CHECK CONTENT WARNINGS BEFORE INTERACTING. dead dove. do not eat.
themes: family as hell, blood as a curse, filth as real as an organ, rot and decay and the life it births, becoming your father/monster, inherited sin, doomed love, loss of innocence, guilt and shame and how neither of it absolves you.
edits by @musicien <3
CONTENT WARNING:
This blog will contain material that some people may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised. As per the nature of the genre, this blog will deal with triggering and problematic topics and themes. Here is an incomplete list of topics that will be discussed or referenced on this blog:
religious & cult trauma, mental, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, self harm, addiction, alcoholism, death/murder, suicide, animal death/culling, gore, child abuse, unreality/hallucinations/delusions, predatory & manipulative behavior, unhealthy & transgressive familial dynamics. This blog is themed around the Gothic literary trend, which traditionally deals with taboo and transgressive themes.
for clarity: Miriam was sexually abused by her father. this informs many of her opinions and responses. while there will be no explicit mention or depiction of this circumstance, Miriam's experience of it will be inferred. if the depiction of abuse survival and the depiction of its possible emotional fallout disagrees with you, please leave. The abuse that runs rampant in cults, especially against children, is something i feel very strongly about and is something i don't care to downplay. i will not directly reference, depict or recount the traumatizing events that took place. That being said, Miriam experiences confused recollection and feelings concerning the events of her abuse. This, too, will not be downplayed.
None of my characters are based on any real life people. The cult in this story is not an allegory for any existing organization. In general, I strongly advise anyone who could potentially be harmed by the depiction and discussion of any of the topics mentioned above to exit out of this blog now.
Howard's advice? "Just... Just follow me for a few months."
He prefers to teach practically rather than theoretically...There's going to be a few hiccups along the way as we already know. But when it's time for Miriam to come back "home", I think the catharsis will be sublime. She can do anything she wants with them. She can prove them wrong, or right, the moral of the story is that she gets to choose. Howard suspects the freedom is to her detriment, but it's not his story to end, he's only giving her the implements, the accessory to the fuller story.
"Well. I was planning on it. I don't see how that'll fix me, though."
Miriam can't rightly tell what he might impart that'll unlock a secret of the universe, but then, she doesn't know his story either. She would find it fascinating that he bends his help to the shape of the tragedy she's living out, where going home was always non-negotiable.
My advice: Stop hanging out with a demon, win the lottery, get a caseworker, go to therapy, and then ☝️ kill your family. (This is of course complicated by the fact that Miriam is an American woman in the 70s but I can dream, right?)
"I don't need to win the lottery. My family is loaded. I just need to not get convicted. I don't know the other stuff."
"I think it's every girl's dream to be far away from them." She smiles thinly. "But you don't really think that would fix me, do you? Some symbolic act of, what? Revenge?"
ooc. There's a whole thesis statement in the lines "you've never told me something like this before." -"actually, I've never told you anything before." Bam. Miriam's character core right there.
characters can have a tragic backstory so long it requires days of scrolling on their wiki to read and they still won't come close to long john silver's single line, "you know of me all i can bear to be known."
