Wild landscapes such as mountains and cliffs are some of the tings that inspire me a lot in my illustrations, as well as mythology and folklore.
This drawing was partly inspired by the wild coast of Ireland, and strange tales of sailors and lovers lost at sea, with a ghostly figure sitting on the edge of the cliff, staring longingly towards the horizon.
If the restless spirit of a child who died before their time latched onto me and tried to force their way into my life, I would simply love and cherish them as if they were my own.
Rip to every horror movie protag ever, but I’m different.
Mysterious old lady: “You’ve seen the child, haven’t you? I know about her… she was to be one of my twin daughters, whom I parented in a dark ritual with the Lord of Fleas himself! But she was never to be, perished before her birth!”
Me: “Great! So did you ever name her? Because if you didn’t, I’m gonna call her Rosemary. :)”
The little ghost girl with sunken black eyes in a tattered white dress, handing me a withered dead sparrow: “P̴̥̕a̷̟͊p̵̘̅a̴̪͛,̵̪͒ ̸͚̉I̸̘̓ ̴̱̒ḫ̶̓ȁ̴̠v̸̦̌e̵̟͊ ̷̟̓b̸̳͠ȓ̵͉o̷̟͐û̷͇g̶̘͛h̸̩̅t̶̼̍ ̸̡̐y̵͈̽o̸̥̾ụ̸̽ ̴͕͐ą̶͂ ̵͇͊g̴͇̓i̶̝͊f̸̲̈t̵̡̆!̶̺̉”
Me, carefully placing the bird on the shelf next to all the other dead things: “Awww, thank you, Pumpkin! Now let’s get washed up, it’s dinner time and I made soup! :)”
The local medium, showing up unannounced right before lunchtime: “Your neighbors told me about your situation. Don’t worry, I’m here now to help cleanse the evil from this place.”
Me, having just got dressed and ready for a nice day out with my kid: “Seriously? You’re doing this on Father’s Day? Tell the HOA they can bite me.”
10/10 would definitely watch a multi-season series like this
I actually did have an idea for a book about it.
Some years before the book begins, something goes horribly wrong, and some Blair Witch stuff happens across the entire globe. The veil between this world and the next rips clean open, and all sorts of stuff spills through. Horrid demons, torturous spirits, and innumerable ghosts (long-dead as well as recently departed, the calamity does not pick favorites) all flood the land of the living, and some parties on both sides are pretty riled up about it.
So the world goes to war. The natural living world against the supernatural “invaders”. It’s never discovered how the event happened, but in searching for a weapon to fight back against the dead and their ilk, humanity is able to turn the power of faith into a weapon. Doesn’t even matter which faith, which religion or religions supply the light, all that matters is that a new form of warfare is born: weaponized prayer. The supernatural forces fall within the year.
But there are always innocents in war. Some ghosts never wanted to fight. They just wanted to go back to their rest. And when it was decided that they couldn’t, they just wanted to eke out a peaceful place to exist in the mortal world. Some attached themselves to places of quiet that they knew in life, some returned to their families and friends, the people they left behind. But others had nothing to go back to. Many were too young to form these sort of attachments to anything on Earth. These come to be known as “orphan ghosts”.
The book follows a tired, middle-aged fellow (we’ll call him Marcus) who finds himself haunted by the orphan ghost of a little seven-year-old girl with no memory of her mortal life. Maybe she’s from another time period? Maybe she is the daughter of a devil and a witch? Who knows? All Marcus knows for sure is that this spooky little ghost girl follows him just about everywhere.
At first he is apprehensive about his new shadow, but it doesn’t take long before the ghost begins to fill in the spaces in his heart that a hard life had left empty. Marcus had lost his own family—a wife and son—during the war, and with nowhere to go due to the destruction of the Veil, their spirits were lost to god-knows-where. It’s not that he’s replacing his family with this little one, but… well, she’s a light for him in a dark time. He ends up adopting her, and even gives her a new name. (Rosemary! Rosy for short. :P)
But after the war ended, the world remained changed, hostile to any and all things supernatural. Everyone carries a holy symbol on them for self-defense. Spirits and spectres are rounded up into “grave camps”, prison-like holy ground used to contain and banish any apparition unfortunate to be corralled or captured.
Marcus is happier now than he’d been since the day he lost everything, and Rosy is delighted to see him come back into himself. But they have to keep Rosemary a secret from everyone, so no one can take her away.
I dunno, it was just an idea that came to me. I might come back and touch on it here a little bit, but I’d also love to read this story. If anyone wants to take the idea and run with it, feel free. But please shoot me a message or tag me in your post so I can see what you came up with. ^^ Guess this is my contribution to Halloween this year, so… Happy Halloween!
Ok this is all really good. Like the addition
But the first half kinda gave off ”Supernatural Sitcom” kind of vibes with a summary like this:
”Guy in late 20s or early 30s gets found by a restless spirit of a child of unspecfied nature who starts haunting him. Guy decides he is a father now and starts caring for the child-spirit like she were his own. Also tries to legally adopt her. What could possibly go wrong?”
Additional world building mostly still fits
That was the vibe I was going for with the initial posts, but then I started thinking about it more, and it snowballed into “heartfelt found-family drama”.
So I meant to have this short story finished and ready to share by today, but then everything happened with the virus and the power outage (I forgot to mention, a big ol’ storm knocked out the power a couple days ago, so things have been even more complicated). So I wasn’t able to finish it…
So instead, I’m doing something a little bit different… and perhaps a little bit ill-advised: I’m going to be sharing a WIP with y’all, on this website that I keep forgetting I have, and updating it throughout the day as I write!
Happy Halloween, and keep checking back for updates!
a series of coincidences regarding Coldplay’s unreleased “Wedding Album”
- Christmas Lights contains the lyrics “I loved you, darling, and I always will”
- “I love you darling and I always will” was part of the chorus to Wedding Bells
- the Wedding Album was attemped from 2009-2010
- Christmas Lights released in 2010 and Wedding Album was scrapped
- Lethal Drug (unreleased Avicii collab) contains lyrical references to wedding clothes and falling in love/fucking up
- Lethal Drug was clearly originally supposed to be on The Wedding Album minus the Avicii sections
- Oceans (on Ghost Stories) features church bells (wedding bells) in the climax leading up to Sky Full Of Stars….. an Avicii collaboration
- Chris has mentioned bits of The Wedding Album were fashioned into songs on Everyday Life
- the music video for Cry Cry Cry will apparently be wedding themed
- Lethal Drug (obvious Wedding Album remnant) contains the lyric “all summer we belonged/to the wave we’re riding on”
- Church (on Everyday Life) features the line in chorus “when you’re riding a wave/oh won’t you ride that wave to me”
- Lethal Drug contains the lyric “just went up in smoke/I went up with the other ghosts”
- O/Fly On (from Ghost Stories) contains the lyric “into smoke I’m turned/rise/following them up” and the song is followed on the Target edition with Ghost Story
There were many individual spirits in Hell House that I got to know over time. At first it confused me why there were ghosts in a house that had never had any residents other than our family. No deaths. I have come to learn now that all the spirits of the house were inhuman in some manner. Some kind, some not so much. The first of these spirits that I met, I lovingly named Radio Ghost.
Radio Ghost was a poltergeist who enjoyed making his presence known by turning on radios or the TV very loudly. At first he haunted my mother, and later, me. The first time I was aware of him was a night in 2003. It was a school night in the spring. For my birthday my parents got me a nice stereo. Just as I fell asleep, it turned on full blast. Scared the shit out of me. Had to always keep any noise making electronic unplugged at night in that house.
Radio Ghost had a very specific vibration. He felt playful in a way. I noticed, when I felt sick or sad there would always be a butt print in the bed like someone was sitting there. I once asked him to stand up if he was Radio Ghost. The print lifted.
Radio Ghost ended up being my friend through the whole time I lived there. He assisted me in keeping my room a safe space from the other less kind spirits of the house. I allowed him to view the room as his in the spiritual plane while sharing physical space with me, in turn for him keeping the others out. In 2009 when we lost the house I had a tearful goodbye with Radio Ghost that ended with my phone randomly playing a song. I can’t remember what song it was, but it was a sappy love song about two lover’s parting. I cried super hard. Radio Ghost never stepped out of the house, I never felt his vibrations anywhere but inside, so I sadly feel he is a friend of the past. I would love the chance, however, to visit with him again.
I still think that my favorite urban legend/folklore fact is that there are certain areas in New Orleans where you cannot get a taxi late at night not because it isn’t safe, but because taxi companies have had recurring problems of picking up ghosts in those areas who are not aware that they are dead and disappearing from the cab before reaching the destination and therefore stiffing the driver on the fare causing a loss for the company.
An occupational hazard of cab driving I had not previously considered
I love that the nola problem here is not “ghosts in my taxi cab,” but “ghosts are FUCKING BROKE DEAD BASTARDS & I GOT BILLS”
Horror is when ghosts get into cabs and scare drivers
Magical realism is when cab companies have to develop policies to prevent ghastly fare-theft
In a book about the tsunami in Japan in 2011, the writer talked about how there was a huge increase in reports of ghostly activity. Apparently in Japan treating ghosts rudely is basically considered the stupidest thing you could possibly do. For months after the tsunami, taxi drivers would pick up a passenger only to have them give an address in one of the devastated areas. The cab driver often looked up halfway to the destination to find their fare had disappeared. Not wanting to be impolite to the person (even if they were dead) they’d drive to the address, open the door to let them out, then drive away.
Fantastic new comic from our friend (and Frontier #6: Emily Carroll author), Emily Carroll! It’s lovely on its own, but also is connected to a tale in her “Through The Woods” that makes it EXTRA CREEPY!!
I haven’t posted in forever, whoops So yep, this is fanart for the opera Faust. The @royaloperahouse posted one of their productions of it on YouTube and that got me in the mood :,)
I was inspired to draw my version of Christine Daaé performing the leading lady role of Marguerite, with two randos (looking like Raoul and the Phantom, not intentionally I promise) as Faust and Mephistopheles, during the final act of the opera. If you wanna know more, definitely check out the Jewel aria and the final trio represented here, I think they sound pretty awesome but you know, it’s opera so you do you
