#// yes i chose that specific icon on purpose.

[helixoflife]

what does your soul look like?

the broken mirror

You are the rebel. You are the one who refused to fit into the box. They broke you because you refused to conform, but they never expected you to turn your shattered pieces into sharp edges aimed for their throats. They will face your pointed fragments and see their own reflection in your ruin. You are a reckoning. You are the threat of a future unsuited for weak minds. How unfortunate it is that your existence is solitary. That you cut everyone who comes close. Maybe one day someone will show you how to be something besides a weapon. Maybe one day they will help you put your pieces back together to see yourself as a person instead of a cause for once.

Tagged: @symphonicsoul

Tagging: steal it from me!

[bluegumballmf]

OK SO RANT WARNING I LOVE ADAMAI

ngl i think about adamai so much like literally almost half of the time im thinking abt him so um i just wanna talk about my personal headcanons for him bc i rlly rlly like him he’s genuinely such an easy character to relate to for me because i relate to his trauma. Anyways, forgive me if you catch any spelling or grammar errors, i’m writing this with like 4 hours of sleep and dyslexia.

um so my main mental health hcs are that he has BPD, ADD (lololol fits with the name) and minor psychosis. For ADD, it’s moreseo that from what i’ve seen, adamai struggles in social cues and has a more quiet approach to his struggles, and that he acts similarly to me, and I am autistic. For psychosis, it’s sort of a baseless headcanon, I just feel like Adamai would get auditory/ tactile hallucinations.

It’s a little hard to explain why i think he has BPD cause it’s moreso things I can relate to, such as how he latches onto people rlly quick ; ie a BPD person’s “favorite person,” who is a support system and a sort of pillar/ anchor and typically end up being someone the person w/ BPD sometimes ends up changing themself for. I personally think that adamai’s had multiple favorite people, such as; grougal, qilby, phaeris, echo and oropo, and obviously, yugo. Its kinda hard for me to like. Phrase WHY i think these people are his fps, but i think it’s mostly how he values them and prioritizes them when it comes to his actions and thoughts and feelings, i mean, just take oropo for example. Adamai changed his entire body for oropo, taking the dofus in when he was still rlly young for eliatrope/dragon standards, even assuming a body he didn’t want to survive, which even then, he only did for approval and support from his FP. This actually leads me into my next headcanon,

I headcanon adamai as transfem. Specifically a trans woman. For a few reasons, which I’ve gone over in a twitter thread (same username as on here, you should go check it out, I’m WAY more active there haha) but i’ll put it here.

1. adamai doesnt feel comfortable in his body and it’s elaborated on in the show. When he’s talking to eliatrope about his body, eliatrope states that he’s “always been unique” and iirc you can see adamai’s face drop because its not exactly something he’s proud of.

2: going off the last point, he’s shown to say that the body he now has in wakfu s3-4 is one he had to adapt to survive and not the one he chose, which is parallel to some trans people never transitioning because they dont feel safe enough to do so. this is kind of a stretch but bear with me, it’s more subconcious connections than anything else.

3. (More of a joke point) BUT HE LITERALLY HAS THE SAME WAIST SIZE AS JESSICA RABBIT. WHAT. YES I’VE ACTUALLY COMPARED I AM NOT JOKING. Like here are the images (see below) for comparison. In all seriousness, while i feel like adamai’s design IS iconic and it does serve the purpose it meant to acheive, it doesn’t feel like him. Which again, is what it meant to acheive!! I’ll touch on this more in a second, but not.

4: adamai has multiple issues regarding self perception, which in a way are all similar to dysphoria. He seems to have rejection dysphoria, body dysphoria, and maybe gender dysphoria. In my view, he seems to have all three subtypes of gender dysphoria (body, mind, and social) this actually ties in to the first point, because i feel like he’d develop a sort of body dysmorphia from shifting into a body he didn’t want, rather then a body that would be more comfortable for him; the human or the dragon. Which i’m choosing to see as a representation of the two genders; with him shifting in between being a sort of safe spot, like how many trans people identify as nonbinary or bigender before transition. (Not to say that these people are any less trans then any others, i’m just going off my own perception as a trans genderfluid person!!!)

5: he’s always being forced into roles; from being raised for yugo, to being yugo’s mentor, to being grougal’s nanny, to being possessed, etc. Ad never has chances to choose any roles by himself, and it’s similar to transphobic parents stopping their trans kid from expressing themselves imo. Again, could be a stretch, but this is how i interpreted it. It’s actually kind of similar to my parents, so maybe that’s why. Though, this COULD also just be gifted kid burnout or autistic burnout OR strict parent parallels, which i also can see correspond with adamai.

6: His mental image and self worth.

Adamai’s character is heavily influenced by a lack of self worth. He measures it with other people’s perceptions of him such as oropo’s or grougal’s, and when his body is perceived negatively by himself/others, he also starts hating it and himself, which ties into the headcanon i had about him having body dysmorphia AND into the BPD favorite people!!!

7: ( sounds like a joke point but bear w me) estrogen could have saved him

And honestly, no, Im not joking. Imo, if Adamai was allowed access to an actual process to be able to feel comfortable in his own skin, it might help his mental illnesses a lot in the long run. I equate that to him getting estrogen + finally looking like himself. It could help him with the body dysmorphia and self esteem by helping him get to a place where he’s comfortable to be himself and maybe even shapeshift again. (I actually wrote a fic about this on Ao3, https://archiveofourown.org/works/55070686, if you want to read it!!)

But um yeah, thats my reasoning for the trans headcanons, onto the less mental health involved ones, more miscellaneous. (But if you’re wondering why i’m using ‘male’ pronouns on Adamai, it’s because i feel like he would still like the he/him pronouns, but would simply use she/her more post transition.)

So, i have a few, mainly for adamai during winter vs summer.

In winter,

Silverish hair to blend with the snow

hair puffs up slightly to provide more insulation

lighter pigmentation everywhere,

much sleepier, tends to nap in the snow often

And then in the summer,

Blonde hair

more pigmentation

hair is less puffy, just curly (similar to chibi’s hair!!!)

less sleepier and more energetic.

Those are the basic ones for the seasons, but i also headcanon adamai to be an ice dragon, which means his tempurature is MUCH lower then the rest of the council’s save for maybe efrim. He needs to be in the sun much more, which could be part of the reason why grougal chose oma island to raise adamai. Another headcanon is that adamai and yugo both have heterochromia!! Yugo has central heterochromia, and Adamai has sectoral heterochromia; his eyes being blue and brown. I also headcanon that he has face markings similar to his mother, but they disappear in his dragon form because he’s closer to his father then.

Um yeah, that’s kind of it for right now, i might add onto these if more come up, but i hope you enjoyed reading!! I rwally love adamai, especially in s3 and up, he’s one of the most well written traumatized character’s i’ve seen, and i ADORE the nuance behind him.

[mweothe11e]

Hi can I also get a reading

My initials are SK and

Favourite song( english is not my native language) would be have I told u lately by rod stewart...

Can I get a reading regarding the college I ma seeking an admission at..will I get it and will it be beneficial...

Hi SK,

Thank you so much for patiently waiting for your turn.

Rod Stewart is lowkey iconic for a reason and I’m really happy you mentioned them.

So regarding your question, acceptance in your target admission isn’t going to benefit you in the long run. More like, I’m picking up an image of a wax-coated apple that’s rotting at the core. The prestige of the school is great on paper but it has more cons than pros for your specific situation. And the course you listed down might not even be your personal choice. It feels more like you subconsciously chose it for practicality’s sake. I also picked up a maybe yes/no in that college admission. You could be on the waiting list. So the advice for your reading is to send your application to more schools. I heard “diversify your options”. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by where you’ll likely be accepted. It feels more like an unexpected happy surprise.

This is as far as I can pull out for you.

Do let me know in your feedback how this resonates with you.

(this reading is for entertainment purposes only)

[saintescuderia]

On Mixtapes.

I miss mixtapes.

So much so that I’m writing about them despite the fact that my 1999 birth year has me placed in the liminal space where technology was making rapid waves and mixtapes were steadily on their way out. I didn’t really grow up with mixtapes. I grew up around mixtapes. I didn’t have to be taught what they were, I grew up just knowing about them. Maybe it was because mixtapes were entrenched in the media I consumed?

I still remember that FRIENDS episode where Chandler cheats and gives Monica a mixtape he found for Valentine’s Day.

And maybe that’s what I miss. I miss what they represented; a tangible object that you could literally gift someone. A mixtape was something you made for one specific person, one specific purpose. You internally sifted through your mental catalogue of all the music you knew and came up with a select list of songs you wished to dedicate to a person. You gave them the gift of music. In a carefully construed track list of your own making which may or may not include your own additions of small voice notes explaining why you chose each song as you did.

No, technology has taken that away. All we are left with is fucking Spotify playlists.

Don’t get me wrong, though, the culture of Spotify playlists is a whole other thing to be examined and it has its points. However, they don’t replace mixtapes. You made a playlist for someone and what? It took you a few songs, just dragged some songs across you laptop, tapped on their icon on your phone. Maybe even went to Pinterest to add a cover photo. Maybe.

I’ve made many playlists for many people. I’ve also made a few mixtapes for a few people. I can tell you exactly why I made each mixtape and who they were for and why I chose those songs and what the person meant to me at the time - that, yes, they were worth the three hours it took to download songs and transfer them via CD extension reader because my 2018 MacBook doesn’t read discs anymore.

Not to sound too ancient, but I do lament the loss of permanence technology has brought us.

There, of course, isn’t really anything to do with this. Playlists have taken over and have become an art form in their own right. And that’s not a bad thing. Maybe the fact that the process of exchanging music has become so casual is something to be celebrated. Maybe I’m just a music snob complaining about being born in the wrong time.

Maybe.

[emilyhufflepufftlk]

Review of Seven Kings Must Die

I feel like people are going to have mixed feelings towards this film, however I really liked it and I think it did a good job within the constraints it had. Could it have been better as a whole season? Probably. But I think it was still a fitting way to end TLK.

Overall an 8.5/10 from me. I have written a very detailed review (lots of spoilers!!!!) under the cut. It is perhaps too detailed - I got carried away lol.

First things first, I loved the opening credits with the extended title sequence. Loved that it incorporated the original title art alongside movie specific sequences. Also the fact that the music started off different and then went into the iconic TLK theme was great, signalling that the film is both it's own thing and part of the TLK story. I have always loved the way they use the titles as a storytelling device, like how they changed it for season 5 to make Northumbria the 'last kingdom' rather than Wessex, so I thought changing it to have the burning start in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man etc where the 'kings' in the film were from was really effective. Maybe it's the nerd in me, but I love these kind of details.

Finan doing the voice over was interesting as we've never had anyone else but Uhtred do the narration. It gave a different perspective from what we usually get which was cool. I also like to think that this was Finan telling the story of how Uhtred made England happen after Uhtred's death (I know it was left opened ended, but I personally think Uhtred did go to Valhalla at the end) which is cool as Uhtred always said he would live on in the songs his men will tell of him (thinking about his dialogue with Alfred in 3.09).

I was fine with Ingrith having the 'prophesy'. Yes it kind of came out of nowhere but it didn't really matter - by that I mean if she had not had the vision nothing would have changed, Uhtred was not acting on her advice or took real heed of it, in fact he shrugged it off. Having the prophesy gave us extra intrigue and the twist that 'the woman you love' was directed at Finan and she was the one to die was surprising and I thought well done. I did like that it was the sons of kings that died rather than the kings themselves, especially after the kings talked about how having an heir meant their kingdoms would live on.

In terms of the new characters, I cannot say they were particularly memorable (with the exception of Ingilmundr who I will talk about later). We did not get much of a chance to get to know them which is to be expected due to time constraints. I personally didn't mind this as I think most movies have a similar problem so I am used to it. I think the kings served their role for the plot and I was fine with not knowing much about them. Same for the Danes, they served their purpose plot wise. It would have been nice to have a bit more focus on Astrid (the Dane's daughter who spied on the Saxons) but I'm not that fussed about it.

Onto Ingilmundr - I thought he was an excellent antagonist. He was everything Aethelhelm was trying to be. I think with Aethelhelm in season 5, he felt a bit too much like a comic book villain to me, I kept expecting him to break out into cackles of evil laughter. But Ingilmundr felt more real and I thought the actor's performance was very good. He was manipulative without being too obvious. I also liked how he was the opposite of Uhtred - born Dane, taught Saxon ways and eventually betraying them for the people of his birth (just like how Uhtred was born Saxon, grew up Dane, but in the end chose to serve Saxon kings).

I was pleased that they gave Aethelstan a male lover as I believe it's referenced in the books (I have not read them personally) and I didn't know if Netflix had the balls to do it. I think it added to the manipulation and helped to explain why Aethelstan was so easily influenced by him (as I feel like Aethelstan genuinely cared for/loved him). It also makes the sense of betrayal on Aethelstan's part greater and I thought that was portrayed well.

In terms of Aethelstan in general, I think the writer's did a good job building him up to be the antagonist in the beginning third of the film. Him killing his brother in cold blood after the surrender clearly signalled he'd changed from who we met in season 5 and showed how Ingilmundr influenced him. Killing Aldhelm really shocked me and made me SOB (especially how he went calmly and accepted his fate). As much as I hated to see Aldhelm die as he had grown to become one of my favourite characters over the course of the series, I think his death was effective. It showed that Aethelstan had gone mad from paranoia and how lost he rally was, both to the audience and the characters - it's only when Uhtred sees Aldhelm's body does he realise what Aethelstan is capable of and realises he isn't the young man he had raised.

The change from Aethelstan being an antagonist to siding with Uhtred was a little abrupt and could have been done better over the course of a whole season, but I still thought it worked. Harry Gilby did a good job with the scenes he had, from the denial when Uhtred first tells him of Ingilmundr's betrayal to the acceptance and guilt when he discovers the truth.

The attack on Bebbanburg and the killing of Ingrith and the rest of the people was gut wrenching but thinking about it in hindsight I wonder what purpose it served? They would have still gone to look for their sons regardless. I guess it made Uhtred feel totally defeated and maybe alerted them to the immediate danger but I feel like it wasn't necessary. Ingrith's death destroyed me, mainly because of Mark's acting - that man knows how to sell an emotional scene! His scream and the sobbing was soul destroying. However, what really took me out of this moment was wondering where the hell Sihtric's wife and kids are? I guess they no longer exist?

There were lots of characters that were absent without explanation. This always happens when a series with a whole range of characters developed over many seasons have to condense down into a two hour film - it happened with Downton Abbey, although I feel like the writers of the Downton movie at least gave missing characters reasons for not being there. I didn't care so much about Hild or Eadith as much as I love them as I don't see what role they would have played in the plot anyway, but I feel like they should have at least explained Stiorra's absence as it feels odd she didn't come to Uhtred/Bebbanburg's aid if she had been able to.

I liked the introduction of Osbert and Edmund, although we didn't get much of them. I don't think there was time in the movie to address the whole 'Uhtred abandoning Osbert for most of his childhood' and I guess there has been a big enough time jump to assume they have worked out their differences. I also liked the fact Osbert protected and trained Edmund, it feels like it's carrying on the legacy of Uhtred teaching and protecting Edward.

I was glad that Eadgifu's characterisation was the same as in season 5 despite the change in actress. Her friendship with Uhtred was a surprise but worked well.

We didn't get a whole lot of Finan and Sihtric which was sad but was what I expected. There really wasn't time for side plots which means Finan's past is reserved for fanfic alone. I did like how they inferred Finan was getting older (falling asleep, sore arse etc) which at least acknowledges the fact that these guys should be like 80 by now lmao.

As always in TLK they travelled across the country in what seemed like no time at all - however I feel like although we didn't get extended scenes of them travelling places, the length of time it takes to get to places was acknowledged: when they get to the cave where the residents of Bebbanburg were imprisoned, it's said that Ingrith last spoke three days before they got there, which at least signals that time has passed since Uhtred left and not five seconds like it feels in the movie.

Something both the movie and Season 5 did was show the barbarity of the Christians. I feel like in previous seasons it was always presented as the Danes being the savages that rape and pillage and leave destruction in their wake, whilst in Season 5 we saw in the massacre at Rumcofa Christians doing the murdering and we saw it again here with them slaughtering everyone in Aegelesburg even after they surrendered and the burning of the Scottish settlements etc. I think this gives the show more nuance and makes it less black and white.

The end battle was epic. I loved that it was a return to the standard shield wall which was so iconic in the series but I feel like they moved away from in seasons 4 and 5. The tactics of moving them around so they could attack them from behind was clever, especially as I didn't realise that was what they were doing. The putting down of spikes in front of them was also such a cool idea. The whole battle reminded me a lot of Ethendun and so it feels like we've come full circle. I really thought Pyrlig was going to be another Leofric, but he miraculously survived yet again. Honestly I think this man is invincible - he's been stabbed TWICE, tortured, walked for miles and been through numerous battles. I love Pyrlig so I'm not complaining lol.

I thought Uhtred was going to die laying on the battlefield. I can't decide if I would have preferred him going down with a blaze of glory on the battlefield rather than the ending we got, but it was still emotional seeing him fight on whilst bleeding out. Sihtric and Finan finding him afterwards also made me tear up.

Uhtred seeing the feast hall of Valhalla with his friends laughing together was very emotional and I really liked it. It would have been nice to have seen Young Ragnar, Gisela and Thyra (although maybe Thyra is in heaven with Beocca) there alongside them but I know the actors were probably unavailable.

The fact that they don't specify if Uhtred lived or died was clever, especially with Finan's voice over saying that the chronicles didn't record his fate. It ties into this idea that Uhtred was written out of history, again linking back to his dialogue with Alfred in 3.09. I like the idea that we can pretend that the events in TLK did happen, that the Uhtred we know did exist, just it wasn't included in the chronicles.

I loved that the ending shot was modern Bambrugh castle, showing that the thing Uhtred fought so hard for lives on. Bebbanburg was such an important part of the show; even in Season 3 when we don't go to Bebbanburg at all, it still looms over the show and everything Uhtred does. It's also integrally linked to Uhtred's 'destiny' and as we know 'destiny is all'. The way the camera pans away in that final shot reminds me a bit of the last shot of Season 5 which ties the endings together.

Overall, I really enjoyed it and I thought it was done well. As always with TLK the costumes, hair and makeup, stunts, fight scenes and music were awesome. The crew really outdid themselves. I do think that it would have benefitted from having a bit more space to expand on certain plot points and it would have been more effective as a whole season, however, I am really glad we got this movie and saw the creation of England which (alongside Uhtred reclaiming Bebbanburg) has always been the biggest theme running through the series.

I can't believe TLK is really over. I might cry. I will miss it dearly.

[buffysummers]

Omg I love your gif set for the 25th anniversary! Can you explain why you picked each shot for each character? I'd love an in-depth analysis 😍

Hi, thank you so much! ❤️ Of course, I'd love to talk about my thought process, because I really did put A LOT of thought into the shots I chose. I'm gonna break this down per character, but first I want to state that each mini gifset for each character (if it isn't obvious) is supposed to comprise of shots that represent the character in some shape or form. The large top gif is meant to represent which dynamic *I* find to be the most important to each character. Ok, now I'm gonna start! (for those curious, this is the set she’s referring to!)

Buffy:

This was simultaneously the easiest and most challenging one to make. How does one begin to describe such a complexly layered and brilliant character like Buffy Anne Summers? So, I started with her most obvious identifier: The Slayer.

For this, I chose the iconic Vampyr book shot, and the cross that Angel gives her. The cross shot is particularly significant, IMO, because I think the interaction between the two of them is what makes Buffy start to take what's happening pretty seriously. Yes, she was reluctant with Giles but then later asked him to prepare her, but at the time, the preparing her for "what" was nameless, formless, just an IDEA. Now, Angel tells her SPECIFICALLY what she has to face, which is The Harvest. I think this is the most where it all becomes very real to her.

I chose Buffy's grave to symbolize her sacrifice in "The Gift." One of Buffy's biggest defining traits is her selflessness and her compassion, and that's beautifully represented in her choosing to die so that her sister may get the chance to finally begin living.

The iconic shot of Buffy's scraped and bloody back! This represents the fact that she's a warrior and her willingness to keep fighting even after she’s been knocked down. But this scene also represents the burden of being a Slayer, and her speech about how she is the law is such a powerful moment because, finally, she understands what Faith was going on about in season three (although Faith was a bit misguided, she planted the seed.)

And, of course, Dawn and Buffy, which is Buffy's most significant relationship in the series, albeit platonic. And Buffy and Angel, which is Buffy's most significant romantic relationship in the series. Angel was integral to Buffy accepting her destiny as a Slayer. He was her confidant, her partner in crime, her companion, her first love and her first heartbreak. I chose that shot of them specifically because it’s the! scene! The scene where she loses her virginity and the entire trajectory of the show is changed forever. Poor baby really went through it!

I did not choose Giles/Buffy over Dawn/Buffy because Buffy is basically Dawn's mother, in a lot of ways. So, while Giles represents her father figure, a mother will always choose her child. Dawn’s arrival also officially ends Buffy’s childhood. While Buffy was forced to grow up very fast after she was called, there were moments where she still got to be a teenager. But after Joyce’s death, she resumes the role as Dawn’s mother and as a result she loses something she can never get back.

Giles:

Jenny Calendar's grave was selected to represent Giles' greatest love and his greatest loss (after losing Buffy, of course.)

I chose the shot of him smoking a cigarette in "Band Candy" to represent his "Ripper" side. There is no Giles without the Ripper, seeing as the Ripper is always right underneath the surface.

I chose the drawings from "First Date" both because it's funny (and not the first time he has comical drawings), but also to represent his duties as a Watcher.

I chose the shot of him in the Magic Box to represent that very important and significant time in his life, as well as the Scooby's. The Magic Box became their home for awhile, and it also gave him a newfound sense of purpose after spending the entirety of season four feeling rather listless and lost.

I had to include a shot of books, because, hello! Giles! But I chose the shot in "Hush” because not only does it show him physically reaching for a book to do research, but it shows him choosing to continue helping Buffy despite the fact that he is no longer her Watcher, and he no longer has a job. Like, he stuck around in season four because of his love for Buffy and because he believed in protecting the world.

Buffy and Giles... I mean, no doubt this is one of the most important dynamics of the show. I chose to use it for Giles and not Buffy for the reasons listed earlier, but also because Buffy is Giles’ entire reason for being in Sunnydale, and a lot of ways, she is his life. She’s his daughter!

Willow:

Willow is the only Scooby that gets a romantic interest as the most important dynamic, but she’s not the only Scooby that gets a romantic interest represented in her set. Choosing Tara was effortless and easy. While their relationship is far from perfect, Tara helps Willow discover who she is. Tara gives Willow strength to navigate the confusing feelings she was having for her, as well as strength to believe in herself and her power. She makes her feel special and seen. I think it is very important to Willow to feel special, and she even says this about Tara to Buffy, “The only thing I had going for me ... were the moments - just moments - when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful. And that will never happen again.” Tara represents both the light and the dark within Willow. Light, for her ability to love deeply. Dark, for how dangerous that passion can be if it’s lost.

I chose the shot of the pez witch that Oz gives Willow to represent, well, Oz, and the fact that she’s a witch. While Oz is not Willow’s ~greatest~ love, he helped Willow break out of her shell, and he made her feel loved and like she mattered for the first time in her life.

I chose the shot in “Villains” to represent Willow’s darkness and ultimately her greatest flaw: her thirst for power.

I chose the computer shot to represent her skills as a hacker. Before she was a witch, she contributed to the Scooby gang by being a skilled hacker and it made her feel useful, which did wonders for her confidence.

I chose the shot of her and Tara doing the spell with the rose to represent magic (I know I already have a shot of that but it’s Willow!!) and how the show relied on “doing spells” as a metaphor for sex.

The cat shot. Well, it’s cute and very witch-y lol. Also the shot is from “Restless” which does a deep dive of Willow’s insecurities concerning inadequacy and how horrified she is of her past self. That’s why Oz and Tara are seen gossiping about her.

Xander:

No disrespect to the Xanya and Cander shippers, but Buffy and Willow will forever be Xander’s most important bond in the series. Xander was literally willing to die for Buffy only two episodes into the show. He may have his problems, he may say insensitive and selfish things at times, but when Buffy and Willow are in danger, he is the first to volunteer to save them.

I chose the shot of him holding an axe in “The Zeppo” to represent his willingness to fight despite having no special skills whatsoever. It’s actually insane how willing he is to fight when he has such a higher chance of being killed. Also, “The Zeppo” is just an EXCELLENT character study episode.

I chose the shot of Cordy and the necklace for two reasons. The main reason is the fact that it’s a heart necklace, and Buffy has said that Xander is her strength and he was also the heart in their spell in “Primeval.” The other reason is that Cordy is in the shot, and I think she actually did a lot for him. Even though he cheated on her, I think Xander brought out a softness in Cordelia, and she also made him feel confident. There was a genuine connection there.

The shot of Anya and Xander at the wedding represents his immaturity. He knew he was not ready to get married, and yet he did not have the courage to speak up sooner. And his reasons for not getting married go far deeper than being too young and immature. It has a lot to do with his family, his fears of becoming like them, and his insecurities. I do think it was RIGHT for him to not get married, 21 is very young, but leaving her at the altar is selfish and immature. Literally the worst way to handle that situation.

I wanted to juxtapose that Xanya shot with a shot of the greatest thing he ever does: save the world. And he saves the world through his words that are fueled by years and years of love.

And last but not least, the plans he brings of the new high school. This represents the more obvious ways he IS useful. He fixes things! He puts Buffy’s house back together. Also, his job is a huge part of his identity since he’s the only Scooby that chooses not to go to college.

I also wanted to say that I intentionally chose the two shots of women having blood on their faces to represent the subversion of the show, and I made Willow and Giles have the black and white color gif to represent how their journeys mirror themselves at times. Giles sees himself in Willow and that is why he is so skeptical and adamant about how she chooses to practice magic.

For the anniversary set, I chose to do the four core Scoobies because they are the heart of the show, and a huge part of why Buffy thrives, survives, and remains grounded as the Slayer is because of the support and help she receives from her friends.

Thanks for the ask! I’m sure you’re the only person who will read this lol 🤪

[sunshinewarrior11]

Sokka’s Real Name (Modern IRL AU) HC

Hello, so before we begin on the fun head canons, let’s talk a bit about the character and the culture. In this specific AU, Sokka and his family is based on the Inupiaq people who live in North-most modern day Alaska. This group of people have beautiful and ancient name traditions which span centuries. In the tradition, names tend to be genderless, as you are often named after someone in the family who just died before you. And it can be a term of endearment to then be called with the person who passed kinship term. Say for example (this is not an Inupiaq name btw) your grandfather was named John and he died right before you were born, so now you are named John. Your family and community may call you aapa (father/grandfather in Inupiat) as a term of endearment. This is because you are the atiq (Inupiat concept of ‘namesake’) of someone in the community who was referred to as this. Therefore, the name you are given is of high significance because you are the continuing spirit of your ancestor. Now, of course this changes after contact with Christian missionaries and the wide spread conversion to Christianity. Which means in modern day Inupiaq communities, people tend to have Biblical or Christian names, as well as like with any modern community, there will be names ‘just cause’. Therefore for this headcanon, Katara’s name has been left as it is, as it is a real name with Arabic/Greek origins. However, Sokka’s name is changed because ‘sokka’ (or more correctly ‘sou ka’ そう か and pronounced SO-ka -- bc Sokka is not only a misspelled but mispronounced too) is an informal way in Japanese to say ‘really/is that so?’, ‘I see’ or ‘Eureka!’. (The formal form being Sou Desu Ka そうですか). Obviously, Bryke chose that on purpose because Sokka is meant to be ‘Eureka! Guy’. So what is the proposed modern irl name for Sokka?

Leonard

A bit about the name, Leonard is a common European name with variations between languages. This is the English variation. It is also the name of two famous Catholic saints. Therefore, making it a Christian name. And lastly, it is dorky af, which suits Sokka well. Now, onto the headcanons:

-  young like 6 y/o him hated it bc it was dorky but Kya was like ‘hey, u r my little Leonardo Da Vinci’ which perked him right up bc baby inventor though that’s cool. he also loved knowing that like Da Vinci, he struggled to finish his projects. he was a little annoyed he was not named Leonardo bc he thought that was a cuter name, therefore Kya would always call him ‘Leonardo’. And did he obsess a little over Da Vinci? The scientist artist? Yes.

- he also became obsessed with Leo from Ninja Turtles and tried insisting to be called Leo bc of that (it worked and that’s mostly what he always went by)

- only Gran Gran calls him Leonard, because ‘his name is perfectly good as it is’

- 11-13 y/o Sokka got obsessed w/ Star Trek and OMG LEONARD NEMOY! (this obsession never ended; trekkie for life)

- freshman at uni Sokka tried making call me Len, like John Lennon bc he learned guitar and thought that was a good pick up line (it wasn’t)   

- the only time he calls himself Lenny is when he’s comparing himself to Lenin bc he’s a baby socialist in university and an adult socialist later on lmao     

- his iconic hair cut is inspired by Leo Di Caprio bc he also thought this was a good pick up trick (I mean eh it worked?) 

- Sokka got his nickname ‘Sokka’ while he was on a year abroad (that turned into years lmao) in Japan came from a late night in the labs when he got a Eureka moment that saved the group project and thus everyone started calling him Sokka and eh it stuck and he likes it  

- When Sokka and Suki were dating, he’d always make Jack and Rose jokes because in general he’d compare himself to Leo Di Caprio as pick up lines. 

 - it was weird for Zuko to go home w/ Sokka and just hear him called Leo/Leonard all the time out of nowhere bc most their friends just call him Sokka, even though he knows that’s his name and even calls him Leo himself

This list and concept was created between myself and @mostly-mundane-atla Please check out their page for more information about Inupiaq culture which they lovingly share. They also have a ko-fi, so yeah. Also thank you to @the-hot-zone for giving me more insight into the Japanese origins of そうですか .

[strangertheory]

I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they make him more powerful than El? I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show" 😪 *sigh*. And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist since Will is a boy. Thx

That’s a lot of interesting questions to think about.

I’ll attempt to address each thought that you’ve shared one at a time and provide you with my own opinions and theories about each:

You said: “I'd love for Will to be able to have the power of reality alteration because him being the most powerful one would be a very nice plot twist. But. Do you really believe they would make him more powerful than El?”

I have a lot of conflicted feelings about the way that the fandom often talks about characters’ powers and supernatural abilities in Stranger Things. (I also really dislike the way that the fandom has decided that they can’t appreciate and support both El and Will’s happiness and that their happy endings and successes are somehow mutually exclusive, but I’ll address the topic of their powers first.)

Fans often focus on the abilities and superpowers of characters as something desirable and cool but fans rarely spend time considering what it cost those characters to develop their abilities in the first place. Neither El nor Will suddenly woke up one day and had superpowers that they had conscious control over.

Certain impressive skills that people have in the real world might also be developed under extremely traumatic and undesirable circumstances and not because they wanted them: the powers represented so far in Stranger Things are very much like that variety of skillset.

El’s powers and her ability to control them are canonically shown to have manifested during her imprisonment, abuse, isolation, and manipulation at the Lab. As Kali says “They stole your life, Jane!” Due to El’s isolation from society and from love and affection and from having a family and from everything else in the world beyond the Lab she has a significant amount of early childhood social and psychological development that was stolen from her that she can never truly get back. A healthy, loving, safe environment for development and self-actualization that children deserve to have was not provided to El and she has suffered so much and she has had significant delays in her opportunity to grow and become her own person because of what was done to her. So yes, El has psychic powers that give her a variety of unique abilities that are very useful. But at what cost? If El were given the choice to abandon all of her powers in exchange for a loving family, a community of friends that she’d had the opportunity to know and spend time with since early childhood, a variety of passions and hobbies that she chose for herself over the years as she was growing up and engaging with the world, an extensive understanding of the world outside of the Lab based on her own exploration of the world and not only what people tell her or what she sees on television, and most importantly a sense that she is treated kindly because people truly love her and not because they want to exploit her and her powers for their own purposes: wouldn’t she make that trade?

Do I currently agree with the theory that Will’s subconscious mind created the Upside Down, the Mindflayer, the demogorgon, and even most probably created many other characters and fantastical plotlines that exist in the story? Yes. But I believe it has (so far) been unintentional, entirely subconscious, and is a mental coping mechanism in response to extremely traumatic circumstances that Will has faced throughout his life. Would Will’s subconscious mind creating significant parts of the Stranger Things universe represent a certain level of “power” that is greater than El’s? I don’t personally think they’re comparable. There are things that Will can probably do that El cannot, and vice versa. They will surely each have their own strengths and weaknesses and their own limitations that we may or may not always be shown in the series.

But what does "more powerful” really mean to us, and why does that question even matter? It was not El’s choice to have powers and it was not Will’s choice to have powers. Much of what I believe Will has incidentally created is creating a lot of confusion and suffering for him and for others that he cares about. If the story were about real people I’d be offended at the question of who’s more powerful and feel as though that question and debate is the sort that Dr. Brenner and his colleagues would have: “How useful is this child to me? Which child is more powerful?” I dislike the question because it feels like asking a parent which child is their favorite. I care about them both, and I don’t care about them because they happen to have superpowers: I care about them because they are nuanced characters that are very well-written and that I can empathize with as if they were real people. I respect why it’s a popular thing for fans to debate over which X-Men is the most powerful, for example, but that’s never been what draws me into scifi and fantasy stories. What characters choose to do under unusual circumstances and with unique resources (such as superpowers) is far more important to me than the nature and intensity of the powers themselves. I believe that the Stranger Things fandom does these beautifully written characters a disservice by focusing too heavily on their abilities and not enough on their feelings, choices, relationships, dreams, goals, and experiences that humanize them.

I love Stranger Things because of the humanity of each of the characters and not because some of them can throw cars through walls.

You said: “I keep finding crazy comments on social media, suggesting it's the "El show"”

El is definitely an important character in the story at this point in the show and she has some really fascinating abilities in the Stranger Things universe that often give her iconic moments and provide her an opportunity to be in the spotlight.

I believe that there is a reason that the writers have decided to develop many characters in the story and in my opinion it can seem hard to pin-point a “main” character at times. I think this is absolutely intentional on the part of the writers, and I predict that we will learn how Will’s, Hopper’s, and El’s storylines intersect in season 4. I think we will learn something new about each of the characters.

I do not personally believe that it is the “El show” any more than it could be argued that this is the “Steve show” or the “Hopper show.” But I do appreciate that fans have grown to love El’s character.

I strongly disagree with anyone in the fandom that insists that Will is not important. I can tell that the way that he was quieter in season 3 inspired some fans to dismiss his role in the series entirely, but I think they’re mistaken. Quiet and less assertive doesn’t mean irrelevant in a story like this one. I believe that much of what Will has been through is at the heart of the entire series, and I think that he will play a very critical role in future seasons. If some fans passionately dislike Will then they might need to steel themselves for some severe disappointment.

You said: “And I know some people who say it'd be anti feminist [for Will to be more powerful than El] since Will is a boy." 

I would argue that El embodies many traits that are often presumed to be stereotypically masculine by certain incorrect and outdated schools of thought: assertiveness, the ability to win in combat, determination, resilience, and bravery (among others.) There were eras in which these traits were not always valued and respected in women, and arguably there are still many circumstances under which they still aren’t. El is a complex character who is not written as a gender stereotype and I think that is powerful and important.

We need more characters of many different genders that are written as people. Complex, multi-faceted, and capable of many different things regardless of their gender.

Yes. Will is a boy.

Will is a young boy who has been bullied for having certain traits that are very often stereotypically seen by society as feminine. As being “womanly.”

I believe that feminism needs to be intersectional and seek to address the ways that all people and all genders are harmed by a society that devalues women and devalues traits, work, and skillsets that are associated with femininity.

Feminism should not be reduced and oversimplified to “girl power.” Anyone that reduces feminism to that does not, in my opinion, understand feminism.

“Feminism is the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.”

Devaluing admirable traits when someone of one gender expresses them but then deciding to value those exact same traits when they are expressed by a person of a different gender is prejudiced and anti-feminist because it maintains the false idea that certain traits only have value in people if they are a specific gender. 

El is a wonderful, empowering character and I appreciate that she is very well written and admired by many fans. But I worry when certain fans are more willing to appreciate a kick-ass fictional young woman that defies outdated and incorrect gender stereotypes but are not also willing to embrace gentler, more sensitive, less stereotypically masculine young men like Will with similar enthusiasm and affection.

Will is bullied and devalued by his small-town community for having traits and interests that are perceived as feminine and therefore, according to closeminded bigots like his dad, not allowed and are deserving of abuse and bullying. Will is arguably also devalued and dismissed by the Stranger Things fandom because he has traits that are perceived as feminine and undesirable in a young teen guy in the eyes of certain fans, too.

The devaluing and dismissal of gentle, kind, emotional young men is a feminist issue.

A character doesn’t have to be a girl in order to represent feminist ideals within a story. I know that there are probably plenty of feminists that will disagree with me (because there will always be people with their own opinions) but I strongly believe that Will's story is feminist as it has been explored so far (just as El's is.)

Anyone in the fandom that considers themselves a “Feminist” but that spends significant amounts of time criticizing Will Byers by dismissing him as “boring” and criticizing him for being quiet, sensitive, gentle, and emotional should take a good look in the mirror and reflect on what their personal brand of feminism stands for and whether their goal truly is “the equality of the sexes” or if their goal is simply hating men and only valuing and promoting stereotypically masculine traits in our society.

Feminism’s goal is not to make women more powerful than men or to make men less powerful than women, it is about the promotion of the “equality of the sexes.” 

Stereotypes are constructs our society has built and that impact the way we all currently relate to each other. Until society stops treating traits associated with society's currently constructed idea of femininity as something weak or bad then it is important to appreciate these traits in characters of many different genders and to value these traits in men (both in real life and in fictional stories) too. Anyone of any gender can be sensitive and sensitivity should not be seen as a weakness but rather as a strength and as something that's a valuable aspect of our humanity, and the same can be said for many other beautiful traits that society has wrongly decided to put into boxes and assign gender stereotypes to.

This complicated topic is incredibly important to me as a fan of both El and Will. I believe that both El and Will are feminist characters and that the series is very empowering and is challenging society’s gender biases through both of their stories. I hope that my response to your question was successful in communicating how I feel and resonates with you and with perhaps other fans who also care about El and Will and feel their own experiences, feelings, and identities validated by their story arcs.

Will some fans still whine and cry “sexism” and attempt to brand Stranger Things as “anti-feminist” if their hope that El will be the solo main character of the story and not have to share the spotlight with a boy is dashed? Sure. But I think they’re wrong, that their concept of feminism and sexism is incorrect, and that their priorities and their understanding of El’s value as a character is unfortunate. El is more than her superpowers. El doesn’t need to be “the strongest” or “the most powerful” in order to be an inspiring, complex, well-written, relatable, and empowering character.

Thank you for your Ask! I hope you don’t mind how long this response is. You mentioned a few things that I have some very complicated opinions about.

[nathanmillers]

i was tagged by @skainatblida !! thank you so much for thinking of me!

1. Why did you choose your url?

i loved my old one (supernovablake) but i wanted to appreciate miller more because he’s one of my favorite characters on the 100. i was so excited when i saw that this was available and now i don’t think i’ll ever change it because i’m so proud.

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them

i have one actual side blog and then a whole separate blog as well. the sideblog is @petersthwip and it’s for marvel because i didn’t want to ambush this blog with all of the marvel content anymore. there was so much that i wanted to create a sideblog specifically for it! my separate blog is a studyblr for motivation purposes and it’s @kristynstudies :)

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

i think i made my first blog in 2012 or 2013, so 8 or 9 years ago!

4. Do you have a queue tag?

yes, “queue spelled die wrong”

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

i made this blog on christmas of 2014 because i got my own laptop and could therefore spend more time on the site. it started off as a multifandom blog (with a url about it being multifandom) so i just wanted to appreciate my favorite things 

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

the wonderful @pietro-maximoff made my icon for their 1k follower celebration!! 

7. Why did you choose your header?

it was made by @robertpattisons and i chose it because i think it’s beautiful

8. What post of yours has the most notes?

by far it was a post i made when bob and eliza got married. i didn’t expect it to get so many, but here we are. this is the post

9. How many mutuals do you have?

89 if i counted correctly <3333 love y’all

10. How many followers do you have?

838 and i love every single one of you!!

11. How many people do you follow?

307

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

that’s literally all i post alaskflskdal

13. How often do you use Tumblr?

pretty much every day though i do take breaks when i’m busy

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog? Who won?

i’ve never fought on here because nobody really knows who i am bc i don’t create much and i’m just there

15. How do you feel about ‘you need to compare this’ posts?

i think they’re fun!!

16. Do you like tag games?

YES YES YES PLEASE TAG ME IN ALLLLL THE GAMES

17. Do you like ask games?

yes but i don’t reblog them a lot because nobody really participates

18. Which one of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

@montygreen leila i still can’t believe you follow me even though it’s been years 

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

not really, i don’t get internet crushes often

20. tags (if you guys want to)

@igotbellarkeforthat @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @bellameblake @montygreen @immortalpramheda @klarkegriffin @vividparacosm @hostagetakerandhistraitor @kombellarke and anyone else who may want to do this!!

[historic-old-guard-lover]

Do you have any headcanon on the cast’s sexuality ? ( I really like the demisexual Yusuf one )

I've been meaning to get around to this, so thanks for asking! Its important to keep in mind that Nile (and maybe Booker) is the only member who doesn't predate modern identity terms. Consider that the obligatory most-historians-frown-at-anachronistic-labeling plug, though my response is (as I point out here a little bit) that this just seems to serve to make queer history more difficult and it can be done respectfully.

TL;DR: Lykon as aro-spec bi/pan-romantic, Andy as chaotic bi/pan-sexual, Quynh as bi/pan with a slight femme-aligned preference, Yusuf as demi-sexual bi/pan-romantic, Nicolo as homosexual/gay, Booker as the token heterosexual, and Nile as queer. Scroll to the bottom for a free (trans)gender headcannon that no one asked for but that I’m handing out for free.

I personally headcannon that the oldest members are both too old for rigid social sexual norms and too old to give a damn otherwise. We know canonically in both the film and the comics that Andy is openly attracted to and having sex with multiple genders, so you can pry bi/pan Andy from my cold, dead hands. I put Lykon and Quynh in the same never-monosexual category as well. I have the totally unsupported concept of an aro-spec (bi/pan-sexual) Lykon mostly because I don't want his life traveling with two love-sick warrior women to be made worse by his #forever alone status he seems to get. It’s a choice and he’s not into romance. I also cannon Quynh to have a slight femme-aligned preference to Andy's true-chaotic-neutral bisexual energy. Yes, it's for angst purposes as most things in my life are. And it fits in with the Special Bonus Gender Headcannon at the bottom of this post. Oh, and I think that they all have poly-amorous inclinations because monogamy is overrated. Guilt and shame around sex and relationships are just not in their vocabularies.

Our Immortal Husbands are from a time where homophobic attitudes are starting to become a thing, so I don’t hand them the bi/pan-by-default card that I do for the older members’ attractions. I too like the idea of a demisexual bi/pan-romantic Yusuf, though I am totally open to him being homo-romantic as well. My issue is that I find it unlikely that a merchant in his 30s would not have already married a woman, especially if he is the first-born son or his family is particularly wealthy. There are definitely story lines where that doesn’t happen, though they require a bit more careful planning and Yusuf having nerves of steel. I’m all for the angst of a political marriage, but I worry about how the spouse might get depicted if people go for a totally homo-romantic Yusuf and she deserves more than his contempt. I assume that Yusuf values honor/righteousness (he ends up fighting in the siege of Jerusalem despite being from the Maghreb), so he would not be the kind of man to cheat on his wife even if he was not hetero-romantically inclined. They would build a relationship of mutual respect for certain.

I know I just said that homophobia is starting to become a thing, but the medieval church and knighthood was hella gay. I have absolutely zero qualms about cannoning Nicolo “that feral gay priest” di Genova as 100% certified homosexual. It’s up to any fanfic writers whether they make him internalize homophobia, but I will just point out again that monks having gay sex was a problem that the Catholic Church purposefully overlooked back then. Mix and match your angst to your own delight. Maybe he’s a tortured soul who joins the priesthood once he figures out that he could never marry/love a woman and then realizes that he’s not alone. Maybe he’s a quiet pining mess in the priesthood. Whatever route you take, please make him gay.

This brings us to Booker who grew up with good old-fashioned religion-induced homophobia. We know canonically that he married a woman and had multiple children, so I’m down for Booker as the token heterosexual of the group. I also like that it gives him the chance to reach full himbo potential and not realize he’s surrounded by three queer icons. Just imagine him thinking for decades that Andy is sad because she lost her “gal pal” Quynh and then at some point as he’s amassed details he starts realizing that they were Our Immortal Wives... It makes the Western erasure of female homosexual behavior into comedic gold.

And finally, the new kid on the immortal block. I like to think that Nile would strongly identify with the label queer and be uninterested in more specifically labeling her sexuality. Am I projecting? Maybe so, but it has value as a shared bonding experience with Andy. Also, a queer Nile brings history full circle, so to speak, from a time where sexuality labeling was unimportant to a time when people are starting to realize that it’s not always important to them. The heart-warming poetics of it all!

The Super Special Gender Headcannon That Lives in My Head Rent-Free: Transgender Andy

In a previous post, I discussed the existence of a third-gender/transgender shaman role in Scythian cultures called Enaree or Enarei ( ἐναρής ) which allowed individuals assigned male at birth (AMAB) to undergo possibly the earliest hormone replacement therapy (HRT) process. We know that the name “Andromache the Scythian” is weird for Andy because her supposed ~6,000 year old age predates the Scythian culture for a while. Consider, however, that an AMAB Andy chose to take the name of the Scythian culture because they helped her medically transition! Obviously she can find acceptance and support long before then (and I’d be mad if anyone tortured her for literally three thousand years without love and support), but I think that it would be a way for Andy to honor a people who helped her achieve something that she didn’t think was possible while simultaneously cleaning up a glaring cannon issue. It also makes the whole femme-preference bi/pan-sexual Quynh that much sweeter because Quynh would 200% see Andy as a woman regardless of whether she has access to medical transition.

[infcstissumam]

So, as some of you may know, I’ve recently gotten back onto discord with a ghost group, and, well, I’ve been dumping headcanons on there left and right. So, for posperity, I feel this calls for a Discord headcanon dump:

CHARACTER HEADCANONS

To sum up, the difference between Papa II and Papa I in one sentence. Papa I is sour, while Papa II is bitter. 

To elaborate a bit on this, Papa I is sour, not by nature, but because of the role he was given. Ever since he filled the role as Papa and undid a lot of changes, Nihil had done under his reign - he was branded as a monster, an asshole, the works. For a time, he tried to fight this, but eventually, he became what they described him as. Nowadays, he's a reclusive man, withdrawn and cold, with acidic wit and a sharper tongue. 

Meanwhile, Papa II is, well, I don't know how to describe him briefly. He's hurt, really hurt, he was robbed of a lot of what he was supposed to have, a childhood, adolescence, a loving family, etc. and he's become embittered because of it. Furthermore, he doesn't really let go of his pain, he holds on to it and his grudges... He's just a hot mess is what I'm saying.

A lot of Papa II's ridiculous and 'embarrassing' behaviour during infesstissumam was being driven by spite - I mean, the Ghost project was Nihil's - what greater revenge would it be to make it a complete joke, especially when you consider the Clergy gave him the shortest period possible as an 'opening act' for III.

This backfired, of course, and it helped the Ghost project immensely, casting a shadow III would never be able to overcome regardless of his efforts.

Papa I struggles a lot with his identity because of the labels thrust upon him and his sense of duty to his family and the Church

Papa I is the one who takes himself way too seriously, and this is canon. He's also super competitive.

Papa, I is one of those people that relate heavily to birds, and it's valid! He has a little, not perfect, pop-up aviary on the balcony of his papal apartment where he takes the time to rehabilitate abandoned or mistreated birds, before letting them be adopted out again.

I don't think Papa I had any kids, why? Because having a bloodline of his own would be considered a 'threat' against (Nihil) his brother's own. So, he was never allowed to. He does resent this quite a bit; not that he ever really wanted a family; it's just that he never had a choice either way.

In general, Papa I grinned and bared a lot of unfair treatment for the sake of keeping the peace between him and Nihil.

I agree that Papa II was bitter and envious over the treatment III was given (III was a spoiled, golden child, he had a loving mom, was a favourite in the Church, even as a child, etc.). Still, I don't think it's over money and fame, or so to say, that stuff is inconsequential to him. On a fundamental level, II's secret resentment of III all comes down to being treated as lesser when compared to him. Secondo would never show this to his face, however, because he loves his brother, but that bitter envy is there and always will be.

Papa II is the type to write his s/o love letters but not the kind to send them. He keeps them in a box in his office,

Ghoul's can't be killed on the mortal plane, not really. Yes, their vessels (or bodies) may be destroyed, but the Ghoul or demon itself is stored in the mask. So long as the mask is intact, that Ghoul is alive and ready to be bound to another host vessel. When a ghoul is 'killed', they are either banished back into the mask or into hell, based on where the specific damage occured. (vessel vs. mask)

There are two ways of summoning a ghoul: the first is by summoning them in spirit and binding them to their respective mask, which is then bound via a death ritual to a vessel. The other is by summoning and manifesting the Ghoul in body and spirit via a series of tedious and taxing rituals.

CHURCH HEADCANONS

The Church practises Flanderization when it comes to their ghouls. You see, there are many classifications of ghouls with differing temperaments, appearances, etc. Such as Magma, Ash and Spark. However, for the sake of convenience- or perhaps further dehumanization - the ghouls are grouped and given broad labels like Fire, Earth, Water, Air and Aether.

There's a bunch of geese and other waterfowl that make their home in a decorative pond in the Church's unholy-see. Everyone jokes that they're the real evil in the Church. --The geese cause troubles on purpose. They will chase siblings down the walkways and stand at the door, waiting for their next victim to exit. Unless you're Papa I, in which case they become full babies, much to everyone's horror and reverence 

The unholy-see has one central basilica, with adjoining monasteries segregated based on gender and species (the ghouls have their own pad for safety concerns) and other facilities related to being independent of the outside world, like farming and husbandry. Recreation and tourism (they thrive on folks wanting to come to see the quirky satan Vatican) 

The monasteries are named after the three Prime-mover's who birthed the Emeritus, Infinitus and Ambrosios line of cambions, although, in the present day, only the Emeritus and Ambrosios have living members. (the Infinitus line were wiped out in the Catholicism-based attacks that drove them from Italy to Sweden in the first place)

While the main basilica bears the name of the archdemon father who sired them.

All buildings present in the unholy-see, from monastary to the farm land and the like, are all connected by the mass of labyrinthian catacombs which hold all of the Church's dead.

the public or first level of the catacombs are internationally recognized because of how well the bodies are preserved, and many see it as a macabre must-have for their bucket list

I think Sister's and sibling's, in general, have the opportunity to rename themselves after they take their vows Some make titles out of it and some choose names from the doctrine or church history, for instance, Meridiana (my oc) chose her name as a tongue in cheek reference to her job.

The thing with the church catacombs is that they're dry and cold, leading to sort of mummies being formed of the corpses interred there, but well-preserved mummies given much of the ancient church architecture is untouched and old traditions for burial are continued!

For instance, the Church doesn't do coffins, when a body is put into their catacombs, it is given it's cubby, or so to speak and is wrapped with several layers of textiles and plant-based fabric, such as cotton.

There numerous notable individuals in the catacombs. Such as the last members of the Infinitus line, the mother's and non-papal serving family of the Papa's and descendants of the demon lines. As well as entirely unrelated celebrity and royal individuals who were followers of the Church and wanted their remains interred in the unholy-see's catacombs

An iconic corpse from the catacombs is: 

- Adalgisa Emeritus, Nihil's grand aunt who died as a young girl (~8) from complications related to an infection from a broken bone. Who, despite being laid to rest over 450 years ago, maintains many of her features from life. Including her nose, which has shrivelled up but is still there, her eyelids + lashes, brows and her hair. And provided an excellent window to understand how the deaths of papal-family members were treated at the time. 

Although the treatment of her corpse and funerary items has led to much debate in the Church, given she was displayed not as a result of her immediate family's wishes, but from Nihil and One's, who believed her remarkable condition and life should be showcased to those who wanted to learn about the papal family history.

Adalgisa was a catalyst for significant changes in the way the catacombs and dead were laid to rest in the Church.

You see, previously, they were organized by status and ranking with the Church. With the demonic families having their own lavish wing, as did upper Clergy, etc. however, after her death, her father, Cernunnos IV, couldn't palette the idea of his daughter being put away in an empty wing, waiting for her family. He couldn't stand it, and so committed to having a children's wing created so his daughter and other children wouldn't be abandoned in the cold dank waiting for the families they were stolen from, and so they could reunite in the depths, play and be merry. Just like in life

It's actually said in church texts that the Fourth was haunted by nightmares of his daughter's cries echoing in the hallowed walls. But this is 'hear-say' according to the Fourth's second prime-mover.

[ziracona]

The tendency in fandom to take every white girl with short hair, regardless of the status of their canonical interest or lack of interest in women and explicit interest and/or sexual history with everything but, proclaim them a lesbian queen, and then ignore or absolve them of every single horrific act they take in fiction because of this. Is not doing feminism. Women. Lesbians. Or anyone. Any favors. It’s just bad.

Somehow. Some people really do apparently need to hear that...being any specific sexuality...is not a personality trait.

And also. Women aren’t inherantly less vile than men (or anyone non-binary, agender, fluid, etc, else), and whatever bad deeds they do should be judged based on just that—on the deeds, and their context. Not their sexuality, imagined sexuality, or their gender. Becuase none of those things effect whether committing murder is bad. At all. Not even a little. And none of them. Is even a personality trait. Affecting the character’s value as a person.

It’s cool, and good, to see characters with minority identities. And it’s real nice. When it’s whatever you are. But them being whatever. Is not a personality trait. Just a fact. And sometimes. People of any type. Are not good. Pretending any minority status—gender, sexuality, race, disability, neurotype, etc—is a get out of jail free card? Is not. Doing them. Or anyone. Any favors. Personality disorder. Doesn’t make you bad. Also doesn’t make you good. Your actions do. Acting like Amy from Gone Girl did nothing wrong when she date rapes her boyfriend & then frames him for doing that to her & ruins his life, then blackmails her husband who is terrified of being murdered by her into staying with her for the sake of the child she made at a fertility clinic with his sperm without his consent, bc she’s a woman. Isn’t good. Men aren’t more deserving of violence than women. Neither is anyone else. Jane. Left an infant child in an unheated car in subzero weather in a snow storm with zombies around that easily would hear it cry and go eat it. So she could lie and say she already let zombies eat it to bait a man with easily triggerable PTSD who had just lost his family to zombies for the second time into starting a fight. Because he was injured, unarmed, weak, down an eye, and 50, while she was fit, mid 20s, healthy, and armed with a hunting knife. Because she wanted an excuse to kill him without looking bad, because she wanted the 11 year old girl she was co-parenting with him, all to herself. And her immediately responding to the dude throwing a punch by stabbing him in the stomach to escalate the fight from brawl to life or death, then losing her knife, and instead of telling him the baby was alive & she’d made it up to start a fight which could have at any point ended the fight, begging the 11 year old child to gun down her oldest surviving friend with her own hands in cold blood so that she’d get what she wanted? Is evil. As is crying on the 11 year old and using pity as a weapon to get her to stay with her if she gets mad and wants to leave when she realizes Jane staged the whole thing for an excuse to murder, and so is after realizing like a month later that she is pregnant, committing suicide, and leaving the 11 year old that she just manipulated into killing her oldest surviving friend/completely isolated on purpose so she could have her to herself, totally alone in the apocalypse to care for an infant. Jennifer’s Body? Is a fantastic film. And Jennifer didn’t deserve any of what happened to her. But not one single boy she kills during the course of that film deserved it—and explicitly so. Even the guy who could easily have been a meathead jock bully is outside alone crying becuase his best friend just died and he loved him before she decides to lure him off and eat him alive. And acting like it’s totally fine & Needy should have just let her keep eating boys instead of killing her? Is fucked up. None of them deserved to die. And no one deserves death innately more because they are or are not something that is just a factual designator of their makeup as a human. The exchange student was scared and alone and nice, the catholic kid was sweet and Needy’s friend, Chip is a bad boyfriend but he meant well and being stupid doesn’t mean you deserve to die. And this girl ate them alive. That’s not funny. Or cool. Or fine becuase they were dudes. Gertrude Robinson? Chose again and again to betray people who loved her, or trusted her—sold out victims of awful trauma to their worst nightmares. Killed friends in the worst possible ways, like it was nothing. Michael loved her, and trusted her, and tried to care for her, and she without faltering fed him to his worst nightmare and forced him to become it. There is nothing excusable about that action.

Jude Perry? Has 0 redeeming features. Didn’t even stay faithful to her poor gf & was creepy obsessed w Agnes. Literally murdered her co-worker friend just because he was happy, and she wanted to destroy things: that’s it. She didn’t even dislike him. Murdered him because he had a wife and kid and house and it seemed fun, then burned down his house, took his wife’s money, and now checks in on his kid every so often in case he ever recovers from the trauma she inflicted enough to be fun to kill. There is literally nothing good about this woman. Yes. I mean that. Because being a lesbian? Is just a thing. There is no g/b tag, there is no tag at all. Amanda Young? Got kidnapped and tortured and forced to choose between killing a man who couldn’t resist but was conscious to watch her, and letting herself die, and she killed him. Then, instead of responding to that trauma with guilt or responsibility or anger at her captor, joined up with him and started helping him kidnap people just like her. She was not forced, she was not lied to. It does not matter if John was manipulative; she is a grown ass woman and like all grown ass adults, responsible for her own actions and choices. She did not get manipulated pitifully into this—she did not go unwillingly. She volunteered, with a happy vengeance, became obsessed with John and in love with him, despite his complete lack of interest. And she did not even just do what he did. She decided on her own that no one deserved redemption, & she killed them for fun in traps that wouldn’t let them go even if they did whatever awful thing the trap demanded as a price for life, just for the fun and power trip of watching them die helpless & in agony. That was all her, & her alone. She sat in a house full of people slowly dying from organ decomposition over the course of a few hours, for no crime worse than drug addiction—the thing she of all people should have been most sympathetic to—knowing full well at any time she could have saved them and stopped the game, and did nothing. She held a woman in her arms and stroked her head lovingly while she let her die in one of the most inhumane ways possible for the crime of having not been able to break an addition. She got saved by a 16 year old child multiple times, who had done nothing more than shoplift, and stood by while he had to watch a man get his brains blown out, another burn to death in an oven. As his organs slowly dissolved too. Watched the kid kill another human being & massively traumatize himself to save her life. And responded to that by attacking & knocking him out, tying him up, locking him up for days in a tiny safe bound and gagged with an oxygen supply to keep him alive, to be a piece in another game. Left his father, who had shown up to try & save him, to starve to death in chains in a horrible abandoned rotting room, & never even told him his son was alive. Let every other addict die horribly, let that kid sustain permanent damage to his organs that will kill him young, antidote taken or not, took his dad from him, & went back to torturing without a second thought. Kidnapped a woman whose worst crime was being a doctor & dating someone while maybe separated instead of divorced from her husband, put her in a trap that would take her head off with shotgun blasts, threatened her for fun, & then killed her even after she did everything she was asked, because it was more important to her that the old man she was obsessed with think she was special and great, than for the other woman to get to stay alive another day & go home to her daughter. There is nothing sympathetic about Amanda. She’s just not only evil, but too spineless to take responsibility for her own choices & actions, & tries to hide behind a “UwU I am sad & lonely & damaged & having trauma means I can literally torture people to death to feel special & it’s really tragic and sympathetic about me, not evil. Uhm. Some people??? Commit torture-murders?? To cope??” And acting like she’s somehow a victim in this becuase she is a pretty white girl with short hair? Is fucked. Up.

But every. God damn. Time. I see this. Please. It needs. To stop. People go: “UwU pretty girl short hair want” & I go “Ok. I see where u. Come from. Indeed.” But then. They go. “Girl pretty I like. So she was blameless. For this atrocity.” Those words...

Every day. I wake up. Thinking of Janic saying. Iconically. “At least me and Regina George know we’re mean,” and I weep inside. Because I cannot fathom. Or stomach. The lack of responsibility. I will kill. Characters who cannot admit they are bad. Myself. But somehow. They become. Flames. To moths. Of the “UwU pretty white girl short hair. We stan. Victim. Queen. Love her. Never done wrong.” Boy. We all done wrong. Even all my faves. At least once. I think. ...not if we count dogs probably, but people, yes. Ok. Anyway. All this is to say. Characters. Should be judged. Based on what they did. And why. And the aftermath. Not a grouping tag. I don’t mean any of these. Make bad characters. At all. Amy is a great character. So is Jennifer. So are most of them. I have quite affection even. For Jeneffer specifically. But you can like. Character. Without proclaiming. Them perfect humans. Who never did a thing wrong. Or their acts somehow. Justifiable. And ok. And you better stop saying. Ok. Because done. To men. Men do not. Deserve violence. Any more. Than anyone else. No one deserves violence defacto for factors. Outside their control. Wtf. Really people. It’s ok too. For character. To do much bad stuff. And still like character. Villains. And often just complex characters. Sometimes just characters. Do stuff. That is bad. It’s not supposed to be not their fault. Or ok. Also. Women are not a sisterhood. Of flawless beings. Who never hurt anyone or do any bad stuff. They can. And are. Often purpotrators. Of awful acts. And when they are. It is still. Very bad. Still. An awful act. Same level. Even. Of awful. Wild.

In conclusion.

Having short hair. While a girl. Doesn’t make her a butch queen. Who is absolved of all responsibility for that murder she committed. It just makes her a girl with short hair. That did a murder. I’m gonna. Kill someone. Too. And if I chop my hair off. I guess I can get away with it.

[synthient]

The Key to Understanding Deltarune: The Halloween Hack

So we’re currently in the middle of a 4000 year content hiatus

Which is unfortunate, because ever since the big iconic Halloween-day surprise demo drop, my brain has been rattling a baseball bat against the inside of my skull and chanting “CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT”

Undertale was like candy for the thematic analysis side of my brain. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights going “fun value......he put a quantitative value on fun.....numbers going up.....”

I am desperate to know what kind of themes Deltarune is going to tackle. Can you effectively predict that from one (1) 3 hour demo? No. Does my brain care? No.

Which is what lead me to the wonderful world of intertextuality, or examining how a media text is shaped by other media texts

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this with me doing a playthrough of EarthBound, the video game that Toby has cited as his biggest inspiration for Undertale

That was fun & interesting (the “throwing away an emotionally engaging experience to grimly make Numbers Go Up” thing feels a lot closer to home after trying and failing to get the sword of kings), but it didn’t provide much insight into Deltarune, specifically. It wasn’t enough. I needed more. I was willing to dig into literally any intertext (except Homestuck, which no force on this earth can compel me to read :) )

anyway thats how I ended up playing Toby Fox’s high school fangame

And somehow (sorry Toby) I walked out of there with an unironic theory (a game theory....if you will....): Deltarune is Toby’s adult reexamination of the Halloween Hack.

What is the Halloween Hack?

You know that thing where, like, people take the engine of a Pokemon game and edit it so there’s a new region and a bunch of new fakemon, and also There’s Swears Now

In 2008, Toby Fox entered a contest on an EarthBound fansite for the best Halloween-themed EarthBound hack

In one sense, reducing the Halloween Hack to a “bad romhack with swears” is a little bit of a disservice. There are some glimmers in there of a really affecting, thought-provoking game, and you can see some of the early blueprints of what would later become Undertale (“do video game ‘monsters’ really deserve to die” is a major theme, and the character of Dr. Andonuts was effectively split up into Alpyhs, Asgore, and Sans)

But it’s also. very much a fangame made by a 16-year-old.

You can read a basic summary of the Hack here. High school-age Toby wrote two pretty extensive analyses of his thought process behind the game. I’ll be referring back to them a lot, and I’d highly suggest giving them a read--Toby’s been so famously resistant to making any Word of God statements about Undertale that it’s kind of fascinating to see him being so candid

an extremely long and rambling examination of How This All Relates To Deltarune

The Halloween Hack opens in the town of Halloween Twoson. Twoson is one of the cites in EarthBound, and here it’s been painted orange. and there’s pumpkins now

See, high school Toby had...a bit of a chip on his shoulder. In the Making Of notes, he explains that he was frustrated that “most people generally thought I was just ‘another funny guy’”. So he designed the opening of the game to seem unoriginally close to the original EarthBound--like “a regular, funny, lazy hack”--to lull players into a false sense of security before the horror elements set in.

Two interesting things there:

“Lazily, unoriginally close to the source game” sounds an awful lot like the Dark World segment of Deltarune

Halloween Twoson looks very visually similar to Hometown

Toby’s description of Twoson also sounds pretty Hometown-esque:

The main impressions of Twoson that I wanted to give the player were: It's funny. It's a nice fall day outside. The person hacking this game is ridiculously lazy. It's a nice place to live. If you look at it a little closely, it's kind of claustrophobic.  

And when does the horror kick in? When the player descends into the underground tunnels beneath the city.

The “horror” in the Halloween Hack is, however, Pretty Not Good.

There’s a whole lot of the flavor text narrator (put a pin in that one) insisting “this is so scary. you’re so scared. your hands shake and your head throbs because you’re so scared.” There’s also a thing where the battle text keeps going “the shambling zombie BITES your HEAD OFF!!! (you lose 15 hp).”

I think the True Lab sequence in Undertale is a decent demonstration that Toby’s come a long way since then (and that Honey We’ve Got A Storm Coming :’) ). But you know what the Hack’s style of horror reminds me of?

My first thought when I beat the demo and saw this stinger was “this looks like an intentionally shitty creepypasta.” Now I wonder if it’s lowkey adult Toby poking a little fun at teenage Toby

The Halloween Hack is a game about railroading. It’s Spec Ops The Line before there was Spec Ops The Line.

According to Toby:

The main theme of this game is the lack of choice. There is really no choice in this game. From the moment you start to the moment you finish, you're destined to kill Dr. Andonuts. There are two endings, but they both eventually end up the same way. It's all a big joke on the player.

You know why there isn't a choice there? Because you already chose to make Varik go into the door. You already chose to go forward. The only real choice, as Varik realizes at the end of the game, is to stop or keep going. By "stop" he means "turn off the game," and that's all you can do. Anything you play is your own fault for playing, and that's the only real choice you can make.

Interesting? Yeah. A little obnoxious? Also yeah.

That’s one of the criticisms people had of Spec Ops. "The atrocities we commit when we feel like we don’t have a choice” is an intriguing theme, but “~the only way to win is not to play~ [the game I worked hard on for the express purpose of people playing it]” isn’t a very satisfying conclusion.

Undertale, in direct contrast to the Hack, is all about choice. It earns the right to guilt you for the No Mercy Run by giving you every opportunity not to go through with it.

But even Undertale plays a little with the concept of railroading--you can’t stay with Toriel; you can’t spare Asgore in any of the neutral runs; you can’t save Asriel.

Now Deltarune seems to be returning full-on to the Hack’s “your choices don’t matter” premise. But it’s going to need to find something more insightful and satisfying to say about it.

Which makes me really curious about this:

If the Hack has a secondary theme besides railroading/lack of choice, it’s The Soul-Crushing Impact Of Internalized Homophobia.

The tragic antagonist, Dr. Andonuts, destroys his own life trying to repress his gay desire. He retreats into a dream world made of his neuroses and trauma, and he’s inevitably Otherized and murdered by the player. He’s something of a dark version of Alphys, who “disappears” into her lab without ever meeting and getting support from Frisk, Papyrus, and Undyne.

Undertale takes an opposite approach to its lgbt themes--the Underground is a utopia where homophobia and transphobia don’t exist. Everyone respects Frisk’s and Chara’s pronouns. Alphys finds solace and healing in her relationship with Undyne.

It’s a heartwarming growth from the despair in the Halloween Hack. And it’s a vision that’s been deeply meaningful to a lot of people. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no value in exploring issues of homophobia. 16-year-old Toby tried to do that, but...wasn’t exactly at a point where he was equipped to handle it with a ton of sensitivity and nuance.

(There’s. There’s a boss battle where you fight the physical manifestation of Andonuts’ gay repression. It’s a crotch. You fight a crotch.)

Some of the hints in the Deltarune demo, however--the Toriel Has Become Catholic thing; the fact that Alphys and Undyne haven’t met and Mettaton hasn’t been able to transition; the potential trans implications of choosing a name only to have it discarded for an assigned one (“you can’t choose who you are in this world”)--make me suspect that’s one of the themes that Toby will try to revisit from an adult perspective.

The Hack is interested in the idea of the flavor text narrator as a distinct, intelligent entity, whose thoughts and goals don’t always align with those of the player character or the player. 

The Hack’s narrator makes a habit of dictating “your” emotions to you (you’re scared; you can sense ‘the monster’ and you want to kill it; etc). The narration starts to seem more and more unreliable, until, as Toby put it, “The narrator starts talking to you personally...rambling about incoherent things.”

At the game’s turning point, you’re given a yes/no choice to kill Dr. Andonuts. Choose yes, and the narrator (mockingly?) calls you a good person, describes the murder you commit, and then narrates what appears to be your (or their? or Varik’s?) psychological breakdown. Choose no, and the narrator tells you that’s not a real choice and redirects you back to the yes/no box. If you press the b-button to try and opt out of the choice (the game’s unofficial subtitle is “Press the B-Button Stupid,” and doing so allows you to follow Andonuts into his dream world), the narrator starts to panic, although the game ultimately ends the same way.

Not to NarraChara Real, but NarraChara Real 

The Hack is also interested in the idea of the player character as a possibly-unwilling puppet controlled by the player (who in turn is controlled by the railroading/their need to beat the game).

According to Toby:  

 As you approach someone you've never met that you're labeling as a monster, your body pushes you forward to kill him. What's funny is that it's not even uncontrolled, it's really just the force of the player's controller pushing that little bounty hunter into murdering Andonuts. You might not realize it, but Varik is almost dead, and yet he can't stop moving because you keep pushing those buttons. 

The Halloween Hack is, fundamentally, a nostalgic meditation on an existing game.

It’s a little obvious to say, but the Hack isn’t a standalone game. It’s a hack of EarthBound.

Toby writes:

EarthBound dominated my childhood, shaped my preteen years, and played a large role in molding me into the offbeat pseudohippie I am today. It gave me a sense of humor. It helped me learn how to read. Its lessons served as a basis for my sense of justice and courage.

But at age 16, Toby’s feeling about the game that had shaped him were a little mixed. He describes “the staleness of a fifteen-year-old video game” as one of his motivations for making the Hack.

In Deltarune, he (kind of hilariously) has Alphys parrot his teen-self’s “staleness” line:

(I could write a whole meta just on the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie vs Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 thing)

Still, Toby’s nostalgia for EarthBound is essential to how the Hack operates. Earlier, I said there were glimmers of an thoughtful, affecting game buried in the “bad romhack with swears.” The most genuinely moving moment in the Hack, in my opinion, is the Onett sequence. 

You wander though a faded, dream world version of Onett--the hometown from EarthBound--while a slowed down arrangement of the Onett music plays. Snatches of forgotten conversations appear on road signs. Various monsters from EarthBound follow slowly behind you, but don’t attack. The only battles are against creatures called “Remember Me?”

The EarthBound characters appear to recognize “Varik” as Ness, EarthBound’s protagonist--or are they recognizing you, the player, as the same person who played EarthBound once upon a time?

The one problem, of course, is that not everyone has played EarthBound. It’s a relatively niche game. The sense of remembrance and regret and loss in the Onett sequence is universal, but being shaped as a person by the specific video game EarthBound isn’t a universal experience.

But in the years since the Hack, Toby has created something with a wider reach than EarthBound. Something that can evoke that sense of memory and nostalgia in players. A familiar game that he can take apart, rearrange, and examine in an entirely different light.

He made Undertale.

And now he’s rearranging the pieces into Deltarune.

[tisthenightofthewitch]

Ghost’s Tobias Forge talks about being sued by Nameless Ghouls, spurned by the Vatican and immortalized in plastic effigy

When it comes to Swedish bands, Americans tend to think of pop icons like ABBA, black metal acts like Bathory, or the odd alt-rock band like The Cardigans, after which we stop thinking about them at all.But that was before the band Ghost began its slow yet inevitable ascent. Hailing from Linköping, a city in Sweden known for its ornate cathedrals, the bandmembers concealed their secret identities beneath elaborate costumery, a time-tested tradition fostered by bands like Kiss and The Residents. 

Occupying centerstage was Papa Emeritus, a skull-faced character fond of ghoulish corpse paint, a high-pointed hat and ornate papal vestments decorated with upside-down crosses. Standing stock-still at the microphone, his face frozen in a miserable scowl, the singer appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be hovering at death’s door or just beyond it. His bandmates, unceremoniously referred to as “Nameless Ghouls,” wore hooded robes and black masks, a look that soon began showing up at European cosplay conventions.

While this combination of corpse-paint, national origin and grinding guitar riffs led some critics to liken their sound to Swedish death metal, the keyboard-heavy liturgical vibe of Ghost’s early music arguably owed more to classic Pink Floyd.

That’s especially true of “Secular Haze,” the breakthrough single from their 2013 sophomore album Infestissumam. Following its release, the band put out the Dave Grohl-produced If You Have Ghost, a five-song covers EP that includes the Roky Erickson song of the same name, as well as renditions of Depeche Mode’s “Waiting for the Night” and, appropriately enough, ABBA’s “Like a Marionette.”

But 2013 also had its share of disappointments, including the ascension of Pope Francis, who was elected on the fifth ballot, thwarting Papa’s hard-fought and highly publicized campaign for the position.

The rest is history, of a sort. Following a series of European dates with Metallica, Ghost are now embarking on an arena tour of their own that will include an Oct. 1 concert headlining the Broadmoor World Arena. Their single “Cirice” won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, while their most recent album Prequelle and its single “Rats” were respectively nominated in this year’s Best Rock Album and Best Rock Song categories.

Along the way, the band has gone through a succession of Pope characters —  Papa Emeritus I, Papa Emeritus II, and Papa Emeritus III — who have since been replaced by the far more kinetic Cardinal Copia, who has more of a mafioso image and hyperactive stage presence. All four frontman roles have been played by Tobias Forge, whose identity was outed two years ago when four former Nameless Ghouls filed a since-dismissed lawsuit alleging unpaid wages.

Ghost have also undertaken a series of musical transitions that became especially obvious with last year’s Prequelle, a concept album that employs the 14th-century black plague as an allegory for our current troubles. While Forge hasn’t fully abandoned his band’s past sound, tracks like “Rats” veer toward the ’70s arena-rock sound of Def Leppard, Foreigner, and even Journey, with whom the band toured last year.

In the following interview, Forge holds forth on a wide array of subjects, including litigious ex-Ghouls, the Swedish anti-vaccine movement and his alter-ego’s forthcoming immortalization — alongside legendary artists like Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat — as a Funko Pop! figurine.

Indy: Let’s begin by talking about the concept behind your most recent album. It opens with that really creepy version of “Ring Around the Rosie, ” which is always a good way to start an album about the bubonic plague. Was there any specific reason why you chose that theme at this particular point in history?

Tobias Forge: Well, I think there are important lessons to be learned from all chapters of history. The plague was an epidemic that wiped out half of Europe, and, we can assume, traumatized the Asian population as well. And back then, people in general were uneducated, they were superstitious, they were religious, they believed in hocus-pocus. So it must have literally felt like the end of the world was just going to happen tomorrow. And that is always an interesting concept. Because we know now that it was not the end of the world. You know, mankind persevered. So while I believe in environmental issues, and that there are a lot of things that can be done in order to make the world a better place, I also think there’s not as much doom and gloom as it may appear.

So what would you say are the lessons we can learn from that period?

I guess the most simple and most obvious one is that we can debate forever — all day and night — about what happens after we’re dead. But I can promise you that we do not know. We can hope for there to be an afterlife, or 72 virgins, or whatever else is on your wishlist. But there’s no way of knowing. And anyone who tells you that they know, they are lying because they want something from you, or they want you to believe in something. And so I think your time and your energy will be better spent trying to embrace life instead of being wary of death. Because life is fragile, and you don’t know if you’ll have another one.

And then there’s this myriad of human instincts that comes into play when apocalypse is near, and one of them is who’s to blame for this, that, and the other. Back in the plague days, as I said, there was this predominance of religious people who believed in hocus-pocus and were pretty uneducated and pretty fucking dumb. They believed that female sexuality was to blame for essentially God abandoning mankind. So while you had people dying off in droves, you also had these people killing women because they were good-looking or, in one way or another, enticed some sort of sexual arousal. And that was obviously the work of the devil, and while they were alive, they would interfere with the survival of mankind. But unfortunately, those kind of very uneducated and outright stupid people are still well-represented in the world, and it’s very important that we address that.

Since you’ve researched and written about all this, I’m curious what you think about your country’s decision, back in March, to ban mandatory vaccinations.

Oh, that’s a good question, but I don’t really have a good answer. But I do think that there is a dichotomy between what the population might need, and what a pharmaceutical company needs for its own benefit. I’m trying not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but about 10 years ago, there was an outbreak of a flu, and companies would have entire offices vaccinated. And, on first glance, it’s like, “That’s great how society and all these bosses and corporations came together.” And I’m aware that the number of people that actually came down with it was not that many. So was that because of this shot, or was it because maybe the threat wasn’t as great as they were saying it was? Because, more often than not, there’s an economic incentive somewhere for someone. But not being a biologist nor a chemist, I don’t know anything about stuff like that. So, as I said, I don’t have a straight answer.

On a happier note, Funko’s Papa Emeritus II doll came out last month…

Yes, speaking of monetaries. [Laughs.]

That’s right. And I have to say, I’m really impressed by how realistic it is, especially in the way it just stands there and doesn’t do anything. How does it feel to be immortalized in that way?

I don’t really see it as that. I mean, when I sort of regard anything that we have done, even a photo, I don’t necessarily think of it as me being in that photo. I’m just sort of detached from the character on the visual side, which is to my benefit, actually. I’m way too vain, so I would have had a problem if it was my face that we were working with. So having the sort of official visuals of Ghost is actually quite liberating.

I understand that you started out playing in punk and death metal bands. Was Ghost the first time that you got to indulge your pre-The Wall Pink Floyd side?

No, I have played non-death metal in other bands before. But when Ghost started taking shape, I think I just found a way to write songs that sort of tick both boxes — one box being melodic pop-rock, or whatever it is, and the other being sort of metal. It felt playful, and it felt intuitive and progressive, for lack of a more fitting word. Whereas in the past, it’s like the metal bands were metal, and the rock bands were rock, and they didn’t combine the two. So I definitely found it more effective, and way more fun, to do something in between. Your stage presence is way more kinetic these days, although pretty much anything is more kinetic than standing in front of a microphone and scaring people. But you’re reaching the point now where the choreography in a video like “Rats” is borderline Michael Jackson. Is that the result of having more personal confidence these days?

Yeah, I would definitely say that. There are critics of the band who feel that the less animated version in the beginning was better and more ominous, and that we should still be embracing that. But a lot of the cryptic nature of Papa I was due to being constrained by the costume and the size of the stage.

And now we’re playing bigger places, where there’s way more ground to cover and there isn’t a single cord onstage that you can trip on, so of course you have to move around, right? I mean, if we were onstage now for two hours with that sort of unanimated version we were doing back in 2011, people would be demanding their money back. It’s just part of growing. You can see the same thing if you look at a clip of the Rolling Stones from 1964. Mick Jagger is Mick Jagger, but he’s definitely not the Mick Jagger that you see in 1969 or 1972. It takes time to build that confidence and find your own way of moving around.

I know you campaigned really hard for the pope’s job back in 2013. And I think a lot of your fans were really disappointed when the smoke came up the chimney and it turned out you didn’t get it. Do you think that your losing out to Pope Francis was the result of Vatican corruption?

Sure, most things going on there are because of corruption anyway. So I’m sure that was one of them. Or it might also have been my lack of faith — or my lack monetary means at the time — that prohibited my exaltation within the ranks of the Vatican.

And finally, I have a question about that lawsuit. Do you think that if you’d given names to your Nameless Ghouls, they would have been less vindictive?

You mean, if I’d given them names instead of making them completely anonymous? Probably, I guess. It’s hard to say. Because with most people that are drawn to the performance stage, you do so with a certain inclination to be seen and appreciated. So maybe if our positions were reversed, I would have felt the same way. Until seven or eight years ago, I really wanted to be famous, so my idea of being in a band was definitely different from what it turned out to be.

I’ve been in charge and working on this full-time, nonstop, for 10 years. Other people in Ghost would work a few hours every day, and then, during the four months between tours when I was making a record, they weren’t really doing anything that had to do with Ghost. And since I was representing the band at all of the meetings, I was getting pats on the back and feeling like what I was doing was good. Whereas, if you had nothing to do with the day-to-day stuff, you maybe didn’t get the pat on the back that you needed in order to feel fulfilled in life. So, you know, maybe if they had gotten their name on there, and could at least be recognized in the street, maybe that would have changed things. But on the other hand, I’ve played with others who didn’t give a shit about that happening.

COLORADO SPRINGS INDEPENDENT

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 90 - 86

90. Suzy - “Queiro ser tua” Portugal 2014

~Huawei Wa Wei~

I have mentioned earlier that Moran Mazor is arguably the saddest NQ, but Suzy is definitely up there in people whose success I was rooting for. Indeed, I mostly love Suzy because she was a TRAGICALLY ROBBED UNDERDOG.

You see, Suzy was ~BULLIED~ from the moment she had won FdC, and beaten Catarina in the F2. Now, I personally don’t mind “Mea Culpa” itself (my favourite was the drunken pirate hag known as 😍 ZANA 😍, but that’s for another ranking). However, I don’t think I’ve *EVER* witnessed a fanbase as  downright evil as the Catarina stans. These ‘people’, by the lack of a better term, make the Beyoncé and Ultimo fans appear like kind and rational people. These... self-proclaimed ‘eurovision fans’ tried to intimidate Suzy into quitting by sending her death threats, all because she DARED to beat their erstwile female-mediocre flavour-du-jour. Who the fuck does that? Human pieces of shit, that’s who. 😤

There’s an *additional* sociocultural connotation to the entire Suzy vs Catarina debacle, but my friend André, who is Brazillian and has Suzy in his 2014 top three made a great post about the issue back in the day, so I’ll just quote him for those who want more backstory:

Quero Ser Tua belongs to a music genre called "pimba", which is perceived by the Portuguese middle and upper classes as tasteless and vulgar because of simple melodies and dirty metaphors (the latter not present in Quero Ser Tua). So they despised Suzy and (...) went in a fucking frenzy [when she won FdC], attacked the composer of Quero Ser Tua (also the father of pimba music), and accused him to rigging the televote and even started dozens of petitions (alol) and regularly vandalised Wikipedia writing that Portugal's entry was "disputed" or that Catarina was the real winner (holy alol).  This drama speaks to me because Quero Ser Tua and pimba music in general sound like other genres of popular music we have here in Brazil that are also derided by the snotty-nosed middle class as vulgar and devoid of "culture", often with racial connotations on top of the social class ones. To me, Suzy's victory (rigged or not) has a political message: pimba IS culture, like any other kind of music, and it deserves to represent a country as great as Portugal because it's part of their culture and they should be proud. It's definitely a bigger statement than the bourgeois, mediocre Mea Culpa and I am proud of every Portuguese that voted for Suzy to win. <3

As for ~my~ layman’s opinion, well, I just think the song possesses some great summer sprit.😊  It’s a colourful explosion of cheerful accordeon, moody percussion and ethnic frivolity. 😍 Listening to “Quero ser tua” makes me very happy about 100% of the time, almost as much as the knowledge that, after being disliked for most of the pre-show, Suzy won everyone except for her most diehard haters over, becoming someone who is now almost unanimously deemed one of the most robbed NQs. STAY PRESSED, HATERS. >pasta :victorydance:

________________________________________________________________

89. Jana Burcheska - “Dance Alone” F.Y.R. Macedonia 2017

[2017 Review here]

Like many of the 2017 entries, my passion for Jana dropped over time. Make of it what you must but I think the live of “Dance alone” kind of cheapens it... and you know what I think about cheap and trashy, I LOVE THAT OBVIOUSLY.😍

However, I also think the cheapness does Jana dirty, because “Dance alone” also happens to be one of my favourite songs OF 2017. Its 80s synth sound and high voltage fierceness left me bald and straight UPON IMPACT, with madly quotable lyrics that I STILL use in friendly banter to this day. 😍 

The awesomeness is only further enhanced by Jana, who is -independently from her song- also one of the best humans in 2017. I absolutely ADORED this goat-voiced gremliness from the SECOND she spent her first interview shading the fuck out of Rykka 😍 (check the 2017 review for the dirt) and then proceeded to troll the press people by teasing that she actually couldn’t sing for no reason. 😍

Which brings me to the live act which.... conceptually is a match to the song, but which also doesn’t do it justice. Don’t get me wrong, Jana contorting her body as she’s assaulted by a Carolean windmachine sustains the crap out of me, but I have always thought “Dance alone” had more potential than shown in the live. (Getting rid of  the “Wishing you could hold me close” closer is particularly upsetting imo.) Moldova and Azerbaijan would’ve turned “Dance alone” into an EASY top 30 in this ranking, but in the hands of Macedonia it’s a mere top 90 for me. 😭

________________________________________________________________

88. Lake Malawi - “Friend of a friend” Czech Republic 2019

only a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend 

Lake Malawi live the ultimate BorisBubbles dream: IMMENSELY annoying song whose appeal hinges entirely on how uncomfortable it makes other people, somehow convinces about ~95% of the loyal eurofans that it’s a fantastic masterpiece. 😍 ADVERSI-DEITIES 😍

Of course, the axis around which Lake Malawi spins is Albert, a human spark plug and mankind’s youngest thirty year old. Seeing Albert fling himself around the stage, never losing his entheusiasm is the main reason why “Friend of a friend” exceeded my already high expectations! Another, slightly-less awesome reason however is the D-sound-like staging:

It really just is a clever, likable entry. Of course, that doesn’t take away that “Friend of a Friend” is objectively one of the most irritating songs ever, making it anathema to the televoters’ tastes <3 😭(😍)

________________________________________________________________

87. Jamala - “1944″ Ukraine 2016

It is only FITTING that Jamala and Lake Malawi rank alongside each other, star-crossed lovers that they are. ALBERT x JAMALA 5ever:

A greater love story than even Alfred x Amaia. However, this post is mostly about Jamala, so LET US discuss a great, if controversial winner. I will start with a small caveat and say that “1944″ isn’t the song for me. One of the biggest dealmakers in Eurovision songs for me is replayability “1944″ just doesn’t have that quality for me. I only really relisten to it when I must, for rewatching purposes. However, that does make the few times I DO revisit “1944″ all the more magical to me. If we take on board that songs are a means of expression, then “1944″ is one of the best songs ever, for the themes it expresses are all too real. I don’t even NEED the gutwrenching, defiant lyrics to *FEEL* the pain the nation of Ukraine is going through. The act sends shivers down my spine, body aching all the time. The Jamala Tree is one of modern Eurovision’s most iconic visuals: 

Of course, that ALSO makes “1944″ one of the most notoriously political entries of all time. Now, other fans of Jamala might argue that, “No, it’s not about the Crimean war at all, just the historic deportation” and well... no? There is a reason why Jamala wrote this song *NOW* and not the last time she entered Vidbir. It *is* Jamala’s way of coping with the Russian invasion, something which *also* ties into her own family history. “1944″ is a very elegant, tasteful middlefinger aimed at Putin, but it’s a middlefinger nonetheless. However, what if it is? The Ukraine vs Russia conflict is a notoriously heated one and potshots are to be expected. If I have to chose between an open attack and a backhanded one (such as that rubbish entry from the Tolmachevy Sisters, or the two rubbish ones by Julia Samoylova), I will always pick the former. 

Overall, I greatly appreciate “1944″ and think it’s a great winner. The composition is evocative of both Ukraine’s history and musical traditions, as well as their current predicament, making “1944″, despite pertaining to a specific year, a timeless experience. It is very deservingly considered one of Eurovision’s best winners by the fanbase, and I hope it remains a favourite for future generations to come. 

________________________________________________________________

86. Joan Franka - “You and Me” The Netherlands 2012

Yes, Joan ranks one spot above Jamala lmfao. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!!! 😈

Back in 2012, I obviously was a feverish Joan stan, mostly for Ironic reasons: “LMFAO JOAN TARD... it’s YOU... and ME! SO SILLY <3″ -- me Circa 2012, when my wit amounted to calling lovable dimwits “tards” and quoting song lyrics. 

In 2019, I can say that... I still love Joan for her ineptitude and frivolity, but with the added layer of *genuinely* loving Joan for Joan. From the consistently offkey singing, to dressing up like a Lakota warchief (completely oblivious to how inappropriate this is 😍), to the bonfires (pandering to the Land Of Fire, Azerbaijan 😍) and the general-happy-go-lucky vibe, “You and me” just feels so.. real? Like a real person regaling real stories of a real romance with a real (boy)friend. It is so disarmingly earnest, which of course, being stuck in 2012, meant that it was unceremoniously offed by the professional juries. TOO PURE FOR THIS DAMN’ WORLD. 😭

Since this update booted the final entries from Portugal, Macedonia and the Czech Republic, I’ll disclose my final thoughts below, as to not disrupt the ranking:

PORTUGAL:

Honestly, a pretty good chart for Portugal, despite being the fourth country to be fully eliminated from the ranking. I was hoping that Salvabrat would have started a hot streak, but alas. Portugal just keep getting screwed over by subpar staging and their own stubborness, leading to insistent dismissal by the fanbase. I fucking hope people (Portugal deniers) come to their senses though because they are consistently robbing one of Eurovision’s best fucking countries. 

NORTH MACEDONIA:

Sean Tarbuck from ESCUnited nailed Macedonia the best: they are a country of amazing music and utterly disastrous lives. They are probably the single worst stagers in Eurovision? The numbers don’t lie, with a qualification rate equivalent worse than San Marino’s. Just look at what Slovenia and Serbia are doing, Maco, and you’ll be fine!!!

CZECH REPUBLIC

There isn’t much to say about the Czech, but they’ve finally contributed with an entry I not only liked, but loved. I do think we are in the beginning years of a Czech Golden Age though and if they can keep that hot streak going, Eurovision might be coming to Prague very soon (ie: within the next five years.)

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 3)

BRIGHT: Also, the prompts in John’s head are back and are making increasingly strident demands. Namely, they want John to follow Nannasprite to the cookies. John isn’t too keen on this idea. He’s so not-keen on it that he fails to notice Rose whacking him in the head with a box. Frustrated by his lack of compliance, the voice devolves into insults. I’m not sure why the Wayward Vagabond is so insistent on this? It’s not like he can eat the cookies.

On the whole this is a really good sequence, I think. It lays out some basic background information for the reader and John, and it’s paced pretty well.

Back in the future, an agitated slip of the finger causes a cupboard door to open in the Wayward Vagabond’s hideout. Out fall a few tins of food and a heavy tome of HUMAN ETIQUETTE.

Rose has updated her GameFAQs walkthrough with the new information from Nannasprite. We’re getting something of a motif here: Cut-aways to the Wayward Vagabond are followed by a walkthrough update. It’s a nice little pattern.

Rose also speculates on the prototyping process and on why the prototypings of other players worldwide have not affected John’s foes, and comes to the conclusion that each client/server pair -- or daisy chain -- spawns its own copy of the Incipisphere, or ‘session’. She’s also caught up in rewriting her work. Couldn’t the reader go somewhere else? Or somewhen else?

Why yes, the reader can. Namely the reader can jump back to Rose’s birthday, where she’s having a conversation with GG.

This conversation reinforces that there’s something funny about GG. She asks about John’s present the moment Rose opens it, and Rose isn’t surprised by this. GG also knows without being told that Rose’s dead pet is a male cat, and she’s been working on her birthday present for John for years.

Finally, she asks what Rose would say if GG told her she knew a game that could bring said cat back to life.

TT: If someone told me that, I would regard the remark with a great deal of skepticism. TT: If that someone was you, on the other hand, then I would have to ask preemptively: TT: Is that someone you? GG: yes that someone is me!!!!!!!! GG: i just thought you might find it interesting TT: So what is this game?

Whatever strange abilities GG has, Rose is familiar with her knowing things she shouldn’t, and trusts her even when she makes claims that sound impossible.

CHEL: Note, also, that here GG is the one who brings up the game, while in an early convo with John set chronologically after this one she asked “lol! whats sburb?” This is not an inconsistency. Again, it comes up later. We end up saying that a lot. Sorry.

BRIGHT: Also: Rose knows John well enough to guess that he was wearing a disguise when he talked to her earlier -- but still interprets his gift of knitting needles and yarn as a subtle jab at her habit of making analytical comments, much as her mother. GG points out that he probably didn’t mean it that way. Later, Rose says she’ll make him a gift with strong sentimental value as a dig at him, but admits she doesn’t really mean it that way when GG points it out. Then again, this takes place some months before the comic starts, and may show how Rose and John’s relationship has evolved.

Back in Dave’s home, the sun is beating down. Meteors pepper the city, and smoke is rising. Dave captchalogues his katana, and sets out in search of his brother’s copy of the game.

Dave elaborates a little on the concept of irony that he and his brother live by. His brother is awesome, apparently. Dave can only hope to one day reach those heights of irony.

The puppet theme from earlier continues, with puppets strewn around the living room where Bro lives and sleeps. Among them are a Mr. T puppet, which is wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet. What makes it a little disturbing is that this is just lying out in the living room, which Dave presumably goes into all the time. Dave’s narration here sounds a lot like he’s trying to convince himself that these things are totally cool, no, really. He can’t see Lil Cal anywhere, though...

CHEL: Other puppets are the iconic Smuppets, possibly a portmanteau of “smutty puppets”, vaguely humanoid nude puppets with enormous behinds and phallic noses. There are implications that they are intended for non-PG purposes. Further implications are that the leaving of obscene material around the home has been going on for all of Dave’s life. For the record, intentionally showing pornography or sexual aids to children is classed as a form of sexual abuse. Casually leaving them lying around the house in front of kids long-term, well, the motive may not be malicious but I doubt a jury would care. It certainly counts as neglect. The popular fanfic Brainbent explored the damage this kind of thing could inflict on a kid in a realistic setting.

Also note, there is no hint of Dave having or ever having had parents, not even a photo in the background or something. The immediate assumption would most likely be that they’re dead, but Bro’s strangeness might also suggest estrangement - behaviour like that would probably result in one’s parents not talking to one anymore, though they most likely wouldn’t leave a child in a place like that if they were around. We find out the truth later, and it’s even weirder.

BRIGHT: Between one panel and the next, Lil Cal appears atop a speaker box. Dave is fine with this. Totally fine.

CHEL: For the record, this is Lil Cal:

Not something one would be very happy about finding behind one, is he?

BRIGHT: He plays a bit on the Xbox, gives Cal a fistbump, and then checks out his brother’s computer. It’s password-protected, but Dave knows the password, and Bro knows he knows it, and Dave knows this, and it’s all totally cool.

One of Bro’s websites is a puppet pornography website. Apparently this is popular enough to bring in thousands of dollars a month, and Smuppets are a multi-billion-dollar-per-year enterprise. Time for our next point:

Magic-onomics - wherein characters’ funds issue from nowhere Half-baked attempts to justify a protagonist’s mystery money can also backfire. Explanations should amount to more than “Somehow Rain had lots of money.” Giving Rain an inheritance, or explaining that she recently gave up her job at a top law firm to pursue her art, will work only where these things feel like part of the world of the novel.

Bro and Dave live in a crappy apartment in which Bro doesn’t even have his own bedroom, instead sleeping on the futon in the living room where he works. Yet they have the funds to spend on swords (not cheap) and expensive turntables. The Con Air bunny prop Dave bought for John sold in real life for almost $1,300.

And how the heck do smuppets bring in multiple billions of dollars a year? That’s a niche market, even if Bro is the only supplier. (Which he wouldn’t be — if it’s worth that much, someone else would want in on the market.)

CHEL: Even if said market is fairly disturbing. If there’s enough people who like it enough to buy it, there’ll be people comfortable with supplying it.

BRIGHT: Their income shouldn’t be anywhere near that high, even with puppet pornography adding to the revenue stream. If we grant that in this universe it is that high, then they should be living somewhere more comfortable.

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13

CHEL: In order for this to actually work as stated, not only would the puppets have to appeal to everyone on the planet, but there would probably have to be a lot more people on the planet than there actually are. I’m pretty sure it’s an exaggeration for humour, but considering the inconsistencies with their income status as presented, it’s still a bit shaky.

It’s also worth another count, because this is basically a handwave to mean the characters presented aesthetically as poor are still as financially secure as is necessary for writing the scenes Hussie wants to:

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6

If the comic was presented as a non-serious cartoon for the whole story, this would pass without comment, but when one’s trying to be dramatic and include real stakes, I think one needs to apply real stakes to everyday things too.

BRIGHT: Then again, it’s possible that their financial status is higher than the apartment would suggest, and Bro just chooses to spend his money on katanas and expensive equipment rather than upgrading. (And/or is lying to Dave about their income.) That might not be out of character given what we see of him later. But overall, this is a mess.

FAILURE ARTIST: Maybe the Smuppets is a money laundering business.

CHEL: A lot of people would read that fanfic.

The theory that the guardians knew the game was coming might explain why he chose to spend so much on swords, at least. He’d know Dave would need them. Not so much of an explanation for everything else though. Considering the weirdness that’s going on, I could imagine Bro not wanting attention drawn to it, but wouldn’t hiding weirdness be much harder in a flat than in a house set off some distance from neighbours?

For that matter, where’s John getting the money for movie memorabilia? Later reveals show the Egbert family originally came from money but they don’t seem to have that much to throw around now.

BRIGHT: Remember how Rose said earlier that she quite enjoyed Bro’s websites? I think that counts as a point for CALL CPA PLEASE…

FAILURE ARTIST: I question how pornographic the site really is. It might just literally be puppets being mashed together with no human body parts. A thirteen year old can surely see that.

BRIGHT: Fair point -- the page we see is teen-safe, at any rate.

CHEL: If it isn’t actually sexual, that possibly makes the supposed popularity level even sillier. Fetishists need constant fresh material and there are probably people who don’t have a specific puppet fetish who would ignore the puppets to look at the guy, but to keep up that level of popularity the viewers who don’t have a puppet fetish would have to keep finding it funny long after most people would think the joke had worn off. Both options say disturbing things about the world this comic is set in and their tastes in either pornography or humour. At least Veronica Chaos appears onscreen with her puppet… (Link contains no porn but you probably don’t want it on a work computer.)

For the record, I think Smuppets would actually make pretty bad sex toys. Plush is a porous material, so it would be hard to clean sticky substances out of it properly, and the phallic noses seem to be too floppy to use for penetration of a human orifice. Maybe that first point is why he brings in so much cash - the smuppets are single-use? People do use plush toys for masturbatory purposes, but usually when they can’t find anything else to use, specific fetishes for them being rare, and generally don’t use the soft parts as penetration toys.

Personally, I quite like the theory the kinkmeme brought up years ago; PlushRumps is actually an elaborate multimedia webcomic a la Homestuck itself. Now that I can see bringing in that much cash. Or possibly it just looks like this, which was made by the guy who wrote Thirty Hs (warning for eye injury and surreality): "Jumping!" (Watch on YouTube)

I could see Bro being that dude.

BRIGHT: And Dave admits, again, that he finds the puppet thing unsettling.

This is a pretty good depiction of someone trying to convince himself to be okay with something that freaks him out. He pesters John to distract himself from the puppets everywhere, and when he doesn’t get a response, he pesters Rose. And Hussie once again repeats the entire blinking pesterlog we read fifty pages ago instead of just linking back to it.

GET ON WITH IT!: 6

CHEL: Just occurred to me; why is Dave so bothered by the puppets? I can’t imagine that Bro suddenly started leaving them around when he hadn’t before - in fact, I believe a later flashback shows infant Dave using a Smuppet’s nose as a pacifier (eww, god I hope it was a freshly-made unused one). Dave really ought to be used to the things by now. Then again, now he’s reaching his teens, he’s probably old enough to start realising this is weird and creepy on a deeper level. But then that brings up the same problem we had with John; doesn’t he have any local friends he could have learned this from sooner? Though I could picture Bro not bothering to send him to school, and we do later learn there is quite possibly magic afoot in hiding the oddness of the Strider household. That’s a complicated theory and requires much more setup than we have here, though, so pin in that for later.

Also, the puppets thing counts for a point of ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?, and Dave is in fact the reason we created that count. A kid in Dave’s situation in real life would be messed up, but so would a kid in the situations of the others (or at least the girls), and Dave’s situation seems to be taken more seriously than theirs, at least later on.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 5

BRIGHT: Back to Rose, who’s beating John over the head with a box in a futile effort to get his attention. She eventually gives up and deploys another piece of equipment called a Punch Designix, using the Shale John collected. Since she doesn’t know what it does, she pesters John and asks him to experiment.

Unfortunately John has bigger problems to deal with: His garden is by this point overrun with imps, who are climbing on his tire swing and wearing his disguises. This is enough to snap him out of his Wayward Vagabond-induced state and get him to respond to Rose. They need to get those monsters off his pogo ride!

Fortunately, Rose is able to help by picking up the piano and dropping it on the imp. Less fortunately, the piano does not survive the experience. Neither does the imp.

The pogo ride seems fine, though.

John is reluctant to risk Nanna’s ghost cookies to go retrieve the grist, so Rose uses the pogo ride to transport it up to his room. Then she tells him to go find out what the Punch Designix does, while she works on building the house up to the gate. Apparently stairs cost a lot of grist to build. John makes a SBaHJ reference while Rose recoups the grist she used to build the catwalk earlier, sending an imp tumbling into the depths.

In the kitchen, Nannasprite has produced a lot of cookies. An imp tries to sneak one, and is blasted into grist by Nanna as a result.

John sets out on a hunt for imps and useful items, grabbing some shaving cream and his pogo ride, and launching his telescope out of the window. Amazingly, this proves relevant only a few pages later.

CHEL: Dad apparently keeps an entire cabinet filled with nothing but shaving cream. Rule of Funny, I know, but how fast does this guy’s beard grow?

BRIGHT: His living room is full of imps, who have taken a shine to the Cruxtruder and left cruxite dowels lying everywhere. Armed with hammer and shaving cream, John mounts his trusty steed and pogos his way to victory, which works amazingly well (read: works at all), until he slips on a cruxite dowel and lands flat on his back.

This is incredibly dangerous!

Acting on a polite prompt, John absconds into his Dad’s study, and Rose covers his retreat with the refrigerator, which levels up to FIVESTAR GENERAL ELECTRIC and earns 285 Boondollars.

Further extremely polite prompts ask John for a can opener. Despite the presence of two imps in the study with him, John stops to consider where to find one, while Rose takes out the imps with Dad’s safe. I don’t think that counts as HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING, though, since it’s clearly supposed to be the joke.

Back in the future, the Wayward Vagabond munches on a few pages from the etiquette book. Rose updates her GameFAQs walkthrough with a series of images of John’s house in the Medium. She does refer to Colonel Sassacre’s as racist in one of these, but it’s not really much of a rebuttal.

CHEL: She experiments with building a bit more on John’s house; ladders prove cheaper to build than stairs, albeit harder to use safely. John eventually stops contemplating can openers to examine the Punch Designix, while Rose answers Dave’s angry rant about being buried in Smuppets. I think this may be another point for ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY, because in the context of a kid ranting about his brother’s annoying hobby and his friend snarking back it’s hilarious, and it seems at this point to be presented as funny, but as discussed above the nature of Smuppets makes this rather creepy.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 TG: i am enrobed in chafing, wriggling god fucking damned puppet pelvis TG: an obscenely long, coarse kermit cock is being dragged across my anguished face TT: Let's put this into perspective. You put up with the puppet prostate because you love it.

Okay, this I think could be a point for CALL CPA PLEASE. A child probably would make fun of another child’s discomfort with non-consensually being surrounded by sex toys on the grounds of not knowing better, but it’s unsettling to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 2

John discovers there are codes on the backs of his captchalogue cards, which can be entered into the Punch Designix to make punch cards. Punching the captchalogue card itself renders the item irremovable from it, but the punch card can, he guesses, be used to recreate the item via the Totem Lathe and Alchemiter. Before he can test this, Rose hurls a bathtub through the wall to kill some nearby imps; to be fair, when he checks his PDA, he sees he missed a message from her warning him about it. He messages her back and she says the precarious staircase up to the gate is ready. John is nervous and asks why she didn’t build straight up through the hole in his dad’s bedroom ceiling.

EB: oh come on. what's the big deal, i'll just climb up and go right through! TT: Will you? EB: yeah, why not? TT: Are you saying you've never wondered what's in there? Or why it's been kept a secret from you? EB: well, i mean yeah... TT: Then trust me. You won't be going "right on through." EB: wait, are you saying there's something, like... EB: troubling in there? TT: I don't know. EB: what do you mean? what do you see in there? TT: I can't see in there. EB: oh. TT: But I don't have a very good feeling about it. EB: pfff... EB: whatever! EB: i think i can handle a few more stupid clown paintings.

Well, that’s ominous.

Examining the destroyed safe, John finds a book about shaving, several old newspaper clippings about meteor strikes, and a much older copy of Colonel Sassacre’s book, possibly the one involved in the mysterious accident which caused Nanna’s death. Behind where the safe was, he finds an empty captchalogue card and a proud fatherly note from Dad, praising him for now being strong enough to lift the safe; presumably intended for several years in the future at least, since the safe is big enough to fit John inside it. The note further explains that John is now entitled to the contents of the safe, and provides the now-useless combination for the lock. Further sylladex shenanigans launch Sassacre’s book, killing an imp, and John heads up the stairs, but slips. As he precariously clings on, the hands and jester’s motley of something much, much bigger than the imps start to emerge from the chasm...

Cut back to Dave, still searching for the beta and/or his brother, finding only that one of Bro’s swords is missing. A brief shadowy flash takes the second sword from the wall too.

You know this drill all too well. Trouble's a brewin'.

Dave heads for the door, finding one of Bro’s “ironic” comics pinned to it. The comic in question:

Erm.

TIER: Now that is, as the folks would say, unsettling.

FAILURE ARTIST: This is another work that Hussie created pre-Homestuck and decided to add. It was part of this drawing battle on a forum.

CHEL: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that was supposed to be Kermit. I was seeing it as a teddy bear, with the spiral cheeks as eyes and the eyes as ears.

TIER: . . . I was “literally just now” years old when I realized that was supposed to be Kermit.

BRIGHT: Ditto!

CHEL: Me too, actually, it was after I saw it while posting it here. Before I thought it was Fozzie, drawn even worse than the rest of the comic.

Dave is fairly mellow about the comic as compared to his reaction to the puppets, but thinks that he “[doesn’t] need to see this shit right now”. It looks like something a kid his age would either draw themselves or like (I know I would have loved it), but having things like this pasted randomly about your house would definitely be unsettling even so. He understands it as further irony, and thinks Bro is trying to annoy him with it as “some weird gauntlet he's throwing down to see if you will "GET IT"”.

Worse than the comics, however, is what’s in the kitchen. Weapons are piled up on every counter and the sink is full of fireworks. Dave considers this “awesome”, the implication again being that this has been normal for his whole life. He’s really lucky he’s a cartoon character, there’s no way a real kid would still be alive here. When he turns on the blender, a green puppet in it is shredded to pieces, releasing fake blood; inside the eye socket of a Jigsaw puppet on top of the microwave is a webcam, broadcasting the incident. Okay, again, we need to consider how “pornographic” PlushRumps actually is to determine whether this is a problem. Videos of a kid shredding a puppet are harmless in and of themselves. If it’s actually being marketed as fetish material… ew. Dave appears just as unsettled by this as I am, enough so to behead the cam-puppet, so the implications aren’t good.

More Smuppets spill out of the microwave, and then we go back into fucking sylladex shenanigans as Dave tries to collect every dangerous object in the room

GET ON WITH IT!: 7

Distracted by same, Dave fails to notice a silhouetted figure which is presumably his brother appearing briefly behind him, dropping Cal on the stovetop, and disappearing. Dave’s expression doesn’t change on seeing it but he literally leaps a foot in the air. Poor kid, that is freaky. We also discover why Dave had juice in his closet way back; Bro uses the fridge as storage space for swords instead of comestibles, and cherry bombs in the icemaker.

… Okay, where does Bro keep his own food? Both humorously and actually abusive/neglectful guardians still require energy intake, you know. There are later hints that Bro himself is someone’s puppet, but only in the figurative sense.

TIER: Dude probably has spots around the apartment to stash stuff, like how Dave has apple juice hidden away in his closet.

Figuring out how seriously we're supposed to be taking things can get tricky, especially with the Big Thing way later on in the comic putting earlier events in a new light upon rereading (well, mostly just stuff related to Dave).

CHEL: And if we are supposed to take it seriously, how the fuck is Dave alive? A real kid in this situation wouldn’t have lived long enough to be traumatised.