Tag: essay

The Sidhe Courts

The idea of Seelie and Unseelie Courts, as well as many other details about them in this setting, is a bit syncretic. The terms come from the British Isles, where various local variations of those words were used to distinguish between kind and unkind faeries. (I use the spelling fae and faerie both because of etymology and the cultural associations around “fairy” not fitting well. Fey is a very different, archaic word I use as an adjective, not as a term for the fae; the etymology is unrelated.) But a lot of the details are things I had to fit together from a wide variety of source material, much of which contradicts itself.…

Supernatural Language

The consultant says something interesting here, and there’s more to unpack than there might seem. In particular, I want to take a moment to address his comments on language, ambiguity, and to an extent on the actual magic in use, and all three tie together.…

Plant Selection & Phytochemistry

Kyoko’s selection of plants is very much intentional, and I think especially that the plants she picked out for their poisonous properties are worth discussing briefly. If you look into the mechanisms and the pharmacology of them, you’ll find that they vary widely. In fact, she has very little overlap in mechanism, and she has one example of each of the major modes of action employed by dangerously toxic plants.…

Photosensitivity vs. Visual Overload

Kyoko closes her eyes to mitigate her sensory overload. There’s an interesting point here, and it’s just obscure enough that if someone does notice, it would be easy to think it’s a mistake on my part. To avoid that, and because it brings up some interesting details, I thought I’d write up a discussion of the topic.…