#there's also vol 3 cover that's out already

[jewishcissiekj]

Star Wars: The High Republic: Edge of Balance Vol. 1-2, Precedent - Covers and Development art by Mizuki Skakibara (Vol. 1-2) & Tomio Ogata

[age-of-moonknight]

Werewolf by Night: Red Band (Vol. 1/2024), #2.

Writer: Jason Loo; Penciler: Sergio Dàvila; Inkers: Jay Leisten and Aure Jimenez; Colorist: Alex Sinclair; Letterer: Cory Petit

[yamayuandadu]

WLW - Women-Loving Wizard(esse)s? Lesbian love spells from Roman Egypt

I said there will be no dedicated femslash february-adjacent post this year, and in the end that turned out to be nominally true. That’s only because this article, which I didn’t plan too far ahead, is a few weeks late due to unforeseen irl compilations. In my previous, also unplanned, article I’ve included a brief introduction to the Greco-Egyptian magical papyri, and discussed some unusual attestations of Hecate in them - perhaps some of the most fun material to research not directly related to anything I usually write about I’ve had the pleasure to go through in a long while. This text corpus is a gift that keeps on giving in general, but perhaps the single most welcome surprise was learning that there are at least two - possibly three - examples of lesbian love spells in it. While I considered waiting for pride month to cover them, I ultimately decided to publish an article about them much sooner (I have a different, highly esoteric pride month special in the pipeline already though, worry not).

Without further ado, let’s take a look at these unique wlw (women-loving wizard) testimonies and their historical context. Which supernatural entities were, at least for these women, apparent lesbian allies? Why does one of the lesbian spells contain an elaborate poetic passage pairing Osiris with Persephone? Why Lucian of Samosata might be the key to determining if 2 or 3 lesbian love spells are available to researchers? Answers to all of these questions - and more - await under the cut!

Before you proceed, I feel obliged to warn you that the article discusses historical homophobia, so if that might bother you, you’ll have to skip one of the sections. Furthermore, some of the images, as well as parts of the text itself, are not safe for work.

Part 1: the spells

Through the article I will refer to the discussed texts as “lesbian spells”. This is merely intended as a convenient label, not a definite statement - we can’t be 100% sure of the orientation of everyone involved, obviously. On top of that, none of the spells give us any hints about the terms the women involved in their composition used to describe themselves.  Needless to say, the fact that the discussed spells even exist is nothing short of a miracle. The corpus of magical papyri and other related objects like inscribed tablets and gems is relatively small, and covers a short period of time - for the most part just the first four centuries CE. On top of that not all of them are specifically love spells. For comparison, while there is a sizable corpus of Mesopotamian love incantations spanning over two millennia, not even a single lesbian one has been identified among them so far (Frans A. M. Wiggermann, Sexuality A. In Mesopotamia in RlA vol. 12, p. 414).

They also represent one of the only indisputable examples of ancient texts in whose composition women who at the very least desired relationships with other women were involved (Bernardette J. Brooten, Love Between Women. Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, p. 105). How active that involvement was might be difficult to ascertain, though.

Spell 1: angel or corpse daimon? The first spell of the discussed variety I’ve stumbled upon lacks a distinct title, but it’s included in the basic modern edition of many of the magical papyri, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells edited by Hand Dieter Betz, as PGM XXXII. 1-19 ( p. 266):

It was discovered in Hawara, an archeological site in the Fayum Oasis, and most likely dates to the second century CE (Love Between…, p. 77). At the time of its initial publication, some doubts were expressed about whether it’s really a love spell by authors such as Richard Wünsch - as you can imagine, for at least implicitly homophobic reasons - but it’s been the consensus view for a long while that it's explicitly lesbian. I left the brief comment included in the standard modern edition on the screencap above to highlight this. It needs to be stressed here that the opposition to this now mainstream interpretation was a minority opinion in the first decades of the 20th century already,  and was conclusively rejected as early as in the 1930s (Arthur S. Hunt notably contributed to this) and basically never entertained by any authors since (Love Between…, p. 80-81). Sadly, there is not much to say about the dramatis personae of the spell. Herais’ name is Greek, but her mother’s, Thermoutharin, is Egyptian; both Helen and Sarapias are Greek names, but the latter is theophoric and invokes, as you can probably guess, Serapis. This sort of combination is fairly standard for Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and it’s not possible to determine if one or both of the women involved were Greeks who settled in Egypt, Egyptians who adopted Greek names, or if they came from mixed families (Love Between…, p. 79).

While it’s likely Herais simply commissioned the spell from a specialist (Love Between…, p. 109), it’s worth noting that in the most recent commentary on it I was able to find, Heta Björklund argues that she was a magician herself (Invocations and Offerings as Structural Elements in the Love Spells in Papyri Graecae Magicae, p. 38). She also assumes some of the heterosexual love spells were the work of female magicians. Sadly, in the relatively short period of time I dedicated to preparations for this article I failed to find any study which would make it possible to establish whether this is a proposal with more widespread support. Female conjurers are certainly not uncommon in works of fiction, though, so even if the magical papyri were mostly written by men until proven otherwise I see no strong reason to doubt that we’re really dealing with a wlw (women-loving wizard).

The vocabulary employed in Herais’ spell is identical as in the heterosexual love spells. However, since examples aimed at both men and women are known, and do not significantly differ in that regard, the fact most of them were written by men seeking to secure the love of women doesn’t necessarily imply Herais necessarily took a masculine role herself just because she adhered to the same convention regarding magical formulas (Love Between…, p. 105).

An interesting aspect of the spell are its theological implications. At least from Herais’ perspective, Anubis, Hermes and “the rest down below” - in other words, a host of other unspecified deities residing in the underworld, not to mention the entity invoked to help her  -  not only would have no objections to her orientation, but would actively aid her in securing the love of the target of her affection (Love Between…, p. 80).

Invoking deities is basically a standard in love spells, regardless of the orientation of the people involved. Three distinct categories of them can be identified: Aphrodite and her entourage (ex. Eros and Peitho); heavenly deities (like Helios and Selene) and, perhaps unexpectedly, underworld deities (Hecate, Hermes, Persephone and others) - and, by extension, ghosts. From the first century CE onward it was actually the last group which appears most commonly in love spells. This likely reflects their association with magic and fate (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 45-46).

While there’s no point in dwelling upon the references to Anubis and Hermes, which are self-explanatory, there is some disagreement about the nature of Evangelos, who Herais basically asks to act as a supernatural wingman for her. Björklund argues that he should be interpreted as an angel or divine messenger (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 38). This is not implausible at first glance. Angels are invoked in multiple other spells from the magical papyri as helpers. For example, PGM VII 862-918 focuses on a request to Selene to send one of her angels presiding over a specific hour of the night (Leda Jean Ciraolo, Supernatural Assistants in the Greek Magical Papyri, p. 283; as a side note, there's a chance I will discuss early angels - especially the oddities like PGM angels - in a separate future article).

However, another view is that Evangelos was a “corpse daimon” (nekudaimon) - this would offer a good parallel with other love spells. What was a corpse daimon, though? Simply put, the restless, but not necessarily malevolent, spirit of a person who died prematurely (Love Between…, p. 80). In Egypt this idea intersected with other views on the origin of ghosts - for example that they could be people who died so long ago nobody made tomb offerings to them (Ljuba Merlina Bortolani, Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt. A Study of Greek and Egyptians Traditions of Divinity, p. 224). It’s possible that in some cases, perhaps including Herais’, papyri with spells have been deposited in, or at least read above, the graves of people who died in circumstances which made them eligible to become corpse daimons, in order to secure their help (Love Between…, p. 80). There is also evidence that food could be left for them in appropriate places instead, as attested for example in the “love spell of attraction in the presence of heroes or gladiators or those who died violently” (ωγὴ ἐπὶ ἡρώων ἢ μονομάχων ἢ βιαίων; PGM IV 1390-1495). This was a practice derived from a common type of offering to Hecate and her ghost entourage (Magical Hymns…, p. 223). It’s worth noting a daimon didn’t necessarily have to be human - the “cat spell for all purposes" (ἡ πρᾶξις τοῦ αἰλούρου περὶ πάσης πράξεως; PGM III 1-164), described as equally effective whether employed as a love spell, enmity spell or… a way to alter the results of chariot races (a relatively common goal in the magical papyri). instructs how to enlist the help of a “cat daimon” (τὸν δαίμονα τοῦ αἰλούρου). In this case the magician has to first “create” this entity by offering a cat as sacrifice, though, instead of invoking a preexisting daimon (Invocations and Offerings…, p. 32).

Spell 2: Osiris, Persephone and inflamed liver

While the spell discussed above seems to be brought up online the most often in discussions of references to lesbian and gay love in antiquity, the second known example is much more elaborate. Its standard translation was published in 1990 in the first volume of Robert W. Daniel’s and Franco Maltomini’s Supplementum Magicum, intended as a supplement to the already mentioned compendium of translated magical papyri (p. 137-139):

The text is inscribed on a tablet discovered in Hermopolis, and dates to the third or fourth century CE (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 132). It’s possible it was commissioned from a magician, rather than written by Sophia herself. Both her name and Gorgonia’s are not declined, which might indicate that a magician simply inserted them into blank spaces in a preexisting formulary offered to clients (Love Between…, p. 88-89). It’s nonetheless quite interesting as a work of literature, even if it was just a stock formulary sold over and over again. Some sections deliberately use poetic forms. Furthermore, some of the long compound words in them are entirely without parallel. It’s possible that this was a conscious source meant to create a peculiar overwhelming atmosphere, suitable for invoking ghosts and underworld deities (Love Between…, p. 88). While Herais’ spell is brief and vague and doesn’t really reveal much about her desires, beyond establishing that the object of her affection was a woman and that she believed supernatural entities would plausibly approve of pursuing her, Sophia’s commissioned(?) one seems to involve a pretty detailed fantasy. Of course, an argument can be made that it doesn’t necessarily specifically reflect her individual desires, but rather the widespread perception of bath houses as places suitable for flirtation and related ventures (Love Between…, p. 89). Still, while obviously we’ll never be able to know, it’s interesting to wonder if she perhaps had to choose from a larger repertoire of love spells offered by a magician (or perhaps even by multiple magicians) and went with the formula which matched her expectations to the greatest degree. Interestingly, the idea of a love spell being more effective in bath houses recurs in multiple magical papyri. The view that they can be haunted was fairly widespread, which made them a favored location for casting spells of all sorts, to be fair. The request for the “corpse daimon” to masquerade as a bath attendant to help with accomplishing a specific goal is unparalleled, though (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 132-133).

A combinative "Isis-Persephone" (or vice versa) from the late second century CE (Wikimedia Commons) As far as other appeals to supernatural entities go, it might be surprising to see Osiris mentioned in association with Persephone, Cerberus, the Erinyes and various elements of topography of the Greek underworld. It is presumed that this passage depends on the identification between him (as well as Serapis) and Hades, which is fairly well documented in Ptolemaic sources (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 146). However, it’s also worth pointing out that Persephone could serve as the interpretatio graeca of Isis, though it was by no means exclusive, and the latter could in various contexts or time periods be linked with Demeter, Cybele, Selene, Hecate, Aphrodite and others instead (Magical Hymns…, p. 9-10)

The unnamed “messenger” of Osiris is presumed to be Hermes, invoked not under his proper name but under a standard Homeric epithet. Referring to him as a “boy” most likely reflects the convention of depicting him as a child, which is attested through Hellenistic and Roman periods (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 146-147).

In addition to invoking a nameless corpse daimon and a number of deities, the spell uses a lot of voces magicae - magical formulas with no apparent meaning, sometimes the result of religious terms or even theonyms from langues other than Greek and Egyptian . Perhaps the most interesting inclusion among these is “Ereschigal”. This is obviously a derivative of Mesopotamian Ereshkigal, though as I outlined in my previous article, we’re essentially dealing with a ship of Thesus in this case; and if we are to take this as a reference to a specific deity rather than a hocus pocus formula, it’s best to think of it as an unusual epithet of Hecate as opposed to a conscious reference to a deity from a theological system otherwise basically entirely absent from Greco-Egyptian magic. The other interesting cameos are Azael and Beliam, a misspelling or variant form of Belial  (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 144).

One last detail which requires some explanation is the reference to inflaming the liver, in addition to heart and soul. This is not a magical curiosity, but rather a reflection of a belief widespread all across the Roman Empire in the first centuries CE: the liver was believed to be the organ responsible for passions of various types. Invoking it alongside the heart in spells is well documented (Love Between…, p. 90).

Spell 3: the pronoun controversy

There might be a third lesbian spell. It is inscribed on two lead tablets from Panoplis, most likely from the second century CE (Love Between…, p. 90-91). The provenance was possible to establish based on the presence of the name Tmesios, “midwife”, which in Egyptian was written with the same determinative as the names of gods. It is most likely an euphemistic reference to Heqet, the goddess of midwifery, who was a very popular deity of Panoplis (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 116-117). The most recent edition I’m aware of is included in the Supplementum Magicum, vol. 1 (p. 116):

The text is undeniably a standard love spell. It even features an appeal to a corpse daimon - a certain Horion, son of Saropus -  like the two discussed above (Love Between…, p. 91). The fact he is invoked by name  is unusual - most corpse daimons are left anonymous (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 115). A further unique detail is the inclusion of a small drawing of a mummy - generally assumed to be Horion:

The supposed corpse daimon, via Supplementum Magicum vol. 1, p. 116; reproduced here for educational purposes only. An alternate proposal is that this is a symbolic representation of Nike being affected by the spell, as there are no other depictions of corpse daimons, and such entities are consistently described as mobile, which to be fair indeed doesn’t fit a mummy particularly well (Christopher A. Faraone, Four Missing Persons, a Misunderstood Mummy, and Further Adventures in Greek Magical Texts, p. 151-152). Still, unless further evidence emerges, there’s no reason not to stick to the consensus view.

Next to the mummy drawing, the other mystery is the reference to a period of five months. Why exactly would Nike be under the effect of the spell for that period of time remains uncertain (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 117). It might be a nod to the notion of “trial marriage”, which also lasted for five months. After this period, the parties involved would determine whether they want to formalize the relationship with a written contract or part ways instead (Love Between…, p. 107). However, by far the main topic of debate regarding the spell is the gender of Pantous/Paitous. While Nike bears an undeniably feminine name, the other name is not spelled consistently even on the tablets themselves, and has no other attestations. This also holds true for Gorgonia from spell #2, but in her case there’s no ambiguity - the name is undeniably feminine. However, -ous can be a suffix of both feminine and masculine names; while pa- occurs in Egyptian names as a masculine prefix. To make things more complicated, in both cases the relative pronoun referring to Pantous/Paitous is feminine - but it has been suggested that this is a typo due to presence of an incision on the tablet which might indicate the scribe made a typo wanted to actually write the masculine form. The gender of this person is thus difficult to determine (Love Between…, p. 93-94). 

The assumption that we’re dealing with a double typo, according to the authors of the most recent translation, is supported by similar typos in other magical papyri, where the context makes it easier to ascertain the gender of the parties involved (Supplementum Magicum…, p. 117). Bernadette J. Brooten argues this is an overabundance of caution, though, since the spell under discussion is the only example where every single pronoun would have to be a typo. Furthermore, there are no other errors in the text (Love Between…, p. 95).

Brooten also offers an interesting solution to the uncertainty stemming from Pantous/Paitous’ name itself: even if it is masculine after all, its bearer might have been a woman who took on a masculine persona in some contexts, complete with a masculine name, or perhaps a nickname. She offers a precedent for this interpretation: the character Megilla/Megillos from Lucian of Samosata’s Dialogues of the Courtesans (Love Between…, p. 96). Since exploring this topic fully goes beyond the scope of the spells themselves, I will explore it in more detail in a separate section.

Part 2: WLWizards in context

From Plato to Lucian

In the fifth of Lucian’s dialogues a certain Leaina discusses recent events in her life with a friend. She is, as you can probably tell from the title of the whole work, a courtesan. At some point in the not-so-distant past she encountered a person who she refers to as Megilla, but who, as she stresses, at one point used the name Megillos in private. The character is AFAB, but for all intents and purposes presents masculinely - “like the most manly of athletes”, to be precise, as they describe it (Love Between…, p. 52). They engage in typically masculine pursuits, like holding symposiums, cut their hair short like young men (but wear a wig in public to hide that) and bring up that another character, Demonassa, is their wife in order to stress own masculinity (Andreas Fountoulakis, Silencing Female Intimacies: Sexual Practices, Silence and Cultural Assumptions in Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 5, p. 119-120). From a modern POV, it might appear that Megillos is a partially closeted trans man whose name is the masculine form of his deadname, but while this would be an obvious angle for a retelling to take, in reality the character is an example of a Greco-Roman stereotype of a woman attracted to women. Lucian refers to Megilla/Megillos as a hetairistria. He states that this rare term refers to women who pursue relationships with other women, and explains that this basically makes them like men (Love Between…, p. 23). 

It’s important to stress we have no real evidence that this word - or any other ancient labels of similar sort - were actually used by any women to describe themselves (Love Between…, p. 7). Lucian most likely decided to use it as a nod to Plato (Love Between…, p. 53). The plural form, hetairistriai, is used to refer to women attracted to women in his Symposium (Love Between…, p. 41). It was most likely etymologically related to hetaira, in this context to be understood as something like “companion” (though it could also refer to a courtesan - as it does in the original title of Lucian’s work). It’s fairly rare in later sources, though dictionaries from the early centuries CE confirm it was understood as a synonym of tribas (plural: tribades), which was more or less the default term for women attracted to women in Greek, and later on as a loanword in Latin as well. An anonymous medieval Byzantine commentary on Clement of Alexandria, a second century CE Christian writer (more on him later) provides a second synonym, lesbia, which constitutes the oldest attested example of explicitly using this term to refer to a woman attracted to women, rather than to an inhabitant of Lesbos, though the context is not exactly identical with its modern application as a self-designation, obviously (Love Between…, p. 4-5). In Symposium the existence of hetairistriai is presented neutrally, as a fact of life - the reference to them is a part of the well known narrative about primordial beings consisting of two people each. Plato apparently later changed his mind, though, and in Laws, his final work, he condemns them as acting against nature (Love Between…, p. 41). It has been argued that the negative attitude might have been widespread in the classical period, though for slightly different reasons - it is possible that relationships between women would be seen as a transgression against the dominant hierarchy of power, on which the notions of polis and oikos rested (Silencing Female…, p. 113). As far as I can tell this is speculative, though.

While Plato’s rhetoric about nature finds many parallels in later sources - up to the present conservative discourse of all stripes worldwide (though obviously it is not necessarily the effect of reading Plato) - other arguments could be mustered to justify opposition to relationships between women as well. In one of his epigrams the third century BCE poet Asclepiades decided to employ theology to that end. He declared that the relationship between two women named Bitto and Nannion was an affront to Aphrodite; a scholion accompanying this text clarifies that they were tribades (Love Between…, p. 42). Note that I don’t think the fact that all three of the lesbian spells don’t invoke Aphrodite is necessarily evidence of the women who wrote or commissioned them adhering to a similar interpretation of her character, though - especially since they are separated by a minimum of some 500 years than the aforementioned source. While obviously we can’t entirely rule out that Asclepiades’ poem reflected a sentiment which wasn’t just his personal view regarding Aphrodite, it seems much more likely to me that the fact all three spells postdate the times when underworld deities and ghosts started to successfully encroach upon her role in this genre of texts is more relevant here. "Masculinization" and related phenomena

While clearly hostile, neither Plato’s nor Asclepiades’ works contain the tropes on which Lucian’s dialogue depended. What has been characterized by modern authors as “masculinization” of women attracted to other women only arose as a trend in literature after the rise of the Roman Empire, especially from the reign of Augustus onward (Love Between…, p. 42-43). This reflected the fact that Roman thinkers - as well as their Greek contemporaries - apparently struggled with grasping the idea of sex in which they couldn’t neatly delineate who is passively penetrated and who is actively penetrating. This resulted in the conclusion that surely one of the two women involved must have played the “masculine”, active role, and that sex between women must also have been penetrative. In some cases this involved confabulations about what some described in scholarship as an “some unnamed phallus-like appendage” (Love Between…, p. 6). A good example of an author wholly dedicated to this idea is the second century CE dream interpretation enthusiast Artemidoros. He evaluated sex between women as “unnatural” - a category in which he also placed oral, which he however saw as an act which by default had a man on the receiving end (Love Between…, p. 181). The sole passage in his opus magnum dealing with sex between women can be seen below (translation via Daniel E. Harris-McCoy, Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Text, Translation & Commentary, p. 149):

It needs to be pointed out here that earlier visual representations do not appear to be quite as fixated on this point. Evidence includes a  Greek red figure vine vessel dated to 515-495 BCE or so decorated with a scene involving a woman touching another’s inner thigh and genitals; another slightly younger work of similar variety shows a kneeling woman reaching for another’s genitals, though it might depict depilation (contemporary sources indicate women plucked public hair by hand) rather than sex (Love Between…, p. 57-58). I must admit I really like the contemplative expression of the kneeling woman, which you can see on the screencap below (also available to view here):

Obviously, works of art such as the one above don’t necessarily reflect an ancient wlw point of view, and might very well be voyeuristic erotica which instead reflects what male painters presumed lesbian sex entailed. However, alongside a slightly bigger number of contemporary works possibly depicting couples in other situations they nonetheless make it possible to establish that the participants aren’t really differentiated from each other - in other words, they neither present differently, nor seem to be separated by age (Love Between…, p. 59).

Needless to say, it’s difficult to tell if either the older or the newer sources reflected actual trends in presentation among women attracted to women - with small exceptions, like the spells this article ultimately focuses on, we have next to no texts actually composed by them or for them, and the same caveat applies to visual arts. The majority of sources we are left with were, as you can probably already tell based on the sample above, written by men who at the absolute best considered them immoral (Silencing Female…, p. 112-113). For this reason, evaluating whether Lucian’s Megilla/Megillos is entirely literary fiction or merely a mocking exaggeration, and by extension whether she can be used as an argument in discussion about the identity of Pantous/Paitous from the third spell, is difficult at best.

For what it’s worth, an anonymous physiognomic treatise from the fourth century does mention that there are “women who have sex with women whose appearance is feminine, but who are more devoted to masculine women, who correspond more to a masculine type of appearance”, but further passages in this work would indicate that this might be yet another case of stereotyping rather than a nuanced account of varying presentation (Love Between…, p. 56-57). One specific aspect of Megilla/Megillos' character appears to match a single other source as well. Claudius Ptolemy, a second century astronomer and astrologer, offers a twist on the stereotype relevant to his primary interests. He states it is one of the “diseases of the soul” in his Tetrabiblos. He characterizes it as a result of a specific combination of constellations and planets (a term which in this context also encompassed the sun and the moon) at the time of an individual’s birth. Based on the specific scenario, women might become tribades - which according to Claudius Ptolemy means behaving in a masculine manner and pursuing relationships with other women secretly or openly, with the most extreme possible configuration resulting in a propensity to refer to another woman as one’s “lawful wife” (Love Between…, p. 124-126). Once again, it’s not really possible to determine if this reflects a genuine convention - though it does more or less parallel how Megilla/Megillos describes her partner. Evaluating how accurate the available sources are is made even more difficult by the fact that the “masculinization” was often paired with other literary devices meant to cast relationships between women as an “alien” or immoral phenomenon. Quite commonly they could be described as something utterly foreign or anachronistic, as opposed to a part of everyday life in contemporary Rome (Love Between…, p. 42-44). The second century writer Iamblichos, author of the lost Babyloniaka, or at the very least the popularity of his work in antiquity, arguably represents an example of this phenomenon. On the moral level, Iamblichos considered love between women “wild and lawless”, though he simultaneously had no issue writing about it, one would assume for voyeuristic purposes. His novel is only known from a summary preserved by the Byzantine patriarch Photius, but apparently enjoyed a degree of popularity earlier on. It described an affair between Berenike, a fictional daughter of an unspecified ruler of Egypt (fwiw, multiple women from the Ptolemaic dynasty bore this name), and a woman named Mesopotamia (sic), and their eventual marriage (Love Between…, p. 51). In contrast with the other, more famous Babyloniaka by Berossos, no primordial fish people or sagacious rulers with unnaturally long life spans make an appearance. A daring project to combine the two has yet to be attempted. Jewish and Christian reception

The Greco-Roman condemnations of relationships between women was also adopted in early centuries CE by Jewish and Christian writers. In the former case a notable example is the Sfira, a rabbinic theological commentary on Leviticus composed at some point before 220 CE. The passage dealing with 18:3 - “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt (... )and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan” - asserts that marriages between women were a custom among Egyptians and Canaanites. This is unlikely to be a faithful ethnographic report; rather, something perceived negatively is attributed exclusively to foreigners (Love Between…, p. 64-65). As far as Christian sources go, pretty similar rhetoric can also be found in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Love Between…, p. 64). Another notable early Christian author to adopt similar views was Clement of Alexandria, whose condemnations combined quotations from Paul’s letter, the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter (which he viewed as canonical), and a host of Greek and Roman philosophers, most notably Plato - as you can guess, specifically the passage from Laws which already came up earlier (Love Between…, p. 320-321). He dedicates a lot of space to condemning marriages between women, which he describes as an “unspeakable practice” amounting to women imitating men (Love Between…, p. 322). It’s a part of a longer diatribe against even the slightest hints of gender nonconformity, which also condemns, among other things, men who shave their facial hair (Love Between…, p. 323-324). There’s a lot of other smash hits in Clement’s work, including an extensive section focused on, to put it colloquially, theological considerations about cum, very creative mixed religious-zoological approach to the digestive system of hares, as well as some more “mundane” but still pretty chilling apologia for domestic abuse, which I will spare you from. For an author from Alexandria, he also seems oddly ignorant about Egyptian sources, as at one point he claims that the fact Egyptians worship animals puts them morally ahead of Greeks, because animals do not commit adultery. I am sorry to report that adultery between Egyptian gods is, as a matter of fact, directly referenced in the magical papyri, which are roughly contemporary with Clement - specifically in PGM IV 94-153 (The Greek…, p. 39):

Concluding thoughts The sources discussed above are mostly supposed to illustrate that while it’s possible to study the prevailing attitudes among the contemporaries of the “protagonists” of the spells, it’s not really easy to say what their private lives were like. We don’t know how open they were about their preferences; how they presented; what, if any, label they used to refer to themselves. We can’t even ascertain if any of them were ever actually in relationships with other women, and whether the norm for women like them - if such norms even existed - was to pursue brief trysts or commitment for life, in parallel with aims of the authors of at least some of the heterosexual love spells (Love Between…, p.105-107).

In what after almost 30 years remains, as far as I am aware, the single publication with the most extensive discussion of the spells, Bernardette J. Brooten argued that since marriages between women are mentioned in five sources roughly contemporary with them - by Lucian of Samosata, Clement of Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy, Iamblichos, and in the Sifra - they must have been an actually observed custom in Egypt in the early centuries CE. She argues that since marriages were basically personal legal agreements, it theoretically wouldn’t be impossible for two women to pursue such a solution (Love Between…, p. 66; note the fact the Sfira also refers to marriage between women as a Canaanite custom, which no primary sources from any period corroborate, is not addressed). I don’t think her intent was malicious, but I must admit I’m skeptical if it’s possible to reconstruct much chiefly based on sources which, as you could see in the previous section of the article, are mocking at best and openly hostile at worst, and a small handful of actual first hand testimonies which due to their genre sadly provide very little information. Sadly, we ironically can tell more about how the women from the spells thought corpse daimons functioned than how they envisioned the relationships they evidently desired.

To illustrate the difficulties facing researchers, imagine trying to reconstruct what the life of the average lesbian in the English-speaking world in the 2010s would be like with your sole points of reference being a single episode of a Netflix show with a mildly offensive gender nonconforming character, a press article written by an eastern European priest ranting about “gender ideology” imported from abroad corrupting children, a fanfic written by a homophobic weeb who jacks off to lesbian porn, and a small handful of contextless blog post actually written by wlw, but not necessarily entirely focused on anything related to her identity. The results wouldn’t be great, I’d imagine. The sources mustered by Brooten ultimately aren’t far from that, I’m afraid (I leave it as an intellectual exercise for you to determine which of the satirical modern comparisons applies to which) - thus it’s difficult for me not to see her conclusions as perhaps leaning too far into the direction of wishful thinking. But, in the end, wishful thinking is not innately bad - I’d be lying if I said I don’t have a host of personal hypotheses which fall into the same category (one of these days I will explain why I think a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude doesn’t necessarily seem incompatible with Old Babylonian morals). Therefore, even though I’m more skeptical if the “protagonists” of the texts this article revolved around could truly pursue relationships on equal footing with other inhabitants of Roman Egypt, I can’t help but similarly hope that they found at least some semblance of happiness in the aftermath of the endeavors documented in the discarded magical formulas.

[handlewithcarezine]

HANDLE WITH CARE VOL. 3 — CALL FOR ARTISTS

Handle With Care zine is now seeking artists for the next volume! We are looking for about 20 artists for this edition.

Important information, boundaries, and legal stuff:

Submission deadline for Vol 3. is January 8th, 2025. If you are accepted but unable to make the deadline for whatever reason, please communicate with us! We are more than willing to be accommodating and figure something out.

The zine's physical dimension will be 6 inches wide, 8 inches tall (15,24 cm by 20,32 cm). Submissions should be in 300 DPI.

The loose theming of Vol 3. is Advertisements and posters. This theme is not strict and does not affect piece submission, but it will guide how we structure the zine as well as guide the aesthetics of the front cover and non-submission pages such as the table of contents and credits section. Feel free to go big and go bold with this theme, if you choose to engage with it! Show off your love, make the piece you would love to hang on your apartment walls!

Visual artists are welcome to submit an additional one-page written accompaniment to their visual artwork if they would like. Fully written works are currently capped to a maximum of five pages, though this may be adjusted once we have a rough idea what people are submitting.

Handle With Care is meant to celebrate raw objectum emotion and experiences, and meant to give these emotions a physical place in the world. We do not have a minimum skill level as a result.

However, we reserve the right to reject or ask for revisions on any submissions that make us uncomfortable, including any romantic depiction of an object that resembles a realistic feral animal or a human child. This zine is printed through a government-owned printing press. If your submission can be misconstrued as something far more concerning than just objectum sexuality by people who are not familiar with the community, it will be rejected for the peace of mind of everyone involved.

HWC is also strictly safe for work. Non-sexual nudity is allowed, although if it crosses a line we may ask for revisions.

All participants must be at least 18. Legal issues with using a minor's work and all that. Minors will be booted off the HWC discord, sorry! You are welcome to enter when you'll be legally an adult.

AI-generated submissions are also currently not allowed. We want to see work straight from objectum artists, not an objectum middleman commissioning ChatGPT for free and taking the credit.

HWC is non-profit. Physical copies are sold only to break even on printing and shipping. Any profit from donations will be re-invested in the zine or split evenly between all contributors.

Artists will retain all rights to their individual work, including copyright and being able to resell it. The zine owner (Ross Gillesby, in this case) is allowed to sell the pieces only in the bundle of the entire zine and not individually, and will not own any copyright to those pieces.

Zine organization and communication is done through a Discord server. If you are interested in submitting something for Handle With Care Vol. 3, please DM this tumblr or email gillesbyross@gmail.com with:

What are you thinking of submitting? If it's a written work, how many pages do you estimate you'll need?

2. Social media or some other way to verify you are not a troll

We already have a cover artist. We currently have an artist maximum of 20 to 25. If there is no more room by the time you send in an application, we will put you on a priority list for Vol. 4.

We're very excited to work on a third volume of the zine!

-Ross and Crispy

[jade-len]

so today i tricked my very straight male friend into reading svsss.

okay look, i wasn't planning to at first and it's not like it was completely my fault. he wanted to read it!

i was showing him how badly they fucked up mu qingfang in the donghua by comparing it to the english novel design (he said that mu qingfang went from looking like a soft dilf to a predator registered on the epstein island list). and then, i showed him how different some of the other character designs were like gongyi xiao's ("he looks like he'd be a genshin character" -friend, to eng novel design) and luo binghe's ("lowkey, he kinda gives airbender vibes" -friend, to bunhe eng novel design)

so that was all i was gonna show him, nothing else. but after seeing them, he goes, "these designs actually look hella cool. what's the book called?"

now, do i:

A. tell him the name, eventually revealing that it's a danmei when he looks it up?

B. just straight up tell him that it's a danmei?

C: don't tell him the name just yet, spill the summary, get him interested, and tell him to not search anything up about it because there's heavy spoilers and it will reveal them the moment he types it up on the search bar

i go with C, obviously.

me: so, basically, some guy named shen yuan transmigrates into an incel harem male power fantasy novel where the protagonist, luo binghe, has hundreds of wives. thing is though, the guy pretty much took over the body of binghe's teacher he had when he was a teenager, who turns out to be a really scummy dude. and now he has to be nice to him so that the protagonist doesn't rip off his limbs and put him into a pickle pot in the future to suffer for eternity.

friend: that sounds hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

me: yes it is, and you should read it. it's like. my favorite novel at the moment. but don't search up anything about it because people spoil that shit. i'll let you borrow my novel

friend: nah don't worry, i'll just pirate it

friend: wait. does it have pictures?

me, my plan coming together: yeah, it has pictures. buuut, when you pirate it, it doesn't. trust me dude, i tried and was severely disappointed. plus, the physical copy is so much better

friend: fuck yeah ok thanks

me: hold on though. i'll text you later to see if my friend who's borrowing it rn is done reading it

he's hyped. he's excited. he craves a good book and a good transmigration interpretation. he's especially happy about the fact that it takes place in a chinese setting with cool powers and an actual good main character. "this sounds so good, god i wanna read it so bad."

i tell him that binghe is actually adorable, too. that it's pretty much found family! my friend then asks if shen yuan adopts him and becomes a father figure or something.

and i said "yes". you know, like a liar. (the father figure part probably isn't a lie though)

now i'm gonna give him the novel tomorrow! of course, i'm gonna cover the chapter 2 bunhe sexual awakening scene with washi tape and say that my baby cousin (sorry baby cousin, you would never <\3) scribbled all over that paragraph with her markers, and since i'm a neat book freak, i put washi tape and just wrote the scene! i don't know if that's really all too believable, but he didn't seem to care that much. just a simple "if my baby cousin did that to my book i would punt them into the sun"

i think what'll be more hilarious is the fact that you can't really tell that svsss is a BL. especially not volume 1. there's like, only a few lines indicating, but if you remove the baby binghe sexual awakening scene then you probably won't be able to know (...if you don't really read romance or anything. idk he's kinda dense anyways). so let's hope he gets attached and has a slow descent into the homo before i drop svsss vol 2 on him!

ok anyways i'll update you guys later with a reblog. maybe in about two or three days lol

(also don't worry, we already fuck around with each other on a daily basis like this. he's already tricked me into reading some manga i was unprepared for, and i thought that it'd be funny to mess around with him using svsss this time lol)

[zerosconsort]

Zero's Fic Binding - Archive Anthology - Stony Volume 1

A collection of fics all written by Areiton (@areiton)

let me hear (your battle cry) | chains around my daemons | monsters of sea & sky | inspired | muse

Fandom: Marvel

Ship: Steve Rogers / Tony Stark

Start Date: 10/07/24

End Date: 11/25/24

Pages: 355

First Archive Anthology book. This is a collection of 5 of my favorite Arei Stony fics. They are all also from 2021, which I did not mean to do but just so happen to realize as I was typesetting. I wanted to start this proof of concept project with someone who I A) knew and B) would be cool with me using their fics as a test.

So, the cover. She's beautiful. For the AA series, I want the covers to be the uniform - so every Stony book will copy this cover type, but the colors will shift to blue and white for Vol 2, and then back to red and gold for Vol 3. I sketched out the Iron Man that I wanted myself and made an SVG for the first time, leave me alone, adding the swoosh marks to him and to Steve's shield. I wanted a simple, classic looking font for a universal text title. This book series wont have quotes on the back so instead I have a full spread of the graphic. Tony's the icon on the spine this time - and I think he looks great~

Ah! The side shot. I used my guillotine for the first time - so the chop on this bitch is CHRISP. Headband is gold and handstitched. The whole side profile? Crispy like fall leaves.

Title page shots. A TOC (that I only notices was a little low after I had printed both copies) with a new and customized copyright page. I looked at a bunch of pages in the Renegade Bindery discord and compiled something that felt right AND specific to this project going forward.

Typesetting this was not…bad. It did take a while while I worked out fonts and overall ideas, but ones I had them I was able to fly through. There are quite a few here, so lets take a peak...

I kept Let me hear a little simple - with more medieval drop caps and banner headers. This fic is the only one with a nontypical drop caps - but with how simple the titles were I wanted a little bit more. I also - as per my standard - did this fic first, and then started to dig down and get more complicated the further in I got.

Chains has a little more flavor - each chapter has a splash of color. Originally I had hyper detailed headers for this fic, but they just look like SO MUCH, and I couldn't figure out a way to make them look uniform with the different daemons I was showcasing. Scaling back with a flash of color, but not to much, feels much better for this fic. Also realized that I need to figure out how to trim to what my printer considerers a 'full page'.

mos&s has a little more character for the headers, where I pull peace out from each chapter to add to the title. This chapter header - and the last one - are my favorite. I used hand drawn lines to highlight under each chapter title, and pulled a color for the splash image to match with both that line and the matching line breaks in the chapters.

inspired is told from Tony's point of view - so I kept the chapter titles black and white, with harder linework and a focused idea from in each of the chapters.

In contrast, muse is told from Steve's POV - so every chapter header is an explosion of color. They're all based on a variety of art mediums - spray paint, stamp art, charcoal, oil pints, anything I could find that I remember ever doing myself. I also colored each of the drop caps a contrasting color to what the header art is.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this came out. This is the blueprint I'll use for any of my Anthology books going forward. I already have at least three more in mind for Stony specifically, and then a collection of Raven Boys and Good Omens ones that are not long enough to be a book by themselves but I still want THEM ON MY SHELVES.

Thank you again Arei - your wonderful <3 Go read Arei's fics ASAP!

[cruyuu]

have you seen the jjk vol 29 and 30 covers 👀

Hii anon! I actually didn't till now.

I know Gege had time because these two are gorgeously drawn. Tbh I screamed bc I was not expecting sukuita joint slay for the last two covers even if I craved it badly. Plus it was deserved, yknow, narratively. Just look at them arfgghhhhh.

Might I also mention Sukuna holding his tummy mouth open? Sticking out his tongue? Yuuji downright looking like Sukuna? The red eyes? The proud head tilt? The Domain Expansion pose? raghfhh THANK YOU GEGE AKUTAMI you never fail to deliver when it comes to these two ilysm never change pls draw more of them I beg you

Thank you for notifying me abt this anon since this already has my week looking 1000x better <3

[perfectwitchcrown]

Make the Exorcist Fall in Love Vol 8 & 9 Covers

I previously mentioned in the tags of a separate post on literary references in ekuoto that I was curious about the boat in the background of the joint covers of volume 8 and 9. For context, here's what I'm talking about:

Like there's just a boat there. The rest seems to make sense: there's a stream of salt in the background of Dante's cover, which is a stream of sugar in Vergilius's cover. But like, what's the deal with the boat?

So it turns out that looking up the key phrase "Dante boat" was all I needed to do lmao. It's been long enough since I read Dante's Inferno that I completely forgot that Dante and Virgil travel by boat in Canto 8, and that there's actually a lot of art depicting it. In this canto Dante and Virgil travel in a boat ferried by a figure from Greek mythology, Phlegyas, across the river Styx from circle 5 of Hell (Wrath) to the city of Dis, behind which they will enter into circle 6 (heresy).

Here's one example by Eugène Delacroix:

Here's another by Gustave Doré:

So, my best guess for now is that the boat in the background is a reference to this boat! As to why the boat is important, your guess is as good as mine.

Possible reasons

Dante in the Inferno has many different moments where he's fairly sympathetic to the sinners he comes across. Not always though, and according to notes in the Hollander translation, this scene depicts "the first time in the poem that we hear an angry debate between the protagonist and one of the sinners," who he name drops as a real guy that real life Dante disliked for political reasons (Dante was a part of the White Guelph political faction whereas this guy was a member of the Black Guelph political faction. This was factionalism between what was originally a singular political group over support of the papacy. Also apparently his brother may have taken Dante's stuff when Dante got exiled) -> unsure what role this could play in Ekuoto, but this is a pretty big deal in the text and I could see it indicating some sort of later development with these characters. I could see the idea of who Dante is willing to sympathize with as being significant, both in terms of ideas of sin and factions, since we've already seen some factions in the church in Ekuoto (and I could see with some of the recent developments this only growing more prominent)

Dante and Virgil kiss on the boat -> I don't know what to say other than they kiss on the boat. You can go check Canto 8 of Inferno if you want to be sure, but I promise it happens. It's lines 43-45. In the Hollander translation: "Then my master put his arms around my neck,/kissed my face and said: 'indignant soul,/blessed is she that bore you in her womb'" (Hollander 151). I'm not super familiar with the bible but apparently (at least according to wikipedia and a quick check of an online bible) Virgil's line to Dante here is a direct quote of Luke 11:27. Now, the kiss in Dante's Inferno is platonic, medieval people were just like that. They were kissing all over the place. But I think for obvious reasons this could be significant, especially since a kiss (between Char and Vergilius w direct eye contact btw Vergilius and Dante) was part of their first "onscreen" shared scene.

Boat <3 -> honestly, this could be no deeper than the boat is a part of important art pieces and so is visually being referenced. Maybe the real boat was the friends we made along the way :)

That's all! The boat could be a reference to something else but I feel more confident that it's specifically a reference to Canto 8. I'm still unsure what the mirror is about though haha, although I may have just forgotten something, so if anyone has any thought's I'd be glad to hear them!

[obstinaterixatrix]

Fashionable and upbeat high schooler Aya loves listening to rock, but no one else seems to share her interest…until she meets a cool, stylish employee at a CD shop. Dressed in black from head to toe, he has this air of mystery about him, and his taste in music is impeccable. Aya falls hard for him—not knowing her crush is actually her female classmate Mitsuki! For her part, Mitsuki generally keeps to herself and avoids standing out at school. But given that she sits right next to Aya, Mitsuki’s all too aware of the other girl’s feelings, and she’s afraid to reveal the truth. So why does she find herself talking with Aya more and more…?

happy femslash february, since this series got ✨licensed✨ last year I’m remaking my rec post with ✨licensed✨ excerpts. (also, kinokuniya has an exclusive cover variant~)

here’s an ongoing series about high school gals who LOVE dadrock. this feels like a bit of a cheap rec because of how successful it already is, but for anyone who’s been on the fence about trying it out: the hype is deserved.

1) the art is phenomenal, the use of color has a really sleek look; 2) the artist did really well working within twitter’s 4 image limit, each chunk has a solid hook and a solid end while keeping a good sense of continuity; 3) as someone from the states, it is SO funny seeing these japanese teenagers going like ‘nobody understands me because I like foo fighters and areosmith’ and it’s kinda true because they’re japanese teenagers in the 2020s

also, I really like the pacing—the Secret Identity aspect is used for a solid amount of drama without being overused imo. then, when they’re able to engage more honestly with each other, there’s still a lot they need to work through. it’s good slice of life romance for folks who like that vibe.

[dragomfry]

Artistic Analysis of Saezuru’s Covers (Vol 1-9)

What I’ve always loved about Yoneda Kou’s writing and art style is her subtlety and attention to detail. Compared to other BL styles, her style is not as exaggerated in its emotions. The characters’ emotions are consistently written and drawn very down-to-earth, realistic, and/or nuanced/subtle (besides the exaggerations in comedic moments). Her art style is simple yet detailed just enough to be very pleasing to the eye.

All of her cover illustrations are clever and rife with detail. In this post, I’ll be examining my interpretation on the meaning of each cover’s design up to volume 9.

Volume 1

The first cover is simply iconic. On a surface level, it shows exactly what type of story you expect you’re getting into, so it draws in its audience. But artistic nuances show that there’s a twist to this story.

Yashiro is caught in a compromising position, arms behind his back, resting his head on some man’s bare foot, which indicates his submissiveness. And that man could be any man, not just Doumeki (or the love interest). This emphasizes the impersonal aspect of sex to Yashiro, which shows that this isn’t going to be your typical romantic BL between two partners. We also learn that Yashiro is in control of all these sexual encounters. In traditional BL manga, the partner that takes the bottom or uke position is typically seen as the “weaker/more timid” individual (which, for some reason, are commonly interpreted as being more “feminine” traits), but clearly this isn’t the case with this story. Therefore, the cover is empowering. At this point, Yashiro is confident and has reclaimed a sense of control over his sexuality.

Volume 2

This cover is bold, in a quiet way.

It deviates completely from the first one, making the whole environment the focus and not the main character. This type of cover design is especially rare for manga, which typically grab your attention with the character(s) front and center. The style of characters being enlarged and shown on the cover is commonly used, as, obviously, it’s very marketable. It easily draws the attention of potential readers (weren’t you captivated by Yashiro on that first cover?). However, the 2nd cover is extremely subtle, and it’s truly the mark of an artist who cares about the story she is telling, not just the hot scenes. It’s admirable. I will never stop respecting Yoneda-sensei for being so confident in challenging established tropes and themes.

This cover forces you to look closer at the details. It’s saying, “Hey, this story isn’t just about lust, but something deeper and more mature.” Upon closer inspection, we see Yashiro standing alone, completely out in the open, soaking in a full suit in the rain. It shows just how little he cares for his own well-being, and the pessimistic desire to not do anything about it. He has been deeply affected by tragedy. He feels empty and insignificant, like a drop in the ocean, which the cover reflects by depicting him as just another person in the background.

The full cover reveals even more details. Others have already talked extensively about the beautiful symbolism of the rain and umbrellas (inspired by kyrieren’s Rain and Aiai Gasa posts). Doumeki rushes from the right, carrying an umbrella to shield Yashiro from the rain, or his semi self-imposed misery. Doumeki bringing the umbrella to Yashiro is symbolic of how he cares for Yashiro’s wellbeing, which Yashiro doesn’t “see” or fully notice the depth of at this point. The theme of seeing and not seeing is established from this point forward.

Volume 3

The body language is everything.

Their position, especially Yashiro’s position with his arms up and feet made bare, reflects a sexual one. This indicates how their relationship is becoming more intimate. But Doumeki still being in his shoes implies that they aren’t that far into it yet. It can also signify how Yashiro and/or Doumeki himself will not let him take off his shoes, or display his full vulnerability. Despite the bareness of Yashiro’s soles, which could imply openness, Yashiro pushes back with his legs and does not look Doumeki back in the eyes. Perhaps he’s, in fact, willfully being “blind” to Doumeki’s feelings and closing off his own. So Yashiro’s position, rather than reflect growing trust and openness, actually reflects how he wants to reduce their budding relationship to a purely physical one (like all his other sexual relationships). In contrast, Doumeki is staring intently at Yashiro, with his arms grasping Yashiro’s hands and pulling down the pants on his leg, keeping him in place. His intent is clear: to make Yashiro his. The way they’re both locked in place almost resembles a dance with its rhythm and balance. They’re both stuck in a position of their own makings, yet in a harmonious way. This cover masterfully conveys the psychological conflict and erotic situation between the characters.

Volume 4

Doumeki is staring determinedly, at whom? The audience, Yashiro, or both?

The cover of the extra story “A Flame in the Distance” makes it clear that Yashiro is not looking back at Doumeki, tying back into how Yashiro is willfully ignoring Doumeki’s and his own feelings.

It’s no secret that Yoneda-sensei puts great care into her symbolism. Both characters being placed in a field of wheat is likely very symbolic, but I could only find a few sources so far to explain the potential connections. According to those few sources, wheat symbolizes life, strength, and rebirth. In this case the wheat or the cover in general could symbolize Doumeki (because his name’s 力 means strength, power, force, etc). With this interpretation, volume 4 could act as Doumeki’s mindset in the story, and volume 2 would be Yashiro’s. In comparison to Yashiro’s gloomy, entrenched, and rainy attitude, Doumeki’s attitude is more cautiously optimistic and determined. The rebirth aspect of the wheat can also explain why they are both in the field; it’s because both have caused immense changes in each other. The brighter colors in the cover show how both have been the light in each other’s lives. Overall, the cover has an ominous or auspicious feel to it, but one thing is implied for sure: things are about to change. Doumeki and Yashiro are becoming extremely close.

Volume 5

Volume 5: the turning point of the series.

The cover’s design is simple, but everything is deliberately placed. We are put into the perspective of Doumeki, which makes the cover very intimate. Doumeki is on top and caresses Yashiro, who is undressed. Yashiro now looks directly up at Doumeki. This time, he cannot look away from his feelings. The last thing to mention is how Yashiro is almost positioned upside down, which indicates how everything is about to change. This all signals what we know is going to happen between them. They’re going to push the relationship to the farthest it’s ever been… and the result will be heartbreaking. A consistent theme among sources I found showed that the color white is symbolic of physical and spiritual purity as well as mourning and funerals. In this case, the white clothing symbolizes the tragedy of how Yashiro has been defiled by Doumeki, and how Doumeki is no longer pure in Yashiro’s eyes. The death of Yashiro’s sadomasochistic facade can also be symbolized with the white, because Doumeki has irrevocably changed Yashiro. Doumeki has made Yashiro fully realize things he never knew he so desperately wanted before: gentle touch, and most of all, genuine loving affection. Simultaneously, this volume has them both experience their best and worst moment.

Volume 6

While being less intimate than volume 5, volume 6’s cover still conveys a sense of closeness. Most of all, it conveys a sense of nostalgia and slight sadness.

Both are walking together in the night illuminated by city lights, Doumeki innocently following behind Yashiro, like how their relationship used to be. The cover’s cleverness comes from how it juxtaposes with the actual content of the volume, in which Yashiro is desperately trying and eventually succeeds in pushing Doumeki away from him now that they’ve gone so far. Volume 6’s cover is a swan song that pays homage to the romantic simplicity and gentle affection of their relationship, before everything changes…

Volume 7 and 8

By themselves, the covers seem unremarkable. But put side by side, the meaning and meta commentary become clear.

Doumeki and Yashiro have become physically separated. Both have grown up and matured. Doumeki is no longer the baby bird we remember. He looks more mature, dresses more seriously, has many scars on his face, and is wearing and surrounded by dark colors. This all reflects his mental growth and descent into darkness, or the yakuza. He is also turned away from Yashiro. Volume 7 is the complete opposite to volume 8. Yashiro dresses in and is surrounded by lighter colors. This reflects how he’s become more of a civilian and how he was actually never been as suited for the yakuza lifestyle as Doumeki. Yashiro has a contemplative expression, turning his head and body in a way to look directly at Doumeki. Now, Yashiro is aware of his feelings more than ever before, but Doumeki is not reciprocating so openly this time. *Forgot to mention, Doumeki is shown pulling off his glove with his mouth, his jacket is hanging loosely on him, and he’s taken off his shoe. He is much more comfortable in his sexuality now. On the other hand, Yashiro is shown to be covered more in his jacket and both of his shoes are still on, which could indicate his newfound impotence. Doumeki’s position is also more open than Yashiro’s more closed off one, showing their differences in confidence. In many ways, their roles have been reversed this arc.

Volume 9

Finally, we have the latest cover. Yashiro and Doumeki are working to re-establish a sense of closeness, but that warmth they possessed with their early relationship has not (yet?) resurfaced.

Doumeki once again looks directly at Yashiro. He is now trying to express his feelings for Yashiro, but at a distance because his hand is still gloved (or his mask of indifference is still on). It seems as if Yashiro is not looking directly at Doumeki, but that doesn’t mean he’s avoiding his feelings like in the previous covers. Rather, he is now trying to hide them. Still, Yashiro not looking at Doumeki shows that he tragically cannot “see��� Doumeki’s feelings for him now. There is deliberate ambiguity with how Yashiro grasps Doumeki’s gloved hand, as evidenced by how Yoneda-sensei revealed other drafts with variations of Yashiro’s hand placement. Is Yashiro pulling Doumeki towards him, keeping him in place, or pushing him away from him? This ambiguity reflects Yashiro’s inner conflict and contradictions. Their winter clothing and the desaturated color scheme all symbolizes the emotional coldness of their current relationship. Both desperately want to express their feelings for each other, but both can’t yet, due to each other’s unwillingness to drop their masks.

And that’s where we left off.

[worokapi]

i hope one day we can get the full cover arts of after god

Orokapi crying makes me want to explode tbh

Volume 8's cover- he looks so goooooood I love the snake scale tie I think we need more character design like that.

A promo of volume 8 was posted without the small title card, revealing that Orokapi is actually crying. Somehow I do feel like the covering of the teary eye detracts a bit, but it is really cool symbolism and a mindblowing one to come by it on your own. If the actual covers had it like a peelaway sticker that would be pretty neat 🤯

[Vol 8 Cover] [Vol 8 Promo]

Spoiler warning up to latest english chap (67 as of current) below

In another tweet, Eno notes all the volume covers share a similar motif where the title card obscures something the character wants to hide.

アフターゴッド８巻の内容+��き下ろし内容です。 &タイトルロゴなしverのカバーをチラ見せです。 タイトルロゴの位置は毎巻、「本人が隠したいもの」の位置に置いています。[Tweet Link]

Google Translate: Contents of After God Volume 8 + newly drawn contents. & A glimpse of the cover of the version without the title logo. In each volume, the title logo is placed in the position of ``something the person wants to hide.''

各巻のロゴの下に隠したもの一覧です。 1巻→目、2巻→舌、3巻→（代里子への）指輪、4巻→目、5巻→口・タヌボーグミ、6巻→ない左目、7巻→（池に投げた母の）指輪、8巻→涙 [Tweet Link]

Google Translate: This is a list of things hidden under the logo of each volume. Volume 1 → Eye, Volume 2 → Tongue, Volume 3 → Ring (for Yoriko), Volume 4 → Eye, Volume 5 → Mouth/Tanubogumi, Volume 6 → Missing left eye, Volume 7 → (Mother's thrown into the pond) Ring, Volume 8 → Tears

Thoughts/Interpretations:

Waka wanting to hide her eyes checks out especially in volume 1. Chapter 3 she exclaims she didn't want this either.

I'm not really sure why Tokinaga wants to hide his tongue; with only the context from the first two volumes one could assume it's because of the in-world thing about hiding one's face. But the specification it's the tongue with future insight, it could be an overarching thing where he technically hasn't been very truthful to others and has been lying, hiding the truth.

Minami and Yoriko canonically don't hide their engagement status, so could Minami's decision to hide his engagement ring be related to their work relationship possibly hindering their own personal lives? Snake imagery is pretty present here too. And we know later on in volume 3 what happens to him, and it literally separates the two.

Obikawa hiding his god pupils specifically is pretty self explanatory. But I'd also like to think of in chapter 32, he tells Tokinaga he doesn't want to use his god eyes on him.

Apparently there's a Tanuboo Gummy there in Waka's mouth?

Tokinaga's left eye holding a lot of secrets... the thing in his eye and his birthmark. COUGHS and chapter 66 was a massive exposition dump to be honest

The wedding ring of Yako/Furuya's mother, in which was what Furuya used to incite the death of over 80 people. I still love the drop at the end of chapter 58 where Yuma puts two and two together while his sisters ask what Furuya meant. The juxaposition of us, the audience knowing too with the child's innocence really hits the horror tenfold.

Orokapi's tearful eye, in which we see in the chapter he misses Vollof.. We also see potential parallels of Vollof in Tokinaga momentarily too from his perspective.

---

There is a photo of what Waka looks like under the cover of Chapter 1

[Image Source]

Someone replied asking if there will be plans to show the rest of the characters similarly. Eno says there's no plans right now, but maybe in the future. [Source]

I hope so! The covers are gorgeous and I'd love to see them all one day. I already adore staring at Eno Sumi's work

[plague-of-insomnia]

Got any new dolls or anything recently?

uh, I actually was gonna post this bc I finally got Kuromi (my fave sanrio character) from the surprise OMG Sanrio blind balls (I only got 3 dolls after 6 tries and got Kuromi on my 7th, just in time for my bday), so I was happy…

And then I got one of the new double monster high potion blind things that I’ve wanted since they came out and was so happy I got the pair I wanted second most…! Also happy bc even though I have spectra from the first set of potion bottles, they’re slightly different.

I’m hoping to get some command shelves to display some of my smaller dolls in my room.

I’ve been trying to save money so I haven’t been buying dolls as much, but I did restyle a couple of ones I already had:

And I’ve finally had enough spoons to begin working on redoing my displays, starting with my “slumber party” room/bedroom layout… It’s still a WIP but here’s a progress shot from last week (was too tired to work on it this week):

I used some cardboard I covered with wrapping paper for the “wallpaper” for now. I had wanted a leaf design but it kept being out of stock so I settled for this abstract pink and white one bc I knew it would match the closet.

I’m thinking of gifting myself a set of 1/6 scale replicas of the entire kuro manga for the shelves here. There’s someone on etsy who does these and they already said they can do the whole set… won’t be cheap but for that work I think it’s a fair price. (Previously they only did Vol 1-12.) May even ask for an extra copy of Bard’s volume lol.

I also did splurge on 2 “expensive” dolls (they weren’t that much but they’re more expensive than the ones you buy in-stores) for my birthday (though I would have held off the spider one if I had known about the Seb doll…).

They both look SOOOOO nice in their boxes that I haven’t opened them yet… the Venus is on display in the living room for now. Haven’t decided about the other one. It looks so cool in the box, but I bought her bc she’s so fun with her tattoos and unique finger painting that it would be a shame not to unbox her…

you can’t see it but she has dots on her fingernails to mimic spider and her pants are flared and lacey on the bottoms

~thanks for the ask and giving me a chance to show off some of my dolls-

[doodle-girl]

The Monsters of Eastridge: DOAI Playlist

Description: At this point, might as well make a playlist for everything. Welcome to my own personal demon-filled hell, this is mostly based on lyrics, vibes, or both 🎃 (Edit: Due to recent fixations, this now also includes some Sitcom AU stuff.)

(Yeah this is made mostly for @spookmuth but also just anyone else who’s interested in my music taste/how my thoughts work. Will update the post whenever the playlist updates, have fun! Also footnotes will be in brackets because I like footnotes)

Edit: Now on spotify! Courtesy of @witheredallium <3

Edit edit: On youtube now! (Sitcom-specific songs not included)

“Happy Face” by Jagwar Twin [I have had an animatic for this jangling around my brain for actual several months oh my god]

“Turn the Lights Off” by Tally Hall

“A1 - It’s just a burning memory” by The Caretaker [Yeah idk how well this actually fits since it’s based on a song from like. The 30s. But I think it’s obligatory for any analog horror ever lol]

"I Can't Decide" by The Scissor Sisters [This one I got inspo from havoc-bloom's playlist/clip of Pastra finding it. A few of these are, actually, lol] [Edit: I have now realized just how well this fits Clyde in the sitcom au and I am once again plagued by art ideas 👀]

"I'M Sane" by Axie [Me when I torture the innocent with horrid monsters and become one myself. but I'm a little silly about it teehee~ 😜]

"The Circus" by Toby Fox [This popped up on shuffle when I was drawing Clyde once and my brain refused to let go of the vibes™ ever since]

"Animal Cannibal (Possibly in Michigan)" by Buckshot Princess [I would've put the one by Karen Skladany but it's not on apple music 😔 sad. This cover's really nice tho]

"The Dismemberment Song" by Blue Kid [Same reasoning as "I'M Sane," nyehehe. Also this song really feels like it's ripped out of a musical number. If you told me it was I'd believe you.]

"The Mind Electric" by Miracle Musical

"Horror Show" by K-Modo [You ever just. Think about why Lankmann does the things he did? Like what's his game here?]

"Dance of Corpse (feat. Hatsune Miku)" by Kikuo [this might also spiral into an animatic lol. Anyway do me a solid and go look up the music video, turn on the official english subtitles and come back to me.]

"The Nowhere King" by The Centaurworld Cast

"Nothing Changes" by Jewelle Blackman, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer, and Kay Trinidad [this musical makes me feel. so many things. And I just think the vibes/lyrics of "why try when you'll only end in misery" might fall into the category of vibes here idk idk]

"Murders" by Miracle Musical

"Kitchen Fork" by Jack Conte [I don't remember exactly why I put this here rn but I just know this is an Alex song. It's so beautifully haunting and passionate stg] [Edit: yeah definitely an Alex song]

"Meet Me in the Woods" by Lord Huron ['kay I know the vibes are probably off but look at the lyrics and tell me it shouldn't go here]

"A Crow's Trial" by Vane Lily [Look man I can’t explain this one exactly but just trust me on it]

"You're F****d" by Ylvis [Yeah I put this one here as a joke song. Every single character in here is SO doomed by the narrative, I'm sorry Alex but it's true. teehee~]

"UNCANNY / ft. KAFU" by kian [I actually couldn't find this one on apple music but galactinqq was right about this being an Alex song and I'm putting it on the post]

"Raising the Dead!" by Jessica Law [Styx, you madlad, this is SUCH a Lankmann song oh my god]

“Hymn for a Scarecrow” by Tally Hall [“Simon isn’t even in the series yet, though” My guy it’s called Hymn for a Scarecrow and it’s Tally Hall what else do you want me to do. I love Simon so much I miss him already <3]

“Break My Mind” by DAGames

“In the Mood” by Glenn Miller [this one was in Vol 1! So I found it and I’m putting it here <3]

“Pictures” by Kyle Allen Music [I mean technically the series is videos but whatever. This song fits sue me]

“Ruler of Everything” by Tally Hall [I saw the words “mechanical hands” on a DOAI fanart once and it jumpstarted an idea that refuses to leave me. Turns out it fits VERY well holy crap]

"I'll Be There for You (Theme from Friends)" by The Rembrandts [shoutout to froggydrawz's own sitcom AU playlist for more material for me eheheheh ✌️ I'll be putting a few of those here]

"I'm Still Standing" by Taron Egerton [sitcom exclusive because canon Alex is fucking dead /lh]

"Digital Silence" by Peter McPoland

"How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty [another sitcom one nyehehehe. This AU has me by a chokehold unlike any other AU I've been into istg]

"Who is She (Reprise)" by Kimiko Glenn [I apologize for those who came here for a normie-ass DOAI playlist, I promise it started out that way but y'know that's fixations for ya. Anyways I added this one on a whim because it gave off veldigun!Alex AU vibes. Might fit with other stuff idk do with that what you will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

"Soft Bitch" by Rio Romeo [pretty sure it was spookmuth that made a sitcom AU art inspired by this song and I love it]

"Runaway" by AURORA [secret-spirit if you see this at all just know this was your doing (/pos). This is like, my favorite AURORA song and seeing you do an Alex art in the whiteboard to this song sparked a primal "holy shit" moment in me]

"Lose Control" by Teddy Swims [I was doodling in the DOAI whiteboard when my mamá started playing this in the other room and my brain immediately went "oh my god what if Clyde and Winfrey"]

"Soft Apocalypse" by Charming Disaster [Once again, everybody give it up for Styx's music taste, this is making my brainworms go mad with art ideas 👏👏👏 sitcom AU song, btw]

Side note, might hit a word limit here? So Imma have to continue this list in a reblog, just look through those for more if ya want✌️

[hunieday]

Re:vale - 2D☆STAR Vol.5 interview

Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!

This magazine has been released in November 2016 aka before part 3!

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your hard work with the shooting and outfit change! Pleased to work with you for this interview.

Interviewer: It's been a little while, but congratulations on the success of your 5th anniversary live performance at the Zero Arena inaugural event!

Momo: Thank you very much!

Yuki: Thank you.

Interviewer: Your live concert was very exciting. Could you please share your honest thoughts?

Yuki: It was our honor as Re:vale to be chosen to perform in such a special place like Zero Arena.

Yuki: I'm grateful to all the staff who worked hard to make the show a success, to TRIGGER and IDOLiSH7 for their support and their performances, and to all the fans who came to see us.

Yuki: I’m sincerely glad that Momo and I worked so hard together.

Yuki: Right, Momo?

Momo: Yeah!

Momo: I'm really grateful too! I want to thank each and every one of them as loudly as I can!

Yuki: We’re also glad we were able to cover a Zero song as planned.

Momo: And the exclusive one-night shuffle units with TRIGGER and IDOLiSH7 were super exciting too!

Interviewer: Speaking of TRIGGER and IDOLiSH7, they did perform a medley of Re:vale songs, how did you decide on that?

Momo: Actually they didn’t inform us about that, it was a complete surprise!

Yuki: It sure was.

Yuki: We were as surprised as the audience, if not more.

Momo: I almost cried even though we were about to perform!

Yuki: You mean you were actually crying.

Momo: Come on, Yuki, don't reveal Momo-chan's secrets so casually!

Yuki: Fufu. My bad.

Interviewer: I see. Thank you for sharing that precious memory with us!

Interviewer: Allow me to change the topic, could you share your thoughts on this cover photoshoot?

Momo: The shoot was so much fun! There was Re:vale spray-painted on the set which was very exciting!

Yuki: It was. The letters weren't very visible in the end because we stood in front of them, but it was nice to have a set specifically dedicated to us.

Momo: And the outfits exuded our adult charms thanks to the casual jackets and hats, don’t you think!?

Momo: Right, Yuki?

Yuki: Fufu. For me at least. Momo didn't give off much of an adult vibe.

Momo: Huh!? That's not true! I was oozing with charm, right!?

Interviewer: Yes! You both looked wonderful.

Interviewer: The theme of this issue is "Secret Talk with Close Friends", so please tell us about a moment where you felt grateful for having a partner.

Yuki: I'm not good at socializing or livening up the mood, so Momo's ability to make everyone around him happy helps me out a lot.

Momo: I'm happy, but you say that all the time~ Tell me something new!

Yuki: Then show us your example, Momo.

Momo: For me, it's Yuki's cooking!

Momo: I'm really happy that he makes dishes with meat just for me since he doesn’t even eat it! I can really feel your love!

Yuki: Hmm, I see what you mean.

Yuki: Then, during our indie days when Momo and I were still living together in poverty, Momo never got mad at me even when I was getting fired from my part time jobs. I’d love to thank you for that.

Yuki: Thank you.

Momo: You went back in time out of nowhere!?

Yuki: It's about how grateful I am to you ever since we started working together.

Momo: Here it is! Yuki's handsome comment!

Momo: You're in such high spirits today, you’re making my heart flutter!

Yuki: Fufu. Sorry for always being so handsome. 

Interviewer: Since we’re already at it, is there anything you'd like to tell your partner?

Momo: Yuki, there's still a confession you haven’t told me yet, right!?

Yuki: Why does it have to be a confession?

Momo: Because we're on the cover, so it's a great opportunity!

Momo: Please give me a warm confession that will convey our relationship to those who don’t know about Re:vale!

Yuki: Wait. Don't ask me to do things outside my expertise out of nowhere.

Momo: No way... I've always trusted you, Yuki... Was I just a game to you...!?

Yuki: No, not in the slightest.

Momo: If you don't share that special confession, Momo-chan might not recover...

Yuki: Ahh, are we doing this?

Momo: Momo-chan might not recover...

Yuki: Alright...

Yuki: "Until the end of the world, you’re the one and only partner for me in the universe." …*chuckles*

Momo: Yuki, you’ll ruin everything if you laugh at the end!

Yuki: I tried my best, so cut me some slack.

Interviewer: Thank you for the passionate messages!

Momo: Actually, TRIGGER’s Gaku came up with this line for me.

Yuki: The Number One most desired Man is also handsome on the inside, isn’t he?

Momo: I respect him for being able to churn out a dramatic line like that without any shame, even though he’s our junior!

Yuki: That’s right. No matter how many times I say it, it doesn't sound as manly as when he does.

Momo: You'll sound good if you don't laugh halfway through, Yuki!

Interviewer: Now onto the next question. Where do you see Re:vale in 10 years?

Yuki: I'll be 36, Momo will be 35, and it'll be Re:vale's 15th anniversary in ten years.

Momo: I'll work hard so that Yuki doesn't replace me with a younger guy!

Yuki: Hey, don’t say something that might cause misunderstandings.

Momo: Because I'm working on anti-aging!

Yuki: You’ll still be my partner even ten years from now, right? I’m looking forward to working with you more, Momo.

Momo: Yeah! Looking forward to it too, Yuki!

Momo: If I can still be with you and Re:vale in ten years then that's enough to make me happy!

Yuki: Thank you, Momo. I’ll be happy too.

Momo: I’m gonna be a bit greedy, but I’ll also be super happy if all our fans continue supporting us in ten years like they do now!

Yuki: Fufu. Indeed.

Interviewer: Lastly, please share a message for your fans who continue to support you.

Momo: I hope everyone enjoys the cover issue featuring Re:vale.

Momo: We were able to be on the cover of the magazine and succeed in the inaugural performance thanks to everyone's support! Thank you!

Momo: You have plenty of choices with so many charming idols featured in the magazine, including TRIGGER and IDOLiSH7, but please continue to support Re:vale!

Yuki: We were able to achieve all of this, from the magazine cover to the inaugural performance, all thanks to our fans who believed in Momo and I and kept supporting us.

Yuki: We will continue to do our best to keep offering the best Re:vale, so please continue supporting us.

The End

[trickarrowsandbatarangs]

Time to make a too-long post about Kate Bishop (because I love her 💜) and her potential future in Marvel comics

The most recent major appearance of Kate Bishop was (I believe, I’m not perfectly up to date on my Marvel) in Avengers (2023)’s blood hunt tie in from mid-2024, and it was GREAT. I loved getting to see Kate in her element, and I really enjoyed the way CF Villa draws her. This new costume took an adjustment period, but I really like it!

HOWEVER. Because she’s my favourite and I’m totally biased, I think she should get an ongoing comic where she’s the/a main character again, and this post breaks down some potential ways I think it would be cool to see them do this!

I hope no marvel news that I’m not aware of comes out while I’ve been writing this that makes this post completely redundant

Also! This is an open invitation to share what kind of comics you’d like to see Kate headline!

Option 1: A New “Hawkeye” Book

- Hawkeye (2017) Vol.1 cover, and Hawkeye (2012) #9 cover

The most obvious option is to give her a new series all to herself. The Kelly Thompson run is really good, and a character-defining comic for Kate. I also enjoyed the miniseries Kate got in 2021 to coincide with the Hawkeye show - I don’t think it was as strong as some of her other appearances, but it was a fun comic that introduced Kate’s sister on-panel for the first time (and gave KB a new look as Hawkeye).

For me to properly get behind a new solo series for Kate, I don’t think I would want it to tread the same ground as Thompson’s - primarily tonally, but also with the move to LA - and would be thrilled to see someone give Kate a type of story she hasn���t been in before (at least as the sole main character).

Maybe it’s just because I recently read a comic set during this period, but something like Grayson (2014) did for Dick Grayson, in giving a character a “spy arc”, I feel like an espionage-inspired run wouldn’t feel out of place (and it is canon that Kate wanted to be a SHIELD agent growing up).

- Avengers (2023) - Blood Hunt tie-in

Alternatively, (and in a very different direction) following up on Blood Hunt and (spoilers for Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye run) with the fact that Kate’s mum is a vampire, something that learns more into that horror and supernatural side of things and maybe feels a bit Buffy the Vampire Slayer (although with the private investigator background, Angel: The Series might be a better ref) could be really cool!

Going to the other side of Kate’s lineage, taking notes from Clint’s story in Freefall, and having Kate go against her father, who is able to exploit his wealth to get away with it all, could be a really interesting read!

I’m sure there’s many different new takes or types of story to get out of Kate as a character, and as long as it was trying something new, I’d be pumped to see how it went! (If anyone has new directions they’d want to see this character taken in a solo, PLEASE share!)

While I adored the Thompson and Romero run and would’ve loved if it had gone on longer, it was strong and unique enough that I’d prefer to see something fresh as opposed to an imitation.

Option 1b: A “Hawkeyes” Comic

- Hawkeye (2017) Vol. 3 cover, Generations: Hawkeye & Hawkeye (2017) cover, and All-New Hawkeye (2016) #6

Unsurprisingly, as a Hawkeye fan, Fraction & Aja’s 2012 run is one of my favourite comics of all time. Part of this is because of how well the characters of Kate and Clint play off of each other, and I love the weird hard-to-define-but-definitely-codependent relationship that develops.

I also love Clint, so would be thrilled if the pair of them had a new comic together (oh hey! And maybe they could introduce a variant of Charli Ramsey into 616! The more Hawkeyes the merrier!)

However, with that said, similar to my view on the 2018 Hawkeye comic, this dynamic has already been done *fantastically* in this way in Hawkeye 2012, and while I am desperate beyond desperation to see these two together in a comic again, and have their relationship explored, I’m not certain how excited I would be for something trying to get at that and not succeeding quite as well (which - and this might be a hot take - I think the Lemire and Perez run kind of does).

Any new run with these two at the helm would have to

1.) capture their pre-existing dynamic

2.) present this dynamic in a way that didn’t feel like it was just using fraction/Aja’s run as a crib sheet without expanding or adding anything

Option 2: A New “Young Avengers”

The 00s had a young avengers run, the 10s had a young avengers run, it is only fair that the 20s get one as well. Also- I think they’re leaning towards this vis-a-vis the movies, so this could be something we see emerging in the run up.

The 2021 Kate Bishop: Hawkeye miniseries also ended with Kate teaming up with Cassie Lang and America Chavez, and teased potential future missions, so it would be cool to see this trio setting up a new group!

My personal ideal roster would be a bit of a merge between 2005 and 2013’s Young Avengers - with additions from the Kate-led West Coast Avengers team: Kate (obviously), Wiccan & Hulkling (they may be too busy being married space royalty, but they feel essential to YA), Speed, America Chavez, Cassie Lang, with new additions Fuse & Alloy (because I love them), and if we wanted fully fresh blood, add Shela Sexton and Brielle Brooks to the team. I am aware this is… a lot of characters - definitely too many, even - but I could not cut anyone from this list because I love them all.

Oh hey a “Fuse & Alloy” comic run would also be cool as hell. But this post isn’t about that rn.

A criticism I have of both Young Avengers runs is they never quite establish a “status quo” for the heroes to work from. This is probably very much personal taste, but I would enjoy a comic that firmly sets up their day-to-day/Homebase/etc. and then has them going on individual adventures, fighting off threats episodically, or in longer several-issue-spanning stories (I think Thompson’s West Coast Avengers is really good for this).

Option 3: A “Kate Bishop & America Chavez” team-up

- America (2017) #5 cover, Civil War II: Choosing Sides #3

I have an agenda and its name is Amerikate.

I think it is very telling that despite only minor (but great) interactions in Young Avengers 2013 these two were quickly established as best friends by writers afterwards. They play off each other very well, and I love to see their closeness and friendship.

This could be a fun dimension-hopping adventure! Combining an overarching plot of America and Kate traveling these different realities, but also the individual stories and problems of the duo in these realities (and the denizens they would come upon and want to help).

While if I were at the helm, I would obviously want a “Hawkeye & Ms America” comic to build towards a romance between the two, given the flirtatiousness of their friendship (and hey there was even that pitch for them to actually kiss a few years ago), with it starting as two friends fighting crime/monsters/aliens/supervillains/etc. and feelings reaching a tipping point… but honestly I would also be totally okay if we got a comic like this and it was purely platonic, with that kind of teasing flirting vibe that they already have. I love both these characters and their friendship is always so enjoyable to read.

When I first read Young Avengers 2013 years ago as a teen, it was actually America, not Kate, that I initially gravitated towards and went “holy shit she’s the coolest woman alive” and became one of my favourite comic characters. I would love to see America as a title name in a new comic run. Especially because her own solo titles have unfortunately not really been as strong as I was hoping for.

Option 4: “Jones & Bishop: Private Investigators”

Given that “superhero” isn’t the only profession they’ve shared, I can already see the image of this building so clearly in my mind. I think the dynamic they have in comics has been really great to see so far (Jessica Jones’s appearance in Thompson’s Hawkeye is such a good issue), and I would be so pumped to see what direction this could go.

I also think as character parallels, the conversation they have during Young Avengers Special about their different trajectories following a similar event is deeply meaningful and I think about it a lot.

- Young Avengers Special (2005

[handlewithcarezine]

HANDLE WITH CARE VOL. 2-- CALL FOR ARTISTS

Handle With Care zine is now seeking artists for the next volume! We are looking for about 20 artists for this edition.

Important information, boundaries, and legal stuff:

Submission deadline for Vol 2. is July 19th, 2024. If you are accepted but unable to make the deadline for whatever reason, please communicate with us! We are more than willing to be accommodating and figure something out.

The zine's physical dimension will be 8 inches tall, 6 inches wide (20.32 cm by 15.24 cm). Submissions should be in 300 DPI.

The loose theming of Vol 2. is that of an instruction manual. This theme is NOT strict and does not affect piece submission, but it will guide how we structure the zine as well as guide the aesthetics of the front cover and non-submission pages such as the table of contents and credits section. While it is not required, feel free to use the instruction manual theme as a guiding prompt: what would you have liked to have when you were questioning objectum?

Visual artists are welcome to submit an additional one-page written accompaniment to their visual artwork if they would like. Fully written works are currently capped to a maximum of five pages, though this may be adjusted once we have a rough idea what people are submitting.

Handle With Care is meant to celebrate raw objectum emotion and experiences, and meant to give these emotions a physical place in the world. We do not have a minimum skill level as a result.

However, we reserve the right to reject or ask for revisions on any submissions that make us uncomfortable, including any romantic depiction of an object that resembles a realistic feral animal or a human child. This zine is printed through a government-owned printing press. If your submission can be misconstrued as something far more concerning than just objectum sexuality by people who are not familiar with the community, it will be rejected for the peace of mind of everyone involved.

HWC is also strictly safe for work. Non-sexual nudity is allowed, although if it crosses a line we may ask for revisions.

AI-generated submissions are also currently not allowed. We want to see work straight from objectum artists, not an objectum middleman commissioning ChatGPT for free and taking the credit.

HWC is non-profit. Physical copies are sold only to break even on printing and shipping. Any profit from donations will be re-invested in the zine or split evenly between all contributors.

Artists will retain all rights to their individual work, including copyright and being able to resell it. The zine owner (me (Ross), in this case) is allowed to sell the pieces only in the bundle of the entire zine and not individually, and will not own any copyright to those pieces.

Zine organization and communication is done through a Discord server. If you are interested in submitting something for Handle With Care Vol. 2, please DM this tumblr or email gillesbyross@gmail.com with:

What are you thinking of submitting? If it's a written work, how many pages do you estimate you'll need?

2. Social media or some other way to verify you are not a troll

We already have a cover artist. We currently have an artist maximum of 20-25. If there is no more room by the time you send in an application, we will put you on a priority list for Vol. 3.

We're very excited to work on a second volume of the zine!