#also - welcome to my other art style to everyone who didn't know it exists

[i-like-to-look-at-your-back]

The most comfy chair in Hogwarts

Based on

[always-andromeda]

Meda!! i am in TEARS!!!!!!! your response to my last ask was so so so so so nice and I am giving you the biggest, warmest hug!!!!! we are definitely bunkmates at summer camp!!!!!!! I'll be the weird kid who's always sharing strange, niche, and macabre historical facts lol 😅 but I'll make up for it by making yummy treats bc I love baking ☺️

(putting a cut here bc this got long - sorry😅)

and you think about me sometimes???? 🥹🥹🥹🥹 I am so SOFT 🥹🥹🥹🥹 as you said, I know we're internet friends who have never met, but I think about you as well and send you good vibes always!! sometimes I'll see something I think you'd like - like a Pedro Pascal meme or something - and I'll think to myself, "oh, Meda would like this!" 💙

and huge congrats on finishing up the semester!! and my goodness I totally get you about feeling kinda worthless if there's nothing academic to validate my existence 😅 I wish I could give you some words of encouragement with that, but honestly it's something I'm still unpacking with my therapist and trying to work through myself. but I think I can offer this if it's of any help: since I don't know you in an academic context (I don't know what classes you take, what grades you get, etc.) I can tell you that you have so much value outside of academics. your writing is incredible, and you are such a kind, welcoming, warm person. I am so lucky to know you (even if only virtually) and you bring such light to everyone with whom you interact. while I know that academics/the grading system can really fuck with your sense of self and self-worth, just know that you are a whole and complete person outside of those things, and you are valued, appreciated, and loved for all the wonderful and unique things you bring just by being yourself. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

and I also brought stickers!! I didn't have all the animals you mentioned, so I threw in a few others that I thought were really cute (and a red panda bc they're my favorite ☺️). since you're already done with your semester, they can be celebration stickers!!

and thank you so much for the well-wishes on my MA and for the summer! I'll be applying to phd programs in the fall so I'll be researching and reaching out to profs over the summer (pray for me 😬). but I do hope to have some time to just relax and make edits and write. oh and we're getting a new puppy in June!!! I will be sure to send photos!!

I also wish you rest when you need it and creative inspiration when you want it this summer!!

I'll be over here in my bunk at summer camp, so reach out absolutely any time! 🥰

sending you love, hugs, and all things good,

charlotte 🎨

Of course I think about ya!! It's little things that remind me so much of you. Like I have these vintage style flower stickers I use pretty often to decorate things and they remind me entirely of you. And almost every time I hear a Taylor Swift song it makes me think of you too!!

And oh gosh, you're talking to a person who, as a kid, was massively hyperfixated on learning everything I possibly could about the Titanic, the Kennedy assassinations, and like every true crime case I'd learn about on TV. So we would definitely be the weird summer camp kids together, just swapping our weird little fun facts and treats with each other (because I'm also a huge baker)!!

(I'm also adding a cut here because whOO so many paragraphs of things for me to say)

That entire paragraph you left...is so affirming and so lovely and I just– I have no words to express how wonderful it was to read that. Thank you. I also feel incredibly lucky to know a person like you with such a massively generous and kind heart and a vastly wonderful taste in the arts. And I can say that even just through my computer screen, you bring me so much joy, so I can assure you that to the people who get to interact with you in real life? You must absolutely radiate pure light.

Maybe you can relate a little bit to this? But growing up, the only thing that I was ever really taught to value about myself was how I was doing in school. I was taught to always prioritize productivity. So now as an adult, it's so hard to justify giving myself breaks and just letting myself find peace and happiness in the quiet. These are all things I'm working on in therapy, and the approach that my therapist has given me is just like...viewing myself as a stranger.

Because if I were looking at any other person who does the things I do and is the kind of person I try to be...I would love them. I would do everything in my power to support them and make them feel as loved and valued and cared for as possible. It's a little bit easier to give myself kindness with that level of removal there. Maybe that's helpful to you, maybe it isn't!! Either way, I thought I'd share it. 💞

AND OKAY MASSIVE TONE SHIFT BUT OH MY GOODNESS CHARLOTTE THOSE STICKERS ARE ALL THE ABSOLUTE CUTEST THINGS EVER. GOSH THOSE MADE ME SMILE SO BIG I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Thank you so much for the celebration stickers and gosh, next time I find some adorable stickers, I'll have to send them to you as well!! Just to spread the sticker love around!! 🥰

Goodness gracious, wishing you the absolute best with your academic pursuits this summer!! And I'd just love to see pictures of your puppy when you get them!! Very much looking forward to what this summer brings for both of us, bunkmate. I'm sending all of your hugs and thoughts of love and support right back at ya!! 💞✨

[royalnightshadeart]

Royal Review of 2023

2023 was the first full year that we operated as a business and it has been an adventure. I honestly don't know what to say, except "Thank you"

Everyone's support of our endeavor has been so essential to us getting our footing in the beginning. We are grateful to all the people who cheered us on, bought our merch and shared our posts and art with their friends and family. It really bolsters our confidence to keep pushing forward.

We did a decent amount of conventions and events this year, considering we had no prior experience. We're happy to have been accepted with our mostly original artwork, since we weren't sure how far we'd go without a lot of fanart.

Quel Aside: I personally was so happy to see so many of my old con friends again after so long. And they all seemed really happy to see me too~<3 I hope I run into even more friends at future cons.

Some of my other favorite interactions this year was hearing people say somethings like:

"Welcome!" (when we mention it is our first show) "I'm glad to see you at this event" "I remember you from this other show" "My friend bought this for me at a different show" "I can't wait to see you next year"

We got complimented so much on our art, even when people didn't buy much it felt like they really liked our style. It just makes me want to lean in even more. We're only just getting started.

~

To be honest all of this started because we wanted to make more art and get our work out there more to share with other like-minded people with similar tastes. This past year has really shown how difficult it has become to just be an artist. Hell, even just existing in general has become a challenge. Even with starting this new business the both of us still have day jobs to have to juggle in between all of this.

We wanted to be able to make the kind of art that we love without having to fundamentally change who we are and diminish our passions and love for our craft in order to 'reach a wider audience'. You can't do that working at a big studio, or making only merch that is popular and with 'wide appeal'. I feel like you lose a bit of something in the artwork that way. And with how 'generative/artificial int. art' has become pervasive in our social media culture, it feels like a downright attack.

It's never been easy. But we knew this. Even with all the new struggles and obstacles that crop up we keep on creating. We can't stop making art. It's part of who we are. So we'll keep on pushing through all the challenges and difficulties. Because doing this is important and worth it to us.

Last year had a lot of positive and fun things but it also was pretty challenging and we had a lot of our doubts and setbacks. But we acknowledge and move on. I think we got off pretty well all things considered. A lot of our stumbles we will learn from moving forward.

~

If there's anything this year has told me is that we cannot give up. No matter how bleak things can seem sometimes. No matter how many others are 'doing the same thing' as us, or how many things backfire, or events deny or waitlist us. We're still unique in our own way and what we bring into this world through our art is valuable. Success is measured differently for everyone, and for us I think this first year was victorious.

We can only hope to grow. Thank you.

[diminuel]

I don’t get that anon saying “cas is fundamentally masculine” and then them bringing up him having broad shoulders and being muscular and his angular features like those are qualifiers for being a masculine person. Like you said, physical attributes have nothing to do with being masculine or feminine. Certain features are regarded as masculine/feminine, sure, but just because you do or don’t have those features doesn’t mean you have to be or can’t be one or the other or both. (Plus Cas is literally an angel. The one who they’re saying is “fundamentally masculine” based on their appearance is Misha.)

I really wish people would stop trying to include themselves in spaces they don’t need to be in. If someone doesn’t like your art (which is insane imho because your art is astounding!) they should just scroll. They don’t have to come into the space you cultivated to share the art you created with like-minded people. Like… Why would anyone insert themselves into a blog/platform/environment of people who like something they don’t? I’ll never get it.

This got much longer than I intended, so I’ll wrap it up, lol. I know others have said this already but I love your art! Every single piece you post always blows me away! From the coloring to shading and highlights, poses to facial expressions, the backgrounds and all the little detailing—everything is always phenomenal! Your art (and especially the ones with Castiel in dresses or skirts or other clothing considered feminine) will always be one of the best things to ever come out of Supernatural as a whole. ❤️💙💚 I hope you have a ton of wonderful and amazing days!

Thank you! I'm happy you like my art! I know the Cas in dresses drawings aren't for everyone and I think that's absolutely fine. And it's fine if the anon didn't like those particular drawings, whatever their reasons. I generally welcome everyone to my space, it's totally their decision if they want to interact with my art. But I also think there needs to be a bit more self-reflection in fandom too. Just generally speaking. People don't have to like everything fellow fans create or say or do, but just because someone might not like my style, doesn't mean there's necessarily a problem there that needs to be solved.

There's a lot of fanworks in this fandom, enough variation even in my own fanart tag, that I feel we can allow things to exist that don't appeal to us personally.

Plenty of my art serves a niche interest and I'd like to keep sharing fanart for tropes that don't get heaps of content even if it might make someone else uncomfortable. I try to use tags to reduce the chance of discomfort by tagging things and expect that others know how to either manage their blacklist or will scroll past things they don't like. And if there's a real problem, there are ways to have constructive conversations . (And I'm not always good at that, though I try.)

And now I've rambled a lot as well! Well wishes to you too, anon! :D

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 5 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Guardians

Helloooo! Did you think I was done? No!

My PhD thesis chapters were approved last week, so have some celebratory meta. I haven't seen the latest Season 4 episodes, so do forgive me for not being up to date.

Welcome to the next part of my analysis of the basic concepts of Miraculous Ladybug. Today we are talking about Master Fu, Order of the Guardians and how little everything here makes sense. I highly recommend reading previous parts to fully understand this one, but I'll try to quote most parts of earlier posts.

Order of the Guardians

Order is an international and ancient organisation (New York Special showed us the guardian from North America and he was dressed like Su Han). Presumably, Miraculous jewels were created by these people. Guardians are responsible for the preservation of jewels and knowledge about them. They also distribute Miraculouses to worthy people around the world to combat mostly magical threats, but sometimes jewels are used against normal threats too. It's implied that Master Fu used Miraculouses during WW2 when he was in Paris. Perhaps he performed some spywork with Marianne, but the magical nature of his interferences was discovered and he was forced to flee, before returning to France many decades later.

Why does the Order need so many people to take care of a 3 Miracle Boxes? If its only purpose is to preserve knowledge, keep magical secrets and distribute Miraculous jewels then wouldn't it be more logical to have Master-Apprentice system? It's much easier to keep magic knowledge a secret and train a few people in martial arts than doing the same in the self-sufficient temple full of people, keeping in mind that a good part of them are teenagers and children, who are bad at keeping secrets. Also a single person can travel around the world much easier to give out Miraculouses. Imagine that we have a few active guardians traveling the world with Boxes. What do other people at the temple do in the meantime? They teach the next generation about the powers of each Miraculous and Mirakung Fu, but besides that?

Master-Apprentice system gives us more personal conflict between Fu and his mentor and makes his relationship with Marinette and Adrien more nuanced. In this scenario Fu accidentally caused the death of his Master at 14 because he wasn't careful. It makes sense for him to take on only 1 or 2 students if this is how things were done with Miraculous Guardians. This Wang Fu is very cautious and protective, he spent the majority of his life afraid of hurting someone else and never took an apprentice as a result. But now he is ready to try again, since he is not getting any younger and he likes these 2 kids. He wants them to succeed. Maybe Master Fu, becomes the father figure for Adrien in this situation and a guide for Marinette. Just think about it. This way writers avoid the need to develop all these extra characters (Su Han) and traditions related to the Order. All inconsistencies I mentioned before and later in this post are gone now! Hell, even memory loss and the changing of the Miracle Box shape could make more sense. We also raise the stakes post-amnesia, if it happens of course (the whole Season 3 finale didn't make sense, so stay tuned for my next meta). Marinette and Adrien are on their own now, there's no one who can give them answers. It's very fun scenario, which has potential to be brilliant. Any thoughts on that?

The existence of Order of the Guardians is not quite a secret, at least it wasn't in XIX century China. Master Fu in "Feast" says that guardianship was considered "a great honor". It implies that people who lived close to the temple of the Order knew about Miraculouses and what exactly guardians did for the greater good.

The existence of other Miracle Boxes around the world makes sense from a real-life perspective. Writers have the ability to create many stories set in the same universe and use them for merchandise and an almost unlimited amount of content. Judging by the unholy amount of specials in production, this is exactly what the creators are going to do. It probably won't go down well, but who knows?

However, it doesn't work in our main story. The main conflict is Paris-centred. Gabriel's motivations revolve around Emilie's resurrection and Season 4 gives us more reasons to suspect that Adrien's mom wasn't as wonderful as everyone says. Hawkmoth still remains the main villain of the show and most likely it's going to stay that way. There's no point in moving the main story to different places for the sake of introducing more Miracle Boxes from around the world. Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't needed to fight something halfway across the world unless Hawkmoth also changes locations.

LB and CN are centrepieces of this franchise. They brought success and money to ZAG. Creators constantly need to remind the audience that this new piece of media with new characters who will never be mentioned again is connected to Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Writers have to come up with reasons to include our heroic duo into the story even if makes no sense.

New York Special had to introduce American Heroes whose names rarely come up in the fandom because people stopped caring about them or their stories shortly after the release of the Special. I barely saw any content dedicated to them. In order to bring LB and CN into the story, you have to include Hawkmoth too. Gabriel suddenly needs to get his hands on the Eagle Miraculous and goes to USA. Marinette and Adrien suddenly have a class trip to New York. Unfortunately, their presence in this story is required only to expand the world of Miraculous and attract fans of the show, so that they could keep an eye on new content related to newly introduced characters.

In the end, it's not their story. Events of the special don't affect main story of the show and the development of the love square is merely an illusion, because Adrien and Marinette are no closer than before. In season 4 LB and CN are growing apart and their test of trust in NY Special doesn't matter. Perhaps, some people don't see it that way and it's their right, but I find it hard to see NYS as a valid contribution to canon. I mean, even people in large portion of the fandom state in the tags on AO3 that "specials are not canon", "specials didn't happen" or "ignores both specials". It speaks volumes about continuity and preferences of your fandom.

Shanghai Special didn't give us more information about the Order, which is located in China, history of Miraculous jewels. We still don't know much about how Gabriel and Emilie found Peacock and Butterfly. Maybe, Marinette's family had connections to Miraculous jewels. Maybe, Adrien does some snooping and discovers research his parents made while Gabriel is away. All of these are relevant to the main story. However, we got something much different in the end.

Marinette chases Adrien across the globe and they make new friends. Fey becomes Ladydragon and now has a direct contact with Marinette through her uncle. Gabriel's desire to get his hands on the Prodigious comes out of nowhere. Apparently, he had been planning this trip for years, presumably even before Adrien was born. It probably happened at the same time as Agrestes found 2 Miraculouses. He bought bracelet-key (which is also a Miraculous apparently, but its Kwami is a Guardian of the Prodigious and they existed separately for a very long time - and let us not dwell on this mess) from some shady mafia boss, who can easily find out just who Gabriel really is (fashion designer billionaire) and use this information to blackmail him. This Special didn't answer important questions, but it gave us a new superhero character.

The real question is whether Miraculous as a project will survive long enough for writers to create content for every minor character they introduced in all specials. This is only a beginning after all.

Miraculous is not a global show and it can't be globalised in a way that makes sense, at least with Ladybug and Chat Noir in the centre of action. Case closed.

Mirakung Fu

I liked the idea of Mirakung Fu introduced in "Furious Fu". It makes sense and things rarely do in this show. Miraculous grants its holder superhuman strength, stamina, endurance and ability to fight. This means that essentially transformed heroes are guided by magic in combat. There's nothing personal in the way Miraculous holders fight. You can predict their moves and learn how to fight this magic guidance, which is what Su Han does.

However, if the holder has any special training, skills or knows any martial art in their civilian life then they become more dangerous opponents during transformation because now their fighting is a mix of magical moves and their personal knowledge, tricks and style. Therefore, Adrien and Kagami as skilful fencers have more chances of winning against someone who knows Mirakung Fu than Marinette, for example.

Memory loss

At the end of season 3, we find out several things:

apparently, now Miracle Box can change appearance to suit its guardian;

when Guardian passes down the Miracle Box to someone else, they lose memories not only about everything related to Miraculous, but also about pretty much everything in their life (Fu doesn't recognise Marianne, instead he experiences the love at first sight)

Master Fu trains Marinette to be the proper holder and next Guardian off-screen. He says that her training as the holder is complete in "Feast" and wants her to become the next Guardian. Fu told her lots of things, and yet, he never mentioned the fact that he would lose his memory after relinquishing the box, nor the fact that Marinette would lose her memory afterwards. She finds out about this from Wayzz after the battle with Miracle Queen and the letter that Master Fu gave her. That's not proper training! How on Earth do you forget to mention this memory loss? How?

Master Fu's amnesia is a convenient plot device that removes him from the narrative almost completely. That's mostly all there is to it. Why? Because it doesn't make sense.

Fu was around 7 or 8 when he started his training. The disaster at the temple happened when he was 14. He stated that his training was never complete, which means that he never passed any magical ritual, never swore an oath or was bound by some kind of spell that made him subjected to the rule of memory loss.

Miracle Boxes belonged to the order, not Fu. Their design reflected their country of origin because these Miraculous were made and kept in China. They were just standing there on the shelves not magically bound to anyone in particular. When Feast attacked, monks just tossed Wang Fu the miracle box and grimoire. No one at the temple lost their memory after Fu took the box with him (Su Han is the proof). Su Han not only remembers Fu and his mistake but everything that happened that fateful day as well. In "Furious Fu" Marinette explains Su Han that Master Fu lost his memory in the very first conversation they have. However, after Ladybug and Chat Noir fight Su Han on the roof and escape with the Miracle Box, the latter searches for Fu and attempts to take his staff from him. In this scene, Su Han acts like Fu knows very well what is going on and who he is.

Su Han should be aware of the memory loss rule as the Celestial Guardian. He remarks on the different shape of the Mother Miracle Box and calls her "incorrect", which means that Su Han should have been able to easily tell that previous Guardian lost his memory and the Miracle Box is now bound to someone else. But he doesn't say anything. Moreover, since Su Han is supposed to know about amnesia, he seemed awfully chill about forcing this 14-year-old girl in front of him to give up the box and her memories. Hell, Chat Noir wasn't on board with this. But we get zero reaction from Su Han.

During the first conversation between Marinette and Su Han, he doesn't ignore what she is trying to say, instead he actively comments on every word. Even if Su Han didn't listen when Marinette told him about Fu's memory loss, than he still should be able to understand that Fu doesn't recognise him, because of common sense and the "incorrect" shape of the box. But nothing of the sort happens. Because writers apparently forgot that "memory loss" is supposed to be known to everyone in the Order. On-screen it looks like Su Han is not aware of the "amnesia rule".

"Furious Fu" makes the concept of memory loss a plothole no matter how you look at it. Just like "Timetagger" and "Chat Blanc", as well as "Kwamibuster" this episode is not consistent within itself. It does not surprise me, however.

Grimoire and Guardian Staffs

Let's talk about the Miraculous Grimoire. Good things first.

There are no illustrations of Miraculouses in camouflage. Kwami can't read its contents, only guardians can. Certain elements are written in riddles as an additional precaution. The book contains only the information people have learned so far, which means that Miraculouses have more unexplored potential ("Mr. Pigeon 72"). It describes powers of each Miraculous, provides information about weapons, has instructions for potions that don't make sense (see previous parts).

Unfortunately, everything is about to go downhill from here.

Guardians are taught how to read the writing in this book. They can read it just like people learn to read texts in a different language. This means that one can read Grimoire like any other book (you don't need to consult some guide to decode each letter or word). Master Fu proclaimed Marinette an almost fully trained Guardian. He should have taught her how to read the Grimoire then (he doesn't know the code very well, but he knew enough to understand the general meaning and content of the book according to "Collector"). He didn't. We don't know why. He shows her powers of every Miraculous but doesn't teach her the code.

Master Fu knows that Grimoire now belongs to Gabriel Agreste. He knows that it's dangerous for someone else to have it. If they knew how to read the Grimoire, they could discover all secrets of Miraculouses and harm Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes. It's very important to keep the information about the code top secret because Fu is not the only one with the source material.

What does he do then? Master Fu proceeds to write a French translation of Grimoire for Marinette, a translation that he doesn't even need. He carries it with him at all times on a tablet (without any precautions) just like the Miracle box after "Feast". Naturally, it means that in "Miracle Queen", Gabriel and Nathalie easily managed to get their hands on the tablet and Miracle Box. It allows the plot to happen, sure. But it doesn't make any sense.

"Furious Fu" created another curious plot hole. It will probably be ignored, of course. Su Han has a staff with a magical compass that allows him to find any Miracle box, but not the Miraculous jewels for some reason. How does the staff work? Can it locate the box without the Miraculous? If yes, then it seems useless. What's the point in the ability to locate an empty box? If it can locate the box only with the Miraculous jewels inside, it implies that the staff can track the location of every Miraculous too. So, Su Han could just locate the Butterfly and Peacock without any problem. But he talks about reassigning Ladybug and Black Cat to adults and defeating Hawkmoth like locating the Butterfly is not possible. This situation makes the Guardian Staff a simple plot device that creates plot holes and its only purpose is to explain how Su Han found Marinette.

Also, I have a few more words to say about this. Master Fu had a Guardian Staff that was never mentioned before. I wonder why? That's because the staff didn't exist before "Furious Fu" was written. Writers just went: "Do you know what would be cool? If Fu's cane was really a secret Guardian Staff with a compass all along that he decided to keep even after he lost his memory? It would make people wonder whether Master Fu is faking amnesia, and everyone will definitely call him an awful mentor after this even though we kind of tried to make him a good and responsible person."

Fu didn't give it to Marinette and didn't mention it to her. Why? When he gave up his memory, he should have written about this in his letter at least. Why did he decide to keep it? He can't use it anyway now.

Please note how in the flashbacks Fu didn't take any staff with him when he escaped the temple. Su Han seemed to know how Fu's staff looked like. It means that Master Fu didn't make this staff himself, because it belonged to the Order.

Su Han wasn't even surprised that Marinette didn't have the staff as the current Guardian. Was she not supposed to have it? He never questioned the fact that the former Guardian without memories has the staff. Su Han actually returns this staff to Fu after he is deakumatized and Fu acts like they have never met before. Why did Su Han gave the staff back when he knows what it is and to whom it should belong (to him or to Marinette as the current Guardian)? The staff is useless in the hands of the civilian. Does Marianne know about its secret? We'll probably never find out, unfortunately.

Guardian Staff of Master Fu has a compass too and therefore this also makes it a plot device, just like Su Han's staff.

[shezzaspeare]

Pilot/Episode 1: Patching Things Up With Pastiche & Fanfiction

Hi, hello, and the wait is finally over! My name is Blessie, and welcome to the first episode webisode log installation I've decided to call these things an episode for now because why not also let me know what do you actually call these things episode of The Science of Fanfiction, where we take a closer look into our beloved works of fanon because we've all got plenty of time to spare till Season 5. Before I continue, I would like to thank everyone who's liked and reblogged the last few posts before this one. It means a lot for a small and growing Tumblr user like me, and your support is something I cherish more than my modules. You guys rock!

Anyways, like with most things, we have to talk about the boring and bland stuff before we proceed with the fun stuff. For today, we are going to settle the difference between a couple of things: first being the confusion between pastiche and fanfiction; then the distinctions between tropes, clichés, and stereotypes, which we'll tackle the next time. It's important for us to establish their true meanings in order for us to really understand what fanfiction truly is, even if it's merely just a work done for the fandom. I know – it's boring, it's something that shouldn't be expounded that much, but I believe that all forms of writing (unless it's plagiarised) is a work of art — and fanfiction is not something we always talk about. I hope that by the end of this, you'll learn about what they really are as much as I did. Let's begin to talk about the—

[Image ID: A flashback of John (left) and Sherlock (right) finding an elephant (not in the screen) in a room in The Sign of Three. End ID]

. . . I did say that this GIF will always have to make an appearance here, didn't I?

So, just as with Sherlock Holmes, all other works of fiction have their own pastiches and fanfiction, and many more original works out there have taken inspiration from them to create their own books. Although they've gained popular attention, this will not be possible if they did not have taken inspiration from the materials their writers had at the time.

[Image ID: Various actors as Dracula. Jeremy Brett in 'Dracula' (1978) (upper left), Adam Sandler in a voice role for 'Hotel Transylvania' (2012) (upper right), Gary Oldman in 'Dracula' (1992) (lower left), and Bela Lugosi in 'Dracula' (1933) (lower right). End ID]

For instance, Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (the second most adapted literary character, next to the consulting detective himself) has been portrayed on the screen over 200 times — from Gary Oldman to Adam Sandler — and has spawned off numerous books and pastiches of its own such as Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot'. Its cultural impact served as a basis of how we see vampires today, since some characteristics of the Count were made by Stoker himself. Stoker's creation is the brainchild of his predecessors and inspirations.

[Image ID: Vlad the Impaler (left) and a book cover of 'Carmilla' by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (right). End ID]

Other than the ongoing hysteria over dead back then and the existing vampire folklore, Stoker also took his inspirations from the published books on vampires he had at hand. He is said to have taken inspiration from Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian national hero known allegedly for having impalement as his favourite method of torture. He is also said to have been inspired by the J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', a Gothic lesbian vampire novella that predates Dracula by 26 years. I could go on, but hey, we're going back to Sherlock Holmes now before I deviate any further. However, if you want to know about Dracula's literary origins, I suggest you watch Ted-ED's videos about the subject matter such as this one or this one.

Very much like Stoker, ACD didn't just conceive Holmes on his own. He took his own inspirations from what he had available at the time.

[Image ID: Dr Joseph Bell (left) and Edgar Allan Poe (right). End ID]

As we all know, ACD's biggest inspiration for Sherlock Holmes was one of his teachers at the Edinburgh University, Joseph Bell. He was famous for his powers of deduction, and he was also interested in forensic science — both characteristics which Holmes is greatly known for. He also drew inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin ('The Purloined Letter' & 'Murders in Rue Morgue'). As ACD himself has said at the 1909 Poe Centennial Dinner: "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed life into it?" Some other writers he took after are Wilkie Collins, Émile Gaboriau, and Oscar Wilde.

Now, what does this say about us Sherlockians/Holmesians (depending if you're the coloniser or the one that was colonised)? Basically, ACD laid the groundwork for us with Sherlock Holmes: his humble abode 221B that he shares with his flatmate Dr. John Watson, his adventures, memoirs, return, casebook, last vow, and all that. Now that we have this material at hand, we can now make our own versions, takes, or even original stories featuring the characters of the Canon. Our inspiration comes from ACD's Sherlock Holmes, and we now get the chance to make our very own stories/conspiracy theories about them.

As I have mentioned earlier, Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted literary character in history. He has been adapted in over 200 films, more than 750 radio adaptations, a ballet, 2 musicals; and he's become a mouse, a woman, a dog, even a bloody cucumber. On top of all that are numerous pastiches and fanfics, and finally, we have arrived at the main topic of our post!

Fanfiction and pastiche are often confused together since they have three common elements: they take after the original work, they usually use the characters in that original work, and more often than not do are they set in that same time frame/period or not long after that. The common misconception is that pastiche are printed fanfiction, which is only partly true. While pastiche is definitely fanfiction in some ways and vice versa, there are fanfictions out there that aren't necessarily classified as pastiche that have been published.

Let's get on with our definition of terms to clear up the confusion a little more. Pastiche, according to Literary Terms, is:

. . . a creative work that imitates another author or genre. It’s a way of paying respect, or honor, to great works of the past. Pastiche differs from parody in that pastiche isn’t making fun of the works it imitates – however, the tone of pastiche is often humorous.

A good example of a pastiche is Sophie Hannah's 'The Monogram Murders', which is her take from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

[Image ID: A book cover of 'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah. End ID.]

Although this was a commission from Christie's estate, it's still considered as a pastiche as:

It's takes after Christie's writing style;

It is set in the early years of Poirot's career (1929), which is still within the time frame that the author wrote him in;

It features Poirot and;

It pays respect to Christie in a sense that it stays true to her (Christie) characters and way of storytelling.

Meanwhile, our good and slightly unreliable friend Wikipedia defines fanfiction as:

. . . is fictional writing written by fans, commonly of an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual property from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. [It] ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can both keep the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. [ . . . ] [It] can be based on any fictional (and sometimes non-fictional) subject. Common bases for fanfiction include novels, movies, bands, and video games.

To avoid any copyright infringement issues if I ever use a popular fanfic in the fandom, we'll use my (unfinished and unpopular) Sherlock Wattpad fic, 'Play Pretend'. You can read it here.

[Image ID: The second self-made book cover of Blessie/shezzaspeare's 'Play Pretend'. End ID]

Why is it considered a fanfiction and not a pastiche?

It takes after an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock) which is a TV show, not the ACD canon itself;

The author (in this case myself) uses her own writing style and does not take after the original story's style;

Although it is set well in modern-day London and after Season 4, it also features scenes decades before the actual fanfic is set and outside of London;

I added a considerable number of characters, i.e. siblings to canon characters;

I had my own take some of the canon characters' personality especially after the events of Sherrinford;

It is written by a fan – myself. It is a work of fan labour and;

It is only a work of fanon, and isn't likely going to be considered by the show as its writing style is different from the actual show.

To put it simply, you can have more freedom in a fanfiction as it does not necessarily restrict you to follow or take after the original stories. Alternate universes (AUs) such as Unilock and Teenlock are perfect examples of this thing.

So can a pastiche be classified as fanfiction? Yes.

Can a fanfiction be classified as pastiche? Not all the time.

What's the difference? While yes, they share the basics, pastiche is technically leans more onto the original work's fundamental elements whereas fanfiction is a broader range of works inspired by the original work but doesn't necessarily follow all or any of its fundamental elements.

In order for us to understand it more, I'll give another example.

[Image ID: The 'Enola Holmes' title card (upper left) and Henry Cavill as its Sherlock holmes (upper right). Underneath it is a a scene from the opening titles of BBC Sherlock (lower left) and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal In Belgravia. (lower right) End ID]

Most of you are familiar with these 21st-century adaptations of Holmes: the 2020 adaptation of Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books and BBC Sherlock, which needs no further explanation – but for those who don't know, it's basically Holmes and the gang if they were alive today. I specifically chose these two as they are the ones that I believe would get my points across best. Though both are considered as wonderful pastiches with a well-rounded cast and awesome visuals, if we break them down bit by bit, we'll see which one is more of a pastiche and which one is more of a fanfic. (Yes, I know they're both screen adaptations. However, as Enola Holmes was based on the books and BBC Sherlock's fanfiction has the show's scenes written out in most fanfics, hear me out.)

They share these characteristics of a pastiche:

They feature characters from the Canon (Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, and Lestrade);

They have additional characters added by the writers (Including but not limited to Molly Hooper, Eurus Holmes, and Philip Anderson for BBC Sherlock while Enola Holmes has Lord Tewkesbury, Eudoria Holmes, and Enola herself) and;

They pay respect to the original Canon as their stories are based on the cases (BBC Sherlock) or simply what was going on around them (Enola Holmes).

They also share these characteristics of a fanfic:

They are made by enthusiasts of Sherlock Holmes (Moffat has called himself and Mark Gatiss 'Sherlock Holmes geeks', while Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books are not just one or two but six);

They follow a common trope (we'll discuss these tropes in the following episodes) that goes on in the fandom (Sherlock's Sister & Modern AU)

They are based on a fictional subject (Sherlock Holmes);

They used characters and story elements that are copyrighted by the author/author's estate (fun fact: prior to the production of Enola Holmes, the Conan Doyle Estate filed a lawsuit against Springer & Netflix over Sherlock's emotions since he was more 'sympathetic' than he was portrayed in the Canon – this was later dismissed by both parties) and;

Their writing styles don't necessarily follow ACD's.

Despite these similarities, there are very obvious differences between the two that separates them from being a pastiche and a fanfiction.

Enola Holmes embodies pastiche more as it doesn't stray far away from the original elements of the Canon. It's still set in Victorian England. While Springer added characters of her own and definitely twisted the Canon to suit her series, she didn't necessarily place them out of the social construct that was going on around the characters. It follows ACD's writing style more as Enola Holmes' setting still remains within the Canon's original setting.

Meanwhile, we can safely say that BBC Sherlock is a work of fanfiction. While it did give us The Abominable Bride, the main series focused on Holmes and Watson in 21st-century England, which is drastically different from Victorian England. There are phones, black cabs, and cellphones — things which ACD Sherlock Holmes doesn't have. It also diverted from the Canon in the characters themselves, which is mostly seen in the names: Henry Baskerville became Henry Knight, Charles Augustus Milverton became Charles Augustus Magnussen, the H in Dr Watson's name stood for Hamish and Sherlock's full name is actually William Sherlock Scott Holmes. They also changed the personalities of some Canon characters: Mary was actually an ex-assassin, Mrs Hudson was an exotic dancer who drove a kick-ass sports car, Irene Adler is a dominatrix, to name a few. Moffat and Gatiss created a world of their own featuring the characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which is really what most of us fanfic writers do with Mofftiss' rendition of Holmes.

In conclusion: while pastiche and fanfiction could have been the same thing, they're actually not. There's more to them that just printed fanfiction or pastiche e-books, and we all should take some time to see and observe them in a closer perspective.

And that's it for our first episode! I hope you enjoyed it. It was a lot fun for me to write this, especially now that I'm only starting. I would also like to note that while intensive research has been done on this series, some parts of this comes from my own observation and opinion, which may vary from yours. I am very much open to criticism, as long as it is said in a polite and civil manner. I'm still young, and to be educated as I go is something that could really help me with this series.

Like and reblog this you like it. It helps out a lot. Be sure to follow me as well and the tags underneath if you want to see more of TSoF.

See you soon!

Blessie presents – The Science of Fanfiction: A Study In Sherlock (2021) • Next

Follow me! • My Carrd | My YouTube Channel

SOURCES • Pinterest, Google Images, Wikipedia, Literary Terms, Conan Doyle Estate, Definitions, The Sherlock Holmes Book, and Google

[jimlingss]

hii i i want to ask u for a writing advice, so everytime i have a fic idea i always end up overthinking all the details and finding similiarties in other fic i had already read then i end up not writing it or i always search for stories with the same au/tropes and find ones with similiarties to my own even thou i didn't know of their existance and i end up not writing for a while

hmmmmm...this is an interesting predicament to answer, anon.

I think I can give you 2 pieces of advice. First and foremost, try thinking more outside the box? Personally, I don’t often run into trouble finding similarities between my fics and others because I purposely evolve them to be as odd or as different as possible. Harder said than done, obviously. But in the past, one way I managed to stay original is by combining ideas. 

For instance, let’s say I want to write a college!AU. plenty have been done before. how do I stay original? oh look, in the past I had an idea to write a baking!AU where the OC works at a bakery but that was also a cliche. Let’s combine the two basic ideas together! A college baking school!AU! Welcome to Sugar & Coffee lmao. And then I bedazzled the plot more by making it so the OC was dating someone else at the beginning in order to lengthen the storyline.

Another example: I wanted to write about a workplace romance. Been done before. but oh! I had an idea about writing about a law firm! Lawyers are hot. Let’s make that the setting and oh, let’s make the OC a person from HR and the main male lead the boss (similarly to The Office). But hmmm, it’s lacking something. It’s not original enough. Wow look here, on my document I once jotted down that an OC of mine should drive a taxi around. Let’s combine this. BAM. Jungle Park is born.

Or okay let’s play with a hypothetical. Let’s do another common college!AU. and let’s say you have another cliche idea like fake dating!AU. okay fuck it, let’s say another cliche: fuckyboy!AU. as you might know, college-fake-dating-fuckboy!AUs have been done before. how do I make it interesting? I’ve already combined the ideas together!!! Then....how about we manipulate certain aspects of the AUs....how about instead of him being a fuckboy, we go the opposite way, and he’s actually a virgin!!! like he has just really mad finger and oral skills and the girls always pass out before he can get his dick out and when they wake up, they think it’s the best sex of their life and rumours spread wildly across campus. and he’s too afraid of telling the truth because his fraternity would totally shit on him and the only person who finds out his secret is the OC. and the fake dating happens ACCIDENTALLY. like EVERYONE around them thinks they’re dating EXCEPT for them and they don’t even realize it.

Alright, I think you get it. The second piece of advice I have is: It’s okay. There’s a difference between wanting to be creative and being afraid of plagiarism. It’s alright is your basic idea is similar to someone else’s. cliches exist for a reason. they’re good and indulgent. no one is expecting you to cook up something COMPLETELY new and fresh all the time, every time. I’m pretty sure people like Picasso were also inspired by other artworks. After all, aren’t we always influenced and inspired by each other? so it’s alright if you want to write a barista!AU that has similarities to others out there.

The difference between yours and theirs is that yours is yours. For example, The Art of Benefits is a oneshot of mine about fuck buddies and it’s honestly not creative at all. fuck buddies has been written about a million times before. there’s nothing new or creative about the concept, but I still like it because I made into mine. It’s a fuck buddies!AU but Jimlingss fluff style.

THAT BEING SAID: when is it not okay? When you have scenes that are the same as other fics. definitely do not do that. if you want to write a college!AU but you have plot points A, B, C (in that order) and you find a fic that is ALSO a college!AU that ALSO has plot points A, B, C (in that order) then that’s a big no-no. It would also be a bit iffy if your plot points were A, B, C and theirs were B, A, C. at that point, try to find different plot points, different progressions, different ideas. 

[cupidcore]

scream i always say i'll do these but never do apologies (o´〰`o)💞...

i was tagged by @transplant

name: christopher/cupid/whatever

nickname: chris, chrissy, bean/big bean, [mom's nickname for me], every single pet name that's ever existed

zodiac: taurus (naturally)

height: 5'9 (don't clown me -_-)

what time is it: 6:20 pm. (now 7:24 pm somehow spent like an hour on this)

favourite musician: that's too hard... the cure, mcr.... maybe..

favourite sports team: hmm don't have one! i just like watching certain sports! probably an olympic volleyball or track team :03

other blogs: welcome to my twisted ocd mind

@cupidcor-e primary n alter "hub" blog

@glitterblub agereg nostalgia blog

@cupidraws art blog

@i-93 i didn't want to list blogs i co-run except this upload blog i share with my alters. coin mostly runs it now i think.

@lovfarm farmcore, nostalgia, lgbt, homesick blog

@evilstud horror, photography, art blog (that caters more to my horror works)

@okuromi special interest, back upish blog that i might change the use for

@evilnet webcore, weirdcore, lgbt blog

@pettystud "sjw" blog lmao

@nurserycot used 2 b a weird shade of trauma n religion blog. now a personal religion, witch, n worship blog!

@g0thsim simblr that isn't attached to this account that I'll use at some point

@cupidk weird back up blog

i have a nsfw floating around that isn't attached to this account that i'll probably confrim it's me when im 20 if i still use tumblr and nsfw tumblr.

nsfw trans* lesbian tumblr isn't the same because of the obvious so idk if i'll ever use it again. i haven't used that blog in maybe 5 months.

do i get asks: yall know i be living in heads rent free (for better or worse). i do appreciate the nice and neutral ones

how many blogs do i follow: 1782 that stresses me out 🤪

any tumblr crushes: ofc :0P @/everyone who already knows @lesbian-cyber-sub-zero @lovingrot @aaliyahbreaux @iv-fischer yea i think that's mostly it.

what am i wearing: pjs

drink of choice: non alcoholic; hot water, cranberry juice, half french vanilla half regular coffee, ginger peach sparkling water (new fav), coffee, ginger tea, a good iced tea or coffee.

alcoholic; red wine is unbeatable.

dream car: red pick up.

favourite food: bussy anything in the style of a bim bim bap

dream vacation: call me cheesy but anywhere with e is my dream vacation. maybe Panama or Jamaica with him would be nice. or cottage country.

instrumentos: clarinet, orchestra percussion, vocals, currently relearning/working on piano, guitar, ukulele, and bass. i'd love to learn the drums, violin, harp and maybe try a cello one day.

i also need to figure out what's a good garage band alternative for PC so i can put together my work again. (in highschool i used the schools macs)

i dont want to play a trombone ever again but i love and respect them.

celebrity crush: idk everybody black and transgender plus horton styles.

random fact: going through everything i own (not just clothes this time) bc i need to sell shit for ocd rights and monies cause staples can't give me hours rn and as yall know im on my last very broken leg. so check my depop daily ❣️💕❤️💞

who u gonna tag: literally anyone who wants to do this just say i tagged you even if we aren't mutuals.

[mummified-game-review]

Haque: A review

It was funny one summer of anime I was reading this really cute manga about this girl who maxed out her level by killing nothing but slimes, the same time as everyone was getting into that other anime call “that time i was reincarnated as a slime” super weird that these things happened fairly close to each other.

Oh well let's talk about fighting some slimes.

Welcome back to another video here on Mummified games. My name is Tony and today we're going to be taking a look at the RPG Roguelike Haque by Super Try.

This is another one of these roguelikes where you are asked to pick one of three characters to go run though these dungeons. And try to get as far as you can.

The game has a heavy retro feel to it. And I mean heavy retro as in they let you turn on CRT scan lines and a faux dirty screen to make it feel super rough and hard to see...

Ah yes the anarcho-retro style. So in love with old graphics that were going to actively make the experience as basic as possible on your nice clean 1080p monitors and TVs. The chaotic Evil of game graphics.

Luckily if you don't want to play with dust and crap all over your screen, then grab some monitor cleaner

And if you don't want the fake dirt in the game then you can turn it all off along with the CRT scanlines. Doing this will make it all crisp clean sharp pixels.

Anyway moving on from that small personal setting.

The game starts when you first load it up asking you to impot the date. But no matter what you type it does the right date. And that was cool when it happened. You can just press the same key over and over again to progress though this intro but it might also be fun to just pretend you're inputting these commands.

I don't have any video of this because I started playing the game and forgot to hit the record button on OBS. So yeah. Sorry.

So once you’re in I highly recommend you play the tutorial and figure out what everything means. The symbols and art that exist in this game are fine. And once you know what they stand for it makes sense, but just jumping right into the game can be a little deep.

The controls are fairly simple, similar to the controls of a game that I reviewed earlier called Midboxx where you can click around your character, selecting the squares around them and moving to the next squares. And also attacking this way.

Hitting “I” will bring up your inventory and you can also see what you have equipped. Similar to all the other RPGs that are out there.

All the actions you can do are bound to 1 through 4 and also Q W E R at the top left of the keyboard. Compared to ability buttons in some MOBA or MMO games.

QWER being reserved for special skills that your equipped items give you. And then there are 1 through 4 that are quick locations for consumable items. Examples being positions and other limited uses items.

There is a companion that comes with you that fights the monsters you might see in the dungeons.

But that's sort of the basics. There are tons of skills and items that you could use in the game that you could just hold right click over and they explain the spell.

Once you get out of the tutorial the actual game starts with you picking one of 3 different random skilled and stats characters at the start. They’re nowhere near your typical archetypal characters, sometimes you can get a sorcerer that is a great fighter. Sometimes you can get a Necromancer Mushroom that spews spores everywhere. And then there sometimes is a werewolf that you can play as, also.

It's hard to tell you about this game because there isn't a lot that sets it apart from other Roguelikes there are.

The music is fairly basic, and now that I stopped playing the game I could not tell you what any of it sounded like. I know there was a sort of chime sounding song that would play in the shops and that was different from the other songs.

Oh there is a fun idea they put into the shop mechanic.

There's no money or currency in this game. So the shopping experience is a barter deal. Where you select the item you want to buy and then select the items you would want to trade for it. And the game gives you a percentage of if that deal would go through or not. That's actually interesting.

Especially since the chance of the trade going through is the same window in the game where they show you the likelihood of the attack you're about to do will land or not. So that's fun.

There's a sight range thing... *sigh*

There is just nothing to really talk about in this one. It's all just more dungeon crawling fighting more enemies.

There is a story going on with the program being corrupted. And there is an old man that I was halfway through level 3 or 4 when I was thinking okay when is he going to turn on me? And turns out to be a bad guy.

Idk why i thought that might happen but after beating the level one skeleton boss he said something to me that i thought was super ominous. All while the screen was glitching out a bit. Very weird.

Having played this for about an hour and a half I didn't get really far into the story part of this Roguelike. Again a fault of the genre. Your story can't be super long or hard to reach if the player is going to die over and over again.

While playing this game I found myself taking into account the same fighting style that I adopted in Crypt of the Necrodancer. Where if the monster i'm fighting is about to attack i just move back one and they have to spend their turn to move forward.

The problem with this strategy is that the game does not clearly show you how long it is until the other character will take their turn. So you might move back one and then it turns out you have more time until they do their thing.

I feel like this one is going to be the same thing I say about most of the games that came in the Racial Justice Bundle. If you bought that bundle then sure go play this game since you have it. Go find it in your collection and give it a whirl.

But as for a recommendation to go out and pick it up. I'd say unless you really need that crunchy pixel roguelike RPG in your life then sure. If not then I'd give this a pass.

If you played this game, what were your thoughts on it?

If you haven't played this game, are there any other aggressively retro games out there that you would want me to try. Let me know in the comments.

IN THE MEANTIME!

I just remembered I never did a Tournament update at the end of July. I think that since i didn't do a full month i'm going to wait till the end of August. That way I have a bunch to filter though. Not as much as the first one obviously but still a good chunk to push forward with.

I'm sure ill get to another tool or book review soon if anyone was looking for more of those. I'm giving myself a little bit of time every day to read though some of the actual books in this bundle. The next Book club might not be a bundle but a full book by its self. Obviously i'll keep you informed.

But for now you all do the youtube dance Like, Sub, Bell, Comment, share with someone you know.

And as always friends, keep digging and we’ll make it out sometime

See you in the next one.

[mummified-game-review]

Haque: A review

It was funny one summer of anime I was reading this really cute manga about this girl who maxed out her level by killing nothing but slimes, the same time as everyone was getting into that other anime call “that time i was reincarnated as a slime” super weird that these things happened fairly close to each other.

Oh well let's talk about fighting some slimes.

Welcome back to another video here on Mummified games. My name is Tony and today we're going to be taking a look at the RPG Roguelike Haque by Super Try.

This is another one of these roguelikes where you are asked to pick one of three characters to go run though these dungeons. And try to get as far as you can.

The game has a heavy retro feel to it. And I mean heavy retro as in they let you turn on CRT scan lines and a faux dirty screen to make it feel super rough and hard to see...

Ah yes the anarcho-retro style. So in love with old graphics that were going to actively make the experience as basic as possible on your nice clean 1080p monitors and TVs. The chaotic Evil of game graphics.

Luckily if you don't want to play with dust and crap all over your screen, then grab some monitor cleaner

And if you don't want the fake dirt in the game then you can turn it all off along with the CRT scanlines. Doing this will make it all crisp clean sharp pixels.

Anyway moving on from that small personal setting.

The game starts when you first load it up asking you to impot the date. But no matter what you type it does the right date. And that was cool when it happened. You can just press the same key over and over again to progress though this intro but it might also be fun to just pretend you're inputting these commands.

I don't have any video of this because I started playing the game and forgot to hit the record button on OBS. So yeah. Sorry.

So once you’re in I highly recommend you play the tutorial and figure out what everything means. The symbols and art that exist in this game are fine. And once you know what they stand for it makes sense, but just jumping right into the game can be a little deep.

The controls are fairly simple, similar to the controls of a game that I reviewed earlier called Midboxx where you can click around your character, selecting the squares around them and moving to the next squares. And also attacking this way.

Hitting “I” will bring up your inventory and you can also see what you have equipped. Similar to all the other RPGs that are out there.

All the actions you can do are bound to 1 through 4 and also Q W E R at the top left of the keyboard. Compared to ability buttons in some MOBA or MMO games.

QWER being reserved for special skills that your equipped items give you. And then there are 1 through 4 that are quick locations for consumable items. Examples being positions and other limited uses items.

There is a companion that comes with you that fights the monsters you might see in the dungeons.

But that's sort of the basics. There are tons of skills and items that you could use in the game that you could just hold right click over and they explain the spell.

Once you get out of the tutorial the actual game starts with you picking one of 3 different random skilled and stats characters at the start. They’re nowhere near your typical archetypal characters, sometimes you can get a sorcerer that is a great fighter. Sometimes you can get a Necromancer Mushroom that spews spores everywhere. And then there sometimes is a werewolf that you can play as, also.

It's hard to tell you about this game because there isn't a lot that sets it apart from other Roguelikes there are.

The music is fairly basic, and now that I stopped playing the game I could not tell you what any of it sounded like. I know there was a sort of chime sounding song that would play in the shops and that was different from the other songs.

Oh there is a fun idea they put into the shop mechanic.

There's no money or currency in this game. So the shopping experience is a barter deal. Where you select the item you want to buy and then select the items you would want to trade for it. And the game gives you a percentage of if that deal would go through or not. That's actually interesting.

Especially since the chance of the trade going through is the same window in the game where they show you the likelihood of the attack you're about to do will land or not. So that's fun.

There's a sight range thing... *sigh*

There is just nothing to really talk about in this one. It's all just more dungeon crawling fighting more enemies.

There is a story going on with the program being corrupted. And there is an old man that I was halfway through level 3 or 4 when I was thinking okay when is he going to turn on me? And turns out to be a bad guy.

Idk why i thought that might happen but after beating the level one skeleton boss he said something to me that i thought was super ominous. All while the screen was glitching out a bit. Very weird.

Having played this for about an hour and a half I didn't get really far into the story part of this Roguelike. Again a fault of the genre. Your story can't be super long or hard to reach if the player is going to die over and over again.

While playing this game I found myself taking into account the same fighting style that I adopted in Crypt of the Necrodancer. Where if the monster i'm fighting is about to attack i just move back one and they have to spend their turn to move forward.

The problem with this strategy is that the game does not clearly show you how long it is until the other character will take their turn. So you might move back one and then it turns out you have more time until they do their thing.

I feel like this one is going to be the same thing I say about most of the games that came in the Racial Justice Bundle. If you bought that bundle then sure go play this game since you have it. Go find it in your collection and give it a whirl.

But as for a recommendation to go out and pick it up. I'd say unless you really need that crunchy pixel roguelike RPG in your life then sure. If not then I'd give this a pass.

If you played this game, what were your thoughts on it?

If you haven't played this game, are there any other aggressively retro games out there that you would want me to try. Let me know in the comments.

IN THE MEANTIME!

I just remembered I never did a Tournament update at the end of July. I think that since i didn't do a full month i'm going to wait till the end of August. That way I have a bunch to filter though. Not as much as the first one obviously but still a good chunk to push forward with.

I'm sure ill get to another tool or book review soon if anyone was looking for more of those. I'm giving myself a little bit of time every day to read though some of the actual books in this bundle. The next Book club might not be a bundle but a full book by its self. Obviously i'll keep you informed.

But for now you all do the youtube dance Like, Sub, Bell, Comment, share with someone you know.

And as always friends, keep digging and we’ll make it out sometime

See you in the next one.