Two characters for Anarchy in Prague. Because they’re goth girls, you can imagine they made me hit the exosphere pretty quickly.

Artist: Alouisse-Ver. I credit @pan-pizza with the general idea for them, especially Muriel. @alouissever, thank you for this commission! @radiomaru, thank you for the art style! @theradiomonkey , fuck you.

Before anyone asks, yes, they are rooted in early ‘00s Cartoon Network. Muriel’s name comes from Muriel Bagge; Malfiore’s clothes are a gothic version of Ed’s. I realized I had a theme going with Venus’s hipster boyfriend’s name being “Arthur Tartakovsky” and eventually decided to throw in loads of subtle retro CN references in the story.

Muriel’s a nymphomaniacal gothic lolita (though she’s wearing a plain black cloak in this image) from Ireland, and she’s also a telekinetic. That bit came from Tatsumaki, as you can possibly tell with her hair. She’s in lesbians with Malfiore. Despite being in lesbians with Malfiore, she actually has a fetish for nerdy Mexican men (Protect your groin, Pan!) I like Muriel. She’s a good person. She’s Venus’s only true, non-romantic/bandmate friend, and she genuinely does care for her.  She’s the lead singer and guitarist of the nilpunk band Blossomkill.  By way of being associated with Venus, she also appears as a playable character in Arthur’s Nintendo PlayStation game, Shaq-Fu 4: Episode 1. Muriel’s the one who got Venus into the game of music in the first place— way back when the two girls were in high school back in the prehistoric year of 2014, Muriel introduced the previously radio-girl Chenxing to punk rock (particularly the ‘70s bands) and eventually worked her way through to goth rock, glam rock, grunge, and ‘90s alternative. Venus heard one song from the Melvins and quickly ran with doom metal, and the rest is history in that regard— Venus wound up finding her own bands, and through stoner metal, retroactively discovered blues and psychedelia and, somehow, managed to find chiptune music. When Venus was clit-deep in chiptune, she met Gideon Blythwood and Ahmed Jackson, who got her to be the drummer for their subterranean heavy rock band, Golden Revolver (previously “Golden Gun” until they discovered that name was taken). Social retardation, depression, Syd and the Simones, BDSM elephants, and virtual reality followed, yada yada yada. Muriel is always trying her damnedest to get her to try harder. She’s the one who points out the difference between the quirky indie-emo-hipster ethos of not looking like you’re trying too hard or that you care and actually not trying hard or caring. Arthur may be the ultimate hipster, but that’s just it— the days of hipsters have long passed by 2024, and he still keeps up with the lifestyle because he genuinely is what he says he is, and despite looking like he doesn’t care, he cares about a lot of things. The man’s spent 5 years programming, drawing art, and creating music for a Nintendo PlayStation game that only Venus and a few others will ever play, after all! So even though she’s Venus’s closest (and only) friend, she doesn’t let her off easy. Rating: E for Everyone Theme song: Joy Division - Dead Souls

Malfiore is a “heavy goth” and is basically the Buzz Osborne of Duryset. Her band is called The Nightmares. As you can guess, it’s basically the Melvins of Duryset. I like Malfiore, and not just because she’s British and spouts off nadsat. She’s really a “doom girl” more than a “goth girl”, but she did it— this grandmotherfucker did it! She correctly fused punk/goth rock with doom metal without making sludge or grunge, all by stepping back a decade. She somehow perfected a fusion of Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees with Witchfinder General and Saint Vitus— take The Cure and do a fusion-ha with Black Sabbath, and you’d get something like The Nightmares. She singlehandedly kickstarted the Duryset heavy rock scene, leading to subterranean heavy rock (aka Sabbath rock) and nilpunk (aka Sabbath punk). She also gave us the stereotypical heavy rock look— long shaggy hair, and denim (or leather). She created nilpunk because she got disillusioned with America and Britain way back in 2016 (who wasn’t?), and deliberately set up a back-to-roots ‘70s style for punk and metal alike (the “retrowave” as they call it), which was so thoroughly underground that most didn’t even know it existed until 2020. She is the real deal of goth girls, capable of using black magicka and tending to use a Ouija board instead of a cellphone to get in touch with other people. She also lives alone in the sewers in her own little gothic fortress (like Cube a la Jet Set Radio Future). Her favorite video game is either Polybius or Killswitch. She may or may not have had a hand behind Sad Satan. Malfiore’s name comes from the Electric Wizard song of the same name.  Rating: M for Mature. Theme song: Electric Wizard - Mourning Prayer

Malfiore hates Kalo.exe, the moddie neon-rock star who wants to Selena Venus. It’s not because Malfiore necessarily likes Venus (she sees little ol’ Chenxing as being a melancholic bore), but because she fears the idea of a psychotic fan offing herself.

Electric Wizard - Flower of Evil (a.k.a. Malfiore)

album: We Live