thenightling

[thenightling]

I never had any children but here are some of my favorite baby names I've come across and considered for if I ever had a child.

Traditionally masculine:

Roderick - Can be shortened to Roddy, Rick, or Ricky. Roderick means Glory or Ruler. Roddy McDowall's full first name. Also the name of one of the main characters from Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher. Roderick is also the name of the man who summoned and trapped Morpheus in the first issue / chapter / episode of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. And a more obscure reference, Roderick is the name of Dr. Craven's father in the 1963 film, The Raven, starring Vincent Price. I would use this as a "King" name. ;-)

Jareth - A combination of Jerold and Gareth. David Bowie's character's name in Labyrinth.

Pipkin - An unrecorded Middle English name, possibly derived from Phillip. It is also the surname of one of the main characters in Ray Bradbury's The Halloween tree. Ray Bradbury used it as a cross between Pip, the hero from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and Pumpkin. Kin also means family. So you are saying "Pip is family." which is very sweet if you know the plot of The Halloween Tree. Kin can also mean "To be like" or "connected to." So the name (in reference to Great Expectations) also means "Like Pip."

Percy or Percival - One of King Arthur's knights, Percival, and the famous poet, Percy Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein.)

Kit - Very old nickname for Christopher. Once was the nickname of the writer, Christopher Marlowe. Now heavily associated with the actor Kit Harington from Game of Thrones.

Jaskier - Polish. Actually means "Buttercup" but actually is considered a boy's name. Pronounced as Yas-key-er. The original Polish name of the bard from The Witcher novels. HIs name is sometimes translated to Dandelion in some of the English adaptations.

Vladislaus - I'd probably never really use this name except in absolutely very specific circumstances. This name comes from an early renaissance war hero and Prince of Eastern Europe. Vladislaus the Third of Wallachia.

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Gender-free names that I like.

Loki - Means Mischief Maker. From the Norse God of Mischief, Fire, and invention. (and sometimes also ice). Marvel depicts him now as God of Stories which fits his mythological roots as God of Invention. In the Poetic and Prose Eddas Loki invented fishing nets. Loki is also the patron of orphans and outcasts, a sympathizer of the outsider. In mythology Loki can be any gender and in Marvel Loki has been portrayed by a man and a woman.

Rowan - The Rowan plant is supposed to be good luck and a pentacle made of Rowman and tied at the points with red string or ribbon protects against black magick.

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Traditionally feminine:

Gretchen - Old Germain Nickname for Marguerite and similar names. Marguerite was my mother's name, Rita being her nickname.

Gretchen was also the love interest in Goethe's Faust and ultimately saved his soul in Faust Part 2.

Jessamy - can be shortened to Jess or Jesse or even sometimes May. It's similar to Jessica but derives out of Jasmine.

Evie - Eve was (according to the Abrahamic mythos) the first woman. Evie is also short for "evening." Evie was the name of the hero in the 2022 film The invitation. It can also be short for Evelyn but I prefer Evie to Evelyn.

Shelley - Traditional girl's name and the married name of author Mary Shelley, writer of Frankenstein. Also the surname of the poet Percy Shelley.

Wilhelmina - The old version of Wima. Can have the nickname Mina or Will. And I think Will is a cute nickname for a girl ever since I heard the song "The Will to love" from W.I.T.C.H. ________________________________ Twin names: Masculine Twins: Jareth and Geralt. Geralt is the first hero of The Witcher novels. _________________________ Feminine Twin names: Gretchen and Jessamy _______________________ Masculine / feminine twin names: Percy and Shelley for the pun in creating the name Percy Shelley (the nineteenth century poet and husband of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein). ___________________________ Gender-free: Loki and Rowan

[thenightling]

i just read your introduction in fahrenheit 451. i think you did a wonderful job writing it. and i full heartedly agree with- well- everything you’ve said. i’m not great at compliments, but i think your introduction served as a great way to give some context and really get the reader thinking before they started reading the book. rest in peace, Ray Bradbury.

Thank you. That was what I hoped it was for.

[thenightling]

I was shelving the books by the first letter of the first sentence. - Good Omens, 2x02

"It was a nice day. All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn't been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden suggested that the first thunderstorm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one." - Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

[thenightling]

#Loki #Sandman #The Sandman #Freddie Fox

[thenightling]

I want to see Doug Jones play Count Dracula. I think he should be Marvel's Dracula.

#Dracula #Marvel #Doug Jones

[thenightling]

The original Wolfman (1941) is on Svengoolie next Saturday.

The Wolfman is actually one of my favorite black and white Universal Monster movies. Dracula might be the first monster to truly scare me but The Wolfman holds a special place in my heart.

I love both nearly equally. I love the character of Dracula more than I love Lawrence Talbot (The Wolfman), but I think The Wolfman is a better paced and more exciting film than the 1931 Dracula.

My favorite silent horror movie is 1926's Faust by Director F. W. Murnau (director of Nosferatu).

I love the original Werewolf poems of The Wolfman. And I also love the use of the pentagram / Pentacle to warn who the next victim will be, protect against werewolves, and also (if properly worn) prevent werewolf transformations.

As for how Dracula scares me and why he's my favorite monster... I didn't think I was scared of Dracula but one day I was home alone watching a History channel documentary that mentioned that Poenari Castle (The real Castle Dracula, not Bran Castle, which is used for tourism). And the locals were seeing strange lights and hearing strange noises up at the castle so they sent some priests to bless the place. Before they could reach the castle a terrible storm hit so they had to do the blessing from a distance.

And I thought "Isn't conjuring storms one of Count Dracula's powers?"

At that moment the door creaked open and I practically jumped out of my skin. That's when I knew Dracula actually scared me. I didn't realize it on a conscious level until then. This was in 2006 or so.

I also remember watching the original "Let the Right One In." and thinking "Ah, this isn't so scary." And it was the scene as the child vampire is climbing up the hospital wall. And at that exact moment the power went out (Snow storm) and for a split second I thought "Oh, crap! Child vampire's going to get me!"

So yes, vampires can and do actually scare me.

Werewolves scare me too but for a different reason. I don't fear being torn apart by a werewolf. I fear being one. The ones that change into wolves at will are fine. I wouldn't mind being one of those. I love wolves and wouldn't mind the power to become a literal wolf at will so long as I can keep my mind in tact.

But the now cliche Hollywood movie version of werewolves that only change on the full moon, don't remember what they do when in wolf-like form, and usually kill someone they love- that would be horrific.

I had at least one nightmare as a kid of waking up after a werewolf transformation and finding I had killed people I love. It was such a relief to wake up from that nightmare.

#The Wolfman #Svengoolie

[thenightling]

I had to have an emergency blood transfusion during a twelve-day stay in the hospital two months ago. I had internal bleeding and they couldn't figure out why until they did a colonoscopy and found I had bleeding ulcers in my intestine from IBD / Crohn's disease (they determined it was one or the other but couldn't figure out which. Fortunately the same medication treats both). But think how quickly I could have been treated if blood bending was a thing.

it’s 2023 and I’m still mad that it’s revealed in legend of Korra that Katara outlawed bloodbending. You can’t tell me that it doesn’t have some useful applications like increasing blood flow to save a frostbitten limb or something. Lightning-bending is shown to have useful applications like powering up cities and stuff like come on. Katara, the extremely powerful waterbender and talented healer couldn’t come up with a way to change an elderly indigenous woman’s trauma into a thing of hope and renewal? For fuck’s sake.

[thenightling]

House of Frankenstein wax museum in Lake George is now open for the season. Today was its opening day!

#House of Frankenstein Wax museum in Lake George #Youtube

[thenightling]

tiktok is such an awful app, it's almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse

[thenightling]

Bleed bending could probably cure certain cancers like leukemia. And could be very useful for medical purposes.

it’s 2023 and I’m still mad that it’s revealed in legend of Korra that Katara outlawed bloodbending. You can’t tell me that it doesn’t have some useful applications like increasing blood flow to save a frostbitten limb or something. Lightning-bending is shown to have useful applications like powering up cities and stuff like come on. Katara, the extremely powerful waterbender and talented healer couldn’t come up with a way to change an elderly indigenous woman’s trauma into a thing of hope and renewal? For fuck’s sake.

[thenightling]

House of Frankenstein Wax museum in Lake George opened for the first day of the "Tourist" season today! All the rest of this month it will only be open on Saturdays and Sundays. Then in May it will have a few week days open. Leading up to Halloween they will have more and more days open and then close for the season in November. For a while they had a sister location called Dr. Morbid's but it wasn't as good and relied heavily on audio clips and discarded props and figures from House of Frankenstein that I think would have been better left in their original displays. (I have still not forgiven House of Frankenstein's house of wax for removing the Cask of Amontillado scene for what looks like a Spencers Gifts dummy of Freddy Krueger but the brick wall with the hole in it is still there behind him... You removed the semi-educational literary horror for something bought at a mall. https://frankensteinwaxmuseum.com/

#House of Frankenstein #House of Frankenstein wax museum #Lake George #Haunted House #Haunted House attraction

[thenightling]

Island of Terror is on Svengoolie right now!

#Island of Terror #The Island of Terror #Peter Cushing #Svengoolie

[thenightling]

Freddie Fox (House of The Dragon) will be playing Loki in the up-coming Season of Mist story arc in The Sandman Netflix Series for DC / Warner Brothers.

Loki is the Nordic God of Mischief who many are familiar with as Tom Hiddleson portrays a version for Marvel / Disney.

Sophia di Martino also plays a female version of Loki for Marvel / Disney.

#The Sandman #Sandman #Loki #Neil Gaiman #The Season of Mists #Sandman: Season of Mists #The Sandman: The Season of Mists #The Sandman: Season of Mists #Freddie Fox #Norse Mythology #Norse Myths #Asatru

[thenightling]

due to inflation you must answer my riddles five

[thenightling]

This conversation about accents reminds me of the 2013 Dracula TV series starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Dracula is a character where everyone makes fun of the accent. That accent originated with actor Bela Lugosi and that was his real accent. Bela was born in Lugoj, in what is Today Romania, but when he was born it was part of Hungary. And Lugoj happens to be in Transylvania. Bela Lugosi was the first and only English language Dracula actually from Transylvania. When Jonathan Rhys Meyers was cast as Dracula he mentioned how it wouldn't be cheesy. And how he wouldn't use a "Cheesy Bela Lugosi accent." That didn't mean he would use a more authentic version of Bela's accent. No. It meant he would play Dracula with an English accent in private (for some reason) and an American Southern accent in public. I get the frustration at the classism stereotype of Southern accent = stupid. But I feel bad for poor Bela Lugosi that his real life accent is considered "Cheesy" and "not to be taken seriously" when used in film. Hell, Most Americans have only heard Romanian accents in vampire movies and immediately think of it as cheesy even when it's the man's real accent.

if you give “stupid” characters rural/southern accents i don’t like you and if you give “smart” characters rural/southern accents but it’s a punchline i don’t like you even more

[thenightling]

It's real!

When I first saw a picture of this I thought it was a hoax because it was posted on April 1st. Now I realize it's real. Not only is it real but he's listed on Hallmark's site.

The Sandman Keepsake holiday ornament of Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless!

Sandman's Morpheus AKA Dream of The Endless holiday ornament!

#The Sandman #Neil Gaiman #Morpheus #Dream of The Endless #Sandman #Hallmark #Hallmark keepsake ornament

[thenightling]

@karimitic Dead Boy Detectives was originally going to be on Max. It was never attached to Amazon Prime. That's Good Omens and Anansi Boys.

I'm not saying it will be your new favourite show. I'm just saying...

Actually, it will probably be your new favourite show. Who am I trying to kid?