#which was fun. but that was the realm of fiction. not like the REAL supernatural

[kerryweaverlesbian]

there is a. knot emoji. 🪢

but thats more omegaverse than puppy play in vibes i feel. (Sorry for this ask)

[mynameisnowwyrm]

Spoiler warning

TL;DR horrible adaptation, but very enjoyable on it’s own

(Also just wanted to say I was so sure I was going to hate this bc of what’s different but they changed so much the cartoon and the live action are barely connected in my head)

Okay my review will be split up into two parts: fate: the winx saga as an adaptation and as a standalone work

As an adaptation:

0/10. Maybe 0.5 if I’m being generous.

The things that were unchanged from winx club:

There are characters named Bloom, Stella, Musa, Aisha, Sky and Riven

Aisha, Bloom, Stella and Sky resemble their cartoon counterparts

Riven is an asshole

Bloom is a dumbass

Magic exists

The specialists exist

Main characters go to schools for magic and specialists respectively

The dragon flame is a thing

Witches exist

Other than that it’s a completely different show. The plot vaguely resembles season 1 of winx club only in that Bloom is trying to discover her true heritage. Musa, who is supposed to of East Asian descent is not, Flora was not included and in her place is a different character with similar powers, Tecna was excluded entirely ( I believe this was to distance the show from the futuristic elements of winx club and focus only on fantasy, which doesn’t make sense since they changed Musa’s powers ).

The magic system was changed. Fairies don’t on the regular transform since in the show the know-how to do so was lost, though Bloom does unlock the ability in the finale. Instead of each being a fairy of an individual concept, everyone’s powers ale element based, with Musa’s powers being changed to her being an empath. While this does feel more generic, it makes more sense from a world building perspective and I can see why they changed it.

The fashion is horrible. You will never be able to convince me teenagers dress like that. One of the reasons the original cartoon was enjoyable was all the colourful, fun clothing. The clothes feel dated and too mature for the characters, like I can see a twenty-something person in 2013 wear some of those outfits. It especially feels like a missed opportunity since 2000’s fashion is coming back into style.

The characterization of some of the characters compared to winx club was hit and miss. Riven was an ass and Bloom was impulsive and naive, which is accurate, but Stella, oh Stella was a disappointment. Stella was a jealous, manipulative bitch, which in context of her character backstory makes sense, but is so far from her original portrayal. Cartoon Stella was spoiled and at times self centered, but she was also genuinely kind, helpful and bubbly. To see her character take a 180 and become the all too familiar jealous ex archetype was upsetting.

Now, aaaaall that being said, I don’t believe we should judge this as an adaptation. They changed so much that it is quite literally a new story. So let’s see how it stands up on it’s own.

Summary, taken from the wiki

The series tells the story of Alfea, a fictional boarding school where teenagers study. The world inside this universe is not only magical and full of monsters, but it is also a world of real teenagers who do the most common things: make friends and enemies, go out and of course... fall in love. They are eager to find their place in this world. This universe is different from the one we have all known for a long time.

The attention is focused on a group of proud teens, also well-designed female characters. Sometimes they are heroines, sometimes weak girls. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes rivals. Of course, they are not perfect, but they are real. A group of girls who did not know each other until they are included in the same team inside a school that is strange to them. They will meet forces that are beyond their control and things they do not understand. But, throughout the series, they will find themselves, form an indestructible bond, and transform into powerful and strong girls, ready to change not only the supernatural world, but also ours.

Character summary:

Bloom is a newly discovered fairy from the human world who is attending Alfea college in the otherworld. There she meets her new roommates: chatty Terra, athletic Aisha, uptight Stella and stand-offish Musa. She also meets Sky, Stella’s ex, who is training as a specialist.Shortly before coming to Alfea, Bloom discovers she has magic powers by almost burning her house down and killing her parents. She is distraught over this and it is why she is eager to gain control of her powers.It is discovered that Bloom is a changeling, a barbaric practice where a fairy baby is exchanged with a human one. This leads Bloom on a quest to discover her true heritage.

Musa is an empath, she can feel the feelings of everyone around her. To shut them out and escape she listens to music through her headphones. This leads to her initially coming off as uncaring when Terra tries to get to know her better.

Terra is an earth fairy with a particular talent for making plants grow. She is very nice and chatty, eager to make friends, but not afraid to stand up for herself. She struggles with finding someone to like her and compares herself to “cool girl” Beatrix who has boys following after her.

Aisha is a water fairy who swims twice a day every day. She comes off a a good person who wants to make friends and do the right thing. She also tries to do everything in her power to protect her friends.

Stella is a light fairy and princess of Solaria, the realm in which Alfea resides. She is repeating her first year due to an event prior to season one where she lost control of her powers and blinded her best friend. She is very uptight due to her perfectionist mother and tries to exert control in every other area of her life, when this doesn’t work, e.g. when someone flirts with her on-again-off-again boyfriend she gets jealous and causes trouble. She is also generally rude to the people around her.

Sky is a specialist legacy and Stella’s on-again-off-again boyfriend who has an interest in Bloom. His father was a famous specialist and he was raised by his father’s best friend.

Riven is Sky’s roommate, best friend and a genuine asshole. He insults and antagonizes everyone around him and gets involved with Beatrix. He seems dissatisfied with the life of a specialist.

Beatrix is an air fairy with a lightning powers. She seems mysterious and looks to be the villain of the season. She has enlisted the help of Riven and Dane.

Dane is a first year specialist who first seems to be friendly with Terra but gets sidetracked after spending time with Riven and Beatrix.

What I didn’t like:

The world building is sparse and the magic system is generic. I feel like things could have been better expanded upon. Throughout the show they bring up archaic fairy magic but it’s never really explained how that’s different from current fairy magic.

The interactions between Riven and Dane come off as a bit queerbait-y although they could be setting things up for a second season.

Everyone is constantly so rude towards Terra. Even her supposed friends are mean to her. What gives?

Stella was constantly rude to everyone but by the end they are all the best of friends when she really hasn’t changed much. Also Stella being the jealous controlling ex archetype and not enough people calling her out on her bullshit.

What I did like:

For a Netflix teen drama there is surprisingly little sex between the teenagers. This might be subjective but it was refreshing for me.

Again subjective but I could definitely relate to Bloom’s antisocial teen flashbacks

Beatrix was a fun villain

Though the story might be a little generic, I felt it was compelling throughout. I genuinely wanted to know what happened next.

The story was well paced. It never felt like anything was dragging along

Overall:

The show was definitely enjoyable to watch. There is a lot of room for improvement. It sometimes felt like different plot lines were unconnected and the costume choices leave a lot to be desired. Aside from that they set up a solid story and likable characters (some of whom I love love and love to hate) which I very much want to see further developed in the future. As a stand-alone work 6/10

[mythgirlimagines]

As the creation of two calming waves crashing together, a calm ocean breeze is quickly birthed through them. And that calm ocean breeze is commonly known as Myth Anon, Former Ultimate Swimmer!

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BACKSTORY

Born to two happy owners of a beach house on a scenic and heart-rending beach, Myth knew how to swim, before she could even crawl, much like her older sisters before her. Upon entering middle school, she was encouraged to enter her school’s swim team and quickly became the star of the team. However, because she only likes to swim for fun, inner peace, and poetic inspiration, Myth eventually quit competing, but still managed to get enough coverage from the media to gain her Ultimate status. In her adult years, she is currently working part-time alongside her sisters at her parents’ beach house, and is currently studying to become a marine biologist, which she (unsurprisingly) turns out to be both very passionate and a veritable expert about.

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RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Detective

Wyre and Myth have been only the best of friends ever since they were children and have met one faithful day on the beach. Although Wyre is also known for their criminal sketchworks and their skills as a physical enforcer/bodyguard, it’s Wyre‘s skills as a homicide detective that made Wyre gain their Ultimate status, that is still going strong (and even stronger) in their adult years. For the eternally scatterbrained and innocent swimmer, Wyre is usually around to watch over both her and her belongings and to prevent weirdos from trying anything funny with their friend. Myth really appreciates Wyre’s help in finding misplaced items and she just loves walking across the beach with them all the time.

Outfit: A brown overcoat and a light green and yellow striped vest and a black tie over a white button-up shirt, pants that match their overcoat, darker brown leather gloves and loafers.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Programmer

Famous for creating one of the first ever instances of self-sufficient, self-teaching, and ultimately benevolent AI (known by the code name “D-3M-0N”), Scar is also a big name in online role-playing groups, where she is known as “Mother-Board, the Master Technomancer”, a ruler of a tech-based science-fiction realm who is in charge of all the high-end technology in it. On particularly busy and sleepless nights, she can even be caught acting as Mother-Board herself. Because Myth lived in a tech-less beach house, she is absolutely clueless in the ways of modern technology, and that is where heroic Scar swoops in and tries her best to teach the swimmer the way of the computer.

Outfit: Messier hair that is done up in two messy side buns, a purple hoodie worn hood-up with black and white striped sleeves, a ruffled purple skirt, black and white striped stockings and purple boots, the mask from her original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Affluent Progeny

Despite only striking it rich very recently, Fusion’s business acumen helped expand his father’s failed company into a multi-million dollar industry and it also ensured that his noveau-riche parents’ finances would stay with them for a long time. He may get constantly underestimated by equally influential but longer-running business magnates, due to his situation and age. When not performing business operations, he loves gorging himself on lavish buffets and learning all he can from the massive library installed in his house. Upon entering the Kibo-Con, he began showering his fellow con-mates with lavish gifts. Needless to say, Myth really appreciated the life-sized plush walrus.

Outfit: Hair tied into a ponytail, a blue overcoat (that has a pocket watch in his right lapel) over a white button-up shirt, a pink vest, and a yellow and red striped tie, white gloves, pants that match his overcoat and the glasses and loafers from his original design.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Moral Compass

Fusion II attended a school with a rather high rate of delinquency, and, by the time she left for Hope’s Peak, all instances of delinquency have diminished in an instant. Claiming that she became a public moral committee because “you can‘t break the law, if you are the law” and ”I just want power”, Fusion II wishes to rise to the top of the corporate ladder and become like the rich magnates that she idolised so much, all to prove to her classmates that she is so much more than just a mousy little overachiever. Myth may not understand the moral compass’s dreams and ideals, but anyone who praises Myth’s mindset and thought process (read: actually unread sarcasm) must be a good person in her book.

Outfit: Fake reading glasses, a grey blazer over a white button-up shirt and a light blue and dark blue striped tie, a red armband indicating her position, a long skirt that matches her tie, black stockings and brown Mary Janes.

Just Anon, Ultimate Fanfiction Author

With a sparse and sporadic uploading schedule, Janon’s (or as he is known online, ”JustInThisForFun”) fans and followers commonly refer to the times he actually bothers to upload one of his fica as “Random-Time Rapture”, for you could never really predict when he will upload a fic, but anyone who reads his fanfiction would know that they are veritable masterpieces that can almost match the quality of the original works. Despite their differing temperaments, Myth and Janon love to relax together and introduce entirely new ways of relaxing to each other. Myth’s suggestions of relaxing on a particularly warm rock and lying face-up in the Con’s fountain are Janon’s two new favorite relaxation methods.

Outfit: Same outfit as the original, but with a bandolier of pens and other writing supplies.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Baseball Player

Considered a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to both Little and Major League Baseball, Sparkle catapulted her all-girl’s softball team (called The Shimmering Meteors) into stardom, with both her skills in the sport and her bombastic and dramatic personality, when on the diamond. Despite both being pioneers in women’s athletics, Sparkle and Myth‘s personalities and philosophies couldn’t be any more different, much to the confusion of the two girls. While the loud yet intelligent Sparkle plays mainly for the glory and thrill of competition, the calm yet ditzy Myth only swims for fun and for poetic inspiration. Sparkle and Myth just can’t comprehend each other’s athletic philosophies and motives.

Outfit: Hair in a bobcut, orange and pink sports jacket with her team’s logo on the back (and matching hat on her head) over a black and white baseball uniform, black cleats and a sparkly pink bandana around her neck.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Idol, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Fashionista

With their twin as their loyal costume designer in tow, Egg takes in to the stage with such cursed songs as, “Deodorant Push-Pop” and “Discord DM Detonator”, which have garnered quite the cult following online, and quickly became one of the most infamous idols in show business, thanks to their song’s subject matter, as well as being one of the few ever NB idols. Egg and Wet Sock regularly love to antagonise Myth, but thanks to her ditzy and unaware nature, any and all cursed comments uttered by the twins would either be unintentionally ignored, giggled at and agreed to, or even getting used in one of Myth’s poems much to the ire of the duo who live off of attention, positive or otherwise.

Egg’s Outfit: A garishly covered fedora, a t-shirt with a cursed meme on the front, green and red striped upside-down pants, pink crocs.

Wet Sock’s Outfit: Hair over one of their eyes, pink eyeshadow, a black hoodie with white fluff, tight jeans, white and black converses.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Clairvoyant

Raised in a family that are all experts in supernatural powers, Curious stands out amongst the rest of their family with their clairvoyance powers being far above that of any other ancestor before them. This caused the fortune-telling booth that was passed down from Curious’s parents to them to skyrocket in popularity, and earn Curious a free spot in the Hope’s Peak Middle School roster as the “Jr. Ultimate Clairvoyant”. As a lover of the spiritual herself, Myth found herself fascinated by Curious’s powers, and Curious was all too happy to show off and teach the awestruck swimmer all about their powers. But than again, one could ask Curious to do anything, and they’d do it without hesitation.

Outfit: A green and off-white kimono with a red obi, brown prayer beads around their neck, white socks and brown geta sandals.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Soldier

Born and raised in a territory that was eventually wracked by the spoils of war, Nerd was drafted into his cruel nation’s army, thanks to a combination of his natural anger-induced strength and his natural talent in piloting, repairing and even inventing war weapons and machinery. All the time spent combating both potential and certain threats made him constantly hostile and quick to anger, even in his adult years, when the war was long over. Taking sympathy on her fellow chaperone, Myth decided to teach Nerd all sorts of relaxation techniques (that mostly just involve wading or lying in water), but to no avail, for Nerd has feelings for someone that he would much rather blast with his scouter (read: Myth).

Outfit: A black suit of armor with built-in-weapons and the scouter from his original design.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Novelist

Under the pen name “R.C. Wells” (because he doesn’t want evil corporate executives to trace his location), Eldritch particularly specialises in dystopian novels that seek to expose the real world for the apocalyptic wasteland that it‘ll become, if the sheep (read: his audience) remain oblivious to all the horrors of the world they’re living in. Despite Eldritch’s blatant dislike and constant insulting of his audience, he only has the best of intentions for the world, and he thinks that the written word is the best way to combat against the propaganda in the media. Needless to say, Myth‘s relaxation tactics doesn’t exactly sit well with the constantly-worried novelist, so he avoids her like the plague.

Outfit: Reading glasses, a pencil behind his ear, a brown overcoat over a white dress shirt and a red tie, dark brown pants and matching shoes.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Gambler

Despite what her age and her childish personality would suggest, Dream is a veritable genius, when it comes to turning the odds to her favor, and winning boatloads of money at the gambling tables and betting on sports. Dream is infamously referred to, by her foes, as “Lady Luck’s Lovechild”, for her seemingly supernatural ability to make luck fall into her favor and guarantee her automatic wins, against otherwise dangerous odds. Just like with Curious, Myth found herself fascinated with Dream’s supernatural luck-changing powers and likes to sneak under the gambling tables and watch Dream gamble to uncover her secret, much to the embarrassment of the gambler.

Outfit: A grey and white fedora and pantsuit with card suit-themed buttons, a pink undershirt and heels.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Martial Artist

As current heiress to the Ryuseitai Martial Art’s Dojo, despite what her clumsiness and regular slip-ups suggest, Iris is regarded by martial artists everywhere as a prodigy in combat, who is able to take down foes that are at least a foot taller than her. Iris is also quite the excellent instructor, teaching her elementary-aged students all about mindfulness and positive thinking, which helps breed a brand new generation of strong martial artists. Because of their shared interest in mindfulness and odd philosophies, Iris gets along very well with Myth, who has a similar nature to her, and they have regular meditation sessions underneath a waterfall hidden in the forest behind the Kibo-Con.

Outfit: Hair tied into two Sailor-Moon-esque buns, a pink gi with a big purple star on the front and back, pink sandals, bandages all over her body, the hoodie from her original design tied around her waist.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Lucky Student

Being from one of the more wealthy families in her neighbourhood, Purple was signed up to Hope’s Peak’s annual Lucky Student raffle by her parents, and her supernatural luck meant that she was the lucky girl selected to attend. Because Purple was sheltered a lot, she is very timid and regularly speaks in old-fashioned and archaic terms. Because of a majority of these qualities, Myth and Purple get along very well, thanks to their shared interest in writing poetry, and Myth’s fascination with both Purple’s supernatural luck powers and her odd mode of speech, which sounds much like her own. Whenever they get together, hardly anyone can tell what the two girls are saying.

Outfit: The original outfit, but without the beret and a four-leaf-clover pinned to her sweater.

Watch as this oddball swimmer either befriends or baffles the people around her!

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PERSONALITY

Needless to say, Swimmer!Myth is one hard-to-read swimmer, for she has quite the odd thought process and an equally eccentric vocabulary, often speaking in odd poetic terms about water or marine life, and always searches for inspiration for her poetry. Swimmer!Myth also has a strong love for the supernatural, and can usually be seen learning about and getting in touch with her calm and spiritual side, if she’s not swimming or lying back-up in shallow bodies of water. Swimmer!Myth also gets easily distracted, and regularly wanders off, requiring a buddy to help ground her back to Earth (read: Detective!Wyre). Swimmer!Myth is also heavily empathetic, and, in spite of being an athlete, actually hates competition, which is why she dropped out of being an Olympic-level competitive swimmer years ago, and she really treasures her loved ones.

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APPEARANCE

Swimmmer!Myth has long and wavy brown hair with a French braid tieback, that she can put up in a ponytail while swimming, and blue swimming goggles on her head. Swimmer!Myth swims practically all the time, and her simplistic outfit reflects that perfectly. She wears a pink, blue, and purple wetsuit with blue frills on her sides, a pink translucent shawl and a seashell necklace around her neck, along with purple flip-flops on her feet.

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Now that I’m finished with this AU, I’d love to hear your opinions on the talentswap! In the meantime, look out for more content made by your’s truly!

-Fusion Anon

[lightblueterracota]

hey, about your hermitshipping post, i wanted to weigh in: im of the opinion that people shouldn't do it (it's complicated though)

i actually agree with viewing hermitcraft through a roleplaying lens. there's a lot of character work involved, much like the stuff that doc and ren are doing, helsknight/evil x, plus the fact that anything we see onscreen is something they've chosen to share (so their persona isn't 100% indicative of their irl self). i think it's a gray area for shipping here (all within boundaries of course) and from what i've seen, the hermits have been neutral-positive about the topic for the most part.

the issue is that the people who vehemently defend hermitshipping are usually self described "anti antis" or "proshippers". there are other posts out there that explain why these labels and mentality are so harmful better than i can. bottom line is, a lot of my discomfort comes from the culture surrounding shipping, and the people terminally online trying to justify gross or triggering behavior (in general, not just within this fandom). i try my best to steer clear of it, just block and move on, yknow?

in general though.. shipping real people is just weird to me? in vintagebeef's latest episode he mentioned his wife and like. stuff like that just cements the fact that these are real people and it's strange seeing people take this stuff super seriously.

so that's my take, i hope it made sense. i'll acknowledge the gray area but it still makes me uncomfy, so i filter block and move on

hi there! thanks for taking the time to send in your thoughts, i’m very open and friendly to discussion!!!! i understand and agree with what you say too about fandom culture tbh. i feel like with way social interactions and content consuming works in our current age with the internet, the way we consume media nowadays has become extremely warped. i’ve seen a lot of really well articulated posts describing why those certain fandom “titles” of anti-anti and proship and all that are really harmful and i completely agree that there really is some irredeemable behavior, a lot of justification of some very bizarre and not okay things under the guise of “fandom culture” in general, not even just for mcyters.

i think it all comes down to how one is able to draw the line between a content creator and well… their content! and how to separate them and then when to acknowledge it’s one of the same and not. for me in particular when i look at hermitcraft, i always thought it was very roleplay esque, similar to how actors take on roles in movies as they act out their really fun lore and stories, and as such i look at their minecraft activities as completely separate from what they actually do as people! of any fun pairings i do see in hermitcraft, i absolutely do not see it beyond the realm of minecraft and their characters of them being fun creatures and supernatural beings and things like that. ( personally i love doc’s lore of him being part creeper. that’s so cool )

(also i didn’t know vintagebeef had a wife and kids that’s really cool! i learned recently that impulse has also a wife and kids and some nephews & nieces too, which was really cool and surprising to hear because imo he sounds so young! but anyway.)

it makes me think about for example ren and doc! both of those have joked about rendoc and encouraged it, all within the realm of their storyline lores and stuff. but irl ren has his own girlfriend and doc is also in a relationship & has a baby, and that’s super fun to hear & is completely separated from whatever minecraft activities. especially in a fantasy type of world that i think minecraft is, esp this season will all the lore, it can be really fun to imagine with! but also just really cementing that i don’t see these youtubers in hermitcraft roleplayer servers really any different from an actor taking on a role in a movie ! of course i think these youtubers are also completely entitled to say “hey, i make this content, so please treat my content as such” when they ask for fandoms Not to be shipping and stuff, which i think is completely understandable since youtube content creation IS a bit more personal!

of course that’s my interpretation tho. some people disagree and think that these hermit characters are one and the same with the people making the content (which i can understand, but also it is obvious they tailor their content to BE presented a certain way!). i think the fact that a lot of people have a lot of difficulty finding that line of interpretation and acting on it peacefully is really lost within fandom spaces due to… internet? new age? a variety of reasons probably. so that’s why i’m curious to hear how other people think of it! the thing is, i don’t really think there IS a universal answer for where that line is between content creation and its creator, because literally everyone is different.

thanks for sharing your two cents, i completely agree with you :) i find irl shipping to be pretty invasive and disrespectful of said irl relationships you and i both mentioned, so as such i avoid it. but for me, i don’t see hermitcraft server as irl, but rather it’s roleplaying a lore storyline as these youtubers create their own characters. so while yeah it is a persona made by them, it’s still a fictional and fabricated persona so i don’t really see it as the same as Shipping Them as Content Creators. unfortunately, that causes a lot of rifts between people, & i do wish people could have normal discussions about these kind of things without needing a million disclaimers asking for peace and civility.

[quoteablebooks]

Genre: Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Summary: 

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season in the third book of the NYT bestselling Parasol Protectorate series. Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead. While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.

BLAMELESS is the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

*Opinions*

This third book in the Parasole Protectorate Series picks up only a couple of weeks after the shocking ending of Changeless. Alexia Maccon is back with her frustrating mother and sisters, thrown out by her husband, and Queen Victoria has removed her from the Shadow Council. All of her prospects are gone and now all of London knows that she is in the family way, including the supernatural set. It doesn’t take long for individuals to try and kill Alexia and without the protection of the Woosley pack, her only choice is to flee London with the enigmatic Madame Lefoux and Floote. However, while Alexia is hoping that the Templars will give her answers to shove in her husband’s face, she might have jumped right out of the frying pan and into the fire. After the ending of Changeless, I wasn’t sure where Carriger was going to take Alexia’s story given the very serious situation she had been placed in. Now I have read ten of Carriger’s books, novellas, and stories by now so I should have trusted her, but I was waiting for this series to let me down because I had been enjoying it so much. Changeless did not disappoint and while I did have some issues in the story, it was still a very fun tale and we see more of this world that Carriger had weaved between supernatural and science. Even though Alexia is in a lot of uncomfortable situations throughout the novel, it never loses its jovial nature and Alexia never lets herself become a moping mess, even if she had every right, which I appreciate. One of the things that I noticed is that while this story follows Alexia and she is the catalyst for the plot, it is also Professor Lyall’s story as he carries a good deal of the narrative back in London attempting to keep the Woosley pack, BUR offices, and his Alpha in order. As it takes me a long time to read books these days, I use my reading updates to help jog my memory while writing reviews, and so many of my updates were in praise of the poor Beta werewolf. Professor Lyall has always been one of my favorite characters in the series, but this novel really gave him more depth and let the reader understand how much strength that he has without making it obvious of Lord Maccon. Professor Lyall is compassionate, smart, and willing to do the dirty work needed to keep his pack and London safe. The man very much deserves tenure at this point, give the poor werewolf a break. I also very much want him and Lord Akeldama to be friends, which maybe Biffy will be a bridge to. Actually, all the supporting characters, including those that are not allied to Alexia, were interesting and felt real and unique. While at times Madame Lefoux was less than subtle in her flirting, to the point it felt a little uncomfortable, she is complex and obsessive in her scientific pursuits even if it causes issues. Her perfect foil in this novel was Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf who is also interesting in his obsession and his choice of a pet companion. Floote continues to be interesting and give insight into Alexia’s father who is a constant presence throughout this novel, even more so than in previous novels. The information that we got about the Templars through Floote, who knows a good deal about them, also helped flushed out the world. Interestingly, my love for Alexia was not as high as it had been in the previous books. In Changeless, I was happy that Alexia had more power and agency to move in her universe because she was now married and a peer of the realm. In Blameless Alexia is moving through the world a lot in this novel with her band of protectors, but it seems more like Alexia didn’t have a choice in this as much as she keeps getting attacked to move the plot along. Her agency was stripped away a bit in the name of self-preservation. In the middle of this book is just Alexia showing up somewhere, asking questions, didn’t get any answers, was attacked or forced out, and then repeat. This novel was just a little too fast-paced and I would have loved to spend more time in France, which seemed to be a nice middle ground between the acceptance in the United Kingdom and the religious fervor in Italy. The biggest issue I have in this novel, however, is how Alexia and Lord Maccon finally address the elephant in the room, namely his treatment of her when he found out she was pregnant. This is an issue because it isn’t addressed at all while it was the main emotional point moving the story along. Now I am not saying that I wanted them to have a long heart-felt discussion on the page because that is not who these characters are and it doesn’t fit the tone of the novels. However, for the entire conclusion of that arc to be Alexia comically yelling at Lord Maccon, demanding materialistic objects, and then they have sex in a barn fell a little flat for me. Given the gravity of the end of Changeless and how upset Alexia was, it seemed to cheapen that moment in their story as all is forgiven in about five pages if that. I know that these aren’t supposed to be serious books, but the end of Changeless was a very serious tone and I would have liked the make-up to be given the same amount of gravity. Overall, I still love this series and Alexia is still one of my favorite characters, but out of the three novels, this is probably my least favorite. A fast-paced, sometimes too fast-paced, read that was extremely fun but didn’t hit all the points in my opinion. Now, I am going to continue the series and still enjoyed this book, but everything just went by way too fast.   

[ts-unsolved]

Final Wrap-up for Chapter One

((since chapter one will be coming to a close shortly and there is still an assortment of questions left over, here is a masterpost of responses to queries that couldn’t be addressed during the story! 

[reminder: the ask box will be left open, however the characters are not available. please keep in mind that non-plot related questions will not be answered by the characters after this post.]

Anonymous said: ((Just wanted to tell you your drawings are so pretty and I love ur blog. That is all I have no braincells to ask questions))

Anonymous said: OKAY MOD I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW I LOVE THIS AU SO MUCH AND ITS SO COOL AND GOOD AND YOUR ART IS TOO!! sorry for caps I’m just excited

Thank you! Sorry I didn’t always get around to answering asks like this, but for every one that was sent in, I appreciated it with all my heart. You guys are angels 💖

Anonymous said: What is one haunted location you guys would really like to visit someday?

Poveglia is definitely the highest on the list for the notoriety alone, although they would likely never get the permission to go (the history in general is almost excessively horrible and tragic, so nothing good would come out of doing an episode there. Maybe it’d be good as a final-chapter type location? 🤔).

@anxious-fander-bean​ said: Hey Logan, have you ever tried swing dancing? It's really fun and good excersize! There's also a lot of bouncing and upbeat music, so Patton might enjoy it as well! ((I'm doing it. I need the qpp boys to be happy and have fun, bc they deserve it.))

(LOGAN: I’ll...consider it.)

You did it, you got them to go on some good ol’ platonic dates! B)

Anonymous said: I feel bad that I don't have any deep question or something along those lines, but what's your favorite thing to bake, Pat? - 💐

That’s alright! Questions don’t have to be deep to be fun/interesting. 

(PATTON: Cupcakes! You can make so many different flavors, and there are tons of fun ways to decorate them!)

@why-should-i-tell-youu2 said: Why cant anyone else see the seal?

You need to have The Sight to be able to see demon sigils. Patton has this ability naturally, and Dee has it because Elliott taught it to him. Otherwise, Virgil and Roman would be the closest in terms of gaining this ability, but a scared/skeptical part of them is holding them back. 

Anonymous said: My good dorks, is there a way to, I don’t know, get a better/more effective charm for your office? One that costs more than $10? -🍁

Anonymous said: Hey, Logan, potential naturalistic explanation for ya: depending on what the charm was made of, shifts in ambient room temperature could have caused minuscule expansions and contractions in the material that would eventually crack the charm. Do I believe my own explanation? Absolutely not. Am I grasping at straws for a non-supernatural explanation? Absolutely. And ambient room temperature doesn’t even begin to explain the red symbol around the charm

(LOGAN: Our budgeting is already a mess as it is, the last thing we need is to waste more funds on decorations. And that theory seems much more reasonable than the contrary explanation.)

Anonymous said: Is the demon that Pavreen summoned the same demon that possessed Elliott?

Anonymous said: Welp Virge SUMMONED A DEMON- (Why do I have a feeling Remy was the demon that possessed Elliot-)

Nope, they’re all different demons! The demon that Parveen summoned is notoriously difficult to contact, so a bunch of teenagers wouldn’t have been able to do it. Likewise for Remy; you can only summon him once you have his True Name, and he’s already destroyed most references to that (sorry Patton).

Anonymous said: omg omg omg what part of mythology is remy part of???

He’s not from any particular mythology, but he is partly based off of Alps from German folklore and the general mythology around sleep paralysis!

Anonymous said: Can Patton see supernatural beings like ghosts and demons and stuff? I just think it would be interesting if his scars make him able to see them :3c

Anonymous said: If both Dee and Patton can see the sigil, and Dee can see ghosts, does that mean Pat can see ghosts too? With the whole red glowing thing (forgot what its called) it seems to be connected.

Yes he can see ghosts/demons, and you’re right that the scars (or rather the deal with the demon which gave him his powers and scars) are what lead to him being able to do it. The red is just a general indicator of something supernatural/not of our Realm.

Anonymous said: Wait so if Patton and his family all have that mark could that mean Patton is not completely human 👀 -🌈

I supposed you could say that Patton’s not entirely human because he’s a witch who was born without a soul, but he’d find that pretty offensive tbh.

Anonymous said: Are Elliott and Patton maybe related, even distantly? Also, roman needs to suck it up and have Feelings for the Snake Man

There’s no relation between Elliott and Patton. Elliott is the child of a seer and a psychic, Patton is the son of witches. They’re similar, but different. (Also you’re assuming that Roman hasn’t liked the Snake Man since high school, but considered him off-limits because he’s his brother’s best friend).

Anonymous said: Does Patton know that Dee can see spirits and does Dee know that Patton is protecting them all?

Anonymous said: Dee, pat, do you know that each other can see the sigil? 

Anonymous said: is ... is patton a witch and dee a dee-mon and that's why they don't like each other.....?

Anonymous said: Pat what do you think about making deals with demons?

They’re both aware of each other’s secrets! Technically they’re both doing their best to protect everyone, but that doesn’t mean they agree with each other’s methods or bond over the shared responsibility. 

Patton is indeed a witch, and Dee is a regular human who happened to summon a demon one time. Patton thinks Dee is the occult equivalent of a satanist, which he disagrees with because dark magic is unnatural/dangerous in his eyes (making deals with demons only leads to trouble!), and would prefer Dee not endanger his friends. Dee doesn’t like Patton because of his perceived moral superiority, and finds the way he can be so secretive and two-faced creepy 

Regardless, they’re both sitting in glass houses and have more in common than they think.

Anonymous said: Patton Should Hug Dee *

Maybe. But he won’t. 8′D

Anonymous said: Since Dee has been able to see ghosts for a long time, was he an open believer in ghosts before Elliot died? Since it was mentioned that the reason he lies about his belief is because he knows that they're dangerous, he wouldn't have had a reason to hide it in the past. And if he did are any of the others aware of the belief change? Well, besides Remus. I'm guessing that one is pretty obvious.

He may have been more involved as a believer in the past, though that doesn’t mean he was ever super open about it. He was aware of how it would look like to outsiders (being genuinely skeptical at one point himself), so he wasn’t going to paint a target on his back by talking about ghosts and demons and things most people can’t see.

Of course, that didn’t stop people from stereotyping and making those sorts of assumptions about their friend group anyway, but no one besides them really knew about their secret-- not even Virgil.

Anonymous asked: What would happen if one time, the gang ended up getting something supernatural on camera?

The result of that would depend on the being. Ghosts can kinda appear on camera, although it’s very rare for them to appear as a full bodied apparition, which is why they usually only manifest in spirit orbs or light/shadows. Poltergeists are better since they’re able to interact with objects, but likewise since they can’t manifest into a physical form they can easily be brushed off. Demons and other miscellaneous creatures will straight up not appear if captured directly on film; you’ll simply get video glitches and distortions.  

So essentially, they may technically have found something already, but capturing evidence that’s also compelling is a lot more difficult than you’d think. I imagine there’s a good chance that anything legitimate wouldn’t get taken too seriously because of how easy it is to fake evidence nowadays.

Anonymous said: Okay so a little bit of a rant but not really ig but imagine the ladylike and unsolved crossover for this AU like I can see it as like Thomas' friends dressing up Roman and Dee in style and seeing a blushing mess and maybe flirting going on because of how good the clothing complements each other but this is kinda a weak idea lol

It’s not a weak idea at it, it’s really cute! (though I may just have a soft spot for the Ladylike cast and crossovers). 

The only thing to note is that I’ve chosen not to include Thomas’ friends in this AU because I personally weird about writing fiction about real people? (I was on the fence about including character!Thomas for a while too, tbh). So, apologies to anyone who’s sent similar asks or wanted to see any of Thomas’ friends; they wont be around!

Anonymous said: Did Dee and Remus ever have that talk Dee said he would try to have a while back????

They might have gotten the opportunity to chat back when Remus came back to help shoot the Room 1046 video. It wouldn’t have been a complete reconciliation by any means (dealing with years of baggage in one sitting is Hard), but now Remus is aware that Dee is open to discuss things again at some point in the future, so progress!

Anonymous said: wait wHAT?! When did he (Emile Picani) die?? Give us the deets oh wise one

Anonymous said: emile is... dead? what happened?

I see y’all, but unfortunately you’re not getting any answers from me just yet! You’ll have to wait until the next chapter~.

Anonymous said: Shit is about to go down and I am worried about the next ghost "adventure"

:) Don’t Worry About It.))

[mamthew]

My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail. 

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

[theradioghost]

FUN PODCASTS FOR THE MORBID AT HEART

You want some death? You want some death podcasts? Some ghosts? Some psychopomps? A little melancholia, a little black humor? I’ve got it. Of course I do. I don’t know what else you expected.

FICTION

Glasgow Ghost Stories -- A young Glaswegian looks a little too closely during an encounter with a ghost, and is drawn irrevocably into the previously-invisible world of the dead who haunt the city’s streets. Haunting, moody, and beautiful.

LIMBO -- David is dead. Now he has to deal with what comes after. A more personal, philosophically-leaning concept of one person’s afterlife; also a very short self-contained miniseries (less than an hour long total). (You might know the creator, A.R. Olivieri, from any of the multitude of other podcasts he’s involved with -- 2298, Magic King Dom, Girl in Space, Janus Descending...)

Middle:Below -- Taylor Quinn is the only person who can open doors between the Middle (the land of the living) and the Below (where restless ghosts dwell). Heather is a woman who has somehow fallen into the realm of the dead. Gil is a ghost. Sans is a cat. And between the four of them, they’re going to have to fix the problems faced by the denizens of the Below. Bad things will happen. (That’s the show’s tagline, but it’s actually been rather sweet and funny so far.)

Gal Pals Present: Overkill -- When preteen medium Madison accidentally summons the ghost of 19-year-old murder victim Aya Valasquez at a Girl Scout camp, it’s up to Aya to finally figure out what exactly has trapped so many ghosts like her in Harding Park -- and why she was murdered there. Four words: sarcastic lesbian ghost narrator.

They Say a Lot of Things -- When a curious ghost hunter leaves her tape recorder in the legendarily-haunted mansion Arborwood Grove, resident ghost Caroline Carr takes the opportunity to tell the story of her life, her death, and the many lives she’s seen pass through her abandoned home over the years. Short, sweet, and lovely.

Death by Dying -- In the idyllic town of Crestfall, Idaho, people die. Often in bizarre and inexplicable ways. And when they do, it’s the job of the local Obituary Writer to tell the story of how it happened -- but in the process of finding out those stories, he is drawn into a much darker and more mysterious story of vanished homes, monsters in the deep woods, lonely hearts, haunted bicycles, and man-eating cats. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking.

The London Necropolis Railway -- Barney is an unusually harried ghoul, an employee of the supernatural railway that removes the spirits of the newly deceased from London. Agnes is a stubborn private detective who was recently murdered in her office by a mysterious monster. And together, they’re going to have to dodge netherworld bureaucracy long enough to track down her killer -- before Agnes has to take her own train.

Wooden Overcoats -- Antisocial twin siblings Rudyard and Antigone Funn, with the help of their hypercompetent assistant Georgie and a mouse named Madeleine, have been running a funeral parlor on the tiny Channel island of Piffling for years. The secret to their success? It’s the only one. Or at least it was -- because Eric Chapman, who may or may not be the world’s most perfect man, has just opened up his own funeral parlor right across the square. Cue sitcom nemesis shenanigans and all the morbid black humor you could desire.

& Midnight Radio -- requisite egregious self-promotion! A woman who never expected to return to her hometown writes a letter to a long-dead radio host who never left it. But when she somehow receives an on-air reply, the two of them begin an unlikely correspondence that digs up long-buried questions about the meaning of home, the way our lives touch others, and what it means to be a ghost. Remember: all ghost stories are love stories. (This is a completed ten-episode miniseries, I promise it’s good, please listen to my podcast)

NONFICTION

Death in the Afternoon -- If literally anything on this list appeals to you, then you should go to Youtube right now and subscribe to Caitlyn Doughty’s channel, Ask A Mortician. Then you should buy her books. Then you should listen to this, her podcast, in which she and her colleagues Louise Hung and Sarah Chavez from The Order of the Good Death discuss death and how human beings have dealt with it, now and in the past, across the world. Their storytelling is fascinating, thoughtful, compassionate, and sometimes a lot funnier than you’d expect, especially when they’re talking about subjects like the man who had to sue to get back his own severed, mummified leg (he’d left it in a barbecue smoker in a storage unit; seriously, just listen to the podcast). This is quite probably my favorite nonfiction show and I am very excited for season 2 to come out in March. Highly recommended.

Spirits -- The inimitable Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin, along with occasional guests, pour a drink and discuss legends, folklore, and mythology from around the world, including quite a few stories about death and the undead. But if you have even a passing interest in folklore, or just in content that is good, you should listen to this show. Everyone should listen to Spirits. That is my official recommendation.

Macabre London -- Exactly what it sounds like: interesting and obscure stories of the macabre and odd in the history of London. They’ve covered stories like the actual London Necropolis Railway (a real thing which carried dead bodies out of the city to new rural cemeteries), disastrous fires on the Underground, cholera epidemics, the sinking of the Princess Alice, and a wide variety of ghost stories.

The Marble Garden -- Rather than focusing on deaths, this podcast tells stories of the incredible lives of the obscure but extraordinary who have been buried in the cemeteries of Toronto. I love this show a lot for personal nostalgic reasons, but I also find it generally lovely and thoughtful and really interesting. My favorite episode is probably Episode 3, The Blackburns, but this is one of the few shows, fiction or nonfiction, that I’ve listened through multiple times.

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2020 - March

Enforced isolation made me read a lot... Here are the 10 books I read!

The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #1)    We all know I adore this series - I reread it every year after all. This time I read it to annotate the text and do a proper deep-dive into the world Sanderson is creating in preparation for Rythmn of War coming out later this year.

The Binding - Bridget Collins    I still don’t know how I feel about Collins’ book. It’s a historical fiction novel with a subtle hint of magical realism through the concept of Binding - using some form of magic (I’m not entirely sure how) to turn real memories into books. This concept is what made me and my uni friends buddy read this novel in the first place; it sounds fascinating, especially to bookish people like we us! However, this book is not really about book binding - it’s a love story between Emmett Farmer and Lucian Darnay.

If I’m honest the part two, which covered the original courtship of Lucian and Emmett, was the most interesting section of the novel. I thought their relationship was a bit cringey (as befits teenagers) and incredibly sweet. The romance made the novel. But it wasn’t the book we signed up for. I was expecting a book about the secrets about Binding - maybe a bit of a thriller/mystery but with beautiful writing and an ethereal setting? I was definitely expecting more information about Binding. Instead we got a angsty romance, endless cutting and gluing of endpapers for books and ONE scene of Emmett book binding that didn’t tell us what the process actually is.

For what the book actually is, which is an angsty gay romance in a very subtly magical alternate ‘Victorian’ society, it’s a decent book. If I’d known this I probably would have read it and considered it a lovely cutesy read. However, it’s not the book I was sold and it left me disappointed. I’d recommend giving it a shot, but it’s not a book I would necessarily read again...

The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orcsy    This was a ridiculous, over the top, and melodramatic classic adventure story. I had so much fun reading this! The Scarlet Pimpernel is a mysterious English aristocrat who, with his band of devoted fellow gentlement, travels to France during the height of the Revolution to rescue innocent French nobles from the guillotine. However, the French are at their wits end and Chauvelin blackmails the ‘cleverest woman in Europe’, darling of English society, and French wife of Sir Percy Blakeney, Lady Marguerite Blakeney, to find out the indentity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. 

From there we go on a wonderfully melodramatic romp through 18th century England and France, and watch as Marguerite tries to save the Scarlet Pimpernel. It’s a silly, over the top, novel in a similar style to The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. I’d highly recommend it as an entry into classic literature - or just as a ridiculous fun story!

Reticence - Gail Carriger (The Custard Protocol #4)   My last full length parasolverse novel was A LOT of fun. I adored Percy and Arsenic’s slightly cringey but incredibly sweet romance bloom, alongisde the exploration of the supernatural in Carriger’s version of 1890′s Japan. The Custard Protocol was my least favourite of Carriger’s three main series (plotwise at least) but Reticence was a beautiful homage to the entire parasolverse! I adored the cameos (or just the entire wedding scene, let’s face it!), silly humour, and Percy’s happy ending.

My small niggle with this novel was the plot. As with the rest of the Custard Protocol novels I felt the plot wasn’t spectacular. It was a bit thin on the ground, particularly in the first half... This series is about character, and I love all the characters, but I wanted a little bit more from all of the novels. I wanted to see a bit more of each country (and spend a little bit less time on the Spotted Custard whilst travelling through the grey...) Nevertheless, I think Reticence was the strongest of the four Custard novels and I really loved it. Carriger’s world is my comfort blanket, it makes me smile, and I adore the world she’s created - and for that I will be forever grateful to Miss Gail!

Poison or Protect - Gail Carriger (Delightfully Deadly Novellas #1)   This novella was a lot darker than I was expecting from Carriger. The plot and on-screen action was just a silly and entertaining as I was expecting (Preshea goes to a house party to prevent the assassination of the Duke of Snodgrove, and stop his daughter marrying a gold digger, whilst falling in love with a dashing Scottish captain.) However, Preshea’s backstory was much darker than we usually see in the parasolverse, the only comparable one I can think of off the top of my head is Rodrigo’s abuse from the Templars! She suffered through years of abuse and neglect at the hands of her father and husbands, leaving her damaged and shying away from all relationships. 

The actual romance in Poison or Protect left me a little but underwhelmed. Gavin was actually what I was expecting from Connal Maccon in the Parasol Protectorate, and I’m much more on board with his ‘gentle-giant’ style romance with Preshea. I’m personally not a huge fan of the stereotypical kilt-wearing, enormous Scottish bloke... Just not my thing...but good for Preshea if she likes that! I just wasn’t that invested. 

Personally, I would have loved Preshea’s book to revolve a bit more on her relationships with women, not romantically (she has never read as bi or a lesbian) but platonically. In the Finishing School Preshea held herself aloof from the girls around her, never really having a proper friend or friendship group. Instead she was like a vampire queen surrounded by her hive - beautiful, deadly, and set above everyone around her. Preshea herself comments on it in the book! Because of this I would’ve really loved the novella to focus on Preshea learning to be friends with other women, not see them as enemies or competition, and maybe getting her man on the side. We did get this growth as a sub-plot with Lady Flo and Mis Pagril, but I think it was more important for Preshea with her Finishing School background and the abuse she suffered to find herself with other women before jumping into bed with husband number 5...

The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince - Robin Hobb (Realm of the Elderlings)    This was a fun little novella that expanded the backstory of the Six Duchies and explained why the Witted and Wit magic are so feared in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies. It’s not Hobb’s finest work, but it did flesh out the history of the Six Duchies a little bit more. The story isn’t incredibly important to the main series but I’d highly recommend for fans of Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings and it’s best to read the tale either before of after the Tawny Man Trilogy.

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert   A disappointing classic. Madame Bovary is supposed to be selacious and scandelous. I found it tedious and irritating. Emma Bovary was one of the most uncompelling heroines I’ve read outside of Dickens - she was a selfish snob, with no redeeming characteristics for the reader to latch onto. She’s adored by her husband, but bored in her marraige because Charles is only a middle class, mediocre doctor... She is manipulated by the men around her (both lovers and the guy who lends her money, I can’t remember his name) but is also incredibly stupid in her decisions, particularly around money and her last fateful decision at the end of the book.

The language (both French and my English translation) was dry, and the pacing was off. Important parts of the novel went by in a whirl, but then there were long stretches where almost nothing happens. I’ve read similar novels that were much better with similar themes, plotlines, and much more interesting characters. I am glad I’ve read it but Madame Bovary is not a book I would read again, nor would I recommend it unless you want to cross it off your list of classics. 

Winter’s Heart, Crossroads of Twilight, and Knife of Dreams - Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time #9, 10, 11)    This post is incredibly long and I’ve spoken about this series at length already so I don’t really have any new criticisms to rasise. However I am slowly making my way through the rest of the Wheel of Time and I’ve now reached the end of the books solely written by Robert Jordan himself. Winter’s Heart and Crossroads of Twilight really were the height of the slump, however, I did manage to read through them both quite quickly with the amount of time I have at the moment. Both books were quite slow but had hugely important moments in them for the entire series.

Knife of Dreams was a return to form for Jordan before he died and we got the resolution to several tedious plotlines that had been running through the last few books (Perrin and Faile, Mat in Ebudar, Egwene travelling to the White Tower.) Personally, I loved Elayne’s struggle to claim the Lion Throne, however, this is one of the plotlines people tend to dislike and it had a particularly satisfying conclusion at the end of KoD. I’m incredibly excited to the series conclusion that I can see coming and I can’t wait to jump into the installments written by Brandon Sanderson in April! 

Currently Reading

I’m still working through Fellowship and the Companion... It’s fallen by the wayside slightly but I am still working through it.

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens    This is my buddy read book for March/April, but it’s also a reread for me (as we know from my turbulent relationship with this book from 2019) We have just finished Book 2 Chapter 5.

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon    I’m not a huge fan of this book so far, however, I don’t hate it. I think the plot and world building is quite shallow (circa. 200 pages in anway), and the writing makes me feel like I’m watching the characters through a glass screen. Hopefully it will pick up a bit, but at the moment I think it’s overrated. (I don’t think it’s helping I’ve been reading a lot of brilliant epic fantasy at the moment...)

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 9/30/20

Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, Vol. 6 | By Reai and Suki Umemiya | Seven Seas – Another series down to “once a year” release—I had to jog my memory at the start to recall what had been happening. Many things are going wrong for our heroine, who is trying to be strong and tough but is also starting to break down, and I felt that the scenes with her and Dean struck just the right balance of comforting and letting the heroine cry without making her seem weaker. This sets the stage for her comeback, which is extraordinary. (And also has a corrupt Church, a constant in Japanese light novels, though at least here there are also honest and good religious people in it.) That said, eventually Dean’s identity will come out, and I do wonder how this very good “villainess” isekai will handle it. – Sean Gaffney

The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Jack Flash and the Faerie Case Files, Vol. 1 | By Yu Godai, Mako Oikawa, and Kore Yamazaki | Seven Seas – A faerie switched at birth for a human child, Jack never fit in in either world. Only in the mortal realm could she earn money for anime collectibles, however, so she decided to make herself into a tough, capable woman like her literary heroes and set up shop as a detective. Together with her fellow changeling, Larry the werewolf, Jack takes on supernatural cases in New York City. In this volume, Lindel tasks them with tracking down a missing dragon egg. I liked the resources Jack uses to obtain information, which include a dapper theatre ghost and a spell with components of rat whiskers and taxi tires because “Nobody out there knows this city better than them.” I still found this a bit hard to get into, though, especially the parts involving a perpetually tearful off-off-off-off-Broadway actress and her pickpocket boyfriend. Still, I will check out volume two! – Michelle Smith

Black Clover, Vol. 22 | By Yuki Tabata | Viz Media – At long last, this interminable arc comes to an end. I enjoyed a lot of it, but I cannot deny it should have been about two volumes shorter. Most of the book is taken up by shonen battles, with the villain being nigh unkillable, the heroes almost breaking themselves to stop him, etc. Fortunately, the day is saved, and even the Wizard King turns out to be… sort of alive again? Shota fans should be happy. Asta fans perhaps less so—the sheer amount of damage done to the kingdom in this arc means someone has to be blamed, and give Asta has the “dark evil magic” it’s gonna be him, especially when he takes the incredibly obvious bait they use to get him to fight. Oh well, if Asta were smart, this wouldn’t be Black Clover. – Sean Gaffney

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Vol. 3 | By Nanashi | Vertical Comics – Part of the problem with titles like this and the other teasing works (Takagi-san less so as Nishikata doesn’t fall into the category) is that they are, at heart, the classic “extroverted girl acts overtly extroverted to bring introverted guy out of their shell,” and that’s not really a plot that feels comfortable in the Gen Z days, where you’re more likely to say “why doesn’t she just let him be in his quiet, safe space?” And by she I mean they, as Nagatoro’s two friends appear far more often here, which offers some good two-way teasing action, as they clearly see her crush on him, if not why. It’s still sort of hard to read, but if you pretend he’s more OK with it than he actually is, this is cute. – Sean Gaffney

Failed Princesses, Vol. 1 | By Ajiichi | Seven Seas – The concept of “popular girl meets unpopular girl” is a common one in yuri manga, and we do indeed hit several of its tropes in this first volume. The amusing thing is that Kanade, the shy outcast girl, is perfectly aware of how things are supposed to go, and keeps pulling back a bit to try to save Nanaki from, well, making herself an outcast by associating with the wrong people. The best part of the volume is that Nanaki really doesn’t give two shits about any of that, and seems set on making Kanade her best friend… and also making her over, which backfires a bit as Kanade cleans up nicely. I hear this gets a bit dramatic later, but for the moment it’s a cute and fluffy proto-yuri story. – Sean Gaffney

In/Spectre, Vol. 12 | By Kyo Shirodaira and Chashiba Katase | Kodansha Comics – The first story in this volume is another “Rikka tries to make people understand Kotoko is an evil Machiavellian schemer,” this time with one of her ex-classmates, but again the response seems to be “we know she’s a manipulative bitch, but she’s a good person anyway.” The larger story, which will continue into the next book, seems to be a chance to write Kuro and Kotoko as an actual romance, as the man we meet here and his relationship with a yuki-onna… as well as his penchant for attracting misfortune… very much parallel them. That said, they’re very cute together, which is why I hope he avoids the murder charge he’s now being investigated for. Still a favorite. – Sean Gaffney

Interviews with Monster Girls, Vol. 8 | By Petos | Kodansha Comics – The author knows what people want to see, but also knows that the best way to get readers is to drive them crazy by not showing it. We finally get what we’ve been begging for here, as Tetsuo asks Sakie out on a date. (This is after rejecting Kyouko’s love confession, both because she’s his student and also, as he is forced to admit, as he likes Sakie.) The stage is set for the date… and the rest of the book is thus spent with the three main student girls going to Kyouko’s for a fireworks viewing and meeting her family. They’re good chapters, and I really liked showing how difficult Kyouko has it as a dullahan in terms of everyday life, but GOD, please get back to the teachers, I beg you! – Sean Gaffney

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 16 | By Aka Akasaka | Viz Media – The series has gotten to the point where the more rewarding chapters are the ones as part of a larger arc. Not that the one-shot chapters are bad—though Maki’s journey to India may be the most pointless thing in this entire series to date, we do get Chika’s iconic “shut up or I’ll kill you” here. But the larger arcs, featuring Miyuki and Kaguya attempting to date without interruptions, and setting up Ishigami and Iino for a romance—though given the number of limbs broken in this book, and Iino’s own horrible lack of self-awareness, it may be a ways out—are better. This series is still hilarious, but we’ve come to read it more for the heartwarming moments. Heck, there’s even some serious drama here. Very good. – Sean Gaffney

Nineteen | By Ancco | Drawn & Quarterly – Although it was translated and released second in English, Nineteen is a precursor to Ancco’s internationally award-winning manhwa Bad Friends. The volume collects thirteen short comics originally published in Korea over a decade ago which absolutely remain relevant to today’s world. While understandably not as polished as some of Ancco’s later work—one can observe her style evolving and growing over the course of the collection (which is fascinating)—the comics still carry significant emotional weight and impact. Nineteen includes diary comics, which tend to be more lighthearted, as well as harder-hitting fictional stories, many of which also have autobiographical inspiration. As a whole, the collection explores themes of young adulthood, growing up, and complicated family relationships. In particular, there is a compelling focus on the relationships among daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. Some of the narratives can be rather bleak, but a resigned sense of humor threads through Nineteen, too. – Ash Brown

Ran the Peerless Beauty, Vol. 8 | By Ammitsu | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Shoujo manga that has couples getting together BEFORE the end of the series is inevitably going to have an arc dealing with how far the lead couple should go now that they’re dating, and this is Ran’s turn, as she and Akira and their friends go to a beach house Ran’s family owns and have some beach fun. Unfortunately, the cast gets winnowed down one by one until it’s just the two of them… and her overprotective father, who arrives in time to provide the cliffhanger and no doubt ensure that nookie does not ensue. Not that I think it should—these two kids are even purer than the couple from Kimi ni Todoke, and I think they should mature a bit more before going further. Plus, watching them blush and kiss is wonderful. – Sean Gaffney

Spy x Family, Vol. 2 | By Tatsuya Endo | Viz Media – Having spent our first volume establishing that our found family can really come to love each other deep down, this volume shows off how they are also, at heart, fundamentally awkward and unable to socialize normally. This is unsurprising—hints of Loid’s life we’ve seen show him as a war orphan, Yor is a contract killer, and Anya basically grew up being experimented on by bad guys. As the school soon finds, this leads to issues. The second half of the book introduces Yor’s sister-obsessed little brother Yuri, who turns out to be a torture expert for Loid’s enemies. As always, half the fun is that everyone except Anya has no idea who their real selves are, and the cliffhanger tells us we’re in for some hilarious family fun. I love this. – Sean Gaffney

Spy x Family, Vol. 2 | By Tatsuya Endo | VIZ Media – After a brief spell atop the waiting list, Anya officially makes it into Eden Academy. Loid is anxious to progress to the next stage of his mission and, believing there’s not much chance in turning Anya into an elite scholar like his agency wants, focuses instead on having her befriend the younger son of his target. It does not go to plan, of course. Anya is very cute in this volume, and I also really appreciated how Loid genuinely listens to Yor and values her input. The arrival of Yor’s brother, a member of the secret police, is going to be a fun complication, and another cast member with a secret, but my favorite part of this series is probably always going to be how much love these three are already feeling for each other. So unique and good! – Michelle Smith

Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, Vol. 6 | By Tomo Hirokawa, based on the story by Reki Kawahara | Yen Press – The weakness of this manga is the same as always—it’s written to tie into the games, and features several characters I just don’t recognize, which can be a problem given this is the big final let’s-save-the-world ending. That said, this is still a decent SAO title. Kirito gets to be cool and badass, but because this isn’t written just by Kawahara others do as well, and it’s a nice balanced effort that focuses on heroine Premiere. I also really liked the point where all the NPCs are worried when everyone has to log out for several days for maintenance. While I’ll still remember this as the “SAO only everyone is alive” manga, I enjoyed reading it, when I wasn’t confused. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown

[janiedean]

Mood lightener ask, I am intrigued by book recs from you since you mentioned something about a dinosaur series a bit ago? Color me intrigued so top five books you'd recommend for people who enjoy ASoIaF?

OH GOD THANK YOU XDDD

okay so, I’m taking the dinosaurs out first because... well. hahah.

the dinosaur lords is ABSOLUTELY a thing you might wanna try out if you like asoiaf for reasons, BUT I’m warning you, the author died before finishing it (unless he wrote the last three but didn’t have publishing contract for the second part of the six-books plan but no one quite knows and no idea) so most likely you’ll never get a conclusion, warning you beforehand so that’s why I’m putting it outside the top five. BUT IF YOU LIKE ASOIAF YOU SHOULD STILL TRY IT because:

the author was a friend of grrm’s and it shows;

it’s literally asoiaf except people go around on dinosaurs;

NO, REALLY;

there’s at least a couple characters who are totally asoiaf homages (there’s a dude named jaume who’s basically jaime and loras’s lovechild I SWEAR HE IS HE’S EVEN THE HEAD OF THE LOCAL KINGSGUARD) but not in a way that makes it look like plagiarism;

admittedly it takes a bit to find its rhythm, but when it does it’s really good because the worldbuilding is amazing and like... it’s basically fictional medieval europe with dinosaurs but to a really good degree and the representation is a+++, in the sense that idk one of the main four is obv. irish romani (or what irish romani are in that universe), a few are def. catalan, the french guy is really so french you wanna die, the italian dude actually comes from the oldest university in the realm, there’s people from russia/greece and the protagonist is basically some three eastern europeans countries thrown in one character but not stereotypically, like the guy is obv. a mix of russian/polish/mongol and he’s really a good character in that sense, there’s germans too, spanish ofc, like it’s really good in that sense

DINOSAURS FIGHTING DINOSAURS WHILE THEIR KNIGHTS RIDE THEM

there’s an entire supernatural angle with ARCHANGELS WHO MIGHT BE ROBOTS which is honestly intriguing and a+ and I just wish the books hadn’t finished just before going deep into it

if you also want lgbt+ rep............. well, two out of the three supposedly straight characters are irish romani dude and the protagonist and I can 100% assure you that everyone I dragged into reading those books agreed with me that in each single scene they have together (ie: most of them) they’re gayer than Actual Gay People in these books, but other than them half of the cast is bi, the gay sex is better written than the straight sex (forreal there’s one of the few actually.... sexy m/m oral sex scenes I read in published fiction???), their sexuality is not the whole of their personality but it’s fairly stated that most of them are Really Not Straight and it’s really done well;

actually THE ENTIRE KINGSGUARD IS GUYS WHO FIGHT VERY WELL BUT LOVE ARTS AS WELL AND THEY ALL SLEEP WITH EACH OTHER EXCEPT THE TOKEN STRAIGHT FRENCH CHARACTER THAT THE JAIME AND LORAS LOVECHILD HAS A CRUSH ON and ngl I thought they would end up fucking at some point if the books went on so... XDDD anyway a+++ kingsguard >>> the one in asoiaf;

ngl at some points there’s some badly written sex scenes (the straight ones lmao I’m 99,9% sure milàn was not that straight himself) and it’s not half as complex as asoiaf and doesn’t have as many characters but it has the same scheme except with dinosaurs, archangels being robots and three people are straight and two of them are in love anyway;

so tldr I greatly recommend the dinosaur lords if you want something similar to asoiaf, don’t expect an ending, enjoy dinosaurs and a lot of nice rep for everyone. also Y’ALL HAVE TO SHIP ROB AND KARYL WITH ME BECAUSE THEY’RE RIDICULOUS.

.... wow, and you asked me the top five. lmaaaaao. anyway, given that the dinosaur lords will not be in the top five, I’ll go and advise you to read:

IAN TREGILLIS’S ALCHEMY WARS, which is not like **fantasy** but it’s alternate history where the netherlands win the colonial wars in the 16th century because they figure out how to make brass androids and they use it to basically destroy the british and drive the french to canada while they conquer the US instead of the british. it’s a trilogy, it’s completed, it’s flawless and features: FRENCH CATHOLICS VS DUTCH CALVINISTS WITH THE FRENCH WANTING TO TAKE BACK PARIS, PREDESTINATION VS FREE WILL IN THE ANDROIDS DISCOURSE, REHASH OF 16TH/17TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY DONE GREATLY, the greatest female character of genre literature since grrm (berenice GUYS BERENICE IS THE BEST GOD I LOVE HER SFM), the evil antagonist who’s a gal cersei wishes she was (like she’s terrible but she’s competent), the davos-like french general who knits in his spare time and the protagonist is the cinnamon roll-est android ever I love him sfm OH and the one time I cried because of a catholic fictional priest. guys tregillis is an a+++ top notch writer who has no time to waste with fillers and knows how to write a story even if HE HATES ME AND HE WANTS ME TO SUFFER and like... alchemy wars is really really good give it a go k?1,5. tregillis also wrote another alternate history trilogy, the milkweed tryptich, which is basically ‘the nazis create the x-men to win the war and so the british counteract by evoking ctuhulu and it goes exactly as it promises’. now: I have a love-hate rship with that one because the last book is narratively working but I hate everything it chose to be for reasons also i wanna punch the protagonist in the face, but thesuperevilgirl is totes the cersei of the situation and her brother has.... some srs jaime moments lmao he’s also my favorite ofc god klaus ily so much, and it has... some... well... ENGAGING choices lol I mean i loved book one and two and the third I did reluctantly but it could be an option? anyway ian tregillis is amazing and y’all should read him bye

the curse of chalion by lois mcmaster bujold has, as the amazing soul who recommended it to me pointed out, a protagonist that manages to be jaime and theon and partially sandor put into one. IT AMAZINGLY WORKS. the plot is kiiiinda more straightforward if you know spanish history bc the moment you figure out it’s the fantasy version of how castille and aragona united you know where it heads, but it has a lot of nice twists, also some a+ lgbt+ rep tho not as much as the dinosaur lords and the protagonist is.... really great I love him XD also ngl the fact that it ends fairly nicely is a balm so I’d try it, there’s other books in the same verse but I haven’t gotten around to read them yet

... guys stephen king’s dark tower is my fantasy favorite series EVER like ever, I love asoiaf and brienne is in my heart and she’s my true rep but nothing will top TDT for me ever for reasons and while it’s a completely different thing I still recommend it. caveat: I hate the last book with a vengeance and I think king fucked up the last two thirds real bad, but..... hey, it’s finished and the rest is 100% worth it. also jaime is totally the lovechild of the male protagonist and the other male-coprotagonist who are also my #1 ship ever in history so I’d give it a go ;) ;) ;) also while eddie’s my fave roland deschain is honestly the kind of character that you can only bow in front of like if I ever made an oc one hundredth as good as roland is in conception and execution and everything I’d feel like I accomplished everything I need in life. IT’S WORTH IT. TRY IT.

terry pratchett’s discworld: yes, it’s 41 books. yes it’s a lot. but you can read them by cycle which makes it a lot easier, they’re fun (the first three are a bit meh but the rest is all top notch I swear), they’re sarcastic and witty and delightful and it’s a++++ fantasy and I’ve been wanting to do the asoiaf au for ages sigh but anyway if you don’t want dark and grim but also want a+++ narrative, good satire about how our world sucks and a lot of fun at the expense of our pop culture (guys the book about their version of australia is a hoot and there’s a leonardo da vinci!!) GO FOR IT. IT’S AMAZING. also your life isn’t complete until you read about sam vimes and the local version of death speaking in capslock and being a cat person. also charles dance plays one of the mains in one of the tv adaptations and he was delightful xD

this is going to gain me rotten tomatoes, but....... grrm’s shared series wild cards. that he has going on with fifteen other writers including the aforementioned tregillis and milàn.yes, it’s like 28 books by now. no, it’s not perfect by all means and certain arcs are a total wtf and you don’t even have to read all of it, but especially grrm’s characters in it are obvious templates for asoiaf people (the powerful and amazing turtle is dark sam tarly and jay ackroyd is basically jaime without the incest and the extra good looks while lohengrin is brienne’s spiritual twin except for the looks), the shared worldbuilding is great, the alternate history story where buddy holly didn’t die and some of the protagonists organized a concert for him bc he was poor as hell was genius, and while a lot of the older stuff is dated and most likely was progressive for the eighties and would read a bit wonky now they always were super-inclusive, it has a bunch of nonwhite/nonstraight characters (esp. in the last books but there were also in the old ones, and the longest-standing gay dude since the eighties got a husband in the last trilogy!!! it was so ;_;), the alternate history is really good imvho and if you enjoy asoiaf you probably would like most of wild cards. if you want a reading order I made one here. xD

here you go sorry it took me one hour to answer it but IT GOT LONG XDD

[letterboxd]

Emma Tammi Q&A.

“To be able to really see her for who she really is when she’s by herself is such a powerful thing since it turns out that she’s a real badass.”

Caitlin Gerard as Lizzy Macklin in Emma Tammi’s ‘The Wind’.

Of the many possible source materials for a feature film, never overlook the short. Jim Cummings’ Thunder Road, Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Andrés Muschietti’s Mama, and Sean Ellis’s Cashback all began life as short films. And more: the Saw films. District 9. Dee Rees’ Pariah. Jennifer Kent’s Monster (which she expanded into The Babadook).

After a start in documentaries, director Emma Tammi makes her feature debut with The Wind, a lengthened version of a short film called The Winter, adapted by its writer Teresa Sutherland. The supernatural Western horror revolves around Lizzy Macklin (Caitlin Gerard, Insidious: The Last Key, The Social Network), a woman left alone in a lob cabin on the plains, who is fighting to not lose her mind.

Letterboxd contributor Jack Moulton chatted with Tammi about her narrative debut, the cultural references infused in this haunting feminist chiller, and Westerns in the #MeToo era.

Letterboxd: Let’s start with your take on the origins of this project and how you were brought on board to direct The Wind? Emma Tammi: The screenwriter Teresa Sutherland was a film student at Florida State University and she made a short film called The Winter, which was loosely based on the same themes as The Wind. Our producer Christopher Alender, who is also alumni of FSU, saw the short and encouraged her to expand it into a feature. So Teresa had written this script prior to me coming on board.

Chris and I worked together on another documentary project and he thought I might be a good fit to direct, so I read the script and I loved it. I then met Teresa and I think we shared the same visions for what the film could ultimately be. We did a couple of polished passes together and then we were shooting later that year. It all came together organically based on prior relationships and all of us believing in the story.

What did you connect to the most about the script? I loved that it was a Western and that it was focusing on a female character, which was not something that I felt like we’d seen much before. I also loved that Teresa was inspired by these actual accounts of women who were homesteading at that time, since I was fascinated with the American West as a teenager and had actually picked up some of the books that she used as original research.

I thought it was fun how Teresa was starting with something rooted in reality and taking it to a horror and supernatural place. But the thing that really I think hooked me after I read it was that I thought the protagonist Lizzy was so well developed, and I thought all the character arcs were really strong. I felt that the horror was coming from the dramatic strengths of the characters’ relationships and their own personal struggles. It felt like really strong ground.

‘The Wind’ director Emma Tammi.

You had more of a background in documentary filmmaking before this—what compelled you to make a start in fictional narratives? Do you feel being an ‘outsider’ to the genre aided your vision of the film? That’s an interesting question. I had been working in documentary films for many years and I feel that was great preparation for making a narrative film despite the differences. Both my parents were actors so I had grown up around theater and fiction filmmakers my whole life. So I think that it felt like something I had always wanted to eventually get to.

I’m so fascinated with our world that I think documentary is such an interesting lens to explore things that are happening. But to then be able to step into a fictional realm I think you can explore the human experience to an even greater extreme. Once we started shooting, the process of working with the actors was even more enriching and incredible than I ever could have anticipated.

What were your film influences for The Wind—especially the specific horrors and Westerns that inspired the look and the feel? I think that one of the things that [director of photography] Lyn Moncrief and I really wanted to do was pay homage to some of the frames from Westerns that have become such big cultural references in our lives. But we wanted to find ways that we could have a fresh take with that [and] subvert it to give a new perspective to the landscape, since we were telling this from a female unreliable narrator and I think that both of those things in Westerns are pretty hard to come by. So, in that sense, I liked how we basically turned the camera 90 degrees and held on the women as the men rode off to town. I was really inspired by The Searchers (1956), for example.

In terms of the horror I feel that there is a comparison to The Shining (1980) in the sense of how it’s a slow burn where the environment is coming in on our lead character. Pacing-wise, in building up the tension, I was really inspired by that. I thought Carrie (1976) was also a really interesting reference in terms of the horror. The first horror scene is simply Sissy Spacek getting her period in a girls locker room and it’s completely terrifying.

I thought so many of the things that women experience in this time were horrific and yet they were just coming out of the mundane day-to-day life events of trying to live and sustain in such an inhospitable land at that time. I love that The Wind was taking the horror cues from the everyday things that we all experience.

Caitlin Gerard’s performance is truly terrific. She anchors the film brilliantly as it jumps from its time periods. What drew you to her in the casting process and did she bring anything new to what had already been set in the script? During auditions I kept asking for more people because I really didn’t feel like we found our Lizzy yet. Caitlin was one of the last ones and was so balls-to-walls, showing such range in three different scenes. We just wouldn’t be able to fully enter this world without hanging our hat on a lead actress who didn’t have that level of grit. So that was incredible.

One of the most important things that she brought to the table was the fact that she had a German background, which we didn’t consider before in terms of Lizzy. I had initially been talking to Teresa about Lizzy’s background, thinking that it would make sense for her to be an immigrant, which was very common of that period. To implement that in the script would really add to the isolation that she might be feeling on the land, in this country, and also between her and Isaac [her husband, played by Ashley Zukerman].

We wrote that into the script days before shooting and then were continuing to work on it throughout the shoot. I thought that was such a nice brush stroke and dimension that Caitlin was able to add because she speaks German and it was fabulous.

What motivated the nonlinear structure of the film? Did you have to adjust anything in the edit to make a particular section work better from how it was laid out in the script? Teresa had already tapped into establishing the nonlinear structure of the film beforehand in a way that would reflect the mental fractured-ness of Lizzy’s headspace. I think it really helps us feel the unreliable narrator so strongly. But we did have to juggle some of the order in post so the edit is different from the order of the script, but I think we were able to find the essence of the script at the end of the day. Those were decisions based on logistics like the performances and the coverage, or the sound and special effects. You just need to recalibrate to keep the pacing in the edit.

Were there any notable challenges on set, such as dealing with the period setting or shooting in such a remote location? We really lucked out in the sense that we got a really strong and dedicated team. I think that everyone was so committed and so talented that we were pretty flexible when challenges would come up. The remoteness really added to the production because we were all able to immerse ourselves in that time period and in that world and not be as connected to the outside and technology.

I’m sure our producers would have a different story to tell because not being able to access your email onset is a nightmare. Basically none of our cellphones worked in these locations. Despite the problems, there were great benefits in shooting in the middle of nowhere.

Through the film, you use the realities of settler life for horror and tension, such as the wild animals, the lack of medical care and, obviously, the weather. How did you negotiate the balance between the realities and the supernatural, especially since you often leave questions unanswered with the latter? We really wanted to start in a way that let you experience the environment as it was, and then start to get in a place where you experience the environment through Lizzy’s point of view, letting it really rev up into something that was ultimately quite terrorizing. I think we were trying to push the natural elements into a more hyper-realized place so it was close to a supernatural place. It’s like playing a piece of music where it flows from the peaks and the valleys.

Can you describe the decision-making process around how you kept the ‘monster’ hidden as much as possible? It’s very effective, but also lends itself to questions on the specifics. How the haunting element would be both seen and heard was something we were talking about even in the script rewriting stages, and I think we wanted to really lean into all of this being an extension of the torment that Lizzy was feeling internally. So questioning whether or not there was actually a “boogeyman” out there was more interesting and more true to the character than actually seeing the “boogeyman”.

But the other element of it was that since this was set in the late 1800s I think we really wanted to show and hear hints of it that were coming from the natural world, so “the wind” and how that transformed was really the scary element of the sound design. In terms of the visuals, we were leaning into shadows and elements of fire and dust and things that were of that environment. I wanted to do something that felt practical even when it wasn’t.

I’d like to ask you how you feel the film operates as a period piece to reflect current times. I felt that the way Lizzy is constantly wielding her shotgun is an empowering and feminist subversion of the masculine individualist gunslinger from classic Westerns. Were you consciously revising frontier myth in that cinematic sense? I think we were consciously doing that but I don’t think it was the overt intention of the script, which is what I really liked about it. I felt that all of those things were coming out so naturally and they weren’t forced. What’s so interesting with Lizzy is that we spend so much time with her while she’s by herself, but she’s constantly trying to put on a brave face for her husband, or for her neighbors, and for the outside world, which I think we can all relate to.

And then to be able to see her for who she really is when she’s by herself is such a powerful thing since it turns out that she’s a real badass. She’s wielding the gun, she’s doing all that stuff that she needs to do out of necessity, but it’s also without any pretense and without having to be a certain thing to any certain person because she’s ultimately there being herself and trying to survive.

I feel it resonates in the #MeToo era in the way she’s threatened by powerful forces and then the man in her life doesn’t believe her. Yeah, I think it does and I love that about it. If we’d made it five years ago it still would have resonated. It’s also a very human experience that she’s going through and our current times are shedding light on it in different ways and that’s so cool. I think the horror genre is able to put a mirror up to ourselves in such a powerful way.

‘The Wind’ opens in US cinemas on limited release 5 April 2019.

[tlbodine]

Gothic vs Punk: Literary Traditions

So I was talking this morning about Gothic as a genre of storytelling, and it got me thinking about all of the myriad ‘punk genres -- steampunk, cyberpunk, dieselpunk, solarpunk, biopunk, etc. -- and how they compare and contrast. 

I feel like ‘punk is another sub-genre convention that’s kind of exploded in popularity and use, and the definitions around it are pretty hazy -- just like all the modern gothic subtypes (like “midwestern gothic”). So let’s play a fun game of compare-and-contrast, shall we? Because just like in high school, the punks and the goths shop at the same places and share some similar aesthetics but aren’t quite the same crowd. 

As you’ll recall, my qualifications for what defines a Gothic are as follows: 

A heavy focus on setting-as-character; stories where the setting is an integral part of the plotline

Brooding, atmospheric writing with a focus on description (as necessary for bringing that setting to life)

Flirtation with the supernatural (that may or may not have a mundane explanation)

A sense of opulence and decay – ie, a place that was once great and powerful but has since fallen into ruin

Where can you find Gothic in the wild? 

Classic Gothic - Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Dracula, The Fall of the House of Usher. Or, for a more modern take on the same conventions, watch Crimson Peak, which I’d consider Guillermo Del Toro’s love letter to the Gothic. Also check out the book Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg -- we could go so far as to call that “New England Gothic,” perhaps. Want a weird example that still totally works? Check out The Heirloom, a Taiwanese film that’s just about as Gothic as you can get. 

Southern Gothic - The oldest Gothic off-shoot. Check out the works of Flannery O’Conner, William Faulkner, V.C. Andrews. Deliverance is a classic film in that vein. You could make a strong case for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, too. 

Midwest Gothic - A newer offshoot, and a genre that’s still being codified. But I think we could make a strong case for Children of the Corn, and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. Daniel Krauss’s works may also qualify - take a look at Scowler. 

You get the idea. 

So. Okay. What’s the deal with ‘punk, then? 

The original genre-punk offshoot was Cyberpunk, typified by William Gibson and Philip K. Dick. Cyberpunk was a near-future dystopia where, as our friends at TVTropes puts it: 

The heroes of these dark and cynical stories were marginalized, disillusioned, and rebellious "punks" striving for survival against overwhelming odds, often futilely, in corrupt megacities and surreal cyberspacerealms.

But then the other punk genres started to roll in. Where cyberpunk is near-future sci-fi dystopia, genres like steampunk and dieselpunk are alternate-history stories. You can read all about the various types of punk here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunkPunk

So with that out of the way, let’s compare/contrast punk and gothic: 

Gothic is concerned first and foremost with place. It’s all about settings and the aesthetic of a specific location. Punk is primarily concerned with technology. The world and its aesthetics are heavily informed by the technology that shapes it, whether that tech is cybernetic or clockwork or solar-powered. 

Gothic stories can incorporate elements of magic and the supernatural; often those elements are subverted and shown to be the workings of damaged people doing bad things to one another. There may be real ghosts in Gothic stories, but more often than not the real culprit is the evilness of man and his corrupted heart. Scooby Doo is, arguably, a Gothic. 

Punk may occasionally utilize magic (especially in some fantasy steampunk settings), but quite often that magic is of the sufficiently-advanced-technology variety. Regardless, the tech is at the heart of the world. You can remove the magic, but you cannot remove the tech. 

Both Gothic and Punk might be set in the crumbling ruins of what was once a better place; both might deal with themes of opulence and decay. However, the heroes in a Gothic are usually outsiders arriving at the closed system and struggling against its rules. The heroes of Punk are usually rebels acting against the system itself. 

By a similar token, Gothic stories tend toward horror. Punk stories tend toward science fiction or fantasy, depending on the flavor. 

Hopefully that clarifies the question you may or may not have been asking yourself, and gives you something to think about :) 

[whumpster-fire]

I agree with these all being common issues with how we talk about speculative fiction and try to split it up into rigid categories, but I do want to share counterexamples just for fun.

"the fact that no book I can think of has the concept of FTL travel via magic,"

A Wrinkle In Time! Like, their FTL travel is "tessering" through the 5th Dimension and is described in similar terms to a wormhole, but it is accomplished by magical/spiritual means, not technological ones, and the overall themes of the series are that "supernatural" things are part of the fundamental nature of the universe.

I think Warhammer 40K, while being a series that is intentionally meant to make fun of Sci Fi that is just fantasy tropes but In Space! also has its main form of FTL travel, for humans at least, involve using psychic powers to navigate the lovecraftian horror realm that's the equivalent of hyperspace.

"no elves, dwarves, orcs, werewolves, vampires, or any “mythological” creature in sci-fi or space operas ever, when there is no better reason for them to be in a world with no contact with or relation to Earth than on another planet. There are incredibly legitimate reasons vampires or dwarves might be found on an alien planet."

Aside from all the examples of "Let's be real they're totally elves/dwarves/orcs but they changed the name and turned them green so people would know it's sci-fi!" species out there (would calling Vulcans "elves" and Klingons "orcs" have substantially changed Star Trek in any way?) I think Dr. Who might have vampires? Which admittedly is not exactly the most "consistent worldbuilding" of shows.

And also 40K, which again does not take itself very seriously, but it has Orks, which IIRC are a species of sentient humanoid fungus that lives for war because they were intentionally created as soldiers, and also because they reproduce by exploding into a cloud of spores when they die.

"This is getting much better, but up until recently: fantasy is almost always pre-industrial revolution and most of the time pre-gunpowder weapons"

Fullmetal Alchemist is approximately WWI-era with bits of higher technology. The magic system is called alchemy but it's basically "doing chemistry with magic" and modern chemistry does come up from time to time: e.g. the beginning of the show is the characters listing out the elemental composition of the human body, and at one point a guy whose powers are fire-based manages to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen to blow things up.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a magical fantasy setting that doesn't really have guns because they had to get it past the censors, but otherwise the plot is a nation which has had an industrial revolution powered by magic and has technology like steam-powered metal/ironclad warships with projectile weapons, tanks, and aircraft becoming a colonialist empire. And it does have explosives. And the sequel shows further advancement of the industrial revolution aided heavily by new magical techniques that were cutting edge when the characters of the first series developed them!

The Bartimaeus Sequence is an "alternate history of earth," where basically the major empires have all been run by Magicians who can summon and control powerful spirits and use them to fight each other and oppress everyone else. The overall tech level is a bit before modern times I think and it definitely qualifies as dystopian.

"There are basically no non-earth literary worlds (that are unconnected to earth by space travel) that I can think of with “future” or speculative technology and magic and/or common fantasy tropes. I can’t think of one atomic age fantasy world"

I mean... there's Star Wars. It's not high-magic in terms of the overall world but it is a series about people with supernatural/spiritual abilities who fly around in spaceships.

"no gods in sci-fi like there are in many, many fantasy novels because I guess high tech and gods are mutually exclusive somehow."

With this and the previous point: His Dark Materials breaks at least one of these rules whether you classify it as sci-fi or fantasy. Like it is an alternate history Earth and it is connected to "our" earth via interdimensional travel, but it does have electricity, plastics, and at the very least quantum mechanics and IIRC nuclear reactors might be mentioned at some point even if they come up on the plot. It's also a world where the soul is external and tangible (and can be severed from the body using a combination of strong electromagnetic fields and a titanium-manganese alloy blade), and the protagonists travel to the afterlife and also kill God (well, more like trip over the power cord to God's life support machine), and Dark Matter is at least partially angels / elementary particles of the universe's consciousness.

"e.g. post-apocalyptic stories are virtually always incredibly dark and gritty and the reasons are understandable but also it would be nice to see a lighthearted, adventurous romp through the irradiated wasteland, killing mutated monsters and stuff"

...sort of Splatoon? In the sense that the apocalypse is so long ago that humans are just a distant legend and the mutated monsters have long since built a successful industrialized society with some inspiration from remnants of humanity.

I think the problem is our culture is so saturated with grimdark postapocalyptic fiction that the lighthearted stuff is mostly either parodying the darker ones (e.g. Zombieland), or is technically postapocalyptic but the apocalypse is really just in the backstory of the setting.

I’ve been trying to work out a new system for speculative fiction genres because the sci-fi/fantasy binary we have is so incredibly uninformative and I’m concluding that there IS no good way to categorize books without the system becoming so overly complex that you’ll end up shorthanding it in unhelpful ways anyway. 

My dislike of the sci-fi/fantasy binary, on a practical/functional level, stems from several things.  

  the binary seemingly excludes the VERY large category of stories that have a clear deviation from our reality but it’s something that can’t easily be shunted to sci-fi or fantasy. For example: stories that deal with life after death. Stories that focus around a fairly localized “unrealistic” thing happening e.g. a character is born with the memories of a dead pop star or something, or twin sisters share a telepathic connection. Any story where it’s kept ambiguous to what extent the “fantastical” thing is “real” or in the narrator’s mind, such as A Monster Calls or We are the Ants. Really any story that deals with something “unproven” but that doesn’t really “alter” our reality: e.g. if a character meets Bigfoot but everything else in the world is the same. Shit like the movie Groundhog Day. 

  the fact that many technologies in sci-fi are no more plausible than the things magic can do, and very little of what’s considered “sci-fi” actually is informed heavily by science. teleportation, FTL travel, time travel, etc. are usually supported by absolute bullshit technobabble. In practice there is no difference from fantasy except the commonly associated tropes. They are very rarely fundamentally different.  Not that this is a problem with sci-fi, not all sci-fi has to be hard sci-fi. But it’s a serious problem when you try to separate sci-fi from fantasy in an honest way.

   the fact that any degree of honesty about the above two things makes the “fantasy” category so vast that it’s basically useless because easily 80% of all stories that are popular, especially in the area of movies are fantasy. 

   Alt-history being such a glorious hot mess of a category with stuff ranging from standard “alternate timeline where x happened instead of y” to “wwI but there are genetically engineered flying whales and star-wars-esque steampunk walkers” and dinosaurs and dragons and shit. (This is not a complaint. Alt-history writers need to proceed just as they have been doing.) 

  the absurd fact that dystopia is lumped under sci-fi when dystopia does not, by definition, have to be sci-fi at all, and other weird bullshit in the categorization system 

But actually coming up with an alternative is incredibly difficult because there are simply so many possible variations on what speculative fiction can be that getting anywhere close to accuracy involves getting so complex your system isn’t functional.

I do really strongly feel that these genres need to be done away with though, because

1)      they actually say almost nothing about a story by definition

2)      the only reason why knowing a story is “fantasy” tells you anything about it is that our perception of “fantasy” is super limited for no good reason.

There isn’t anything literally, actually, functionally different between fantasy in general and sci-fi in general outside of a pile of tropes that are tied to the genres for no good reason and that have become identifying marks of the genres for no good reason. The actual dividing line is 99% just what we’ve become conditioned to accept in terms of tropes.

There’s an absurd amount of tropes and world-building concepts that have absolutely no practical reason why they couldn’t work together, but are just not ever combined in stories because they’re associated with different genres or subgenres within sci-fi and fantasy.

I’m going to make a list of what I feel are glaring examples of this:

 the fact that monarchies are incredibly rare in dystopian novels, and democracies, pseudo-democracies, or even elections are incredibly rare in fantasy

  the fact that no book I can think of has the concept of FTL travel via magic, and time travel via magic is basically just something writers throw in to keep a tv show going in the 4th or 5th season instead of having been a thoughtfully done piece of worldbuilding. Very little fantasy bothers messing with interplanetary travel. Which is sad.

similarly magic systems are rarely designed with more modern scientific knowledge e.g. DNA in mind. plenty of magic systems that are based on “four elements” or “alchemy” but relatively few that borrow from ideas, disproved or not, about the way the world works that are more recent than like aristotle 

  no elves, dwarves, orcs, werewolves, vampires, or any “mythological” creature in sci-fi or space operas ever, when there is no better reason for them to be in a world with no contact with or relation to Earth than on another planet. There are incredibly legitimate reasons vampires or dwarves might be found on an alien planet. Please 

no gods in sci-fi like there are in many, many fantasy novels because I guess high tech and gods are mutually exclusive somehow. 

Sci-fi putting actual effort into speculative biology and cool alien designs while fantasy just rips shamelessly off decontextualized mythology and medieval bestiaries 

 Dragons and zombies have bucked this to a limited degree and I have no idea why. I think with dragons it might be because of Dragonriders of Pern

 The fact that dystopias HAVE to be a future Earth and can’t be in an alternate world like in fantasy  

 This is getting much better, but up until recently: fantasy is almost always pre-industrial revolution and most of the time pre-gunpowder weapons  

  “Paranormal” stories where the “fantastical” is focused around ghosts, witchcraft and stuff are basically always based on Earth

  There are basically no non-earth literary worlds (that are unconnected to earth by space travel) that I can think of with “future” or speculative technology and magic and/or common fantasy tropes. I can’t think of one atomic age fantasy world

 Post-apocalyptic fairy tale retellings do not exist as far as I know and I want them to.

 Also, just the expectations of level of “seriousness”/darkness for each genre are sometimes annoyingly prohibitive. e.g. post-apocalyptic stories are virtually always incredibly dark and gritty and the reasons are understandable but also it would be nice to see a lighthearted, adventurous romp through the irradiated wasteland, killing mutated monsters and stuff

  Corollary to the above: the commonality of “epic” scale fantasy relative to smaller scale, more “slice-of-life” stuff. There’s literally no reason why you can’t write a cute series about a halfling  running a magical bake shop

Corollary to the corollary: steampunk and urban fantasy skewing “less serious” for some reason 

if there is any good reason for gigantic ensemble casts in fantasy, which I don’t know if there is, but if there is one you could have them in any speculative genre right 

shapeshifters being largely a fantasy-romance trope when they’re really cool and should be used in all types of fantasy  

Cryptids, vampires and werewolves, and elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. occupying totally different niches within fantasy for no reason. Bigfoot is a fantasy race now. You’re welcome. There’s also no reason why you can’t have vampires instead of elves. 

look, fantasy races are often a devastating kitchen sink of different cultures anyway so you might as WELL have elves AND bigfoot 

[ad-drew]

The Shaman Society | An Excerpt, Part 6

Second draft editing continues to go well, chugging along a chapter at a time. I wanted to give another excerpt, but decided to go back a couple of chapters I had initially skipped over so I could share a bit of the lore of this world. Hopefully, some of you find it interesting!

Tagging: @mania-junkie-writes​

If you want to be added to my humble tag list, just send me a message and I’ll be happy to do so!

---

Dozens more buildings greeted her, each one in the same traditional design. Rei spun around with her mouth hanging open, staring like an idiot. No freaking way. She hadn’t dropped in on one random home. This was a city. But why? How? She couldn’t have fallen through her grandparents’ closet and landed on the other side of the world, could she?

“I don’t—this is—” Rei’s words stumbled out in stammering fits. The farther they made their way down the street, the more frantic her gaze darted around to take in everything. “What even—?”

Kaito grinned at her. “Welcome to Hinansho, the one and only city of Takama-ga-hara.”

“Takama-go-what?”

“Takama-ga-hara. Shinto teachings describe it as the dwelling place of the kami, but we’ve come to know it as the Spirit World.”

Rei rubbed her eyes. “Hold up. You’re telling me we’re in a different world?”

“Oh yes, my dear girl. Another world, indeed.”

Several individuals appeared around the street corner. The man was bald with dark skin, and the woman pale with a long coil of sleek black hair. The small child following them shared features of each, his skin a lighter brown than his father. All three were dressed in different colored yukata. Kaito offered a bow to greet them on the way by, and they returned in kind before continuing on their way.

“Takama-ga-hara is a realm outside the human world,” said Kaito, waving for Rei to keep up, “but exists alongside it in unison.”

A thousand denials swam through her head. Thoughts of books, and video games, movies, anime—all the different varieties of “other worlds” she’d ever been exposed to. Fiction. Stories. The sorts of things that didn’t happen in real life. “That’s not—I don’t believe it. How does any of this exist?”

The smile never left Kaito’s face. “I wouldn’t concern yourself so much with the ‘how’ as you should with the ‘why.’ This way.”

He led her to another street, this one crowded with multiple groups of people. Some folk simply passed through, going about their business. Others stood talking together, whether on the street itself or in the gardens outside various buildings. One woman knelt alone in one of the gardens, digging through the dirt with a trowel, while a young boy and girl ran circles around her in an audible, giggly game of tag.

A vast mix of different people dotted the crowd. A squat, tan man dressed in khakis leaned against a tree, talking in a thick Australian accent to a woman wearing a sun dress, who replied in a deep drawl. Another woman wore a dazzling blue qipao, and walked hand-in-hand with a copper-skinned woman dressed in white robes and a hijab. A thickly-moustached man wearing a frock coat and a cowboy hat ran by them with a laugh and a wave.

“And why am I here?” Rei said. “What is this place? Who are all these people!”

Kaito returned a wave to the frock-coated man on the way by. “You’re here because of who your parents were, and their parents before them. What they were a part of.”

Rei stared at him, a cold knot lifting into her chest. “What do you know about my parents?”

“They were friends of mine. As were your grandparents.” At the mention of her grandparents, Kaito’s expression sank. “I am sorry to hear of your loss, Rei. They were good people.”

“My grandparents were, yeah.” She shoved past him, continuing down street. Who the hell was this guy to talk about her family like he knew them? “But my parents abandoned me. Couple of no-good deadbeats. Suppose they ran off and left you behind like they did me, huh? Some friends.”

She heard Kaito sigh and shuffle after her to take the lead. “I should explain. This city you see around you, Hinansho, was built by a group of people who strived to make our world—the human world—a safer place, as we continue today.”

“This all sounds mad. You know that, right?” When he didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes and continued, “And what exactly do you keep the world safe from?”

“From evil. Monsters.”

Rei scrunched her brow, following Kaito around another bend in the street. Evil? Monsters? The hell kind of game was this old man playing at?

Around the bend, they stepped into a sprawling park. Dozens of blooming cherry blossom trees surrounded the open waters of a massive lake. A strong gust rushed through the trees, pulling a swirl of blossoms out onto the water’s smooth, mirrored surface. Like a thousand glittering stars, the petals moved across the water, spinning and circling each other in an unending dance. Like stepping into a goddamn fairytale.

A large square platform suspended over the center of the lake, connected to opposite shores by a pair of arching bridges. Pillars at the corners of the platform supported a sloping roof, offering cover from the beating sun of a cloudless blue sky above. Twelve individuals moved across the platform, each paired with another in a swift exchange punches, kicks, and grapples. Curious. Some kind of martial arts sparring session?

The combatants separated from each other and bowed, before squaring off for another go.  Flashes of blue light erupted in their palms, and Rei’s jaw plummeted to her shoes. Where there had been nothing, each individual now wielded a different weapon—a variety of swords, clubs, staves, and others among them. The combatants reengaged their sparring. Same intensity as before, only this time with everyone armed to the teeth.

Thin air. The weapons had appeared from thin air. Forget fairytales. She’d fallen into freaking Narnia. Unable to stop the words from tumbling out her mouth, she blurted, “What the fuck is all this?”

“We’re shamans, Rei.” Kaito looked to her. Gone was his smile, replaced by a stern, weighty gaze. The kind of gaze that made you shut up and listen. “And this is The Shaman Society, an organization that for centuries has worked to protect the innocent by hunting and eradicating malevolent supernatural forces.”

“W-what kind of forces?”

Rei couldn’t stop staring at the platform. These so-called shamans had begun performing impossible physical feats. Some moved so fast she could hardly see them. One man leaped what had to be fifteen feet straight into the air like some kind of human grasshopper. In one instance, a woman lifted her opponent over her head with all the effort of hoisting a sack of feathers and threw the man over the platform into the water below. The fallen shaman disappeared with a loud sploosh, only to spring into the sky a moment later and land on the railing, no worse for wear.

“Yōkai, to be specific,” said Kaito. “Creatures borne of the underworld, Yomi-no-kuni, where a person’s soul departs to when they die.”

Rei rubbed her palms furiously against her eyes. “Fuck, okay—yōkai? And these are monsters from another world?”

Kaito nodded. “When a person’s soul departs for Yomi, it may become corrupted during the journey. Yomi feeds this corruption, twisting the soul and changing it into a yōkai. Over time, these yōkai can slip into the human world through occasional rifts. The same thing can happen if a person dies with a powerful will to remain on earth, in which case the soul and spirit are unable to move on. The lingering regrets of the spirit corrupt the soul into a yōkai.”

She pressed her palms harder against her face. Any more, and she’d drive her eyeballs back into her skull. “And lemme guess: they kill people?”

“In order to survive in the human world, a yōkai must periodically feed on the life essence of living beings. How much and how often depends on the individual. Either way, The Shaman Society’s job is to stop them.”

Rei finally pulled her hands away, turning a bewildered stare towards Kaito. “So…souls, spirits? Those are real things?”

“Indeed.” Kaito raised his hands, palms flat towards the sky. A blue glow ignited around his right. “Two different natural forces exist within our bodies. The first is our spiritual energy, or ki. Our ki composes our spirits, which gives us our mind, our individuality, and makes us who we are. This same energy composes the entirety of Takama-ga-hara, giving it tangible form.”

Rei stared at the old man’s hand. There it was, glowing of its own accord with no discernible light source. Sure, totally natural. “Uh huh. Ki. And the other?”

A second glow erupted, this one red, surrounding Kaito’s left hand. “On the other side is our life essence, or chakra, which composes our souls. A soul gives the body its breath, its heart, its energy.”

The burning glow danced like fire in her eyes. “Chakra, sure. A little too Naruto, but go on.”

Kaito clasped both hands together. The blue and red light combined, glowing brighter and shifting into a deep, rich purple. “Bring both these forces together, and you get the gift of life. They create a natural balance between worlds. When a person dies, their energies split, with the soul traveling to Yomi, and the spirit here, to Takama.”

Rei took a step back and raked her fingers through her still-damp hair. Alright, so time to throw everything from tenth grade Biology right out the window. Forget the mitochondria. Life was powered by mystical energies. “So, by killing these yōkai you keep some sort of cosmic balance, or whatever?”

“And save people’s lives in the process. A reward all its own.”

Hollowness rooted in her throat, leaving an acrid, metallic taste on the back of her tongue. “Insane” didn’t even begin to cover this. Souls, spirits, shamans, evil monsters, cosmic balance—made for some cool stories, some fun video games maybe, but real life? No freaking way.

She pinched herself—hard, on the back of her neck, to the point a small drip of blood squeezed between her fingers. The resulting twinge of pain brought a disgruntled gasp to her lips. Shit. Okay, not dreaming. Go fucking figure.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Thoughts on Horror (Plus Recommendations!)

“Horror” is a difficult genre to pin down, because there are so many things that horrify us. Gore, death, the unknown, stepping on a snail barefoot (10/10 would not recommend). For the longest time, I didn’t think I liked horror until I started reading r/NoSleep, a subreddit wherein people tell fictional scary stories, but everyone—author and readers—pretend they're real, like a strange forum for people who have had terrifying and otherworldly experiences that you might accidentally run across if you were researching the supernatural (there is, by the way, a different subreddit for nonfiction accounts of supernatural encounters). I love the stories on r/NoSleep, and after thinking about it, realized that I also really like Asian horror like Seeds of Anxiety, The Eye, and some episodes of xxxHolic. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Ringu or The Grudge. I can’t stand most American horror movies, be they monster movies, zombie flicks, or slasher films, but I like do A Quiet Place and most of Shyamalan's work. I theorize that, for me, it’s comes down to the type of horror in question. Thus, I thought I would examine these types and break the horror genre into several subcategories, based on how the horror is achieved.

Slasher: These are your basic blood and guts visceral scares. Obviously franchises like The Purge and Saw fit in here, but I would argue that Nightmare on Elm Street and a great many Steven King movies (the supernatural ones, anyway) fit in as well. Some might argue with this last assertion, saying those fears are psychological or psychic in nature, but I think that they're still handled like slasher movies. Anyone can die, usually in over-the-top gruesome ways. While Pennywise or Freddy Krueger might have the trappings of dark entities that can manifest your fears or invade your dreams, they’re actually just souped-up spree-killers who happen to be able to murder a little more creatively than most. The “horror” of this genre comes from disgust and shock. Jump scares and gore are used to great effect. To be honest, I’m not a fan of this kind of horror, first because I think it’s gross and icky but also because it doesn’t really stick with you. It’s scary while you’re watching (or reading? Are there slasher books?), but once you’re done, you don't really worry about any of it anymore.

Suspense: These are based around a sense of unease and nervousness. These are edge-of-your-seat stories. Who can you trust? What is real? Some of these will use dramatic irony (we know there’s a murderer in the house, but the character doesn’t!). A great deal of them use disability as a theme, whether to make the main character appear more vulnerable (as in The Spiral Staircase, Rear Window, or Scream of Fear), to portray the villain as more terrifying (like The Visit and Don’t Breathe), or to examine something interesting about the disability itself (like Wait Until Dark or The Eye). Occasionally this genre will add supernatural or scifi elements for added scares. The Thing is a great example of this: the monster spends most of the film on screen, and the audience knows this, but it’s a shapeshifter, so they don’t know who it is. Suspense often has twist endings, and will leave you thinking, if not actually frightened, long after the story has ended.

Uncanny: This horror is one of existential dread, brought on by the question, what was it?. This is the realm of things being where they just shouldn’t (staircases in the middle of the woods, teeth anywhere other than in a mouth, a mouth anywhere other than on a head), or of things that should be there, but that aren’t (like chilling out with a friend one night, only to get a text informing you that he had died the day before). These stories raise your hair and shiver your spine, because unlike the violence of slashers and the fear of suspense—two things which our primate brains can wrap around—uncanny horror can’t be understood on a purely physical level. Real-life strange-encounter stories fall into this category: I heard someone call my name, even though I was home alone; we caught something big on camera crawling up the side of a building; I saw a white thing. Fictional stories of this nature are best when kept short, with as little explanation as possible. The horror comes from not understanding, of not knowing, and of kind of not wanting to know. The best uncanny stories stick with you, making you a little afraid to look in mirrors or check on noises or walk along rivers at night, because what if you saw something, and worse, didn't know what it was.

Spooky: Ok, so this one isn’t actually a type of horror, and it’s not horrific in any way, but I had to add it as an honorable mention. This is a difficult genre to fit anywhere. Is it fantasy? Supernatural? Horror? Books like Something Wicked this Way Comes and cartoons like Over the Garden Wall epitomize this genre. They aren’t scary, but parts are kind of… spooky. They’re fun, and low-key, and usually kid-friendly, but they still have that slight otherworldly autumnal feel, like when you’re taking a walk and you feel like maybe this particular spot on the trail might be a little haunted, but then you think that’s a weird thing to think, but you still can’t shake the feeling that you're right. There’s something oddly natural about their supernatural elements, like the writers have tapped into something that we can’t see, but that we all know is there. If you’re the sort who wants to read or watch something for Halloween, but you hate being scared, find something spooky!

And that is my breakdown of the horror genre. It’s probably not exhaustive, but I think those are the three or four main groups. They may be combined (in monster stories especially) or refined, and come as movies, books, video games, short stories, and even comics. Because it’s October, and you might all be looking for some scary or spooky stories, I’m here to help (not with slasher stuff, though, sorry). These include old and new stories, from both professional writers and random people on the internet. I highly recommend them all: For suspense:

Wait Until Dark (movie)

The Visit (movie)

The Eye (movie (Hong Kong version))

For uncanny:

Stories from a Canadian Research Outpost (r/NoSleep series)

I'ma Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (r/NoSleep series)

Seeds of Anxiety (manga. As far as I know, it's not available to buy in English, so I don't feel bad linking to a scanlation site. Starts a bit goofy, but gets scarier as it goes on. DO NOT READ if you don't like being royally creeped out.)

For spooky:

Something Wicked This Way Comes (book)

October Country (book of short stories)

Over the Garden Wall (TV mini-series)

Hard to categorize, but still highly recommended:

Tales from the Gas Station (r/NoSleep series, but soon to be a book)

The Things We See in the Woods (r/NoSleep short story)

The Yellow Wallpaper (short story)

Originally posted on www.rosecororanwrites.com