#what a fun and whimsical fellow(s)

[tanuki-kimono]

Hello, I have a weird question but maybe you can answer it. When I was a teenager I was gifted a yukata and taught to tie the obi to make it look like a bow. That was cute then, but now that I'm in my mid 30s I wonder if this is still appropriate. Are there other ways to tie the obi of a yukata that are maybe a bit more mature ? I love wearing my yukata, but I'm starting to get self-conscious about maybe being too old for that… (I only wear it for matsuri in Japan so it's not like it's often, but it makes me even more self-conscious because I am very clearly not Japanese so I don't want to look ridiculous.) Thank you !

Hi fellow mid-30's kimono wearer :D It's true some styles can feel a bit weird depending on ages.

Though nothing truly forbids you to keep wearing bunko musubi, if you don't feel confortable with a bow knot or its variations (for ex. this one or this one?), don't despair! there are many (like MANY) other knots which would work with your age and "status" :D

If you wish for something classical, I'd recommend:

Kai no kuchi musubi (clam mouth knot) - a super all purpose knot, worn by women and men alike. It's been around for ages and never went out of style!

Ronin musubi (ronin knot) or katabasami - unisex knots that have been around for a long time too, pretty sturdy and chic.

Karuta musubi (card knot) - easy to tie and quite flat so perfect if you have to ride a car/train or sit on Western chairs.

Taiko musubi (drum knot) or tsunodashi musubi (also called Ginza musubi) - you can fake those ones (usually tied with wider obi) with a hanhaba obi, see examples here and here.

More on the novelty side :

Kamifusen musubi (paper balloon knot) - a more whimsical knot but could still work depending on your style. It asks for preparation but it's very cute :)

Neko mimi musubi (cat ears knot) - there are many variations, with or without hanhaba obi - look at this one for ex

Not-tied obi, a super modern way of wearing obi. Ayaaya has a lot a those, check for example this one and look at her socials for more (especially "frilly" variations)

Any variations of what I call the "waterfall" musubi, where obi ends are elegantly arranged thanks to elastique belts. It's super fashionable atm, see it shown step by step on Billy Matsunaga's channel.

To go further, searching for "hanhaba obi musubi" will gives you a lot of other ideas ;)

Hope it helps, and that you'll have a lot of fun at matsuri!

[citruscitrushope]

Sekai and Virtual Singer concepts for the April Fools swap units I've thought of (under cut because this is probably long, Sekais inspired by the 2DMVs)

Like Leo/need's, Aoharu/friends' Sekai is a school, though it is closer to an elementary school than anything due to the group's emphasis on enjoying one's youth. Complete with a playground, cozy music and art rooms, and a sky that's always blue, this world embodies the vibes of the group.

Their Miku is childlike and innocent, an excitable guitarist that wants to do every fun thing she can. Their Luka is akin to L/n's in terms of being like an older sister and bassist as well, but she's more spontaneous and young at heart, while having the aesthetics of a teacher as well.

YUME YUME JUMP!'s Sekai is almost like a dollhouse, filled with the things the group is passionate about, which slowly grows to feature more of what brings them together, alongsidd various flowers and greenery. This is due to how the group was meant to be merely temporary, before growing into something all four members could be proud of.

The group's Miku is akin to a ragdoll, falling apart a bit but still in love with singing, trying to be the best idol she can be despite not being made for it. The Sekai also has a shy Len that's a bit of an amateur idol as well, new to the field but wanting to catch up to Miku and the others.

Fantasista SQUAD has a Sekai that's almost like a mix between an alleyway and a theme park, like the streets during a festival. Covered in graffiti and whimsical decorations, with captivating shops and a café oddly familiar to the members of the group within it. The Sekai even has an arcade, and from within a claw machine living stuffed animals can come out and talk to the boys. A lot of this world seems to come from mainly Tsukasa's feelings.

Their Miku is energetic and impulsive, a cheerful street performing taking on every day with a smile. Meanwhile, their Kaito is a somewhat goofy yet responsible and caring figure, almost acting like a father or older brother towards the group at times.

Due to their motifs of heros, Happiness Sentai Sunny-Sunny☆Wonder!'s Sekai is said to be their "secret base", a stage within a theme park quite similar to Phoenix Wonderland. However, it is much less colorful and cheerful, and the rides almost seem to be frozen in place without someone there to operate them, as if it's stuck in time during a certain day in Mafuyu's past...

Like Mafuyu, their Miku is quiet and almost empty, appearing to have the ears and tail of a black cat. Innocent and soft-spoken, she greatly desires to help save Mafuyu. Their Rin is more akin to her childhood self, or people like Emu, happy and excited, always smiling and wanting to help others feel nice.

The Sekai for Fellow Hobbyists on Days Off is a mall, full of shops for almost anything, especially things the group's members like. It's incredibly happy, but a bit empty, reflecting the somewhat lonesome nature of the quartet's bond.

The Miku for this Sekai is akin to a mannequin, living in one of the clothing shops. Curious and passionate about the things the group loves, seeming to be most akin to Mizuki and Minori of the four. There is also a Meiko akin to N25's feeling that distance is necessary, living within an abandoned clothing shop with the curtains drawn back.

Hobbyists bonuses: if they ever end up doing music, Nene ("Robo") is their composer, Honami ("Ringo") is their lyricist, Minori ("Honey") their artist, and Mizuki ("Amia") is of course their video editor.

[writteninlunarlight-years]

Hello, again~! Thank you so much for answering my request and I absolutely loved it! You did such an amazing job~! I was wondering if I can request a match up for Obey me as well? Take as much time as you need and please don’t stress out about it 🥺.

I’m a bi woman, but I do have a preference for men and my pronouns are she/her. I’m a Gemini and an INFP.

Appearance: I’m 5’4 with a curvy/chubby body type, which I’m very insecure about. I have big green eyes and I wear glasses. I also have a lot of piercings (nose and a few ear piercings) and I have shoulder length wavy hair that’s dyed a burgundy color with an undercut as well. My aesthetic would be described as whimsical goth. I wear lots of skirts, platform boot, fishnets and corsets.

Personality: my friends would describe me as being cute and sweet, but with a spicy side lol. I’m shy and awkward around people. I also blush and get flustered very easily. Once I’m comfortable around someone I’m much more outgoing, talkative, bubbly, giggly and playful. I have a spicy sarcastic and mischievous side. I do have a bit of a temper and I can be very moody at times. But it doesn’t take me long to be my normal bubbly self. I also curse a lot when I’m upset or frustrated. I try to avoid confrontation, but I will stand up for myself and others when I feel like it’s needed. I suffer from anxiety, depression and ptsd…so I need someone who can be patient when it comes to that. People seem to feel safe with me and will come to me when they need condor or advice. Which I’m more than happy to give what I can. I can be social when I want to, but I prefer to be more reserved and observant during social interactions. I have a bad habit of zoning out, which makes me confused 99.9% of the time lol. My sense of humor would be described as being dry, awkward and dark at times, so I’m unusually the only one laughing at my jokes ;-;. It takes awhile for me to make friends/relationships because of my introverted nature, but I’m super loyal and rude or die for my friends and s/o. I’m an introvert so, I prefer to spend my days at home, rotting in bed while being wrapped in a burrito blanket lol. I love hard and fast which can be a double edged sword for me. Super sensitive and my go-to reaction to anything is crying ;-;

Likes/ dislikes and hobbies: I LOVE animals and kids. I have two cats (named Jasper and mochi) and I’d like to have kids someday in the future. I also have an obsession with anything cute, fluffy and soft. So I have a massive collection of blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. I enjoy nature, taking walks and drives, reading, painting, watching trashy reality shows lol, makeup, clothes, shopping, anime, Kpop, lowkey like gossip and naps! I will literally sleep all day long if someone doesn’t wake me up lol. I also find anything spooky quite fascinating. So o go on a lot of ghost hunts and I’m learning how to read tarot cards! I’m TERRIFIED of spiders (arachnophobia) and I have a strong dislike for crowds, loud abrupt noises, sand, hot sweaty weather and mornings/being awakened from my naps lol.

Ideal type: I love to tease and banter, so I need someone who can put up with my teasing/playful tendencies. I’m usually not a very physically affectionate person, but I’m SUPER clingy and cuddly with my partner. And a tad bit possessive at times. Someone who’s also taller than me, and who has a very charismatic and addictive personality/voice. And someone who can handle my moods (like the typical Gemini I am lol). My love languages are words of affirmation and gift giving. And I prefer to show my love through acts of service and gift giving as well.

Extra fun fact: I can play 5 different instruments and I love to sing as well~.

Thank you so much and please take all the time you need~! I hope you have a lovely day/night~! ☺️

First off, can we be friends, please! I, too, am a fellow Gemini, and reading your whole thing, I was like, please, I want to be this girl's friend so bad! I also have my hair dyed a maroon red right now underneath my standard muddy blonde color!

Anyway, I was torn between two brothers and one other character; however, after much deliberation and a mild personal basis, I chose your match!

~~~~~ MATCHUP ~~~~~

OBEY ME!

Satan

~~~~~ HEADCANON ~~~~~

Satan can seem cold and distant initially, but that's only because he doesn't want to give Lucifer the upper hand. In his mind, liking you means allowing Lucifer to back this exchange program to work.

Satan couldn't deny, though, that he really liked your style. Your clothes matched the whole black cat vibe he enjoyed. He would never admit this but has considered adding some green to your style.

Being the head of the Hate Lucifer club, he often found ways to upset him. To his surprise, though, as you got closer to the brothers and saw how Lucifer treated everyone, he was enamored when you stood up to his brother. You were either the most courageous person to live or dumb.

When Satan found you, though, later in your room crying from the heated encounter with Lucifer, he realized you were courageous like a lion, just only for those you cared about. But why would you care about him?

From that day forth, Satan made an effort to get to know you. He saw how easily you got close to Mammon and Levi, so he was curious to learn how to get you to open up. He knew he was blunt and abrasive, but he could be just as funny and witty as his siblings.

Your two's relationship was founded when you found him with some stray cats nearby. For the last few weeks, you had been taking care of them, but it looks like today Satan beat you to it. Watching him fawn over the sweet creatures opened you up more to him.

As soon as you two talked and learned more about one another, you were opened up to a whole new side of Satan. His cold, abrasive exterior was purely to protect himself from the duty of being Lucifer's brother. Underneath, he was a kind and compassionate man with a mild (Extreme) temper.

Though he had a temper, he never let it out on you; on the contrary, he protected you fiercely. If anyone triggered you or hurt you, he was the first to lash out and give them a taste of their own medicine, only to turn back into a softy and care for you.

Due to Satan not always being super in touch with his emotions, he turned to giving you all the things you could want to make a smile appear on your face. He definitely did not sneak into your room to find all the hobbies, interests, and items you liked.

When things became more official between you two, Satan grew just as possessive over you as you were for him. Especially when it involved Lucifer or Mammon. When it became apparent all the brothers liked you a lot, but he won your heart, he made it a point to show them who you chose. (He is a petty bish, but we love him)

Satan did have a favorite pastime: reading his books while you played one of your instruments. Sometimes, he would join you and play the piano, but he loved watching you become one with the music.

~~~~~ BLURB ~~~~~

The exchange program was going well, but it was time for your big project. You were doomed; it wasn't that you weren't smart, and you had been acing all your classes here in the devildom; the problem was simply that you were busy with the brothers. You know how important this program is for Dia, so it's now or never to try and finish this. What do you think you should write about? What did you learn in the devildom, the brothers, and the adventures? As you thought about all of this, a particular blonde walked into the library where you resided. Satan took his place next to you as he did since you two became official. Leaning up against your chair, watching you attempt to write the first letters of your project.

"Having a hard time figuring out what to write, doll?" You jumped, startled by the sudden presence, before relaxing into Satan. "Yes, this is the worst. How am I supposed to pick just one thing?" A small laugh echoed from the man before he took the paper from you. While observing your doodles and quotes on the side of your paper, he pointed out the little doodle of him you made. "Am I one of your potential topics, love?" You nodded eagerly, and he smiled. Suddenly, an excellent idea struck you. You would write about how you made your pacts with each of the brothers and concluded with your newfound love for Satan.

You snatched the paper from his hands, kissing his cheek before hurriedly packing up and running back to the House of Lamentation. Hours had passed by the time you finished the paper, checking the time you knew that Satan would be holed up in his library. Packing up your belongings for school the next day, you went to the library. Entering quietly, you found the cutest sight to bear. Satan lay in his recliner with two pretty cats, Jasper and Mochi, resting against his shoulders. You smiled gently as you went to his room to retrieve the green fluffy blanket you bought for him recently and placed it around the three of them. Smiling to yourself, you turned off the lamp nearby and retreated back to your room, obviously not before snapping a quick picture and sending it in the group chat.

~~~~~ EXTRA ~~~~~

(You and the brothers decided to take a trip to the lake nearby to relax. You guys even managed to get the angels, Solomon and Dia, to join. Barbatos chose to stay back at the castle.)

Y/N: Asmo, are you planning to actually get wet this time?

Asmo: No, of course not. People pay good money to look as good as I do.

Mammon: It's more like he's afraid of losing any water games we have planned.

Satan: Oh, you mean like how you did last time?

Y/N: Love, if I remember correctly, from the stories you also lost.

Satan: Only because I was on Mammon's team!

[stuntchicken]

Horse Birthday Bash: Mila's Peppermint Treat Extravaganza!

Horse Birthday Bash: Mila's Peppermint Treat Extravaganza! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVBo70cHrMk Welcome to Mila's Peppermint Treat Extravaganza horse birthday party! Join us as we celebrate in style by throwing the ultimate Horse Birthday Bash. Get ready for a fun-filled day of horsy festivities, laughter, and, of course, loads of peppermint treats!🎉🎈🐴 In this video, we showcase the joyous occasion of Mila's special day, surrounded by her loyal equestrian friends. Adora Turns 6 Years old. Witness the excitement as these magnificent horses indulge in a variety of delightful peppermint treats specially prepared for them. From mouthwatering peppermint-flavored hay to scrumptious peppermint cookies and candies, we left no horsy taste bud unattended. Our aim is not only to celebrate Mila's birthday but also to provide you with valuable insights on organizing your next horse-themed party. Learn how to create a whimsical ambiance, choose the perfect horse-inspired decorations, and plan engaging games for everyone to enjoy. We guarantee that this ultimate Horse Birthday Bash will leave you inspired to host your own special event! While capturing the magical moments of the celebration, we also highlight the strong bond shared between humans and horses. Witness Mila's unwavering connection with her equestrian pals, showcasing the love, trust, and companionship that make these animals truly extraordinary. Their genuine happiness and excitement at being pampered with peppermint treats will undoubtedly melt your heart and deepen your appreciation for these magnificent creatures. So, if you're a horse enthusiast or simply looking for party ideas, you don't want to miss out on this captivating Horse Birthday Bash. Join Mila and her equine friends as they embark on a peppermint-filled adventure that will make your inner horse lover squeal with delight. Hit that play button now and let the festivities begin! Subscribe to our channel for more heartwarming, educational, and entertaining videos centered around horses, their care, and remarkable stories. Don't forget to like, comment, and share this video with fellow horse enthusiasts to spread the joy of Mila's Peppermint Treat Extravaganza! Happy viewing! 🎈🎁🍰 ---------------------------------------- StuntChicken? ✅ Subscribe To My Channel For More Videos: https://youtube.com/@stuntchicken594 ============================== ✅ Other Videos You Might Be Interested In Watching: 👉 What Do Horses Love More: Apples Or Phones? A Unique Experiment | StuntChicken? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm4DHGsrg-U 👉 Captivating Horse Round-Up: A Showcase of Equine Grace and Power | StuntChicken? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9OdQq2ixcA 👉 "Mila's Secrets" - Unveiling Mila's Adventures: A Family Trip To Las Vegas | StuntChicken? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX5x7UiCCO8 👉 Exclusive Preview: Mila's Babe Patrol Adventures In Hidden Tours | StuntChicken? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwXQx3qQ_zo ============================= ✅ About StuntChicken?: Laugh it off with Mila, a delightful actress turning everyday quirks into hilarious sketches. Our channel features rib-tickling comedy skits, sharp-witted stand-ups, and unexpected parodies. Join us for your daily dose of humor. 🔔 Subscribe to my channel for more videos: https://youtube.com/@stuntchicken594 #horsebirthdaybash #hoofcelebration #birthdayparty #equestrianlife #horsethemedparty #partydecorations #horsecake #birthdaygirl #equinefun #pepperminthorse #horsepartyideas #horsebackriding #partygames #horsecrazy #partyfavors CODE: S&1C$ via StuntChicken? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw_qXPC5lE0dsdBUMtY-kRQ July 06, 2023 at 11:42AM

[funnygirlthatbelle]

If You Like Benoit Blanc...

Ever since Glass Onion came out, it seems like everyone’s obsessed with Benoit Blanc and these types of mysteries! Which is great; as someone who loves them, I’m thrilled to have more people interested in the genre. So, if you’re looking for more murder mystery stuff, might I offer some recommendations?

Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie’s delightful Belgian detective might be the most similar to Blanc of any of the big detectives out there. And with countless novels, short stories, the tv show, and the recent movies, there’s plenty of Poirot content out there for you to enjoy! I personally recommend buying a collection of the short stories and starting from there, but really, there’s no wrong way to get into one of the world’s most famous detectives!

(Note: Agatha Christie was a wealthy British woman who began being published in the 1920′s, and this shows in some of her stories. Most of what I’ve read I’d construe as not meaning badly but definitely of the times, but it’s worth noting!)

Columbo

If you like the parts of Glass Onion where Blanc plays up the old fashioned, Southern charm and acts like a simpleton, Columbo is the detective for you. The whole conceit of this show is that we actually know whodunnit and the question is how is Columbo going to figure it out. Usually the answer is looking shabby, rambling, talking about his wife, and trapping people in their own lies. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch, and Columbo himself is very memeable.

Murder, She Wrote

The late, great Dame Angela Lansbury and her hit show Murder, She Wrote have actually been referenced in both Knives Out movies and it’s no wonder why. Jessica Fletcher is an acclaimed murder mystery author who uses her keen observation skills, knowledge from researching her books, and grandmotherly demeanor to solve murder mysteries. It’s a delightful show filled with tons of guest stars you’re bound to recognize, and J.B. Fletcher really is one of the great fictional detectives.

Pushing Daisies

Okay, admittedly I’m mostly including this one because I think everyone should watch Pushing Daisies at some point. It’s part murder mystery, part romcom, part musical, part absurdist comedy with an absolutely enchanting style. Our leads are a piemaker with necromantic powers, a dead girl walking, a jockey turned waitress, a private investigator who also knits and writes pop-up books, and two retired mermaid entertainers. It’s whimsical and wild in all the best ways while still having really creative, engaging mysteries.

There are so many incredible, unique murder mysteries out there- the genre really spans so many wonderful stories. These are just a few that I think are really fun and fans of Beniot Blanc will enjoy! For my fellow murder mystery fans, I’d love to hear what you’d recommend to folks just starting to get familiar with the genre as well!

[thesassywallflower]

Top 10 Feel Good TV Shows...or at least in my opinion...today...

Because sometimes you need to take a break from the news, true crime docs, and cult shows...or maybe that’s just me.

1. The Great British Baking Show/Off: To those of you who haven’t watched,  I can hear you saying, but Manda, how can a competition show be “Feel Good”? My friends, this one is. You start with a lovely tent equipped with all the kitchen accessories your heart could desire, plunk it on a GORGEOUS British estate, add contestants who are actually decent human beings that willingly help out their fellow bakers when they need it, sprinkle in two judges who know what they’re talking about, and top it all off with two hilarious hosts (Mel and Sue will forever own my heart, but Noel has wheedled his way in there too) who encourage the contestants with pep talks, baking innuendos/puns and plenty of hugs. That’s how it’s Feel Good. 

2. Miranda: A sitcom about an awkward, hilarious woman in her late 30′s who’s  actually a normal human being aka she has cellulite, struggles to find clothes that fit, gets completely flustered at the thought of dating/*whispers*sex and loves to eat. Throw in some goofball side characters, Tom Ellis aka Lucifer himself as the main love interest and you have a show that’s “What I call...such fun!”

3. The Golden Girls: What can I say it’s a classic?! “Lanai!” “Shady Pines,Ma!” “Back in St. Olaf...” “Picture it. Sicily 1920...” “Mr. Burt Reynolds...” If you haven’t watched, just do. You won’t regret it, I swear. Plus the 1980′s aesthetic alone is worth the watch. ;) P.S. I’m just a Rose wishing she was a Sophia.

4. The Lizzie Benne Diaries: Teeeeechnically not a tv show because it’s a web series, but it’s close enough. Basically it’s if our girl Lizzie Bennet lived in 2013 and had her own vlog. So good and so funny. Each episode is only 2-5 minutes long so it’s super easy to binge. (Also I LIVE for that moment when we finally meet Darcy.)

5. The Vicar of Dibley: I’ve sung the praises of this show on many a Tag Game, but I’m doing it again! A smart, hysterical vicar comes to a small village in the English countryside and completely shakes up the villagers lives because...SPOILERS...the vicar is a woman *GASP* 

(Also American TV/Movie industry? How about y’all actually be brave for once and make a show about a plus sized woman getting the hot guy in the end too? And not make it the butt of a sick, cruel joke? That’d be greaaaaaat.)

6. Derry Girls: Five teens try navigate life at an all girls Catholic school while living in Northern Ireland right at the tail end of The Troubles. I know. I know. It sounds like it wouldn’t be Feel Good at all, and while there are moments that are heart wrenching, it’s wickedly funny and ridiculous with some truly tender scenes. Plus it has a killer 90′s soundtrack.

7. Pushing Daisies: Whimsical sets, colorful retro costumes, delicious pies, crime solving, and Lee Pace as the sweetest, woobiest baker who also happens to be a necromancer. What more could you want? (Just please don’t yell at me because there’s only two seasons.)

8. The IT Crowd: This show is just pure British comedy gold. If these three IT techs can’t make you laugh at least once, I really don’t know what will. It’s ridiculously quotable and the scenes with Moss and Roy at the football match is one of the best moments in tv history in my humble opinion. 

9. Sanditon: Think a Bridgerton that you can watch with your mom. It’s all about the  lives and loves of the Parker family set in a picturesque seaside town. Two warnings though. 1. You will fall in love with Sydney Parker. (JOOOOOIN MEEEEE) and 2. So far there’s only one season and those evil showrunners ended it on the worst sort of emotional cliffhangers.

10. Anne With An E: Okay yes, they took a looooooot of liberties with the original story, but I still feel that everything that we loved about the OG Anne is still there. You’ll still want to visit PEI as soon as possible, and you’ll still wish you had a Gilbert, Diana, Marilla and Matthew of your very own.   

So there you go! Please feel free to let me know what some of your favs are!

[smuttymess]

bts astro soulmate reading | for taylor

sign: pisces sun | gemini moon | aries rising

lover: Jeon Jungkook | soulmate: Kim Taehyung

This reading is for Taylor, a Yoongi bias who regularly gets wrecked by Taehyung. You’re my first Pisces, and a a fellow Pisces I was super excited to write this one. Maknae pairings are also pretty rare for me, so this was a particularly fun writing experience. Hope you enjoy, love!

This particular water-air-fire star sign combination is one of pure dreaminess, sensuality, intuition, and imagination. In your chart you possess a true astrological triple threat: your Sun in Pisces makes you one of the most emotionally capable beings in the Zodiac, your Gemini Moon gives you intelligence and dexterity, while your Aries rising provides a fire and drive that is almost unrivaled. As a result, With your star placements, emotions run everything within your social, work, familial and love spheres. You feel deeply, Pisces, and your passion has no bounds when paired with your determined Aries Sun, which often overrides your generally logical Gemini Moon and makes you a fiery force to be reckoned with. Your Sun and Moon makes you hard-wired for spontaneity and impulsiveness, drawing energy from platonic and romantic love above all else. Given the intensity of all three signs, you are a lover who gives their all to whoever you are with, if only for the moment - Pisces/Gemini is notoriously flighty pairing and Aries is exceptionally hard to pin down to any form of commitment whatsoever. While this combination can make you appear restless and flighty to others, deep down you are a diehard romantic, craving true partnership and emotional connection with a very special someone(s). You will not, however, settle down until you feel you have met your perfect other half - someone who respects and appreciates you and the breadth of your mystic, unconventional nature. Until then, you're happy to explore all that the world has to offer.

Your Gemini/Aries combination means you are always on the go, both physically and mentally. Generally, you go where your spirit moves you, constantly seeking out your next challenge or adventure. When something - or someone - piques your interest, you are often not too slow to act and make it known. So when a man, clad head to toe in black leather, stops his motorcycle on the street in front of you, you're interested in seeing what lies under his helmet. Words are almost lost on your when you realize how attractive he is, boyish charm beneath a strong jaw and athletic build, as he asks you for directions to a nearby restaurant. His wide, doe-eyed stare and charming, innocent smile is enough to make your Pisces heart melt, and your Aries go-getter doesn't want the interaction to stop there. Your unmatched communication skills work to get the shy man to open up, perhaps feigning an interest in motorcycles just for the hell of it. Whatever plans you had for the night (likely dinner with a friend or another commitment) are immediately on hold when mystery man introduces himself as Jeon Jungkook and you suggest teach you more about his bike when he has time. Surely, your friend will understand your tardiness, or at least you hope so - this is not the first time you've been late because of a handsome stranger and with your romantic Piscean nature it certainly won't be the last.

Over the next few weeks, once you finally pull the Virgo away from his work, you and Jungkook are able to enjoy the pleasures of a budding relationship. The Virgo/Pisces relationship is one of a slow build towards romance, the Virgo moving with full intention in everything he does without hesitating to let you know he is slow, pragmatic and deliberate when it comes to love. This works out quite well for your Aries rising, which enjoys a bit of a chase - who doesn't like a challenge? Your Gemini/Aries works in overdrive to crack the code of this enigmatic man, rather quickly your intuitive Pisces Sun seeing past his more reserved exterior. Its not uncommon for the Pisces lady to fall for her Virgo man far before he does, falling for the gentle, sensitive Venus in Libra and Jupiter in Aquarius that lies beneath the surface - a side that he keeps close to his heart. The times that you feel most connected to him are during sex, one of the few places where he fully lets go and lets himself be truly vulnerable, though he still strives for perfectionism. When Pisces and Virgo finally get together, Pisces brings the highly sensual, emotional passion wherein Virgo brings stamina, vigor, and determination. While Virgo is not known to be animalistic, Jungkook's Mars in Scorpio makes him impulsive while his Venus in Libra gives him a softness, meaning you get both a sensitive and dynamic lover. You and Jungkook are able to enjoy countless nights together in bed, the incredible strength of his body against yours as your legs rest on his shoulders while he trusts into you, his stare filled with an undeniable fire as you lock eyes and your foreheads touch. In that moment, wherein his moans become more desperate and sweet words pour from his lips that you feel you belong to each other.

When you're not having sex, the ideologies of you and Jungkook are often at odds, the differences starting off mild but becoming more pronounced as you get to each other on a deeper level. Pisces mantra is "what will be will be" while Virgo more often than not lives by "I decide what will be," and while you adore Jungkook's strength you begin to believe that he is too rigid for his own good. Though your fantastical nature and sense of unpredictability is what draws you to him, his Leo Moon and Uranus in Aries does not bode well with too much indecision, making him appear more headstrong and impatient as your relationship moves further. Over time, you begin to sense his increased frustration, occasional coldness, and Virgo moods - especially when he is under heavy stress, which happens often. Your Pisces Sun innately wants to to pull him out of his rigid ways or away from his video game, while your Gemini/Aquarius wants to flee and avoid any conflict or drama. You feel misunderstood by JK, whose Sun and Mercury in Virgo deeply values logic and rationality while you prefer to act on your emotions, resulting in frequent miscommunication that drives you into increased separation. Ultimately, your overly-contrasting approaches to life, work and love prove to be incompatible, forcing you to part ways. This is not an easy breakup, however, as you know that beneath his Virgo ego and celebrity is an emotional soul who could have been everything you wanted if he were it not for his Venus in Scorpio, marked by self-consciousness and a fear of love. A pairing of this kind is likely to stay in contact, if only to check in on each other occasionally to make sure they are healthy and well, never forgetting the emotional impact they had on one another.

After a brief retreat in your inner Pisces world, your Aries/Gemini inspires you to start a new chapter, healing through connections with new people and business prospects, your vast network opening you up to various creative initiatives. It is in one of these spaces where you're introduced to Kim Taehyung. This is a pairing that may begin first as collaborators on an intensive project - perhaps his next solo track - which requires spending a great deal of time with each other to ensure each element is perfect. A Piscean loves nothing more than a good mystery, and from the moment you meet Taehyung and see his deep, brown eyes under his curls you are highly intrigued. His earthy Capricorn Sun makes him warm but stoic in his disposition, possessing a subdued persona and a cool, quiet confidence that you can't quite figure out. You are taken aback by his intelligence, fostered by his Uranus in Capricorn, which he illustrates with calmed reason and without any ego or cockiness. In getting to know each other professionally, you bond over your shared charisma towards the unique and unconventional - his Venus in Aquarius pairing nicely with your eccentric placements. Your Pisces/Gemini combination makes you one of the most imaginative and creative people on the planet - your mind constantly racing towards your big idea. Taehyung's Neptune in Capricorn and Venus in Aquarius makes him equally creative and whimsical, becoming a true supporter of your out-of-the-box ideas. Taehyung, while perhaps not saying much, enjoys sees your mind at work and more importantly knows exactly how to harness that fire and make it bloom into tangible results. Your intuitive nature is able to target Tae's desires and come up with a myriad of possibilities for his song, making his eyes sparkle with excitement as he grows more interested in your opposing yet complimentary personas. It is unlikely that you ever could resist falling for Tae at the start, your Aries/Gemini patience wanting to jump his bones almost immediately while your Pisces struggles to let things flow and develop naturally. Unfortunately, in true ram fashion, Taehyung takes his time in pursuing anything outside of the professional space, waiting until the collaboration is over before asking you to dinner - as if you hadn't been waiting for months.

Where you are the dreamer, Capricorn Taehyung is the doer. Together, your playful souls can work together to make your many visions a reality. You inevitably fall in love with each other's minds, valuing open-mindedness and creativity on a higher level. This extends into your sex lives, A powerful trait of your Pisces nature if to bring the often stubborn Capricorn out of his shell and into your fantasy world. Any logic, reasoning, or methodology the ram may want to apply to sex goes completely out the window when in the presence of the sexually experimental, curious fish. It is your Aries/Gemini that makes the first move, your body aching for him by the time you get him into his bedroom. Tae's Moon in Aries makes him quite intense, eyes igniting with lust as you sit him down on a chair in his bed, your hands moving down the length of your neck and down your belly, stopping short of your inner thigh. You possess an innate ability to light his skin on fire with a simple touch, sauntering over to kiss him gently before you move down to his neck and his ear. Few things give you more pleasure than watching him lick his lips, his eagerness to grab your hips as you stand above him almost overwhelming. He adores the way you can completely dictate the mood, a smirk forming on his lips as he realizes he is at your mercy while he is allowed to look but not touch until you say so. Once you get him going, he is more than happy to turn the tables on you, tossing you onto your back as your robe falls own, a low growl escaping his mouth he moves in between your thighs. You practically melt when his more impulsive and powerful Uranus in Capricorn emerges, his voice deepening as he teases you mercilessly until you beg him to fill you up. Sex is always an opportunity for you to connect on a level deeper than the physical, and while this is something that the Pisces woman would typically initiate, the Capricorn lover always along for the ride. You're insatiable, love. What am I going to do with you, hmm?

Ultimately, the world you and Taehyung build together is one of whimsy and stability, water and earth coming together to create your own little world of wonder and possibility. Whenever Tae gets in his perfectionist, stubborn work modes your fiery Aries is able to to give him the space you both require, independence being a key factor in what makes this specific pairing work. He is a workaholic, and you are a go-getter, so while you may grow restless at times wanting to spend time with him, there is a mutual understanding and appreciation of this shared drive. Such respect for autonomy allows you to merge after you've checked off the many items on your to-do list and enjoy quality alone time: private, silly dance parties in your secluded home or over a glass of wine overlooking your expansive grounds overlooking acres of farmland. You two are the couple that people are curious about in your enigmatic nature, constantly wondering what you are thinking or what venture you will move on to next. At the end of the day, you do not need the world to understand everything about this love - they likely never could!

[theheadlessgroom]

(1, 10, 13, 14, 22 and 24, please!)

Thank you!

1. Aside from the enigmatic status Ol’ Hatty maintained for several decades, being built up into a larger-than-life legend among parkgoers, before being revealed to be real after all and making a triumphant return to the Mansion, I was really enthralled by the idea of him being the intended of the Beating-Heart Bride, especially given his head and her heart being in sync, not to mention all the promotional and tie-in materials that seemed to make it pretty clear that she was ‘his bride’. That, combined with the open-for-interpretation nature of the ride, led me to start drawing my own conclusions, and I felt he’d make a great character to RP, once I had a solid history down for him!

10. I feel like there’s a lot of overlap between the fandom’s interpretation and my own: A lot of other fans, at least as far as I’ve seen, tend to interpret Hatty as being from the lower-class, not to mention being predisposed to being generally cranky and cantankerous, not exactly a social butterfly, but at the same being good-natured at heart, and being absolutely head over heels (pun fully intended) for the Bride. Obviously, there are exceptions to these examples, but those are the most common tropes I’ve seen crop up. 

13. Some of my favorite threads include...

1. Family Reunion/Baby Boos - Maybe I’m cheating by including two RP’s here, but the two are so inextricably linked that I can’t list one without the other! The characters of Randall’s parents, Wilhelm and June Pace, have really grown into their own since I started this blog, stepping out of the background to become vastly more front and center as fully-fleshed characters, and they were defidently front and center in these two RP’s with @beatingheart-bride, in which the Pace parents arrive at the Mansion and not only reunite with their only son, but also meet their daughter-in-law and lend a hand in Randall and Emily’s graduation to parenthood. They’re both warm and fuzzy RP’s (in particular the latter), and I love going back and reading through them.

2. From Beyond The Grave - Keeping with the theme of Randall’s parents becoming a larger part of both his mythos and the RP’s, June showed up in this RP with @askthebrokenones-fm, reuniting with her son as well as getting to know his friends, up to and including a fellow ‘Hatty’, the demonic Egore, whom she’s quickly become very motherly to in follow-up RP’s (such as Motherly Instinct). It’s a relatively short but nonetheless RP, I love watching Randall’s parents interact with other characters in the Mansion, and June’s interactions with both Sinclair and Egore makes me smile, as well as makes me really look forward to what future RP’s hold for her, Randall, the Sentient Staircase, and the Ghost Demon!

3. Videodrome - I never expected to see an RP blog based around any children Hatty and the Bride would have, but @erika-de-claire has taken the concept and run with it, and we’ve had some very entertaining RP’s because of it. While it was sorely tempting to put the more recent ExtraTerrorestrial Alien Encounter (mostly because of Erika’s adorable interactions with Skippy, her new alien pal), I just had to put this modern AU one, involving Randall and his daughter being trapped in a video store on a rainy night, trying to avoid becoming the prey for a fear-hungry monster in the vein of John Carpenter’s The Thing and Poltergiest’s Reverend Henry Kane. It’s such a creepy and atmospheric RP, and I do wonder if that monster will ever crop up again in the future-it’s possible the flaming nitrate didn’t kill him...

14. I think Randall and I would get along pretty well: We do have similar interests (nominally being classic horror literature and film, including those starring Lon Chaney Sr.) and are artistically-inclined (him being passionate about millinery and tailoring; while I’m passionate about writing and film), so I think we could find a lot to talk about!

22. Three interesting facts about Randall include...

-He and Emily would always bake a cake for Mardi Gras: A tradition of Mardi Gras is the king cake, a braided brioche dough laced with cinnamon, filled with a flavored filling (Randall’s favorite, unsurprisingly, is strawberry filling) and smothered in a glaze or colorful frosting, and usually has a little figure of a baby inside of it. When the two married, each year they would celebrate the holiday by baking this cake together, and seeing who would get the figure first (usually, the tradition is that the one who finds it has to provide the cake or host the party next Mardi Gras, but as it would usually be just the two of them, they ignored it). It took them a few tries to get the cake right (the first few years they tried it, something always seemed to go wrong), but they eventually mastered it, and when it was their turn to bake the cake when they celebrated Mardi Gras at the Mansion, they did it with aplomb.

-His favorite New Orleans dish is a crawfish boil: Although Randall ate his fair share of Irish dishes in his youth (on account of his mother preparing the recipes her husband brought with him from the Emerald Isle), he naturally grew up eating plenty of Louisiana cuisine, including po’boys (which could be made with just about anything on hand and made a quick, easy meal that could be taken on the go) and dirty rice (another simple but filling dish that he ate a lot of, since it was relatively cheap and made plenty of helpings). By and large, his favorite was a good crawfish boil: He would catch them down at the river and bring them back to his mother, who would cook them up, usually along with a small tray of biscuits or potatoes. The Mansion’s cooks still prepare plenty of New Orleans dishes (given their master is a New Orleans native as well), and so Randall still gets to enjoy these boils every now and again, particularly during the summer.

-His least favorite story is Peter Pan: I’ve made very clear Randall’s fear of the Fae (mostly spurned on by the stories he heard in his youth of their turning foolish mortals into all sorts of unnatural things), and as a result of this, his least favorite story is J.M. Barrie’s famous story about the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. Randall finds nothing whimsical or fun about fairies stealing innocent children away from their parents, feeling that’s the start of a horror story than a fairy tale, and as a result, has not read the original story, nor has he watched Disney’s famous adaptation. At the most, he’s at least quite sympathetic towards Captain Hook-being continually terrorized by a Fae child sounds awful, and he can relate to the struggle of having lost an appendage: If a fairy cut off his hand and fed it to a crocodile, he’d be pretty cross too.

24. “Are you sure you don’t wanna watch Peter Pan with me?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Oh, come on, Randall! It’s still a fun movie, it’s cute, fairies aside!”

“Child, they steal three children from their bedroom, and whisk them away to a far-away world where the elder sister is terrorized by an angry fairy and is nearly drowned by mermaids! That does not sound like fun!”

“It’s not Tink’s fault, she’s only got room for one emotion at a time on account of her size!”

“And the murderous mermaids?”

“...okay, I don’t have anything to say about them, but c’mon! Can’t you put aside your fear of the Fae for just one night?”

“How about you put aside your fear of spiders, and we watch Arachnophobia instead? What do you say to that, lass?”

“...never mind.”

[rpgmgames]

May’s Featured Game: Cadeau

DEVELOPER(S): HALFWORLDstudios ENGINE: RPG Maker VX Ace GENRE: Horror, Fantasy, Puzzle WARNINGS: Blood, Mild Gore, Suicide Mentions, Death SUMMARY: Cadeau is an RPG Horror game about a lonely, yet stubborn, young woman named Charlotte-- who finds herself in a world unknown to man, wearing clothes that do not belong to her. Wonderful and tragic events are to follow suit, as all of her greatest wishes come true. However, as these things often go, her happiness does not come without consequence...

Play the beta here!

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! Macdev: Greetings and salutations. I'm Mac, writer, artist, and programmer for Cadeau, as well as the founder of Halfworld. I've loved Rpg games since I was about 10, and have been creating them since! Bruno: My name is Bruno and I'm the music composer. I got into game music approx 2 years ago and I've currently made music for a couple of games and other projects, and Cadeau was the first one of them. Aidan: I'm Aidan/kanteramcneil on Tumblr! I'm one of the voice actors, and I'm super excited to be able to follow Cadeau's progress! I've been in the RpgMaker community for a few years now and I adore being able to watch all the devs progress and grow Rindre: Hi I'm Rin! Currently, I'm on an indefinite hiatus, but Big Mac managed to catch me, chain me up to a chair, and make me say stuff about myself against my will. So... I make games, I guess. - Note from macdev: Erm, not true? These accusations are SLANDER and I will not stand for it. WariA: Hello! I’m WaraiA, one of the voice actors of Cadeau — A pleasure to meet you! I will be voicing the oh so mysterious ‘Your Admirer’, so please look forward to listening to my antics ☆〜（ゝ。∂） I am a Japanese/Chinese Australian born citizen, with a tendency to speak in an American accent. Any pronouns are fine for me My most notable role so far has been Harpae from Pocket Mirror, so some of you may be familiar with my voice already! Nothing much has changed — I enjoy cosplaying, role playing, drawing every once in a blue moon, Final Fantasy XIV, and most importantly, catboys (Nael, I’m coming for you, boy) As ‘Your Admirer’ is a rather elusive character, I cannot disclose much. But I do suggest always keeping one eye open throughout your journey

What is your project about? What inspired you to create your game initially? *Macdev: Cadeau is a game about a troubled young woman named Charlotte Émile-- who is a "tomboyish" and bold individual who has been unfortunately presented loneliness by a series of disastrous events. After giving up on companionship, she miraculously receives an affectionate letter from a mysterious person aliased as her "Admirer". This "Admirer" character beckons poor Charlotte to visit them at a mysterious well in the woods, and to come armed with nothing but a strange golden coin. From there, madness ensues. Our protagonist must learn of her past and the events that lead to her misfortune, all while becoming entangled in a family drama rooted in witchcraft, raging years before her unexpected arrival. It is a story about self-love, friendship, acceptance, magic, and all that corny-ness. Sounds fun, right? My initial inspiration was The Witches House. The game was originally meant to be simple, and maybe an hour or 45 minutes long. A simple story, and a straightforward 2-ending path.... How have we managed to get here from that?

How long did you work on your project? *Macdev: Two years, I believe! Its anniversary is April 8th. In the beginning, it was very off and on-- because I was having a difficult time with school and-- as I mention-- organization. So not a whole lot of progress was made then. I'm proud to say I've been chugging quite a bit faster than my previous pace!

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Macdev: My inspiration would probably lie in Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts, and Alice returns to madness. As for RPG games? The Witch's House, Havenfell, and Pocket Mirror. As well as many other beautiful artists and creators in the video game community. Overall, my biggest inspiration for this game has got to be the stop-motion movie: Coraline. I even reference the movie once or twice in Cadeau. The tone of Coraline, and the whimsical yet eerie people and creatures within it give me inspiration for this game. It was very much a favorite of mine when I was younger, and that still applies today!

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Macdev: The biggest problem I've run into has been a lack of structure. In the beginning, I hadn't even written out the story halfway. I was just pulling ideas from thin air, going back and forth, and deleting entire concepts-- only to bring them back and re-arrange them as I went. Characters weren't fully dished out; the game didn't even have an ending. This state of creating is fine, but not when you have other people expecting things from you. Thankfully, things are sailing much MUCH smoother than before.

Did any aspects of your project change over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Macdev: It's absolutely taken a turn from what it was originally! As I say, it was meant to be an extremely short game in the beginning, and now obviously that’s not the case. The goal for Cadeau now is: around 2-3 hours long in playtime, and full of many diverse character types! As well as a storyline that extends far more than face value. Which is in high contrast to the basic, short, immemorable experience that it was going to be.

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Macdev: I do have a wonderful, beautiful, talented team working with me on Cadeau. - A composer! (Bruno Buglisi), - As well as voice actors! (WariA as Allete, Aiden/kanteramcneil as The Botanist, and Rindre (who I have definitely not kidnapped...) as The Maiden) I met everyone in the team through volunteer posts-- and I had never done that before-- but it worked very surprisingly well! We worked very quickly together, and we had a very mutual understanding of what each other wanted. It feels good to know I have such talented people helping this game come to fruition. I owe a whole lot to them for helping the game become what it is now.

What was the best part of developing the game? Macdev: Being able to make the world in your head interactable, for sure. Since I was 8, maybe even younger, I have loved writing stories and making art. Webcomics were my main thing as a kid, so story-telling is something I’ve always loved. So, the fact that I can turn my ideas into something someone can experience and interact with is a wonderful feeling. There's nothing more fulfilling, honestly!

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Macdev: Very often, actually! I try not to ride too close to the material I see in other games, but I do gain lots of inspiration from my fellow creators! One thing I am laser-focused on, though, is making Cadeau quite unique content-wise. I want it to have very interesting, uncommon puzzles and mechanics that you may not expect from this type of game-- or one of this engine. So far, I think I've achieved this-- so look out for that!

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Macdev: My favorite character has got to be The Botanist. At the beginning of the game he has no dialogue, yet still presents such a strong personality. They are kind, thoughtful, and absolutely adorable. Look at that foofy hair! I'm a sucker for it. Their character arc is something I'm excited for. It's been a blast writing it so far-- and I won’t spoil anything-- but you guys will love him. I'm sure of it. Now if we're talking character design, Naël has got to be my favorite. He recently received a “tune-up,” as I would like to call it, and I think everything works together very cohesively in his design now. It's probably one of my favorites out of all of them, at this point.

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Macdev: Thankfully, things worked out perfectly-- and the universe blessed me with a wonderful team in the end-- but it was very stressful once I realized I had asked for help way too early. I essentially made a single map, and a little character sheet-- then asked for a whole team to help me out. As I said, it luckily worked out in the end. Now we have so many amazing people helping us-- but we also lost a few in the madness-- and that's a mistake on my part, 100%. If you don't know what you want, it's hard to ask for help. It will lead to confusion, lots of back and forth, frustration, etc... Just wait until your way further in development. Trust me. I know it’s easy to jump the gun and shoot for the stars, but sometimes it won’t work out as well as it has for the Cadeau team!

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Macdev: I won't say as of now! The idea of a sequel/prequel has floated around, but if it does come to fruition, it won't be until way after the release of Cadeau. We'll just have to see. (This isn’t to say I’m not hopeful!)

With your current project, what do you look most forward to upon/after release? *Macdev: I have so many amazing project ideas lined up for after the release of Cadeau. I won’t spill too much, so they'll be more of a surprise-- but they range from classic, adventure-themed true RPG's-- to 3D teenage-thrillers. I'm honestly stoked, there's so much in store for Halfworld.

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Macdev: I think my biggest fear is letting people down. Also, I worry about losing interest or having people form the idea that the game is never going to be completed. It’s just going to take some time, is all, and that’s okay!

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Macdev: I already mentioned above not to jump the gun and ask for help too early, so some more advice I'll give: is to keep all your material, all your ideas, and all your concepts in one concise place. I would say do it digitally from the get-go, but if you would prefer to write it down physically that's fine! Just make sure it's only one or 2 notebooks, and not 13. The information for Cadeau is spread throughout my hideous mound of notebooks, as I get up during ungodly hours of the night to scrawl a sudden idea down. So, I'm currently in the process of moving them to one digital spot-- and while it's generally easy-- I would have been able to avoid it if I had just put everything in one spot in the beginning. Oh, and back up your progress regularly! I have separate backups of Cadeau from months in 2 different years, and in 4 different places. So, I take backups very seriously—and so should you!

Question from last month's featured dev @atlasatrium: What's your favorite RPG Maker game and why? *Aidan: I love End roll, Ib, OFF, Prom Dreams, From Next Door, and Aria's Story! Bruno: Mm, definitely Long Gone Days (though it’s not being made on rpgmaker now) Midnight Train, Heartbeat and Glitched! WariA: I don't really have any :0 the devs I've worked with so far have all been really sweet (´꒳`);; Macdev: This is a tough question! I have a lot of favorites. Probably Stray Cat Crossing overall, but I also love Home and Starboy. Starboy brings a lot of memories, and Stray Cat Crossing was what inspired me to start making games! Oh, and Home is just very cute.

We mods would like to thank HALFWORLDstudios for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Cadeau if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[another-blog-bites-the-dust]

The Week.

Summary: You and John spend the week together in Tokyo, Japan. A week that would change your lives for good.

Warnings: Bit of drinking and swearing but that's about it, lots of fluff!

A/N: I know it's been far too long!! Sorry about that! Just been so busy between life and writing that I haven't had the chance to take the time to upload and edit my work! Plus the eye infection didn't help 😭😅Nevertheless, here is the next part- lookout for a little song reference 😉 Enjoy! 💖

Gif source [X]

Day 2.

—————

A restless night was washed off in a quick shower. The sleep was still softly clutching onto your body however, but you had a busy day ahead and you couldn't let that get to you. You tossed your old towels into the empty bath for the housekeeper to take away and changed into something comfortable before making your way downstairs for breakfast. It was seven thirty in the morning.

You stepped into the lift and pressed the floor where the restaurant was. When the lift stopped in the floor below yours, a flurry of excited and eager butterflies emerged in your stomach. You were disappointed when the doors opened and John wasn't there- but he still might be sleeping. Instead a young family entered and pressed the button to the lobby. When you got out of the lift, you slowly walked to the restaurant and were led to a table. There was a spread of food along a wall and a menu on the table. You ordered a few things from it and the biggest cup of coffee they had. You got up and grabbed a bowl of funky sounding fruit to start with and grabbed one of the newspapers they had and put it on the table beside you, reading it while you ate your fruit.

Your coffee arrived...and so did someone else. "Morning!" They chirped and you looked up, a smile suddenly appearing on your face.

"Good morning, John," you folded up the paper "How'd you sleep?" You asked.

"I didn't." He still managed to lowly chuckle despite being exhausted.

You smirked "Neither did I." He was still standing- there was a spare chair across from you. "Do you want to join me for breakfast?"

"You sure?" He asked, already pulling out the chair.

"Course," you smiled and he sat down, and placed his order with the server. "I like having company." You smiled into your coffee cup "I always travel alone- it's a nice change having breakfast with someone."

"I hope I'm not keeping you from your work." The worry was adamant in John's voice but you waved away his concerns and told him that he wasn't. "I'm assuming you're a fellow Londoner from your accent?" He put that out there and then silently thanked the waiter for his tea that he had ordered.

"You assume correct. I live just west of Kensington." John choked on his tea and you raised a brow. "What?"

"I live just west of Kensington!" He grinned. "Melrose Gardens!"

You went wide-eyed "No way! I stay on Dewhurst Road! You are like five minutes away from me!" You giggled and John rested his chin on his hand with a toothy grin. Your laughter died down and you looked at him with a soft, amazed smile. "Isn't it funny that you can travel halfway around the world and then find someone who lives down the road from you?"

"Very funny," he mused.

"It's fascinating how small our little big world is." You said just as your breakfasts arrived.

"So what are your plans for today?" He asked. "Do you focus on a particular point of interest or sights to write about?" John was genuinely interested in what you did and when he arrived back in the U.K., he was sure to get his hands on a paper to read your work.

"I try and focus on a bit on every aspect. I tend to spend a week wherever I go to try and do a bit of everything a place has to offer." You began to explain, the pair of you still eating away at your breakfasts. "So today for example, today I'm going to the shops and I'm going to explore a little- jot down anything I find interesting or if I spot any quirky hotspots . I'll take a lot of photos too. But during the week I'll go on a excursion, see what modes of public transport are available, check out the nightlife, try the traditional restaurants...that sort of thing."

"You've certainly got a jam-packed week. Sounds fun too!" He took a bite of toast. "I'll probably be stuck in here all week- especially since my bandmates will be far too busy lazing about." He added with an eye roll.

You chortled before you were hit with an idea. "If you're not busy...you could always tag along with me if you want? I don't mind." You nonchalantly shrugged and sipped away on your coffee.

"R-really?! Sure! I'd love to!" John knew he sounded a little too enthusiastic.

"Great! Well I'll get myself organised and I can meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes?" You suggested and both stood up at the same time.

"Perfect!" You both made your way to the lift, John got off at his floor. "See you soon!" You sent him a small wave and continued going up another floor. You grabbed your bag that had all your necessities in it and your camera along with a guidebook. Before you went anywhere you always read up about where you were going and took a guidebook on the journey with you. The maps inside were especially handy.

Twenty minutes later you met with John who was eagerly waiting for you and an adventure around Tokyo. "Ready to go?" You asked and he nodded and the pair of you stepped outside. The sun was out and there was a scattering of fluffy white clouds in the sky. You ended up down a busy little side street. You spotted a shop who's window display consisted of bright yellow, plastic streamers and questionable looking mannequins in even more questionable positions. "We should head in," you pointed to the door.

"In there?" John pointed too "It looks mad!"

You took his hand and you both felt a jolt of electricity bolt up your arms. "That's exactly why we're going in." John was happy to be dragged by you into the weird wonderland of whimsical mishmash paraphernalia. It held everything from telephones to a literal kitchen sink, as well as odd pairs of shoes, cut out bras and glittery rubber ducks.

"This looks like the inside of Freddie's head," John murmured with a smirk while he took in the emporium of sheer madness.

You smiled and made a mental note to ask about his bandmates later. Walking up ahead, you laughed and picked up a cowboy hat "John," you called him and he looked over, stifling a laugh. "What do you think?" You dramatically accentuated your poses.

"You actually really suit that! You should get it!" You took it off and admired it before taking his advice. John found himself in a little gap filled with rails of clothes and picked up a very jazzy, sequinned, feathery bra. "Think this is too much?" He joked and you giggled.

"Matches your sparkling eyes..." you said without even thinking. Your mouth just blabbed the truth. John had a shy smile on his face while yours went bright red. "Um..." you nervously picked up something and held it in front of him "I think you'd look good in this shirt. Brings out your eyes." You mentally slapped yourself bringing up his beautiful eyes yet again within a matter of seconds.

"You got a thing for my eyes?" He teased but John was a giddy, nervous wreck now he knew that you liked his eyes. He'd use that to his advantage.

"I think we should pay and explore more of the city," you managed to speak out and after grabbing a few more things which included a pair of sunglasses and funky light up earrings, you paid and headed to more shops.

You and John found yourselves in a clothes shop that was deeply embracing the trends of the 70's along with a few traditional outfits. You snapped a few photos of the store and of the cheerful cashier who happily stuck his thumbs up when you snapped a picture. You thanked him and continued taking more photos, including one of John candidly looking through the rails. After picking up an armful of clothes each, you tried them on- some for a laugh and others because they were genuinely nice pieces. You emerged out of the changing booth, pulling back the orange velvet curtain and looked in the mirror in front of you. Then John emerged and you burst out laughing at what you were both wearing. "We look like Sonny and Cher!" You giggled and John stood next to you and scrutinised the immensely tacky outfits.

"I don't have a moustache!" He chuckled.

You reached across and pulled a strand of his long hair in front of his face, above his lip. "Now you do!" You laughed even louder.

John grabbed a piece and placed it over your lip. "So do you." He took it away and lightly gasped "It's still there!" Your jaw dropped but your mouth was curving upwards at his playful remark.

You lightly jabbed his side "Very funny." The cashier, who was laughing at the pair of you, pointed at your camera and then the two of you as if to ask 'Would you like your photo taken?' You nodded with a small smile and handed him the camera. He took two and handed it back. "Arigatō!" You bowed and he did the same. John looked at you with an amazed smile.

"You know Japanese?" He asked.

You shook your head and changed, still talking to him- the room was so small and the wall and curtains were thin enough for him to still hear you. "Only a little. 'Thanks' is pretty easy- I couldn't have a full blown conversation in the language." You changed into a traditional dress and stepped out, John was still admiring his choice of outfit that made him look like Sonny. "What do you think?" You asked and he looked at you via the mirror. His heart skipped a beat and his breath caught.

"You look beautiful in that..." he was dumbfounded by your beauty in such a traditional look.

You sheepishly smiled. "Arigatō..." you winked and then changed back into your own clothes, picking out a few bits that you liked and a jumper that your mum would love as well as the traditional dress. You both paid and headed to the next shop, snapping yet more photos, then another, and then another, then stopped off for some street food- a platter of sushi and gyoza's before heading to yet another shop and picking up a kimono each. "That was a very successful day shopping!" You entered the hotel with your arms full of bags.

"I think the term 'shop till you drop' is the definition of what we've done today!" John tiredly laughed. "God, I need a shower now! That was so fun!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," you managed to press the lift button. "Thanks for coming along with me. I had a great time and got lots of great photos!"

"Thanks for the invite." John sent you a warm smile. "Now it's my turn to return an invite- meet you at the bar later? Around seven?" He asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes and nervous, twiddling fingers.

"Yeah!" You quickly agreed- perhaps a little too fast but that didn't bother John.

He got off at the floor below yours and headed to his room with a smile. He had never had so much fun in such few hours- especially shopping! It was like you had opened his eyes to a new and exciting world. Then it dawned on him that perhaps the company made a difference and was the influence of why he had such fun. Sure, he had been to the shops with past girlfriends but it was a chore to him. But shopping with you and your 'eyes wide open to everything and anything' view changed his initial perspective on going shopping with someone.

You put all your bags down in the corner of your room for now, you'd pack everything away at some point. You took out the camera and photos from the bag it was in and smiled at one- of many photos- of John. He was standing facing a sign that was in Japanese, the light from it bounced perfectly off his face and he looked ethereal- he was glowing. The shadows created perfectly highlighted his exquisite features. You were in awe.

Seven o'clock rolled around fast. John was at the bar first waiting for you with a untouched glass of Suntory beside him. He looked up at the right moment and saw you walk in wearing a lovely black dress with little flowers on it. "Thought I'd make an effort for rock royalty..." you spun on the spot.

John decided to joke with you. "That's an effort?" He widely grinned and you feigned offence with a smirk. "I'm only kidding! You know I'm joking!"

"You're ballsy, John Deacon!" You pointed as you sat next to him, then you saw the drink. "And you got my usual." You leaned forward and clinked your glass with his. "Am I that predictable after being in my company for just over a day?" You both looked over hearing an eruption of laughter. The group of Japanese businessmen who were there in the same spot as last night. "People drinking for days gone by, huh?" You smirked and motioned over to them. "They were here last night too. But then again, time don't mean a thing- especially when you're jet lagged." John hummed and nodded in agreement. "I wish I could sleep."

"Me too," John sighed and took a drink. "Maybe one night I'm here I'll be able to." You casually rested a hand on your cheek, keeping your attention on John. "That night feels like years away...." he laughed "But then again, time don't mean a thing." He repeated your words and the corner of your lip tugged upwards for a split second.

The group of men laughed again and you and John smiled "Sounds like they are having fun."

"I had fun today," John said before taking a sip of his drink "Most fun since I've been here really- our management were really pushing us last week in Kyoto. Wasn't very enjoyable, a lot of pressure." He sighed and played with the napkin under his glass.

Your eyebrows softened and you reached across and instinctively placed your hand on his forearm and he stopped toying with the napkin. The contact sent John's heart fluttering. "You know, maybe you should take a break from listening to what they tell you to do and start listening to yourself. You might actually live a little and feel better if you did." You suggested before taking a drink. "You're your own person John. No one can ever take that away from you." You smiled at him. John placed his hand on the top of yours, his thumb brushed over the back of your hand.

"I might just do that, Y/N."

You were looking at each other in silence for a few minutes and then the bartender- the same one from last night- disturbed you both. You had both learned his name, Harry, he asked if you'd like another round of drinks. "Last round for me," you looked to John "I hope you don't mind, I want to attempt to get some sleep tonight!"

John nodded with a grin "I'm on the same boat as you! I'll make an attempt to get some shut eye but I doubt I'll get much."

"The jet lag is still kicking the shit out of me so I'll be up most of the night too no doubt." You tiredly smiled "It really sucks." You thanked Harry with a silent smile and raised your glass at John who did the same. You both took your time on your last drink before parting ways for the night. "Thanks for a great day, John. I had an amazing time."

"Hope we can do it again...I'd really like it if we did." He bit on his lip and you shyly smiled while nodding your head. You were hoping he'd say that. "Hope you get some sleep."

"I hope you get some sleep too, John." You got off first. "Night. Sweet dreams." You waved and caught one final glimpse of him. Or so you thought.

John pressed his hand against the door to hold it open and popped his head out "And Y/N!" He called.

You turned around "Yes?"

He smiled, admiring the sight he knew was fortunate enough to be looking at. "You really didn't need to make the effort. You already look absolutely beautiful."

You bashfully smiled "Thank you." John forced himself back into the lift. The doors shut and he endured another floor in the lift listening to yet more piano music. You quickly changed into your pyjamas, turned off the room lights and tossed yourself onto the bed- not bothering to find what remote closed the curtains. You fell asleep with the glowing Tokyo lights in the background while thinking of John.

——————————

•All parts•

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[doshmanziari]

2019 Mega Drive Explorations [4]

A continuation of parts 1, 2, and 3. Click the link below to read the full post.

The NewZealand Story (1990)

This almost instantly became one of my favorite games for the Mega Drive. It was first an arcade release (1988), and got a ton of ports with, I assume, differences between each; Wikipedia notes that the version I played “had its levels based on the prototype version of the arcade game.” What that means, qualitatively, I’m not yet sure. This is some of the weirdest level design I’ve encountered in a platformer that’s not, like, a reactionary deconstructive work (in the way that the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is). The only other somewhat contemporary title I can compare it to is Milon’s Secret Castle (1986). Each of The NewZealand Story’s stages is a sort of maze that’s completed when you reach a fellow kiwi and release them from a cage. What really lets the layouts grow as they do is that, once you get to the second zone (of four), you need to start making use of the various flotation devices which preexist here and there or are left behind by enemies you defeat. So the level design gets to, in a kind of freeform way, flip between “normally” accessible paths and platforms, and toothy stretches demanding aerial navigation. The flotation devices are distinct from one another, too, from how you adhere to it to the speed. What was especially fun about this to me is how, following a clear-out of enemies, you might have a selection of these devices to choose from, and there aren’t really comparative downsides between them (the closest you get to that are these things that look like, uh, torpedoes, which are slow, but they’re also the one device that can’t be popped by shooting at it or touching spikes).

Even if The NewZealand Story isn’t genre-/series-deconstructive, that doesn’t mean it can’t have whimsical moments. A standout for me is illustrated in the third screenshot, where a “room” you have to get to is surrounded by a barrier, and seemingly inaccessible, until you remember that if you are standing below platforms and walkways of a certain thinness and appearance you can jump through them. The solution is to get yourself up against that vertical band and jump through the bit where it briefly horizontally redirects. Cool!! The other thing I like a lot about the level design is that it’s not strictly economical, that some of the structural arrangements seem to exist to form visual patterns more than to control your route. So you have minor casual options for where and how to move through a space. Mercifully, amazingly, bosses are few -- only three -- and they have brevity: you can get rid of the final boss (see the screenshot above) within seconds by popping his balloon. I like looking at this game, too. A couple of stages reminded me of Falcom’s Xanadu and Faxanadu in their cute, flattish, compact representation of architecture or architectural elements within a screen’s worth of space and fortressed tiling. Once you’re past the first zone, loosely themed as a zoo, it’s impossible to tell if the zones’ apertures and voids admit further views or are all mosaics and/or props. It was an unexpected and engaging ambiguity: either interpretation has strange implications. Besides a couple of jumps over and under spikes which demand an inapt exactitude, this is pretty much a perfect game for me, and I wish it had gotten a handheld rerelease on the Nintendo GBA or DS.

Arcus Odyssey (1991)

As a Wolf Team-developed game, Arcus Odyssey sits snugly beside Earnest Evans and El Viento as a whirlwind of inexplicable plot points (rendered more inexplicable, and amusing, by an amateurish localization), lopsided pacing, and just a ton of baffling game design that doesn’t really care about you. Everything is exploding and the gravitas has no narrative grounding. It is at its best hilariously joyful and at its worst insensitively prohibitive. Environments, from a network of walkways suspended thousands of feet above the earth, to a colonnaded stepped complex that recalls John Martin’s infernal painting, Pandemonium, are set at an oblique angle and are swimming with sorcerers, skeletons, cockroaches, and other creatures who unendingly come at you from out of nowhere and half of the time spit projectiles. The palettes and narrow, minuscule tilesets give everything the veneer of a PC-98 title. Regardless of the character you choose (for me, it was the pink-haired Erin who wields a whip), the best strategy is to never stop mashing the attack button. This got iffy in one stage where a numerous type of flying creature left behind a crawling string of flames on the ground upon death. The best strategy for bosses? Use an invincibility-granting item you’ve hopefully snagged from a treasure chest, stand right next to the boss, and... yeah, mash that attack button. Which is fine! This is not a game where the mechanics could’ve yielded bosses who were interesting for reasons other than their appearance.

Arcus Odyssey has two serious, debilitating issues, though. The first is that you only have room in an inventory menu for six items (five, really; one of these items is permanent), and yet I have quite literally never seen another videogame with so many treasure chests relative to its stages’ sizes. You’ll mostly be passing stuff up then because you’re at capacity. Sure, you can consume the things you have to make room, but there are at least three items which have contextually valuable uses: the potion of invincibility, the lifebar-refilling lamp of life, and the resurrecting doll of life. Stocking up on one kind to the exclusion of everything else isn’t a sustainable plan. So the “economy,” as it were, is kinda fucked. The second debilitating, perhaps eventually paralyzing, issue is that Arcus Odyssey has the design of an early Japanese PC action-RPG like Ys or Rune Worth, where you are constantly harangued by waves of enemies who non-specifically occupy the level designs and bosses who may instantly unload multiple projectile-based attacks. That sort of design, somewhat haphazard as it was, could function (with degrees of success) in the context of the RPG part of the “action-RPG” equation, since you could reliably and incrementally level up (and save!). Arcus Odyssey doles out a few upgrades here and there, but it plays out like an action game that doesn’t understand the forms it’s borrowing. As such, it’s easy -- and become easier, the further along you are -- to get yourself into situations whose demands for superhuman, verging on omniscient, performance make no sense. Real shame.

Marvel Land (1991)

Like The NewZealand Story, Marvel Land is a Mega Drive port of an arcade game released a couple of years earlier. Also like the former, it quickly became a personal console-favorite. A few prickles keep me from fully loving it -- namely, the bizarre precision you need to have when jumping on enemies to not get hit yourself (and a hit here, as per usual with arcade games before the 90s, equals death), a few too many leaps of faith, and optional doorways which can send you back to previous levels, as far as the very first -- but the diversity of creatures, stages’ arrangements and themes, power-ups, and unconventional bosses have an individual and cumulative appeal that outweighs those problematics. I think I’m obligated here to say that I will almost automatically like any videogame that has a candy-themed environment, and Marvel Land has one of those, complete with waddling ice cream cones, gingerbread houses, and a maze built of cracker-cookies. The two main and most interesting power-ups are wings which temporarily give you a much higher jump and the ability to fly, and a string of self-duplicates which can be whipped around to hit enemies, collect items for score, and latch onto targets to swing from them. A later level surprised me when it both expected me to use the wings to progress and to be mindful about the height of my jumps so as to not skewer myself on spikes., denying the expectation that such a liberty would dissolve hard designs.

Bosses deserve a special mention because, god, by now I just hate bosses, they ruin so many of these games, and Marvel Land’s are designed as “minigames” -- a game of rock-paper-scissors, selecting an illustration in a grid that matches an example below, or Whac-a-mole (against a mole). It’s decent, clever, and properly playful. Despite this, the game is still compelled to have a “real” boss fight at the very end (were the developers anxious?), and I could’ve done without that; but, it was straightforward enough. The aforementioned bestiary, if you want to call it that, is wonderful and funny and can hold its own against any of the Kirby games’ rosters. You can see, for example, in the last screenshot that a feisty mallard duck who beckons at you with an index feather-finger is named COMEON. Other members include HEAVY, a chubby pink snake, and GIANTBURGER, a sentient burger. As a closing comment, I’ll say that it’s striking and odd how many videogames, from Japan, no less, were about restoring the rule of a Eurocentric fairytale monarchy. Hell, that’s what two of Nintendo’s most popular extant series are about (Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda). Why is this an international go-to for a premise? And how could anyone care about it? In some cases I think it’s fair to guess that the creator(s) did not care and simply went with a cultural trope that was within grabbing range; but the question remains of why those tropes are within grabbing range. We already know why these narratives are also fiercely heteronormative (even The NewZealand Story has to make the last kiwi you rescue be a girl -- wow, thank god!), but this prevalent medievalism that has an uncritical nostalgia for monarchy kinda mystifies me.

[in78weeks-blog]

Solo Trip to Bogota

Nervous about my first international solo trip, I landed at the El Dorado International Airport and worked up the courage to use my very limited and very broken Spanish to acquire a SIM card, exchange some cash, and grab a taxi to head to my hostel. I gave the driver the address to the hostel, which he did not recognize, and after telling him it was in the La Candelaria neighborhood and setting my google maps GPS to direct us to the hostel, I let out a sigh of relief. While he was driving me to my hostel and occasionally getting lost, I directed him by telling him “derecha aqui”, “izquierda a la calle once”, etc. With 15 minutes remaining on our drive to the hostel, I looked down at my phone to the terrifying realization that my phone only had 9% battery remaining. I thought to myself, “if my phone battery dies now, I have no way of knowing where to go, and neither does my driver”. Luckily, I made it to my hostel with 3% battery remaining, and again, I let out an even deeper sign of relief.

I put my belongings down in my aesthetic and quaint hostel, plugged in my phone, and let my mind rest. As I was hanging out on the hammock in the shared space, figuring out my plan for the rest of the evening, two guys arrived at the hostel named Colin and Luke. Talking to Colin for a bit, I learned that he was a coffee roaster for a small company based out of Chicago.

I started to wander toward the Botero Museum, but got distracted by the large crowds down the street. I wandered past artists selling their handmade jewelry and handwoven bags and into a wide open square covered in pigeons. Looking at google maps, I realized I had wandered into Simon Bolivar Square - a popular tourist destination. I sat in the middle of the square and watched as vendors went around trying to sell jewelry, selfie sticks, fruit, and corn kernels - used to feed the pigeons in the square. I scanned the square and laughed as tourists tried to stay still and pose for a picture as pigeons flocked to their corn kernel-filled hands.

After being approached many times by vendors and being satisfied with the photos I captured in the square, I made my way back up the street to the Botero Museum. Fernando Botero is a famous Colombian artist, made known for his unique painting style of chubby subjects. In addition to artwork from Botero, the museum was also scattered with paintings of Picasso, Monet, and Degas.

The Museum was closing soon so I decided to head back toward the hostel to find a place to eat. I stumbled in on a restaurant called “De Una Travel Bar” and used my best Spanish to order myself a meal and two local Colombian beers. Satisfied with my first meal in Colombia, I made my way back to the hostel, hoping to meet and spend time with some of my hostel mates.

Oscar, who was originally from Sydney, Australia was already hanging out on a hammock in the common room and he was quick to start up a conversation with me. Soon after, Shaun and Emily, a couple from Perth, Australia joined us in the shared space. Emily was originally from the states but recently moved to Perth to be with Shaun. Later, Marcel joined us.

We went around the table and answered the following questions: How long have you been traveling, how long are you in Colombia, where have you been and where are you going? Most of the people around the table had some wild travel stories, and had been on the road for quite some time. I was the odd one out, admitting that I was only in town for the weekend.

We quickly exhausted the conversation about the logistics of each of our travel plans, and began talking about the different places we call home. I was most curious about Emily and Shaun’s story, of how Emily who grew up in the United States learned to live in Australia, whose seasons are opposite to what she was used to. Curious about what mysteries lie on the opposite side of the planet, I eagerly listened to the stories that Emily, Shaun and Oscar had to share about Australia.

Soon it was getting dark so we made plans to go to a nice coffee shop in the morning and went to bed.

I’m not sure if it was the sun or the sound of cars driving by on the cobblestone roads just outside of the window that woke me up in the morning. Coffee is one of my big passions so I sprang out of bed, excited to get going to this nice coffee shop other hostel mates were buzzing about. We gathered our crew and walked to the highly aesthetic coffee shop down the street.

Luckily, this cafe had a cupping (coffee tasting) option where they brought out three different coffees in little taster cups. In addition to the coffee, we also each ordered avocado toast. As the food came to our table, we were blown away at how beautiful and delicious the breakfast looked and joked about how much this delicious breakfast would have cost in our respective countries.

Marcel, David and I planned to do the “Bogota Graffiti Tour”, a local walking tour that took us around the streets of Bogota so we could learn about the graffiti of the region, the history of the artist, and the political and social message behind the artwork. As a solo female traveler, I was nervous about venturing too far from the comforts and safety of the tourist areas, but this tour was a great way for me to comfortably explore more of the city of Bogota without risking my safety.

Our tour guide was very informed about the graffiti in the city, as he was a graffiti artist himself. He explained that many of the pieces in the city were politically motivated and made me appreciate the power of art in cultural and social movements. In addition to having the opportunity to learn about the public artwork, I was also glad to have the opportunity to witness the daily lives of the local people.

Unlike any North American city I have ever been in, I felt as though each of the neighborhoods in Bogota were wearing the emotions of the people that resided in them. In the urban, residential, and economically unstable areas where the effect of the government is palpable, the political and social frustrations of the people manifested in powerful murals that could be found along every main street. In the La Candelaria neighborhood, home to tourism and the international youths, the walls were vibrant, fun and whimsical. The political messages did not adorn the walls of this neighborhood as to not upset or confuse the guests. In the business district of the city, the walls resembled that of a North American metropolitan center - plain, simple as if trying to keep up with other technologically advanced cities.

After two hours of walking around the city of Bogota in the heat of the day, we returned to the La Candelaria neighborhood and found a restaurant with local food. We all ordered the meal of the day, which was a humble coriander soup, rice, salad and a single fried plantain. It was exactly what I needed before returning to the hostel to recharge for the remainder of the day.

I took an hour to recharge - both myself and my phone, and soon after ventured out on the streets of La Candelaria on my own, exploring the architectural details of this colorful town. The lights and shadows of the day played well on the brightly painted walls and the warm sun and Latin American humidity was a treat for my dry and weathered skin.

The sun was beginning to set so I took toward Cerro Monserrate - the mountain that towers over the city of Bogota. I was told that the view from this mountain top would put into perspective the size of the Latin American metropolis. There are three ways to reach the summit - a 2,000 ft vertical hike up the side of the mountain, a cable car (which was currently undergoing repairs), and a funicular - a train like vehicle that slowly trails up the side of the mountain. I didn’t have the proper attire for a hike so I opted out of the active option, which left me with a ride up the funicular. As we climbed to the top of the mountain, I started to grasp the size of the city of Bogota.

Latin America is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and the city of Bogota is no different. At the top of Monserrate Mountain was a giant Catholic Church that was built to honor God in the highest and most visible place in the city. Looking across to the neighboring mountain, there was a gigantic status of Jesus Christ much like the famous “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil though this one was not available to the public.

I was expecting to meet up with David, Marcel, and Bella at sunset so I killed some time by venturing around the tourist market while I waited. Time after time I turned down the vendors trying to convince me to buy their souvenir trinkets.

About half an hour before sunset, David arrived and together we looked out on the city in silence. Having just met and both of us being relatively introverted, we didn’t have much to talk about. It brought me joy to look around and see all kinds of people and groups enjoying the sunset on this particular evening. Next to us was a very intimate and well-dressed couple, and if I had to guess, this was one of many romantic stops for the evening. Families with crying babies huddled together s the temperature began to drop. International groups of high schoolers couldn’t contain their excitement to be in a foreign country with their 25 “closest” classmates. And then there was David and me, silently appreciating each other’s company without necessarily needing to fill it with words.

A couple minutes before the sun tipped below the mountains in the distance, Bella showed up with her signature bubbly personality and Marcel quietly tagged along behind her. We enjoyed the final moments of the daylight and as the temperature quickly dropped, we started back toward the funicular and down the mountainside.

We went to a restaurant near the hostel called Gato Gris, another recommendation from a fellow traveler. It was a nicer, more expensive restaurant, but it was my last night in Bogota so I decided to let myself splurge. We were seated in a tiny room in the upstairs corner of the restaurant and I admired the decor in this space. The first thing I realized was that an old door had been fashioned into a dining table, and the space was dimly lit with a uniquely boho light fixture.

As we sat around the table waiting to order, I was surprised at how much our time together was dominated by silence. As a group of travelers with a royal collection of unique experiences, I was expecting our time together to be filled with conversation, jumping in and out of stories and never finding enough time to tell the best stories from each of our travels. Instead, our group tended toward silence, over dinner, while waiting in line to buy tickets for the next tourist attraction, and this uncanny silence took me by surprise.

I woke up bright and early in anticipation for my last day in Colombia. Looking around at the other bunks in my room, it was only me and one other person in the sleeping quarters, and everyone else had continued on with their travels. I was on my own for my last half day in Bogota so I decided to go and explore as many coffee shops as I could. Unfortunately, it was Sunday which meant that most of the cafes were closed, but I had a plan to visit two different ones.

I returned to the cafe we went to the day before - Azahar cafe and in my best Spanish, I ordered another cupping plate, but asked for different coffees from the ones I had the day before. The barista seemed to understand my request and brought me different flavors from the ones I had the previous day. I enjoyed the avocado toast from the day before so I decided to order that as well. After filling up on breakfast, I bought a bag of coffee beans to bring home and went on my way.

I stopped in at the Simon Bolivar square again to see it in a different scenery. Since it was Sunday, there was an ongoing Catholic mass that I got to sit in on for a couple minutes. Though many elements of my faith align with that of the Catholic church, the liturgy and catholic priests performing ceremonial acts made me feel very far from God.

I only had a couple hours remaining so I began to wander over to the next coffee shop. I located the coffee shop on google maps but was unable to find the storefront anywhere. Again in my best Spanish, I asked the security guard of the library if they had any idea where this coffee shop was. In very fast Spanish and some vague hand motions, they directed me into the library, through the hallway and around several corners. After asking several other guards inside the building, I eventually found my way to the very kind cash register who made me a fresh cup of coffee and helped me pick out two more bags of beans to bring home.

I sat on the couch in the silent library hallway, sipping on my coffee when a stranger joined me and began to talk in very fast Spanish while pointing at my camera. I regretfully told him that I didn’t speak Spanish “lo siento, no hablo Espanol” and he lit up and responded in very good English “Oh, do you speak English”?

He told me that he was planning on buying a camera but wasn’t sure what kind he wanted. I walked him through different types of cameras, the different models available, but after a short while, I realized that this all seemed to be going over his head, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the language barrier or the content of our conversation.

It was time to head back home, and a part of me was glad. I felt like my mind was being pulled in so many directions and I had so much to think about.

On the flight home I had a lot to think about. As my first international solo trip, I carried with me excitement, and fear, and had a mind full of doubts. Being able to explore Bogota with the company of other foreign travelers, I felt much more at ease about my own safety, but felt like sticking to my comfortable, English-speaking bubble limited me from truly experiencing all that Bogota had to offer. Spending time with these carefree, fearless travelers unexpectedly stirred up emotions about a topic I feel so passionately about - the purpose and intention of travel. I once envied the boldness and bravery of people who choose to put their lives on hold to travel the world for several months, but after spending time with these people, I was confronted with the reality of this glamorized life choice.

I still have much to process about my reasons for traveling, and hope to one day be able to develop cohesive thoughts about the value of modern day travel.

[tabletop-tales]

Tone: Respect and Maintain

When you’re starting in a new campaign or entering a pre-existing one, one of the most important factors that influence the table mood and party dynamic is the tone of the sessions. Some GM’s like to play whimsical sessions, full of fun fights and shitposting shenanigans. Others prefer a more sombre, serious tone. Usually the more challenging mood to maintain and respect is the latter, so let’s take a quick peek at tone.

My first introduction to D&D was with a GM who favoured a heavy, serious tone to match an epic story with high stakes and catastrophic consequences for failure. As a first-time player, I trod very lightly where RPing was concerned, erring on the side of caution to test the waters before getting into character and fully immersing myself in the story. It was, at the time, a fun evening with friends and nothing more.

As I learned and grew as a player, however, I became more and more invested in the story. Suddenly it was more than just an evening with friends; it was an evening with an amazing story and fantastic characters that I grew to love. I learned how important it was that all of us respected the tone; it helped us to really step into the world and allowed him to present us with a fulfilling story with compelling NPCs, good and bad alike.

Offhand jokes and memes away from the table (and even short-lived giggling fits at the table) are by no means uncommon or discourteous. But if a GM has clearly set a heavy tone for the campaign, It’s hard for a party to view an NPC as threatening or ominous when they consistently shitpost amongst themselves during sessions. It makes it difficult for players to suspend disbelief and for the GM to give the scene the gravitas they so carefully planned it to have.

If you’re a GM, here’s what you can do to make sure that you and your players get the most out of your time together. Set tone expectations before you begin a campaign (or before session if it’s a oneshot). Make sure that the players that are attending your session(s) understand your vision and that they have the same vision. Don’t be afraid to lay down the law gently but firmly when maintaining tone, and don’t be afraid to suggest that a player find another game if they’re looking for something else.

If you’re a player, here’s what you can do to make sure that you, the rest of your party, and your GM get the most out of your time together. Heed your GM’s requests for a specific tone. If your GM has set a serious tone, please respect them and that tone. If your fellow players are having trouble respecting the tone, don’t be afraid to give them a gentle reminder. If you are invited to a game that doesn’t match the tone you were hoping for, perhaps bring it up with the GM and see if the two of you can find a solution together, whether that be adjusting the tone a little or finding another game to play in.

Don’t forget, above all, it’s a game! A campaign exists to allow you to have fun and step into another world for a few hours, so respect one another. Communication is key, and things go much more smoothly when everyone takes part and listens to each other!

[sleemo]

Edge of Darkness

From the Marines to the Emmys to the most powerful cultural force in the galaxy, for ADAM DRIVER, finding his path has been a long, hard battle. Now, for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, in a role he never imagined could be so complex, the brooding face of millennial angst faces his toughest fight yet. Spoiler alert! 

—British GQ, December 2017

His face shrouded beneath a hood, Adam Driver strides toward me. Shoulders hunched, fists jammed into jean pockets, he lets out a low whisper, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

The mixed messages – simultaneously worrying he’ll be recognised and that he won’t – hang in the air awkwardly as Driver surveys our spot, a near-empty New York City café. Neither fear is well-founded; there is no flock of fans to notice him and yet there is no mistaking the actor, his grey hoodie notwithstanding.

“I try to disguise things, but it just doesn’t really work for me,” Driver says, shedding the sweatshirt. “I honestly just look the way I look and it’s difficult to blend in because I’m tall and I look strange. I shouldn’t put a judgment on it.”

Others have judged his appearance more favourably. Driver has been dubbed a “cure for the cookie-cutter leading man” and “a millennial sex symbol”. Which may or may not be a compliment. Although few phrases are as loaded as “unconventionally attractive”, it’s as if those two words were combined expressly to describe Driver. Exaggerated ears; hooded, slanted eyes; long nose with a boxer’s bridge; broad mouth and lips – his disparate features coalesce into a surprisingly appealing whole.

“I guess I never think about it like ‘I am a leading man’ or ‘I am a sex symbol.’ It’s strange to hear that stuff. I don’t think I could have imagined it,” says Driver. Yet, there was his visage on Gap billboard ads; in American Vogue with a black-horned ram slung across his shoulders; in a close-up at the Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor three years in a row for his part in HBO’s Girls; and cast eternally in plastic as a Kylo Ren action figure for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – masked and unmasked versions available. (“Not bad,” he says of the likeness, “but my head and face are a lot bigger.”) Passers-by who once stopped him to ask, “How could you do that to Hannah?” in reference to the bad-boy behaviour of Driver’s character in Lena Dunham’s runaway-success television series, now ask, “How could you do that to Han Solo?”

“It’s a lot,” Driver says, “every part of my life. If we rewound to ten years ago, I would not have said that this is what my life would be.

“And now this music,” he waves his hands at the piano composition streaming through the café like pretentious Musack, “is making that sound so emotional. It isn’t helping, you know?”

Far from angry, the brooding face of millennial angst is smirking. At 33, Adam Driver’s signature intensity hasn’t wavered, but interest in being a tortured artist has. He’s aware of his tendencies – toward anxiety, analysis and absolutism – and is taking steps to temper them. Still, it’s a struggle, seeing good fortune as anything but a cause for self-flagellation.

If we did rewind ten years, we’d see why. Driver was a Gordian knot of clenched intensity. Enrolled at New York’s Juilliard performing arts school, he was so aggressive that his comments made fellow students cry. Every morning he would have six eggs for breakfast, then run five miles to the school from his home in Queens. He would eat a whole chicken for lunch and, during his day at the prestigious drama school, perform random feats, such as 1,000 push-ups.

“That must’ve been an obnoxious thing to be around,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to make it as extreme for myself as possible. Now it just makes me so tired and annoyed.”

I’ve met Driver in a peaceful, leafy corner of the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood that he and his wife, Joanne Tucker, call home. It’s a square precinct full of baby strollers that belies the borough’s hipster cred. “I like sleepy, quiet places,” Driver explains, “because my job is very loud.” Right now he’s savouring a respite from work, the first in a five-year sprint to stardom and even letting himself idle a little. Driver, who has made a career of ill-at-ease eccentricity, is starting to feel comfortable in his own skin.

He genuinely enjoyed himself on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will be released in cinemas this December. “The first one was all ‘You can’t fuck it up,’ you know? There was a lot more hanging out this time,” Driver says. “Then there are just practical things, like I have a lightsaber. That’s fun.”

Whatever the outcome of the larger battle between good and evil, the Resistance and the First Order, never underestimate the power of Driver’s light side. ”I had heard about Adam’s intensity before I worked with him, but he’s also really fun and funny,” says Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s director.

There was one emotionally charged scene that they shot over and over. “Every time the guy holding the clapper marked each take, Adam just starts trying to steal his shoe,” Johnson recalls. “It was hilarious. And then Adam goes straight into it with all the intensity of Kylo Ren. He just added a sense of play that made the process really click.”

Neither Johnson nor Driver can say what the scene was about or who else was in it. They are acutely aware of the cone of silence that surrounds the Star Wars films, suitably enough, like a force field. “There’s probably something in my contract, I don’t know – but it’s kind of unbelievable that no one has told me, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Driver explains. “It’s just implicitly understood.”

With plot points guarded like state secrets, even the tiniest perceived leak sets off an online feeding frenzy. Internet scribes grab at every quote, often misreading them. “You have to clarify truthful things you’ve said that people read these false things into,” Driver says. “It can be frustrating.”

After several years of sidestepping spoilers, Driver is practised at the art of obfuscation. His evasive manoeuvres are near perfect.

On whether he enjoyed acting opposite Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey: “That’s hard to answer. I mean, people assume that we’d spend time with each other. Maybe our characters see each other in the movie?”

On whether he had scenes with Carrie Fisher: “It’s hard to answer without being vague.”

On whether the lightsaber scar on his face, which came courtesy of Rey in The Force Awakens, was moved for the new film: “I noticed a lot of things.”

On whether Kylo Ren’s story has a happy ending: “Not saying yes or no. But continue.”

On whether Han Solo might have known Kylo Ren would kill him: “That’s interesting.”

On whether he appears with his mask off: “Yes, I can answer that. You’ll see it off in the new trailer, so I’m not giving anything away!”

Other times, Driver playfully embraces the absurdity of it all. “I can’t say anything, but what if I signal you,” he jokes. “If I just start sneezing uncontrollably…” He fakes a loud achoo and exclaims, “Bingo! Harrison Ford’s ghost returns!”

When I ask him about Kylo Ren’s mysterious order of Dark Side disciples, the Knights of Ren, he waxes whimsical. “We can talk about them. Peter, Paul, John… No, I was thinking of The Beatles. Except wait – there’s Peter. He was too ambitious on the tambourine. Now you know: the last Knight of Ren is Ringo Starr!”

On this particular mid-September day, the internet is abuzz with new speculation that Ridley’s character, Rey, is the daughter of Princess Leia (also Kylo Ren’s mother). This theory would take any romantic tension between her and Driver’s Kylo Ren into the realm of incest – territory that the first Star Wars trilogy explored with a kiss between Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher’s Leia.

“Yeah, my uncle and my mum made out,” Driver says, with a laugh. “Which Mark still talks about. He’s like, ‘Luke kissed his sister. How could he do that?’ I guess he hasn’t seen Game Of Thrones, you know?”

The Last Jedi marks the final film in Fisher’s storied career. Like the rest of the cast, Driver was shaken by the actress’ death last December at age 60. “It’s hard to talk about it without saying generic things,” he says. “Like, ‘It’s shocking,’ but it was. Or ‘It’s incredibly sad,’ which it is. I mean, it is all of those things.”

Driver brightens as he recalls Fisher’s wit on display at Comic-Con before the release of The Force Awakens. “The whole cast was downstairs in a conference room, talking through what’s supposed to happen at this big event. She was like, ‘Just pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit.’” Driver pauses for a moment then laughs. “So now I pretend I’m down to earth and you know what? People really do love that shit. They eat it up.”

The image of Driver that people have consumed is not so much down to earth as intense and uncompromising, the all-or-nothing avatar of millennial manhood named Adam Sackler, Driver’s character in Girls. Ever since Driver landed the part, originally a cameo called simply “Handsome Carpenter”, the notion he really was that id-driven artist has, like the life of another charismatic carpenter, been taken as gospel.

In the public consciousness, Driver’s backstory is as extreme as his alter ego’s: a Midwestern misfit enlists in the Marines after 9/11, then studies acting at Juilliard – and finds he’s an outlier in both worlds. The truth is both less and more dramatic.

Born in San Diego, California, Driver is the son of a preacher. When his parents divorced, Driver moved with his mother back to her native Mishawaka, Indiana, where she was soon remarried to a Baptist minister. As a teenager, Driver was a poor student who dabbled in pyromania, trainspotting and climbing radio towers. A fan of the film Fight Club, Driver started one with some friends. “Just seeing the angst, I thought it would be a good idea to emulate it.“

Acting offered Driver a way out of the tiny town he called a shithole. “I applied to Juilliard when I was graduating high school and didn’t get in, so I was like ‘Well, fuck it. I won’t go to college, then.’” Instead, he set off for Hollywood and what he thought would be overnight stardom. “I’d always heard the stories of people striking out and finding success,” he says. “Why not me?” The dream lasted as long as his hand-me-down 1990 Lincoln Town Car did. After it broke down outside Amarillo, Texas, the repairs cost Driver nearly all the money he’d saved. When he finally limped into Los Angeles, Driver spent two nights in youth hostels. The only agent he signed with was a real estate agency, which took him for the rest of his savings. Having landed neither an apartment nor an acting gig, Driver arrived back in Indiana a week after leaving.

Following the 11 September attacks, Driver did not, as some retellings suggest, march down to the recruiting station. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines several months later. “My stepfather pushed me into it a little bit, which was good – I was grateful for it,” Driver says. “It followed an argument where he was like, ‘You’re not doing anything!’ I’d gotten this brochure in the mail. He was like, ‘Why don’t you just join?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to join the Marines.’ Then I thought about it more. I had this sense of patriotism and wanted to get involved. I also had no prospects. I was living in the back of my parents’ house, working as a telemarketer.”

From the start, Driver’s time in uniform had a profound effect on him and his worldview. “The patriotism, the idea of country, doesn’t go away necessarily, it just turns into something else,” he says, reverently. “Not a big, sweeping idea, but this group of people you’re serving with, and that becomes your world, and it becomes sacred.”

Going into the Marines, Driver had a seemingly straightforward goal: “I’m going to be a man.” But rather than reinforce clichéd concepts of masculinity, military service put the lie to them. “You have to put implicit trust in the people to your left and right, and when they demonstrate that they’re looking out for you, that their own safety is secondary to yours, then all that kind of guy shit goes away and there is no ego,” Driver says. “There is no posturing, no need to say how much of a man you are, whatever that even means. You prove it with your actions.”

When Driver was not allowed to deploy to the Middle East with his unit, after suffering a broken sternum in a mountain biking accident, he was despondent. Although he fought to stay on active duty, Driver ultimately received a medical discharge.

He decided to apply to Juilliard again and this time got in. The transition from the Marine Corps to a New York City drama programme was jarring. During Driver’s second year, in an effort to bridge his past and present vocations, he launched a non-profit called Arts In The Armed Forces with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Tucker. Driver was able to carry a discipline and teamwork into his studies, but it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d gone soft. “I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m wearing pyjamas doing acting exercises where I’m giving birth to myself or being a plant or moving around in jelly,’” he says. “Then again, even now, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”

After a brief fallow period after graduating from Juilliard, Driver says he learned to hate everyone in the audition room. He didn’t like TV and almost skipped his audition for Girls entirely. Instead, he dazzled the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and the one-episode part Driver had read for was expanded into a central one. In audition after audition, Driver made a similar impression on a series of noted directors. Even before Girls aired, Steven Spielberg cast him in Lincoln, in which he played a telegraph operator opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. “He was very nice to me,” Driver says of the legendary method actor. “He would still talk in character, but very nice.”

In particular, Driver’s unusual, instinctive style made him a favourite of indie filmmakers. He landed meaty roles in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and a series of films by writer-director Noah Baumbach: Frances Ha, While We’re Young and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected). He played the lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and shared top billing in Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky. When Martin Scorsese was finally able to make his passion project, Silence, after two decades, he sought out Driver. Similarly, Driver recently wrapped shooting on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which Terry Gilliam had been trying to make for 17 years.

And yet nothing Driver had done remotely prepared him for Star Wars. He had grown up a fan of the original trilogy, but had little faith in outsized film franchises. “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle,” he says. “When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

Despite his initial trepidation, the complicated nature of Kylo Ren put Driver’s concerns to rest. “It was all about story and character and playing someone who doesn’t have it all together. Making him as human as possible seemed dangerous and exciting to me.”

Driver was drawn to an idea that JJ Abrams, who wrote and directed The Force Awakens, had. The man behind the mask was not a man at all, but rather a young person struggling to come of age. “I remember the initial conversations about having things ‘skinned’,” Driver recalls, “peeling away layers to evolve into other people, and the person Kylo’s pretending to be on the outside is not who he is. He’s a vulnerable kid who doesn’t know where to put his energy, but when he puts his mask on, suddenly, he’s playing a role. JJ had that idea initially and I think Rian took it to the next level.”

Driver is on a roll now, discussing what excites him: character and narrative and cinematic influences. The original Star Wars was an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, he says, and the link lives on in the new trilogy, in which concealed identities drive the narrative. Then he lets it slip. “You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices,” Driver says, apparently dropping a massive revelation about Rey’s royal origins.

Perhaps he’s unconcerned and Rey’s parentage is less dramatic than imagined by fans, who posited that her father is Luke then trumpeted that her mother is Leia. Or it could be that, in passionately holding forth, Driver is simply unaware he’s revealed anything, much less a major spoiler. In any case, he doesn’t skip a beat. “The things that made it personal to me,” Driver continues, “I’ll keep to myself, but I think everybody can relate to the idea of almost being betrayed.

“Wow, this music is killing me.”

As the café’s latest piano piece reaches its crescendo, I ask Driver if he tapped into his own experiences with his dad and stepfather and he reverts to evasive manoeuvres.

“I may leave that one. I have strong convictions about not talking about family, for many reasons,” Driver says. “It’s not as if the answers for Kylo are found in my relationships with my parents.”

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. “Adam was always pushing the context of the character,” Johnson says. “He’s put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he’s representing that side of adolescence.”

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. “It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be,” Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. “You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine – or hope or pray – are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. “We talked about terrorism a lot,” Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. “When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach,” Driver recalls. “The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s happening.’ Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife’s hand, and she’s like, ‘You’re really cold. Are you OK?’ Because I just knew what was coming – I kill Harrison – and I didn’t know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?”

One person in the crowd who appreciated that scene was Han Solo himself. “We were sitting on this catwalk in between takes,” Driver recalls, “and Harrison was like, ‘Look what we get to do. Just look what we get to do.’ Meaning, look at how lucky we are that this is our job, you know? To see someone at that point in his career still get excited like that hit me. It’s like, ‘Oh, right. I need to take this in more.’”

As if on cue, a couple stop and introduce themselves. “I love everything you’ve ever done,” the wife says. “Everything.”

“Thanks a million. Yeah. Hi, I’m Adam.”

As fan encounters go, it is respectful and pleasant, but not even a whimper of what will soon follow come the release of The Last Jedi.

For all the ways in which he’s made peace with his success, Driver, who is almost pathologically private by nature, remains uncomfortable with notoriety. “I’m not in the world the same way I was before,” Driver says. “It’s completely changed my life. My anonymity is gone. But who I am as a person is the exact same. I think. Or, I hope.”

Soon after, we exit the café, as Driver is heading home for some quiet time. He stops in front of a bicycle locked to a fence. “It only looks bourgeois-hipster because of the saddle,” Driver says, adding that he’s only just added the leather Brooks seat. “I bought the bike for $200 back when I was at Juilliard,” Driver says. “Besides the seat, it’s the same crappy bike I’ve had for forever.”

Driver pulls his hoodie up over his head and as he starts pedalling off turns back to me. “Remember,” he says. “Pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit. Right?”

The Last Jedi is out on 15 December.

[jonathantaylorthomas]

Song Review: Taylor Swift’s ‘Gorgeous’

It appears the “old Taylor” can come to the phone after all. For anyone hoping for a more conventional Taylor Swift single from her forthcoming sixth album, “Reputation,” the third time’s the charm, as “Gorgeous” finally provides some of the conventional pleasures that only a pop song about falling deeply in crush can.

Not that “Gorgeous” (released at the stroke of midnight Friday, in advance of the album’s Nov. 10 drop) would ever be mistaken for an outtake from “Fearless.” Producers Max Martin and Shellback have taken the track’s musical bed in the same deep electro-throb direction of the two preceding singles released from the album, “Look What You Made Me Do” and “…Ready for It?” It doesn’t even involve the currently trendy trick of combining electronic and acoustic instruments: If you’re looking for an “organic” element in the arrangement, you might have to settle for that split second pause between the verse and chorus, when we get what sounds suspiciously like… a triangle solo.

But in lyric and spirit, “Gorgeous” is, essentially, “Enchanted 2017.” And the segment of her audience that wasn’t entirely down with the paranoid turn of “Look What You Made Me Do” will be enchanted to meet the lighter side of Swift again.

Like “Enchanted” (from 2010’s “Speak Now”), “Gorgeous” is a sweet song about becoming besotted to the point of shyness while circling an object of desire at a social gathering. The main difference between then and now is the references to these suddenly desires being influenced by being under the influence: “You should take it as a compliment that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk,” is the opening line. Later, she establishes their location as being at the intersection of “whiskey on ice, Sunset and Vine,” where she’s got “a boyfriend (who’s) older than us… in the club doing I don’t know what.” (Dorothy, we’re not in “Our Song” anymore.)

The language is alternately self-mockingly dramatic — “You ruin my life by not being mine” — and whimsically frisky: “I can’t say anything to your face, because look at your face.” The effervescence of the chorus melody makes it clear that we’re not to take too seriously any of this being bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.

Or are we? Speculation immediately ran rampant that the song is about her rumored boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, with the soon-to-be-forgotten older dude in the disco possibly representing her past with one of the world’s more famous DJ types, Calvin Harris. Or, maybe this time around, she’s stopped writing autobiographically. (Sure she has.) A reference to “ocean-blue eyes” is likely not random, historically speaking. In the past, Swift’s references to eye color have been a veritable decoder ring to real-life lyrical assignations. (A brief history: the guys in “Sparks Fly,” “Everything Has Changed,” “I Know Places,” and “Wonderland” had green eyes, a la Harry Styles or Conor Kennedy, while the fellow in “State of Grace” had blue peepers, making him Jake Gyllenhaal, in perception if not reality. Maybe blue is her color after all.)Apparently fans will have to wait another three weeks for the release of “Reputation” (an album so closely guarded her team doesn’t even plan to reveal the remaining song titles in advance) to try to figure out if the would-be swain in “Gorgeous” is, in fact, the guy who ultimately met the cats.

[aion-rsa]

Top New Horror Books in October 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There’s so much to look forward to in our speculative fiction future. Here are some of the horror books we’re most excited about and/or are currently consuming…

Join the Den of Geek Book Club!

Top New Horror Books in October 2020

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

Type: Sequel Novel Publisher: Gallery/Saga Release date: 10/6/2020

Den of Geek says: Did you ever wish The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe had a bit more horror in it? You might want to try T. Kingfisher The Hollow Places, which follows a recent divorcée who, penniless and depressed, moves in with her uncle only to find a portal to countless, often nightmare-inducing realities in his wall. The Hollow Places is a character-driven romp that combines a romcom setup with genuine horror for a tale that is as unexpected as it is creepy.

Publisher’s Summary: A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel from the author of the “innovative, unexpected, and absolutely chilling” (Mira Grant, Nebula Award–winning author) The Twisted Ones.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Type: Novella Publisher: Tor.com Release date: 10/13/2020

Den of Geek says: What if, in addition to your garden-variety human racists (known as “Klans”), the Ku Klux Klan also included literal monsters, demonic carnivores (known as “Ku Kluxes”). This is the premise for Ring Shout, a supernatural horror that follows three Black woman—a sharpshooter, a soldier, and a master swordswoman with the ability to talk to spirits—as they hunt down Ku Kluxes. Their job turns even higher-stake when the discover that the Klans and Ku Kluxes are gathering for a large-scale attack. If you’re bemoaning the end of Lovecraft Country season one, this is the story for you.

Publisher’s summary: Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Type: Novel Publisher: HarperCollins Release date: 10/20/2020

Den of Geek says: This horror-comedy begins in 1902 when two friends at The Brookhants School for Girls start a private club called The Plain Bad Heroine Society that will shortly lead to their deaths. More than a century later, the bestselling book about the queer, feminist history of the school is being adapted into a film, but when the three actresses arrive at Brookhants to begin filming, horror strikes again.

Publisher’s summary: The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls—a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit.

Top New Horror Books in September 2020

Night Of The Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

Type: Novella Publisher: Tor.com Release date: 09/01/2020

Den of Geek says: The second book by Stephen Graham Jones this year after The Only Good Indians, this zippy horror sees a bunch of teens pull a prank in a movie theater involving a dressed up mannequin which turns tragic. Now our protagonist Sawyer needs to put things right. Funny, camp and gory, this is a quick read, a coming of age story with a b-movie feel that’s full of surprises.

Publisher’s summary: Award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both?

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare 

Type: Novel Publisher: HarperCollins Release date: 09/17/2020

Den of Geek says: You might be tempted in by the title alone (or indeed the cover art which is pleasingly cheeky) but this YA novel from author and horror nut Adam Cesare sounds like it should be also be a fun romp as a clown mascot goes nuts and starts offing the kids of a run down town. This is Cesare’s first foray into YA, though he has a rich background in genre.

Publisher’s summary: In Adam Cesare’s terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress—that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. 

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now. 

The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

Type: Novel Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press  Release date: 09/29/2020

Den of Geek says: An evil corporation conducting nefarious experiments on unsuspecting teenagers in a small town, a violent outbreak which sounds zombie-adjacent and a group of plucky outsiders trying to survive and even save the day, this should be a sci-fi horror page turner for lovers of this particular sub-genre. Despite the slightly generic sounding plot, Johnson is known for his ‘bizarro’ work so we’d expect this to have hidden flair.

Publisher’s summary: Stranger Things meets World War Z in this heart-racing conspiracy thriller as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong.

Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books/Ace Berkeley Release date: 09/08/2020

Den of Geek says: A very dark coming of age tale from Christina Henry whose novels Alice and Lost Boys were reimagining of classic tales. The Ghost Tree is a standalone story which sees a teenage girl become her own hero in the face of terrible circumstances. Though it’s about young adults, this isn’t a YA novel, more, says Henry, it’s “an homage to all the coming-of-age horror novels I read when I was younger – except all those books featured boys as the protagonists when I longed for more stories about girls.”

Publisher’s summary: A brand-new chilling horror novel from the bestselling author of Alice and Lost Boy

When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in her hometown, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won’t find the killer. After all, the year before her father’s body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids. So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can’t just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town.

But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the centre. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

Dracula’s Child by J. S. Barnes

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 09/22/2020

Den of Geek says: A long and thorough tribute to Bram Stoker’s original, written in the style of Stoker’s prose and imagining a continuation of the story this is a must-read for Dracula fans. It follows on directly from the original novel and imagines the Harkers’ lives some years after their ordeal at the hands of the Count.

Publisher’s summary: Evil never truly dies… and some legends live forever. In Dracula’s Child, the dark heart of Bram Stoker’s classic is reborn. Capturing the voice, tone, style and characters of the original yet with a modern sensibility this novel is perfect for fans of Dracula and contemporary horror.

It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives.

But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition – and, the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers’ marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincey himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown.

And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers’ marriage are about to be exposed…

There is darkness both within the marriage and without – for new evil is arising on the Continent. A naturalist is bringing a new species of bat back to London; two English gentlemen, on their separate tours of the continent, find a strange quixotic love for each other, and stumble into a calamity far worse than either has imagined; and the vestiges of something forgotten long ago is finally beginning to stir…

Top New Horror Books in August 2020

The Hollow Ones by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro

Type: Novel Publisher: Del Rey Release Date: 08/04/2020

Den Of Geek says: Master of horror Guillermo del Toro reunites with Chuck Hogan, who collaborated with del Toro on The Strain for the start of a new horror series. It’s a paranormal tale that begins in the world of crime as a young FBI agent experiences an otherworld evil on the job. Del Toro is a master of world building and Hogan is a well respected literary voice so this should be a corker.

Publisher summary: A horrific crime that defies explanation, a rookie FBI agent in uncharted, otherworldly territory, and an extraordinary hero for the ages.                                                                                                                              

Rookie FBI agent Odessa Hardwicke’s life is derailed when she’s forced to turn her gun on her partner, who turns suddenly, inexplicably violent while apprehending a rampaging murderer.

The shooting, justified by self-defence, shakes Odessa to her core and she is placed on desk leave pending a full investigation. But what haunts Odessa is the shadowy presence she saw fleeing her partner’s body after his death. 

Determined to uncover the secrets of her partner’s death, Hardwicke finds herself on the trail of a mysterious figure named John Silence: a man of enormous means who claims to have been alive for centuries, and who is either an unhinged lunatic, or humanity’s best and only defence against an unspeakable evil.

Night Train by David Quantick

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release date: 08/25/2020

Den of Geek says: Quantick is a former journalist and screenwriter for shows including Veep, The Thick of It and The Day Today. His latest novel is a high concept horror with an intriguing premise – a woman wakes up on a mysterious train full of the dead with no idea of where she is or how she got there. His books have been likened to David Wong and M.R. Carey which is incentive enough for us to pick this up. 

Publisher’s summary: A woman wakes up, frightened and alone – with no idea where she is. She’s in a room but it’s shaking and jumping like it’s alive. Stumbling through a door, she realizes she is in a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead. This is the Night Train. A bizarre ride on a terrifying locomotive, heading somewhere into the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead? As she struggles to reach the front of the train, through strange and horrifying creatures with stranger stories, each step takes her closer to finding out the train’s hideous secret. Next stop: unknown. 

In Night Train David Quantick takes his readers on a twisting, turning ride through his own brand of horror, both terrifying and darkly funny. With echoes of Chuck Palahniuk, David Wong and M.R. Carey, Quantick’s unique and highly entertaining voice sings out in a page-turning adventure through a hellscape only he could imagine. If you haven’t discovered this rising star of the genre it’s time to step on board and have your mind melted. 

Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen by Helen Mullane, Dom Reardon, Matthew Dow Smith and Jock

Type: Graphic Novel Publisher:  Humanoids Inc. Release date: 08/20/2020

Den of Geek says: This is a great looking new graphic novel written by film distributor and documentarian turned sled dog racer Helen Mullane. It’s a British folk horror in the classic tradition with a modern twist, featuring a young female protagonist and gorgeous art. A proper page turner from an exciting new voice, illustrated by industry heavyweights. 

Publisher’s summary: Something strange has been unleashed in the north of England. A modern-day druid commits a series of ghastly murders in an attempt to unleash the awesome power of the ancient gods of Great Britain. But all hell really breaks loose when his latest would-be victim, Nicnevin ‘Nissy’ Oswald, turns out to be more than she seems. A British tale mixing black magic and horror, godfathered by Jock, one of the new masters of comic book suspense.

The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Kraus

Type: Novel Publisher: Tor Books Release date: 08/04/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the book that zombie king George A Romero left unfinished when he passed away in 2017. It’s now been finished by Kraus who collaborated on the books of The Shape Of Water with Guillermo del Toro – this an multi-threaded origin story charting the start of the dead walking the Earth from the man who created the modern zombie genre this is pretty essential reading.

Publisher’s summary: It begins with one body. A pair of medical examiners find themselves facing a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly. In a Midwestern trailer park, an African American teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family.

On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic preaches the gospel of a new religion of death.

At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting, not knowing if anyone is watching, while his undead colleagues try to devour him.

In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends. We. Are. Wrong.

Top New Horror Books In July 2020

Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay 

Type: Novel Publisher: William Morrow/Titan Books Release Date: July 7

Den of Geek says: The latest from the master of sad horror Paul Tremblay is one of his best yet. It is however, disturbingly prescient. Following an outbreak of fast acting rabies, hospitals are short of PPE and citizens are on lockdown. But when Doctor Ramola’s heavily pregnant best friend Natalie is bitten, the two must go on a perilous journey to save her unborn child. It’s gorgeously written, very moving and a little bit disturbing during a pandemic.

Publisher’s summary: A riveting novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.

When it happens, it happens quickly.

New England is locked down, a strict curfew the only way to stem the wildfire spread of a rabies-like virus. The hospitals cannot cope with the infected, as the pathogen’s ferociously quick incubation period overwhelms the state. The veneer of civilization is breaking down as people live in fear of everyone around them. Staying inside is the only way to keep safe.

But paediatrician Ramola Sherman can’t stay safe, when her friend Natalie calls, her husband is dead, she’s eight months pregnant, and she’s been bitten. She is thrust into a desperate race to bring Natalie and her unborn child to a hospital, to try and save both their lives.

Their once familiar home has become a violent and strange place, twisted into a barely recognisable landscape. What should have been a simple, joyous journey becomes a brutal trial.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Type: Novel Publisher: Gallery/Titan Books Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: Stephen Graham Jones is being touted as the next big thing in horror circles and while he’s had more than 20 books published it’s likely this will be his big breakout hit. The Only Good Indians follows a group of Blackfeet Native Americans who are paying the price for an incident during an Elk hunt a decade ago. Social commentary, a supernatural revenge plot and an intimate character study mix in this literary horror with something to say which brings genuine chills.

Publisher’s summary: Adam Nevill’s The Ritual meets Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies in this atmospheric gothic literary horror.

Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men and their children must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit which wears the faces of the ones they love, tearing a path into their homes, their families and their most sacred moments of faith.

The Only Good Indians, charts Nature’s revenge on a lost generation that maybe never had a chance. Cleaved to their heritage, these parents, husbands, sons and Indians, these men must fight their demons on the fringes of a society that has no place for them.

Malorie by Josh Malerman

Type: Novel Publisher: Del Rey/Orion Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: This is the sequel to Bird Box, the brilliant horror-thriller which spawned a not-that-great Netflix movie that was nonetheless extraordinarily successful. The original imagines a world populated by monsters – if you look at them you instantly lose your mind and harm yourself or others. The sequel finds Malorie and the two children years later – the kids are now teens who’ve never known a world other than the one behind the blindfold while Malorie still remembers the world before it went mad. A character study as well as a tense, paranoid horror story, this is one of the most anticipated horrors of the year.

Publisher’s summary: The much-anticipated Bird Box sequel

In the seventeen years since the ‘creatures’ appeared, many people have broken that rule. Many have looked. Many have lost their minds, their lives, their loved ones.

In that time, Malorie has raised her two children – Olympia and Tom – on the run or in hiding. Now nearly teenagers, survival is no longer enough. They want freedom.

When a census-taker stops by their refuge, he is not welcome. But he leaves a list of names – of survivors building a future beyond the darkness – and on that list are two names Malorie knows.

Two names for whom she’ll break every rule, and take her children across the wilderness, in the hope of becoming a family again.

Top New Horror Books In June 2020

Devolution by Max Brooks 

Type: Novel Publisher: Century  Release date: 06/16/2020

Den of Geek says: If anyone’s going to make a book about Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) not only genuinely very scary but also entirely believable it’s Max Brooks. The author of widely acclaimed World War Z weaves a found journal, snippets of interviews and the odd real life example together to tell the story of the remote eco-community of Greenloop who is isolated after a volcanic eruption and faces a deadly new threat brought on by changes in the ecosystem. It’s a cautionary tale, and a sometimes satirical fable of the dangers of underestimating nature.

Publisher’s summary: As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.

But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing – and too earth-shattering in its implications – to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the beasts behind it, once thought legendary but now known to be terrifyingly real.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us – and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it – and like none you’ve ever read before.

The Secret of Cold Hill by Peter James  

Type: Novel (paperback) Publisher: Pan; Main Market edition Release date: 06/25/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the follow up to 2015’s The House on Cold Hill, a supernatural thriller from multi-award winning British crime writer Peter James. It’s a modern take on a classic ghost story set in the Sussex countryside – the sequel sees the haunted Georgian mansion of the first book destroyed and new houses built in its place, where new families face malevolent forces from the past. 

Publisher’s summary: From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes The Secret of Cold Hill. The spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill. Now a smash-hit stage play.

Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history, and a new era has begun.

Although much of Cold Hill Park is still a construction site, the first two families move into their new houses. For Jason and Emily Danes, this is their forever home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s the perfect place to live out retirement. Despite the ever present rumble of cement mixers and diggers, Cold Hill Park appears to be the ideal place to live. But looks are deceptive and it’s only a matter of days before both couples start to feel they are not alone in their new homes.

There is one thing that never appears in the estate agent brochures: nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left…

Top New Horror Books In April 2020

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Type: Novel Publisher: Quirk Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest novel from Grady Hendrix is set in the same world as his masterful horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism, this time focusing on the wives and mothers of Charleston, South Carolina. Occupied with looking after their families and keeping up appearances, one group of women have to step up and fight when a charismatic stranger comes to town. A modern vampire novel packed with heart (and gore) this is another hit from one of the most exciting horror writers around.

Publisher’s summary: Steel Magnolias meets Dracula. A haunting, hair-raising, and ultimately heartwarming story set in the 1990s, the novel follows a women’s true-crime book club that takes it upon themselves to protect their community when they detect a monster in their midst. Deftly pitting Dracula against a seemingly prim and proper group of moms, Hendrix delivers his most complex, chilling, and exhilarating novel yet. 

With Grady’s unique comedic timing and adoration of the horror genre, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a pure homage to his upbringing, the most famous horror book of all, and something we can all relate to – the joy of reading. 

Eden By Tim Lebbon

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den of Geek says: From the author of The Silence (which is basically A Quiet Place, published several years before A Quiet Place came out) comes another eco-horror which sees pollution and climate change force humanity to create locked off zones which are off-limits to people. Eden follows a group of adventurers who break the rules and enter one of the zones where nature has taken hold and begun to rebel. Should appeal to fans of Bird Box and Annihilation.

Publisher’s summary: In a time when Earth’s rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world. 

Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive. 

Also in Dylan’s team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret – Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity’s friend. 

Eden is a triumphant return to the genre by one of horror’s most exciting contemporary voices, as Tim Lebbon offers up a page-turning and adrenaline-fuelled race through the deadly world of Eden, poignantly balanced with observations on humanity’s relationship with nature, and each other. Timely and suspenseful, Eden will seed itself in the imagination of the reader and continue to bloom long after the last page. 

The Wise Friend By Ramsey Campbell

Type: Novel Publisher: Flame Tree Press Release date: 04/23/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest from British horror legend is a mystical tale of the occult which hints at the monstrous. Campbell is regarded by many as one of the most important horror writers of his generation. Influenced by H P Lovecraft and M R James, and influencing many horror writers who came after him, he’s published more than 30 novels. His latest sounds like a treat.

Publisher’s Summary: Patrick Torrington’s aunt Thelma was a successful artist whose late work turned to- wards the occult. While staying with her in his teens he found evidence that she used to visit magical sites. As an adult he discovers her journal of her explorations, and his teenage son Roy becomes fascinated too. 

His experiences at the sites scare Patrick away from them, but Roy carries on the search, together with his new girlfriend. Can Patrick convince his son that his increasingly terrible suspicions are real, or will what they’ve helped to rouse take a new hold on the world?

The Book of Koli – The Rampart Trilogy, Book 1, By M.R. Carey

Type: Novel Publisher: Orbit Release date: 04/14/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the first book in a new trilogy by M.R. Carey who wrote excellent zombie novel The Girl With All The Gifts. This is an eco-horror/sci-fi which sounds like Tim Lebbon’s Eden in reverse – in Carey’s book it’s everything outside a small village that’s a threat – and both books are aimed at fans of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Little surprise that horror writers are turning their attention to the environment in these frightening times and in Carey’s careful hands (there was an element of nature evolving in Girl With All The Gifts) this should be a new world worth visiting.

Publisher’s summary: EVERYTHING THAT LIVES HATES US . . . Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognisable landscape. A place where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, the Shunned men will. Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He believes the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture too far beyond the walls.

He’s wrong.

The Book of Koli begins a breathtakingly original new trilogy set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.

Top New Horror Books In March 2020

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Type: Novel Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Release date: 03/10/2020

Den Of Geek says: A ghost story set against the backdrop of the sinking of the Titanic is a strong premise to set out with, from a writer who has good form with mixing horror with history after The Hunger which centres around The Donner Party, a group of pioneers in the middle of the 19th century, some of who resorted to cannibalism when their group got stranded. Alma Katsu is an author who “Makes the supernatural seem possible” according to Publishers Weekly, and the weaving in of real people with this creepy sounding tale of a nurse who survives the Titanic only to meet another passenger who couldn’t possibly have made it out is highly appealing.

Publisher’s summary: This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic…

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel By Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Type: Novel Publisher: Harper Perennial Release date: 03/24/2020

Den Of Geek says: The third novel in the Welcome To Night Vale series, which spun-off the wildly popular podcast of the same name promises more eerie, weird, wistful but wonderful musings delving into the enigmatic character of The Faceless Old Woman and exploring Night Vale’s history. It’s written by Fink and Cranor, the creators of the podcast, and has already garnered widespread acclaim. Fans of Twin Peaks should definitely check out Night Vale.

Publisher’s summary: From the New York Times bestselling authors of Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! and the creators of the #1 podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from . . . until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Woman is revealed, as she guides, haunts and sabotages an unfortunate Night Vale resident named Craig. In the end, her dealings with Craig and her history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Cursed: An Anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

Type: Anthology Publisher: Titan books Release date: 03/03/2020

Den Of Geek says: some of our favourite horror writers assemble for this collection of stories surrounding the concept of the curse. Some are updates of well known fairy tales, some are brand new mythologies and all come together in a magical, mythical, mystical collection that should appeal to fans of dark fables and traditional folk horror. Authors include Neil Gaiman, M R Carey, Christina Henry and Tim Lebbon.

Publisher’s Summary: It’s a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular stepparents…

Here you’ll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world – expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic. Twenty timeless folktales old and new

Top New Horror Books in February 2020

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Type: Novel Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: 2/4/20

Den of Geek says: Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation was one of the most-talked-about YA debuts of 2018, and for good reason! The story of Black zombie hunters in an alternate Reconstruction-era America is already one of the best premises of all time, and Ireland more than follows through on the promise of kickass, sociopolitically cathartic potential—with Dread Nation, and now with Deathless Divide. (We love this one so much, it’s also on our Top New YA Books of February 2020 list.)

Publisher’s summary: The sequel to the New York Times bestselling epic Dread Nation is an unforgettable journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Buy Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland on Amazon.

The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

Type: Novel Publisher: MCD x FSG Release date: 2/11/20

Den of Geek says: If it’s good enough for Paul Tremblay, it’s good enough for us! We love a good atmospheric horror read, and The Boatman’s Daughter sounds like it has more atmosphere in one page than most books do in their entirety.

Publisher’s summary:  A “lush nightmare” (Paul Tremblay) of a supernatural thriller about a young woman facing down ancient forces in the depths of the bayou.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm.

But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

With the heady mythmaking of Neil Gaiman and the heartrending pacing of Joe Hill, Andy Davidson spins a thrilling tale of love and duty, of loss and discovery. The Boatman’s Daughter is a gorgeous, horrifying novel, a journey into the dark corners of human nature, drawing our worst fears and temptations out into the light.

Read The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson on Amazon.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Type: Novel Publisher: Berkley Release date: 2/18/20

Den of Geek says: Who doesn’t love a good creepy motel story? From the author who brought us The Broken Girls, comes another female-driven foray into horror mystery. If you’ve been digging Nancy Drew or love Sharp Objects, there’s more where that came from.

Publisher’s summary: Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

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Read The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James on Amazon.

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