#also a death cult can consist of two people.

[ear-motif]

did you really have the teenage experience if you didnt or nearly didnt join a death cult

[thehumanwiki]

hi and welcome to

✨bullshit that has ACTUALLY happened somewhere in the Pokémon franchise✨

-a teenaged boy runs away from home because of his abusive mom only to join a crime gang funded by his abusive mom.

-the player character is given a smartphone by and with direct contact to God.

-a man cosplaying God (the same God you got a phone from) attacks you with a demon banished to another dimension.

-a suicide cult led by an evil snowflake kills like one hundred other protagonists.

-there is an entire elemental typing consisting of abused and evil Pokémon that is super effective against everything else.

-the player falls into an alternate world and one of their friends is immediately arrested for playing sports.

-in the thrilling sequel, a bunch of ghosts kidnap children in their amusement park in the Shadow Realm.

-now that I think about it there are like three different games where the player character starts by falling from the sky.

-the protagonist of the TV adaptation has died like seven times, been crucified in Paris, watched several apocalypses, and has watched SO many people die in front of him, and I don’t think he’s brought it up like, ever.

-in one game, you can go on a crusade to brutally conquer the entire continent.

-the player of one game is part of a time loop caused by a magic turtle that indirectly kills one of their friend’s mother. Or father. Depends on the version.

-the player’s adoptive father is possessed by the personification of hate and sends them directly to Hell, then tries to do it again when they get out.

-the mafia’s plan for getting their boss back after he left is to violently hijack a radio station and ask really nicely.

-a space agency’s plan for stopping a meteor form colliding with the earth is to open a wormhole to another dimension. this plan is stopped by a woman in a torn cape who destroys their equipment and robs them.

-the protagonist’s father had a godlike clone fuse his consciousness with a mouse, and fights a man who fused his own consciousness with an alien.

-the one a cult leader chose to be king of his new religion is an abused autistic boy with green hair and wearing a baseball cap.

-you literally rob people’s Pokémon in one game and you’re still the good guy. …is there a gender neutral version of “good guy?”

And now for a BONUS ROUND!

✨shit that has gone down in the Pokémon manga adaptation alone!✨

-terrorists blow up an ENTIRE port city!

-one protagonist spent two years trapped in a Dream Realm™.

-you think that’s bad? TWO protagonists are trapped in the depths of space for like six months!

-you think THAT’S bad?! FIVE protagonists are turned into stone for an indefinite time period!

-a little orphan girl is hypnotized and trapped in a suit of armor.

-they crucify the gym leaders???

-one boy is whipped in the face with a chain used to subjugate the Gods Of Time And Space and he’s literally fine.

-a father punches his son in the face and hurls him down a staircase. The American translation censors this as a lightning strike.

-this same son fell into the ocean because of an earthquake like five chapters after he was introduced.

-one of the current protagonists is basically Wednesday Addams.

-two protagonists were kidnapped by birds and raised by a supervillain.

-two villains try to destroy the environment of an entire country, cause an apocalypse, and are stopped by being trapped in a flying car which crashes.

-a mysterious supervillain saves them— SOMEHOW— and makes them fight to the death for a suit of armor. The one that survives causes the apocalypse AGAIN but dies.

-they both get brought back from Hell to save the world, and after that’s over, they turn to dust and go back to Hell.

-the supervillain who saved them the first time also summons like ten gods and dips out, never to be seen again.

In other words Pokémon is weird (affectionate).

[enkidusbi]

can i read your thesis i wanna know about how mesopotamians kept their loved ones close. i feel like there might be something about roots or foundations or grounding, connecting the family to the home & people to place both physically and metaphorically. gravesites are powerful powerful place connections and im really curious about what we know about a culture whose gravesites and homes were one and the same. i imagine they were pretty comfortable with death

so it's not online yet because i want to publish it first in a journal BUT i can tell you a bit about it. this is gonna be specifically about the old babylonian period (19-15th centuries BCE) because that's what my thesis is on, but with some changes it's pretty much applicable throughout mesopotamian history

so the basic thought behind burial under the houses is that the dead don't cease to part of the family. ancestor cult is an important aspect of mesopotamian culture and domestic religion. the netherworld is not a nice place, it's dark and dusty and all the spirits have for food is dust. but if you feed your ancestors (this is a ritual called the kispum which consists of food offering, libation and the calling of their names. it's a regular ritual that some sources say was done monthly, and others say it was during the yearly festival of the dead in the month of the god dumuzi/tammuz) then they'll have things to eat and drink in the afterlife! and if you are a spirit, the more descendants you have, the more your well-being is ensured! it's a symbiotic relationship. if your ancestors are satisified, they can help you out with things and act as sort of benevolent protective spirits over the household and the family, and also welcome you in the netherworld when you die. but spirits who were not properly buried or aren't given the proper offerings can wander, come back to haunt you and cause harm. if you would like to know more about this, i recommend dina katz's book, the image of the netherworld in the sumerian sources, an amazing read. the point is, the dead are part of the family, they have their metaphorical place in the family structure and a physical place in the home

people in the notes mentioned that moving probably was difficult. and it definitely was. some of the people buried in these houses were in underground tombs, built from burnt clay bricks, and some others were just in graves dug into the earthen floor, all around the houses. now these brick tombs are often found completely empty, no skeletons, nothing. which means that the family took them when they moved away. probably because they were in some way the most important ancestors, maybe the main lineage of the family? this part is not really clear because these bones are missing, they took them, we don't know anything about them. however, in ur, there are two examples of just the skull being buried and i think that means that family moved to this house from somewhere else and brought the skulls of their ancestors along and re-buried them. it's a very rare find though

from an anthropological perspective, the phyisical proximity of the graves in the same place where the living slept, ate, worked, raised children, etc, was a kind of constant reminder. of their shared ancestors, of their shared identitiy as a family and as a larger clan or kinship group. from a psychological point of view, it was a strategy of coping with grief

important to note also, that this was not practiced by every family. there are houses with no graves at all or just one or two graves, certainly not the whole household. this means that most likely there existed also cemeteries, burial grounds outside the cities. to my knowledge, no cemetary like this has been found yet. but it would be insanely interesting to see what they were like and how the people buried there were different from the people buried in the houses at the same time!

in the end, let me give you a quote from the myth of erra and išum (translated by karel van der toorn in the book mesopotamian magic). this is what a man says about his house:

"These are my living quarters, I have personally made them and will have my peace within them, and when fate has carried me off, I will sleep therein."

i said i can't write a poem about this. and i don't have to, because they already did and it's beautiful

[crowntism]

Dates with the bishops

I made this blog just so I could be gay in public lets GOOOO

Includes: Leshy, Heket, Kallamar, Shamura, and Narinder.

Leshy

Bishop form:

Dates with Bishop Leshy come in two flavors. Bad day dates and Good day dates.

Bad day dates often include terrorizing and causing absolute havoc across his domain, as there are two things that can make any day better for him. Spending time with you and terrorizing the people who live in Darkwood.

Sometimes he'll ask you how you want a village terrorized or how you'd like a certain follower killed. He understands if its not really your thing, but thought he'd ask anyways.

By the end of a bad day date he's exhausted and ready to curl up with you and "sleep". Bishops, being gods, don't need to sleep but regardless he loves curling up in a nest of moss and leaves and gently petting your head while you sleep. It rejuvenates him in a way nothing else can.

Good day dates on the other hand are much more chill. He takes you around Darkwood to see the beauty of the forest. He shows you every hidden nook and cranny of his territory and even shows you the hidden garden he has.

Its deep within the heart of the woods, so none ever tread in there, not even his own siblings. Its truly his home away from home. Its a field covered in a variety of flowers, some not even found normally in Darkwood, and its one of the most beautiful sights you've ever seen.

Most of your time spent there is Leshy curled around you while you try to weave a flower crown big enough for him. You can never get it long enough but its the thought that counts.

Follower form:

Dates are far less chaotic now, as he's fully lost his ability to see and it scares him a little. Most dates are led by you now as a result.

He still loves causing chaos, so some dates are spent pranking others until you (or the Lamb) put a stop to it.

Other dates are spent with you taking him slightly further from camp to go look for interesting rocks. While Leshy can't see the rocks, the texture and shapes are still appealing. You also try to find interesting flowers that smell nice.

Leshy often keeps the interesting things you find in his shelter, hoarding them for when he has his off days.

Speaking of off days, dates on those days consist entirely of staying in. Huddling up in his shelter so he can run his hands across you, mapping out your face and body shape in his mind so he never forgets you. If you were already dating while he was a bishop, he knows what you look like through the crowns eye, and his biggest fear is forgetting that knowledge. So it never hurts to remind himself.

Heket

Bishop form:

Dates with Heket often involve food. One of her favorites is to go to every village in her domain and demand they feed the two of you. If they refuse to feed you, she'll cast the worst famine they've seen before leaving them to slowly starve to death. If they feed you and you don't like the food, she'll slaughter the main cook. However, if they make a food you genuinely enjoy, their crops will be blessed. Villages that are closer together often collaborate to try and make the best dishes possible to ensure not only survival, but her blessings as well.

Dates that don't involve food are rarer but consist of her taking you out to safely see Anura's beauty. All bishops are proud of their domains, and her pride is the bountiful crops. Although Anura is known for its pumpkins, it also has an abundance of apples. Orchards are everywhere and she loves taking you to her favorites to show them off.

Apple picking dates are her way of getting you out of her temple and doing... something. She is very protective of you and doesn't let you out of her sight regardless, but at least now you don't have several cult members and servants doing literally everything for you! She also adores picking you up and holding you so you can reach apples higher up on the tree.

Follower form:

Dates with food are now rarer, as she doesn't have the abilities of the crown to dull the pain her throat is in. Most dates are spent on the outskirts of the camp just basking in silence.

When a date does involve food, it mainly involves the preparation. Harvesting, gathering, hunting, even just cooking the food. Her relationship with food is odd now, as with the yellow crown she was in a constant state of hunger and being uncomfortably full is an awful feeling, so she doesn't typically eat with you. She loves watching you eat what she makes though and loves knowing that even though she had caused famines in the past you'd never go hungry with her.

On her off days she doesn't even want to be around food, and with the cooks almost always working to feed the many mouths of the cult its best to take her further away. You take her back out to Anura, sticking close to trails already traveled, just to get her away and relaxed.

Kallamar

Bishop form:

Bishop Kallamar has many partners, so dates are actually very sparse. He wants all of his consorts to feel loved and cherished so he has a very strict schedule.

He often changes up dates depending on if he believes one of his consorts has been neglected. If he feels he hasn't been giving you enough attention he takes you around to different storefronts, encouraging you to get whatever you'd like. Sugar daddy behavior in that he'd buy you countless of the most expensive items for whatever hobby you choose. You're a painter? The finest paints and the best canvas for you. Seamstress? Only the richest and most vibrant of fabrics for you.

On normal dates he'd take you to a theater. He's big on theater and had quite a few built in his domain. Most of the plays are about him and his accomplishments but he does allow a few others. Most of them are sappy love stories as the guy is a bit of a romantic.

Group dates are also a must! Most group dates are held within the temple and involve dinner or his consorts favorite plays. He will literally start kidnapping people if you wish to see a play.

If you desire something lower key than a play that's fine too! Anchordeep is a beautiful place filled with wonder and he'd be more than happy to guide you through his favorite places.

Follower form:

Kallamar is kind of agoraphobic. He's no longer as powerful as he used to be and is actually very susceptible to disease and illness. Most dates you two will have are spent entirely inside.

He no longer has his other consorts (most of them either abandoned him or believed him to be dead) so dates are far more frequent. He genuinely hates being alone, so you pretty much live with him now.

Creative dates are a must have, whether the two of you are drawing or crafting or painting, he likes to keep his hands and tentacles busy with things of beauty.

If you're comfortable with it you often become the model for him. He's so happy when you agree and hes even happier when he manages to capture your beauty.

The walls are filled with images of you two together.

If you manage to get him out of his shelter then one of his favorite things to do is spend time in the river. He misses Anchordeep and the water, so taking him swimming is a must.

On his bad days its best to just spend time in bed. Nothing he creates turns out right and the outside world is terrifying. Just curl up with him and whisper sweet nothings to him, that's all he asks of you.

Shamura

Bishop form:

Shamura is, unfortunately, very forgetful nowadays. It's best to write down when your dates are and put them in noticeable spots for them to see.

Dates with them are often spent in their personal library, the two of you cuddled up in a silk hammock reading quietly. Whenever you request something they send a cultist or a servant to get whatever you wish just so you don't have to leave the comfort.

Other times dates are spent watching fight pits. Shamura allows you to decide if the loser lives or dies. Their fates are entirely within your hands.

Dates around Silk Cradle are rarer for Shamura, as they are forgetful and don't want to accidentally abandon you to the dangers outside. When they do take you out, its often with an accompaniment. Their most trusted followers who, should Shamura have an episode and leave abruptly, can guide you back to the temple safely.

Follower form:

Just like with bishop Shamura, you need to remind them of dates. Unlike with bishop Shamura, however, they don't have as many responsibilities. Meaning that the notes they have to sort through are fewer and they have a better chance at noticing and remembering.

Dates are kept close to the camp, the risk of Shamura having an episode and wandering off are too great, so it's best to stick around a place where they have reminders of their new life. You manage to get a library built in camp for them though, so most dates are spent the same way as with the bishop form.

On bad days, you don't really have dates. Bad days involve massive amounts of panic, they barely remember who you are or where they are, so the day is spent calming them down and going through some exercises to help them.

They always feel immense guilt over these days, so the dates afterwards are spent showering them in affection and attention.

Narinder

(No bishop form because my man was locked away for like. 1000+ years who knows what changed in the world since he was locked away. Instead imagine constantly dying just so the devil can go "heyyyyy lets go on a date in hell" but hell is an empty foggy void and his two kids are staring at you autisticly.)

Follower form:

Dates with Narinder often involve exploring. He was locked away for so long and finally gets a second chance and he's going to take advantage of it.

He refuses to hold your hand until you're further away from people, and then he latches on and refuses to let go. He's already dealt with so much loss in life, he's not willing to lose his partner even if its just a walk through the Lambs territory.

Loves exploring destroyed villages with you, though he denies it as soon as your back is turned he's burying the skeletal remains of villagers to give them a proper farewell from the world. He may not be the god of death any longer, but the will remains.

Pays his respects to every grave he sees, at least until you turn around and look at him and he's suddenly 4 feet from the grave terrorizing a small bug.

He HATES pda, but alone in the woods with you he'll start to get affectionate. Secretly loves holding your hand and pressing kisses to your face. Nuzzling is a must for this cat as well.

The rare few times you've had a date closer to camp it's spent sun bathing. Just laying on the grass being warmed by the firey star.

The date is over as soon as somebody else notices you two and he's sprinting away.

[graceshouldwrite]

Writing Villains (Underrated Tips)

1. Variety

Not all villains have to be the next Darth Vader, Luke Castellan, John Wick, etc. Your villain’s arc doesn’t have to originate from the Big Traumatic Thing that happened when they were X Years Old. Here are some characterization ideas that still keep them interesting (no tragic backstory required):

misguided villain. They don’t think what they do is that evil/they think they are benefiting others (e.g. Thanos from the MCU)

IDGAF villain. They just don’t care about the disaster they leave behind them (e.g. Ozai from ATLA)

past bystander villain. Nothing bad happened to THEM particularly-- they just saw bad things happen to other people, and decided that they need to correct society (e.g. Light Yagami from Death Note)

I was bored villain. They were bored. And millions died for it. They’re probably also an ENTP. Oh, well (e.g. Ryuk from Death Note)

zealous villain. They do it for their cause--god, cult, organization, whatever--there’s a greater power that is their greater purpose (e.g. Cthulu cultists from Call of Cthulu)

staunch traditionalist (often allegorically racist) villain. They want to act according to, and preserve the statusquo (tends to be heritage, race, class, personality, etc.), and believe that any change is bad (e.g. Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter)

These are just some examples of interesting villain characterizations that absolutely do NOT need a tragic backstory to function.

2. Spill the tea

Show how they treat the people closest to them.

Instead of just focusing on their actions, create moments where readers can see them interacting with their family, friends, etc. This is a powerful tool with the potential to humanize them in a softer way, or make them seem even more scary, merciless, corrupt, secretive, etc.

For example, the audience doesn’t just see Azula from ATLA fight people and conquer cities with a crazy amount of skill and power. The writers show how she interacts with her two best friends; the way she shamelessly belittles them to their faces, manipulates them as pawns, and has no problem putting them in incredible danger reveals a LOT more about her character in a way that only showing her actions cannot.

3. Polarize

Consistency isn’t always key. Sure, the cold and calculating overlord should generally make cold and calculating decisions, but to spice things up, find the thing that will make them snap. Change. Show weakness. Become their opposite, if only for a moment.

(SPOILER WARNING for Arcane)

Silco is a drug kingpin in an underbelly city that is full of gangs, criminals, murderers, thieves, and the sort (you get it).

He not only survives--he THRIVES in that kind of environment as one of the scariest authorial figures. He himself had to experience crazy backstabbing, and grew to be nothing but calculated, manipulative, and ruthless...until he unofficially adopted a daughter! He realized that she had “undone” him to the point where he refused to give her up for a dream he would have been willing to die for.

It DOES sound pretty inconsistent for the ruthless drug kingpin to sacrifice EVERYTHING he’d worked for to clean up after an insane daughter who runs around making murderous messes that attract flocks of authorities. And, it is. Like he says himself, he loses “nothing but problems.”

But, real humans are almost never 100% consistent, and this sort of polarity will humanize your villains without necessarily requiring a tragic backstory or a noble motivation.

∘₊✧────── ☾☼☽ ──────✧₊∘

instagram: @ grace_should_write

Hope this was helpful, and let me know if you have any questions by commenting, re-blogging, or DMing me on IG. Any and all engagement is appreciated :)

Happy writing, and have a great day!

- grace <3

[8r14r-r0s3]

I adore madoka magica but when i think about it too hard the amount of inconsistencies that pop up from the soft magic system confuse the ever loving shit out of me

POINT ONE: what the fuck is all of the magic in episode one??? What are the purple light beams Homura is shooting??? What fucking gun is that Akemi??? Why can Mami heal Kyubey??? Can magical girls heal other people or just themselves??? Cause I thought healing other people was like a special thing only Sayaka (in this story) can do??? What’s up with the weird texture that pops up when Mami arrives??? It shows up when she makes the ribbon barrier to block Sayaka and Madoka from Gertrude in episode two, is that just like a force field she can set up??? That’s never explained, is that her magic power??? Cause

POINT TWO: what the actual fuck is going on with Mami??? Magical girls have a weapon and at least 1-2 magic powers. This is very consistent, Homura has a shield, time stop, and hammer space, Sayaka has a sword, healing powers, and speed boosts, Kyoko has a spear, barriers, and illusions, and this was seemingly true of Mami too, until fucking Portable happened. At first it seemed that her weapon was Guns and her magic powers were Ribbons and potentially the other weird shit she does that no one else does (Sayaka’s magic bat, seeming safety circles, healing Kyubey), but her guns are made of her ribbons, meaning she either doesn’t have a weapon or doesn’t have a clearly defined magic power. What the actual fuck is going on with her????

POINT THREE: All of Charlotte’s Labyrinth. Why is her grief seed outside of the hospital when according to her Magia Record story she witches inside the hospital? Why hasn’t it already hatched? Where’s the big witch explosion when it hatches? Where is her body? Why does the labyrinth form BEFORE the grief seed hatches??? On the topic of Nagisa, what’s HER magic power?? Is it the weird cake ritual thing?? The thing she does with the serving platters to homulily’s familiars? Cause I thought those were witch power things?

POINT FOUR: Why do Elly and Izabel pull people into their labyrinths when witches are supposed to gain power by people committing die? Or if they gain power by drawing people into labyrinths and eating them, why do the people the Witch Kiss not enter labyrinths? Also what are the exact effects of a witches kiss? Why does Gertrude’s make a woman try to jump off a building but Elly’s starts a death cult? Is it based on the strength of the witch? Cause Elly goes down in one hit to the weakest magical girl in the show so that can’t be it. Is it based on their nature/“curse”? Because then what does Izabel’s “vane” nature have to do with Homura’s relatively unspecific ideation in episode 10?

POINT FIVE: what the fuck happens when a familiar becomes a witch?? Why do they still drop grief seeds despite not having soul gems from which they hatched??? If they don’t produce energy from their conversion like magical girls do, why do the incubators allow this to happen??? Isn’t it wasteful??? Also will they be carbon copies of their witch??? Are there just TWO Albertines in Mitakihara????

POINT SIX: How did the cycle start?? What was the first magical girl fighting if there weren’t any witches that existed yet???? I understand this is nitpicky but were they fighting wraiths???

I have so many questions please help QwQ

[thesilliestrovingalive]

Updated: September 23, 2024

Reworked Character #3: Eri Kasamoto

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised due to references to abandonment, abuse, underage drinking, crime, an unhealthy romance, death, and SA.

Real name: Chizuko Kawaguchi

Alias: Memphis Bomb Princess

Occupation: Staff Sergeant of the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., Ptolemaios’ second-in-command (formerly), and the leader of a street gang (formerly)

Retirement plans: Open up an inclusive orphanage in Hiroshima

Special skills: Orchestrating stealth missions and suppression operations, proficiency in explosives, survival techniques, lock picking, and seduction

Hobbies: Swimming, kickboxing, building explosive gadgets, thinking about her past mistakes and what she could’ve done better during her solitary nature walks, and playing card games with her friends that include some sort of money-related bet

Likes: Fio, pyrotechnics, aimless walks, vintage religious memorabilia, and a keychain that was gifted to her by Emily

Dislikes: Blissful ignorance, overly mischievous, lazy, and hot-headed people, riding in vehicles she isn’t able to drive, being touched without permission, and cults

Favourite drink: Vodka

Sexuality: Homoflexible sapiosexual

Gender: Female

Age: 16 (in 2022), 22 (in 2028), 24 (in 2030), 26 (in 2032), 28 (in 2034), 35 (in 2041), 37 (in 2043), 38 (in 2044), and 41 (in 2047)

Blood type: B-

Weight: 126 lbs. (57 kg)

Design: She’s a 5’ 6” (167.64 cm) Japanese ectomorph with an athletic, sylph-like build, broad shoulders, sand-hued skin, a black mole under her right eye, and top scars. She has dark brown eyes with visible bags beneath them and fingernails that are painted a metallic green. She has jet black hair with choppy bangs that has been bleached dirty blonde and is styled in a mid-back shaggy wolf cut, often worn up in a ponytail. Eri has a jarring diagonal scar that runs from the left side of her temple, across the bridge of her nose, to her right levator scapulae muscle. She also has stab scars on the palm of her right hand, cut marks on her right forearm, the skin on her arms and shoulders have been picked at, and her legs are riddled with scrapes. She lost her left forearm in a traumatic incident, later receiving a metallic silver prosthetic replacement from Ptolemaios during her training. She dons green gold snake bite and silver jestrum piercings, and her makeup features a glittery artichoke green smoky eyeliner, light brown mascara, and coral pink lips.

Eri’s military gear consists of an olive green bandana on her head, a metal dog tag necklace with her name, and a black headset for communication with her snipers. She wears a black bra, myrtle-hued sleeveless button midriff, and a satin crimson sash. She wears a purplish-grey unbuttoned coat with ripped sleeves, four pockets, and a hidden strap compartment that holds her electrical baton. On the back of her jacket is the logo of the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., which Fio kindly embroidered for her. Her purplish-grey army cargo pants were tucked into black combat boots and held up by a silver-buckled dark teal belt around her waist. She has a sheath for her combat knife and a drop leg holster for her handgun with a silencer.

She wears a black gas mask with red-tinted lenses, olive green gloves, black knee and elbow pads, and sage-streaked silver tassel earrings. She wears a keychain necklace, a gift from her late girlfriend Emily, featuring a fiery comet encircling a reddish-purple amethyst stone carved into the shape of a human heart. Eri is adorned with two black steel armlets, one on each arm: the right armlet has a circular green crystal at its centre, while the left armlet has a red one. The green crystal grants her the power to unleash grey lightning, while the red crystal, forged from a fragment of Sol Dae Rokker, can summon deadly, wolf-shaped spirits that dive-bomb enemies.

Over her midriff, she dons a Soldier Plate Carrier System (SPCS) with a MultiCam pattern, which carries around her walkie-talkie and ammo for other firearms. She carries around a sage green load-bearing backpack that contains camping equipment, grenades, fire bombs, mines, hand-crafted explosive gadgets, portable ammo boxes, a canteen full of water, three canisters of gasoline, a rocket launcher, and a bottle of vodka. Her olive green waist pack, secured at the back of her belt, holds a silvery flask of vodka, a matchbox, and a compact makeup kit containing her eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss. The pockets of her coat contain a pack of fruity bubblegum, a navy blue lighter, a rainbow-coloured bouncy ball, a deck of playing cards, and her lucky gold Kaiki Shoho coin. Meanwhile, her cargo pants hold lockpicking tools and three boxes of cigarettes. She has worn gauze wrapped around her right forearm, a gun holster for her handgun, and a sheath for her machete. She's still in possession of a Ptolemaic Army-commissioned scoped bolt-action rifle, which is often draped over her left shoulder.

Personality: She's a vengeful, sarcastic, cynical, and tomboyish leader who will stop at nothing to brutally hurt anyone she perceives as a threat to her comrades and friends or have caused them genuine harm. She has a sadistic streak, evident in her peculiar habit of smearing her enemies' blood on herself to intimidate others. When focused on her military duties and protecting those she respects and cares about, she tends to neglect her own needs. Eri's outspoken and crass demeanour shows no fear in speaking her mind, telling others off, and using profanities. As a self-reliant and lonesome individual, she’s bitter and aloof towards those she dislikes and strangers. She has a tendency to engage in dishonest behaviour and manipulate situations to her advantage. When confronted about these actions, she often responds with aggressive language and contradictory arguments. She holds immense respect for the deities, particularly Sol Dae Rokker, and will go to great lengths to worship and make sacrifices to them, often ritually sacrificing the remains of her enemies and indulging in orgies with her team of Ptolemaic rebels.

She fearlessly rebels against anything she deems morally wrong or a life-threatening risk. She shows no mercy towards her enemies, and her military missions showcase her exceptional resourcefulness, cunning, and tactical prowess. She's capable of sympathy and offering wise advice, but her willingness to do so greatly depends on the situation and her personal connection with the individual. She has immense compassion for those who endured a difficult childhood and does her best to offer comfort and support.

Eri regards her team of Ptolemaic deserters, Fio of the S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., Marco and Trevor of the P.F. Squad, Ralf and Clark, the top dogs of the Ikari Warriors, Tequila, Red Eye, and Hyakutaro, Tyra, and Walter of Division 6 as family. She’s overprotective of Fio, whom she regards with sisterly affection, and Marco, whom she views as a courageous leader who deserves comfort and sympathy. She harbours significant animosity towards Tarma, seeing him as a hot-headed idiot who only causes trouble and can't take things seriously. Despite her best efforts to tolerate him, she can't help but snap at him when his silly antics go too far, he inadvertently ruins a plan or he gets too flirtatious and physically close to Fio.

She lives with claustrophobia, mild social anxiety, insomnia, atypical depression, and borderline personality disorder. To cope with her mental health struggles, she often presents herself as highly intelligent, serious-minded, and seductive. However, when anger takes hold, her emotions can be difficult to contain, although she strives to maintain some self-control. Notably, Eri prefers not to be called by her old name as it evokes memories of her past trauma, which she’s trying to desperately forget. She's a hardened pessimist, often appearing mentally exhausted and emotionally unfazed, yet she consistently demonstrates resilience and stubborn determination. She can't help but feel jealous towards those who have loving parents and weren't abandoned by them. When she's had too much to drink, she becomes prone to argumentativeness, physical aggression, and melancholy, and often sleepwalks.

She has a deep-seated distrust of Christianity, believing that many people hypocritically exploit God and Jesus' teachings to conceal their true intentions. She also thinks that certain Christian teachings clash with the harsh realities of life. Furthermore, she believes that God seems apathetic to humanity's well-being, watching them suffer endlessly, letting evil to continuously flourish, and restricting the potential for salvation. She holds that morality is culturally relative, and therefore, there are no universal moral laws, making it challenging to distinguish right from wrong.

In her view, human societies construct their values based on their distinct beliefs, customs, and practices, which are also influenced by social and emotional pressures. She believes that individuals have a moral obligation to protect innocent lives and uphold the goodness inherent in justice. Regarding war, she thinks it can be justified if it meets certain criteria: it’s openly declared by a governing authority, has a just cause, and aims to establish a lasting peace. She acknowledges the coexistence of life and death but does not see a clear connection between the two.

Backstory: Chizuko Kawaguchi was born on June 6, 2006 in Hiroshima, Japan. She was abandoned as an infant at the entrance of a Christian church by her parents, who had wanted a son instead of a baby girl. Her name was discovered on a piece of paper tucked inside her baby carriage. She was raised by the Christian church where she was sent to live, an institution with a strict religious environment. There, children who misbehaved were subjected to psychological reprimands. During Chizuko’s younger years, she acted out as an attention-seeking troublemaker, but was frequently punished through humiliation and isolation in a dark closet.

She would be frequently bullied by children who were considered to be well-behaved and good in the eyes of the church staff. They targeted her for her perceived sinfulness by spreading false rumours about her, belittling her, and vandalising her toys. She endured occasional physical abuse and emotional manipulation by the church orphanage staff who used the threat of eternal damnation to control her behaviour. This treatment had a profound effect on her, making her quiet, nervous, and obedient. As a result, she grew to resent the church, finding its teachings to be at odds with the harsh realities of her own life. She eventually lost faith in God, feeling that He seemed indifferent to human suffering, allowing it to persist without genuine intervention or care.

At the age of 6, Chizuko met Tarma and quickly befriended him after building a sandcastle and searching for worms under a heavy rock. This chance encounter taught her that there were kind people outside of her church community, and she had opportunities to form new connections and discover herself. She met up with Tarma a few more times until he stopped visiting Hiroshima, leaving her feeling alone and sorrowful.

Once she figured out the ways of the world, she escaped from the sanctuary of the church at the age of 12, alongside a small group of friends, eager to taste the forbidden fruit of the world. Seeking vengeance, she and her friends burned down the church orphanage in retaliation for the abuse they had endured. Most of her early life remains private. However, her invigorating and tomboyish nature lended her as a capable leader, founding a gang of street kids. They engaged in criminal activities, primarily petty theft, drug sales, weapon trafficking, and murder.

Details about this period are scarce, but it's known that Chizuko developed a fondness for vodka during this time. She narrowly escaped being taken into custody by the police through financial bribes, avoiding a potential juvenile detention. She would also go through a couple of romantic relationships with girls. Her first relationship was short-lived after she quickly discovered that her girlfriend was using her for financial gain. Her second relationship seemed to be going well, but it ended when her girlfriend's parents found out about her being a delinquent and forbade their daughter from seeing her again.

At 15, she reunited with Tarma after he ran away from home, inviting him to hang out and drink beer and vodka. As they caught up on each other's lives, she began to flirt and get physically close, seeing him as someone she could trust. However, Chizuko’s desire to escape the past and run away from her problems clouded her judgement. They spent many nights together, engaging in erotic activities, and she even convinced him to participate in a few crimes. But everything changed when Tarma abruptly ended things and returned home to Hokkaido. Devastated, she felt betrayed, despite having used him to fulfill her own desires and advance her gang interests. This experience explains her lingering animosity towards Tarma.

Her leadership skills and her gang had continued to grow successfully, but that success was short-lived. Two months before she turned 18, Hiroshima was suddenly attacked by multiple bombings from a mysterious group, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives, including her entire gang—her first true friends. This incident sent the Japanese populace into a deep state of panic and uncertainty. In the chaos, she also suffered a devastating injury, losing her left forearm. With quick thinking, she managed to improvise a tourniquet by tearing the sleeves of her medium-sleeved shirt and stemming the bleeding.

While treating her injury, she was approached by a brown-haired, grey-eyed woman wearing the attire of a Ptolemaic guerilla. This guerrilla fighter didn't want to leave Chizuko behind, knowing she would feel terrible if left alone. So, she convinced Chizuko to come with her to meet up with Ptolemaios. Chizuko was hesitant at first, but with no other options, she took the opportunity. The guerrilla introduced herself as Emily Kuznetsova, and Chizuko decided to adopt a new name: Eri Kasamoto.

Unbeknownst to her, Ptolemaios had been observing Eri for some time, recognizing her potential as a valuable asset for his army. She was first showered with excessive attention and affection by Ptolemaios' most devoted followers. Afterwards, they subjected her to an initiation ritual where she was forced to consume the heart of a deceased baby goat in the name of the Dark Lord and drink Ptolemaios' blood. He took steps to provide her with specialised training to enhance her skills in espionage and further develop her militant abilities. Once she received a sufficient amount of training, he wasn't hesitant to make her his second-in-command, which stirred some jealousy amongst the commanding officers of the Ptolemaic Army. On his behalf, she was responsible for multiple stealth missions to further the technological advancement and tactical plans of the Ptolemaic Army.

During this time, Emily's compassionate and courageous nature won Eri over, and she developed a strong romantic attraction towards her, which would eventually blossom into a full-blown relationship. Ptolemaios viewed Emily as a potential obstacle to his objectives and sought to eliminate her, motivated in part by his suppressed and secret sexual attraction to Eri. Emily's death was staged to appear as a suicide, with the circumstances surrounding it unclear. Eri was even sexually assaulted by a few commanding officers as Ptolemaios hoped that this would instill more fear in her and deter her from leaving.

However, these two events had a profound impact on Eri, leading to feelings of grief and anger, and prompting her to re-evaluate her involvement with the Ptolemaic Army. She assembled a group of individuals who shared her desire to challenge Ptolemaios' authority. The group consisted of six guerrilla troops: Mikuláš, Ji-Yeong, Konrad, Dezső, Sipho, and Harvie; four snipers: Amilcare, Diomedes, Souma, and Manouel; and eight special forces operatives: Kemalettin, Jaroslavas, Dermot, Agenor, Shelomit, Franjo, Prabhakar, and Radovan.

During their fight against the Ptolemaic Army, they caused major setbacks and killed off many soldiers and cultists. As Eri fought against Ptolemaios, she learned that he was responsible for conducting the terrorist bombings in Hiroshima. She tried to end his life, but felt a malevolent presence stopping her from doing so, forcing her and her rebel Ptolemaic soldiers out of Ptolemaios' compound in Osaka, Japan. Shortly after this time, she ripped off the sleeves of her purplish-grey coat to use as tourniquets for a couple of her men. She also chose to acquire her top scars, her way of trying to forget the past, reject social norms placed on women and girls, and embrace her true identity.

At the age of 20, she and her team decided to apply for military service, working under the Intelligence Agency as a formidable group of agents. Eri made a name for herself in numerous missions, earning a reputation as a vengeful leader amongst the Regular Army. She was known for eliminating numerous individuals, including treacherous soldiers and corrupt politicians with some of her most notable assignments involving strategic seduction that lured her targets into vulnerable positions. However, she began to feel increasingly disillusioned by the constant assassinations and conspiracies that weighed on her conscience, reminding her of her time with the Ptolemaic Army. She applied for a transfer to S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., which was specially approved due to her exceptional record, indispensable skills, and intimate knowledge of the Ptolemaic Army's inner workings.

As the demolition and stealth expert of S.P.A.R.R.O.W.S., Eri led her rebel Ptolemaic soldiers with immense success. She befriended Fio and felt an instant, deep connection after a few interactions, viewing Fio as the younger sister she never had and vowing to protect her at all costs. She played a crucial role in the Great Morden War by providing Marco's team with explosives, emergency rations, and valuable intel on Rebel Army positions through stealthy infiltration. Eri showcased her advanced combat and leadership skills by helping to thwart Morden's second coup, which was aided by her team, Fio, Tarma, and Marco.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Recent books, fiction -

Emma Cline, The Girls - a teenage girl in the late 1960's ends up on the outer edges of a Manson-like (very closely Manson-like) cult. This was okay, but not great, falling too often into cliches about teenage girlhood and lacking a sharp understanding of cult dynamics. By basing the fictional cult in the novel so closely on Charles Manson's Cline gets to handwave a bunch of things about how and why it works, but the seams in the construction show through anyway; Cline's understanding about what leads people to join and stay in these kinds of groups, and how the internal dynamics function, seemed to me persistently surface-level. The strongest part of the novel is the protagonist's potent desire for one of the closest inner circle girls in the cult, which is the reason she becomes entangled much more than any draw from the cult leader himself. There was something interesting there, if Cline had focused on it, and something interesting too in the hints about our protagonist's solitary experiences of lesbian masochistic desire, but this thread was resolved in a way that felt to me disappointingly simplistic. The hints about our protagonist's adulthood following her experience of the cult are also flat, without the messiness of what it can mean to survive that experience. Worth reading as an example of a fictional depiction of organized abuse, but not a great one.

Mona Simpson, Commitment - family saga novel following three siblings as they make lives for themselves following their mother's depressive breakdown and institutionalization in the early 1970's. This had some flashes of clarity and insight, but fizzled out quickly into banality. There were some things that Simpson wanted to say about pragmatism vs making art, and about living in fear of mental illness, but it all got sanded down. The depiction of 'mental illness' is also two dimensional at best. This suffered especially for me in proximity to a recent read-through of The Frederica Quartet, which deals with some similar themes with an incomparably greater level of complexity and beauty. While this novel wasn't terrible, the fact of how lauded it has been made me feel cynical about the state of contemporary literary fiction.

Dion Fortune, Moon Magic - a hilarious but less than successful chapter in my weird journey of reading Fortune's fiction work. Like The Sea Priestess, to which it is a loose sequel, this novel centers around a blatant Dion Fortune self-insert initiating a repressed professional man into sexualized spiritual enlightenment. Unlike The Sea Priestess, Moon Magic is told largely from the point of view of said Dion Fortune self-insert, which brings the narcissism levels up to the nearly intolerable. Left unfinished at Fortune's death, the final chapter was written by her friends which was also not a great choice.

Melody Razak, Moth - a left-leaning, intellectual family in Delhi struggles to cope with the cataclysmic violence of partition. Stepping back from this book there are elements of it, and of the way each character was drawn, which I appreciate, but I felt consistently uneasy reading it, so much that I put it aside for a week in the middle, which is unusual for me. There was something about Razak's narrative gaze which felt exoticizing in its hazy simplicity; this maybe has to do with her conviction to "tell the untold stories" of women who experienced violence during partition, which I don't think is ever a great way to go into a fiction project for reasons I have written about elsewhere. However, the intensely brutal violence of the final section of the book somehow landed for me more as a reader; I don't actually know how I feel about the representational ethics of it, but something about the extremity brought it to a narratively more effective place. I'm still trying to sort through why.

Stacey D'Erasmo, The Complicities - after her husband's conviction for fraudulent business practices, a woman moves to a town in New England, opens a massage practice, and gets emotionally involved with a beached whale. Ugh. This was very bad, and I don't know how it ended up on my to-read list. Flat, simplistic prose style, irritating narrative voice, unlikable characters. Whatever.

Kikuo Tsumura, There's No Such Thing As an Easy Job (trans. Polly Barton) - genuinely hilarious satire on Japanese capitalist culture. A young woman, burnt out on her previous job (the nature of which isn't revealed until the end, which was an effective choice for me and so I'm not spoiling it), seeks to find a form of employment that will require the least possible from her intellectually and emotionally, ending up in increasing surreal work situations. This kind of book often doesn't work for me (I'm not a big humor person), but this was sharp and understated and very good. The section at the cracker factory in particular had me trying ineffectively to explain its hilarity to people around me. Recommended.

Catherine Lacey, Biography of X - in an AU United States where the southern states seceded in the mid-twentieth century, a newly widowed woman attempts to find out the truth about her wife, a notoriously secretive and manipulative artist. This was ambitious in its metafictional conceit and had a premise that intrigued but ultimately didn't live up to its promise. The world-building of Lacey's AU felt implausible and insufficiently developed; there were so many aspects of it that didn't land, like the distracting use of real-life figures or the total lack of critical analysis around race and gender. If the AU premise had been removed and the focus kept tighter on the central relationship it might have worked, but there too we just didn't have enough to go off of. This mostly just made me wish I was rereading Siri Hutvedt's The Blazing World, a much, much stronger metafictional depiction of a female artist, which maybe I should do.

Mariana Enríquez, Our Share of the Night - in Argentina during the period of military dictatorship, a young father attempts to save his son from the abusive group of which he has been a part since childhood. I loved this book so so very much. As a horror novel, as a depiction of organized abuse and intergenerational trauma, as a representation of the ways that state and interpersonal violence repeat and mirror. It's not a perfect book - I think that the last third could be tightened and shifted in certain ways - but what it's doing is so strong and specific that I don't mind. I sort of want to buy a copy and reread it right away. Strongly recommended, with the content note that it is a very emotionally plausible and unsparing depiction of its subject material.

[plantwriting]

List of bitb headcanons I’ve just accidentally convinced myself are canon or something to the point where I’m shocked when they aren’t (under the cut so I dont needlessly fill up people’s feeds and also for spoilers)

-Rolan is a gay man

-Rolan did not realize he was a gay man until like his mid to late 20s

-Kian’s parents were drug addicts and very neglectful (I mean there’s subtext pointing to it but like technically all we know about them is that they’re hippies, they’re part of a “commune” (probably a cult) and they didn’t give him a last name)

-Rand has a stockier build than the other two. I don’t. He’s very skinny in official art. But in my brain? No he is not. Bro is chubby.

-Rolan was raised very religious and now he has issues

-Kian’s death and rebirth left him with a very large scar on his stomach (listen all I’m saying is the stingers like melt your skin and shit so if he swallowed it it would have done that to him from the inside starting at his stomach and also-)

-Rand is aroace but because he’s pretty sex positive and romance like neutral / positive he ends up thinking he’s bi

-Rolan had a cat with en ex-girlfriend but she took it when they broke up because Rolan’s a workaholic (mutual decision)

-Kian was definitely homeless at some point or at least very very much struggling for money while still trying to make the rockstar thing work

-Rand is dyslexic. Don’t really know where that came from and it’s not based on anything I just feel it in my soul

-Rolan can’t actually like… get sick. At least not with any kind of human illnesses. He just thought he had a very good immune system for the longest time.

-Kian is so so so very trans!!! Which direction? Depends entirely on what I feel like writing that day

-Rand was left a lot of shit in both of the other twos’ wills so post canon he’d be financially speaking pretty okay. Once he was doing a bit better he’d spend some of that money to just fucking start a record label, publish Kian’s music, and then leave conspiracy theorists going wild when the record label never publishes anything else ever again

-Rolan is the only one of the three who has like… actual other friends. They’re mostly from college and stuff and they’re not super close anymore but still call from time to time

-Kian calls Rolan hot nonchalantly

-Rand attempted before (please tell me you’ve seen the original please it’s meant to be a joke but also. Uh. Yeah.)

-All three of them are autistic. You know I’m right.

-The bugs can buzz in a way that has a similar effect to a cat’s purring :)

-Also on the bugs: they have a hierarchy that consists of

The queen (starts the hive, typically stays in the nest, not really of this mortal plane so needs a host to like tether them to it (Rachel), very intelligent and obviously rules the hive),

What I am choosing to call impostors for funny (more intelligent than average workers, are fully aware of what they are and what’s going on but can still pretend to be just normal people, act as a sort of middle man between the queen and the workers, mostly in charge of reproduction and gathering intel, keep and have all the knowledge from the person they are pretending to be),

And then the workers (not very smart on their own and need the hivemind to have like any idea what to do, have basically two minds aka the human mind and the bug mind, only one of which can typically be in control at a time, not capable of reproduction (mostly so i dont have to think about the implications of the bugs canonically laying eggs and Rolan), main purpose is to expand the hive, get food and protect the queen)

[pixellangel]

guys. i'm making an rpg.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

so i bought rpg maker vx ace* and ive been coming up with a plot and characters!!!!! and im gonna make a video game!!!! aaaa!!!

its a meta little cyberpunk rpg starring you, the protagonist in someone else's body, and your allies V, Xenon, and Kori (names subject to change). infodump and some doodles under the cut read for a fun time :3

*edit: ill actually be doing it in rpg maker mv! vx is a little limited for the scope of what i want to do with this project

welcome to under the cut. here's thirty billion information for you. :D

essentially, the plot revolves around V and the player finding people who have been wronged by the Narrator, who bends the story to his own will to create a plot he enjoys, and how they want to shape their own destinies. your goal is to defeat the group of cybernetic monsters that he created as villains.

YOUR PARTY CONSISTS OF

- Sylvie (she/they): that's you! everyone calls you "Player," though. your body used to belong to V's childhood friend before the Narrator decided they were the perfect base for a protagonist. general all rounder in combat, with a basic sword for a weapon. you want to find out more about the Narrator's goals and what happened to V's friend. also, why are you "Sylvie?"

- V (she/her): a firey girl who can hear the Narrator speaking. she teaches the player how the world works, and is the first person they meet. uses two daggers in combat, efficient and quick fighter. immediately tells the player she plans not to befriend them. wants to fight the Narrator for taking her childhood friend away from her for the sake of a story.

- Xenon (he/they): wears a completely black mask with a white X on it to hide their identity. miraculously, this works despite their neon green hair. graffiti artist. medic in combat with both single and multi target heal skills. fights w/ a paintball gun. grew up in a cult that thinks death is such a natural part of life that it should never be prevented. became a medic as a type of rebellion against his cult.

- Kori (she/her): TINY GAL. HUGE HAMMER. VERY YELLOW. self explanatory combat - high attack, big damage, hits hard. not much else. she's actually super sweet, but the giant electric hammer she carries around makes her seem way scarier than she is. really really wants to be helpful. she lives in a town based around fighting and fight clubs, so she had to learn to defend herself to survive.

some doodles of V and Xenon :3

ill draw the whole lineup soon!!! :D

also if anyone wants more info or has questions PLEASE ASK!!! I LOVE LOREDUMPING!!! anyway my tag for this Huge Project is #pixell.rpg :3

[moonwaterart]

I’m only on episode 3 of the fallout tv show, but so far none of the inconsistencies from the games that people have bitched about have made sense to be bitched about.

Spoilers obvi.

Why is Cooper/The Ghoul ‘impossible to kill’? Bro uses V.A.T.S. in combat to get his shots. Plus Lucy at this point in time uses a tranq gun and Maximus is a terrible shot. Cooper’s got 290+ years on them! He’s figured out the game!

The hand jets? Did y’all forget The Brotherhood of Steel ALSO invents shit? They don’t just hoard technology they believe is dangerous? Again. It’s been 290+ years since the bombs dropped. After trial and error, they most likely found a way to mod the T-60s to allow hand jets OR jet packs if wanted. Plus Knight Titus, the asshole he was was definitely the type of asshole to think he’s cool enough for hand jets.

Dogmeat being a girl? Get the fuck over yourselves. She’s a fucking dog. Also do you know why most trained stunt dogs are female? It’s because no one wants to look at dog dick in 4K if they’re hired! Plus something about female dogs being easier to train due to their temperaments.

‘But- but the Enclave was destroyed-‘ they were mostly destroyed! The remnants that survived what happened in Fallout 3 -get this- scattered. Some went to the Mojave which we found out in New Vegas which later found their way to the NCR which we jump to in the tv show, some were found in the Commonwealth thanks to DLC for Fallout 4. They weren’t where they were during the events of Fallout 3. Far from it! But because of Dr Wilzig, we got Dogmeat and she’s the goodest girl.

I get some people are newer to the fandom, but also a LOT complaints are coming from older fans who -not gonna lie- forget that Fallout as a series has some wacky shit going on. You have Mysterious eldritch human-like entities with godly weapons who can greatly damage and kill your enemies in one to two shots or bestow misfortune upon who they shoot or help you if you’re downed.

You’ve got a cult who worships atoms because they believe we’re all just different universes waiting to be renewed by a nuke going off. At the same time there’s a cult that worships the 4 horseman of the apocalypse and believe they called each of the 4 groups to bring each of the signs with them (war, famine, pestilence, death).

You get to meat a plethora of companions on the games from humans to animals, super mutants and ghouls to robots! Hell, in the first game you had a hyper intelligent deathclaw as a companion only because when the Enclave made them the group of deathclaws decided they didn’t want to kill humans and instead wanted to befriend and trade with them within the vault they were shoved into after the Enclave slaughtered basically the entire vault.

In Fallout New Vegas in the Big Mountain DLC you can fucking flirt with your own brain if you choose to do so (they will be appalled by your actions to do so).

Yes, the game is anti-war and about how governments are corrupt and War never changes, but there’s so much goofy ass shit in the games and lore that you need to allow yourself to have a bit of fun and use some game logic when dealing with the tv show or you’re just gonna be fucking bitter about everything you find inconsistent with the games. (Remember, they still have yet to tell us HOW exactly a ghoul is created and keep changing HOW they’re created. It’s never been consistent throughout the games)

[livgr3]

Fairy Tale Musicals: Little Shop of Horrors (1981) dir. Frank Oz

Little Shop of Horrors has a somewhat lengthy history of multiple adaptations. The first iteration of the story was the 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors, with a screenplay inspired by science fiction stories of the 1950s. Then, the movie was adapted into an off-Broadway musical in 1982. In 1986, the popular musical was adapted into the high camp, soon to be cult-classic movie musical Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Frank Oz, whose experience in creating and puppeteering The Muppets would lend itself to Little Shop's impressive Audrey II puppets.

Three teen girls who live on Skid Row, Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon, introduce and narrate the events of the film.

Seymour and Audrey are both struggling to make ends meet, and work at Mr. Mushnik's failing flower shop on Skid Row. Seymour, who has a hobby of collecting exotic plants, brings a mysterious plant to the shop, Audrey II, which draws in customers and gives the shop a fighting chance at staying in business. As the plant begins to make Seymour more popular and successful, he discovers that the only thing that he can feed the plant to make it grow is human blood. (Also it can talk and sing.) Meanwhile, Audrey's abusively masochistic dentist boyfriend Orin becomes more and more insidious towards her, making him into the perfect candidate for Audrey II's first victim...

Aesthetic Markers of Class, Race, and "Bootstraps" Myths Through Song

Though Oz's film is still set in the 1960s when its source film was made and generally parodies conventions of '60s B-movies, it is clearly influenced by the politics of the 1980s, when it was made. I will read Oz's Little Shop alongside two specific events: The Reagan Administration and the Second-wave Feminist movement.

Let's close read the musical number "Skid Row" to see how formal and stylistic elements enhance racial difference and enforce the "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps" rhetoric that became popular during the Reagan era as a way to justify and distract from the growing economic disparities in America.

Though the three narrators provide a segue into the song by exclaiming that there is no chance of "bettering ourselves" on Skid Row, Audrey and Seymour end the song determined to get out of their situations. They are notably the only two people in this ensemble number to sing about getting out of Skid Row, looking up towards the sky as the song ends while the rest of the cast looks down. Several other stylistic markers set Audrey and Seymour apart throughout the song, such as the bright lighting on only them, their brighter clothes/hair in comparison to everyone else's dull attire, and even the slower tempo and more gentle style of singing during their verses.

While Seymour and Audrey's economic status makes them "Othered" protagonists (much like Eliza Dolittle in Ray's analysis of My Fair Lady), the formal elements of this number serve to further Otherize people of color. It is important to consider Seymour and Audrey's whiteness in comparison to the ensemble, which consists of many Black performers. With these two white characters as the only ones to sing about wanting to get out of Skid Row while the others do not, the film contributes racist capitalist narratives that one's economic status is a "choice." This is further supported by the fact that the rest of the ensemble of this number rarely shows up throughout the rest of the film. Their only purpose is to foil the protagonists' strife, making the audience feel as though they are rooting for the "little guy" or the "Other" at the expense of another, racialized Other.

However, the narrative that continues after this song seems to subvert and rework this very same myth of finding economic success through the exploitation of The Other.

After finding out that Audrey II feeds on human flesh and blood, the meek and good-natured Seymour struggles to see anyone as "deserving" of death. That is, until Audrey II directs him towards Audrey's abusive boyfriend Orin. Fast forward a bit, and Seymour later feeds his boss, Mr. Mushnik, to Audrey II. The death of both these characters promote Audrey II's growth, which increases the attention it gets from the media and therefore brings Seymour more wealth.

Since the film dips into conventions of Sci-Fi and monster movies, it is expected that those who are killed for financial gain are bodies which have been marked as disposable or lesser. However, the victims in this film, a horribly misogynistic man with a good career and a boss who disregards the well-being of his workers, could easily be construed as heroes in other films. In this film, Seymour and Audrey II flip the narrative of violent exploitation, fighting against oppressive figures in order to succeed in the very capitalist system which they help promote.

Complicating Femininity Through Race and Class

 Ray writes of My Fair Lady as indicating what it means to properly "be" a woman through a rags to riches transformation. Little Shop sets up the perfect foundation for such a transformation to occur to Audrey, who defies any notions of demure, proper womanhood with her "trashy" style and nasally voice. This physical transformation never happens, though, and Audrey's femininity or womanhood are never in question.

Instead, Audrey undergoes an internal transformation through the film's exploration of domestic abuse, which seems to be informed by a heightened awareness of the issue thanks to the advancements of the Second Wave Feminist movement. I find that the film handles this issue surprisingly well, with Audrey experiencing symptoms of abuse in a way that is very realistic, and she is never treated as a source of blame for the abuse Orin subjects her to. When Orin's death frees her of her circumstances, she regains a sense of autonomy and self-confidence.

Audrey's "I want" song, "Somewhere That's Green," also handles contentious aspects of womanhood in a way which considers economic class. In this song, Audrey sings that her biggest dream in life is to live in a comfortable suburban home married to Seymour. While the Second Wave Feminist movement fought against the designation of women as housewives, such a lifestyle would be a privilege to Audrey in her current economic state.

However, the film's three narrators are not given the same complex characterization. Ray writes of the "transgressive inner voice" of female musical protagonists as something progressive and empowering. The three narrators in Little Shop are basically only their voices (and they out-sing everyone else in the cast tbh), existing as an omnipotent presence that is only partially connected to the world of the film. Though the film definitely showcases their vocal talent and charm, they are reduced to an accessory with the sole purpose of narrating white stories.

Two Endings

The film's original ending followed the ending of the stage musical. In this version, Audrey II kills both Audrey and Seymour. Businessmen take cuttings of Audrey II and sell it across the country, accidentally creating an army of Audrey IIs that take over the US.

After two test screenings which left audiences uncomfortable and speechless, Oz filmed a new ending before the wider release of the film. In this new conclusion, Audrey and Seymour survive, kill Audrey II and live happily ever after.

Discussion Questions!

Does camp and the tone of movie musicals make it easier to include anti-capitalist themes and narrative points? Might the film have been made and widely released if the same themes were conveyed in a more "serious" manner?

What is the significance of Audrey II being a plant, as opposed to another kind of being? Could there be an environmentalist reading of the film?

Why do you think the darker ending was successful in the stage musical, but made audiences of the film adaptation uncomfortable? Do stage plays and films evoke different expectations?

What do you make of the second ending and the role of happy endings more generally - can they evoke a sense of hope, or are they an unrealistic distraction from real issues?

[kelasian]

having visions about Sorka again, time for my favorite activity (combining worldbuilding and conlanging)

First, let me introduce you to the Sorkish religion (proper name pending). Sorkans believe in The Two Gods, in the god of blood (Raqághdaz; AUG-blood-AGN) and the god of bone (Rayerénaz; AUG-bone-AGN), roughly corresponding to the god of life and the god of death, respectively. However, these are only superficial, as they are both deeply intertwined, as there is bone in life and blood in death. The understanding of their relationship is difficult and not even the Holy Book of the World (Seqháner Ábven Suyáfuq) has a definite answer to that - as such, they can be twins, they can be lovers, they can be just acquaintances, but never one person of two faces.

Thinking of the gods as one singular god (together with opposing their genderless nature) is one of the highest offences one can commit that result in being exiled from the desert. The cults of this nature are always quickly exterminated (because who in their right mind wants to just more or less peacefully exile heretics right; and as if Sorkans weren't a nation of warriors).

(Side note because I love yapping about Sorka if you couldn't tell: Other offences that can get a person exiled is fratricide (general term for killing a member of one's clan) or romantic/sexual involvement with a member of one's clan (not quite incest; it doesn't matter if the involved people are related by blood), also general disapproval with The Two Gods and the canonical teachings.)

To get back to conlanging, less serious offences that won't get one exiled is speaking in a disrespectful way about The Two Gods. That can mean even seemingly insignificant things such as shortening the word for "bone", yerén, to just yén, which is acceptable only in compounds (e.g. yenkeréq "bone marrow", yenqátaz "bearded vulture"). Speaking about The Two Gods or their teachings (which includes the swordplay of kazvárë (lit. "art of moving") as well) in any language that isn't Sorkish is prohibited.

That finally gets me to what actually got me to write this post - the sacred birds, the bearded vulture and the oxpecker, to be exact.

Yenqátaz, the bearded vulture, literally translates to "bone warden". Sorkans lived alongside them for thousands of years and they soon found out that the birds' diet consist mainly of bones, which guaranteed them sanctity. People came up with many stories about the vultures - that they possess Rayerénaz's spirit, that they help Rayerénaz gain strength through the consumed bones, that they are the mediators between life and death and help dead creatures cross into the land of the dead.

Nowadays, Seqhanzat ("holy city") is not only de facto capital of Sorka, but also home to hundreds bearded vultures that never starve thanks to both residents of the city and visitors alike who leave bones for the birds. Monks at the Temple of Body (Borantógba) make sure that any Sorkans walking up to the temple are welcomed by yenqátaz looking down on them.

Getting back to the offences - it is technically not wrong to call the bearded vulture nézar, the general word for any vulture. But oh would you get weird looks from people, as it is very close to calling the bird an insult.

Qaghdqátaz, the oxpecker, literally "blood warden", is in a similar situation. People saw that the birds often draw blood while grazing for parasites in animals' fur or skin and thought about Raqághdaz who came to the mortal world to heal the beings they and Rayerénaz had created. Though oxpeckers do not particularly favor the desert, they often follow Sorkish clans travelling close to cities where they spend their life, as they learned that people feed them and offer water and blood.

And that is all for now:) Any questions about the conlang or Sorka are more than welcomed!

[arlechinav-blog]

Lupercalia vs. Valentine's Day

(Pictured: Etruscan Uni, a precursor to Roman Juno, wearing her goat headdress.)

There is an annual deluge of blog posts, articles, and cute works of art that attempt to link Valentine's Day to Lupercalia and every year for the last 5 years I have put together a little walkthrough to provide some context. This goes hand-in-hand with my earlier post on Roman Halloween, aka the entire month of February.

If you have ever been tempted to believe that Roman religion was identical to Hellenic religion, you would be pretty close to correct but only after the time of Emperor Augustus. More like a smoothed out Romanized version of Hellenic religion. A thing that deserves its own post, honestly. The big point that I want to emphasize here is that there are--or I guess were-- two completely different versions of the old Roman religion. The older one was indigenous to Rome, shared a lot of features with the shapeshifting pastoral cults of Arkadia, and can best be described as the archaic religio. Prior to Augustus' reign, Rome was led spiritually by a team of hereditary priesthoods known as the Flamen. I am telling you this because Lupercalia is a day that belongs to the archaic religion of Rome and not the imported and converted one that came later. Okay, now we are ready! Here we go!

Lupercalia

Lupercalia was the public face of the old Roman wolf-cult. I jokingly call it the wolfstravaganza  because it was part of a complex family of unambiguous werewolf rituals related to the hereditary Flamen priesthood of Mars (the Roman agricultural wolf-god). The greater wolf-cult was once (and still is in some areas) wide spread throughout Southern Europe and North Africa. Most people who have even casually looked into this topic are aware of Lupercalia as a single day event. The wolfstravaganza presents Lupercalia in its natural place as just one part of an entire series of ritual days dedicated to different aspects of the old wolf-death-agricultural-cult.

In Antiquity, Lupercalia was celebrated on the 7th day of the wolf-cult's 13 day wolfstravaganza that kicked off around February 9th. This placed Lupercalia on February 15th. All of these numbers had a coded significance. The number 9 was the number associated with transformation between human and wolf and we know this because the number is used consistently and repeatedly in Roman lycanthrope mythology and iconography. The number 7 was likewise considered the most auspicious day for a holiday so seven days into the private wolf-cult festivities would be the ideal day to do something publicly significant. Two days after Lupercalia, which would be February 17th, came the celebration of Romulus' (the deified werewolf himself) ascension or transformation into godhood as the reborn indigenous deity, Quirinus. This would be 9 days from February 9th, counting the 9th as day 1. So, this is the natural and perfect day to place a transformation event.

I cannot emphasize enough how much symbolism is contained in numbers. Odd numbers were considered lucky and even numbers were considered unlucky so it would have been important to conclude the wolfstravaganza on an odd number of days. The 13th and final day of the full wolfstravaganza was February 21st. Also known as a "holiday" called Feralia--and it was terrifying. Feralia was a day given over to the agents of the dead--the descendants of Romulus' twin brother, Remus--as they ripped through pantries throughout the city, eating and drinking with the unquenchable hunger of the dead. Because that's what werewolves do...

These 13 days were seen as the days of the dead. The entire month of February was devoted to solemn rituals to appease the dead and that 13th day, Feralia, was the most dangerous day on the Roman calendar. On the Feralia, members of the wolf-cult would raid the storehouses of Roman households to eat and drink their fill in exchange for protecting the living from the spirits of the malevolent restless dead. As I said earlier, the wolf-cult was originally led by a hereditary fraternity-priesthood known as Flamen. The tradition is probably older than the concept of Rome itself and I say that because of just how widespread this cult was and still is active--extending from Iberia to (what is today) Eastern Turkey. Surprise! There used to be, and kind of still is, an absolutely enormous chunk of the world that essentially had a werewolf based religion prior to the rise of the more literate and cosmopolitan Hellenic cultures.

Back to Lupercalia though... Lupercalia was among several occasions--the terms holiday or festival don't exactly fit--in the old Roman calendar that were so old that they ceased to make any sense to modern educated Romans by the time of Emperor Augustus, who was also a religious reformer. Many indigenous writers such as Livy and Ovid attempted to explain the strange trappings of the holiday with folklore relating to Romulus & Remus--the wolf-twins. What most people don't realize, because the wolf-cult is so off the Radar as far as Roman religious history is concerned, is that Romulus & Remus were not considered human. To call them demigods is accurate in a sense but incomplete. They were both considered wolf-men in antiquity but one was considered the wolf of the living (Romulus) and the other was considered the wolf of the dead (Remus). And you can see this theme repeated over and over in all of the stories pertaining to Romulus & Remus.

I prefer to stick to Livy & Ovid as far as written sources on this go because--as I said a moment ago--they lived during the time of transition between the old indigenous archaic religious practices and the religious reforms of Emperor Augustus AND they were native to the region themselves. This means they grew up hearing these stories from childhood as part of the transmission of native oral history. In those stories, Remus is the one who is always either dead or in mortal peril AND he and his agents are always hungry. Remus has the appetite of the dead because he is considered the fully dead wolf. As brothers, their close but competitive relationship is an allegory for the beloved departed who always desire the food of the living and the living who need that food to survive. Nowhere in the calendar year is that more true than in February. It is a cold, wet, dismal month that brings rot to pantries and uncertainty to the harvests in the coming year. I have explained this a bit more thoroughly in another blog post relating to the Roman Month of February. So, there is a broader context of death for the month that Lupercalia falls into.

If you have ever done any reading about Lupercalia, you have likely heard that boys would wear wolf-pelts and run naked through the streets lashing women with bloody strips of goat hide to improve "fertility." Fertility is a rather broad concept that a lot of archaic rituals from antiquity are categorized into but there is some serious nuance to it and that makes a big difference. The type of fertility ritual in play here was related to returning mother's milk to sweetness so that babies would not reject the breast.

Rome was plagued by high infant mortality rates and infertility due to lead poisoning, which has the same symptoms as a baby goat who refuses to nurse due to the mother being kept too close to a buck. Bucks stink. A lot. And this is the time of year when animals start birthing and this would become a major issue if it wasn't handled in some way. One of the methods of dealing with this was and still is a buck cull. This effectively removes the stink of the buck, which returns the goat's milk to sweetness so the babies will nurse.

Roman mothers were having this same problem thanks to the lead poisoning. February to March was a time when the first babies of a proper June wedding would start being born, which is why June & February are sacred to Juno and March is sacred to Mars. If sympathetic magic needed to be done to protect babies born during these rough, lean months, the middle of February was the time to do it. A buck cull would provide a lot of nutrient dense meat for pregnant and nursing mothers. And goat milk is more easily digestible for human babies who have rejected the breast so it is in many ways important to make sure the milk of both humans and goats is fit for consumption.

(Pictured: Juno Sospita wearing her goat headdress.)

Both Livy and Ovid attribute the rituals of Lupercalia to the wider cult of Juno--who is a goddess of forests, goats, and milk as well as the mother of Mars, which would make her grandmother to Romulus & Remus. Juno is said to have taught them this ritual through an Etruscan augur.

February is the month of the dead and the wolf-men are the descendants of Romulus & Remus, the legendary founders of Rome itself. This lactation ritual happens to fall here because of how birth cycles map out on the calendar year. The people who would have the spiritual authority to perform this sympathetic magic would be the werewolf descendents of Juno. Which is just a fun concept. So, it was they who sacrificed as many goat bucks as would be required to do this and then those strips of hide would be dipped in blood and splashed over anyone with a womb who wanted their blessing for this.

As time wore on, a disconnect arose between the hereditary cults and the educated up-and-coming political families who did not have those old ties to spiritual authority through family lineage. There was absolutely some overlap between the two due to marriages between older families and those who were politically on the rise. That only seemed to heighten the confusion as this and other elements of the old archaic Roman religion had secret aspects handled by initiation and birth. The old agricultural chants were sung in a language that grew further and further from the more widely understood Latin with each passing generation. At a certain point, educated Romans started questioning and pushing back against the old and often really odd rituals of their grandparents' generations. They had to make guesses about the provenance of many indigenous practices. Eventually, the old religion just went out of style.

At least part of the reason for the disconnect between the educated classes and the Roman public at this time was likely due to the fact that the priesthood for the wolf-cult was hereditary so the actual rules and reasons for "why and how" was a closely guarded mystery. There are also hints about some elements of cannibalism involved in the older rituals that may have been either real cannibalism or a ritualized stand-in for it. This was not seen as something that a civilized nation should do. It was mysterious, it was weird, it was old, and it was not subject to the rules of the modern Augustan priests who formed a hierarchy on up to the Rex Sacorum. This meant that the wolf-cult was eventually pushed to the periphery of Roman religion, seen as a relic or an antique from another time that was allowed to continue only because Romulus was so important to Roman identity. The educated classes either looked for ways to explain it or were a bit critical of it.

Valentine's Day

Now we can move on to the creation of Valentine's Day. I'm not going to get into the more modern romantic connotations of the holiday, we are going to stick to the time period between about 100-500CE. This is what I think happened based on the full context of what was traditionally going on during the month... (Artist's Interpretation)

In the early days of Christianity, the public largely took the wheel in creating the cultural practices that work alongside the religion. Back when Christianity had a very heavy focus on martyrdom, your average Roman Christian was keen to prove their faith. They did this in many subversive ways, responding to the dominant polytheistic traditions around them. Keep in mind that February itself was still the month of the dead to the vast majority of the population. As such, marriage was absolutely forbidden for nearly the entire month because it was seen as incredibly unlucky. The preferred month for marriage was June because Juno was the goddess of marriage. If you count off 36-40 weeks from June, you land somewhere between February and March. So, February was considered a proper month to give birth. Also keep in mind that mother and infant mortality rates were quite high and, thanks to widespread lead poisoning in Rome, many mothers had sour milk which would also cause infants to not take breast milk and die of starvation. February was just devoted to other things. Romance was not high on anybody's to-do list at this time of year.

When Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, he left February alone. It was considered so unlucky that he didn't want to add more days to it. That is why it still only has 28 days when others have 30 or 31. Remember that even numbers were considered unlucky. So here we have the month of death that ends in an even number, ghosts are running rampant, werewolves are doing strange things in the city streets, what is a good Christian to do to prove their faith? Why, get married of course!

If heaven is real then there are no such things as ghosts because the dead are all in heaven or hell! If the Christian god is real and all other gods are fake then Juno will not be blasphemed if you get married in February! And if Jesus died for your sins then there is no such thing as bad luck so a faithful Christian can get married smack dab in the middle of the unluckiest month in the calendar year and nothing bad will happen!

February 14th was literally considered the most unlucky day of the year to get married... if you ascribed to the Roman religion. However, if you truly believed in the Christian god and heaven, getting married on this day would prove to all that you had no fear. So, Lupercalia has a little to do with how Valentine's Day came into existence but not much. It DEFINITELY WAS NOT an occasion of naked kinky boys with sexy whips and orgies. That interpretation came around long after the practice had faded into obscurity and people were looking around for ancient origins for modern holidays. It relies on a outside-looking-in narrative for Lupercalia.

Keep that in mind when you see those posts about supposed crazy ancient Roman romance on this day. It was not a thing. Now go do your part and eat some goat.

[corvidae-corvus]

My Spiderman & Batman Crossover fanfic: Idea #3

YOOOOO it's been sooo fucking long since I've posted lmao.

Anyways! Another Idea I had was how peter was gonna die. And I was thinking that he'd die by the Inheritors right?

And we'll have a little chapter where miles picks up the mantel of Spider-man right after Peter's death. Y'know for closure. And to y'know make sure the readers know that he's stuck in the DC verse.

I've also been thinking about how the Parker family would be resurrected.

Should they all come from the Lazarus pits or not? On one hand: The parkers would look really creepy when they're together. Like they're the happy neighbors...IN GOTHAM!! The neighbors would TOTALLY think that the Parker family is creepy and probably part of a cult lmao. With the white streak in the hair and the almost glowing green eyes, along with their incredibly positive and kind attitude. (May and Ben especially since they're really nice people)

Richard and May would have an easier time hanging blending in. They're spies in my fic. Specifically Shield spies/scientists. They're not the best spies/fighters but they're still pretty good.

On the other hand....I really don't want to deal with writing about 5 people with pit madness. So much conflict that will probably be carefully crafted and honestly I'm a beginner writer! I have literally never written a fanfic before other than wips in Google docs!! This fic will literally be like 50-70 chapters long if I want to do it right.

I write weirdly :')

But it can be really interesting!! Or maybe only peter has pit madness, like what would be the reason for him only having it and not the rest of his family? 🤔 What's the criteria?

Cause I was thinking, if Peter only had pit madness, then May and Richard could like- focus on trying to CURE peter and having this whole conflict with the batfam. They would infiltrate billionaire companies in Gotham (*cough*Bruce Wayne*cough*) unknowingly putting themselves on Batman's radar. Spider-Man being in the scene complicates more things because Spider-Man is now seen with two shady ass people and helping them out and now Spider-Man is being doubted in the public eye, etc, etc. New villains are born, new team ups and even a sinister six for Peter to deal with on his own?

Now the question is, what will Peter's relationship with the batfam be? Not familial? Peter has his family he definitely doesn't need a new one, but Nightwing is there and that complicates things because Nightwing and Richard are the same people. And Nightwing would probably want to know more about peter and yeah.... AHHHHH!!

There can't be any romance between Peter and the other bat kids cause Peter is like their nephew now cause of Dick.

So I thought...maybe like a rival superhero team? (I mean. It'd only consist of Peter but who knows maybe I'll add some characters) Idk!! It's up in the air rn.

:3

[toxic-ship-tournament]

ROUND 1 / SIDE B / POLL 2

Esmeralda Poofenplotz x Alice Luoja ( @cantdanceflynn ) vs Pash x Illoma ( @floralprintshirts )

lyrics by The Amazing Devil (Battle Cries)

who makes up your ship?:

Esmeralda Poofenplotz(Canon Phineas and Ferb character(although I draw her differently from canon)) and Alice Luoja(Background character turned Phineas and Ferb oc)

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

THEY BASICALLY STARTED OUT AS TWO DUMBASS TOXIC AF TEENAGERS GOING TO EVIL SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL TOGETHER AND BEING THE TERRORS OF THE SCHOOL(POOFENPLOTZ BC SHES BIG ON BEAUTY AND WOULD BASICALLY DESTROY EVERYONE'S SELF ESTEEM AND ALICE BC. SHES WILLING TO KILL ANYONE WHO RLY FUCKS W HER), AND WHILE THEY ORIGINALLY HAD A RIVALRY IT GOT A LIL TOO HOMOEROTIC VERY QUICKLY AND THEY DON'T RLY KNOW HOW BUT THEY ENDED UP DATING. THEY ENDED UP, SURPRISE SURPRISE, RUINING EACH OTHER EVEN FURTHER THEN THE TWO OF THEM WERE ALREADY TRAUMATIZED!!!! A TYPICAL INTERACTION BETWEEN EM PRETTY MUCH WENT ALONG THE LINES OF POOFENPLOTZ POKING FUN AT SOMETHING ABOUT ALICES BODY OR PERSONALITY SHE KNEW WOULD TICK ALICE OFF("YOU KNOW, I'M NOT SAYING YOU NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT, BUT THROWING UP YOUR LUNCH LATER COULDN'T HURT"), ALICE GETTING PISSED OFF AND PULLING A KNIFE ON HER("YOU KNOW, MAYBE THIS TIME I'LL CHOP OFF YOUR TONGUE, STOP THAT HORRIBLE NOISE YOU CALL A VOICE"), AND THEN SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN OR ONE OF THEM WOULD FUMBLE OR FLIRT AND THEY'D JUST GO BACK TO NORMAL BANTER AND TERRORIZING PEOPLE. THEY DID CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER, AND WHATEVER THEY WERE EXPERIENCING CERTAINLY FIT SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE STRANGE AND NEBULOUS RANGE OF ROMANTIC LOVE, LIKE THEY DEFINITELY LIKED EACH OTHER, THEY WERE JUST TOXIC AS SHIT AND HAVING THEIR BEHAVIORS EXPANDED UPON OR REINFORCED BY THEIR ENVIRONMENT. EVENTUALLY ALICES OBSESSION W GODHOOD AND HER IDEA OF PERFECTION (ONE THAT HAD ALWAYS BEEN THERE, EVEN IF POOFENPLOTZ MADE IT MORE PHYSICAL) ENDED UP DRIVING THE TWO APART, WITH HOW HORRIBLE ALICES DECLINE WAS, AND POOFENPLOTZ ENDED UP BASICALLY LEAVING AND IGNORING HER AS A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SNAP HER OUT OF HER DECLINE BUT ONLY PULLED HER FURTHER IN. AS IT STANDS NOW IN THE PRESENT, THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS A COMPLICATED SPIRAL OF "POOFENPLOTZ ACTUALLY HEALED AND REALIZED HOW AWFUL SHE WAS BEING AND WHILE SHE STILL HAD A DEGREE IN EVIL SCIENCE SHE HAD TO USE SO SHE MIGHT AS WELL GET A JOB DOING THAT, SHES ALSO RLY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING W THE CAST AND HELP THEM, ESPECIALLY MILLIE AND PINKY, WHILE ALSO DEALING W " WHOOPS YOUR EX IS BACK IN TOWN AND SHES NOW BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR MORE DEATHS THEN MOST FULL ON TERRORISM COMBINED, BUT SHE IS ALSO STILL KINDA HOT SO *NONCOMMITTAL HAND GESTURE*, YA KNOW?", MEANWHILE ALICE IS "OH RIGHT. SHE QUALIFIES FOR LOVEMUFFIN TOO. IM ALLOWED TO DENY ON HER ON TERMS OF HER BEING MY EX, RIGHT? BUT ALSO IM STILL GONNA INVITE HER TO OUR MEETINGS AND ALSO OFFER TO LET HER " LEAD" THE CULT IVE MADE THAT CONSISTS BASICALLY JUST OF MY VERY ABUSED OWN SON AND A VERY ABUSED TEENAGER WITH ME BC IF I CAN CHANGE HER MIND I CAN CHANGE ANYONES!"

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

Esmeralice, https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnP0Xop8gS5VdFNCP4Uetvq2pM5A9NZTe <- BAD PLAYLIST BY MY STANDARDS OF USUALLY A HUNDRED SONGS AT LEAST BUT ITLL DO FOR NOW

****

who makes up your ship?:

My ocs Pash and Illoma!!

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

OKAY SO theyre blorbos from a book a plan to write and basically the premise is that the main character, Illoma, is tasked with assassinating Pash. Theyre both from different families that have control over dragons and are both dragon riders in their own right. Illoma is from the 2nd most powerful house right after the royal family, which Pash is a part of. Their empire is ruled by an immortal god-king who has had many children over the course of his long life. Pash is one of his many descendants, but highest in the line of succession after her father (which is meaningless since the king is immortal). Basically, Illoma's mother believes that Pash's parents are going to try to find a way to kill their emperor and put her on the throne. This would be a terrible outcome for everyone because Pash is a hedonistic party girl who seems to have no regard for her own life or the lives of other people. She shows up to important meetings drunk/high, has a reputation for sleeping around with women, and is overall just an undisciplined mess. Illoma is a dutiful daughter who follows the rules of society, so when her mother tells her that she needs to kill Pash for the good of the empire, Illoma does what she says. It’s easy to emotionally disconnect herself from the action at first because Illoma doesn’t know Pash at all and doesn’t particularly like her. So she tries to poison Pash. When it fails the first time, she tries again, and again, and again. None of the poisons she’s been given are working. So Illoma is left with no choice but to get closer to Pash so she can try to kill her more effectively. The twist ends up being that Pash is basically a hommuculus created for the sole purpose of dying in some blood ritual that will kill the immortal god-king. She has a year left before this happens, but until then, he body has the regenerative properties of Wolverine. So with what little time she has left, she’s decided to keep herself entertained by fucking with Illoma. At one point, she makes a toast in Illoma’s honor to praise her tenacity and drinks the goblet Illoma poisoned while making direct eye contact with her. It only gets worse from there. As they grow closer, Illoma finds that she has more and more trouble keeping her gay thoughts in check. She is a super repressed lesbian and Pash is a very much not repressed lesbian. Illoma resents Pash quite a bit for being able to break all the rules without any consequences but genuinely has fun when they go out on excursions together. Lots of projection on Illoma’s part and gaslighting on Pash’s (“haha what do you mean you stabbed me last night, Im sitting right here at breakfast!”) Halfway through the story they start boning. Illoma is still actively trying to figure out a way to kill Pash and Pash is both aware of this and aroused by some of her more intimate attempts. They have an actual connection and like each other as people, but they have opposing goals and lots of underlying animosity to work out. In the meantime, they’ll be making out about it.

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

I use the tag "dragon horse girl story" on my sideblog to vaguepost about them!! :D