#It's Nicholas' darkest thoughts and is also trying to help in it's own way and it's also extremely manipulative and it's an imaginary frien

[tropicalcontinental]

Derivative of a Derivative

[galesh]

Wish fulfillment au of Severus who was born in Albus' Dumbledore's time. I just wanted to post it as a reply on a discord server but then it got out of hand. So

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- Two clever swots duking it out... in academics!

- Debating each other of old spells and whether or not they're dark and the librarian jinxing them out of the library with hexes for being too loud

- Albus and Sev rubbing their stung bums and arguing about the hexes the librarian used

- Albus and Sev both discovering they're poor halfbloods and railing against the arswholes in charge who think they can sting their bums and get away with it

- Them stinging each other's bums because it's a fascinating body part and maybe rubbing them with a different set of hands because maybe it'll help, and they're experimental

-Albus viewing the fascinating kid with so much dark potential with new eyes.

-Sev keeping an eye out for the twinkly eyed twit because it's unnerving, really, and because he always found the goodness in others fascinating. He doesn't believe he can emulate it, but maybe some would seep through him in osmosis. That's what that muggle book said anyway

- His ma always said he had a thing for redheads. He's starting to suspect her of practicing black magic

- Albus and Sev working on potions and transfig together because none of them can tell the other they're bloody brilliant and that they're fascinated, and could we just get to stinging bums and rubbing out the soreness please

- Sev visiting the Dumbledore's on summer break because his father is dead and his mother as good as, meeting the creepy girl creature because he's nosy and of course he'd look at the one room Kendra told him not to

- Abe running to Ariana's room because she screams bloody murder. It's only when he gets there that he realises that that bloody snake they let into their house is being accosted by a happily shrieking Arianna who wants to meet this strange new black haired scarecrow her brother likes

- The older one

- Sometimes, Arianna suspects

- Sev being horrified by Ariana's sad tale, and not wanting her to waste away, working with Albus to make sure she can get out

- Abe (begging to) help them because he really wants to, and because he doesn't trust the snake

- Sev learns Abe can't bloody spell after the third time.he has to squint if the bottle has fluxweed or filchweed (Dyslexia is not recognised yet, but it will be, in the muggle world) amd tries to help. It's more insulting than helpful, but he tries!

- Albus feverishly searching for a way to fix what those muggle boys and their mother's imprisonment and his neglect have wrought. Searching in the darkest grimoires, because really, what is honor and goodness if it can't even help his sister?

- Ariana getting her father's silver signet, carved with the runes of protection, family, forgiveness and renewal. They can't fix her magic, but the magic she once loved has caused her loved ones only harm, and really, it's time to stop listening to the voice inside her, who wants to rip her mother to shreds and burn the whole world down

- In the end it's abe, who comforted her when her mum looked at her with hate and Albus ashamed who puts her ring on as she says the words the runes describe. It's hard to forgive her mother and those muggle boys, but Arianna thinks they've suffered enough (it'll be years later that she realises that she left one person, but as she watches her daughter's delightful coo as she Dan's her nose with a glowing goden finger, she is only thankful that her lack of forgiveness didn't take all her magic away).

- She kisses her brother-in-law to be on the cheek, as is only proper for a member of family.

(Ariana has a very feeble grasp on social niceties. She tries, okay! You try learning everything from books while trapped in a cottage like a demented princess, with a brother who even she knows has an unhealthy fascination with goats who'd talk to her normally)

(Arianna's husband and her daughter, who she names Severus --because every universe must have a second child with a severusly controversial name -- would really come to fear her social skills, or lack thereof. Severus blames her godfather and her uncle with a the raging hate of a 10 year old who's been denied Uncle Sev's sweets)

- Sev and Albus competing for the top spot in the classes with professors and the bottom in the classes without

- Albus meeting Gellert in the evening he's supposed to leave for France and noticing the same dark charm. Severus noticing, but wanting to taint it than emulate it

- A black owl pooping on Gellert's golden hair because he Does Not Share!

- Albus sharing his plans to Change The World which would kill a girl with beautiful, uncontrolled magic and put a vengeful father in a prison of his own despair

- Sev agreeing to them and adding some rather inventive and cruel revenges he'd have on the Wankers who disowned his mother for following her heart

- Albus crossing out those points with eyes that twinkle in gentle admonishment, because really Severus, where would you even get a fully grown basilisk, and ignoring the calculating glitter he gets in return

- Abe following the idiots because Ari orders him to help the idiots and he can deny her nothing

- Gellert becoming a Light wizard after being at the wand end of a particularly dark spell (they teach *that* at Hogwarts, the light school!?!?!?!?) By a vengeful gargoyle after he drunkenly kisses*Bruder* Dumbledore

(years later, Headmaster Dippet can't figure out why his newest Dada teacher is so militant about students knowing everything about Dark magic and why some magics should never be studied, or why flinches everytime he sees a mistletoe. He has enough experience at 300 Not To Ask)

- Albus learning the most beautiful healing spell at the hands of a scowling-dark-phoenix with moist, angry black eyes after the 12th use of a dragon's claw soon after he discovered the 12th use of their blood

(Fawkes could never forgive Severus Snape for stealing it's thunder. Also he smells owl. They're the worst!)

-Severus stealing the Flamels' thunder by creating a philosophers stone after being at their home for a month.

(Perenelle suspects it's because Nicholas, who can be really old fashioned about these things, forbade their apprentice and that brilliant boy with no thoughts from rooming together)

- Severus lacing Albus' lemon drops with the elixir of life because clearly, that imbecilic martyr thinks dragon claw wounds are amusing

- Albus lacing Severus' tea with it because it would be such a horrible thing to live alone

(or without the one person who matters, no offence to his family. Oh, alright Abe, you're definitely not it!)

(the elixir of life prepared yearly mysteriously dissappears into tea and lemon drops. Albus stops worrying over Severus getting killed by vampires while he gets their teeth in exchange of galleons like a demented tooth fairy, and Severus stops worrying about Albus getting nicked by antsy Dragons or Phoenixes or Nifflers, or whoever Albus scraps with in his spare time)

- Albus putting his demented convoluted plans in motion by destroying wizarding currency through inflation. It somehow leads to a goblin revolution, equal rights for magical creatures, and the adoption of muggle currency. Don't ask

(Rumour has it that Gellert, Wizarding Britain's champion one look at the the scowling face of a Severus Snape and proposes negotiations.

Muggle currency was great, really. Made mathematical sense, easier to handle, and twinkly eyed not quite evil overlords can't dependably reproduce all the identifiers. They hope

Quite coincidentally, as Severus will assure you, all the pureblood families --including the Princes, coincidentally-- lose all their accumulated money in the resulting changeover.)

- Albus rules everything from behind the iron curtain with gentle fists and an open smile. Everyone learns to agree with him because behind him stands the spectre of DEATHOMgWatdidyoudo that you want to always keep happy)

- An excited Tom Riddle learns about magic from a charming Professor who's really interested in how he speaks, and who agrees that muggles are awful but keep it down will you?

- Tom Riddle learns to confide in and trust the person who introduced him to the magical world; and tells him when he accidentally discovers the chamber of secrets while hissing open at one of the taps in the girls loo that just wouldn't dispense water (he was under a lot of pressure okay! No, he's not a creep!)

- Tom Riddle grows up to be a politician with a particularly hard view on those muggles. Being backed by the Headmaster of Hogwarts helps. The society has made great strides in the concept of equality and democracy however, and most creatures really don't like him for some insane reason. Albus Dumbledore wins the elections by a landslide again. Tom is tenacious, and plots for when he'd get the position after the old man dies

(On his deathbed, Professor Emeritus of Hogwarts, Professor Tom, curses todgy old men with unnaturally long lifespans)

-Harry Potter, who grew up loved and a headmaster who didn't want to train him in any way, shape, or form (Harry was glad. Headmaster Grindenwald was nice and all, but he really didn't want to know all about the Dark arts and why not to use them kplzthnx). He went on to work at the ministry because his mother instilled in him values of fairness, kindness, and Get Out The House And Go To Work You Bum!

(He named

- Ariana's first kid is named after Abe. Her second is called Severus. Severus being a girl, never forgives her, and years later, when her son is born, names him Ariana with a vindictive gleam in her eyes.

(Ariana never really learned a the social niceties. They're horribly ineffective, and Abe tells her she's always charming in any case)

(Severus Smith is comforted by the fact that her godfather is a immortal wizard who gives her the best sweets)

- Severus and Albus never really fall out of love, even though they fall out of bed many times. They are a different breed of men, really. Eternal devotion means eternal devotion, as they find out. The Flamels' are happy they finally get to go on what the muggles call double dates.

- They also never stop stinging each other on the bum, but that is a rather more mature tale.

[adventuresofateenagebitch]

Destiny

Summary: Your destiny was to rule over Hell, it was your birthright. But you couldn’t help but think of another warlock you knew deep in your heart was also part of you destiny.

Pairing: Nick Scratch X Sabrina (Nabrina!)

Wordcount: 2,694

A/N: This is my first post! I mean, it’s Nabrina people. He’s loved her since he first saw and heard her in choir class. Softboi Nick. But honestly, Part 3 of Sabrina messed me up pretty bad. I wanted to write a Calbrina fic, but honestly, I needed to write a Nabrina one as my first post here. No way in Heaven I would do Nabrina dirty like that. So anyway, enjoy! Leave notes likes, asks and such I super duper appreciate them! Calbrina fic is still a work in progrss. Hope you guys enjoy this. I had an awkward time ending it. LOL.

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Ruling over Hell wasn’t that hard. Growing accustomed to the afterlife where souls who deserved it were meant to live in anguish and suffer in the darkest most deranged forms of torture surprisingly happened pretty quickly, at times you’d even feel like it was more home than good old Greendale where you left behind your best friend who fell in love with your ex-boyfriend, and your family who never even noticed that the Sabrina they were living with wasn’t even the Sabrina of their time, but family can only reach so far to really know you… especially when you weren’t even related to them by blood in the slightest, except for Ambrose. You knew for a fact Ambrose noticed right away, the clever little beast. Perhaps another reason you’d grown so accustomed to Hell, your real father was with you, and as strange as it may seem, it was like you were living in any old house with a father and stepmother, minus the demons and the road of blood leading to Pandaemonium. Your father, Satan, Lucifer, or even the Dark Lord was like any other father out there. He had meals with you, guided you through your newly imbued powers, and even gave you advice on how to handle hellish matters when things came down to it. But more importantly, he never really stopped ruling over Hell, sure he had more free time now, but even then, he’d still be backhandedly working, he’d handle the affairs you couldn’t since you haven’t really gotten a grasp on the whole politics of hell, he knew he had to step in when you nearly instigated an uprising after telling a court of demons that Hell would be reformed from top to bottom. Even Lilith proved to be helpful, especially when you had to go to the mortal realm to collect souls, she’d stand guard making sure you didn’t stray from the path you’d chosen, the path of night to go back to your family and friends. Of course, hell wasn’t a full time gig, you were allowed days off, in fact you were only ever really in the throne room when you needed to be which wasn’t exactly all the time, any decision you had to make was reiterated to you through telepathy so you had free time now more than ever.

That was the problem though. 

You wanted to be busy. You wanted to stay busy because whenever your brain had even the tiniest inkling that there was nothing to occupy it with, it came back to a certain raven haired warlock whose smirk could keep you hooked for days. The same warlock who broke up with you because all he could imagine and see when he looked at you was your father who in all fairness did try to overtake his soul. Nicholas Scratch. You look down at the writing in the sand from the Shore of Sorrows and quickly cross out his name. It’s funny, the coven was now praying to Hecate, but you could still hear them, you still imbued them with their dark powers because well, they were your coven, and they really believed Hecate could give them that much power when in reality, casting spells and actually getting them to work required a circle of witches murmuring in prayer to the Goddess. The prayers ranged from offerings to prayers asking for forgiveness, you could hear your Aunties, Prudence, even Ambrose had the quick prayer every now and then even though he claimed to be a Polytheist, but the one voice you’d never heard was his, you’d like to say that you didn’t notice it, but you’d never heard him pray to Hecate.

But you could only keep up this lifestyle for so long. You spoke with your father about this. He was powerful in his own right, already feeling the discord of space and time the second you stepped foot in the throne room. He knew there were two of you, he advised you to first learn everything you could about Hell, because a time would come where you would be forcibly merged with your other self living in the mortal world, and instead of forcing you to choose like he’d done in the past, you’d already agreed to rule over Hell so you would always come back and if not, they would just summon you whenever they needed anyway.

You were walking along the path of blood through the forest where you noticed a tiny scribbling on your palm.

“Spellman.”

You looked at it curiously, and then the realization hit you all at once, there was only one person who had your magic marker. The same person who would use it to have late night conversations with you when he knew damn well that your aunties were sleeping and could hear every single squeak in the house. You quickly clear the forest, hiding the palm of your hand from Lilith when she comes to greet you in Pandaemonium.

Lilith wasn’t and never would be a fan of the Queen of Hell having any romantic life, she always told you to never even think about that.

“Oh, well if it isn’t the Queen of Hell herself.” Lilith has her hands on her hips, talking with an individual who quickly turned towards you, a cunning smirk and devious eyes trained on you. You gulp quickly.

“My, my, Miss Spellman I don’t think I’ve seen you in a long while. I thought you had foregone your magic studies for your mortal friends?” It was Dorian and you realized he was here to bring your father’s monthly stock of alcoholic beverages, he licks his lips, “Never quite thought I’d find you here though.”

You furrowed your brows, “And where exactly did you hear that?”

He turns his body fully towards you, “Why, from Nicky, of course.” Lilith gives you a short nod before going off to find her minion, “And how sad Nicky has been without… well, you.”

Your eyes which had been trained on your shoes snap up to meet his eyes, “W-what?”

He nods silently, eyes closed, “Yeah, he told me months ago and well, there hasn’t gone a day where he doesn’t drink his sorrows away.” He sighs, “Well, that’s what he gets for falling in love.”

He starts to walk around, taking inventory of his deliveries, “You’re his friend, Dorian.”

He hums, “Yes, well, he’s also a customer. A well paying one at that-”

Without even letting him finish, you turn your head in disgust, holding up two fingers to send him back to his bar through a fiery portal.

"Well, aren't you sensitive today." Lilith rubs her still nonexistent pregnant belly, "Has Mr. Scratch got your mind occupied?"

You shake your head, "No. Just-just tell me where my father is."

Lilith moves aside, "Right in his office."

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You open the large doors shaped like demon hands and without giving him a chance to talk, you ask him, "How do I check up on my other self?"

He grins at you devilishly, "Dear daughter, by now you've already been gifted most of your full powers, it's about time I gift you a another one." He approaches you slowly looking glad to be ripped apart from the paperwork on his desk he holds his hand over your eyes, "Cum his ad divinum manus mea reddere tibi, divina aspectu"

You blink once, twice, thrice. Nothing seemed to have changed, "You seem pretty happy to be away from paperwork " you scoff.

He shrugs, "Well, you did declare a reform of hell and a book keeping of deals made of uncollected souls." He sits back down, "The royalties of Hell cannot be kept away from their collections any longer."

You shut your eyes, imagining yourself, your voice and as if you were astral projecting you see yourself with your friends. You were Laughing with Theo and Roz in the halls of Baxter High in your cheer uniform and before you can move a body passes through you, it was Harvey and when you expect him to make a beeline for Roz, he goes straight to you. The other you, leaning down he pecks you on the lips.

You look in shock as this Sabrina seemingly embraces her mortal life with her friends, in the 30 minutes you'd spent watching her, not even a hint of magic or spellcasting, "No. No, she wouldn't do this she loves her family, she loves her magic." You shut your eyes tight indespair and disbelief transporting you back where you were, not catching the way you voice seemed to have reached the other Sabrina's earsas if a whisper.

Lucifer was leaning against his desk, a knowing look plastered on his face, you walk towards him with intent, "That wasn't me. That COULDN'T have been me."

He chuckles lowly, "But in fact it is." He stands up straight, "You both are Sabrina, when Hell replenishes and provides your powers there are two of you which it splits into, and as time goes on, you and your powers get stronger because she has been slowly giving up the path of the night. It's a slow, gruesome process but she seems to think it was worth it, to keep that Kinkle boy around." He says in disgust.

He leans over you, finally taking the whole two Sabrinas situation seriously, "You see, dear daughter, only a single soul may exist in this world, to have two means it is constantly ripping and tearing the two souls apart one going more to the other, and what is a human without a soul?"

You look at him in shock, "And because the powers from Hell are more powerful with me, and she's trying to rid herself of her powers, she-she's-"

He sighs, "She knows." He pinches the bridge of his nose, "She's spoken with me and she knows everything. She only wished to spend her remaining days living a normal life with her friends and family, before she ultimately dies a slow and painful death. This was her last wish, as she's seen a future where her loved ones were killed by the Pagans." He starts pacing back and forth, "You see, the universe has a funny way of correcting itself. This time paradox which she had created was never to be successful in any way because only one Sabrina was ever meant to exist, the only two things that could have happened were you two would by nature absorb into a single being or second, one of you would have died." He shrugs.

"Now what? What then when she dies?"

Lucifer ponders, "Well, it is up to you to juggle these two lives or to choose one path over the other, but I must warn you that Hell has a way of fighting back if you do not respect the order of your binding to the realm." He sighs, plopping back down on his seat, "Now run along, child. I must finish these papers."

You walk along the corridors, before a voice reaches you, the only voice you’d wish you’d heard, his voice was low and calm as he began his prayer.

“Unholy Dark Lord, I know I have sinned against you but I am in service and gratitude to you for bringing Sabrina Spellman into my life. I only wish for you to bring her back to me. I am merely a vessel in your grand plan as your will commands so long as you bring her back to me. You rule over Hell and our lives, my brothers and sisters of the Order of Hecate do not understand our powers are granted by you our unholy savior. In exchange for my willing service if you cannot bring her back to me, I only pray you keep the love of my life from harm.” 

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You tossed and turned in your bed, unable to sleep. All you could think about was Nick, how the other you had thrown him away and all you wanted was to be with him, to tell him you loved him.

When you opened your eyes you were sat on the couch right in front of the fireplace in Dorian's bar, sitting next to one Nicholas Scratch who you already knew had been there the whole day. He takes another sip from the bottle in his hand and before his mouth touches it, you call him, "Nick."

As if the faintest of whispers reaches his ears, he looks around, catching you off guard.

"Spellman?"

You feel your eyes fill with tears as he looks around, trying so hard to find you, you speak in a clearer, louder voice, "Nick."

As clear as day, his eyes locked on you and he freezes, slowly bringing his hand to your cheek and cupping it, "Is this real? Are you really here with me? The real Sabrina?"

The tears start falling before you nod your head, "Y-yeah Nick, I'm here."

He embraces you tightly, "I-I just knew. I knew that wasn't you. The day you stopped going to the academy and you told me you were leaving behind the path of night to become a mortal, I just knew that it couldn't have been you." Tears start to stream down his face, “I’m never letting you go, Spellman. Not anymore, now that you’re back.”

You freeze, reluctantly, you clear the air, “Nick, I-I’m not actually back-I, I took the role as Queen of Hell. It’s my domain now.” You can’t seem to find the strength to look him in the eyes, “I’m not even really here. I’m in my bedroom, probably levitating while I meditate my physical and astral body here. Nick, I-I love you, but I can’t give up Hell, I don’t want to anymore. This is my destiny, and even if I did, the hierarchies of Hell would never let me.”

The giant grin on his face slowly lowers to a frown in realization, “H-Hell? You live there now? What happened to the Sabrina here?”

You shake your head, “It’s a time paradox. I’m from this time, but her, well she’s from a different timeline where Caliban was crowned King of Hell and you all died.”

He looks into your eyes, mind made up, and a determination burning in them, “You said before we broke up that you’d give it all up… for me, you would give up your destiny, Hell, Heaven, Earth, you’d give everything up for me.” You didn’t like where this was going because if he was going to make you choose, you knew you would choose Hell, “And Spellman, being apart from you only made everything all the more obvious, I thought my destiny was to become the best warlock of the Church of Night, but now I know my destiny has always been to be by your side-” He holds your hand tenderly in his, “Holding your hand as we travel and explore the path of night together and discover our place in the Underworld. I don’t ever want you to give up your place as Queen of Hell, I know this is what your were meant to do, but I would never ever let you go again, Spellman.”

You shake your head, “Nick, I don’t understand what you’re saying-”

He grasps your hand tighter in his, “What I’m saying is, Spellman, I’d follow you anywhere, even through the gates of Hell because you will always be worth it. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be because it’s where I’m meant to be.”

You blink away the tears in your eyes, relieved Nick finally opened up to you, “Nick.” You hug him tight, “You’re willing to leave behind everything and everyone, the world, to be with me in Hell?”

He nods confidently, “I don’t care about the world, Spellman. I just care about you.” He leans in pressing his lips against yours as you come back to your physical realm and teleport him to Hell.

He breathes a sigh of relief, “Spellman.” He embraces you, “I love you, Spellman.”

You tuck your head into the crook of his neck, “I love you too, Nick.”

[militant-holy-knight]

What Made the Almohad Caliphate So Bad?

Why the North African caliphate was the medieval equivalent to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. 

A common misconception about the Crusades, and particularly of the Reconquista, is that all Islamic states were essentially the same and united under the same banner when in reality, they had their own peculiar differences and were just as divided as the Christians were. Nothing exemplifies this better than the Almohad Caliphate, a 12th century Berber empire that emerged as a rebellious movement in the rapidly decaying Almoravid Empire and rose high enough in under a century to threaten Christendom before being beaten by the Crusaders.

“But Gaius”, I hear some of you saying: “ISIL is already an medieval minded organization. How they could be any different than the ones who lived in medieval times?”. Ah, my friends, there is more to ISIL than mere brutality and cruelty that conventional views tend to underestimate. One of the things that distinguished ISIL were that wanted to “purify Islam” by killing anyone they perceived as “apostates” or “infidels”. That is where the Almohads or al-Muwaḥḥidūn in Arabic (meaning “monotheists” or “unifiers”) come in.

Let’s start with their founder Ibn Tumart, a fiery Berber mullah notorious for being ultra-conservative and opposing art, songs, mixing of sexes in public and the selling of pork and alcohol, which were a common sight in the Mahgreb at the time, and blamed this on the laxness of the Maliki authority. While the Maliki school of thought is one of the most rigid ones in Sunni Islam, Tumart’s problem was that they tended to rely more on jurist consensus rather than following the Sunnah and the hadith to it’s letter.

His entire life reads like a comedic sketch: his fiery preachings lead to him getting expelled by the local authority until he moves to the next town and the exact same thing happens. It’s said this even happened in Mecca when he performed the hajj being thrown out because of his screeching. On the way back, he sailed on a ship and began throwing out boxes of wine and lecturing the sailors to pray at the correct time, leading them to be fed up and throwing him overboard (they fished him back later).

When Ibn Tumart made his way back to the Maghreb, he stopped by the Almoravid capital in Marrakesh and assaulted an emir’s sister for going out unveiled. He was brought before the local authorities and defended himself saying that he was merely a voice of reform and lectured the local emir and his jurists like he has been doing from town to town. When countered that at least on points of doctrine, there was little difference between them, Ibn Tumart brought out more emphasis on his own peculiar doctrines. After a lengthy examination, the Almoravid jurists of Marrakesh concluded Ibn Tumart, however learned, was blasphemous and dangerous, insinuating he was probably a agitator, and recommended he should be executed or imprisoned. The Almoravid emir, however, decided to merely expel him from the city, after a flogging of fourteen lashes.

That was an extremely poor decision, because Tumart proceeded to retreat to a cave in Igiliz, which was an conscious effort to emulate Muhammad when he entered the cave of Hira, where he adopted an ascetic life. That is when he began to attract followers gaining the fame of an holy man and miracle worker. In 1121, Ibn Tumart lamented his failure to persuade the Almoravids to reform by argument and after a particularly moving sermon, he suddenly “revealed” himself as the true Mahdi, the redeemer of Islam expected to return towards the end times. This was effectively a declaration of war on the Almoravid state - for to reject or resist the Mahdi's interpretations was equivalent to resisting God, and thus punishable with death as apostasy.

Though they began armed rebellion in the very next year, they didn’t exactly manage to have a successful track record against the Almoravids despite their weakened state. In fact, the Almohads were nearly annihilated during the Battle of al-Buhayra where several top generals were killed and Tumart himself died not too long afterwards. The death of their spiritual leader should have marked the end of their movement, but it was his successor Abd al-Mu’min who picked up the slack and proved to be far more competent in warring. He managed to conquer Marrakesh, overthrow the Almoravids and formally establishing the Almohad state which extended over Northern Africa as far Mamluk-held Egypt and managed to lead a Islamic resurgence into Iberia (or Al-Andalus as it was known by Muslims) retaking some territories lost to the Christian states in the north.

One of the things that distinguished the Almohads is that they rejected the doctrine of dhimmitude given to Christians and Jews living under their domain, allowing them to practice their religion on condition of submission to Muslim rule and payment of jizya. Sounds good right? No. The Almohads instead gave a choice to their non-Muslim subjects: convert to Islam or die. Except even those who converted were still forced to wear identifying clothing as they were not regarded as genuine Muslims. So imagine this scenario, dhimmitude is already a humiliating status, but now being forced to accept a religion they don’t want while having the same status as before is even more unbearable. Needless to say, this led to the mass martyrdom or exodus of many Christians and Jews.

Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, who himself fled the Almohad persecutions, composed an elegy mourning the destruction of many Jewish communities throughout Spain and the Maghreb under the Almohads. Among the notable Christian victims are the Franciscan friars John of Perugia and Peter of Sassoferrato, Saint Daniel and his companions Agnello, Samuel, Donulus, Leo, Ugolino and Nicholas, and the Mercedarian saint and priest Serapion of Algiers was persecuted when trying to free Christian captives. Non-Muslims were not the only victims of Almohad’s fanaticism: the famous Islamic philosopher Averroes who is held in high regard by Westerners today was accused of blasphemy for among many things, criticizing Muhammad’s treatment of women, and as such was exiled. It’s also perfectly plausible that many of the things deemed acceptable by the Almoravids (women uncovered, music, art, etc) were forbidden by the Almohads.

The darkest moment for Christendom came with the Battle of Alarcos, when an Almohad host led by Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur decisively defeated the Kingdom of Castille and the knightly Orders of Santiago and Evora, killing over 30,000 into battle and leaving several castles deserted and many areas open to Islamic raidings. The Almohads were threatening to push north as far as possible and threatened to "march all the way to Rome and sweep the Basilica of Saint Peter with the Sword of Muhammad". This alarmed Pope Innocent III who called the European knights to crusade and served as basis for this song as by bard Gaudavan as rallying cry to help the Iberian Christians.

This ultimately culminated in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa where King Alfonso VIII of Castille - the same one beaten in Alarcos - led the Christian host of 14,000 men (Portuguese, Castillans, Templars, Germans, French and others) against the Almohad caliph Muhammad al-Nasir, who had more than twice with 30,000 men in his command. Despite the impossible odds, the Christians managed to win (check this video for the details).

This defeat was a decisive point in the Reconquista, as the Almohad power was broken and they would never recover, with their territories breaking up into petty kingdoms (or taifas). It also marked the downfall of Islamic rule, since from now on Christians - more specifically Spaniards - would retake almost all their lands. Just before their end, the Almohads would ditch their doctrines in favor of more traditional ones and repudiate Ibn Tumart as the Mahdi, but their end came when their final pretender Idris al-Wathiq was killed by a slave and his possessions were later taken by the Marinid Sultanate who would try to take Iberia again, but they were soundly beaten in the Battle of Rio Salgado by the now much stronger Portuguese and Spaniards (though them taking the sultan’s entire harem and putting them to the sword may have done the trick).

So now you might be asking me now: why is this all relevant to the Islamic State? You see, their founder Abu Musaib al-Zarqawi was sorta kinda like Ibn Tumart, except he Zarqawi was a petty thief and a pimp rather than a scholar. His views were radical even by Salafi jihadists’ standards, urging the death of Shia Muslims more than the Christians and Jews. Osama bin Laden himself, at least thought as such and never particularly liked Zarqawi whether for personal reasons (Bin Laden’s own mother being Shia herself) or pragmatic ones (Zarqawi’s actions could divide Muslims more than unite them). And just like Ibn Tumart, he never lived to see the Islamic State (or Al-Qaeda in Iraq as it was known in his lifetime) become the nightmarish menace to everyone.

There are of course many obvious differences: ISIL apparently made a point to adhere to the dhimmi contract as far as the Assyrian Christians were concerned while the Almohads ditched it altogether. Or that Zarqawi never claimed to be the Mahdi, nor did his successor Abu-Bakr al-Baghadadi to legitimize themselves. Though there are many important parallels: ISIL was in essence an apocalyptic group just like the Almohads followed the Mahdi, whose presence marked the end times. They viewed the events in Syria and Iraq as the fulfillment of the prophecies about the end times and heavily derived their narrative from it. Their initial propaganda magazine Dabiq was named after an town where a hadith claims a great battle will occur between the Muslims and the Romans where the apocalypse will take place and Muslims will emerge victorious. The “Romans” in this case represent the West, which is why they carried out incessant attacks to provoke Americans and Europeans to fulfill this prophecy. 

The Almohads emerged during a period here they perceived Islam had decayed and needed reform or rejuvenation which is an rhetoric used by ISIL, but not necessarily exclusive to them. It’s somewhat reasonable to understand the Almohad Caliphate is not as well-known or prominent as other empires like the Umayyads or the Ottomans, since they are more important to local history, but I think we’d benefit more if we paid attention more.

[5secondsofrant]

Thoughts on Lierra

DISCLAIMER:

This posts contains personal opinions and theories. I’m not confirming stuff.

This post’s purpose is not to hate on them but to share what I think.

As my bio says, I’m up for discussion, while it’s done with respect to me but also about the people we’re talking about.

This might be a long post due the time this has been going on. Honestly, I feel like this can get messy at some point and I apologize but there’s too much to cover.

Sierra has been part of the boys’ circle of friends for a while. She is (or was) best friends with Kaykay, who has been friends with Ashton for a while, so it tells you she has been around two or three years (if not more). She also seems to be friends with Mitchy and if you look up, you can also find candid photos of her with the boys, usually at parties.

I don’t know if you remember, but the first time she was papped with one of the boys, it was actually with Ashton. And not only that, but at the time he had referred to her in really lovingly terms to her on social media (twitter and Instagram mostly), always showing support, and after she started to date Luke, he stopped (I won’t go deep into this because there’s already a big post on this, really well-made by the people at sierratheory where they show this with solid proof).

As you know, there are a few blogs here that talk about this topic I’m discussing right now, and I’ve read divided opinions on this relationship: some say is fake, some say is really real.

And to be honest, I can see the reasoning behind both parts, so I’m going to try and explain why I’m so in the middle about this whole relationship.

> Why I think it could be real:

- They share the same social circles and most importantly, they were friends at some point. Following that narrative, it makes sense that you can fall for a friend and take it a step further into a full-relationship.

- The boys (well, Calum, Ashton and Luke since I’ve never seen her interact or be around Michael —though I can be missing something here because I’m not a really big user of social media, so I tend to not see the boys’ stories on Instagram or Snapchat—)seem to be genuine friends of her, at least it seemed that way in those videos I came across from a Halloween party, the photos I’ve seen of them with her at parties and also there’s the fact that Calum attended her birthday party.

- If we follow the narrative, they both seemed to be in vulnerable states after breaking up with their previous couples, so maybe that made them get together.

- They have met each other’s families, and I guess that shows that they’re serious about this (and in my personal opinion, it would be really fucked up to drag your family to a media show, though it’s not new and sometimes the artist doesn’t really have a choice). Apart from that, they’ve shared important dates like thanksgiving and the lunar New Year.

- She’s always around. Parties, his home, near Petunia, she was there a lot during the 5SOS3 and Meet You There tours. Let’s not forget she was also in the video diaries.

> Why I think it could be fake:

- Grandebaby, my favorite fail ever. You probably know about this, but if you don’t, basically Sierra was answering to a fan about herself from a “fan account” to help this confused fan to understand who she is, and why she’s hanging out with the boys. But then, she switched accounts and forgot and responded to the fan again following the conversation she had started from the fan account, so she basically got caught.

- The time “Luke” left a comment on one of her pictures and he was performing on stage.

- The fact that as soon as people began to suspect about them, she started to tease with photos that shared location with Luke, or taking photos at his house or with Petunia.

- Every time we get Lierra content, it’s before or after something related to the boys music is happening (go and look back to the drama before the Meet You There live album release, Who Do You Love as a single release, and even Youngblood).

- We have gotten so many stories by fans that seem to be made up; while I don’t blame her or them for this, I feel like a lot of those stories where they’re all in love (especially that one where she cried because she loves Luke so much) are fake and made up by fans to get clout and maybe show an image of them to the public.

- We always get filtered photos at the most random times. Remember two weeks ago there were photos that came out of nowhere about them hugging in the airport? And the whole fandom brought back their attention to them because they’re “goals”. The thing with this is that in my opinion it’s really strange: why this photo, from so many months ago, was suddenly leaked? After a few hours, a pair of girls came out to say that they shared them but didn’t think that anyone would share them on social media because they asked the people they shared them with to not do so, but… One, they shared those photos really back in the day (when they took them they were on tour so it has been a hot minute) and suddenly people decided to share them? Or did they share it recently? Again, really strange, especially since it brought attention back to them before Coachella.

- Her birthday party drama. I can understand that you get mad because someone posts pictures of your birthday when you want it to be something private (though, some of her friends still posted and she didn’t say a thing. She even posted something herself if I’m not wrong). But let me remind you this girl went crazy trying to find a “mole” in her group, which tells you a few things: either she has had stuff filtered before and doesn’t know who is doing it and that leads to you to think that she is worried about the things this “mole” can share. One thing is being mad about your privacy, which is understandable, but respond like this about only a small birthday video tells you a lot about what she could be doing behind the scenes.

Also, it caught my eye that Ashton was nowhere to be seen. She invited a few of the friends you can see hang out at parties but he wasn’t around. Even if Calum was there, Ashton didn’t show up (I’m not saying they go everywhere together, but they usually go to the same parties and are seen together) and while we can only speculate about this, I wonder why Ashton has been absent of the picture for so long (especially when Sierra even seems to be close with his sister)

- The amount of articles and paparazzi photos of them are astounding for such a “lowkey” couple, especially considering she’s not really famous and he’s known, but he isn’t on the Beyoncé or Justin Bieber level to get that amount of press (same with Michael, but that’s another story). Every time they’re on an airport, there seems to be paparazzi. Every time they’re out in a restaurant or a club, what you have? HQ pictures. We even got paparazzi photos from freaking Australia, where paparazzi aren’t such a big deal as in US. As I said in the Kaykay and Ashton post, paparazzi are usually called by the artist’s management or the celebrities themselves.

- She honestly seems like a damage control for what Arzaylea did. Look at the image she gives out: a singer, who’s passionate for music and went through a heartbreak (sounds like someone to you?), and is trying to put herself back together in the music industry but is having a tough time. This girl is smiley, kind to fans, kind of shy when she speaks, everyone refers to her as a really good friend. Now, what’s the image of her in the fandom? an angel, who saved Luke from his darkest hours—but not only that, he also saved her. (TBT to the premiere of the Lie To Me video and everyone commenting how she saved him, totally dismissing Luke’s own hard work to put himself back together, but yeah, love can fix your mental health in a snap, I guess).

- This brings attention to the band (and good attention). Relationships have been a game that publicists have played since the old good days back in Hollywood, whether is to bring attention or to hide a sexuality, they exist (you can check this article to read more about it). People love to idolize and ship people, especially given heartbreaking-Nicholas Sparks-ish narratives about their love. In this case, attention was needed: the boys took a two year hiatus, being a band that while didn’t do bad, wasn’t at the top to afford doing this, they [management] had to do the most with their come back. You and me care about their mental and physical health, but for their management and record label they’re numbers that weren’t adding up. Youngblood was a risk for everyone, so it’s rational to think management could pull on those strings so their money makers don’t flop. While I believe that the fandom is really supportive and the music the boys brought this time around is good enough to make it to the charts, no one in the business was going to take the risk.

- Honestly they look so awkward together. The only times that their photos don’t look strange is when they’re posted by themselves. I’ll link some down below where I truly believe they look really awkward to be a couple. (Example 1) (Example 2) .

- That Post Malone tweet I discussed a while ago.

> Some things I can’t place up there because while they’re strange, I don’t totally believe they have to deal with a “fake” or “real” relationship:

- Her dad posting so much about Luke on social media. I don’t get what’s the necessity, since her daughter is probably the less hated 5sos girlfriend ever. And the way he phrases things is such a weird way, it’s almost like if he were thanking his fans, which is totally strange in my opinion for a parent.

- Luke’s brother using her to promote his clothing brand.

- Those photos of their first appearance holding hands, were strange. Almost staged. And then there are photos of Sierra walking near Crystal which really made me go “huh”. (And as far as I know, I think KayKay is also friends with Crystal, and if you’re friends with her, I can’t really trust you lol —also, doesn’t it call your attention that the girls are friends with her but the boys they’re dating, or supposedly dating, don’t even interact with her?).

- Sierra deleting photos so when you check her profile the first thing you see are photos of Luke and her.

- Maybe it’s me but it’s so... awkward I’d like to say, the fact that there are photos of her hanging out with the boys while Luke was still dating Arzaylea. (But again, that could be a personal opinion)

After this, and weighing the fact that I listed more fake things than real, you might be wondering why I’m in the middle about this.

While I can see why people think they’re fake, and until some point I did, I lean towards the fact that this relationship is probably real, but by staying in the middle, I’m trying to explain that I’m not 100% convinced. I’d say is a 70/30 for me.

They can be real, even if the way things happened were weird (especially after Luke denying her for so long until Youngblood came out, but again, Luke is really good at denying relationships until he’s pushed to talk about them in public) but if they’re real, this is definitely tainted by PR. I can totally see them both seeing the benefit that they could get from their relationship and allowing it to happen this way. At the end of the day, I think that Luke would be that kind of person to go on board with giving clout to a girlfriend because he truly believes in her and wants to help out somehow (and in my opinion, the boys don’t seem to mind giving shout outs to their friends projects or work while they’re aware they’re doing it and not being tricked into giving clout).

And she needs it, whether you are a fan of her from her old days in the group with her ex-boyfriend or you arrived now, we both now she doesn’t have the attention she needs, and to be honest, I believe she needs a publicist and a manager that actually care about her career (and her to be on it full time too, since she’s technically starting from zero). I think she really missed a really big chance by not releasing music back when she first left “Alex & Sierra” and she was giving interviews about her career to such important music platforms as Billboard. Maybe she needed a longer break to make music and figure out what she wants to do, but in my eyes, she and her team (if she does have one) seem to be really, really lost, especially in terms of her public image.

While I believe it’s true for the amount of candids that we get, and I’m theorizing about them agreeing to this PR over their relationship, I really hope it’s going that way. Sometimes she shows some tendencies to be there for attention rather than to be there for Luke, which is... Sad. Hopefully they truly like and care for each other and she just does that because it’s part of her personality.

And also, I’d like to think that if this girl wanted to use the boys, she could have from a very long time ago (but well, since they seem to be technically have started hanging out by the time she splitted from Alex, this theory can be throw out the window, because after that, she needed a way to get attention on her, but I’d truly like to be wrong about this one).

I don’t know what it is but there’s still something that rubs me off in the wrong way about this relationship and I can’t quite tell what it is yet. If I ever find out, I’ll probably make a post about it.

And I’ll be transparent about this whole thing, because I mentioned it on my Kaykay/Ashton post, but I don’t have the best perception of her. I could make a whole post of why she gives me a weird vibe off based on stuff she has done or said. 

With that said, I’d like to say that having a bad perception doesn’t equal hating someone, because honestly I can sit here and theorize for fun, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find me on social media sending mean comments to her.

I’m probably missing a lot and this probably was a hot mess, and I apologize, but I tried to touch on the topics that have caught my eye the most about these two. As I stated at the beginning, I’m up for discussion and for you to theorize with me (you can even dm if you want it to be private) while you’re respectful with me and towards Luke and Sierra, which means I won’t be taking any comments that mock or say mean stuff towards her.

Thank you for reading!

[lilyjcollins-news]

Lily Collins :“I want to dig deep, tell the truth and be more brave” by Jane Mulkerrins.

(click here to see the photoshoot and here to go to the website.)

The day before we meet, Lily Collins had what felt like a breakthrough encounter. At the end of a short, on-camera interview, the journalist had asked where she lived. Los Angeles, she told him, where her mother was born and raised, and where she has lived since the age of five, when her parents divorced. He then asked where her father lived. England, and partly in the US now, too, she answered. And what did her father do for a living? After some stifled giggling from the crew, Collins, who has just turned 30, gently explained her parentage. “And the guy just looked at me with the biggest eyes,” she laughs. “He’s like, ‘I’m sorry, what did you just say? Oh God, now I feel silly.’”

She insists that she was very grateful for his ignorance. “I’m so proud of my family, but I have also worked really hard to carve my own path and to not have that define me.’”

The daughter of superstar musician Phil Collins and his second wife, Jill Tavelman, she admits that her famous surname has inevitably opened doors, but insists that nobody has ever “made a phone call” for her. “I did get told that I could have other ways in,” she shrugs, when we meet on a rainy New York afternoon. “but I never wanted to give anyone the opportunity to say: ‘Well, she only got X or Y because of that.’ I knew it would take longer to do it on my own, but it would be so much more worth it.”

Collins’s insistence on carving her own path is now paying off, with two high-profile films – Tolkien, and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and the US launch of the BBC miniseries Les Miserables, for which her performance as the tragic Fantine is already creating some early awards buzz.

Tolkien, a biopic of the author’s early life, stars Nicholas Hoult as JRR Tolkien, the philologist and author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Ringsseries, while Collins plays Edith Bratt, his childhood sweetheart and, later, his wife, who was the inspiration for Lúthien Tinúviel, the elvish princess in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. “I had auditioned to play an elven character in one of Peter Jackson’s movies, and I didn’t get it… but I’ve ended up playing the woman who inspired the elven princess,” grins Collins. It is her most mainstream, highly anticipated film to date, and a world away from the romcom roles she was getting five years ago. While there’s a heavy focus on Tolkien’s male friendships – the inspirations for his “fellowship” in his books, Bratt is fully fleshed-out and three-dimensional, too, not some flimsy, token love interest. “She was very creative and very passionate and driven, and he was intellectually stimulated by her,” says Collins. Bratt and Tolkien were both orphans. “At that time women of her status and in her position weren’t really afforded the opportunity to seek higher,” says Collins. “But she encouraged him to continue on his path. It’s very selfless, and, at times, heartbreaking.”

She sees a similar selflessness in Fantine, her once-vivacious character in Les Miserables, who becomes a prostitute and sells her hair and teeth in order to feed her child. “I died on day two of filming,” says Collins, with a laugh. She sent a picture of herself in character to her mother, who replied, “No one should have to see their daughter like this.”

“My choices have tended to go quite dark,” admits Collins of her recent roles. Just three days ago, she finished filming Inheritance, a forthcoming thriller in which she stars alongside Simon Pegg. “That’s incredibly dark, too. I really enjoy playing these characters that, under the surface, have so much more going on than they are saying, or who seem like they are barely keeping it together.

“I’ve always believed that asking for help is not a weakness, it’s a strength,” she continues. “I have a tattoo that says: ‘True delicacy is not a fragile thing.’ You can look delicate, but it doesn’t mean that you’re fragile.” I surmise, from her having it made permanent in ink, that people have, perhaps, underestimated her in the past.

Undoubtedly the darkest of her recent projects is Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, about the serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered more than 30 girls and women in seven US states in the 1970s. The title comes from the judge’s summation of Bundy’s acts when sentencing him to death. Collins plays Elizabeth Kloepfer, the killer’s long-term girlfriend who is convinced of his innocence, with Zac Efron playing a charismatic and persuasive Bundy.

While preparing for the role, over the Christmas holidays, Collins recounts how she would wake every night at 3.05am. “I would go downstairs and have a cup of tea, trying to figure out why I had woken up again.” Then, she says, “I started being woken up by flashes of images, like the aftermath of a struggle.” She went to the internet to investigate. “I discovered that 3am is the time when the veil between the realms is the thinnest and one can be visited.” She began to believe women who were murdered by Bundy were, perhaps, trying to contact her. “I didn’t feel scared – I felt supported. I felt like people were saying: “We’re here listening. We’re here to support. Thank you for telling the story.”

Collins tells me all of this in a completely matter-of-fact manner, as if receiving messages from long-dead murder victims were a perfectly normal part of preparing for a film. It’s pretty much the only moment in our time together when she seems more Californian than British. Even her looks – porcelain skin, dark hair and dramatic eyebrows – are eminently more London than LA. And, while in person her accent is pure California, on screen in Tolkien, her clipped, turn-of-the-century English consonants and vowels are flawless, as are her more working-class ones for Fantine. She looks deeply relieved when I tell her so. “I did worry that people were going to be like, ‘Well, she is actually British, her accent should really be better,’” she laughs. “There’s an extra level of pressure. I worked with a dialect coach as I needed it to be absolutely spot-on.”

Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, at the height of her father’s success – six months later he would release Another Day in Paradise. Is it true, I ask, that Elton John used to babysit her? “I’ve really got to sit my parents down and ask them questions about that. I’ve been hearing it for so long, but I really have no idea,” she says.

After relocating with her mother to LA at the age of five, following her parents’ divorce, she attended the prestigious Harvard-Westlake school, where former pupils include Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, and began auditioning for film and TV roles. “I was getting told ‘no’ all the time,” she says, which she puts down simply to a lack of experience. “I’d done musicals and plays at school, but I hadn’t studied acting or anything, and auditioning for film and TV is very different.”

At the same time, journalism held an appeal, too. “I wanted to be the youngest-ever talk show host,” she says. After pitching ideas to magazine editors, she began writing for Teen Vogue and Elle Girl, and scored a job as a reporter for the children’s channel Nickelodeon, covering the 2008 presidential election and Obama’s inauguration. “I was 18 and I could just vote, so I was like, ‘Oh great, I get to ask all the questions that I don’t know the answers to.’” What she liked less, however, were the questions she had to ask as a roving reporter on the red carpet. “I would think, oh, that’s not what I really want to ask this person, I would hate to be asked that,” she recalls. On the other side of the microphone now, there are questions she simply doesn’t answer, about her personal life, or about politics, on which she refuses to be drawn.

She studied broadcast journalism at the University of Southern California, but dropped out in her second year when, in 2009, after several years of auditioning, she won her first film role, as Sandra Bullock’s daughter in The Blind Side. Soon after, she was perfectly cast as Snow White in Mirror Mirror, followed by Rosie Dunne in Love, Rosie, the adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s novel Where Rainbows End.

Though acting has clearly won out over journalism and talk show ambitions are on hold for now, Collins is still a keen writer. In 2017, she published Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, a collection of personal essays in which she opened up about her struggles and self-doubts, her relationship with her father, with partners, and with her own body, writing about the eating disorders she battled for some years. “A lot of young women write to me on social media [she has more than 14m followers on Instagram], saying, ‘I just wanted to let you know that this is my situation and my insecurity, not that you would ever be able to relate to it…’ and I’ll always be like, ‘No, I really can relate,’” she insists.

Collins describes in Unfiltered how, as a child, she had only positive associations with food, but that changed when she turned 16. Her father was separating from her stepmother, his third wife, while Lily was juggling school, a budding modelling career, a social life and trying to break into acting, too. “My life felt out of control,” she writes. “I couldn’t handle the pain and confusion surrounding my dad’s divorce, and I was having a hard time balancing being a teenager with pursuing two different grown-up careers – both of which I’d chosen myself, but which also focused heavily on how I looked.” She began starving herself, exercising obsessively and became addicted to diet pills and laxatives, habits which continued well into her early 20s.

She pitched the book proposal during a dry spell in acting. “I hadn’t booked anything film-wise for a while, and I was itching to do something. The idea for the book had been at the back of my mind for a while, and I thought, well, maybe now’s the time.” Soon after, she was also sent the script for To The Bone, a film about a young woman with chronic anorexia. “It was too big a message to ignore,” recalls Collins. She attended group therapy sessions with recovering anorexics. “I didn’t want them thinking that I was just coming in to be nosy. I wanted them to know that I actually could relate. It encouraged me to really dig deep and tell the truth, to be more brave. And it was freeing,” she says. Collins sent a copy of the book to Michelle Obama “on a whim. I wanted to reach out to certain people and just thank them for being an inspirational woman, someone who I look up to,” she says. “I certainly never expected to receive a letter back thanking me and saying the same thing. I need to get that letter framed.”

This summer, she’s heading to France to film Emily in Paris, the new comedy-drama from Sex and the City creator Darren Star. “I knew I had so much baggage that I needed to get rid of in order to take on the baggage of all my characters,” she says. “And the second I did that, my career and my personal life opened up in a whole new way.” Collins, it seems, having been drawn to the darkness, professionally and personally, is now heading towards the light.

vía The Observer Magazine.

[bookenders]

11/11/11 Tag Game: Rounds 14 and 15! (I think. I’m bad at math.)

Back at it again, folks! Thank you @ofvisitorsthefairest and @fictionshewrote for the tags!

I think I’m gonna stop counting them after these. I can’t keep the numbers straight.

Rules: Answer the 11 questions from whoever tagged you, then made up 11 of your own questions and tag 11 people.

Bilbo Taggins: @starlitesymphony​, @hannahs-creations​, @toboldlywrite​, @quilloftheclouds​, @myreidola​, @minusfractions​, @inexorableblob​,  @ink-flavored​, @misfitgirlwrites​, @writinginslowmotion​, @aurumni-writes​

If you like these questions, by all means, answer them! And tag me so I can see!

My Questions:

Make a Mary Sue in your story’s world! What powers do they have, if any? How are they better than everyone else? What is their tortured past that is a blessing but also a curse? What kind of unusual eyes do they have? Which member of nobility/royalty/god/vampire/demon is their parent?

Which would your OCs choose: Legolas or Aragorn? Which would you choose?

What’s your favorite trick to pull on readers?

If you were to teach a creative writing class, what books would be on your syllabus?

What’s your opinion on semicolons?

What’s your favorite movie, based on its story?

What’s the dumbest thing your character(s) have ever done? What’s the dumbest thing they could do?

What one item could you introduce to your story to completely derail the plot? Where would it go from there?

What’s your favorite MacGuffin?

How do you name your characters and locations? 

How have your hobbies and passions influenced your writing/how you write?

My answers under the cut!

@ofvisitorsthefairest‘s Questions:

1. Does music inspire you to write?

Not unless I’m doing songfics as a warm-up or something. I usually use it as a tone/mood guard rail as I’m writing. That’s why I make story/character playlists! They keep me on track, especially if I’m revisiting a scene I haven’t thought about in a while.

2. Which WIP did you learn the most from writing?

My Romanian story, for sure. I had the help of my thesis director/mentor with that one, thank God. I learned how to establish a scene quickly, how to do flashbacks like other people do them, how to incorporate languages without messing up the pace or losing the reader, and how to write historical things. 

I learned a whole lot about what not to do from my Story That Shall Not Be Named Because It Bad, too. 

3. Is there something your OC should be afraid of that they aren’t?

I think Gemma should be more afraid of being found out than she is. I mean, she’s technically a witch (an unregistered magic practitioner, because of her potion-making which is classified as pseudo-magic) who has no social security number, lives in secret, and does illegal internet things. She could get into some serious trouble. There are even more nasty consequences that I can’t reveal because spoilers, but let’s just say she has no idea they could happen and they ain’t pretty.

4. Is there something they don’t need to fear, yet do? Irrational phobias?

Yep! It’s one of the cores of her character. She’s afraid of being left alone, abandoned, kept out of her found family. Being used for her skills and ignored as a person. I don’t think they’re irrational, but she has never listened when people tell her not to be afraid of those things.

5. Do you prefer reading physical books or e-books?

Physical books, by far. E-books for my college student wallet, though. They saved me when I didn’t have time to order books, too. I have a crazy good “where in the physical book did this event happen” memory. Like, I can name an event and flip to the page very quickly based on how far into the book it was. Very handy for citations. And I love the feel/smell of a book in my hands and all the contorting I do when I read one (seriously, I almost always end up upside down or completely sideways in a chair).

6. What’s some details of your world building that you like?

All the little things! Academic internet piracy network to help witches, how magic interacts with daily life, tweaking folklore to fit story lore, 

7. Have you ever created a magic system? What was it like?

Oh, boy! Yes, I have made several. My favorite might be the one from my TV show where the only magic is healing/life manipulation magic. The way it works is that when healers do their thing, they physically take on their patient’s injuries. If you have a broken arm, now the healer has a broken arm. Works with diseases, too. Here’s the snippet from the Show Deck about it:

In the darkest corners and dingiest alleys, magic pulses through the veins of the downtrodden. Seen as evil and taboo, magic operates by the law of an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Sacrifice fuels these dark arts, and those who manipulate them are covered in scars and never-healed wounds. Healers operate in the shadows and lead short lives, field medics are scarce, and the king has two sorcerers by his side at all times, bound by a blood contract to give their lives in his name.

Here’s a link to some posts about my magic system in my current WIP, Heart to Heart! I made magic types based on different sciences and artistic disciplines! 

We’ve got astronomy/astrology, carving/linguistics/physical art/symbology, politics/making powerful friends/handshakes/marketing/political science, geology/archaeology/product design. Also some secret types that involve psychology, sound design/sound engineering, and water treatment/environmental science/architecture.

There are also pseudo-magical professions that blend with tech and science, like potion making!

Here’s a decent explanation of how magic works in the world of H2H.

Here’s a joke I made about my magic system.

Here’s the Magical Aptitude quiz I made that tells you more about the magic types in H2H.

/end ramble

8. What was your first favorite book?

I’m 90% sure it was the American Revolution Magic Tree House book. Or one of those books. They were the best.

9. What time of day are you most motivated to write?

7pm-4am. Yep, I hate it. I’m trying to push it closer to 2pm-9pm but it’s tough.

10. If you could step into the shoes of one of your characters for a day, which one would you pick?

If we’re talkin’ H2H characters, I honestly would not have a preference. Everyone in that story is pretty dang chill. If I had to choose, I’d go with Jill or Treena. They’re both artists and artisans who have cool houses and great friends.

11. What are some little quirks you like to give characters? Ex: a lot of mine have freckles Just Because.

There are Many. A lot of my characters have curly hair because I have curly hair. Many of them are left handed (especially my sword-wielding ones). A bunch of them have scars. A lot of them know curse words in other languages. 

@fictionshewrote‘s Questions:

1. What do you want to see more of in the book world? (more rep, more of a specific genre, etc)

I have a rant about this, but to sum up: fewer straight white men dominating publishing, more open acceptance for new voices and ideas, less focus on easy-sell formulaic stories, less prejudice against certain genres... the list goes on. Also, in the publishing world, fewer submission fees and more journals that pay.

2. What time of day are you most productive writing-wise?

Answered above! Evenings and nights. It’s starting to shift to late afternon to late evening though, which is a nice change.

3. Do you have a designated space where you write?

Nope! I usually use my laptop wherever I can sit down or stand without my back screaming at me. I hate writing on my phone, though. Too small, too many typos.

4. What kind of platforms/programs/tools do you use to write? (Word, notebooks, Google Docs, Scrivener, etc)

Scrivener! It’s so helpful for my disorganized ass. I only use Word for academic papers now. When I’m having trouble getting ideas out of my brain, I write by hand in a hard back spiral notebook. I can’t stand writing in journals without spirals. 

5. Hardcover or paperback?

I like both. When I read, I sit weird and hardcovers prevent the pages from bending, but paperbacks are good for traveling with. And they’re cheaper. But hardcovers are so pretty... 

6. What’s your favorite story trope? Are you using it in your wip(s)?

There are a lot of tropes and I can never pick just one. I like friends to lovers, almost everything in LoTR and all those high fantasy things, complicated political/family dynamics, etc. I don’t typically like to write the same things I like to read, though. I have trouble naming them sometimes, but I know I use a bunch of them. 

7. If you had to send your favorite OC on a blind date with a character from someone else’s book, who would that character be and why?

Oh boy. I’m watching the Lord of the Rings extended editions right now, but I’ll try not to be biased.

If I were trying to be funny, I’d set Fred up with Aziraphale from Good Omens. I feel like they could have some good weird conversations.

Gemma and Nicholas Flamel from The Alchemist would be fun, too. Or Oz and Boromir. 

8. Do you write scenes in order or out of order?

I like writing them in order, but sometimes that doesn’t work out like I want it to. Now it really depends on the story. I wrote the first part of AOPC out of order and it messed with my head a little, so I’m trying not to do it for my longer projects. My short stories are always written one and done, in chronological order, usually. Especially the ones under 2k words. WYSiOaD was written in order, then switched around to fix the flow and plot.

9. If your favorite OC was a superhero, what would their superpower be? (assuming, of course, they aren’t a superhero to begin with!)

I do have superhero/villain characters! Here’s some others, though:

Gemma - Empathy / Transferable Rapid Healing and/or Regeneration

Oz - Truesight / Invulnerability

Mel - Animal Friendship or Shapeshifting / Conditional Foresight

Fred - Domino’s luck power but backwards and framed like happy accidents that always seem to work in his favor. So... Mr. Magoo.

Teva - Earth sculpting or something like earthbending

10. Describe your ideal writing session.

I sit and I write a whole short story in one hit. Then I wait and edit another day. 

I am a simple bean.

11. What do you think would turn your protagonist into a villain?

Seeing what was lost and having it torn away forever before she gets to claim it again.

[everly-kindred]

Everly’s Diary - Entry #2

Synopsis: Eve enjoys the chaos and wonderment of the winter holidays, and the wait for her Hogwarts letter continues!

Words: 1,360

Date: 27th of December, 2025

Dear Diary,

It’s been a few days since nearly all the holiday celebrations have been… well, celebrated. Now we simply await the new year! I’m saddened to say that my Hogwarts letter has not yet arrived, but mum and dad say I have nothing to worry about. I certainly hope they’re right, though my cousin did once say I might not get in since my family isn’t ‘pure-blood,’ whatever that means. But then my uncle scolded him and said that ‘no one has given a rats tail about blood purity since the nineties,’ so, who knows.

Things have gotten crazy since my birthday. So many things to celebrate, after all! Of course, I know it’s all separate, but my brain kinda mashes everything together as one big winter celebration that lasts about a week between all the family members I have to see. There’s the Winter Solstice, otherwise known as Yule, which is more so recognized on my dad’s side, while my mum’s side prefers Christmas. Either way, the traditions, while amazing, have put me in a perpetual state of sleepiness.

I guess I’ll start with the things we did at my dads. For Yule, we got our Yule Log which we had carved from an oak tree and burned with runestones for light, warmth, and happiness in the dark days ahead - Kaunaz, Peorth, and Wunjo. After the Yule Log was lit, we did a candlelight walk with several witches and wizards my mum and dad are friends with.

In this celebration, we both greet and say farewell to the darkest day of the year, and know that from here on out, we will be gradually granted more sunlight. When the sun had gone down, we lit a pathway through a forest nearby with candles and lanterns. Everyone gathered around a bonfire and sang a song, which, I wish I could remember the words to. I should have written it down right after, truthfully. It reminded me very much of the kind of song a phoenix would sing - rebirth, and light in the dark. With everyone singing it all together, it was quite haunting but also filled me with an odd sort of hope. I'll ask my parents what the song was tomorrow, I think.

We then walked the lit pathway with our own lanterns and candles in hand, in complete silence. The world around us seemed an endless black oblivion, with only tiny flames to follow. I nearly slipped once or twice, too. It was, like I said, dark, but on top of that, it was also quite muddy.

When we got home, we all had a dinner of soups, bread, and roasted vegetables, and I did a tarot reading with a Yule-specific spread I had gotten from a book my mother gave me. It was designed after a Christmas tree, with five questions for me to answer. The first was called ‘the star’ and asked me what my life had looked like the past year. For this, I drew the Empress in reverse. Based off of what the book that came with my tarot deck had to say, this means that I’ve felt like something has been lacking in my life, and I am unsatisfied. It suggests that I take a step back from things that lack creativity and look to myself to see what I am craving.

Next was ‘the branches’, which asks me what I appreciate most about myself. For this, I drew the one of coins, which suggests that I appreciate inspiration and positivity, and am willing to work hard to achieve these things. After that was ‘the needles’ which ask me what my greatest weaknesses are. For this, I had drawn the nine of swords, which says that I torment myself with my own thoughts, which means that ultimately, my own anxieties are my greatest enemies.

Following that is ‘the pinecones’ which asks how I can make positive changes for my future. At this I pulled the knight of coins, which tells me to apply determination and perseverance in the future, to maintain my goals and push through any trials I may face. Lastly, for ‘the trunk,’ I am asked what I should pay attention to, to keep me moving in a good direction. For this, I ironically enough pulled the Emperor in reverse. This warns me that someone with authority over me may abuse my ‘good nature’ and that I should be cautious of manipulation. I can’t think of anyone I know who is like that, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out…

After my Yule reading, my dad and I made ‘witch balls’ which are glass ornaments that you decorate. Muggles believe that the ornaments by themselves will be enough to ward away negativity, but dad put a few charms on them. ‘Just in case,’ he said. I filled mine with some pine needles, cinnamon, hazelnut, powdered ginger, citrine, and garnet, and then painted a star on the outside with gold paint. I decided against hanging it on the tree and instead hung it in my window.

At that point, it had gotten quite late, so I went to bed and had very peculiar dreams. I dreamed as though I were but a few inches tall, and climbed on my windowsill. I used a candle like it were a broomstick, and flew into the sky. I had an old-timey nightcap on like the kind my grandpa wears, and I used it as a sort of bag to collect the stars from out of the night sky. It was a pleasant dream, really.

The next day, I had gone to my mum’s house for Christmas. I had a very long debate with her about how Santa is probably just a really old wizard who borrowed the Philosopher's stone, and how he probably uses floo powder and apparition to get everywhere with his red velvet bag that has obviously been enchanted with an extension charm and featherlight. Mum laughed and says it’s impossible, but sometimes I hear about Christmas miracles that make me think otherwise.

When we got home, I helped my mom make gingerbread ornaments to hang on the tree. Mine didn’t turn out quite as nice as hers had - I was particularly messy with the icing. By the time we had finished, mum and my stepdad’s family had arrived, and it was time for dinner on Christmas Eve.

I ate enough to make me sick. Mostly mashed potatoes, but I also had a great deal of chicken pot pie, and this baked fruit my mom makes - yams, prunes, and apples with brown sugar. Then, we opened presents. I didn’t get a whole lot this year, which is fine, honestly. I’d had such an amazing birthday, after all. Though I did get this stuffed fox with snowflakes printed on its velvetine fur, and it’s probably my favourite present so far.

Only one other thing happened that night, something I haven’t fully wrapped my head around. If I were a muggle, I’m sure it would have been quite frightening. While I was trying, and quite frankly failing, to fall asleep, I heard a clattering in the living room. I thought for sure that my theory about Ole’ St. Nicholas had been correct, but when I poked my head around the corner, I saw someone of transparent silver, who seemed to be the saddest creature I’d ever seen. She looked and sounded like a woman, and drifted around the Christmas tree. It seemed like she was trying to put out the candles that were hung from it.

I sat there watching her for a long time, all wrapped up and hidden in my blanket with my fox in my arms. But eventually, I drifted to sleep, and by the time I had woken up not more than an hour later, she was gone. I’m not sure I’ll ever see her again or know her story, but according to mum, ghosts are common in our world, and all muggles really fear is ‘that of the unknown.’

I’ve written quite a bit, and that’s about everything that happened, so I suppose I’ll stop for the night. I’ve managed to stay up late, again, but luckily, I can sleep in. See you next time, in 2026 perhaps?

Sleep well! - Everly

About the Character: Everly Rosemary Kindred is an imaginative Hufflepuff attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She keeps up with her magical journey through a series of diary entries, dream journals, and tarot readings, all documented for future reflection. Her diary is a small glimpse into her enchanted life, and her adventure into the wizarding world and all its splendors. If you’d like more information about Eve, visit her wiki page. 

About the Author: My name is Elowen! I am a 21-year-old Hufflepuff & Pukwudgie from Louisville, Kentucky. This page is my creative journey into the magical world, through the lenses of Second Life. Here I post diary entries, dream journals, and tarot readings all from my character’s perspective. If you’d like more information about me, visit my Flickr! 

Outfit Credits:

Hair - TRUTH / Beatrix

Fox - EF: Spirit Animals: Winter - Fox

Nightgown - hazy . dreamer baby . M 9

Necklace #1 - .Atomic. {Unicorn Horn} Necklace

Necklace #2 - Kibitz - Magical moon and star necklace - copper

[oxfordeliterp]

CONGRATULATIONS, RO!

You have been accepted to play the role of NICHOLAS MERCER with the faceclaim of DOUGLAS BOOTH. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I am well aware of your first choice, but trust me when I say that I would have done you a great injustice not giving you the role of Nick. The twists you have picked for him, the paragraph sample you have masterfully done, every tweak and change and elaboration convinced me that you are the perfect player for him. You understand a character that I have always found tricky and have captured him to the last detail. A simple compliment regarding the twist on his relationship with Lucas wouldn’t suffice, for it is a detail that deserves endless praise. You are an incredibly good writer and, it seems, one of the friendliest people on this site  — and I cannot wait to see more of both you and Nicholas. Thank you for your cooperation and dedication, and know that they did not go unnoticed.

Name and pronouns: Ro - He/Him

Age: 26

Time-zone: PST

Activity level: I am a film student in third year, about to head into the summer. I tend to be very busy, but I’ve also been committed to RP as a part of my regular life and creative outlet for upwards of ten years. I should always make activity (and I’ll always contact you if I run into any issues) and I’d likely be doing replies a couple times a week. I try to lurk on the daily, but if I work in the industry again this summer, the hours are insane so I tend to be on the most on the weekends!

Triggers: removed for privacy

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Nicholas Mercer - Nick is a very enthralling character to me. I’m drawn to the way he is at war with himself - the distaste and discomfort he feels when he looks in the mirror and can hardly meet his own gaze. I’m drawn to the compulsion he has to keep up this act and web of lies, despite the growing shame he feels at his own actions, because the shame he feels by his own roots is worse. I love that he’s a charmer, and has always been praised for his looks and brains and potential, and yet his smiles and confidence are in many ways an act carefully designed to hide the deep seeded insecurity and uncertainty underneath.

Gender and pronouns of the character: Male, He/Him

Changes: FCs: Man, this is hard to choose. Douglas Booth (I didn’t know he was in the film actually, haha, I’d never seen it) he’s a good fit with appropriate charm in his gifs, Daniel Sharman, who would maybe be my first pick, were it easier to find smiley-charmy gifs of him, and Zayn Malik - a less stereotyped approach, but I kind of like that and he’s got great gifs for it. If i get this role you may have to help me choose LOL. I’m unsure who’s best. I keep flip-flopping. At first I thought Douglas was the best bet but now I’m not sure.

Traits: Nicholas grew up believing that his value lied in how unlike the rest of the world he was. He was praised for his looks and his sharp, surprising mind. His teachers, classmates and parents spoke of little other than what a spectacle he was; how he stood out from the crowd, how his shine would make so many envy him. He was taught that these were the things that mattered because these were the things those who were meant to care for him seemed to value most about him. These were the things they were proud of.

And so growing up he developed followers and admirers, but not friends. He grew up having to protect these material and shallow things about himself because they were the only things his parents seemed truly invested in. Money and admiration were what he needed to be somebody. To matter and to make a mark, to not disappear into irrelevance. In short, he is deeply insecure and has a skewed sense of self worth. He only values in himself what he believes others have valued in him, and has become obsessed with protecting that ‘It-boy’ image in order to maintain his reason to be seen.

Headcanons/plot ideas:

Nick is a hard one to pinpoint, and I could go a few different ways for what he’s studying. Currently I’m thinking Law or Social Anthropology.

Nick is gay. I think it says something remarkable (and remarkably sad) about his determination to marry for money and status, and it speaks loads about his self-image. It makes me absolutely ache, how trapped he feels, how desperate and how self-loathing, and that’s the real reason he can’t look himself in the eye when he looks in a mirror. He’s ashamed on one level, for being ‘poor’ and not good enough, and ashamed on a whole other level, for being fraudulent, a liar, a deceiver and a coward. His levels of self-loathing and pain are bone deep and twisted around his ribs in a way that truly inspires me as a character driven writer. I could explore him endlessly. He has so much potential and I love him so much!

I’m interested in looking at his relationship with Lucas. I don’t want to rush any decisions until I get my feet wet and explore him a little and let the character show me how he feels, but I could see his relationship with Lucas as being one potentially unrequited of feelings Nick may be keeping tucked under his tongue. With everything else he’s feeling and hiding, and the fact that Lucas is one of the few people he feels really connected to at school, I could see that as being something he struggles with or something that develops. Either way, however, it’s a complicated and precious dynamic I’m excited about.

PARA SAMPLE

Scholarship.

The word felt filthy on the edges of his tongue. Before it even left his throat, stuck there at the wall of his too-white teeth. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like a confession that would tumble him apart. It felt like a truth so ugly it made all his lies feel like beautiful, caressing companions.

Scholarship. He lived in fear of the way the word exposed him, and as he stood in the men’s room, palms gripping the edge of the damp, marble counters, he hoped to God it never came up with his date sitting across the table from him. Hoped she hadn’t heard, somehow, through a furiously whispered rumour that he sometimes felt certain was ghosting at his tailcoat as he strutted through the corridors of Oxford. He was haunted by any remnants of his past still surface enough to peer through the veil of glass and sand he’d tried to bury it with.

He’s spent years perfecting his walk, his talk, his privileged smile and he’s so good at it now that he at times can even convince himself. Some days, he’s almost reinvented the truth. Has become so familiar with the lies that they’ve made him a nest in a safe, new reality.

But the rest of the time he lived in constant fear of that other shoe dropping.

The back splash tiles of the bathroom sink were pitch black and so shiny he could see himself in them. It was like even the room was laughing at him, and his reluctancy to look himself in the mirror with any kind of conviction. Too cowardly to face the twisted boy that Oxford had mangled him into. It was easier to blame the school. Easier to say that the pressure of the Riot Club and the prestige he was so constantly cloaked in, was responsible for his poorly justified choices, for his backburner-ing of integrity. His pride was forged in the cold grey slate of his artifice, and if you looked too closely you could see the places it was chipped.

The echoing sound of the door opening, of cutlery and chatter swooping into the space before the door slid shut again, shook him from his reverie and he twisted ornate taps with hurried fingers, running his palms under the flow as the sound of fine-Italian soles clacked behind his back and stopped at a urinal.

He breathed. Exhaled the breath he’d been holding, actually, and cupped cool water into his hands to splash it over his face. He didn’t always lose his cool. In fact, in company, he rarely did. The fact that he’d gotten so God damn good at this was half the reason guilt feasted on him as savagely as it did. He didn’t crack with an audience, but the pressure to perform so consistently made his solitude more of a place of unwanted reflection than of refuge. The silence gave him time to stop and think and hate and regret; all things he neither needed nor had the energy for. What he needed was to be kept busy. Moving constantly, his performance uninterrupted, so that in doing so he might forget everything it was he was running from. Everything he was covering up.

It was all Lana’s fault. He’d been holding the door open for his date (a pretty blonde thing with jewels around her neck worth the same dollar value as the tits sitting too-high and too-solid on her narrow ribcage to be natural) when Lana Chambers had strolled passed clutching her handbag and ducking under the umbrella of whatever current company she was in. And he’d seen it in her eyes—the nugget of truth she wielded, a weapon that could so easily destroy him. He’d seen the shadow of knowledge flick across her raven’s wings eyes as she’d glanced at him, then at his date.

He hated the way she looked at him—regardless of what she was thinking, he could’t shake the feeling she knew what he was up to. Knew all his darkest secrets, all the workings of his seduction on these women who would stabilize his status as top-tier. Couldn’t help but fear she would find a way to air his dirty laundry for the world to see—even if she hadn’t been privy to much of it. There was no way she could know the things he’d never told a soul. No way she could know how deeply his seduction of these women was a lie. No way she could know the way he looked at Lucas.

She couldn’t know. But his best friend was the only thing in his world among the elite that felt genuine and he couldn’t help but fear she’d find a way to take that from him. She was the only one with the power to.

So fragile, he was, for such a God among mortals. So tenuous was his falsified confidence, his calculated swagger. He could be taken apart so easily by a woman who knew too much. One thread was all it would take to unravel his web of lies. How long until he cracked under the heavy choke of his sacrifices? What he was giving up in order to obtain the one thing that he could count on making him memorable? Maintaining his significance.

And there was nothing worse he could think of, in this world of material, power and prestige, than being rendered insignificant.

[enzaime-blog]

Saving Grace: Finding Hope for a Seizure-Free Future

New Story has been published on https://enzaime.com/saving-grace-finding-hope-seizure-free-future/

Saving Grace: Finding Hope for a Seizure-Free Future

After suffering her first epileptic seizure at just 10 days of age, Grace Chan required six separate brain surgeries as surgeons worked to remove the harmful tissue that was causing her seizures.

Ten days after giving birth, Christina Chen, M.D., was feeding her newborn daughter, Grace, when the young child’s arms and head suddenly began making brief jerking movements.

“It looked like a small seizure to me. But newborns do such strange things with their movements, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it,” Christina says. A few minutes later, Grace did it again. And then again. “I knew immediately at that time that we had to take her to the hospital,” Christina says. “She was having clusters of seizures.”

Grace’s first hospitalization at Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus, when she was only 10 days old, was scary for Grace, and for Christina and her husband, Aaron Chan. That’s in part because all of Grace’s lab tests, imaging studies and MRI scans looked normal. And while an electroencephalogram, or EEG, did confirm the seizures, it didn’t pinpoint a cause.

“I lost many nights of sleep either watching Grace’s every movement or researching literature about her condition. I had never felt so helpless in my life.” — Christina Chen, M.D.

“All we knew was that something was disturbing her brain’s electrical activity,” Christina says.

A fellow in Mayo Clinic’s Geriatric Medicine Fellowship at the time, Christina began thinking back to her “distant knowledge of pediatric neurology” and coming up with a harrowing array of worst-case scenarios.

“My mind was consumed with questions, and I poured over literature and readings about pediatric epilepsy,” says Christina, who’s now a senior associate consultant in Mayo Clinic’s Division of Employee and Community Health in Rochester. “I lost many nights of sleep either watching Grace’s every movement or researching literature about her condition. I had never felt so helpless in my life.”

An answer finally comes

The family’s search for answers, and a diagnosis, began to take shape when Grace’s care team in Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurology — who Christina calls “some of the most thorough, compassionate and intelligent people I have ever met” — took a closer look at Grace’s MRI scan. The team, led by pediatric neurologist Lily Wong Kisiel, M.D., found an area over the right side of Grace’s brain that didn’t look right.

“It was so subtle that it was initially missed,” Christina says. “All the EEG studies correlated to her seizures coming from that focal area of her brain.”

With this new finding, Grace’s care team felt confident diagnosing her with cortical dysplasia, which Christina describes as “basically an area of the brain where the nerve cells didn’t migrate normally during development.” As scary as that may sound to some, Christina says the diagnosis comforted her and Aaron. “We were actually overjoyed to hear this information,” she says. “We had a diagnosis that was not terminal. We had answers.”

They also learned that the only long-term treatment option for Grace’s condition would be surgery. Naturally, the thought of Grace going through brain surgery at such a young age was terrifying for her parents.

“Cortical dysplasias are a notorious cause for seizures and will not go away unless removed surgically. But at least cortical dysplasia is something that is potentially treatable.” — Christina Chen, M.D.

“Cortical dysplasias are a notorious cause for seizures and will not go away unless removed surgically,” Christina says. “But at least cortical dysplasia is something that is potentially treatable.”

The family wouldn’t find out for sure, however, until Grace got a little older. “The recommendations were to grow her a little more until she was at least 6 months old, ideally a year old,” Christina says. “Her little brain at 10 days old was way too fragile for such a major surgery.”

To help her get there, doctors prescribed medications to control Grace’s seizures. They then allowed Christina and Aaron to take her home, where the next five months were seizure-free for Grace.

“We watched her grow each day,” Christina says. “She was developing so well, smiling and laughing with us all the time. She loved people and being around strangers. We watched all her milestones evolve. She was rolling over, sitting by herself, trying to crawl. It was incredible.”

A six-week nightmare

All of that changed on the way home from a family trip to Chicago.

“Grace wasn’t acting right in the car,” Christina says. “She was staring off into space and wouldn’t stop drooling. She looked a little swollen around the face and seemed like she was having a hard time breathing.”

Christina and Aaron took Grace to a local emergency department where she was treated for what they believed was an anaphylactic reaction to something she ate. Grace recovered from the episode. She was soon discharged from the hospital and on her way back home with her parents. But the next day, her seizures returned.

“This time, she was in status epilepticus (non-stop seizures), and it went on for 45 minutes before we were finally able to control it,” Christina says.

That incident, Christina says, marked the beginning of the family’s “six-week nightmare” in the hospital with Grace. Doctors at Mayo initially had trouble getting Grace’s seizures under control.

“The first week, we had to repeat all of her studies,” she says. “She had wires hanging from every extremity. That made it difficult for us to hold her and comfort her. The whole time she was having seizures that required rescue medicines to stop them. Basically, by the end of the week, our routine was trying to get Grace to take naps because once she was awake, she would have seizures.”

From bad to worse

A week later, Grace’s condition deteriorated to the point that she required a breathing tube and was transferred to an intensive care unit, where she was put on a continuous drip of medication to stop her seizures.

“This was probably one of the darkest and most difficult times Aaron and I have ever gone through,” Christina says.

Through their church, Christina and Aaron had come to know Sheri Crow, M.D., a pediatric intensivist at Mayo Clinic who happened to be working in the ICU the week Grace was admitted.

“She treated Grace with the utmost, thorough care, and provided our family with such amazing support,” Christina says of Dr. Crow.

“Aaron and I were so grateful that we were receiving care at Mayo Clinic, because I don’t think things would’ve been expedited so quickly at any other institution.” — Christina Chen, M.D.

After Grace was stabilized, her first brain surgery would come much sooner than expected, due to the growing severity and frequency of her seizures.

“Aaron and I were so grateful that we were receiving care at Mayo Clinic, because I don’t think things would’ve been expedited so quickly at any other institution,” Christina says.

Grace’s first surgery, performed by Nicholas Wetjen, M.D. in the Department of Neurosurgery, took approximately four hours. After the procedure was finished, Christina says she was just happy to see her little girl still alive.

“Her face was a little swollen and her right eye was swollen shut, but she was extubated pretty quickly,” she says. “She looked at us afterward and smiled a few times. Our hearts melted, and we were filled with hope that this was the end of it all.”

As the family would soon find out, however, that would not be the case.

A ‘miraculous recovery’

Despite the perceived success of Grace’s initial surgery, her seizures returned a few days later, and they were worse than before. She began having seizures that would wake her from sleep, so she wasn’t able to get a good night’s rest. Sleep deprivation then made the seizures worse. Grace’s care team ordered more EEG and MRI exams. Those exams showed that part of the abnormal tissue causing Grace’s seizures was still inside her brain. That, of course, meant another surgery.

“They wanted to make sure that this was the only place of seizure focus, so after another week on the ventilator, she underwent a larger surgery, this time in a two-part process,” Christina says.

It was during that surgery that Grace’s neurosurgeons discovered there were more areas of her brain that were affected than originally thought. That meant Grace would need more surgeries to remove all of the abnormal tissue and ensure her seizures stopped for good.

“[Grace is] a consistent reminder that anything is possible, and that we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Mayo Clinic.” — Aaron Chan

All told, young Grace would have a total of six separate brain surgeries at Mayo Clinic. And while each one came with its own brand of complexity and uncertainty, taken together, they’ve helped Grace become a happy, healthy and seizure-free five-year-old. A five-year-old who, among other things, loves playing outside, going to zoos, eating vanilla ice cream and playing games on her iPad.

Grace also recently participated in her first play, graduated from preschool, and is preparing to start kindergarten this fall — just like other kids her age. For that, her parents couldn’t be more thankful.

“Every year that passes since her surgery, I’m reminded of her miraculous recovery,” Aaron says. “We really had no idea how she would recover. Now she is going to be starting kindergarten next year. She’s a consistent reminder that anything is possible, and that we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Mayo Clinic.”