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adarkrainbow · 1 year ago

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The Ultimate Fables Catalogue (C)

I know, I know, I haven’t released part “B” yet. But as it turns out, I finished the part C long before the part B, so I will release this one first.

In this continuation of the “Ultimate Fables Catalogue”, I will cover a part of the spin-offs. To be precise I will take a look at the two Cinderella spin-offs (Cinderella: From Fabletown, with love ; and its sequel Cinderella: Fables are Forever), and the entirety of the Fairest series (including its graphic novel, Fairest: In All the Land).

SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Cinderella spin-offs

Cinderella: From Fabletown, with love

# The title of the series is an homage to the James Bond novel “From Russia, with love”. Cinderella’s own adventures as Fabletown’s spy evoke those of James Bond and of the Bond girls. The writer of this series, Chris Roberson, evoked the two main influences of the plot by describing the comic as “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service meets Sex and the City”.

# Crispin Cordwainer is the shoemaker from the Grimm fairytale “The Elves and the Shoemaker”. His name comes from saint Crispin, patron of cobblers and leather-workers.

# Cinderella mentions “an ogre and a talking cat”, referencing Charles Perrault’s “Puss in Boots”.

# Among the magical items found among the Mundies, Beast mentions the “seven-league boots” (from Charles Perrault’s Little Thumbling), a “horn of plenty” (the Cornucopia), a magical flute (I don’t have any specific reference for this one) and a “singing sword” (I don’t have any clear reference, though the “singing sword” concept appears here and there - it is the name of an Arthurian novel by Jack Whyte, and an episode of the cartoon “The Legend of Prince Valiant”, among many other things).

# The silhouette of the tourists are seen, and while we already know of Mowgli and Cinderella, we will discover the other two to be Feathertop (see later) and the... what was originally planned to be the Huntsman and then became a Woodsman apparently (it is one of those unclear points). Cinderella in turn has her group of three spies: Puss in Boots (who likes to be known as the “Marquis of Carabas”), from Charles Perrault’s fairytale of the same name ; Dickory, the mouse that ran up the clock, from the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock, and finally Jenny Wren, whose lover Robin Redbreast was murdered - from the cycle of nursery rhymes surrounding Cock Robin (”Cock Robin Got Up Early ; Who killed Cock Robin? ; Jenny Wren Fell Sick).

# Aladdin, and the djinn of the ring, are both from the “Aladdin” story of the One Thousand and One Nights. I suspect his driver, Farid, to be the prince Farid from the One Thousand and One Nights story “Farizad of the Rose’s Smile” - given it is the only Farid character in the Arabian Nights I know of.

# The ghuls are creatures of Arabian folklore.

# Ultima Thule (named after the legendary island of Thule that cartographers of Antiquity believed to exist north of England) is the realm of Scandinavian fairytales, especially Norwegian, filled with trolls and talking polar bears and giant elks. Its former ruler was king Valemon, from the fairytale “White-Bear-King-Valemon”. Other inhabitants of Thule include the widow Gudbrand (wife of Gudbrand from “Gudbrand on the Hill-Side”), Askelädden (the famous Norwegian folktale character known as “Ashlad” in English), Little Freddy (from “Little Freddy with his fiddle”), Little Annie the goose-girl (from the fairytale of the same name), Butterball (from the Norwegian fairytale of the same name), as well as the ram and the pig, from “The Ram and the Pig who went to live in the woods by themselves”.

# The Fairy Godmother is here another “archetype character” in the likes of Frau Totenkinder, Prince Charming or Jack of All Tales. She was the fairy godmother of Cinderella, but also alongside her sisters the “good fairies” of the Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty fairytale, and she secretly worked to help Rapunzel by sending the prince rescue her. The Fairy Godmother’s perpetual fight against Frau Totenkinder has notably been the source of numerous of the fairytales: it seems to have started out by Frau Totenkinder “ruining” the fate of Briar Rose by playing the role of the “wicked fairy/angered wise woman” in the tale, only for the Fairy Godmother to retaliate by sending the prince of Rapunzel (whose witch-adoptive motive was Frau Totenkinder). The evolution of her role throughout the fairy tales is also explained by this perpetual duel: after sending Prince Charming to save Briar Rose from Frau Totenkinder’s curse, the witch fought back by killing the Fairy Godmother’s two sisters with poisoned apples (evoking Snow-White), which is why she was alone when helping Cinderella ; and the reason her spells only last to midnight is because her powers were weakened due to her actions in the Rapunzel story, all of her efforts exhausting her spells so that they could only work for a day and no more. It is also confirmed that the prince of Rapunzel is NOT prince Charming, as the Fairy Godmother “reused” the same prince to save both Briar Rose and Cinderella.

The Fairy Godmother is also very clearly an homage, or rather a dark parody, of the fairy godmothers of Disney movies. Her being part of a trio of benevolent fairies looking like little grandmothers at the times of Briar Rose’s birth is a nod to Fauna, Flora and Merryweather, the three fairy godmothers of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, while her being the kind, elderly, grey-haired, plump godmother of Cinderella is an obvious nod to Disney’s interpretation of the fairy godmother of Cinderella.

# The palace being made of glass is of course a nod to the glass slippers of “Cinderella”, but I wonder if it isn’t a reference to the Norwegian fairytale “The Princess on the Glass-Hill”, or something similar...

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever

# The title of the series is again a James Bond reference, this time to “Diamonds are forever”.

# The “Shadow Fabletown”, the Soviet community of Fables living beyond the Iron Curtain and opposing the American Fabletown, is composed of Ivan Durak (Ivan the Fool, a folk character of Russian fairytales), Tugarin Zmeyevich (the Slavic character known as Tugarin or Zmey Tugarin), Meng Chiang-Nu (the character of the Chinese folktale Lady Meng Jiang), the Seven Chinese Brothers (see below), and Anansi the spider (a folkloric character from West African tales and legends)

About Tugarin Zmeyevich, the Fables Encyclopedia explains a bit more the process behind choosing this character that turns into a dragon: they explain Tugarin Zmeyevich started out as the antagonist of a folktale where he was opposed to the Rusian folkloric hero Alyosha Popovich - and in the oldest/”first” version of this folktale Tugarin Zmeyevich was “merely” a man as tall as a giant, riding a horse that had fire coming out of its nostrils and smoke from its ears. However, throughout adaptations and expansions of the tale, Zmeyevich inherited the “breathe fire and smoke” traits of his horse, and then from a fire-breathing man became a dragon. So, for the Fables comics, they decided to have Zmeyevich look like a man at first, but be able to turn into a dragon at will.

As for the Seven Chinese Brothers, the Fables Encyclopedia also brings more information: they are actually part of a popular Chinese folktale merely known as “The Five Brothers” - which became well-known in the West thanks to Claire Huchet Bishop’s “Five Chinese Brothers” in the 30s ; but there are several variations of the story where the number of brothers change, up to seven or ten. And the idea of the five brothers being actually seven was also popularized in the English-speaking world thanks to Margaret Mahy’s “Seven Chinese Brothers” at the end of the 19th century.

# Dorothy Gale, aka “Silverslipper” is from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, by L. Frank Baum. Beyond her first nickname (evoking the magical “silver slippers” of the book), she is also called “The wicked bitch of the east” (a nod to the Wicked Witch of the East from the book). Numerous other characters and entities from the Oz books appear: the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion (from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”), the Chiss, Bungle the Glass Cat (”The Patchwork Girl of Oz”) and the Spoon Brigade (”The Emerald City of Oz”). We also see in the flashbacks all four witches of Oz (Good witches of the North and South, Wicked witches of the East and West), alongside the Munchkins and the Scarecrow.

# Other pop culture references include the line “Cheshire cat got your tongue” (referencing “Alice in Wonderland”), “Are you done quoting Donny and Marie?” (the television series of the same name) and Cindy describing the relationship of Bigby and Snow White as “That whole Cheers things”, paralleling the couple with the characters of Sam and Diane from the “Cheers” show

FAIREST

Wide Awake

# The main character is Ali Baba, from the One Thousand and One Nights story “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”. Morgiana of the same story is briefly mentionned in flashbacks. Interestingly, in the Fables universe Ali Baba went from a thief killer to the “prince of thieves” himself, something pointed out as weird in-universe. I believe it is a reference to how in American culture at the time of the comic’s release, the name of Ali Baba was so strongly associated with thieves you often saw it being reused for a thief character.

# The many modern USA culture references made by the Bottle Imp are too many for me to record them all.

# The fact of having the two “Sleeping Beauties” be a red-clad Briar Rose and the white Snow Queen isn’t just some fancy aesthetic choice. This plays on a common duality in fairytales between white and red that the comics itself already illustrated throughout the duo of Snow-White and Rose-Red. More interestingly, Ali Baba describing one as “the color of winter snow” and the other with “the color and heat of the first days of autumn” seems to be a play on the “seasonal” reading of the fairytale “Sleeping Beauty”, this analysis and belief that the fairytale actually depicts a metaphor for the cycle of seasons, Sleeping Beauty herself embodying nature falling asleep during the winter, and her awakening symbolizing spring.

# The version of Sleeping Beauty’s backstory here is quite interesting because it clashes with the one presented by the Cinderella spin-offs - a “retcon” here that is present inside the main series itself, since it began with the implications that Frau Totenkinder was the one who cast the curse, being the “evil witch” against the “three good fairies” (a la Disney), but then switched to make this new backstory canon. In this version of the story, we are more faithful to Charles Perrault’s version of the tale, since we have seven fairies gifting the child and the evil fairy being the eighth. The fairies here are actually a mix between the actual “fairytale fairies”, as in French fairytale fairies, and British fairies of folklore and legends. The seven gifts here are as such: beauty (for Katrya the Pure), wit (for Sofiya the wise - though it is the “wit of an angel”, so it is actually naivity), elegance/grace for Nyura the Graceful (which is extended to being graceful and elegant in all things... including the bedroom), walth for Ionna the Gifted, the talent of singing for Alyas the Noble (though it is “singing like a nightingale”, quite literaly, so singing like a bird), the talent of writing good songs and playing music perfectly for Yeva the Lively. The last gift of not dying but falling into an eternal sleep is given by Leysa the Defender against the curse of the evil fairy, Hadeon the Destroyer - and here, as with all magic process, we receive an explanation for the why: as it turns out, Leysa could only “split” the death curse across so many people the death became a “mere” endless sleep.

Beyond this, each of the fairy embodies a specific concept associated with fairies in general, or magic beings. Katrya the Pure is focused on purity and chastity (since her magical waters heal all knights chaste and noble) ; Sofiya the Wise is noted to have written a very famous grimoire ; Ionna the Gifted represents the “benevolent” fairies associated with darkness, since she is a daughter of the night who tames and traps nightmares (as opposed to Hadeon the Destroyer who is an “evil” fairy of darkness, shadow and fogs that rules over a typical “evil, nightmarish forest”), Yeva is strongly associated with music, merriment and parties, etc... The habit of Hadeon of turning her former lovers into objects she uses later (like into a boat) is also a very typical trope of fairy tales.

# In a flashback, Ali Baba is seen stealing from Abd al Quadir. He is a character from the One Thousand and One Nights story “Ala al-Din Abu al-Samat” (253rd night).

Lamia

# Lamia is of course the legendary monster/bogey-woman of Greco-Roman culture.

# Saint George, his sword Ascalon and the village of Silene are from the legend of “Saint George and the Dragon”. Saint George seems to embody here the archetype of the “dragon slayer-hero” since he lists other famous dragons among his list of kills: the Chimaera (not an actual dragon, but the fire-breathing Chimera of Greek mythology, killed by the hero Bellerophon), Illuyanka (a Hittite dragon killed by the god Tarhunz), Tiamat (the Mesopotamian goddess-dragon killed by Marduk) and finally Vritra (the Indian reptilian demon slain by the god Indra).

# When Beast lists the various fictional characters he becomes “like” during his various hunts for the Lamia, he mentions in order Auguste Dupin (created by Edgar Allan Poe), Sherlock Holmes (created by Arthur Conan Dole), Hercule Poirot (created by Agatha Christie), Sam Spade (from “The Maltese Falcon”) and Philip Marlowe (created by Raymond Chandler).

The Hidden Kingdom

# The three movies seen at the theater at the beginning are “Bunny Lake is Missing” ; “Don’t Look Now” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. Rapunzel later compares the flying origami attack to Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.

# This is I think the first time paintings are hidden around in the background. In Rapunzel’s flat there are two pictures on the walls: one is the poster for Kubrick’s “Clockwork Orange”, another is a reproduction of “The Lady of Shalott” by Waterhouse. Frau Totenkinder rather has in her flat Fuseli’s “The Three Witches”.

# Frau Totenkinder here appears mostly in her role of “the witch/adoptive-mother of Rapunzel”. Interestingly however, while Totenkinder is the witch that locked Rapunzel in a tower, and banished her after she slept with the prince, in the Fables continuity of the role of the witch in the Grimm fairytale got split with... the Fairy Godmother, who is revealed to have been the one preventing Rapunzel’s prince from returning to her.

# In the Japanese realm of Fables, the main characters include Mayumi (who is the Kuchisake-onna of Japanese ghost stories), Tomoko (a kitsune), a bakeneko (that just goes by “Neko”) and Katagiri (a kappa). Other supernatural beings coming from “The Hidden Kingdom”, the Japanese Homeland, include: funayûrey (ghosts of the drowned at sea), tanukis, a noppera-bo, a rokurokubi, an oni, an hitotsume-kozo, several kirin...

# When Neko first appears to Rapunzel, he imitates Totoro, from “My Neighbor Totoro”.

# Rapunzel briefly prays to the Jizo Bosatsu.

# Rapunzel, in her numerous travels throughout the Homelands searching for her missing babies, adopted several different identities. In the Hidden Kingdom she was Okiku, the famous Japanese “ghost” in the well. In the Ancient Greece equivalent in the Homelands she also played the role of Theseus, by slaying the Minotaur. And she is noted to have assisted to the “birth of an empire” by seeing twins by a she-wolf: they are Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of the Roman Empire.

# The treacherous shogun Ryogan actually fulfills the role of both the jealous samurai who mutilated the Kuchisake-onna and the samurai that killed Okiku.

# When the Hyakki Yagyo, the “Night Parade of the One Hundred Demons” is invoked, we also see among the numerous yokai tengus, chochin’obakes, an hebi, the wanyudo, and a nue.

# Jack ends up thrown into the claws of the famous Japanese movie monster, Gdozilla.

# Lauren Beukes, the writer of this arc, listed her several inspirations as: the manga Tekkonkintreet, “The Pillow Book” ; the movies of Kurosawa, Miyazaki and Miike ; the work of the three Murakami (Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami and Takashi Murakami) ; “The Tale of Genji”, “Tokyo Vice” (no, not the television series, but the memoir of Jake Adelstein), and “The Illustrated Night Parade of the Hundred Demons”.

Aldered States

# The various suitors of Princess Alder include Mr. Pickles (from “The Magic Fishbone” by Charles Dickens), Trotty Veck (from “The Chimes” by Charles Dickens) as well as Farmer Giles (from Tokkien’s “Farmer Giles of Ham”).

The Return of the Maharaja

# Nalayani is actually the past life of Draupadi, from the Indian epic “Mahabharata”.

# There is a LOT of characters from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book here: Tabaqui the jackal ; the dholes ; Nathoo ; Buldeo ; Pudmini...

# Prince Charming makes a reference to the “golden ticket”, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

# Among beings from Indian folklore, beliefs, folktales and Hindu mythology/religion we have the asuras, the pishachas, as well as a host of Hindu gods - Rama, Ganesha, Manasa, Kamadhenu, Nandini... The Trishula trident is also important for the ending of the story.

Of Men and Mice

# The very title is a reference to the story “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.

# The cubs are being read one of the Harry Potter books - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to be precise.

# At Cinderella’s ball, the transformed mouse ends up seducing Lady Isabelle du Lac, daughter of Lord and Lady du Lac. I wonder if it is a reference to Edmund Dulac...

# I also believe the giant sentient humanoid rat-ninjas might be a reference to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.

# The “King’s men” are the same from the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty”.

# Rama is the divine hero of Hindu mythology/religion, while Varuna is... I am a bit confused because to my knowledge Varuna is an Hindu god, not a tiger-headed fish... The only tiger-headed fish I know of is the Japanese Shachihoko... This leaves me confused.

# The Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version of Cinderella is explicitely referenced here.

Clamour for Glamour

# Lady Maeve of Dunhollow seems to be Maeve/Mebd of Irish mythology.

# Mary, after losing her little lamb, took up gardening - and thus became the Mary from the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”.

# There is an entire section of the Farm called André’s Garden, where the Mean Sunflower Kid/Mister Sunflower lives, and we see here five other Fables living in this area: Snapdragon, Old Maid Hollyhock, the Dormouse Juggler, Alderman Poppy, and a woodpecker. Given this is the living area of the Sunflower, and named “André’s garden” I am pretty sure they are meant to be part of this same Victorian book of nursery rhymes written and illustrated by R. André/R. Andre from which the nursery rhyme “Mister Sunflower” comes. The problem is that I cannot have access to this specific book, which seems to not be easily available anywhere, so I cannot actually check...

In case you want to know, I will place here the Mister Sunflower nursery rhyme as it was revealed in the Fables Encyclopedia:

In your dress of brown and yellow

What a stiff-necked

Long legged fellow!

Must you stare, although the bees,

Settle on your face and tease?

Can’t you turn your big flat head

Till the sun has gone to bed?

Fairest in All the Land

# This is where Mrs. Ford was confirmed to be “the old woman at the ford in a river”, the deadly and ghostly “washing woman” from Irish beliefs and folklore.

# While not an exact reference, the seven magical swords kept in the office named after concepts (Mercy, Justice, Regret, Rage, Judgement, Love and Wisdom) are part of a long tradition in fantasy of magical swords with meaningful names (for example, take Tad William’s trilogy “Memory, Sorrow and Thorn”). The powers and nature of Maerorgladi, the Sword of Regret, is especially interesting, as its “hunger” forcing it to take a second life for each kill is clearly inspired by a famous trend of “sentient, soul-hungering swords” in fiction which was started by Poul Anderson’s “The Broken Sword” and Elric of Melniboe’s famous sword, Stormbringer.

# Hautboy/Cendrée, the wizard that created the seven magical sword, is confirmed to have lived in the Dark Tower, from “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came”, before Roland actually arrived to said tower. The fact his main feats were creating buildings, magical chariots and magical weapons, makes him part of a long line of legendary magical smiths - in Fables, the main series, we already saw Weyland Smith and Daedalus appear, but I can also mention the Greek Hephaestus or the Finnish Ilmarinen. The Ilmarinen comparison is especially interesting, since the mythical ancestor of the evil swords I talked about (Moorcock’s Stormbringer, or Tolkien’s Gurthang) is a sentient, talking sword from the Kalevala. I have however very curious about the names chosen for him, both very French in nature... I think they might have been chosen at random (especially since “Cendrée” is actually the FEMALE form of the adjective “Ashen”/”Cindered”, the proper male form would have been Cendré), but maybe there is some obscure reference I am missing... though I slightly doubt it.

# The topic of “swords that must kill” is also very frequent in Norse sagas: to quote TV Tropes, “Tyrfing of the Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, the sword of Bodvar Bjarki in the Saga of Hrolf Kraki, and Dainsleif from the Prose Edda”. Which brings me to the hero the Sword of Regret was built for, Turgo of Nor, who is the stereotypical “Norse barbarian”. He likes in a world shaped after Ancient Norse society, and he is a muscular, bearded warrior always eating and drinking, but going berserk every time he drinks too much (which is often, since he is a drunkard). However, the fact that he keeps flying into mad rages he then regrets, and that he wears a hood made of animal pelts, make him VERY similar to Herakles of Greek mythology.

# The coat of Padarn Beisrudd is one of the “Thirteen Treasures of Britain”, part of Welsh folklore.

# The Blue Fairy mentions the “Unseelie Midwinter Ball”. The Unseelie Court is one of the two fairy “courts” or fairy “hosts” of Scottish legends, alongside the Seelie.

# I can’t help but wonder if Hadeon’s role as a sentient, magical but malevolent red car isn’t meant to be a nod to Stephen King’s Christine.

#fables #the ultimate catalogue #fairest #cinderella #cinderella from fabletown with love #comic #cultural references #fairytales #myths #folklore #cinderella fables are forever

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thealmightyemprex · 2 years ago

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Fairy Tale June:The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

So today we are actually going with a big movie ,a George Pal extraviganza

In this 1962 film we follow Willhem Grimm (Laurance Harvey), a fanciful dreamer,and Jacob Grimm (Karl Bohem ) a down to earth scholar ,as the pair is supposed to write down the family history of a Duke (Oscar Homolka) ,Willhelm gest distracted by fairy tales ,which he realizes no one has written down .....Thats the main story,what makes the film unique....is it also adapts three classic Grimms fairy tales :The dancing Princess follows a woodcutter (Russ Tamblyn) who uses an invisible cloak to discoverthe mystery to why a princess(Yvette Mimeux) always has destroyed shoes ,the Elves and the Shoemakers follows a old cobbler (Also played by Harvey ) who gains the help of some elves (voiced by Stan Freberg,Dallas Mikkinion and Thurl Ravinscroft ) and the Sining Bone where the cowardly and egotistical Sir Ludwig (Terry-Thomas ) tries to take credit for slaying a dragon that was actually slain by his servent Hans (Buddy Hackett )

SO this film is done by George PAl,producer of many Sci Fi and fantasy films ,probabbly best known for his HG Welles adaptations ,War of the Worlds and the Time Machine.In fact I kind of see this film as a spirtual follow up to his musical version of Tom Thumb ,which also had Russ Tmablyn and Terry-Thomas (In fact as well as playing the Woodsman,Tamblyn also plays Tom Thumb in a climatic sequence I will get to later ),and I think oversall,while I enjoy parts of Tom Thumb.....This film is better.HOWEVER it is still uneven to the point I didnt know if I liked or disliked it tillI was near the end,and even then.....I had to think about it

The movie is kind of two movies ,it is a bio pic about the Grimm Brothers AND a anthology of fairy tale ,and at first.....I was kind of wishing it was just the fairy tales ,and even then they arent immune to the big problem of the movie.....IT drags ,the pscing is very slow,I guess to make it 2 hours

We are gonna go by segments :

The main Grimm Brothers story on its own is dull ,it didnt feel substantial to me at first ,just Willhelm messing up and setting up the fact they will eventually write down the fairy tales ....HOwever what made it work was the performances ,LAurance Harvey was really lovable as the dreamer Willhelm,Karl Boehm is believable as the serious Jacob,and Oskar HOmolka is scene chewingly fun as the unpleasent Duke,with other good performances coming from MArtita Hunt ,Barbra Eden,Claire Bloom and Walter Slezak ....What also works is the ending which I will go into later

The Danicng Princess is fun ,showing some great physicality by Russ Tamblyn in both stunts and dancing.Now in the fairy tale its 12 Princesses but for this segment it makes sense to streamline it to one.The Highlight of this one is Jim Bakus as the murderous yet jovial King (Aided by him doing the Mr Magoo voice)

The Elves and the Shoemaker was my least favorite part of the film ,Harvey is good,but the segment was a lil dull and I willl be frank ,while I love stop motion and shall praise some later ....THE ELVES ARE FREAKY AND CREEPED ME OUT (However did notice one of them was the Yawning Man from Tom Thumb that was cute )

The Singing Bone is both the darkest and funniest tale and by far my favorite part of the film .Terry-Thomas was a comedic genius and here is perfectly cast as a villainous knight who lets his servent do all the heavy lifting .Buddy Hackett is also very fun as the unlikely hero ,I never knewI wanted to see Scuttle fight a dragon but I am glad it exists .The best part of the d scene IS the dragon,brought to life through some brillaint cartoony stop mostion,this beastie has a ton of personality,being very bored and hungry,focused on killling the two main characters ,and I love the design which is a mixture of eastern and western dragons with jewl encrusted scales

But the scene that sold me on the movie and why I reccomend the movie is Willhelms dream:Spoilers Willhelm gets very sick and in a fever dream sees Snow White and the seven dwarfs,a Giant,the Frog Prince,Tom Thumb, Rumplestiltskin,and other fairy tale characters ,who convince him to not only lived but write down their stories .Its a very sweet and emotional scene ,and I particularly like comedian Arnonald Stangs take on Rumplestiltskin as a bad tempered mean guy (I kind of wish he got his own segment ).

For all the flaws of the movie,I did enjoy it ,and if you can find it,I reccomend giving it a watch

@ariel-seagull-wings @angelixgutz @autistic-prince-cinderella @amalthea9 @scarletblumburtonofeastlondon @princesssarisa @filmcityworld1 @the-blue-fairie @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @themousefromfantasyland

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princesssarisa · 2 years ago

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Since I've been re-listening to the classic fairy tale radio show Let's Pretend, I've been thinking of Arthur Anderson. He was a mainstay character actor on Let's Pretend throughout most of its long run, from age 14 until age 32. But he was probably the cast member with the most notable career beyond radio.

Most famously, he was the original voice of the Lucky Charms cereal mascot Lucky the Leprechaun. He voiced Lucky in commercials from the 1960s through the early '90s, and to the end of his life, people would ask him to sing his musical catchphrase, "They're magically delicious!" I'm sure he was still the voice actor in the very first Lucky Charms commercials I vaguely remember seeing as a toddler. But that wasn't sum total of his non-radio career.

As a teenager, he played the slave boy Lucius in Orson Welles' famous 1937 production of Julius Caesar. He was the real-life equivalent of Zac Efron's character Richard Samuels in Me and Orson Welles, although that movie is heavily fictionalized. He was already a regular on Let's Pretend when that production took place – I don't suppose Me and Orson Welles shows Zac Efron performing in a fairy tale radio show, but if not, it should have.

Later, he played small roles in films like Midnight Cowboy, Green Card, and I'm Not Rappaport, and on various TV shows too.

In his old age, he was the second voice actor for Eustace Bagge in Courage the Cowardly Dog.

He also wrote two non-fiction books: Let's Pretend and the Golden Age of Radio, and his autobiography, An Actor's Odyssey: Orson Welles to Lucky the Leprechaun.

He lived a good long life, eventually dying in 2016 at age 93.

While I don't have a complete list of his Let's Pretend roles, these are all his roles in the episodes I've heard:

*The title character, Bud, in The Youth Who Learned to Shiver and Shake (the only episode I know of where he played the lead)

*The Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk

*The Witch Doctor in The Little Mermaid (they gender-bent the Sea Witch to add another male role to the story)

*Falada the horse in The Goose Girl

*Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood

*The Bumblebee King in Thumbelina

*The Crow in The Snow Queen

*The Blacksmith Elf in The Night Before Christmas

*The greedy man George Brown in the show's other Christmas special, The House of the World

*The Prime Minister in The Brave Little Tailor

*The Chamberlain in The Chinese Nightingale

*The King's Counselor in Drakestail

*Sir Ector in King Arthur

*The Emperor in Princess Moonbeam (the show's adaptation of the Japanese story The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter)

*The Witch's servant Jacques in Jorinda and Joringel

*The mean innkeeper Mr. Schwarz in The Elves and the Shoemaker

*The mean innkeeper Mr. Crafty in The Donkey, the Table, and the Stick

*Thomas, one of the two heroic brothers, in Bluebeard

*The rat-turned-coachman in Cinderella

*The wise old man (and a talking parrot) in Why the Sea is Salt

*The father kings in Sleeping Beauty and The Six Swans

*The Witch's guard dog in Hansel & Gretel (just barking)

The next time I want to listen to a marathon of Let's Pretend episodes – as I sometimes do – I just might have to make some Lucky Charms ice cream or Lucky Charms marshmallow treats to go with it, in honor of Arthur Anderson.

@ariel-seagull-wings

#let's pretend #radio #arthur anderson

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ridley-was-a-cat · 7 months ago

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What I Watched This Week – 5/5 – 5/11

‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess – I passed on this while it was airing last season because it looked like a one-note comedy centered on food looking delicious, but so many people kept praising it for the characters and the animation/production that I figured I might as well give it a try. Despite my initial impressions and all the warnings I saw not to binge it because the jokes would get tired, I blew through the whole season in short order, chuckling the entire way. The demons do tempt the human princess they’ve captured and are holding prisoner with delicious-looking food to try to get her to divulge secrets, but they also tempt her with cute animals or a trip to the amusement park as part of her “torture”, and the running commentary from her sentient sword growing ever more exasperated with her lack of willpower keeps the gag fresh. The character designs are completely charming, with a good amount of variation to make the large cast easy to tell apart, and they’re animated with a generous amount of style and fluidity. Add it all together with a demon lord in the running for father and husband the year, and you get a thoroughly adorable little comedy. I look forward to season two. 7/10

The Grimm Variations – This Netflix exclusive miniseries takes six stories from Grimms’ fairy tales – Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Town Musicians of Bremen, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin – and twists them. The reimagined fairy tales take place in a number of different settings, from Taisho Japan, to fictional far-future, to sci-fi wild west, and flip the characters around while keeping the message of the original somewhat intact. As with any anthology series, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. While I can see something like a running theme through the six episodes, where each one is broadly tied to a stage in a person’s life, from childhood through young adulthood and then through old age, with the stories having completely different casts each time, some hit better than others. In particular, I thought Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and the Elves and the Shoemaker were the best written and executed, Little Red Riding Hood was deeply unpleasant to watch with several long scenes of bloody torture, and the Pied Piper was ambitious, but kind of a mess. The Town Musicians had a great cast of female characters, but felt the most aimless of all the stories. If you like fairy tales, it’s definitely worth checking out. 6/10

Blue Giant – People have been showering this movie with so much praise over the past year that I preordered the Blu-Ray release sight unseen, which I very rarely do. Told in the form of a musician’s biopic, it follows the journey of an 18-year-old saxophone player as he moves to Tokyo in search of a place to play jazz, and the whirlwind 18-month period where he was grouped up with a similarly aged pianist and drummer and playing at various jazz clubs around the city. I really wish I saw this in a theater, because the music must have sounded absolutely amazing on a movie theater sound system. As it was, just coming through my little sound system at home, it gave me goosebumps. The music paired up with the emotional story of talented young kids working their asses off and the colorful, impressionistic renderings of the performances was just top notch entertainment. There were a couple spots here and there of 3D CGI that weren’t super well integrated with the excellent 2D animation, and I will always arch my eyebrow in judgement of stories about jazz that don’t tie it to its roots as Black music, but everything else was so good that I almost hit play at the end to immediately re-watch it. 9/10

#anime #backlist anime #anime 2024 #winter anime 2024 #tis time for torture princess #the grimm variations #blue giant

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chimera-gui · 17 days ago

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This is good advice, especially if you are making multiple Digimon with the goal of a partial or complete Digivolution line since a motif can shift in the later Stages

The two examples I’d give for this are Argomon and Shoemon

The Stage I has a single, snail-like eye on the top of its head which becomes a pair of eyes resembling those of a snail infested with Leucochloridium paradoxum, a parasitic flatworm whose pulsating "brood sacs" transform the tentacles of its gastropod host into a facsimile of insect larvae in order to attract the attention of flying dinosaurs, these eyes carrying into Stages III and IV

It’s worth noting that the lines name is believed to be a pun on Algorithm, especially combined with its association with Rhythm, and Argos Panoptes, mythological Greek giant and servant of Hera who had his hundred eyes preserved forever in the peacock's tail to immortalise her faithful watchman and Argomon’s design incorporates some subtle bird-like motifs, and in some illustrations, a clump of feathers pouring from its sleeve which couples with the above mentioned motif to create a fascinating level of symbolism

Shoemon was believed to tie into fairy tales, specifically The Elves and the Shoemaker, but again this didn’t manifest immediately as Shoemon and ShoeShoemon were initially just a shoe motif according to a developer interview and the fairy tale motif was the established with the Stage VI Cendrillmon who the developers worked backwards from the create Chaperomon

The Argomon example is especially relevant because it’s unlikely that Stages V and VI were designed the plan to had a full parasite line a decade later

Is there anything that you think a Digimon artist should know when drawing the 'mons?

I guess just be aware of what kind of Digimon you want to make. There are different styles of Digimon, so there isn't just one way to approach them.

There are few rules, really. I certainly have preferences when it comes to making my own Digimon, such as not making things that might be evolutionarily redundant, but that's just a me thing. Bandai doesn't usually care that much, I think. Otherwise they wouldn't have made Shademon and Eyesmon the same level.

One thing I'll say is don't be too preoccupied with following real mythology and making obscure references. Make something that works on its own. Then you can slap a mythological name on it at the end if you want. That's what bandai does sometimes. It's fine too if you make those references (it can be fun and interesting), but I feel like people are often too fixated on what a design is based on, and it's really not necessary. Sometimes a fun critter is just a fun critter.

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carewyncromwell · 5 years ago

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Okay I'm here to say, that post about Hogwarts history completely blew my mind. Can we have more Proffesor!Lane? :')

[Asking the Magical Historian to talk more about history?? Why yes, this pleases Lane very much.

Her lips spread into a crooked smile so like Jacob’s, even though her voice never reaches the levels of energy and volume that her son’s can when he’s geeking out about something.]

“(laughing softly) You’re a sweet ‘un. I’d be happy to...’give another lecture,’ so to speak.”

It’s a lot easier to give lectures through this ‘Askbox’ than presenting things in front of people. It reminds me of my one-on-one lessons with Winnie, before she went to Hogwarts.

“I know...why don’t I tell you a bit about house elf history? I wrote a whole essay presenting the research I collected for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures a few years back. That’s actually how I first got in touch with Bathilda, she sent me a letter after reading my essay...”

“Now first things first -- primary sources about elf culture are very hard to come by, as elf tradition and history has generally passed down through oral tradition. So most of the research I’ve collected is from second-hand accounts from house elves who were kind enough to lend me their insight and stories -- though I was also lucky enough to track down the journal of a wizard named Ralston Potter, who recorded the events surrounding him freeing his own family’s house elf, Frell.

“House elves are not human, and just like centaurs and goblins, they have their own kind of powerful magic and their own distinct way of seeing the world that differs greatly from our own. Most notably, elves do not use wands to channel their magic the way wizards do. There are...legal reasons for that today, of course, but there’s also history behind it. You might have noticed that underage witches and wizards can cast very powerful magic before receiving a wand. That’s because without a wand, their magic is very volatile. Magic is like fire -- if it’s not controlled, it can cause a lot of damage. And so wands are used to give our magic focus: it’s like a steering wheel that allows us to maneuver our magic wherever we want it to go. If one never receives a wand, or even uses magic without a wand too long, it can be very dangerous, not just for the people around that person, but for that person themselves. It can damage their health and body, and in extreme cases, they could even become an Obscurus.

“For elves, however, they’ve found another way to focus their magic -- not through a wand, but through permanent institutions. In the early days, elves were able to hone their extreme magical talent by focusing all of their abilities on the maintenance of a house or place of business. Their loyalty was not to the family that lived there, but to the place they cared for -- therefore, if the family was ever disrespectful to the elf or its home, the elf could take proper justice on that family. But if the family was kind to the elf, the elf would often return that kindness.

“Unfortunately, with the advent of the Statute of Secrecy at the end of the 17th century, things became much more complicated. In the old days, it didn’t matter what sort of family owned the house an elf cared for -- Muggle or magical, the elf would go on just the same. But as soon as the Wizarding World had to hide all evidence of magic from Muggles, the issue of what to do about the elves living in whatever house they wished became a real problem. The new Ministry of Magic knew it couldn’t compete with elves from a magical perspective -- elves have always been more powerful than wizards, even though their traditions and culture keep that power focused on a singular, concrete purpose like caring for a house or a family, rather than their own advancement. But at the same time, the Ministry couldn’t afford to have the existence of elves exposed to Muggles...and admittedly, many elves had become frustrated by the more rampant lack of respect shown by Muggles who had moved into the homes they occupied. So a compromise was reached -- elves would refocus their magic, not on a house that could pass from person to person, but directly onto a magical family. The magical family could then both offer protection and stability for the elf, so long as they chose to stay with them. At that time, the elf could leave whenever they wanted. This is also around the time when the idea of setting elves free with clothes originates. Although we’re not entirely sure where it came from, one theory among magical historians is that it was symbolic of the house elf’s services no longer being needed. As an example, one can point to the old Muggle fairy tale ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker,’ which, although likely not a historical account, may have been based on something true. The elves’ focus would’ve been on the family owning the shoe shop -- once the family had mastered their trade enough that they could make the elves their own clothes to thank them, the elves realized they were no longer needed, and so left with no regrets.

“Sadly, restricting elves to live only with magical families ultimately gave the elves much less choice about where they could live and what places they could use to focus their magic. If they were set free or left, it proved very difficult for them to find another home. They couldn’t just take up residence wherever they wanted anymore, either -- if they decided to stay even if a family set them free, or if they occupied a space where they weren’t wanted, the Ministry nearly always sided with the witches or wizards in question, since those magical families were now the only ones who could claim any ownership to the house. And as many magical families started to break away from the ideas of blood purity and marry Muggles and Muggle-borns, it became less popular to rely on house elf labor. So now today, elves are placed in a rather unpleasant position. They need a stable environment so as to focus their magic and not only maintain their culture but also their own livelihood...but due to lack of choice, elves have lost a lot of the equal footing they’d had with wizards in centuries past. This has therefore led many magical families to treat elves like servants or even slaves, rather than equals. But simply freeing an elf, or even all of them, wouldn’t solve the inherent problem, for they would still need something permanent that they could use to channel their powerful magic safely. Otherwise the elf’s own life and safety, as well as everyone around them, is put at risk.

“Now the idea of elves owning wands is...a thorny issue. Regardless of my own...personal views about the law forbidding house elves from owning a wand...many elves don’t want to use wands. They see it as a wizard invention exclusively. If they were to use a wand rather than focus magic on institutions or families the way their ancestors have, it would be sacrificing a piece of their culture -- and goodness knows, they’ve already been very detached from their heritage already thanks to wizard interference. But the law itself forbidding elf wand use was completely funded and propagated by wizards who felt deeply threatened by the thought of elves being treated as equals. They enjoyed having elves under their foot, and they had no interest treating them like creatures worthy of respect and an equal say in the Wizarding World and how it’s run. This is not an opinion or conjecture on my part....every single witch and wizard who supported that law -- Cantankerous Nott, Wilhelm Rosier, Josephina Flint, Odo Crouch, Aspen Greengrass -- expressed the belief that elves, if they were given wands, would be too powerful to control and that their subjugation was not only just, but also for the protection of wizardkind. They, to put it very simply, were so afraid of elves being extended the same privileges as wizards that they enshrined their second-class status into wizarding law.”

[Lane brings her hands together, interlacing the fingers solemnly.]

“Now I know a lot of this...isn’t particularly uplifting. Elves’ current position in magical society -- much like that of centaurs and goblins or even beings like werewolves, vampires and hags -- is not very ideal. But there have been some efforts to fight for elf rights, over the years. St. Mungo’s Hospital for Maladies and Injuries has been employing and housing elves for almost two decades now. There are now about a hundred wizard-owned restaurants around the world that are either completely or largely operated by elves. Helga Hufflepuff first brought house elves to Hogwarts back before the Statute of Secrecy was enacted, but when Albus Dumbledore became Headmaster, he introduced some improvements, such as adding a small, dormitory-like space next to the kitchens where the elves could sleep and keep personal belongings. And as our understanding of elf culture improves, so too can our laws and policies regarding them.”

((OOC: HEADCANONS GALORE AGAIN. For anyone who has read my fic Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce, this is pretty much the essence of that one abbreviated history lesson Millicent Bulstrode gave Hermione in that one chapter where they discuss elf rights. XDD This also took WAY too long to write out...whew! Seriously, though, Candy love, I’m glad you enjoyed my absolute nerdiness!! *tackle-hug* <333

I’m well aware of the...problematic elements of the house elves’ depiction in the original Potter novels, and although yes, I agree the parallels one can draw are troubling, I also have to point to how goblin and centaur culture are depicted in the Potterverse being distinctly “not-human” (i.e. goblins’ conception of “ownership” being more focused on the creator of the object rather than anyone who inherits it, or in HPHM centaurs requiring offerings in order to have a chance to earn entry into their camp). It’s not out of the realm of possibility, therefore, that elves likewise have their own distinctly “not-human” traditions and culture. And admittedly the idea of Rowling’s house elves seems very inspired by folk tales surrounding the brownie/boggart, as well. But yeah, if you don’t dig this interpretation of mine, I totally get it -- I’m not going to act like I’m any sort of authority here. I’m just a huge nerd with way too much time on her hands who prefers to find ways to make this fictional world she enjoys better rather than double-down on the things she doesn’t like. XD;

In regards to elves using a permanent institution to focus their magic on...my personal headcanon is that Dobby, as a free elf, used Hogwarts and -- once he’d reunited with him -- Harry as that permanent institution. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go cry in a corner.))

Ask Lane Cromwell!

#ask lane #lane cromwell #house elves #elves #harry potter #ooc #headcanon #roleplaying #lol recycled art #hphm #hogwarts mystery #dobby #caps cw

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desainn · 5 years ago

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83 Mythical Creatures & Descriptions

This list does not include…

Sci-fi races (sullustian, eldar, sangheili, duros, etc.)

Half-breeds (half-orc, half-elf, etc.)

Sub species (Mirrodin vedalken, hill dwarf, mountain dwarf, etc.)

Types of giants (human giant, giant spider, giant worm, etc.)

Literally thousands of mythical or divine beings I did not think of

1. Saproling - A diverse race of plant entities that dwell in the forests of Dominaria.

2. Dwarf - There are two main races of dwarves (According to WoTC): hill dwarves, and mountain dwarves. They are fairly self-descriptive, however mountain dwarves have improved vision in dark environments. Dwarves are known for their metalworking abilities, short stature, and sturdy build. Some sources claim they can live for an average of 400 years.

3. Elf - A highly debated race prominent in tales ranging from Santa Claus, to MTG. Ignoring the idea of the tiny shoemaking elves of Earth, elves are human-height, thin, agile, stealthy, and in-tune with nature. Warriors of this species often use light swords, long bows, daggers, and staffs.

4. Vedalken - Tall, blue-skinned, knowledgeable beings from MTG and D&D, but most prominently the former. Vedalken have six fingers on each hand. Mirrodin Vedalken have four arms, but that trait is reserved to only members of the Vedalken race from that plane. Believing perfection to be inachievable, Vedalken. Jew progress as a never-ending march to a state of perfection that can never be achieved.

5. Merfolk/Merrow - Female merfolk are commonly known as mermaids- the aquatic (or sometimes amphibious) race of blue- or green-skinned humanoids with fish tails, and oceanic jewelry.

6. Elemental - A diverse group of magical beings centered around a specific element. These are most commonly fire, life, ice, water, and lightning.

7. Angel - Heavenly, winged humanoids. Disregarding Christian ideas of angels, they can be skilled healers, or marksmen. You already know about this one.

8. Demon - The unholy counterpart to angels. Often winged, demons pocess magic capabilities encompassing fire, death, and anger. These beasts reside in the underworld, or hell.

9. Specter - Cloaked figures armed with scythes, who ride undead beasts through the sky. Opposed to flesh, many specters are made of black mist enveloped in dark cloth.

10. Goblin - Thieves, hooligans, and mechanics. Goblins are often in the background committing some silly crime. They can be utilized as comic relief, or cannon fodder, whichever results in their death the quickest (because seriously, these dudes have the highest death rate of anything in this list)

11. Orc - Large, lean warriors wielding clubs, or other blunt weapons. Orcs are commonly portrayed with green skin, and two large stubs of teeth on their lower jaw, sticking out of their mouths.

12. Giant - A collection of large, clumsy humans, spiders, worms, or serpents.

13. Centaur - A mythical Greek idea of a man (or woman) made of a horse from the waist down. Skilled with a bow, or lance.

14. Siren - Two ideas. One: mermaids that sing to lure unwitting sailors into treaterous seas. Two: humans with light blue wings on their arms.

15. Nymph - Nymphs wander in forests, disguised a women. When a traveler approaches, sword sheathed, and shield lowered, the nymph allows its illusion to fade, revealing an evil monster beneath.

16. Minotaur - A bipedal bull with two arms, and two legs that runs around in mazes. “Minotaurs hate tar tar sauce. They’re deathly allergic to tar tar sauce”.

17. Screecher - A flying zombie-demon that screams as it glides.

18. Fairy - Tiny winged humans that flutter through forests. Often times, they will betray travelers, and loot them.

19. Pixie - A fairy that doesn’t lie about being evil, it just accepts that it is. Occasionally, pixies will catch something on fire.

20. Unicorn - A mystical white horse with a golden or ivory horn on its forehead, often bearing pink or blue tails and manes. They love to plunder their horns into tourist’s chests’.

21. Ogre - Either Shrek, or a dungeon-dwelling humanoid with ten blue tentacles, each wielding a different weapon.

22. Troll - A small, dirty man who will collect tolls for crossing bridges. Nothing a crossbow can’t fix.

23. Zombie - The reanimated corpses of lost ones through the use of magic.

24. Fomori - An advanced aquatic race, that builds beautiful cities under the sea. In addition this, they possess vast arsenals of explosives.

25. Stitcher - A zombie made from parts of many deceased creatures.

26. Djinn - Blue- or gray-skinned, mountain-dwelling monks with the ability to levitate themselves.

27. Thrull - A beast faintly resembling a gray-skinned, Balt ox with no horns. The Orzhov Syndicate of Ravnica utilized thrulls as pack animals for transport, and as a container for storing mana, until it would be sucked out of the creature.

28. Rendhorn - A cross between a rhino, and a wolf.

29. Arynx - A large wild cat.

30. Aven - Humanoid birds that live on Dominaria.

31. Semicore/Wierd - An artificial creature that contraditicts its own existence. For example, a membrane of water, and an interior of fire.

32. Naxie - Merfolk-like, semi-humanoid, aquatic and residing in unusually deep forest ponds and lakes, groups of naxies drag travelers stopping for a drink, into the water to eat them.

33. Dragon - A fire-breathing, reptilian beast with near-impenetrable scales. Dragons also boast wings, enabling them to fly.

34. Drake - Similar to a dragon, but leaner.

35. Draco - A serpent dragon that cannot breath fire.

36. Serpentine - A humanoid shake.

37. Truffle - A mushroom person.

38. Hydra - A three-headed dog from Hades.

39. Kobold - Small dragonic men from D&D.

40. God - Magnificent, holy, divine beings. No one knows for sure. Let’s keep it at that.

41. Ent - Tree-like golems that reside in forests. Some ents offer wisdom, others kill travelers.

42. Reaper - A cloaked, reanimated skeleton armed with a scythe, and wielding death magic.

43. Reanimated Skeleton - A skeleton made living through the use of necromancy. Can be destroyed with a hard push.

44. Golem - Living rock or metal creature, sometimes tasked with the defense of an area.

45. Gremlin - A red-skinned animal on Kaladesh with an appetite for Aether.

46. Cyclops - A one-eyes humanoid, sometimes appearing to be human, but other times as large as an orc.

47. Pegasus - A winged horse.

48. Titan - A god-like creature with great strength, and power. Not quite a god, but not a mortal either.

49. Ghoul - A ghost that retains some remnants of it’s past body.

50. Ghost - A spirit that escaped it’s body after death.

51. Phantom - A formless ghost that remains in the mortal realm.

52. Harpy - A colorful bird with a woman’s face.

53. Manticore - A powerful demon lion,

54. Werewolf - Werewolves are sometimes thought of as humans that morph into savage wolf humanoids, in the presence of a full moon. Other times, they remain wolf beings at all times.

55. Elephantine - Humanoid elephants.

56. Wyvern - A sky-dwelling dragon that resides on floating islands, that is sleek, white-, blue-, or green-skinned, and about a three-fourths the size of dragons.

57. Dragonborn - A powerful dragonic man, also called a half-dragon. Skilled with blades of all sorts.

58. Aetherborn - Aetherborn are gray-skinned, black-eyed humanoids spawned spontaneously as a byproduct of the Aether refinement process on Kaladesh. The Aether that makes up heir bodies is gradually returned to the Aethersphere, and in only 3 to 4 years, they have dissolved entirely. One adult human contains enough Aether to allow a single Aetherborn to survive 12 more days. Some members of this race with questionable morals (most notably Gonti) will kill humans in scores, to preserve their own lives.

59. Spirit - A shapeless ghost that retains the ability to communicate with the living.

60. Haunt - A spirit visible as a cloud of thin, black mist, a faintly glowing core, and often wearing a tattered gray cloth.

61. Mimic - Mimics hide in dungeons as chests, or doors. When an unwitting dungeoneer opens the mimic’s disguise, a purple-tongued, toothy beast attacks them. Chest mimics are able to hop around.

62. Vampire - Pale-skinned humans with two pointed fangs, yellow or red eyes, a black cloak, the ability to live forever, a fear of sunlight, and a thirst for blood. Some sources claim that humans bitten by vampires become vampires themselves, however this is unlikely. Weaknesses include silver, wooden stake to the heart, and garlic.

63. Humonculus - One-eyed, blue-gray skinned humanoids created artificially. Though stichers in a technical sense, Humonculus are alive.

64. Devil - Red-skinned, long-horned humanoids that explode upon death.

65. Skywhale - Long-finned whales that float through the atmosphere effortlessly.

66. Griffin - A lion with an eagle’s head, wings, and feet.

67. Abzan Hound - A humanoid dog, skilled with a bow.

68. Leviathan - A large sea serpent whose size is comparable to that of a whale.

69. Nice

70. Naga - A large snake with human arms and facial features near the head.

71. Slime - Gelatin creatures that bounce around. Slimes retain their shape as a flat gumdrop.

72. Horror - Mutant creatures merged together. Mutants have multiple of everything, are terribly boney, and are encased in a loose and thin sheet of skin.

73. Myr - Drones crested by the Mirrodin, that could do nothing but watch the corruption of their planet at the hands of the Phyrexians.

74. Chimera - A winged lion with an eagle’s head, and a snake for a tail.

75. Ooze - An acidic, shapeless slime.

76. Nim - A corrupted zombie reanimated without the use of magic.

77. Hobbit - Short humanoids somewhat resembling a cross between dwarves and humans. They live in houses built into the hillsides, in the Lord of The Rings.

79. Sky Manta - A stingray that flies in the sky.

80. Souleater - A demonic creature that comsumes souls opposed to organic matter.

81. Dementor - From the Harry Potter series, dementors have no legs, wrinkled gray skin, a circular mouth, and “look like something that decayed in water”. They guard the Azkaban Prison.

82. Eternal - A zombie transferred into an artificial body to make it stronger, live forever, and travel through planar gates.

83. My gf

Tell me anything I missed; it will only cause this list to grow stronger, much like any attempt at killing a semicore with pyromancy.

#fantasy #magic the gathering #d&d #species #fictional world

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haru-desune · 4 years ago

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Grimmtober Day 7: The Elves and the Shoemaker

At midnight two cute little naked men appeared. Sitting down at the workbench, they picked up the cut-out pieces and worked so unbelievable quickly and nimbly that the amazed shoemaker could not take his eyes from them.

This one has an ATU of 503, but the variations have ratings of 476 and 504. I day variations because originally three stories come under this title, though the first is the most well known:

A shoemaker once became so poor he could only afford leather for one pair of shoes. He cut them out and laid them on the workbench, intending to finish them the next day. But when he awoke, two his surprise, the shoes had already been made, and were of finer quality than anything he had made before. He placed them at the window and rich man took a liking to them, and paid well above the usual price.

With this money, the shoe maker bought leather for two pairs of shoes, cut them out, and went to bed, expecting to finish them the next day. But when he woke up, they were finished again, and were of fine quality. Customers bought them, and he now had money for four pairs, which he again cut out and left, only to find them finished in the morning. This continued for many nights, and the shoemaker became a wealthy man.

One day near Christmas time, just before going to bed, the shoemaker suggested to his wife that they stay up to see who was doing this work. She agreed, and they hid themselves behind dome clothes, with a good view of the workbench. To their surprise, to little men, completely naked, appeared, and began industriously working on the shoes. By sunrise they had finished all the pairs.

The wife said "these little men have made us wealthy, we must show them out thanks". The shoemaker agreed, and the wife sewed two charming sets of clothes. That night, the shoemaker left the sets on the workbench instead of any leather, and the two hid. Upon seeing the clothes the little men were delighted, and put them on in a rush before running out of the shop. They never returned, but the shoemaker continued to prosper.

The other two stories are much smaller. The second tale involves a hardworking servant girl who was invited to be the godmother for a fairy child. Her masters convince her to go, and she stays three days with the fairies under the mountain. When she is finally given leave to go, with gifts of silver and gold, she finds that she's spent not three days but seven years. Her masters are dead and she's free to enjoy her new wealth.

In the third tale, a woman's child is swapped with a changeling. Realizing something is wrong, she asks her neighbor for advice. She is told to place the baby on the hearth and boil water inside two eggshells in the fire place. The changeling child sees what she does and laughs at the silly behavior, this revealing its nature. The faires return the woman's baby, and take back their child.

This is an interesting one to me because it explores a lot of the European fairie mythos, though the fairies here are much more friendly than the usual folktales. It's kinda weird to think that the Grimm stories, full of people getting ripped apart by wild animals and people committing filicide, sanitized anything at all. Is this where all the good fairy PR started?

Each story does incorporate a major aspect of fairy mythology though. The first tale ties into to the aspect of leaving gifts for the fae, as well as the concept of helpful fairies like Brownies. The second is the time dissonance between fairie land and our world, with a tie into to the idea of "the good neighbors under the hill". The third, of course, goes back to changeling myth (and that one's a big yikes from a 21st century lens).

Of course this isn't to say that this was the only 'good and kind fairy' mythos out there at the time. However traditional folklore (mostly referring the Shidhe/Dannan people in the Celtic tradition, though I'm not qualified to talk about that at anything more than the surface level) would tell you that the faries were good so long as you played by their rules and also didn't offend them. They were mostly cautionary, often offering advice on what to do if ever faced with one of the fair folk.

Fairies are not to be messed with. In fact many people believed that talking about them directly would attract negative attention, and they were often referred euphemistically as "good folk", " Good neighbors ", " The Gentry", "the wee folk", " The fair folk", or the "hill folk".

All of this leads to the big question though: what do I have to do to wake up in the morning to find my work done for me? Do these guys have a number I can call? Please, hook me up.

#the brothers grimm #grimmtober #grimm's fairy tales #fairy tales #artober2020 #artober #the elves and the shoemaker #shiv's art

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rohad93 · 7 years ago

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Magic & Monster Ch5

Ruby picked through the herbalists stall for the right herbs and grasses needed to brew golden oriole potion and draconid oil. Both would be essential in this fight.

She picked up a handful or ergot seeds and put them on the bundle the herbalist was currently putting together for her.

“That will be all, thank you.” She took the bundle and handed the crooked over old man and handed him back two ducats.

“I think that’s everything I need.” She mumbled to herself as she stashed the bundle in Zwei’s side bags and climbed into the saddle.

She nodded to the merchant before spurring Zwei on back toward the castle. He tossed his head and snorted.

It promised to be another beautiful summer day. The sky was bright, clear and devoid of clouds. A gentle breeze was moving over the fields, tossing at Zwei’s mane and blowing her own black and red locks into her face.

The bright and warm sunlight was filtering through the trees growing along the side of the road, their broad leaves allowing only a few beams to breach the shade. The occasional beam hit her face as she rode at an easy trot down the dirt path.

The trees ended a few hundred yards from the castle, leaving her more exposed to the late morning sun. The heat felt good on her back, for now. Within a couple more hours the sun would reach its zenith and the constant heat and light would be unbearable.

For now she soaked up all the warming sunlight she could considering that after sunset she would be descending once again into the catacombs beneath the castle to find and slay the basilisk.

She gave the guards on the ramparts a lazy wave as she rode through the large open gates and through the courtyard to the stables.

A few stable hands were milling about taking care of all the other horses in residence. Ruby nodded and waved at them, most of which returned her greetings happily, save one. An elven servant with slicked back red hair, a white bandana wrapped around his forehead, hanging low and almost covering his eyes.

She waved at him and he ignored her, hauling a square bale of hay out of the stables and out into the field where the horses were currently being allowed to stretch their legs.

She just shrugged, she was long used to the sometimes standoff nature of elves, despite the fact that she was a Witcher (Vatt’ghern in the elder language used by elves) and often considered a race unto themselves, to elves she was D’hoine, a human. An interloper just like her ancestors who had been stranded in this world by the conjunction of the spheres several millennia ago.

She hauled herself off Zwei and gathered all her things from his saddle bags after hanging the saddle up.

She had a lot of work to do before nightfall.

A servant showed her to the castle lab and she quickly got to work grinding the seeds and other ingredients for the draconid oil while the potions were brewed over the course of a few hours. Once the oil was ready she poured it into a small vial. She wouldn’t apply that until after she was down there.

She watched the distillery slowly brew her potions one drip at a time as she sharpened her sword. She was trying to focus on the hunt ahead of her but all she could think about was snowy-haired Sorceress.

She hadn’t seen Weiss since she’d left her room the night before. She’d taken her breakfast in the kitchen with the staff, it was more relaxed than having breakfast with Oobleck and Weiss. Not to mention she was still a little embarrassed that Weiss had heard her thoughts about wanting to run her fingers through her hair. Just thinking about it made her stomach flip uneasily.

After some thought she realized that yeah, she kind of liked Weiss. She was smart and quick-witted, if a little cold. Some people were just like that, not everyone could make an entire inn worth of strangers into their best friends like her sister.

She was also very beautiful, though that went without saying.

Really, she was surprised the Sorceress hadn’t told her off. Weiss didn’t seem the type to shy away from confrontation. Maybe she was just trying to spare them both some embarrassment?

She sighed and looked at the slowly distilling potions, she had a couple hours and her sword wasn’t going to get any sharper. She did need to find Weiss and tell her that she was going down alone this time. No doubt the Sorceress would be displeased by that.

She stood from the workbench and slid the sword back into its sheath across her back before going in search of Weiss.

A servant was able to point her in the direction of the library after a half hour of searching. The walk to the library was quiet and leisurely. Until she turned a corner and ran smack dab into a familiar face.

“I’m very sorry, please forgive me.” It was the golden eye’d servant from last night. She begged for forgiveness.

“No, it’s my fault.” Ruby waved away her plea as she stooped down to start picking up the linens the other woman had been carrying.

Ruby was quick to scoop them up before the servant had a chance and handed them back.

“Here, I wasn’t looking where I was going, forgive me…” She paused.

“Oh… Blake.” She finally said. “My name is Blake.”

“Please accept my apology, Blake.” She held out the linens. Blake hesitated a moment before taking the laundry back and nodded.

Ruby smiled and gave a nod before continuing on her way to the library.

She quietly pushed open the door and peeking inside.

Shelf after shelf of large leather bound tomes filled the room as far as the eye could see. Massive floor to ceiling windows dotted every wall of the room, allowing as much light as possible to fill the room.

She walked silently through the rows of books, running her gloved fingers over their spines as she went. The scent of old parchment and ink tickled her nose.

Books covering every subject from magic to shoemaking could be found. She stopped and glanced at a book about fairy tales. And couldn’t stop herself from pulling it from its place on the shelf. The weighty tome was thick and bound in deep red leather with shiny gold embossing.

“ Fairy Tales from the Beyond.”

She might have some time to read this either after the job or in the morning. Either way she tucked it under her arm to deposit in her room for later.

She continued stalking through the books until her prey was found.

Weiss was leaned back in a plush chair, with a heavy tome settled across her lap. She seemed completely engrossed in it as Ruby walked very clearly across the middle of the room, though she made no sound, a byproduct of her training. It couldn’t be helped.

Of course where her movements never betrayed her, her curiosity always did in the end.

“Whatcha reading?”

Weiss nearly jumped out of her own skin at the sudden voice. She scowled, turning toward the intruder.

Her eyes landed on Ruby standing beside her chair.

“We are under constant threat of assassination.” She whispered harshly. “Must you sneak around like that.” She grumbled.

“I don’t think you would have heard me if I had slammed the door open and knocked over every shelf on the way.” She smiled at how engrossed she was in the book on her lap. “What’s so interesting?” She tried again.

“Nothing of interest to you, I’m sure.” She started to turn the book away but Ruby was faster and leaned over to read the title.

“A compendium of Witcher facts and practices?” There was a surprised lilt to her voice that colored Weiss’s normally pale cheeks.

“I was curious about the extent of your abilities.” She explained. “The book seems to have more speculation than facts.” the sorceress groussed, making Ruby chuckle.

“Witcher’s aren't really the talkative types...” She started but Weiss was giving her a disbelieving look. “Most, aren’t.” She amended, setting her book on the table. “Also, if you wanted to know something all you had to do was ask.” She sat in the chair next to Weiss and gave her a questioning look.

Weiss carefully closed her book and set it on the table before folding her hands over her carefully crossed legs.

“Very well….” She started. Looking at the Witcher thoughtfully. “You’ve said before that most poisons don’t bother you. Is that the extent of your enhanced immune system?” She questioned.

“I’m immune to all sickness and diseases. The mutations they give us change our entire body chemistry. It of course does other stuff too, like make us sterile, but ya know…” She lifted and lowered her hands like a scale.

Looking closely at the Witcher she spotted the wolf head medallion sitting on her chest.

“Your medallion.” Weiss started. “The book said that without it you’re powerless...” She stopped when Ruby snorted.

Ruby closed her hand around the dark grey metal hanging from her neck.

“That’s an old myth.” Ruby said. “ My medallion has nothing to do with my abilities.”

“Than why have it?” Weiss questioned, curious.

“All Witchers have one. It’s imbued with magic and tells me when magic is nearby, illusions, monsters… It's invaluable, but I can kill a monster just fine without it.” Ruby assured. “Besides, it denotes which school you’re from and I’ve often gotten jobs based on my school's reputation over the years.”

“And which school is that?”

“The school of the Wolf, of course.” She held up the wolf head medallion proudly for Weiss’s inspection. “There are six Witcher schools that I know of, the Wolf and as you mentioned the other day, the Cat.” She explained.

“And the other four?” Weiss’s love of learning kept her asking questions.

“I don’t know much about them but the other four are the Bear, Viper, Griffin and Manticore schools.” She laid the snarling wolf head back on her chest.

“That sign you used, last night, on the snake. How many of those are there?” The sorceress questioned. Weiss was always interested in learning about different types of magic and how they were employed. Ruby suppressed the smile that threatened to spill onto her face.

It felt like she was back in class at Kaer Morhen, except now she was the teacher.

“There are five basic Witcher signs. Axii, Igni, Aard, Quen and Yrden. Actually most mages I’ve known have always been kinda snooty about it cause it’s really basic compared to what people like you can do.” She admitted. “I know the things you can do are amazing in comparison but there’s no reason to be snotty about it.” Ruby grumbled, crossing her arms and leaning back in the chair.

Weiss rolled her eyes at the Witcher’s whining but couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from twitching upwards at the pout on her face.

“Considering how stoic and serious I’ve heard Witchers are supposed to be how did you get to be such a… dolt?” She asked with a cocked brow.

“That’s all natural to me.” Ruby smiled in what she hoped was an adequately charming grin. Judging by the way Weiss turned away sharply, rolling her eyes she thought it might have worked.

They sat in companionable silence for a minute, Ruby just enjoying the company and the warm sunlight streaming down on her from the large window they sat under.

The comment of hers of it being natural to her reminded Weiss of something she had been trying to look for in the book.

“How… do the trials of the grasses work?” Weiss questioned, turning back to the pleased Witcher.

Ruby’s face immediately turned more serious, her smile dropping away and the air seemed heavier than it had only a moment before.

“The trials…” She started slowly. “Are what makes us Witchers, like I’ve said before. The trial of grasses is a secret concoction of herbs and things that is given to us through our veins when we have completed the first steps of our training.” She turned away from Weiss, looking out into space.

“It breaks us down from the inside. As children, were more malleable and our bodies more open to change. It breaks us down and then they induce the mutagens that build us back up, into Witchers.” Ruby’s hands fisted into the material of her pants. “It takes days… and as you can imagine just because your body is more open to change does not mean that it comes easily…” She looked back to Weiss. “Sweat, vomit, fever, convulsions and hallucinations, all while strapped to a metal table, but the worst part is the pain… ” She trailed off, her eyes looking far off and Weiss could see the memories flashing there.

“Ruby…” The Witcher didn’t move. “Ruby!” She called again. This time she jerked, coming back to herself.

“Ah, sorry. Weiss.” She apologized looking down.

“No,” Weiss said. “Don’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault.” The Sorceress said, standing up and brushing the imaginary wrinkles out of her dress.

“I’m sorry I got so heavy, there…”

“What did I just say?” The Sorceress scowled, pointing a finger straight at the Witcher, who starred crossed eyed at the digit just an inch from her nose.

“Ah… ok.” She nodded complacently.

“Good,” Weiss said, picking her book off the table and walking over to a shelf with a single empty space and pushing the book back into its place.

“If you’re ready, Oobleck created a list of the servants who have gone missing.” She said, walking back over to the table and picking up a piece of parchment Ruby had taken no notice of until now.

“Oh, right, sure.” She stood and followed Weiss out of the library and across the castle where most of the servants quarters were located.

“This is the first room.” Weiss indicated as they stopped in front of the first door.

The inside looked quite different from Ruby’s room. It was obviously a servants room. It was sparsely decorated, the walls were not the only thing bare though. There was a small pallet pushed up against the wall in one corner. The blankets thrown back probably from the last time the rooms occupant had been in them. A short bedside table stood next to it, a single candle sat tipped over on it.

A threadbare rug laying on the cold stone floor was torn and dirty. It was impossible to tell what was the cause of a struggle and what was just in disrepair. Ruby and Weiss both went over the room with a fine tooth comb but came back with nothing except the fact that the scattered bedding seemed to indicate that its owner had been dragged from it. Not much to go on.

Weiss lead the way to the next room and it was nearly identical to the last.

Searching through the bedding Ruby did find one distinct difference.

Strewn about the pillow was a fine white powder.

Pulling off her glove Ruby ran a hand through it and rubbed her fingers together.

“What is this?” She mumbled to herself.

“Let me see.” Weiss was suddenly at her side, peering at the mysterious substance. Before Ruby could stop her she had scooped a miniscule amount onto her finger a testingly touched it to her tongue.

“What the hell are you...!?” Ruby started, shocked that the sensible Sorceress would just taste something she found in a stranger's bed.

“As I thought. It’s fisstech.” She said after making a face.

“The narcotic?” Ruby blinked. Weiss sent her a look that made her flinch.

“No, like the cat. Of course the narcotic.” She huffed. “There’s nothing unusual about a servant with a fisstech habit though.”

“It’s the only interesting thing we’ve found so far though.” Ruby. “How do you know what fisstech tastes like?” She asked as an afterthought as they left the room.

“I’ve used it in mixes for elixirs before.” She insisted.

“Uhuh,..” Ruby grinned at the pointed look Weiss gave her.

The next few rooms were just as empty as the first two but in nearly all of them they found traces of fisstech in the beds.

“One or two servants is one thing, but all of the victims? That can’t be a coincidence.” Weiss pursed her lips in thought.

“I don’t see the connection.” Ruby frowned.

“Fisstech is often used as an anesthesia, to render patients docile or unconscious.” She hummed.

“So… maybe it’s being used to drug them in their beds so it’s easier to get them down to the catacombs, where the basilisk is waiting for an easy meal…” Ruby picked up on the Sorceress’s train of thought.

“It’s an idea.” Weiss nodded.

“The best one we have so far.” Ruby agreed as she glanced out the window. The sky was turning a vibrant orange. It was almost time.

“I need to go back to the lab and get my potions. It’s time for me to go back down.” She turned back to Weiss who glanced out the window with a nod.

“Let me go change.” She started.

“Actually…” Ruby hesitated. “I’m going down alone this time.”

Weiss glared but before she could utter a word Ruby held up her hands.

“I appreciate that you want to help, Weiss, but you don’t know how to fight a basilisk, you are just as susceptible to it’s poison as a regular person.” She reminded. “Besides, while I’m sure your spells are powerful they probably aren’t fit for the kind of close quarter combat that will be going on down their.” Ruby reasoned with the glaring Sorceress.

“Fine.” She clipped and turned on heel and strutted down the hall. Ruby watched her go until her white hair disappeared around the corner.

“Well… I guess that could have gone worse…” She sighed, shaking her head.

She walked quickly back to the lab and was pleased to find her potions had finish distilling. She poured them carefully into vials and tucked them into the pouch at her waist as she went over her mental checklist.

She had her oil, potions and her sword was sharp and ready.

‘Let’s do this.’ She thought as she walked down the stairs leading to the dungeon.

The usual guard was standing there, keeping watch over the entrance to the catacombs. What surprised Ruby was to find Weiss standing there as well.

“Weiss…” The Witcher started just to be cut off.

“I will wait here for your return, Witcher.” She said haughtily. Perhaps for the guards benefit, or perhaps because she was still mad at her, probably both. Ruby nodded nonetheless and pulled the small bottle of Golden Oriole potion from her pouch and pulled out the cork.

It was an unpleasant yellow color.

“That doesn’t look at all safe to drink…” Weiss eyed the bottle warily.

“For you? Absolutely not. For me? Ehh….” She wiggled her hand in a so-so motion that made Weiss’s eyebrows disappear into her hairline as she tipped her head back and drank the whole bottles worth.

“Blegh!” She made a disgusted face after swallowing the last drop. “Never will get used to that…” She smacked her lips as she pulled out the next bottle and downed it all as well to Weiss’s silent horror. The cat potion quickly took effect, enhancing her eyesight.

“Alright. I’m ready.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

The guard nodded and unlocked the old door.

She started down the steps and just before the door closed behind her she was able to make out a voice, barely audible even to her hearing.

“Be careful.”

#RWBY #Witcher AU #Whiterose

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angelicspaceprince · 5 years ago

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Orchid, blush, melon

orchid — favourite cryptid?

Shane Madej is my favourite cryptid. Or Shrubban.

In all seriousness, probably mothman. He sounds like Batman’s less successful, shittier cousin.

blush — how good is your memory?

Its pretty fucking shit tbh.

melon — favourite fairy tale?

Mm. I really enjoyed one about a porridge pot. And the elves and the shoemaker, the 12 dancing princesses and Rumplestiltskin

🌸Ask Game — Pink🌸

#ask games #Anonymous

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dustedmagazine · 6 years ago

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Sparrow Steeple — Tin Top Sorcerer (Trouble in Mind)

Tin Top Sorcerer by Sparrow Steeple

Sparrow Steeple was born out of Strapping Fieldhands, a band that in its 1990s heyday merged the hippy folk world music aspiration of the Incredible String Band with the idiot savant pop fuzziness of Guided by Voices and the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. The band shares members—Jeff Werner, Jacy Webster and Bob Dickie — with the lately revived Strapping Fieldhands, as well as a certain wild-eyed, magic-folk-through-burnt-amps aura. The wispy voiced and whimsical singer is Barry Goldberg, a visual artist of some repute in the band’s home town of Philadelphia.

Tin Top Sorcerer is Sparrow Steeple’s third full-length, following 2005’s Rangefinder and 2017’s Steeple Two , and it seems, after a quick run through the Bandcamp back catalogue a bit more gleefully overstuffed and amplified than previous material. “Roll Baby,” the opener blows out the honkytonk blues with guitars distorted into fuzzy bludgeons and a harmonica (played by Philadelphia regular Harmonica Dan Balcer) blared to shreds. A hornet’s nest of conflicting ideas buzzes around the block simple chorus “roll baby, roll baby, roll,” in a machine-age roil of feedback and dissonance. It is far less pastoral and folky than cuts like “Hamlet Egg Sandwich,” though just as bug-eyed eccentric.

Sparrow Steeple is either sending up or wholly committed to late 1960s hobbit-y folk metal mythology, imagining wizards at war in the backwards-guitar woozy “Stabbing Wizards” and retelling the “Elves and the Shoemaker” story in “Leprechaun Gold.” This latter is a wild, wiggy ride through wah wah’d guitar licks and arch, Donovan-ish trilled vocals, its round-the-maypole melody subsumed in psychedelic distortion. Think, for comparison, of the Bevis Frond at his folkiest, then think of him on a lot of acid.

Even relatively modern references come dipped in a folkloric coating, as in “The Wolfman of Mayberry,” where Sparrow Steeple conflates the lycanthropic legend with The Andy Griffith Show. Isobel Sollenberger of Bardo Pond makes a guest appearance on this cut, blowing wild flourishes of psychedelic flute and echoing Goldberg’s equally out-there vocal flights of fancy. “Gomer’s acting strange…Goober’s actually deranged…Floyd the barber’s insane,” they sing in loose call and response, and indeed, there is something not quite right in Mayberry.

Tin Top Sorcerer rides a rambunctious energy that, in general, overcomes a tendency towards preciousness. It’s busy and noisy and full of a momentum that makes you forget that these are grown men singing about fairy tales and shoehorning exotic instruments (Hulusi, bouzouki) into folk melodies. Think about it too long and it might seem silly, but fortunately, there’s not much time or space for contemplation.

Jennifer Kelly

#sparrow steeple #tin top sorcerer #trouble in mind #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #strapping fieldhands #philadelphia #bardo pond #harmonica dan #acid folk #whimsy

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kerkinga-blog · 7 years ago

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Stories categorized by genres

Fictions:

Fairy Tales: Literary genre that is a story, usually for children, about elves, hobgoblins, dragons, fairies, or other magical creatures.

Examples: Hansel and Gretal; Jack and the Beanstalk; The Ugly Duckling; The Shoemaker and the Elves; Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Fantasy: Literary genre that is an imaginative or fanciful work, esp. one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters.

Examples: The Book of Three, The Dark Is Rising, Five Children and It, Half Magic, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, A Wrinkle in Time

Folk Tales: Literary genre that is a tale or legend originating and traditional among a people or folk, especially forming part of the oral tradition of the common people. Any belief or story passed on traditionally, especially one considered to be false or based on superstition.

Examples: Cinderella; Little Red Riding Hood; Princess Furball; Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ear; How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have?

Fable: Literary genre that is a brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral thesis or satirizing human beings. The characters of a fable are usually animals who talk and act like people while retaining their animal traits.

Examples: The Boy Who Cried Wolf; The city Mouse and the Country Mouse; The Lion and the Mouse

Adventure: Literary genre pertaining to an exciting or very unusual experience, participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises, a bold, usually risky undertaking, or hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

Examples: Wild Timothy; Tracks in the Snow; The Incredible Journey; Island of the Blue Dolphins; Hatchet; The Whipping Boy; The Princess Bride

Mystery: Literary genre whose plot involves a crime or other event that remains puzzlingly unsettled until the very end.

Examples: Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Eye; Nate the Great and the Stolen Base; The Case of the Hungry Stranger;; Danger in Tibet

Historical Definition: Literary genre pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past events, based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, or style, in the past, or having once existed or lived in the real world, as opposed to being part of legend or fiction or as distinguished from religious belief.

Examples: Separate But Not Equal; The Dream and the Struiggle; The Girl on the Outside; Number the Stars; More Than Anything Else

Realistic: Literary genre interested in, concerned with, or based on what is real, practical, pertaining to, characterized by, or given to the representation in literature or art of things as they really are, or resembling or simulating life.

Examples: Drawing Lessons; Journey; Sarah, Plain and Tall; Just One Tear; A Summery Saturday Morning; The Tricksters; After the Rain; Babyface; Junebug; Newfound

Science: Literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Many of the events recounted in a science fiction story are within the realm of future possibility like robots, space travel, interplanetary war, or invasions from outer space.

Examples: The Postman; The Gathering; The Homecoming; The Giver; Aliens: Earth Hive; House of Stairs; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; The Time Machine

Nonfiction Genres:

Informational Definition: Literary genre that is intended for teaching and related informational purposes primarily intended to educate rather than entertain.

Examples: The Reasons for Seasons; Lightening; Animals Eat the Weirdest Things; Elephants; Safari; Snowflakes

Biography: Literary genre that is a written account of another person’s life or the reconstruction in print or on film, of the lives of real men and women.

Example: Making Headlines: A Biography of Nellie Bly; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; The Legend of Jesse Owens; Robert Kennedy; Nelson Mandela: A Biography; The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini

Autobiography: Literary genre that is a history of a person’s life written or told by that person or an individual’s interpretation of his own life. Examples: Within Reach: My Everest Story; An Enemy Among Friends; Sky, A True Story of Resistance During World War II; The Cage

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profgandalf · 7 years ago

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Works of Fiction by Profgandalf

I write fantasy and science fiction and sometimes narratives that could occure in our world. Some are aimed especially at YA readers (Young Adult–10 to 12)), but I confess I like reading material marked that way. Sometimes a good children’s story is the best way to tell the story. Meanwhile there are also a few because of subject and theme whose audience is intended to be a bit older (A). I had hoped to share with readers here, but there may be other legal issues, so I am just leaving the story ideas and if anyone is interested in what I am doing they can contact me at [email protected]

Short Stories–Completed

Just Another Quiet Day in Hell

Hell is really a very nice place. The sky, seen through Dan Backle’s bedroom, is a cloudless deep blue that stretches over the shingled, sparkling roofs of bleached white houses and over green leafed branches. Somewhere he hears a bird sing. Meanwhile, coffee is brewing downstairs. And none of that changes the fact that he, Dan Backle, is in never ending relentless torment. (A: Short story: 39 pages Complete)

Darkness

Ignatius P. Tuttle III (or Izzy as his house mates called him) was brilliant, wealthy and a royal pain. Now he’s obsessed with the fact that darkness is in fact the norm of the universe. Entropy is closing in everywhere and he is not going to stand for it. But what steps might he take when no one is there is provide some sort of anchor? (A: Short story: 10 pages Complete)

All Things Both…Flesh and Steel

Shows like Robo-Wars have been around for a while. Various robotic teams challenge one another as their machines fight, leading to better and better technology. But what happens when one team realizes that the best way to have a machine fight is for it to experience pain? (A: Short story: 20 pages Complete)

Wind

Eight year old Tim Roberts has an active imagination. That’s what his family claims anyway. And maybe he does but as Halloween approaches he is certain that there is more in the wind which blows around the woods near his Rhode Island home than just air. (YA Short story 9 pages Complete)

The Old Man and the Rocket Ship

Old Jed Starker, life long Ohioan farmer, loving husband and Naval vet was also an early consumer Science Fiction and Tales of Wonder. Inspired by that reading, he’d constructed a silver rocketship and placed it on a 45 degree ramp just at the end of the road leading up to his and his wife Eddy’s farm (not far from Mount Vernon). His contemporaries called his crazy, children of the town called him “old fashioned” since what he had built was “not a ‘spacecraft’ or a ‘starship’ or a ‘celestial schooner’ or anything like that. It was a rocket ship, sleek and silvery with three red stabilizing fins jutting out its end.“ Except for this one quirk, Crazy Jed Starker’s life was quietness personified until he drew the attention of some unlikely visitors. Illustration by the author. (YA Short story: 21 pages Complete)

Assurance or Entrapment?

Edward and Adel Rivers are on vacation high up in the ancient woods of the Northern US. They are trying to take some time off together to heal the cracks within their marriage. at least that is Adel’s hope. But Edward senses that there is something else going on and the thick forest branches seem more to entangle and to embrace. (A: Short story: 21 pages Complete)

The English Prof. and the Little Scriveners:

Anyone familiar with the Grimm’s fairy tale “The Elves and the Shoemaker” will probably find some familiar ground covered here although with a more contemporary twist and with maybe a little jab at the life of composition instructors. Illustrated by the author. (A: Short story: 12 pages Complete)

The Final Relay

The planet Eden’s name was a reflection of its Earth colonists’ hopes and expectations, but with the ever-growing demands of its population there also grew the need according to some to control what they saw as the wasteful and the superfluous. Unknown to them, however, their machines contain a fail-safe circuit which awaits their final decision to ban the last celebrations of faith. (A: Short story: 11 pages Complete)

Fashion Sense Succubus

Professors Jane Jamison and Theodore Reinhart discuss how some students and faculty at their small college seem to lack the social instincts to present themselves on campus in sensible attire. Jane suggests that its just the nature of people who were odd to begin with, Theodore thinks that other forces might be a work. (A: Short story: 10 pages Complete)

The Green Man

Popular icon in many gardens, doorstops, and park walkways, the Greenman represents fertility and the organic power of nature. The trouble is that some people, like Edgar Blackstroke, are uncomfortable with such forces walking freely about. (A: Short story: 20 pages Complete)

Just Little Things

Freddie Guitner is having the worst day of his life. He’s just discovered the love of his life dead in her apartment. Now the police are interrogating him and neither one is believing the worst part of the whole thing. She looks better as a corps than she did when he last saw her alive. (A: short story: 12 pages Complete)

A Voice Through the Mist

Some of our favorite Bible narratives would make pretty scary stories when they were first experienced. Not sure how to categorize this one. (YA: Short Story 4 pages Complete)

Genie

Take a little of the Arabian Nights and then imagine a more contemporary Aladdin working in a computer lab. This story is actually a bit dated with references to Modems and computer disks. It was one of my first and supposedly features the voice of my younger brother, Jim, who loved computers from the time he was a tweenager. Illustrated by the author. (YA: Short story: 32 pages Complete)

the Shadow of the Brut.

What would happen if a good man found himself, his soul and awareness, in the body of an abusive violent man, who had beaten both his wife and children? What would the good man do? Especially what would he do if he found himself falling in love with the abuser's children and wife? (Adult: 26 pages Complete)

Novel–Completed

The Fey Wars: The Defeated

The year is 1914 and France, England, its Empire and the Japanese are allies engaged in a world wide conflict. But this is not our World World I. The Germans and the Austrian Empire are allied with the British and French. Steam is still primarily the power of the day. The Yanks, meanwhile, are not coming– too busy trying to contain their own insurrections high in their mountains while still bleeding after a decades long Civil War. The enemy meanwhile are drawn from as many nations as the allies are, a secret alien people upon whom all legends of Fairy and the Undead are based, the Fey.

This Steam-Punk, anti-war novella begins as Professor Michael J. Warren watches new students in his school line up for indoctrination. He does not realize that his daughter, who has searched for him for years, is one of those students. Two decades earlier, Warren was a Major–code named “Dawn’s Spear”–within the British Expeditionary Force fighting on the losing side of a war which devastated him mentally and emotionally. This novella is well-researched and cites historical facts with illustrated notes, provides images, and draws on historical instances centering on the time of World War I, though it is markedly fiction. (A: Complete novel 290 pages with simplified notes)

Illustrated Notes for The Fey Wars:The Defeated

The above text for the novel is filled with footnotes since many of the people and events are drawn from actual history. However, the intention when it is published is to have those notes illustrated. Here they are with the images to help amplify them.

Short Stories–In Process

God Has Made Nothing in Vain

Imagine a future not too far from now when robots driven by artificial intelligence are everywhere. They teach schools, take care of children, sell and buy all sorts of products, repair cities and wage wars. Now imagine a devout Christian couple coming into possession of a sex droid. What do they do with her? What role does she play in God’s plan for them? (A: Opening chapters 52 pages)

Under the Bloody Eye of the Storm

People are sometimes possessed by evil. Some think rooms or even houses can also be possessed, but what does one do when faced with a demon possessed storm? Hurricane Vlad is headed for the Florida coast. (A: Opening 23 pages)

Blind Fool or “Eyes Up Here Fella!”

This lighthearted fantasy features the adventures of Matilda Manglyeong, one very gifted (endowed?) and attractive young witch who finds herself thrown (literally) into the company of a non-magical magician (he’s really good at making marbles disappear from under cups) who is himself being pursued by one of the most feared enforcers of magical orthodoxy in their world, the Sage Inquisition. However for some reason her own magic has decided to change its nature and suddenly what were once sprinkles of power coming from her fingertips are now gushers of waterfall force. (A:Opening 12 pages)

Prenuptial Agreements: the Zargathian Way

“It is a universal Zargathian axiom that a worthy set of male genes are in desperate need of a wife—although the actual welfare of the male carrying said genes is of little to no consequence.” So begins this science fiction romp which starts with a deep bow to Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice. (Duly footnoted). When Captain Robert Cluster and his partner, Trevor MacFenerstein, enter into Zargathian space, they initially hope that they’ve discovered a whole new outlet for Earth commerce. Sadly they have been beaten to the punch by one Dan Magasim, a notorious, loudmouth, exploitative entrepreneur. It is, however, not until they meet the chief negotiator of the Zargathian space port who introduces himself as Dir. “Ovar Baring Twitt” and one of his sales reps who identifies herself as “Iva Parh O’Biggons,” that the two Earth-men begin to suspect something is profoundly wrong. (A: Opening 33 pages)

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