On one hand, the Changeling: The Dreaming comparisons are inevitable.
On the other, honestly, this actually fits World of Darkness's Gothic-Punk style closer than CtD does (I say that as someone who adores that particular game), ironically enough. It has a stronger sense of its own identity, too.
I could probably run a game using my own Fae lore in this, too. Seriously, this rules.
Gotta say, I like how readily you're blending the two versions of Changeling together; it works a lot better than I might have expected.
Right?
I also just realized, you're about six years younger than I am. Yeah, at thirteen, I think that movie still scared the bejesus out of me. XD
Even into my twenties, that movie was gorgeously unsettling.
It's funny, at 30, it'd probably be scary for an entirely different set of reasons; the thought of a child being in that situation only grows more unsettling when you have budding paternal instincts.
Given the story is fundamentally about a (literal, zoological) predator preying on a lonely child by luring her in with promises of a better life and using that to try and get her to agree to doing something awful with her body (gouging her eyes out and sewing over them)...
Yikes.
Still, excellent stuff! Weird parallel-universe versions of stuff I know is so much my shit, and this nails the dreamlike quality I love about those perfectly.
The little ominous asides are also tantalizing in what they imply; a mystery with no solution is no less compelling.
Also, I remember teenage me having a lot of dreams about the broad strokes of Coraline's plot well before reading the book and seeing the movie (loved both, still do despite what a monster the book's author is, and how bratty movie!Coraline is as a character). Something about that story just has that effect on people, doesn't it? A premise simple enough that it feels instinctual to fill in the gaps long before you read the actual book.
Maybe that's why I grew up to love Changeling: The Lost enough that I based my sona (loosely) off that game's villains.
... I don't wanna know what it says about me that you can trace my sona's conceptual lineage back to the Beldam. XD
"NO SUCH THING AS MASTERS", huh?
Interesting. I cheated a little by putting it into a cipher detector, admittedly, but am I really the only one who's tackled any of this?
