Dissecting Literature

  It’s not a secret, that I love sirens, they are my favorite mythical creatures of all time. There is a whole world deep under the water that we know nothing about. More than 80% of the oceans are undiscovered and what we don’t know we fill with imagination. It is sometimes horrible monsters – which is quite close to reality, if you’ve ever seen deep-sea fish you know what I’m talking about. They are formidable. But sometimes we imagine whole civilizations live down under with half-human half-fish merman, sometimes more advanced than we are–the remains of Atlantis for example in Aquaman–, sometimes feral, predatory creatures more animal than humans – like in our favourite show, Freeform’s Siren. I. Origins We can discover traces of mermaid folklore in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa too, but today’s pop culture was influenced by Greek mythology and Homer’s Odyssey. Sirens in that story were half-human half-bird creatures with a song that drives sailors mad, only in the

  Hey there, traveler! Dar here a bit late for this week's Behind the Scalpel,  with  another excerpt from our WIP desert fantasy, introducing another character - the imprisoned djinn of wind, Zaira. Like for the last excerpt, feedback is very welcome, we'll working hard to smooth things to perfection so every tip is appreciated. This is the self-edited version which we will send to our editor when I've finished editing the whole WIP, so keep that in mind. Other than that, enjoy! ~:O:~    Resurrection At first, only darkness and silence surrounded me. I felt locked in a tiny, narrow place, which rhythmically grew and shrunk, accompanied by an unknown, yet strangely natural drumming. Dub-dub. Dub-dub. It came from somewhere in the middle, from a cage that rose and sank, letting the air flow in at a specific point. It brought with it a musty scent, the characteristic aroma of a cave, although I could not smell the fungi and seaweed, nor the mist of the underground stream.

Hey there, traveler! I think I should start with a stern warning because today’s post is really disturbing. We’re dissecting a common creature appearing in mythology, pop culture like movies and video games – the one-eyed giant, cyclops. Following our theme from Wednesday, we’ll be taking a look at a real-life disease concerning this creature, and that is not for the faint of heart. I’ll try to keep it relatively tasteful and not include medical university level pictures, but if you know you’re horrified by the grotesque, you might want to skip this one. For those of you who take the risk, welcome to a rollercoaster of how badly nature can fuck a human up. Here we go! I. The mythology Let’s start with a bit of culture, to keep it classy. The concept of a cyclops originates in Greek and later Roman mythology, although there origin and features vary with the source material. In Hesiod’s Theogony (The birth of the gods), there are three named giants with one eye in the middle of their for

  Hey there, traveler! It is really common for folklore and mythology to color the boring parts of existing phenomena, medical conditions and natural occurrences, but if you search hard enough, you might find a spark of truth under the myth. Cyclopses, centaurs, mermaids, the manticore, they all have a possible origin that got sewn among the sparkly threads of imagination. I think it’s interesting to look at some of these nuggets of truth and uncover them in some short, bite-sized posts. Today, we’re starting with vampires. Ever since we started working on our dark fantasy horror WIP, I’ve a sort of vampire fever, so I decided I’d share with you today something about that. To be more precise, I’ll tell you about a real-life disease that practically turns you into a vampire for real. Don’t believe me? Well, read on then, fellow skeptic! The name of the game today is porphyria.  I. How it works (or fails to work) First, let me entice you with a bit of biochemistry. As you might know, our

There are many a soul in the cursed lands of the Towers, yet all know who they owe allegiance towards. They all remember the name of the dreaded building that casts a perpetual shadow spinning around like a clock, always expanding its domain onto another piece of land. That is the home of the vampire families. That is the fortress of their lords. There are seven of these cyclopean constructs of dark magic and wonderous machines. Each houses a clan of blood drinkers related by blood and calling. Thesantei Most pleasant of the cursed tribes are the family of diplomats calling themselves the Thesantei. They act courteously and speak with great caution because they forever dance in the battle of wits and words. Their smiles and kind invitations serve none but themselves, bettering their position while they bleed kingdoms dry without cutting a wound. Not that they are incapable on the battlefield. They lunge and pierce like an artist painting with steel, commanding birds of prey and slither

One of the many good things about Twitter is that I can see what’s on the mind of people. (I completely took over our twitter account, so if you see tweets and comments that is me, Lory, in 99% percent of the cases.) A few days ago I saw a tweet about why everyone who writes medieval fantasy builds a society where they are oppressing women. If you can build any world you want and any kind of society why are there so many medieval European settings, and why most of them have strong patriarchy? For a long time, this just felt natural to me, but that tweet made me think too. Now I have some kind of explanation, and I thought this topic is worth at least one blog post. I. On medieval European fantasy You hear the phrase “write what you know” basically everywhere. I’m not exactly at peace with this statement. We’re writing a desert fantasy book as Europeans and I had many depressing nights when I wanted to throw away our WIP because according to this statement, we as white Europeans do not