Ghost Month: Doppelganger

Doppelganger

I’ve used a fantasy version of this in my stories.  For fantasy, these tend to be shapeshifters who copy a person and try to replace them.  At the very least, they take the form while occasionally copying all memories as well.  This makes it difficult for a person to notice the switch, which is why they are as dangerous as mimics.  None of that matters here because real-world doppelgangers aren’t that.

These are ghostly copies of living people right down to their mannerisms.  They aren’t always solid, but their features are clear.  Some stories have them speaking and interacting with their surroundings, which increases the confusion on them being the real person or the fake.  They are said to try to tempt and trick their targets into harmful actions either for their own entertainment or to replace them upon death.  This means they are dark and malevolent spirits that need to be avoided.

It’s that last part that has them listed as a death omen, which is similar to the banshee.  A key difference is that the doppelganger means the person viewing it will die and it might have a hand in the event.  Banshees typically only warn of a loved one dying soon and aren’t responsible.

An interesting aspect of doppelgangers are that they have no shadow or reflection.  This could be due to them not so much being a copy of a person, but a mirror-image.  They have no reflection because they are the reflection.  I couldn’t find much on this idea beyond a few suggestions.  Mostly it was that lack of a soul means it wouldn’t be shown in mirrors similar to a vampire.  The whole mirrors/glass are portals to the soul idea means such creatures wouldn’t register.

One has to wonder if they would really count as a ghost since they might lack a soul and don’t come from the deceased.  Yet, they are considered a death omen, which tends to be a ghostly role.

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Poetry Day: Shrieking Skull of Necrotalis Plains

Castlevania Giant Ghost

(A creepy tale that I can’t remember the inspiration for.  Given the time period, it could have been a nightmare.)

An open plain
Never crossed by man
Home to ghosts
And every form of ghoul
Slavering for flesh

 

One such beast
Is the Shrieking Skull
A floating horror
Lacking limbs and trunk
Embraced by putrid light

 

Found among the trees
Known for their poison sap
They hang in the sunlight
Empty eyes peering
At the ground below

 

A fleshless jaw
Permanently dropped
Releases a shattering shriek
Heard for many miles
Paralyzing all nearby prey

 

It pierces what it eats
Directly through the brain
With a needle spine
Bloating with swallowed meat
And powdered bone

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Ghost Month: Banshees, Wraiths, and Revenants

Banshee

Time for a triple because these three are all ghosts that I feel are similar.  Can’t put my finger on why I feel that way, but I’m going with it in order to include more types of ghosts this month.

Banshee

I think most people have heard of this ghost even if they don’t realize she counts as one.  In some stories, they are fairies, which means they are up for debate.  Now, a banshee is a long-haired woman who screams and wails.  They come from Irish folklore with their role being that of a death omen.  If you hear a banshee, it means someone in your family is going to die soon.  Many even believed that every family had their own banshee instead of their being one for the whole country.  Other tales say that she can only scream while combing her hair.

As with any folklore being, there are different accounts.  Some have the banshee as a towering woman while others have her as a short old hag.  Some have her solely in gray or white while others say she wears green beneath a gray cloak.  Her eyes can be red from all the crying or she has a generally horrifying face.  It seems the only consistencies are her wailing and being a death omen.  Keep in mind that hearing her scream does not kill you like some modern fiction says, but it just tells you death is coming for someone.

Wraith

Wraith

These guys originally come from Scottish folklore where they are considered evil and dangerous spirits.  Wraiths are commonly described as flying beings with black cloaks and skeletal features, but there are tales of them being patches of deep darkness.  In all versions, they have glowing eyes.  They have the power to steal souls, curse victims, and cause emotional pain to those they make contact with.  Before anyone says it, they are probably what the Dementors of ‘Harry Potter’ are based on.  One can see how the Nazgul of LOTR are based on the wraith as well . . . I mean, they are called Ringwraiths.

Now, there are two ways that wraiths are created.  One is through black magic where they are conjured either by accident or on purpose.  They creators tend to be evil, but some stories say they appear when someone tries to gain immortality using dark magic.  It can be they either become the wraith or birth one that will terrorize them.  The second method of creation is that they are spirits with unresolved issues, but they are unable to satisfy their desires.  Being unable to find closure, they transform into a soul-stealing wraith that is fueled by dark emotions.

Revenant

Revenant

The last one is strange because it’s unclear if they could even be considered their own type of ghost.  Being found throughout Europe, many argue that revenant is nothing more than another word for undead.  That means, stories use the term for vampires, zombies, wraiths, and other undead.  So, it’s unclear if there was ever a unique revenant category that may have evolved into something else.

An interesting thing I found was that revenants typically were described as being revived corpses, which makes me think of zombies.  They don’t eat brains or flesh, but merely haunt the living.  Some are sent after specific people while others terrorize a town through attacking or spreading disease.  One can see vampires in that description too.

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I am with Teri Polen at Bad Moon Rising, Today

Today I’m with Teri Polen at her Bad Moon Rising feature. This is the tenth year for this feature and the following graphic contains a list of …

I am with Teri Polen at Bad Moon Rising, Today
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Teaser Tuesday: Big Girl Talk

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

(I always enjoy this scene from War of Nytefall: Lost.)

“I need more ribbons!” Lost shouts from behind Lou. Covered in colorful bows, the grumbling ogre is about to move when his legs lock. “You can’t get them, so I’ll send those tiny guards. They look fast. Can you bring me some paint too? Pink and yellow would be good for these horns. Need to make them look nice and pretty to match the rest of my room. We’re going to make you look very colorful. Oh, I can put a powderpuff tail on the back of your pants. Why would I want that?”

“Excuse me, but can I have my bodyguard back?” Nadia asks from the doorway. Receiving nothing more than a blank stare, she marches over to the bed and leans over the girl. “If you are to be a guest here then you must ask permission to take other people’s things. No offense, Lou, but you know what I mean. Now, please return his dignity and clean him off, so he can return to his post. I can’t believe the one who turned you never taught you to be more mature. You appear old enough to understand how an adult should act.”

With a pout, Lost takes off all of the bows and hands the ogre his shirt, which no longer has its sleeves. Seeing Xavier enter the room, the girl gently shoves Lou aside with one hand and jumps to land on the noble’s shoulders. She is immediately yanked to the floor by Kai, who keeps a tight hold on the collar of her shirt. Unable to slip out of his grasp, Lost casually punches the spymaster in the shoulder to sever his arm. She frees herself from the dangling limb and is about to throw it to the ground when she sees that Xavier is glaring at her. Muttering an apology, she gives the body part back to Kai and goes to sit on the edge of her stolen bed looking like she has been thoroughly scolded. She only looks up to wiggle her fingers at a guard, who stacks two dressers on top of each other and pushes them into the corner.

“Everyone keeps mentioning being turned, but I don’t know what that term means,” Lost explains, her sadness slipping into the minds of the guards. Not wanting to get in trouble, she frees them from her control and pulls her knees against her chest. “All I wanted to do was have some fun in my new home. Unless you’re going to send your own daughter away and make me sleep on the streets. I really believe I’m your child since we have the same hair and our noses are kind of similar. By the way, I heard you talk about killing me after taking my memories. That might not be a good idea because I never even met this Clyde. At best, you can visit an old gnomish couple near a town called Vorgabog without raising suspicions.”

“This raises more questions,” Xavier mutters under his breath. Putting out a hand to stop Kai from drawing an enchanted sleeping dart, he takes a seat next to Lost and awkwardly pats her on the shoulder. “Much of what you say doesn’t make any sense to us. I don’t understand how these gnomes fit into your past unless one of them made you. If that is the case then they should have told you that turning is when a vampire bites a mortal and transforms them. The truth is that it couldn’t have been me because I would have remembered you like I do with all of my beloved children. You see the dwarf over there? That is Kenneth Decker, who I created on a battlefield in the Northern Continent’s mountains three hundred and twenty-four years ago. My memory is that good and I have no recollection of you.”

“Maybe it only works on those you bite.”

“That is what I’m saying.”

“Well, that’s not how you made me.”

“How else would I have sired you?”

Lost blushes before briefly controlling Decker and Kai, the pair leaving the room and closing the door behind them. “I’m sorry nobody ever explained this to you. When a mommy and daddy fall in love or simply want to give in to their primal urges, they do something called sex. You put your thingamajig into my mommy’s whatchamacallit, the wrestling match of procreation happened, and I plopped out about eight months later. The gnomes found me after mom abandoned me and became my adopted parents, which I’m thankful for. I didn’t know I could make vampires by biting, so maybe I should go back home and turn them. They’ve done so much for me that I should repay them. Why are you and my step-mommy staring at me with your mouths open? I’m not lying.”

Pick up the rest of Lost’s first adventure and the mayhem that ensues for .99 cents!

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Reviewing. Part 1: Why Review?

A book with no reviews is dead. I recently read that statement in a blog post by an indie author about the scarcity of reviews. The blogger also …

Reviewing. Part 1: Why Review?
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Ghost Month: The Ladies

White Lady

I started from THIS SITE and went hunting from there.

First, the lady ghosts all get their colors from the dresses that they wear:

White Ladies

These are the most common type of lady ghosts.  They are typically associated with women who died from a broken heart, betrayal, or suicide.  The cause is usually a male lover or a tragic accident surrounding a happy event such as a wedding.  White ladies are found all over the world.

Gray Ladies

Not as common as the white ladies, there are quite a few around the world.  The most famous one is in Willard Library in Indiana.  She is described a kind and benevolent, so these ghosts aren’t seen as dangerous.  There are stories where they are connected to a death caused by family conflict.

Lady in Black

Ladies in black have a much more infamous reputation.  They are connected to feelings of grief and mourning due to their clothing, but they are also seen as spirits of vengeance.  It is said that they were women who were killed unjustly.  So, they are said to attack or cause fear in those they meet who are morally compromised.  This is why they can also be connected to justice.

Red Ladies

Similar to the White Ladies, these ghosts are connected to love-based tragedies.  In this case, they tend to be jilted lovers who were killed.  Most stories have them die by an act of passion or rage.  Now, some of the Red Ladies aren’t from a jilted lover story, but were simply very vain in their life.  A third category of stories has these ghosts coming from women who lost a baby and were either killed or simply died right afterwards.  So, these will be searching for their lost child and may even attack if provoked.

Blue Ladies

This is where I get surprised because I didn’t know the ghosts went beyond the first four colors.  They aren’t as common and have very specific stories such as one who died during childbirth.  Interestingly, the Blue Lady of ‘The Story Inn’ in Indiana gets the name from her eyes instead of her dress.

Green Ladies

As you can easily guess, these are female ghosts who wear green dresses.  At this point, I think we can also assume that most lady ghosts are created by heartbreak.  It is either the betrayal of a lover or the death of a child.  Now, green ladies are typically found in Scottish castles.  There is one mentioned in France who has no face and another in Hawaii, which is occasionally described as more of a Japanese kappa.  Kappa is a turtle-like water demon.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

This is a single ghost who wears a brown dress who is found in Norfolk, England.  She is supposedly the spirit of a woman who was locked in her rooms after being caught having an affair.  Some versions of the story having her be tricked or her lover’s wife had something to do with it.  Either way, she was locked up in Raynham Hall where she couldn’t even see her children.  Upon her death, she began haunting the place.

The Purple Lady of Rio Grande Depot

Another category with a solitary member, this is the ghost of a woman who was hit by a train.  The story goes that she got in an argument with her fiancée and her ring was thrown onto the tracks.  She hurried to get it back and was hit by the train.  Now, she wanders the depot and will occasionally be heard singing.

Beige Lady of Virginia Hotel

Just like the last two, this is a lady ghost with a specific story of heartbreak.  This time, she was a woman waiting for her fiancée to arrive by train.  Not sure why the last two all involved trains.  The man never showed up and nobody knows why.  So, the woman threw herself out a window to her death.

The Pink Ladies

I didn’t expect this color to be on the list, but I had to make them last.  I feel like seeing a pink ghost would be amazing and not as scary as the others.  Now, they aren’t always wearing pink like the other colors.  Many reports have them as pink mist shaped like a woman and drifting around.  The most famous is in Grove Park Inn, North Carolina where she is either in a misty form or a full ballgown.  The story goes that she was a young woman who was at a party and fell off a balcony.

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Questions 3: Spooky Season

There is a more ghost-specific Q3 coming at the end of the month, but I thought of some interesting seasonal questions.  Let’s dive right into it.

  1. Why do you think some people like being scared?
  2. Why do you think October was picked as the month for spookiness?  (Alternate: Why do you think Halloween and Samhain were put here?)
  3. What is your favorite spooky monster?
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Goal Post: Still Recovering From Fasting

A refresher: Yom Kippur is the day of fasting for Jews.  It started Wednesday evening and went until Thursday evening.  Since I don’t have a medical condition to prevent me from participating, I try to fast for as long as possible.  I made it to the end, but I couldn’t stay in bed and rest the whole day.  There were appointments and I was already outside, so I took my son to the park for a little Pokemon.  I still made it to the end without any real issues and got Chinese food.

Then, my body gave up on me as it tried to reset itself.  I knew something like that was going to happen.  Been under so much stress that my stomach has been iffy for a few weeks.  Fasting was going to put pressure on a strained system.  So, I had to take yesterday off to recover.  I’m still having some gut issues, but I can leave the house for more than 30-40 minutes without worry.  We’ll see how the weekend goes as far as writing.

I did get one section of Darwin & the Joy Path done yesterday.  Started up the next section enough that the stage has been set, but I didn’t want to push myself.  This will complete chapter 3 and I might be able to finish chapter 4 this weekend.  Doing the opening exposition or set up conversation the night before is actually working out since I take a while to get into the groove.  This way, I can sleep in a little more and finish recovering.

To be honest, I’m still having some trouble because Darwin is . . . Well, he’s being Darwin all the time.  I have these complex puzzles and challenges, which really would go over his head.  Yet, I end up seeing a loophole or whatever you want to call it once I start thinking like him.  It’s a tactic that only someone who doesn’t think like everyone else would come up with.  For example, there is a trap where zombies will awaken if you touch any of the treasure.  So, Darwin goes about cutting the inert zombies’ heads off while his allies are discussing how to steal the piece of treasure they need and escape.  Now, this is straight out of the DnD game I was Darwin in, so it’s a callback to that.  Still, it’s one of the many times he just goes ‘why don’t I just do this’ and I realize that the only way to stop him is by giving my traps, puzzles, and enemies plot armor.  Part of Darwin’s charm is his chaotic nature that undoes plans, so I don’t want to eliminate that.  I just don’t know if it’s a good thing that he keeps doing this to me.

There wasn’t much else that I did this week because I had my son for much of it.  Plenty of father/son time or he did his own thing while I got stuff done around the house.  I could have gotten some writing done last weekend when he was with his friends, but I chose to do errands and cleaning instead.  That way, I didn’t have to do any of that when he was around.  I’ll get to do some writing next Saturday though because he has something going on that I’m not attending.  Good writing time.

Next week is the first full week of work in a while, so I won’t be expecting to get much done in the evening.  Although, there are no appointments, which means I could make some progress on Thursday if my energy holds out.  Be nice to get through half of Darwin & the Joy Path before the end of the year.  It’ll be a great post to my battered confidence, which really needs it.  Sense of loneliness keeps slipping in since I don’t get to hang out with friends much.  If I’m not with my son, I’m usually home doing stuff or in the park where I occasionally run into other Pokemon Go players.  I think a lot of it has to deal with being in a relationship from the ages of 19 through 38 and then being single with too much trauma to try again.  Honestly, the idea of even dating causes a mild panic attack because I sucked at it when I was younger and had hope for the future.

Anyway, I’m going to be playing this week by ear in terms of writing.  Thursday and Friday are set to be crazy at work, but I can survive that.  We’re returning to work sites with our students, which always makes the days go faster.  It also means the school year will finally start feeling complete since this was the last ‘piece’ of the puzzle.  I might try to work a bit on the ‘Phi Beta Files’ notebook section during my breaks.  I stopped halfway through the short story outlines because things popped up.  Maybe I’ll work on that tonight too once I finish book writing.

Goals of the week?

  1. Makes progress with Darwin & the Joy Path.
  2. Time with son.
  3. Play Pokemon Go for fresh air.
  4. Drink tea to settle stomach.
  5. Hydrate as well.
  6. Tinker with ‘Phi Beta Files’.
  7. Finish more December blog posts. (Is it too early to review 2025?)
  8. Watch some anime when relaxing.
  9. Lego time when I need a screen break.
  10. Come up with a better goals list for next week.
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Ghost Month: Residual Hauntings and Crisis Apparitions

Google Image Search

So, I’m doing a few posts to cover multiple types of ghosts.  This time we have two that are fairly similar.  One could say they are the same thing, but I kept finding them mentioned as different things.  I can see how they do differ though, which is what I’m going to explain here.  At least, I’m going to try.

Residual Hauntings

These are location-specific events that replay during certain times, dates, or situations.  It involves ‘ghosts’ that do not interact with their surroundings.  Instead, they always go through the same motions until the haunting is complete.  Think of it like watching an old home movie that has poor quality and stuck on repeat.  They are supposedly created by strong emotions imprinting on the area, which is typically caused by a traumatic experience.

Many examples tend to focus on auditory and olfactory hauntings.  The Gettysburg battlefield is said to have moments of gunfire and gunpowder smells.  There are hotels where people hear dancing and music from empty rooms.  The Colosseum is said to have times where you hear cheering for gladiator fights and Edinburg Castle has a Headless Drummer Boy who people hear.  All of these tend to be chalked up to a person’s imagination, but it does make one think.

Crisis Apparition

The only true similarity between residual hauntings and crisis apparitions is that they involve strong emotions creating a ‘ghost’.  These are not repeated events, but solitary ones that can be sent from far away.  Basically, a person is either near-death, about to dying, or extremely stressed out.  They send part of themselves to a loved one to either say goodbye or let them know they are in trouble.  It can be a visual manifestation, a voice, a touch, or anything that triggers a ‘I know someone is in trouble’.  People have stated getting this sensation right before a loved one dies or when they are in trouble.

Now, this can be included in simple psychology, ghosts, or even psychic connections between between.  The interesting thing is many people can point to a time where they ‘sensed’ a loved one was dying or in trouble.  For myself, I remember when I found out I was going to be a father.  One of the first things I felt that I had to do was call my grandfather who was in the hospital to let him know.  Didn’t know why since I was previously told he was on the mend.  I was halfway done dialing the number for the hospital when I got the call that he had passed away.  This has always nibbled at my mind because it’s strange timing.  Now, this isn’t an apparition in the way you see something, but there was definitely an internal push that my grandfather was the one I had to contact as soon as possible.

Crisis apparitions stories are revolved primarily around seeing or dreaming of a loved one then finding out their dead.  Many people got these senses in the aftermath of 9/11 as their missing loved ones were being searched for.  One story talks of a man seeing an image of his brother in his home then getting a call about him dying in an accident.  This is why they seem to be final goodbyes, which people don’t recognize in the moment.

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