perfectwitchcrown
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perfectwitchcrown · 6 days ago
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Ekuoto Chapter 80 - Life is Wonderful!
This last chapter :').
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While browsing the comments of the Japanese release of the latest chapter I saw this comment:
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Now, I was like huh? What movie? And then was like, oh my god, it's totally It's A Wonderful Life, isn't it?
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The Japanese title for this chapter was 素晴らしき哉、人生, and I sort of has to look it up bc my beginners level Japanese couldn't make sense of the adjective ending happening here, but from what my rudimentary google searching led me to find is that its an old school conjugation form to attach adjectives to nouns. Basically, the sentence reads as like "How wonderful, life!" or, more naturally, Life is Wonderful, as the translators went with. (As a fun note, 素晴らしい meaning wonderful is also the last word Luka says in this chapter, as すばあしー)
So, just to double check, I looked it up, and instead found out there's two films with this title. One is It's a Wonderful Life.
The other is Collateral Beauty with Will Smith?? It cuts the kanji for 哉 and just renders it in hiragana, but I have no idea how that got translated into 素晴らしきかな、人生. Like the stories r very similar so I kinda get it but also lmao
As to which film Ekuoto is referencing, the title is exactly the same as the Japanese translation of It's a Wonderful Life, which is also a significantly more famous film (although idk how much in Japan ? ), so it seems more likely. Both films are about depressed protagonists learning to value life again, although the Will Smith movie is also very specifically about someone who's depression is rooted in the loss of his child prior to the start of the film.
In conclusion: ???? Probably a It’s a Wonderful Life reference, but maybe also a Collateral Beauty reference?
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perfectwitchcrown · 23 days ago
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Dante and Betrayal in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love
Ok so now that chapter 79 has come out I really want to discuss something I think is kind of interesting as a through line between Dante's Inferno and Dante in Make The Exorcist Fall in Love. This is mostly just word vomit haha. Also, asterisks indicate footnotes that I've left towards the bottom of the post!
Cw: discussion of sexual violence, victim blaming, and homophobia. Also, image of cartoon gore (when priest pulled out his eye in the first chapter) after the read more
In the Divine Comedy, the closer Dante the pilgrim moves to the center of hell, the more intense Dante the poet is casting the sins being punished there are. So, Dante starts in Limbo, which he presents as containing the least serious of sins, then continues on through a variety of different sins. The ninth and final circle of hell, containing what Dante the poet felt was the most serious of sins, is treachery. In the notes to their translation of the Inferno, Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander write that "The three most gravely punished sinners of the poem are Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus (founder of the Church), as well as Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Julius Caesar (the first ruler of the empire" (639).
Dante Alighieri presents betrayal then as the worst sin possible, which I think has been carried through into Ekuoto Dante's perception of whatever happened with Vergilius in the past.
Specifically, I’m thinking of their conversation in chapter 20. Verge identifies Dante’s powers as relating to Lot’s wife turning to a pillar of salt when fleeing Sodom.
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I think Dante’s response is pretty interesting for several reasons. For one, based on the paneling and what we see, he’s identifying Sodom with the church, not with Verge. Verge, as someone who fled then is Lot, and Dante positions himself as Lot’s wife, which is both fascinating in the way he’s presenting their relationship and that it implies that he views his decision to stay with the church as a decision of weakness, just as Lot’s wife turning to look back at Sodom is considered spiritual weakness.
It was his betrayal of Verge then that he considers his sin.
Frankly though I wonder if there’s an element of miscommunication between the two of them as well in regard to this.
This is the part where I get super speculative, because we still don’t know what happened in the panel depicted (although I wonder if we’ll be finding out soon). But, just based on the few things we’ve seen, there’s a couple things I’d like to propose.
I don’t think Dante and Vergilius in have ever explicitly told each other that they love each other. I could be totally wrong about this, but based on Dante’s reactions in this chapter, both to the homophobia he experienced and not wanting to talk about it with Verge, and his shyness around romantically charged physical contact with him (it’s Verge who holds his hand, Dante doesn’t hold it back), and just based on the fact that they were kids, I think whatever splintering in their relationship occurred it was before either of them had actually been able to verbally express what they meant to each other. They reaaaaally read to me as having still been in that first gay crush where you’re sort of together but also not really acknowledging it stage of their relationship.*
I wonder if Verge may have been victim blamed in some regard for what happened with that priest we see. I could see Arima Aruma making commentary on the way victims of sexual exploitation can be blamed if they’re “imperfect” victims. Personally, I don’t trust Abbott Nicholas like even a little bit in how he handles situations, and just based on the expression Dante has as a kid looking back at him, I wonder if he may have said something pretty fucked. Or, at the very least, not helpful at all towards Verge, and tinged in some way, by homophobia. Like, ultimately, at his age Verge was not capable of consenting whatsoever to what was happening. I wonder if because Verge was accepting money in return, Abbott Nicholas may have blamed him partially for what happened**
All of these proposals in consideration, then, I think potentially color Verge’s comment when he says “how cruel” in chapter 20. I wonder if Dante’s betrayal may have also been a deeper betrayal of their relationship -> not just that he didn’t go with him, but that he may have not acknowledged the relationship they had. In other words, if Abbott Nicholas may have victim blamed Verge in a way that also centered his queerness and Dante froze.
Returning to the conversation in chapter 20 then, if, from Verge’s perspective, Dante’s powers reference sexual intercourse between men, and Dante may have never fully communicated how he felt for Verge, that how cruel may have been because he was taking it as further shaming him for his own assault -> if the sin is having had sex with a man, and if Verge may have been blamed for his rape, then Dante’s powers may come across as further victim blaming towards Verge, that because Verge was sexually abused by a man as a form of survival sex work (not that he could have ever consented to that at his age), Verge has “committed sin,” whereas Dante has not (presuming that Dante has never had sex with a man, which like, idk but idk if Verge knows either).
Dante’s response, “that’s not my sin” then, wouldn’t actually refute that to Verge. It would just tie into that. “No, I’ve never had sex with a man, that’s not my sin” -> which also would function as a further rejection of the feelings they held for each other.
On the other hand, I don’t think that’s how Dante meant it. I think Dante’s perspective on it not having been his sin, especially with how he follows it up, and with what he said towards the beginning of the series about love, is that he doesn’t view his feelings towards Verge as sin at all. Rather, it was his failure to take his side that he views as his sin. His response he may have meant both as a “what I felt for you wasn’t sin” and a “what happened to you wasn’t your fault.” The panel frames the church as Sodom, so the sin of what occurred to Verge is not homosexuality, but rape, and Dante clearly places the blame with the priest.
And to tie into this, I think it’s significant that it’s not Dante’s personal money he uses to pay women at brothels to offer them the financial means to leave sex work should they choose, it’s church funds.***
TL;DR
To sum all this up, I think Dante and Verge may both have skewed understandings of what went wrong in their relationship and how they felt towards each other, but I think the idea that Dante betrayed Verge is central to it. I’m not sure that Vergilius thinks that Dante betrayed him though. I think this is Dante’s perspective of whatever happened that we still don’t know about. I am interested in seeing if we get any further information about their past in the next chapter or if we won’t be seeing anymore for a while.
Footnotes
*I think further in support of this is Verge’s reaction at the bowling alley when Priest falsely confirms that Dante is having sex with women in brothels. He teases Dante in their fight in chapters 20-21 for being worked up over him, but honestly, I don’t think he has confidence that his feelings for him in childhood were reciprocated in the same way.
**In support of this I think we should consider Dante’s reaction following Priest’s assault in the first chapter. Priest blames himself for his assault—“I looked upon a woman with lust. I am deserving of this punishment”—and Dante immediately thinks of Abbott Nicholas, and then immediately tries to impress upon Priest that consensual sexual desire isn’t wrong.
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***Dante seems to consider his position within the church as one that enables him to decrease exploitation the most. Daniel, in one of the files, refers to the policy (that he instituted) post Mother Rosa death of banning the weak from serving as exorcists, as having resulted in the exploitation of children, who now make up the bulk of the exorcists. If Dante leaves the church at this point, he would be doing so as one of the remaining adult exorcists, leaving the work to the rest of the children
Random Extra Thoughts:
I’ve seen speculation that shit may have gone down between the two of them in-between the four year timeskip after the first chapter since Dante has become noticeably more pessimistic. Personally, based on Verge knowing about Dante going to brothels, and based on Dante knowing to look for Verge by speaking to sex workers at brothels, I wonder if they may have seen each other at a brothel. Vergilius would’ve been a witch by this point. I’ve had to go through parts of the manga again, but he’s been a witch for at least ten years at this point. Which is an interesting timeline, since Dante and Mother Rosa were both present 11 years ago at the fight against Beelzebub. Much to consider
Also, Dante and Verge keep referencing each other’s respective ages (that Dante has been aging and Verge is still young) and tying it not just to appearance but also behavior. With the potential miscommunication in regards to their feelings with each other, I sort of also wonder if Verge associates their relationship with their youth as well, and may assume that the romantic element to their love for each other is something Dante considers himself to have grown out of.
Tying into the above, I think it’s significant that we the audience haven’t yet seen an ordinary adult who is openly gay. Verge and the other witches who are queer (Erskine and Cyril based on their presence sharing a broom naked in the background of the witch’s sabbath, other various witches who’ve been similarly paired off) have all frozen themselves in time. Dante is gay, but based on his behavior at the brothels, not out. Also, and this could just be early series wonkiness, but when Abbott Nicholas tells Dante in the first chapter not to introduce Priest to a variety of vices, womanizing comes up as one of them. So, like, whatever happened in the past, I don’t think Dante has ever acknowledged himself as gay to Abbott Nicholas or the larger community.
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perfectwitchcrown · 24 days ago
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I’m working on another piece of meta so I’ve been going back and rereading bits and pieces. I completely missed this the first time lol, but this painting that Mammon is looking at is John Martin’s The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (1852).
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perfectwitchcrown · 26 days ago
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what dante said here reminded me of priest's words in chapter 1. this manga is so tightly written.
this and the fact that person who raised dante, who he calls "grandpa" in this chapter, & the person who abused priest are the same makes the divergence of thoughts interesting.
he "beat the teachings" into priest. & he calls dante, who he seems to care for this chapter, a "lout" in chapter one.
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perfectwitchcrown · 26 days ago
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Make the Exorcist Fall in Love Vol 8 & 9 Covers
I previously mentioned in the tags of a separate post on literary references in ekuoto that I was curious about the boat in the background of the joint covers of volume 8 and 9. For context, here's what I'm talking about:
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Like there's just a boat there. The rest seems to make sense: there's a stream of salt in the background of Dante's cover, which is a stream of sugar in Vergilius's cover. But like, what's the deal with the boat?
So it turns out that looking up the key phrase "Dante boat" was all I needed to do lmao. It's been long enough since I read Dante's Inferno that I completely forgot that Dante and Virgil travel by boat in Canto 8, and that there's actually a lot of art depicting it. In this canto Dante and Virgil travel in a boat ferried by a figure from Greek mythology, Phlegyas, across the river Styx from circle 5 of Hell (Wrath) to the city of Dis, behind which they will enter into circle 6 (heresy).
Here's one example by Eugène Delacroix:
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Here's another by Gustave Doré:
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So, my best guess for now is that the boat in the background is a reference to this boat! As to why the boat is important, your guess is as good as mine.
Possible reasons
Dante in the Inferno has many different moments where he's fairly sympathetic to the sinners he comes across. Not always though, and according to notes in the Hollander translation, this scene depicts "the first time in the poem that we hear an angry debate between the protagonist and one of the sinners," who he name drops as a real guy that real life Dante disliked for political reasons (Dante was a part of the White Guelph political faction whereas this guy was a member of the Black Guelph political faction. This was factionalism between what was originally a singular political group over support of the papacy. Also apparently his brother may have taken Dante's stuff when Dante got exiled) -> unsure what role this could play in Ekuoto, but this is a pretty big deal in the text and I could see it indicating some sort of later development with these characters. I could see the idea of who Dante is willing to sympathize with as being significant, both in terms of ideas of sin and factions, since we've already seen some factions in the church in Ekuoto (and I could see with some of the recent developments this only growing more prominent)
Dante and Virgil kiss on the boat -> I don't know what to say other than they kiss on the boat. You can go check Canto 8 of Inferno if you want to be sure, but I promise it happens. It's lines 43-45. In the Hollander translation: "Then my master put his arms around my neck,/kissed my face and said: 'indignant soul,/blessed is she that bore you in her womb'" (Hollander 151). I'm not super familiar with the bible but apparently (at least according to wikipedia and a quick check of an online bible) Virgil's line to Dante here is a direct quote of Luke 11:27. Now, the kiss in Dante's Inferno is platonic, medieval people were just like that. They were kissing all over the place. But I think for obvious reasons this could be significant, especially since a kiss (between Char and Vergilius w direct eye contact btw Vergilius and Dante) was part of their first "onscreen" shared scene.
Boat <3 -> honestly, this could be no deeper than the boat is a part of important art pieces and so is visually being referenced. Maybe the real boat was the friends we made along the way :)
That's all! The boat could be a reference to something else but I feel more confident that it's specifically a reference to Canto 8. I'm still unsure what the mirror is about though haha, although I may have just forgotten something, so if anyone has any thought's I'd be glad to hear them!
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perfectwitchcrown · 26 days ago
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thinking about the time this summer when elon musk recommended everyone read the iliad (specifically the penguin classics edition as an audiobook at 1.25x speed) and really can't stop laughing about it because 1. there are few people on this earth who could miss the point of the iliad quite as hard as this guy 2. the edition he linked to is a shitass translation from 1946 3. the book he linked was actually an audiobook of the odyssey
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perfectwitchcrown · 2 months ago
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Make the Exorcist Fall in Love Vol 8 & 9 Covers
I previously mentioned in the tags of a separate post on literary references in ekuoto that I was curious about the boat in the background of the joint covers of volume 8 and 9. For context, here's what I'm talking about:
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Like there's just a boat there. The rest seems to make sense: there's a stream of salt in the background of Dante's cover, which is a stream of sugar in Vergilius's cover. But like, what's the deal with the boat?
So it turns out that looking up the key phrase "Dante boat" was all I needed to do lmao. It's been long enough since I read Dante's Inferno that I completely forgot that Dante and Virgil travel by boat in Canto 8, and that there's actually a lot of art depicting it. In this canto Dante and Virgil travel in a boat ferried by a figure from Greek mythology, Phlegyas, across the river Styx from circle 5 of Hell (Wrath) to the city of Dis, behind which they will enter into circle 6 (heresy).
Here's one example by Eugène Delacroix:
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Here's another by Gustave Doré:
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So, my best guess for now is that the boat in the background is a reference to this boat! As to why the boat is important, your guess is as good as mine.
Possible reasons
Dante in the Inferno has many different moments where he's fairly sympathetic to the sinners he comes across. Not always though, and according to notes in the Hollander translation, this scene depicts "the first time in the poem that we hear an angry debate between the protagonist and one of the sinners," who he name drops as a real guy that real life Dante disliked for political reasons (Dante was a part of the White Guelph political faction whereas this guy was a member of the Black Guelph political faction. This was factionalism between what was originally a singular political group over support of the papacy. Also apparently his brother may have taken Dante's stuff when Dante got exiled) -> unsure what role this could play in Ekuoto, but this is a pretty big deal in the text and I could see it indicating some sort of later development with these characters. I could see the idea of who Dante is willing to sympathize with as being significant, both in terms of ideas of sin and factions, since we've already seen some factions in the church in Ekuoto (and I could see with some of the recent developments this only growing more prominent)
Dante and Virgil kiss on the boat -> I don't know what to say other than they kiss on the boat. You can go check Canto 8 of Inferno if you want to be sure, but I promise it happens. It's lines 43-45. In the Hollander translation: "Then my master put his arms around my neck,/kissed my face and said: 'indignant soul,/blessed is she that bore you in her womb'" (Hollander 151). I'm not super familiar with the bible but apparently (at least according to wikipedia and a quick check of an online bible) Virgil's line to Dante here is a direct quote of Luke 11:27. Now, the kiss in Dante's Inferno is platonic, medieval people were just like that. They were kissing all over the place. But I think for obvious reasons this could be significant, especially since a kiss (between Char and Vergilius w direct eye contact btw Vergilius and Dante) was part of their first "onscreen" shared scene.
Boat <3 -> honestly, this could be no deeper than the boat is a part of important art pieces and so is visually being referenced. Maybe the real boat was the friends we made along the way :)
That's all! The boat could be a reference to something else but I feel more confident that it's specifically a reference to Canto 8. I'm still unsure what the mirror is about though haha, although I may have just forgotten something, so if anyone has any thought's I'd be glad to hear them!
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perfectwitchcrown · 2 months ago
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Ok I've noticed another reference, I've written it out below the read more!
Lord of the Flies: William Golding
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I really can't remember if anyone else has pointed this out before, so pardon me if someone else has, but Beelzebub is known as the Lord of the Flies. In William Golding's novel, the titular "Lord of the Flies" is a pig's head on a stick that one of the boys, Simon, has a hallucinatory conversation with. It's been a long time since I've read this novel, and unfortunately, I don't have the ability to reread this arc so I can't make much commentary on other references within the work, but certainly Leah's past with Beelzebub and the novel both deal with children's worlds away from adults, and the ensuing violence that can be born within those worlds.
Allusions in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love
So far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love there’s been a lot of allusions to various texts. I thought it might be fun to compile all the ones people have noticed so far as far as I've seen. Some of these are more speculative than others and I will update as I go along. Also, I read Ekuoto as free first read chapters on Mangaplus so unfortunately I can’t go back and check much so this is largely through memory, so if anyone has anything else to add I would greatly appreciate it! All I’ve got is a few screenshots and a dream. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me! I’ve organized this in order of allusions I’m confident about to allusions I’m less so confident about.
CW: reference to sexual violence
Dante's Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova: Dante Alighieri
This one is pretty obvious since there are characters directly named after the characters figured in Dante’s Inferno. It’s been a long time since I read it, but other details are also taken from the text, such as the frozen center of hell where Satan is located.
Lmao Leah from the Bible (who is probably Leah’s namesake) also shows up in Dante’s Divine Comedy apparently in Purgatorio.
Ok also super important to Dante retellings r Beatrice, who’s used as a symbol of divine love and is instrumental to Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, so of course Ekuoto Dante advises Priest to fall in love lmao. So far though there hasn’t been a direct Beatrice in narrative (which there might never be one since the text has already made the Dante-Virgil connection an active choice of Virgilius's to reference the Divine Comedy rather than just an allusion by the author).
To be so real though I figure that Vergilius is probably also intended to be the Beatrice in this narrative.
The points I would draw attention in support of this would be these: 1. Beatrice is the woman who Dante has been in love with since early childhood but unable to ever be with because they both married others. Ekuoto Virgilius and Dante have known each other since childhood, and have something going on. 2. Beatrice is, like Virgil, one of Dante’s guides (through part of purgatorio and paradiso) 3. We still don’t know what Virgilius’s name was before he took that one on. Beatrice does not have a masculine form in current use and I tried finding some sort of nickname that would work and was unable to do so. However. Beatrice’s name is rendered in Japanese as ベアトリーチェ, and Beato is at least a surname. Then again, I’m not sure anyone has both a first name and last name except for Imuri so far???
"Book of Tobit"
I wasn’t familiar w this one so I didn’t notice it until I saw posts pointing it out, but the Asmodeus flashback was a retelling of the book of Tobit. Other people have already done analysis of this so I’d recommend checking other’s out. Unfortunately I failed to save the link to any of them so I can’t pass any along :’) Belfagor arcidiavolo: Machiavelli
Another one that I wasn’t familiar with but have seen people referencing. As above, I recommend checking out other’s analysis. "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas": Ursula K. Le Guin
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The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ok major spoilers and I also highly recommend this book, but also, its super long so I don’t blame anyone who chooses not to read. This book is about the most disgusting father alive and his three, maybe four, sons: Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and maybe Smerdyakov (rumored to be an illegitimate son). Most of the action follows Alyosha, who is the youngest and probably the most idealistic character in the novel, at least in the beginning. Alyosha starts out as a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery under the purview of Father Zossima, an elder who really emphasizes love in religious practice. There's a series of chapters that cover a theological debate between Ivan and Alyosha.
In this theological debate, Ivan is arguing not that God doesn’t exist, but that the foundation of the world as understood by Christianity is something he fundamentally rejects.
Quotations from the Signet Classics edition:
“I don’t accept this world of God’s. Although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept” (Dostoevsky 266) - “If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it?....I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their father’s crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension” (Dostoevsky 276)
“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (This quotation, although from a different translation, is the one that inspired Omelas - I think the bowling alley theological discussion between Virgilius and Priest bears some similarities to this conversation. Its not a debate about the existence of god, but rather a debate whether or not the world envisioned by Christianity is inherently unjust or not. Demian: Hermann Hesse
“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas”
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Potential references but tbh they’re a bit of a stretch:
“Book of Martha”: Octavia Butler
"Book of Martha" is an Octavia Butler short story in the Bloodchild collection about an ordinary woman who is visited by god one day who tells her to choose one thing to change about people to try and make the world a better place. It’s a very short read and I’d recommend reading it before you read the next sentence where I’ll spoil the end.
She eventually decides that the thing to focus on is people’s dreams. Specifically, to give them the things they desire most within their dreams, in the hope that people will be less violent to each other in real life. A stretch, but Octavia Butler comes from similar recommendation circles as Ursula K. Le Guin (feminist science fiction authors with overlapping periods of activity) so I don’t think it’s impossible for the most recent chapters' use of dreams to hold some sort of inspiration from this short story. Again, this one is a pretty big stretch, as the idea of dreams to escape reality is pretty common.
The Monk: Matthew Lewis
Ok! So! Demon seduces a person is like not at all an original story (The Daemon Lover, Cazotte’s The Devil in Love, etc etc). BUT! The Monk is specifically a story that’s like. What if there was this extremely virtuous young man who has never lived in the outside world ever because he was raised in the church as an orphan and then the devil sent a demon girl to seduce him.
I have not finished the book yet so I can’t comment in depth on it other than to say the concept is similar but the execution so far is very different (It's a fairly misogynistic text. Ambrosio turns evil in ways that I doubt Priest will because thematically they’d go completely against the story. Also, The Monk is veryyy lurid in terms of Lust is Evil!!! And will turn you into a murdering maniac!!!! Because evil women are out there seducing you!!! Whereas so far sexual desire in Ekuoto has been handled as a perfectly natural thing, but complicated by religion, patriarchy, trauma, etc.)
This is all I have so far but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas!
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perfectwitchcrown · 2 months ago
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Allusions in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love
So far in Make the Exorcist Fall in Love there’s been a lot of allusions to various texts. I thought it might be fun to compile all the ones people have noticed so far as far as I've seen. Some of these are more speculative than others and I will update as I go along. Also, I read Ekuoto as free first read chapters on Mangaplus so unfortunately I can’t go back and check much so this is largely through memory, so if anyone has anything else to add I would greatly appreciate it! All I’ve got is a few screenshots and a dream. If I get anything wrong feel free to correct me! I’ve organized this in order of allusions I’m confident about to allusions I’m less so confident about.
CW: reference to sexual violence
Dante's Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova: Dante Alighieri
This one is pretty obvious since there are characters directly named after the characters figured in Dante’s Inferno. It’s been a long time since I read it, but other details are also taken from the text, such as the frozen center of hell where Satan is located.
Lmao Leah from the Bible (who is probably Leah’s namesake) also shows up in Dante’s Divine Comedy apparently in Purgatorio.
Ok also super important to Dante retellings r Beatrice, who’s used as a symbol of divine love and is instrumental to Dante's journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, so of course Ekuoto Dante advises Priest to fall in love lmao. So far though there hasn’t been a direct Beatrice in narrative (which there might never be one since the text has already made the Dante-Virgil connection an active choice of Virgilius's to reference the Divine Comedy rather than just an allusion by the author).
To be so real though I figure that Vergilius is probably also intended to be the Beatrice in this narrative.
The points I would draw attention in support of this would be these: 1. Beatrice is the woman who Dante has been in love with since early childhood but unable to ever be with because they both married others. Ekuoto Virgilius and Dante have known each other since childhood, and have something going on. 2. Beatrice is, like Virgil, one of Dante’s guides (through part of purgatorio and paradiso) 3. We still don’t know what Virgilius’s name was before he took that one on. Beatrice does not have a masculine form in current use and I tried finding some sort of nickname that would work and was unable to do so. However. Beatrice’s name is rendered in Japanese as ベアトリーチェ, and Beato is at least a surname. Then again, I’m not sure anyone has both a first name and last name except for Imuri so far???
"Book of Tobit"
I wasn’t familiar w this one so I didn’t notice it until I saw posts pointing it out, but the Asmodeus flashback was a retelling of the book of Tobit. Other people have already done analysis of this so I’d recommend checking other’s out. Unfortunately I failed to save the link to any of them so I can’t pass any along :’) Belfagor arcidiavolo: Machiavelli
Another one that I wasn’t familiar with but have seen people referencing. As above, I recommend checking out other’s analysis. "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas": Ursula K. Le Guin
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The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ok major spoilers and I also highly recommend this book, but also, its super long so I don’t blame anyone who chooses not to read. This book is about the most disgusting father alive and his three, maybe four, sons: Dimitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and maybe Smerdyakov (rumored to be an illegitimate son). Most of the action follows Alyosha, who is the youngest and probably the most idealistic character in the novel, at least in the beginning. Alyosha starts out as a novice in the local Russian Orthodox monastery under the purview of Father Zossima, an elder who really emphasizes love in religious practice. There's a series of chapters that cover a theological debate between Ivan and Alyosha.
In this theological debate, Ivan is arguing not that God doesn’t exist, but that the foundation of the world as understood by Christianity is something he fundamentally rejects.
Quotations from the Signet Classics edition:
“I don’t accept this world of God’s. Although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept” (Dostoevsky 266) - “If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it?....I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their father’s crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension” (Dostoevsky 276)
“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?” (This quotation, although from a different translation, is the one that inspired Omelas - I think the bowling alley theological discussion between Virgilius and Priest bears some similarities to this conversation. Its not a debate about the existence of god, but rather a debate whether or not the world envisioned by Christianity is inherently unjust or not. Demian: Hermann Hesse
“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas”
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Potential references but tbh they’re a bit of a stretch:
“Book of Martha”: Octavia Butler
"Book of Martha" is an Octavia Butler short story in the Bloodchild collection about an ordinary woman who is visited by god one day who tells her to choose one thing to change about people to try and make the world a better place. It’s a very short read and I’d recommend reading it before you read the next sentence where I’ll spoil the end.
She eventually decides that the thing to focus on is people’s dreams. Specifically, to give them the things they desire most within their dreams, in the hope that people will be less violent to each other in real life. A stretch, but Octavia Butler comes from similar recommendation circles as Ursula K. Le Guin (feminist science fiction authors with overlapping periods of activity) so I don’t think it’s impossible for the most recent chapters' use of dreams to hold some sort of inspiration from this short story. Again, this one is a pretty big stretch, as the idea of dreams to escape reality is pretty common.
The Monk: Matthew Lewis
Ok! So! Demon seduces a person is like not at all an original story (The Daemon Lover, Cazotte’s The Devil in Love, etc etc). BUT! The Monk is specifically a story that’s like. What if there was this extremely virtuous young man who has never lived in the outside world ever because he was raised in the church as an orphan and then the devil sent a demon girl to seduce him.
I have not finished the book yet so I can’t comment in depth on it other than to say the concept is similar but the execution so far is very different (It's a fairly misogynistic text. Ambrosio turns evil in ways that I doubt Priest will because thematically they’d go completely against the story. Also, The Monk is veryyy lurid in terms of Lust is Evil!!! And will turn you into a murdering maniac!!!! Because evil women are out there seducing you!!! Whereas so far sexual desire in Ekuoto has been handled as a perfectly natural thing, but complicated by religion, patriarchy, trauma, etc.)
This is all I have so far but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas!
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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minos was such a pussy. if my wife gave birth to an epic minotaur baby i wouldn't have locked him in a labyrinth. i would have taken him to the mcdonalds play place (athens) every day and let him eat as many stray mcnuggets (athenians) off the floor as he wanted. i love you hungry son
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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Classicstober day 21: Psyche 🦋
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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A collection of ancient ceramic paintings depicting Achilles in a blanket being miserable and pathetic.
That's the post. Sorry that some of these are mircowave quality.
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I can't really pick a favorite, I like them all equally. They're just so silly looking.
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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(i) lisa peterson and denis o’hare, an iliad / (ii) eberhard and elfriede binder, hector bids farewell to his wife and son, 1968 / (iii) homer, the iliad (trans. richmond lattimore) 
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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breakup
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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Natsuko Nisshoku - √-1
It's really interesting to me that Natsuko Nisshoku wrote a song inspired by JJK, and I don't think I see very many people talk about it. For those who don't know, Akutami in one of the volume extras where he basically assigned songs to his characters that he associates with them, assigned Natsuko Nisshoku's song あのデパート to Nobara (really recommend listening to the song, its very nice!)
But anyways, for her album Mimesis she describes including a lot of influence of different media forms in the album. Here's the link to the interview for anyone who's interested: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/natsuko-nisshoku-mimesis-interview-1235068036/
I had noticed the song in some playlists and assumed ppl were just like associating the song with stsg but like in her interview she says regarding it:
"The lead track is “√-1.” I don’t like to say what specifically inspires any song, but those in the know would listen to “√-1” and know right away what it came from."
If you watch the music video and take a peek at the comments you'll see a lot of people describing the ways in which its clearly inspired by Gojo, and specifically Geto's defection. There's some pretty clear Red and Blue imagery and the song switches first person pronouns from 俺 to 僕 towards the end of the song like how Gojo did.
Anyways, it's also just a really nice song, I strongly recommend people give it a listen. Its kind of cool that she wrote this, like its not officially tied to jjk or anything so I find the inspiration cool.
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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SASHISU!!
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perfectwitchcrown · 1 year ago
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I had to make a meme
LITERALLY!!!! GIRLS WHEN AND SO THEY BURIED HECTOR BREAKER OF HORSES!!!!
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