flightworks

wherefore art thou beast?

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 21:35:38 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

rebloggable on tumblr here.

CONTENT WARNING for all of the canon-typical everything in the Hollow Knight series (colonialism, genocide, racism, child abuse & toxic parenting, parent loss, rape & unwanted pregnancy).

This essay also involves SILKSONG SPOILERS THROUGH ACT 3 AND THE TRUE ENDING.

ALSO AS USUAL: I read Hollow Knight 1 as an anticolonialist text. If you did not see these undertones in the series, or only saw Silksong as being particularly critical of empire, some of the contents of this essay may be challenging for you. Please be responsible in your choice whether to engage with this content, and also, be respectful here or wherever else you’re discussing this essay. Thanks.

this was initially intended to be a brief, maybe 3 sentences long post, but i had entirely too much to say about the subject and it turned into an entire essay.

WHEREFORE ART THOU BEAST?

the term "beast" in the hollow knight games is used to describe the bugs/creatures who aren't sapient, the ones who are considered animals.

when the insect characters refer to arachnids as "beasts" what do you think they mean by it, with that context?

herrah's a weaver - we don't know if she's among the first generation of weaver refugees in deepnest or if her parents were one of the lucky weaver couples who were able to have children and she was born in deepnest. but her people come from the single most technologically advanced civilization we've yet seen in the hollow knight setting.

herrah is literally spider cinderella - she went from ordinary commoner to queen when she and the deepling king fell in love. then she outlived him because weavers have disproportionately long lifespans compared to other bugs, and spent a significant part of her adult life thwarting hallownest's various attempts to invade and conquer deepnest, which obviously would have required incredibly high levels of political and wartime savvy.

herrah is so intensely beloved by her citizens, deeplings and weavers both, that there are deepling heavies who call themselves her devouts: this level of approval requires skill with statecraft and public relations. she is depicted by those who knew her and in her few personal appearances in both games as brave, wise, and loving.

( hockey stick emote hockey stick emote hockey stick emote explosion emote. )

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THE BIG GAY SPITFIRE REKINDLED REVIEW

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 04:42:22 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

NB: this review is based on an ARC of spitfire rekindled kindly provided by maya & friends!

maya kern's spitfire rekindled is roughly the first half of what's been retroactively renamed spitfire the legacy edition, which itself is the first half of a planned duology that's been retooled as a tetralogy. it is a fantasy geopolitical drama/romance/erotica series centering on the confluence of four blisteringly hot, deeply idiotic 20somethings and their romantic entanglements. these four blisteringly hot, deeply idiotic 20somethings are also heads of state! 423975928347923853724 dead 34792857892879286927839248797928734947234 injured... and counting!!!

the first of these four leads to be introduced is feon, a dragon with shapeshifting magic who spends most of his time wearing his humansona. in the country of nadara every monarch since the kingdom's founding is traditionally soulbonded to a dragon via nadara's trademark blood magic, and feon is bound to nadara's current prince caederyn. feon has literally been in love with caed since first sight and has always assumed that this bond means they are guaranteed romance someday even if caed keeps matrix dodging feon's affections... so when caed announces he's going to get married to princess allene of voswain feon Loses His Whole Entire Mind and vows to foil whatever vile plot this homewrecking hussy definitely probably must have.

princess allene, who is the secondary protagonist of spitire rekindled, obviously has no such vile plot. in fact, coming from a country where polyamory is the social norm and the monoamorous nadarans are all thought of as weirdo prudes, allene is baffled as to why her presence should be any sort of barrier to feon's affections, because caed has two whole hands, after all! plus, allene has more fish than feon to fry right now: moving to a strange new land to get married is turning out to mean approximately one (1) rude culture shock per 30 seconds. allene's first exposure to how little she knows about nadara involves her being about one (1) foot away from the latest assassination attempt on her fiance, and she is determined to help unravel the identity of the attackers even as she must also juggle convincing the nadaran populace to like her, feon's big baby tantrums, and caed's impossible temperament.

caught between his bombastic fiancee and his jealous dragon, prince caederyn cannot bring himself to believe that either of them really and genuinely loves him. part of this is because a lifetime of emotional neglect and abuse from his distant father has convinced caed that he is a perennial disappointment who will never live up to the royal legacy... and part of this is because he feels he can never know how much of feon's love for him is influenced by their soul bond! all caed wants is to do right by the people he's convinced he'll never deserve, but how is he supposed to do right by a woman and a dragon he'll never feel worthy of?!

alongside these three horrible fools circling one another in a whirlwind of romantic and sexual confusion, there is professional fuckboy lesbian lysithea. as the daughter of the ambassador of laruze, a country with which nadara shares an ugly history, she's been in the same social circle as allene, caed, and feon since childhood. she therefore lives to drop diss tracks on caed, needle feon, and make sad cow eyes over the oblivious allene. invited to nadara for allene and caed's wedding, lysithea is not any happier about it than feon. does their mutual misery hold any chance for a change in their relationship, and how will lysithea endure being stuck in a land where she and her parent are considered Public Enemy Number One?

this is roughly what i've covered already in my old blurb for spitfire the legacy edition, which means that now i get to EXPOUND. hold onto your butt.

( lo! much expounding be within! )

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O FORTUNA FAIR

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:20:01 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

O FORTUNA FAIR // a totoki saki mixtape

o1. sellers of flowers / regina spektor | o2. floral footsteps / aivi & surasshu | o3. 足あと4つ / shiina mota & kous | o4. autumn town (day) / graham nesbitt | o5. 23XX A.D.で待ってる / u-ske | o6. ウソとホント / 横山克 | o7. my love mine all mine / mitski | o8. king of tides / half waif | o9. 嘘じゃない / ずっと真夜中でいいのに。 | 10. eternal spring / joel corelitz | 11. look at the sky / porter robinson

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karaniji (kinome) 17

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 03:55:24 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read chapter 17 here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include references to alcohol and past suicide.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 17: Let's bring color to the world! )

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karaniji (kinome) 16

Mon, 01 May 2023 03:47:34 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read chapter 16 here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include aftermath of brainwashing/torture, body horror, and verbal abuse.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 16: This is why I don't want a heart... )

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karaniji (kinome) 15

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 22:18:55 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read chapter 15 here on the MAGKAN official website!

As we are still(!) at the Karako's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Backstory station, content warnings for this chapter include aftermath of brainwashing/torture, body horror, child grooming, temporary character death, hate mobs, Characters Coping With Trauma Badly, and Designated Kinome Yikes Guy Nonsense.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 15: ...Liar. )

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karaniji (kinome) 14

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 08:27:55 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read chapter 14 here on the MAGKAN official website!

As we are still at the Karako's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Backstory station, content warnings for this chapter include Characters Coping With Trauma Badly (emotional manipulation/codependency), child abuse aftermath, depiction of panic attacks/flashbacks, strangulation, bullying, violence, and child grooming.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 14: You broke your promise first! )

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karaniji (kinome) 13

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 00:36:56 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read chapter 13 here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include child abuse and abandonment, strangulation, attempted suicide, discussion of child loss, and brainwashing/torture aftermath.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 13: Nobody wants me. )

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karaniji (kinome) 12

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 17:56:55 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

GOOD NEWS: karaniji volume 2 is out now! BAD NEWS: it is a digital only release, with no plans for a physical volume at this time, which will make it a lot more difficult for overseas fans to buy legit. Makes me sad because my whole goal in posting these scripts is as an aid for people who want to support Kinome by reading chapters as they drop/buying the books... 😔

The MAGKAN official website lists the following vendors as places to buy volume 2: the bezos place, Rakuten Books, 7 Net, and Comic Seymour. If I can find a place to buy that's not region-gated & will actually get you a downloadable file instead of online access in a bespoke reader I'll update this post to point it out; if you're able to trawl online stores to find one where you can just get a freaking cbr or epub or whatever (or even a bespoke file format that can be converted into one) leave a comment with what that is so Kinome can get their well-deserved sales numbers.

BUT ANYWAY

You can read chapter 12 here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include child peril, grief, and self-harm.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 12: All the love you've given each other will. )

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karaniji (kinome) 11

Mon, 26 Dec 2022 05:44:58 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include grief and child peril.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 11: We love you more than anything! )

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karaniji (kinome) 10

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:24:49 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include brief mention of child abuse and potentially triggering imagery for those with trypophobia.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 10: So that means that deep down, you want to live, don't you? )

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JOY'S LAW

Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:25:54 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

JOY'S LAW / chara mixtape 2k22

o1. the lake / eel valley | o2. the knife / talisk | o3. love potion ft. raychel jay / shawn wasabi | o4. subspace drive / snail's house | o5. 僕らまだアンダーグラウンド / eve | o6. the ghost that haunts us both / sabrepulse | o7. when god lets my body be / katie dey | o8. infinity / tenkitsune | o9. should've been me / mitski

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karaniji (kinome) 9

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:35:36 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include minor character death, corpses, body horror, and grief.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 9: Nice to meet you, friend! )

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CORONAL LOOP

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 03:29:21 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

CORONAL LOOP / asriel mixtape 2k22

o1. hello hydrangea / eel valley | o2. telepathic love / snail's house | o3. savage good boy / japanese breakfast | o4. banish / sabrepulse | o5. 退屈を再演しないで / eve | o6. villains need no graves / starship amazing | o7. first time / carly rae jepsen | o8. dullscythe / porter robinson | o9. there's nothing left here for you / mitski

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BOW SHOCK

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 14:10:58 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

BOW SHOCK / frisk mixtape 2k22

o1. raison d'etre / eve | o2. crossing / talisk | o3. princess peach / shawn wasabi | o4. animal friends / tenkitsune | o5. channeling you / snail's house | o6. slide tackle / japanese breakfast | o7. termination shock / sabrepulse | o8. technicolor / madeon | o9. dead to me / eel valley

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THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY FROM OMELAS: A Closer Look At White Lady

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 16:18:47 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

Rebloggable on tumblr here!

CONTENT WARNING FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay contains discussion of reproductive abuse, infanticide, child abuse, and many of the darker aspects of Hallownest’s society.

ALSO, AS USUAL: I read Hollow Knight as anti-colonialist fiction and all of my meta approaches the text from that angle. If you come from a Christian cultural background (regardless of whether you currently practice the religion or not), some of the concepts I am going to discuss may be challenging for you. Please be responsible in your choice whether to engage with this content, and also, be respectful here or wherever else you’re discussing this essay. Thanks.

THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY FROM OMELAS: A Closer Look At White Lady

Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, first published in 1973, is a staple of literature and ethics courses in North American education (at the very least; English speakers from other countries chime in as to whether they made you do this one as well and how many times they made you do it. Personally I got assigned it like 10 or 15 times). In case some members of my audience are unfamiliar with the story or don’t remember it and are thus wondering why tf I’m bringing it up in a Hollow Knight essay, I’ll briefly summarize it now.

Omelas, the story’s narrator informs us, is a perfectly utopian city where everyone lives in bliss, the people are intelligent and cultured, all resources are distributed communally, and there are no kings, soldiers, priests, or slaves. The narrator explains to us that it is a fairy tale-like ideal place of peace and serenity, and then tells us that the city’s utopian splendor hinges on using one unfortunate child as a scapegoat, keeping this child in a state of neverending filth and misery. Citizens of Omelas are shown this child and told the cost of their utopia when they come of age. Most of them overcome their shock and accept this reality because it secures the happiness of everyone else in the city, but a minority of citizens choose to leave Omelas rather than benefit from the child’s suffering.

In United States schooling this story is most often taught as a “what would you do if you lived in Omelas?” sort of hypothetical moral dilemma, and therefore there tends to be a lot of offense about why no one rescues the child in question. This method of teaching the story cleanly sidesteps that Le Guin means Omelas as a metaphor for the way that Westernized, capitalist societies and their many conveniences are uniformly built upon atrocities and oppression. For just a few US examples, we have class inequality, the use of prisoners as slave labor, and the way our military has exploited and continues to exploit Middle Eastern and South American countries for natural resources and to maintain political dominance. Once you learn of your own country’s evils, Le Guin asks, will you accept them for the sake of your own comfort, or will you find some way to take a stand against them, find a way to refuse participating in or benefiting from them?

This is metaphorical in the real world, of course, but less so in Hallownest: The house the Pale King built, demonstrably far from utopian though it is, very literally hinges on the abuse and abandonment of a single child for its survival.

( tl;dr hk fandom needs to drink its respecting women juice )

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karaniji (kinome) 8

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 04:31:59 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include bullying, emotional manipulation, body horror, character death, suicidal ideation, and vomit.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 8: And please... please let me die, too... )

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karaniji (kinome) 7

Sun, 21 Aug 2022 11:19:44 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include suicidal ideation, agoraphobia, body horror, mind control, and past parent death.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 7: That figures. Despair is useless if it's not real. )

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karaniji (kinome) 6

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 02:52:44 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, temporary character death (all comedic), and discussion of agoraphobia (serious).

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 6: Because I'm his mother. )

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karaniji (kinome) 5

Tue, 31 May 2022 09:30:16 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website, and you can buy volume 1 of the manga via Kinokuniya!

Content warnings for this chapter include body horror, discussion of child abuse, and Kinome-Brand Designated Yikes Guy Nonsense.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 5: Everyone's born for a reason, and everyone's life has value. You, most of all... )

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karaniji (kinome) 4

Fri, 27 May 2022 11:04:36 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

This chapter is no longer available to read on the MAGKAN website, but you can read it in volume 1 of the manga, which you can buy from Kinokuniya!

Content warnings for this chapter include self-harm, blood, and dismemberment.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 4: Everything's so white. )

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karaniji (kinome) 3

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 13:46:25 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include: Casual suicidality, death cults, emotional abuse, mention of slavery and child abuse.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 3: We want to erase the places we were born, the lives we've lived, and our very existence. )

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karaniji (kinome) 2

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 03:38:43 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

You can read this chapter here on the MAGKAN official website!

Content warnings for this chapter include: Suicidal ideation, body horror, referenced child abuse and child death

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 2: That's so dumb. It's so much easier not to think. )

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【　　　】

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:31:14 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

【　　　】 / a ghost mixtape

o1. ないない / reona | o2. quartet for broken arms / kevin penkin | o3. 暗く黒く / ずっと真夜中でいいのに。 | o4. within the stagnant shadow / starship amazing | o5. 夜は仄か / eve | o6. ember / kubbi | o7. 或る街のギギ / sasakure.uk ft. hatsune miku | o8. icarus / madeon | o9. party's over / half waif

8tracks link tba since their uploader seems to be broken at the moment.

eng translations of japanese language tracks below:

( ないない )

( 暗く黒く )

( 夜は仄か )

( 或る街のギギ )

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karaniji (kinome) 1

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 11:55:37 GMT

Posted by: feralphoenix

Kinome's new portal fantasy manga KaraNiji: The Empty-Hearted Girl and the Rainbow Fragments (Karappo no Shoujo to Niji no Kakera, 空っぽの少女と虹のかけら) has begun serialization online at MAGKAN! The series' hub page can be accessed here!

You can read the first chapter here!!!

Content warnings for this first chapter include child abuse and body horror.

( KARANIJI, CHAPTER 1: No one will care if I disappear )

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flightworks

wherefore art thou beast?

THE BIG GAY SPITFIRE REKINDLED REVIEW

O FORTUNA FAIR

karaniji (kinome) 17

karaniji (kinome) 16

karaniji (kinome) 15

karaniji (kinome) 14

karaniji (kinome) 13

karaniji (kinome) 12

karaniji (kinome) 11

karaniji (kinome) 10

JOY'S LAW

karaniji (kinome) 9

CORONAL LOOP

BOW SHOCK

THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY FROM OMELAS: A Closer Look At White Lady

karaniji (kinome) 8

karaniji (kinome) 7

karaniji (kinome) 6

karaniji (kinome) 5

karaniji (kinome) 4

karaniji (kinome) 3

karaniji (kinome) 2

【 】

karaniji (kinome) 1

【　　　】