Proserpina.

The sad part is they like to be portrayed like animals. They love flexing that alpha male he man woman hater shit until the white man treats them like the rabid beast they act like. Then they come crying to black women to “protect” them. This is why black patriarchy is worthless.

Not actually inspired by [this], (tho it gave me the motivation to post mine) but definitely along the same lines. Bonus:

The many looks of Laura Wilson

Captions under the cut

Day 10. Your prediction for the next arc

A villainous détente… 

Let’s look at the “playing field” right now:

The Heroes: Laura , Cassandra, Jon, Verdandi and Skuld

The Villains: Minerva, Woden and The Morrigan

Ambiguous: Baal (wants to defeat “The Great Darkness,” which might mean he’s still on Minerva’s side, but if he deems her actions as no longer lining up with that goal, he might switch allegiances); Baphomet (has mostly been isolated from Pantheon conflicts, but if Morrigan was no longer a factor, he would probably be loyal to Laura); The Heads (Luci, Tara and Inanna; they’ve been out of action so long, we can’t be sure of who they’d support); Beth and friends (will probably just try to document whatever happens, but they may have a larger role to play considering they keep being brought back in)

That’s a lot of villains for our heroes, with not a lot of guaranteed support. I think we’ll see Laura or Cass make a judgment call and reach out to either Woden or Minerva: “We need to defeat Woden/Minerva, help us, let’s put our conflict on hold for now.” Woden’s interested in his own preservation, Minerva’s on the Ananke crusade, so they’d have to be at least temporarily convinced that an alliance with Laura and Cassandra was in their best interest– that  they need to get the other big villain off of the playing field to focus on their own goals. 

More shitty textposts, tho tragically none from ‘23 yet. [ Here’s the other posts, for those interested. ]

Captions under the cut, you know the drill

And I honestly feel this is very probable after rereading #35 in this context.

Every (well, most every) recurrence, the Ananke performs a ritual (likely involving the stone knife) on the Minerva. At some point after this, perhaps immediately and perhaps not, the Minerva inherits the Ananke’s experiences up until the ritual.

Now, think of this.

After the ritual, the Ananke and the Minerva diverge in their experiences. The Minerva’s experiences are immortalized and carried into Anankes to come. The Ananke’s experiences die. So many Anankes’ post-ritual lives have been snuffed out. Around 63, I’d say.

Not much worth remembering happened to our Ananke after the ritual.

Issue 39 Bullet Points

•As illustrated in my post, once Laura temporarily ceased being the protagonist, Beth became her first stand-in. Both put their lives on the line at Highbury & Islington (check out how similar their respective four panels calling for The Morrigan are), and it’s where they meet, both having risked a lot to find divinity.

•Of course Woden knew Baal was Baal Hammon, but he appears to know of a big ritual. It’s uncertain if he knows what it entails.

•I might need to do a re-read, but it’s strange how readily Woden believes that Minerva just, out of her normal nature, is feverishly obsessed about Persephone.

•There is a surprising amount of time spent here hanging on Woden thinking about Cassandra after Minerva’s question. I suspect its usefulness as a beat will become apparent next arc, but it’s raised an eyebrow on all three of my passthroughs.

•The fourth rule is not much of a surprise. The nature of the rule itself certainly is.

•The pregnancy arc, beginning and ending in “Mothering Invention,” existing simply to confuse Ananke feels…possibly unnecessary? I’ll need to think about this.

•Did Ananke get 1831 Inanna under her thumb because Woden wanted children and Ananke wanted to put them under the impression that they couldn’t reproduce? Is this related to her (probable) trick on Baal?

•”She will sell godhood to the children, as I shared it with her.” Huh.

•“She thinks the story will save her, so she thinks a story will doom her. But the story is what carries on. There’s only one way to end a story.”

•While at some point I had mentally written off the end of “The Faust Act” as premonition of the end of “Fandemonium,” this has been difficult to reconcile with the mounting evidence that the gods aren’t gods until Ananke tells them so. It’s very satisfying to see that curious bit come back, and it’s great to see the beat that ended “The Faust Act” is even more important than we thought.

Part 3/? Emotional Chankla

Being a single mother and taking care of and managing a town is hard work and can be frustrating. I don't want people to hate on Alma, she is no where perfect. However, it not an excuse to treat others badly. But when communication sucks, there is bound to be a lot of hurt thrown around.

Let’s hope tonight is not a horrible disaster!

I/O ERROR

What I love most about Issue 17 is just how much Sakhmet is in denial of her own emotional reality. That very first scene at the British Museum tells you everything. Actually, no that very first panel does:

Sakhmet wants to believe she feels nothing, she’s fine, she’s just a little kitty content to play with her yarn people. But she spends most of the issue numbing herself in one way or another. Pleasure not as pleasure but as escape. As Gillen points out in his Writer’s Notes, every scene ends with her shutting her eyes.

And then finally she wanders off and DOES THIS.

You’re right Sakhmet, you’re fine, no pain or trauma screaming in you, eating your dad is a thing anyone would do if they were really free.

Of course the real twist, the best twist, the oh my god no darkest twist is that she did this impossibly horrible thing while sober, that in fact it’s understood amongst Woden and the Valkyrie that the time we really have to worry about Sakhmet is when she isn’t blissed out on whatever.

Sakhmet tells the reporter, “I am Sakhmet. I am war and sex and death. I feel nothing.” She means it as this powerful statement of her identity, raw and primal and beyond all this mortal nonsense. 

And it makes no sense. War and sex and death are absolutely times when you feel things. Maybe too many things.

It’s the same when young Ruth stands before the statue of Sakhmet and insists she was made of stone. The statue is made of stone, sure; but that goddess, sitting on her throne half-naked, head of a lioness, upper body of a woman – that chica is absolutely made of flesh.

 FULL CIRCLE

We started this third arc of WicDiv with the story of a reporter – (post-Jessica Jones I don’t know why but I always imagine Beth introduced like she’s TV child star Patsy, aka “IT’S BETH!”, but then when she comes onscreen she’s just pale and glaring with big circles under her eyes) – who objectifies the gods to get what she wants. We then spend most of the arc having our own assumptions and prejudices revealed, and being challenged to appreciate the humanity of different gods.

(I’m not sure I’d say that’s what’s going on with Baphomet and Morrigan… unless perhaps their internal orbit is defined by the struggle between loving one another and using one another, dehumanizing one another? It is true, our first encounter with them has Baphomet animating a severed head of Morrigan…and its script is nothing but praise for her…

Her take on making him a god is also about making him her king. It sounds like a partnership, but that possessive adjective can carry a lot of water…)

And here we end with an embrace of objectification again. I love the way Gillen puts it in the Writer’s Notes: “The only person who treats Sakhmet like an object is herself.”

(He also makes the comment, “Hurt people hurt people, and occasionally eat them afterwards.” Which encapsulates another major theme of this arc, and is also just the best sentence.)

So once again we return.

I’m not sure that line has ever implied a greater sense of imprisonment.

GIFT FOR WHOM

Brandon Peterson does great work on the art. Those two pages of Sakhmet on the rooftops, there’s something so magical about them. For that one moment, before we get to see where she’s gone, she really does seem so happy and free.

 My one question: What is going on here?:

We’re at Sakhmet’s show. Usually those scenes reveal something important about the blessing of the god. But here, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem all that different from a normal concert, except for the living pastel balloon cats that people are stroking. Is this about pleasure, everyone’s on E or and enjoying stroking the kitties and basking in the red light – like a cat, just getting that as I write this now, oh is that funny).

In a way it feels like the performance is more for the cats than the humans. The humans all blur together, painted in the red of blood; meanwhile the cats float and glow and move through as they will. 

Sakhmet says she’s all about pleasure, and from the post-orgy scene it seems like maybe her blessing is the numb, the escape of excess.

But that’s not what’s going on during her performance. And Sakhmet is so out of touch with the truth of herself, the only thing we can rely on is that her words should not be trusted.

Food for thought, I guess…

We’ve talked about doing a coffee table book of all the covers, possibly with some writer notes attached to them. I dunno if that’ll happen, but that would be cool.

Colonizers