#[ she's got a witchy great grandma I'm sure ]

[idolbound]

DARP Advent 2024: Day Three Past/Birth, Present/Life, Future/Death.

Past/Birth:

- Does your muse know their name day? Yes. - What's their sign? (Which month were they born in?) Born on the 21st day of Bloomingtide, 8:92 Blessed Age. - What is your muse's background? Her mother, Maighread Ó Coileáin (pronounced: Mar-e-ad O-Coy-lian) was born in a small village near Kirkwall, called Wrenwith. As an adult, she left home and went to the city, where she later met her future husband, Bernard Cecil Stannard at the market in Hightown. Bernard was a born Kirkwall noble, and much to the disapproval of his family, pursued Maighread out of love despite her being a commoner and from out of the city. They married and soon had their first daughter Amelia, but waited 6 years before having a second child. - Where are they from? Born and raised in Kirkwall - Do they know their parents? What kind of relationship do they have with them? She was only 5 when they died, so unfortunately, she only knew them as well as a small child could, but she was very close with her father more than her mother (and her sister was the opposite, basically attached to their mother at the hip). - Do they have close family? No, but Meredith developed a father-daughter-like relationship with Ser Wentworth Kell as she became his page, and served under him for years, cited as the 'daughter he never deserved' in his succession speech prior to naming Meredith the next Knight-Captain. - Is your muse born with any distinguishing characteristics (heterochromia etc) or disabilities? Meredith has always had strikingly blue eyes (made more so by taking lyrium over the years), been very tall since adolescence, and has very soft, light blonde hair. She suffers from untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. - Do they discover anything strange about themselves in childhood? (ex. Emmrich's affinity for spirits) No, though she had a deep-seated fear she might develop magic like her sister did as she got older, but once she got past age 7-13, it started to dissipate.

Present/Life:

- How long has your muse been alive? Do they know? By the time of Meredith's canonical death, she is 45 years old. - What is your muse doing? Presently? Acting Knight-Commander of the Templar Order in the city-state of Kirkwall. If by presently, you mean "veilguard" timeline, well, she's dead. - Does your muse have a "day job"? Something to go back to when their "cause" is over? Her cause is her day job. - Who are your muse's closest friends? Ser Wentworth Kell (deceased), Cullen Rutherford (kind of), Ser Thrask (until his betrayal), uh. Grand Cleric Elthina (I guess, but not really). - What are your muse's favorite hobbies? Reading, drinking wine, writing a handwritten copy of the Chant, going to the Chantry for service, having sex. - Does your muse have a place that they live? Multiple places? She lives in the Gallows, in the Templar tower. She does not own a home.

Future/Death:

- How long after their "home game" or media will your muse live? Haha... she does not. :') But that's what AUs are for. - What are your muse's goals for the future? Well, before she started going mad due to the red lyrium idol, I'd say Meredith's intentions were to keep serving as active Knight-Commander either until she hit retirement age (so another 15-20 years) or if she died before then, carefully priming Knight-Captain Cullen to become her successor with the hopes that he would follow exactly in her footsteps, in order to keep Kirkwall and its people safe. - Does your muse have plans for building a family if they don't already have one? I've talked about it before, but because her sister was a mage, even if Meredith wasn't a lesbian / didn't have an aversion to men (and therefore, the people most likely to be getting her pregnant), she has such a deep-seated fear of potentially birthing a magical child and worrying about bringing another mage into the world, that she wouldn't want to anyway. That said, she does see Cullen kind of like a son, and tends to feel a little maternal towards him as her named successor, much like she was for Ser Wentworth. - What does your muse want done with their body when they die? Well, she would've liked to have followed Chantry tradition and have had her body cremated; I think she'd have left a request in her last will and testament to have her ashes scattered in the Waking Sea - Kirkwall is her birthplace and has always been her home next to the waters. But obviously, she can't have that now. - What kind of funeral rites does your muse believe in? As above, she follows standard Andrastian funeral rites of cremation to avoid demonic possession of the corpse. - How does your muse want people to remember them? In her mind, Meredith would want to be remembered as Kirkwall's Champion, which is why she is so miffed that Hawke beat her to the opportunity to be named as such. She wants to be remembered for her efforts, and long-standing changes she made to how the Gallows are run and organized, and how she protected the people of the city time and time again. It is a far stretch from how she actually is remembered now. - Does your muse suffer any long-term illnesses, disabilities, or injuries from the events of their story? How do they cope with those changes in their life? As mentioned, she has long-standing and untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and its resultant symptoms from her childhood trauma of watching her mage sister turn into an abomination and kill their parents and 70 other people before being stopped. In my headcanon, she has endured numerous wounds and burns from fighting apostates, abominations, and demons. In particular, her worst scars are on her right lower leg when, as a Knight-Templar, she took a fire ball directly to her leg, which melted steel and leather together against her skin. it is by the miracle of the Maker and the in-field skills of her senior officer that she did not have to have her leg amputated, and was able to be brought back to the Gallows and seek treatment on time. She spent weeks on bedrest, having the wound debrided and kept clean, but in the meantime, kept her mind and body as active as she could, to get back to active service as soon as possible. She also has lesser burns on her right forearm (her primary sword arm), and other blade-related scars throughout her body. As she gets older, she finds her bones ache, especially when it gets cold. Her knees hurt most of the time, and sometimes she'll tweak her back if she turns the wrong way. She has accepted it as getting older, and because she has been living a hard life in service, but it does annoy her that getting out of bed can often be a momentous task some mornings.

[forthegothicheroine]

Best Fragrantica reviews of (some of) my favorite perfumes, Part II

First installment here

Maison Martin Margiela By the Fireplace

Careful not to be worn by this perfume instead of being you the wearer. Not that it is oh so powerful, but it may be too bold of a statement piece for, ahem, some. Wearing BTF when you don't look the part and don't give it sense will have you smelling borderline unhealthy. Like your organs inside have worn off and darkened (and burned out, I guess). Truly as weird as it sounds. The raw thing smells very exciting. I love it ashy. I don't see myself daring any soon, however. And I don't find that it worked for the men I know either, as they have (and I cringe to say) whiter auras and don't fit the "handling cognac by the fire" thing. So I've yet to see it really work, which I'm sure will be great. It's a lovely perfume.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Bewitched

This is the smell of a witch's brew. She made a special tea for you to drink. You pass out. When you awaken you find yourself in her garden full of poisonous berries, patchouli, weeds, clary sage, and flowers whose petals have been plucked. This is an herbal scent, like walking inside a shop selling only herbs. It's medicinal and like a tea. Not always easy to take in...The smell of sage and musk give it a unisex/masculine quality. I would say that it's more of a guy's type of cologne than a woman's. I would wear it for Halloween with a witch costume or as Morticia Addams. It's really a very engaging scent but it's linear and simple. It's a little green tea and berry. It's got a bite but it's witchy and dark, but not a strong cologne either. For a niche indie frag, not bad.

TokyoMilk Gin & Rosewater

I was in a boutique that carries the Tokyo Milk Curiosite & Bon Bon lines, and I was entranced by this. Florals are not usually my thing, by the way, because I get monster headaches from most of them. Suddenly the salesgirl is RIGHT NEXT TO ME leaning in conspiratorially and says in an awed tone that 'Blake Lively LOVES this one'. OMFG, Blake Lively, you say??!? Like for serious, the real Blake Lively?? OMFG, do you have like, more in the back?!? I'm totally going to buy every bottle you can shove in my basket because BLAKE LIVELY would hang out with me if we ran into each other and then my life could end. Um, not. I almost DIDN'T buy it because of the salesgirls then going into a tizzy about how amazing Blake is. I could not care less, although I'm sure Lively is nice enough. But it did smell cool, so home with me it came, along with the matching lotion.

Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin

It’s an overwhelming fragrance that smells like the bottom of my grandma’s small square leather purse when we went to mass (her old dried up lipstick💄 the powder compact, the newspaper, the pack of strawberry-ish scented kleenex, the peppermints). It’s vintage, it’s a bit suffocating and I have it printed in my memory 4 ever.

Juliette Has a Gun Magnolia Bliss

Anastasia Steele, no longer a virgin. In her Audi A3, the smell of her new car, first edition books and a new life... That's what comes into mind with this perfume. The night Christian took her for the first time on his helicopter. I can imagine this is exactly what she smelled like that night. With Ellie Goulding's Love me like you do playing in the background. 

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540

I’m too embarrassed and ashamed to wear this in public just in case a fragrantica influencer comes out of a bush and starts pointing & laughing at me in front of everyone

Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille

what all the hot daddies in every lana del rey song smell like

Jo Malone Velvet Rose & Oud

If your family was religious, traditionally Asian, or both, you'll know this scent. This is the scent of a temple. This is the scent of an altar. Personally I can never wear this because smelling this brings back so many memories of burning incenses, visiting funerals, and saying prayers and wishes. My bottle is literally sitting on an altar.

Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose

Speaking of the devil. This scent is the one with the Prada's shoes.

4160 Tuesdays Doe in the Snow

This is borne on a Christmas Eve, under the moonlight, a baby fawn just out of it's mother's womb. The moon is full light casting blue shadows snow lightly falling delicate flakes each one unique on the nose of the new born... Pure fresh Christmas morning air stillness not a sound blanketed with drifts of snow that is Doe In The Snow... pure white innocence...velvet petals so delicate under the driven snow...I have seen this in a dream... Another love... I get it...

[shespeaksinsongs]

ABDUCTED?!?!!! EXPLAIN!

Are you ok? Are you safe? ARE YOU A HOT MAMI?!? don't answer that last one it's basically obvious

WAS IT THE ITALIAN MAFIA?!?

Well most important, are you ok?

AND SECOND MOST IMPORTANT

CONGRATULATIONS BETCH

I'm SO SO SO INCREDIBLY PROUD OF YOU FIOOOO

I can't believe someone famous like yourself even likes me 🧍‍♀️

I LOVE YOU AND KEEP BEING THE HOT MAMI BADDIE WITCHY SMART ABSURDLY BEAUTIFUL CREATURE THAT YOU ARE

Selena Quintanilla and J lo bow down 😌

Aghhhh this is GREAT

my almost abducted story:

i will explain. so my friend and i were at this "mall". it wasn't really a mall, i'm not even sure what it was. but it had a bunch of restaurants and shit and we walked into one to eat after a while of walking around. i got a shake, she got a sandwich. after a few minutes, i was almost done with my shake and this janitor crossed the path in front of the restaurant. right as he was about to go out of my view, i caught his eye and he didn't stop looking at me until he went behind the wall. so i was like ??? maybe he was looking at the wall behind me or smth. my friend and i kept eating and he crossed our path again. this time, i looked straight at him and he was looking straight at me. he was an old white man. he didn't stop looking at me, no matter what was in front of him, and kept wheeling his little trash bin until he was out of sight again. i told my friend that he was staring at me and she kinda laughed but didn't say anything more of it. the THIRD time, he does the same thing, staring at me immediately. i know i look terrified at this point. i get out my phone and call my dad right in front of him, not letting my eyes go off of him in case he does something. he keeps walking, and he's gone. at this point, my dad's coming to the mall as fast as possible. the janitor comes again, but this time he stops right in the middle of the front of the restaurant. he stands there and stares at me for a good full minute. i'm not making this up or dramatizing. it was one of the scariest moments of my life. the janitor did this another two more times until my dad showed up. before then, my friend was urging me to leave the mall with her because she didn't want to leave me alone, but her grandma was getting upset from waiting for her for so long (she was outside the mall in her car, picking her up). i didn't want to leave. she stayed with me until my dad picked me up and he escorted both of us to our cars. i didn't see the janitor again and i wouldn't even dream of going out alone without a man or adult anymore. by far, one of the scariest moments of my life. he was so creepy. i felt so disgusting and so unsafe, just with him looking at me. i'm so grateful nothing happened and i think about it every day now.

thank you marcela you are so sweet <333 :)) i am super excited about this milestone and my dad is SOOO happy for me, he's telling everyone. T-T

[totesmgoats01-published-author]

Oof ouch yikes yowch statement retracted.

So...I grew up Mormon. But that's not where it starts. My granmda on my mom's side is a witch. We haven't really talked a great deal about pantheons and such but I know that she let my mom experiment with religion as she got older and she somehow landed on Mormon. My grandparents on my dad's side are Mormon, and most Mormons don't tend to let their children not be Mormon so my dad was raised Mormon.

My experience is different because my mother is deaf. So we went to "the deaf branch." All I remembered was sitting in a giant room on pews while someone played organ for all 15 hearing people (that's an exaggeration. A good deal of the people ther were hearing I'm sure) and a big screen would have the person who sang hymns signing them as my mom forced me to copy the movements. Whenever someone wanted to go up and say something, there was an interpreter for those that didn't know sign language.

I didn't know sign language. I still don't. I won't get into a long thing about how I communicate with mom. Basically, she's deaf but can speak English fine.

That lecture thing is what took hours to finish and thus takes the majority of my memory. There were also smaller classes, separated by age and gender. Most of what I remember was about ages 6-12 I think.

I retained literally none of that information. I could teache you about mormons about as much as the musical The Book of Mormon can (which, being a satire poking and jabbing at Mormons, isn't much). I just remember playing with the hearing kids of deaf parents in the church gym after the lessons were over, that was the fun part. I'm actually still friends with a good deal of those people, who I think none of which stayed Mormon.

Around my teens is when mom stopped going and none of my siblings wanted to to so nobody went. And then the missionaries come. Ugh. They all look real friendly and are super nice so it's hard to say "go away I'm a witch." But we moved a lot when I was a kid so now we're somewhere else and stuff.

A few years ago I would go to mutual on wednsdays which was basically church if chruch was just to social part with very light sprinklings of jesus throughout. After a while I decided I didn't really enjoy hanging out with these people and after hearing about the way they talk about inviting "non-Mormons" it felt like a scheme to get me in their cult.

It's been a long time since any missionaries have stopped by and I've had a long awkward talk with people who know my name and I have to subtly read their nametags about how school is going and lie saying everything is fine and we have all the stuff we need because I know that they give people stuff for "free" in another scheme to add to the cult.

I picked up witchcraft after I found a deck of tarot cards at grandma's house and was like "can I have these" and she's like "yeah." Then I started looking into it more and bought a book about witchcraft I still have yet to finished and I've barely started.

I hesitate to call myself a witch because there are initiation type things you're supposed to do with a coven and I don't even know where I would find a coven, plus I'd have to meet strangers, no thanks.

So now I try to do witchy things but I don't have any of the nessicary tools because money is a thing.

On Religion

As some of you know, I attend a catholic school and have done so since I was the tender, gullible, impressionable age of 5. I was also, of course, raised catholic. Which, for those of you spared the experience, should know means “I grew up catholic but hated it and I’m still not comfortable outright saying I’m not anymore because I feel guilty.”

I don’t often talk about religion here, but I’ve been rereading The Poison Wood Bible for school (fantastic book by the way, easily one of my favorites I’ve ever read) and it’s really stirs up my emotions surrounding my own religious upbringing, so here we go.

Until I was in the fifth grade, I had no idea religions outside of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim existed. I was also taught that Muslims were savage, oppressive, violent people and the all Muslims wanted to kill everyone who wasn’t Muslim. So. Just to give you perspective. I was also led to believe that Jewish people weren’t as bad, but they were just misguided and stuck in the past.

Around seventh grade, I began to suspect I was gay. Thankfully I’d become somewhat desensitized to that good old catholic guilt by having it beat into my very being since before I comprehended object permanence. But I didn’t want God to hate me, so I decided I had a crush on this boy. He was nice to me and we liked the same shows and he had a smart ass sort of attitude towards the less mature boys that I appreciated. So obviously since I enjoyed this boy’s company I must’ve liked him.

But I was still curious about my sexuality in relation to my religion. So I took every opportunity to ask about it in “religion” class. Despite the name, we only talked about The One True Religion. I got different answers depending on which teacher I asked.

Senora Baskin, our Spanish teacher who spoke shitty Spanish and was obsessed with Mexican culture and said it saved her from getting an abortion, told me that the pope said being gay wasn’t a sin, just being in a gay relationship. So I could be gay, but I could never date, get married, or even kiss a girl.

Mrs. Shaver said that gays go to hell. She also told a kid whose dog had died that all dogs go to hell because animals don’t have souls. She also told me I’d go to hell for listening to music with cuss words in it. Imagine that: a class of kids going through their edgy phase, listening to MCR and other punk bands of varying quality being told they were going to hell. I didn’t much value Mrs. Shaver’s opinions anyway.

Mr. Miller sort of stuttered a moment, then told me that he wasn’t actually allowed to talk about that. That’s when I learned catholic schools usually don’t talk about the shit the church is against. We don’t get to debate gay marriage, abortions, or the death penalty. We are not supposed to think critically or form our own opinions, because the opinions of a higher organization should replace our own feelings.

I eventually asked my mom. She told me about a gay couple she was friends with. They were married, but not in the eyes of the church. So any time they had sex, they had to go to confession and apologize for sex outside of wedlock. I didn’t like that solution either.

In eighth grade i sort of just shrugged and said “well. Guess I’m gay then.” I made an effort to bring it up in class more. Gay rights, not being gay. I’d never tell anyone, that would be horrible! I did come out to a few of my close friends, mainly because i realized I really wanted to kiss my best friend.

Freshman year, my religion problem amped itself up. The rhetoric was all the same. I was hearing the same lessons over and over and over again. I’d heard the same things since I was five, just in increasingly complex terms. I finally admitted my serious issues with my religion. My mom told me I didn’t have to be Catholic. I could be Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Jewish, even Muslim. I just couldn’t be polytheistic or Mormon. I decided that it wasn’t worth fighting about and didn’t bother telling her I wasn’t sure I believed in an anything. The only thing that would hurt her more than me not being christian, would be me being an atheist.

Religion had been important to her when she was little. She’d been bullied mercilessly, abused by her older brother, had a rocky relationship with her step father. On church retreats, she found camaraderie and comfort. It’s where she met her best friend. They’re still friends, and seeing them together they might as well still be stupid teenagers who don’t need anything but each other.

Sophomore year, I came out to my whole family as gay. It was good. I also met the best religion teacher ever: Mrs. Khouzam. She is, to this day, one of my favorite teachers I’ve ever had. There was Mrs. Rae, who lent me more mature books and encouraged my love of writing, and Mrs. Fava, who taught me that I was allowed to have any opinion I wanted, but it had to be backed by facts rather than a person’s skin or the opinions of my parents. Mrs. Khouzam loved God unconditionally. And she loved us.

She was the Mother Mary incarnate, and I loved her with my whole heart. She reminded me of the paintings of women who cradled ragged men like their children. She just exudes mother. Because of her, I began to love my religion again.

Then junior year that was ruined.

Mrs. Langomez was a short, stout woman from the Philippines who spoke too softly and disregarded our opinions with a quiet reminder of Jesus. We wrote journal reflections in her class, and I’d long since abandoned giving the vague “I love Jesus” shit for opinion questions on my work. I told her out right that I had serious issues with Catholicism and that I was gay. She only wrote on my paper that she glad my family accepted me.

Then it went to absolute shit. I sat in my desk on the front row and watched this woman I had only rolled my eyes at and joked about with my classmates give a 40 minute power point presentation on why homosexuality was a sin. She described how god designed men and women to love each other, and since gays couldn’t procreate in the normal way, they were incapable of real love. Being gay damaged one’s soul and relationship with god. She said there were special religious retreats for gay people to strengthen their relationship with god and overcome their gay urges. 

I was..horrified. Humiliated. Furious. Hurt. I just sat there, staring at the board with my fists and jaw clenched. I glared at her. I ignored her as I left. My classmates snickered at how stupid she was. I joked that I wanted to punch her and we laughed. It was their quiet way of saying they didn’t agree with her.

I shook the whole way to lunch and explained what had happened to the lower class men I ate with. And like a dam breaking, I felt that horrible weight in my chest. I grabbed a friend’s water bottle, trying to drown my crying before it could rise. I shook and shuddered and bit my lip and tried everything I could to stay steady. A few classmates sat with me and held my shoulders and told me Langomez was stupid. I admitted it was the first time I’d ever faced someone who so clearly hated me on the basis of my sexuality.

I couldn’t stand to stay there, so I left for the office with my backpack and told them I needed to go home. I’d already texted my dad. The principal saw me crying and asked if something had happened. Mrs. Langomez stood at the printer, half watching this. I told the principal I was fine and just needed to go.

I cried the whole way home. My mom called the principal and told her why I’d been so upset. I sent her an email later that night, explaining in better words than I’d be able to say, that it had been gut wrenching to sit somewhere I’d thought was safe, and be told in textbook language that I was a sinner and a perversion and incapable of love. I was promised an apology from Langomez that I never got.

It’s true that there are Catholics like Mrs. Khouzam. People who love unconditionally. But there are Langomez too. Hateful people. And they don’t all yell and scream. Sometimes they’re quiet and passive aggressive and pity you for being gay. And I couldn’t let that go. I was tired of the conflicting rhetoric. I was exhausted of grappling with god.

So senior year came. Langomez had moved to Japan with her husband in the military. My current teacher is a young woman who graduated from my high school in 2013. I don’t ever hide my sexuality. The whole school knows. We don’t talk about homosexuality in her class, because senior year theology is about vocations.

But I stopped taking communion. It felt horrible to cross my arms over my chest after so many years of cupping them in front of me. I nearly had an anxiety attack as I walked down the aisle. I imagined god striking me down then and there.

I only tell people I was raised catholic now. I once told my current theology teacher that my relationship with Catholicism felt like an abusive one. I was dragged up and down. I was shamed and ridiculed. I was dismissed and ignored. I don’t give a damn if not all Catholics are like that. I’m done having to take that gamble every time I meet one.

I’m not an atheist at least, which makes my mom happy. I believe in a Something. Maybe a polytheistic Something. I’ll figure it out when I’m somewhere I can learn it outside the context of catholic propaganda.