#mytexts

Mesmo que ninguém pense o mesmo, você tentou.

Mesmo que ninguém tenha visto, você deu o seu melhor.

Now that I'm home again (and blasting my recreation of the setlist while I write this) I can finally put together my thoughts on the Ft. Worth Ghost ritual-- and maybe wax poetic about my feelings about Ghost in general, if you'll humor me.

Before I get to the ritual itself, I need to start at the beginning. All things considered, I'm a very new Ghost fan, having only really gotten into them last December. A friend of mine suggested "Mary on a Cross" to me when I was making a playlist for a book I'm writing, and when I first heard it I was like, "Oh, yeah, I like this." I didn't think much of it after that, just listened to it when it came up on the playlist. Suddenly, in early December I felt an itch to listen to it, and it was like a switch flipped in my mind. I went from being a casual listener to putting "Mary on a Cross" on repeat for a solid week straight. Literally everyday, for hours, just "Mary on a Cross." Finally, at the end of that week, it occurred to me that if I liked this one song so much, maybe I should give the band a try in general. I spent the next week listening to their entire discography and, well, the rest is history. I became obsessed and began devouring all their music, looking into the lore, getting into the fandom.

I happened to set up Last.fm right around when my deep dive into Ghost happened, so I actually have my stats for how much I have listened to them since I found them. From December 2024 to about 5 minutes ago, this is how many Ghost songs I've listened to:

There were many, many days over these last 8 months where I was putting in 100+ Ghost songs a day, hours of listening a day. I wasn't doing it for the stats or anything, I just wanted to. It brought me such joy to listen to them. I was going through a hard time mentally/emotionally during this period as well, and it legitimately made me feel better and more stable to just listen to their music.

In April, I had fallen so in love with Ghost that I decided to get a tattoo:

I'm already thinking of getting another one, but we'll come back to that.

Not long before I got this tattoo is when I decided that I wanted to see them live. I'd watched Rite Here Rite Now and listened to the album a dozen times, and I was so enamored with the sound and energy of their live performance. They had also just announced their next tour, the Skeletour. I'd never been to a concert in my whole life, never even heard a band live unless it was an album, but I felt like I had to go. I bought a ticket completely on impulse. I'd never been interested in concerts before, but I had to hear them live.

I ended up paying for a friend to come with me so I wouldn't be alone. She'd also never been to a concert, so this was going to be a new experience for both of us. We were a little worried we wouldn't like it, but were excited to try it all the same.

Fast forward several months and the day is finally here: August 15th. I live about 4 hours from Fort Worth, so I made the drive down there day of and picked up my friend from the DFW airport. We got to Dickies Arena around 5:30 and got in line. I did a lot of people watching, scoping out all the amazing cosplays and outfits. Sadly, I was so excited to get there and get in line that I didn't think to pal around and meet people and exchange freebies, but it's okay. 6:30 rolls in and they let us into the arena. My friend and I found our seats and settled in for the wait. The arena actually felt smaller than I expected it to, and we were closer to the stage than it looked like we'd be when we chose our tickets.

Despite being phoneless for 2 hours, we were so excited about the ritual that we didn't get bored while we waited. Finally, the time came for it to begin, and the preamble of Peacefield started and Perpetua appeared on the screens to either side of the stage. Instantly, all the worries I had about attending this ritual were gone. Peacefield is tied for my third favorite Ghost song of all time, and hearing it live nearly brought me to tears. The lights, the effects, the sound. Everything about this concert was incredible. Part of me is glad that we were forced not to have our phones, because it kept me in the moment and made me experience it all with my full self, but I do wish I had pictures of the event. I'll have to make do with the official photos from the packs, I suppose.

The true highlight of the ritual, though? My favorite song, which I never suspected would be on the lineup, was. I got to hear "The Future is a Foreign Land" live, and I got to sing along with Perpetua and hundreds of other fans. I was so full of joy in that moment, I think it altered my brain chemistry.

I sang every single song of the setlist. Despite having nerve damage in my hip, I stood for the entire ritual. I even danced, which I never do in public. My throat was swollen the next day from all the screaming and singing, but it was so worth it.

A friend of mine, a long time ago, once described a Daft Punk concert he went to as a religious experience. I could never relate to the idea, I couldn't imagine feeling that way about getting to hear music live. Years later, I finally get it. I feel like part of me changed from having gotten to do this, like I am, on some core level, now a different person. I know that sounds so hyperbolic but like... it's true. In the days since the ritual, I still feel like I just left it, like I'm still basking in the euphoria of listening to that music live, of seeing the band with my own eyes, of being dazzled by the lights and the backdrops. I still hear parts of the performance echoing through my memory.

I wish I had done more while I was there, but I got to experience it, and that's what matters in the end. The second they announce their next tour, I'm buying tickets and doing this all over again.

It feels a little silly to say this, but Ghost has changed my life. I'm very thankful to have found them, to have had this experience, and I look forward to more to come.

As for that second Ghost tattoo, I'm thinking of getting something with Perpetua, either on my upper arm or my leg. That's a next year project, though.

I've been thinking about Val a lot since me and @starfallisle started writing "Go to Hell for the Company" and I have Opinions about him, because I actually ended up finding him a lot more interesting and fun to write than I expected.

First I'd like to draw attention to this post that @potionorchard wrote about Val and his emotional intelligence, because I definitely agree with it. To summarize it, Valentino is not exactly a smart guy, but he's very emotionally intelligent and knows how to play people based on their emotions and connections to him, which is likely a big factor in how he became an Overlord in the first place.

Valentino is a mean guy, but he's capable of being nice, being kind. He can give people what they want from him, if he thinks it's worth his time and effort to do so. I think a great example of the two major sides of Valentino are his relationship with Angel versus with Vox.

With Angel Dust: Val knows he doesn't have to try with Angel, because he's got him under contract. He doesn't have to put effort into Angel if he doesn't want to, so he's willing to let himself get fed up with Angel and lash out at him. He'll put on his sweeter side when it suits him, but it's not necessary. The Val that Angel knows is likely the Val most people know in the long term. But I think before he was chained down, Angel knew a whole different Valentino. A kind, sweet, maybe even loving Val.

With Vox: I think Vox is one of the few people Val doesn't see as below him, same with Velvette. They are his business partners after all. More than that, it's clear that Val and Vox have a relationship beyond business, and have had it for a while probably. With Vox, Val has to play the game a little more strategically. @potionorchard pointed this out in her post that when Val doesn't get the results of Vox's attention that he wanted, he immediately turns around and plays Vox, riling him up by mentioning Alastor and then teasing him about it. Val knew what he was doing for that whole exchange. But, outside of these kind of instances, I think it's easy to see that Val has genuine feelings of some kind for Vox. He keeps the photo of them, and the whole dance between him and Vox in the finale speaks for itself I think. Val doesn't have as tight a hold on his temper as he could (or maybe even wishes he did) but he reins it in for Vox when he knows it won't benefit him to use it, or redirects it as needed so Vox isn't the direct subject of it.

I think Valentino uses kindness and affection as a weapon. He knows emotions are powerful motivators and uses them as his primary tools for predation pre: contracts and with those he knows he can't overpower. This is a major factor behind how I choose to write Val in my RPs and fics, why I make him kind when he's trying to achieve long term results, and why he's overall nicer to Vox than anyone else in the day-to-day.

Val is mean, Val is abusive, but he has the capability of being good for the people he has genuine affection for. However, his handle on his temper isn't good enough, and he'll lash out at anyone when he gets worked up enough. I personally think Valentino has some kind of feelings for Angel, but because Angel is under contract and not his perceived equal, he doesn't make the effort to be what Angel would want him to be, the person that Vox gets more often than not. Val is selfish with Angel and puts his own needs and desires above Angel's unless he can figure out how to also benefit from them.

I think Valentino wants to love people, but he struggles with perception (ironic given his eyesight.) I think Val builds his idea of a person in his mind, and when they do something that goes against what he expects of them based on that idea, he reacts poorly. His selfishness battles against this deep down want-- a want that is often overtaken by lust and pride and is therefore easy to miss, even by him.

forgetting and failing to recognize that the beauty of any work comes from repeated effort, not from the rush to complete it.

Every day, we have a unique palette of colors 🎨, according to the fluctuations of our moods and our own vital energy. And that’s normal.

It's important to understand that each day, our different color palette helps us see what has already been done and what we can improve.

We float, our color palette floats, and that's exactly why one day we add brown, another day purple, another day orange and yellow, until the work is fully composed with the colors it needs.

And that's how we get there.

Of course, we should always avoid self-criticism and instead look forward, not backward.

Much of what is done in haste, simply to finish a task, lacks appreciation, presence, and self-recognition.

Beauty lies in the step-by-step process, in the lightness, and in the small investments!

Little by little is how we get there.

Trust in that! 🩷

Understand that the most productive things in your life are not those you finish quickly, but those you dedicate yourself to little by little. In your own time and with consistency. In your time.

So, right now, look at the things you’ve done until today with appreciative eyes, rather than focusing on what is lacking.

You're on a journey!