Lady Tanuki (pen name Minerva L. Ravenesque, stage name Striga) is an aspiring novelist, singer/songwriter/composer, and overall imagineer. She aims to launch her own independent creative project encompassing all her works, which she plans to call Project Suminda (of which she has a blog
). She's an Aspie and a Witch, and also has a Master's degree in Biology, with a particular interest in the world of pharmaceuticals and the medicinal benefits of psychedelics. Additionally, she has a very pronounced fascination with the supernatural and the dark arts - things like the afterlife, Psychic Powers, Functional Magic, torture, and the extent of imagination and despair.
Current and Planned Works
- Porcelain Wonderland: A Gaslamp Fantasy (though a bit more anachronistic) with elements of Fairytale and Gothic Horror. The story takes place in the picturesque alpine town-turned-kingdom of Solevaille, where dolls and other toys come to life - but which also exists alongside a Death World inside a Magic Mirror. It focuses on the rivalry between twin sisters: one an Affably Evil queen who brings the dolls to life, and the other a Creepy Good witch who raises the dead - including two broken dolls who are the main heroes. There's an overall theme of Light Is Not Good and Dark Is Not Evil, with just a touch of magic, romance, and existentialism.
- Tales Of Mystrica: A story set in a virtual world that pays homage to Eastern RPG Mon games. It grew out of a Pokémon fanfic and a Digimon fanfic, so the world features "Mystripets" that people can keep and battle and evolve. The story starts out reminiscent of Sword Art Online, where the world of Mystrica is shut down so that nobody can enter or leave. Then it follows your classic RPG video game, launching into a story about the guardians of the five Elemental Goddesses and their quest to harness their power before the mafia can. The story is surprisingly character-dependent, each protagonist having their own little arc and motivation.
- The Phoenix Knights: A High Fantasy set in the fantastical land of Crownen. The plot is quite reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, kicking off with a rivalry between the goddesses of darkness and light that resulted in the Crown Sword falling into the hands of an Evil Sorcerer who aims to Take Over the World. And of course, it's up to a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to stop them. They're quite a quirky bunch, among them a horsewomannote who disguises herself as The Grim Reaper, a blind raven who can see into people's souls, a Cute Witch with telekinetic powers, a Lovable Rogue casanova who doesn't believe in money, a harpy with Super-Strength, a lion prince who loves music and flowers, a fairy who rules over the underworld, a dwarfette who enjoys Playing with Fire, a gun-slinging elf who reluctantly has a sword, an extraterrestrial mage who can transform into a dragon, an undead naga who used to associate with the Big Bad, and a half-elf ninja. Recently Lady Tanuki got the idea of it being an action-adventure video game as well.
- Fourth Circle of the Mind: A "modern fantasy" revolving around Psychic Powers. The story takes place at a university where an instructor by the name of Cheren Savant has just started teaching a parapsychology course. At the same time, a number of incidents of nightmares caused by the mysterious dream entity Nightfright have been popping up around town, so soon the class turns their attention to these incidents. Dr. Savant selects the top eight students in class to investigate, granting each of them a psychic power that they had been studying so that they may be better equipped to deal with Nightfright.
- Tales of the Magic Lands: A collection of short stories taking place on Orenya, a Tidally Locked Planet with Functional Magic at the core of its culture. All of these stories focus a lot on the world itself, while focusing on a single character who had some important fame or impact on Orenya's history. Such characters include a Fantastic Drug dealer who is the only known survivor of a remarkably dangerous herb, an aggressive fish lady who is the first of her species to join The Order, a musical group famous for continuing to perform through a war, the pioneers of telekinesis and telepathic communication with dragons, and others.
- Wicked Roses: A modern horror-tinged fantasy revolving around a group of vampires and other dead/undead people who still manage to hold onto their souls and enjoy small bouts of mischief around town. The story takes place in a town historically plagued by many supernatural phenomena, and kicks off with a paranormal investigator stumbling across the eponymous Wicked Roses, the aforementioned (un)dead group. This group find themselves targeted by a recently-formed organization of exorcists and vampire hunters who wish to purge the town of such unholy creatures, which our investigator is pressured to join, and also are rivaled by the spirits of an abandoned Torture Cellar who accuse the Wicked Roses of being too "human".
- And a couple of smaller stories.
Fandoms
- Animenote : Rozen Maiden (current favourite), Elfen Lied, Black Butler, Ouran High School Host Club, Sailor Moon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Slayers
- Literature: Lord of the Rings (current favourite), The Mists of Avalon (close second favourite), Harry Potter, Discworld. Favourite genre is obviously fantasy.
- Film: Disney Animated Canon (Mary Poppins being current favourite), Pan's Labyrinth (second favourite), Coraline (third favourite), and more recently, Star Wars
- Video Games: Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Kirby, Final Fantasy (only played VI so far), Kingdom Hearts, Earth Bound (Mother 3 is current favourite), Chrono Trigger, Danganronpa. Favourite genres are action adventure, platformer, and JRPG.
- She doesn't really watch TV or read comic books... laaaame.
Favorite Tropes to Use in Works
- Anachronism Stew: She does not like to concern herself too much with details of the time period a story is set in, especially if it does not take place in modern times. While she won't do anything really egregious such as giving a character in a Medieval European Fantasy setting a cell phone, she might take a few concepts that are from a couple of decades after the time period.
- Cute and Psycho: Quite a few of her characters are really cheerful ones with a knack for either sadism or cruelty. However, they're rarely completely Ax-Crazy.
- Dark Is Not Evil: She is very fond of giving bad or at least creepy powers to her heroes, even if they aren't quite Anti Heroes.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: As she likes lolita fashion in Real Life, of course a couple of characters, even those not in Porcelain Wonderland, are going to be wearing this.
- Psychic Powers: Any story of hers with Magic and Powers involved is guaranteed to have a psychic. Or at least someone who uses some variation of a power, most commonly Aura Vision or telekinesis.
- Said Bookism: Not quite a favorite, but she used to fall into this trap quite a bit. Nowadays she's trying to avoid it more and more, but still ends up using said bookisms once in a while, her favorites being "remarked", "muttered", "exclaimed", "chimed", and "mused". Often times she'll even pair these with descriptions of a character's actions, expressions, or tone of voice, a job for the Department of Redundancy Department.
- The Starscream: Really likes the concept of backstabbing the Big Bad and continuing their work. Making a character this has actually "saved" the plot of one of her stories.
- Switching P.O.V.: She is very fond of getting into each main character's head at least once in a story, rather than focusing mostly on one character all throughout. Of course, this is assuming said story has an Ensemble Cast - if it has only one protagonist this is obviously averted.
- Title Drop: In novels with chapter titles, about 80-90 percent of those titles will be mentioned in text, though it may be worded differently.
- The Undead: In any fantasy work, if she doesn't have a few of them appear, they will at least be mentioned. She especially likes to explore Soul Anatomy with them.
- Witch Classic: Any fantasy work of hers not set in the modern era and/or Earth is guaranteed to have one of these. All the subtropes, including Cute Witch, count.
Least Favorite Tropes
- Beige Prose: She thinks this is awfully boring, and indeed prefers to give detailed description of things, while not going into full-on Purple Prose. Plus she has a serious addiction to adverbs.
- Eldritch Abomination: She likes to keep things relatively simple in terms of complexity of being (focusing more on relatable characters), and thus does not include such beings in her works. The closest thing she has to one is a corrupted digital being in a virtual world.
- Flesh-Eating Zombie: She was never too fond of the modern zombie genre, especially the notion of an "undead virus" - the latter applies to vampires as well. Zombies in her works are exclusively of the voodoo variety.
- Gorn: She enjoys the horror genre not for all the blood and guts, but for the psychology (and often, psychopathy) behind the villain. She doesn't include much gory violence in her works (with an exception where blood is used as a weapon), and even her one story idea revolving around a Torture Technician focuses more on psychological torture than physical.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Though she does have a were-dragon in one of her works, she's not too fond of this concept. In any inevitable war between werewolves and vampires, she'd strongly root for the latter. Even said were-dragon differs from the concept a bit, in that she doesn't become completely wild in dragon form.
Tropes that Apply To Lady Tanuki
- A Glass of Chianti: Red wine is one of her favourite drinks.
- Agent Mulder: She's much more inclined to be open and idealistic than skeptical.
- All Beer Is Ale: To her at least, for she hates lager.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Given her eccentric fashion sense and peculiar accent, she usually sticks out in a professional setting.
- Burn the Witch!: One of her favourite topics; she even goes so far as to believe this is how she died in a past life.
- Chocolate of Romance: She loves it, especially the dark variety.
- Cloudcuckoolander: She sometimes comes across as this around her peers.
- Dark Is Not Evil: She lives by this.
- "Darkness von Gothick" Name: Her Steampunk name is Countess Marie von Celestine-Victorique.
- Drink Order: Hers is absinthe (which she absolutely loves), which really fits her eccentric personality and love of the supernatural.
- Eating Lunch Alone: Happens to her all the time.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Her fashion sense has largely been inspired by this lately.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: She considers herself a girly girl, and she certainly can cook.
- Fingerless Gloves: She loves to wear them.
- Flower In Her Hair: Usually a rose of some sort.
- Fun Size: She's not a midget or anything, but she is pretty tiny.
- Goth: Given her fascination with all things dark and wonderful and preference for darker clothes, this is not surprising.
- Goth Girls Know Magic: Well, if being Wiccan and having a profound belief in the supernatural counts.
- Lean and Mean: While not outwardly evil, she does have several dark thoughts... and quite a skinny figure to boot.
- Mood-Swinger: She can get pretty emotionally unstable.
- Nice Hat: Often seen wearing one.
- Quirky Curls: While not extremely frizzy, she certainly has them.
- Religion is Magic: Wicca certainly falls into this.
- Spot Of Tea: She loves tea, especially when served in a more proper fashion. Of course, she drinks coffee too.
- Straw Nihilist: She becomes one when she's depressed, which she often is.
- True Art Is Angsty: Given her interests, she falls into this trap quite often.
