#and thus in comparison ghost is very obviously a child

[abyssembraced]

((Quick heads up that my portrayal of Ghost might seem a little inconsistent for a little bit. There are a couple things I'm not super satisfied with right now))

[sepublic]

Obviously it would be way too many villains to juggle and thus give justice but could you fucking imagine if they brought back ALL of the old villains for Crystalized, even the ones who were already brought back in Day of the Departed?

We know Traveler's Tea can bring back the dead from the Departed Realm. But instead of Morro, who has already proven himself to be chill, maybe the Preeminent could be brought back in his place, since she was the true villain of Possession. The Preeminent could take a smaller minifigure form, or even be a miniaturized Lego build. Her being a lot smaller is because she got weaker from being dead longer, and Pixal defeating her.

Nadakhan gets brought back and it turns out he remembers all of Skybound, just as Jay and Nya do! Or he doesn't. Jay and Nya explain to the others that there was a whole season that just got undone, and given their experiences with time travel, it's not entirely out of the question for them to accept this. Nadakhan can't grant wishes anymore because that's a huge can of worms from a writing standpoint... Maybe the Overlord used technology to limit him, knowing what he was getting into because he heard the stories of Nadakhan. Or maybe his wish-granting was lost due to Djinjago's destruction, which is what Dragons Rising did. Again this is inconsistent lore but it's Ninjago so whaddya expect.

Yang is still haunting the Temple of Airjitzu, but as a chill and reasonable ghost. Maybe he gets crystalized (can ghosts be crystalized???), brainwashing and forcing him to the Crystal King's council.

Acronix and Krux are easy to explain, in fact the way they were left in canon is just begging for them to make a comeback, because if Wu did, why not them? Tbh a part of me thinks Machia is, in some ways, a better fit for this role; She much better represents her villain faction than the Time Twins do, since she's an actual Vermillion. Maybe all three characters can represent Hands of Time; Machia was also there with the Time Twins as part of Iron Doom, so again, easy explanation. The Iron Doom falls out of the time vortex and idk gets obliterated by the impact, maybe it lands on some explosive stuff, so only the Time Twins and/or Machia make it out alive; So there's no Vermillion army or time machine to rely on.

Iron Baron somehow survived getting encased in molten metal; I dunno how but he just did. He somehow broke himself free. Maybe his mechanical arm was still functional.

Should the Omega Oni be included? It might seem redundant with the Overlord there, but he technically WAS a big arc villain. It was a very short arc by Ninjago standards but whatever. Maybe having the Omega there could be used to contrast his existence with the Overlord's, and/or explain what the Overlord's whole relation to the Dragon/Oni divide even is.

Vex is retrieved from the Never-Realm. He's probably the least justified of all the villains to bring back given he's canonically a wimp, but maybe the Overlord selects him specifically for the psychological torment it'd bring on Zane. I like to think that Zane unsettles the Overlord because while it makes sense for the First Spinjitzu Master, and later his grandson, to defeat him... By comparison, Zane is a nobody in the eyes of the Overlord, just a master of another regular element, no more special than the rest; And yet he still beat him, put the Overlord down longer than Lloyd even did. So he's scared of Zane deep down, and he's using Vex as a way to get back at him.

Unagami gets corrupted by an evil virus because the Overlord already has experience with hacking given his stint in Rebooted. Unagami might be a bit more problematic for censors because once the show starts depicting him as a literal child, it might make censors uncomfortable to have him getting beaten up under any context, even if he did re-assume his Prime Empire form.

Mammatus is... Well, he could easily be crystalized. But given how his character is a racial caricature, I wouldn't be surprised if Lego wanted to avoid touching his character anymore; I suspect he was written as an actually reasonable person to avoid unfortunate implications, even if Ninjago still ended up doing that in a different way. Tbh I wish Mammatus and the Keepers got better focus and writing, especially during Seabound, but I can understand why he'd be left out.

Kalmaar is dead, but so were the villains in Day of the Departed. To break off on a side tangent, I'm surprised the writers killed off Kalmaar, despite Crystalized and its villains-returning gimmick being right around the corner. Given Vangelis and Aspheera were merely imprisoned, it'd have been easy to just have him be imprisoned, but I guess they didn't want to bring him back? But yeah, if you can bring back the dead by opening a portal to the Departed Realm with Traveler's Tea, then that opens up for a lot of villains to come back pretty easily.

So with all of these explanations in mind, our list would include;

-Samukai

-Pythor

-Kozu

-Cryptor

-Chen

-The Preeminent

-Nadakhan

-Yang

-Acronix and Krux

-Harumi

-Iron Baron

-Omega

-Aspheera

-Vex

-Unagami

-Vangelis

-Mammatus

-Kalmaar

-The Overlord

Yeah, I left out the Mechanic and Mr. F. Mr. F was kind of a useless addition since he wasn't actually Mr. E, meaning the writers didn't bring back the dropped Echo Zane plotline. And unlike Mr. E, who had an actual presence and menace, I kinda forgot about Mr. F a lot of the time, and Harumi better represents the Sons of Garmadon. I also left out the Mechanic because he isn't really a major arc villain, just a recurring thug. Tbh I'd replace him with Soto, who could represent the first half of S2, and whose pirates are an actual existing faction with continued relevance, and even defeated Nadakhan!

Also, I’d like to think Zane’s Ice Emperor persona makes an actual dramatic return and not just as an ineffectual gag, like maybe he has to use the scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu to combat the Vengestone army, and seeing Vex again could trigger the past. It’s only for like one episode because we need Zane, but it’s a villain cameo for the arc where all the villains return.

But yeah, if we keep out Soto and Machia, that still brings us to 20 villains to juggle. Which is why this never could've happened. But I can dream, right? Writing a version of Crystalized that includes all of these characters and gives them some actual characterization and dynamics would be a Herculean feat.

(Now imagine a story that brings back all of these villains AND the ones from Dragons Rising…!)

[feralphoenix]

a thing that i really love about hollow knight is that part of its incredibly strict Show Don’t Tell policy means it works a lot in juxtapositions. comparisons and parallels.

like, rather than Telling us what makes for a good and responsible ruler, we get to know about various different heads of state in the various nations of the crater, and we can observe how they handled international relations, public policy, etc and the consequences/effects of their choices, and draw conclusions by ourselves.

there are lots of different parent-child relationships, and sibling relationships, so that we have many examples to compare ghost and their family to.

there are also a number of higher beings around and you can compare them to each other to understand their different approaches to godhood, how they handled being the center of a culture & the responsibilities that entails (radi, unn, tpk) or the ways they sidestepped those roles (white lady, grimm). in addition to forming our opinions of these characters this also contextualizes what ghost does when they attain godhood in the godseeker endings & after the delicate flower variant, in godseeker mode.

like you can use these points of reference for a lot of different analysis topics!!! but one of the things that always Gets Me In My Emotions is the direct juxtaposition between herrah, radiance, and tpk and how differently these three characters handle the cost of fighting Existential Crisis.

the pale king’s policy is officially No Cost Too Great, but just like the hunter says in hollow’s bestiary entry, for tpk “cost” was a thing for other people to pay, and he was not willing to risk any sort of harm to his own person. his plan to deal with the infection involved sacrificing the dreamers & the hollow knight, and his plan to create a hollow knight involved birthing hundreds of thousands of children who were designed to be expendable - they were there so he could experiment on them, select a candidate, cull the failures, and then sacrifice said candidate.

the worst tpk might have experienced through all this is emotional turmoil, and it’s left ambiguous in-game whether he was actually conflicted about the child sacrifice/felt attachment to hollow or whether his personal low point throughout all this was being butthurt about his wife walking out rather than birth a second batch of vessels for the slaughter. (he must’ve been pretty darn butthurt to have lied to the kingdom that the white lady was dead.)

as soon as his plan failed and he had no other recourse, tpk fled rather than expose himself to any potential harm. he was willing to - perhaps desperate enough to - expend any number of chess pieces if it would save hallownest, but his own life and safety was NEVER on the table.

just like tpk, radiance is trying to protect herself and her people. just like tpk and herrah, she too is willing to go to any lengths necessary to get the settlers to fucking step off, give her children back, and leave her alone.

for her this entails being willing to bend her own principles - i’ve talked about this in depth before so you can find all that in my essay tag if you’re interested, but in-game evidence points to radiance having been a pacifist like the rest of her tribe pre-hallownest. and the infection is a curse that’s only sometimes fatal, but it causes extreme amounts of harm and fear and chaos to inflicted parties. and this level of harm is something she’s willing to do just to threaten/pressure tpk into backing down.

her method also causes a large amount of collateral damage (including lateral harm to other indigenous bugs!), suggesting that she either doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal to worry about who might get hurt, or just plain doesn’t care. if you squint, it’s possible to make the argument that radiance might have warned unn before her counterattack against hallownest, but even then forewarning was the only mitigation she was able and willing to provide. if this is what it takes to protect herself and her tribe, then so be it.

so, compared to tpk, who chose to actively sacrifice the lives of individuals to protect the institution of hallownest, and radiance, who doesn’t care about splash damage to bystanders as long as she can save her tribe... what i find extraordinary about herrah is that when she determined that sacrifice was necessary to protect deepnest, she took all that sacrifice upon herself.

most obviously herrah accepts the role of dreamer in hopes of ending the plague, sacrificing her life. in order to keep tpk from taking advantage of that to conquer deepnest, she also negotiates that he has to provide her with an heir, thus ensuring deepnest’s sovereignty... but this means she has to have sex with the very creature who has been trying to commit genocide against the spiders for generations. she has to let her lifelong worst enemy who she’s been fighting alone since the death of her husband impregnate her. this decision had to have come with some form of emotional distress for her, and yet herrah shoulders it and soldiers through it.

and then even through this, it’s implied in the white lady and midwife’s dialogue (+ posed in the dev notes/style guide) that tpk snatched up hornet when she was a child to raise her in the white palace. it’s unclear whether he did this to keep hornet as a hostage to make sure herrah couldn’t renege on their treaty now she’d got what she wanted out of the bargain, to ensure his offspring would be raised in the culture he created rather than in deepnest, which he clearly believed to be barbaric and uncivilized, or both.

yet instead of calling bullshit and flouncing on the deal or trying to steal hornet back, thereby exposing deepnest to the threat of both the infection And aggression from hallownest once more, herrah stuck with it. midwife says that herrah paid dearly for her involvement with this plan, but herrah valued deepnest’s survival over her own individual life, and saw it through to the end no matter how tpk’s plan caused her to suffer or hurt her dignity.

there’s an incredible amount of nobility and integrity herrah shows here. she refuses to let any harm come to her country, and insists that any and all sacrifice required of her as a leader be her sole responsibility. her courage, her political intelligence, and her strength of character as a leader are all nothing short of awe-inspiring.

at the same time, there is still a downside to herrah’s spirit of self-sacrifice. as anyone who’s ever watched steven universe can tell you, self-sacrifice is actually kind of a shitty solution to one’s problems because self-destruction hurts the people who love you.

we get glimpses of hornet’s intense emotional torment over her mother’s fate and her understanding that it’s necessary to let ghost murder herrah to change the status quo; similarly we can understand the crushing amount of personal responsibility hornet feels towards the whole crater comes from knowing the cost of her own birth, and having front row seats to her parents’ political power struggle.

we hear from herrah herself that everything she does is done for hornet, so hornet’s pain is probably the last thing herrah would have wanted, but ironically what hornet goes through in hollow knight is a direct consequence of herrah choosing to martyr herself.

anyway all of this speaks SO much for herrah and radi and tpk’s individual priorities and problem-solving strategies and also their blind spots... plus, there’s a lot about herrah’s character that goes underappreciated and this is one of those unsung aspects. fandom... fandom blease be SAD about SPIDER MAMA with me

[aros001]

Going in blind: Watching season 2 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Huh. Only 7 episodes. Not complaining necessarily. For series with an ongoing plot I've definitely become more in favor with their seasons only having as many episodes as they need rather than them having to stretch themselves out to full up a certain number of episodes, which can lead to padding and just bad character moments.

Episode 1: Jeez. Catra visiting Shadow Weaver's cell just to rub her success in her face and verbally abuse her back for once. It's like a twisted version of Zuko and Ozai from ATLA. Catra's upbringing under her was abusive but this is far from a healthy way for her to deal with it. She's basically deliberately swimming in her resentment.

Episode 2: It's not that I'm rooting for her but by-golly was it fun to watch Catra act like just the absolute worst she could while she was Glimmer and Bow's captive.

I touched on this in season 1 but part of the drama of the heroes feeling guilt over leaving Entrapta behind is kind of lost on me a bit simply because it was her own fault it happened. She deliberately went back into the purge room because of her machine obsession, which then closed on her and erupted in flames. It was more than reasonable to assume she was dead and no one but her was to blame, so I'm not really able to be invested in their guilt over it.

That said, weirdly enough I do like that her "abandonment" doesn't seem to be even a blip on the radar for Entrapta herself. She hasn't joined the horde because she resents the heroes or felt left behind, she simply is so obsessed with machines and experimentation that she'll be on the side of whoever lets her do the most of that. Like, it's selfish and irresponsible but it's very in-character and I'd far rather have a traitor motivation be based in that over something stupid like a misunderstanding.

Episode 3: I love the mental image of Shadow Weaver thinking up princess-themed ghost stories to tell Adora as a child.

So, if the previous She-Ra Mara separated Eternia from the other realms/planets/whatever she did and that's what cut off the She-Ra line for 1000 years, I'm guessing Hordak may be from the time before that happened, thus his drive to create portals and calling Eternia a backwards world. Either he's naturally long-lived or his technology is extending his life.

Episode 4: You know, you could maybe argue it was vague enough that it could be taken other ways but I'm definitely getting some vibes here that Scorpia is crushing on Catra. She literally refers to the two of them as soulmates at one point. I know she says she's trying to be friends but this feels a level beyond that.

Fun little reference to the original She-Ra cartoon thrown in there (and maybe Cowboy Bebop...? James Bond...? What was Glimmer's art style supposed to be?). I like how it is more like just playful ribbing than anything outright dumping on the original. Again, I've never seen original She-Ra but whenever remakes/adaptations go out of their way to trash to the original I always kind of wonder why they bothered doing an adaptation if the original is just that bad? Also, I was having trouble sleeping so it was about 2am when I watched this episode and the very Eartha Kitt Catwoman Catra made it very difficult for me not to lose my **** and stay quiet. With how much of a contrast that version is from the one in this series, that was hilarious. Bonus note, it's a nice touch that Frosta's version of Catra is a pretty crasher in that sweet suit, since that's the only impression of Catra she's ever had.

Adora being a chosen one is definitely elevated up simply by how much the pressure of what she's supposed to be is getting to her. I'm likely going to keep making Avatar The Last Airbender comparisons throughout the series but that's partly because I went into this series figuring it'd be at least structured similar to ATLA (season 1 being more episodic and a little more kid-friendly as it builds up the world before getting more serious later). Adora and Aang are interesting to compare here. Aang's worries early on were less apparent because he was more in-denial/choosing not to think about his problems that much, which fit with his character as a free-spirited Air Nomad. While Adora is much more military-minded. She can't keep herself from thinking about her problems and trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario. And jeez, that idea of who/how Catra is in her mind. Not only beating her but making her watch as she takes everything she cares about away. Not Shadow Weaver, not Lord Hordak, but Catra. That whole Lion King Mufasa/Scar moment between them in episode 11 and their fight in the S1 finale really did a number on her mental image of her old friend. Not reasonably so.

Minor note: I'm sure I'm the only one who got this impression but by the look of it, the way the robot's eye moved, and the music, after getting the soda spilled on it that little spybot gained sentience for half a second and then immediately died. It was so darkly comedic I had to laugh.

Episode 5: So that red disc is basically She-Ra's Red Kryptonite, having an effect on the mind rather than the body. The drunk Adora joke doesn't really do it for me but it did get some nice interactions going between Scorpia and Sea Hawk, two characters I certainly wasn't expecting to bond. I did really like Catra's panic when berserker She-Ra nearly beheads her. The implication is that is Adora really wanted to kill her Catra would already probably be dead. It's a thing I like about powerhouse characters like Superman or Aang, who could just demolish everything around them and don't simply because they're a good person...which in turn makes them the scariest person on the planet when they're well and truly ticked off. I'm not going to lie, I do kind of want to see a She-Ra version of Aang when Appa was stolen or when Superman fought The Elite.

Also, Catra's line of "I have control over Adora. I'm not giving that up for anything.". There's a lot to read into there.

Episode 6: I guess my prediction was sort of right. Shadow Weaver became basically a magic parasite and while it did increase the power she's capable of the implication seems to be that she needs a constant fix of magic to keep herself going, thus her attachment to the Black Garnet.

Have we seen Micah before? Given how long ago the flashback seems set, the fact that Shadow Weaver didn't kill him and thus he probably becomes someone important later in life, I'm guessing he's Glimmer's dad and the queen's late husband, since I think he's the only important male character whose face we haven't seen yet. Also, he's voice by Ezra from Star Wars Rebels and that cracks me up for some reason. It's the exact same voice and a relatively similar character.

I compared Catra and Shadow Weaver with a kind of twisted version of Zuko and Ozai and that definitely still fits here. Both Catra and Zuko confront their parent and call them out for the inexcusable abuse they put them through but while that moment was the start of Zuko's upwards journey this and SW's betrayal seems like it's going to cause Catra to spiral even further. Makes sense why Adora leaving affected her so much. She's probably the only one Catra's ever had that she could consistently trust and rely on, even if she did somewhat resent her.

Not surprised Hordak is getting along with Entrapta. She's not socially aware enough to be scared or intimidated by him, so she'll speak frankly, and since all she wants to talk about is the machines, experiments, and how they could get them to work Hordak probably doesn't take much issue with that. She's producing results, which is what he cares about, thus also why Shadow Weaver and Catra started losing favor with him. I wonder if Catra is going through imposter syndrome? Shadow Weaver had that line that Entrapta earned her place next to Hordak and, if you think about it, Catra hasn't really "earned" anything. We saw that she didn't really take her training or studies that seriously, showing up late to combat practice and even getting partial credit for what Adora beat. She wasn't promoted to Force Captain because of her own abilities but because Adora had defected when she was supposed to get that title. She's come close to a few victories but never really had any except for Glimmer and Bow's kidnapping...whom she then basically let escape when she returned Adora's sword to her. She doesn't have the slightest clue how the horde's bureaucracy works when trying to get things done, like simply getting troops armor. Given how much better than her Adora always was and how little she herself has to her name, I wonder is subconsciously Catra believes she doesn't deserve her current position and thus why she's fretting so much over trying to prove herself.

Episode 7: Am I mistaken or did Bow's parents say that he's the youngest of TWELVE siblings? I was going to ask whether Bow was adopted or if his dad's used a surrogate or if maybe there's even just simply magic in She-Ra's world that allows two people of the same sex to have a child together but now I'm just focused on the 12 kids thing. I get nervous just imagining myself having more than one. You should see me when I'm with two cats. I have to pet both of them because I'd feel like I'd be making one feel left out and like the other is the favorite. I'm a mess with kids.

The dad with dreadlocks (Lance?), his design looked familiar to me and I finally realized it reminded me a of a fanart design for a human Grim from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Very different voices between those two characters though.

I wonder if there's any significance to the robot protecting the crystal having the same design as those in the artic in episode 5? Obviously both have the connection to the First Ones but the robot in the forest who was also protecting First Ones' tech had a more insect-like design over these more worm/Graboid ones.

I'm kind of curious what Hordak would have done if Catra had told the truth. Given his interactions with her and Shadow Weaver he doesn't seem like the time to tolerate failure but I suppose the implication here is that he at least would respect those who own up to their failures. Or I suppose more simply he was just testing to see if she would lie to him and since she did there's little merit in keeping her in a position of authority anymore where she could lie about important things again.

Season 2 verdict: Still enjoying it. Another person on this reddit recommended I view seasons 2 and 3 as one since they are basically just one season split in two. I was going to do that but this ended up longer than I thought I would, so I'll just do 2 and 3 separate to keep them semi-organized and easier to read.

I think overall Catra is my favorite character since she has the most interesting backstory, interactions, and just general path through the story out of everyone. She's like Pearl from Steven Universe or, well, Zuko. There's just so much baggage there that she's trying and kind of failing to deal with. I'm always invested in whatever's happening when she's onscreen. Hordak so far is a good big boss villain for Adora to face but Catra is a good archenemy for her.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o027y3/going_in_blind_watching_season_2_for_the_first/

[thesynthesist]

It’s a Metaphor: Superboy and the Invisible Girl

Alternate Title: I wanted to yell about Next to Normal

TL:DR on the plot if you want to jump on this ride without knowing the musical: A suburban family struggles to cope with mental illness in a variety of ways. The character who is the most obviously afflicted is Diana, the mother, who has ‘Bipolar Depressive with delusional episodes’ according to one of the songs and we learn at the end of act one that one of the characters, Gabe, is dead. 

For Diana, Gabe’s hallucination is largely an extension of her grief at losing her child on top of an already tenuous mental state. In scenes where Diana is present, Gabe seems under the control of her expectations and we can assume in these scenes Diana can witness Gabe’s actions while no one else can. In the end, Diana realizes that she was never given enough time to grieve, perhaps because of her pre-existing conditions, and needed to process the loss of her son properly before she could begin to work on getting other things in order. This is plot-line is fairly straight forward and explained in the text of the musical. 

However, Gabe interacts with both the other members of the family at times when Diana is not present taking him beyond strictly hallucination status. His interactions with the father character Dan, are also a reflection of how Dan deals with the loss of his son. 

Unlike Diana who indulges in the ghost’s existence, Dan pretends as if Gabe never mattered, going as far as to refuse to speak his son’s name until the end of the musical. Dan frames his issues as taking a backseat to Diana’s (”Who’s crazy? The one who sees doctors or the one who just wakes with the pain?”) and devotes himself to his idea of her and a happy home life as much as Diana devotes herself to the idea of Gabe. It’s only once Dan has spoken Gabe’s name and acknowledged that he was affected by his son’s passing that he’s able to seek help for himself. 

Both Diana and Dan’s relationship with Gabe seem fairly typical for a hallucination/ghost, especially since as his parents they both positions to be directly affected by his absence. The third member of the house hold, Natalie is not. Natalie, the self proclaimed ‘invisible girl’, is the second child and thus can only know Gabe through her parents.  For Natalie, Gabe has no direct interactions with her in the same way as her parents. While he is set up as a direct contrast to Natalie from his lyrics in ‘Just Another Day’ to the very obvious comparison in the song ‘Superboy and the Invisible Girl’, he never directly interacts with her. Both Diana and Dan have duets where they sing to or in dialogue with Gabe. Natalie does not. Despite this, Gabe is more than just a foil for Natalie, his interactions with their parents have direct consequences for her. 

Natalie suffers from the inattentiveness of her father, who is wholly focused on her mother, in large part because she is completely focused on Gabe. It’s implied that for as long as Natalie has been alive, Diana has not been capable of being an effective parent. In this way, Gabe effectively takes all the resources of their parents from the very beginning of the musical. 

Then during the song ‘I Miss the Mountains’, Diana decides to cold turkey her medications, disposing of most of them. Gabe takes some and puts them into one of Diana’s purses. He places this purse in the path of Natalie later on, when she is upset by her parents flaking on yet another one of her life events they Promised to Be At. Natalie ends up trying prescription drugs for fun times and getting way too into it. 

Learning to deal with the consequences of Gabe’s ghost, rather than directly with it is Natalie’s task. Ultimately, despite their best efforts, Natalie’s parent’s failed her for a large portion of her childhood, and this failing is largely a result of their inability to cope with Gabe.  While Natalie is ignorant of the exact details of her parents’ grief for a large portion of the musical, she’s well aware that not only is she living in the shadow of the Perfect Child but that she has a chance to end up incapacitated by mental illness like her mother. 

Hoping to escape this fate by leaving the house, Natalie puts an enormous amount of pressure on herself to succeed at school. She’s shown to have no emotional supports besides music until she meets Henry. Henry introduces her to weed which does seem to help her cope a little better, but crucially it’s Gabe and not Henry who puts prescription drugs in her path, because it’s Gabe that’s the stressor that pushes her to drug abuse. Just leaving the house won’t be enough since she effectively grew up with Gabe and has to learn with how to deal with the impact he’s had on her.

This is the reason Gabe is not revealed to be dead until the end of act one. For every member of the household he is, as his songs state, very much alive. For Diana he’s alive as an escape, a departure from a reality that needs to be accepted. For Dan he’s alive as a ghost, a loss that needs to be acknowledged, and for Natalie he’s alive as an antagonist. For all of them he’s a shared family trauma that actively impacts their day to day life. 

[tisthenightofthewitch]

KISS THE GO-GHOST: AN INTERVIEW WITH TOBIAS FORGE

Ghost, formerly known as Ghost B.C have cultivated a cult following within the metal community since their debut almost 10 years ago. Known for their dark persona and eerily catchy soundscapes, they not only have a sound that’s unmistakable, but a stage presence so involved that there are backstories to each Papa(the name used by each rotating front person) that has taken rein thus far.

I remember when I first discovered their 2010 release, Opus Eponymous, and how enthralled I was with their sound. Granted, I was late to the party, as they had already toured through Utah before. By the time I had completely immersed myself in their music, it was 2014—a year after their second full length album, Infestissumam had released. I was hypnotized by their macabre charm from the get-go, and I’ve eagerly anticipated every release since then. I’ve always loved how frontman Tobias Forge’s vocals shine against the instrumentals, as well as how grim the lyrics truly can be.

With the surprise “re-release” of their single Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, which originally had debuted in the ’60s (according to the Ghost timeline), this magic touch is exceptionally present. As 2018’s LP Prequelle had hints of disco and other nostalgic influences from the 70s and 80s, Seven Inches is laced with the catchy, punchy sweetness of the 1960s—inspiring sounds reminiscent of The Zombies and The Monkees with a sinister twist.

As their grandiose tour, The Ultimate Tour Named Death, conquers North America for the remainder of the month, Forge and I spoke about the band’s origins, song influences and meanings, and life on tour.

SLUG: What inspires you to make songs based around dark themes, such as Satan? Where does this aesthetic come from, and how does it exist in your full-length releases?

Forge: It wasn’t just an epiphany that I had. I grew up, as many others, in the metal underground community. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been a fan of hard rock, metal and all kinds of rock music. My main tool of expression and what I sympathized most with was heavy metal—especially the bands that were big around the time that I was very little. Around 1984, when I was three years old, all of the new, big bands were shock-rock bands like Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Wasp and Kiss. These, among others, were the first bands that I really, really liked. My older brother, who was significantly older than I was, gave me those records and it just went from there.

I’ve come to expand my liking of music a lot. I loved a lot of 60s music and 70s pop-rock and all kinds of musical styles. When it comes to expressing myself, there’s always been some sort of shock-rock value to whatever I’ve done—a little bit more explicit when it comes to lyrics and a little bit more explosive with image.

My first band that I ever formed was a death metal band and I spent my whole adolescence playing death and black metal where obviously satanic themes are omnipresent. So, when Ghost happened, it wasn’t like I was coming up with a new image—it was so natural. Then, it expanded over the years because I felt like if I’m going to keep things fresh and keep being inspired, I need to expand the lyrics going forward. I’ve always drawn parallel lines, and my ways of expression are always leaning towards darkness and goth in the same way Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen do. I feel more kindled with them when it comes to song writing than I would with Venom—even though I love them, too. The lyrics that I try to write nowadays are more focused on symbols for something real. Satanism is a very good symbol for turmoil or conflict, but most of the lyrics from albums two, three and four have more parallels to real life and the world. It’s just explained with satanic parallels.

SLUG: What are some of your favorite songs from your discography and why? What makes these songs special to you?

Forge: You have the “cream-of-the-crops” in a way—like, the immediate songs. I think “Dance Macabre” is an immediate song and is a song that I will be playing for the rest of my life. I think “Square Hammer” is like that. “From the Pinnacle to the Pit” is a song that is very immediate. I think “Cirice” is one of the best songs I’ve ever written and probably will ever write, but for different reasons. Sometimes I really enjoy songs that are simple. Sometimes it’s harder to write a simple song. You have all of the ingredients that you need in order to make a song, and a risk that the song will be considered premeditated. But, yes, it is. Every song that has ever been written was done so with some sort of intent. Even the songs that people think are made with no commercial interest whatsoever are usually written to feel or taste a certain way.

So, you’re always happy when you manage to say the things that you wanted to say and have the moods in the song that you wanted in there without making it complicated. It’s so easy to get stuck in a complicated arrangement that’s hard to get out of. Where “Square Hammer” is so simple, “Cirice” is a little bit more complicated. It has a long intro that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. It has more of a classic metal arrangement, whereas “Square Hammer” is way more punk. So, I like those songs for completely different reasons, but they both do the trick and they’re songs that will come to embody Ghost. That’s how it feels right now, at least.

SLUG: Your live shows and stage presence are always so elaborate and beautiful. How has your stage show changed with the introduction of Cardinal Copia in comparison to Papa(s) one, two and three? Where did the idea of having a masked band to this intricate extent come from? Why Papa and why Cardinal Copia?

Forge: Early on in the creation of Ghost, I was just reviewing what I had heard. When we recorded the first demo, when I heard my songs, my first impression was that it sounds like a heavily imaged band. If I were a fan of this record that I hear, I would be disappointed if it turned out to just be four or five dudes just standing in jackets and t-shirts. It doesn’t sound like that. It sounds more like an experience and that’s where it originated.

The aesthetics and the ideas are a mash-up of everything that I grew up watching and listening to. It’s black metal mixed with horror films and showmen. I’ve always been a fan of every single character that balances genius, charisma and being pathetic. That’s where Papa comes from.  He’s supposed to be cool, but he’s also slightly out of touch and pathetic—and funny, I think!

SLUG: The last time I saw you in Salt Lake City, you opened for Iron Maiden. Now, you’re touring North America after touring Europe with Metallica. What is it like to tour with these big names in metal? How have these bands influenced you in the past and what does it feel like to work with them now?

Forge: I am still as much of a fan of these groups as I was before, which is a very nice feeling knowing that I can completely separate my ideas, my dreams and my fantasies about both of these bands. But I think that has to do with the fact that for most of my life, I’ve idolized those bands while still always also knowing that what I wanted to do with my life was very similar to what they did—meaning record albums, go out and tour the world and change the world and have a deep impact on people in the same way that they had an impact on me.

On a very professional level, from the get-go, both Iron Maiden and Metallica have been very informative to their fan-base. Iron Maiden started that with their album Life After Death. All of their tour dates were in there, there was a lot of info about their touring life and the technicalities of playing live. I used to sit down with a map book and circle everywhere they played. I would try to figure out their days off and where they were playing next. Very early on, as a kid, I sort of approached it from a professional point of view. Not only did I want to stand on stage like I saw in the pictures, but I wanted to tour like they do. That’s the school of rock that I went to. Metallica would be even more informative later when they released their box set Binge and Purge. You could see old faxes between management and them, and I read everything I could see. I already knew 20 years later that that was a part of the program. I’ve learned so much from studying Iron Maiden and Metallica that when the day came when I started touring with them, I was like “I know this!” It was something I had done before. Now, I have the luxury of learning so much more firsthand.

SLUGMAG.COM

[minetteskvareninova]

How the GoT ends for to me

(Because I refuse to admit anything after 8x03 is cannon the same way many people refuse to acknowledge The Cursed Child.)

- Tyrion and all the other smart people (maybe Varys Davos and Sansa?) cook up the plan of the final attack

- First few weeks noone does anything, while Cersei plans the destruction of Targaryen forces. Daenerys takes a vacation to Essos, allegedly to deal with some made-up trouble, and Varys makes sure Cersei knows about that.

- Yara captures the Iron Islands, and Euron goes there to deal with her. Cersei lets him go, since she thinks she has time. Dornish attack him from back and Yara kills him herself.

- Bronn still comes North to murder Jaime and Tyrion, and they also offer him The Reach. However, they also ask him for something else - to go kill Cersei. Bronn obviously doesn’t want to risk his life for them, especially not by going against The Mountain, so The Hound offers himself to protect him, “to die for greater good when this c***t doesn’t want to”.

- Notherners pretend Bronn has been successful and maybe even have a fake funeral for Jaime and Tyrion. Bronn comes to King’s Landing as a Cersei’s man and meets up with her, bringing masked Sandor with him, claiming he’s the sort of man she might need. Cersei, desperate for some reliable lackeys, meets up with both of them, and they off both her and The Mountain.

- Ellaria Sand, as well as other prisoners, are given freedom, but Ellaria completely lost her mind in the meantime, which pisses off Daenerys, but people responsible for that are already dead, so there’s nothing she can do. Something happens to Quiburn, I don’t know what because I don’t give a shit about Quiburn. Maybe he survives and later tries with Dany to hatch eggs Drogon later lays? That would be cool. Golden Company just kind of fucks off? There’s noone to pay them and nothing to do, so I can’t imagine what they would do.

- Jon and Daenerys decide to get married after Sansa (of course, Jon still tells her) threatens to spill the beans, but their relationship has been soured ever since, so it’s just a political match, at least at first. Jon becomes Jon Aegon Targaryen, but everyone calls him just King Jon. Daenerys eventually has to return to Essos temporarily and will probably swing between continents for the rest of her life. In the meantime, Westeros is in the hands of Jon&co.

- I don’t know whether Jon would get over the incest thing, let alone whether this relationship would work in the long run. I guess so - these two just have a lot in common. At any rate, this would be a boring marriage, because Jon is overall a boring guy. Also, Daenerys has a baby. It’s a girl named Visenya (for Viserion). Yes, only one, because only one of her dragons has died. Maybe she decides to sacrifice one of her dragons for an heir? There’s a lot of story potential here, along with the future of dragons! At any rate, Ghost lives in capital with Jon, but if he wasn’t doing well down south, Sansa would take care of him as her new direwolf.

- At any rate, Jon is officially a Targaryen, but loves his Stark relatives and still calls them brother and sisters.

- Westeros is a complete mess after all those wars, anarchy and thugs everywhere. So the criminality has to be dealt with and it’s gonna be a lot of work.

- Stormlands are being ripped apart by power-hungry local lords, because their liege lord was long gone and Cersei had other things to worry about. Gendry is thus legitimised by Jon and given the title of lord of the Stormlands. Because he knows nothing about ruling, Jon sends Davos to mentor him and take care of the lords and various outlaws.

- The North is ruled by Sansa, obviously. She later fall in love with and marries Tyrion, but they only spend together a part of year, because he is in the Small Council and helps Jon rule. Jon seeks her advice a lot and when Daenerys returns, she has to admit Sansa is pretty good when it comes to administrative and court politics (especially since Daenerys considers the normal administrative stuff boring and focuses on big things). The two have kind of a frenemy relationship and work together for the good of the realm as The Queen In The North (a nickname, not an offical title) and The Dragon Queen, with King Jon as a peacemaker in case of a conflict. The North isn’t independent, but gets more authonomy than other lands, because they were the ones who had to fight the white walkers. Sansa and Tyrion have many children, who officially take their father’s name, but are so thoroughly northern people start to call them Lannistarks, which eventually sticks so much it becomes the official family name. They get a new sigil, probably something with a direwolf and lion.

- Arya Stark dates Gendry for several months, but when he is made the lord of Stormlands and asks her to come there with him, with the obvious implication of getting married there, she gets cold feet and with embarks on a journey with a few other people (Yara? They’d surely be besties. Tormund and wildlings? Maybe.) to the lands beyond former Wall, where they would explore whether Lands Of Always Winter are still there, what is the climate and wildlife situation there and most importantly, whether there is anything new to learn about the white walkers, since Jon is haunted by a possibility they might not be completely gone (since they are so mysterious and all). Bran helps them with all that exploration, warging into animals and going into past. In the end, she returns and decides she’s quite ready to settle, having seen and experienced in twenty years more than other people do in life, and marries Gendry, but doesn’t become a typical lady and still fights, helping her husband deal with outlaws and being sent by Jon on all sorts of secret missions.

- Jaime and Brienne get married and he becomes a stay-home dad, also taking care of the administrative in Westerlands and Tarth, while she is off being a knight. (I think Jaime’s old enough for retirement. Give him a break.)

- Varys stays Varys and is very smart and very useful as a spymaster, do you hear me D&D?! After he dies, his considerable wealth is given to the poor, probably trough some kind of charity organization.

- Missandei and Grey Worm stay in Essos and rule the cities in Daenerys’ absence. Missandei eventually earns considerable respect after dealing with all sorts of trouble and is treated as a second queen. She decides to not retire, unless Grey Worm dies (and maybe not even after that, because her queen needs her? IDK), since if she returned to Naath, she would have to leave him. You see, you can’t stay on Naath for long, because foreigners tend to get this illness called butterfly fever, and since Grey Worm isn’t from Naath... She visits the island several times, tho.

- The Unsullied generally serve untill they reach a certain age, then they are given lands and pension. Some of their training techniques are incorporated into a training regime for a new, elite unit, but most of them are deemed too brutal to be continued and so they just quietly die off.

- Dothraki divide into two groups - one returns to Essos, the other stays with their Khaleesi in Westeros and live of horse herding and breeding the way others might of cattle. They settle mostly in the Reach, because grass.

- It turns out Daenerys “breaking the wheel” meant breaking the cycle of the civil war by weakening the power of great houses and returning stability to Westeros (also end of hereditary monarchy and succession of the most worthy, like choosing your heir trough a testament or something never lead to civil war; that didn’t work anyway). One way was to modify administrative system, so that it’s more in control of chosen civil servants not belonging to any fraction. It’s not a democracy, but it’s a honest attempt to do better. Of course, after a few generations, civil war broke out again anyway, because some things never change, but the new system is still more egalitarian and generally an improvement.

- At any rate, the ending is happy for everyone involved and not bittersweet at all, but only in comparison with what they’ve already come trough; otherwise rebuilding the ruined nation is a difficult and somewhere down the line, they can always fail...

[sealsiwon]

___

There had been rumors about that weird man for a long time. He appears after dusk, they said. Wearing clothes that did not look like they belonged to a nobleman, yet were too expensive to belong to a poor man. Some believed that he was a soldier, perhaps one that had been wounded in battle and thus could not fight anymore. But nobody knew for sure, as he never talked. A man in dark clothing, walking the streets of the city, yet remaining anonymous. He never visited the rich parts, they said. He did, however, spend his time in the poorest, darkest districts, giving money to those in need. More money than they had ever seen in their lives, perhaps. Begging was not rewarded with riches. This was where the theory of him being a soldier did not do a well enough job at explaining. He had too much money for a simple soldier, he had to be a nobleman. A very strange nobleman. Which rich man would visit the poor, see their tragic lives, give them some of his money if he wasn’t forced to? The rich were too attached to their money and did not care about the poor, about those who had not been as lucky as them, who had not been born into a noble family. He could not be a nobleman like the others; he could not be a simple soldier. He was a strange man indeed. Frankly, Poe had never really believed the rumors and talks and theories. They were too strange, too unbelievable, they sounded like a story a mother would tell her children to comfort them when they were scared of the dark streets and the uncertain tomorrow. But he had also seen beggars get rich - in comparison to the others, at least - overnight. He had seen the happiness in their eyes. How they couldn’t believe their fate. It made him happy to see them finally being able to afford food, new clothes, perhaps a blanket to sleep on. Everything that was needed to live was way too expensive for most of them. But then he saw him. He was walking down the street, on his way from comforting one family that had lost a son, a brother, a husband, a father to the guillotine to another. It was what he did when he didn’t help catch nobles to execute with their own cruel machines. Weakening them. One after the other. Until they could reclaim their land; until they could make it a better place for those not favored by God, for those not blessed with a good name. The last family he had visited had a young child to feed, they did not know how, they could barely afford their own food. But soon, they had told him, almost glad about this terrible fact, soon he will be old enough to work. Children working in factories to support their families were a common sight. It hurt him to think about that, the memories of his own childhood came back, memories that he had tried to suppress. Painful memories. But a strange sight ripped him from his thoughts, made him stop in his tracks; the sight of the strange man he had heard so much and yet nothing about. He had not expected him to be so young and admittedly handsome, he had expected an old man, perhaps visibly changed by a war he knew all to well for it had never stopped, giving money to people in situations he remembered from his own past. Poe had never thought that the mysterious man would be a young nobleman he had seen at the executions which he had witnessed from a safe distance. A rich boy who had never experienced poverty, what it feels like to starve and freeze and worry about the next meal while sending your young child to work, knowing that it may not even return as the factories were not exactly safe places. Just like Poe was told again and again, the stranger gave a beggar some money, a lot of money, smiling sadly, not saying a word. He felt like he had just seen a ghost, not a real man, not a nobleman next to a beggar - giving money to him. It was an unrealistic sight. “What are you doing here?“ he finally said, fully aware of the fact that he may sound too rude - and mentally slapping himself for it. The stranger froze, obviously shocked that someone dared to talk to him like that. Poe had not even expected an answer as he was aware of the stories of people this man had helped, saying that he would not even tell them his name. “I’m giving the money I don’t need to people who obviously need it.” Astonishment filled him. Could a nobleman really think like this? Did rich people actually have hearts? Or was this man pretending to be better than the others so he would be spared when they finally got his family to experience the horror of the guillotine? Poe had learned one thing: You should never trust a person who seems to be as good as him. People like this almost always had a dark side. It seemed like a rule of nature. “Why would someone of your status even think about doing such a noble action? Aren’t you busy admiring your money all day?” The other man looked almost ashamed, to Poe’s surprise. Ashamed and…sad? He did not understand, he had always been so sure that every member of a noble family was happy - because in his world, money and food and a home and safety meant happiness. “I’m not a part of the family that raised me,” the stranger said before vanishing into the dark, unlit streets of this divided city.

[redscullyrevival]

Dragon City: Rain Wilds Chronicles Rundown

@sonnetscrewdriver

Plot/Narrative/Setting

This was kind of a quiet before the storm type of deal huh? I enjoyed it because I’m me but - okay hold on I gotta talk about this first and foremost because it’s amazing:

So, I bought a kindle edition of all four books, right? But since I don’t have a physical copy to tell me how far I am into a book and the percent number at the bottom of my kindle doesn’t depict the percentage of each book but of all four books I have ended each book so far very abruptly and confused lol!

I’m so trained to the physical thus visual understanding of when a book will end that with this series, reading exclusively on the kindle, has been so jarring! I have a very difficult time remembering where one book ends and the other begins! Rain Wilds to me is basically one novel and I have to really focus on separating the books when I do this first bit here on the plot and narrative and blah blah.

HAhahah!

Ahem, alright, cool.

Soooo this was the quiet before the storm huh? I enjoyed it greatly but I’ll be honest and admit I’ve a extreme fondness for Bingtown/The Rain Wilds as a setting and a place for me to imagine. I like the Six Duchies I suppose but my focus is most definitely on the characters who live there rather than the place holding, really, any of my attention at all. 

It’s one of those really weird things to try and explain; but basically I can envision South of the Six Duchies better than I can the Six Duchies themselves?. Maybe because I grew on a tropical island? I can just inherently “see” the jungle and water ways better? I DUNNO!

But it’s true.

How about that Thymara, Tats, and Rapskal love triangle though?

Oh, Hobb is doing her best to not make it have such shapely obvious triangle-y points but that’s what it is - at least it’s framed from the place of Thymara’s self acceptance and not just who she wants to kiss more.

That’s a bit of a relief. 

What’s mostly irritating is the triangle-non-triangle forces me to want Thymara to make a dang choice already. 

OBVIOUSLY RAPSKAL IS THE WAY TO GO -

But. You know. I want Thymara to be true to herself and I trust Hobb to explain her feelings to me adequately and honestly.

Kinda want that to happen sooner than later though and would be fabulously pleased with a third NO ONE option!  

I love love love Kelsingra! 

I know we’ve gotten glimpses of the city before in other series but the pieces are starting to fall together now! 

With the more drawn out exploration of the city comes a more cohesive understanding of the history/magic of the wider narrative, out into Fitz and the Fool and Liveships. 

Silvery Water huh? Dangerous to humans huh? Hmmm. HHMMMMMM.

The hammer is about to fall though.

OH OH Ohmygod Malta! And Reyn! gurglegurglegurgle I still love them so much. *hyperventilates* 

SAVE THAT BABY. D<

And while we’re talking about saving babies, save my tiny child Selden! Godamn. 

Alise

Rise up!

When you’re livin’ on your knees you rise up!

Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up!

Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up!

Ahem, sorry, musical moment.

Alise, Alise, Alise! Look at her go!

This woman is a powerhouse of reinvention.

She absolutely refuses to give into herself and her situations.

Alise is like a prized pig sniffling out the truffle of enlightened self-worth; sometimes down but never out.

She’s a little down right now but I know she’ll pick her self up, she has to.

She’s Alise!

She’s my hero, and she won’t let me down.

Thymara

Oh girl, just do something already.

She has come so far but she is still just standing around waiting for who knows what.

You’re in the city!

You’re away form those rules!

You are new and beautiful and free!

Make a choice on a boy if you must but mostly I want her to make a choice for herself, to choose to live!

Because when it all gets wittled down, Thymara is still just being a “Keeper”, seeing herself as someone whose purpose is tied to her Dragon, to her father’s house, to other things rather than her own self worth.

Again, she has come a long way from that first book and she’s really grown on me but I think she still has a way to go before she can fly like her dragon.

Reminder: SHE HAS WINGS.

I’m sorry I’m an idiot. 

Captain Leftrin

Continues to be a solid, sturdy, oak of a man.

I want to hug him. 

Sedric

How far you’ve come man!

I’m oddly proud lol

Sedric doesn’t have the same resolve and guts Alise has so I was a little worried he’d slip away a bit but he hasn’t!

Sedric saddled up to the hard living and struggle with as much dignity as possible, and I like that he’s still him. He still wants nice clean things but he doesn’t let that desire sully his here and now.

Doing so much better outside of Hest’s shadow and oppression!

Yay Sedric!

I’m terrified what will happen when Hest comfronts him of course but I think Sedric as he is now will be able to handle whatever horrible Hest throws at him.  

Tats

Hmm.

I’m not a fan of how Tats speaks to Thymara, how he feels he is entitled to discuss every faction of her life just because he asks.

At the same time I’m in awe how comfortable he is doing just that; he does so that he can better understand and so that they can communicate.

But it still just rubs me the wrong way!

I hate how I only seem to think of Tats in relation to Thymara and never as his own person!

He was a SLAVE!

I FEEL TERRIBLE DOING THAT!

Sigh

I hope Tats finds himself, or that Hobb helps me see what she’s doing with him, in this last book. He seems a bit of a loose thread, to me, at the moment. :(

Rapskal

My sweet precious boy - is crafty as fuuuuck.

If I’m honest I Iike Rapskal because he is positive and bright and a little dense and he laughed during sex. 

But he is also the most OTHER out of everyone in the book; we never see into his perspective so we never know what he’s going to say until he says it - and that’s odd in this narrative considering how many main characters there are.

Sure, we don’t get Jerd’s perspective or Swarge’s but they’re minor characters, right? And then there is Carson who I’d say is a major character, but he is expressed as being an open book and how Sedric see’s/understands him is how he actually is - the same can’t be said of Rapskal, not entirely.

And that’s a little unnerving in a way.

I’m still waiting for him to do something incredibly stupid and/or dangerous, and I’m a little scared because I probably won’t see it coming, if such a thing were to happen.

He’s so impulsive and not the best communicator; Rapskal rather have someone come to their own conclusions about anything then really step in, EXCET when it came to Kelsingra.  

But ya know.

I just like him lol

Sintara

Now that she is more confident she has become a little nicer and observational 

But still a massive pain in the butt lol.

Highlighted Passages

Freedom and choices. She could seize the one and make the other. “I’m staying,” she said quietly. “Not for my dragon. Not even for my friends. I’m staying here for me. To make a place where I do belong.”

“What do you want of me?” he asked. He knew they wouldn’t answer him. He spoke the words to remind himself that he was a man, not a dumb animal.

“Ah, but such a pretty little cow! One that will make us all late if she doesn’t finish her packing right away and waddle down to the boat with me.”

When they came, the old city would come to life again. The push to plunder would bring the money to rebuild the docks and bring ships and trade. A mockery of life would precede its destruction.

The next was a girl with her face and arms painted white, in a gown decorated with gilt to mimic golden thread. Gilded, too, was her crown of feathers and rooster heads, and in her hands a scepter that looked more like a feather duster.

Someone had started a fire in the room! And the window had been broken deliberately: the glass shards were both on the floor and also on the parapet that ran around the outer edges of the tower. There was a clear handprint in the soot on the wall beside the window. 

Hunt and feed or die, her body told her. It had no patience with her vanity or fear.

“I can do this. I have to do this and so I can do this.” 

The reality of the dragon made the ghosts seem paler in comparison. Their gaiety seemed frail and false, an echo of a past that had never lasted into a future. Whatever they celebrated, they did so with futility. Their world had not lasted, and their windblown laughter seemed to mock them.

“And, well, you’re talking as if her being with him, if she is with him, is something that she’s doing to you. Now I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but chances are that you didn’t figure at all in her decision.”