The Most important gift

My first comic. It took me so long to finish!

I hope there will be more to come! Many thanks to those who supported, believed in me, and helped me with their advice.

an interesting request for my dear and beloved @blackbird5154

Thank you for your ideas, I love you:3

Papa Nihil taught his sons to sing

in the intro talk for "If You Have Ghosts" at Unholy / Unplugged in Baltimore, Terzo talks about how he and Secondo learned this song from Nihil. i think this quote is very interesting because it seems to indicate Nihil was the one who trained his sons in singing and taught them the songs for the band.

it's also interesting that this quote seems to imply Secondo and Terzo were trained for the band / were taught songs at the same time, despite the fact that Terzo wouldn't get to be Papa until Secondo's time was up. and i think this might have been the only time Terzo ever mentioned Nihil?

anyway, Nihil being the one to train the Papas in singing actually makes sense considering Nihil's conversations with Cardi in Rite Here Rite Now. though it seems Cardi did not like training with Nihil and either didn't pay attention or skipped lessons.

Whiskey A Go-Go Tarot Analysis (Part 2)

(based on this post. shoutout to @forlorn-crows and @infernal-coffin)

This one is a Celtic cross spread, with an extra one on the bottom for some reason.

I'm glad someone brought up the subject of these Tarot cards again.

Fun fact: when I asked my tarologist friend what card she would use to describe Terzo, she didn't hesitate to say: the Fool. But she gave a slightly different interpretation. It's an innovator, a man on his own path, who takes risks and doesn't notice the dangers, carelessly "dancing over the abyss". Also, the image of the abyss/fall is defining in Terzo's storyline (Ikarus, Lucifer's fall, Babylon falling).

The same can be said about Copia. The card with the white horse suits him just because he is identified with death. He appeared in the music video on a horse as Plague. And he rushes forward, realising his ambitions, sweeping away everything in his path.

It's not a criticism of your vision, just a parallel reflection. Terzo has been noticed to have an Italian accent, but he speaks Italian incorrectly. Secondo prefers to give interviews in Italian. What if they were born and raised in Italy, where they were conceived by Nihil, but then moved to America? Terzo moved earlier and has little memory of his native language. Secondo moved later, perhaps influenced by the Clergy. Terzo may have also lived in Lincopia during his era. His ass was so brazen that he got the entire Ministry to move there :D

Handsome men, for an equally beautiful la mia padrona @blackbird5154

it was a wonderful request, I was very happy to draw this request. I just kiss your palms, dear, because it was a pleasant evening painting.

Yeah

A double commissions this time from a client

notes / thoughts on the Papas' (lack of) involvement in the songwriting process and their connections to the concepts / themes of their albums

thanks for the kind words and thanks for the ask! these were great questions and really enjoyed writing this response. your questions really made me think! (and when i start thinking i always think too hard and take forever to answer– sorry this took so long!)

i'm putting these questions together because i feel they are closely related. this is a topic i've recently been thinking about a lot, actually.

A Ghoul Writer was first mentioned in that 2010 interview with Primo. the Ghoul Writer is Special Ghoul, the Nameless Ghoul character who gave interviews in Eras 2 and 3. in interviews with him, either he himself or the interviewers would usually mention he's the Writer. i'm not linking anything specific here because you can find this happening in pretty much any Era 2 / 3 interview. (though there's one Era 2 Nameless Ghoul interview that refers to the Writer as a separate character.)

the only Papa who wrote his own music was Nihil. the music video for The Future Is A Foreign Land shows that he and his Nameless Ghouls wrote the song together, and he's credited as a writer on Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic. (pic: back of the SIOSP record)

after Nihil, none of the Papas were involved in the songwriting process. everything after Nihil was written by A Ghoul Writer.

so the later Papas were interpreters of the music, not writers.

as for the question of whether the Papas embody the sins of society or criticize the sins of society by parodying them, i think it's a bit of both– and i think it depends on which perspective we're looking from.

obviously from a real-world perspective, Ghost as a whole is meant to criticize and parody the issues the music is about, and the personality and characterization of each Papa is closely tied to the themes of his album.

from an in-universe lore perspective, as interpreters of the music, each Papa has his own relationship with the themes of his album. i think the Ghoul Writer writes each album for / about the Papa who's going to perform it. however, this is not necessarily a positive gesture.

here are my notes / thoughts on how each Papa relates to the themes of his album:

(trigger warning for mentions of misogynistic violence / rape / forced pregnancy)

Thanks for the great analysis and for sharing the information!

I've always found it frustrating that Papas don't write songs, as the temptation to link them to the themes of their albums is so great. I look forward to your reflection on Meliora and the relationship between Terzo and Secondo. Tag me please!

@undeadorion, I challenge you to a public duel on the subject of Copiiia.

In this post you wrote that you would rip apart anyone who supports this ship. If I understand your position correctly, you say that the description of Terzo x Copia in fanworks is unacceptable and anyone who promotes it, as well as those who defend them, should be condemned. You strike me as someone who is capable of arguing their opinion. If you are ready to defend your point of view in a fair debate, come and fight me! ⚔️

If you accept my challenge, please answer on this post by reblogging it.

It’s not up for debate. But thank you for your very public admission of support of the ship. They have the same father. They’re brothers. It’s incest. End of debate I’m blocking you, now. Goodbye.

Why are you posting an opinion you're not prepared to argue? If you are sure of your point of view, is it really so difficult to explain it?

Why do you think that fantasizing about torture/murder and describing it publicly is ok, but writing about an incestuous relationship between two adult men is not ok?

I have many more arguments. I'm really sorry this conversation didn't happen. We would have had fun.

I finally picked up a physical copy of Meliora and it breaks my heart the art doesn’t have Terzo’s facepaint. But it got me thinking about how it could work in fiction, ignoring any real world stuff.

There are 3 major instances of Terzo having his paint look a lot more like Secondo’s: His introduction, the mini Papa in the Cirice video, and the art for each song in Meliora.

Other details to consider include how aggressively Terzo was removed from the Papacy. Sister Imperator being terrified of Terzo’s hand on her shoulder. Sister Imperator insisting they needed someone with “stamina and sexual charisma” when Terzo was overflowing with it. The fact that Terzo had won a grammy where his brothers hadn’t. The fact that all 3 Papas before Copia were murdered.

So I have some ideas.

In preparation for the transfer of the papacy, the church planned everything for Terzo. His look, the album, the first video. He was able to participate in the creation of the music to shape it better to suit what he’d want to perform, but he wasn’t allowed near the rest of it. He was already trying to have stronger influences over everything before his appointment, so to avoid further tensions they created the Cirice video with kids to mask things a bit. And Terzo couldn’t fight it too hard and risk the mantle being passed to someone else at the last minute.

Because unlike his brothers, Terzo wanted that power. For Primo, it was his sacred duty. It wasn’t a matter of enjoyment for him, but he took it very seriously. He did what was in the best interest of the ministry. Secondo enjoyed having power, but he wasn’t so much about leading a church. He’d rather be out partying in Vegas, as we saw. But not Terzo. He wanted that power, and for the wrong reasons in the eyes of the Ministry. He didn’t want the power to serve their dark lord, but to set people free. To drag them out of their sanitized lives to show them the truth. Damnation isn’t hell, it’s the life we’re in now.

His entire era was about defiance and rebellion. So why not also defiance of the very organization he represented? That’s why his face paint changed. We have seen 3 Papas before them, and all of them had much more detailed paint, with the vertical lines over the lips. Something more closely representing a skull. Just like his original paint looked like. But suddenly he comes out with a more abstract, geometric look. And because he was now Papa, it was harder to tell him he couldn’t do it.

Given that he uses more humor than his brothers, that he’s more flirty and seemingly light-hearted, Sister Imperator likely thought he’d be easy to control. That she could shape him into what the church needed. In that first act of changing his look, she likely tried to fight him on it. And that’s when she saw that under the surface he was a lot more like his brothers than she anticipated. But fueled by spite and rebellion, that bitter cruelty was aimed directly at her in a way she’d likely never experienced before. I think she was trying to say how terrifying he was in that one video, but it would ruin the image he wanted to project. So his hand rested on her shoulder as a mere warning that shook her to her core.

The worst part is that the gentler face he put on for the public worked. His defiance of what Sister Imperator first thought was best was a force to be reckoned with that dragged the entire Ministry out of the shadows and into the spotlight. When he won a Grammy she realized if she needed to do something or he would be too powerful to stop. If it’s was a softer image with humor people wanted, then her awkward boy actually had a chance. She couldn’t alter the course Terzo had taken entirely, but she could seize control of it once more. So she waited until the last show to have him forcibly removed.

As the church prepared to appoint Copia to the newly vacated seat of power, she worried about a coup. She feared Terzo would attempt to hold on to the spotlight at all costs once performances started once more. But if just Terzo was taken out, that could incur the wrath of his brothers. Hence why all three were taken out.

Sister: I support all the Papas equally. :)

Also Sister: I don't care for Terzo.

Terzo explaining about Pasta for 4 hours

Getting ready to make these into stickers! Follow me here for updates!