#Orby//Story time
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How would you describe Claudette Orbison personality and what would have happened if she lived longer
Dang, what a coincidence, I was just thinking about Claudette, yesterday! Which, admittedly, I don't often do.
Elis Amburn's book, portrays her as a troubled young woman, troubled because of how Roy treated her. The good, and bad. Like, Roy spoiling her, and then up and leaving for long periods of time.
The thing I thought about was her age, when they got together. I can't recall precisely, 12 - 15? She wouldn't have had much of a personality by then, I mean, we all had personalities, when we were those ages. But to be sexually objectified at such a young age, just for being pretty, has gotta affect that process too.
Which is why I think she didn't get the chance to have to have individuality, which affected her personality.
In the book I previously mentioned, and Carl Perkins' Book ("Go, Cat, Go!"), she was described as "spoiled and lazy," by Carl's wife Valda. For not tending to her own children or helping with chores when Claudette and Roy stayed with them, when her and Carl already had four children, which led to Valda wanting them out. Yet Elis, I believe at one point says she didn't do chores because she never learned to do them by the time she married Roy. As she was still a child.
A lot of Claudette's "unlikable", I use quotations because some may view her actions as such, behavior could be chalked up to her being an immature person - Because she was! Girl, didn't even have friends, a chance to grow up, and loved a man who was only around sometimes when she needed him there more, especially to raise three kids.
I imagined since she was so lonely, to have cheated, well, one of two things could've happened. Either she'd leave him or he'd leave her. But it was a toxic relationship, even for as much love as they had for each other because both were possessive. For Roy, I think more so due to having thrown that pistol into the Hendersonville lake, so he wouldn't do something, he'd regret. While, Claudette's possessiveness was rooted in childish jealousy since she met Roy when her brain was still developing.
Ultimately, something would've happened to cause them to divorce, I think. But if she got to live her own life, like Johnny Cash's wife Vivian, got to. Well, I can't help thinking or hoping, she would've got to be happier. 27!! That's too young, and she could've had a life outside of Roy with her sons. Which, also, who knows how she would've spoken about Roy, and their time together.
Outside of how she was badly described, I would describe Claudette as funny, and could be brash and crude betraying her pretty looks, patient and protective of her loved ones. She was fashionable, trendy, and likely used clothing and house decorating to express herself. She lacked self-confidence, pinning too much on Roy. When he kicked her out, along with the boy's, all else she had was her parents. Getting a job or starting a life of her own probably felt impossible, and she was used to living comfortably.
I think she was a sweet girl, ignorant, and desired love and attention. While also being mean girlish, calling Roy ugly, and stating she was glad the boy's looked more like her, even if it was from a place of affection. She was still a loving mother, and babied Wesley the most when he was a baby. She was immature, petty, and childish because she was still emotionally a child. So, the troubled image Elis created of her rings true, she was a troubled young woman because of how Roy treated her, the good and the bad.
Thank you for sending this question! It was a nice reprive to answer it.
FB: Emily Orbison, source.
#Roy Orbison#Claudette Orbison#All this talk about them has got me looking at Roy now like “go away!” 🤣#Sun//Orby#Orby//Story time#Asks#Answered#//Myposts#Elis Amburn
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this is how the goncharovposting makes me feel
#goncharov#i assume this has been done already but w/e#btw you (yes YOU) should read Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges#it is my favorite short story of all time#and there are several requests for it in yuletide this year!
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Cracked Clay Cup Chapter 4
Phic Phight Phic! @greatbigolhampuckjustforme
“Ughh,” said Danny, falling onto Clockwork’s couch.
Yes. Danny. Despite Jazz lying to him a lot, the name had grown on him. She wasn’t bad. Just. Bad at lying. And sort of… constantly suspicious. And definitely not his mother. He was pretty sure she cared about him. No one who didn’t care about him would push schoolwork that hard.
Unless she’d been trying to harvest his brain.
Yeah, he’d sort of decided that wasn’t what was going on by the end of the second day. It was still kind of fun to say. Jazz’s face had made some very funny movements when he brought it up. It was kind of… endearing. Yeah.
“Hello, Daniel,” said Clockwork. “I take it you had a good time with Miss Jasmine.”
“It was… A time. I think she did know me before. She had a lot of funny stories from when I was a kid. And she had a really nice bedroom for me. They do their own decorating, right?”
“They acquired and furnished the homes you will be staying in from their own resources, but they may have hired decorators.”
“Okay. She had very strong opinions about schoolwork.”
“You will find that many of your potential guardians have strong feelings regarding your education.”
“Great,” said Danny. He rubbed his face. “Now what? Do I just jump right into the next one, or do I get, like, a grace period or something?”
“You can take as long to recover from your experience as you’d like.” He sounded amused. “You don’t need to push yourself.”
“Mhm,” said Danny. He stared up at the ceiling. “Can I see the list again?”
Clockwork set the folder gently down on his lap.
“Thanks,” said Danny, opening the folder. “I was thinking about going to the other extreme this time around. The oldest. Which page are they?”
“Green,” said Clockwork.
Danny looked up. Clockwork’s tone had seemed… off. But his expression wasn’t any different. What Danny could see of it, anyway. He’d turned slightly away, so he only saw the edge of his face.
He looked back at the manilla folder and the green piece of paper.
“So,” he said, “ do you know this… Oculus and Orbis? Those are kind of weird names. Maybe not too weird for ghosts, though. Oculus and Orbis. Eye… and also eye. Wow. Wonder if I’m going from someone who wants to steal my brains to someone who wants to steal my eyes.”
“They won’t try to steal your eyes.”
That sounded unconvincing in the extreme.
“Are you sure?”
“Relatively so.” That actually sounded rather threatening. Danny gave him another look, but, again, he seemed fine. Mostly fine.
“So… Married couple. That’s different. Maybe they’ll be more like grandparents? Interests… Coloring. I guess they mean, like, adult coloring books? That’s pretty cool, I didn’t mind drawing at Jazz’s. Watching… I think they must have left something off here, it just says watching. Watching… Sunsets? TV? Movies?”
“You will have to wait and see,” said Clockwork as he adjusted a painting on the wall. It was of something generic and pastoral, but it was nice.
“And… ew. Astrology. Do they really like astrology?”
“I can only refer you back to the information sheet.”
“Okay,” said Danny. “Fortune telling isn’t real, right?”
“It depends on your point of view.”
“You can time travel, right?”
“That is within my powerset, yes.”
“Huh,” said Danny. “So, you could see the future.”
“I could,” said Clockwork. “To some degree.”
“So, you already know who I will pick.”
“Not exactly,” said Clockwork. “Time follows a somewhat more complicated path than that of an arrow.”
“An arrow’s path doesn’t have to be simple, anyway. It bends, because of gravity. Unless you’re in space.”
“Indeed. Have you eaten dinner?”
“Not yet,” said Danny. “But shouldn’t you already know that?”
“It is polite to ask.”
.
Danny laid awake in bed. He missed the stars in the bedroom he had at Jazz’s. The blankets were comfier here, though. And there were more pillows. Tradeoffs. He still hadn’t asked Clockwork if he’d done his own decorating.
Yeah. It wasn’t at all bad here. But he wondered if he had, maybe, acted too quickly with leaving Jazz.
It was a little too late to doubt his decision, though. He couldn't undo it. Not without Clockwork cooperating. He didn't really want to undo it, anyway. There were all the other people to visit and figure out and whatever.
Hopefully, by the end, he'd be able to figure out enough to understand himself.
He held his hand up over his head, fingers splayed, and tried to reach for the spark of transformation that Jazz swore up and down existed. Nothing happened.
He sighed and rolled over in bed. He'd think about it in the morning. Or never. Never sounded good.
.
Danny bounced down the stairs two at a time. “Breakfast?” he asked, hopefully.
“Potatoes o'brien with gravy and eggs,” said Clockwork. “I must confess, I’m surprised you aren’t flying down the stairs.”
“Haven’t really figured it out properly yet,” said Danny, throwing himself into a chair. “I kept trying at Jazz’s, but I kept running into the walls and ceiling and stuff. And where would I fly to, anyway?”
“I see,” said Clockwork, sounding vaguely amused.
“Not what you expected of me, huh?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, that’s just what happens when you erase someone’s memory and throw them into weird situations with redheads that are a little too obsessed with brain surgery.”
Clockwork’s answering hum was definitely amused.
“Would you like juice with your breakfast?”
“Do you have hot chocolate?” asked Danny. “With whipped cream?”
“I do,” said Clockwork. “Would you like some?”
“Please.”
Clockwork pulled an enameled teakettle from one of the cabinets and set it on the stovetop. The enamel was purple, of course.
“Are you still set on visiting Oculus and Orbis next?”
“I mean, I’d have to visit them eventually, anyway, right? That’s the rule, isn’t it?”
“Technically speaking, no. If you feel a strong enough connection with one of the candidates, you can forgo meeting the rest of them.”
“Wow,” said Danny. “You really don’t like them.”
“I do not want my feelings to influence you.”
“That’s not a denial.”
Clockwork set the plate down in front of Danny. “I do not want my feelings to influence you, negative or positive.”
“Sure,” said Danny. He started to shove food in his mouth. “So, Jazz told me something weird when I was over there.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Something about me being half ghost.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Yes? Yes? You mean that’s a real thing?”
“To some degree, yes,” said Clockwork.
“What does that mean?”
“You have a variety of extremely rare abilities,” said Clockwork. “Whether those are the results of being half ghost, part human, a superb but singular transformation ability, or something else… That is a matter for debate.”
“Okay, so, transformation. How?”
“Alas, for all that I can see, I cannot see into your mind. I do not know how your transformations felt to you, nor how you accomplished them.”
“Oh,” said Danny, pushing around a stray piece of egg on his plate. That was unhelpful, but he supposed it made sense. “There’s not anything going on like, um, you’re keeping me from transforming on purpose? Like how you said you’ve changed my appearance.”
“No,” said Clockwork.
“Okay,” said Danny. He scraped together the last of the potatoes. “I’m going to go get ready before I go. I’m still going to Oculus and Orbis.”
“Mm,” said Clockwork.
Yeah, Danny could definitely tell Clockwork didn’t like those two. This would probably be short, compared to his stay with Jazz. He went upstairs and brushed his teeth before changing. Jazz had gotten on his case about that more than once.
What to wear today… hm… He flipped through his closet. Hm. How about the skirt… It was a nice silvery green. And what to go on top? That jacket was about the same length as the shirt. And, hm, he didn’t feel like going pants-less… Or stockings. Maybe capris? He could do capris. Those were cool. Then he could show off the socks Jazz had given him.
Were those here? He looked through the sock drawer. They were. Huh.
He really wished Jazz had been honest with him. He really did. And maybe a little bit less crazy about school. Because he was absolutely sure that what she’d had him doing was over and above what schools would do.
He pulled on his solar system socks.
Okay. He was ready.
He went downstairs. “I’m ready.”
“I see that,” said Clockwork. “Your socks are very nice.”
“Oh, thanks!”
Clockwork tilted his staff to the side and a portal formed. “As before, press the button when you are ready to return.”
Danny nodded and stepped through. Once the blue rush of the portal cleared from his ears and eyes, he found himself in a massive marble foyer. Circular decorations in black and gold were inset in the stone. Waiting in the center, holding on to each other’s elbows, were the strangest couple Danny had ever seen.
Well, they were the only couple Danny had ever seen. They were tall, robed in rich fabrics trimmed in gold and black. Their skin was a textured, vivid green, and they were totally bald. Well. They were wearing wigs, but they were very obviously wigs. One wig was blonde and long, the other was silver and short. Both of them covered their eyes. One was also wearing a long skirt and delicate jewelry. The other wore bulky jewelry, gloves, and some sort of black sheath over its tail.
“Phantom,” they said, simultaneously, spreading their arms wide.
“My dear,” said the one in the skirt in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, “it is so good to see you again.”
“You haven’t had any problems with the riff-raff harassing us with this ludicrous custody dispute, have you, son?” asked the other, in a surprisingly low-pitched voice.
“No?” said Danny, dodging a hug. “I haven’t had any trouble.”
“Excellent news! But now you’re back with us,” said the deep-voiced and vaguely masculine one. “So you don’t need to worry about it anymore. All our worries are over. From now on, we have all our days ahead of us, full of joy and light!”
Danny… was pretty sure that last sentence didn’t make sense.
“Yes, yes,” said the higher-pitched one. “We will care for you now and forever. Your days will be filled with the luxury you so richly deserve.”
“Luxury, huh?”
“Of course, love,” said the high-pitched one. “Luxury, beyond the dreams of the masses. Not your dreams, of course.”
“Um,” said Danny.
“The best foods, the best clothes, the best games– Everything those other fools would deny you!”
Danny had the distinct sense he was being bribed.
“Okay,” he said, “but, um, what are your names?”
They looked at each other. “I am Oculus,” said the low-pitched one.
“I am Orbis,” said the high-pitched one.
“Right,” said Danny. “And who is Phantom? Is that some kind of ghost pet name?”
“It is your name,” said Orbis.
“Oh,” said Danny.
“Did Clockwork not tell you?”
“He told me my name is Daniel.”
“Hm,” said Orbis.
“Hm,” said Oculus. “Be that as it may, your name is most certainly Phantom. You have no other.”
Yeah. Danny wasn’t buying that.
“Okay,” he said, out loud. “So, um, how do I know you guys?”
“Well,” said Orbis, sniffing slightly, “we rescued you from those awful ghost hunters, didn’t we? They treated you so terribly, we couldn’t help but intervene, and then, well, we fell in love with you. Who couldn’t?” They started laughing. The laughter went on for… a while.
Danny smiled tightly and nodded.
“But enough of that!” said Oculus. “We must give you the grand tour! Show you all the things that are now, and will forever be, yours!”
What followed was a lengthy hike through an absolutely enormous, almost castle-like mansion. There was so much stuff. So many things. Toys, furniture, games, computers, decorations, flowers, perfumes, food. It was dizzying.
“And,” said Oculus, gesturing grandly at a set of rooms larger than Jazz’s entire place, “these are your rooms! There’s an ensuite - with a pool of course - and your favorite video games, and we can’t forget your mini-kitchen, completely stocked–”
Danny sort of tuned them out as they went down the list of things in the rooms, eyes sliding over various accouterments and accommodations. It was all very nice. But it was also, somehow, empty.
Well, the stuff was cool. He didn’t understand what was going on with the people, but… He could stay here a few days.
.
Danny wandered the frankly enormous house, looking for his supposed guardians. He was pretty sure it was in the middle of afternoon, and he had yet to see them. This, he thought, was not conducive to actually getting to know them.
So, he was searching as methodically as he could, given the nonsensical layout. There was a swimming pool in the middle of a ring of kitchens, for goodness sake. There was a library in the basement.
But finally, he did it.
“Uh,” said Danny. He was pretty sure this one was Orbis. Long haired wig, light jewelry. Yep. “Orbis?”
They didn’t turn around.
“Orbis?” he repeated. He came close me. “Excuse me? Orbis?” He tapped their shoulder. They jumped about a foot.
“Goodness, child! Why didn’t you say something if you wanted my attention.”
“I… did,” said Danny. “Are you not Orbis?”
“I,” said the ghost. “Yes.”
The other ghost glided into the room. “Did I hear someone calling me?” they asked. They were dressed identically to the first.
Danny looked between the two of them as they started gesturing emphatically at each other. He knew that ghosts could be weird, and there were a number of different lifestyles that could result in… whatever this was… but he sort of didn’t think that was what was going on. Actually, he didn’t– Were these ghosts shorter than they were yesterday? He hadn’t been paying all that much attention to their dimensions…
The gesture battle they were having, as if they thought he couldn’t see them, was definitely suspicious. Was there a ghost version of sign language?
Yeah, this was escalating. He edged closer to the arguing ghosts. He was about to do something that could be considered socially crass, but…
His hand flashed out and grabbed the wig of the nearest ghost. He pulled it loose.
Without the wig, the ghost was completely bald. They were also obviously one-eyed. They turned to stare at him, that one, huge, eye wide and alarmed.
Now, Danny didn’t remember all that much, but he knew who the Observants were.
“Yeah,” he said, grabbing the pocketwatch. “I’m out.”
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Got anything that lets you play as monsters (vampires/monsters/etc) in the modern world in the vein of VTM? Ideally something in the PBTA/FITD area of system, but open to others for sure (: Thanks as always for your recs!!
THEME: Urban Monsters
Friend, the difficulty with this post isn’t that I don’t have recommendations for it - it’s that I’m trying to find recommendations that I haven’t talked about ad nauseam to this point. So I hope you don’t mind a fairly extensive “Past Recommendations” at the bottom of this post, because most of the PbtA games I know of are going to be there. I have limited experience with Vampire: the Masquerade, but I’m a big fan of Changeling: the Lost and other World of Darkness games, so I’m going off of general knowledge rather than specifics.
Bubblegum Vampires / Bubblegum Wizards 2, by Gormengeist.
You're a vampire in an infinite urban cauldron of muck and rot, of psionics and wizards, of danger and shadows. Though you are surely terrible, great, horrifying, (etc.), half the day is an enemy to your people; so set forth through the night to make your coin, secure your dwellings, and vanquish your infinite enemies.
You're a wizard who chews bubblegum and collects trading cards. That is to say, cards with the trapped souls of items and enemies within, obviously. An insignificant wizard in an infinite city has lots to prove and you've got to get help somehow. Break heads, steal money, drive stupid, chew gum, trap souls. Simple as.
Neon-Bright art and d6-based rolls, that’s what’s common across both of these games. This is the same world, but you’re living in two different spheres of it, depending on which game you play. As wizards, you collect spell cards that hold the souls of creatures you’ve vanquished, and use them to get yourself out of sticky situations. As vampires, you accrue vampiric powers through blood sacrifice, and your opponents are usually folks with especially tantalizing veins. Both games have various factions that have different goals than you, so if what you like about Vampire: the Masquerade is the amount of different ideologies that have the ability to fuck you up, you might like this game. Thematically, it looks a little more upbeat and pulpy than your typical V:tM game, but if you like one, you have another game in the same system ready to go.
The Hidden, by Dragons Are Real.
As children our parents read us fairy tales, ghost stories and recounted local myths. We’ve always assumed these stories are told to entertain or scare….what if these aren't just stories….everything you have been told is true.
The creatures from fairy tales, mythology and folklore all exist. Have you ever thought you saw something strange out of the corner of your eye but when you look again all looks normal. These creatures live in plain sight, unseen by the majority of people, only those who know they exist see them in their true form. Every culture has a name for these creatures but we know them simply as The Hidden.
The Hidden is a modern urban fantasy game powered by the Breathless RPG. It is inspired by such media as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Constantine and The Dresden Files.
Another pulpy sort of game, the Breathless system that powers The Hidden is great for replicating diminishing resources, putting your characters in more and more difficult situations every time they pause to take a breath. This makes this game great for horror-style stories, and World of Darkness games firmly find a home in the horror genre. If you want something that’s fast-paced and can cover a lot of ground in a short session, The Hidden might be for you.
Tween Wolf, by Ibi Deficit Orbis.
Tween Wolf is a micro-RPG about middle schoolers experiencing both the fantasy of being exceptional, and the fear of being humiliated. As these kids come to terms with their awkwardly developing human bodies, they will also be faced with lycanthropy. And in the process they will experience supernatural heroism and intense shame—and learn to manage both.
It is designed to be played with a bent towards exploring the unforgiving social cruelty of middle school, self-image, and dysphoria. It requires one Game Master, 1 to 4 additional players, a few hours, one six sided die for each player, and two additional six sided dice for the table to share.
This is a very short game, with very few rules and a big focus on trying to keep your wild side under wraps. If what you like about WoD games is the struggle between the monstrous and the human, this might be the game for you. There’s not nearly as many big moral quandaries as there are in typical WoD games - you’re middle schoolers, not eons-old bloodsuckers - but to a middle-schooler, your problems are massive. I feel like the movie Seeing Red might be a good touchstone for this game.
Glamour of Our Youth, by Yuri Runnel.
Glamour of Our Youth is a roleplaying game based on the Forged in the Dark system. Drawing inspiration from media like Riverdale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina among others, it works to tell stories of supernatural teenage adventures.
Building on the FitD framework, Glamour serves to tell exciting stories with high stakes, putting the youths through their paces as they try to make their way through a strange and hostile world, struggling with conflicts both internal and external, arcane and mundane.
This game doesn’t cast your characters as specific supernatural beings, but the character options certainly make it possible. You cobble your character together from two different halves: Archetypes and Arcana. Your Archetype hails from classic high school cliques, such as Rebel, Outcast, Socialite and Athlete, while your Arcana details your supernatural ability, including Shapeshifter (which might translate to werewolf), Oceancaller (which you could turn into a selkie) or Shadow (which feels rather ghost-like to me). There’s also plenty of ways to play a teenage mage.
This game is in playtest, but it’s considerably far a long, with recent updates that indicate that the crew is hard at work refining the final product.
Protect the Child, by MintRabbit (that’s me!)
Humans have always been protective of their young, sometimes overly so. Humans have also always feared that which might make their young strange or different, and so insist that only humans can raise their own young. Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known.
You have a human baby. You cannot find its parents. What is even worse, is that this child has powers, powers that others covet, and so everyone wants it. If you want to prove that you’re not the heartless monster that everyone says you are, that means you’ll have to raise it, at least until you find someone who is better suited to it than you.
You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed.
And your charge wants a blankie.
Protect the Child is a Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a young human, a human who contains strange and mystical powers that make them a valuable asset in any monster crew. The setting and factions present in this game are flexible: you might be aliens in a far-flung future galaxy, fantasy monsters from rival kingdoms, or even everyday wild animals that fear human society.
So I’ve only just started play testing this game, which means that it’s very much in barely-playable mode. This game is also setting-agnostic, meaning that you can decide exactly when and where your game takes place - including as modern-day monsters trying to take care of a human baby with magical powers. The game is very specific in the themes of the story you’ll be telling - that is, themes about monstrosity, parenthood and responsibility, but if you all want to play different kinds of vampires, you can absolutely do that!
BloodLite, by ruan8000.
BloodLite is a role-playing game (RPG) designed to be played solo, but can be played in a group. In this game, you will create a Vampire following the rules and you will also create the world that this vampire interacts with, as well as the conflicts and obstacles that he will face. The world in BloodLite is like ours, but a little darker and more dangerous, full of supernatural creatures.
This game has no ties to PbtA or FitD, but it cites Vampire: the Masquerade as a direct inspiration, and you can see it in the Bloodline options available at character creation. You have a supernatural gift that give you advantages and also trigger your Hunger, which is your character’s thirst for blood. The goals of the game are represented through an Oath track, which fills when you fight enemies, overcome obstacles, and solve problems. This a fairly stripped-down game, but if you’re familiar with V:tM, then you probably won’t have a problem filling the world with factions, back-alley deals, and political wars.
Hearts of Yokai, by Lowell Francis.
So, this game isn’t out yet. But I can’t stop myself from talking about it a little bit. It’s the product of a Changeling:The Lost PbtA hack that Lowell has been working on for a very long time. I’ve been a bit fan of Changeling: the Lost and I also love PbtA games so I’m really excited to see more of this.
The link in the title leads to the current google spreadsheets that detail the current content of the game and the associated playbooks. The link for Lowell is to a blog post he wrote about the game, talking about the history, the changes he’s made, and the ideas behind what the current iteration is. What really intrigues me is how it incorporates "the actions of the Gentry through the lens of colonialism.” I’m really eager to follow the progress of this game.
Games I’ve Recommended in the Past
Urban Shadows 1e, by Magpie Games.
Bite Marks, by Black Armada Games.
Monsterhearts 2e, by Buried Without Ceremony.
Strays, by kumada1.
Eldritch Investigative Drama Rec Post
#tabletop games#indie ttrpgs#dnd#game recommendations#asks#urban fantasy#monsters#vampires#indie ttrpg
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I think I've heard multiple times that Mr. Sinister originally was going to be... some kind of projection of a kid in the orphanage Scott was raised in. Has this idea ever been explored by other writers, be it for Sinister or another character?
Yes, originally the plan was that the kid who had bullied Scott in the orphanage was also a mutant, and had created Mr. Sinister as his idea of the ultimate villain...and Gambit as his idea of the ultimate hero. Hence why Sinister in Inferno keeps calling Cyclops a "sissy" - which is an oddly childish insult.
Far from exploring Claremont's rough concept (because I don't know how much room to run there is there, tbh), later writers went in a completely different direction - first there was the whole business with Sinister's genetic war with Apocalypse where he was trying to breed Cable as a weapon to take down his creator. The big innovation was Kieron Gillen's decision to reinvent Sinister as a camp Victorian eugenicist - hence the whole idea of "Sinister as a system" and his increasingly baroque use of genetics to turn mutants and the x-gene itself into objects to be exploited - which Hickman ran with in Secret Wars and HOXPOX, and then Gillen et al. refined in X-Men, Immortal X-Men and Sins of Sinister.
Now there's a really complex story going on with the original Nathaniel Essex, the four suits of Mister Sinister, Orbis Stellaris, Doctor Stasis, and Mother Righteous, and their life-or-death competition to become Dominions that really ran with the ideas Hickman introduced in HOXPOX.
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I'm curious as to your thoughts on fhsy and how that used horror as opposed to neverafter (I'm pretty you mentioned seeing it?, otherwise, disregard). I also came out of neverafter really unsatisfied with the horror, but felt like brennan was able to pull it off much better in fhsy with the nightmare king, obviously baron, and kalina. Those scenes are the ones I keep coming back to because of how unsettling certain aspects of the nightmare king/kalina worked. Do you think that was a better example of Brennan's horror?
throwing in some good tags from @criticalrolo to answer this all in one go:
#prev tags extremely real and I’d love to read your thoughts on brennans DM style#totally totally agreed that there were a lot of parts of neverafter I liked but the Dense Lore was. NOT the best for a horror season#like. horror is based around the concept of Not Seeing or Understanding the Monster#so having a LOT of Dense Lore felt. WAYYY off base and it all got explained WAY too early on in the season I think
I think the takeaway is that Brennan's style - which is all about Dense Lore, that's his whole deal, have you seen the Make Some Noise where he has a prompt to spin dense lore and he just does it immediately? - is not suited to horror, where you can't have dense lore. Horror I think benefits from having one big convergent reveal. Like...the example that's coming to mind is Get Out, which is horror-comedy and also reveals how little true horror I watch (really more a New Weird kind of girl). There's a lot of unsettling details but they all build up to the one big reveal of "this white family does brain transplants into black people so they can live in their bodies" and it all clicks into place. There's plenty of lore but it's very streamlined whereas Brennan's tends to be convoluted - much more suited to, say, high and heroic fantasy and space opera and more sweeping genres like that.
So Fantasy High Sophomore Year (which I have seen but not since its original airing) works because it's not a horror story. It's pretty wacky, and Kalina and the Nightmare King are a part of a much larger story, so you have plenty of other things to do while that's allowed to simmer throughout. I think the problem with Neverafter is that you need the early reveal of the authors to set up the motivations of the princesses and fairies, but at the same time there's kind of not much else going on so the dense lore just feels like wheel spinning and ends up amounting to very little. It's like...there's a very cool story about the concept of narrative and being inside a story, which is very much my shit* and then also we keep cutting to the inside of a spirit halloween in which someone's reading Grimm's Fairy Tales for two hours at a time. I don't actually know how I'd fix it other than "stop making it horror," is the problem. I think dropping any other trappings of horror and just being fairy tales and having to sit with the knowledge that you are an archetype or a pawn or an avatar or a moral lesson would have been the route and maybe focusing on that instead. Lean in really hard to the vibes of episode 4. This will probably make people who are into gore and whatnot mad but the thing is that like, while I'm not into that I understand the appeal, but I also think that it's never going to be given justice in a primarily auditory medium. Which is the other reason why Kalina works. It's not so much horror as a mystery that happens to be pretty scary.
*total tangent and I would need some time to put together a full list but for if this is also your shit, here's a few personal recommendations that are not just Wikipedia's list of metafictional works or works that are of the correct vibe, even though most of them are in fact on there:
Stranger than Fiction (2006 film)
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (Borges short story)
There is an Ursula K. Le Guin short story in which someone is a planetary explorer on a planet that turns out to be the worldbuilding project of a teen boy. I cannot figure out which one it is. I read it in high school, I'll keep looking but anyway just read a lot of Le Guin's short stories. It's good for you.
Black Sails (maybe not metafiction? but also. it's not not metafiction.)
Arcadia by Iain Pears
it's been a hot minute since I read either if on a winters night a traveler or House of Leaves but those definitely did things to my brain in college
Piranesi and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke aren't explicitly metafiction but they also are very much about narrative. Also they're extremely good.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman
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Fibble (Dale E. Basye)
"When Marlo Fauster claims she has switched souls with her brother, she gets sent straight to Fibble, the circle of Heck reserved for liars. But it’s true—Milton and Marlo have switched places, and Marlo finds herself trapped in Milton’s gross, gangly body. She also finds herself trapped in Fibble, a three-ring media circus run by none other than P. T. Barnum, an insane ringmaster with grandiose plans and giant, flaming pants. Meanwhile Milton, as Marlo, is working at the devil’s new television network, T.H.E.E.N.D. But there’s something strange about these new shows. Why do they all air at the same time? And are they really broadcasting to the Surface? Soon Milton and Marlo realize that they need each other to sort through the lies and possibly prevent the end of the world—if Bea “Elsa” Bubb doesn’t catch them first.
The Fauster twins are caught up in yet another apocalyptic scheme as hellish figures plot to stoke a ratings war into a holy war, using elaborate lies and propaganda to provoke the end of humanity itself."
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (Jorge Luis Borges)
"A short story concerning the author and his friend stumbling upon a mention of the Uqbar region in an encyclopedia, a place which is found in no other literature. One of the myths of Uqbar concerns Tlön, a fantastical place where people do not believe in the reality of the material world, and only the most outre scholars would dare suggest that objects have permanence. Objects there "grow vague or sketchy and lose detail" when they begin to be forgotten, culminating in their disappearance when they are completely forgotten. One year later, Tlönian objects begin to appear in the real world. Then a complete encyclopedia of the world turns up, transforming the human understanding of science and philosophy. As the author writes his postscript, the world is transforming entirely into Tlön."
#spiral poll#the spiral#poll#the magnus archives#leitner tournament#Fibble#Heck#Dale E. Basye#Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius#Jorge Luis Borges
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I spent the night making a Listening Guide for the 8th Doctor for my partner, and figured I would share. I made it as a checklist in iOS. The numbers/abbreviations are connected to my Plex Audiobook server so might not line up with the names/numbering of the official releases.
8th Doctor Order
Charley Era
Main Range
- [ ] 16 - Storm Warning
- [ ] 17 - Sword of Orion
- [ ] 18 - Stones of Venice
- [ ] 19 - Minuet in hell
- [ ] 28 - invaders from mars
- [ ] 29 - Chimes of Midnight (Christmas Special!)
- [ ] 30 - Seasons of Fear
- [ ] 31 - Embrace the Darkness
- [ ] 32 - The Time of the Daleks
- [ ] 33 - Neverland
- [ ] 50 - Zagreus (Season Finale!)
- [ ] 52 - Scherzo (best one bring tissue)
- [ ] 53 - Creed of the Kromon (new companion!)
- [ ] 54 - The Natural History of Fear
- [ ] 55 - The Twilight Kingdom
- [ ] 61 - Faith Stealer
- [ ] 62 - The Last
- [ ] 63 - Caerdroia
- [ ] 64 - The Next Life (Season Finale!)
- [ ] 72 - Terror Firma
- [ ] 75 - Scaredy Cat
- [ ] 77 - Other Lives
- [ ] 80 - Time Works
- [ ] 83 - Something Inside
- [ ] 88 - Memory Lane
- [ ] 101 - Absolution
- [ ] 103 - The Girl that Never Was (Season Finale. End of Era.)
Charley Era Bonus content:
Charley is a fan favorite so she has a whole bunch of side content compared to the other eras.
Eighth Doctor Adventures
- [ ] CPFA1.01 The Mummy Speaks
- [ ] CPFA1.02 Eclipse
- [ ] CPFA1.03 The Slaying of the Writhing Mass
- [ ] CPFA1.04 Heart of Orion
- [ ] 8DA1.00 Living Legend
These are Charley stories made after the end of Charley’s era. Charlotte Pollard the Further Adventuress is brand new. Living Legend was like a year after she left (don’t fact check me)
Main Range
- [ ] 111 - The Doomwood Curse
- [ ] 114 - Brotherhood of the Daleks
- [ ] 116 - The Raincloud Man
- [ ] 124 - Patient Zero
- [ ] 125 - Paper Cuts
- [ ] 126 - Blue Forgotten Planet
This resolves the charley cliffhanger. She travels with the Sixth Doctor for some timey wimey further pissing off of the web of time. If you still don’t have enough Charley she has her own series that follows after her adventures with Sixie.
Main Range
- [ ] 123 - The Company of Friends
- [ ] 153 - The Silver Turk
- [ ] 154 - The Witch from the Well
- [ ] 155 - Army of Death
Eighth doctor in the main range without Charley. 123 is with his comic/book companions. The others are the Mary Shelly companion stories! Fun fact he mentions these travels as just happening in Storm Warning so they are a direct prequel.
Main Range
- [ ] 100 - 100 (technically only in part 4)
- [ ] 275 - End of The Beginning
One offs
- [ ] The Light At The End (50th anniv special)
The Legacy of Time
- [ ] 1 Lies in Ruins
- [ ] 2 The Split Infinitive
- [ ] 3 The Sacrifice of Jo Grant
- [ ] 4 Relative Time
- [ ] 5 The avenues of Possibility
- [ ] 6 Collision Course
This chunk is all big anniversary cross overs that feature charley. Some with 6. Some with 8.
Companion Chronicles
- [ ] 4.12 Solitaire
Short Trips
- [ ] 2.8 Letting Go
- [ ] 5.8 Foreshadowing
- [ ] 6.11 The Man Who Wasn’t There
- [ ] 9.11 Hall of the Ten Thousand
- [ ] 10.8 These Stolen Hours
Classic Doctors, New Monsters
- [ ] 3.4 If I should die before I wake
This last selection is all small short stories that take place during the Charley Era.
Lucie Era
Eighth Doctor Adventures
8DA Season 1
- [ ] 1, 2 Blood of the Daleks
- [ ] 3 Horror of Glam Rock
- [ ] 4 Immortal Beloved
- [ ] 5 Phobos
- [ ] 6 No More Lies
- [ ] 7, 8 Human Resources
8DA Season 2
- [ ] 1 Dead London
- [ ] 2 Max Warp
- [ ] 3 Brave New Town
- [ ] 4 The Skull of Sobek
- [ ] 5 Grand Theft Cosmos
- [ ] 6 The Zygon that Fell to Earth
- [ ] 7 Sisters of the Flame
- [ ] 8 Vengeance of Morbius
8DA Season 3
- [ ] 1 Orbis
- [ ] 2 Hothouse
- [ ] 3 Beast of Orlock
- [ ] 4 Wirrn Dawn
- [ ] 5 Scapegoat
- [ ] 6 The Cannibalists
- [ ] 7 The Eight Truths
- [ ] 8 Worldwide Web
8DA Season 4
- [ ] 1 Death in Blackpool
- [ ] 2 Situation Vacant
- [ ] 3 Nevermore
- [ ] 4 The Book of Kells
- [ ] 5 Deimos
- [ ] 6 The Resurrection of Mars
- [ ] 7 Relative Dimensions
- [ ] 7b An Earthly Child
- [ ] 8 Prisoner of the Sun
- [ ] 9 Lucie Miller
- [ ] 10 To the Death (end of the Era)
Lucie Era Bonus
8DA Season 5
- [ ] 1 The Dalek Trap
- [ ] 2 The Revolution Game
- [ ] 3 The House on the Edge of Chaos
- [ ] 4 Island of the Fendahl
This season is technically not an 8DA release but is called “the further adventures of Lucie miller” and takes place before Human Resources. But I wouldn’t slot it there, and instead just listen as a bonus.
Short Trips
- [ ] 3.8 All the fun of the Fair
- [ ] 6.4 The Curse of the Fugue
- [ ] ST7.7 Flashpoint
- [ ] SST 2014-06 Late Night Shopping
- [ ] SST 2013-03 the Young Lions
- [ ] SST 2015-12 The Caves of Erith
Liv and Helen Era
Yes technically this was the Molly era but she got too famous between dark eyes part 1 and 2 so it’s really Liv’s Era, and Helen joins soon after. This era is a string of box sets so basically just Dark Eyes >Doom Coalition >Ravenous > Stranded, but what follows is a checklist so you can keep track.
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Dark Eyes
- [ ] 1.1 The Great War
- [ ] 1.2 Fugutives
- [ ] 1.3 Tangled Web
- [ ] 1.4 X and the Daleks
- [ ] 2.1 The Traitor
- [ ] 2.2 The White Room
- [ ] 2.3 Time’s Horizon (Hello Liv!)
- [ ] 2.4 Eyes of the Master
- [ ] 3.1 The Death of Hope
- [ ] 3.2 The Reviled
- [ ] 3.3 Masterplan
- [ ] 3.4 Rule of the Eminence
- [ ] 4.1 A Life in the Day
- [ ] 4.2 The Monster of Monmarte
- [ ] 4.3 Master of the Daleks
- [ ] 4.4 Eye of Darkness
Doom Coalition
- [ ] 1.1 The Eleven
- [ ] 1.2 The Red Lady
- [ ] 1.3 The Galileo Trap
- [ ] 1.4 The Satanic Mill
- [ ] 2.1 Beachhead Track
- [ ] 2.2 Scenes from Her Life
- [ ] 2.3 The Gift
- [ ] 2.4 The Sonomancer
- [ ] 3.1 Absent Friends
- [ ] 3.2 The Eighth Piece
- [ ] 3.3 The Doomsday Chronometer
- [ ] 3.4 The Crucible of Souls
- [ ] 4.1 Ship in a Bottle
- [ ] 4.2 Songs of Love
- [ ] 4.3 The Side of the Angels
- [ ] 4.4 Stop the Clock
Ravenous
- [ ] 1.1 Their Finest Hour
- [ ] 1.2 How to make a Killing in Time Travel
- [ ] 1.3 World of Damnation
- [ ] 1.4 Sweet Salvation
- [ ] 2.1 Escape from Kaldor
- [ ] 2.2 Better Watch Out
- [ ] 2.3 Fairytale of Salzburg (Another Christmas Special)
- [ ] 2.4 Seizure
- [ ] 3.1 Deeptime Frontier
- [ ] 3.2 Companion Piece***** See Below
- [ ] 3.3 LEGEND
- [ ] 3.4 The Odds Against
- [ ] 4.1 Whisper
- [ ] 4.2 Planet of Dust
- [ ] 4.3 Day of the Master 1
- [ ] 4.4 Day of the Master 2
I highly recommend skipping to the Bliss Era before Companion Piece. They were released simultaneously and have a crossover in companion piece and it makes it better. But you could always “Spoilers sweetie” and find it out later.
Stranded
- [ ] 1.1 Lost Property
- [ ] 1.2 Wild Animals
- [ ] 1.3 Must-See TV
- [ ] 1.4 Divine Intervention
- [ ] 2.1 Dead Time
- [ ] 2.2 Unit Dating
- [ ] 2.3 Baker Street Irregulars
- [ ] 2.4 The Long Way Round
- [ ] 3.1 Patience
- [ ] 3.2 Twisted Folklore
- [ ] 3.3 Snow
- [ ] 3.4 What Just Happened
- [ ] 4.1 Crossed Lines
- [ ] 4.2 Get Andy
- [ ] 4.3 The Keys of Baker Street
- [ ] 4.4 Best Year Ever
Liv and Helen continue into What Lies Inside and Connections, but I don’t have it yet so I don’t know the episode names.
Liv Era Bonus Content
Main Range
- [ ] 149. Robophobia
Liv was actually an almost-companion for the 7th doctor. She told him no, and kicked herself until the 8th Doctor showed back up.
The Robots
Liv’s Spin off. Takes place during Ravenous 2 when the doctor has to leave her for a year. I haven’t listened yet so I don’t know the titles but there are 6 seasons of 3 episodes
Ninth Doctor Adventures
- [ ] 2.3 Hidden Depths
Crossover with the Ninth Doctor Range.
Short Trips
- [ ] 7.1 The World Beyond the Trees
Bliss Era
Aka the Time War! Can technically be listened to whenever because it doesn’t directly reference things but it’s best after Doom Coalition, but Before Ravenous.
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Time War
- [ ] 1.1 The Starship of Theseus
- [ ] 1.2 Echoes of War
- [ ] 1.3 The Conscript
- [ ] 1.4 One Life
- [ ] 2.1 The Lords of Terror
- [ ] 2.2 Planet of the Ogrons
- [ ] 2.3 In the Garden of Death
- [ ] 2.4 Jonah
- [ ] 3.1 State of Bliss
- [ ] 3.2 The Famished Lands
- [ ] 3.3 Fugutive in Time
- [ ] 3.4 The War Valeyard
- [ ] 4.1 Palindrome 1
- [ ] 4.2 Palindrome 2
- [ ] 4.3 Dreadshade
- [ ] 4.4 Restoration of the Daleks
#eighth doctor#doctor who big finish#big finish doctor who#charlotte pollard#charley#lucie miller#liv chenka#helen sinclair#bliss#8th doctor#doctor who#dw#audio drama#listening order
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PRINCESS - Who is in charge, and how do they determine who is next?
WAR - When was the last war? Who started it and who won?
Sowwy for the late reply! And thank you for this very lovely ask game.
I am answering Princess for all the major locations in present-day Orbis.
PRINCESS:
In Kaleidopolis, the position of head spellcaster is voted for by a council of mage leaders chosen by local mages and their international affiliates. Kaleidopolis also has a separate mayor who is in charge of general public affairs and concerns. Unlike the head spellcaster, the mayor is appointed by their god, the Heartwood Tree, from a list of candidates submitted by the populace. Both the mayor and the head spellcaster are legally of more or less equal standing.
The Prismatic Kingdom is ruled by monarchs. The throne of the next ruler is given to a legal descendant, whether blood-related or adopted, of the ruler and their spouses. This also means that an old ruler can pass the throne to a grandchild or even a great-grandchild. A crown heir can be appointed early on, as they will be given sufficient preparations for their role later in life, but this practice is often looked down upon by nobility, as historically, crown heirs often choose to abandon their post later in life.
The Emerald Kingdom is fronted by monarchs who serve as symbolic figureheads, but is backed and dictated by the doctrines of its clergy and its alchemists. The real rulers are chosen via popularity contests veiled as democracy, then dictates what the monarchs should do next. The figureheads can get replaced like dolls, as the clergy has an arsenal of contacts and orphans to train puppets from. (The public is not supposed to know that last bit.)
The Platinum Fort is led by its General, its smartest, bravest, and mightiest warrior. Candidates to this role must willfully volunteer and be assessed through three tests of smarts, bravery, and might. The previous General's closest allies and confidantes serve as the judges for these tests.
The Iridescent Islands with its elders and the Damasqus Network with its clan dons operate similarly - seniority is authority. While only fellow elders can oust other elders, dons can be challenged by anyone with a perceived substantial amount supporters.
The Aurum Hills hold different laws, which are mostly shaped by how its inhabitants are affected by which side of the hill they are living in. Citizens hold personal rule books that they can add or remove from, depending on what the last huddle with fellow citizens had gone. Representatives from different sides of the hill speak for their fellows, but are not necessarily leaders. The real authorities in this nation is the gods and the lands.
Merchants run the Mirage Dunes, and whoever runs the most stable businesses gets to have a say on the affairs of their tribes. This does not always mean that the richest families are authority; their businesses must be active, paying workers well, and forecast as stable for at least the next decade, which are taken as clear signs of a supportive network and influence.
WAR:
I have not thought of a war between that of Luishreya's rise to power way way before any of my other Arcanium stories occur and the Emerald Kingdom's beef with the Platinum Fort in the present time, but let me answer for both of these ones!
The Endless Wars is a series of wars that occurred one after another for decades. It was spurred on by the rising tension between different nations, including Luishreya's homeland. The one who actually started it was the kingdom of the War King, her eventual husband, who was simply thirsty for drama and the weapons trade. By cleverly manipulating different sides of the war and recruiting betrayed talents such as Luishreya's group, they triumphed over the other nations. As for what caused the tension in the first place, I've yet to figure it out.
The Emerald Kingdom started the whole beef with the Platinum Fort due to differences over their stances on alchemy and magic. It's a rather petty thing, but representatives on each side kept the snowball rolling. Currently, they are at a stalemate, with the Platinum Fort at a disadvantage.
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In an old interview with Tyler Cowen, Knausgaard called Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius the greatest story ever written—a sentiment with which Cowen agreed. (Cowen seems to read everything, but there's something about an economist—an orthodox heterodox economist, no less!—making pronouncements on literature that makes me suspicious of the claim. Then again, he once wrote, "Shakespeare is very likely the deepest thinker the human race has produced." No argument there.)
Personally, I might bestow the honour on The Dead, but it's really more of a novella, and I'm admittedly quite the Deadhead. (To be clear, in the high arts a "Deadhead" is the moniker we attribute to readers obsessed with the poetic intensities of swift cessations: Death in Venice, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the deaths of Sula, Septimus, Billy Budd, and Pierce Inverarity, etc. Indeed, poetic intensities and swift cessations may simply be the novella tout court. On the subject of jam bands—and cheese—I remain mysteriously silent.)
Might Joyce have authored the greatest story, the greatest novel, and the greatest love letters? (Forgive me, sweet Jane, for such futile superlatives against your soul-stirring pen. I am half agony, half cope.) I suppose Borges is more Beethovenian in his revolutionizing of the form, whereas Joyce aimed for a Bach-like perfection as it existed at the time.
Of course, one mustn't forget the dozen or so contenders from Poe, Kafka, and Chekhov, not to mention The Lottery and A Good Man is Hard to Find. What do you think? As always, thank you for your splendid insights! And to the anonymous hundreds reading this, or, at this point in my unsolicited soliloquy, the anonymous dozen skimming, please subscribe to John's serialized novel!
Thank you, David! Yes, I find Cowen dispiritingly, exhaustingly, demoralizingly well-read. Someone I admire on Substack recently gave a list of 10 pieces of advice for undergraduates, and I liked nine of them, but I didn't like the first: everything, he said, is interesting. But everything is not interesting. The undergraduate, the veritable ephebe, is right to be bored by some things. If I found everything interesting, who would I be? I almost cultivate my non-interests. With so many books I do want to read in the world, it's a relief to know there are also many books (books about economics, for example) that I do not want to read. Really, only obsessions matter. The personality, to be a personality, must have its limits, as must the work of art, even if as a novelist, I do aspire in my own way to the "everything and nothing" Borges imputed to Shakespeare, or to the Homeric as against the Virgilian in Mark Van Doren's line that Virgil is a style, Homer a world. Only Borges could be Homeric in a short story, though; for the rest of us—yes, even for Joyce—it takes a novel. A fellow Deadhead, I agree with you that that is a novella in the death-obsessed ranks of the great novellas. I add Heart of Darkness, The Metamorphosis, and Nella Larsen's Quicksand to your fine catalogue.
(Incidentally, when I was in college, a friend dragged me to see a jam band called The String Cheese Incident. They played a theater on the ground floor of Soldiers and Sailors Hall on the University of Pittsburgh campus, upstairs of which the great Gothic scene of Lecter's escape in Silence of the Lambs had been filmed a little less than a decade before. Jam bands don't do it for me; I was heavy bored at that concert, I have to tell you; Chesterton's neglected cheese be damned, poets have their right to silence on some subjects—because, again, everything is not interesting.)
Now to your question. When I think of great short stories, I do not, like George Saunders, think of 19th-century Russians. (19th-century Russians are better at length, when they go on and on and on—even, if you ask me, Chekhov, as I said earlier this year in praise of his novella, The Duel, a great novella not quite belonging to your catalogue inasmuch as it defeats death, more or less.) No, I think of 19th-century Americans. I think of "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Man of the Crowd," and I think of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" and "Benito Cereno," and I think of "The Author of Beltraffio" and "The Middle Years" and "The Figure in the Carpet." Above all, I think of Hawthorne, of "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Ethan Brand" and "Wakefield" and "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" and "The Artist of the Beautiful" and "The Birth-Mark" and (my favorite) "Rappaccini's Daughter." A great deal of Borges is already in those stories, these tales or parables or half-allegories—I do agree with both Knausgaard and Cowen that Borges's "Tlön," or maybe "The Aleph," must be the paradigm of the modern story—and a great deal of Kafka, Jackson, and O'Connor, too.
Honorable mention: I am not an expert on the 19th-century French, but "The Unknown Masterpiece" by Balzac is a new favorite, which I read for the first time just this year. A good tale in its own right, but to have anticipated, almost to the point of clairvoyance, the whole future course of art in one short story from the 1830s—!
Caveat: "Rappaccini's Daughter" has 3000 fewer words than The Dead; and "Benito Cereno" is double the length of "Rappaccini's Daughter." Why type some titles in italics and some in quotation marks? The distinction between novella and story must be qualitative rather than quantitative, with the distinction not quite only about death, since all three narratives at least include if they do not dwell upon swift cessations. "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "Benito Cereno" seem to me to be stories because they are about one thing, as opposed to The Dead, which, like The Scarlet Letter, is about several things—and as opposed, of course, to Moby-Dick and to Ulysses, which are, Aleph-wise, about absolutely everything ("[A]ny man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it"; "Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese"), and make everything as interesting as ever everything can be.
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reread tlon uqbar orbis tertius in hurley's translation in collected fictions. whoever did it in labyrinths (irby?) did it slightly better. still an amazing story after all this time, probably borges's best
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You know, I was originally a bit sceptical on the "War in Heaven = Post Intervention Earth War" idea, but after thinking a bit about it, I think I'm all in now.
What's more, I think it actually works really well in my personal interpretation of the Books/Comics/Big Finish timeline for Eight!
As a reminder, I always like using the actual 'Rassilon Era' dates we get in stories, even if they don't quite seem right based on what you might assume. This leads to some weird conclusions like Eight's early adventures with Lucie taking place before his adventures with Charley, and his S4 reunion taking place afterwards.
This leads to a pretty clear Book -> Comics -> Audios timeline, in broad terms anyway since stuff like the Radio Times comics pretty explicitly fit into the gaps between EDAs. To summarise some key points:
c. 5716 RE - Happy Endings: Romana is elected President in the original timeline. (The Doctor is 1000.)
5725.2 RE - The TV Movie
5734 RE - The Ancestor Cell (The Doctor's Perspective. He is 1018)
5844 RE - The Gallifrey Chronicles (The Doctor's Perspective. It's been 114.75 Earth years since the Ancestor Cell, corresponding to about 110 Gallifreyan Years).
5916 RE - The Dying Days (The Doctor is 1200).
5939 RE? - The Doctor travels with Izzy and Fey (estimated based on them accidentally ending up on a future 10639.5 RE Gallifrey in The Final Chapter, based on a possible mix up of DI and RE dates).
c. 6100 RE - 6790 RE - The Doctor is stuck on Orbis for centuries.
6776 RE - Romana is elected President in the new timeline. The Etra Prime incident occurs.
6798 RE - The Doctor rescues Charley from the R101.
c. 6800 RE - 6812 - Gallifrey S1-S6.
c. 7000 RE? - The Doctor regenerates on Karn.
Obviously this gives Eight a very long lifespan, but nothing that unusual for Time Lords, who can live for about 10,000 with a single well-taken-care-of incarnation. It's roughly as long as Eleven's, which may seem odd given how much the latter ages on Trenzalore, but Time Lord aging has never been consistent. Just look at Narvin, who has seemingly been in the same incarnation all the way from at least Four's era up to the Time War.
The War in Heaven, meanwhile, takes place on a future Gallifrey which the Eighth Doctor accidentally gets involved with early, starting when Romana reaches the end of a 150 year term. My original assumption was that this would then be either in 5866 RE or in the near future, with the Great Grey Eminence delaying her presidency until after The Eight Doctors, where Flavia is still president.
However, it really does make sense that it could be in 6926 RE instead (or possibly later, depending on if Romana's term restarted with the civil war / travelling in the axis etc.), roughly around the date of Intervention Earth, where Romana is also approaching the end of her term in office, making the War in Heaven almost simultaneous with the outbreak of the Last Great Time War.
BUT, to go one step further, I think this also solves the 'restored Gallifrey' problem... if you assume the "Post-War universe" is still in Gallifrey/the Doctor's relative future.
I always assumed the Doctor was back in his own present time track after The Ancestor Cell, but it really does make sense that he's still in the future Gallifrey's time track, and thus a different 'version' of history. This may even explain why it's so ambiguous whether Gallifrey has been erased or not, because he's still stuck oscillating back and forth between his own time and this future state of history.
This is why, for example, the Master can be both stuck in the Eye of Harmony and the Man with the Rosette / the War King: because the latter are from his future in the Intervention Earth timeline, after the Time Lords resurrected him as the MacQueen!Master. Hell, this might even make the MwtR/War King Jacobi, which fits perfectly if you, like me, interpret Scream of the Shalka as being in some way in the future of the post-War universe.
In fact, from Eight's perspective, we get multiple Time Lords who seem to be in multiple states at once, one being from his time (~5800 RE) and one being from the War/post-War universe (~6930 RE):
The Master, as mentioned, both in the Eye of Harmony (~5800 RE) and as the War King / Man with the Rosette / Magistrate (~6930 RE).
Romana, both still in E-Space (~5854 RE, as she is 487 during BBV's Adventures in a Pocket Universe) and as the War Queen / Trey (~6930 RE).
The Doctor himself, both experiencing the EDAs (~5800 RE) and as the Infinity Doctor (~7000 RE?), plus possibly Grandfather Paradox and/or Grandfather Halfling.
This also means that the Doctor's "present day" Gallifrey, back in ~5800 RE is probably completely fine from its own perspective (even if it has been technically erased in the post-War time track)! Hence why no-one has ever acknowledged Gallifrey being restored or the War in Heaven post-EDAs.
Instead, Gallifrey's possible restoration, if it does happen, probably takes place within the post-War time track that is eventually subverted by Enemy Lines, again possibly linked with the Shalka!Doctor's intended backstory, as well as the Chris Cwej series.
In the latter, the "Superiors" (who I interpret as descended Celestis who have lost their 'true' identity as Time Lords due to Gallifrey's erasure), outright acknowledge that the war is in a sense still going on in the present day, suggesting the post-War universe is set simultaneously with the War in Heaven's progression.
Indeed there seem to be many different threads referring to the timeline being split post-War and attempts to undo this (The Council of Eight, the Tomorrow Windows, V-Time, the Watchmaker and Brax), which seems all the more relevant when these events are also all set during the same time as the build up to the Time War.
I'd love to make a full timeline of the 292 years of the War and how it overlaps both with the post-War universe, assuming Eight continues to progress down that timeline during and after the Earth arc, and the "post-post-War" universe of Enemy Lines onwards.
Really, the big question is how/when the Eighth Doctor is able to get back into his own relative time and restore linearity protocols, after spending all this time in his own personal future? I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the changing timelines, if all of the different stories during this time period can be placed.
#Doctor Who#The War in Heaven#Faction Paradox#Eighth Doctor#Gallifrey#Big Finish#DWM#EDAs#Trey#Romana III#Scream of the Shalka#DW Meta#Doctor Who EU#DW Theory#long post
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Mythoscember Day 1 - Ouroboros
Ah, here he is... My bb... My orby-borby...
I was origionally going to write little short stories for each of these, but given that finals are coming up... probably best to just talk about them like they're my sweet lil pups who I would pet very gently on the head.
Because I would
Anyways! Welcome to Mythos-cember! I did this a few years back with traditional media, in the midst of finals in my first semester of college, and I somehow managed to get the all done before new years?? Insane, I could never
So now I'm redoing them digitally! I've got almost half of them done, so... I should make it to the end of the year? No promises
Are these desgins going to be true to their mythology? Nope, not in the slightest in some cases. Are they going to be true to how I drew them in 2019? Detrimentally so! (but heys, this rainbow dragon of time and infinity is my favorite, so it's alllll worth it)
#MythosCember#Ouroboros#not that one#and not even really the actual one#MY ouroboros#mythology#mythological creature#digital art#concept art#creature concept#creature art#animal art#my art
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Having picked up an anthology of Borges' works, I'm naturally drawn to compare and contrast with the last book I finished that's still rattling around in my head (Blood Meridian, in this case). Namely, in terms of how works age.
Blood Meridian was reviewed early in its lifetime with lines that adorn its modern covers: things like "shocking" and "subversive", it "demythologizes the Old West". Well, in modern day, that kind of violence in a book is rarely shocking and the Old West has been demythologized so hard it's pendulum-swung into being mythologized in the opposite direction. A modern reader, desensitized by newer media, bearing no delusions of a noble and heroic cowboy gang, and most likely forewarned by the book's reputation if nothing else, is showing up to the splash-zone with an umbrella. The gore and violence and subversive nature can be readily looked past and the book's deeper themes are laid relatively bare. It's a book that's aged incredibly well, even enhanced by age, to a reader who didn't substitute the old moral outrage of violence for a new moral outrage for its language.
By contrast, my collection of Borges opens up with "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". It was probably as mind-blowing as it's hyped to be on release, and was probably the first exposure to a lot of ideas for its early readers. To a reader who witnessed more or less in real time such philosophies as the book discusses go from being ridiculed as useless academic group-masturbation, to being rediscovered in an even shallower manner by a new generation of pretentious inheritors, to being proliferated and watered down until it's fodder for the lore of mobile gotcha games, that aspect of the story has aged somewhat poorly, to say the least. The story is also heavily based on the notion of language and its underlying philosophical precepts influencing thought to extremes, a notion popular in the mid-20th century (see also 1984) which has since left the philosopher's study, entered the labs and surveys of the psychologists and sociologists and been consistently proven, insofar as either profession is capable of proving or of consistency, to be complete bunk. It is, thus far, not a story with quite as much staying power.
I will, however, admit I didn't approach the second story with complete impartiality. The collection opened with a foreword, full of unqualified and worshipful praise of Borges, by William "draft-dodging hippie that blighted the earth with the self-propagating meme of a pathetically shallow social commentary-cum-even shallower coat of aesthetic paint for horny tryhards known as cyberpunk" Gibson, upon whose opinion I place precisely as much value as you're probably guessing.
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Urban Junior - Urban et Orbi
One Man Band - Switzerland - A twisted trip into a synthetic world of Electro Clash Garage Punk, Blues Trash, ’80s New Wave Death Disco and raw Electro Punk! URBAN JUNIOR plays SYNTH, GUITAR, DRUMS, an 80s Beatmachine & sings thru a worn out megaphone…SIMULTANEOUSLY!!
Stefan Frühmorgen aka Urban Junior is from Zurich in Switzerland who started his music career 'beliefe it or not' in the end 90's, in a Boy-group called HNO. but he changed big time and we present you his third long player on Voodoo Rhythm Records, he had a creative brain atom explosion during the Corona period and we had to choose these 14 killer tracks from 35 great songs, the impact of which can hardly be topped, they tell you the stories of dishonour and punishment, sadness and the rudimentary everyday life of a punk rock one man band star
The Stupidity of punk and the simplicity of techno combine the despairing soul of the blues. this man has everything in one! Urban Junior is a musical and physical phenomenon. This is higher level electro trash garage boogie disco blues punk, second to none Super unique. the lyrics are a poetic revelation between frenzy, fear, anger, sadness and hope. Urban et Orbi - 14 brand new bangers. Crunchy and creamy, Stompy and Screamy, Stitchy Itchy and Streamy...whatever he does, he kills it!!!
p.s. The whole album is a personal attack and a comeback, C.C.S. for example, a personal statement is against cancer
Urban et Orbi is written, composed, recorded and mixed by Urban Junior Stefan Frühmorgen, the Urban From the Orbi living in the Urbi exept ‚everyday can get you down‘ written by John Schooley
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Some random questions because I got curious and I like the way you construct stuff (srry if this is weird)
did you build Eath and Hax around the lore or the lore around them?
What inspired you to create daemon’s (is that how it’s spelled?) what was the original concept for them like? (if your comfortable sharing)
How far ahead do you usually plan story/blog events?
Do you have any themes or messages you want to incorporate?
Is their a specific genre you feel your blog fits into most?
This will get long so some stuff is below the cut.
I built the lore around Eath and Hax. Eath came first with some loose lore from the nightmare she was in, and Hax kind of fused into Eath's story upon creation. From there, and with the current hyperfocus at the time of the Ars Goetia, the lore slowly started to unfold and build around them.
Creating the daemons (yes you spelled it right! :D and it's pronounced like day-mon, I know some folks get that confused) was inspired by the fact that I love learning various mythologies from around the world, and the idea that they're all connected sort of loosely.
This lead to the though of "what if these myths are talking about beings that actually existed" paired with learning that the term "daemon" in the greek sense meant "a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans" sort of lead into making the "daemons" of Alius Orbis
The term Daemon, in my lore, later coming to mean a resident of Alius Orbis, as opposed to being just one species.
I really just go with the flow for blog events. Whatever feels right and fun in the moment, but sometimes I plan ahead like with Taygete and the Spring Ball. Those were planned months / weeks in advance.
As for themes/ messages, facing fears and being able to be unapologetically yourself? Maybe? Definitely found family.
And finally for genre, maybe a Fantasy Adventure? But like reversed where Eath and Hax come from a fantasy world Alius Orbis to the human world.
We get a few stories about humans got to fantasy world and maybe bringing some fantasy creatures back home so they get the ol switcharoo, but I feel like I haven't seen much of the reverse where it starts with a fantasy creature trying to survive in the human world.
Or maybe I just haven't seen enough stuff, but either way it's fun/
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