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[storyvillegirl]

Absolutely accurate- and the “hot mess with a precise, specific skill set where they absolutely slay” is definitely a top tier character archetype

I just love The Mummy (1999) so much like I've always felt it was a masterpiece, I was never able to pinpoint the exact reason but I think I got it in my last rewatch: every single character is extremely competent in a very concrete, punctual and once-in-a-lifetime helpful skillset, and then they're ABSOLUTE DISASTERS on literally EVERY OTHER ASPECT of their lives. Evy can read and Sherlock her way through literally any egyptian riddle like she was born for it, but PLEASE, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, leave ANY sharp objects, unstable structures or even-remotely inflamable objects ANYWHERE near her she WILL find a way to unleash HELL IN HER SLEEP. Rick can smash-parkour-swordfight his way out of any scenario but he has to have ALL neurons completely focused on the ONE (1) task at hand and if he gets out-DudeBroed he loses all his hit points his health meter goes red and he surprise-resets like a forced Windows update (see following scene for reference)

And don't even get me STARTED on Jonathan. This absolute gem of a man really is willing to let his sister drag him to hell and back with only mild complaining and will stop her human sacrifice ritual while the priest is mid-swing with an "hey Evy look we found the book!" with the same energy as if he was proudly announcing he found his long-lost car keys behind the couch but we DON'T blame him because he correctly spent his one braincell on THIS scene that changed the history of cinema forever:

In conclusion everyone is so very capable and so very pathetic at the same time and thus we have no choice but to stan

[storyvillegirl]

Dark Roadtrip #3

Ahead, there is a bridge.

No cars cross. None but yours.

Inching up, slowing to a crawl, you peer into the marshy night on both sides, seeing lights in the distance that never grow closer, never grow further away.

For a moment, in the place of that bridge, you see a mouth, see teeth, see the endless swamp swallowing you whole.

You wonder if you will emerge on the other side to continue your journey. If you will be devoured by the endless swamp night. If you will be spit out as something chewed, broken, torn, destroyed.

You steel your mind and drive.

There’s no other choice.

The bridge lies ahead. And there’s no going back. Not now.

Your foot touches the pedal and your car speeds up and you go ever onward, ever inward, into the dark.

[storyvillegirl]

Dark Roadtrip #2

The swamp is endless.

You drive. You drive. You drive ever onward.

There is no rest, though you perhaps slept somewhere between the place you left behind and whatever lies ahead. Perhaps you slipped away into someplace else, and now you drive over a mist-damp highway where ancient reptiles watch you pass, their eyes barely breaking the murky surface of the water that lies beyond each guardrail.

You remember the life before but you have no connection to it any longer. You were some other person back then. It was some other life. Perhaps some other version of you is still back there, living out the days you abandoned. Perhaps no one has noticed that you left.

But leave you did- and you would be lost except for the road. The road knows all. Knows your start, and your story, and your final destination.

The road is not telling.

And so you drive on, headlights illuminating only the patch of highway and surrounding swamp just ahead.

You drive. You drive. You drive.

You wonder if there will be some place to close your eyes and rest.

[storyvillegirl]

Dark Roadtrip #1

You pull away from the shotgun house. Away from your life. Away from the things that brought you to this place and deposited you into an existence you never asked for.

The night holds no answers. Only questions.

But as you drive away, leaving all the lights on and the radio blaring an almost-forgotten song from 1998, something whispers to you from the road ahead.

“Find what you’re searching for or search forever”

Behind you, your old life hovers. Waiting to see whether the choice you made sticks. Whether you turn back, let the weight of history settle you into the mud with tangled branches around your ankles and a placard on a tomb awaiting your name.

You don’t look back. You don’t consider what they might all find there tomorrow.

You’ve chosen the swamp road. And your search has just begun.

[storyvillegirl]

The sun sees all. The eyes she sends, in rays, in boxes- they too, see things. No secrets with the sun. No secrets at all.

But when the night falls, she falls too. And all that remains is the spatter of paint, the memory of sunshine that once seeped into cracks, into corners, into hidden spaces.

And the eyes of the moon stay closed. The eyes of the moon know how to keep secrets.

[storyvillegirl]

Beyond the gate, there are tombs.

The ghosts who live among them watch you from their side, wondering who dares to peer into their world, who might have questions they refuse to answer.

Voice the right question and the gate may open for you.

Voice the wrong one and there will be no exit once you slip past those metal bars into their world.

What is your question, gazer through the gate? What is your question, fellow traveler on this road?

[storyvillegirl]

Reaching…forever reaching…. Fingertips brush the edges of clouds, but the hand can never quite grasp what lies above.

She is there. He’s certain of it. Just out of reach, even when his reach is that of a giant.

Laughter spills from the sky.

“Catch me,” she says. “If you can. If you dare.”

And so he reaches still. Knowing that she keeps herself just beyond his reach. Hoping that one day she will dip just low enough for him to brush a fingertip against her trailing skirts.

[storyvillegirl]

There is a steamboat that plows through the fog.

All the windows are lit, but there are no shadows within those empty rooms. People watch from the riverbank as they dance around a bonfire, wondering how one obtains a ticket to this midnight cruise. There are no tickets. No gangplank goodbyes. No arrivals to a new port.

No one sees the boat dock. No one sees the boat leave. When the fog dissipates into the grey sky just before sunrise, all anyone remembers is the windows shining through the night.

Someone you know boarded that boat once. You never saw them again. But if you listen to the song over the ghostly notes of a calliope that waft over the dark and deadly current towards the shore, their name may come to you, riding the tip of your tongue, until day breaks and you start to believe the midnight steamboat was only a dream.

[storyvillegirl]

Let me tell you about my favorite grave….

(Everyone has a favorite grave, right?)

This one is mine. Her name was Carrie and she lived from 1890 - 1897.

This is all I know of her life.

Her legacy, however, is a statue of a little girl (presumably a depiction of Carrie herself) in a family tomb in Carrollton Cemetery in New Orleans.

Now, Carrie died in 1897. Which was not unusual- anyone who does genealogy knows that many graves in the 1800s belong to children. What IS unusual is for a child to have their own dedicated tomb with a statue. Not just a stone plaque with her name. A full on statue of her. And this was a girl child. (Heck, many full grown women didn’t get more than a name carved next to their husband’s name)

Her parents must have been absolutely devastated to dedicate the time and money to commemorate their 7 year old daughter.

Sometimes I wonder how she died (the likelihood is disease- this was a pre-vaccine era and childhood was rife with deadly disease) and who she might have been had she survived.

But mostly, I like to go visit her and appreciate how lovely a tribute her statue is that someone over 100 years later thinks about her every once in a while.

[storyvillegirl]

‘Twas a foggy morning in the cemetery. I chose to wander the tombs. We’re those crows in the distance… cawing, crying…? Or ghosts of crows long past, whispering secrets into the mist?

[storyvillegirl]

Socially awkward hot mess vampires are the best vampires.

[storyvillegirl]

Vampire mood board for Courtyards of the Lost

[storyvillegirl]

More Creepy AI generated art seeded with terms inspired by Courtyards of the Lost- a paranormal romance/saga serial story on Kindle Vella about hot mess vampires, awkward mortals, and unstable magic seething under the streets of New Orleans.

[storyvillegirl]

Creepy AI generated Art seeded with terms inspired by Courtyards of the Lost- a paranormal romance/saga serial story on Kindle Vella about hot mess vampires, awkward mortals, and unstable magic seething under the streets of New Orleans.

[storyvillegirl]

Sometimes there is the sound of a friend’s voice, calling out over the frantic clamor of a dark, broken beat and a thousand unintelligible conversations shuddering forth from the open doors of a lower Decatur club. You turn to answer, but when you do, there is no club, only the tattered memory of a crystalline blue sign hanging from the gallery above the sidewalk and something sticky under your shoes that you refuse to observe too closely lest it be your own blood.

[storyvillegirl]

[storyvillegirl]