perfectwitchcrown

[perfectwitchcrown]

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:

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:

Here's another by Gustave Doré:

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!

[perfectwitchcrown]

Ok I've noticed another reference, I've written it out below the read more!

Lord of the Flies: William Golding

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

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”

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!

[perfectwitchcrown]

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

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”

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!

[perfectwitchcrown]

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

[perfectwitchcrown]

Classicstober day 21: Psyche 🦋

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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.

I can't really pick a favorite, I like them all equally. They're just so silly looking.

[perfectwitchcrown]

(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) 

[perfectwitchcrown]

breakup

[perfectwitchcrown]

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.

[perfectwitchcrown]

SASHISU!!

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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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Gideon Nav has never done anything wrong in her life and I love her

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My mock book covers of the Iliad and the Odyssey ⚔🌊✨

☆Merch Here☆

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Chainsaw Man Cinema

[perfectwitchcrown]

Idk if anyone else has pointed this out, and maybe its just a stretch, but parts of chainsawman really remind me of Goethe’s Faust. Outside of just the like baseline deal with a demon stuff there’s also comparisons to be made in regards to mefistofoles’s initial appearance to Faust in the form of a dog and Pochita and Faust’s seeking of fulfilment from his romantic pursuits like with the Gretchen and Helen sequences. Idk its definitely not a perfect comparison but I think its interesting to consider hmmm...