If so, the woman who zealously guards the garden of flowers surrounding Hila Rao Shrine is as good of a candidate as anyone. While writing this story, I wondered if it were possible for Malice to infect regular people. It also infects the dragon spirit Lanayru who guards the Spring of Wisdom.
In Breath of the Wild, Malice is a tangible substance that infests objects and locations controlled by Ganon, including the four Divine Beasts, Hyrule Castle, and the Akkala Citadel Ruins. I posted a short story on AO3 ( here) about a minor character in Breath of the Wild named Magda, who is affectionately known by the fandom as “Flowerblight Ganon.” There’s a special NSFW zine and a bonus story told through a collection of physical documents that are exclusive to the Kickstarer campaign, so please check it out if you’re interested! Flowerblight Ganon You can back the Kickstarter campaign to pre-order a copy of the anthology along with a collection of the dark and stylish merch created as a promotion. I’m very proud of the ending, and I hope readers will get a pleasant chill from the gradual transformation of the two narrators’ distinctive voices.Ĭarpe Noctem is scheduled to be published in August 2022. In the excerpt above, you can see my homage to a fictional essay in Masks called “An Account of the Shrine in the Fields.” It was a lot of fun to write about Heian-period demonic women, and I also enjoyed doing research in order to put together the Meiji-period frame story. Along with The Tale of Genji, I’ve drawn inspiration from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “Rashomon” and Fumiko Enchi’s eerie postwar novel Masks. I’m contributing a short story about a Heian-period vampire titled “The Kumo Diary,” which follows a Meiji-era scholar’s assistant who discovers an old manuscript that she initially mistakes as a lost chapter from The Tale of Genji. You can check out contributor bios, merch illustrations, and previews of art and writing on the project’s Twitter account ( here). Carpe Noctem was fully funded in three days, and four stretch goals have been unlocked since then. The backer campaign lasts until Saturday, December 11, and you can read about the project and order a copy of the book on Kickstarter ( here). Carpe Noctem: Vampires Through the Ages is an anthology of original art, comics, and historical fiction about vampires around the world.