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Week 8: Untitled poem

This week I am going to feature yet another poem produced on this lovely platform, an untitled poem by @billiejeans-teeth. (What an imaginative name). We’re going to take a trip down memory lane and contemplate the effects that both memories and nostalgia can inflict.

Memory Lane by Paul Yoakum

The untitled poem by @billiejeans-teeth was written on August 6th of 2021. As of the writing of this post (December 6th, 2021) the post has received 430 likes. The poem is comprised of eighteen lines and the lines do not follow a consistent length. There is no rhyming present nor is there any attention paid to the syllables of each word and line. The poem appears to be free of a traditional structure, making the poem free form. Additionally, the author seems to emphasize the lack of proper structure by avoiding any capitalization. Punctuation is present, though it does not follow a proper structure. It appears that punctuation is being used in order to ensure a smooth flow to the poem. For example, the author separates ideas by using periods and forming faux sentences.

Here is two lines being separated by period that do not adhere to traditional English grammar rules

The poem is a recollection of the author’s experiences with memories. The author performs several tasks to make the recollection easier, such as “...keep my playlists in chronological order”. They hold on to things that remind them of their past, such as perfumes they have used over the years. The author states that they ‘live’ in their memories; the author’s memories gives them life. However, despite this dependence on memory, the author cannot hold onto their past experiences. The author realizes that as they age, the clarity of their memories will fade. Using their old memory-inducing cues, “...listening to an old band or smelling mangos” will never produce the original feelings associated with those memories. The author then states that life is not as vibrant as it was in their memories. The sky is no longer as blue. Love is no longer as heated. Life is not as colorful as it once had been.

The gray sky of Steve’s maine2011_094

This untitled poem is in the running for a contemporary classic because of the harsh emotional realization the reader comes to by the end of the poem. At first, the reader assumes that the author simply is consumed by their memories. They blatantly state ,”i live my life in memories //and i like it here.” The reader assumes that the author romanticizes their memories a bit too much. However, the tone shifts as the author confesses that they cannot experience the original ‘high’ of the past experience as time trudges on, “so i guess the great tragedy of age is that//there will be some feelings i cannot linger in.” This idea of memory obsession shifts with what I think are the most powerful three lines of the poem, “like how the sky looked when i was little //and how beautiful it all was //and how i felt lucky to exist.” The author is not obsessed with the past. The author is depressed. The author recognizes that they were once happy but lost that happiness as they grew older, “i dont think i will ever feel anything as colourfully as i used to.” The emotional rollercoaster that the reader goes through while reading this poem is indicative of how depression is viewed in modern society. A person is never depressed, instead, they are afflicted with something else. That they simply find memories more entertaining than the present. People like explaining depression away because it's easier to cope with when it's something that’s ‘acceptable’. Nostalgia is simply someone reflecting on things that made them happy, depression is realizing that you no longer feel as happy as you did before. Nostalgia is romanticized, depression is ignored. 

Don’t feel obligated to present yourself in a romanticized light when the truth is far more important.

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Week 7: The Willow Maid

This week I’m going to be covering another original song! That song is The Willow Maid by Erutan (@katethegreat19 on Twitter).

Erutan, or Kate Covington,  published The Willow Maid originally in 2010 in her debut album, ‘Raindancer’. Three years later, Erutan released a YouTube lyric/music video for the song featuring artwork created by the songwriter herself. The song is roughly six minutes long and has acquired 18.2 million views as of the writing of this post. The song is also available on Apple Music. The song consists of vocals, flute, drum, lute, and tambourine. The song was written to emulate a Celtic ballad.

The Nymph and her Tree.

The ballad tells the story of a tree Nymph and a Young Man. The Young Mman travels through the forest and happens to hear the Nymph’s singing. The Young Man follows the singing to find the Nymph whom he instantly falls in love with. He asks her to leave her willow tree to join him, to which she replies with only a shake of her head. The chorus goes on to detail the rules of the Nymph’s life: she cannot leave the forest nor her tree. The man comes again later, dressed to impress in a coat of green and flower in hand. He begs her again, this time more direct “Girl, my heart you've captured//Oh, I would be your groom. Again, the Nymph rejects him. The chorus warns the Young man again, but it appears to have little effect. This is evident through his final ‘request’ of the Nymph. For a final time he enters the forest with an axe in hand. He claims that the Nymph would become his wife and ‘frees’ the Nymph by cutting down her tree. He then claims that she belonged to him. The chorus gives its final warning, a warning too late. In the final verse, the Nymph collapses once she steps out of the forest. She faded away into the flower that would only bloom once. The final line pays homage to the chorus by repeating the recurring theme that the Nymph could not leave. 

The Young Man forcing the Nymph to leave

What this piece does wonderfully is its execution of the subversion of a trope: a beautiful young woman being presented as a prize or reward. More often than not, traditional ballads present woman as goals, as something to earn the love of. However, the earning of this love is not through bonding with the woman, but by shouting adoration after adoration. The woman is never presented as an individual with her own sense of agency. They are objects of unequal beauty and something to yearn for. They never have the chance to voice their own wills. There are countless examples of this in famous ballads: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, literally any piece about Laura by Petrarch, Drink to me only with thine eyes by Ben Johnson, etc. The Willow Maid features the woman’s will in its lyrics, her numerous rejections and pleas to be left alone: “She looked at him serenely//And only shook her head”, “She said she'd wed him never //Not near, nor far, nor soon”, “Hear me now, a strain of song in the forest //Don't ask me, to follow where you lead”

The Nymph weeping beside her fallen tree

I think this song touches on an issue that many women face: when their noes are not heard or simply ignored. The Willow Maid is a contemporary classic contender because it addresses such an issue. It shows the downward spiral that can occur if a woman is not listened to by not only her admirer but also her peers. I can speak from personal experience when I say that a woman’s rejection of a man is not always taken seriously, especially when they reject the man out of concern for their own safety. They are told that they are overreacting, they should be flattered that someone likes them so much. They’re simply being cold an cruel by acting so harshly to a man that made them feel unsafe. First, it starts with a simple request “Come with me, my maiden //Come from thy willow bed” that is rejected, yet that rejection is ignored. The request becomes more passionate, more fueled by more emotions than reason “Girl, my heart you've captured //Oh, I would be your groom” and the rejection is viewed as something that inhibits the woman’s love rather than her own will. The man can become territorial, claiming that he deserves the woman, “I'll take the green-eyed fairy //And she shall be my wife //With her I'll raise my children //With her I'll live my life”. Her desperate pleas for reason are rejected in favor of infatuated love, ultimately harming her “The maiden wept when she heard him //When he said he'd set her free //He took his axe and used it //To bring down her ancient tree”. 

If someone is willing to harm another in the name of a ‘greater good’ for their ‘relationship’, then there is no love at all.

Here’s the music video!

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Week 6: SCP-3300: The Rain

The SCP Foundation’s logo

Hello everyone! I’m back at it again with another analysis. This week is going to center around another SCP article, 3300: The Rain. If you would like to know more about the SCP foundation, take a look at my post on SCP 1281: The Harbinger!

A rendition of 3300 by sunnyclockwork on Deviantart

SCP 3300 was written by rumentzen on April 10th, 2017 onto the SCP wiki. It follows the traditional format of a SCP article: first it talks about containment procedures for the anomaly. The anomaly cannot be contained as it is a wide-scale location-based phenomenon. Additionally, no SCP personnel has been able to infiltrate SCP 3300 during a triggered event. As a result, the SCP foundation does not know what exactly occurs. Following the containment procedures, the SCP article describes the anomalous properties of 3300. In summary, 3300 features a town in Montana called Clear Water. Around June of every year, a massive rainstorm bears down on Clear Water for multiple days. Once the rain clears, the entire populace of Clear Water has been replaced by new people. The new people think that they have lived in Clear Water for their entire life and those who do not live in Clear Water cannot seem to focus their thoughts on previous inhabitants of the town. After the description, the article features an addendum that consists of a journal found in the town that seems to detail the events that transpire during the anomalous event. The journal was written by a Margaret Lane in the year 1995.

Rain by George Hodan

Now the actual meat of the article is found in Margaret Lane’s journal. It’s a fantastic literary device to show what happens to the town without outright saying what the anomalous attribute is. Essentially, the author is able to show the gradual process that lead to the ‘deaths’ of each character involved. It begins with Margaret discussing how a journal might be therapeutic and help her with her addiction issues. She also hints at the origin of the 3300 event through her recollection of a dream: a previous life in which her tribe was ravaged by disease. The next couple of entries hint that the 3300 event is beginning by slowly introducing the rain. First there are clouds, followed by a gentle drizzle, then days and days of thunderstorms. Eventually, Margaret retells the death of her mother. During a D&D game her home is invaded by a small family who claims the house is theirs. There is a scuffle, one thing leads to another resulting in her friend suffering a mortal wound and her mother dying. Margaret and her friends flee and try to bring their wounded friend to a hospital. They drive and drive for hours, unable to leave the boundaries of the town. Eventually their friend succumbs to his wounds. The friends eventually turn back to Clear Water in the hopes of finding help. Margaret has another dream: sending her family to rest by giving them to the water. The entry also includes an anomalous property of 3300: the evaporation of her friend’s body.  The group winds up in a Dirk’s Sporting Good’s store in the hopes of barricading themselves in until help arrives. Everything starts to spiral into each other. One of Margaret’s friend’s shoots himself in the head, but there is no blood, only water. The newly formed population of Clear Water surrounds the store and stand in the rain, waiting. Another friend leaves the group and joins the rain. The final entry consists of a final dream: Margaret is rain. She falls from the sky, torn apart and reformed over and over again. She ends her journal with a plea. “I don’t want to go back.”

The crowd outside the Dirk’s Sporting Goods by InguneBadka on Deviantart

The themes of this SCP are quite dark, but illuminating nonetheless. Essentially, 3300 is about the inevitability of death. Death is just as essential to life as the water cycle. No matter how much you try to avoid it, death will still come. The water still falls from the sky. Death is a concept that everyone has or will experience in life. I think that is what makes this piece contemporary-classic material. It shows the audience the perils of rejecting death. To try avoiding death will only bring you pain. The best you can do in life is to accept that death will come and to appreciate the moments that you currently have, whether they be games of D&D with friends or the seemingly overbearing care of a mother.

Do not fear the rain, for the rain is part of life.

Just like last time, I’m going to link to a voice-acted reading of SCP-3300 by theVolgun on youtube.

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Week 5: Tellurion

The absolutely stunning title page of Tellurion

It’s almost ironic for a literature-focused blog to focus on a story without a single word, but variety makes things interesting! Also, words aren’t the only way to ‘write’ a good story! This week’s feature, Tellurion by Matt Rhodes, is the perfect example of such!

Some Mass Effect concept art found on Matt Rhodes’s Artstation page.

Tellurion is the passion project of professional concept artist turned art director Matt Rhodes. Matt Rhodes has worked as a concept artist since 2004, working primarily with the video game company Bioware. He has worked on several triple-A games such as Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Matt Rhodes published his first page of Tellurion on his personal website on February 11th of 2018. The comic reached 331 pages by its final posting on November 24th of 2020. The webcomic does not contain a single spoken word, as Matt Rhodes wanted to create a story purely through visual expression. Matt Rhodes has gone as far as to refuse to comment on any speculation regarding the story in order to maintain its complete reliance on visuals. 

Guy, Robot, and Girl. Robot has to be the best character. I’m totally biased.

Tellurion is a fantasy webcomic that explores themes of ancient precursors, a corrupt church, and the standard ‘hero’s journey’. The webcomic features three unnamed characters that are often referred to as Guy, Robot, and Girl by its readers (viewers?). The story begins with Robot finding a malnourished thief Guy and taking him under his robot wing. Robot trains Guy into becoming a competent fighter and Guy repays Robot by helping Robot locate the missing blade of a sword. Guy and Robot eventually run into Girl, a cartographer and interpreter. They save Girl from her imprisonment under a corrupt and greedy church organization. Girl is able to help Guy and Robot locate the missing blade and the three cross continents and oceans to find it. During their journey they find breath-taking ruins, battle the corrupt church, and form bonds with not only each other, but the people they run into along the way.

One of my favorite non-spoiling scenes, Robot training Guy how to use a sword.

Now I cannot talk about Tellurion without mentioning it’s absolutely stunning visuals. It’s very obvious that Matt Rhodes has over a decade of experience in the field of concept art. Every scene is meticulously planned so that a storyline can be developed and followed. Matt Rhodes does this through his use of color to express emotion, depth to express scope, lighting to frame important aspects of the image, and scene placement to express the intention of a character. Where he truly shines is his use of body language and facial expression in place of words. For example, in a scene where the trio is crossing a desert, Rhodes cleverly uses all mentioned techniques. Rhodes uses washed-out, pale colors to express the heat of the desert. He frames the shot as distant to imply that the trio has been traveling across the desert for a long period of time. Regarding scene placement, the trio are on the far left of the image, implying that their journey has just begun; they are literally at the start of the image. The lighting emphasizes the inferred heat, with the sun shining so brightly that the sand has been rendered reflective. Finally, you can see just how tired the trio are because of their body language. Girl is hunched over, barely able to keep standing. Guy is walking with a slouch, but still strong in his stride. Robot is entirely unaffected, standing straight with his shoulders broad. Matt Rhodes is an expert at expressing purely through visuals.

Here’s that desert scene!

This is the point of the post where I start talking about the social implications of the story. To be quite honest, the actual plot-line of Tellurion is not ground-breaking. Neither are the messages and themes represented. As mentioned before, it is a retelling of the hero’s journey. Boy is weak, boy is trained by mentor, boy embarks on quest with mentor, boy finds the girl, boy overcomes some great adversity, and boy lives on as a hero. What makes Tellurion a contemporary classic is Matt Rhodes’s devotion to the medium of visual storytelling. By doing so, Matt Rhodes created a story that could be understood by anyone. It does not matter what language they speak, what time they are from, or what country they live in. Tellurion is accessible to anyone. Accessibility is a major factor in making a classic a classic. Beowulf is remembered because it is the only story from 6th century Denmark that can be remembered. The same goes for Homer and his epics, they are remembered because they were written down and survived. They are remembered and hailed as classics because they were translated into languages that large groups of influential people could understand: English. Tellurion takes this a step forward and removes the confining nature of a single language. It is also located on the most accessible information source in the world, the internet. Purely because of this accessibility, it has the potential to evolve into society’s consciousness as a classic story.

In the end, it does not matter what story you tell. What matters is how good you are at telling it.

Give the comic a check-out, you won’t regret it! Adventure awaits!

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Week 4: Persephone in the Garden

Instead of taking a look this week, I’m going to listen to the song Persephone in the Garden by Aidoneus (@aidoneusss on Instagram).

Single release art for Persephone in the Garden by Aidoneus

Aidoneus wrote Persephone in the Garden in 2019 and released the song in on March 25th of 2020. The song has approximately seven thousand views on Youtube and two-hundred and sixty thousand plays on Spotify as of the writing of this post. Both the song and single release art have been fully created by Aidoneus, or Jude Anzell. The song is four and a half minutes long and features Aidoneus’s vocals, piano, and guitar. The song is in the indie genre with elements of the folk subgenre of sung poetry as well as the pop subgenre Orchestral Pop.

The song is based upon the myth of Hades and Persephone. It is written in the perspective of Hades. The song begins with Hades recalling the loneliness he experienced as he ruled the underworld alone. He reflects on the time he spent watching her from afar. He then wonders if Persephone knew that he existed before they met and if she understood how lonely he was. He remembers the moments they promised themselves to each other, but cannot help but worry about something potentially ruining their bond. After spending enough time with Persephone, Hades realizes the gravity of his choice to take her to the Underworld: the unhappiness she experienced while trapped there. She lightened his world, but he believed all he could do for her was darken hers. Hades questions whether or not Persephone fully understood how much she was sacrificing to be with him and decides that his love is not enough to guarantee her happiness. He knows his time with Persephone is short, given the deal struck with the other Gods in order to return Persephone to Demeter. When she leaves, he knows that he will be even lonelier, as his heart will be with her. He cannot blame her for this outcome, for he blames himself.

The imagery of this song is absolutely gorgeous. Adioneus is able to mold words that not only function as stunning visuals, but double as evocative metaphors. My favorite stanza has to be the following: 

How, how long

Did I stand in the garden with my breath against the leaves

As the trees bowed down and weeds would gather 'round my legs up to my knees

This stanza is quite sad, as it depicts Hades yearning for Persephone from afar. He is unable to say anything, as his breath is ‘caught’ by the wind and sent to blow against leaves. Or, he is unable to summon the courage to speak to her. He is unable to move to Persephone, as he is restrained by overgrown weeds. Rather, he is trapped by his own doubts and poor self-image. His lack of action must have occurred for a very long time, long enough for weeds to overgrow onto his legs and for trees to bow with age.

This song touched on some rather dark themes regarding the role of self-esteem in love. That checks off my prerequisite of ‘exploration of contemporary social issues’ to consider this song a contemporary classic. Throughout the song Hades is constantly projecting his self-doubts onto Persephone without truly considering her opinion regarding their situation, “How wrong//You assumed that I could make you feel it was worth it.” He presents her as unaware of the depths of his problems and sorrows, “Did you know I was there?//Did you know what I needed? He also questions her understanding, as if she did not understand what she was agreeing to by joining him, “Did you know what it meant?/Did you know we were fading?” To cement his self-blame, he refuses to share the failure of the relationship with Persephone, saying that “But I could never blame you //No, I never could blame you”. Ultimately, it seems as if the relationship failed because Hades could not love himself as much as he loved Persephone.

In order to love someone in a healthy fashion, you must know how to love yourself first. Otherwise, how would you know what it is like to be loved?

Check the song out! Here’s an embed to the Youtube video!

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Week 3: untitled poem

By geralt on pixabay

This week I’m taking a look at content that’s a bit closer to home. By that I mean I’m going to praise another tumblr user. That user is @helenasurvives! I’m going to take a look at her untitled poem (or prose) about color! It’s also about the emotional conflicts people face when confronting societal expectations, such as gender.

Helenasurvives’s literal use of color through text color

Helenasurvives wrote her untitled poem on January 4th of 2021. As of the writing of this post, November 1st of 2021, the Tumblr post containing the poem has accrued about 26.5 thousand notes. The poem consists of 59 lines ranging from a single word to as many as eight. It does not appear to follow any traditional poem structure, instead expressed in free form. This freedom of traditional structure is further expressed by the author’s artistic choice of no capitalization nor punctuation. There is, however, a consistent pattern to the piece regarding format. By splitting the poem into groups that start with ‘i am asked about my favorite color.’, the poem can be split into six sections of varying length. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poem’s formatting is the literal use of color. Each word that features a color has its text to match that color. It adds an entertaining visual break to an otherwise monotonous black text.

Much like how the format of the poem follows a certain pattern, so does the content of the poem. Each ‘section’ of the poem starts with the narrator proclaiming: “‘i am asked about my favorite color”. That proclamation is followed by the narrator stating their age, their color of choice in reply, and the reasoning as to why they picked that color. The narrator speaks of her experiences with societal expectations through color as she ages; for example, the first section features her seven-year-old preference of pink “because i am a girl// and pink// is a princess color.” She chooses pink because that is what is expected of a girl. However, as she grows older her ten-year-old self rejects the expectation of femininity imposed upon her as a child, instead favoring “green// because a boy told me that pink// is lame and girly.” This continues throughout the poem, touching on the desire for individuality with purple, the frustrations that accompany coming to age through red,  the reclamation of femininity through pink, and the journey to self love through brown.

As someone who’s struggled immensely with their own expression amidst the pressures of societal expectations, this poem is incredibly cathartic to read. As I mentioned in previous posts, I think what makes literature classic-material is its ability to address the social issues that occur at the time of the literature’s conception. The twenty-first century is a century centers around an individual’s individuality; their freedom to express. helenasurvives poem is about how societal expectations are forced on people through the simplest, almost inconsequential elements of themselves such as their preference for a certain color. For example, the author prefers pink at the age of seven because that is what princesses like and ‘girls should like princesses’. She goes through various stages of expression such as rejecting pink and embracing green to reject the expectation of femininity. She eventually comes to the conclusion that the judgments of those around her do not matter through her choice of brown. Brown confuses people, but it is not her job to make her self-expression palatable to those around her. Instead, her self-expression is a way for her to express her appreciation for herself. Society may think of brown as dirt, but brown is the happy memories she has collected throughout life such as the chocolate chip cookies her mother used to make. This is a powerful message: expression should be what the individual wants it to be, not what society wants.

To express yourself purely is to love yourself purely.

Give this piece a read, not only does it deserve more recognition, but you deserve the message it contains.

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Week 2: SCP 1281: Harbinger

The SCP Foundation’s logo

This week I am going to be covering the SCP Article, 1281: The Harbinger! 

The front page of the SCP Wiki

But before I get into the actual meat of the article, there are a few things that I should first establish for those who do not know what the SCP wiki is. The SCP wiki is a community-based platform that houses a collection of independently created stories written by hundreds of different authors. The stories featured on the website are unified by one central element: The Foundation. All stories are entered as articles in the database of the Foundation, a fictional and secret organization dedicated to dealing with anomalous environments, entities, and objects such as cryptids, entryways to different dimensions, and reality-defying toasters. The Foundation operates under three central tenants: To Secure and locate the anomalous, to Contain the anomalous, and to Protect both humanity from the anomalous and the anomalous from humanity. Articles typically center around themes of horror, science fiction, mythology, and urban fantasy.

On to the article in question, SCP 1281! It’s honestly my favorite article on the site. I highly recommend reading it before reading this analysis so you can fully experience it!

Artwork of SCP 1281 by VentralHound on Deviantart

SCP 1281 is a short story about the discovery of a dying, deep space AI called Harbinger. It was written by DrEverettMann and published on April 3rd of 2013. SCP-1281 is described to have suffered extensive damage and furthers that damage in every instance it interacts with Foundation researchers. The most important elements of the story are delivered in logs between SCP-1281 and the researcher Dr. Bloom. Through these logs, the reader is able to learn that SCP-1281 was a product of the efforts of a dying alien race to send out their final cry of ‘I am here’ before falling to the ‘darkness’ - or the entropic heat death of their solar system. 

There are several elements of this article that I absolutely love. First, it explores real-world thoughts and theories regarding alien life. My favorite space-centric theory, Fermi’s paradox, is touched upon in the article. Fermi’s paradox is essentially the question of ‘if the universe is so vast and old, then why haven’t we heard anyone else yet?’. SCP-1281 is that ‘anyone else’, or at least the remnants of them. Secondly, it deals with the concept of entropy, the idea that eventually the universe will run out of things to burn in order to maintain life as we know it; the heat death of the universe. It is also a nod toward the Voyager I and II space crafts. Voyager I and II are humanity’s Harbinger, our cry of ‘I am here’. The Voyager space crafts were two satellites launched in 1977 with the intention of presenting humanity to a distant alien race through the use of mathematical equations, basic pictograms, and audio recordings, much like Harbinger’s use of “...binary signals in an attempt to communicate, starting with extremely simple mathematical concepts.”

Harbinger’s message to humanity.

But what I think sets SCP-1281 in the realm of the contemporary classic is the message that it presents. For an article about the final words of a dead alien race through a dying, child-like AI, it is bittersweet. It is an article about hope. It is a recognition that life is fleeting and that those gifted with life should make the most of their lives, no matter how small they might feel. For size does not matter, as “One voice is small, but the difference between zero and one is as great as one and infinity.”. And death is not the end when the echoes of a message still fill the minds of those who are still alive. Just as the difference between zero and one is as great as one an infinity, so is the difference between utter silence and residual echoes. And so, we must make our chorus not only to fight for our right to be remembered but so that “...the next voice can speak against the darkness.”

So sing as proudly and as loudly and as long as your lungs will allow.

Here’s a link to a wonderful performance of the article by TheVolgun on YouTube. His channel is a fantastic entry into the SCP universe!

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Week 1: Daughter of the Lilies

The cover art of book one!

This week I am going to take a look at Daughter of the Lilies by Meg Syverud. But before I break into the weekly analysis, I must first break some great news and some not-so-great news. Unfortunately, while I was in the middle of creating this post, Meg announced a hiatus for Daughter of the Lilies. The comic will return in October of 2022. On the flipside, Meg will be working as an animator at Disney during that time. Congratulations Meg!

Now, onto the analysis!

An example of Lyra’s cleverly censored, prolific swearing

Daughter of the Lilies is a story about a masked mage on the run with only a fake name to call her own: Thistle. The anonymous mage ends up finding a place in a small band of mercenaries, featuring Orrig the full-orc resolute leader, Brent the ¼ orc shy muscle man, and Lyra the fiery elven ranger. The webcomic is currently ongoing (despite an upcoming year-long break) that began on October 24th of 2013, reaching ten chapters as of the writing of this post. DoTL has an age rating of PG-13 as it depicts detailed gore, violent actions, barely censored cursing (in quite amusing ways, I might add), abuse, implied sexual content, and fantasy racism (orcs bad kind of fantasy racism). It has specifically focuses on mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

A Drath holding a man hostage within his own mind.

I think what makes this comic a contemporary classic is the mental health issues it focuses on. The majority of the stories that we hail as classics today focus on social issues that were important at the of story’s time of conception, ranging from the Iliad's discussion of the great losses wars create to the criticisms of the status and affordances granted by wealth in The Great Gatsby. With the currently increasing trend of mental health discussion, I believe Daughter of the Lilies encapsulates a dialogue that many modern-day people wish to partake in: just how insidiously invasive anxiety and depression can be. DoTL handles this in a wonderfully charming way, both by showing the reality of anxiety in how it harms Thistle’s sense of self and confidence to the symbolic fight against the Drath, otherworldly creatures that corrupt living beings by feeding into their self-doubts and insecurities. 

Thistle finding hope amidst her doubts.

My favorite aspect of the comic is the manner in which the characters are handled. Characters, mostly Thistle and occasionally Brent, are shown to deal with the negative emotions that anxiety creates but are not depicted as helpless because of it. Instead, they are shown to be dealing with difficult burdens that make tasks much harder, but do not render them incapable. Their struggle is relatable and admirable, as they are able to push through the doubts that anxiety causes in order to do what is most important at that moment: saving the day. However, their victories do not extinguish their doubts and anxieties. They are shown to still exist, wrong however they might be. Mental health issues don’t disappear as soon as someone acts in a manner to improve upon them. They take time to heal (even with help) and to pretend that they need a one-time band aid is a disservice to everyone who deals with them. Meg Syv expresses this sentiment wonderfully.

Bonus points for Orrig, the wonderful Orc pseudo-father that he is.

If you like stories that deal with themes of self-love, found family, and self-improvement, then Daughter of the Lilies for you. I also have to add, the art is absolutely stunning. I mean, look at this rotting deer carcass!

Give the comic a look and a couple of reads!