#also burial rituals can get people sick

[augustheart]

leverage fighting supernatural creatures concepts from me and @theboost.

we used fighting kind of... loosely. we also used the concept of supernatural creature pretty loosely. this post is so long i had to put part of it under a cut.

mummy: they have to run a con on a museum at the request of another member of leverage international who has been trying to return a mummy to a burial site for months with no success. parker dresses as a mummy and keeps jumping out to scare people because the entire con hinges on making the mark believe the mummy is legitimately cursed. it gets breanna every single time and eventually she destroys the mummy costume. at the end of the episode breanna sees a mummy shuffling around a corner and asks where parker got a second mummy costume. "what second mummy costume?" parker says from next to her. EPISODE ENDS

werewolf: eliot and hardison are on a road trip together and end up in a small farming town that's terrified of whatever has been causing the deaths of their livestock. a guy with a condition where he's really hairy is being persecuted for being a werewolf. they meet a wise old lady with an adopted daughter who's sick who says something like "you know appearances... they can be deceiving. even in a place like this, not everything is as it seems, especially under the full moon." they uncover the mayor is behind a group that's poisoning the water (maybe by looking at the water under moonlight idk i'm not that kind of scientist), causing the girl's sickness and the deaths of the livestock. as they leave town hardison teases eliot for believing in werewolves (this has been a c-plot the whole time) and then looks out the window and sees two werewolves, the old lady and her daughter. EPISODE ENDS

witches: alice white joins an MLM based on ~divine feminine energy~ so parker can take it down from the inside. it's all based on easily faked "magic" and sleight of hand, and she keeps impressing them by pointing out how they're doing their tricks and then replicating them because hardison had a whole phase where he wanted to learn stage magic or something. they're so impressed they invite her to a ritual but they ask her to bring a virgin sacrifice. parker immediately brings harry ("i'm not a virgin?" "the magic isn't REAL harry"). they get some of harry's blood and start doing shit that can't possibly be faked. it goes wrong because he isn't a virgin and a demon kills the witches but allows parker and harry to live because they're using aliases and not their true names or whatever. somehow this destroys the MLM. EPISODE ENDS

mermaid: breanna meets a girl at the beach who keeps looking at her with big wet sad eyes and telling her about how the fish are dying because of pollution. she is only ever in the water up to her waist. breanna is immediately smitten and they stop the top polluter. they kiss in celebration and then the girl is like "i'm sorry... i can't be with you..." and she dives underwater and we see her tail as she swims away. EPISODE ENDS

ghosts part one: harry meets a beautiful lady because he heard someone crying and wandered down a street looking for them. he promises to help her save her destined-for-foreclosure house that she says has been in her family for 100 years or something. the rest of the team conveniently never sees her but is willing to help. after they save her house she kisses him (he's thrilled) and tells him she'll be right back before going into the house. a car pulls up and an older woman gets out. she's like "oh i can't believe you managed to save it. i really thought they'd destroy this place." harry asks her if she's a friend of the family and she says "it was my mother's before she died [x] years ago." harry goes inside to look for the lady but she's gone. EPISODE ENDS

ghosts part two, this one is insane: it's halloween. a car carrying a murderer crashes into something and the murderer dies while eliot tries to do cpr on him (he was next to the crash site but has no connection to the case) only to pull a charles lee ray and push eliot's soul out of his body and possess him. the serial killer wanders around in eliot's body observing before pulling a gun on hardison because he's annoying him too much. parker and hardison look at each other and Immediately go "serial killer ghost." breanna has had a ouija board tapestry hanging up on the wall that keeps falling down because eliot is trying to communicate with them. they lay it out and eliot explains things to them. hardison asks if they're sure this is eliot and not just another ghost trying to trick them. the ouija board painstakingly spells out "dammit hardison." they decide the only thing they can do is have eliot fight the ghost out of his body. he possesses a willing harry and makes him ragdoll around while he fights him. as the clock strikes midnight because idk ghosts can't stay in their bodies past midnight on halloween because they can only possess you on halloween Or Something eliot pushes the serial killer out of his body. EPISODE ENDS

faerie: sophie is kidnapped by faeries and brought before a jury because she didn't call queen titania back after they hooked up, which means the rest of the team has to go there to save her. eliot is pissed because he can't eat any of the food and they won't let him take stuff back to the human world where eating it would be harmless. harry is absolutely thriving because in a world of doublespeak a formerly evil lawyer is a king. it's revealed he actually has been to the faerie realm to do trials tons of times but they wipe his memory at the end of each one so he doesn't reveal any secrets to humans. they free sophie and bring her back to the human world when she promises to call titania back. she immediately throws titania's number away again. "so needy." EPISODE ENDS

dragon: the team has to infiltrate a crime ring. the crime ring is very dragon themed with dragon tattoos and ranks named after dragonslayers and shit like that. they just assume the dragon is metaphorical but then when eliot passes the test to rise through the ranks he's brought before a chained up dragon and they're like "the dragon will choose if you're worthy!!" he's like "WHAT the fuck." they save the dragon and set it free at the end of the episode despite parker begging to keep it. it says "thank you" and flies away despite never speaking before then. EPISODE ENDS

phantom of the opera: sophie has like a struggling theater she volunteers with and one of the girls there is being stalked by some weird guy. harry immediately asks if this is going to be like phantom of the opera and starts blasting the soundtrack constantly. sophie meets a guy with an eyepatch or a covid mask or something and recognizes him as a former broadway star. he ends up being the stalker. at the end it's revealed he is Literally the phantom of the opera. breanna says something like "okay so eliot and alec saw a werewolf and now we just fought the phantom of the opera. are there any other classic universal monsters i should know about?" hardison says "oh i fought the invisible man." they all turn and look at him. he shrugs. EPISODE ENDS

psychic: breanna dates a psychic who keeps saving her from improbable final destination style accidents. the team becomes convinced she's orchestrating these accidents for some nefarious purpose. breanna insists that no her girlfriend is just psychic and there's a montage like the one in quantum leap set to i want to know what love is but instead of a sex montage it's a romance montage because breanna is asexual. parker is disturbed due to her established understandable emotional turmoil after the future job. they have to help the psychic after she sees her own death. maybe the phantom of the opera is involved again idk. EPISODE ENDS

troll: someone is trying to put tolls on freeways by lobbying the department of transportation. they also keep making people answer really shitty riddles with answers that aren't at all obvious. when they answer one of their riddles right in the final ten minutes they explode. their name is like t. roll or something. EPISODE ENDS

the leprechaun from the leprechaun movies: okay at this point we were really tired and i'd been laughing hysterically for the past two hours. but someone finds his pot of gold and spends it on some stuff like medical bills and the leprechaun shows up and does his stupid bullshit. the client turns to the leverage team for help. they're convinced it's a gas leak until one of them sees the leprechaun not in the client's house. harry accidentally spends one of the leprechaun's coins. eliot keeps trying to fight the leprechaun but his bullshit magic lets him evade all his punches. i don't remember how we said this one would end

bigfoot: closing us out with the one i actually think could happen. they don't fight bigfoot!! they help conserve and protect some natural habitat by faking a bigfoot sighting and scaring off some shady developers (i am now realizing that i am describing a reverse scooby gang)! throughout the whole episode parker has been consistently reaffirming her belief in bigfoot and casually describing bigfoot encounters she's heard about while breanna and sophie try to convince her bigfoot isn't real. she manages to get harry, eliot, and hardison to be on her side. breanna sees bigfoot at the end of the episode but sophie doesn't believe her. EPISODE ENDS

[ausetkmt]

Knights of Liberty - Wikipedia

Pictured here is Moses Dickson, from the frontispiece illustration of the 1879 book A Manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle. In 1872, the Rev. Moses Dickson founded the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor, an African-American fraternal order focused on benevolence and financial programs. Dickson was born a free man in Cincinnati in 1824, was a Union soldier during the Civil War, and afterwards became a prominent clergyman in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dickson showed an interest in progressive fraternal organizations early on – in 1846 Dickson, with others, founded a society known as the Knights of Liberty, whose objective was to overthrow slavery; the group did not get beyond the organizing stages. Dickson was also involved in Freemasonry – he was the second Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri.

Dickson’s International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor – or Order of Twelve, as it’s more commonly know – accepted men and women on equal terms. Men and women met together in higher level groups and in the governance of the organization, although at the local level they met separately – the men in “temples” and the women in “tabernacles” (akin to “lodges” in Freemasonry). The Order of Twelve was most prominent in the South and the lower Midwest. The major benefits to members – similar to many fraternal orders of the time – was a burial policy and weekly cash payments for the sick.

What many people today remember about the Order of Twelve is an institution founded in Mound Bayou, Misssissippi in 1942 – the Taborian Hospital. Michael Premo, a Story Corps facilitator, posted his appreciation for the impact that the Taborian Hospital had on the lives of African-Americans living in the Mississippi Delta from the 1940s-1960s. The Taborian Hospital was on the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s 10 Most Endangered List of 2000, and an update to that list indicates that the hospital still stands vacant and seeks funding for renovation. Here are some photos of the Taborian Hospital today.

Want to learn more about the Order of Twelve? Here are a few primary and secondary sources that we have here in our collection (with primary sources listed first):

Dickson, Moses. A Manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle, including the Ceremonies of the Order, Constitutions, Installations, Dedications, and Funerals, with Forms, and the Taborian Drill and Tactics. St. Louis, Mo. : G. I. Jones [printer], 1879. Call number: RARE HS 2259 .T3 D5 1879

—-. Ritual of Taborian Knighthood, including : the Uniform Rank. St. Louis, Mo. : A. R. Fleming & Co., printers, 1889. Call number: RARE HS 2230 .T3 D5 1889

Beito, David. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social services, 1890-1967. Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Call number: 44 .B423 2000

Skocpol, Theda, Ariane Liazos, Marshall Ganz. What a Mighty Power We Can Be : African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2006. Call number: 90 .S616 2006 (1)

(1)  From The National Heritage Museum -   http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2008/05/moses-dickson-a.html

SOME ADDITIONAL INTERESTING INFORMATION ABOUT MOSES DICKSON

Moses Dickson, prior to the Civil War was a traveling barber.  Later he became an AME minister and was known as Father Dickson.

He was one of the Founders of the Lincoln Institute, now Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Misouri.

In 1879 along with others such as James Milton Turner, John Wheeler and John Turner he helped create the Committee of Twenty Five, organized to set up temporary housing for the more than 10,000 travelers who passed through St. Louis each year.

He was President of the Refugee Relief Board in St. Louis which helped to shelter and feed 16,000 former slaves who relocated to Kansas.

Moses Dickson was the first Grand Lecturer of the Most Worhipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri upon its foundation in 1865.  He was the second Grand Master of this Grand Lodge and the Grand Secretary in 1869.

In 1876 Companion Moses dickson was elected Deputy Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of Holy Royal Arch Masons of Missouri and Jurisdiction.

Moses Dickson wrote the Ritual of Heroines of Jericho penning the “Master Mason’s Daughter,” the “True Kinsman,” and “Heroines of Jericho” degrees. It was sold and distributed by the Moses Dickson Regalia and Supply Co., Kansas City, Missouri and entered into the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. in the year 1895.

The Knights of Liberty was organized by 12 Black Men in secret in August, 1846 in St. Louis, Missouri.  They were also known as the Knights of Tabor or the International Order of Twelve. Tabor is a Biblical mountain in Israel where the Israelites won a big victory over the Canaanites.

Moses Dickson was a leader of the Underground Railroad.  He and 47,000 other Knights enlisted in the Union Army as soon as Linclon authorized Black men to sign up.

Disbanded by the Civil War many of the Knights of Liberty reformed after the War was over into a benevolent fraternal society named the International Order of the Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Moses Dickson authored “International Order of Twelve 333 of Knights and Daughters of Tabor,” a book outlining the Constitution, Rules and Regulations of the Temples of the Uniform Rank of Tabor and Taborian Division.

Moses Dickson died on November 28, 1901. A truly remarkable man!

Originally published at the National Heritage Museum’s blog. The National Heritage Museum is an American history museum founded and supported by 32° Scottish Rite Freemasons in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States of America.

[jupitermelichios]

those are all super good points, especially about magic being a key means of social mobility - given every religious leader of the old religion we see is a magic user, it probably came with a degree of religious power, which can in turn provide political power if you're prepared to use it, especially if you're prepared to use it in direct service of the crown

which also ties into what you're saying about the purge including magic supporters - it gets glossed over in the show but the implication is very much that the purge is a religious war, they're throwing out the old religion at the same time as the magic users, that's part of why the druids are persecuted. it may be that this change had already begun, the new religion may even already have been the state religion, but so many of the magic users are tied to the old religion that i think at minimum, the two faiths were co-existing, and I don't think it's too wild a supposition to assume that there was still widespread belief and practise of the old religion, and that this was cracked down on at the same time as uther was purging individual magic users, so of course there would be significant numbers of non-magic users who fought and were executed, because they're being ordered to change their faith. a lot more people were probably willing to fight for that than would have been willng to fight purely for the protection of magic users (especially if magic users tend to hold some degree of political power)

even people who weren't especially religious would have strong views, because it's not just a matter of salvation, from what we see of the ways the old religion is part of the lives of practitioners, it probably opperated very like christianity in medieval europe and it was part of everything. declaring the old religion to be illegal means marriages suddenly may not be valid, contracts sworn under religious oaths may not be legal, there's almost certainly implications for inheritance, really central rituals of life like burials for the dead and naming day customs for babies have to change, probably at pretty short notice.

combine that with the fact that healers and doctors almost all have ties to the old religion in the show, so medecine and medical treatment is also massively disrupted as everyone from village healers to famous experts like gaius are getting executed, and if they're not, they're suddenly losing access to a huge portion of their healing techniques that rely on magic. diseases that were treated with magic by default, and had been for generations, suddenly have no treatment, even if you can find a doctor who hasn't been executed!

there was probably a famine, or at least food insecurity, because you've got this massive disruption to life and the loss of labour, and if sickness followed, as it usually does after periods of scarcity, especially when you've lost most of your doctors, there'd be almost no way to fight an outbreak of something like scarlet feaver or plague. even just the usual winter flu outbreaks were probably significantly more deadly in the years immediately following the purge.

there really would be no aspect of life that wasn't screwed up, so widescale depopulation was pretty much inevitable

What if in Season 1 when Arthur tells Merlin to like, get all these things done, he doesn't actually mean like, Merlin is supposed to do them.

Like part of Merlin's job is supposed to be bringing that dented helmet to like, the fuckin blacksmith and then remembering to pick it up later but Merlin just doesn't know so he's doing it all himself.

And then Arthur is annoyed because hes like, why is my servant never around???

It's because Merlin is, personally, himself, trying to re-sharpen Arthur's entire collection of weapons instead of like, bringing those to the head of the armoury and explaining what Arthur wanted done.

Arthur's like, where have you been??? And Merlin is like, wtf why is he so annoyed with me.

"Fixing your boots! Doing your chores!"

And in Merlin's head this is like, he spent three hours hand stitching Arthur's boots, polishing his armour, and doing his laundry, he's like of course I haven't been around how long does this asshole think it takes to do all those things???

In Arthur's head he's like, it should have taken like, 1 hour to polish my armour and like 20 minutes tops to drop off my boots and laundry at the appropriate places?? Arthur's like, is Merlin an idiot? Did he just like? Get lost??? And that's why Arthur thinks Merlin's an idiot

[sukifans]

Hi!! I'm avoiding actually working because I don't like my job and I'm down to learn ebola facts!!

What actually is it? And how bad are the symptoms? -🍓

okay uhh GENERAL CW for lots of gross death and disease stuff (my fave)

oh now you’ve gone and done it lol. okay so basically it’s a family of viruses called filoviruses: threadlike chains of proteins that look like spaghetti under an electron microscope. they are rna viruses and contain only 7 different proteins and at the time of this book being written (1994), three of them were vaguely understood and other four were completely unknown. so far they’ve found marburg, ebola sudan, ebola zaire, and ebola reston. ebola reston is asymptomatic in humans and broke out in a facility in reston, va in 1989 where monkeys are shipped in from asia and africa and then are sent out to research centers around the country. marburg, sudan, and zaire are all highly lethal in humans—about 30%, 50%, and 90% fatality rates respectively. luckily for us, the known strains of ebola seem to bd pretty hard to catch (ie they are not known to be airborne, only infectious when contaminated fluids come into contact with a person’s blood, open skin, or mucous membranes). ebola reston seemed to be transmissible via air droplets, based on what happened with the monkeys, but it didn’t cause illness in humans.

here’s a basic overview of how the viruses attack cells: they can penetrate the cell membrane and use the cell’s machinery to replicate itself (viruses cannot “live” without a host). ebola replicates itself to form “bricks” of virus in inclusion bodies, until the cell gets so packed with virus that it bursts and releases the pathogen to other cells. some viruses are specialized to certain cell types—red blood cells, lung tissue cells, intestinal cells, etc, but ebola targets basically everything, which is why it’s so devastating. zaire attacks every organ and tissue except skeletal muscle and bone.

the symptoms are basically the result of the virus liquifying you from the inside out, turning all your cells into viral-loaded mush. it usually starts out with some flulike symptoms like headache/fatigue/backache which escalate into vomiting, bodyache, and fever. then people’s faces tend to go “expressionless” with droopy eyelids and red eyes and the pain in the abdomen and muscles intensifies. the skin becomes jaundiced due to liver damage and a spotty red rash that starts to spread all over the body due to hemorrhaging under the skin. personalities often start to change as clots start to throw in the brain and cause damage. small clots that started in blood vessels all over the body are causing the blood to thicken and stick to vessel walls. this causes bigger clots and can cut off blood supply to cause dead spots in organs and skin tissue (the hemorrhage rash). the virus destroys collagen and connective tissue so the skin and organ walls start to go soft and mushy. the skin basically sags off the body, and the red rash turns into massive bruises

then, the real fun of “hemorrhagic fever” begins—the patient starts to bleed from every opening in the body, which can even include weeping blood and bleeding around the teeth and salivary glands. the problem is, the bleeding continues without clotting, almost as in hemophilia, because all the clotting factors have been exhausted at the massive clots around the body. at this point, the patient is now throwing up “black vomit” which is a mix of fresh blood and black granules of old blood. in this process, the linings of the windpipe, throat, and surface of the tongue can be sloughed off and vomited up. the intestinal lining is also sloughed off with large amounts of blood out the anus. this is the “crash” stage of ebola—at this point the patient is nearly braindead from clots cutting off oxygen to the brain (more pronounced in ebola infections vs marburg and can cause grand mal seizures) and the heart muscles has been softened to the point where blood leaks into the chambers and floods the chest cavity. often the patient is killed from blood loss and shock due to the crash, or can go into a coma or suffer a heart attack. basically, ya dead

autopsies of ebola victims are pretty brutal. the organs look like they belong to someone who was basically walking dead—a corpse a few hours old can look as if the person died days before. the abdominal cavity is filled with blood, the organs are mush, and there are necrotic spots all over the tissue from the blood clots. not fun!! nasty stuff!!

i bought his newer book about the 2013-2014 outbreaks that we all probably remember and i’m excited to read it bc all this info is from the 90s and i wanna know what new stuff has been found out while i also go find free copies of journal articles lol

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Weird, “A Preoccupation with Death.”

Hope you enjoy :)

Analysis By Dr. Krill MD

Humanity’s preoccupation with death has always fascinated me: I say fascinated because to say that it disturbs me would be rather unscientific, and I have been attempting to reign in my anger… I have had some… complaints over the last year about the unprofessionalism of my previous papers. The GA community does not appreciate, and I quote, “Excessive swearing, and screaming” in virtual reports, so today I will attempt to be calm and relaxed as I explain to you, common human traditions based around death.

Now you must understand, from my perspective these practices are quite bizarre. Vrull have no rituals associated with death. The Vrull are disposed of and their bodies are incinerated. The ash is then disposed with by mixing into the soil to produce needed plants on the planet surface. There are no other options, and no other arrangements are made.

However, I am told that funeral rights with humans are, often, more to do with what the living need than what the deceased do. However, there are some funeral rights believed to be required in certain human cultures, so that rule does not always hold completely true.

I will begin from the moment of death.

Unlike the Vrull humans do not know their exact time of death. Granted this is not because the Vrull have a set clocking system in their bodies which sets the time in which we die, but because our society sets forth a time of our usefulness. No one knows how long a Vrull can feasibly live because no one has tried it before. I myself might plan on finding out, as I have no intention of returning for my scheduled termination, which is already a year overdue.

Humans, like most other species die in several different ways, accidents, sickness, or the sudden failure of the body due to old age, the final one generally happening peacefully and in their sleep.

However this is where humans tend to diverge from their inhuman counterparts, in that they are very social creatures, the death of a human is usually witnessed by multiple family members and friends, in the case of sickness, and is mourned many weeks after because the death of someone in your social circle changes that circle forever. Social bonds are cut and entire social lives are upended. Humans bond so heavily with each other that the loss of one of their own can lead to mental and emotional trauma extreme enough to require medication and hospitalization.

Humans plan their deaths months to years in advance. In certain instances, their jobs force them to plan their death in advance in case something were to happen. Decisions need to be made about who owns their property, where it goes, what happens to their dwellings, and how the surviving members of their family will be supported. Sometimes they plan this due to terminal illness which they knew will lead to their deaths, otherwise they might just do it out of precaution.

There are many different ways of disposing of a corpse. First of all, you must determine if any of the human parts are recyclable: this being the very morbid idea of taking someone else’s organs and giving them to another person. Now with the advancement of this technology, organ transplants from donors is not as common as it once was seeing as they can now 3D print organs. However, this method is not time effective and is very costly, in some cases leaving the harvesting of deceased human organs to be the only viable option.

Yes, they take organs from dead people… the doctor and surgeon in me admires that thought process, but the thinking breathing creature inside of me recoils heavily at the idea.

Assuming that no one requires your organs, or if you have especially requested for your organ not to be used  than there are other questions that need to be addressed. There are humans who have jobs especially in the business of taking care of dead bodies. They are generally moved in special containers and placed in refrigerated units to slow decomposition while the relatives determine what they want to do with the body.

In certain cases, where the death is suspicious, as related to murder, there are, in fact, humans who specilize in determining the cause and time of death based on the decomposition rate of a body and the stiffness of the flesh itself. This is a semi-common practice across the galaxy, and I myself have performed one or two autopsies since my professional career began though they are far more common for humans.

I find that the most humane method of human enterrement, and the one that makes most sense to me as a Vrull is the idea of cremation. The body is taken and placed in a furnace that is then heated enough to turn the body to ash leaving only bone fragments and the occasional mineral deposit. The ash may then be given to the family members or disposed of accordingly. Some humans find it comforting to keep the remains in some sort of container.... A fact which I find morbid but, we have proven in abundance that I find much of what humanity does, rather morbid.

It is only going to get worse.

The other method of disposal, popular through human history, however made someone obscure in recent centuries due to the proliferation of human burial sites…. The common north american and European Burial and funeral rights went as follows. After death, and freezing in the morgue, a special human with the job of mortician is called in to prepared the body for burial…. This is where it gets very morbid.

The body is drained of all of its fluids and then pumped full of preservatives to slow down the process of decomposition. The faces are then painted with makeup to give the corpse the appearance of sleep rather than death. The body is dressed in fine clothing and placed inside a coffin or casket: these in themselves can cost thousands of dollars as the family members decide what materials the box should be made out of and lined with, precious metals, woods like oak or steel, and the inside lined in velvet satin or silk. The body is placed inside with the person dressed in a finely tailored suit before a hearse: a special vehicle designed to carry caskets is brought to the place of mourning, generally a curch or a funeral home.

Many times the body is then put through a “viewing”.... It sounds just as bad as I make it seem, when the humans come in…. In large groups…. To stare at their dead relative. Just…. Stare at their rotting corpse before it is hauled away and lowered into an six foot hole in the earth. A decorative rock is then place on top of that inscribed with the deceased’s name so that everyone knows where to find their moldering corpse….

….

….

I am told this provides a lot of closure for family members, though I have yet to understand why staring at a painted corpse would be helpful.’

Unfortunately, with humans, this isn't the most gruesome method they have of corpse disposal, nor the most involved 

You may also chose to donate your body to science…

They might hand your bod over to a medical school, where aspiring doctors will, in groups, dissect your corpse slowly over an intervening few weeks or months. It is… gruesome, but a necessary part of the learning process. Your skeleton might even be recycled for use as a tool to demonstrate the skeletal structure to those very same students.

Perhaps your body will end up in a museum, where they will encase your nervous system in plaster and place it on a wall for school children and visiting day travelers to view.

Perhaps you might donate your body to…. A body farm. A palace where scientists will toss your corpse out into different elements to observe the rate and change of decomposition based on different dump sites. They will examine the decomposition, the moisture loss, and the bugs which take to eating your body. This research will then be used to determine the cause o death for other corpses disposed of by murderers or in similar fashion.

It is gruesome, but I suppose…. It is useful for scientific efforts.

These aren't the only methods of body disposal.

Bodies have been tied to the top of large towers

Thrown into the woods to be eaten by animals

Dumped into pits.

And in a couple of cases, launched into the vacuum of space.

Different rituals require family members to spend more or less time with the body, to wrap it in special cloth, or to anoint it with certain oils. 

The Egyptians were widely known for their complex and involved enterrement rituals commonly known as mummification.

The body was first embalmed

The brain was removed

The organs removed and placed in specialized canopic jars 

The body was then dried

Then wrapped which continued to help in the drying process 

Then the body was finally entered, and due to the sandy heat of the desert, the body was often preserved to a great and surprising degree. Egyptians believed that those things you had in life would come with you after death, and so egyptian rulers were entered with great riches and inside grand palaces 

Then of course there is the last ritual which I learned about just recently.

Certain tribal societies will….. Eat…. their dead….

They will eat them….

As in the entire village will get together and consume the corpse in a feast, believing that without this they cannot enter the afterlife.

…..

…

…

…

…

I am going to draft a proposal to the GASC that screaming and profanities should be considered scientifically appropriate when in regards to humans

[southeastasianists]

Carolyn* can never get out of her head the memory of her parents bringing her to conversion therapy. The transwoman from South Sulawesi was 13 then, and society expected her to identify as male in accordance with her biological sex at birth.

“Deep inside, I kept telling myself that I’m not sick, that I’m okay,” she recalled.

Carolyn experienced ruqyah firsthand, a form of conversion therapy imbued with Islamic exorcism that is common among Muslim communities in Indonesia. Carolyn’s parents explained away her feminine expression as the work of a malevolent female demon.

At the time, the teenager did not fully grasp the situation she was in. She agreed to go along with her parents’ wishes due to her deeply embedded fear of sin.

Carolyn was taken before the local cleric, who prayed to expel the female demon in her body. The cleric also asked her parents to leave her with him for a few days so she could undergo several rituals.

“But at that time, I refused. I wanted to go home and didn’t want to be there. I was fine, I cried and said to my mom, ‘Mom, I want to go home, I’m fine,’” she said.

After begging her mother, Carolyn’s mother finally agreed to send her home on one condition: she had to stop expressing feminine traits and stop hanging out with her female friends. Carolyn repressed her feminine expression for several years after that day.

“To be honest, I felt very tortured. I felt very tortured mentally,” Carolyn confessed.

Carolyn said she placed a lot of pressure on herself over the years. She never felt that she was a man. She was always more comfortable expressing herself as a woman. In the final year of high school, Carolyn decided to stop lying to herself and her family. She ran away from home and learned to become a hairdresser at a salon that accepted her gender expression.

In the early days of Carolyn’s emancipation journey, her past and concerns over her identity continued to haunt her. Not a day went by that she didn’t fear persecution, socializing with others, fully expressing herself, all the while saddened by the irreparable burned bridge with her family.

Even now, at the age of 32, Carolyn is still traumatized by her conversion therapy experience. She gets easily triggered by watching religious TV shows or films that feature ruqyah scenes.

But ultimately she believes that she made the right choice, because nothing can take away her freedom to fully express herself as a woman and her achievement of becoming a fully functioning adult in a society that generally does not tolerate her people.

“I also feel comfortable and feel very relieved that in the end, I can accept myself as a transwoman. I feel like I have found myself. This is me, I am a transwoman,” she stresses.

In contrast to Carolyn, Sofia*, a lesbian living in the capital, was encouraged by her family to undergo ruqyah when she was old enough. By that time, she was mature enough to make her own decisions; and so she ran away from them.

“At that time, I was 25 years old and I was studying for my master’s degree. My position was quite privileged, right?” Sofia said.

Living in Jakarta, Sofia was more exposed to open discussions on the issues of gender and sexuality. When her mother asked her to go to therapy, Sofia was already certain about her sexual orientation. Furthermore, she had been involved in the advocacy for gender and sexuality issues.

“So I think there was nothing to lose at that time, and my identity is the core of my life,” she said.

However, Sofia’s refusal for therapy did not sit well with her family. She said they still pressured her “recover” to the point that they used violence against her.

“But I didn’t want to. I insisted because they already know me as a lesbian, so why do I have to back off?” she said.

Sofia believes that her knowledge of diversity in gender expression and sexual orientation was one of the biggest sources of courage that emboldened her to emancipate. If LGBTQ+ people are exposed to the same knowledge, Sofia said, they will be able to accept their identities and acknowledge that they’re not the problem — homophobia and conversion therapy are.

“We must fight together to convince the world that being gay is okay. You need to learn about yourself. You’re not sick. It’s society that’s sick,” she added.

Ika*, a transwoman from North Sumatra, experienced conversion therapy when she was 13, 17, and 18. The methods that she went through were quite diverse, ranging from ruqyah, to burial rituals, admission to Islamic boarding schools, and goat sacrifice.

None of them worked. And she said she had to live with the constant pressure from her parents to get rid of her feminine expression, which, according to them, was also the work of a demon.

“What should be removed from my body? Because according to their assessment, there is an evil spirit who made me like this,” Ika said.

“In my opinion, conversion therapy is bullshit.”

Ika now works for an NGO advocating to end HIV discrimination and stigma suffered by trans communities.

‘Individual will’

Conversion therapy is not a new phenomenon in Indonesia, but the matter was hotly discussed recently when several Indonesian queer activists, including Lini Zurlia and Kai Mata, received targeted ads on social media encouraging them to undergo conversion therapy.

“It feels like I was targeted by a group of people. It made me upset, especially because this is very sensitive regarding LGBTQ+ rights in Indonesia,” Kai Mata said.

“What I think the government should do is to make it illegal. I also think that LGBT people in Indonesia deserve the right to live in this country without fear.”

Attempts to contact the conversion therapy service through the ad failed as of the time of this article’s publication. Another conversion therapy center in Jakarta, which claims to use hypnotherapy as one of its “healing” methods, did not come across like it has a vendetta against LGBTQ+ people despite providing the harmful service.

“When does sexual orientation become a problem? It happens when the values that are taught ​​[by people’s environment and family] are different from their sexual orientation,” therapist Adrianto Darma Setiawan said.

Adrianto claims to have treated around 2,500 patients in the last 12 years. About 20 percent of these patients are (or were, if he succeeded) gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The standard therapy to “heal” sexual orientation consists of about about five to six hypnotherapy sessions lasting around three hours per session.

Adrianto said that some of his patients underwent therapy out of their own accord, but most were there due to encouragement or pressure from relatives. The therapist did not say how many of his patients he managed to convert, but said that “recovery” depends on the will of the individual.

The government’s failure

Imam Nahei, a commissioner at the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), said that LGBTQ + groups in Indonesia still have a long way to receive adequate protections from the government. For as long as homophobia prevails in Indonesia, conversion therapy will remain as one of the most harmful and real threats that haunts people from minority sexual groups in Indonesia.

Nahei said that conversion therapy is an obvious human rights violation, yet the state, which should be responsible for protecting all of the country’s citizens, has not done anything to protect LGBTQ+ people from the practice.

“The state has not done anything because, in Indonesia, this issue is still very controversial as it is associated with dominant religious views,” Nahei said.

There’s little hope for progress in this regard when homosexuality and alternate forms of sexual expression are still seen as a deviation or a disorder by the country’s lawmakers, such as House of Representatives (DPR) Commission VIII Deputy Chairman Marwan Dasopang.

Marwan supports the existence of conversion therapy in Indonesia. Not only that, he wants DPR to eventually pass legislation allowing the state to provide the service to the public. If conversion therapy was normalized, he argued, patients would not experience extreme psychological trauma, such as from being forced to “recover” by their parents.

“It needs to be regulated,” Marwan said, adding that discussion on the regulation of conversion therapy are still in their infancy.

Indonesian policy makers, and even psychiatrists, have long gone against the scientific fact that homosexuality and other sexual identities are not a disease or disorder. Their stance have emboldened homophobia, which, in turn, has fostered the continued existence of conversion therapy.

Riska Carolina, director of Advocacy and Public Policy from the Support Group and Resource Center on Sexuality Studies at the University of Indonesia (SGRC UI), said among the many forms of conversion therapy in Indonesia, most are performed with ruqyah. Others who aren’t forced to go the conversion therapy route are still made to see shrinks who practice with heavy religious influence, hypnotherapists, or admitted to religious boarding schools.

“[Conversion therapy] is a threat to the LGBTQ+ community. It is persecution to the LGBTQ+ community. It violates their basic human rights. LGBTQ+ people are not a disease,” she stresses.

Riska believes that regulating conversion therapy would violate the minority groups’ rights even more than they have suffered. Even if the therapy is carried out based on patients’ willingness, Riska argued that it still validates the idea that LGBTQ+ people have mental disorders.

“Conversion therapy must be banned. It is more necessary to provide protection, even though I know that protection is still a long way off. So I prefer that, at least, [the government] treats us equally and gives us affirmative action,” she said.

“I’m ashamed to know that Indonesia is very late in terms of acceptance and it’s already 2021. You don’t need to like LGBT people, but you also don’t need to discriminate against us, especially to the level of torture. What you do with conversion therapy is torturous.”

*Carolyn, Sofia, and Ika’s real names have been omitted, at their request, to protect their identity.

[ruensroad]

Dragon God AU Q&A

Here’s a compilation of all the questions I’ve gotten thus far! I’m willing to make a Part Two if more pop up! Thank you everyone for your interest!! :D

(image from Amazon.)

@amaskinamirror​ asked: I would like to know what led to Lan Xichen making his sacrifice and falling into the water in the first place.  He said it was his duty, but that being married to JC was not really his choice.  What was he trying to do?  Also what are the implications of both of the Lan Brothers now being gone? Is there an heir to their sect? Oh and, did LWJ know that LXC was alive before JC brought him for a visit?

In this world, Dragon Gods are worshiped, especially as “weather” deities, mostly because the places they inhabit allude strongly to one element or another (i.e. Water Dragon, Earth Dragon, Fire Dragon, Air Dragon). When news reaches the people that a new Dragon has come to earth, they arrange a human sacrifice to “appease” them. Humans have no idea the person selected is actually the Dragon’s mate and married upon entering the Dragons realm. They are truly sacrificing this person in every sense of the word. And this has been going on for centuries, when the first dragon came to earth seeking a mate and a young maiden was “sacrificed”. Over time, the legend skewed, as legends do, and knowledge of just why the Dragon came has been lost.

Lan Xichen is interesting because he was not selected at first to appease the Water Dragon God; Lan Wangji was. Lan Xichen chose to go in his place because he wanted his brother to live (something that will happen again with a certain Nie), and because he was a willing sacrifice, as well in a position of power to force the issue if he had to, it was allowed.

The ritual Lan Xichen was a part of involved walking backwards into the lake until the Dragon used its magic to drown him, accepting the sacrifice. So that is what Lan Xichen expected to happen. Instead he woke up under the lake to Jiang Cheng telling him they are fated mates. Hence, it wasn’t much of a choice in that sense, but the sacrifice was.

This world is not quite the MDZS world, wherein the only magic is with the Dragons. That being said, clans are still important structures to human daily life. The Lan Clan are pretty extensive, so even with the heir and his brother both “dead”, there are those who can take their place. Currently, Lan Qiren is leading the Clan (and has his eye on Jingyi as next leader, but that’ll not… go well XD).

And no! As mentioned above, Lan Xichen was supposed to die in the eyes of the humans watching, because, again, they don’t know what the Dragons really do. So the last Lan Wangji saw of his brother was him walking into that lake and then disappearing, never to resurface. The fact that his brother is still alive still feels like a miracle to him.

Oh and does Lan Xichen know that LWJ sacrificed himself to a dragon too. Or does, JC go to find LWJ to bring him down for a visit only to hear he had committed suicide and has to go relay that information to his husband?

Lan Xichen didn’t know Lan Wangji’s intent beforehand or when it happened, but Jiang Cheng does learn of it and tells him immediately. However, it was not to say he killed himself, but that he offered himself to Wei Wuxian, since Jiang Cheng knows that is his brother’s place of residence. So there is hope that they will see each other again, it’ll just take some time.

Is Jiang Yanli a dragon?  Is she with a human Jin Zixuan, then? If LWJ and WWX adopt A-Yuan, will he become a dragon?

She is! And this is an interesting question that I will get back to in a second. As for A-Yuan, he is already going to become a dragon, given his family was “adopted” by Wei Wuxian in a ritual so they could stay there and be safe. They were already doomed to never leave, because the Burial Mounds doesn’t really let people go, but Wei Wuxian offered them the gift of his blood to drink and become Dragon Kin that way, so they will one day be dragons through the way the magic works, as will Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen (and all the other Dragon Mates).

Note: this blood-binding ritual is how Wei Wuxian became a dragon also. He was found as a small child by Jiang Fengmian and given the blood to turn him.

The Jins are actually dragons! In this story, there are two types: those that refuse to leave the Heavens, and those that go to Earth. The Heavenly Dragons do not place as much stock in finding their true mates through the odd earth rituals, so only focus on breeding “purebred” dragons with other dragons. This is dangerous in a way, because of the threat of inbreeding, but they don’t exactly care. The Earth Dragons willingly leave the Heavens to inherit certain places on earth to gain a mate. Once that mate claims their dragon form, they return to Heaven, opening that dwelling to another and starting the cycle all over again.

The Jin Dragon line started with Jin Guangshan, who was actually an Earth Dragon’s mate. However, once he reached Heaven as a dragon, he really took on that Heavenly Dragon mentality and acts as though he is a “pure-blood” born dragon. Jin Zixuan is born of this first mating, so he is born a dragon and raised in that Heavenly mentality that he is only meant to breed pure-blood dragons.

He is arranged in marriage to Yanli, who breaks it; even though she is in love with him, she fears the way the Heavenly Dragons affect his personality, and she wants a mate that is true to her and her heart. So she goes to Earth to wait, only for Zixuan to follow her and actually mimic a real sacrifice ritual to become her husband anyway. They are madly in love now and have no time for that Heavenly nonsense, especially with a gremlin like Jin Ling to raise.

@hostile-invasion​ asked: I would like to see more xicheng and maybe a more definite description of the dragon forms?

More Xicheng is coming, that is a promise! As for what they look like, they are standard Chinese Dragons (see picture above). The only constant with them is their manes are almost always black, to match their human form’s hair. Their scales are very colorful and varied and can even reflect their health! The more vibrant the sheen and color, the healthier they are. Dull colors can mean pain, heartache, sickness, or grief.

Wei Wuxian is a black dragon, but after going into the Burial Mounds to keep that bad magic from spilling out and was cursed, he now has rivets of red cracks all over his scales that glow red, much like magma in rock.

Jiang Cheng is a royal purple with a bluish sheen; Yanli is a soft lilac while Zixuan is a yellowish gold. Jin Ling is more of a “true” gold.

@renattasama​ asked: BTW, how often "not-dragons'-mates-themselves" relatives are allowed to visit? Because it's been weeks since LWJ's marriage and, as far as I can tell, he didn't visit LXC. Moreover, nothing indicate he expected to visit anytime soon.

They can visit as much as they want, but without a proper blood tie to a Dragon, they will never gain that immortality and cannot fully stay in that realm without it adversely affecting them, since mortals are not meant for immortal spaces (bad on the mind). And it’s not that Lan Wangji can’t visit because he’s not blood tied, it’s because of the Burial Mounds, which makes it very hard to leave. Honestly, even Dragons have trouble coming and going because of how strong the magical pull is. Lan Wangji is still growing into immortality as a mate (as is Lan Xichen for that matter), so he’s not strong enough to break out yet! But he will be, one day, and the brothers will reunite. :)

[witchinessstuff]

Herbs and flowers🌿🥀

(Use any of these at your own risk and do research to ensure what you're doing with them is safe! Some herbs/flowers are poisonous!!!)

*Acacia / Gum Arabic (Acacia senegal)// protection and psychic power. Can be mixed with others.

* Aloe Leaf Peel (Aloe vera)//healing, protection, grief, bitterness, affection

* Angelica Root (Angelica sinensis)//inspiration, magic

* Apple Blossoms (Malus pumila)// hope, love, unity, growth, vitality, connection.

*Azalea Petal (Rhododendron simsii)// beauty, abundance, passion.

* Beach Rose Buds (Rosa rugosa)// healing, divination, tranquility, harmony, psychic ability, spirituality, and protection.

* Beach Rose Petal (Rosa rugosa)//

healing, divination, tranquility, harmony, psychic ability, spirituality, and protection.

* Burdock Root (Arctium lappa)// to prevent workers from putting roots on you, meang curses. Can be spread around the home to ward off negative energie.

* Butterfly Pea Flower (Clitoria ternatea)// Butterfly pea flower has been used as a ‘smart drug’ (or nootropic) to enhance memory, cognition and intelligence; as a calmative / anxiolytic to reduce stress and anxiety; and also as an anti-depressant, anti-convulsant and anti-inflammatory. 

* Calendula Flower (Calendula officinalis)// sacred affection, joy, remembrance, grief

* Camphor Leaf (Cinnamomum camphora)// It is one of the most sacred substances to offer to the moon goddess on a new moon to thank her for her abundant blessings.

Camphor is also used in cleansing and purification rituals. Use it to get rid of unwanted passions or unwanted admirers....

* Carnation Petal (Dianthus caryophyllus)// Used to remove hexes and negative energy, the carnation is especially good for clearing out love problems.

* Catnip Leaf (Nepeta cataria)// Love, Luck, Lust, Aphrodisiac

* Chamomile Bud (Chamaemelum nobile)// energy in adversity, patience, long life, wisdom

* Chrysanthemum Flower (Chrysanthemum morifolium)// Chrysanthemum is masculine in nature and resonates with the energy of the Sun and the element of fire. Chrysanthemum has been used for burial rituals and is a suitable decoration for Samhain and for ancestral altars. The dried flower heads of chrysanthemum can be burned during house blessing ceremonies.

* Cinnamon Bark (Cinnamomum cassia)// Cinnamon is associated with the element of fire and the sun. It can be burned to sanctify an area or object, to increase the spiritual "mood", to aid in healing spells or in healing in general (this is appropriate for burning right in the sick room) and also to enhance the male libido.

*Clove Buds (Syzygium aromaticum)// clove buds in a tea to improve digestion, prevent and relieve flatulence and relieve nausea and diarrhea. It is also lovely steeped in milk, wine or juice with a cinnamon stick for these purposes. Cloves are masculine in nature and aligned with the planet Jupiter and the element of fire. Used in magick to attract good luck and prosperity, to keep good friends close, and to help stop malicious gossip. Burn to prevent people from spreading rumors about you or push the cloves into a red candle and burn that.

* Coltsfoot Buds (Tussilago farfara)// suitable for springtime rituals welcoming the return of the sun, such as Imbolc, Ostara and Beltane- depending on when they bloom that particular year! The long stems can be woven into wreaths. Coltsfoot has been used as in love, tranquility and money spells and burned during divination rites. It is also burned in divinatory and healing incense. Coltsfoot corresponds to the element of water and the planet Venus

* Costus Root (Saussurea costus)// love and elemental spells since it is good for clarity

* Dandelion Leaf (Taraxacum officinale)// faithfulness, happiness. The dandelion is masculine in action and associated with the planet Jupiter, the element of air and both Pisces and Sagittarius. It is also associated with any solar deity, Hecate, Brigid and Belenos.

* Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale)// pouring boiling water over a bowlful of roots will aid in calling spirits.

* Dragon's Blood Resin (Dracaena draco)// The resin burned as an incense can be used for cleansing and exorcism of a space, especially to rid a new space of the energies of the former occupants to make room for yours when you are preparing to move in(camphor increases its effectiveness here.). Dragon's blood can be burned during spells to increase courage and protect those going forth to meet danger (i.e. slay metaphorical dragons). Dragon's blood resin or incense may also be used in spells to encourage someone who has left to return.

* Echinacea Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)// Carrying Echinacea will provide inner strength during trying times. It can also be grown around the house or brought into a house and placed in a vase to draw prosperity into the home and protect the family from suffering from poverty. Echinacea is an appropriate flower for offerings, especially to place spirits and river God(dess)es. Including Echinacea in any spell or charm will increase its effectiveness.

* Egyptian Lotus Flower (Nymphaea caerulea)// resonates with the energy of the moon and the water element.

* Eucalyptus Leaf (Eucalyptus globulus)// Eucalyptus is used to bring fresh energy to a situation, to heal regrets and worries, and to relieve mental exhaustion. It is an excellent herb to use when someone or something is bothering you. It is often blended with other healing herbs to bring relief from physical or emotional concerns. Eucalyptus leaves may safely be burned, infused, sprinkled, or stuffed into mojo bags, pillows, and poppets. The protective magick of Eucalyptus is short-lived but very potent. It removes negative influences from the immediate surroundings. Unlike some other protective herbs, Eucalyptus gently creates a barrier without attacking or constraining others.

* Frankincense Resin (Boswellia carterii)// Burning frankincense is a suitable offering to any Sun God. It may have been used in the past as an offering to Ra and Bel. According to some translations of the Orphic Hymns, Frankincense is a suitable offering to Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Asklepios, Zeus, Boreas, Eos, Dike, The Erinyes, Hephaistos, Herakles, Hermes, Hygeia, The Kouretes, Korybas, Dionysos, Mnemosyne, Nike, The Muses, Notos, Ouranos, Palaimon, the Bacchai, Themis, The Titans, Tyche, Zephyros, Mercury, Diana, Jove, Daimones, Vulcan, Silenos, Satyros

Frankincense resin is useful for fumigating sacred space in preparation of any ritual as it burns away negativity and raises the energy of the space. Some believe this is the most powerful and useful incense for this purpose and it is used for exorcism as well.

* Ginger Root (Zingiber officinale)// adds power to any magical activity. It is used in spells to "speed things up" or to cause plans to come to fruition quickly. It can also be used in spells to add passion to an existing relationship.

* Ginkgo Leaf (Ginkgo biloba)// associated with fertility. Carry or use in amulets and charms as a healing herb. Useful in ritual healing. The dried nuts represent male fertility. Useful in all creative work. Immerse in water, then remove and keep in the bedroom to gain grace, love, and beauty.

* Globe Amaranth Flower (Gophrena globosa)// sacred to Huitzilopochtli, an Aztec Sun God and is a suitable offering to Artemis and Demeter. used to call forth the dead.

* Goji Berry (Lycium chinense)// goji berry can be made into an offertory item to attract friends, improve one's social life, and allow oneself to focus more intensely on one's ulterior goals. Eating goji berries prior to bedtime has also been reputed to give the consumer prophetic dreams or premonitions. mend the rift between two people.

* Guava Leaf (Psidium guajava)// health

* Hawthorn Dried Fruit (Crataegus pinnatifida)// love, marriage, health, fertility, chastity, protection and death.

* Honeysuckle Bud (Lonicera japonica)// Honeysuckle is associated by Culpeper with the planet Mercury and the sign Cancer. According to other sources it is associated with the planet Venusand the element of Earth. Honeysuckle flowers may be used in spells designed to determine the true worth of a person or thing. They may be burned in a censer or steep the flowers in wine, strain and drink. Honeysuckle brought into a home will help ensure a good marriage for the people who live there. Grow honeysuckle near your home to attract love, luck and wealth and to protect your garden from negative influences. The scent of honeysuckle is said to clear the mind, stimulate psychic powers, sharpen intuition, encourage psychic dreams, sweeten any mood and stimulate generosity. A flower rubbed on the forehead is said to increase psychic abilities.

* Jasmine Bud (Jasminum sambac)// Uses include snakebite and divination; good for charging quartz crystals. Use in sachets and spells to draw spiritual love and attract a soul mate. Carry or burn the flowers to draw wealth and money. Use in dream pillows to induce sleep or burn in the bedroom to bring prophetic dreams. Helps to promote new, innovative ideas.

* Jujube Slices (Ziziphus jujuba)// protection, health, autumn.

* Kiwi Dried Fruit (Actinidia chinensis)// love, romance.

* Lavender Bud (Lavandula angustifolia)// Magickal uses include love, protection, healing, sleep, purification, and peace. Promotes healing from depression. Great in sleep pillows and bath spells. Believed to preserve chastity when mixed with rosemary. Burn the flowers to induce sleep and rest, then scatter the ashes around the home to bring peace and harmony.

* Lemon Balm Leaf (Melissa officinalis)// Love, success, healing, and psychic/spiritual development. Use in love charms & spells to attract a partner. Use in healing spells & rituals for those suffering from mental or nervous disorders.

* Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus)// Psychic cleansing and opening, lust potions.

* Licorice Root (Glycyrrhiza glabra)// Love, lust, and fidelity. 

* Magnolia Flower (Magnolia denudata)// Magickal uses include health, beauty, love, loyalty, peace, calming anxieties, marital harmony, and overcoming addictions & obsessive behavior.

* Mandarin Orange Peel (Citrus reticulata)// love, fertility, divination, prosperity, friendship.

* Mango Dried Fruit (Mangifera indica)// prosperity and happiness.

* Mint Leaf (Mentha arvensis)// Promotes energy, communication and vitality. Draws customers to a business. Use dried leaves to stuff a green poppet for healing. Place in wallet or purse or rub on money to bring wealth and prosperity. Use on the altar to draw good spirits to assist in your magick. Place in the home for protection.

* Monkfruit Flower (Siraitia grosvenorii)// health

* Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca)// bolstering ego, building confidence, success and counter magick. Keep in a jar by family pictures to keep the family safe.

* Mugwort Leaf (Artemisia argyi)// Carried to increase lust & fertility, prevent backache and cure disease & madness. Place around divination and scrying tools to increase their power or near the bed to enable astral travel. Use in sleep pillow or place in a sachet under your pillowcase to bring about prophetic dreams. Use an infusion of mugwort to clean crystal balls and magick mirrors.

* Mulberries (Morus nigra)// willpower, strength, healing, cosmic connection.

* Mulberry Leaf (Morus nigra)// protection

* Myrrh Resin (Commiphora myrrha)// Spiritual opening, meditation, and healing. This herb has high psychic vibrations that will enhance any magickal working. Burn as a potent incense to bring peace and for consecration, and blessing of talismans, charms, and magickal tools. Increases the power of any incense of which it is a part. Usually burned with Frankincense.

* Osmanthus Flower (Osmanthus fragrans)// Potency, fertility, healing, peace, protection, lust. Love & romance.

* Palo Santo Wood Chips (Bursera graveolens)// If you feel you have been cursed, rub this herb on your body and then bathe

* Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin)// Used in spells, sachets, baths and mixtures for money & love. Put in the wallet or purse to draw money. Place in a charm or use in incense for fertility. Helps to ground you and bring your consciousness back to the physical level. Burn to bring business growth.

* Peach Blossom (Prunus persica)// fertility, love, wisdom.

* Peony Flower (Paeonia suffruticosa)//

Protection from hexes and jinxes. Good luck, good fortune, prosperity, and business success. Hang in the home or car for protection. Used to attract faeries. Use in rituals to cure or reduce lunacy. Also:Peony Root (Paeonia suffruticosa)

* Perilla Leaf (Perilla frutescens)// health

* Poke Root (Phytolacca acinosa)// Magickal uses include finding lost objects and breaking hexes and curses. Carry to increase courage. Add an infusion of poke root to bath water to break hexes.

* Pomegranate Peel (Punica granatum)// Divination, luck, wishes granted, wealth, fertility.

* Red Cockscomb Flower (Celosia cristata)// longevity, death.

* Red Sage Root (Salvia miltiorrhiza)// protection, purification, health.

* Roselle Hibiscus Flower (Hibiscus sabdariffa)// Averts negativity, especially in the form of gossip or false accusations

* Rosemary Leaf (Rosmarinus officinalis)// spells, worn to improve memory, used in dream pillows to prevent nightmares, burned as incense for purification and removing negativity. Wear or carry while reading or completing tasks to improve memory of the material and aid clear thinking (great for students!). Use an infusion of rosemary to wash hands before any healing magick. Use in bath magick for purification. Associated with faeries.

* White Sacred Sage (Salvia apiana)// purification, divination, protection

* Safflower Petals (Carthamus tinctorius)// destruction

* Sea Lavender Flower (Limonium sinuatum)// Soothes/ restores body and mind. Arouses sexual desire in men, loyalty, purification, protection, healing. Third eye chakra, spiritually uplifting.

* Skullcap Root (Scutellaria baicalensis)// ​Worn by women to keep their husbands faithful. Used in sleep pillows for relaxation & peace. Used to bind oaths and consecrate vows & commitments (handfasting, initiations, etc.) also for a relationship that will extend beyond this life. For this purpose SKullcap may be worn, burned as incense, or used as an oil. Used in bath magick to clam the aura of tensions and stress. Use in spells for relief from disharmony and disruptive situations. Place a pinch in a lover’s shoes to keep then from being affected by charms of others. Love, fidelity, peace of mind.

* St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum)// Worn to prevent colds & fevers. Placed under pillow to induce prophetic, romantic dreams. Protects against all forms of black witchcraft. Place in a jar in a window or burn in a fireplace to protect from lightning, fire and evil spirits. Used for banishing, protection & blessing. Carry to strengthen courage and convictions or when confronting nasty situations. Burn to banish spirits and demons. Used in divination for the care of crystals. Note: Can be poisonous, use with caution. Protection, exorcism, strengthens the will, divination.

* Star Anise (Illicium verum)// Clairvoyance. Burned as incense to increase psychic awareness & abilities. Placed on the altar to increase the power generated. Carried to bring luck.

* Stevia Leaf (Stevia rebaudiana)// health

* Thorowax Root (Bupleurum chinense)// mental health, meditation

* Turmeric Root (Curcuma longa)// purification.

* Valerian Root (Valeriana officinalis)// Dream magick, reconciliation, love, and harmony. Placed in sachets for love & protection and used in sleep pillows. It is said that having Valerian Root nearby will settle an argument between a couple. Used to purify sacred space. Used as a substitution for graveyard dirt/dust in spells. Use in protection baths. Burn for reconciliation in ailing relationships, but only with the permission of all parties involved in the relationship. Wear to calm the emotions.

* Vervain Stems (Verbena officinalis)// Protection, purification, money, youth, peace, healing, and sleep. Bury in the yard or keep in the home to encourage wealth, protect from lightning & storms, and bring peace. Put under the pillow to prevent nightmares. Use as an incense to end unrequited love. Use in prosperity spells. Carry to prevent depression and/or bring creativity. Use in cleansing baths and rituals before working magick. Use in amulets, sachets, dream pillows, and baths for all-purpose protection of home sand people (especially children).

* Wintergreen Leaf (Gaultheria procumbens)// Protection, healing, hex breaking.

[qaraxuanzenith]

Steven Grant Rogers, zt”l

Steven Grant Rogers, zt”l: A life in three and a half parts

Note: I wrote this due to a conversation with @dawnfire360​​ about representation in media. Captain America was a character created by two Jews, modelled in a Jewish archetype (“little guy from Brooklyn”), and created to fulfill what was, at the time of his creation, largely a Jewish fantasy (punching Nazis in the early forties). The fact that he was established canonically as Irish Catholic (if I remember correctly) seems less a factor of authorial intent and more because they doubtless thought (and most likely correctly) that a Jewish superhero would not sell, and would not reach the audiences they wanted to reach. This fic reimagines him as the same guy, but also Jewish, and observant. Glossary and explanatory notes for the Hebrew and Jewish references are at the end of the document.

Prelude: Baruch atah Adonai, mechayeh ha’meitim.

They had explained to him, of course, the science of how he was still alive, how his augmented body and the extreme low temperatures of his resting place in the Arctic had conspired to create a natural cryogenic effect, freezing his body in the state it was while preserving his life as he slept.

He understood - some of it, and he believed the rest, but still, he could not stop himself from thinking about Olam HaBa, from thinking me’ayin l’t’chiyat ha’metim min ha’Torah, thinking v’rabim m’y’sheinei admat afar yakitzu, thinking there is no reward for the righteous or punishment for the wicked in this world, only in the world to come. In many real ways, this was, after all, his world to come.

There was a matzeiva for him. It took him some digging (not literally, thank goodness) to find out about it, and it took time for SHIELD to be convinced enough of his stable mental and physical health to let him go without a babysitter, and more time for him to make his way to Brooklyn unnoticed, but there it was, in the Jewish cemetery, right beside his parents’ graves. There was no body, of course, but he knew, already, that that was not uncommon, for those who had been lost in the war. And there it was, engraved in stone:

Steven Grant Rogers, z”l שלום מתן רוג'רז ת.נ.צ.ב.ה. July 4, 1918 - 1945 כ"ז תמוז ה' תרע"ח - ה' תש"ה

Somehow, seeing his grave made all of this more real, rooted him in the reality of 2011 in a way that none of the pamphlets, books, or museum exhibits had managed to do.

May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life. Perhaps it was that traditional prayer that had come true, that had bound him to life as he lay frozen in the Arctic. The thought made him smile.

It was a simple stone, just his name and approximate dates and the typical caption, and he wondered how they had scrounged up the money to pay for it, and on whose initiative, with both his parents already gone and even Bucky already lost to him in the chill mountains. But then, that was what a Chevra Kadisha was for, wasn’t it? To give burial rites to the orphaned soldier boys, fallen a long way from home.

The air was crisp, and a little cold, this time of year, but that thought warmed him, too, to realize that even at the bottom of the Arctic, with everyone he loved already dead before him, he had been included, held close, by the holy community - to remember that he was still, after everything, a part of a holy community.

***

Read in the Google Doc (with Hebrew and Jewish terms hyperlinked to their glossary entries), or

1: Peoplehood

This had been his fight. It was his fight, it was personal in a way that most of his tussles with bullies were not. That was his response whenever Bucky gently tried to dissuade him from trying again, after being turned away from the enlistment office for the dozenth time, “Really, Stevie, they’re not going to change their mind, and there’s plenty good you can do from here, instead of trying to get sent to the front with bad lungs and a bad back and none of the common sense you shoulda been born with.” He would point out that this was his fight, and there was nothing Bucky could say to that.

Because everyone knew what it was like for Jews in Germany in the thirties and forties. (No, they did not know, how could they know, they had no idea, not by a mile, not by a hundred miles, and by the time they did, it was late, so late, and they would ask themselves, how could they not have known.) But they knew that it was bad, and getting worse, and Steve couldn’t - he couldn’t just let that stand.

So of course he was eager to fight, not just to fight but to fight for something, and this was his fight, im ein ani li, mi li? Of course he jumped at the opportunity, offered by Avraham Erskine, to be something greater than himself, to be truly able to help his people, help everyone, im ani l’atzmi, mah ani?

There was no hesitation when he heard that Bucky’s unit was taken, only the immediate need for action, and the action to match it, and im lo achshav, eimatai?

They’d been together, their Commandos, for a year before they heard about the camps - it was almost that long before anyone heard about them, and then more time until the news trickled through army base to army base, reaching them when they returned from the field.

The thing about Bucky, a thing he loved about Bucky, was that he didn’t need to say it, to ask it. He returned to the tents, his stomach still churning and his mind reeling from the unthinkable images, the nauseating reports, and Sergeant Barnes was there, explaining that he had already spoken to their men, told them that this was something the Captain needed to do, and they with him, on no general’s orders, in much the same way as he had come for them.

When he had gone on his own for the 107th, against orders, he had returned to a commendation, and carte blanche to form his own team. When he came back from this, he received a reprimand, and grudging agreement to look the other way, just this once, and a warning not to do it again.

Of course, he thought, his mask a warm and ever-present reminder of the compromise it represented, in replacing the kipa he would normally have worn.

Of course they did it again - but not as often as any of them thought they should. They still had official missions to complete, important ones, that could not, should not, be neglected. And renegade rescue missions took time to arrange, and to plan; he couldn’t in good conscience lead his men in blind, so he had to rely on what information Peggy could drip to him, on where to find the next camp they would hit and what to expect there; and he had to wait for arrangements to be ready, usually visas or a plane or once, memorably, a boat, thanks to Howard, for getting the people to safety afterward, because these were not soldiers who could simply be reabsorbed into the nearest army base, and there was no use in rescuing them only to abandon them once more to the jaws of death.

And there were so many stragglers, each time - the very old, and the very young, and those simply too sick or too weak to flee unaided. And their ragged survivors needed Steve to translate and reassure them, needed every scrap of protection they could offer, until they reached whatever escape route Stark had magicked up, so that they could not send a soldier to go back and set charges and run out of range before detonation, which meant that they could not even blow the camps up when they left.

And there were so damn many of the camps.

When Steve made his descent, months later, into the Arctic, words of Torah rising unbidden to his lips, it was with a clear conscience, and only three regrets.

First: that he had promised Peggy a dance, and never delivered on it. Not that he desperately needed that dance, but he wanted to be a man who kept his word.

Second: that day with the train and the snow and the cliff. It had haunted him every day since, constantly revisiting it, asking himself what he should have done, how he could have done things differently, done things better, how he could change the outcome, so that he could stop Bucky from falling, could save him, could be the one to fall, instead.

Third: that there were so many camps that he had not gotten to, and so many that he had not gotten to in time. That he was only one man, and, with all his strengths and limitations, he had not prevented millions of his people’s lives from being snuffed out. This thought, especially, would stay with him when he awoke.

***

2: Ritual

The year is two thousand and eleven, and Steve Rogers wraps a set of 80-year-old tefillin on his arm and forehead - the same pair that he received for his Bar Mitzvah, back in a different time.

He had mixed feelings on getting them back, when Fury and Natasha took him to unlock an old SHIELD vault so that he could sift through and reclaim those of his belongings that had not already been snapped up by museums and heritage foundations.

Part of him was relieved to find them waiting for him, because it had sentimental value and because the thought had occurred to him, incongruously, that even in this new world’s economy, they would cost a lot of money to replace.

He was impressed that it was even still usable, almost as well-preserved as he was; apparently a sealed, oiled canister was for ritual items of leather and parchment what Arctic ice was for super-soldiers. It had knocked around at the bottom of his bag throughout the war, mostly unused, because a soldier could not be expected to keep his thoughts pure from distraction in wartime, and because, most mornings, there simply was no time. It was all he could do to say Brachot as he dressed, with maybe a rushed Amida afterward, without taking the time to painstakingly wind and unwind his tefillin.

He was a little guiltily thankful for the nondescript bag, in army khaki, that held them; no complicated questions from Fury as he leaned into the vault and slung it onto his shoulder, scooping up the rest of the dregs of his former life in a second, swift motion.

Mostly, though, there was a bitter sense of recognition. Every shred of what was left of him, after his plunge into the Arctic, had been picked and squabbled over by the government, by the museums, he had had to fight even to get Bucky’s dog tags back, which rightfully should have been sent straight to his sister, but this - this lay pristine and forgotten at the bottom of a vault.

And why not? he thought bitterly. Without it, he was the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, all-American hero. And oh, he had seen and seethed at the encyclopedia articles, the exhibit captions about him, Steven Grant Rogers, born to European immigrants… “European immigrants,” when they - and he - would have been beaten up by the real Europeans for claiming the name for themselves, as though they would have abandoned their identities wilfully like that. Rogers’ father, who changed the name from the Russian Ruzhgies… and no, that wasn’t right either; it was from Yiddish, from Roiskies, but heaven forbid they say that of Captain America, better to imply a nonexistent Russian origin than to let him be a Jew.

A wave of outrage, of fury, rushed through him, that this important part of his identity had been swept under the rug for seventy years, denied, ignored, locked away like it was America’s dirty little secret.

He wondered if any of the biographers had found their way to the little matzeivah in Brooklyn, beside the stones for Sarah and Joseph Rogers, with his Hebrew name and of blessed memory, and decided to leave that detail out of their work; or if there was a book out there that revealed the truth of him; or if no one but he had ever made it that far.

The year is two thousand and eleven, and Steve Rogers wraps strands of leather around his arm that are almost as old as he is. He is Captain America, and he has always stood for America, for freedom, for the power of the individual - and he does, still - but he has always stood, too, for the holy words written in ink on the scraps of parchment contained within the little black boxes whose fraying leather straps he winds around his arm, whispering prayers to himself, and for all that they represent to him. He thinks that, maybe, it is time to share that with the world.

***

3: Homeland

The Rogers household had never emphasized any particular need to visit, or live in, the Promised Land - but then, there was no State of Israel when Steve was growing up in the twenties and thirties.

Oh, that had been a fascinating few hours of research and reading, as he supplemented his catch-up course on everything he’d slept through. Nat and Sam were great, really, at filling him in on all sorts of pop culture and scientific advancements, but they didn’t know every facet of him yet, and there were some things which if he wanted to know about them (and he did), he would have to seek them out himself.

It was his private reading project, modern Jewish and Israeli history, and in reading about Israel, Steve felt invigorated. Motivated. Filled with purpose, for the first time in so long. America didn’t need him the way it had seventy years ago; he had been relegated to being a symbol, shunted off to dance attendance on politicians in costume, like back in his USO days. Here, though, was somewhere that he could make a difference; he could do something, he could help people, he could…

...He could probably create an international incident, he realized, as the thought turned cold and soured, fracturing, perhaps permanently, the good terms of an allyship that had lasted for almost as long as he’d been frozen. And it would be the biggest Chillul Hashem, Captain America apparently defecting to fight for a foreign power; he would reinforce every nasty stereotype he’d come up against as a boy, particularly the doubt as to whether Jewish loyalties could ever be trusted.

He had chosen to become Captain America. It had fallen into his lap, a little, but he had chosen it; and he could only fight for another country if his government loaned him out, such as through the Avengers Initiative, or at least if the hearts of the American people were with him.

A visit, at least, he could manage, though by the time it came to fruition, that, too, had become another political sideshow, complete with presidential photo-op in front of the Kotel, Steve sweltering in full costume.

The president had a schedule to stick to, though, and Steve managed to stay longer, on his own, just a visitor walking the footsteps of his forefathers. Without the president glued to his side, he travelled out of costume; he wore a quiet button-down shirt and became practically invisible, and he bought - to his endless delight - a Captain America kipa. He wore it for the rest of the trip.

He visited holy sites, places of Biblical significance; he hiked in the North and dove deep, deep, deep in Eilat, because he could.

And he went to Yad VaShem, because he needed to see, needed to revisit this worst part of what he failed to fix during his war. He walked himself through the solemnity of it, through the images which were no less sickening with age, the stories that were somehow worse now that he knew the full extent of it.

But he ended his self-guided tour on a hopeful note, an uplifting note, because his feet took him to the wall dedicated to the Righteous Among the Nations, and he read through the lists and lists of names until he found a familiar set of nine names, beginning with ג’יימס “בקי” ביוחנן ברנס and continuing through all of his commandos. There, staring at a stretch of wall that notably did not list his name, was where Steve had felt the most seen in over seventy years, because whoever wrote these names here had known very well who they were and what they had done, and they had done enough research to know, for once, that שלום מתן רוג’רז had no place on a list of those “Among the Nations.”

Before he left, he quietly found a curator who both recognized who he was and was not overly impressed by him, and asked her to add one more name to that particular part of the list. Peggy’s and Howard’s roles in their unsanctioned missions had, by necessity, been kept secret, but enough time had passed, Steve thought ruefully, because he was tired of bitterness, that it wouldn’t count as treason anymore. He wondered what Sharon would think about accepting this posthumous honour on behalf of her aunt. He wondered what Tony would think, about not being called upon to accept it on behalf of his father, for the same reason that Steve had smiled not to see his own name on the list.

He left the monument to the dead he could not save, feeling if not uplifted, then at least satisfied with a job ably done, and he took himself for a run through the city, to shake off his last gloomy thoughts about the dead. He walked through David’s city all the way out to the ruins of Jehoiakim’s palace; from the Jewish Quarter to the site of an historic battle in 1948, history that he had slept through. He slowed to make his way through the shuk, buying impossibly cheap candies, dried fruits, nuts, pastries, falafel, to feed his superhuman body, as he fed his soul on the smells, the sights, the sounds of haggling and cheerful shouts - the scenes of his people, comfortable in their own skin, in their own home.

His return flight marked the first time he managed to sleep on an airplane since before he went down in the Arctic. About an hour before landing, he left his seat and joined the makeshift minyan near the back of the plane, and wrapped his eighty-year-old tefillin as he greeted a new day.

******

Glossary and explanatory notes:

zt”l - short for zecher tzadik l’vracha, “the righteous person of blessed memory” - written after the name of a very righteous deceased person. Sometimes pronounced “zatzal,” sometimes read aloud as “zecher tzadik l’vracha.”

Baruch atah Adonai, mechayeh ha’meitim. - Blessed are You, Lord, who revives the dead. From the Amida (see below), part of a longer prayer said three times a day in Jewish prayer.

Olam HaBa - The World to Come (as opposed to Olam HaZeh, This World), the term is Jewish texts for the heaven-like world that righteous people enter after death.

me’ayin l’t’chiyat ha’metim min ha’Torah - “Whence is [the source] for resurrection of the dead in the Torah?” - a quote from the Talmud, in a passage discussing Jewish beliefs about afterlife and the prayer quoted above.

v’rabim m’y’sheinei admat afar yakitzu - “and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken” - quote from Daniel 12:2, appearing to foretell a resurrection of the dead and quoted in the Talmud as a proof-text for that idea

there is no reward for the righteous or punishment for the wicked in this world, only in the world to come. - another quote from the Talmud, reinforcing the concept of the World to Come (“Olam HaBa”) as a response to the problem of why good things happen to bad people and why bad things happen to good people.

Matzeiva - literally “pillar” in Hebrew; used to refer to a tombstone or similar memorial for the dead.

z”l - short for zichrono l’vracha, “of blessed memory” or “may his memory be for a blessing,” typically written after the name of a deceased person. Usually read aloud as “zichrono l’vracha,” sometimes pronounced as “zal.”

שלום מתן רוג'רז - Shalom Matan Rogers - written as Steve’s Hebrew name. Steve, though a common enough name in Jewish circles, has no direct Hebrew equivalent, so I got to play around with it. Shalom starts with the same letter, and I felt it was apropos for our weary super-soldier to have a name that means “Peace.” Matan is a Hebrew boys’ name that means “Gift,” so I felt it was a good equivalent to Grant. Rogers is transliterated (though see discussion of his last name below).

ת.נ.צ.ב.ה. - short for tehei nishmato tzrurah b’tzror ha’chayim, “May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life,” usually written on Jewish tombstones and occasionally in other contexts after the name of a deceased person.

כ"ז תמוז ה' תרע"ח - ה' תש"הa- 27 Tamuz, 5678 - 5705 - The Hebrew dates for Steve’s birthdate (yes, I looked up July 4, 1918 - note that the Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar don’t match up, so 27 Tamuz is not the 4th of July every year; most years, Jewish!Steve would be celebrating his Hebrew and English birthdays on different days) and assumed year of death. Rather than research or guess a rough date for when he touched down in the Arctic, I decided that - probably like many people murdered in the Holocaust and soldiers who died fighting in WWII - whoever made his tombstone only put the year of death, since they didn’t have the information or resources to pinpoint the actual date of death.

May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life. - See above; Steve is reading and mentally translating this line from his tombstone.

Chevra Kadisha - Aramaic, literally “Holy community” - used to refer to the group of people, required in every shul/synagogue/Jewish community, who voluntarily see to the community’s dead. Typically this entails cleaning, dressing, and burying the body, which would not have been necessary in Steve’s case, as no body was (obviously) recovered; however, because he had no living relatives at the time of his reported death, it would also have fallen to them to take care of his tombstone and any prayers of memorial/mourning.

im ein ani li, mi li? - “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” - first third of a famous quote from Hillel (a first-century Jewish leader foundational in forming Judaism as we know it), found in the Mishna (text that is the precursor to the Talmud).

Avraham Erskine - using the Hebrew pronunciation of Abraham Erskine’s first name to emphasize the fact that it is a Jewish name, and this commonality would not be lost on Jewish!Steve

im ani l’atzmi, mah ani? - “If I am [only] for myself, what am I?” - second third of the famous quote from Hillel.

im lo achshav, eimatai? - “If not now, when?” - final third of the famous Hillel quote.

Kipa - small circular cloth head covering that observant Jewish men wear, often worn at all times. Can be worn in addition to, or substituted by, another head covering such as a hat or helmet.

words of Torah rising unbidden to his lips - this alludes to the precept, which Jewish children are taught from a young age, that one should say the first line of the Shma (an important prayer said twice daily and taken from the Torah, affirming one’s faith in a singular God and one’s connection to Jewish peoplehood) at the moment of one’s death. Although I also like to imagine that other Torah quotes would have been rising in Steve’s mind at the time, as well.

Tefillin - A Jewish ritual item, used by Jewish men over the age of thirteen. Tefillin is a plural noun, and they are often also referred to as a “set” or a “pair” of tefillin. It consists of two pieces, each with a black box of hardened leather containing pieces of parchment with specific passages from the Torah written on them, and black leather straps attached to the outside of the box. One piece is wrapped around the left arm, with the box positioned on the upper arm; the other piece loops around the head, with the box positioned on the forehead and the straps dangling down at the back of the neck. They are “wrapped” (the term commonly used for donning Tefillin) at the start of the morning prayers on a regular day, with certain blessings and verses said as one puts them on, and unwrapped at the end of the morning prayers. Tefillin are considered holy, and one is supposed to keep one’s thoughts pure and focused on prayer while wearing them (if a person needs to duck out during prayer to go to the bathroom, they must remove the Tefillin and put them back on when they return). They should also be handled respectfully, and with care, due to their holy status. Because of the requirements in making Tefillin (the leather parts must be made from the hide of a kosher animal, and the passages must be hand-written by a trained scribe, in special ink, on parchment made from the skin of a kosher animal), Tefillin are fairly expensive.

Bar Mitzvah - Aramaic, literally “a son of the commandments.” Refers to a Jewish boy’s 13th birthday (or the celebration of that birthday), at which point he becomes responsible for his own fulfilment of all the relevant commandments in Judaism. This is the age when an observant boy would receive his first set of Tefillin.

Brachot - literally, “blessings.” Used here (and commonly) to refer to Birkot HaShachar, “The Morning Blessings,” a set of blessings said at the beginning of morning prayers, and which can be said while getting dressed.

Amida - literally, “standing.” Name for an important prayer said in every Jewish prayer service (usually three times a day), so called because it is said while standing, with the feet together in one spot. (Also known as Shemonah Esrei, “Eighteen,” for the eighteen-or-so blessings that make up the core version of this prayer.)

Roiskies - I took some liberties here, because Rogers is not a common Jewish name. There is, however, a very historical trend of Jews with very Jewish-sounding names changing their names to very non-Jewish names, with a common first letter or sound, upon immigrating to the US, which is what I have to assume happened in the case of Jewish!Steve’s parents. Roskies / Roskes / Rosskies is a common enough Jewish name, and one with a close enough sound that Joseph might reasonably have changed his name from that to Rogers. Unfortunately, I have not been able to source the meaning of that name (if any Roskies know what their name means and want to help me out, I would welcome that). I added the i to make it the variant Roiskies because of my best guess as to the name’s origins - that the first part comes from the Yiddish rois, meaning pink or rose (see also: common Jewish names with that root such as Rosen, Rosenberg, and Rosenstein).

of blessed memory - see z”l above; Steve is remembering and mentally translating that text from his tombstone

Chillul Hashem - literally “Desecration of the Name [of God],” used to refer to any action that, when performed by a Jewish person, would make the Jewish God, Judaism, and/or the Jewish People as a whole look bad. Acts of Chillul Hashem are forbidden in Judaism.

the Kotel - literally “the Wall,” short for Kotel HaMa’aravi, the Western Wall (the still-standing western retaining wall around the area of the Jewish Temple that formerly stood on the Temple Mount).

a Captain America kipa - see above about what a kipa is. Captain America kipot (plural of kipa) do exist.

Yad VaShem - the Holocaust Memorial museum in Israel (its name is taken from a line in Isaiah, promising a lasting memorial for all the righteous who die without children to remember them; roughly, “yad vashem” means “a monument and a name”)

Righteous Among the Nations - a list maintained by Yad VaShem, of all the non-Jews who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. They give recognition to the honorees on the list (or their descendants) when new names come to light.

ג’יימס “בקי” ביוחנן ברנס - Hebrew transliteration of James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes

Shuk - market, here referring to the popular large open market in Jerusalem.

Minyan - literally quorum, referring to a group of 10 or more Jewish men for prayer, as many prayers are only said (in Orthodox circles) when a minimum quorum of 10 men are gathered together. Can also refer to the prayer service taking place when this quorum is gathered. On flights between Israel and North America in either direction, there are usually enough Orthodox Jewish men for a makeshift minyan to gather (preferably somewhere unobtrusive) for morning and/or evening prayers at the beginning/end of the flight (depending on the times of takeoff and landing at the origin and destination locations, respectively).

[vexie-chan]

Mortal Choice

Cadceus Clay has prayed for his friends before. The Wildmother listens. 

Spoilers for ep65

Her Clay is cold and wet and miserable. But that is only the first part of his prayer. The Wildmother cannot help but smile as she listens to him murmuring over the vegetables he’s chopping for a nice, hot soup.

              “It doesn’t seem to be a very good relationship,” Caduceus says, shaking his head. “This Uko’toa person seems like a tough customer. I know…I know you all have different relationships with your followers. But this can’t be right, can it? Everything about these temples seems unnatural.”

              Young Caduceus’s mind’s eye recounts images of the horrible drowned things he’d faced below the sea. The Wildmother watches thoughtfully. It’s true, Uko’toa is not one of her favorite beings. After all, he’d been locked up for a reason. If it was meant to be that he was freed, so be it, but it would mean the scales would tip toward death and destruction for a while. Enough of that is occurring with the wars and sicknesses in the lands at present.

              Still, it is not her place to intervene.

              Caduceus sighs, laying down his spoon for a moment. He closes his eyes as if he feels the same resignation she does.

              “I guess this isn’t really any of your business,” he says. The Wildmother smiles.

              “You’ve looked out for me—even though it’s been…it’s been pretty bad, I know you’re there. That’s why I’m still here, I think,” Caduceus continues, his voice becoming unsure.

              My sweet boy, the Wildmother thinks. It’s been good for him to leave the Blooming Grove. He has things she would like him to accomplish, but she also wants him to learn more about the world and the things in it. It’s good for him to question his faith—Caduceus has always been an unquestioning follower when he should really question things more. It pleases the Wildmother that he is asking questions and having doubts. The youngest Clay is growing up.

              “I don’t know if it’s something in your purview or not, but if it is, could you keep an eye on Fjord? He’s…he’s a good guy. I don’t think his patron is treating him very well. I don’t know much about any of this stuff about pacts and agreements, but I do know this isn’t a very healthy relationship. If there’s anything you can do, I think he’s going to be a good person in the end, if he could just get away from this Uko’toa character,” Caduceus says.

              This surprises the Wildmother. The Clay family have been faithful worshippers of hers for generations, but never evangelical. That is not how she wants her worshippers to be. They do their part and tend to her gardens and defend the balance between life and death. The Clays respect the worship and custom of all the other gods. They are well studied and well versed in those that require specific burial rituals or other death rites. Young Caduceus is the first in many generations to question the worship of another being.

              The Wildmother reaches out curiously. His heart is full of concern for his friend. He has truly come to care for these people.  

              I will watch and see, the Wildmother thinks. Caduceus smiles into his soup, relief tinging the edges of his aura. He felt her, then. He always was a sensitive boy. Her Clay.

                She watches, acquiescing to Caduceus’s prayer. For a short time, the Wildmother thinks Uko’toa has let Fjord go. The Mighty Nein make their way to the shore and travel further and further inland. The Wildmother watches, but they seem to be safe.

              It’s late one night—her attentions are mostly elsewhere—when she sees black tentacles reach for Fjord’s consciousness. She sees them writhing from the corner of her eye. As she turns to watch, a chill shudders through her celestial self. The tentacles wrap themselves around Fjord’s sleeping mind, filling his aura with fear and dread.

              The Wildmother hesitates. It is not her place to intervene, but she recalls how Caduceus was concerned about this relationship. He was right—it does not look healthy or natural. Uko’toa’s dark tentacles drip with a sickly green power as he threatens his chosen vessel. He isn’t strong enough to do very much yet, but mortals are weak and Fjord is not left undamaged.

              This will not do. Yet…what can be done? The boy entered into a pact with that unsightly being. It is not the Wildmother’s place to intervene. The rules are very strict. The gods should not fight over each others’ followers, but accept their coming and going with grace. Once, they fought for the worship of certain mortals. They destroyed each other and the mortals in the process. No more.

              The Wildmother watches Fjord wake up terrified with a frown on her face. She never did like Uko’toa.

                Caduceus’s second prayer for Fjord comes at the request of his friend Caleb. The Wildmother, of course, had seen the things that transpired between Fjord and his patron. She likes their relationship less and less. Her heart went out to the half-orc as he stumbled into the rain, clutching his lifeless sword, reaching for a power that had been rescinded.

              This is wrong, the Wildmother thinks, anger boiling in her like a geyser ready to blow. She’s become fond of her Clay’s friends. They’ve taken good care of him. Misguided as these Mighty Nein are, they do the best they can. She doesn’t like seeing one of them tortured by the being he’d trusted for so long. Nor does she approve of a higher being treating his mortals so poorly.

              The human wizard had watched carefully, feigning sleep. He watched Fjord through his eyelashes, eyes mostly closed. Fjord had been too frightened to notice. Caleb watched him fail to send his sword away, fail to cast. He watched as Fjord slipped out of the room, then sent his fey creature to watch as he tried to reach for that missing magic in the streets.

              Caleb woke early to find Caduceus, always an early riser. Now, they face each other over a cup of tea.

              “You…you have roomed with Fjord often on our journeys,” Caleb says hesitantly.

              “I have. Why?” Caduceus says.

              Caleb leans in, dropping his voice to ensure no one is listening.

              “Have you noticed whether he is getting more dreams from…from his patron?” he asks.

              Caduceus frowns.

              “I wouldn’t say more, but he seems unhappy when he gets one, now, doesn’t he?” he replies thoughtfully.

              “I think he is being punished for walking away before he could free him,” Caleb says. “He woke last night unable to cast. His falchion was still laying on the bed this morning. I don’t think he can send it back to wherever it is usually kept.”

              Caduceus lets out a sigh that might be a partial growl. He shakes his head.

              “I don’t like that Uko’toa,” he says. “He’s bad news, Mr. Caleb.”

              “You are…a man of the cloth. Is there any way to get Fjord away from his god? Can he break his geass? Can your Wildmother protect him?” Caleb asks.

              The Wildmother smiles at that. Caleb, the broken, faithless boy is always willing to support the faith of others. He believes in nothing, but knows enough to understand that his beliefs have nothing to do with anyone else’s.

              “I’ve asked. I don’t really know how all that works…I don’t know if she’s allowed to interfere with what other gods are doing,” Caduceus says. “It won’t hurt to let her know what’s going on, though. Maybe she can do something for him. ”

              “I hope so,” Caleb says. His aura is always gloomy and worried, but his concern spikes a bit for the sake of his friend. “I do not think it will bode well for any of us if that fiend comes for vengeance. Especially not Fjord”

              “No, I think you’re right,” Caduceus agrees. “I’ll see what I can do.”

              “Danke,” Caleb says.

              Caduceus asks for her help later that day.

              “I don’t know what you can do, or what you’re allowed to do, or if you’re even interested,” Caduceus says. “But you’ve taken care of me, more than I deserve. If there is anything you can do for Fjord, please do it. This thing…it’s not good. And we need him. He’s part of our team, and he’s a good friend.”

              The Wildmother sets a part of herself to look at the geass keeping Fjord bound to Uko’toa, and keeping Uko’toa bound in his prison. For days, she studies both.

              “You know, you do have options, sister.”

              The Wildmother turns to find the Raven Queen smirking at her.

              “I’d like to crush him in the deep waters he loves so much,” she replies.

              “And perhaps you will get that chance. For the time being, why not take the boy under your wing? If it’s bothering you so much,” the Raven Queen says.

              “I’m not about to steal someone else’s chosen as my own. I don’t play that kind of game,” The Wildmother says sharply.

“Who said anything about stealing? Don’t underestimate the power of mortal choice. You can always ask nicely…if the boy chooses you over his eldritch beast, it’s all fair game,” the Raven Queen says with a shrug. “Mortals change their hearts on faith as quickly as the weather changes. That’s hardly your fault.”

              “You make it sound so easy,” The Wildmother says with a shake of her head. “The balance—”

              “It is easy. Choice is as natural as it gets, sister. All you need to do is open a door. Whether he walks through it is up to him. You’ve disrupted no balance. But Uko’toa will if he breaks free again,” The Raven Queen says. She turns to leave. “Think about it, sister.”

              The Wildmother frowns, watching her go.

              A choice…

                Her Clay is angry with her. He does not like to be told no. He does not like being told that some problems are too big for him to fix. She loves him none the less for it, staying near as he closes his communication with her like a child slamming the door.

              Perhaps if she had not been so close anyway, she would have missed the black tentacles reaching for Fjord.

              Open a door.

              The Wildmother touches the consciousness of the half-orc. The cracking of Uko’toa against his binding is muted as she opens a door, filling it with as much light and love and life as she can.

              Fjord’s eyes widen as her emerald light touches his face. He leans into the light as if it were a caress.

              “Come with me, child.” She can’t help but whisper the words to him, reaching out.

              He’s mesmerized. At a glance, she sees the child-Fjord’s dreams of a mother’s plea just like hers, longing to be called to a place he can call home, longing to be loved by a mother. He moves toward her, arms outstretched.

              Uko’toa pulls back, but Fjord breaks free. The Wildmother pulls him into her embrace, letting vines sap the water from him, warming his clammy skin in her arms.

              “This womb I grant, but withers without faith. His wielder shall find you again,” she warns. She can protect him so long as he chooses her, but Uko’toa won’t let go that easily. Even now, the beast rages against her, fighting to pull Fjord back to him. Behind bars, he’s not strong enough to strike her down, but the walls encasing him are becoming thin.

              Fjord doesn’t reply, but stares at her in awe and admiration. The Wildmother looks down at him and smiles gently, flooding him with feelings of warmth and safety.

              “His will shall find you again, but until it does, rest,” she murmurs, embracing his small, mortal form.

              The relief on the half-orc’s face as he falls into a restful sleep makes her heart ache. How long has it been since he had found peaceful rest? She should have offered this to him sooner.

              When he awakes, the WIldmother watches as he fights with renewed strength and confidence. He marvels at the warmth of his magic now that she is watching over him.

              Don’t underestimate the power of mortal choice, the Raven Queen had said.

              “I will protect you as long as I can,” the Wildmother promises, knowing he can’t hear her. “My orphan boy.”

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 6 liveblog

"By Gelfling Hand...”

Huh. I fell off the watching wagon in September. Thats a long time. I’ve probably forgotten all the proper nouns.

Just a stream of thoughts.

So last time in Age of Resistance people finally dreamfast and the age of resisting finally starts. I can’t wait for the Gelfling Rey to show up and stop the one-note Kylan.

Rian has been captured, transferred from one Skeksis to another, and escapes after deciding that he’s not going to escape.

The All-Maudra is dead, long live All-Mauldra Seladon. 

Wonder what will happen now, me too.

Deet, Hup, and Brea are under arrest. And now the General wants to drink them.

“These Gelfling have just the vigor we’re looking for. Throw them in. And their little podling too.”

C’mon, Var. Geez. C’mon. Geez. He’s tall for his age.

The only good thing about Skeksis deciding to drink you is that the crystal is all the way back at the castle and they’re not going to want to hurt you or else lessen the vigor.

I’m looking at that jail cell wheel and the gaps are totally big enough for Brea to get out of if she just tries.

Oh hey, Lore senses Brea in need and is leaving his chamber by the magic of bending over to fit through the doorway.

And coincidentally, Rian, Gurjin, Naia, and probably Kylan are all here and saw Brea et al get captured so now they’re going to have an exciting chase scene to try to save them.

-Seladon looking at throne like ‘oh shit oh fuck what have i done-

Pfft she sits on the throne just when Lore decides he wants to leave his horribly hidden chamber and bursts through it like the Kool-Ade Man

OH YEAH

Seladon didn’t even get to enjoy the throne in a conflicted way for more than five seconds. That’s amazing.

Ritual Master: “VAR GEEZ C’MON WHY DID YOU KILL THAT GELFLING GEEZ VAR GEEZ”

General: “The Emperor is forgiving”

Ritual Master: -sass- “Of course! If there’s one quality our Emperor is known for, it’s mercy.”

I never thought that the Ritual Master would be the voice of reason among the Skeksis but hot damn, I’m loving his tone.

Rian standing in the middle of the road like some kind of badass.

But the Rian ruse is a distraction.

Rian: “I heard you were looking for me”

General: ‘this fucking guy’

Rian: ‘Why don’t you come out and say that to my face’

Oh the General is just going to run Rian over with the cart. You can’t accuse him of not being pragmatic.

Ritual Master: ‘I DON’T LIKE ANY OF THIS!’

The rest of the team can’t get the back of the wheel cage open but thankfully Lore out of nowhere.

Lore Out of Nowhere is going to be the name of my band that just turns exposition dumps into songs. Once I learn how to sing, play an instrument, songwrite, or organize groups.

The Skeksis don’t know what Lore is but they’re both appalled and disgusted.

Huh. There are other Gelfling in the wheel cage instead of just protagonists. The paladins that the Skeksis were gathering for the ‘war.’ One can only imagine what they’re making of this.

Lore: -rips the wheel cage door off-

General: -squeaking a little in dismay- “My carriage!”

Oh the paladins are escaping too. I don’t know that they know whats even going on.

Ritual Master: -pokes head at cart to shake his fist and tell the kids to get off his lawn-

Lore: -stomps towards menacingly-

General: “We should escape without delay!”

Ritual Master: -sass- “At long last, you’ve had a good idea!”

And they swerve around Rian instead of running him over because he’s still just standing in the middle of the road like an idiot. Mighty courteous of the Skeksis or the pillbugs to not vehicular gelflingslaughter him.

Brea gives Rian a hug so Deet gives him a longer, lingering hug.

Pls no love triangle. Pls.

Paladins still not know shit start hubbubbing about how Rian is a traitor and a murderer.

Brea: ‘Nuh uh!’

Rian: “Everything the Skeksis ever told us was a lie. But its hard to recognize the light when you’ve spent your whole life in the dark.”

So clearly you should all get- yup Rian is like lets do a huge dreamfast circle.

And hey, good idea! He says afterwards they should spread throughout Thra dreamfasting with all gelfling to share the truth. 

Paladin: “I will dreamfast with you!”

Another Paladin: “I will dreamfast with you!”

A third Paladin: “I’m Spartacus and so’s my wife!”

Oh, cool. Funeral for the Dead-Maudra. There’s a cool sounding tradition for the death of the All-Maudra. “The windsifters will deliver six pieces of her crown to six Maudras that they might come together to reassemble it and place it upon the brow of the new All-Maudra.”

That’s pretty neat. A ritual to restate the unity of the Gelfling clans and publicly endorse the new All-Maudra as legitimate.

I have a feeling that its not going to go to Seladon’s liking though.

Woo gelfling song. 

Oh the windsifters are like. Batbirds.

I had been thinking that they were like a type of gelfling job, like couriers or something.

More gelfling beastmastery is nice too though.

Seladon: “Gelfling need an All-Maudra who won’t be swayed from the path set for us by the Lords of the Crystal. A beacon of light in these dark times. I shall be that All-Maudra.”

The, uh, librarian guy says that they should get around to the burial rites and return the Dead-Maudra to Thra but Seladon is going Creon from Antigone and saying that her mom isn’t going to get burial rites because she was a traitor. She is going to be cremated instead.

This is sure to endear Seladon to the Gelfling people who thought the All-Maudra was neat despite all evidence.

Librarian guy: “FOR SHAME!”

Seladon: “For Thra.”

Oh shit the Chamberlain limps into the Stone-in-Wood village after surviving that carriage crash last time and yells at everyone to bring him water and good and just generally do stuff for him. But the Gelfling all just kind of awkwardly shut their doors and ignore him.

And also throw stuff at him.

-Gelfling closes door-

Chamberlain: “I see you! I SEE YOU!”

Chamberlain: “How could you? I protect you! YOU OWE ME!”

Aw shit again, news of the Skeksis drinking people has spread here already and the Gelflings have no patience for Skeksis anymore.

And since Chamberlain keeps hanging around screaming instead of leaving, they start throwing rocks and fruit and possibly poo until he runs away.

Hey remember how you let Rian get away, Chamberlain? You goofed. You done goofed.

Scroll-Keeper: “The General and the Ritual Master have returned. ...Without the promised volunteers.”

Ornamentalist: -laughing- “The Emperor won’t liiiiike that!”

Scroll-Keeper: -chuckling- “No.”

-both start cackling-

I love how shitty the Skeksis are to each other. 

Some of the promised volunteers that escaped somehow made it back to the castle BEFORE the General and Ritual Master and have been spreading the truth.

Oh, hm. So you can dreamfast with someone. But you can’t then dreamfast the memories you saw in a dreamfast. So the escaped tribute basically has to go ‘yeah but just trust me, I saw what I saw in the psychic vision with the guy who is supposedly has brain sick’

But a lot of things are added up. 

The death of Mira. The weird sudden calling for volunteers. The death of the All-Maudra. 

A guard: “Yes! Spread the word and gather arms. We take this castle this very night!”

I cherish your optimism, guy.

It’d be a huge blow against the Skeksis but it feels doomed to fail. Plus one of the guards wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as the others and is probably going to snitch.

Oh dang I was ready to say that none of the new landscapes really match up to the bubblegloop swamp from the movie but the sweeping view of the Crystal Desert was pretty beautiful, if not as lively.

Kylan, I think: “They say the sands never stop shifting. Crossing the desert on foot will be as easy as walking on water.”

That’s that good shit.

Naia: “Must you complain about everything?”

Gurjin: “Its not my fault that everything is terrible.”

I appreciate you, Gurjin.

Uh oh. It seems like everything has finally hit Brea and she’s having a melancholy moment.

Brea: “I keep thinking that if I turn my head fast enough, I’ll see my mother’s face. Or if I listen hard enough, I’ll hear her voice. .. But I won’t.”

Brea: “I should be there to bury her!” Ooooof. Bad news there, Brea.

Deet suggests that they do their own ceremony there and Brea says that would help.

Deet: “Thats what friends do. They help.”

Brea: -sad hug, sobs- “You’re a true friend!”

Aww.

(Support Conversation rank A. After the time skip, they will be married)

Archer Ur Ru carefully rolling up stuff in a leaf for eats.

Aughra: “LONG NECK THERE YOU ARE”

Archer: -spills his entire lunch, sighs-

So Aughra’s problem is that she understands the situation now and all the pieces on the board but not how everything is going to end. There are many possible outcomes and she’s got to try for the best one.

I’ll say that two gelflings left finally healing the crystal cannot have been the Golden Ending. Maybe try harder, Aughra.

Archer: -seeing where she’s going with this- “And where does my path lead?”

Aughra: “Into the sands to face the Hunter”

Archer: … -sighs- “I cannot defeat my dark half”

Aughra: “You will find a way. But not without sacrifice.”

Holy shit Aughra are you telling him to kill himself? That’s kinda dark.

I mean, Skeksis and Ur Ru are quantum linked or whatev. Archer could just. Injure himself to the point that the Hunter can’t leap and gambol about the treetops anymore. Or ask Aughra to.

Aughra: “Get a move on. You Mystics are not known for your swift speed.”

Geez, Aughra. You dump a task like this on a guy and then call him a slowpoke.

Archer: “Will we meet again?”

Aughra: -hesitates for like a minute- “Some things even Aughra cannot see.”

Archer: -sighs harder-

And then she’s off to Stone-in-the-Wood to prevent a terrible mistake apparently. Hope it wasn’t throwing produce at Chamberlain because ship sailed.

Rian: “Life and death are a circle… not a line. There is no end, no beginning. Today, our beloved All-Maudra has returned to Thra. Though we cannot be there to guide her essence home… we will sing her memory across the wind. I will bind your words into a dream-stitch. All those who find this seed will know her as you did. Speak for the dead. Share your best memory that we may all know her goodness.”

I don’t have snark. This is just a beautiful ritual.

Now Rian is having feelings about his dad.

Like I get he’s feeling like his father actually loved him because he died for him but. C’mon. I feel like we’re sweeping the bad parenting under the rug.

“I love you. Get out of bed.” Wow. The All-Maudra was something.

‘When I looked at her eyes as the light faded out of them I realized that ‘I love you’ actually meant ‘I love you’’

Hup is a good singer.

Rian, why are you and Deet staring at each other longingly across a funeral fire?

Seladon: “I loved you with all I had” -sets her mom’s body on fire- “I’m sorry it was not enough.”

Mm. This is some contrast. In rites.

Oh the dream-stitch is just like flying off into the sky. That’s neat. 

OH THE MUTINY IS NOT GOING WELL AT ALL

Gourmand: “I hope you taste better than you fight”

GOD DAMN

Okay the Stonewood Maudra Fara has shown up to Ha’ra. 

oh geeez

Maudra Fara revered the All-Maudra so hearing she was killed going against the Skeksis makes her go ‘cool imma avenge her’

Also, this: Maudra Fara: “Several of your paladins are travelling the land telling a different story.”

Seladon is handling this as a reasonable individual. 

Fara: “You speak madness”

Seladon: “I SPEAK… as the All-Maudra.”

Chamberlain comes home and finds the castle in shambles. And Skeksis freely peeing and farting on everything. 

Seems like they just go full slob when they don’t have to put on a good face for the Gelflings.

Chamberlain is pretty disgusted at how gross things have gotten since he’s been gone but he perks up when he thinks he’ll be able to curry favor with the Emperor.

But nope. The big wild party is still going on and the Skeksis are binging on essence and foods. So the Emperor is feeling pretty good.

Gourmand: “Don’t worry, we kept the podlings.”

Chamberlain has to be a buzzkill.

Chamberlain: “I bring terrible news! Cease all merrymaking!”

Emperor: “I see you standing there but no Rian. What do you have to say before I punish you for your continued FAILURE?”

Shouldn’t’ve interrupted his hedonism, Sil.

Chamberlain: -had fruits thrown at him-

Chamberlain: “I faced grave danger!”

Chamberlain tries to argue that hey the open and rising revolt by gelfling clans is a Bad Thing Actually but the Emperor is feeling too buzzed.

-everybody laughs in Chamberlain’s face-

Emperor: “The General set us free! Never again will the Skeksis have to bear the burden of pretending to care for these useless Gelfling.

But who will make your food or- oh right, they’re going to enslave the podlings.

General: ‘HEY I HAVE AN IDEA LETS DRINK ALL THE STONEWOOD’

Everyone: ‘WOO THE PARTY NEVER STOPS’

And then they make fun of how much the Chamberlain stinks because he had fruit thrown at him.

They’ve been peeing on the furnishing and they tell Chamberlain to go take a bath.

I’d feel bad for him but y’know.

OH SHIT TAVRA, THE COOL SISTER

OH SHIT SHE HASN’T HEARD ABOUT HER MOM

Tavra: “Then she died doing what she had to do. What she always did. Protecting Gelfling”

Ehhhhh, speak well of the dead I guess.

Ok so i guess the rest of the Maudra have shown up. Except Maudra of the Grot who just sent the piece of crown back. Its just too bright up there.

So the Grot, the Vapra, the Spriton, the Sifa, the Dousan all support Seladon’s inauguration but the Stonewood and Drenchen withhold. 

This has apparently never happened.

Fara: “The All-Maudra has not always been a Vapra”

Fara: “A war is coming and Seladon is not the one to lead us”

Yup thought something adjacent to this would happen.

Seladon: “It was my mother’s crown. It belongs to me!”

Fara: “I would have followed her into a nest of spitters, but not you!”

gasp 

Fara: “I challenge Seladon for the Living Crown”

Oh snap

“We cannot challenge the Skeksis!”

Fara: “They are few, we are many.”

The dramatic irony here is palpable. 

Seladon: “Maudra Fara has invoked a challenge. It is her right to choose the nature”

Fara: “Trial by air”

-gasps-

A Maudra: “Tests and trials are the Skeksis ways, not ours!”

Apparently Seleadon is a contender being smart and careful but Fara is pretty confident.

Fara: “I will take no pleasure in besting you…. Childling.”

Wow Fara gonna condescend on top of it all. 

And back to the desert. 

The Dousan! The desert gelfling! Apparently they barely leave the desert and are forbidden from being castle guards for some reason!

He seems fun.

Dousan Guy: “To the great All. May the dead become one with Thra again. May we feel their tears in the rain. And their warmth in the suns. Though they are gone, they remain with us still.”

Brea: “That was beautiful.”

Dousan Guy: “But a trifle compared to your emotion.”

Oh they got the dream-stitch thing. 

Ah. Reky’yr. Sandmaster. 

Rek’yr is a smooth guy. He’s giving Brea a bone protection charm and offering to carry the group across the desert.

He’s the most helpful Gelfling they’ve met so far.

Oh. Until they mention they’re going to a place considered a cursed ruin and then he gets cold feet.

But Brea shames him into it by calling him a coward.

Brea: “You don’t trust Rek’yr?”

Rian: “Well for starters. He’s a Dousan.” Wow. Ok. Racist. “They’re obsessed with death!”

Brea: “They’re not obsessed.”

Rian: “HE GAVE YOU BONES”

I really hope Rian is proven wrong in his kneejerk suspicion. 

And then Naia, Gurjin, and Kylan peace out to join the spreading the news group of the plot. They recognize that they’re secondary cast and there’s no room for them in this subplot.

BOLD GURJIN! THANK YOU RIAN YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING GOOD AND GIVEN HIM HIS ADJECTIVE!

Hunter: -spots the party on the flying thing- “So. The hunt continues.”

Okay so trial by air is like a flying race. And everyone telling Fara not to be afraid of Seladon because she’s just a child makes me think that its not going to be so easy.

And that Fara is going to be for a rude awakening.

Oh god. Seladon is late to the challenge because she’s been dressing Extra Extra. Like a Skeksis.

I really can’t overemphasize how Aesthetic Seladon has suddenly become. 

And then she’s like ‘hey fara take the crown i don’t even want it its nasty’

Fara: ‘u wot m8’

Seladon: ‘Its cool i made a cooler, gother crown. Its much cooler.’

Fara is mighty pissed at this but Seladon just grabs her and throws her across the room and breaks the Living Crown with her.

Seladon: “Gelfling turning on Gelfling. We stand on the brink of anarchy. Bow before me, Maudra Fara. And together we will prove our loyalty to the Skeksis and snuff this fire before it burns us all.”

Fara: “As you burned your own mother.”

Damn Fara is good at burning Seladon.

And Seladon can only go ‘yeah well gtfo my city’

You know I was wondering how the trial by air would be portrayed. Flying gelfling is well within the special effects that they’ve already shown but a race would be different. But Seladon decided ‘screw that actually’

Ah well.

And then Fara and the Drenchan Maudra peace out.

And the other Maudras are like ‘geez Seladon geez’

Seladon: “And what will you three choose. Order or chaos?”

A Maudra: “This is not the gelfling way!”

Seladon: “It. Is. Now.”

Oh you three are going to bow? You cowards.

This is the Age of Resistance, not the Age of Follow Seladon She Has Some Good Ideas.

Well I thought that the clans were in revolt but it seems mostly just the Drenchen and the Stonewood. And standing alone against the Skeksis and the other clans is not going to go well for them. 

In general, the feeling ‘oh we should definitely trust our autocratic overlords they know whats best’ has been panning out really bad.

[bloodgarnet]

MDZS Original Mystery Fic Idea

So I came up with this idea for a mystery plot since I was so impressed with all the fic until I read the novel and realised most of it was just minor alterations on canon :/// (still impressive though). I got pretty far in the outline before I realised it would need a lot of minor character interactions and cultural knowledge which I respectively can’t be bothered with and don’t know shit about lol. The premise was also meant to have a lot of happy trolling WWX but most of the scenes turned out pretty serious… There’s probably a 99% chance I’m never going to write this so posting it publicly as free real estate.

Tags: Case Fic, Memory Alteration, Mystery, Plot Heavy, Romance, True Love

Title: Fortune’s Memory OR One Thousand Worries (*from Chinese proverbs)

Summary: Wei Wuxian successfully manages to convince everyone that he is Mo Xuanyu… through absolutely no merit of his own.

Prologue: WWX reflects after his resurrection that even if MXY forgot to state his wishes, he still did a pretty good job—after all, with a totally untested ritual from the branch of cultivation that he invented, who knows how many things could have gone wrong. /foreboding

WWX’s wrist held by LWJ as JC and he argue. Unexpectedly, JC says this is giving him a headache and decides to leave (jin ling says you too, uncle? JC like you ARE my headache, child). LWJ says WWX is coming with him to gusu but WWX argues it and says he doesn’t want to go to such a place with LWJ, whose eyes go cloudy and he suddenly releases WWX, confused. They part ways, but WWX wonders what the heck just happened—unexpectedly lucky! He’s still interested in all the weird things happening though and decides to meet up with wen ning elsewhere.

Meanwhile, LWJ inexplicably feels a profound sense of loss.

JC goes back to Yunmeng with Jin Ling and has trouble remembering things. He tries to recall the culprit of the ghost general incident but can’t picture his face. He tries to scold jin ling but can’t remember what for; jin ling also has trouble remembering. He tells jin ling to go to his room and if he wants sympathy, go to his mother for that. Jin ling freezes and says what are you even talking about. Jiang Cheng blacks out as jin ling screams.

Lan Xichen talks to Jin Guangyao about how both Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang have come down with a mysterious illness which affects their memory—possibly a targeted curse at clan leaders, though perhaps a small smattering of rogue cultivators have also been affected. Sadly, it has even affected the Jin heir, Jin Ling, though his is a bit better. JGY reflects since it’s the opposite way, it can’t be the strength of his golden core but rather maybe his youth that makes him resistant as some spells operate that way. LXC thanks him for the advice and worries that LWJ was recently in contact with JC and JL. JGY comments that these unexpected events are the most dangerous.

WWX meets up with wen ning and they discuss what to do: he frees wen ning from chains and needles and says he could go live life if he wants, but WWX is interested in the ghost arm incident. They get wen ning a disguise and hear from locals that nie huaisang and JC have come down sick. WWX frowns and wonders about the current political climate, who knows how many people would want to take down the sect leaders. Then he hears that LWJ is possibly also ill and feels really bad about it for some reason—that’s what makes him decide to investigate himself, putting this over the ghost arm incident. Wen ning asks how to do that and WWX says they need information now more than anything—they must prepare for the upcoming conference which will discuss what is happening.

JGY attends the conference and notices a strange bird outside. He’s seconds away from touching it when LXC calls him and it flies off. They go inside and discuss the potential epidemic; LXC confesses LWJ seems to show preliminary signs but Clarity seems to be helping him remain stable for now. They discuss it’s potential as a contagious epidemic and agree to have healers share findings as well as a group of famed Lan healers (?) visit the other sects with a small entourage in order to compare patients directly. JGY notes that this subject has totally eclipsed the issue of the ghost hand, which tried to escape Gusu Lan but was caught at the barrier with no casualties but many injuries. Also JC has woken and has a clean slate memory and just seems to be much happier??? They decide to keep the whole thing quiet from the public for now to prevent panicking. Conference ends with JGY accidentally revealing that he’s forgotten something important, so he’s infected too, to LXC’s shock. The bird flies away.

Wwx discusses the situation with wen ning at a restaurant (where wen ning is like thank god my tastebuds are dead lol). Wwx says that the situation is bad but not killing anyone so far which is good. Explains to wen ning that the healers probably know this but it can’t be an epidemic because it hasn’t spread enough; it’s far more likely a targeted attack since it’s really only affecting important people. Lan Sizhui and Jingyi enter the restaurant and WWX hides his face by faceplanting in his noodles lol. WWX and wen ning eavesdrop on their plans to escort the healers back from Nie territory to Gusu Lan, noting that LWJ may have gotten worse in the time they were gone. WWX worries and decides he needs to steal a jade token, but for now they have a convenient target for a little spy.

Sizhui and Jingyi report to LXC with the healers who explain that it IS contagious, a qi transmitted virus, but only from the carrier—likely only one since it hasn’t spread far: so it must be someone who has come into contact with all of the people affected fairly recently. Also it seems like an imbalance of energies causing qi deviation. Sizhui reflects this will be hard since the victims don’t remember anything. LXC says that’s somewhere to start, though, and gets disciples/servants to fetch LWJ from seclusion since it’s not contagious. LWJ joins (sizhui happy!) and says that his illness has not progressed at all. LWJ says that the number of potential carriers is too many but to retrace his steps he might as well seek out the rest of the ghost hand’s body as the hand has conveniently pointed in that direction. Sizhui and Jingyi volunteer to go with him along with some other junior disciples; justification that it can be a low-stress learning exercise if nothing else(?) which is what LWJ was doing originally. Then takes out his sword and strikes down the hidden bird which was trying to steal his token – LXC marvels that LWJ broke a rule (no killing) but LWJ says the bird was already dead.

WWX says, “Shit.” WWX talks to wen ning and says that chasing the hand’s body now is dangerous since LWJ will be there—he wants to investigate the victims too in case there’s a demonic element but has an inexplicable bad feeling. Laughs off concerns about memory because his has always been bad. WWX says that his expertise in this area is lacking though and what they really need is a healer who knows about demonic cultivation and wouldn’t run on sight… oh. Wen Ning is like I mean. WWX like would she kill us?? Hmm. They head to Yiling Burial Mounds.

Dead bird makes everyone realise it’s related to demonic cultivation

Filler scene…? Maybe LWJ POV? Tiger seal? Body parts?

Sizhui and Jingyi realise that someone LWJ met right before this happened (along with JL and JC) is MXY, so they should find him!

Wwx and wen ning arrive at the burial mounds and talk while wwx makes chenqing 2 (joke that’s a JC name! But I can’t think of one now lol). He uses it to summon wen qing with inquiry and ask her about it. She says it’s hard to say but given that no one’s died, it may not even be intentional, maybe just a side effect or symptom of something else. WWX says since there’s no change in political power. It does weaken the sects affected temporarily but a widespread attack like this isn’t so good tactically so it could fit. Wen Qing says she’d need to examine a victim herself but would need a body for that and hers is long gone. WWX like wait you would be okay with me getting yours back? Also idk how to do that?? He explains the ritual he used to come back and she frowns. WWX like to accomplish what you suggest would need more power than I currently have in this body… perhaps by repurposing the tiger seal???

And this is where I stopped because I legit can’t remember what happened to the tiger seal at this point in canon. Probably something about Xue Yang but I skipped over his chapters because I wasn’t interested lol. Since there wasn’t really a point to bringing Wen Qing back, I imagine their plan fails but it brings them into the fold with the other characters, and she stays a ghost and has a tearful goodbye with WN at some point near the end or something. Also having to figure out exactly how the whole Nie Mingjue thing would fall apart with both Nie Huaisang and JGY incapacitated, as well as the whole Qin Su thing... blah. Wanted to change the dead bird thing since I was annoyed at myself for copying a fandom trope but couldn’t think of anything better.

Basically the points I wanted to reach were:

Sizhui and Jingyi note that the spell reveals your ‘true colours’ lol

WWX is eventually caught and interrogation reveals that he also has the virus even tho he has a very weak golden core and they realise he must be a demonic cultivator; some pity because he seems so happy without memories of abuse (his happy antics are even kind of familiar... hmm)

Full clarification that WWX is the virus carrier: it’s a golden core imbalance caused by the imperfect resurrection which infectiously causes qi deviation for people who come into contact with his demonic cultivation and triggered by emotional upheaval which is why JC gets the full thing IMMEDIATELY lol

WWX was trolling at first but then actually DOES forget everything (caused by something with LWJ? Maybe a gay panic lol), but still knows his shit and explains that if it’s an imbalance then the opposing yang/yin energy must be demonic in nature so they should just huff a demonic seal or something lol

^ political statement that demonic cultivation isn’t evil, just ~opposite~

Jin Ling has recovered a bit and says he will talk to MXY but is like wait that’s… not him?? like yes I know he forgot everything but it’s really, really Not Him???

Interrogation of JGY’s spotty memory leads to deduction of what scrolls of WWX’s MXY learnt—body sacrifice and summoning

The cure is demonic energy + confessing your sins and being happy you fucks

And then like the one scene I actually had in mind when I wrote this: WWX confused but yelling MXY is not my name!!! And LWJ, on the brink of forgetting everything, still says, “Wei Ying,” recognising him immediately despite everything. Much shock, so drama.

[leviclark13]

My first blog

Blog 1

How would you introduce yourself to the blogging community?

: As I Type my first Post in blogging Let me first Introduce Myself. I am a gamer and I love to read poetry's and Sometimes I love making Poetry and another one is that I love playing basketball But due to Studies My hubbies Became a Memories But I'm okay with that, because my priority is Studying, I am type of person who loves to eat but if I get fat I would start on a diet, and I love Making jokes but My jokes kinda sucks. for example who Sino and Bayani ng Pilipinas na may Apilyedong `C`

Edi Si Diego C-Lang (HAHAHA) my jokes sucks right? But at least I've tried to make people smile and I'm not hurting anyone and I'm a kind-hearted person too This is the personality that I love and at the same time I Hate why? Because I forgive easily even You've done horrible things to me if you just talk to me and even if you Didn't Say sorry, We're okay It sucks right but that's me I can't do anything about that. And in school I'm not that smart I'm an Average student who only know Small things But I'm a student who Is a grade conscious And trying to do my best to improve and make my parents proud because I believe that No one can stop you to Improve There are Obstacles but Don't let it stop you You can surpass that Obstacle because God doesn't give an obstacle To A person if he/she Can't surpass it . and. I love playing guitar, But I Just started playing guitar last month. so I'm just a beginner but I want to become A Pro Guitarist Someday and My dream is to become a Pilot someday but my father and mother Can't afford the Course that I want to take when I Graduate Senior high So My choices are Psychiatrist or Electric engineer but if God gave me A Opportunity to Take the Aeronautical Engineering I will do my best to be the top of my class and let me introduce to You My family members, my Father is a policeman and my mother is a teacher and I have a sister and a brother , I wouldn't say that we are that blessed through money but My parents are doing their best to Give the needs to us Sibling and that's the thing that I'm impressed about, no matter how hard it is . both of them are working hard and Even if they are Sick they still Don't think of themselves but they Think about Their child And just continuing Working and working that's why I want to Have a job that Can repay them For their sacrifices so let me end these blog Because I guess it's kinda boring if I tell you who I am right? So again I'm Levi Clark A. Camayang A new blogger and this is my First post And hopefully, you will support me thank you for the time In reading this Godbless Us all!

Where do I see myself 10 years from now? Was my learning in SPUP vital to I'm leading to

: I guess it is vital because I'm not that kind of person who will pick SPUP just for fun because I know that I will Grow and Be a successful person 10 years from now.

Was stem the best choice after all

: Sometimes I regret that I choose STEM because it is really difficult Track to take But I guess I will say that it's the best because I will have many Choices in choosing What course I would like to Choose in college

What course will you take in college and why?

: For now, I'm not sure if What Course I would take but I have 3 options psychologist, Electrical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering why because I like to talk A lot and travel at the same time and I want to help light up a Home who Doesn't have Light in their own home

What topic would you like to Lear more about this subject?

: The topic would be Programming Because it sounds interesting even though somebody is telling that it's really hard I like to learn that

Ask me anything:

Ma'am, are you glad that we are the student who you are teaching?

Blog 2

Nowadays, Gadgets has a big impact on our society.

It helps advance the human race forward and make doing mundane things more efficient. For me, My favorite gadget/technology is the mobile phone. the mobile phone has a lot of social advantage using mobile phones, You can easily communicate with others through calling, Messaging, Chatting, and also video calling/chatting. It is convenient, cost-effective, and can be done anywhere as long as the network collectively is available.through mobile phone network connectively is aware available. Through mobile phones it is easily for us to connect to the world and for entertainment because it is hand tight gadget and we can bring it anywhere we go. It is also safe because it is not like the Other gadgets that is heavy to bring and easy to put in our pockets with all that said and done the way you utilize your phone matter. Mobile phone can be one of the best gadgets you will hold and just a reminder. Mobile phone has also disadvatages but don't let that to discourage you, it a matter of choosing how best can it benefit you.

BLOG 3

A man with a faded, well-worn notebook opens his lap. A woman experiencing a morning ritual she doesn’t understand. Until he begins to read to her. The Notebook is an achingly tender story about the enduring power of love, a story of miracles that will stay with you forever. Set amid the austere beauty of coastal North Carolina in 1946, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner who returned home from World War II. He is Madly in loveeee with Allie who is the Daughter of a Rich Family in North Carolina, Who is in Vacation She met Allie at the Carnival and He fell in lovee to Allie In just a snap but allhat time has a date and by the time That Noah realized that he need to make a move immediately He jumpss to a Ferris wheel just to ask Allie to date with. And after many dates They fell in love with each other that they never like to be separated from each other and one day Noah HE bring With him to see ann old house which he wantss to. renovate and be their House someday but destiny Has a plan the father and the mother of allie Secretly Planed to seperate allie and noad so they decided to leave early Because they want to seperate Noah and allie And After noah Had found that Allie Left He immidiately Run to the house Of Allie and after that he wrote A 99 letters to allie but the mother of allie kept The letter and after The 99 letter he wrote a fair well letter .and after that noah had joined To annn Army and Return after 2 years and after that he Rebuilded the Mansion which Allie and noah Had Dream of and during the time when noah Is rebuilding he's house His father Died and after the burial he Continues to Build the Mansion And A photographer took a Photo Of him And the background Is the mansion And Published in trough a newspaper and many had tried to buy the mansion but noah refuses and On the other hand allie who is now lives in New york and became a nurse had a new Boyfriend who is in a military As she Work Her Friend Had shown to her a Newspaer he saw Noah and The mansion they wish to rebuild she fainted and after that she decided to Go to North carolina to comfront him and to clear thing out between them and after that Talk Allie realized that she is Still inlove with Noah And she finds out That her mother kept

the letters that noah wrote to her and Allie ,confronted her mother if it's true And her mother Said that it's true and Allie got mad And Immediately he return to Noah and Confess that she's still inlove with Noah and after that her mother find out that she is still is going to pick Noah and her mother revealed something Shocking she is Inlove with a man just like noah who works in a lumber jack when Her teenage days but Her mother and father wanted her to Pick a man who can Raise and give the need to her and Her future child and Thats why she picked the father of Allie and thats the Advice she Gave To her but Allie Chose Noah and She left her Boyfriend to Be with noah. And after that they Came back to the present Allie den realized that she was in the story and the one who is Reading it is Her husband She immediately hugged Him and they dance together And They had a little talk about their child and after that Ellie Had already forgotten Who Is she dancing with And scrambled with Fear And after that they died But Noah still loved Allie until death

What life lesson can be learned in the movie?

: The life lesson is If you love Somebody You will be there for them p even If He/she doesn't remember you because love will always be in your heart even if you don't remember it.

What part of the story told by the movie was the most powerful why?

:So its not gonna be easy, it's gonna be really hard and we'ree gonna have to work this every day, but I wanna do that because I want you, I want allll of you forever ;This was the most powerful for me because Noah Said that Even If we fight that'ss normal to us because That's us,but we keep on loving each other because I want you to stay forever in my life through thick and thin

Who was your favorite character in the movie why?

: Noah why? Because He didn't give up on his First love and He full filled There even if Allie was gone and When she returned she accepted her and love her truly In their Old age Even if Allie doesn't even remember Him She still Wants to be with her forever and He kept her promise that I want you and I love you forever

Did anything that happened in the movie remind you of something that has occurred in your own life or that you have seen occur to others?

: It reminds me of my Grandfather and Grandmother but Opposite my grandmother is the one Who is sacrificing Just to take care, my grandfather, Because my grandfather Had done a Serious Operation and Because of many medicines he easily forgot a thing and ask a question over 10times And thinks sometimes like a child

5.if you had a chance to ask a character in this movie a question, what would it be

: I would ask noah; where do you your strength in Understanding her and loving her Truly If She is only Your strength and she doesn't remember you?

[anitoanum]

Bikol Animism & Spiritwork Notes

[Image Description: Photo taken by Anito Anum of the Mayon Volcano with lush jungle in the foreground, water marked with rainbow colours, stars, and spirals. The title, on a semi-transparent black rectangle, reads: “BIKOL ANIMISM & SPIRITWORK NOTES”. The bottom caption of the photo in white font reads: “A reconstructionist diasporic anglophone perspective. Compiled by anitoanum.tumblr.com.”]

Note: My sources are listed at the end. I welcome any and all feedback from other Bicol/Bikol people, especially folks from the homeland, regarding their spiritual and healing practices.

People and Powers

asog: ritualist, priest/ess (what Westernized society would now consider a feminine male assigned at birth person)

balyan: ritualist, priest/ess (what Westernized society would now consider a female assigned at birth person)

parabawi: an exorcist, referring to anyone who drives evil spirits out of the body so that good spirits may return

parabulong: anyone who administers medicine

himara/maghimara: to predict the future by observing external movements, such as that of a wheel moving slowly, fast, etc.

hula: prediction; maghula / hulaan to augur, forecast, foresee, foretell, predict

hukloban/hokloban/hodoban: witch doctor, malicious sorcerer who killed men and animals, and demolished houses

matanda: a wise old ruler

nuom: clairvoyant; seeing in mind’s eye/imagining something that comes true

parapalad: fortuneteller

pintakasi: defender, patron, patron saint

sabong: pasabong: an omen, pagpasabong: clairvoyance, ESP, ipasabong: to be clairvoyant

sarawat: masarawat: describing someone who loves plants

sunat: a high priest/ess (gender unknown) responsible for ordaining the asog and the balyan

tagohalim/tagohalin/taguhalin: shapeshifting sorcerer

tagolainan: a sorcerer.

tuyaw: magtuyaw/tuyawon: to prophesy, paratuyaw: a prophet

Spiritual Concepts

gagamban: hell

kamburagan: paradise/heaven

liwat na pagkamundag: reincarnation, rebirth

pagkamundag uli: reincarnation, rebirth

Ritual/Palihon

Palihon/paliyon/polion is the general term for rituals, beliefs, and taboos, and their preservation.

To Whom: 

Rituals are done for the anito and/or gugurang, and sometimes for the tawong-lipod. 

Anito/diwata are generally ancestor spirits out in nature. 

Gugurang are generally ancestor spirits of the household that come along with a person, but in later folklore began to be seen as a single deity inside Mount Mayon.

Batala/bathala are a set of special gods/spirits that watch over a village or clan. 

The tawong-lipod are general invisible spirit beings, like giants, elves, dwarves, etc.

To hold a festival or ritual for the anito is called a maganito or anitoan. The anito/diwata are represented by carved wooden statues called ladawan or lagdong. The lagdongan is also the name of the basket that carries the ladawan/lagdong. 

By Whom:

Most ritual is presided by a balyan and/or an asog. 

The sunat is the head spiritualist who initiates the asog and balyan. 

There are also other ritualists, called the parabawi/santiguar, that deal specifically in exorcisms.

Where:

The anito have houses/temples called muog/moog that are built in open fields or in the branches of trees. 

The gugurang have a temple of bamboo, reeds, and coconut fronds called gulang-gulang or golanggolang. 

How:

An altar called a salagnat/salangat is created out of bamboo in which food is offered to the anito/diwata/gugurang. 

The food/banquet of the maganito is called the gamit. 

If you are sacrificing a chicken, it is called a hanggot. 

If you are sacrificing a pig it is called socob/sokob. 

Songs called suragi/sorague are done for the anito/diwata/gugurang. 

Prayers called adyi and pamibi are done for the anito/diwata/gugurang . 

After the balyan/asog says prayers, it is customary to say ahom, in agreement. 

A ceremonial dance called a dumago was also performed. 

The balyan/asog usually wears a a circlet with a golden nugget or wreath of leaves/flowers called tubaw/tabao. There may also be worn golden balls as ornamentation, called matambacao/matambakaw. 

The balyan/asog also use banay, the topmost fronds of the anahaw palm, during ceremony.

General Rituals: 

The tubas is a washing/bathing ritual. 

Gabas is to ask numbers from the spirits.

Thanksgiving: 

The atang is a specific ritual where a sacrifice of one-tenth of the harvest is offered as a sign of thanksgiving to the gugurang. This is later eaten by the participants in the ritual.

Blessings and Coming-of-Age: 

The yocod/yukod is in honour of the anito to bless a favoured child and protect them from the aswang. Children process around the inside of a dwelling. 

The baguet is a coming-of-age ritual where a pig that was raised since the birth of a child is sacrificed and eaten by the child-now-adult as a community, with special alcoholic drinks. 

Tagay is a wedding ceremony in which the drinking of liquor forms part of the celebrations. When pronounced differently, tagay is also a ritual in which food is offered to the tawong-lipod to ask for a rich harvest, a full catch, a successful hunt, or the removal of spells placed on an individual by the tawong-lipod itself.

Prevention: 

The duol is a ritual where the whole tribe fasts in prayer and sacrifice to the anito to ward off evil or stop a disaster. 

The halya is a ritual done during the eclipse to ward off the bakunawa by using balalong, bamboo or hollowed tree trunks, that are beaten with sticks. Halya is also done during the full moon in honour of the gugurang to continue to ward off the bakunawa. There is also chanting during this ritual. At the climax of the halya, roasted water buffalo or boar is eaten, which is called the sumsom. In later folklore, Halya/Haliya became the name of a masked goddess of the moon.

The hidhid is a ritual that can be done to have the aswang stop a storm or a plague using a chewed up betel nut mixture. It was also known as a form of exorcism when there was a public calamity.

Rituals for the Sick: 

The hidhid is in honour of the aswang to counter its influence over a sick person. The balyan chews up a betel nut mixture and touches the person on the head with it. 

Olad is a spirit feast/ritual performed for the sick. 

Ole is a ritual to heal the sick. 

Paypay is to use the banay to fan the sick as part of curing them. 

Posao/pusaw is a ritual where lemon/citrus leaves wet with water are squeezed in the eyes of the sick. 

Tigay are chants and songs of the balyan to help cure the sick. 

Sacom/sakom is when you call the soul of the sick person back to their body and use banay to do it. 

Lagaylay is a dance that the parabawi, an exorcist, gets the afflicted to perform to get an evil spirit to leave someone’s body.

Rituals for the Dead: 

Statues and figures that are carved in honour of the dead are called parangpan/paraparangpan or tatawo. 

Basbas is when you wash the body of the dead with the water-softened leaves of lukban/pomelo/citrus/lemon. 

Katumba is the loud prayers and songs sung during the purification rites of the dead. 

The ayay is when you cover the graves of the dead with cooked rice or rice mixed with dirt.

Duol is also done after the death of a relative, where you abstain from certain foods.

The taroc/tarok is a ritual in which a banay is carried into a battle of vengeance and if the enemy is defeated placed on the grave of the relative who has been avenged. 

Hugot is when a slave is sacrificed and the entrails are offered to the aswang to prevent it from eating a newly dead chief or other important person. 

The kataposan is the ceremony held nine days after someone’s death. 

The actual funeral ceremony is called pasaka, and when you partake of the funeral feast on the day of the burial in honour of the dead, that is called lalala. 

Lalawan is when you mourn the dead by dressing in mourning clothes, cutting the hair, or holding a special ceremony. 

Binangonan/Binagnonan is when you speak to the dead in ceremony. 

Uraw is the ceremony to resurrect the dead with incantations. 

Makatagi is to be influenced by the positions of the dead.

Spells & Charms

An anting is the name of a physical charm or talisman. Munay is a general ointment.

aguatiempo: a potion which replaces drinking water of sick people in the belief that it will hasten the effect of medicine which has been administered

barat: the wind from the west; bolt; a needle-like wooden or metal peg which is an accessory to a small idol in human shape possessing movable joints and having many holes; if the barat is inserted into a chosen spot on the idol; after an incantation mumbled by the mambabarat the victim is supposed to suffer at the spot pierced by the peg; mambabarat a sorcerer who uses a barat

hinaw: a charm created by the balyan capable of identifying a thief; maghinaw to divine by using such a charm; maghinaw/hinawon to suspect of thievery by such divination

huklob: root (used by witch doctors in their ceremonies); maghuklob / huklobon to enchant, bewitch; hukloban witch doctor

kabal: an amulet which has the power of making its possessor invulnerable to the bolo and the spear, rendering these weapons dull, or suspending them in air upon attack; generally a circular piece of copper with a hole in the center, or a bit of shell roughly carved into the shape of anito noted for particularly admired exploits

laaw: root used as a charm which if brought into contact with an enemy can cause sickness or inflammation maglaaw /laawan to charm or bewitch with this root

lumay: love potion, maglumay / lumayon to give someone a love potion so that he or she will fall in love with you; makalumay/malumay to be affected by a love potion

mutya: pearl, jewel, gem, precious stone, anything someone holds dear, something beloved

pamaghat: a medicinal mixture of tree roots and alcohol, given to nursing mothers

pato: a root or charm which causes someone to who steals from you to fall ill or die

tagalpo: a herb carried by hunters and used to charm wild game so that they will not flee; a magic formula which, if thought of mentally, can turn a hostile attitude into cordiality, or an enemy into a friend; a type of hypnotism

tagohalim/tagohalin/taguhalin: Someone who makes charms/spells through shapeshifting or saying words; a root that was used in spells to aid in flying or shapeshifting into animals (cats or dogs); a plant from which an extract is derived enabling a man to fly, or to change himself into a dog or cat or other animal

tagohopa/tagahupa/tagolmay/tagulmay: A species of grass from whose roots may be prepared a brew capable of depriving a man of his will-power.

tagulipod: a plant possessing roots which, when eaten, may render a man invisible at will

tambal: antidote, snake medicine, tambalan: one proficient in such treatment

tauac/tawak: A charm which can be protect someone from a poisonous insect or snake bite; the charm is affected by pricking the person with something serving as an antivenom

Omens/Pasabong

barubarita/baribarito: the name of the singing of a haya/sayasaya, a bird, in which hearing the sound was a bad omen.

didit: the cricket, if the cricket’s chirping awakens someone during the night, a relative or someone close to that person will die

kuro-kuro/korokoro: bird; also a messenger of the buggo whose cooing indicates that the aswang  is coming to devour the entrails of a baby or someone who is sick; cooing followed by a muffled sound, such as that of distant thunder, announces the impending death of someone in another tribe

patyanak: if the wailing of a tiny black bird is heard at night by a pregnant woman but not by others who are with her, this could indicate that she will have a miscarriage

yasaw/yassau: a creature which hides in the shadows of trees on moonlit nights, if it is seen at the same time a cry resembling that of an infant is heard or imagined, the aswang is on the prowl and someone is going to die

Taboos, Oaths/Vows, and Curses

Bawal/Palihon/Taboo

ngasa: a superstition/taboo that holds if one’s fields or crops are particularly successful in comparison with those of others, death or misfortune will soon be visited on someone in the town, or the crops themselves will be lost

puhon: an ancient belief which holds that if a slave or person of low birth were to drink from a glass or eat from a plate of someone of high rank in the community, the abdomen of the slave or person of low birth would swell with air

sibol/sido/siro: An ancient ritual and taboo to not go to the house where sick and wounded are healing. 

sibong: A ritual/taboo/curse where those who get tattooed without earning it through battles or other ways, become sick and die.

Panata/Vow

matay: may I die; an oath taken whereby one swears to take his own life if he is not telling the truth

Curse/Tukso

karaw: a sickness inflicted by sorcery; magkaraw / karawan to curse; to put a curse on

ratak: to put a spell on, to charm or enchant, maratakan: to fall sick or have one’s wounds infected due to the evil medicine of a sorcerer, pagratak: witchcraft, sorcery

All words to describe witchcraft/sorcery/bewitchment/enchantment

aswangon/maaswang: to be bewitched, enchanted, put under a spell; magaswang/aswangon: to betwitch, enchant

babalo: enchantment; magbabalo/babaloon: to bewitch, charm, enchant, put a spell on; sound of a rooster crowing

barang: similarity; magbarang/barangon to bewitch, to cast a spell on someone; makabarang/mabarang to be bewitched, fall under a spell

dagon: to go ask a witch or sorcerer to hurt a sick person and/or eat his entrails.

himalo/maghimalo/himaloon: to bewitch, enchant

maibanan/yba/iba: to be bewitched, damage/enchantment by a sorcerer or demon.

lagaylay: enchanted, bewitched; lagaylayon: to be enchanted or bewitched

rawraw: to cast a spell over; pagrawraw: witchcraft, sorcery

usog: mausog: to be bewitched

Spirits & Otherwordly Beings

Benevolent:

Katambay are personal guardian spirits that watch over an individual.

Anito/Diwata are generally ancestor spirits out in nature. 

Gugurang are generally ancestor spirits of the household that come along with a person, later thought to be a single spirit that is Chief Spirit of the Bikol people

Batala/bathala are a set of special gods/spirits that watch over a village or clan.

Dawani is the legendary first woman of the world believed to have designed and woven the rainbow; hablon nin dawani: rainbow

Magnindan: spirit that helps fisherpeople

Okot: A dwarf/elf good spirit that spoke through whistling

Arapayan, Nagini/Naguined/Naguinao, and Makbarubak/Macbarubac are the three spirits that, when invoked with crocodile teeth and coconut oil mixed together, has the power to kill another

Harmful:

aguahan: A witch that eats human flesh. A sorcerer that is cursed or gives curses.

anananggal: a two piece witch that is capable of detaching its upper portion from the waist; the upper portion then flies in search of saliva to drink and human flesh to feast on

anduduno: a vampire that finds delight and nourishment in inhaling the odour and sucking the blood for a woman in labour, the sick and the dying; it assumes the shape of a huge bat and sucks from the back of a victim by means of a long, thread-like tongue

aswang: a devil or witch said to eat human flesh, though in later folklore was seen as a single deity (Asuang) inside Mount Malinao

bakunawa: a grotesque dragon that swallows the moon during eclipses, an event which is believed to bring bad luck

Bongan: malicious demon dwarf

bunggo/bonggo: ferocious “priests” whose eyes flash fire, consuming whatever is within the range of their heat. They wandered the woods and were possible descendants of Asuang.

buri: a one-eyed, three-throated creature inhabiting the swamps of a particular section of Bikol called in old records Punong

cacac/cacag/kakak: A witch. The song of a hen when she wants to lay an egg. Also the song of a witch who is flying and/or moaning by a sick person’s house.

daguit: To snatch something; to have something snatched by witches. Mananaguit: A bird of prey, or an aswang/witch that snatches humans.

hingnasuan: A witch that eats human flesh.

irago: the daughter of aswang, a serpent which can appear or vanish at will taking any form pleasing to its victims, often that of an envious woman with a sexy voice; same as uryol

kapri: a legendary giant; an evil spirit

lakaw: a ground witch

laki: a monster with the hoofs and mane of a horse and the face of a repulsive man with the wide protruding lips which entirely cover its face when it laughs; brushing against the invisible laki or simply being near it, could produce rashes curable by whipping the affected part with the long strand of a woman’s hair; same as unglo

layog: a witch that flies upright with its arms outstretched and its eyes gazing at the full moon; it snatches its victims from behind, between the legs, then carries them aloft by the ankles; it eats the flesh and laps the saliva of the tuberculous and can be found clinging to the rafters under the house of the victim

mampak: monster

mumo: bogeyman

pupo/popo: a hot-tempered, vengeful spirit who, by touching the head of a child with its hand, causes the child to grow weaker and weaker until it dies, or keeping the child a child forever

rabot: a master liar; also an ugly half-man and half ferocious wild beast that can transform its enemies into rocks by magic

silag: A witch that tears into the body of anyone dressed in white, feeding on the entrails and liver, causing the victim to die

tambaluslos: a small forest creature said to lead people astray; when it laughs, its lips open to cover its whole face

yasaw/yassau: a creature which hides in the shadows of trees on moonlit nights, if it is seen at the same time a cry resembling that of an infant is heard or imagined, the aswang is on the prowl and someone is going to die; the yasaw may be transformed into a laki

Neutral:

daro-anak: an ancient beast, usually a serpent or a wild boar, that has grown enormously large and, weary of its big size and old age, has plunged into the sea to become a sea monster or a small island

duende: dwarf, elf, goblin

ikogan: a spirit creature resembling a hairy man with a tail

mapangilaw: a giant who wears a vine for a belt 

isaw/issau: apparition, phantom, elf, dwarf

Kalapitnan: god/spirit of bats

liktin: elf, dwarf

luwok: elf

mangindara: merperson; person of the waters

patyanak: the fusion of an untimely discharged human fetus and a tiny black bird whose mournful wailing resembles that of an infant

sarimaw: tiger; a tiger’s tooth; a brutally fierce monster with crossed bulging eyes which appears unexpectedly before the guilty, tearing them pitilessly apart with its sharp claws

tandayag: a large serpent which is said to have gone to the sea and changed into a whale; also applied to a large eel which has undergone the same transformation; referring to things that are very old or very large

tawong-lipod: a general term for invisible creatures including giants, elves, etc.

tupong-tupong: a human-like creature which can stretch or shrink to take the shape of whatever it is next to

apo: grandparents; ancestors; respectful title; imp; small human-like creature living in little earth mounds and possessing magical powers capable of turning people into animals such as toads, snakes; tabi apo means excuse me apo and said when spitting, throwing a stone in the dark, etc. in case by chance one hits the apo

Sources:

Bikol-English Dictionary / diksionariong bikol - ingles by Malcolm Warren Mintz and Jose Del Rosario Britanico

Vocabulario de la Lengua Bicol by Marcos de Lisboa

Diccionario Mitologico de Filipinas by Fernando Blumentritt

Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas by Miguel de Loarca

[witchy-little-cloud]

🎀𝐼𝓈𝒾𝓈~𝑀🌸𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 o𝒻 𝒶𝓁𝓁(Pt.1)🎀

𝓘𝓼𝓲𝓼

Names: “Mother of All” or “ The Goddess of Ten Thousand names”

Isis is the Egyptian Mother, Knowns as the Goddess of the Universe. She was worshipped and revered all over the ancient world.

Isis represents feminine power and act of creation. She was seen as Great Mother Goddess, she’s also seen as a mistress of magic, rebirth, healing, resurrection and childbirth.

She was adored by her people, she was also portrayed to be a very compassionate and nurturing goddess and whom was said to be one with her people.

Myth of Isis and Osiris, Her brother- husband.

In the myth of the two lovers their undying lovers shines through in a passionate loving story.

Osiris was killed by Set who was jealous of Osiris’ position of King.

It’s said that Set tricked Osiris into getting in a wooden sarcophagus build by Set himself. This wooden sarcophagus was built to fit Osiris’ measurements. Upon getting into the sarcophagus Osiris was then closed in and locked in shut. Set seal the sarcophagus shut with lead and then threw it into the Nile. When Isis heard her beloved osiris was gone she immediately set out to look for him in which she later found out that the coffin had floated down the Nile river. When she got a hold of the coffin again she hid it in the Marshland where it was found once again by Set. Set opened the coffin and dismembered Osiris into fourteen pieces and proceeded to scatter them across the land of Egypt. Isis then set out to look for the pieces of her beloved. She had managed to find all but one pieces of his body which was his p*nis. Isis decided to make a phallus  out of gold and sang a song to Osiris until he was brought back to life. Once her beloved Osiris was resurrected he then could have a proper Egyptian ceremony and Burial. After Isis brought back osiris back to life she had made love to him with the golden phallus in which she became pregnant. She quickly fled the land to hide from her jealous brother Set and gave birth to her son, the Falcon headed God Horus.

Through the myth one can see how compassionate she is towards her family and how she will stop at nothing to protect her loved ones.

Isis the Great healer or the Great Physician

It’s well known that that many call upon Isis for her healing abilities.

There were temples built in order to worship and pray to Isis for her healing and great power.

One of the temple was The Temple of Isis Medica which was in Menouthis a sacred city in ancient Egypt, which is now underwater, devoted to the goddess Isis.

People would stay at the temple and follow a very rigorous  daily regimen prescribed by the priest and then the person would in the temple hoping to receive guidance from Isis through their dreams.

The priest and priestesses of the temple of Isis were said to be physicians who were very skilled in healing arts and were very knowledge in human anatomy, producing medicine, knowledge of common and rare diseases and surgical techniques amongst many other things.

Her ability to heal the sick was well known throughout the ancient world.

Isis Goddess of travel

Isis was also seen as a patroness of traveling by ship or travel in general.

The Nile was seen as life force in ancient Egypt their world depended on the life sustaining powers of the Nile.

 Isis would be associated with this part of the Egyptian life and was called Isis Pelagia or Isis of the Sea since she was the Goddess who filled the Nile river with her Tears every year.

In the Alexandria Isis was honored at the shore.

She would bring good fortune for those who embarked on their new journey and to those coming back home.

Isis is honored every year in a celebration know at The Ploiaphaesia, or The Festival of Navigation.

During this festival  people will  sent out offering of incense, flowers, libations and small shrines in a ship known as “The ship’s of Isis”.

Isis celebrations

The ancient Egyptians were known for their festivals throughout the year and many were dedicated to the Goddess Isis.

She was honored every full moon known as the “Fifteenth Day Feast” Which fell on the 15th day of the ancient Egyptian Lunar calendar.

A feast was to be held in honor of Isi and Osiris in which the foods were white in color and were either round or crescent shaped.

The food was usually cakes, peeled potatoes, white rice, cheese and milk.

The Night of the Teardrop or Feast of the Waters of Nile.

A festival that honors Isis and her sorrows as she cries for Osiris and when her sorrowful tears flood the Nile.  (Many of the egyptian festivals are not really known but this festival is thought to be held between June and July)

The Isia.

A six day festival celebration Isis’s search for Osiris.

On the last day of the festival her husbands rebirth is celebrated.

Worshiped Isis

Isis is worshipped all through the ancient world.

She was associated with Egyptian Cat Goddess Bast, due to the fact that cats were sacred to Isis

Isis became associated with many of the Greek and Roman Goddesses and also had temples in these other lands

Greece

Trio  Goddesses

She is honored in Greece as a kind of tria Goddesses, Artemis, Isis and Hekate. 

Rome

In Rome Isis is equated with the Goddess Diana.

It’s also said that the image of the Virgin Mary nursing Jesus was taken from the image of Isis nursing her son Horus.

Battle with Christianity

Her worship was important, history says that it was hard for ancients to finally let go of  their beloved Isis when Christianity came charging forward.

Trying to take Isis away from her deeply devoted followers was quite a battle.

It took a long time for her devoted to finally give her up after a long fight with Christianity.

Teachings of Isis

Isis can be invoked for many different things since her powers stretch far and wide.

Isis teaches us to be loving and compassionate towards other.

We are shown to protect and nurture our family along with ourselves.

Isis shows us that the universal healing energy is, love.

She helps us heal from within and nurture our souls and also how to create our dreams and achieve our goals.

She also shows us that the love of mother can be strong and powerful.

Isis is a great Goddess for those women who are approaching motherhood.

Call on her to learn how to love yourself and others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Guys Cloud here this is my first post on tumblr that I wrote myself. It’s not good but I hope there are something you can learn from within this post about the Goddess Isis along with how she was worshipped. I’ll make a second post about how to invoke and call upon her through meditation, to create dreams with Isis, along with how to heal yourself spiritually, mentally and creating a bond with Isis. I really hope this was of some help. Until next time bye bye hope your day is blessed with amazing things.

P.S ~ I’m sorry if this post suck to be honest I’m kind of scared of posting this. But I hope that upon more research I can add more small details and things to this post. Please don’t judge me to hard I’m still a baby witch gaining knowledge if there are things wrong with in this post please point them out to me. Thank you.

Sources “Goddess Connections: Goddess Rituals from the Modern Priestess” By Tara L. Reynolds. 

[sparklyjojos]

75% into Cosmic, these really turned into mini-recaps after all huh

Nemu and Kirika fly to England to deliver the manuscript to Juku. Nemu thinks a lot about her brother, mostly about how different their personalities are. Nemu’s burning wish to Make The World Better gives her fiery determination, but also stirs up intense hatred towards bad people. Juku on the other hand is according to her infinitely merciful and understanding, ‘overflowing with love’ even, and gives the impression of being somewhat detached, as if he transcends this world or attained nirvana. Nemu is forever grateful to Juku for always supporting her, which gave her the courage to try and become a detective despite her color blindness getting in the way (it’s described as seeing in grey, so I’m guessing it’s achromatopsia). She calls Juku ‘兄さま‘ (nii-sama) -- a very respectful way.

--

Meanwhile in Japan... Amagi Hyoma is searching around the place where Ajiro and Juku have once seen the mysterious old man, sort of a delta made by rivers intersecting. He’s talking with some random lady called Yuu that I’m guessing is his girlfriend? We learn about “meta-detectives”, those whose reasoning is based on getting a ‘divine revelation’ of sorts. There are three meta-detectives in JDC: Juku with his Jintsuuriki power; Hyoma with ‘subconscious reasoning’ (ie. he drinks and sleeps a lot and gets enlightened in those states, lol); and the late Pyramid Mizuno. The way meta-detectives work is explained in a bit complicated way: if we consider the criminal to be a ‘writer’, then those detectives are able to understand ‘the intent’ of ‘the writer’.

Meanwhile in JDC... Ryuuguu and Hikimiya talk about the case. Ryuuguu’s bugged by one of the first victims having unusual writing on their back -- instead of the expected ‘locked room 9′, it’s ‘murder 9′. He even suspects that this is a dying message telling them the murders may have been in fact suicides (since ‘murder 9′ = ‘murder nine’ = ‘murder nein’ = ‘no murder’, lmao). Hikimiya’s not convinced, since how on earth would some of the victims cut off their own head and put it in a different place, and why there’s never a weapon found around? Ryuuguu also tells Hikimiya about his suspicions that Ajiro and Shiranui may have actually discovered what’s going on already, but have reasons not to share their knowledge with anyone else.

Meanwhile in Dakushoin’s house... bothered by the case, Nagisa retrieves an item from his urn that Dakushoin told her to bury with his ashes. Said item is a box containing 10 floppy disks. [...yep, it’s 1994 alright.] When the detectives check them out, they find files containing the text of the manuscript, as well as a letter from Dakushoin. In the letter, he admits that he wrote ‘The Locked Room Legend’ (that’s what’s the manuscript overall is called), that it was written for the Locked Room Lord but also that writing it wouldn’t be possible without said person, that he wants it to become as famous as Genji Monogatari in the future, and even considers the events about to happen [the case] more of a necessary ‘ritual’ than a murder. The letter is dated 24 XII 1993, which would be almost two months after Dakushoin’s death. Also, one of the ten floppy disks seems to be missing from the box, but from what they can tell no one could put their hands on the urn between the burial and now.

--

Meanwhile in England... Kirika and Nemu arrive in London, reunite with Juku and Yomiko, and meet Inugami Yasha and Lonely Queen. The last one, btw, is apparently ‘a secret child of a secret child’ of Ellery Queen, who in this universe seems to have been a real detective. Later that night, Kirika spends a lot of time thinking about very important stuff, like ‘what kind of women Juku may like’, as apparently she has a crush or something. While she realizes she’s probably wrong about it, she gets the impression that Juku may not even have ‘the lowly feelings expected to be there between men and women’ [and I’d be totally down for aroace Juku, but Kirika’s assumption is in context kinda dehumanizing and clearly meant to be the ‘he’s so pure it seems like he can’t have ~normal human desires~’ thing and I’m... uncomfortable]

Anyway, Juku and Yasha plan to spend the entire night over the manuscript. It’s not a problem for Yasha, whose reasoning is actually based on not sleeping for ridiculous amount of time (even 90h straight) to ‘get the mind clear’ -- he’s a yet unrecognized meta-detective, just like the others relying on the subconscious to solve cases. (Which apparently is very hard to practice near Juku, as his voice is so warm and calming it makes you want to go to sleep).

--

MEANWHILE in JDC (this book likes to jump around places a lot). We learn that Pyramid Mizuno’s younger brother, Christmas Mizuno (...I am so sorry about your name, dude) is planning to take the entrance test to JDC, and Ajiro hopes he could fill the meta-detective-shaped hole that Pyramid left in the organization.

Then the detectives learn about a new victim: it’s one of the policemen they were working with, who’s been on sick leave for a few days. Apparently the bed-ridden feverish man somehow went to an entirely different prefecture just to jump (fall? be pushed?) in front of a train. His corpse doesn’t have a head and the writing on his back matches that of the Locked Room Lord’s other victims.

On a meeting later, Hikimiya unleashes his statistics reasoning skills. He assesses that to find the Locked Room Lord they must search for someone who satisfies 5 conditions (has the freedom to go around killing, is intelligent enough to design the locked rooms, is strong enough to behead someone, knows his way around old documents, and is someone Dakushoin knew). Hikimiya also shows everyone his meta-analysis of the manuscript text, such as ‘how many times every character’s name is mentioned per page’. In a roundabout way this allowed him to notice that in one story there’s a phrase ‘流水の中の清涼’ [the same that Kirika remembered seeing somewhere]. This phrase, when shuffled around becomes 清涼中流水= 清涼in流水=‘Seiryoin Ryusui”, and if you assign different kanji to the sounds, you get 濁暑院溜水= ‘Dakushoin Ryusui’.

--

Meanwhile, Hyoma is after four days still hanging around the river in pouring rain, and pretty damn drunk. In this state he actually does find an old man sitting on the bank fishing, who introduces himself as Hikami Sensai and claims he’s 1000 years old. Sensai is very enigmatic, says he’s ‘fishing for time’ and a lot of other cryptic things. He admits that he is, indeed, the Locked Room Lord... but so is Hyoma, and every other human who knows about the Locked Room Lord. As he explains: since ‘cogito ergo sum’, that means an individual makes a word for himself, and is trapped in it [in his perception of the world I guess?]. The last things Sensai says before vanishing is that this mystery cannot be solved, and,

“The truth of the locked room is waiting... a waiting place. Like waiting for death.”