#but instead of vampirism being your classic Alienation from Humanity like in MR

[antique-symbolism]

I think I was doing something kind of interesting with vampires in CCGCCL/ABFHMM and I miss working on it

[rachellevic]

As I sit here, thinking about the end of supernatural, reading all the beautiful tributes and articles, I feel a very great sense of loss. Not because I believe this is the end, the real end, that’s not possible with the Winchesters, but there is something much deeper going on and I can’t quite put it into words, so maybe that’s why I’m writing it down.

Maybe it’s a little bit selfish, maybe I’m just not ready to watch to ‘the end’. Rarely has a show done this to me, and believe me, I have a ‘brand’ of television that I get into. Confession, I only started watching supernatural because someone told me that Kim Manners was a producer on it and I was a huge, I MEAN HUGE, fan of the X-files, and I didn’t feel this way when that show ended. It was also several season in before I started watching supernatural because, truth be told, I very strongly dislike ‘vampires and werewolves’ stories and what media has done to lore and historical context; I’m looking at you Bram Stoker, you started this and opened the door to things like sparkles and Stockholm Syndrome and that’s not okay. But Supernatural had something that I had been missing in TV, in life, and I very quickly became a fan...thank you for fixing vampires and werewolves by the way.

I like endings. I like beginnings. I love the journey to get from beginning to end. Maybe I am feeling something more than a loss of a show, but a loss of a way of life, a path, the road...I don’t know. To be honest Supernatural is one of the last shows that I have tuned in to on the regular, week after week, to watch because the way we watch TV has changed. The way people experience a serial show has changed. I don’t know if Supernatural would have been what it was if it had found a life on a streaming service to begin with. But they didn’t exist, or were just in their infancy when supernatural started. What I will miss the most, I think is the episodes in between. Rarely do you find a show that can start a plot episode one and carry it over many season, reinventing itself, playing off its past and building a future. It has built such a future that regardless of how it end, whether they die or they live, they will always live, they will always live in the stories that we know and the stories that we will tell. Jared and Jensen will go on to do other things, as they had done other things before this, but they will always be Sam and Dean and whenever you see their faces, your first thought will be Sam and Dean. Like Anthony Hopkins will always be Dr. Hannibal Lector (so will Mads Mikkelsen, just saying) and Colin Firth will always be My Mr. Darcy. Misha, though an antagonist to us all, is literally an angel in real life. I said what I said, change my mind.

This thing we call Gish has it’s own life now, and will continue to do great things, but we are deeply bound to our Supernatural roots. Looking back on 15 seasons, the good the bad and the ugly, (*cough* Bugs *cough*), what would the show have been if it were a max of 9 or 12 episodes a season? I mean, honesty, if you are a fan of Lucifer, who has watched it on Fox and now on Netflix, it just isn’t ringing the same. It’s good, but there is something missing and I think what that is, is the passage of time. The episodes in between the big plots, the monsters of the week, and the goofy playful, ‘I killed Hitler’ And ‘Sam hit a dog’ moments. We know a milk run is never just a milk run, that life is big and bold and in your face, even though it seems a little slow right now, and that sometimes, staring a books and computers too long is going to force you out into the world to just look for some trouble. Supernatural has taught me a lot about life and what is out there in the world, the good, the bad, the people, this planet we live on and some of our fundamental flaws as humans. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but if we work at it, we can touch perfection. It’s the moments and the anticipations, it may also be the glimpses of joy when the world is crashing in around us.

It has been a long time, 15 seasons, 320 plus episodes, and yes it does feel like an end, but not for Supernatural, for the way we watched TV. I like a mini series as much as the next person but I don’t think you can do what supernatural did in a handful of episodes even if you can keep yourself going for as long. I don’t think a community like this will ever happen again in the same capacity because the interactions on episode night wont be the same if they just throw everything up onto a streaming service. We have been so lucky with this show and the cast’s willingness to interact with us as much as they do and recognize the power of the fandom as a force for good. Networks were always just looking for viewership, but seemed to forget that the viewers make or break a show and I feel like Supernatural found a way to take views and unite them, to appreciate the fans and see the power that people can have when hey get behind something. That wasn’t the networks doing, it was the cast, it was the fans, I think that is very obvious. So, maybe this is where my feeling come from, maybe I just don’t see how a show doing as well, doing so much good outside of the show, making money, bringing in viewers, being the longest running show of its kind, could just be cut off when there could have been so much more to be done...Do I blame the network for the fall of TV and that they are grasping at straws for an old way of viewership? Yes, yes I do. I believe that they see the streaming services have been a mighty blow to their structure, that it has made TV so much more accessible and frankly so much less annoying with no commercials, but what I think the streaming services of the world have wrong is the limited number of episode and the anticipation of a new episode week after week. Sure, I hate a hiatus as much as the next person, and when I want to watch 15 season of supernatural all in one shot, I do have the DVDs so F you Netflix for taking it down and putting it back up and taking it down again only to put it back up, I have the collection and I can watch it any time I want! But, where is my live viewing party, the gasps and shock you can literally hear over twitter. The standing and singing Carry On when you know it’s going to play. You don’t get that binge watching a show on Netflix...Supernatural is so much bigger than the money maker it was for the networks.

Truth be told, I’m kind of over TV. I rarely turn the thing on in the off season. I didn’t watch anything new this whole pandemic, but instead went back to the familiar, the comfortable. I marathoned all of the X-files in order from beginning to end with two movies, two event series, and cried over their Kim Manners tribute. (Word to the wise, it may not be the best show to watch in a pandemic with all it’s government conspiracies and alien viruses...but the 90’s fashion in the early seasons, and so many actors who we know and love from supernatural were just babies back then, and yes almost everyone is in it. Baby Crowley, Baby Lucifer, Baby Meg (First Meg not Second Meg...sorry Rachel!)) And when I was finished with The X-files I jumped right back into season one of Supernatural.

Supernatural has kept me coming back every week, and it’s been around for almost half of my life (do we even count the years you can’t remember?). I’m about as old as Sam, I was in university when I started watching supernatural but I’m also an older child and I grew up on my dad’s music, and he had a classic car that I remember but my brother doesn’t and my dad isn’t with us anymore (2012). I found so much to connect with in Supernatural, like I relate to Dean on a level that I can’t even explain; from having a little brother to pie is the superior celebratory dessert - also pie for breakfast is totally okay not because there is fruit in it but because I’m an adult and I’ll do what I want! Go team free will! Does that make me a Dean girl? I don’t think so, because You can’t have one without the other. This whole time, it has been about family, more specifically siblings. Dean isn’t Dean without Sam and Sam isn’t Sam without Dean. But yes I’m a Dean girl for other reasons.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I doubt it, but supernatural hits the family feels, it came into my life at a time of transition, it was there when my dad died, and has been there for 15 years. Thinking back to the ‘where do you see yourself in 10 years’ question, and not being at all where I’d thought I’d be, there has been something very constant in the inconsistencies of the road so far. Remember back in season one when we didn’t even know demons were a thing and now our biggest issue is literally Chuck? What a metaphor for adult life. For dealing with this crazy world and society and all the weird that seems to be oozing out of the pours of humanity. We’ve grown with this show. I’m not going to say grown up, because I sure didn’t get any taller in 15 year, but I did evolve, and maybe in some ways I have also digressed, but we keep pressing forward because no one else is going to save my world but me.

Supernatural reminds me of so many part of my life. I saw so much of the X-Files in there, the show that formed my younger years, and was devastated when Kim Manners passed away. There was a familiarity in Supernatural. The idea of seeing Sam and Dean come back, in event series (like the x-files) gives me hope, because we know that death isn’t really death for the Winchesters, but there will be something very profoundly missing from the world going forward. Maybe it’s the last of the magic, something that I’m holding onto in my adult life from time before, the spark that has managed to light up a really strange time, and I don’t just mean 2020. Maybe its a Millennial thing, I am an elder Millennial, right on the edge of two generations and I’m not even 40 yet. I’ve lived in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 10s and here were are almost through the first year of the 20s (its going to be a very different kind of roaring 20s but um...very similar. History repeating itself a little too literally at times)

I don’t think the Supernatural Family is going anywhere any time soon, I don’t feel like I’m losing that, but this is an end for us. Maybe it’s the end of one book and the beginning of the next. Maybe it’s now our time to carry the legend of the Winchesters forward. I can only hope that somewhere, somehow we’ll see the world expand, the characters lives on; this isn’t the end of the road, but I guess the road can only go so far. I don’t want it to be over. I feel the loss, the lump in my throat, the tears in my eyes that I am fighting back even though no one is going to see them. It’s all good. All good things come to an end, or do they? Regardless, we’ll always have Tuesdays.

Carry on, everyone. I hope that you’ll be okay. Sorry for the long rambling journal entry that didn’t actually come to any real conclusions...thanks John! (Oh yeah, my dad’s name was John too...)

#supernatural #SPNFamilyForever #theroadsofar #lastdaysofSPN #theend

[winterscream4]

No Works and No Days (Part 2)

Mountains of green…moving, crashing into black ravines.

Marlowe found something soothing about watching the cardiograph while he kept slipping in and out of consciousness. Always intrigued by all things weird and eerie, Marlowe had recently heard a radio transmission from Saturn, purportedly captured by NASA’s Cassini-Huygens probe. The caption on the UFOlogists’ website wrote: Aliens having a conversation on Enceladus. The machine’s recurrent beeping reminded him of that, although it did not so much sound like a discussion. More like, an alien mother’s lullaby.  

Marlowe’s eyes, still twitching from the anesthesia scanned the hospital room’s environs. Medical tubes, tangling like jungle tendrils above him. Intravenous liquids travelling from translucent vales into Marlowe’s veins below. Pistachio green walls began to appear, beyond the post-surgery compression stockings that covered his feet. Thinking back to Quentin Tarantino’s first “Kill Bill” movie, Marlowe instinctively made an effort to move his toes, then his heels and ultimately to bend his legs. Between his knees, a strange shape started assuming form. It was the painting of a tree, shaded in the colors of the evening dusk, as its expanding branches multiplied into smudges and birds, fluttering towards the grey melancholy sky stretching above them. Marlowe’s eyes narrowed as the inkblots below, merged into letters. Titled “Return of the Fieldfares”, the painting, lodged inside a dark grey frame, was attributed to Devon landscape artist Stewart Edmondson. Devon…home to Katelyn Elizabeth Holmes, the woman who got him out of his seclusion right before Martin entered his life once more. It was a shame, things never worked out with her, but then again, how could they have? Marlowe’s only desire at the time was intrigue and excitement, a life worth of a classic detective mystery. And Holmes, well, a rose by any other name might have been sweeter. She was too deliberate, too eager…too easy to spread her legs and let him plug jumper cables on her vaginal lips just to get her and himself going. But Marlowe didn’t enjoy it one bit. Bondage, torture and domination may have worked in the moments when people like Roderick Prospero or Alexander Driskull mixed their personal and professional lives, but despite superficial urgings Marlowe always held deep feelings of repulsion against exerting control over another human being. After all, he had been the butt of that joke all too many times himself.

But maybe all that was a load of horseshit. After all, how could someone feel that degree of attraction for men like Martin without seeing a little of himself in there?  Funny wasn’t it?

How after Martin injected him with the serum and tossed him in the ocean, his mind blended images of himself with those of Hyde? How, as he was being tossed around by the waves, memories and dreams merged into constellations of murder and insanity, pushing, compelling, forcing, beckoning him to…

“You’re up.”

The interjecting voice was soft but a little croaky. A woman, probably one, going through the flue. Marlowe moved his gaze to the direction of the voice, like a blind bat, navigating its cage through echolocation.

“I…”

Words were difficult. His throat was dry. He hadn’t smoked in a while, but the sensation was familiar, albeit taken to the extreme. Something soft and wet touched his lips. Velvet…nay…cotton…bandage strip dipped in water.

“Careful…” the voice instructed…directed, as tanned hands pushed his head forward. Marlowe’s body obeyed, although his eyes still blurring a bit, needed to verify its origins.

“There….There, we go…”

Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the eternal return sprang in Marlowe’s mind. This had happened before…back in 2013, when his nearly dead body was cast ashore a small island, a few miles away from the coast of Midvintersville. A man there, whispered the same thing as he had him sip drops from herbal tea. It tasted like dung mixed with vomit. But it saved his life. Still…that was his name. A man who faced the Black Glove in the past and ended up resigning from life, choosing to dwell as a hermit in an abandoned lighthouse.

The man Marlowe came to know as Still, even though he was certain this wasn’t his real name, had attempted to train him in combat, teach him the art of murder by the sword. He thought it was the only way to take down the four fingers of the Black Glove. He was wrong. The hand, beneath the Glove ended up strangling its own throat. Marlowe felt guilt surging through him, for not visiting Still since the day he left the isle…since the two men watched the clouds gather in the distance as the Storm of the Century was approaching. Lightening…

Light.

“Oh my God. I am so sorry!”

Marlowe grunted in irritation as he pushed his body away from the flash.

“I just needed to check your pupils, but we can do that later. Is that okay with you, Mr. Marlowe?”

“Mr. Marlowe”…There was a weird ring to it. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy the formality but with the last person who called him that, the interaction concluded with him getting shoveled on the back of his skull.

 Several nonsense words ending in “y” were muttered before he finally got it right.

“Stanley…”

“Okay…Stanley.”

“Thhstanley!”…There was a pronounced lisp in her voice. Not that it took much away from its charm, but Marlowe couldn’t help but poke fun at it in his head. Little did he realize that, all those drugs had put his mind where his mouth was.

“Okay…bit of a dick move bro!”

“I’m…I’m sorry.”

The woman chuckled.

“I am kidding!” she exclaimed almost as if it was a plot twist. “After I had my appendix removed, I called my mother an Ugly Bitch! Can you believe that? So yeah, I get it, it’s the meds talking.”

Marlowe was too dizzy to respond. His stomach was churning but the usual acidic taste reaching the gullet before vomiting, wasn’t there just yet.

“I feel…”

“Yeah, I just put an antiemetic in your I.V. Give it a few minutes. Meanwhile, I wanted to give you this.”

Marlowe observed a hand entering his visual field. It was not as dark in complexion as he originally thought but had a golden tint to it instead. The fingers were long and hairless, the nails short and undyed but evidently manicured recently. As the fog began to clear from his eyes, he gazed upwards.  The voice was revealed to have a face and a strange one at that. She was clearly far more tanned than most Canadians he’d encountered the previous two years; Latina but not exactly. Her nose bore that distinct feature of Golden Age illustrations, symmetrical but slightly pointing downwards. The lips, smiling gently at him, were unusually large. Little bit of lipstick, maybe, rotten apple in color. Her hair was cut short, reaching down a little below her shoulders. A very nineties style, reminiscent of Willow Rosenberg’s from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And the eyes, almost uncanny compared with her complexion. Almond shaped, hazel in color, purplish kind of, under the cold hospital lighting. There she stood, a petrol shirt tucked under her blank medical robe, formal trousers held together by a brown belt, visible just above the hospital’s mattress.

A weight was pushing down his chest. Marlowe glanced below. Henry David Thoreau’s greyscale portrait was starring right at him.

“The paramedics found it laying by your side in the woods.”

“Have you read it?” Marlowe toiled to speak as his lips had started to turn dry again.

“I am more of a “Civil Disobedience” kind of gal. But yeah, it’s a beautiful book.”

Most of, Whitman’s, Emmerson’s and Thoreau’s works were in a prominent place at the Winter Manor’s library. Marlowe had leafed through “Civil Disobedience” although by that point he scarcely remembered what it was about, lest for a few catchy quotes.

“The true place for a just man is the prison…or maybe the hospital…”

“Well” the woman replied as she adjusted the flow of his I.V. “Next time you want to play Socrates, you stick to wine and opium. Cause that Destroying Angel the doctors found in your system; man, was it a hustle to remove!”

Marlowe froze, flabbergasted. How could he have been that stupid? He’d read the books! The Destroying Angel mushroom had well-earned its name. It was rumored to be the most common source of fungi-ingested deaths in the Northern hemisphere, going for your kidneys and liver first before entering the blood. Then it starts fucking up the rest of you all the same. But then Marlowe’s mind harked back to another thing the woman had just mentioned. “The Doctors…?”. Wasn’t she one of them?

“You are not…a doctor?” he quizzed in a tone concealing hints of suspicion.

The woman smiled. Her lips grew weirded but strangely more compelling also.

“Mary Schwann. Neuropsychology PhD, from Berkley’s, specializing on the viral counter-myelination of neuronal tissue and neurodynamic psychotherapy.”

“I will need to see a C.V. on that…”

“Screw you.” The woman smiled again. “You are in good hands.”

“Was my brain…”

“Oh no, no! You are no worse off that you used to be. We did an fMRI just in case. But I do have some bad news.”

“Shit…”

“Your insurance mandates four hours of psychotherapy. Hence, you are going be stuck with me for a while. But first, we’re going to get you all better. The poison is now out of your system, so if my predictions are correct, you’ll be home by tomorrow.”

“And the therapy…?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you in my office by the end of the week.”

The woman checked her watch.

“Well, I have a few errands to run now, but I’ll be back to check in on you in the morning. It was very nice meeting you, Mister Walden.”

“It was nice meeting you…Civil Disobedience kind of gal.”

 Even though Marlowe retained his suspicions after getting discharged, he spent many days and nights wishing she had called. A peculiar kind of sorrow surged through him as the months passed and the fear of getting sick from food poisoning again thrusted him into passing his days back under the sheets or in front of a laptop screen. Being a man, with a strong proclivity for the extremes, Marlowe turned his diet 180 degrees to the opposite direction. Wild weeds and nuts were replaced by beef and cheesesteak, forest greens by potato fritters, sumac and rose-dog beverages by Coke and Dr. Pepper and his sautéed mushroom meals were usurped by the Marlowe sub. Gaining pound upon pound, misery upon misery, Marlowe watched the seasons pass from the Winter Manor’s second floor balcony as 2019 came to a close and a virus, born as some say in an industrial town of China, crossed the Atlantic and forced Midvintersville and the entire western world into a seemingly endless lockdown.

As the news only spoke of ever-increasing case numbers, Marlowe found some solace, or perhaps willful self-numbing, in the digital world. Besides using the wi-fi to play video games like: Doom Eternal, Fortnite and Subnatica Below Zero on ps4 and for performing his seven-times-per-day log in to his Pornhub account, Marlowe occasionally used the internet to muse over facets of his old detective life. Since the last days of 2019, he had made accounts to various websites dealing with strange incidents taking place across the globe. Most of them were either hot spots for the kind of lunatics and disgruntled males that conspiracy businesses like QAnon thrived upon, or just plain second-rate creepy pasta. Then again, Marlowe thought about resorting to some law-enforcement websites he knew from his Criminology years at Cambridge, but in those days, police had become more fond of committing the crimes rather than solving them.

Almost by accident, Marlowe encountered an obscure blog titled “Curiosities and Monstrosities” which, at least in appearance, seemed a little more valid than the rest. The authors had recorded all known activities of the New York Ripper from 2011, some of which even Marlowe didn’t know about. They had also listed hundreds of cases, solved, unsolved and classified alike, from marginal misdemeanors to federal crimes, marked by unusual or inexplicable details.

Marlowe had made his own list of those that intrigued him most. A double homicide in Sleepy Hollows, Illinois, apparently committed by a drug-mule even though witnesses swore to have seen a black pumpkin engulfed in green flames, leaving the scene. Then there was that neighboring feud, turning ugly, with a nearby tenant claiming that both members involved possessed occult powers, with the man turning into a reptilian and the woman producing red, energy orbs out of her hands. And last, came the discovery of three bodies after a fire in a field, somewhere in the great out there of Texas, with one of them preserving a contorted face, as if it was still laughing, the other restrained against a sanguinello tree and the third being toothless, while having grown root like structures on the back of its head, as if it had just become one with the tree before burning to a crisp.

But all of that paled in comparison to the sheer numbers of deaths, committed by a smaller and far less theatrical assassin. The virus had already claimed the lives of almost 30 million people across the world. At the same time, politicians ignored or underestimated the virus, some claiming it a fraud while others recommending bleach as a potent cure against it. Sometimes, Marlowe pondered if an idiot in a position power could be more dangerous than the Black Glove, since at the very least they had a plan before inflicting their repertoires of corruption and atrocity.

 Yet, by November 2020 things were getting a little more hopeful in Midvintersville. Even though the rest of Canada was still in peril, the summer-lasting lockdown imposed by Walter Greene, the town’s newly elected mayor, somehow seemed to work. A day before his birthday, as Marlowe browsed his computer for lockdown lifting news, he was all too astounded to find an unread email from the night before, marked with a familiar name at the top.

Mary Schwann. PhD.

Closing all google chrome windows on the side, Marlowe rushed to open the email, reading its contents aloud with a smile beaming across his face.

“U still owe me 4 hours of therapy. Lockdown’s lifted next week. U available?”

“PS: I hate the U’s but your file said you were born in 1979. I am a 1978. Need to appear younger. Lol.”

“PS: Hate the lols’ too.”

Marlowe did not need to ponder much. Thoughts of Mary Schwann being some sort of Black Glove assassin or a friend of Boisette’s aching for vengeance for the pulp of guts and bones that was left of him, crossed his mind but he was such an easy target to begin with, that all that trouble seemed counter-productive.

“Took you a while.” he typed, while trying to come up with some ridiculous piece of millennial slang to throw into his email.

“When we get our moment of exodus, I’ll be there. Care to meet at the old aqueducts, near the cemetery? Imao.”

“PS: I don’t know what Imao means. But it sounds a lot like a lost pygmy race from the Pacific archipelago.”

I ‘ve missed y…delete.

Marlowe jumped off his office chair, pacing towards the second floor’s ornate windowpanes. He pulled the burgundy curtains embroidered with golden floral patterns aside and gazed at the city looming beyond a vast stretch of black firs and daunting pines. The drizzle, descending in full strength across the day had ceased, and parting skies revealed the romantic glory of the solar star, disappearing beneath the Atlantic. A pal mal inevitably found itself between Marlowe’s lips. He huffed and he puffed and even though the taste was the same, it felt different for Marlowe had rarely ever smoked while feeling something akin to joy. 

All the toy soldiers he was playing with before lay motionless against the dining table, next to a half-eaten Marlowe sub. James’ Bonsai was still there, facing the sunset while shading over the ruined faces of Marlowe’s long dead adversaries. 

This will have to suffice. Marlowe thought. For now.

***********************************************************

Crooked rays of red light glimmered through the stained glass, as Vesper beckoned above the Opera House. 

The floorboards creaked ominously, as if the night herself had dismounted from her celestial mare and was striding down the Opera’s archaic oaken panels. Streams of accumulated water from the day’s persistent drizzle were crossing through the underground tubing almost muffling the yelps and sobs, echoing from beneath the black hood.

A woman, or what was left of her. Her face covered by a crudely sewn ebony fabric, like the prisoners of Abu Ghraib; her body sealed in concrete. Her palms and legs below the calf, bruised by the cold and the damp and the beatings, extending from the dark grey surface, like the clay appendages used in ancient Rome as offerings to heal the ailing limps of the sufferers.

She was suffering. He had made sure of that.

Her left foot dangled in the air; the pain made worse by the itching. A single strip of gaze, wrapped around the bleeding blotch where her middle toe used to be, held together by a threadbare string of manilla rope. The marble floor below her had turned green and wet, from moisture and the saliva that had been trickling from her mouth for the past week, as the ball-gag more often than not inhibited her from swallowing properly. The gagging reflex made her head shake neurotically back and forth. Time had disappeared the moment she was captured, and days and nights had blended into a single pit of agony and fear of impending pain.

The noises issuing from her lips and body were those of a fox, whose foot had been lodged in a beartrap and her mouth had been muzzled so that she won’t be able to chew it off even if she wanted to. Only occasionally, they were interrupted, after passing out, when her brain allowed her a few moments of rest in unconsciousness.

But this was not one of those moments.

For right across her, the flickering light of a desk lamp that signaled his arrival had been turned back on again. And with it, returned the methodical, calculated almost, squeaking sound of his armchair as it resounded across the abandoned halls. Gradually, as the lamplight flared into existence, his torn linen cowl revealed itself; once a mask whole marked with a quarter note, symbolizing a man’s inner journey into music, art and childhood dreams, now a derelict mockery of its past significance. With the darkness dissipating, revealing the canvas of his art once more, his bronze teeth hummed an infernal melody while grinding through the flesh and nail and bone of the woman’s toe and ultimately swallowing it along with the few remaining hopes of her nightmare ever coming to an end.

[ginnyzero]

Booktober 2020 Wk 3: Creatures

Hello my lovelies, it’s week 3 of Booktober. The month we talk about books, books, books! Or in this case, I’m talking about horror and paranormal books. Anyone is welcome to join in, I have put up prompts on my twitter and tumblr! If you decide to join in and use the tag booktober, at me, ginnyzero, on social media and I’ll try to reblog your posts. 

This week, I am talking about creatures! What books do creatures in interesting ways? Creatures are a huge part of horror and paranormal culture, ghosts and cyptids and people who can use magical forces for good or for ill.

I’m going to start with my favorite creature, the werewolf. Of course, you can say, “Ginny that’s not fair, your favorite werewolves are the ones you write.” Yes. Yes. They are. My favorite werewolves are my werewolves in the Heathens because I love cozy werewolf drama family stuff with action sequences and explosions. Write what you love. My werewolves are based on a couple of things, old folktales where werewolves are actually benevolent creatures rather than out of control monsters, modern wolf science where wolves are families with siblings that squabble instead of a strict hierarchy of stranger wolves (wolves in zoos) and a bit of ‘science’ like the first werewolf movie put out by Universal; Werewolf of London. (It was a bit of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing where they became a werewolf through the power of science.) But those are my tastes and may not be your tastes.

I think the most diverse werewolves in a book would be in Jim Butcher’s Fool Moon. Fool Moon uses a bunch of different werewolf types to drive the plot and conflict of the case Harry is working on. Harry has to figure out and work through the different werewolves in question to solve the mystery. He goes up against a gang of Beserkers, who are men who take on the spirit of wolves to be faster and stronger. There is a loup garou, the French and Cajun cryptid of an out of control wolf monster who rampages on the full moon. There are some werewolves who have made a pact with a ‘demon’ and use wolf belts in order to change into wolf monsters. There’s a group of DnD larpers who have figured out how to turn into wolves who are more benevolent and in control. And lastly, there is a wolf who has learned to change into a human.

It was really neat to see all the different types of wolves. I think all that was missing was the excommunicated/cursed by a priest wolf, and the ‘born werewolf.’ Unfortunately, outside of this case. These werewolves haven’t been hugely important to the story since. Other than the DnD group who Harry plays with on Friday nights. It really can get you thinking about the types of werewolves and how you can use them in a story.

Another popular creature and one I was fascinated with for a while are vampires. Okay, my favorite vampire is still The Count from Sesame Street but we are talking books. So, the most interesting take on vampires I’ve seen in a book is in Angela Knight’s Mageverse series. The Vampires in the Mageverse series are warriors who were originally turned by Merlin and Nimue in order to protect the Earth from alien invaders. Yes, Merlin and Nimue were powerful aliens. So, these vampires are all male, they drink blood of female ‘witches,’ they’re powerful warriors, and they can turn into wolves. (Yes. I know. But there are actual werewolves in this ‘verse too who are there to make sure the vampires don’t go nuts, but they aren’t as interesting.) If the vampires don’t feed off the witches, the witches get too high blood pressure and die. It’s paranormal romance so, there’s a lot of sex involved. The concept of “we’re the ancient round table of Arthur turned into magical vampires by the alien wizard Merlin’ was just so interesting to me.

Now, for demons, I really have to go to Christian literature. Because if you’re going to do demons, no one really doesn’t like the Christians do. Christian literature was the first place I was exposed to the supernatural. (Really, Christianity is metal and gothic, especially Catholicism. Catholicism is probably the most ‘mystical’ of the different groups.) To young me, Stephen R. Lawhead’s This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness were fascinating. He built this world where demons and angels were fighting over the mundane souls. They had personalities and jobs. So, you had two or three layers of story going on where the actions of the mundane characters gave power to the angels or the demons. Lawhead is a decent writer. The books are very, very protestant Christian making the concept of spiritual warfare very real but not trivialized like the way Left Behind did. And I haven’t seen anyone else do it precisely that way since.

Ghosts are difficult. I have seen books with ghosts that have really good concepts and poor execution. My favorite book with a ghost protagonist is Haunted by Kelly Armstrong. It’s part of her Women of the Otherworld series. In Haunted, the main female character is set a task to discover how another ghost is possessing people in the mundane world and causing murders. Kelly sets up rules for the ghosts. There are limitations to what the main character to do and this puts obstacles in her path as she has to navigate the realm of the living with these rules, different sections of the realms of the dead, prison realms, and make deals with demons. She ends up having a personal stake as well, when the other ghost targets her daughter! So, thrilling adventures.

So, what type of witch am I? I am a Cosmic Witch. I enjoy astrology, horoscopes, and all types of zodiac signs. I have looked into the Eastern Zodiac, Celtic Tree Calendar, blood types, the 12 moons of the year. I just enjoy delving deep into how different times of the year can affect your personality, whether or not you believe it’s real or not. If emotional energy is celestial energy, then I’m all about it. I also know some green witchery like herbalism and essential oils, but um, only for if you’re really sick. I mean it folks. It’s medicine. And like all medicine, it reacts differently with your body. I’m something of a night owl. So, being a cosmic witch makes a lot of sense. (Maybe I’m a Cosmic Werewolf Witch. Hmm.)

Now about books with witches! The most interesting books about witches to me were Rachel Caine’s Weather Witch series. Yes, it also involved fast cars and fashion. I really enjoyed the concept that there were different types of witches that could control different parts of the earth and the weather. So, like, fire witches could do forest fires and volcanos. While Weather Witches did storms and everything to do with the atmosphere. And Earth witches were mudslides and earthquakes and that sort of thing. Their powers also involved the Djinn. The main character was a female weather witch. She discovered corruption going on in the witch and wizard organization and abuse of the Djinn and yeah, lots of trouble. The witch craft that was shown was pretty scientific too the way it was described. It made things feel real.

Now for real old school horror, we need to talk about the fae. I’m not talking about the way fae are now portrayed in most paranormal romance and urban fantasy books. Because, the fae are just very, very powerful, and scary, so much so if you live in a world where they are still active, you don’t talk about them and you don’t try to gain their attention because they are capricious at best.

It’s really difficult for me to find a portrayal of the fae to take seriously. Maybe it’s too much Tolkien, maybe it’s DnD. I dunno. The best portrayal of the fae I’ve encountered was in the Lark and the Wren by Mercedes Lackey. Which is the first book of her Bardic Voices trilogy. Lark and Wren are in the middle of nowhere, when the fae kidnap Wren and Lark has to use her skills with the fiddle to get him back. (Kind of like a Devil Went Down to Georgia thing.) The fae are portrayed as capricious, deadly, and powerful. The books otherwise don’t have much to do with them. I’d really love to see a fae oriented book where the fae are portrayed this way.

I know Laurell K Hamilton did her Merry Gentry series, and yes, there are lots of horrifying parts to it (and not for the reason I think they were supposed to be horrifying.) But um, they’re erotica and for erotica they can be decent erotica. But for a fae story, they just don’t 100% hit it for me. Plus, she never finished them and it went to a really dark place (and I mean, like I thought she’d hit as dark as she could, but nooo.)

Now for the most out of the box creature book I’ve read is Terra Harmony’s the Rising. It involves mermaids and werewolves. Which, at first glance, don’t seem to have anything at all in common, but Terra works a way to give them something in common. The solution to the story is a bit horrifying, but I’m not sure I’d classify them as outright horror or even paranormal romance. Like Angela Knight’s the Mageverse series, the idea was very interesting to me. Plus, the mermaids are really well done.

I haven’t really seen books with gargoyles, mummies, djinn, actual sirens (sirens are birds, not fish) or secular books with demons in them. I don’t do zombies. Zombies are a hard no from me. So, here are some more interesting books for me books about creatures and witches.

Next week, I’ll be discussing classical horror and myths! Including some actual ghost stories and crypids. Once again, anyone is welcome to join in Booktober! Here is a handy image for next week’s prompt. (You don’t have to use it unless you want to do so.)

[sweetie-buttons]

Fear Street commentary: How to Be a Vampire

Here’s what really killed Andrew: Emily thought she was perfect! She thought she was so good at softball. So smart. She thought she had a million friends. Plus she always bragged about her great taste in clothes. Personally, Andrew thought she looked like a moron, running around school in her little pleated skirts and stupid fake pearls. But here was the biggest joke of all—Emily thought she was gorgeous! Andrew knew he wasn’t great looking. He was skinny. His hair was somewhere between brown and red. His eyes were plain old brown. He had a million freckles. But so what? Big deal. At least his nose wasn’t stuck up in the air like Emily’s. This sounds suspiciously like someone trying to convince themselves they’re not jealous.

“It is too,” Emily said. “I read good books. I’ve read almost every book on Ms. Parma’s literature list in the library.” Don’t you just hate book snobs?

“I don’t remember seeing Vampire Secrets on Ms. Parma’s list,” Emily went on. “Or that thing you were reading last week.” “You mean The Mummies Are Coming?” Andrew asked. “That was totally awesome.” Sounds like rejected GB book titles.

Emily laughed. “Okay. Maybe you two are tied for weirdness. All you and T.J. ever talk about is monsters. No wonder neither of you has any other friends.” Lucy Dark should join those two.

“Oh, man!” he cried. “That was awesome, T.J.!” *insert Amazing Atheist joke*

“She kept making fun of one of his monster books, Alien Slime from Mars. Then one night he and T.J. arranged for her to see some slime for herself. Andrew giggled, thinking about how she stared in horror as green goo dripped down from her light fixture.” Was it made by a redheaded cat witch or mad scientist named Dr. Grey, by any chance?

“With a groan, Andrew made himself open his eyes. He needed more sleep. Much more sleep. He wished he hadn’t stayed up so late the night before, reading. He wished he could sink back onto his soft pillow again. And close his eyes . . .” Me every morning. Between this and the affinity for monster tales, our hero is basically me.

He could skip brushing his teeth for once. And washing his face. I agree, books are more important than hygiene.

HOW TO BE A VAMPIRE Roll credits!

“No!” Andrew’s voice hit a high note. “Nothing’s wrong! I can’t find my sneakers. That’s all.” Mrs. Griffin glanced at Andrew’s feet. “You’re wearing them, dear,” she pointed out. “Oh, right,” Andrew said. He pulled his head out from under his bed. “I mean, I couldn’t find them. And then I found them. Under my bed. There they were. So . . . I better tie them.” A+ lying skills

Andrew shut his eyes. He waited for T.J. to say the V word. *insert immature joke*

“What are you talking about?” T.J. asked him. “Um . . . you want the rest of this bagel?” What are friends for, if not to eat your food?

“But, Andrew,” T.J. said. “Think about it! You’re going to be around forever. Forever! And you’ll be able to fly. Every night you can go zipping around through the clouds!” I mean, there’s just the minor downsides of being destroyed by sunlight, allergic to garlic and addicted to blood. But apart from that, I don’t see the problem.

Andrew shrugged. “I’m starved,” he said. He didn’t waste any more time talking. He dug into that spaghetti. Mmmmm! The sauce was even better than it looked! He stuffed a whole meatball into his mouth. Are large appetites also a vampire trait?

“But ghosts have it easier. They don’t have to eat or drink or anything.” How is that easier? If you’re on a diet, maybe.

“We’re walking, Mr. Metz,” T.J. said. “Suit yourself.” The driver opened the door of the bus.” Are bus drivers allowed to do that?

“Vampires can’t cross running water,” T.J. went on. “It’s one of the rules. So the bus couldn’t go until Andrew got off.” It’s a good thing the bus could tell that one of the passengers inside it was slowly turning into a vampire and that vampire can’t cross running water, and was considerate enough to stop so Andrew could get out.

Now every dog began to bark at the top of its lungs. “Holy cow!” T.J. exclaimed.” No, those are dogs. Can’t you tell your animals apart?

“ ‘As a vampire-in-training,’ ” Andrew read, “ ‘you must obey the vampire rules. One. Avoid garlic. All parts of the plant will cause you to sicken and retreat.’ ” “Now it tells you,” T.J. commented.” To be fair, vampires being allergic to garlic is basically common knowledge about them.

In the basement, he found a battered cardboard refrigerator box. You mean the box the refrigerator comes in? At first I thought it meant a cardboard refrigerator, and I was about to question if those exist.

The dogs swarming around him? The cookie in his pocket. Except they attacked you after you offered them it.

But it was shaped like one—a coffin standing on end. So you’ll sleep vertically?

If a coffin cannot be found, any small, dark place will do. It could be his bedroom if it’s a small one and the lights are off.

“Talk with an accent,” he suggested. “Maybe he’ll think you’re a new student from some other country.” If he’s blind and deaf, maybe.

“Because then you can make me one!” T.J. explained. “It’ll be great! We can hang out together all night and play pranks! We’ll scare people out of their minds! And flying! Think about it, Andrew! Flying is going to be so cool!” There’s just the minor downsides of…wait, I said this already.

Maybe a snack would help. Milk and cookies. Hopefully vampires aren’t allergic to that.

An old cape of his mother’s. A long, black cape. Cool! Maybe she used to be a vampire.

“You figured that out all by yourself?” The vampire rolled his red eyes. I like him already.

“What are you, a genius?” The vampire shook his head. “Of course I left you the book. Of course I bit you.” He raised a fist and knocked on Andrew’s head. “Hello? Anybody in there?” I like to think this vampire’s had to coach so many children and put up with so much bullshit that he’s officially Done and now uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

“Count Humphrey Ved.” Alright. One. …That was lame.

“You’ll see. You will develop a taste for being a vampire!” He threw back his head and cackled at his own joke.”

-

“Your fangs will come, kid.” The vampire put an arm around Andrew’s shoulder. “Hey, maybe they’ll show up in time for Fangsgiving!” Again the vampire cackled at his own joke. Do all vampires have such a sense of humor?

“How could you do this to me?” Emily cried. “How am I supposed to explain this to my friends?” Her feelings matter more than his humanity. That’s siblings for you.

“Awesome!” T.J. exclaimed. “Totally awesome! You have to make me your first victim! Promise?” Does no one consider the downsides, minor as they are?

“Don’t do me any big favors,” Andrew said. “I’m not,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “It’s for me. You think I want to be known as the girl with the vampire brother?” Her reputation is worth more than his humanity. Again, classic siblings.

“Right.” Emily nodded. “Okay. I read about how vampires hate garlic and mustard seeds. How they hypnotize their victims. How, when they see lots of little things, they can’t resist counting them. How they get confused at a crossroads. How they don’t reflect in mirrors . . .” Due to some The Girl Who Cried Monster meta, I know they don’t show up in pictures and have OCD.

“You have to do three things,” T.J. told him. “You have to drive a stake through his heart. Then you have to cut off his head. And then you have to stuff his mouth with garlic.” Better safe than sorry, right?

“Wow! We should tune in to the weather channel,” Andrew told the vampire. “See what they make of all this. I bet it’s never snowed at this time of—” Reminds me of the unexpected snowfall in Life is Strange.

“I’m not sure,” Andrew said. “Could you go over the stalking part again?” I kind of wish he accidentally said staking because he was thinking of his plan to kill him and then quickly corrected himself.

“Stop!” the vampire cried. “I don’t care about your puny human activities! We have to get on with our hunt!” I bet hunting is a cakewalk compared to listening to the rambling of children.

“Loud and clear,” Andrew answered. “Oh, man! This kid is going to be so sorry he ever picked on me!” He was annoying in art class, so he deserves to get his blood drunk.

“You’re not getting the Dark Gift now,” the vampire said. “You’re getting death.” He smiled. “I’m going to kill you.” Anthony, this is your fault. You could’ve enjoyed being a vampire, but instead you had to try to kill your teacher instead of being grateful for his help. Sure, there’s the minor downsides of being destroyed by sunlight, allergic to garlic and addicted to blood, but that’s surely better than death.

“He can’t resist counting little things!” Does it have something to do with the “count” in his name?

“I made a mistake choosing you,” the vampire growled. “A bad mistake. But then, it’s the first mistake I’ve made in six hundred years. That’s not too bad. Still, it was a mistake.” I bet this is some kind of metaphor for your mom saying that about your birth.

“And one more thing!” he shouted. “Humphrey is a stupid name for a vampire!” He should’ve called him Humpty Dumpty to annoy him.

With a growl, Humphrey the vampire lunged across the room. It’s the first time he’s been called his name instead of “the vampire”.

The vampire shuddered. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the top of his head. A terrible scream escaped from his throat. Then his whole body vanished in a cloud of smoke. RIP Humphrey. Never will there be such a sassy vampire.

Sunlight. Why hadn’t he thought of that in the first place? It was much easier than staking the vampire. Much less messy too. And best of all—it worked. I feel like you’re forgetting something…

Andrew said, “Emily? Are you getting . . . bossy?” You act like it’s different for her, but you said it was regular behavior at the start.

T.J. frowned. “But, remember what my book said? Sunlight kills a vampire. But that’s all it does. It doesn’t remove the curse from the vampire’s victims. Only staking can do that.” I actually appreciate this twist. It isn’t shoehorned and addresses a plot hole. If it wasn’t there, it’s leave the reader noting that there was a specific way of killing the vampire that they didn’t execute. And at least you prevented Humphrey from turning more people.