Is Lost Girls Brazilian?

I grew up hearing plenty about ghosts.

There’s nothing as Brazilian as ghost stories. We are a haunted plantation, yes, with colonizing bloodshed feeding the soil. But I’m not referring to all dead generations that weight like a nightmare on the brains of the living, nor the ghostly shadow of cities and lands of a promised future taken away again and again due to Latin America’s open wounds.

There’s a ghost in the building, in the house at the end of the street, at the school’s bathroom. I’d hear about the Bathroom Blonde a lot. For you, Anglo, think Bloody Mary. Not blood, blonde. Not any mirror, the bathroom’s, and the more run down the better, the one at the bar where your father went every night to run away from raising you. You call to her and she grabs you.

Ghosts at eerily quiet urban spaces, vast fields in the countryside, old signs at the crossroads.

I summoned ghosts in haunted buildings by filming a ghost story despite warnings. I have elevator doors opening up to me in quiet buildings without pushing a button. Had incomprehensible sounds and moving things at my house. Was followed by animal shadows without bodies. Talked to people who left without making a sound.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

Staying over with a lover. We talked of old horror shows I liked. Night fell fast as we enjoyed each other’s company. Went to the bathroom and stopped to face the open door leading to the dark backyard.

There was nothing out there besides trees, the old shed and clothing left out to dry. My lover asked what I was looking at.

“Wouldn’t it be interesting if two shoes were barely visible there where the light doesn’t reach the pitch dark, and a voice talked just above them?”

I thought they would just laugh and roll their eyes at my macabre imagination. They were serious, and told me at length of their family’s ghost stories in that house, and how once an exorcism was required to make noises stop.

I don’t believe in ghosts. I went to sleep.

I grew up hearing plenty about the Devil.

I couldn’t cut it as a Christian so I became a sexy communist. Growing up, all my acquaintances’ families and plenty of relatives would either talk of God and saints and have Mary in the living room, or talk incessantly of the Devil (especially Evangelicals).

The Devil was much like a ghost. He haunted the night itself, lingered in the dark, inhabited strange places, and heeded the call of whistling after sunset. He wasn’t vying for my soul in a conflict inside my consciousness. He was a specter at the center of the world that turned clouds into brimstone smoke and sought whom he may devour.

He didn’t want to corrupt you. He wanted to kill you. M.R. James’ Count Magnus is the story that resembles a Devil-cursed childhood wandering through his workshop. He was a werewolf turned into miasma and a thousand disguises with the same fang. You prayed not to deliver your soul from temptation but to protect your body from demonic forces who wanted to possess, rape and kill you.

I don’t believe in the Devil.

I have met people in this country who could be him in disguise, people who did things I grew up hearing the Devil did to kids if we strayed.

I don’t believe in the Devil. I would if I met him.

I grew up hearing plenty about aliens.

Not as much as ghosts and the Devil, but enough. It was on television, with morning and afternoon news programs talking about people who claimed to be abducted like it was the most natural thing to happen in Brazil. I’d look at the stars and wonder if distant moving lights were just helicopters and planes and whatever else. People discussed the time their father saw an UFO or found dead livestock (it could have been the Chupacabra, which could be an alien for all we know).

I had a board game about aliens. Kids ran with Ben 10 merchandise. I liked what I saw of Invader Zim at a friend’s house one time. X-Files was pretty popular.

I don’t care to believe in aliens.

I dreamed I had seen a small alien running to hide in our plants. That dream ended with me falling into bed, terrified, with the TV on. I woke up in the exact same position with the TV on at the exact same program and time. I rushed to the window and saw nothing.

I don’t care to believe in aliens.

I grew up hearing plenty about magical girls.

Tokusatsu was huge here, and Saint Seiya was the boy’s choice of animated homoeroticism in sparkly clothing due to an old channel called TV Manchete, responsible for birthing way too many weebs for comfort. I preferred magical girls. Some other boys too, and they were called faggots for it. I didn’t care. I cared, a lot, about what new clothing Tomoyo would prepare for Sakura in the next Cardcaptors episode. I loved she didn’t have a standard uniform and Tomoyo played dress-up doll. I didn’t knew yet I felt very sorry Tomoyo’s crush on Sakura was unrequited. I knew that the battle against Yue was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen.

There was other stuff. Sailor Moon, of course, and I looked up to Sailor Mercury (many in my life would still identify me with her in mannerisms, even if deep down I grew up into a very different person). Tokyo Mew Mew was an interesting look at aliens. I didn’t care for Winx Club as many girls did, but what I’ve seen of W.I.T.C.H. was cool. That show’s producer, years later, said Irma was a lesbian. She clearly wasn’t, because in a couple episodes she was attracted to boys. She clearly was, because listen to her talking.

I believe in magical girls.

When I truly started watching things on the Internet, a lot of it was magical girls anime. I’m sure I can drop a “which Sailor Senshi are you” quiz in a Brazilian lesbian or trans chat and see fireworks. I used “magical girl-ish” as Discord bio for years before leaving the egg. Many things allowed me to transition, but without magical girl cartoons as a boy I’d not have the spark to grow into a woman.

I deeply believe in magical girls.

Is Lost Girls Brazilian?

Havoc already asked what does it mean to be Brazilian. Neru (her blog is in Portuguese, sorry for the monolingual USians) asked why Brazilian RPGs use folklore the authors don’t even identify with to reclaim national roots, when it’s so clearly marketing of an unlived identity to foreigners.

Lost Girls is a Brazilian setting because a Brazilian wrote it, and that would apply even if it were a Liminal Horror setting in Texas. Lost Girls is Brazilian because there’s ghosts, both of hauntology and literal, and demons who might be aliens from the moon, and aliens who might be demons from the shadows. Lost Girls is Brazilian because there’s many magical, broken girls, and because Brazil has the highest rate of transgender murder in the world.

Lost Girls is Brazilian because I don’t really care if my lived experience will be seen by a gringo as just the same city they know.