#risika

As always, I’ll keep using original names if I’m talking specifically about the original iteration and in quotations and stuff, but I’ll be referring to everyone by their new names in all other situations.

Welp, I guess I'm officially back! In a nutshell, work got really busy and I got distracted by a few other hyperfixations (and I also got a bit self conscious now that I realize this blog actually kind of has an audience). I was going to do a big post explaining what I’ve been up to, but I it was taking too long and I didn’t feel like it, so I guess I’m going to just jump right back in!

I recently started watching a lot of youtube videos about fashion and costuming in movies and tv shows, so I thought it might be cool to do a short series about how I’d dress these characters for my version of the story. Starting, of course, with our girl Risika!

Canon outfits

We don’t get a lot of detailed clothing/outfit descriptions in general, but here’s what we have for her:

Chapter 1 (Now) - Black jeans and a black t-shirt

She doesn’t always wear black, but that was the color of her mood that day.

She also says in this chapter that she wears a silver ring set with a garnet stone

Chapter 15 (1704) - Mens clothes and tangled, unkempt hair

Wearing long skirts was getting too cumbersome for her

Chapter 18 (Now) - Black tank top → cropped body hugging gold tank top with black jeans

Generally keeps her hair its natural old gold color until the end when she adds black stripes to it.

Going off of just this, it seems like Risika is pretty utilitarian when it comes to clothing choices. Very simple, no frills (literally), mostly/exclusively black (contrary to her own narration)…up until when she’s dressing for her fight with Aubrey.

I take this to symbolize Risika’s character journey from being depressed, antisocial, and wanting to hide away from the vampire world (or at least pass through it unnoticed) to embracing her predatory nature and being comfortable with being seen and making her mark as a part of vampire society.

My Version

I want to stay along these same lines as the canon, but add some more nuance and details.

Generally, Roksana favors earth tones and natural materials (to show how attached she is to nature and humanity). She doesn't like things clinging to her too much but she also doesn't like things that are so baggy or flowy that they get in the way (to show her yearning for freedom).

She hates button-ups (too stiff and formal); she likes dresses and skirts in theory, but doesn't often reach for them on a regular day.

For the most part, she likes to keep things simple for her main apparel pieces—solid colors, basic shapes. Shoes and accessories is where she likes to have more ornamentation.

She tends to keep her accessorizing to a minimum because she likes to be able to move unencumbered. She hates carrying bags or wearing hats but she has a pretty extensive shoe repertoire. Her shoes are practical but well-crafted and even ornate.

When it comes to jewelry, gold is her preferred metal. She's not super into precious stones or pearls. She likes wooden or clay beads and semi-precious stones like jasper, jade, or lapis lazuli.

These days, she doesn't wear much makeup, but during time periods where heavy makeup was a thing, she'd wear it in order to blend in.

She typically styles her hair in whatever is fashionable at the time, but prefers to wear it down in its naturally curly/wavy state.

She's more interested in how things feel as opposed to how they look, so comfort, mobility, breathability, and texture are very important to her. She doesn't like feeling trapped.

I really want her wardrobe to speak to her innate longing for freedom and her resilience as well as her connection to the past. I also thought it might be interesting to hint at a secret craving for luxury (a contrast to the idealized image she has of her saintly brother in order to make her feel even more guilty and self hating after she becomes a vampire) and a desire for comfort (or rather, to stay in her comfort zone) but at the same time always being prepared to flee.

1701

I'm still researching the specifics of what was worn at this time/place (it's been surprisingly really difficult to find info about late 17th/early 18th century fashion in Mexico) so I'll probably do a more detailed followup post later on, but Roksana would basically be wearing whatever other people of her social class were wearing in terms of silhouette, fabrics, etc. I don't she would have much flexibility when it comes to self expression at this time (clothing was expensive to make so she probably wouldn't be very trendy or experimental as a working class woman). I think she would favor solid colors over prints and she'd wear almost exclusively earth tones except for a blue rebozo (a long woven shawl of Mexican origin; image below) that was her mother's (blue to represent a touch of the supernatural). No jewelry, either, except for her rosary (although, I'm not sure if this actually counts as jewelry) that was passed down through her father's family.

Because she was raised without her mother and apart from her mother's family, aside from the rebozo, her clothing wouldn't really have many indigenous or African elements to it.

NOW

While she's not into metallics and synthetics, I do picture her style as kind of reminiscent of Y2K era R&B singers, especially in terms of silhouette (small, fitted tops, big pants, chunky shoes), but there are also some goth elements like corset tops, square or high necklines, the occasional puff or bell sleeve. She loves crop tops! For bottoms, she liked wide leg pants, utility/cargo pants, and joggers.

STYLE NARRATIVE

Closer to the beginning of the story, Roksana's outfits are very subdued. It's like she's constantly trying to camouflage. She's also wearing more historical looking clothes to show that she's kind of trapped in the past.

Towards the end, she starts to incorporate some bolder, more eye-catching elements, especially metallics, which also feel more futuristic, like she's finally ready to move forward and she's ready to be seen.

She also starts to dress a little more like Andros, who I picture as having very bold style.

Also, because in my version her hair is dark and curly/wavy, the tiger stripes in her hair aren't going to work out so well, so I was thinking of giving her tattoos, like tiger stripes along one arm, her shoulder and down her back (I have no reference photos for this because everything I could find on pinterest and google images looks stupid). This would not only symbolize her embracing being a predator, but it also shows that she's becoming a little more like Andros (who has tons of tattoos).

“I fought; I fought for the immortal soul the preachers had taught me to believe in. I do not know whether I ever believed in it—I had never seen God, and He had never spoken to me—but I fought for it anyway, and I fought for Alexander.”

‘Gumno House’ - Risika, Croatia - Turato Architects - via ArchDaily ____

(originally posted on April 24, 2003 on ahar’s blog)

As always, I’ll keep using original names if I’m talking specifically about the original iteration and in quotations and stuff, but I’ll be referring to everyone by their new names in all other situations.

Don't get used to these weekly posts, I only have a couple more of these left in the vault and they all need a ton of work!

Like I noted in my previous post, my writing is in black and any text from the original is in blue.

This is my version of the first few pages of ITFOTN Chapter 8, which is the part where Risika wakes up as a vampire. I'm skipping around a bit because this part is still very focused on Risika and I also didn't really have to do any research for it. I only wrote the first few pages of the chapter just because I was mainly challenging myself to expand on the sensory details to make it more immersive, and also the rest of the original still aligned with where I wanted to take this fic.

---

When I was child, I would often imagine what dying felt like. What did my young mother feel as her own life slipped away mere minutes after she gave us life? I hoped that it was peaceful, that the sound of our cries gave her relief, that the pain of childbirth faded when she saw a beautiful light and was welcomed through the gates of heaven where years and years later, I would see her again.

And then, I woke. I opened my eyes to pure darkness. No light, no heaven, no hellfire. Not even the rhythm of my own heartbeat or the soft hiss of air filling up my lungs. That could only mean…

The realization of it sent a bolt of panic through me and yet I still felt nothing. My heart did not skip a beat because it did not beat. There was no sharp intake of breath because I did not breathe. I could not flinch and I could not scream, but I knew that I was scared. You must believe me when I tell you that I was scared. All that talk, that useless talk of eternal damnation could never hold a candle to the terror of infinite nothingness.

I remembered a death, and I remembered that it had been I who had died, but I did not remember who that “I” was.

Hours, maybe even days had passed. I couldn’t tell if I was standing, or sitting, or floating through the ether. The pain had long ago ceased and the fear had faded, but my bones were heavy and I was so, so tired.

Slowly, the darkness lifted. I could begin to feel the surface beneath me. It was smooth and plush. I let my hand glide along the fabrics—embroidered silk, velvet, all finer than anything that had ever touched my skin before. I was lying on a bed, the softest bed I ever could have dreamed of.

My vision sharpened and I could finally make out the details of the room. The walls were deep burgundy and decorated with gilded molding that extended onto the high ceiling. Painted on the ceiling was a map of the world surrounded by scenes of a wolf pack. There were mirrors everywhere, but no windows, and so much gold that I felt as if I had been shrunken down and placed inside a princess’ jewelry box. My eyes darted back and forth, catching every brushstroke, every notch, every thread, every last glimmer of gold. There was so much to see and the longer I looked, the more nauseas I felt. I had seen such colors before, but never as vividly as this. The room was supposed to be dimly lit, the only source of light being a single taper candle by the bed, but I saw everything as clearly as if it were illuminated by the mid-day sun.

I strained against what felt like invisible ties holding me and carefully lifted myself up. My muscles seized and my joints popped with each movement, no matter how small, until finally, I was upright. I flexed my fingers and my toes and tried to massage away the stiffness as I took tentative breaths. With each inhale, came the faintest scent. Was it the beeswax of the candle? The furniture polish? No, this scent was cold. Hard. Glass? 

There was a new taste in my mouth. It was sweet, vaguely familiar, barely there, and yet the presence was so strong. I ran my tongue along my teeth in pursuit of that taste until a sharp pain interrupted me. I had cut my tongue on my own teeth—canines that tapered into points. 

Cautiously, I stood up and approached one of the many mirrors surrounding me. I knew that I was the girl reflected in the glass. Her hair was still my black hair, and her body had my body's shape, but her movements were strange. She was not graceful, but when she walked she seemed to glide effortlessly. Her eyes were black as midnight, her brown skin dull as death.

---

I wanted to open this way not to make her a creepy child or anything like that, but because growing up without a mother was probably a very formative part of Risika's experience and it’s something I want to explore more in this fic. I also wanted to include a bit of foreshadowing? dramatic irony? because in the end, she actually did reunite with her mother but was only really able to do it because she died.

In the last sentence of the first paragraph, I kind of wanted it to feel like she's getting a little bit sardonic as the sentence runs on. So I tried to give it a rhythm where it starts to feel like a little kid trying to finish telling a story and you're half expecting it to end with 'and they all lived happily ever after'. Kind of like she’s mocking her child self for believing such a fairy tale.

In the first few drafts of this, I wrote her as being way calmer, almost no real reaction to to realization that she was dead. I think I was focusing really hard on trying to convey the idea that even though she was conscious and her mind was still there, for that moment, her body was truly dead and useless. But then, I reread the original text and a big part of this scene is about how terrified she is at the idea of being dead, which makes way more sense.

tbqh, I'm not sure how good of a job I did at conveying that fear. A big challenge that I came up against was how to describe the fear she was feeling without being able to refer to how her body was reacting, because her body wasn't reacting, because she was dead. So then I kind of tried to lean into that and lean into how disturbing and bizarre it would feel to be afraid and distressed and to know that you're afraid and distressed but not being able to feel it in your body, because as much as your bodily movements are a manifestation of your thoughts and emotions, your thoughts and emotions are influenced by what your body's doing. And so I included the line "You must believe me when I tell you that I was scared," because there's nothing else she can say to convince us of what she was feeling. And then I also wanted it to be a play on the fact that she's an unreliable narrator and as readers, we're all kind of at her mercy.

With the last line of that paragraph, I wanted to hint at Roksana pushing back against the Catholic teachings she grew up with, feeling betrayed by them, and also planting the possibility that one of the reasons why she didn't just kill herself or let herself die was because she didn't want to feel this terror of nothingness again (and not necessarily because she was afraid of being sent to hell, which she would probably believe was a more acceptable reason (whereas being afraid of the nothingness is something she'd think of as cowardly and she'd use it as more evidence against herself that she's less righteous and less pious than her saintly brother)).

The next couple of paragraphs, I'm describing the setting, which is a room in Ather's house. I decided to diverge pretty drastically from the original text here. In the original, the room that Risika wakes up isn't some peasant's shack, by any means (after all, glass and mirrors were expensive at that time, Risika even says so (and it feels even more ostentatious now that I think about it because Ather basically had a room full of expensive mirrors that she could never use herself, or rather, she keeps it around for the sole purpose of flexing on her fledgelings)), but ahar's description of it made it feel very plain and I really wanted to get more into sensory details. I wanted to play up the contrast between the absolute sensory deprivation of death and the sensory overload of un-life.

Because Ather has been described as someone who likes her fledgelings to be stronger than her, I took it as her being the type of person who likes to show off her power, not necessarily to brag about it or to inspire envy, but moreso to inspire awe and possibly to act as a deterrent to anyone who thinks they can mess with her. So it makes sense for her to have a home that looks and feels expensive and powerful. And so I kept the wall to wall mirrors but also added some gold and some more ornamentation.

The wolf pack painted on the ceiling is, of course, a nod to Ather's past as a wolf shifter. The map of the world is kind of just to fill up the space. I thought it made sense because she probably has been around the world.

The princess' jewelry box thing is there mostly because I like the imagery but also, I wanted to convey that Roksana feels small and insignificant and, well, like someone shrunk her down and tossed her somewhere.

The single candle was just because I was trying to illustrate how superhuman her senses became after the change and then I remembered the Backlist + Chill episode when they were talking about how silly it sounded when Risika described the vampire cafe as just having one single candle in the corner. So I wanted to do that here in a way that sounded less silly.

In the paragraph describing the bedding, I wanted to hint at Roksana potentially developing a taste for the luxury that being a vampire could offer her and having that be another source of internal conflict and self loathing (I go into that a little bit here).

As always, I’ll keep using original names if I’m talking specifically about the original iteration and in quotations and stuff, but I’ll be referring to everyone by their new names in all other situations.

So when I first started this blog, I wasn’t really intending to post any of my actual writing of the fic (or at least, not for a very long time) since I know I’m not a very good writer and I’m a little self conscious about it, but I realized that I was kind of using that as an excuse to do everything but what I really wanted to do, which was write the damn fic! So I did end up writing a few things a while back and I was recently rereading some of it doesn’t seem too bad! I think it might actually be fun to post some snippets along with commentary about what I was intending and why I made certain choices. Constructive feedback is very welcome!

Before I get into it, just a couple more disclaimers in addition to the usual stuff:

A lot of these snippets are expanding on ahar’s original text. Anything that pulls directly from the original is in blue and my own writing is in black.

As you probably know by now, I race-lifted Risika (and other characters) for this fic. Just wanted to be transparent that this isn’t Own Voices. While I am a POC, I’m not specifically Latine, Indigenous American, or Afro-descended. I try to tread carefully, but if you’re a member of these communities and see any glaring mistakes or misrepresentations, please reach out!

—

I relinquish my human form for that of a hawk.

I could bring myself to my home, to anywhere in the world, instantly with my mind, but I enjoy the sensation of flying. Of all the animals, the birds are perhaps the most free, as they are able to move through the air and there is so little that can stop their flight.

The sun had disappeared below the horizon hours ago and there are no thermals to ride by the time I take flight. This long journey home would be all up to me. I stretch out my wings and launch myself into the air. The tension releases and my mind quiets as I propel myself past wild greenery and high above the mountains in a long and winding path. It takes a couple of hours and I land only once, to feed, but I am able to reach the fading lights of my city just as the sun begins to rise.

I soar through the balcony that opens into my bedroom, slowing down as I ease back into human form. My body extends to its full length, red plumage melds into smooth sepia skin, and long hair the color of ink flows from my head in loose curls. Today I wear black jeans and a black silk blouse. I do not always wear black, but that was the color of my mood today.

I do not care for the new, quickly built towns humans are so fond of scraping up out of steel and concrete, so I live in Puebla, México, a city with history, a town that has seen struggle. Before the Spanish arrived, this place was known as Cuetlaxcoapan - where serpents change their skin. Puebla has an aura - one that says "This place is built on bones."

To be honest, I never thought I’d have the guts to come back here.

I live alone in the historic district, in one of Puebla's ‘original’ houses built by the Spaniards. I moved here only a few months ago. The place has seen better days, but I don’t mind it. I don’t mind that until I moved in, it had been converted into some tacky hostel for ‘digital nomads’, or that the ground floor is occupied by a café that fills with incessant chatter in the morning rush. The mango colored façade decorated with curling ornaments was charming enough, and a far cry from the small dirt floor house I grew up in on the outskirts of town. Having a nice view of the Catedral isn't so bad, either.

---

Firstly, I want to note that the first person present feels really natural, but it gets tricky to write in if I think about it too hard.

I really like ahar’s opening a lot, so I didn’t change much in terms of structure. Since I race-lifted Risika, I also had to change up the setting but I didn’t want it to be a mad libs situation.

I added a paragraph to describe her flight home in some more detail just because I found it a little contradictory that the og text starts with her turning into a hawk, talking about how she’d rather take the time to fly than take herself home instantly…but then in the very next paragraph she’s back home in her human form. I also wanted to mention thermals as an homage to Animorphs (my other 90s nostalgic fave).

I changed up how I described her appearance just to make it flow a little better. I’m not a huge fan of the mirror trope.

I changed her outfit from a black t-shirt to a black silk blouse because, well, see this post here.

I was originally going to have her say “It’s a cliché, I know, but I can’t help what suits my mood.”, but it felt a little too confident and self aware for her so early on in the book.

The last couple of paragraphs are, of course, describing the new setting I chose. I decided on Puebla because, like Concord, it’s a city that has a lot of historical significance and likes to lean into its history. That said, I ended up diverging from the og where it says the town has an aura that says “This land is ours, and we will fight to keep it that way” just because even though I see where ahar was going with that (hinting at Risika’s resistance to moving on), it’s just not the vibe I get from Puebla. So I took the opportunity to introduce another relevant theme that I really wanted to explore here, which is that of trying to build a future on a past that’s filled with violence and trauma without being consumed by it. Also, literally, the area of modern-day Puebla was used for the Flower Wars (which were used by the Aztecs to capture soldiers for human sacrifice).

Also, the serpents changing their skin part is true, but also an homage to Megan Thee Stallion (ft. Spiritbox) and I felt like it really fit with the theme of transformation and letting go of past trauma.

And then I added a line about Roksana not thinking she’d ever come back because it makes more sense to me that the events of the story would be initiated when she returned to her hometown after a long time away rather than her having been there all along.

As always, I’ll keep using original names if I’m talking specifically about the original iteration and in quotations and stuff, but I’ll be referring to everyone by their new names in all other situations.

I know this probably wasn't intentional (because I feel like if it was, ahar would've noted it somewhere), but has anyone else noticed the parallels between Risika's story and the myth of Persephone?

They were both innocent young women forcibly separated from their powerful mothers, lured into the underworld with a flower, made to stay there against their will because of the red things they ingested, and then eventually became one of the underworld's most powerful/feared beings.

I think it might be interesting to lean into this parallel in my fic. It could be a way to explore how Roksana kind of has one foot in the vampire world and one foot in the human world (or rather, she's stuck in the vampire world and can't fully let go of the human world), or how she's been cut off from the protection and power of her mother and her lineage.