More travels with Jonathan Harker, in pictures
Here's the route that Jonathan travels by the public coach today:
I've tried to find copyright-free photos from the actual route, but I've not had much success. So this tour is going to be a lot more vibes-based than reflective of the actual sights out of the stagecoach window. Think of it like Jonathan's Transylvanian Pinterest board.
(Scenery photos are all of Transylvania, assuming I can trust the sites where I found them, but not necessarily the right time of year or the right bit of Transylvania. It's a big place.)
"Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road."
"There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals."
"In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame."
"Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly."
"As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink."
"By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves."
"Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys."
And a bonus: Bran Castle is marked as 'Dracula's Castle' despite being even further away from the locations in the book than most of my vibes-based photography choices. It also doesn't resemble Bram Stoker's descriptions of the castle.
But more importantly, it looks really cool. So here it is:
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Scrolling through your blog makes me feel like I'm stumbling through an unnaturally silent snowy forest with no knowledge of how I got here or how I'll return home. The vibes are excellent 100/10
That's such a lovely description! thank you <3 I think the answer to the questions of how you got here and how you'll return home is simple: by following Pandolf's eerie and whimsical wanderings.
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obligatory post before acheron's release
obviously, it's established that acheron is a variant of raiden mei. her real name is not actually acheron (confirmed through the livestream, but...come on, we all already knew that). specifically, there's loads of similarities in her design to the herrscher of thunder above all else
similar hair structure, hair part, n hairpiece (n obviously the color, too),
sword structure, patterns, n nearly identical handles,
one "red" arm,
the bust/halter,
and of course, the color scheme as shown in acheron's "emanator" form, n the horns shown in the livestream
with all that in mind, i imagine acheron is a variant of mei who failed to save the person closest to her (her kiana, to simplify it), n/or watched them die, or even killed them herself. it's shown during her dance with black swan that there was obviously someone important to her in her past, conflict arose in a setting much like the one featured in the livestream, n there's even imagery of her walking alone with only the moon in the sky to keep her company
kiana has been associated with the moon n moon imagery since the flyme2themoon days; her origin was quite literally a game about blasting off to the moon
this teaser resembles thunders over nagazora to me, as well as mei watching kiana's end in honkai gakuen
there's also the fact that the type of emanator acheron is, an emanator of nihility, is classified as a self-annihilator; those who have felt the pull of nihility n been unable to escape drowning in it. self-annihilator's take the meaning of nihility to heart, so much so that it erodes their bodies n memories
acheron has been confirmed as the self-annihilator type in her character introduction posted recently. what really strikes me about this line is the phrasing of "existence is nothing"
sounds familiar, doesn't it?
mei is characterized by the tragedies in her life, n how they impact her. growing up isolated, a kidnapping at a young age, bullying at school, suicidal tendencies, n the constant reminder that the girl she loves more than anything in the world will always put the overall well being of humanity over herself
to me, acheron is a mei shaped by loss. the mei we remember from hi3 had the chance to grow n change; to learn from her mistakes, n to fight for a better world, bc she had the support of her friends n her most important person. acheron doesn't seem to have that level of support from anyone, at least not anyone still in her life currently
which brings me to my next point. she HAD a "kiana," but ultimately lost her. n this is the result
acheron is incredibly powerful, but her power seems incredibly volatile. she carries this innate sadness with her wherever she goes, n the very path she walks n the very aeon she became an avatar of strips life of all meaning, all the beauty from the world
it's a far cry from the mei we know, bc clearly, there was a very pivotal change in her development that i can only attribute to the loss of her world's "kiana"
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You know, I don't necessarily buy into the idea of "you die twice; once when your heart stops beating, and the second when you are forgotten" because I don't think we're truly forgotten.
Throughout history, we've found proof of people existing, well after their death, well after they've been forgotten by their community and time. Even if we do not have names for these people, we know they were alive. We touch their bones, and we internalize their lives. We learn how they lived through the stories we interpret from their bones, and then we tell others about them. They haven't been forgotten, and it's not unlikely that you won't be forgotten.
Why is it that we only "count" if we are immortalized in the history books, if we scar time to the point nothing would be the same if we were forgotten?
And, anyway, look at this cat, who died so long ago, but whose memory is still remembered:
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