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   13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:02:31 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

   Looking up some stuff about Ghost Rite Here Rite Now, and it's so incredibly fucking wholesome seeing younger queers finding comfort in the very camp anti-Christian popular beat combo.

   But I am also feeling old a.f. because no one is doing any fan analysis or headcanoning of the Wizard of Oz stuff through a Friends of Dorothy lens, as a complement to the narrative of false and hollow imperial power, and I'm now thinking that I'm maybe from the last generation that had that frame of reference. (Like, I'm not that old at 40-cough, but it was certainly part of the oral culture of queer history when I came of age, even though I didn't have much of a community.)

   For anyone else who enjoys sundry Wizard of Oz theories, after adding some time codes, I'm also pretty sure that the soundtrack album doesn't map to any edit of the movie, but I'm still waiting for someone to actually do that, just to fulfil that old Dark Side of the Rainbow idea.

   Glossary & Citations:

   Friends of Dorothy
   Old slang (pre-1970s) term for gay men in particular and queer people in general. The Wizard of Oz books and films are rich in queer symbolism and the term appeared in cant and code when being gay was still illegal and taboo. Oz references, particularly to the 1939 Judy Garland film, were at one point common tropes of LGBT+ culture.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy

   The Dark Side of the Rainbow
   The idea that you can use Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon as an alternative soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. Not queer-coded.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Rainbow

   #Ghost #WizardOfOz

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:43:16 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     I am absolutely going to do this upon DVD release if no one else does, because, based on a single viewing, it looks like we can identify Papa Emeritus IV with both Dorothy and the Wizard (he both clicks his heels and - before taking on the mantle of Frater Imperator, boards a hot air balloon).

     This is fun within any number of interpretations - the seeker and the liar; dissociative identities if you choose to interpret Oz as internal landscape, which you can map Ghost's shtick to nicely as well; the aforementioned queer stuff - to caveat, while Ghost is not an explicitly LGBT band, Tobias Forge dabbles with a lot of queer culture stuff with great sensitivity and kicks funds towards trans youth charities, so I'm happy to play with their flavour of camp in those aspects.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:49:48 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • Bubu :progress_pride:

     @Bubu I am aggressively educational! :D

     🖤

   • Embed this notice
     Bubu :progress_pride: (bubu@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:49:50 JST Bubu :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear I just wanted to say thank you for adding the glossary! I had no idea what you were talking about and now learned multiple things from your post. :)

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:58:03 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • River Crow

     @therivercrow I really enjoy the fact that they leave such fascinating breadcrumb trails to pick over in terms of both internal lore and social commentary.

     It's like being given free rein to to play with someone else's rabbitholes and infodumps.

   • Embed this notice
     River Crow (therivercrow@pagan.plus)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 18:58:04 JST River Crow

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear As a huge Ghost fan, seeing this level of analysis makes me very happy.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 19:19:49 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • River Crow

     @therivercrow tbh, I think that arbitrariness is part of what makes it interesting to me!

     And yeah, while I don't come from any kind of Christian religious background, I'm from and have lived in regions where the weight of cultural hegemony is redolent with artefacts of that faith (three flavours so far), and its subversion brings me great joy from an anarcho-satanist perspective.

   • Embed this notice
     River Crow (therivercrow@pagan.plus)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 19:19:51 JST River Crow

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear well, the internal lore is all over the place! I think RHRN was in part a way of streamlining it before the next era begins. But I do love the world they've created - and seeing Catholic iconography played with, subverted and queered makes my heart very happy.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 19:53:42 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • River Crow

     @therivercrow

     Anarcho-satanism sounds fascinating by the way!

     haha, thanks, I concocted it myself (although I know a few people who've fallen into basically the same thing)

     This is my more general-purpose fedi account, so I don't usually dive too deep into the occult stuff here, but I'm an (actively practicing but philosophically divergent) ex? chaos magician who eventually realised that what attracted to me to the systemic worldview of chaos magic was the same thing that attracted me to black metal, to flamboyant satanism (but ultimately not any of the capital-S varieties), and to initially black-flag and eventually black-and-red-flag anarchism:

     the notion that to thrive is to resist and, to counter-attack oppression

     Helpfully, in terms of personal symbolism, this aligns tidily with the cultural imagery of Satan and its historic and mythological counterparts, especially within the European and Levantine world.

     To exist in opposition to an unjust status quo - to strive to reject systemic (and personal) bigotry, to oppose fascism, to strive to free oneself and others from oppression at the hands of capital, to deny the commodification of human life and of nature, to embody the imposed demonisation of queer existence - is an inherently satanic resistance, because these things set themselves up as Just and Right and The Way Of Things.

     Obviously, given the many flavours of S/satanism out there, some of them fashy as fuck, and the degree to which minimally-inconvenienced folks like to lay claim to the language of oppression, it's a social and political tightrope walk, but leaning into the political and philosophical history and present of anarchism tempers and clarifies the satanic aspects.

   • Embed this notice
     River Crow (therivercrow@pagan.plus)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 19:53:43 JST River Crow

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear Ha, I can get behind that!

     My upbringing was Irish Catholic so...yeesh. The first time I went to a Ghost gig and sang along to He Is with everyone was a genuinely healing experience.

     Anarcho-satanism sounds fascinating by the way!

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 22:24:31 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • River Crow

     @therivercrow Oh yeah, I absolutely see how you'd want to put distance between yourself and a faith that you have that kind of personal history with.

     I'm lucky to be able to forge, appropriate and attach my own context, only because I had distance in the first place.

     I similarly feel a philosophical kinship with what you've expressed, as well as with the Hekatean current in general.

     Many years and a couple of genders ago I was named after Hekate, and I still honour that relationship for all that has changed.

   • Embed this notice
     River Crow (therivercrow@pagan.plus)'s status on Monday, 02-Dec-2024 22:24:32 JST River Crow

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear

     My personal practice is Hekatean rather than Satanic - I had to make a clean break with Christianity and its derivations, including its adversary, for my own spirituality (fun art projects like Ghost aside), but I feel a shared set of values here.

     Hekate is also often invoked for protection for the oppressed and vengeance against the oppressors - and has been demonised by the Christian overculture for it.

     I find Satanism interesting, philosophically, and anyone who supports human rights, the rights of nature, and personal and social liberation is an ally to me.