#lilith dbd

[crypitick]

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES TAROT PART 3

Monty Finch, Tragic Mick, The Washer Woman, and Lilith | Dead Boy Detectives

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

me trying to explain to people why i fantasise exclusively about evil, feral, and/or deranged women who could easily kill me:

[gender-luster]

me resisting the urge to infodump to everyone i know about the dead boy detectives cast and what other dc media they've been in

[luscinai]

okay well. might as well. usfw headcanons for local birdie in lieu of it being a nice, clear sunday !

has had flings. has had a lot of flings, actually. one night stands, fwb, she's all game. she's got needs !

bottom-leaning switch with a high sex drive. however, in order for anyone to top/dom her, she needs to be able to trust that person with her life. mad control issues on that front.

down to game with toys, tools, etc. but again, for her to be recipient, trust is required. she will have her way with whoever ends up bedding her though :3c

serial flirt. flirts with everyone and anyone she finds attractive. doesn't mean she'd go into a relationship with you or fuck you, though. that entirely depends on how interesting she finds the individual. attention span of a cat.

either way you gotta be attractive !!! three exclamation marks for extra emphasis. well-built, good-looking face.

that's the basics but i'll add more as i remember it.

[claudiaeparvier]

Of course I watch and a show and get attached to the most obscure character and or deity in it.

[rachelfoleyisntdead]

I don't want to be that person that writes fanfiction about every single piece of media that I love but.

I also kinda do want to be that person.

[dead-dogma]

Catching up on posting my art here. This was my birthday gift to my good friend LilithOmen :)

[livinginadumpster]

One thing I really like in Dead Boy Detectives is the use of blood/gore/horror. With a TV-MA rating, a show with horror themes is obviously going to have some blood and violence, and there are clear instances if this in DBD, but while it's definitely there, it's almost never gratuitous. That's because scenes like the Devlin murders or Maxine's death aren't really about those deaths, rather, they're about the characters' reactions to them and the way the story is shaped by them.

In the Devlin house, the camera focuses not on the girls being killed but on Edwin, Crystal, and particularly Charles reacting to their murders with horror, shock, and anger. The blood splatters in a meaningful way, rather than simply a horrifying one, over the TV and the popcorn and the younger daughter's stuffed rabbit, tarnishing the innocence of everything it touches. While the tragedy of the murders themselves are important, the main focus is Charles' reaction to them as a result if his own trauma. Showing the minutia of the killings would take away from that, so it simply isn't there.

Even Maxine's death, while definitely played off more for shock value than the Devlin murders, serves a purpose. Episode 5 focuses on the failure of romantic relationships, on betrayals from those you thought you could trust, and the Maxine subplot adds to that. It begs the question, who can you trust in this world? At the end of the episode, the answer we are given is your friends, your found family, because love will kill.

It seems to me that the blood in hell represents the guilt of those it touches - Simon's wounds heal when he forgives himself; Edwin loses the blood covering him after Charles turns up to rescue him (albeit by a horrifying cause); the people in the Lust room are drenched in blood and get it on Edwin when they try to drag him down. It's not just there to demonstrate the horrors of hell, but to brand its inhabitants.

There are lots of other examples. The blood when Niko dies is there obviously because that's what happens when you get stabbed, but also (in my opinion) as a visual callback to her saying that red is the color of courage. The cat king's bloody corpse and Monty's blood-splattered face show Esther's ruthlessness and disregard for anyone in her path. Lilith is covered in blood as a symbolic part of her character design. Everything serves a purpose, narratively or symbolically.

(The only example of gore that served no particular purpose that I can think of was in episode one when the WWI ghost drooled blood all over Charles' face, but it was the pilot episode and that whole scene was meant to be shocking, so it can be forgiven.)

Anyway, I really like the way they use blood in DBD, because it shows such a level of detail and care. I enjoy horror but not gore so much, and to me it's refreshing to see it used so tastefully and executed so well.

[cyrenescreams]

Another thing I like about the dbd tv show thematically is the use of show rather than tell 

For the most part none of these magical laws or creatures or etc are explicitly introduced to us outside of introducing characters or backstories. 

We are told some ghost rules sure (eating is useless, they don’t fall through the floor because they don’t want to), but others are shown (mirror jumping, wounds rapidly healing). We are shown the extent of ghosts in the world, a ghost post man to carry all the post and connect them, a Victorian child with a squid, a soldier, so many ghosts that the afterlife is overrun. Later we are shown that other creatures exist, sprites possess Niko, a walrus is a man and a crow is a boy and witches are real. The rules of death and gods aren’t even really told. Instead we are introduced to death and her aspects as well as Lilith in an shown fashion. They show us what death does and how Lilith makes dead. Hell the extent of all this crazy is shown constantly, magic snakes, infinite bags, cat kings who aren’t gods or witches or ghosts but some other powerful yet killable thing. I just love the world building through immersion rather than statement. 

[just-a-bored-queer-fangirl]

Ok, so is it just me or do you guys think that Kashi (the guy the Night Nurse met in the fish) is definitely going to play a bigger part in a possible season 2.

Disclaimer: I have only watched dbd and know nothing about the sandman universe as a whole.

Anyways, we know that gods exist because of Lilith, but we don't really get to see any other gods. I think that Kashi is actually a god. It's a perfect explanation for his rings.

Additionally, he seems like too much of a charismatic and mysterious character to not reappear in season 2. I feel like it'd be really strange narratively to have this character that was super interesting but wasn't explored much and not bring him back.

If Kashi is a god, and returns in season 2, I think it'd be really cool to see the show dive more into the gods in the universe.

[abstract-ornithology]

I’d like to take a moment to appreciate all of the high-quality screaming in dbd ep 8. Edwin screaming. Crystal screaming at Lilith. Edwin screaming more. It’s all just so 🤌👌

[reinanova]

dead boy detectives ep 3 live blogging reactions

the fucking foot is SENDING ME

oh? the witch bitch made a deal with lilith for immortality? interesting…

i know we’re probably supposed to hate monty since he’s spying but i kinda live him. oh! maybe he’ll rebel against the witch bitch and help the gang!

edwin being nice to niko!! aww he cares about here. and the whole reputation bit but “i completely understand”?? sobbing

PLUS niko telling edwin it’s okay to be gay?? i love her so much

pretty sure the house is in a time loop of sorts. or the ghosts are? i feel like i was right

oh damn trauma dump. 🥺🥺 i want to wrap charles in a warm blanket

ummm pretty sure hudson is not near milwaukee. it’s on the opposite side of wisconsin in fact

edwin’s tone asking charles what’s wrong bcuz he’s not himself bcuz one he genuinely cares for (and loves) charles and two he knows him well enough to know when he’s acting different

“i could lose—“ bitch just admit you’re in love with him

niko is such a mood omg

nope i hate monty now, trying to keep charles and edwin apart. how fucking dare he

the PINING LOOKS from charles 🥺

let them be gay and happy and in love together DAMMIT

rowena the dead boy detectives are HELPING you, quit trying to snatch them away

fun fact when i was trying to type dbd, my brain instead went dgd for dead gay detectives and i think that’s very fitting

[oatusily]

Lilith is so special to me in dbd

[thatonesongyouretryingtoremember]

Excerpt from the DBD annotation post I haven't uploaded yet, because this is too good to keep swamped in with the other bullshit I write, and so I can tag the post as Monty.

[context: this is from the scene with Edwin and Monty in the forest, just as the Cat King is arriving]

===============================

Esther was cheated on. She was betrayed. She turned to her magic, and eventually her patron goddess, Lilith, who would give her a gift and one day in the future, take it back.

so, in Monty's point of view, Edwin's love for Charles is mutually exclusive with giving any shits about Monty. He hasn't been around very long, he thinks of things in a simplified view because it makes more sense (and what's more human than that?) and Esther's backstory is all he's got for any negative experience with a man. So he turns back to his patron goddess, who would eventually take back the gift she gave him.

[deconstructthesoup]

All right, the Fantasy High DBD AU won (which, by the way, I'm calling Inevitable & Strange), so let's go a little bit deeper into some of the characters... *cracks knuckles*

Fig went to St Hilarion's in part because Sandra Lynn used to be a student there, but it was mostly because she found out that her bio-dad was working there as the coach for the girl's cricket team, and she even joined it so she could get to know him---hence, why she carries the cricket bat, even after she's dead. She never worked up the nerve to tell him that she was his daughter, though, and he only found out after she died.

Riz is actually a pretty well-known agent for the endless bureaucracy that is the afterlife, but after failing to catch a rogue demon, he got demoted to the Lost & Found Department. He's less of the "strict teacher" that the Night Nurse is and more of a burnt-out James Bond who's mostly just going through the motions. Of course, finding out that Ayda is an escapee from Hell definitely brings back a lot of the old zest for the job, and a lot of his harshness towards the girls stems from him genuinely believing that Ayda's a sinner and there's no way she could be there by mistake---and that anybody who evades the afterlife has to be up to no good. Don't worry, Riz's black-and-white thinking doesn't stick around.

Adaine is still the daughter of diplomats, though they of course have as little time for her as they do in canon---really, the only thing that's different is that they actually give her money, because it makes her "easier to deal with" if she can just do her own thing. Before she lost her memories, she carried a lot of anger and resentment about how her parents treated her, and did a lot of reckless stuff so they'd at least acknowledge her... mostly because, well, she knew that Aelwyn was a wild child when Angwyn and Arianwen weren't looking, and she figured that acting more like her would get her at least a little bit of respect. And when you throw psychic powers into the equation, it doesn't take much for things to spiral out of control.

Kristen... oh man, do I have a lot to say about Kristen. Before she was the Cat Queen, she was a girl living in Port Townsend just after its founding and a few decades after Kalina made her deal with Lilith. Kristen's family was incredibly religious and devout, expecting her to be the same, but she harbored deep doubts that only doubled when she met Tracker---who wasn't a wolf then, but an orphan girl who Kalina had just recently taken in. Kalina taught Tracker and Kristen the ways of witchcraft, and both of them took to it pretty quickly... until Kristen discovered how exactly Kalina got her power and youth from. She immediately told Tracker, thinking that they could run away together, but Tracker didn't believe her---and when she finally saw the truth, she confronted Kalina and got turned into her familiar as a result.

After that went down, Kalina managed to turn the people of Port Townsend against Kristen, branding her as a witch who need to be hanged. Driven by desperation, heartbreak, betrayal, and a whole lotta fury, Kristen called on Dream and Desire to give her what she wanted... and in an incredibly rare moment of them agreeing on something, they both blessed her with their powers and made her into the Cat Queen. Ever since then, Kristen's been a quiet little menace who takes Kalina down in smaller ways, knowing full well that doing anything major would mean that Tracker got hurt or worse---and she's lost all of her old optimism and hope, turning into a cynic who flirts with girls to keep herself distracted from her truckload of issues.

So, uh... yeah, that's what I got so far.

[spellbooksandcricketbats]

Hey, so, friendly local DBD fan and religious studies academic wanting to offer some info around Lilith. I haven't seen any Jewish fans commenting on her yet in the fandom tags (if so, disregard this and share the other posts with me pls!) but even as a goy, I found her specific use in DBD rather jarring?

Lilith is predominantly** a Jewish figure and not at all a Christian one, with a rather complicated history, especially more recently as modern (goy) pagans and occultists have latched onto her and put their own spins on her in ways that are often offensive or even antisemitic. As a folkloric figure, the lilim are evil female spirits explicitly known for murdering children, which is why Crystal invoking Lilith's rage over Esther's actions completely threw me out of the story from sheer, "Wait, what??? But that's also Lilith's thing?????" Like, of all the ancient feminine entities to choose for this story arc, including ones with more genuinely feminist-by-modern-standards associations....

**Originally Sumerian, technically, but everything contemporary folks associate with her comes from Jewish traditions afaik.

I highly recommend Esoterica's video history on her. Esoterica is written and read by a Jewish scholar whose doctoral work is in Western occultism. We're stuck with what canon's given us for purposes of making fanworks, but when it comes to meta conversations, I think it's important to keep it limited to Watsonian and not Doylist interpretations, if that makes sense.