#me every time I write a story: Is this gothic literature?

[thebitchbehindtheslaughter]

The Heart Everbeating

Hi! This story has been in The Works for about a year now, so I hope you enjoy! Warnings for death, Christianity/Catholicism, and everything going wrong in the MC’s life 

When one man falls for another, they say God, himself, shudders in disgust. Two men peacefully exchanging whispers betwixt the oxeyes and the late eve silence could send all of Heaven into a rage, wheels of flame and feather burning bright with divine wrath. The Spirit scoffs at the embrace of palms, The Son weeps at the embrace of arms, The Father recoils at the embrace of lips. All three were above any such mortal woes and so the Holymen and Holywomen would leap from their confessionals and morning prayers, setting down their scriptures and rosaries in the name of mallets and chains to purge the world of any threat to perfection’s untouchable paradise, for the loving whispers nestled within the daisies—promises to forever support, protect and adore, were far too demonic for the cotton ears of the immortal, immoral Shepard. Yet even once sentenced to the depths of The Nine Rings, no pretend border could halt the sweethearts’ yearning for one another, no prideful god fully capable of stopping the pounding of deep love’s heart; The Devil himself knows of and tries not to prevent honest admiration. Layers of wood, of rust, of ash, of soil, could not cease the fire within one man’s soul as he plucked at the freshly bloomed oxeye, near delirious with his burning desire.

     A trail of ‘he loves me’s spiralled on the wind as the fiancé limped through the aisle of wrought iron and forsaken stone, his veil of moonlight bathing one man and his wilting bouquet in sensations of ethereal glamour. Hums of melodies yet to be played bounced off the flitting wings of the Calyptra groomsmen all the while, holding back their hunger in the name of the beloveds’ special day. The one man tied back his long, dark hair with the red ribbon his beloved had gifted him, hoping to enchant just as he’d been at their first meeting, continuing his pursuit without so much as a stumble. At the mere thought of meeting once more one man’s mind was overrun with his deepest desires, burning through his ice-coated flesh and igniting the spark which had never truly died, his own wrought iron fence of bone becoming the grates of a roaring coal furnace and as such granting him ample energy on his seemingly endless journey. Truly, one man was ever so far from the halfway point—a little black house overrun by only the sweetest of alleycats—but moments spent alone do slide unto the doorstep of eternity when one is used to moments with his beloved, so one dared not to pause to collect the rapidly disappearing petals, or to pluck fresher flowers, or to feed his dear groomsmen as they continued their song. Instead he chased after the growing stronger aura of his beloved, his darling, as he slowly neared the town gates.

     If the ring of charcoal iron he left behind were to act as a church hall’s supposedly welcoming doors, then the buildings were certainly the rows of family and friends who arrived solely to bare witness to the beloveds’ moment of union as they leaned in close to admire the unearthly beauty one man found himself in possession of, the dewy mist which still hung in the evening air bringing the idea of tears to the candlelit windows that lit up his path. So attractive he felt as he walked the aisle he’d always dreamed of traversing, the scent of his beloved still rested in his lungs and it grew ever stronger the closer he was to the town square. The petals of the oxeyes he had gathered fell less on his gloves and more on the wind, his limbs moving faster the closer he sensed himself getting, one man’s mind growing equally as desperate for the face he so longed to hold once more, when one of his guests spoke and broke him from the trance he willing entered; “My old friend, is that truly you before me? My, you’re in that beautiful suit! Are you finally to be wed to your beloved?” There upon the porch stood a woman, the patches which crawled across her cheek marking her familiar in appearance, but the silver hair which clung to her head like spiderwebs struck her down as the grandmother of a friend who lived within those exact walls, but certainly she had passed long before one man’s eyes had closed? “Come in, my friend! It is poor manners to arrive to any wedding with an empty stomach!” So dearly did one man wish to see his beloved, to hold, to cherish, to kiss and recover the year that was lost between two meters of wood and mud, but as he always knew her granddaughter to be his old friend’s grandmother was most certainly correct. “Oh, my friend, I must lend you a bottle of perfume, as well. Tell me, would you prefer to smell of roses or daises?”

     Traditionally, receptions were to be held once vows had been born and welcomed to the new world, but perhaps tradition could take a knee for the beloveds’ celebration. Only for the moments spent within the old and rickety house, of course, as after the cake was cut one man would return to the aisle and greet his beloved with promises written in a heat of passion and longing. With heat of passion mentioned, one man found it quite impossible to miss how warm the air surrounding the dining table truly was, though that could be blamed on the Battenberg cake and Earl Grey tea that was set before him with unsteady hands. “Dig in, my friend!” The older woman sat in the chair across from his own with a smile lined in childish giddy, reminding one man that all the town was abuzz with excitement for the evening that had just arrived, all because he had insisted on paying patronage to a small tailor shop many moons ago. Yes, he remembered that year as if it had played out just moments ago, the one where he slowly fell for the charming tailor’s son who knew his figure better than he did. He remembered the first time they spoke, how he had thanked the young man for his service and complimented his handiwork, and of course, he remembered the shy and flattered smile that offered as response. Certainly, if his mind still held to those magical moments within a small, family shop, then it held what led to the beloveds’ arrival to the small, isolated town. He wished it would forget—prayed, even, but it held steadfast. Lavender. He despised that colour more than anything, for once upon a time it had infected his life and forced him to the tailor’s shop to be suited for a tux in that very shade. Although, one man would never forget the generosity of the woman in the matching dress, one who shooed them away and took all fault for their escape. He hoped her and her bride would be wed one day. “Goodness, my friend, you’re going to be quite late!” One man’s untouched cake and well-stirred tea were carried off into the depths of the hot house, just as he began to feel… sick. He hadn’t a clue he could feel sick once his body was beyond death, but as the older woman had exclaimed he had not a moment to ponder. “Take care, my friend!” She called as he shuffled out the door, his groomsmen having awaited his return upon the porch; it would be his night and his night, alone, for only a few minutes longer.

     Then came a buzzing, swirling spirit that twirled through him like wine in the glass of a nobleman, one born of unadulterated anticipation. For simply, he had twirled past the house he had known to be infested with cats but, to his surprise, had then been infested with vines and flowers. He could not find himself time to pause, however, so simply he continued on, the waltz in his step. Four steps at a time led him through an enthusiastic daze of sorting through crowds to meet his beloved at the ballroom’s centre, his own, personal history of wandering grand celebrations providing him and his movements great expertise. Oh, my beloved, his mind had pleaded as he stumbled from one side of the road to the other, his undead heart begging to pound in the pattern it knew so well. One man tightened the knot of the ribbon he’d so carefully laced into his hair, then a memory of how said ribbon had come to be teased him with visions of his beloved; he had been questioned as to what his very favourite colour was and, his gaze locked upon the eyes of the tailor’s son, he had simply said what he saw: Red. Red was a difficult colour—though nowhere near as difficult as indigo—so all that was offered was a red ribbon. His beloved had apologized in only a most sincere manner but he, oh, he had known that shade oh-so-well, and so, had giddily taken the gift and laced it into his long hair for the very first time. Oh, he would give almost anything to see his beloved’s flustered expression once more, how his red eyes had widened as if to show off all their glittering glory, his glasses falling down his face to assist in their unveiling. One man could not resist then, and had asked if he may. His beloved said yes. Such a beautiful memory had caused his dance through the streets to grow wild and desperate as he near cried out in love and admiration. Delirious, just as he was once he reentered the Ertha’s domain, though that time he was nearly at his beloved’s side, just stood at the edge of a true and real crowd. He could see the red through the shuffling shoulders. He ran for it. One man embraced the figure so tightly that he could tell instantaneously that it was not his beloved in his arms.

     “Let go of my daughter.” Hands rough from the wear and tear of time grabbed at his suit jacket and mercilessly pried him away from the young woman whose face was alight with fear. He knew that face, well—well, perhaps only certain features. The puff of her bottom lip he knew he’d kissed before, the batting of her eyelashes he knew he’d felt flutter against his cheek before, the beauty mark at her jaw he knew he’d gushed over before—though certainly it had moved sides—and the red. He knew that particular shade of red far better than he knew anything else, and he despised how natural it looked when combined with the new shape of her jaw, point of her nose, and texture of her straight hair. That hair always curled when grown that long, though it rarely had a chance to grow past the shoulders. Perhaps his beloved’s sister had appeared in town to comfort him? Oh, he hadn’t even considered the existence of his beloved’s grief! Yes, his dear sister must have appeared to stay the past two years with him and assistance him in his recovery! Then why, he questioned as he could not comprehend the answer, did a woman with the exact new features of the girl appear at that moment, stood beside the younger, and took on the appearance of mother and daughter? Hesitant, terrified yet morbidly curious of the truth in hiding, did one man turn to look at the man who still held him by the shoulders. His fear was proved to be founded in fantasy, for he knew that face and its every detail, instantaneously. “… My love?” Delirium once again ignited within one man’s shaking chest, and caused him great ecstasy which guided his limbs about his beloved’s shoulders, pulled the two men close together, their bodies perfectly tailored to the other’s just as they were in their younger years. His pined for those lips like he never had before in all his years of love and admiration for the taller, desperate as he had been all that night without his beloved by his side, and pushed himself to the tips of his toes in a reach that lasted all of three seconds. He closed his eyes and anticipated the warm—near burning sensation of gentle love he’d come to know so well, but he was met with the pin-pricked fingers of a tailor’s hands. “M-My love, I…” Those gorgeous red eyes darted to the two women at their side for truly not a reason, at all, as his beloved had never been the least bit cautious when it came to expressing their undying affection—at the very least, not in that town. “You must understand my hesitation,” he whispered as if some godly fear had been implemented into his untainted soul; perhaps by that woman who had yet to learn how rude it was to stare? “You’ve been gone—dead! For thirty years, so how am I to react to seeing your face again?” In response to such words rife with sorrow and conflict, for the very first time in that moonlit evening one man could not think at all.

     “Goodness, my love, I… I watched you die in that field of oxeyes! I held your shaking body, I watched the life drain from your eyes—the blood, as well! Y-Your own father shot you dead and I was the only one who mourned! Now, suddenly, three decades later you return to me? Why so long? Why must you have waited until I had finally moved on and healed?” His own mind was hardly aware of itself in that moment, as it drifted freely in the town square, inquired what the bystanders were thinking, and even what the woman and her daughter were thinking, but he could not bring himself to consider his beloved’s thoughts for he had to have been lying, though that was so far from something he would do especially in such serious situations as the one they were currently in. “My love… I’ve married another.” One man, his body shivering with horror, slowly followed that red gaze that instinctually filled with true love, though not for him. The woman and her daughter stared back… equally as horrified. “I didn’t believe you were coming back—How could I believe that? My wife she—she taught me how to recover, took her time to heal me, fully. Our daughter is sixteen, now. We are happy.” His beloved squeezed his arm and just as it always was, it comforted his aching heart. “I’m sorry, my love, but if you came back just to see me again, I’m afraid I’ll have to cut your return, here. My love?” For the very first time in his twenty years of life, one khan ignored the words of his beloved in favour of approaching another. He pulled the precious treasure from his hair and took the woman’s wrist, where he then placed it in her shaking palm and turned to the younger woman, to whom he offered the wilting oxeyes to, continuously numb despite her gratefully taking it.

     Then, with a final look to the beloved and his beautiful family—with the additional press of a handkerchief to his one functioning tear duct—one man quietly left the village.

[nkjemisin]

Hi! (Just to get in front of it, I'm not asking you for anything. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your work and I SEE the decolonization in it. I'm definitely also neurodivergent, so forgive me if I over- or under-explain a point.) But I realize this is an Ask Me Anything... egad.

I'm working on a piece about Broken Earth for the Decolonizing the EcoGothic volume of the Gothic Nature Journal, and I just wanted to let you know that I am blown away by the way you tell stories. I was in a Gothic Horror (I'm really not that big of a Gothic literature nerd, I swear!) class while I was in graduate school last year and we read Toni Morrison's Beloved. That was the second time that I read that novel in particular, and the first time I read it I got hung up on Mama Suggs. Her character and her ceremonies in the clearing were very powerful, and I couldn't put a pin in why until I read Broken Earth. Something about the connection between Essun and Alabaster's bodies transforming as a result of their magic use and the utter negation and abuse and colonization of the black body in both stories and historic times of slavery (and the prison industrial complex today, let's be real). Reading Broken Earth helped me understand that. So thank you.

I'm sorry this is turning into a mini essay, but I also wanted to mention another connection I found between the two on my second read (a connection I formed, I'm definitely not trying to say that I know for sure what you were going for because of course there's a lot to the stories) was between that of the characters Nassun and Denver. Near the end of the novel, after Beloved's ghost has all but taken everything from Sethe, Denver begins to step off of the safe porch and enter into the unsafe world alone for the first time to try and find help. She finds herself recalling a conversation that she heard between Baby Suggs and her mother:

“Oh, some of them [white people] do all right by us,” Sethe said. Baby suggs responds,

“And every time it’s a surprise, ain’t it? Don’t box with me. There’s more of us they drowned than there is all of them ever lived from the start of time. Lay down your sword. This ain’t a battle; it’s a rout” (287). Denver then asks the memory of her grandmother what she should do, then. “Know it, and go on out the yard. Go on,” her grandmother responds (288).

What should Denver, or Nassun, do with the knowledge that they will never truly be safe? She has to accept it, but go on anyway. One foot after another, and so on. I felt a bit of this driving Nassun after her father takes her away from their home in Tirimo... and I dunno. You and Toni Morrison both write stories that stick with me, personally, and make me think. And think and think.

Oh I'm also not assuming you've read Beloved, either. I'm sorry! I this is turning into a mess. I think I'll stop there. Just, thank you. For your stories and for your characters and for the story of Syl Anagist. I loved the Inheritance Trilogy also, I'm just very stuck on Broken Earth because of this piece I'm working on. Thank you! Sorry.

No need to apologize! But I can't answer your question because I haven't read Beloved. Read and loved several Morrison novels, but not that one. (I keep meaning to, but my Mount ToBeRead is the size of Everest and growing.) Both books are inspired by the same historical event, and I think because of that, folks who don't know about Margaret Garner reasonably assume I'm riffing on Morrison rather than reality. But nope, the Broken Earth trilogy is just one of several creative works that are in conversation with the Garner tragedy. Any similarities you see probably come from the fact that Morrison and I share a racial and gender identity, and had a similar reaction to realizing just how much our current lives are impacted by hidden historical horrors.

Even if I'd read Beloved, however, I probably wouldn't be able to answer your question. Lit crit is best done by people other than the author, IMO. We're too close to our work to tell you very much about it.

[docholligay]

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

You’re either into what Anne Rice does, or your are not into what Anne Rice does. Reading an Anne Rice book is a akin to riding a bull. You have to take everything you think about urban fantasy, and you are almost certainly thinking of the frameworks set up by its popularity in the early aughts, and toss it out the fucking window. Anne Rice doesn’t care.  Fuck the devil, says Anne Rice, and absolutely not in a paranormal romance way. Anne Rice longs for violence and death, and she is going to make you look up a fucking word, and you are going to learn SO MUCH about New Orleans. 

Anne Rice is smart dumb literature. This is a tub read about a family of witches and is it a gift is it a curse, holy fuck there some weird sex shit in here book. But it also has prose that has been accused of being purple (it is not) because it is rich and textured and uses more than first level English. This is trash for people LOVE the act of reading, and the art of language. 

Is it good? I am not sure I would say it is. On a story level. It’s pretty…pulpy. This book more or less holds together under its own weight--I will be candid and say that’s not actually true of every Rice book. But this time period of her writing, I love being able to find gothic genre fiction that is fucked up and still loves the written word. I love that her books are not short! I know I complained about it earlier, but that was more, “Oh my god I only have so much time and I have other books to read” and not, “I hate long books” because no I love long books I love description I love you asides that allow me a depth of place and character I love you books that presume I like to fucking read. 

ANYWAY yeah! I liked it even though i don’t think it was good because I love her trash ahaha. 

The first thing is: Is this better than her vampire books? For me, this is a difficult question because her vampire books come packaged up with a lot of nostalgia. I read them when I was a teenager, and I absolutely fell in love with them. This was my unbelievably stupid fantasy series that a teen is way too intense about. So for me, no, this isn’t as good or better than her vampire books because I’m not reading it with that haze of thirteen year old Doc. 

But I will say that even her vampire books are…not great. They are FUN. But I really think only Interview ever does anything beyond the text itself, and so much of that has to do with Anne Rice’s writing it as a way of working through her own personal tragedy. Claudia is the closest she ever really gets to saying something true in her books. So I don’t know that The Witching Hour is a WORSE book, but because it’s an Anne Rice special written outside of the things that I hold a lot of internal affection for, it doesn’t give me the same sense of joy that the objectively stupid vampire books do. It’s just silly. I don’t have FEELINGS about Rowan or Mary Beth or Stella the way I do, say Armand, or Lestat, or Marius. 

This book is at its absolute best when it’s doing what I think Rice has a real gift for: historical urban fantasy. Say what you will about Rice, and I do all the time, but she is in love with New Orleans, and she knows a lot about it, and often I find myself reading a book of hers and feel compelled to go look something up. I ended up reading a whole bunch of articles about the history of Haiti because this book made me realize I didn’t really know much about Port-au-Prince. Everything serves New Orlenas, in her view, and it’s true that she is most at home there, and I think it really tells in the texture of the novel, versus when she is in Europe, for example. 

I loved the structure of learning about each of the witches leading up to Rowan. The way we look at everything in the taillights, and know what’s coming but it still is a delight to read the lead up. I would love to read more about the historical witches--the book loses me a little bit when we return to Rowan, I just don’t find her very compelling. She’s a thing for Lasher to act upon more than she is her own woman, at least in this book. She’s brilliant and perfect and gorgeous and everything, but she lacks a sort of internal fire. 

This is the weird thing about Anne Rice, is, she’s one of those women who writes terrible female characters. With the exception of Claudia, I guess. She’s largely disinterested in woman on the whole, at least as far as sussing through their motivations and ideas. We even understand these women, the Mayfair witches, THROUGH the men who study them, more than we do through them for their own sake. So I guess I say I wish more of the books focused on the historical witches, but if they had to hold up their own book, would Rice LET them? Could she write them as doing it? 

Anne Rice is always going to Anne Rice and you would think I would know that by now, but I still was a bit surprised to see Rice’s obsession with violent sex and rape as a kink. Not actually rape, in this book, it must be said. She’s very clear that everything is consesual, but the number of times she talks about the sex she has with Michael and how much she loves that it’s like a rape, and how much she loves rough sex.I caught myself laughing about it after a certain point. 

I KNEW she was going to fuck that demon. I knew it from the second we started getting shaded to the idea, because I know Anne Rice, and the things she loves and how she works, and there was always going to be horrible, monstrous demonfucking. I will give her full credit in that I didn’t expect the incest thing to actually work as part of the plot, but it does. It’s a very weird fucking purebred dog type idea, and I don’t hate it, which shocked me since incest is such a squick for me. But it seemed weirdly…perfect? I know, I know, I am also disgusted with myself it’s fine. 

Would I read the next one? I would be open to reading it, but I don’t know that I’d be chomping at the bit to do it of my own volition. I am gonna read some of the old vamp[ire chronicles though because it has made me nostalgic for it.

[toads-treasures]

Writer Interview

I got tagged by @forget-me-maybe and @pouroverpaloma, thank you for the tag!!! I'm sorry that I definitely may have overshared!!

When did you start writing?

This is going to sound cliche but, since I learned how to write at all, I think? I distinctly remember that I got in trouble when I was about six years old, because I took a photo album that had nice sturdy paper pages from the laundry room and wrote a mystery story in it. I remember it was a mystery because on every other page I colored my own version of the old transitions they’d do in cartoons, with a question mark with concentric colorful circles around it lol. Strangely vivid memory of those transition pages, I think I was very proud of them. 

But I’ve been writing and “illustrating” pretty much my entire life. I started writing fanfiction in middle school or highschool, and that’s what I’ve always liked writing the most.

Then I decided to get a creative writing degree, which then led me to developing both a god complex and a crippling sense of perfectionism and self doubt, and completely drained any enjoyment from writing literally anything, because I couldn’t get my professor’s voices out of my head. I loved my professors and I think I learned a lot, but I became so obsessed with my writing being perfect and impressive and something they would want and like, that I stopped writing things that I liked. So, I had a crisis and dropped out! And didn’t write anything for like four years so 🫠 but we’re slowly gettin’ back into it. 

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I don’t think there are any themes I enjoy reading that I couldn't really write, but genres definitely. I don’t know if I could write a contemporary romance. Unless I am doing a modern AU lol but even then I always seem to end up adding some kind of fantastical element.  I love reading a good Emily Henry novel, but I try to write a lighthearted contemporary romance and inevitably some ghosts or fucked up fairies of some sort will appear. I gotta inject a little horror and fantasy into pretty much everything I write, which I think a lot of people are surprised by. I’m surprised by it, because I am such a baby I can’t handle watching horror movies. I think less horror, and more like, gothic elements maybe? IDK man it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a literature class.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I wanna be Maggie Stiefvater when I grow up. She’s a young adult novelist but she is such a talented writer, I can’t even explain other than her books make my brain go !!!!! 

I cannot recommend Scorpio Races or The Raven Cycle enough. She’s got such a distinct voice, and she is really good at magical realism which I love. I don’t know if I intentionally try to emulate her though I think I’m just a sponge that just absorbs bits and pieces of anything I read, but I think I have unintentionally stolen a line or two from her before.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I have a home office that I adore and is super cute and cozy but unfortunately most of my writing is done at work on my lunch break. But that’s also a pretty nice place, a shaded courtyard at the hospital I work at that’s got really nice tall trees that blossom in the spring. 

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I always come up with some pivotal character detail or plot point while I’m doing dishes. Then I have to scramble for my phone with sudsy hands to immediately tell Liz I have had A Thought.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I think a lot of my stories are about grief, which I don’t usually realize until later. Grief and memory and growing out of the place you were born, and the kind of dissonance that comes from wanting so desperately to go home but not fitting when you get there. Or things are different than how you remember, for better and for worse. I love thinking about complicated parent/child relationships, and coming to the realization that more often than not your parents are neither heroes or villains, they’re just people.  Coming of age stories but the protag are in their late twenties? 

I looooove to write about people slowly (or not so slowly) falling in love and the little things you notice about someone when that’s happening. Like the way a slight sunburn sometimes makes blue eyes look even bluer, the way someone’s eyes widen before they start laughing, like they’re surprised at their own amusement. Getting to know someone in so many different contexts. So different kinds of intimacy I guess? It wasn’t until recently that I even considered writing smut lmao and even now when I try the characters just end up having some deep conversation and unearthing some kind of trauma. Let’s not analyze what that says about me. 

But it always seems to come back to grief at some point and living with loss and growing around it. Which is strange because I’m very lucky to have not gone through that process with anyone extremely close to me. It is definitely something I think about a lot though, it’s almost like I’m trying to brace myself, or practice grieving before it actually happens.

What’s your reason for writing?

Escapism babyyy. I say escapism then talk about how all I ever write about is grief….so….but it is both escapism and kind of working through some shit emotionally lol. One of my favorite possibly cringey things to do, but something that has genuinely helped me a lot, is creating a character that has a lot of qualities that I feel self conscious about. They have ADHD, they’re tall and a little clumsy, or they’ve got the same body type as me. They also dropped out of art school. But it doesn’t bother them at all. They’re not insecure about any of those things. Or if they are, they learn not to be. And the other characters love them anyway.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed doing with a lot of the fanfiction I write is I get a chance to write about the moments in between the big moments. Explore aspects of characters that maybe there wasn’t time for in the game. Or you know if it’s Wyll just aspects that Larian didn’t bother to do at all i’m not bitter 

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Literally any. I crave any form of validation. I love when people can point out themes and stuff to me because I usually miss that myself lol.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Uhhhhhhhhh I have never considered this. Positively? I think more than anything I want people to care as much as I care about these characters, that we’re all being genuine and sincere and sappy together.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know if it’s my greatest strength lol but I love writing dialogue. That always comes easily to me. And descriptions of landscapes. That’s always something people in class would point out. I will wax poetic about a mountain or the sea don’t test me. 

How do you feel about your own writing?

It comes and goes lol. I try not to think about it too much honestly because I’ll spiral pretty fast into extremely self critical territory and freeze up. Because I must be a genius, Professor Signor told me so, now I have this impossible standard to live up to. Also my professor never told me I was a genius but she did really like my writing and wanted me to take a bunch of honors classes and be on the school literary magazine and all of that pressure and expectation kiiinda made me freak out and run away. So now I try to just have fun, and that’s what I want to feel more than anything is that I’m having fun, and truly enjoying this part of me that has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. 

tagging @hauntedliz @mars-colonyand @likesomethingblooming if you wanna!

[vickyvicarious]

If you wanted to read a comparative literature meta between Dracula and another novel, which one would you choose?

Ooh... This is a really interesting ask. First of all, it's not if - I definitely would want to read that! The only difficulty is in narrowing down the candidates. It's hard to choose, honestly. Ideally it would be nice to compare a novel that explores some of the same themes but in a different way.

The Beetle is also a horror novel that has the fear of foreigners/the other as typified by a supernatural entity arriving in London. It also has multiple narrators as well, who all have to hunt down their fleeing foe on a train in order to save the main woman in the cast. But it doesn't really delve much into old vs. new for example, and it is just... so bad. Every character is worse, the writing is worse, comparing these two books is all the way through just a case of ragging on Marsh's work for being worse, honestly. Ideally for me, both books in such a meta would be good.

Varney the Vampire, Carmilla, and The Vampyre are all classic vampire stories, and it's interesting to compare them to Dracula when you think about what kinds of influences Stoker may have taken from them. But they don't share the same themes as much outside of that. Varney is a penny dreadful and outside of superficial aspects of some scenes/character roles I don't see tons of resemblance to Stoker's work; it's written as a sprawling dramatic tale designed to keep entertaining casual readers over time, unlike the still large yet self-contained and more intense in tone novel by Stoker. (Admittedly, I'm less than halfway through Varney so that's what my opinion is based on. I do find the treatment of Flora as a victim of a vampire to be an interesting point of comparison to the way Mina and Lucy were treated.) And the other two are both much shorter and more constrained to their horror story. They don't have as big of a cast and they don't have as prolonged fights against their vampires, either.

Other classic 'gothic fiction' such as The Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have their own merits as well. Phantom has a similar path in adaptations making the main antagonist into a troubled romantic hero. But that's more about adaptations than the novels themselves, which don't have as much in common as others on this list. Dorian Gray could be a good comparison as far as homosexual subtext (or really, just text in DG) and if one wanted to discuss the idea of nonaging beings. But while Dracula doesn't age and doesn't really grow/change and there are some potentially interesting discussions to be had there, that's more a case of those two characters rather than the two novels as a whole. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is presented as more of a detective story, which is both true to, and an aspect of Dracula that doesn't usually get as much attention as it should. So that could be fun. There's also an interesting thread with Jekyll's experimentation as a 'new manmade' horror vs. Dracula's 'old supernatural' horror, and potential contrast between that very homegrown versus foreign danger, and even the idea of an alternate self being released. But the Bloofer Lady and Mr. Hyde, for example, are very different cases in many ways. And there's again a much smaller cast and scale to the story, so there are a lot more pieces of Dracula that don't have as much of an equivalent to compare. (That too could of course be interesting to contrast, but it's a different sort of meta more focused on the novel's role in the genre for example, than the closer comparison your ask makes me envision.) Honestly, with its themes of culpability/respectability, I see it comparing more easily to Dorian Gray than Dracula.

The Woman In White would actually be quite an interesting comparison, even though it's not really in the same genre. It's not a supernatural horror, however much it flirts with dramatic gothic imagery especially at the beginning. But it does have a bunch of other stuff in common. The villainous foreign Count is an obvious one, but specifically Dracula and Fosco's attraction to certain individuals and like of breaking them is another link. Both have intelligent heroes who are quite methodical about their approaches. Jonathan and Laura's experiences have quite interesting similarities (as well as, to an extent, Lucy and Anne, not just to one another but to the aforementioned characters as well), especially in the contrasting ways they are treated later in the novels. The use of female characters in general has some really discussable similarities and differences (Mina vs. Marian as well as in general). Mr. Fairlie and Mrs. Westenra fill a similar role. Both books are epistolary, with a heavy focus on the characters themselves gathering documents with different perspectives of events to help them figure things out (that detective aspect). Trains and timetables are important in both in a way, and though Dracula is more intentional about the contrast of modern/ancient there is a potential thread to be discussed there. In general, they both get weird about foreigners in ways that could also be talked about at length, specifically in regard to the villains vs. the heroes and how nationality and perceived nationality/stereotypes play into their respective roles. The idea of madness vs. sanity is also a theme in both, and both have characters with differing degrees of memory loss and inability to talk about their experiences. If we're looking for an overall comparison of both novels as a whole, as well as multiple different points of connection/comparison, I think this may be the best one so far.

Of course, this is all just thinking of more contemporary works to Dracula. It's also a list influenced by what I've been reading and thinking about more for the past year, so there are probably other books I'll think of later. But for now, that's my long and rambly answer!

[murfpersonalblog]

Thornfield Hall, Manderlay, and Louis de Pyromaniac du Lac

I wanna talk about Louis' depression, Anne Rice's grief, and the element of fire in a few iconic Gothic romances/horror stories. (Trigger warning for suicide.)

Bar none, my favorite thing about Louis is his obsession with fire, and how it's linked to his abuse, mental instability, and trauma.

It's so neat how AMC's Louis chainsmokes when he's stressed, and has a hilarious attachment to the incinerator.

His fire obsession's a whole meme at this point, & everyone's excited for Louis going ham with fire in Season 2. I can't wait to see how AMC handles his most iconic book/film moment(s).

But I was rereading Jane Eyre, and thought alot about Bertha Mason (Mr Rochester's archetypal crazy wife in the attic), and Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca (which was inspired by Jane Eyre). And they got me thinking about fire and suicide in the Vampire Chronicles, so walk with me a bit.

Louis is called the most "human" of the vampires, because of how weak he was, compared to other vampires his age (and even younger). His rat/animal blood diet was tantamount to an eating disorder that heavily stilted his growth as an immortal, and for the majority of his life he lacked many of the Gifts vampirism afforded his peers (Mind Gift, Spell Gift, Killing Gift, etc).

However, shockingly enough, AMC decided to give Louis one of their most potent powers: The Fire Gift (pyrokinesis).

In the books it was explained that vampire blood is flakey & highly flammable, and only the oldest and/or strongest of vampires could withstand fire without serious injury or death--let alone use the Fire Gift to any significant degree--hence: BAMF Akasha using it as her signature attack in QotD. 👑

This seriously begs the question about where this show sits in the canon timeline, because book readers know that Louis only gains the Fire Gift, Cloud Gift, Mind Gift, etc etc after the events of Merrick, when Louis tries to commit suicide, and to heal Louis' burns, Lestat gives him a huge infusion of his powerful blood (having fed at length from Akasha in QoTD, and also God/Jesus in Memnoch.)

Lestat's super!blood healed Louis' burns and saved his life, but it also drastically & permanently changed Louis' body, making him more vampiric than he'd ever been, seriously augmenting his powers. This was something Louis had adamantly been trying to avoid--every time the Children of the Millennia/Coven of the Articulate met up, they all offered Louis infusions of their ancient blood, trying to help him power up, and every time Louis refused them all.

Louis retaining his humanity was so important to him, not only because of the Catholic Guilt he felt being a blood-drinking killer, but also because being physically weak allowed him one ultimate ace up his sleeve: if he ever got the courage to end his life, he could always rely on going into the sunlight, and burning to death.

So, while AMC's dust particle effect is very cool, I'd rather see vampires on FIRE--even though the ashes to ashes visuals are rather apropos.

Regardless, I was also thinking about all the other people & places Louis set on fire; and how it all ties in with the Gothic literature Anne Rice was CLEARLY inspired by--namely: Jane Eyre & Rebecca.

Cuz we know Anne Rice wrote Louis and his grief over losing Claudia as a self insert, as a way for her to try handling her own grief over losing her daughter. But she started hating writing as Louis, and being stuck in that depressive mindset, so AR switched to writing from Lestat's POV instead, as a more fun and carefree character for a few books--until Lestat had a crisis of faith in Memnoch and goes into a coma. We then get Armand's book, where in TVL Armand tries to commit suicide by walking into the sun after Lestat gets Veronica's Veil from Memnoch (i.e.: proof that God exists, from the Devil). Immediately after this is Merrick, where Louis enters another depressive episode, as he waits vigil for YEARS beside Lestat, who lies on the floor of a cathedral in a coma. As Louis mourns, he finds Claudia's diaries, which reveal just how much she hated & resented him, and he starts being haunted by Claudia's ghost. By the end of Merrick, Claudia's ghost has convinced Louis that he's worthless, and he agrees.

Suicidal ideation is HEAVY in both Jane Eyre and Rebecca. Mrs. de Winter is almost talked into jumping from the window by the housemaid Mrs Danvers, who hates that the widowed Maxim de Winter remarried (forgetting his first wife Rebecca), and gave Manderlay to the new wife--a girl half his age with no clue how to be a "proper" lady of the estate.

In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason is literally insane, and was locked up in Thornfield's attic, until she escaped and set the place on fire, then jumped off the roof to her death. In the 2006 BBC version, Bertha sees an owl (a nocturnal bird) fly off the roof, so she follows it; like a free bird taking flight.

Who else does this in IWTV? PAUL with his birds. (Not to mention the PTSD from Louis' drop in Ep5, which would've definitely killed a normal person.)

For years, I thought Claudia's ghost was just an apparition: either one of the demons Lestat unleashed while fleeing Hell in Memnoch, or more likely as a manifestation of Louis' guilty conscience, as his mental state got increasingly worse as he read her journals; on top of him being scared Lestat was dying. But then Blackwood Farm introduced Goblin, and all the later books had prominent vampire ghosts that proved that vampires (and aliens, lol) have immortal souls that can linger. So the ghost was legit, and so was Claudia's deep-rooted hatred for Louis.

I've already said how I think IWTV is a story about (failed) marriages and parenthood dynamics, the power imbalances that ensue, and the resentments that fester. But so are Jane Eyre & Rebecca. At the heart of ALL of them are mental illness & houses on fire. Bertha Mason was violently insane, but she was sane enough to realize that Mr Rochester was tryna marry another woman right under her nose, when it was HER dowry money that bankrolled Thornfield, as his first wife. So in the 2006 version Bertha lights Jane's wedding dress on fire, taking the whole mansion down with her. (In the book she just tears up the dress & veil, then starts the fire.)

In Rebecca, it was Maxim's first wife Rebecca who was cheating, but the (nameless) second wife lived under her shadow & the ghost of her memory--embodied by Mrs. Danvers, who hated her guts, and fed into her deep insecurities over being married to a widower who hadn't gotten over his first wife Rebecca (*cough* little did they know though~! XD). After failing to talk the girl into killing herself, Mrs Danvers had a psychotic break, and set Manderlay on fire, dying in the blaze (joining her beloved Rebecca).

Taking the Gothic horror & suspense out--or, hell, INCREASING it--one could easily spin this so that JANE was the one who started the fire when she learned about Bertha in the attic and ran away from Thornfield (in some adaptations the fire happens the same night she leaves). One could also say that MRS DE WINTER burned down Manderlay after cracking under the pressure of becoming a married lady. Both of these second wives were driven crazy by ghosts of the past, and burned down the mansions that had become their tombs.

Cuz I mean...Louis is Lestat's second wife/husband, after Nicky killed himself in a fire. 👀 And Louis and Claudia literally watched as they burned Lestat's sidechick/third wife Antoinette alive, so.... 🔥

TL;DR: I think Anne Rice must've been struggling with a lot of suicidal thoughts around the time she wrote The Vampire Armand (book 6) and Merrick (book 7), to have both its characters do the same thing, one right after the other. Vampires and their vulnerability to fire/sunlight were just metaphors for very real personal issues. After writing IWTV, she walked away from Louis, burying her depression by writing more books as the sunny Lestat, who suntans for fun and is immune to fire by the end of QoTD. But in the back of her mind, AR might've felt guilty forgetting about her grief (Louis forgetting about Claudia--willfully forgetting about Bertha, Rebecca, etc....). So the ghost of this guilt came back with a vengeance in Merrick, as Claudia unleashed all her vitriol on Louis, and he hated himself to the point that he was convinced to light himself on fire--the sole reliable escape from misery he had left.

[misshallery]

a list of literary references in aitsf: nirvana initiative chapter titles

tidied up this ol' twitter thread. basically: every single chapter title in aini is a reference to a work of literature, i figured out most of them. here's an explanation of where they came from and what they mean. let us begin.

edit: some gaps filled in by the discord user aaabatteries! thank you!

"a strange tale"/"dispossessed"/"alone" (chapter 0) reference 'the turn of the screw' by henry james.

the framing device of this novella is a group of friends reading a manuscript written by someone else. ryuki being interrogated by mizuki is something of a framing device for what we perceive as his 'side' of the story, six years ago. this is also a quintessential piece of gothic fiction, which is famously concerned with the subconscious and repression- two themes aitsf is very interested in!

"anyone imagines"/"ought to know" (ryuki chapter 1) reference the bible verse corinthians 8:2

"If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know"

naix is an ideology that has the power of religion over its believers. this quotation reflects that people who don't believe in the ideology who think they understand the nature of the world (and believe it's real) are ignorant to the fact it's a simulation.

"nothing to be done"/"go" (ryuki chapter 2) reference 'waiting for godot' by samuel beckett

"nothing to be done" is something of a reoccurring joke in the play. much time is spent watching characters act aimlessly, accomplish little, and lack purpose. these chapters in the game have a lot to do with ryuki feeling frustrated by tokiko's indecipherable philosophical ramblings.

"farewell"/"joy for anguish"/"smile for tears" (ryuki chapter 3) reference 'farewell' by anne bronte.

"And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?"

this poem is about the pain of saying goodbye to a loved one. of course, "saying goodbye" is a classic euphemism for death. these titles likely reference shoma reckoning with komeji's death. the joy/anguish duo are strange parallel chapters where komeji lives or dies.

"well known"/"mind of god" (ryuki c4 r1) reference 'a brief history of time' by stephen hawking

"If we do discover a theory of everything…it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."

these chapters introduce us to tearer as a character, who is, of course, closely linked to naix and their ideology. naix believe they understood the nature of human existence, and accomplished the goal of knowing 'the mind of god'.

"i found me"/"past its ken" (ryuki c4 r2) reference "the masked face" by thomas hardy

"I found me in a great surging space, I" At either end a door" ... "There once complained a goosequill pen To the scribe of the Infinite Of the words it had to write Because they were past its ken."

this poem is about people with a negative outlook who struggle to comprehend that there is more to the world than they know. shoma only believed in shallow simulation theory to justify his depression. "past its ken" means beyond one's established knowledge.

"not all a dream"/"she was the universe" (ryuki chapter 5 r1) reference "darkness" by lord byron

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd" ... "Darkness had no need Of aid from them—She was the Universe."

this poem describes an apocalypse that resembles a natural disaster. fitting that this route leads to the explosion ending, involving the collapse of the underground cave. darkness becomes "the universe"- ryuki is traumatised.

"pass mildly away"/"end where i begun" (mizuki c1) reference "a valediction: forbidding mourning" by john donne

"As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go" … "Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun."

this poem is about two lovers parting, but i think the game uses it to reflect platonic relationships. kizuna has lost bibi. bibi lost mizuki. mizuki lost date. family members who love each other deeply have been apart for a long time.

"the expense of spirit"/"hell" (mizuki chapter 3) reference sonnet 129 by william shakespeare.

"The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action..."

this poem theorises that after people satisfy their lust (their desires), they're left with shame. this could be a metaphor for chikara's experiments, but he doesn't seem to feel shame. i think it's about mizuki wanting answers about the institute until she gets them and they're painful.

"all living things"/"of arms and of man" (mizuki chapter 4 m2) references virgil's "the aenid".

"I sing of arms and of the man, fated to be an exile, who long since left the land of Troy and came to Italy to the shores of Lavinium"

i think a parallel is drawn between lien and the protag of the aenid, aeneas. he flees the fall of troy and travels to rome, becoming the original descendant of the ancient romans. lien escapes the 'tragedy' of his life of crime and becomes something of a hero to kizuna.

"who's there"/"bid the soldiers shoot" (mizuki chapter 4 m2/m3) reference the first and final lines of william shakespeare's "hamlet".

the first line is spoken by a guard who hears the ghost of hamlet sr. in this route, jin's corpse is found in the freezer... not quite a ghost. the final line is spoken by fortinbras, an invading prince, upon storming the palace and finding the corpses of the whole cast. he commands the shots to commemorate the deaths of the royalty. lien and kizuna escape among the gunfire of chieda's armed goons... some commemoration.

"all that we are" (mizuki c5 m2) is a buddha quote.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon…. If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.”

this chapter precedes gen and amame's end. gen highlights that he considers amame to be a naturally kind and loving person in a way that others haven't been towards him. this quotation implies that good things follow kind people, which doesn't follow considering the tragic end amame gets here.

"sweet silent thought" (mizuki chapter 5 m3) references shakespeare's sonnet 30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste

this poem is about regrets. when you think "sweet silent thoughts" (contemplate your life), you feel unhappy and consumed by what-ifs. interesting that this chapter is the direct opposite of the poem- lien and kizuna take their chance and run away together. no regrets!

"births"/"the end of craving" (mizuki c5 m1) is a buddha quote once more.

simply put, to reach the end of craving is to achieve the titular nirvana and a higher state of being.

"braver than all flowers" (epilogue) references "proof of immortality "by william carlos williams

"for there is one thing braver than all flowers; richer than clear gems; wider than the sky"

this is a sort of humorous poem about how the one thing that humans throughout history have in common is ignorance. maybe it's a ref to how the mizukis used their wit and investigation skills to overcome that ignorance and win the day?

"all this happened, more or less" (ryuki diverge) references the opening line of slaughterhouse-five by kurt vonnegut.

this is regarded as a crazy opening line for a crazy novel. it's the literary equivalent of "well, that happened" for better or worse, much like this ending.

the only currently missing reference is 'traveler'/'left behind'.

[greypetrel]

🙤 Enjoyable Things 🙧Rules: List five things you enjoy and pass it along!

Tagged by @shivunin and @demandthedoodles, thank you very much!! (I am an indecisive ass so limiting myself to five is... a struggle) (also am I the only one that started singing Favourite Things from Sound of Music...?)

Food. I know it will sound stereotypical as an Italian, but eating something I like gives me so much joy. I love eating and quite like cooking, even if I'm lazy. I am a vegetarian with a lactose intolerance, so I end up eating vegan most often, and I'm currently having lots of fun in trying indian recipes which are naturally vegan (or easily so substituting ghee/butter with oil)! This Baingan Bharta recipe by cooking with Manali is something that always gives me so much joy, paired with some jeera pulao!

The sea/going swimming. I don't live close to the sea unfortunately, but I spent quite a lot of time in my youth. I can dive (used to reach 10m with no oxygen back then, now I'm terribly out of shape) and I LOVE snorkeling and seeing the fishes, and when I'll be rich I'll go diving in a cage to see some sharks from up close. All marine life gives me so much joy (the jellyfishes are so pretty! From a distance).

Medieval and Contemporary History. In case you were wondering, I love history and knowing more about it, but I'm very selective when it comes to remember it. The Middle Ages and the first half of the XX century (up until the Moon landing) are my favourite periods. Oh and also Ancient Greece. LOVE Ancient Greece (with all its flaws). I love love LOVE museums. And strolling around Medieval buildings is just!!! AAAAH! The older the better, I LOVE gothic cathedrals, and those old castles! And Oooooh I'm not the biggest graveyard fan but Irish graveyards? I'd be there sketching every day, I visited some when I was there and they were so peaceful. I love trying to read the inscriptions, and they lack the baroque kitsch that I never like. (Ireland is another thing that gives me joy, I wasn't there for enough but every time it was just... Bring me back please)

Sketchbooks. I am a art supplies hoarder, but sketchbooks are the one thing I like the most. I don't go outside without one in my purse, the fact that you have a book to be filled with what you want is just HHHHHHHHHHH so nice, it gives me so much joy. I tend to be a perfectionist, but I'm slowly trying to get rid of it and just... Do it for sketches, who cares if they're ugly.

I love to glimpse of personality in art. For both books and paintings, sculptures, movies, comics... I just love when you look at some form of art and realise the little quirks, what the author didn't like to do, or what they just love. Tolkien going on for two pages to list plants in the Ithilien because he just loved greeneries. Pushkin being overly enthusiastic about feet (Pushkin was the biggest feet fetishist... And you can't hate it for it because the way he uses words...! AAAW.). Michelangelo that was perfect but couldn't bother to paint or sculpt women because he never saw a pair of boobs in his life. It's not highlighting mistakes, it's just... I think it makes authors human, and that much closer to us. What I don't miss about the academic field is this aura of sacrality about classic authors that's... Boring. I just love to spot these little things and remind myself that big ass authors/painter/artists were just humans like you and me, with all their flaws and all the things they didn't really know how to do... but did anyway. You don't need to be perfect if MICHELANGELO can allow mistakes, no?

One more: anything Tolkien. There's just something so soothing about his writing and the way he shapes stories. I know the Silmarillion is heavy but... Consider reading his shorter books. Tree and Leaf is something that always moves me to tears, and please please do yourself a favour and read his children literature. "Roverandom" is a tale he invented for his son Christopher, to soothe him when he lost his favourite toy at the beach. He invented the story of that toy, a dog, to explain to the child that oh no don't worry your toy dog, Rover, was actually a real dog turned into a toy by a wizard, he didn't get lost, he just got home! He loved you very much but he had to return a real dog you see! You helped him find his way back!

... sorry I had to include another, hope you don't mind. :P

And HELLO new followers I'm Arja and when they distributed synthetical abilities I was trying to pet a doggo.

(also doggos gives me so much joy. If the day is grey and a doggo by the street sniffs my hand and lick me or let me pet them, the day is instantly saved.)

Tagging: @salsedine @coloricioso @heniareth @melisusthewee @rowanisawriter @zenstrike @eowyn7023 (hi!) @rosella-writes @scribbledquillz @herearedragons @idolsgf

And YOU!

[moominofthevalley]

Thank you for the tags @inlocusmads and @alleykatart !! Here are three random facts (...and some bonus ones too) about me! 

This fact is very embarrassing and bisexual. In my junior year of high school, I had a very huge stupid crush on a girl in my English class. It was so bad. I cringe every time I think about it. Oh my god. I can’t stop cringing. It was so intense my top two songs on Spotify wrapped for that year (2022) were Brand New City AND Once More to See You by Mitski. I would bake for her – with her knowledge of course – at least every other week because I didn’t know how else to express my first-time sapphic yearning LOL. (Also fun fact, I came out as bi in 2018)! She drew me as a ‘thank you’ gift and I still have it hung up on my wall :’) Anyways. You do really cringy stupid shit as a high schooler. Also, I found out she did not like me back after I just spent three hours baking her a heart-shaped cake the week before Valentine’s Day. I was crushed haha. 

I’ve always loved writing and literature. In elementary school, my two best friends and I would spend every single recess and lunch break writing little stories together. One of said friends and I wrote this horrible cliche story about two twin sisters – who were essentially gothic copies of us – called Raven and Evelin Moonblood. GOD. We were super obsessed with Supernatural at the time and it was…so bad lol. I stopped writing after middle school, and I got back into it years later – in my senior year of high school, I took a creative writing course and loved it. I wrote a short story called It’ll Pass that was very obviously inspired by Fleabag and I was so proud of it. (I still am). I also wrote a short 10-minute play called Made with Love about a Filipino woman cooking her late Mom’s sinigang recipe and obviously, it inspired me to write my very first Crimes fic of the same name! 

Horror has always been my favorite genre ever. I love Asian horror films and analog horror, and even as a kid, I was super into cryptids and creepy shit like the Bermuda Triangle. It’ll always be my favorite genre to write, too, and I will GLADLY write like a thousand AUs of Emily and Trystan going through the bleakest horrific shit ever.

And some bonus mini-facts about me because I just will never shut up about myself lol…

4. The dog Emily and Trystan have, Twilight, is named after my real-life dog who looks a lot like her :) Though, mine is a pittie and not a boxer like in-game. I love her so much. She turns six in June, and every year on her birthday I cook her a little meal – usually with pumpkin puree and plain chicken. 

5. My writing routine is very annoying. I must always write at night – at least in the dark – and I have to either listen to jazz compilations on YouTube or listen to nothing at all. I usually write in my bed – which is a shit habit I’m trying to break – and I also have a horrible posture because of it lol. 

Anyways, that’s all the facts I can think of. Below is a list of tags from the top 6??? people that come up – no pressure whatsoever :) 

@jerzwriter @logolepzy @jonathanmoores @peonierose @otakudreamer @juudaimes-true-form @stars-are-within-me

[endys]

SEPTEMBER DEVLOG - Kit roadmap, summer knights and fairy tales

It's hard to believe chapter 3 of Kit released back in May. When I started developing Kit into a visual novel, I'd planned for it to only have four chapters and one character route... Now, it's looking to be about eight chapters long with four character routes--a lot more than initially planned, to say the least!

While daunting, I'm happy and excited to turn this story into the best version I can make it, and to give every character-including Kit-the depth they didn't have in the original outline. Kit is near and dear to me; it's a love letter to the wonderfully spooky world of Gothic literature, while also drawing from my personal experiences and feelings. Even if nobody else ever read or played Kit, writing it would still have value to me...

...But if you're reading this, chances are you have played Kit's demo, and thank you, once again, for giving your time to this game and story!

I mentioned last time that I was working on Anja's theme; I don't want to show it outside of the context of the scene it appears in, but I can share the introduction...

(You might hear the musical allusions in this piece, or glean them from the title...)

(I'll definitely do a devlog post just to go over the soundtrack, composition and recording process, but that'll be another day.)

So what's the plan for Kit's development?

It's roughly looking like this:

Draft out the full story, routes and endings (80k-100k words as a rough estimate)

Draw or update the character portraits into full sprites (no more floating torsos, alas) and update the UI

Release an updated demo that includes the beginning of each character's route (i.e. part or all of chapter 4) on both itch and steam

Figure out a proper title because just "Kit" is virtually ungoogleable (and Kit in the Cellar sounds like Kid in the Cellar...)

???

Finish the game

This timeline means that Kit won't have any publicly playable updates until well into 2024, and a full release even further off. I apologise to those who were looking forward to more-I hope that you'll stick around and find the wait worth it!

You won't have to wait too long for more Mistwalker stories, however...

Onto game jams and side projects!

Once upon a time Jam

Some of you may have seen this teaser already for the short point-and-click style VN I'm making. This is a standalone story, set in the same universe as Kit.

You awaken within a suit of armour, countless years after your death, in a castle lost to time and snow. 

Who were you? What happened to the castle and its inhabitants? Why was your spirit unable to pass on?

...And what drew you to not just a suit of armour, but this one?

Chapter one of my yet untitled knight game is already almost fully coded. I'll be releasing the demo this fall for Once Upon A Time VN Jam, along with a micro VN (4-5k words) loosely themed around Little Red Riding Hood!

Thanks for joining me on this update-I know it was a long one. As always, take care!

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Toady FAQ!

Hey y’all! I get a lot of the same questions (both on Tiktok and here in the bog), so I thought I’d answer a bunch of em at once! As always, if you have questions not listed here, I’m happy to chat :)

Are you going to upload/continue the 90s series? (Alternatively: Upload the 90s series. You should upload it to Tumblr. Continue the 90s series.)

With all the love in the world, no. At least not for the moment—ask me again in 6 months!

Writing that series ended up being super stressful, and I’m not super eager to get back in there at the moment. I’m worried I’d continue to carry that stress and that I’d grow to resent the story, which is not at all what I want! I also don’t want to be 8 chapters into a new piece of writing and still have people asking about the 90s series, which I hope is understandable.

By all means, save the posts from Tiktok so you can revisit them. Just please don’t post them anywhere :)

Do you have Spotify? Can you make a playlist of all the songs you used in your Tiktoks?

I’ve thought about this question a lot, and basically: you tell me.

I have a Spotify account, but haven’t shared it for privacy reasons. However, if enough people wanted it, I could be persuaded to change my username and share my playlists :)

I do think it’s fun to have music to go along with a story, and it’s actually the one thing I miss about Tiktok. So the other option would be to maybe post chapters as audio posts with the text underneath, if I can figure out how to do that?

Basically: you tell me what you think, and I’ll do it!

Will your next story feature XYZ?

It depends on your request (and, honestly, the tone in which you ask it). I’m more than happy to consider requests and suggestions, but I have two stipulations:

1. There are certain perspectives and lived experiences from which I simply cannot write accurately; if you’re asking me to write about the experiences of a marginalized group, consider that I might not be the person to portray them. On top of being in a privileged position myself, I’m also just not an experienced enough writer to properly research and depict experiences so inherently different from my own. I can definitely try my best to recommend other writers, but know that, in all things, my knowledge is limited to my own exposure and experience.

2. I cannot possibly make everyone happy. If I took every request I received, I’d end up with a disaster of a story that I wouldn’t even feel like I’d written. I need to retain some creative freedom in order for this to feel worth doing, so while I welcome suggestions please don’t be offended if I don’t take every one I see!

Any advice for people who want to major in English? What are you doing with your degree?

Yes!

Find your niche. Mine was American lit, specifically the weird stuff. The weirder the better—American Gothic, true crime journalism, 19th-century Spiritualism—you name it, I’ve written about it. If you can find a subgenre of literature that you LOVE, nothing you read or write will feel like work.

Don’t edit, rewrite! Print your draft and go over it in red pen, then re-type it with your corrections. I swear by this!

Don’t limit yourself, ever! Take classes on fantasy, sci-fi, children’s lit, climate crisis fiction, religious texts, whatever you can find. You will be better for it!

Everyone is wrong. There’s a TON you can do with an English degree. I worked in finance straight out of college—I knew nothing about business, but my degree taught me to communicate effectively and synthesize information from different sources. You have valuable skills, you just need to learn to market them! Now I’m working in my field and it’s great, but it was never the only option.

DO A STORY ABOUT X IN Y TIME PERIOD SET IN THIS SPECIFIC TOWN!

Beloved, stop yelling at me.

Can I use this as a writing prompt/write my own story/create fanart using these characters?

YES! Knock yourself out, I only ask that you tag me in the final product so I can see your lovely work and hype you up :)

Do you have book/movie/show recs that are similar to your work?

That depends! Send me a specific request (ie: MMCs with similar vibes to Jasper Stevens) and I’ll try my best to recommend you something. If I can’t think of anything, we’ll crowdsource!

[yandere-romanticaa]

hi ana! back in your inbox again for some advice... i honestly feel like you're like my distant mentor or something hehe 😅

i feel like i've been losing the gothic touch to my writing ever since i've been writing too many romcom-esque scenarios. i want to get back into it, but my brain's at a loss for how to do it. is there any books you can reccomend that i can take inspiration from?

While it is super cute to me how you view me as a mentor, save yourself. Find a better mentor because almost all of my advice is beyond basic. Just like the one I'm going to give you now.

This isn't a book but when I want to get into the proper mood to write something I usually have a playlist going on in the background and this gothic one is one of my favorites. It's a simple playlist but it gets the job done + it's not too fast paced which allows me to focus better.

The books I'd recommend you take a peak at would be Dracula by Bram Stoker, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson. All three books contain very vivid and beautiful imagery which sucks me in absolutely every time I read and the first two are just really good gothic literature and I'll never fucking shut up about them and please go read them both novels are unironically good, especially Dracula. Some people have called me boring and basic for liking classic literature but sue me™, I can't help it. Going back to the basics really is the key to everything, at least for me.

As for a Dowry of Blood, that one is a retelling of the Dracula story from the perspective of his wives but it's incredibly interesting. You can try taking inspiration from it how a darling might act towards her captor. It's also just overall really good and I think you'll just flat out like it.

[bacon-sandwich-of-dionysus]

Bloodhound. (A Ghost x AFAB!Reader fic)

Act One, Chapter Eight: A Rising Scream.

Apologies for the wait and for the brevity of this chapter!

A lot of stuff has happened lately, in the time between writing the last chapter and this one, I've passed my A-Levels, got into medical school, my nan unfortunately passed away and I've moved into my uni dorm. So yeah, a lot has happened.

Regarding my nan, she had been ill for a while and passed away peacefully in her sleep at home which was exactly what she wanted. Her funeral is happening next week and it'll be a great opportunity to say goodbye and celebrate her. She was a fab woman and I'm going to miss her.

I'll probably get even busier in the coming weeks due to fresher's period and all that so I'm super grateful for your patience and please bear with me! We're nearing the end of Act One- only two more chapters to go! 🥳

Regardless, I hope you all enjoy the continuation of this story. I had a bit of a confidence crisis writing this but I managed to overcome it and get this written how I wanted it to be written!

Warnings: Threats of violence, violence, blood, strong language and horror elements

According to Soap’s watch, it was precisely one-thirty in the morning. As quick as a whip, you turned your head around, a chill draft had crept into the barracks, setting off your senses. You sighed to yourself, gently lowering Soap’s wrist so it could hang off the edge of his bed like it had been doing before you’d arrived.

Your mind was still racing with alerts of someone’s intrusion, the hairs on the back of your neck standing starkly upright, sensitive to the slightest changes in the air behind you. The darkness of the night was slowly beginning to make sense to your eyes: the inky, oppressive mess forming coherent shapes and vague outlines.  Essentially, your world had become an array of shades of grey. Your lip curled as a sharp thought pinched your brain. You spun around, standing up from your crouched position, looking about like a lone little deer. With how scared you were, presuming your quarry was a lamia, which you prayed it was, you wouldn’t be surprised if she could sense your dread. It was practically oozing out of every pore, your heart in the back of your throat, your lungs burning with sharp inhalations as you gulped down the stuffy air around you.

You rubbed your bare arms, keeping them close to your body, in a weak attempt to self-soothe once more. Perhaps you should arm yourself? Yes. Yes, good idea! Feet tiptoed towards your bed, where your belongings were. You knelt down and your eyes caught the shining glimpse of your hepta-plate. Like shimmering drops of moonlight peeking through that unzipped duffel bag of yours, your eyes couldn’t ignore the shimmers. The actual moon hung brightly in the night sky above you, casting beams through any and all windows, which your armour was quick to pick up and respond to, reflecting its rays aimlessly, with no wearer to instruct it how to use the light properly.

The barracks almost look like something out of a gothic novel, the streams of light crisscrossing over each other, pouring in from opposite windows; the slumbering soldiers atop their beds, arranged in rows, like church pews, marking out an aisle between them. You couldn’t help but be fascinated, your surroundings reminding you of those books you had to read for literature studies back in the Red Room. You were fed all kinds, from modern classics like Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’, to something more to your taste such as ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’.

‘Dracula’ was an interesting one. Your overseer reminded you of the character. Regal, elegant, but disturbingly savage. He somehow managed to muddy the waters of affection and violence, between what was appropriate and what was not. He had made you feel so… weak.

You sort of resented how he let you live, abandoning you on the soil that night, letting you bleed out.

His masked face flashed before your eyes as you peered into your duffel bag. You staggered backwards, gasping. Maybe you should just take your rifle and leave the horrors alone to mingle with your luggage. Swiping your rifle from its resting place, leaning against the foot of your bed, you spun on your heel to make your way out.

Eyes fixed on the floor, you watched one foot move to take a step, followed by the other. One. Two. One. Two. One. Two. Occupied by the rhythm, you felt your bubbling mind begin to simmer down and hoped that would allow your presence to shrink away and blend into the collective of sleeping soldiers. Minds together formed a hive of sorts… Well, that’s how you would describe it. You could tell who you knew and who you didn’t, however, there were ways of blending in. The best way was to keep calm. You found yourself doing Gaz’s breathing exercises he had taught you the other day when you tried doing some yoga with him and… Rudy, was it? Yeah. That was his name!

One. Two. One. Two. One. Two.

As you were about to take another step, a third foot planted itself firmly between both of yours. You were taken aback. Startled, you looked up to see who was blocking your path.

It was Sergeant Gaz.

Relief swept over you.

“Good evening…” you greeted, smiling weakly.

More like morning, really. Ugh! Dang it!

Gaz raised an eyebrow, suspicion so obvious on his face that it could be seen a mile away.

“Watcha doing?” Gaz asked, cringing a little as he heard his voice bounce off the walls of the barracks, the silence of the night seemingly magnifying the volume of his speech tenfold.

You reminded him of a fox who had just been spotted skulking around in the early hours of the morning by an unexpected human; all eyes and frozen on the spot, the only indication of the fact you were a living thing and not some statue being the rapid risings and fallings of your chest.

“Uh…” Your eyes briefly wandered around as you searched for a good enough excuse. “Toilet?”

Gaz wasn’t convinced.

“Y/N, you should probably head back to bed and rest up. You know, I overheard Ghost telling Soap that he’d caught you wandering about last night… and the night before.”

You sighed.

“I can’t sleep.”

Gaz’s face softened for a moment. However, soon, he resumed a more authoritative look when he spotted the assault rifle hanging off your body. He tensed a little, adjusting the grip on his own firearm, shining the torch more towards your face.

“Y/N, what are you up to?”

“I’m off to go find whoever slipped into the base earlier today.”

“Y/N-”

He made to grab your arm, but you shrugged him off.

“Don’t try to dissuade me! I can sense them!”

You didn’t even bother looking back, ready to march off, your hunt being both a means of securing your temporary home and an act of protest against those who were sceptical of you.

“Really?”

You halted in your tracks. Slowly, you turned around to face the sergeant.

He sounded strangely… earnest. Did he… Did he believe you?

“Can you actually sense them?”

Shyly, you nodded.

“How?”

A small smile appeared on your face.

“I know what everyone’s minds are like here,” you explained, “Each of you have a particular… well, I don’t want to say ‘scent’ but it’s like that.”

Gaz chuckled, unsure of what to make of that but supposed it sort of made sense. You paused, a glint of worry appearing in your eyes as you watched Gaz’s disposition change.

“Go on, Y/N,” he encouraged with a smile.  

“Okay,” you continued, a little surprised by his want to try to understand, “Um… So, being here, I’ve figured out what the base’s minds are like and how they mix. Someone, this morning, didn’t belong to the collective. They’re setting off alarm bells in my head. They don’t mean well.”

“And you can just know this because…”

“…I’m a lamia. It’s my job. It’s my nature,” you said, finishing his sentence.

“I see. Well, you’ll probably need someone to watch your six.”

Gaz smiled, gesturing to his armed self.

You couldn’t help but grin in reply, gesturing for him to follow you.

The halls were deathly silent, only the sounds of your footsteps and the faint outside world contributed to the melody of the nighttime ambience. You were doing your best to keep your breaths as even and as quiet as possible, despite the fact it was making your chest feel awfully tight. Your body was so tense: every step intentional, every heartbeat made with the hopes of being slower and more controlled than the previous one, and every thought produced was dulled down so as not to alert your quarry.

Gaz couldn’t deny that he was fascinated by the way you moved, it was steady, eerily calm and above all, focused. Unlike him. The sergeant had found himself looking this way and that, a little flustered but keeping to his word: watching your back.

This new base the Vaqueros had made a home in was undoubtedly haunting, Gaz couldn’t deny it. It was an old base, probably patched together in the forties or even earlier, with bits of paint flaking off the walls, creaking doors and windows that looked as though their panes were always on the verge of falling out of their frames. His big brown eyes were instinctually drawn to the windows, where moonlight spilt into the space, trying to brush every crevice with its silver stain. The ceiling was high, and the width of the corridor was narrow, like the gut of some emaciated snake.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The rhythm of anticipation.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

You gripped your gun fervently, keeping it close to you. An adrenaline-fuelled, almost gleeful, shudder ran through you. It was… well, you hated to admit it, but it was almost relieving in a way. You had spent the past few days worrying and waiting for the inevitable and it had come. You weren’t necessarily ready - I mean, who can be ready for the Foundation - but you weren’t as scared as you thought you’d be. Perhaps it was because this wasn’t shocking. They had come, as expected, to take what was theirs.

“I am neither good nor evil. Simply, I am.”

The heart of the Foundation’s motto sang in the echoey chambers of your skull. It had been recited to you in assemblies, recited to you in training, recited to you during your transfusion and during your beatings. When you found yourself sitting there, looking at the Foundation’s collective hand, awaiting to be shaped like clay into what they wanted, they recited that motto to you. They simply were and they would continue to simply be: saints to those who needed their services and cruel tyrants to those they sold as part of them. The Foundation was so shapeless, so distant, and yet, ever-present. They posed a type of horror you couldn’t quite articulate. They didn’t care for you and yet, they wanted to drag you back to the Red Room, not giving a damn if it had to be done with you kicking and screaming. They treasured you enough to nourish you, educate you, and give you lovely clothes, but they also pushed you to the brink, took away your autonomy, and lashed out at you and your fellow lamias even if you weren’t at fault.

“Neither good nor evil.”

You couldn’t help but feel your throat tighten a little as you and Gaz rounded a corner, making for the canteen. The was something different in the air, something which grew stronger as you headed for the mess hall. She was here. Or at least you hoped she was. Turning around, you waved to get Gaz’s attention. He looked at you, furrowing his brows. However, soon, they would be raised in fearful dread as he watched you point your finger to the open doorway.

“Are they in there?” Gaz mouthed, already knowing the answer but being afraid to have it confirmed.

“I think so,” you mouthed back.

Gaz readied his weapon, taking in a deep breath and ensuring his torchlight wasn’t going to be in the line of view for whoever was lurking in the canteen. He nodded at you, and you gave a thumbs-up. Then, you began to count down on your fingers.

Three… Two… One…

WHOOSH!

You both leapt from around the corner, planting your feet firmly on the ground. Both of you looked this way and that, dousing whatever you looked at in the white lights of your torches. You looked down the barrel of your firearm, finger hovering over the trigger, itching to land a bullet in your prey. She was here. You could sense her now, somewhat even build a picture in your mind. It was a lamia, older than you expected, and a little… well, you didn’t want to use the term ‘weak’ per se, but she had clearly not used her abilities in a while. Especially, if you had caught on to her so quickly.

You would be feeling quite chuffed if you hadn’t realised that she wasn’t actually in the canteen anymore.

The moment you began looking around the servery, the scent had gone cold. You muttered a curse under your breath, trying to find her mind amidst the horde of dreamers.

“Y/N!”

You turned around as Gaz lightly tapped your shoulder.

“What is it?”

“There.”

“What?”

“There!”

He pointed to the doorway from whence you came. Following the line of his outstretched arm, focusing your eyes on exactly where his index finger was pointing, you could make out a figure. She was faint, a ghostly apparition amidst the fuzzy darkness. She looked almost transparent. You held your mouth agape, frozen on the spot.

Just as she was.

Valeria knew you both had seen her. Desperately, she tried to will herself into obscurity once more. It was going to be a struggle. Once seen, Valeria knew she most likely couldn’t be unseen.

“Are you seeing this?” Gaz whimpered, unsure if he should shine his light at the spirit haunting the doorway.

You nodded, staring into Valeria’s soul. She was flitting between being a solid form and something less material, your mind trying to ascertain her reality while hers cried out that she was not there. She clung to the doorframe, unsure if she should move or remain deathly still.

Gaz’s gaze went from you to Valeria and then back to you. The tension in the air was palpable. Your eyes were fixed on her, pupils blown out to their full diameter, threatening to consume your irises whole. That look on your face, she could recognise it through the murk, it was an expression that she once bore: the alert, focused face of a lamia ready to strike. Valeria’s heart skipped a beat or two.

All she needed to do was leave unscathed, without a trace, and she was failing miserably.

No matter, she sighed to herself, it’s already done.

Valeria could still taste Simon’s blood at the back of her throat. His metallic stain lingered on her tongue, mingling with her spit, so that with every nervous gulp, more and more of him would become part of her.

It was disgusting.

Both what she had done and the nature of the action itself. Who would’ve thought that a single bite, a single drop of the Foundation’s ‘delectable’ formula, could bear such a heavy weight on her? Valeria never thought of herself as one with a guilty conscience and yet, here she was, in blood, stepped in so far that she could wade no more.

A shudder ran through you and Valeria’s body stiffened further. You could sense something was wrong. You could sense she had done something wrong.

“What have you done?” you hazarded to ask.

She remained silent, much to your chagrin.

“Answer me! What have you done?! I can see it. You’re flitting between here and the barracks. What have you done?!”

Before Valeria Garza was someone she had not expected to find. When she had first heard the word ‘renegade’, she had initially thought you’d be a sheepish, snivelling mess. A caricature of a victim. Now, however, she saw what you really were: angry… but not to a fault, not yet anyways. Anger could be honed, could be wielded.

Yes, she could feel some of her guilt slipping away a little, you’ll fix this.

As much as Valeria wanted to take a moment for herself to scream away her grotesque feelings of self-loathing and abhorrence regarding the fact she had just added Ghost to the Foundation’s arsenal, the woman knew she’d have no time for that. You were here right now, and she needed to grab hold of you, point you in the right direction and pray you’d stay on your course.

“Look, I need you to-”

SLAM!

By a mere hair, Valeria dodged your attack. At a frighteningly fast speed, you had lunged at her. Having sorely missed, you ended up finding yourself crashing into the wall. Your firearm fell to the floor with a loud clatter, the buckle of its strap having given way as you collided with the mass of plaster, brick and paint.

“Y/N!”

Gaz suddenly sprung to life and ran after you, instinctually, not thinking straight… Only for a strong hand to stop him in his tracks. The intruding lamia had grabbed his wrist and then proceeded to throw him to the floor.

Valeria grinned under her mask, watching Gaz stare at her like she was something beyond his understanding. His eyes were as wide as saucers, his mouth slightly agape. He scrambled back, trying to regain his footing.

This lamia was stronger than she looked, stronger than Gaz for sure. It was unnerving. Sure, the man had seen supernatural strength displayed in films and television but to be at the receiving end, to see what it looked like in real life… It had shaken him in a way he didn’t think it would. Gaz had thought he was acquainted with the idea of this, but reality had shown him otherwise. To be thrown onto the ground, discarded like a minor inconvenience, as an SAS soldier, by something other than a machine or explosive, something supposedly human, it made Gaz feel incredibly… small.

He felt as though he had been stripped of his firearm, his training, and his courage. All things that made Gaz a good soldier had just been trampled and spat on by this lamia.

“This is between me and my sister, soldier. Stay.”

Valeria couldn’t help but find a little joy in watching him be dumbfounded by her. She was in desperate need of that ego boost. 

Turning her attention back to you, Valeria watched as you regained your footing, groaning in pain. That slam was going to leave a foul bruise. If she wanted to keep Gaz on the ground, she needed to give him an excuse not to fire his gun, and that excuse would be keeping you as close to her as possible. The melding of you both into a single target was currently Valeria’s priority and she knew it was going to be a challenge.

You had a fire in your eyes, even in the dark, she could make out your primal anger. You were going to fight like a mad cat.

Valeria scoffed as you snarled.

However, her confidence soon would falter as she narrowly dodged another strike to her face. As Valeria tried to regain her footing, you landed a kick to her stomach.

Oh, it was on now!

She staggered backwards, a wave of wooziness taking hold of her. Uncertain but uncaring as to whether it was the remnants of the Foundation’s formula or the shock from just how strong you were, Valeria growled and quickly rearranged her footing. She grabbed hold of you, by both your arms, and headbutted you. A fountain of blood came spurting from your nose as your head was thrown back. As you raised your head to look up at her with defiance, she quickly punched you down. Spit and blood splattered the floor as you fell to your knees.

“You need to listen!”

Her words fell on deaf ears, and you grabbed her legs, dragging her down to your level.

Meanwhile, Gaz was shakily trying to point his weapon at your assailant. He smiled, managing to get a lock on Valeria, only for you and her to swap places. You writhed against her grip, screaming at her. A chill ran through him as the other lamia briefly looked at him and then, keeping an iron-grip on you, spun you around so your back was lined up with his barrel.

Shit!

You turned, realising what the bitch was doing, and using her own hold on you against her, rocked backwards, using your feet to push her upwards and launch her over you.

She fell face-first into the ground. Valeria gasped for air, getting her bearings.

Then, your shadow appeared, casting her in darkness.

You raised your foot, ready to cave her skull in with a stomp.

Luckily, she rolled out of the way and grabbed your ankle, causing you to become off-balance. You fell to the floor.

You propped yourself up with your hands, pressing down onto the ground with a fervour you were certain wasn’t necessary. Despite this, your body felt unnaturally heavy. You were panting, viscous red hanging in strings, clinging to your lower lip for dear life. A firm hand grabbed some of your hair, forcing you to look up at the concealed face of your current punisher.

“RAAAARGH! LET GO OF ME!”

You writhed and wriggled.

Gaz’s heart was beating at a rate of knots. He couldn’t let this happen. He couldn’t shoot, however.

As he made to strike the lamia on the back of her head, she grabbed him yet again, and this time, by his throat. She had both you and Gaz in each hand, holding you both in place with uncanny ease.

“LET GO!” you screeched, tears streaming down your face.

Valeria could see herself in you. See your fear. She knew that feeling all too well, and she felt a little bad that she’d be subjecting you to further anguish. However, Gaz right now was an inconvenience; what she needed to say had to be uttered in confidence. The sergeant was an obstacle.

You had underestimated her. Severely underestimated her. She was strong and you were panicking.

Gaz struggled for breath, trying to swipe at the lamia’s face as her grip tightened.

“STOP! STOP! PLEASE!” you squealed.

She turned and looked back at you, her head tilting to one side as she saw your glossy, pleading eyes trying to find hers behind the mask.

“STOP!”

You were losing yourself as you saw Gaz’s eyes begin to roll into the back of his head.

“NO! NO! STOP IT, SISTER! DON’T-”

He succumbed to it, his body going limp. The soldier was released from her grip and fell to the ground. His breaths now soft and even.

Valeria sighed, a wave of exhaustion taking her by surprise. She released you too, bringing her hands to her temples. You took the opportunity to rise up from under her and pin the cruel bitch to the floor. She yelped in surprise.

“Wake him up! Wake him up, now!” you demanded.

It was her turn to writhe and wriggle.

“DO IT!”

“You need to listen!” she rasped out, “They’re here. In the woods. There’s a whole pack and they’re coming for you.”

Up until that point, your face had been creased and vicious, your nose scrunched up, drawn towards your eyes. Now, it softened, relaxed. Angry crevices disappeared, giving way to surprise and curiosity. Your lips were gently parted, ragged breaths becoming a little more stable.

“What?”

“They’re already here. They’ve come for you, and they’ll take this whole base with them if you’re not careful.”

You let out a shaky sigh and gently released her.

“Why are you telling me this?”

She took a moment to craft her answer as she rose to an upright seated position, nursing her shoulder.

“Does it matter? You know what you have to do,” she replied matter-of-factly.

You sunk a little, your posture becoming slumped. You rested on your heels, your hands hanging limp in front of you, fingers curling towards your palms. You… you were trying to process this. You didn’t know what to think.

Slowly, you looked over to an unconscious Gaz.

“We’re so strong compared to them. And then Arcadian Sons make us feel so puny,” Valeria lamented.

“I need to wake him up.”

“More like you need to pack your shit and go.”

You shot her a dirty look, however, the malice in your visage soon dissipated. Instead, you opted to just sit in silence. You still couldn’t understand why she was telling you this. She wore the Foundation’s armour. Sure, it looked cobbled together, no doubt they were parts from a spare kit, but you could spot fresh equipment from a mile away. This wasn’t a rogue. This was someone in service.

“Are you going to tell me about why your mind keeps reflecting on the barracks? You were there for a while. I can tell.”

She looked at you sheepishly, quick to avert your gaze. Eventually, though, she mustered the courage and energy to confess.

“I was sent here to-”

She was interrupted by a crescendo of footsteps. You both could see the growing intensity of torchlights emerging as their bearers drew nearer, bouncing down the halls, in time with the drumming of heavy boots. Shadows of men littered the walls.

“GAZ! Y/N!” Price’s signature gruff voice called from the oncoming mob.

“Y/N!” Ghost’s roar could be felt in your chest.

Reflexively, Valeria double-tapped on her chest plate and vanished as soon as they arrived. With you being distracted, slipping out of sight was going to be a piece of cake.

“No! Wait!” You shouted as you turned back and around and reached forth… only to find yourself grasping at air.

Hanging your head low, you drew your hands close to your chest as they cast shadows over you and Gaz.

“What the fuck…” Soap looked around for clues as to what exactly happened here.

Before the men was a scene they couldn’t quite understand. How had this played out? The only indicators available was your bloodied self, Gaz strewn across the floor, cradling his gun, and… that was pretty much it.  

Price immediately rushed to Gaz’s side, listening in for his breathing. Once he heard Gaz’s slow, unusually relaxed inhalations and exhalations, the old man let out a sigh of relief. He removed the firearm from Gaz’s grip. Then, he looked over to you, eyes slightly narrowed.

You swallowed hard.

“What happened here?”

“I…”

Would they even believe you if you told them the truth? Would Gaz even remember this and back you up?

[duckprintspress]

Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributor Zel Howland

We’re solidly through the first week of the crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, Aether Beyond the Binary. We’re 55% funded (yay!) and inching toward our goal slowly but surely (I post daily funding goals and progress toward them on our Bluesky account, if you’re curious). The campaign ends on January 25th, 2024; between then and now, we need to raise $6,038 more to fund the publishing of this awesome collection of modern aetherpunk stories staring characters outside the gender binary!

Today, we introduce the fifth of our 17 authors: Zel Howland!

About Zel Howland: Zel (they/she) is a writer and artist currently living in Los Angeles with their partner. When not writing, they spend their time painting, embroidering, analyzing literature and tv shows, and playing Dungeons & Dragons. They are the author of many a fanfiction, as well as the novel The Shadow of Ophelia Walker.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

This is Zel’s third publication with Duck Prints Press. Her short story Chrysopoeia (dark fantasy, f/f) is available at duckprintspress.com and her story The Lightkeeper and the Sea (dark modern fantasy, f/nb) is a Patreon exclusive. Both stories are in the Contributor Short Story Bundle campaign add-on! Learn more about Zel’s publishing career.

An Interview with Zel Howland

When and why did you begin creating?

I was always a voracious reader as a kid, and that sort of naturally lead to me trying to write my own stories. When I was about ten or eleven, I came up with a story that borrowed heavily from the Chronicles of Narnia, and I even managed to eke out 75 pages of bad, bad writing before getting discouraged. I still came back to writing though, and the intervening years of practice and failure taught me a lot about my craft and myself.

Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?

Planner, definitely! I spend as much time worldbuilding and outlining as I do actually writing. I usually have 3-4 outlines for each story (sometimes more for novels!), starting with a brainstorm outline, then getting gradually more detailed until the final outline functions almost as a first draft. They said make your first drafts shitty, and I really took that advice and ran with it.

What’s your favorite part of the creation process?

For writing, I love the first draft–or for me, also known as my final outline. I really love putting the story down on the page in all its messy glory, without the pressure of having to come up with the perfect turn of phrase or spending hours buried in a thesaurus. For art, rendering light and shadows will always be my favorite part. I love taking something flat and turning it into a three-dimensional object with just a little bit of time and care.

What are your favorite tropes?

I really love stories about the Other, whether they’re full horror or exploring other aspects of it. In school I took a class on Gothic Literature that stuck with me so much that I look for character mirroring and fear of the Other in everything I read or watch–there’s more than you might think, even in the most tame narratives! As far as fic goes, mutual pining is what I live and breathe–the kind where both characters are convinced the other doesn’t even like them. I love pretty much every trope that follows from that, from fake relationships to two person love triangles.

What are your favorite character archetypes?

I’ve always loved the manipulative types, especially hyper-competent ones. Characters that aren’t necessarily physically skilled or popular, but who have managed by way of a powerful intellect to pull all the strings so that everyone else is dancing to their tune. I especially love it when these characters aren’t unrepentantly evil, or even villains (although a good villain in this vein is pretty damn fun).

What are your favorite resources and tools for your craft?

I will always, always tout Scrivener as the best writing software available, period. It has so many different functionalities that I couldn’t possibly list them all, and probably don’t even know them all! My favorite functions are the corkboard for brainstorming, the split screen and reference pop-out for easy access to previous drafts or outlines, and the folders where I can organize my many, many outlines and resources without worrying about finding them again. For digital art, I’ve recently begun playing around with Rebelle, and I really love it. I’ve always been more comfortable with physical mediums, and Rebelle replicates both the feel and the look of mediums like oil or watercolor while maintaining the functionality of digital art (undo button and layers, my beloved). I’m still learning, but so far it’s been perfect for me.

What’s your favorite medium to work in? Why?

I love oil painting! It’s a very forgiving medium to work with–plus it has such a good texture, and there’s so much about mixing paint and doing glazes that are meditative and peaceful.

Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?

I really love the story I produced for Aether Beyond the Binary. I came into writing it after three years of chronic illness that kept me from writing at all, and I think the silver lining was that I was able to come at the concept and the story from a different direction than I normally would have. Plus, it was my first time writing from the perspective of a character with the same gender identity as me, which felt like a boulder being lifted from my shoulders!

If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?

Learn the rules, and then break them! Understanding why certain conventions are popular and always recommended will ultimately help you figure out the best way to ignore the recommendations altogether, and find your own way of doing things.

Zel’s Contribution to Aether Beyond The Binary 

Title: Flower and Rot

Art – Zel did art to accompany this story (will not be included in the published anthology, but still, look at it, it’s so cool and shiny!!!).

Tags: bipoc, body horror (graphic descriptions), break-up (past), california, character injury (serious), death of a parent (past), found family, jewish, los angeles, magic use, modern with magic, mystery, natural disaster, non-binary, past tense, pov first person, private investigator, second chances, self-esteem issues, suicide (mentions of), systemic inequality, telepathic bond, trans man, undeath, united states of america

Excerpt:

Four dozen minds linked by Aether watched me through thousands of leaves and roots and flowers as I hurried away. Their attention bored into my back right up to the moment I switched off the Aethercoil and the flow of Aether abruptly stopped. The grove became just an unusually lush garden. I was alone once more.

The thing growing inside my eye stopped too, but I couldn’t afford to hope that it had shriveled away without Aether to feed it. My vision was still cloudy in that eye, and the whole area was delicate and tender.

Spitting rain formed halos around the streetlights as I reached the drugstore parking lot. I clumsily fished for my keys with my left hand, keeping the right firmly covering my eye. My shitty sedan was the only car in the lot, but I checked every line of sight around me before stepping into the driver’s seat. I was pretty sure I was alone.

I couldn’t take the chance that I was wrong.

I already knew what I would see, but I had to know how fucked I was. I pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror.

Rot.

Intrigued? You’ll have to buy the anthology to read more! Come check out our Kickstarter campaign!!

[kill-worthy]

Romanticizing Lord Byron

Lord Byron was the original Don Juan. Coincidentally, he also wrote a satirical poem about Don Juan. I suspect that it was because he felt a kinship with the Don Juan character and wanted to, "set the record straight" for all "sexually charged humans".

My discovery of Lord Byron came about because of my interest in gothic or "penny dreadful" tales. In a single youth-filled summer I read, Vampyre by John William Polidori, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Carmilla by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

My copy of Vampyre came from a local thrift store. Inside the book was a folded printout (that I have since lost) of information akin to the following:

In June of 1816, an eclectic group gathered at the summer residence of famed poet Lord Byron in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. The group consisted of Byron’s mistress Jane Clairmont, her step-sister Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. They joined Byron and John Polidori, a doctor, who were already present, for a nice summer holiday. The weather was uncharacteristically bad, however, and, unable to enjoy outdoors activities, the group began reading German ghost stories. A crowd with such literary minds could not be constrained to simply read such stories, and a challenge was raised amongst the group to write their own supernatural tales. Clairmont and Shelley didn’t finish anything; Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, eventually to become Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein. Lord Byron wrote a fragment known as Augustus Darvell. John Polidori produced the nightmarish short story The Vampyre. - skullsinthestars

It made me curious who this Lord Byron was. He was indirectly responsible for two pieces of literature that left an impression on me. Also, it could be argued that without the book Vampyre, neither Carmilla or Dracula would have been written.

I digress, after some research, I found that he was this gloriously eccentric, club-footed, damaged human being. His words bespoke romance, but the man behind it was all madness.

Apparently, I have a taste for madness.

He drank his wine from a human skull. He swam the Turkish Hellspont -- a four mile stretch of water now called the Dardanelles. His father went by the name "Mad Jack" and Byron liked to tell people that his father died by slitting his own throat. He had a coffin in his dining room. He used his ancestor's bones as flower pots and his daughter was the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace.

While studying at Cambridge, Lord Byron learned that he could not have his dog Smut (yes, that was his dog's name) stay in his dorm. Infuriated with the Cambridge rule on canines, he acquired a bear and proceeded to walk it around campus. There was of course no rule against bears. He even tried to get the bear enrolled as a student.

In a letter, a friend wrote about time he spent with Byron;

Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes. - Wikipedia

I am not saying that I romanticize the poet. I just think he bucked at convention. I romanticize the idea that he built his own path, and perhaps, I believe we all could be a little more like him in that way. With a bit less human bones of course.

[obsoleteozymandias]

hi there! i'd like to request a twisted wonderland matchup for if that's alright. please do not match me with the first years.

my info is as follows: pronouns: she/her/they/them gender: female personality indicators: intj 5w4 ; melancholic-choleric signs: pisces sun / taurus rising / taurus moon hogwarts house: ravenclaw alignment: neutral good alignment

personality: studious, business-minded, tech-savvy, a little bit of a perfectionist, tends to overwork, stubbornly independent, calm and composed, intimidating at first glance (according to colleagues), reserved and extremely introverted, protective to loved ones, obedient and respectful to authorities but will not hesitate to call them out if necessary, blunt, idealistic, highly organised, loves to play video games or read and write books on spare time, passionate, drawn to mysterious, historical, gothic, and horror subjects

hobbies + likes: researching abandoned and haunted places, writing, reading, exams, stationery, business-related topics (esp finance), coffee shops, bookstores and libraries, electronic shops, technology, video games, dark royalty / dark academia aesthetic, classical literature, classical music, detective/crime/mystery/horror stories (esp. from 19th century), cats, history

dislikes: bugs, studying repetitive subjects without gaining new knowledge, failure to meet own expectations, unnecessary change

partner preference: someone gentle yet authoritative, smart/highly intelligent and has a lot of knowledge generally or on a certain subject

traits that are good for a relationship: trust for one another, determining and accomplishing responsibilities

that's all, thank you!

-🍓🔮 (strawberry crystal) anon

We are similar people and it’s a bit scary anon.

== Twisted Wonderland ==>

I match you up with…

Trey Clover

You want someone mature, smart, and an all-around dream boyfriend? Look no further than Trey!

Trey and you would take your time to build your relationship: the two of you are wary of someone who is keen to all your private details, and you’re both a bit reserved. But once you get to know him, and vice versa, you are a POWER COUPLE. 

He’s willing to give his 100% to you, and he’ll never betray your trust. Similarly, he’ll expect the same of you. He can be authoritative, but he’ll always make sure you know the two of you are equals, and that he values your opinions and ideas. 

He’s the perfect study partner, but when you spend long nights studying alone, he’ll make sure to bring you snacks and remind you to take care of yourself, and at the end of the day, he’ll be waiting with open arms for the two of you to get some rest together. 

He’ll be all for explaining his love of dentistry to you, and he’ll adore when you tell him new things. The two of you will walk around campus hand-in-hand, simply talking about your interests, and the conversation never runs dry. 

He is terrified of horror movies and subjects, so whenever it’s your turn to choose a film to watch, he’ll be huddled up at your side, covering his eyes. Despite this, he loves every second you two spend together. 

Y’all are gonna be that perfect old married couple, and it will be wonderful.