#i just love gothic lit but very little of this would be. period accurate i just want the vibes without any set time frame

[lobotomydaughter]

!!!!!!!! stephcass arachne!!!!!! pls tell me more 👀👀

(and the perpollo fic!! would it perhaps be the one where percy works in a museum and accidentally releases apollo from his statue? i think i read it last year ish def need to re-read bc i forgot??? all of it and it was very good)

yess that's the perpollo fic!! it was such an enjoyable read.

okay so for the stephcass fic it's like. arachne myth adjacent. so the basic premise is a gothic retelling where it was cass' ancestor who was cursed and turned into a spider creature.

so cass is like this human-spider hybrid thing but in a delightful monster way. thinking this for the general vibes of cass:

hi, hello, hey

(pinterest links!)

enter my girl, stephanie brown.

stephanie is not from high society like cass and her countess' mother. instead, steph is just barely getting by as a tailor's apprentice. though shiva and cass are sort of recluses due to their shared affliction, the silk they can make is very valued.

i'm also reading up on shibari bc... hello webbing is right there but also for fashion bc i saw this image.

smth like this for cass perhaps but uh, more coverage. i really love the idea of her leaning into the whole spider thing and just running with the motif like how lucille is associated with moths in crimson peak. just. spiders and webbing everywhere. like! look at this and this.

i am not. super set on a plot direction bc mostly i just want to write smth gothic and magical and sapphic. just two gals falling in love <3

but no gothic romance would be complete without the threat of violence and fear of death that's just standard for the genre sooooo i know in one version of the arachne myth, she and her brother both were turned and it was said that their offspring would kill them which is really interesting esp in combo with cass' issues with murder.

soooo with that said possibly as cass ages she is combating more and more thoughts of violence towards her mother. did you know spiders will eat other spiders? (plus it would tie into the whole shiva training cass thing if shiva expects and wants her daughter to kill her when the time comes, like she did to her mother)

perhaps the only time cass doesn't have those thoughts is when she's with steph. which is such a cliché but i happen to like clichés a lot.

i don't know. is this anything??