A dreamer's daily ramblings

[lornabassiswrites]

The invisible life of Addie Larue

Today, I’d like to recommend a fantasy book I read a while ago: “The invisible life of Addie Larue”, by V. E. Schwab, published in 2020.

Addie Larue is a girl with aspirations of grandeur. There’s so much to see and do and Addie is stuck in her tiny village in the middle of rural France, her only prospect an arranged marriage with a widower from her village. Addie dreams of so much more; on the evening of her wedding, she makes a pact with one of the spirits who come out after dusk.

“Never pray to the gods who answer after dark” – Addie knew it all too well too.

When Addie meets the Darkness, her whole life is turned upside down. Suddenly, Addie has all the time in the world to explore and do all the things she’s dreamt of – until she gets tired of it, that is. But the Darkness has taken something in return – nothing comes for free when you make a pact with the Devil. How can life have meaning, especially an immortal one, when people forget you the second they lose sight of you?

The invisible life of Addie LaRue is an amazing story of identity, meaning and resilience. It looks into the implications of desire and the proverbial “be careful what you wish for”. It is incredibly well written and well paced, with intriguing characters, chief among them Addie herself, Luc, the Darkness who visits her year after year, and Henry, a mysterious bookseller who reminds Addie of the Darkness and who hides a secret that will bring him and Addie closer than she’s ever been with anyone.

“The invisible life of Addie Larue” is mysterious, it can be sweet as well as bitter, it’s one of these books that I just devoured in one weekend because of how fascinating the story was.

There’s something deeply enchanting about the story of Addie Larue, within the story in itself but also within its reading experience. I warmly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a bit of fantastic mystery!

[lornabassiswrites]

Severance

I first heard about this show months ago, when one of the streamers I watch on Twitch stated how much he'd loved it. It wasn't until about a week ago that I decided I'd give it a try.

Boy did I not regret it. It had been a while since I'd been so hooked to a TV show.

Written by Dan Erickson and produced by Ben Stiller, Severance is so good I don't want to tell you too much about the story so that I don't risk spoiling it. Here's the premise: Mark Scout (played by Adam Scott), like others working for Lumon Industries, has willingly undergone a surgical procedure known as "Severance", which spatially separates his life memories from his work memories. When one of Mark's "severed" co-workers mysteriously disappears, he starts to realise that the procedure may not just be about work-life balance and that Lumon might be hiding something. Something big.

The show is very mysterious and (important) intriguing, and I was immediately hooked. There are questions. A lot of them. But more important are the characters. Mark S., Helly R., Irving B. and Dylan G.: Mark's team and friends who accompany him on his quest to find out what severance really means.

At the heart of "Severance" is a question about identity and whether segregating your memories creates an alternate version of you. There's also some philosophical as well as religious undertones, and many of the show's considerations strike true.

What really got me hooked, besides the plot, is how the actors masterfully manage to act out differences between their "innies" (the version of them at work) and their "outies" (the version of them the rest of the time). Whether it be through posture or tone of voice, you know who is who and I absolutely loved that.

I'm a bit addicted to it, to be honest, and now that I've finished season 2, whose finale came out in March 2024, I feel a bit empty.

Well, I'll fill that hole with watching more of Adam Scott's adorable character in Parks and Rec.

[lornabassiswrites]

What I see in the fire

I see things that aren’t there. I see patterns and life in mindless things.

I spent the most part of my childhood weekends away from Paris, in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere in Normandy. We didn’t have a TV in Paris, there, we didn’t even have internet. Hell, we didn’t (and still don’t) even have electric heating – only a fireplace in the main room.

These weekends taught me how important imagination could be. This little house was were I first truly got in touch with the magnificent concept of an adventure. I read and reread all the Famous Five books we had (and we had a lot!), I made up stories with my barbies, my little brother and I role-played as adventurers in the garden…

And then came the evenings. The cold evening in a house with holes and no source of heat except for the fireplace. We all gathered around the dining table and my father stoked the fire in the little soot-covered hearth.

I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent sitting there, staring at the flames, feeling their warmth creep up my feet and redden my cheeks.

This is a core memory I have, and whenever I smell wood fire, I am brought back to those cold evenings in Normandy.

I saw stories in the flames. I still do.

I saw a city, lit up with paper lanterns, a festival raging in its streets. Each individual flame a person, running uphill to join the heart of the old city, where the fire raged brightest and warmest. Sometimes, people strayed away from the party. Solitary flames traveled less busy alley-ways as they slowly consumed sparse twigs on the outside of the fire.

I see that city in my mind’s eye, even now. I’m not sure where it came from but it’s always been there and when I do get to come back to that old house in Normandy, I revisit it, and it feels as though I’m greeting an old friend.

All this to say that inspiration can come from the most simple things, and therein lies its magic.

[lornabassiswrites]

Hades: rediscovering Greek Mythology

As a kid with Greek ancestry and an interest in history and legends, I was always fascinated with Greek mythology.

There’s a LOT to learn about in Greek mythology, and I pursued this interest further as a teenager studying ancient Greek, which quickly became my favourite subject in school. There was a period in my life where I could name all the big players in the Greek pantheon and most of the significant legends attached to each of them. Most of this knowledge is now buried deep within my brain.

Well, not quite, not anymore. In July 2023, I finally gave in to my brother’s repeated recommendation and bought a video game. “Hades”. I’d just finished my second play-through of “The Witcher 3” and was looking for another game to play. I was first reluctant to try “Hades” as it had very little in common with the games I’d played until then, adventure RPGs (role-playing games) based on quests and on the story.

“Hades” was a type of game I’d never played before, though I’d vaguely heard of its category (rogue-like or rogue-lite): games where your character goes from room to room in a “dungeon”, defeating enemies and building on experience and equipment with the final objective of escaping the dungeon and defeating the final boss.

Games like these are very repetitive in their gameplay, as the player will have to carry out the same steps over and over again until they are strong enough to progress to the next level in the “dungeon”. What makes these games good is the narrative built around the dungeon, and the variety brought by the different kinds of weapons or skills you can develop.

I thought I wouldn’t enjoy this type of game. I was wrong. I bought “Hades” and played it so much I got every achievement available in the game. Why did I like it so much? Well, the game follows Zagreus, the rebellious son of Hades himself, as he tries to escape the Underworld and his father’s authority. Aided by various gods from the Greek pantheon, who each have different boons to offer Zagreus, the player gets to explore the different layers of the Underworld: Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium and eventually, the surface, where he comes face to face with the ultimate boss: his own father.

I thought “Hades” was a no-story game, solely based on character building and fights. There again, I was wrong. Through various Greek heroes and Mythological figures like the Furies, Orpheus, the Minotaur and Theseus, Achilles, the game revisits Greek Mythology in a way that’s both instructive and entertaining. And there are stakes too! I won’t divulge too much because the story deserves to be discovered in its own time, but just know there’s a reason why Zagreus keeps trying to escape – a mystery to solve, a reason for the player to try again and again, even if it takes a few hours of play before you can even defeat the first boss.

And then, to top a compelling story-line and magnificent game design, we have the voice acting and the soundtrack, which are simply perfect. “Hades” is a beautiful game, both visually and audibly, and I truly fell in love with it. I brought me back to my childhood and to my love of Greek mythology, and I spent more than 130 hours on the game. So, as my brother did with me, I very warmly recommend it to anyone who enjoys video games. Even (and especially) if, like me, this is not your usual type of game. Meanwhile, I’ll be waiting for the release of Hades II!

[lornabassiswrites]

This overthinker’s starter pack

How can a person be boiled down to a few attributes and accessories?

That’s the question underlying the latest “starter pack” trend on social media. With AI image generators like ChatGPT and other similar AI-powered platforms, people have started to create life-like toy figurines supposed to represent their core characteristics. Artists and illustrators haven’t taken kindly to this trend and have launched a “counter-trend” with hand-drawn, anti-AI, starter packs that, in my opinion, already do a much better job at representing the person drawing them.

So how does one go about finding what to put in this identity starter pack? I’ve been wondering about this lately. There are obvious ones, of course, like physical appearance, profession, pets and/or favourite objects from daily life.

But then what? How do you translate personality, background and everything else that’s not immediately visible into a plastic figurine? That’s where the no AI “starter pack” trend does a better work, as at least, it allows the artist’s personality to shine through in the way they draw themselves.

So what would I put in my own starter pack? There are obvious elements, but even then, it feels so incomplete it’s almost grotesque. I understand it’s a starter pack, not something meant to represent who you are in its entirety. Yet, even if you go to the root of what makes a person, you’ll rarely find things pertaining to this person alone. Their family, their environment, all these things play into who they are, not only what they look like and do for work.

I’m not good at taking a step back, which means that it’s difficult for me to see my key characteristics, the handful of things that would describe me best. And then there’s the overthinking, which adds another layer of complexity on top.

So no matter what I do, I know that I will never be satisfied with the extreme simplification the “starter pack” represents. Still, I’ve given it a try, and for better or for worse, here’s the result.

[lornabassiswrites]

“The four sons of Aymon” is a story about the Ros Beiaard parade and its tradition of having four Dendermonde brothers reenact the Ros Beiaard legend by acting as the Four sons of Aymon. The story focuses on Noor, a young girl with three younger brothers and an upcoming fifth sibling. Ten-year-old Noor dreams of being Renaud, the knight at the heart of the Ros Beiaard legend, and is convinced that one day, she will wake up as a boy, allowing her and her brothers to become the Aymon knights. A little sister is born, puberty hits and Noor has to face the truth of her gender dysphoria.

[lornabassiswrites]

An abandoned pair of shoes

I was out grocery shopping this weekend when I came upon an unusual sight: an abandoned pair of pink heels lying there, on the pavement.

This was not the first time I encountered a lost pair of shoes. I was hiking the Seven Sisters Trail south to London in August and, there again, found an abandoned pair of sneakers next to a cordoned-off rocky outcropping.

Why do people leave their shoes behind? A thousand questions sprouted in my mind then and it did again this weekend. If there’s one thing (almost) everyone wears, it’s shoes. Did these people have a spare pair on them and decided that they were done with this one? Did something malevolent happen that they had to leave their shoes behind? Were the people too drunk to notice? Did the shoes break, forcing their poor owners to carry on walking in their socks? Did they simply decide to leave them behind and embrace a more rustic kind of life?

I once considered removing my shoes in the street, as I was wearing brand new leather shoes and they HURT LIKE HELL. I found restraint within me and carried on walking with my pain but even if I had removed them, I would’ve still taken them with me!

An abandoned pair of shoes is a beautiful mystery, tainted with a touch of the macabre. As you will no doubt have noticed it you’ve been following my Wednesday chronicles, I like a mystery. It inspires me. So here I’ll be, inventing backstories to forgotten objects lying forlorn on the floor.

[lornabassiswrites]

Sherlock: the game is afoot

There are shows that stay with you your whole life. The BBC’s “Sherlock” is one of those for me. In case you’ve never heard of this show, which I hope is unlikely, here’s a quick synopsis: “Sherlock” follows Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) on their investigations in this BBC modern-day adaptation of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterful works. Directed…

Sherlock: the game is afoot

[lornabassiswrites]

Paris in the Spring

I used to think that Autumn was my favourite season. Mostly because I was born in October and because I love the warm colours of the leaves in Autumn.

I was a bit delusional though. My all-time favourite season is Spring. There's something in the air (besides pollen) that fills me with energy and hope. A feeling of potential that is very hard to match.

I was born in Paris and lived there until I was twenty-three, and springtime is when I miss it the most. Students and young adults litter the banks of the river Seine with pic-nicks and beers, chatting about their latest crush or their plans for the summer; coffee shops, brasseries and restaurants terraces fill up in a blink of an eye, giving the streets a welcoming, familial feel.

I was privileged enough to grow up in the centre of Paris. The Marais, the Quartier Latin, the Jardin des Plantes, the rue Montorgueil, these were the city-scapes that filled up most of my youth (and life until now).

In the springtime, these neighbourhoods are even more packed with people, tourists and locals alike, enjoying the many boutiques and restaurants they have to offer, taking in the sun on a garden bench or treating themselves to an ice-cream as they stroll around old paved narrow streets.

Five years ago, Paris was in a severe COVID-19 lockdown. No going outside except for vital reasons or for a one-hour stroll in a 1 km radius around your home. The terraces sat empty, the garden benches were left to the birds, the once-so-busy streets now deserted. If it hadn't been Spring, I would probably have found those sights quite depressing.

Instead, I remember a certain type of magic in the air. An eerie type of quiet, unpolluted air like I'd probably never breathed before - a bubble. I wouldn't wish another lockdown on anyone, but a small part of me wouldn't mind re-experiencing a few of those silent days in the springtime, walking around deserted streets, revisiting and rediscovering my home. Paris in the Spring is the best Paris there is, and the one that's the hardest for me to leave.

[lornabassiswrites]

The Four Sons of Aymon Pt. 8

“The four sons of Aymon” is a story about the Ros Beiaard parade and its tradition of having four Dendermonde brothers reenact the Ros Beiaard legend by acting as the Four sons of Aymon. The story focuses on Noor, a young girl with three younger brothers and an upcoming fifth sibling. Ten-year-old Noor dreams of being Renaud, the knight at the heart of the Ros Beiaard legend, and is convinced…

[lornabassiswrites]

Look at the damn road!

Another day, another short post because my back is killing me. This pet peeve will be fairly obvious once you’ve read the title, but it’s something so common that I feel I must include it in my Thursday series. You’ll have probably guessed it, I’m talking about driving scenes were the character who’s driving the car has a discussion with someone else in the car and they DON’T. LOOK. AT. THE.…

Look at the damn road!

[lornabassiswrites]

My surest source of inspiration

Another Wednesday and once again, I am exhausted so this will be the shortest of short posts. I’m already fighting to keep my eyes open and on top, WordPress and my laptop have decided to lag. What a joy! Anyway, to the topic at hand. Today, I want to write about the simplest and perhaps most important source of writing inspiration for me: the English language. I have a special relationship…

[lornabassiswrites]

Farewell Wanderlust

It’s been 5 years and a few days since lockdown started and I find myself reminiscing over that strange period in my life. Lockdown was a time of discovery for me, through games like The Witcher, series like Outlander and through music, too. Today, I want to write about one specific song that I discovered during lockdown and that really stuck with me. “Farewell Wanderlust”, by The Amazing…

Farewell Wanderlust

[lornabassiswrites]

The dreamless life of Little Lorna

Daily writing promptWhen you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up? View all responses For a woman who’s spent so much of her time dreaming of the future and projecting hopes onto it, I find my mind surprisingly blank as I try to remember what Little Lorna wanted to be when she grew up. Truth be told, I don’t think my memory is at fault here. I remember my first career aspiration…

The dreamless life of Little Lorna

[lornabassiswrites]

“The four sons of Aymon” is a story about the Ros Beiaard parade and its tradition of having four Dendermonde brothers reenact the Ros Beiaard legend by acting as the Four sons of Aymon. The story focuses on Noor, a young girl with three younger brothers and an upcoming fifth sibling. Ten-year-old Noor dreams of being Renaud, the knight at the heart of the Ros Beiaard legend, and is convinced…

[lornabassiswrites]

Whodunit? The very first person you'd suspect

When I first started writing about my narration pet peeves, I had about two or three in mind. I have now written about eleven of them, and I still have at least a couple to go! Who thought there were so many things to critique in movies and series. I’ve watched a lot of police TV shows where the main focus of each episode is an investigation culminating in solving the case. I’m not talking about…

Whodunit? The very first person you'd suspect

[lornabassiswrites]

Is imagination purely human?

Today’s post will be a bit different than the past Wednesday posts, albeit still focused on inspiration and imagination. Where does imagination come from? Is it something inherently there, in our minds, or is it built on our experiences of the world?I believe it is the latter – take a hermit who’s only ever known the one cave he resides in, how would he be able to imagine unicorns and trains and…

Is imagination purely human?