#// then she vanishes in april to help her family with festival activities

[usagimen]

   She's currently pondering what the new Spring menu should be, sakura flavor is a given with most deserts. Maybe citrus? Do curses even like citrus flavored lattes? 

[type-a-nomad]

weekend feb 25

February 25 Sunday

Alright so this weekend has been crazy lazy.  Before I get into my lethargy and the justification for it, I want to address some of the information I forget to include in my general posts.  

One thing I keep forgetting to write down: THEY DONT USE TAPE HERE. My friend Sydney just came over and saw me writing and asked if I had written this down because she pointed this out last week and I totally freaked out.  Because THEY DONT.  It sounds small, but imagine if all of the tape in your life vanished.  WEIRD.  Super fûcking weird.  Instead of tape, they use this sticky white ticky-tac stuff to stick things to the walls.  Tape is better.   Another thing I forgot to write down: I extended and am now staying here until April 14th.  Yay! I came to this decision because the work here is meaningful, and the quality of life is high because I’m by the beach, the people are generally good, it’s a different culture that challenges me, and I am meeting new people almost every day because it’s a hostel so everyone comes and leaves at different times. ANOTHER THING. I talked to Shannon about what the crazy lady screamed at us on Thursday.  It turns out it wasn't all crazy.  The crazy woman mentioned people dying.  When I followed up, she was right.  I did not get a year for when this happened, but probably within the last five years, Shannon said that eight volunteers were walking in the street in the evening.  A drunk driver hit all of them.  Shannon was the first on the scene and one of the volunteers died in her arms.  Two others were in comas for several weeks, and all the others were injured but survived.  I did not press her further on the subject because, obviously, this is beyond a delicate topic.  I can’t imagine the kind of emotional experience that was for Shannon.  Also, she’s an amazing woman.   Shannon is only 28 and basically runs the volunteer program.  She has three adopted kids who she adopted WHEN SHE WAS 24.  Their mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I am not sure how Shannon was initially connected with them, but I think she met them all through the volunteer program and eventually interceded.  She is very connected to some of the families of the kids in the program, which I think is a great thing because we meet some resistance from the families sometimes and more communication helps.  It is easy to say that it’s crazy for families to be against their children being tutored, given attention, taught to swim, taken out to play organized sports, and taught to surf.  However, there’s more to the situation.  When you keep in mind the poverty these kids live in and the relatively luxurious lives the volunteers have just because we have couches, a fridge, running water, etc. I completely see why there would be resentment from somebody of that background playing with your kid after school.  Also, I’m sure there is some feeling of resistance against the idea of your kid being a charity case that rich white people use to feel like they're doing good things.  Some of the parents outright tell their kids they aren't allowed to go after school and play with us, that they want them to clean the house and babysit their siblings while their parents finish work.  These kids still come and sometimes they will mention “My mom told me I can’t be here, if she finds out….” and you can just tell that if the parents find out their child came to the program, they might face physical punishment.  That’s how much this program means to the kids.  And that’s how much somebody else offering privileges to your child that you cannot provide them upsets parents.   As for my weekend.  My weekend starts on Friday.  On Friday, it was only kind warm and I went out with Thora to the cafe we found and really like called Melissa’s.  After, I went with her to get her tattoo touched-up, which looked painful.  Then, I went surfing for about 3 hours. My ribs have been sore all weekend since.  I caught a lot of waves, but still haven't ridden any in.  I got the tiniest board and am not practiced enough to handle it.  Hopefully next time I’ll get a long board that isn't as hard to balance. That night, there was a Braai which was nice.  Coll made fantastic butternut squash with spanish and feta.  I almost always eat vegetarian here.  I went out with Thora after we had a bottle of wine with dinner and we checked out a cool bar I’ll probably go back to.   It’s called the boardhouse and it’s very beachy and very South African. Thora is trying to talk me into going vegan and I’m very morally conflicted.  I’ve been thinking a lot about global warming and how hard it is to not feel frustrated and stuck.  I want to just change everything.  I wish I had a billion dollars to buy the amazon rainforest, deploy a fleet of boats to clean the ocean, develop a way of fishing that doesn't destroy entire ecosystems, promote permaculture and make the entire mid-west quit mono cropping, change the meat industry and find more meat alternatives so people stop eating so many cows that pollute horribly, also invent electric airplanes.  I don’t know where to start.  Maybe I need to become God or something and just shake the world with my hands until everything goes back down and fixes itself, like a snow globe.  The permafrost is melting and I’m just sitting here in South Africa, so frustrated I want to scream.  On top of that I am ironically angry at people who just say they can’t do anything and its just too bad.  Like pick up a shovel and plant trees, go vegan, be a better human.  I should definitely lead by example.  I have a lot of ideas and need to start executing more.  I am eighteen and actually realizing my morals in my lifestyle is something that age isn't really an excuse for.  I know how to change things, I just want to change everything and just myself does not feel like enough.  My head is so full.  So is my heart.  

Saturday, Thora was out with this guy named Ramis that she met at a festival.  Ironically, she went to that festival the weekend she got here with that guy who stole money from her.  We decided a good tactic to get over it was to distract herself and just have fun on her vacation, and this guy was nice and interested in being friends/ knew that she was there with somebody else.  Anyways, she was out with him at this really popular food market they have in Cape Town called the Old Biscuit Mill.  I could have done things, but it was cold and rainy and I didn't feel like it.  I ended up spending most of my day laying down and just talking, reading and thinking.  The talking part was first.  I got to call my wonderful boyfriend Mitchell and we talked from 8am-2pm.  You can do the math on that one.  After sitting in bed for that long, the back of my head hurt and I took that as a sign of a level of laziness that I probably shouldn't encourage in myself.  When he went to bed, I got up and ate some pickles and talked to Coll.  Then, I went on a little walk by myself just around a few blocks to stretch my lazy legs.  I got back and made toast with hummus and feta, carrots and hummus, and then Coll was an angel and gave me this amazing pretzel bun that she had bought at a nice market on her way into work.  She loves them and got a few.  She made tomato soup for dinner that night so we got to sample it while eating the obnoxiously large soft pretzels.  YUM.  I took two of these activated charcoal pills that my friend Whitney takes every morning and says they suck toxins out of your body.  Then, I sat in the hammock and read my book.  I am currently reading “A Little History of the World”, which is absolutely fabulous.  It just summarizes everything I’ve learned in history in the past 5 years of my life.  Totally fantastically unpretentious, interesting, and to the point.  10/10, highly recommend, 5 stars on Yelp!, all that.  I can’t say I’ve ever read a book as old as it and feel like I’m talking to somebody right now. I felt kinda weird all day Saturday, but I assumed that it was because I didn't really eat while I was on the phone with Mitchell so I didn't eat until way later in the day.  We had dinner, soup and bread, at 6 ish and after I went almost straight to bed because my tummy was nauseous.  I thought I could just sleep it off.  How I was wrong.  I sat in bed for around 2 hours.  The nausea was so bad that I couldn't sleep and after the first hour I started to think I might puke but fought hard against it.  Firstly, I hate throwing up.  Secondly, the toilets are all the way across the property, and I didn't want to walk all the way over there, puke, and then go back to bed.  Turns out, that’s exactly what happened and it was even worse because I had fought against it.  I ended up running out of my bed, holding my mouth and willing myself not to puke until I got to the bathroom, walking barefoot, past all the other partying residents of my hostel, to the bathroom.  Right before I closed the door to the bathroom, I started projectile vomiting.  All over the floor, doors, wall, toilet, everything.  I spent the next 10 minutes puking and the next hour sitting in my own vomit cleaning it up.  My clothes, face, and hair were entirely covered in puke. It was a lovely experience.  I walked backed to bed covered in vomit and shame.  Then I showered and changed and drank water.  Big mistake.  I got up again and vomited all my water out into the kitchen sink and then went back to bed.   Sunday has been weird because I have been recovering from puking all day.  I dragged Thora to the mini mart to buy ramen and soup-powder to try and trick my body into eating something.  I also got vitamin water and a lemon popsicle.  I sat in bed for most of the day, made some ramen.  Had a really nice and long conversation with one of the interns here named Matt.  He is from Norway and is here with his fiancé Kaia.  We talked about psychology and mental health and the consequences of the stigma surrounding it.  He was feeling sick too so we bonded over our misery.  Today, Thora left and a new girl from New Castle, England moved in.  Her name is Dani and she plays american football.  She’s a linebacker.  She’s very VERY English.  She says “innit”, and “proper” instead of “really” or “super”, and her accent is sometimes so strong it’s hard to understand.  I think she’s nice enough but I don’t think we are going to be that close.  She isn't interested school or news or politics, which isn't the actual problem it’s more of a symptom of how our minds are different.  I need to make some friends but don’t have the energy at the moment.  I want another really cool person to just kinda pop up, like Thora.  Or maybe I won’t.  Being alone is really not that bad of a thing, I just need to stop compensating for it by using technology.  Self-improvement is an ongoing battle.  My ramen was good but I am out of food and just ate my last stuff: half a jar of pickles.  Not sure what I am going to do for dinner, probably just eat my lemon popsicle and some ginger biscuits I also got at the market.  I also hear you can make scrambled eggs in the microwave.  The stove here doesn't work so I made my powdered soup with the water-boiling tea pot thing and can only make my eggs with the microwave.  I’ve seen it done, I just don’t know how I feel about it.  I’ll probably just go to bed.  I was invited to go out to Italian food with Linda, Whitney, and Coll, but I’m not sure if I feel up to all of that.  I’m really tired *yawns*.  I just wish I had some hot pesto pasta already made and my own bed.  Tomorrow I’m going on a wine tour with Thora which will be fun.  She’s staying in Muisenberg for a week and then going back home to Sydney.  It will also probably be good to change out of the PJs I’ve been wearing for about 24 hours now, including to the mini-mart this morning.  

Peace, Q

[burialsocietyrpg]

Far away, a door creaks open, and an unknown voice mutters a spell you’ve never heard before. Suddenly, a porcelain masked figure in bright fuchsia robes apparates into view before you, hand outstretched in welcome.. or is it a warning? 

WELCOME TO BURIAL SOCIETY, Admin Pixie! You have been accepted for the role of FLEAMONT POTTER. This is where I would gush and talk about what I liked about the app, but it seems a little self-congratulatory and I’m not sure that we’ve earned that. Insert clever joke about how well you seem to know the character here. Pause for canned laugh track.

Now that you’ve been initiated, travel by floo network to THE CHECKLIST –– remember to enunciate, we don’t want any accidents –– and be sure to send in your character blog within the next 48 hours unless you want to come down with a bad case of vanishing sickness!

O U T  O F  C H A R A C T E R

NAME/ALIAS: I’m Admin Pixie, but when I don’t have my admin hat on, you can call me Moe!

PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: GMT+3

TRIGGERS:  [redacted]

ACTIVITY: 10/10 –– If I’m not online I’m lurking, and if I’m not lurking I’m online. In the circumstances under which I’m neither online nor lurking, I’m probably doing uni stuff or other real life nonsense.

ANYTHING ELSE? [redacted]

I N  C H A R A C T E R

NAME/ALIAS: Fleamont Rashmik Potter

FLEAMONT ––  latin & french. fleeing mountain RASHMIK –– gujarati. little light beam POTTER –– english. pottery maker –– OFTEN NICKNAMED: Monty by friends, Flea by foes

FACECLAIM: Avan Jogia

PRONOUNS & GENDER: Cis man, he/him

BIRTHDAY: April 17th, 1925. Aries.

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and that’s pretty much how those born under this sign see themselves: first. Aries are the leaders of the pack, first in line to get things going. Whether or not everything gets done is another question altogether, for an Aries prefers to initiate rather than to complete. Do you have a project needing a kick-start? Call an Aries, by all means. The leadership displayed by Aries is most impressive, so don’t be surprised if they can rally the troops against seemingly insurmountable odds—they have that kind of personal magnetism.

BLOOD STATUS: Fleamont is a pureblood wizard, and was raised as such, although it seemed to always mean a little more to his mother than it did to his father. His mother had always impressed upon him the importance of representing their family well due to their reputation and legacy. His father had irritated her greatly when he’d earned their exclusion from the sacred twenty-eight due to his outspoken views on muggles and muggleborns. Fleamont in this case, as in most cases, tended to agree with his father. He’d never thought himself special for any reasons due to his blood or lineage and thought it insulting that worth or value in people should be decided on anything other than their individual accomplishments. 

OCCUPATION: Fleamont currently works for the ministry as a licensed Obliviator. It’s not the job of his dreams, but due to his background experience in charms and defensive magic built up after a childhood spent bullied for his name, it was easy enough to rise up in the ranks to the mid-level position he finds himself in today. His five year plan has illustrated the distinct possibility of him being able to snag a seat amongst the wixen of Wizengamot, however–– though now that remains to be seen, as for the first time since his graduation from Hogwarts, Fleamont has been occupied with other pursuits and goals.

POSSESSIONS: Describe at least three ( 3 ) possessions of theirs. They don’t have to be prized or valuable in any way.

001 –– INVISIBILITY CLOAK. An heirloom from his father’s side. It was what Fleamont had been swaddled in as a babe when returned home from St. Mungo’s after he’d been born, had been the main component of every pillow-fort he’d ever constructed, and now almost always stayed within his reach either used instead of a blanket when sleeping or carefully tucked away into one of his pockets enhanced with an undetectable extension charm. Henry had never taught Fleamont to treat the cloak as a fragile herloom, but Fleamont revered it all the same, coming to think of the beautifully embroidered artifact as an extension of not only himself, but now also his late father and the ancestors who had used the cloak before them. 002 –– FOEGLASSES. After his father’s disappearance and subsequent reappearance, Fleamont has been struck by a bolt of paranoia so intense, it turned his way of thinking and seeing the world upside-down. Having many friends and acquaintances in all offices and departments at the ministry was what made it possible for him to get his hands on this prototype. Foeglasses, named after the type of reflective material from which their lenses were crafted, are a type of bifocal spectacles that were crafted to allow the wearer to detect the proximity and identity of their enemies. Fleamont feels safer when he wears them, even though he knows they’re still in the early stages of development and are rather defective–– laughably, they even marked Lysander as a foe before he’d gone to the inventor to have him fix that issue, charming them to ignore whatever it was that made Lysander stand out as anything other than the most loyal friend Fleamont had ever known. 003 –– ENGRAVED POCKET WATCH. It was the one that had belonged to his father. The one they found on his waterlogged corpse. Of course it didn’t work anymore, now cracked and water-damaged, but Fleamont refused to let anyone else touch it or repair it, instead wearing the defunct device as a reminder of what he’d vowed to himself the moment he and his mother had realized his father had gone missing in the first place: that he would figure out exactly what had happened, and that he would bring those responsible to justice. Sleepless nights often found him ruminating on his plan of vengeance, thumb rubbing over the engraved words that his father had so often quoted aloud –– Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.

CONNECTIONS: 

LYSANDER ZABINI — partner in crime justice — Fleamont has always considered Lysander to be his one and only best friend, from the very first time they’d met looking up at the Hogwarts express with awe in their wide eyes at eleven. He’s one of the only people Fleamont still fully trusts, and that’s saying a lot, as after the murder of his father Fleamont doesn’t trust anyone. AUGUSTA ABBOTT — proselytization — Though he knows the kind of people Augusta calls her friends, Fleamont can’t help but try and get closer to her in order to convince her to join his cause, having heard from several people all about what an asset she would be. EUPHEMIA GIBBON — star crossed — Euphemia has been the object of Fleamont’s affection on and off, secretly and not-so-secretly, from as early as his his fifth year. However, no matter how close he tries to get to her, something seems to stand in the way, to pull her away from him, much to Fleamont’s constant and confused heartache.

HEADCANONS: 

001 –– Ashwina Potter, née Kaushik, raised her son as any fine wizard back home would have been raised –– she made sure he knew of and respected the traditions Ashwina herself had been raised with; that he respected and observed each holiday and festival, abstained from consuming certain dishes and meats, memorized at least three different prayers, and that he knew enough Gujarati to be able to read and write letters back home to their relatives in India. As a young adult now, the way he was raised often manifests in Fleamont choosing meals without meat at all when dining out at unfamiliar establishments, apologizing and cancelling plans with friends because he’s forgotten a certain holiday or festival was scheduled to take place on the same date, and during formal events, to make his mother happy he dons a beautifully embroidered Jodhpuri suit. 002 –– The first time Fleamont had ever tasted coffee, he’d had to quickly cover up the grimace his expression wanted to twist into, and instead swallowed that bitter hot bean water down and tried for a queasy, shaky smile. Never again. He's always held the opinion that if anyone should be drinking anything, it was tea. Black tea clouded with fresh milk and sweetened with a respectable amount of sugar was what made his world go ‘round. If he wasn’t amongst plebeians he would of course steep that tea with cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and sometimes when he wanted to feel special he would add in candied ginger and star anise. 003 –– Growing up with unmanageable and untamable hair that seemed to have a mind of its own as well as its own idea of what length it should be, Fleamont Potter had spent much of his adolescence looking for a solution. This slowly turned into an affinity for potions and brewing, resulting in his experimentation for various balms, salves, and other brews that he had no choice but to experiment with on himself. At some point in his sixth year he seemed to have struck gold, and for once he was bombarded with a flurry of compliments and questions as to what he’d done with his hair. He’d patented the solution, starting a small company and selling a few tins of the hair cream under the name Sleekeazy's Hair Potion –– He felt guilty about liking potions so much, especially because he and his father had always agreed that Fleamont would be following in Henry’s footsteps, and didn’t want this venture to affect the future that had already been mapped out for him –– and now he has it on good authority that it’s gained quite a bit of popularity across the pond, over in America.

004 –– Growing up, Fleamont Potter had always hated his name. No matter how many times Henry assured him that it was a fine and upstanding family name, it did nothing to shield him against the merciless bullies that would target him and call him names almost half as cruel as his given one. Eventually, Fleamont had had enough and, against his father’s wishes, studied up on defensive magic enough to beat anyone who had anything to say about his name in a duel so thoroughly that larger-than-life rumors began to spread about him and what he could do, and the bullying swiftly stopped. His father grounded him for three months when he found out, marking it as Fleamont’s first and last defiance against his father’s wishes, but even so Fleamont couldn’t help but smile every time he walked down the halls of his school after the fact, unbothered and unworried. 005 –– After graduating Hogwarts, Fleamont had entered an internship program at the Ministry of Magic almost immediately, and moved out of his family home to live in a small flat just above the Leaky Cauldron. Though his mother had been reluctant to let him go, Henry Potter had assured her that it was good for the boy to gain some independence. Fleamont has lived there to this day with a golden-eyed tabby cat he’d affectionately named Odoti, and a roommate. Though he could certainly afford to live alone off of his earnings from Sleekeazy’s, he still preferred to share the space with another person, more for company than anything else. Lately, though, Fleamont has been spending less time at the flat and more time either in his office or back at the Potter manor, caring for his mother. 

WRITING SAMPLE: [redacted]

ANYTHING ELSE? [redacted]

O P T I O N A L

[redacted]