leia had somehow managed to convince him to sign up. He really didn't need to learn self defense, thankfully his years in the military had done taught him enough. However, the gorgeous and shy but unbearably kind instructor Din Djarin was the spectacle that made going to classes a little more interesting. They seem to get far more interesting after Din asks him to help demonstrate some moves.

Third Most Comments

My Dear, You Fool (G, 2.2k, Henry Clerval/Victor Frankenstein (yes actually) with 23 comments

Victor has been ill for many months whilst creating his monster. When he sees Henry Clerval, it seems as though he has not endured these hardships. However, he falls very ill. Luckily, he has Henry to help him.

Fourth Most Bookmarks

Six Shots Out of Sunday - (T, 2.2k, Dinluke) with 17 bookmarks

Luke really hates living on this side of town. He's used to hearing gunshots, that's not too surprising. But the man knocking on his door, asking to borrow his phone so he can call his son's babysitter, yeah that's new. Inspired by a tweet "I had six shots in me. Two were bourbon. Three were Pfizer. One was that .38 slug that the doc never bothered to fish out of my shoulder. And on a night like this, I was feeling all of em."

Fifth Most Words

This is my 4th most words I'm not linking my sh*rlck fic

Smoke it Flies (T, 10.6k, Finnpoe)

A new recruit from Kalluran Smokejumpers, Finn Everson joins the Bespin Hotshots out of Yavin National Forest. There, he meets the Bespin Hotshot Crew, including their hopeful new squad boss, Poe Dameron. He and Poe work through some troubles of their own and find something new out of it.

Least Amount of Words

chipped china (G, 161, Dincobb)

Din's musings before he sleeps.

No pressure tagging @boogerwookiesugarcookie @ace-din-djarin and @creature-song

[bookeysnewsletter]

Summary of Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's Classic Tale

Chapter 1 What's The Book Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley is a classic novel that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a monstrous creature in his laboratory. The novel explores themes of ambition, morality, and the consequences of playing god. As the creature struggles to find acceptance in society, Victor grapples with the responsibility of his creation. The novel raises questions about the limits of scientific advancement and the destructive power of unchecked ambition. Ultimately, "Frankenstein" is a cautionary tale about the dangers of playing with forces beyond our control.

Chapter 2 Is The Book Frankenstein A Good Book

Many readers and critics consider "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley to be a classic and important work of literature. The novel explores themes of science, ethics, humanity, and the consequences of playing god. It has had a significant impact on popular culture and has inspired numerous adaptations and interpretations. Overall, "Frankenstein" is widely regarded as a good book and is worth reading for those interested in classic literature, Gothic fiction, and the study of ethical and scientific themes.

Chapter 3 The Book Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Summary

Frankenstein follows the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist obsessed with the idea of creating life. After years of experimentation, Victor successfully brings to life a being made from the body parts of corpses. However, horrified by his creation, Victor abandons the creature, who is left to fend for himself in a hostile world.

The creature, devoid of companionship and understanding, becomes increasingly lonely and bitter. He seeks revenge on his creator, causing a chain of tragic events that ultimately leads to the deaths of Victor's loved ones.

The novel explores themes of ambition, responsibility, rejection, loneliness, and the consequences of playing god. It raises questions about the ethical implications of scientific advancement and the impact of societal rejection on individuals.

Throughout the story, both Victor and the creature struggle with their own morality and humanity, ultimately leading to a tragic and haunting finale. Frankenstein is a classic tale that continues to captivate readers with its powerful storytelling and thought-provoking themes.

Chapter 4 The Book Frankenstein Author

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England. She was the daughter of the renowned feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the philosopher William Godwin. Shelley is best known for her novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," which was first published anonymously in 1818.

The novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The creature, fearing rejection and loneliness, seeks revenge on his creator and ultimately becomes a tragic figure in the tale.

Shelley's other notable works include "The Last Man," "Mathilda," and "Valperga." However, "Frankenstein" remains her most famous work and has been adapted into numerous films, plays, and other forms of media.

In terms of editions, the 1831 revised edition of "Frankenstein" is often considered the best as it includes additions and revisions made by Shelley herself. This edition also includes an introduction written by Shelley, shedding light on the inspiration and creative process behind the novel.

Chapter 5 The Book Frankenstein Meaning & Theme

The Book Frankenstein Meaning

The novel "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley explores themes of ambition, creation, isolation, and the consequences of playing god. The story follows Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a monster through his experiments in reanimating dead tissue. The monster is rejected by society and seeks revenge on his creator, leading to tragic consequences for both.

Overall, the novel delves into questions about the nature of humanity, the dangers of scientific advancement, and the responsibility that comes with playing with the forces of life and death. It serves as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of unchecked ambition and the importance of empathy and understanding in our interactions with others.

At its core, "Frankenstein" examines the themes of alienation and the search for connection, as both Victor and the monster struggle with feelings of isolation and longing for acceptance. The novel serves as a powerful exploration of the human condition and the complexities of moral responsibility.

The Book Frankenstein Theme

1. The dangers of unchecked ambition: Victor Frankenstein's obsession with creating life ultimately proves to be his downfall, as his creation turns against him and wreaks havoc on his life and the lives of those around him. Shelley warns against the dangers of pursuing power and knowledge without considering the potential consequences.

2. The responsibility of the creator towards their creation: Victor Frankenstein abandons his creation out of fear and disgust, leading to the monster's feelings of isolation and resentment. The novel explores the moral obligation that creators have towards their creations, and the consequences of neglecting this responsibility.

3. The nature of humanity: The monster in "Frankenstein" grapples with his own humanity and his place in the world. Despite his monstrous appearance, the creature demonstrates a deep capacity for emotion, intelligence, and empathy, challenging the reader to reconsider what it means to be truly human.

4. The destructive power of prejudice and intolerance: The monster in "Frankenstein" is rejected by society due to his appearance, leading him to seek revenge against those who have wronged him. Shelley critiques the societal prejudices and biases that can lead to discrimination and violence, emphasizing the importance of empathy and acceptance towards those who are different.

5. The consequences of playing God: Victor Frankenstein's attempt to create life leads to disastrous consequences, raising questions about the limits of scientific advancement and the ethical implications of manipulating life. Shelley cautions against the hubris of playing God and emphasizes the need for humility and caution in the pursuit of knowledge and power.

Chapter 6 Other Accessible Resources

1. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley - Available for purchase at major book retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

2. SparkNotes - Offers a comprehensive study guide for "Frankenstein" including summaries, analysis, and character information.

3. CliffsNotes - Provides a detailed analysis of key themes, characters, and plot points in "Frankenstein."

4. Goodreads - Access reader reviews, ratings, and discussions about "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley.

5. Wikipedia - Offers a detailed overview of the plot, themes, and historical context of "Frankenstein."

6. YouTube - Search for videos analyzing "Frankenstein" by literary experts and enthusiasts.

7. Academic Journals - Read scholarly articles and essays on "Frankenstein" by searching databases such as JSTOR or ProQuest.

8. Online Courses - Enroll in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that covers "Frankenstein" and its themes.

9. Podcasts - Listen to podcasts that discuss Mary Shelley's life, the writing of "Frankenstein," and its impact on literature.

10. Social Media - Join online book clubs or discussion groups on platforms like Facebook and Reddit to engage with others who have read "Frankenstein."

Chapter 7 Quotes of The Book Frankenstein

The Book Frankenstein

quotes as follows:

1. "Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful."

2. "I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

3. "Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it."

4. "I am solitary and detested."

5. "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?"

6. "I am malicious because I am miserable."

7. "The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

8. "I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend."

9. "My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell."

10. "Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?"

Chapter 8 Similar Books Like The Book Frankenstein

1. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy - A sweeping epic that follows the lives of several aristocratic families during the Napoleonic Wars in Russia. With themes of love, war, and destiny, this novel is a must-read for anyone interested in Russian literature.

2. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy - Another masterpiece by Tolstoy, this novel explores the consequences of adultery and societal norms in 19th century Russia. The characters are complex and the story is both tragic and thought-provoking.

3. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky - A psychological thriller that delves into the mind of a young man who commits a murder and grapples with guilt and redemption. Dostoevsky's exploration of morality and justice is both gripping and profound.

4. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky - A philosophical novel that examines the complexities of faith, family, and freedom. The characters, especially the three brothers, are richly developed and the themes are timeless.

5. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - A magical realist novel that follows the multi-generational saga of the Buendia family in the fictional town of Macondo. Marquez's prose is lyrical and his storytelling is both enchanting and haunting.

Book https://www.bookey.app/book/frankenstein

Author https://www.bookey.app/quote-author/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley

Quotes https://www.bookey.app/quote-book/frankenstein

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRppXdKDY_c

Amazom https://www.amazon.com/-/zh/dp/1512308056

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28354519-frankenstein?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=VierdS3qYY&rank=1

[warningsine]

Look around at the pop-culture landscape of 2024, and you will see that the genre we call romance is ubiquitous. The self-aware love stories of Emily Henry and a romantasy boom that has filled best-seller lists with series by Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas are propping up a weakened publishing industry. Mediocre rom-coms like Anyone But You and frothy shows like Bridgerton have become formidable phenomena. And from heady courtships to bitter breakups, the songs of cultural monolith Taylor Swift comprise a catalog of love in all its many moods.

What’s curious about this trend is that, for all its diversity of style and content, from realism to historical fiction to fairies and beyond, the reign of romance has come without a substantive revival of Romanticism—the artistic sensibility that suffused the foundational works of late-18th and early-19th century writers like Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and the Shelleys, and went on to inspire such Victorian masters as the Brontë sisters. Romantic literature isn’t all love stories; the cohort rejected the cold reason and empiricism of the Enlightenment in favor of the irrational, the supernatural, the emotional, and the deeply subjective.

Pretty much the only popular example of the aesthetic that also succeeds as art, these days, is Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. And viewers eager for the rare opportunity to immerse themselves in a Romantic world populated by theatrical characters with outsize feelings have noticed. A critical hit since it premiered on AMC in 2022, the series' unique intensity has distinguished it from the glut of interchangeable dramas and attracted an effusively devoted fan base. As soon as each new episode drops, social media floods with Interview memes and speculation and general expressions of glee. Just before Sunday's Season 2 finale, the network delighted this audience by renewing it for a third season.

Interview takes many liberties with the late Gothic horror author Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series. It changes the racial identities, ethnic origins, and personal backstories of iconic characters including immortal protagonist Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), his surrogate daughter Claudia (played by Bailey Bass in Season 1 and Delainey Hayles in Season 2), and Armand (Assad Zaman) a 500-year-old vampire who leads a coven in Paris. It redefines Louis’ ambiguous relationship with his manipulative, hedonistic, and at times abusive maker, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), as an explicit romance. And it tweaks Rice’s framing device, replacing the callow 1970s cub reporter who records Louis’ life story in Interview with the Vampire the novel with an older, shrewder, and more accomplished version of the same man (Eric Bogosian), who is summoned to Louis’ new home base of Dubai half a century after their disastrous first meeting to make another attempt at writing his biography.

Building a Uniquely Romantic Atmosphere

Yet Interview creator and showrunner Rolin Jones stays true to Rice’s story—truer, by far, than the teen-baiting, tongue-in-cheek 1994 film adaptation—by preserving its Romantic sensibility. The archetypal Romantic hero is a brilliant outsider (like Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein) who is prone (like the lovelorn title character of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther) to lonely introspection. In a similar vein, Rice once told TIME that “vampires are the perfect metaphor for a lost soul” (hence why she gave up writing about them during a temporary conversion to Catholicism). In the series as in her novels, these beautiful monsters wander the planet, searching for meaning in their eternal lives. Louis, who observes humanity from a wistful remove and wrestles with his predatory instincts, is as consummate a Romantic hero as his antecedents in high literature.

The show’s sights and sounds (an aching, string-forward score by the composer and violinist Daniel Hart) have all the aesthetic trappings of Romanticism. Its period backdrops are seedy yet plush: New Orleans in the early decades of the 20th century for Season 1 and then, for Season 2, a traumatized post-World-War-II Paris where Armand’s brood hides in plain sight by dramatizing its own predations at the venerable Théâtre des Vampires. The nocturnal characters spend languorous nights in bars, opera houses, brothels. “Darkness” has become such a visual cliché in contemporary entertainment, from Christopher Nolan’s dark Batman to Tim Burton’s dark Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, Sleepy Hollow, etc.), that it is now practically meaningless. But the darkness of Interview is different; it’s thick, velvety, atmospheric at a time when rushed production schedules and a dependence on computer graphics often yield generic on-screen landscapes with no personality. Romanticism links the haunted chiaroscuro of 18th century Gothic fiction with the swirling emotionality of 20th century Expressionism, and each influence is part of the show’s palette.

Jones’ language, too, has a particular panache. Louis, whose stylized speech feels believable in part because he was born in the 19th century and in part because he’s so self-dramatizing, provides most of the narration. “Paris was Nazi scar tissue” in the late ’40s, he says. “Does anyone ever ask Lazarus if he wanted to be woke?” Louis wonders, in Sunday’s finale, recounting his confinement to and resurrection from a locked coffin. (“No one gives a sh-t about Lazarus’ point of view, is what I remember,” cracks Bogosian’s Daniel Molloy, a jaded journalist who likes to puncture Louis’ earnestness with wry interjections.) Characters constantly make grand pronouncements: “In this temple [the Théâtre], belief is protection!” Lestat proclaims. ”Arson is an act of passion!” declares a vampire fleeing death by fire. The second season ends with Louis throwing down a telepathic gauntlet to vamps incensed by the publication of Daniel’s wildly popular biography of him, also titled Interview with the Vampire: “I own the night.”

How Romanticism Heightens Romance

This iteration of Interview happens to be a romance as well as a Romantic epic; while they’re not interchangeable, the genre and the sensibility complement each other beautifully. In its first season, the show followed Lestat’s pursuit of Louis, whom he transformed into a vampire in a bloody, sexy, profane scene set at a church. Their ersatz marriage even produced the ersatz child Claudia, trapped indefinitely in the body of a 14-year-old. Yet domestic bliss remained elusive. Lestat’s capricious behavior escalated into what contemporary viewers could easily identify as spousal abuse. With Claudia’s help, Louis murdered Lestat—but couldn’t bring himself to destroy his lover’s body in order to prevent the resilient vampire from healing.

Viewers spent much of Season 2 anticipating Lestat’s inevitable return. At first, he appeared to Louis in spectral form—a very Gothic haunting that also satisfied fans’ thirst for more of Anderson and Reid’s chemistry—as Louis and Claudia trekked through war-ravaged Europe in search of others like themselves. In a Season 1 finale twist, a character introduced to Daniel as Louis’ servant Rashid had been revealed to be Armand, the apparent love of Louis’ life and his partner of nearly eight decades. Scarred by his years with Lestat, Louis is slow to trust Armand when they meet in Paris. The much older, exponentially more powerful vampire makes a big show of proving, through solicitousness and submission, that he’s nothing like Lestat.

Yet Armand turns out to be deceptive in ways Lestat never was—a gaslighter of superhuman proportions. When the interview takes a detour to San Francisco in the ’70s, where Daniel first encountered Louis, it comes out that Armand not only cleaned up the mess Louis made by speaking to a reporter, but also altered Louis’ memory, as well as audio recordings that Daniel had made, of the incident. Louis, taking a page from the Romantic playbook, had attempted suicide and then, grotesquely burned, convalesced in his coffin. This anecdote sets up an even more destabilizing revelation in Sunday’s finale. Louis has always believed Armand performed the vampire mind track that saved him from execution during the Théâtre’s scripted show trial of Louis, Claudia, and Claudia’s new companion Madeleine (Roxane Duran), which doomed both women to immediate death by sunlight and drove Louis mad with grief for his lost daughter. In fact, as Daniel has learned with the help of his source in the Talamasca (a secret society of supernatural researchers that is slated to be the subject of AMC’s third Anne Rice adaptation), it was Lestat—the freshly resurrected star witness for the prosecution—who saved Louis’ life.

That’s the thing about Lestat: His love for Louis is genuine and all-consuming, even if he sometimes has a horrifying way of showing it. If Louis is the poetic, self-flagellating Werther in this story, then Lestat comes to resemble a variation on Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights—brooding, obsessive, vindictive, yet also earnest in his dangerous form of devotion. Toward the end of the Season 2 finale, Louis returns to New Orleans after banishing Armand from his home and appears in Lestat’s squalid home to apologize. The hurricane that rages outside as they reconcile is that city’s equivalent of a Brontëan storm on the moors.

Why the Romantic Sensibility Is So Rare in 2024

It’s all pretty exhilarating, not just because big emotions and the kind of combustible love that trendy contemporary authors like Colleen Hoover revel in while safely pathologizing are exciting to watch, but also because stories told—and told well—in this heightened register have become so hard to find. Across all narrative art forms, we are in a moment defined by internet-mediated realism. Romance, in the 21st century, can be rom-com cute or steamy in an X-rated, Fifty Shades sort of way; what it doesn’t often have is the emotional intensity or insight of Romantic literature. Meanwhile, the conventions separating so-called “genre fiction” from its literary counterpart have hardened, flattening characters and elevating formula above style. Romantasy may be populated by supernatural creatures torn from the pages of Gothic classics, but it seems incapable of the psychological and linguistic richness that define a great Romantic novel.

Thanks equally to Jones and to Rice, as well as the cast’s maximalist performances, Interview crafts high drama out of what, on an inferior show, might come off as silly or affected. That the main characters are vampires, some of them centuries old, and that most of the action in the first two seasons takes place decades in the past have surely helped audiences suspend any skepticism that love and angst could drive people to talk and behave and emote the way people in Louis’ story do. Now that his tale is told and Daniel’s book is published (and, oh, by the way, a vindictive Armand has turned Daniel into a vampire), the third season seems poised to pick up where the second left off—in the present, where Louis and Lestat’s form of amour fou is a recipe for scandal, if not prison time or commitment to a psych ward. (Consider the New Orleans tour guide Louis overhears discussing the lore around them with the breathlessness of a true-crime podcaster.) An expanded contemporary storyline will add a level of difficulty to Jones’ tonal balancing act. But to put it in terms as florid as Interview deserves: When it comes to the future of this magnificently singular show, hope springs eternal.

YES!! I’ve been desperate for this kind of critical writing all season!! Fantastic analysis on the tone of the show (and books) as capital-r Romantic (aka Romanticism).