Join the Party (@jointhepartypod) and Spirits (@spiritspodcast) are coming to 7 cities in the U.S. this March with the Rolling Bones Tour!

Get your tickets now to see us perform LIVE in:

  • Seattle 3/21 at the Here After
  • Minneapolis 3/22 at Grenada
  • Chicago 3/24 at Reggie’s
  • Boston 3/25 at Rockwell
  • NYC 3/26 at Littlefield
  • Philadelphia 3/27 at the City Winery
  • Washington, D.C. 3/28 at Atlas Brew Works

Get your tickets HERE before they're gone!

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mollyostertag-deactivated202310

I’m putting together a book of all the short comics I’ve drawn over the past year to have for sale at my spring conventions! Not sure what the title will be yet, but the uniting themes of all the stories seem to be Girls and Magic.

I drew this selkie comic really fast and it bounced all around tumblr which was cool, but the messy lettering and simple coloring bugged me so I cleaned it up a bit. 

going through the tags, it looks like a lot of people don’t know that molly published a whole comic novel in 2021 based (i assume) on this short comic

it’s called The Girl From The Sea, and it’s really good, you should check it out!

"If I were orpheus I wouldn't look back"

But we look back everyday- rechecking emails, making sure a friend is still behind you, checking to see if you remebered to pick up your keys. It's second nature, a habit of care.

It was second nature for him too. He looked back, not out of weakness, but love. For what is love, if not to look back?

I feel like the reason there aren’t any ‘Jewish hero fights the Fair Folk’ stories is because we’d easily get out of that situation.

Like, put Hershel of Ostropol in any situation involving the Fair Folk and bro would talk his way out.

This is why I’m not really scared of paranormal beasties. But yes, I’d enjoy reading this happen.

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katehawkingbirdbishop

Names have power? Give them your secular name and not your Hebrew one.

If you eat their food you’re trapped? It’s not kosher anyways.

They speak in riddles? What, and you didn’t grow up answering a question with a question?

Confuse the Fair Folk with impossible halachic questions: if a man falls off a roof and onto a woman and as a result she becomes pregnant, is he obligated to marry her and is the child a mamzer? If meat is grown in a laboratory from a mix of various animal cells is it kosher, and is it even meat, and what bracha would you even say on it? Is a unicorn permitted to cleanse a poisoned stream on Shabbat using the innate purifying powers of its horn or does it count as work? Can it be justified as pikuach nefesh? Can necromancy be justified as pikuach nefesh, if one approaches necromancy with the understanding that it is just delayed medical assistance?

And if all else fails, you can always get out a fleischig pan, kick ass and take names, and don’t forget to say the blessing for fucking someone’s day up:

BARUCH ATA ADO-NOT TODAY ASSHOLE

using "what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament" to mean "yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing" is very funny to me

my favorite part is that absolutely nobody says this except here. so if you use it in public, it's a dead giveaway that you spent the last ten years on tumblr. but then again, they recognized it, which means they were at the devil's sacrament

Concept: cursed blade rehabilitation center. Destroying a sentient weapon is expensive and highly unethical, so adventurers bring them to the center where highly trained staff can care for them and eventually find them forever homes. It turns out most cursed weapons are products of trauma and are not strictly evil themselves. Some blades turn out to be fiercely protective companions. Others don't even want to be weapons at all, finding joy in simple work like blacksmithing or farming. Most blades just need to be loved.

A pack of bandits descend upon a seemingly undefended town. But the blacksmith's hammer, the farmer's scythe, the woodsman's axe, they have not forgotten what they once were, and they *will* defend the town that they have come to love.

This sweet girl has been with us for seven seasons. She was forged in the heart of a volcano and would be ideal for anyone with a preexisting fire affinity (she's a cuddler and is guaranteed to keep you warm in winter). She still loves burning, but it turns out you can only reduce the world to ash once. She would be perfectly suited for forest management that regularly requires controlled burns.

This weary old soul has grown tired of bloodshed and would much rather spend his days as an ominous decoration in a tavern or common room, a perfect fit for an adventurer looking to leave their dungeon crawling days behind. He likes peoplewatching with his single glowing eye, preferably from high, prominent locations with views of entrances and exits.

Dark king Grütmore’s edge of annihilation consumed 10,000 souls in the first era, and as it turns out, statistically a lot of those souls heard stories that never got written down. It works in a library now.

The throngler, however, is just irrevocably fucked up. We put it in a stone in a forest and hoped nobody ever finds it

too many ppl who know nothing about Filipino folklore n culture r talking shit about my ate. she’s based off of the manananggal, which you can compare to the European vampire, if that helps you understand it better. although, i’m reluctant to mention that becuz some ppl, who choose to be ignorant, currently hold the view that she’s just an Asian-colored vampire mishmash monster. she is not. other than the fact that she manages to exist at all, here are some details i appreciate about her.

first, she has a face that looks like my family’s. that’s my lola’s nose. that’s my mom’s birthmark. shit, those are my uncle’s cheekbones. the headpiece features jasmine, our national flower. the translucent petals are cool.

second, you can display her in two pieces, split by the torso. its not just a “cheap gimmick” you ignorant pos. at nightfall, the manananggal severs itself in two, leaving behind a vulnerable lower half while its upper half hunts for nourishment - blood, raw hearts, livers, fetuses. the red fringe represents her dangling intestines, hanging loose as she flies after ripping her body apart. the string detail is on the skirt for consistency, but also, intestines are long as fuck? why wouldn’t they also hang from the bottom, assuming they also get split in half.

while we’re on the outfit, the top is an extremely traditional (Spanish colonial, ugh) style in both fabric and shape. i have attire that looks exactly like it, minus the monster high red foil pattern. the tiny, “woven” sleeve cuffs are a nice touch. the earrings and bracelets look to be woven palm too, but aren’t as effective in plastic. the bottom half skirt is quite a bit shorter than is traditional, and the heels higher. it’s a monster high doll.

most accurate would be barefoot, tbh. but you guys would riot, and again, its a doll. actually, the shoes reference a lot from Filipino culture. the heel is a coconut tree overlooking a kubo, a one-room stilt hut built with natural materials such as bamboo and palm, and specifically made to be remade as necessary. the sole is “wooden”, also an accessible material of which some shoes were made with. it is attached by braid to what looks to be a straw strap. also not unusual for a shoe.

her fan and wings feature embroidery, and if you look closely at the latter, you will see a thin and delicate flora design in between the spider web pattern. this is extremely reminiscent of calado, a type of traditional hand embroidery akin to lace that is difficult as fuck. a dying art, btw.

i didn’t wake up looking to ride this hard for a plastic woman lmao. but if you’re gonna come for her, it better be because of the fluorescent green in her colorway and not because you don’t know what you’re talking about. honestly, a lot of Filipinos are just happy to be considered and celebrated. “wins” like this mean everything. maybe it’s not good enough for your collection, but now you know more about my culture than you would’ve gone out of your way to. and that’s good enough for me.

The shoes aren't just another example of MH object heels--it's a kind of shoe called bakyâ, with elaborately carved heels, that reached its peak popularity in the Philippines in the mid 20th century

(I knew about them from general interest in vintage fashion)

Thinking a lot about the curse on the House of Atreus and how it shows itself in Agamemnon and Menelaus’ lives.

Tantalus kills Pelops. Pelops kills his prospective father in law (and also some other guy). Atreus kills Thyestes’ sons. It is a cycle of bloodshed, of people killing those they should not.

Agamemnon kills Iphigenia, He kills her for his ambition, for his pride, for his honor, and ten years later, he dies for it.

In most versions of the story, Menelaus wanted to kill Helen at the end of the war, but he didn’t. What if this act of mercy is what saved him? Helen, regardless of whether or not she left of her own volition, hurt Menelaus’ honor and pride. He has every reason to be angry, every reason (by Greek standards) to punish her. But by refusing to put his pride before Helen’s life, he saves himself. He broke the pattern of violence and rage, and now he gets to live out the rest of his days in comfort and happiness with his wife. Sure, he has to wrestle a god to get there, but compared to his brother and the rest of their family, he’s got it pretty good.

I think what I love most about mythology is that the “Trickster God/Spirit” is an archetypical character found in almost every body of folklore. It’s like “Oh, here’s our God of the Sun, our God of the Sea, our God of Fertility, and our God of Being A Wretched Little Gremlin Who Causes Problems On Purpose”

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