hauntedbystupidghosts

[hauntedbystupidghosts]

Rain sang along to the chorus of Lachryma

Give me back my fan vids and pics ffs

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Keep your head high and your boots higher

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These boots are (not) made for walking

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First a quick note, from here on, fem-presenting Ghouls are referred to as Ghulehs rather than Ghoulettes. But I come to you with more lore that @the-moon-in-the-gutter and I cooked up.

On Multi Ghouls, Hybrids, Summonigs, and the Pit, pt. 2

I explained last time that Multi Ghouls are a combination of Quint and any other (one or more) Elements. The Ghost Project has included six so far:

Cowbell: Quint/Earth

Special: Quint/Fire

Swiss: All Elements

Sunny: Air/Fire/Quint

Aurora: Quint/Air

Tempest: Air/Quint/Water

Hybrid Ghouls are then a blend of any Elements that don't include Quint, such as the Old Magick Earth/Air Ghouls in the Pit, and Dew, who is Water/Fire. Sometimes Hybrids will present as one Element more strongly, and can undergo a ritual to change that presentation, such as what happened to Dew.

Other times, such as with Sunny, an Element will essentially be "recessive" and seem to not factor into the Ghoul's presentation at all. Sunny's Quintessence is recessive, but manifests in her Appalachian folk practices (as opposed to other Quint Magicks being more energy-based), and also in the fact that she is transfem:

In human Elemental associations, Water and Earth are feminine, and Air and Fire are masculine. With Ghouls, that's a little flipped; the band Earth Ghouls have all been masc, and except for Mist, Water has been too. In this lore, Air is Ghuleh-heavy, especially when we include Rory and Tempest. This is another flip from human associations, the same way the directional associations for Earth and Quint are flipped. This also renders Quint on the masc end of the spectrum. And since Ghouls (gn) are matriarchal, the feminine Elements are more dominant. So Sunny, being Air and Fire with recessive Quint, is transfem.

This does beg the question of Fire Ghouls. Why have all three of them been masc, and why have we only seen three? There are two main reasons for this. One, especially early in the Ghost Project's history, the human perception was that rock/metal was a male-dominated/exclusive genre, and so to have any hope of success, the band had to be comprised entirely of men. It was Terzo, already a rebel among the Clergy (in no small part due to his barely-concealed relationship with Omega) and afforded leeway after his Grammy win, who dared to experiment and allowed the summoning of a Ghuleh (Mist, honored as the First) to stand (and after all, Terzo was quite adamant about celebrating the female orgasm). He also successfully summoned the first Multi Ghoul, the beloved Cowbell.

The second reason has to do with living conditions in the Pit and Fire Ghoul nature. Fire Ghouls are particularly suseptible to Pride and Vanity, and this usually manifests Topside as very particular hair care routines. They can be likened to cats, with constant grooming, their glory comparable to lion manes. However, in the territorial disputes, the Fire Ghouls established themselves in deserts, which are not the most hospitable for cat-like entities. In short, life is hard for Fire Ghouls, and even if their Element predisposes their population to skew more fem, being matriarchal means they are not going to give up their Ghulehs easily and leave their packs vulnerable (the other Elements are far more naturally suited to their environments, especially Water Ghouls, as water is life, hence their prevalence in the Project). As such, masc Fire Ghouls have been the only successful summonings (though looking at Ifrit's tits and Dew's beauty, one would be forgiven for questioning that).

A final facet to this, is the misconception that the Pit is the fiery Christian Hell. Fire Ghouls in particular are disinterested in furthering this lie perpetuated by followers of the Nemesis. If too many of them live Topside, humans might well get the wrong idea, reinforcing the stereotype of red-skinned devils with horns and pitchforks, like children's Halloween costumes.

But even with this talk of dominant/recessive Elements, and some being predisposed to fem or masc presentations, all the Elements are inherently unpredictable. Floods, wildfires, windstorms, earthquakes, are all destructive. And for the Quints, space is largely uninhabitable, and in this lore specifically, snowstorms and avalanches are the associated wild cards. So all Element combinations are similarly unpredictable, it's always a crapshoot without too much rhyme or reason, much like human genetics can also combine for unexpected results.

Most often, when a Ghoul is summoned, the summoner has a specific Element in mind, to fulfill a role in the Ministry or the Ghost Project itself. Bell was a bit of experimentation by Terzo. He had "Earth-ish" in mind during the summoning, and got Bell. And then for Copia, needing backup singers was a whole new requirement, so Swiss being every Element means he can fulfill any role, and Sunny and Rory were summond with similar intentions. Tempest is Vero's first and so far only summon, needing to not only add a vocalist, but "shuffle" the Ghulehs to account for Cumulus' retirement from touring (with the new Ghoul Ministry establishing itself, and her being Queen of the Pack, she felt a responsibility to stay behind and keep a closer eye on things at home), and so Tempest answered his call; it wasn't initially clear what role she would take up, and so an Air-forward Multi was the best, most logical choice.

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I imagine every Papa has to summon a ghoul at some point as a rite of passage in some way; to prove they are worthy of the title. This is why Perpetua introduced a brand new ghoulette.

As of right now I headcanon Tempest/Haze (no, I myself haven't settled on a name yet) being so, so close and friendly with Aurora, but simultaneously being too shy to really talk to anyone else. She knows she's walking into an established pack, but it helps that Aurora so strongly relates to that feeling. She at least had Phantom, and now the new gal has her.

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Aurora and Dew bond more after her change from Multi to Air due to the fact that he understands her struggles to connect to her new element.

While yes, she was an air-quint multi, she also connected to other elements among those two and she has a hard time adjusting to being able to only connect to one.

Dew understands this really well because he struggled to connect to fire after being changed. It didn’t help either that he had trouble connecting with water topside due to how differently elements work topside and in the Pits.

Aurora on the other hand connected really well with all of her elements topside because of her strong connection to quintessence, so that sudden change was hard for her.

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Thinking about the ‘From the office of Frater Imperator’ pens again and do you think Copia is running around the ministry with a label printer taking ownership of everything he can stick a label on?

Every juice box has a ‘From the mini fridge of Frater Imperator’ sticker.

(Started when Perpetua ate his leftovers once - he will never be forgiven. First his job, now his beijing beef?!?)

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I love everything to do with Mountain in relation with deer, but instead of deer like physical attribute, I present to you Mountain ghoul with deer behaviour.

Mountain being skittish when he was first summoned, often running and hiding when anyone did so much as move too fast or talk too loud. Him often hiding in his room for as long as he could to avoid getting spooked.

Mountain spending large amounts of time in the forests surrounding the ministry, often with deer. He bought many deer into the ministry because "if he's cold, they're cold".

Mountain running from anything he perceived a threat, even if he was well large enough for it not to have been.

Mountain staring directly into headlights and other bright lights in the darkness until he literally has to be dragged away.

Mountain rubbing his horns against things, usually doorframes to help them shed but also to mark territory.

Mountain attempting to challenge other ghouls for food and occasionally breeding rights. It took a while for him to break this habit, however sometimes it still surfaces.

Mountain being told to hide and going oh so still, much like a fawn hidden in grass.

Nocturnal Mountain sleeping during the days and being active during the night by nature. Having to come for practice during the day was horrific until he managed to change his sleep schedule, and there was discussion of if he should stay or not before he started getting more sleep, almost passing out over the drum kit at several points.

Mountain aggressively sniffing new people to take in their scent, not only trying to memorize it but check for any health issues that may change their scent.

Mountain with a longer rut than usually seen among other ghouls.

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→ Phantom training to be a tattoo artist during his free time.

He has this heavy sketchbook that he brings everywhere on tour. He never leaves it at the hotel; it comes to the venue with him so he can continue to draw between sound checks. It's thick and covered in stickers, and it has a pink heart on the spine that Aurora painted with her glittery nail polish when he wasn't looking.

The Clergy doesn't pay very well, so he kept all his money from his first tour to buy a tattoo gun, some synthetic skins and stencils. He hopes to save enough to get a proper chair after the Skeletour.

He learns everything from the internet, and he progresses fast. His lines are less and less wonky as months pass. The others are surprised by how calm and focused he is when he works on his sketches. He's so absorbed by his designs that he can stay up all night working on them, only realizing that he forgot to sleep when the sun shows up through his curtains and his back hurts from sitting at his desk for hours.

Mountain and Dewdrop let him practice on them. Inks and needles are costly in the long term, so they never let him tattoo them for free. Mountain has an entire thigh covered with Phantom's flashes. Dewdrop, on the other hand, challenges him by requesting bigger designs and touch-ups on his older tattoos. Whenever he's running out of blank space, he makes Phantom use his quintessence to clear out the ink on his skin and cover it with something new. Phantom is so soft with the machine that he finds it relaxing, lying there for hours under his skilled hands.

Phantom's been tattooing in his bedroom for a long time now, so for his summoning anniversary, Rain's decided to gift him his own room. He mostly sleeps in Dew's anyway, and he thinks the space would be better used as a tattoo studio.

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You would think ghouls don’t remember much or that, they appear out thin dust from the pit, or that there was no such things as families down there. But I mean.

I remember my mom.

I miss her. She either disappeared or got summoned. I never knew which. All I know is that she never came back.

Maybe this is why I’m such a hard head or jerk now. I don’t know. I just want her back. I know she’s gone now but it still hurts.

OOC NOTE! :D//another thing about my ghoulsona stuff.. I kinda like putting that there’s such things as families down in the pit before they get summoned. I mean.. come on. Makes no sense but shhh///

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I do not like to really "categorize" specific ghoul elements as being like, made to do a specific thing (ex. earth ghouls always in the garden, quint ghouls always in the infirmary, fire ghouls always being like a heating pad) but there is one thing that i firmly believe always:

quint ghouls were made to hold and protect baby. that's my truth

if there is anything like an orphanage or daycare with the ministry, quint ghouls love to be there. they're not assigned to work there, but they love to volunteer to help out whenever they have time. because they love baby.

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Papa V Headcanon:

I had this already but Skeleta's release has just made it stronger, so:

I think Papa V Perpetua was raised largely by ghouls and members of the Ministry in a very odd sheltered situation, because they were aiming to raise the Ultimate Satanic Pope. His primary exposure to media until he was a young adult was 80s music, horror films, gothic novels, and other Ghost songs. As he got older he was given a little more opportunity to live, so he did experience things like romance and loss and adventure and a lot of horny shit, but the damage was already done: he was already a weird little guy. A perfect lab-grown little freak.

(That's also why some of his behavior is really ghoul-like as others have observed.)

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i don't need "i love you", all i need is —

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa I love Skeletá! 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

they said they weren't gonna have any purely instrumental songs bc they were gonna try and let the ghouls shine in the songs with lyrics, and I think they did a really good job of that; I didn't need any without lyrics.

there were also zero songs that I skipped over - I love all of them! rarely do I have a no-skips album 😄

I feel like you can definitely feel the influence of 70s and 80s rock and metal in this album too - Missilia Amori gives me Alice Cooper/Def Leppard vibes, Peacefield is serving Journey energy, and some of the others remind me of Jefferson Starship with their synth 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

also shoutout to Excelsis for being the 1 song about the inevitability of death that doesn't make me have an existential crisis and is actually comforting! 😄

10/10 would recommend 👍🏻

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My new Papa stickers, Now with Copia!!

I plan on doing both cardi and terzo in their robes eventually as well as all of their respective ghouls/ghoulettes

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just finished listening to skeletá for the fifth time

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“I hate Skeletá because it does not sound like Impera!”, that is the point you cunt.