#charybdis godqueen

[goose-books]

Does it work the other way around. Can I ask if any Lu or Charybdis inspired songs made it onto your wrapped.

YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN.

for charybdis i've got i wanna be your dog 2 by ajj (more a carronash song than an s&c song, but, like, definitely still an s&c song) and ofc i am not a woman i'm a god; since i was working on s&c's arc more last year, i have also dipped back into my 2021 wrapped to bring you desire by meg myers! because that's. well. pokes s&c

see, i gotta hunt you i gotta bring you to my hell baby, i wanna fuck you i wanna feel you in my bones baby, i'm gonna love you i'm gonna tear into your soul

it's about the violence of love! it's about ripping open another person's soul which is also your soul! (+ the refrain of this song is "how do you want me?" which. points at charybdis. shapeshifter)

for lu, i've got dear sons and daughters of hungry ghosts by wolf parade, which i mentioned here! still spoilers. still can't say much. does this help

i can't believe in the guns, i can't believe in the view i sing, sing, sing i can't believe in those hunters and kings and you sing i've got a new plan to bring i've got a new song to sing

[goose-books]

happy trans day of visibility. godsong might be the most transsexual book i’ve ever written. have some Moments (warning for non-graphic nsfw)

(read about these characters here. transcripts + more details under the cut)

+ one bonus excerpt of spades’ mother figure going in on her best friend, because the city of farria is a fucking nightmare, but at least everyone (even the MILF who hates your guts) will use your pronouns

image transcripts:

1: anna is the main character of godsong & the narrative’s favorite little chew toy. she’s also a nonbinary trans woman (she/he) and god it is cathartic, as a trans person who’s done nothing in the vein of medical transition, to write a trans character who hasn’t either and doesn’t want to.

She had woken with the gold lock perfectly whole, a month’s worth of curl grown overnight — though of course her hair had been shorter then, at eleven, when she had been considered her parents’ elder son. Not that Ivander had ever put much stock in those sorts of things. The Iven language had he, loosely, and she, loosely, and a special word for the priests, one that didn’t exactly translate. In the legends, Iv was he and she and they and elsewhere, too. From the day Anna’s hair had goldened, she had been that way as well. It was half-holy, half-heart. Most of the Ivtouched had stuck to one set of words outside prayer; some, like Ira, had only used the priest’s terms, whether dressed in holy robes or not. But Anna had for many years been he and she both, long-haired and large-handed and low-voiced. A woman more than a man, but, really, not so much of either; not so much a woman as a sister, anyhow.

2: ichari felidore, anna’s sidekick. nonbinary butch lesbian. bastard swag. best quality: can’t keep their shirt on.

Ichari scoffed and shot him a look. They were replacing a shattered plank in the deck, hands smeared black with tar that gleamed in the spring sunlight. Despite the nipping chill, they’d forgone their coat for a shirt they hadn’t bothered to button. The edges of their faded scars nosed out from beneath the fabric — the scars they’d traded for their breasts, as they liked to put it, though that had been near seven years before Anna had met them.

3: sascha armindale, anna’s OTHER (less helpful) sidekick. he/him femme who self-describes as a gentleman. for someone with an absolutely empty head, he has the most to say about gender of anyone in the cast.

He was a woman, after all, ah? And not a woman like Ichari was a woman. Because Ichari was a woman, or at least they only fucked women who fucked women, but they were a particular sort of woman, the sort his parents would have been rather displeased to see him associate with. And they weren’t beautiful, not the way a woman was supposed to be — but gods, were they gorgeous. Bright hair, bright eyes, a fox-narrow face and lithe limber arms. Everything about them was sharpened and scraped clean. Effortlessly slender. Effortlessly strong. Sometimes when they slept together, Sascha dug his nails into their flat toned stomach, pretending it was passion and not bitterness. They only ever laughed, anyway. They liked it when he played rough.

No. He wasn’t like that. Sascha was a woman shaped like a woman, dressed like a woman, silky skirts and petticoats that spun out when he twirled, powders carefully applied to his eyelids and cheeks — but then, he wanted to be a woman shaped like a woman just a little bit wrong, what with the short hair and the he and all. Woman off-kilter. A flatter chest would help with that, surely, same as it did for Ichari — but then, his chest was about the only part of his body he actually liked. His chest and his face and his hair. The places he liked being touched — though he liked being touched in general; he liked when other women liked him pretty.

4: scylla and charybids are the worst butch/femme couple in the world. but their genders are so cool (she/her butch king and he/him femme queen respectively) are so cool that who cares if they do a little murder.

The wolf king did not answer, only turned to face the rest of the hall and raised her free hand high. “I am Scylla God-King of the ice and stone,” she proclaimed. “He is my consort, holy and divine, Charybdis God-Queen of storm and snow. And the north is ours to rule and raise.”

5: sascha, drunk: when you. when you. when . he/him lesbians 😃 charybdis, who considers himself more monster than woman: uh huhhh

“We’re the same sort of woman, ah, aren’t we?”

Charybdis tilted his head. “Are we?”

“Well, you are a woman, ah?” He paused, in case he’d somehow been wrong, and waited for a denial that didn’t come. “And so am I. But — he, and all that, and yet you wear dresses anyhow. You know Ichari doesn’t. Ever.”

“No, Scylla neither. Not anymore.”

“And Anna only wears those drab robes all the time. But I suppose that’s her culture.” He crossed one leg over the other and went on: “And you’ve been with women, of course, the same as I have. We’re not supposed to do that back where I’m from.”

Again Charybdis’s smile was slow and creeping, like he was trying to hold it back. “No. Not at the temple, either. I suppose we are the same, then.”

6: cinquedea spades: the OTHER main character. as a trans woman (she calls herself a “self-made woman”), a bisexual, and a gladiator, she is maybe the coolest person in the world. sorry about the A cups

Spades had been uncomfortable about this part in the beginning, the first few times she’d been hurt bad enough to merit it. The nakedness. Particularly with her chest near-flat as it was. The morning draughts she’d been taking since twelve had smoothed her face, sleeked her limbs, curved her hips ever-so-slightly, let her shift from a small and silent boy to a small and knife-edged girl and then into a woman. But they had done little for her in the way of breasts. At this point, though, she was past caring. She’d been ground into the sand often enough that most of the medics in the arena had seen her shirtless.

7: she’s also long-lost nobility and god she is so traumatized but SO fucking funny about it

“It’s always setting the story straight,” said someone else, leaning forward — Luna, maybe, pale-haired with a scar running over her chin. “Let the rumors run too far and you’ll never catch them back. You know people still say Sun Ru’s boy escaped sixteen years back when they took the whole greedy nest out—”

Spades spread her already-relaxed stance, made eye contact with Vulpa over Ki’s shoulder, and observed, “I’m pretty sure that’s a myth.”

+ then our bonus. the citizens of farria said “can we please have some rights” and the city said “best i can do is everyone uses your pronouns”

“You know how the ones from the lower city are,” Carron said. “Too much time spent scraping for scraps and they get hungry for more than a meal.”

Spades kept her voice measured: “I wouldn’t say that any louder.”

Carron curled her lip. With a hint of scolding reproach: “Am I to hold my tongue for you and not the world, Dea?”

“I fight for my scraps, too. Does my blood make it different?”

“Oh, I’m the last person who can put stock in bloodlines. I was a street brat once, you know, or I wouldn’t speak with such confidence. But you’re a warrior. Your friend looks at the world like they’d sell their soul to stick a knife in its back, never mind if they go down with it.”

[goose-books]

GODSONG CHARACTER ROSTER IS UP sorry for dropping this two days after a valentine segment but if this is gonna be my nano WIP i need to provide some real information about it

godsong intro post here, but the tl;dr is that it’s a high fantasy story about wlw and religion inspired by the classics courses i’m taking! the picrews used are here, here, and here; transcripts/descriptions of the slides are under the cut!

[slide descriptions:

slide 1: background is this photo by maria teneva of a dark blue-green ocean swirling with froth. large white letters read “GODSONG CHARACTER ROSTER”

slide 2: labeled “remind me what this is real quick?” & bordered with cropped versions of this photo by naja bertolt jensen of a dark-gray stormy ocean surface. the text reads:

a loose retelling of virgil's aeneid

(with some other plotlines too)

in a game-of-thrones-esque high fantasy world

with dragons!

and with an entirely wlw main cast ⚢

in this world everyone pledges to one patron god (out of a pantheon) who represents their values

or their family's values. who knows.

i can't make small casts so here's the character list

every character slide from here on out contains 1) a border 2) text about the character 3) the character’s pride flags 4) a screenshot of the spotify listing for a theme song and 5) a picrew of the character.

slide 3: annadrijanna ivtouched pride flags: lesbian, nonbinary, & trans song: sleep alone by two door cinema club border: textured gold fabric text (dark orange):

late 20s, she/her/he/him

pledged to the god of faith, loyalty, duty, & family

the last living priest of this faith

his city. uh. burned to the ground

has been a priest since she was 12 so faith has been her whole life

totally does not have religious ocd.

on a quest to found a new city for his remaining people

don't ask about her brother.

this slide also features a picture of booty shorts that read “god won’t let me die” <3

slide 4: ichari felidore pride flags: lesbian, nonbinary, & butch song: dutch by dessa border: a foggy sky over a sea text (dark gray-green):

late 20s, they/them

in a world where pledging to a god defines your entire life, ichari is a reddit atheist

(you're ALLOWED to be an atheist, it's just, like, uncool so you have to have a fair amount of personal swag to pull it off) (they do)

sharpshooter, pickpocket, & former soldier in their home country but they ditched

(they're lying to their mom about it, though)

part of anna's mission via contributing the boat

which they totally didn't steal

imagine the hamlet/horatio dynamic if the horatio character was somehow the worse one

the only god they worship is anna

slide 5: sascha dorian armindale pride flags: lesbian, nonbinary, & femme song: #grownupz by FEiN border: glittering green velvet text (dark green):

late 20s, he/him

debauched heiress ichari keeps around for cash

sascha thinks ichari is his bestie. ichari calls sascha his purse. ichari is not joking but they sound like they are!

female manslut

no thoughts head SOOOO empty

“i think you’re the kind of person who’s pretty susceptible to joining a cult” “aww, you think i’m pretty???”

hiding the increasingly concerning mental illness by externally embodying mambo number 5

pledged to the god of pleasure/hedonism

slide 6: ambergris armindale pride flags: lesbian song: orca by wintersleep border: fire sparking over a dark background text (black):

early 20s, she/her

hates you.

sascha’s slightly-younger sister, except ambergris didn't get away from their parents

uses forearm crutches because of (what would be called in our world) cerebral palsy

raised to be a pretty porcelain doll of a human being. & it worked but like. you know how horror movie dolls want to kill you

pledged to the mother goddess of creation & destruction

an injured dragon went down near her family's estate.

she's got plans about that.

slide 7: scylla god-king pride flags: wlw, nonbinary, & butch song: king by zayde wolf border: glittering gold text (dark gold):

late 20s, she/her

scylla & charybdis grew up in a religious cult

they were supposed to kill each other. they killed all the cultists instead & declared themselves gods

these two are a sidequest for anna, who wishes they weren't

scylla is the self-declared protector of the two

hot & charming & absolutely brutal

"maybe drinking and women and violence will make me feel better" *it doesn't* *rinse & repeat*

ambiguous disorder dot gif

this slide also contains a screenshot of the onion headline “Relationship Definitely Hurtling Toward Something”

slide 8: charybdis god-queen pride flags: wlw, nonbinary, & femme song: modern day cain by IDKHOW border: glittering silver text (dark gray):

late 20s, he/him

scylla will stab you with her massive sword. charybdis will poison your drink

he'll seduce you first, though

very charming & kind & empathetic <3

presents as such because he likes to collect people <3

(not literally, but as allies/friends/lovers)

(very normal behaviors about relationships over here; certainly no desperation for love)

"dear diary, today i performed 3 cartoonish acts of villainy. gay sex slays. goodnight"

scylla and charybdis aren't pledged to gods; their gods of choice are each other.

slide 9: cinquedea spades (though “cinquedea” is crossed out) pride flags: bisexual & trans song: fighting fish by dessa border: folded red velvet text (dark red):

late 20s, she/her

lives in a city that has a new revolution, like, every tuesday

former nobility whose family got robespierre’d when she was a child

now she’s got a new identity and makes her living in the gladiatorial ring

it’s JUST like d*sney’s anastasia!

was pledged to the god of justice; now pledged to the god of war; quietly conflicted about it

“you know how i’m full of rage?”

straddling the line between aristocracy and the simmeringly revolutionary lower class. foot in both worlds. surely this won’t go badly for anyone

slide 10: vanya vulpa pride flags: lesbian & nonbinary song: blood by my chemical romance border: dark green leaves wet with dew text (dark green):

late 20s, any pronouns (defaults to it/they)

what's the gladiator arena version of a pimp. they're that for spades. they do the PR work

it's also her best friend & connection to the revolutionary side of the city. and all plots therefore ensuing.

(murder.) (definitely murder.)

sometimes being generally disliked makes people find themselves but sometimes it just makes them really jealous and bitter

this slide also contains a screenshot of the onion headline “Area Man’s Free Time Monopolized By Friend With No Other Friends,” labeled “spades is area man. vulpa is the friend”

/end description.]

[goose-books]

promptober day 12: stuck

He found her at the precipice. Half of their great hall was bared to the sky: the walls stopped and the floor cut off and the mountain fell away in a wicked jagged chasm, like the room had been lopped away with some divine sword, gutted and laid open to the howling winds. Charybdis picked his way across the slick marble, and those winds threw snow into his face, sharp and stinging.

Scylla stood where the floor fell away, snow swirling around her coat and frosting her pale hair. Planted like a statue at the edge of the world. If Charybdis had liked, he could have placed his hands on the small of her back and pushed her. She might have even let him. Instead he stopped just behind her and took up her pose, legs spread, one arm behind his back in parade rest, the other extended to cup a goblet of wine she held and he didn’t. If Scylla had liked, she could have spun and taken his outstretched mocking wrist and wrenched him over the edge.

The wind scraped the mountains and echoed off the cliffside. Scylla stared out at the stark landscape, white except for the black rocks jutting like bones from the snow. There was ice fringing her collar. Her stone face didn’t shift.

“It’s fucking cold,” Charybdis said, because he was.

Scylla didn’t glance back. She inclined her head to what she was watching: the narrow bridge of rock where the mountain met the great hall, and the frighteningly swift progress of a gray-gone-ice-white wolf climbing to meet them.

It was still fucking cold. Charybdis crossed his arms and waited.

“Gods aren’t cold,” Scylla said, again without looking at him — half deadpan, as if she were filling in scripted lines.

“This one is.”

She handed him the goblet. The wolf crested the mountaintop and loped across the rock bridge. Scylla dropped to her knees to meet it, and the creature tumbled headlong into her arms, nearly knocking her clean over the cliff. Charybdis suppressed a grimace. He glanced at the goblet — half-full — and wondered how hungover she was. She had been wild last night, stalking the halls, bellowing incoherent rages, kissing him with teeth, leaving beads of blood like rubies along his neck. She always went statuesque in the mornings, when she had to stop yelling because her head hurt.

“Good girl,” she was saying to the wolf, arms wrapped around its shaggy snow-crusted ruff. It had dropped something into her hand — some rock, shiny with drool, that the watchwolves only brought back if such-and-such conditions were met. “How clever you are.”

The wolf panted, tongue lolling happily out of its mouth. It smelled wet. If she made him stroke it, Charybdis was going to throw her drink over the edge of the world. He took a sip instead, which hardly helped the cold.

“It seems we’ll have supplicants soon,” Scylla said, scratching under the wolf’s chin. “There’s a ship moored in the channel.”

At this time of year, any ship in the channel would be stuck too fast to tilt an inch. Charybdis smiled. “I’ll send someone to meet them. Tell them to start their prayers.”

The drawl in his voice was enough to make Scylla look up; he’d known it would. She didn’t return his smile, but her eyes glittered. The beast licked her chin, and she tousled its ear absentmindedly.

To say he loathed her was an oversimplification. To loathe each other was to loathe themselves, which meant that both of them still did, only it felt different. To say he loved her, too, was almost irrelevant. Charybdis put his hand out, and Scylla took it, and they wrapped their fingers around one another’s wrists, and he pulled her to her feet.

Neither dropped their hand. They stood against the screaming winds at the edge of the world, a breath from the plunge, and their eyes met.

Charybdis wondered idly if she was just going to throw him. She was certainly stronger than he was; he wouldn’t have been able to stop her. Of course, he expected that if she did put him over the side, she’d leap after him within moments.

“You haven’t got to send anyone right away,” Scylla said, voice low, eyes tracing the marks she’d left up and down his neck. “To the ship.”

Charybdis snorted, already turning to tug her toward the warmth of the castle proper. “No,” he said dryly, “I rather doubt they’re going anywhere.”