#also gotta do magician!psychic at some point

[psychicthepsychic-daily]

HAW YEE

I really have to finish that Ray art bc the comic took up so much time but I'm also tempted to draw Psychic in a cowboy hat and/or outfit

[gaberoothekangaroo]

Yoooo okay I GOTTA ask about Witch Adam/Ronan, derek/stiles daemon au (!!!!), arranged marriage

no read mores! we flood the dash like men!

Witch (Adam/Ronan, 2k + words) [coincidentally, I never actually wrote anything between Adam and Ronan other than some dialogue around the prompt ‘What? I’m not a witch? Who told you that?’. So instead have what I wrote before I got to them: Adam meeting the women of 300 Fox Way]

The first thing he made sure to check was that there were no other witches in Pine Brook. He found a home that boasted psychics, but he didn't think they'd be actual witches. The home was old, lived in. Loved. It seemed normal aside from the porch full of plants. There was no over pouring of occult paraphernalia.

They could be.

Rolling back his shoulders and pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, he unlatched the worn gate and creaked his way up the stairs and across the porch. Before he could even knock, a woman with white hair appeared out of the darkness behind the screen door, smiling at him. It sent chills dancing up his spine.

"Magician, what brings you around?" She asked from within the confines of the house, giving him a faint smile.

Unsure of whether or not she was speaking to him, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. When he managed to swing his eyes back to face her, she had opened the door and was looking up at him. He tried not to jump backwards.

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd swing by." She turned away into the house without waiting for him, disappearing into the dark. Hesitant, he let the door slap against the frame.

"Come along!" She cried from somewhere inside. 

He grasped the handle and moved inside, careful not to let the screen door slam again. It was dark in the foyer, coats hanging on either side of the hall before the stairwell that led up one side and the hall that seemed to continue on forever ahead of him. The woman popped her head out of a doorframe two thirds of the way down the hall before disappearing. He moved towards her at a brisk pace, not wanting to hang around in the hall forever.

She had led him into the kitchen where two other women were hip to hip at the stove making something. The kitchen opened up into a dining room as well with a very large table pressed up against the near wall of windows. The woman he had followed was sitting at the table, nodding to the space in front of her. Unsure of what to do, he watched the ladies backs as they moved about on his way to the table. They were somewhat behind him and to the side as he sat down.

When he turned to face the woman, she had leaned across the table and was staring very intently at him. He gave her a nervous smile, trying not to be rude.

"The Magician has come by to say hello. He also wanted to see how witchy we were."

He stilled, blood running cold. He sure as fuck hoped he didn't just insult an entire coven of witches. The clatter and noise at the stove stopped as the two women found their way to the empty side of the table next to him and the woman opposite him. He swallowed thickly, looking up at them.

"Ladies, I-" He began, before the shorter woman stopped him.

"Sugar, we're as witch as it gets. I don't want you causin' no trouble, y'here me?" He nodded quickly. "I need a 'yes, ma'am,' yu' understood?" Her eyebrows lifted in response to her question.

"Yes, ma'am. I understand."

She nodded once, turning back to the stove, throwing out a, "Good."

The other woman continued to stand there, arms crossed over her chest. Evaluating him? Reading his soul? Intimidating him? He had no clue, but he felt like a lizard under the watchful gaze of a cat. Any wrong move could be the end of him and no one would be the wiser.

"I want you to listen real close to me, young man. I don't want no tomfoolery going on in this town. You keep yourself clean and you keep yourself out of our affairs. I don't wanna catch you round this street again." She stared at him some more. It felt like she wasn't through. He didn't want to try to 'yes ma'am' her before she was through. "And keep that ruckus /down/." She emphasized as she too moved back to the stove.

He felt cool hands against his, turning his attention to the first woman. She carefully moved his palms upwards, dragging her nails lightly over the lines. Carefully placing them on the table cloth, she moved away and disappeared into the darkness of the hall. He looked at the backs of the other women, unsure of what to do. He felt very out of his element here. More so than usual.

He didn't have to wait long before she came back. She placed a small vial stuffed full of herbs on a long loop of leather into his palms. She carefully curled his hands over it and patted them.

"To keep the ruckus down."

"Mom, where's-" A loud voice entered the kitchen before it stopped. He turned to look. There was a wild girl standing in the doorway, painted nails digging into the wood as she eyed him. He was in a house full of lionesses, sharp teeth and poisoned words. He quickly turned his gaze away, placing it back on the table in front of him.

"Come along, little magician." The woman took one of his hands and led him past the girl in the doorframe and down the hall of coats to the front door.

She smiled and waved him goodbye before disappearing in the blink of an eye. As he stood there, confused, on the front porch, he could hear the loud voices of the women inside. He didn't know how to feel. He stumbled his way off the porch and through the gate, eyeing the 'psychics' sign in the yard.

Derek/Stiles daemon au (2 versions, mostly bullet point notes)

Version 1: de-aged + daemon. I think it was set post? season 1? pre? season 2? Some sort of shenanigans is going on with some monster of the week. Derek and his wolf familiar, plus alive Hale family and alive teen pack, end up finding de-aged Stiles and his de-aged hyena familiar near their property line. Derek’s stuck on babysitting duty while they try to figure out why the Sheriff’s kid is an even tinier kid. Derek having to awkwardly walk around Stiles’s questions about where his mom is at and why she can’t come pick him up. Scott and his familiar somehow get thrown into the mix in which Scott is Very Upset at having to find out from the rest of teen Hale pack that his best friend is now tiny!best friend.

This version had Derek being able to merge? with his daemon when he shifted into a werewolf. Have no clue if I planned to have the rest of the Hales and werewolves be able to do the same thing. 5+ years away from a 2am fic idea.

Version 2: daemon + adults/college. Canon divergent somewhere around season 2/3a? or maybe even season 1 before Scott and Stiles are on Hale property. Again, some sort of shenanigans/monster of the week. Stiles and Derek are both at the gym when their familiars get into a fight, spooking Stiles and causing him to leave the gym. On his way home he thinks he’s being followed and is run off the road/kidnapped. My notes become less clear here: either Derek is also kidnapped at some point and the two bicker their way out confinement and to safety or Derek and pack are there to save one of their pack members and Derek ends up saving Stiles, too.

Arranged Marriage (tbh i spent like seven or eight hours just absolutely writing like a mad man to get this out of my head and into a notepad. and once it was there i promptly forgot it all. had to reread it before i could summarize lol)

With the kingdom on the brink of war with neighboring nations, the king reaches out to form alliances. He promises his children’s hands in marriage, but many of the other nations aren’t willing to have to wait for the children to be old enough to be useful, so the king promises the hands of other members of his court. Gweyir, son of a baron, is to be wed to the kingdom to the north--a secluded land and people, cut off by a snowy mountain pass that sometimes doesn’t clear until mid summer. He goes from training with the guard to trying to study a language and culture his kingdom doesn’t know much about. He doesn’t know the name of the man he’s to marry, or his station; Gweyir is very unsure about whether or not men can marry one another because he’s never seen it before and is panicking. When the time came, he left at dawn, without pomp and circumstance, on horseback with as much as he could fit into his saddlebags and one of the knights of the court as escort. The pass hadn’t melted enough and they nearly fell to their deaths multiple times, but they eventually made it days later, ill prepared for the frigid weather. From the border onwards, he could only understand a few words here and there from the people he spoke with. Having arrived at the castle, they held a feast and dance; he awkwardly fumbled his way through the whole thing. In the morning he and the knight were escorted by a page to his new estate and to the waiting wedding party.

Roughly scrubbed clean by angry grandmothers, dressed in very fine but plain clothes after many minutes waiting naked on the cold stones, he was left alone in a room with chairs and a table near a large window. The door opened a couple times and he heard lots of hushed arguing before it closed again. After what seemed like half the day, he was led into a large ballroom or long hall with music tinkling softly and a good gathering of people whispering. He stepped up next to the man, broad shouldered and well muscled like a brawler with hair beginning to gray. Halfway through whatever marriage ceremony they were in, they finally faced each other and the man immediately led him, the page, and a slew of other men through a door on the other side of the room where he was promptly interrogated about who he was and why he was here--first in their language and then in his own when it became obvious he didn’t really know the language. Much arguing follows before the man sends the page to request a meeting with the king.

They meet with the king. And the court. And with representatives from his own land after what seems like months because of the still half snowed in pass. And they are to wed. The alliance has already been made, signed, and soldiers and supplies shipped off to the front lines.

Many, many, many words later, the husband is being sent to lead a war party and the estate is to be left in Gweyir’s hands. He’s left with the keys, including a small ring of keys to the husbands’ rooms and other doors beyond that--of which he is to not go within. And he doesn’t because it’s a retelling and the butchered bodies of Bluebeard’s wives aren’t the secrets behind the locked doors, but hidden behind the faces of the people at court who know his history and wish ill to the husband.

[phoenix]

What is Truth?

I’ve been thinking for awhile about writing a post about just exactly WHY knowing things, truth, facts, and honesty are so important to me, and how they shape my worldview, and why I stumbled into being a fact checker.  Largely because my sister keeps saying I need to do more research into things and uh...

I’mma cut this, since it’s probably gonna get long.

This goes back to my childhood.  I was a VERY innocent and naive child.  I mean, we almost all are, up to a certain age, but for me that age was probably later than most.  I believe part of that is because in elementary school, I had a few special needs due to my disability, and every classmate started out with me, so we always knew each other and were friends.

But then I moved to Vermont when I was nine, started fourth grade, and I was the new kid, and very quickly, some students saw a new mark with big glasses and bad vision and a love of comics they could target.  And this is when I learned, wait, what?  People can say things that are NOT true??

Which is a bit of a wonder considering my love of reading, but hey, I knew those were *stories*.  Why would someone tell me something that wasn’t true??  But I digress.

Everyone picked up on this, and it very soon was a game for everyone to tell me the biggest lie, because I would believe it.  Once the laughter started, and that pain hit me HARD, I vowed I would never be a sucker again.  It goes without saying that I did NOT like being lied to and laughed at and made to feel like a fool.

I pretty much became a hardcore sceptic, who does not believe ANYTHING at face value.  I still get caught for a few moments, but then my brain kicks in.  I’ve often said I am somewhere between Mulder and Scully; I WANT to believe, but you gotta give me evidence.  But in general I trust no one.  But eventually you have to trust SOMEone, so most of my favourite sources are ones who’ve done right by me over the last 20+ years.  But hey, I also know that no one is above reproach, and everyone has an agenda, but that’s another post maybe.

Since I was already into reading, and spending time in the library, it quickly shifted into also being about research, and studying (Which hey, also helped with school!).  I love to know all the things.  I also love conspiracies and folklore, so I know how other people have been fooled, and started developing a pretty good bullshit detector.

(Keep in mind, this is the late 80s, before there was a Snopes and almost no one was online.  This was all hard research with physical books and digging through stacks at the library.

This also circles around to my love of stories, and wanting to write, so I know how to craft stories, but I never do it without clearly telling a story.  Honesty became VERY important to me, and ever since those early days in fourth grade, I not only didn’t want to feel the fool, I never wanted to make other people feel that way.  I do my best to never lie.  I don’t always succeed, but the instances are VERY few and VERRRY far between.

I am more than willing, and have before, ended friendships because I caught someone in a lie.  Honesty is that important to me.  I am also very forgiving though, so if a person owns up to it, and explains why, I am very likely to shrug and move on.

In college, I studied a lot of psychology, and continue to do that today, and I did it largely for writing purposes, but again, it gave me insight into how people think, a skill which I still use today.

Another one of my side interests, is I have ALWAYS loved magic.  But what does that have to do with anything?  A lot of magic involves how to trick people, especially when you get into mentalism.  A lot of magic tricks are just twists on old con games.  And my love of magic, wanting to know things, and really really loathing hucksters like ‘psychics’ who claim to speak to the dead and manipulate people, are more things that just pushed my buttons.  I know many of the tools used by magicians and mentalists and con men to trick people into believing them.

And then came my time on the internet.  I spend a lot of time here.  Y’all know I can find damned near anything.  At this point, it should be clear I have a VERY honed bullshit detector, and am very good at tracking down the truth behind something, or the original source.  And sometimes it’s just being able to spot a photoshop at 50 paces.

So yeah, the truth, facts, matter to me.  I love knowing things.  I have spent my life learning how people can be tricked.  So it is VERY difficult to trick me, whether that be a phone scam, an internet photoshop, infinite chocolate, and the media.

Which, believe me, is NOT to say, as Garfield loves to tell us, I am not immune to propaganda.  In fact, some times I am more susceptible to it in part because of confidence, and in part due to a bit of Dunning Kruger effect, in overestimating my ability.  But I am pretty good at spotting manipulation.

And the big thing is, if someone does come along and say hey, that’s wrong, because maybe I posted it in haste or when I was emotional (Look, I can’t check EVERYthing for multiple sources, I have SOME life!) I am more than willing to check on it myself, and admit I was wrong and either correct or take down.

I’m also very open to other viewpoints, because I KNOW I don’t have all the answers, and I know the people on the tv don’t tell all the truth (Although as I was saying elsewhere, I don’t really get much news from the tv, preferring to read it instead, but same principles.)

And I also know I’m not perfect, and make mistakes.

Generally, you can assume if I’m saying something, I’ve done at least some due diligence (or I will say hey, I didn’t fact check this, caveat emptor).  I may not be an actual authority, but I am always always always studying and learning and researching, so would like to say I speak with some authority, or at least some backing behind my words

[yvesminatozaki]

get to know me tag game – magicians edition

was tagged by @twyllodrus - ty, love <3

name: taty

when you started watching the Magicians: i can’t remember 100% how i came to know about the show - i think it’s cause of @kim-hart w/ us already knowing who stella is but i do remember stumbling upon @juliantinas wickoff gifs, becoming all heart eyes over those 2 idiots. by that point, i’m certain that the 1st season was already out(i think it’d j u s t finished by the time i finally gave into watching it???) god, my memory. 

favorite season (so far): i’m gonna have to say s2 and s3!!!

favorite female character(s): all of the mains + marina & harriet & fen & the fairy queen. 

favorite male character(s):  eliot and penny (oh but i do wanna add Todd to that mix.)

if you were a magician, what would be your discipline? (i.e. your specialty, options here). i got Natural Magic on that brakebillsu test - funny enough, i was gonna say its either between that or psychic magic.

which of the main characters would you best get along with? i got kady on the same site i took the other quiz for. thats actually not what i was expecting but ofc i fucking love it.

which of the main characters do you relate to most? god, I’m not even sure. i feel as tho i understand them and their actions, for the most part. i mean, in some ways, i think i could relate to kady, alice, julia and q. theres also something extremely relatable about fen! i wish i had an in depth answer to this.

favorite unlikable character/villain: the fairy queen, martin to an extent and i’ve gotta say the library as well! i love the plots involving zelda & co!

favorite pairing(s): wickoff, wicki, kady/margo, margo/julia, marina/kady, wickinn, malice, margo/marina, marina/whoever her gf is, kady/julia/marina, julia/fen, Margo/fen, eliot/q, eliot/margo(but as platonic soulmates), penny/margo a bit, penny/eliot. i know there’s more but i just can’t think of ‘em at the moment.

favorite episode(s): per each season: i can’t think of one that fully stands out for s1 right now, s2 – "The Flying Forest” + “Plan B” + “Lesser Evils” + “The Rattening” + “Ramifications” (okay I cheated here, I have so many faves from that season apparently), s3 – “Six Short Stories About Magic” + “All That Josh” (these 2 are my all time faves), s4 (so far) – "Escape From the Happy Place” + “A Timeline and Place” + “The Side Effect”

top 3 fandoms outside magicians: game of thrones/asoiaf, marvel( i guess??? mostly the marvel shows), any fandom Ana de Armas related, and so many others.

dream job: translator or something, anything to do with traveling around the world.

what one thing do you wish people knew about you? lmao fuck i can’t think of anything.

tagging(optional ofc!): @wicker-julia , @swanqueensails , @ava-sharpe , @lesbianmxgicians , @eizagonzalezs , @lunamalfoy7 , @fillorysjulia , @majesticcupcakequeen90 , @juliantinas

[etherecls]

ya girl is back with another intro and another shitty character what’s up ?? if u wanna plot with me, that’s cool, hmu. if not, that’s cool too. u wanna assume a connection ?? that’s dope. this bitch is kind of newer to town and also kind of a shitbag so do with that info what u will. there’s more under the cut !!

( camila morrone )? no that’s ( frankie d’angelo ) the ( twenty ) year old ( waitress ). who has been in town ( three months ) and reminds everyone of ( endless drives with no destination, worn tarot cards and champagne taste on a beer budget ). maybe it has something to do with the fact the ( cisfemale ) is always ( irresponsible & deceitful ) or ( clever & resourceful ). either way ( she/her ) is apart of the town.

francesca who?????????????? she’s frankie bitch!!!

she ran away from home when she was 17 and has basically been on her own ever since, just traveling the country and barely skating by.

there was nothing wrong with her home life or anything tho???? her parents were nice enough, they had decent money, her older sister was a cool gal, she was just like this is BORING i need excitement BYEEEE

and also she discovered that the guy she was seeing and the love of her life had a WIFE which was enough of a reason for her to Flee and to never be heard from again

she’s from maine originally and her final destination is l.a. where she hopes 2 follow her childhood dreams of becoming an actress but she keeps taking detours and getting distracted and spending all of her money along the way so it’ll still be a while before she gets there

its just her, her vw bus, and her beagle winnie takin on the world and living one day at time (maybe a friend also???? might be a wc idk yeT)

she never stays in one place for too long so she doesn’t rly keep in contact with too many of the people she’s met over the years ?? all of her friends are v short term and then she’s like POOF gone in the middle of the night. she’s been in tallow for 3 months now and is prob planning on leaving soon once she saves up enough cash, but she’s been living in a motel the entire time

she works as a waitress (mostly at night) and also she is just generally like....a grifter?? a scammer. a swindler. a conwoman, whatever u want to call it. a bitch gotta make money & doesn’t rly care if it’s fair!!!!

tbh she would consider herself an amateur magician of sorts?? like....she is incredible at sleight of hand tricks and will distract u with a fun lil illusion while she pockets ur wallet or ur watch. she also claims to be a psychic and will give u fake reading for some quick $$$$. in reality she is just p good at reading people and finding the gullible ones 

buT !!! she rly does believe in her tarot card readings tbh she takes it v seriously

she’s very poor y’all and lowkey a kleptomaniac bc she really struggled with impulse control and will just....snatch things that she doesn’t even need or WANT because she can’t stop herself its Bad

just generally she is awful at managing money as well. since she p much almost exclusively lives on cash instead of saving up money for a place in l.a. or gas to get there or whatever she spends her money on useless shit or junk food or clothes she likes or fancy little things because she’s dumb and again, has no impulse control 

which also leads her to be v accident prone?? she’s broken just about every bone in her body at this point and it’s p common for her to be injured in some way. just fuckin clumsy as shit bro

but oddly enough she’s v into yoga and shit and honestly is that one bitch who posts 15 videos a day on her insta story of her just doing different handstands and shit

she is also a compulsive liar for no real reason. just bc she knows most of the people she’s met, she’ll never see again so who gives a fuck if she fabricates a story or not u know???

highkey kind of nuts. she never really knows what she’s talking about but she can’t shut the fuck up anyway

she can play the theremin

also played junior roller derby most of her life and misses it so much and can’t WAIT to finally have a permanent residency to she can join a fuckin team again bro

she’s kind of a hoe but not rly a hoe??? like she’s not out here trying to live that hoe life just whatever happens, happens man. her sexuality is quite fluid and she isn’t much of a label gal & identifies as queer. 

but yeaH basically she just kind of sucks and u prob can’t trust anything she says and she’s a lil nuts and probably wants to die but hey!!!! she’s here for a good time not a long time, pal

her pinterest is here :))))))

that’s it, that’s all i got. my wcs are p open because she’s relatively new so !!!!! anything would b lit

[phantompsychic]

((Headcanon time!))

((The subject is))

Will and Money

((I see lots and lots of hc’s about Elites having tons of money and fabulous mansions and, while no doubt some of them would, I am not sure it would all come from battling.

See, it comes from how I view Elites get ‘paid’. I imagine they’re given a stipend by their League at the beginning of each pay period. Then, whenever they get beat by a Trainer, they gotta award them money right? That comes out of their stipend. Whatever is left by the time their next pay period begins is what they get to keep. If they go into negatives because they lose so much, then that comes out of their next pay and they start the pay period with less. Obviously, they would make money off whatever Trainers they defeat, but here’s the thing: they don’t get to keep all of what they get from Trainers that are defeated.

I imagine like, what, half goes to the LEague? A percentage is definitely deducted, like taxes. Point is, this system serves to incentivize League members to fight their darndest and not throw matches. Lose to much and you get a pay cut!

So, that is one reason why I hc my Will as not having a lot of money. He is the first Elite you face, therefore, while other Elites only face a fraction of the challengers, Will fights ALL of them. It’s somewhat ideal to Will, personally, since he gets to have practice against the most varied amount of Trainers, but it burns a hole in his wallet.

This isn’t the only reason he’s tight on money though. Other Elites sometimes have professions that make them extra money, such as Siebold being a famous chef. Will’s secondary profession is magician, and he doesn’t steal for himself as a phantom thief. So unless he stars in a big Vegas-style gig, which is rare and requires a lot of investment in equipment, he isn’t raking in much extra cash unless he goes out and fights people in random encounters. Fighting just for making some extra dough feels like it’s ruining the spirit of battling for Will, so he doesn’t do that either. Unless y’know someone challenges him.

The only thing he does that can make him extra money is he’s an artifact hunter. He loves to go treasure hunting for strange doodads and he keeps collections of them. Anything he finds that he doesn’t wanna keep, he sells. This requires him to not be at the League or stealing things as a phantom thief, so he doesn’t get to do this much, and he doesn’t always wanna sell what he discovers.

And add on top of all this, the upkeep of his Pokemon and his props. Stuff breaks all the time for his props and he invests in new ones. He also loves to spoil the shit out of his Pokemon more than himself and will cave to get his Pokemon that special expensive thing.

So yeah he does not have a lot of cash floating around, but the important thing is he is used to it.

Travelling on the road with a circus means extra money you made was from kind tips. So Will has built a lot of tricks to cut corners on expenses when he can. For one thing, he’s a bargain hunter. He loves places like Driftveil Market and Join Avenue since they can carry cheaper prices, and distance is no object with Pokemon that Teleport. He just won’t give his Pokemon bitter herbs no matter how cheap they are.

Ripped clothes? No big deal, he can have his Psychics put the thread back or stick it together. For more complex tears he’d need a seamstress obviously but the minor stuff just gets quick fixes. They’re not professional though, and any pro could notice this if they took a look at some of the patchwork. He still has to get new clothes now and then but often just sticks to his set wardrobe and gets it sewn up when necessary. Any new purchases he makes would be expensive ones because he would buy one piece of expensive but high quality clothes that he would just keep resewing until they can’t be resewn anymore.

For food, if he has the time, and knows where to find it, he totally goes into the woods to gather stuff. He learned what was ok from when he was a kid when his parents would send him out to collect stuff. And he often is able to be rewarded with food or other items and stuff when he goes to swaps or runs into someone who wants an errand done.

Favors have saved Will money in some key places, too. Like he ran into a guy who needed some more supplies for his construction business, so Will was able to just Teleport him some. The guy promised him a favor, so Will later commissioned the guy to build him a house when he became an Elite and needed a permanent house. Will wasn’t gonna y’know just make him make some elaborate house though. It’s just a one floor house with a kitchen, a living room, and a small area he can fold out for sleeping (not counting obvious bathroom). He doesn’t watch TV, just listens to radio on his PokeGear, so no need for cable. Fanciest thing he has is an internet connection. He also keeps his PokeGear on him all the time so, no need for land phones. Sooo yeah no fancy rich class for Will, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t find those fancier things too fun unless they add to his ‘mystery’ aesthetic.))

[cabeswaterlovesthem]

the gangsey and a halloween party for the halloween prompts !!

I have a prompt for a Halloween party already but I will save that one for TFC and do this one as TRC.

Henry Cheng absolutely throws a halloween party.

To assume he would not to be hosting the ultimate halloween soiree is a sick misunderstanding of who Henry is as a person.

And to assume it wouldn’t be themed....well that would just be downright sinful.

This year’s theme for Henry’s annual halloween bash is “magic.” He finds this quite funny considering the main attendees will consist of one magician, a boy who can magically dream magical things into reality, a magical power source, some sort of young magic prince boy, and a fucking ghost. It’s hilarious. It’s an absolute riot. If the rest of the people who would be attending knew this information the gang could have just showed up as themselves if they wanted to. But alas, it’s costume mandatory and Ronan has already threatened to not come twice over it.

Gansey shows up dressed as a historically accurate man from the era of the Salem Witch Trials. This is not surprising. He is also prepared, journal in hand, with a list of possible causes of the trials and a speech on why the trials, at their core, were an attack on women. This is actually less surprising than the costume.

Noah dresses up as Mickey Mouse circa Fantasia which is both cute and frightening. Cute because he looks adorable. Frightening because when he ghosty glitches out for a hot second he looks like the most demonic terrifying Mickey Mouse anyone has ever seen. When Henry complains about having nightmares from it for the next month it’s absolutely justified. 

Blue brings a crystal ball “for irony” and claims she’s dressed as a “psychic” even though the only difference between her outfit for the party and any of her other outfits is maybe a more fierce cat eye? But the crystal ball is a nice touch and Henry is completely enamored with the humor of it so he lets it slide.

If it weren’t for Adam, Ronan probably would not have shown up to the party at all. But Adam had off from work for once and he really did want to try to make more of an effort to be friends with Henry considering his closeness with Gansey, Blue, and now Noah. The thing about Henry was that he was a bit blunt and a bit overly friendly. But Adam sort of liked it in an odd way. So Adam decides they’re going. Which means Ronan shows up in Adam’s red Coca Cola tee shirt with a wand in hand. "Ha. Ha.” is Adam’s response, but sue him if he thinks Ronan looks nice in a shirt he only really ever wore once anyway.

Adam dresses up as an exaggerated Merlin with a fake beard that Ronan dreamed sparkles into for the laugh of it all. He has the big floppy hat and the staff. It’s ridiculous but he sort of likes pretending he’s actually some all powerful being. It’s truly a shame he doesn’t realize how much power he actually holds.

Henry, the host himself, dresses up as an actual magician. He wears a top hat, a very very expensive suit with the lovely flaps at the back and red lining, and a wand. He prepared for this party for months by learning magic tricks over time including all the classic card tricks as well as quite a few gimmicky ones like pulling a stuffed rabbit out of his hat. He entertains party guests with these but mostly messes them up. He makes up for it by insisting he’s not great with these tricks but he’s “magical in bed” with a wink.

The rest of the guests at the party are mostly an assortment of Hogwarts looking kids dressed in their Aglionby uniforms with an added scarf. The drink of the night is called “magic potion” which Adam is pretty sure is lethal after he feels heavily tipsy after about two and a half cups. 

Gansey of course decides to play mom and does not drink. Blue on the other hand gets blasted off like two drinks max because of her small stature. She ends up drunkenly telling everybody her mom is a psychic. She ends the night by getting up on the table, yelling some nonsense that nobody can understand, and smashing the ball on the floor. Everybody is shocked for thirty quiet seconds before they all erupt in hoots, hollers, and applause. Gansey literally throws Blue over his shoulder, apologizes to Henry for the mess, and takes her home to sleep it off.

Ronan, who actually can hold too much liquor for his age, is three drinks in before he even starts to feel anything. Meanwhile, his lightweight boyfriend has gained some major magical suave points as he starts whispering in Ronan’s ear how hot he thinks he looks in his tee shirt. Ronan is unsure what the call is on popping a boner while Adam is wearing a long white beard and is actually concerned he might develop some weird kink over this. He downs two more cups of the drink in succession to try to take the edge of that nightmare before spending the rest of the party making out with Adam in the corner until Adam texts Gansey to pick them up. Gansey, who is just thrilled Adam is asking him for something, is there in minutes to take them home. Best uber service ever. 

Noah comes and goes from the party. Literally. Sometimes he is there, sometimes he is not. When he does appear, it’s usually right beside Henry and spooks the ever living shit out of him. Which is very embarrassing when he’s in front of party guests whispering under his breath to the air beside him, “Noah, you gotta start magic poofing across the hall and then coming up to me, okay?” But then he feels bad because Noah feels bad and ends up in a quiet room with him showing him all his stupid tricks which Noah finds absolutely delightful even when Henry does fuck up. And listen, if Noah uses what actual ghost energy he has to make Henry’s tricks go right for the rest of the night, nobody but Noah will ever know.

[badly-drawn-piplup]

Happiness Overload Chapter Fourteen

″So there's this village. I don't know where. Like Ireland, or something. It's gotta be Ireland because it's like a community in the forest and everyone believes in fairies. In fact, fairies ARE real. Everyone knows that, but only the children can see the fairies. When children play around outside, fairies are often there with them, playing along as well. Some pull tricks, some are quite nice and helpful.

″Every morning, the kids play and their fairies accompany them. It's, like, tradition, and tradition is everything in this village. Well, one kid, a wily brown haired kid. I'm not sure what his name is..Taz? Let's just go with Taz. It's easier. What? Why Taz? Look, I'm not good with making up names. It's not like there was a name given in the story.

″Anyway, this Taz kid was quite the troublemaker. Every other kid knew that. He was also a bit of a clown. Everyone expected him to do something funny. Pull some prank. And his accompanying fairy, an equally mischievous girl, was always inspiring him to do some thing or other. One day while the kids where chasing each other with sticks, Taz's fairy whispers in his ear.

″'hey everyone will be impressed if you can steal the large diamond from the museum'.

″So that's where we're at. He really wants to impress the other kids. What? Look, I don't know. There can be museums in an Irish village. Please stop interrupting.

″Okay, as I was saying: he decides late at night he'll go into the museum and capture the diamond. Seems like quite a feat, right? A kid stealing a diamond when there's lasers and security cameras. What? There can be lasers and security cameras in a village. It's not exempt to that. This isn't so rural that that stuff doesn't exist. Anyway, the fairy helps Taz steal the diamond by diverting the attention of the cameras. The fairy creates these illusions, little specks of dust, but in a single moment, they look like humans.

″Maybe the alarms should have gone off if the cameras saw something that looks like humans. But no, that's not what cameras do. You know that already, don't you? It's the lasers that trip the alarms. The cameras just watch things. It records it and later there will be a record. Now the trouble with the lasers is another matter entirely. I don't actually know how it was done. Probably careful calculation or something. The fact of the matter is, Taz stole the diamond and walked out scot-free.

″The next day, Taz went up to all the other kids and showed off the diamond. The fairy cackled while Taz reveled in his short burst of fame, unknowing that showing off the large diamond was his downfall. Just as soon as he showed it off, a police car came and arrested him.

″'Please help me get out of this situation!' He begged his fairy. But instead, the fairy shook her head and grinned.

″'Sorry, kid, but you're on your own. Shouldn't have gotten caught.'

″So just like that, the kid gets thrown in the van and gets sent to juvenile hall.

″No. That's not the end of it. It's not over. Just wait.

″After years of serving time in juvie, the kid gets out and instead of learning his lesson, becomes a full fledged thief. He has no home to go to and instead moves to a city far away, where he can hone his skills. Living off of stolen food in the day time and going for higher end things in the night.

″The city where he moves to is one where at any given time, it's a different season. Time works on a different axis than most places, and it could be hot and snow within the same hour. It's a place which gives him a purpose, this Taz kid. He lives for such an adventure.

″As for his fairy, which as you know, when a kid grows up, they can no longer see fairies. For some reason this doesn't apply here. Taz can still see his. His fairy has a name, her name being Euphoria, but he calls her Euphy, for short. Euphy travels with him, stalking items to lay claim to day by day.″

″What? That's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard,″ I gave my honest opinion of Blanc's whole dream story. Light constructive criticism goes a long way. ″When you're telling a story, you don't want to go in first person, first of all. It just breaks the narrative. You're the narrator. Just let the story be told.″

″It's a dream!″ Blanc shot back. ″What do you expect?″

″That's no excuse. Just because it's a dream doesn't mean you have to make it sound so bad. Exaggerate! Elevate it! Make it something better!″

Blanc groaned.

″Hey! What's with that groan?″

″It was your idea in the first place...″ they replied, arms crossed, head turned.

″It was okay for a first try,″ I tried to reassure, lift their spirits up.

″I thought it was pretty cool!″ Art chimed in. ″It probably meant something! Maybe it signified your past or your future!″

″Shut up!″ I pointed to Art. ″What kind of name is 'Euphoria', anyway? Let alone 'Euphy'? Such a terrible name for a fairy.″

Blanc looked startled. Hurt for some reason. Right on the spot, I regretted what I had said.

″I take that back. It's unique. I doubt I'd have come up with a name for a fairy like that. I'd probably have given it something like 'Basil' or 'Clover'. Those are stupider names. I'm already cringing and those are names I made up!″

″Let's see you do better, Satin!″ Art egged. He thought he was being so clever, putting me on the spot, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity.

″Yeah, show us how it's done,″ muttered Blanc. I thought for sure I would have cheered them up. I think they cracked a smile, but it was hard to really say. I was in my zone. I cracked my knuckles a bit and stretched my arms, although I worried of elbowing someone. Couldn't be too rowdy in this car.

″With pleasure,″ I announced.

″Three friends attended high school together, going about their day to day wondering what might come of their future. At the start of the day, they would take their seats next to the window during homeroom. One particular day started just as most did. All the students shuffled into the classroom, their noisy little selves, and sitting where they always have. The homeroom teacher took attendance.

″'Blanc Slait?' She read.

″'Not here,' Blanc replied.

″'Conrad?' She read next, and for some reason didn't read off a last name.

″Conrad didn't respond at first. The teacher called again.

″'Roll call is a fundamental obstruction of student rights and aims to oppress us all,' Conrad finally responded with.

″The teacher sighed. 'I'll take that as a 'here'.'

″Velvet was the last of the three friends, but the teacher only had to look at her to know she was here. That was because despite sitting next to the window, she sat toward the front of the class, and not in the back.

″'Now that that's out of the way, the teacher began with a sigh. 'I'd like to introduce our new student, Violet'

″Violet was stunning. The most beautiful girl to ever step foot in that high school. Hell, the most beautiful girl on Earth. She walked in wearing a tuxedo, leggings, and a top hat. It was reminiscent of those magicians' assistants. The kind that got chopped in half, but they weren't really chopped. They were okay. Every. Damn. Time. Kind of a ripoff, really. But you're glad in this case because damn it, Violet had the air about her that just screamed 'you deserve not to be chopped.' Yeah, she was that kind of dream girl, alright.

″Violet took a bow. 'Nice to meet you, everyone!' She then did a little thing with her fingers that entranced the audience, and out of nowhere, a ball of water danced across her fingers, forming different shapes before dissolving and disappearing. She grabbed a tissue out from her pocket just to point out that her hands were dry. It was amazing.″

″After everyone was speechless, minus the teacher who just whispered under her breath 'fuckin' showoff', Violet took another bow and walked toward the back of the class. But not toward the window, but instead the only open seat available: in the middle of the back row. It was as if even in the back, she was the center of attention.″

″'Impressive, but I'm going to have to ask you to not wear your hat in the classroom,' the teacher scolded Violet. She just smiled and shrugged, picking her hat off from her head and placing it under her desk. From underneath, her long purple hair could be seen by all.″

″During lunch, all the kids would try to gather around Violet, some wanted to hit on her, some wanted to see her do magic tricks. The idea that she could manipulate water like that, it seemed like it came straight out of a fantasy novel. She paid no mind to advances, and made no friends. Although she was the center of attention, all she wanted to do was put on a show and nothing more. She never revealed her secrets to anyone.″

″Of course, the three students next to the window, Blanc, Conrad, and Velvet, were also interested in her. Well, not Conrad. He couldn't care less. He rambled on about how he couldn't trust her and how she was probably an agent for the Illuminati or some shit like that. But Blanc and Velvet? They were head over heels. The two wanted to make friends with Violet they wanted to know what she knew.″

″And guess what? Violet already knew this. Call it psychic powers or intuition, but when Blanc and Velvet approached Violet, she was already prepared. She stuck her index finger up into the air, then pointed at the two of them. 'I can tell what your intentions are!' She declared. 'You two want to know my secrets, and you already know that I can't reveal them!'″

″Blanc and Velvet sighed in unison. They had been caught. However, Violet continued her spiel.

″'That's because there is no secret! I can teach you what I know, but there is nothing magical about it! Water is everywhere, in everything. You cannot control it, but you can learn to work with it!'

″Neither Blanc nor Velvet understood Violet's words, but they nodded anyway, too enchanted to argue.″

″Thus, every day at lunch, it was settled that the three would meet at the fields and Violet would teach the two the ways of water. She insisted on meeting up with them individually, so it would usually be that Blanc would get 15 minutes, then Velvet the other 15 minutes. As things went along, the two practiced and practiced, competing with each other to have a better grasp over the water utilizing techniques and one day hope to impress Violet.″

″More so Velvet, even. It could be said that Velvet was in love with Violet. No, scratch that. She was definitely in love with Violet. No 'could' about it. She decided that no matter the outcome of this competition, she had to tell Violet how she really felt about her. 'Tomorrow, I will,' Velvet vowed.

″But that day never came. The next day, Violet was nowhere to be found. There was a black armored truck parked outside of the school. As Blanc, Conrad, and Velvet, along with the rest of the students took their seats, the teacher had to break the news.

″'Class, I regret to inform you that Violet was assassinated by the FBI. They haven't given the cause, only that she had to go.″

″Wow,″ was my initial reaction. Not because her dream, or her story, whatever it should be called, was good, but because I was left speechless. ″Why did she have to die?″

″Tragedy is a recurring theme in my life,″ Velvet retorted.

″Yeah, but it was a dream!″ I protested. ″There was no reason for that! I thought you of all people would have had her live!″

″I didn't want to stray too far from the dream. Otherwise you two wouldn't believe that's how it happened. Sure, I'd love a happy ending, but that's not what happened in the dream, now is it? We're not telling stories we just made up, we're talking dreams, here, people,″ she tried to explain. I wasn't satisfied, but I didn't want to argue the point further. I huffed and crossed my arms.

″I liked it!″ Art commented. Of course Art liked it. Something told me Art would have liked any story. Not that that's a bad thing, but it really rubbed me wrong when he dismissed me trying to describe Euphoria. ″Who were you in it, Satin?″ He continued, asking a question with an obvious answer. ″Conrad? Blanc? Violet herself?″

Velvet laughed and fanned herself. ″Oh my! I think I was probably the teacher! Or maybe I was a student with no role in the story!″

″What? Really?″ Art asked. I would have asked the same, but there would have been a different connotation if I had asked it.

″Now that I think of it, I probably wasn't even a character. More like I was an all seeing God, looking in. Watching the whole thing unfold. All seeing, but powerless to change things.″

″That's so deep!″ Art gasped.

If I never encountered Etna I would think you're the biggest bullshitter alive, the thought crossed my mind. How Velvet could get away with saying all this was beyond me, and yet...I was a little amused. I couldn't help but smirk, just a little.

″You know, I'm glad I'm taking this trip with you guys. It's really relaxing!″ I told the others after letting out a sigh of relief. My feet kicked around a bit under my seat and hit a box. I looked down to see that it was a box of fruit snacks. Something came over me, a flurry of emotions in the air. Contentment was fine for just a moment, but this was something else altogether.

″Whoa! Art, you got fruit snacks?″ I asked, my excitement getting the better of me.

″Yeah, help yourself!″ Art encouraged, and so I opened the box and took out a small bag.

″Gee, I haven't had these since...″ I didn't finish the sentence, remembering that I was a clone and all and that my memories were not my own. ″Well, I haven't had these in forever!″ I exclaimed and grinned.

″Look! This one is in the shape of a strawberry!″ I showed Velvet, then threw it in my mouth. I chewed it a bit and it actually tasted like a strawberry in jelly candy form, or at least what I thought strawberries tasted like.

″Okay, dude. That's a little weird. They're just fruit snacks, kid,″ Velvet dismissed.

Velvet just didn't understand. Truth be told, neither did I, but it's like when there's strong emotions, it's best to ride the wave.

″HEY, MIND IF I HAVE SOME?″ A voice beside me asked.

I didn't even look over, I just smiled and passed some over.

″Sure, help yourself!″

When Blanc opened the box of fruit snacks, I felt a darkness envelop the car. We must have gone through a tunnel, except there were no tunnels. It was an open highway with little to see on either sides. But it was in the day time. The only darkness was inside the car, and the source of the darkness was emanating from this mysterious girl that appeared in the backseat next to Blanc with no explanation.

At first it was just a little weird how excited Blanc was about something that would have made up my diet on any given day. I looked over when they showed me the strawberry shaped jelly, then looked ahead. It was only when I heard the voice when I looked back again.

″HEY, MIND IF I HAVE SOME?″ The voice yelled, but in that voice you might have heard from a squad of cheerleaders at a high school football game.

I turned around and this blonde haired figure in some cheap angel costume was acting all buddy-buddy with ol' Blanc here, patting their head and grinning. She reached her hand and fished some fruit snacks, munching on them and chewing with thunderous fervor.

″THESE ARE SO GOOD! IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY! I'M SHARING FOOD WITH YOU!″ She cheered, food in her mouth, not yet swallowed.

I was just left to stare, not able to reach any other reaction.

What if I opened the car door right now? What if I jumped out, but held onto the handle? Would I enjoy the thrill, the rush? What kind of dangers could it cause? These thoughts raced with no explanation, let alone control.

She turned her head, locked eyes with me. Her eyes piercing, even if her expression should have signified some sense of calm or peace. Bright, glowing, wide, toothy grin.

Yeah, I should. I think I would like that.

I clicked and held on tight, a rush of air shot in just as I did so. Such an act was so unlike me, but I already started and something was telling me that this was what I wanted.

″Velvet! What are you doing?″ Art or Blanc yelled, but despite the difference in their voices, I couldn't make out who from who. My mind was elsewhere, wherever it was.

The hinges tore off and the door, along with me, were sent flying. Whatever came over me was starting to leave, as I tucked my legs in just before the door hit the ground. I couldn't stop what I had already done, but I could try to lessen the damage.

With each skip and bounce off the road, the metal frame of the door dented and I felt every impact. My ankles felt the scrapes against the metal sides, tearing through my flesh. Funny to think that could have been the thing to do me in. Everything I've ever dealt with and it didn't compare to something so simple as flying off with a car door.

It all came to a halt. Short rolls away from the damaged door, into the soft dirt. I was alive, but if I were to live for another day, I would definitely be feeling it the next morning. With a trembling, barely able to move, I inched myself up and saw my surrounding; the car not too far from where I had left it. No longer were we in the plains of the Nevada highway, however, and instead in a dense forest. One that I was unfamiliar with.

″Just what are you?″ I whispered, and buried my face back into the ground.

″Whoa! A real life cryptid! My life is complete now!″ I was astonished to see this, this thing, whatever it was. Well, it looked human enough. Sounded human enough, but no human just appears in the back seat of my car without my knowledge. It must be some otherworldly sorcery.

″Really? You think this is the right time?″ Blanche snapped. ″Velvet just hurtled herself out of your car! We should check on her!″

″Velvet? Don't you mean Satin?″ I puzzled over.

″Fuck! Never mind that! Just stop the damn car!″ Blanche roared. I never thought someone so easy going would be in such a rage.

I should have done it then and there, but nothing else mattered. If that made me irredeemable, so be it, but I was fixed on this specimen.

I can finally die happy, those were my thought, echoing. In response, another thought emerged.

But what death would make you happiest?

I would like to see a tree again. I would like to be surrounded by trees and meadows. Begone with the road, I want the air of pines and bark.

SYCAMORE!

Blanche's shape jumped out of the way just in time. I wished they could have stayed, shared the experience with me. My last moment was a moment of impact: my car and I meeting with a sycamore tree, head on. Just before, I thought just a little more.

This is it. I have reached euphoria.

[almaasi]

you have witch powers? i've always been fascinated with "paranormal" stuff, including magic, so i was wondering if u could tell me stuff about it. is magic real? what kind of stuff did ur grandma do? are ghosts and spirits real too? what kinds of spells can witches cast? is it like supernatural? sorry if i'm asking a lot of questions i'm just so fascinated and curious. i didn't even know witches were like, legit until i read ur tags, i just thought that people back then said that so they had 1/2

2/2 a reason to burn a woman they didn’t like. ok now i’m rambling but in short, what can u tell me about witch stuff? i’m just asking cause i’m really curious :)

(about my tags on this)

#whenever phil gets out the tarot cards and pulls something scarily accurate i’m just like…. yes…. good…show us your witch powers…… #(my own experience with tarot? so reassuring. and calming. it’s like asking for a friend’s advice but that friend is your own brain.) #also my great grandmother was a witch by profession and i definitely got some of her magic #i have not yet learned to recognise a feeling when i feel it.. but when stuff happens later i’m like OH THAT WAS MY MYSTERIOUS FEELING #one of our sheep died a week or so ago.. and for two days straight i was outside in the middle of the night staring at the moon #and wondering why i felt death in the air #and the rain made me cry and it felt like release but i didn’t know why #and i immediately started worrying about our sheep but didn’t follow up to see if they were okay #then two days later my mother comes in and tells me one of our sheep died and two days ago had given my mother “the death look” #if you’ve never seen someone or something die… there’s this look they have that’s like a disgraced peacefulness and self-awareness #but basically i knew the sheep was gonna die without any reason for me to think that #and i need to learn to follow up on my instincts because they’re ever-present and i never know when it’s a psychic thing or random anxiety #disclaimer: IS IT ALL BULLSHIT who knows? but science doesn’t know a whole lot about a lot of things and this stuff is natural to me #so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

okay!! i was expecting someone to ask, so here goes. (in case anyone’s wondering, this is a personal post, and no, i’m not making this stuff up.) (feel free to reblog if you want. but it’s so goddamn long aaah)

first off, an opinion: whether or not you believe magic is real in this world is entirely related to whether or not it is real. at least in my books. magic/paramormal stuff can always be observed, but if you don’t believe it’s anything beyond coincidence or skilled trickery, it’s not gonna impact you.

i do believe in ghosts (or djinns, or something else human-like), but in my experience they don’t really do anything except exist in some other realm and occasionally become visible when i’m at my most lucid, at that point between waking and sleeping. most people (myself included) would say it’s just a hallucination. but like…. who’s to say it isn’t real, just in a way we as humans don’t yet understand? y’know?

the most interesting ghost sighting i’ve experienced was when i was fully awake, not hallucinating. i was in a car with my sister, my sister’s friend, and her mother - and we drove over a bridge, and i saw a fritzing semi-translucent black figure walking along the peak. i looked back and it was gone. it wasn’t scary, it was just really cool. i saw that with my own two eyes, i have zero doubt i saw it, and for that moment, it was there.

other times i’ve seen things pass through walls, or felt presences in the room that vanish when i look. i get deja vu maybe once a week. the ability comes and goes in phases, switched on and off whenever i tell someone about it. it’s like that part of my brain gets really shy and goes into hiding when it’s mentioned.

sometimes it can be pretty powerful. there’ve been moments when a deja vu begins, i remember it from a dream, fast-forward through the memory to remember what happens, and i get ahead of present time, so i predict what’s in front of me by about one to three seconds. usually it’s snippets of conversation, or my hands moving to complete an action, or words i’m typing. (let me tell you, it’s so freaking bizarre when you’re consciously typing, thinking about what you’re typing, and simultaneously remembering typing it before, and knowing what you’re about to type despite not yet knowing. and then seeing it happen. i think a lot of people reading this would be like “what?” but i know there’s someone out there who knows exactly what i mean)

for a long time in my teenage years i told people i’d see coloured figures, like auras without physical people, just hanging around out there in the world, but due to health issues a lot of my teenage memories are gone, and the only memory i have of that stuff is the recollection of me telling people about it, and remembering it while telling people. it’s really weird. i sometimes think maybe i made that up?? but i don’t understand why i’d do that when i do actually see other things sometimes.

once, my family visited this old historic building, and i remember seeing a woman in a maid’s outfit duck through a doorway. but she wasn’t actually there. so. idk.

my great-grandmother (or great-great grandmother?) on my mother’s side used to sell love spells to the people in her Indian village. my mother told me about it when i was little. my [great] great grandmother would write a spell on parchment, and the client had to go home and burn it in their fire. and she would curse people, in exchange for payment. that’s all i know about that. but my grandmother (also on my mother’s side) used to have some kind of power, i never got to ask about it while she was still alive. (she was an awesome woman. one of the first women in her country and generation to go to university.)

personally, having been raised as a muslim, i always felt really disconnected from the culture and practices of the religion, even though i believe in the supernatural aspects of it right down to my core. that’s despite my ultimate acknowledgement of facts being deeply rooted in hard science. recently (like, in the past few months) i’ve started to rediscover my faith - directly following on from a quiet interest in the pinterest & instagram aesthetics of paganism and new age magic, which as a concept i was never really sure about. i just really liked how it looked. basically, it clicked in my brain that islamic prayers could, in essence, just be spells. you gotta take everything with a grain of salt. they might not work. but that’s the beauty of it.

a few weeks ago i stumbled across a prayer on tumblr, and read its intended purpose: “Allah will grant whoever recites this seven times in the morning or evening whatever he desires from this world or the next”.

and… i started to think, maybe the purpose is not to actually do that. nothing ought to be a get-out-of-jail-free/do-this-and-your-life-is-made type thing. maybe the purpose is to make you believe nothing can go wrong. and that every bad thing that happens–? it happens so that you can learn from it. and eventually, after many things change, you realise what you desire was not the thing you thought you desired. (idk how to explain that. an example from my life: i really wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. then i got sick, dropped out of school. and now i’m a writer. i want to be a writer more than i ever wanted to be a vet. i had to get sick and my life had to fall apart before i could discover that. writing was never something i’d have considered before.)

my point is, if you believe everything that happens to you will ultimately be a good thing, bad things don’t hurt so much.

and if you take something as a sign, it’s a sign. it’s just your own brain taking hints from the world around you and using them to conjure up a decision. if you wanna believe it’s magic, it is.

personally i like protection prayers/spells and just…generally positive ones. i say prayers for sick friends, people who i see on my tumblr dash who are having a bad time, and if i see or hear about disasters or worldwide events. i’m not expecting it to have a visible impact, but like.. what’s the harm? at the very least it makes me feel like i did something if i don’t have money to give, or i can’t be there with a friend, or the world is falling apart and i’m helpless. praying or saying a spell is just hoping, really, really hard. if some greater being is out there, listening? cool. (but what if god doesn’t wanna do anything? maybe it’s like my cupcake theory. god puts the ingredients in a baking tray, shoves it in the oven, forgets about it. the universe rises as a cupcake. god made it. but the universe is doing its own damn thing.)

regarding tarot cards: again, it’s self-reflection. you can believe answers come from outside influences, but it’s easily just as much about interpreting generic advice and making it mean something to you. but personally i’ve drawn random cards, and known that no other card in the deck would’ve been as relevant at that moment. i’ve used tarot cards to determine the endings for my stories, and coincidentally pulled cards that directly represent my title characters.

one time i was thinking about my fic “The Moonlighter and the Magician” and the card i pulled first was The Magician. and i was like gee thanks tarot cards that’s helpful. (but actually? it meant those cards were on the same wavelength as me. think about it. 78 cards, there’s a one in 78 chance i pull that one on my first try.)

apart from my wonky first-ever tarot readings with the Rider-Waite travel-size tarot deck (which belonged to my mother), i’ve never pulled anything that didn’t eventually make sense. i use The Wild Unknown cards now, i relate to them so much more. plus they’re mine, not borrowed or abandoned for years, which probably helps. (buying those cards was the most money i ever spent on anything. i don’t regret it.)

is any of this like the show ‘supernatural’? not really. the closest i can say my experiences have come to the show would be the episode “faith”. just, the whole episode. it doesn’t matter if it’s the real deal, so long as it works. and boy, does it work for me. and a lot of other people.

like i said, all the spirit-like entities i’ve encountered have been perfectly benign. no monsters, except things i’m pretty sure are nightmares.

but on that note, i take a lot of things to help me sleep. if i didn’t, i’d be waking up screaming night and day (i hit whistle register while screaming, once). i see faces in the dark and creatures in my bedroom, even when my eyes are closed and i’m awake. i sleep with a light on, and i prefer to sleep in the day. i cannot even deal with the presences in my room.

for that matter, my room is definitely the most presence-heavy room in the house. now, although it’s obviously just in a drafty area, i feel the cold spots. all. the. time. i’m feeling one right now as i type this. the door and window are both closed. the heater is always on. the draft comes from the same corner of the ceiling my cat stares at when she’s “staring into space”. there’s definitely something there, but it legit doesn’t bother me. it watches me get dressed sometimes, but it’s not weird about it. like i said, benign.

i feel energy everywhere i go. i can’t stay in my family’s open plan living room comfortably for more than a few minutes, because that room is filled with people and pets coming and going all freaking day, and even when it’s empty, it’s so LOUD. there’s vibrations and voices coming out of the walls, because the house absorbs it all. as a generally tired person, that room exhausts me. i can only stay there if i have social energy. (yes, even an empty room.)

i am so, so sensitive to people’s moods and the energy they let out (to the point where i burst out screaming if i see a negative microexpression during a personal conversation). i find phone calls very difficult, not just because of social anxiety, but because i can’t sense energy as easily as i want to, and is natural for me. skype calls aren’t the same as being there in person. a lot of this could also be autism-related, but nearly everything about me is autism-related, because i’m autistic. go figure.

one time, the day i had my first period, i passed out in a maths exam. all the other times in my life, i’ve seen black or maybe red when i passed out, but this time it was a striking cobalt blue. and i heard SO MANY VOICES, i thought the whole classroom was full of people shouting. my P.E. teacher was observing that exam, she carried me out of the room and lay me on the floor outside. i told her about the voices, she looked at me in confusion and said “there were no voices?? the whole room was silent for the exam.” obviously that was a weird day, but given the amount of times i’ve lost conciousness in my life, before and after that day, i know the warm muggy feeling of slipping away, and i guarantee that one was just a little bit not-normal.

my cat Wilson follows me everywhere. if you’ve ever seen a picture of a witch and her familiar, that’s me and Wilson. she leaves the house if i leave, and she’ll walk down the road beside me to make sure i stay safe. she only lets me leave completely if i go in a car, but even then, she tries to come too. i know what she says when she talks. she speaks in words for me. it translates naturally in my head without a thinking process.

there was this one time when i was about 15 my parents took me to an after-hours medical centre because apparently i was ~speaking in tongues~ or whatever. i don’t remember it, i remember ‘waking up’ with a doctor’s flashlight in my eyes, crying, then holding my sister’s hand as we looked at the fish in the fishtank afterwards. i can’t say how legit that is because i just.. don’t remember it.

one time as a kid, i am absolutely sure i was possessed for about 30 seconds. i was walking down the street on a balmy English afternoon, pine needles scattered underfoot, with my elderly grandmother (paternal), my grandfather, and my sister. i must’ve been 6 or 7? and a streak of evil just bolted through me. and i stuck out my foot and my grandmother fell flat on her face. my grandfather tried to help her up, a car driving by pulled up and asked if they needed help, grandfather said no, and got her back to her feet. i can’t remember if i felt remorse. i think i just knew instinctively that it wasn’t me who did it. but like.. i wasn’t just A Nice Kid, okay, i was The Nicest Kid. i just don’t do things like that. ever. especially not to a kind and generous grandmother who i love so very dearly. i never had before, and i never have since. that’s the single most evil thing i’ve ever done in my life and it came out of nowhere. being more aware now, i think it was a djinn (aka a demon in christian beliefs, i think). they’re known for being mischievous. (my grandmother was fine, by the way. this is the first time i’ve told anyone about this.) now i think about it, i remember cobalt blue behind my eyes then, too.

whoops, this is a really long post now. but uh… basically, i’ve just always been open to feeling these things, and believing in what i sense for myself, without subscribing to whether or not the science has been done yet. in fact, i think i’m open to it because i experienced the same stuff when i was young. the energy i feel is very much real to me, completely tangible. i’ve never been able to see auras, but i feel them on some people. i think just being open to feeling something makes it more likely to come to you. i try not to ignore my instincts (because they’re always right. always.) but i find it’s super hard to distinguish between anxiety (which i feel often) and magical ability (which is far less commonly felt). also sometimes the instinct is so faint it doesn’t even become a passing thought, just a blur of something i half-considered. but in hindsight i realise what it ought to have been, had i paid proper attention.

i can comfortably manage to go outside in bare feet, shut my eyes and let the moonlight do its thing. it has an immensely powerful energy, i always feel cleaner inside when i go back in. (my cat Wilson sometimes asks me to go outside with her when there’s a full moon. almost every night, especially on warm nights, but even freezing ones, we can just stand out there for an hour together. watching the moon set is transcendent. far more so than a sunset.)

right now, due to years of bad health, i have to force some natural abilities away (like the nightmares) because they’re too much for me to handle. i think as i recover, over time it’ll be easier for me to accept that stuff back into my life.

oh, one more thing, regarding my health - i have celiac disease, which has kept me essentially bedridden for the last 7+ years - WHICH BY THE WAY, my family spent literally 9 years trying to diagnose. my doctor kept doing an anaemia test, telling me there was nothing wrong with me and sending me back to school. i saw various specialists, herbalists, a naturopath, physiotherapists, cardiologists, had an MRI scan, saw family counsellors, school counsellors, a hypnotist, etc etc - basically consulted every medical professional under the sun when a simple blood test would’ve done it. stupid misogynistic doctor who thinks all teenage girls fake it to get out of school.

but one thing we did do was visit a psychic, who told me i had something called a candida. my dad, a sceptic and nonbeliever, googled it and said it was “some kind of magical thing in the gut”, and was therefore bullshit, so we continued the search for a diagnosis. years later - years - after a change of doctor (who i chose because i got a good vibe from her picture) we find out it’s celiac disease, a disease of the gut. of the hundreds of people we saw, the only ones to even pinpoint the right body part were the psychics. i googled candida just now and guess what? literally celiac disease. this woman diagnosed me with celiac disease by kneeling at my feet, holding my hand, and shutting her eyes for 30 seconds.

for the record, slightly off topic, i know very few men in real life, and this is what the men in my life have been. my doctor, dismissing me as a liar because i was a teenage girl. and my father, dismissing my declining health as “not trying hard enough”, even now, more than a year after i was diagnosed by a doctor. i think this is why i take refuge with male fictional characters. they’re better. i want them to be soft and understanding like the men i’ve never known.

anyway, this is the part of my life’s story i never really pieced together until right now. it’s a lot, more than i expected. i happily call myself a witch. most of my magic goes into my stories, and i think a lot of people who read them feel it, even if they translate it as passion or love or good vibes or something. the amazing comments i get would speak to that. i love the energy i get from comments, because it does come through in typed words, even if it’s much fainter than seeing people face-to-face. some comments just hit me with waves of goodness, even if the words themselves aren’t so powerful. so i really appreciate that stuff. it’s good stuff.

yep. that’s all. i hope this satisfies your curiosity, anon!!!

[crossroadsdimension]

Lucky!Ford AU

Whelp. It’s about time that I posted the next chapter for this. We get some very Ford-ish shenanigans in this one. :) Thanks to @howtotrainyournana for beta-reading this for me!

Chapter 3

“G-great-Uncle Ford?”

“Hm?” Ford stopped frowning at his breakfast and the hairs of his brother that happened to be stuck in it. “What is it, Dipper?”

The boy fidgeted a little under his great-uncle’s gaze. “I...I think I might know who has the second journal.”

“Well, why didn’t you speak up sooner?” Stan growled from the stove as he flipped a pancake.

“We weren’t sure whether or not he did have it, so we sent Wendy to spy on his house while you guys were downstairs yesterday,” Dipper explained quickly.

“Yeah!” Mabel nodded. “And when she got back, she said there was some strange stuff going on at his house, and she was able to confirm that he has it!”

“Who has it?” Ford demanded.

“Gideon Gleeful.” The redhead -- who had stayed overnight -- twirled a fork between her fingers. “Ugh, I hate that kid. He keeps stealing my moisturizer.”

Stan groaned. “I know you kids haven’t had the best of times with that kid, but do you really need to take out your anger on him by siccing my brother on that fake psychic?”

“The bolo tie he had was a psychic amulet!” Dipper shot back. “And he’s had this really weird obsession with the house!”

Ford’s eyebrows rose at that. “Psychic amulet?”

Stan also paused and looked over at Dipper. “Yeah, it is kinda weird that he wants our house when he already has one.”

“Weird nothing.” Wendy pulled a flashlight with a crystal tied to the bulb end out of her shirt. “I used Dipper’s shrinking ray to sneak into his house and poke around a little. Nearly got sucked up by the vacuum twice -- his mother never stops and I have no idea why -- and when I finally got to his room, I found a book that looked like Dipper’s sitting in what looked like some kind of shrine.”

“I didn’t see that when he shrank us,” Dipper muttered, frowning. “How did I miss it?”

“It looked recent; probably in the last couple of days,” Wendy supplied. “Honestly, I’m lucky that he wasn’t there when I was.”

“May I see that?” Ford motioned to the flashlight. As Wendy handed it over, he asked, “You called this a ‘shrinking ray’?”

Dipper’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! I found that crystal in the woods -- l-like you said in the journal, where you said you saw animals in strange sizes? There’s a whole lot of those crystals in the woods, and if you shine light through them at a certain angle, it grows or shrinks whatever the light’s aimed at!”

“Really? I assume flipping the crystal changes it between a shrinking and an enlarging ray, then?” Ford ran his fingers over the crystal on the flashlight in interest. “Fascinating!” He pointed it at his fork and quickly flicked the light switch, causing the bit of silverware to suddenly increase in size by a couple inches. He flipped the crystal over and reversed the increase in size a moment later. “Simply fascinating!”

Dipper bounced up and down in his seat. “I know, right?? I really wish I had access to a microscope or something so that I’d be able to see what the crystal’s structure is on a microscopic level! I’d have to be careful not to get my eye shrunk or doubled in size, though.”

“Well, obviously. And have you tried other kinds of light other than natural or incandescent? That could bring up a myriad of alternate affects.” Ford handed the flashlight back over to Dipper. “I would like a look at these crystal growths myself, as well.”

“R-really?”

Stan cleared his throat. “Don’t we have that journal and that Gideon brat to worry about first?”

Dipper slapped his forehead as Ford blinked a couple times, sliding back into focus and away from the discovery that Dipper had just shown him.

“Right, right! If he’s got the second journal, then we’ve gotta get it back from him!” Dipper slammed a fist into an open palm, reminiscent of an action from Stanley from years long past.

“Agreed.” Ford rose to his feet. “How old is this Gideon?”

“He’s younger than us,” Dipper replied. “Ten, I think.”

“And really creepy.” Mabel shuddered. “Not good boyfriend material.”

“Not to mention he’s been eating into my paying customers.” Stan scoffed. “He’s just a puny little stage magician.”

“Not just a puny stage magician,” Dipper responded. “He tried to kill me because I told him Mabel didn’t want to see him anymore! I bet he knows his ways around spells and who knows what other kinds of things because he’s got one of Great-Uncle Ford’s journals!”

Ford’s trigger finger twitched. “Where does he live?”

Dipper quickly gave Ford the address. “His dad owns a used car lot right next door.”

“Worst bunch’a lemons that I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Stan added. “Seriously, you drive one out of his car lot and it breaks down as soon as it gets on the street. I’ve seen that happen to bozos, and they just turn right around and go buy another one.” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Wants me to sell to him. Like that’s ever gonna happen.”

Ford hardly listened to his brother as he moved away from the table. Checking to make sure that there was a blaster still at his hip (which there was), he started towards the door.

“Great-Uncle Ford, wait!” Dipper scrambled after him as Ford stepped out onto the porch. “L-let me come with you -- Mabel and I have gone against Gideon before; maybe we could--”

“Dipper, as much as I would appreciate your help, I don’t think it would be wise for you to come with me,” Ford replied seriously.

“We could distract Mr. Gleeful for you.” Wendy came up behind the two of them, Mabel right next to her. “He’s probably the only thing standing between you and that creep, and he’d probably call the cops on you if you tried to do anything.”

“Y-yeah!” Dipper nodded vigorously in agreement. “We’ve handled going up against them before -- it shouldn’t be a problem keeping his attention away from Gideon for...fifteen minutes?”

“Hm.” Ford inclined his head slightly. “Getting the attention of the local authorities would make things more difficult….”

Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy all fixed him with determined expressions.

“Very well; but do not let on that you are aware of my being in the area.” Ford paused to consider something. “Is he aware of what Gideon is up to?”

“Probably?” Dipper scratched his head.

“Try definitely!” Stan called from the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway behind the kids and frowned at Ford in his tan trench coat and red sweater -- clothes that had been untouched over the thirty years that Ford had been gone. “Least you could’a done is worn that black stuff you came in with. Give that brat a good scare while you’re climbing through his window or something.”

“No time for that,” Ford replied crisply. “Kids, you go on ahead and try to catch this ‘Mr. Gleeful’ and hold his attention for as long as possible.”

Mabel rubbed her hands together eagerly. “I’m gonna go call Candy and Grenda! I’m sure they’ll wanna help!” She scrambled back into the house and up the stairs, just barely avoiding the pig that came crawling out from under the kitchen table.

Wendy pulled something out of her pocket, smirking. “I bet Thompson and the others are up for egging his car lot again.”

“M-maybe we can TP them, too!” Dipper added. “Grunkle Stan went and got some more recently -- I’ll go grab a couple rolls!” He disappeared into the house.

“Now you’re talkin!” Wendy called after him with a laugh.

“Word of advice!” Stan called. “The cops may be dunderheads on the best of days, but they do still have a soft spot for that brat and his dad. You’re gonna need something to distract them with if they happen to get called in for vandalism!”

“Not a problem, Mr. P!” Wendy held what Ford guessed was a phone up to her ear. “Lee, get the gang together. Wanna bug Mr. Gleeful again? Yeah -- get the gang together and park by the junkyard. We’re gonna need a McGucket-sized distraction if we’re gonna keep the cops off our backs this time.”

Ford did a double-take. “You know McGucket?”

Something in his voice caused Wendy to look over at him with an odd expression. “Y-yeah, I’ll meet you there with Dipper and Mabel.” She pulled the device away from her ear and looked at Ford with her eyebrows furrowed together in a concerned expression. “Look, Mr. Pines 2, I don’t know what Old Man McGucket was like thirty years ago, but he’s a crazy old man who lives in the junkyard.”

“Crazy?” Ford repeated.

“Yeah. Whatever he saw in that portal thing must’a done something to his mind or something.” Wendy shrugged.

It took a moment for that to sink in; Ford shook his head. “No, no it wasn’t that. It can’t have been...the Nightmare Realm was nightmare-inducing, yes, but….” Something else flickered into his mind, then, and his eyes widened. “Oh, no. I told him to destroy that infernal device before it was too late!”

“What device?” Dipper came back to the door, arms full of toilet paper rolls.

“Candy and Grenda are ready to roll!” Mabel chirped as she followed after him.

Ford shook his head, forcing memories of another time into the back of his mind and adding something else to the short list of things he needed to do now that he was back in his home dimension. “Good. Then let’s move out.”

Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy clambered into what looked like a golf cart and took off down the road towards town. Ford followed after them at a decent run, his thirty years being on the run leaving him hardly winded by the time he left the woods and reached the town itself. Remembering the address that Dipper had given him, Ford turned down a few streets and jogged past some of the locals without so much as glancing at them. He noticed the wide-eyed stares he got from them; cries of “Stan, where are you off to in such a hurry?!” rang in his ears.

Obviously, Stan had become a bit of an important figure in the town. Or, at least, a well-known one.

Which meant that kicking him out of the house and onto the street would certainly get him a lot of flack for it. Maybe even a mob, if he was that unlucky.

Ford pushed the thought out of his head as he was passed by a blue minivan with a crowd of teenagers hanging out the windows and hollering at the top of their lungs while an old man with a really long beard danced on top of the roof. The dancing stopped after a moment when the old man and Ford’s eyes met for a second, causing Ford to blink a couple times out of confusion.

Is that…?

The van turned a corner sharply; Ford caught sight of Dipper and Mabel in the back window before the vehicle disappeared from sight. He slowed his run as he reached the turn in the street and peered around the fence.

The van parked a few blocks away from a rather nice-looking house; the old man on the roof stood there for a moment, then scrambled to pull something out of his beard as he leaned over to look down at the teenagers who were climbing out of the vehicle below him. He saw Dipper call something up to the man, who nodded and fidgeted a little before looking over at a fenced-in area across the street. He aimed an odd-looking contraption at the area and fired.

A moment later, a rather rotund man came stumbling out, patting out a fire that had manifested on his hat. He shook a fist at the old man, who screeched and leapt off the van before running off on all fours.

When Ford saw Dipper and the others start pulling out egg cartons and toilet paper rolls, he dashed across the street to the house.

“Gideon’s up on the second floor!” Wendy yelled as Ford jumped over the fence. He gave a quick wave in response before he started scaling the side of the house in order to get to one of the windows on the second floor.

“Wow!” one of the boys yelped. “Look at him go!”

“Less talking, more TP-ing!” Dipper yelped back. “Before Bud gets back!”

“You got it, little man!”

While the teenagers started hooting and hollering below him, Ford started peering through the windows of the second floor in an attempt to find the boy Gideon’s bedroom.

He was lucky enough to find the boy’s room at the first window, but alarmed when he saw what it was that the little white-haired boy was doing.

Ford grabbed onto the upper edge of the window and jumped forward into the window, feet first.

Crash!

The boy -- Gideon -- squealed like a pig and scrambled back in instinctive shock as the glass shards flew across the room. Some embedded themselves in the candles that were around the circle that had been drawn into the wooden floor.

Ford flew in and stomped down on the triangular shape that was in the center of the circle. He made it a point to scuff the eye out with a boot before he turned his gaze to Gideon and the familiar red and gold book that the boy was holding in his chubby little hands.

“Wh-who -- how dare you!” The wide-eyed expression on Gideon’s face quickly turned to one of anger. “Do you realize what you’ve done?! It took me hours to get that just right, and now you’ve broken the--”

“Give me my journal,” Ford growled, cutting the rant off. “Now, boy.”

“--circle -- your journal?” Gideon blinked abruptly in confusion.

“Yes. My journal.” Ford moved closer as Gideon scooted back across the floor, wide-eyed. “That kind of information isn’t something that a child like you should have access to. Hand it over, before you cause irreparable damage to the universe as we know it.”

“Y-you’re the Author?” Gideon’s back bumped against the wall, and he stared in dumbfounded confusion. “B-but -- y-ya look like Stanford Pines! A-are you--”

Ford reached down and grabbed the journal, all six fingers exposed for Gideon to see. The boy’s eyes widened even further as Ford growled out, “Stay away from my house and my research. The knowledge that these books contain is too dangerous for you to comprehend.” He turned and looked down at the circle that had been drawn in the middle of the bedroom floor and scuffed more of the lines, putting out the candles and making sure that the entire thing was completely unrecognizable, much less salvageable.

There came the sound of feet thumping on the stairs outside of the room, causing Ford to turn his head sharply.

“I-I have so many questions.” Gideon rose to his feet, looking amazed.

“I am not going to answer them,” Ford snapped in reply. “If I see you anywhere near my house again, I am going to make sure that you question the decision for the rest of your life.”

With that, he jumped out the window and rolled to a stop a short distance from the road.

The blue van that he’d seen before drove up in front of the house; one of the side doors was yanked open.

“Get in!” Dipper yelled.

Ford dove in without argument, and Dipper slammed the door shut as the man crouched between two seats -- and two teenage boys, who stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. The van lurched forward with a screech a moment later, leaving the Gleeful house far, far behind.

“Did you get it?” Dipper asked from where he’d scrambled into the back.

Ford held up the familiar journal, a number 2 written onto the hand on the cover. He quickly hid it away in his coat a moment later. “That boy was about to do something very foolish; I appreciate that you managed to alert me to his presence and had the foresight to check to see if he had it.”

Dipper made a noise that sounded like a muted squeal in response. “I-I’m just glad I could help, Great-Uncle Ford!”

“Thanks for the help, guys!” Mabel added.

“Dude, any excuse to egg that guy’s car lot is a good excuse.” The teenage boy on Ford’s left gave a wide grin. “He’s going to be so steaming mad, I bet you could cook an egg on him!”

The entire van burst out laughing, and despite himself, Ford found himself smiling a little at the thought as well.

“Ya know, Old man McGucket got a little freaked when he saw this guy,” the teenager on Ford’s right remarked. “Any idea why that is?”

Ford’s smile disappeared abruptly. “It’s none of your business.”

“Easy, dude, I was just asking a question.”

Ford saw Wendy look back from the front passenger seat for a moment, then looked at the rather round boy driving. “Stop by the junk yard again before we get back to the Shack.”

“A-are you crazy?”

“Thompson, just do it. This probably isn’t going to take very long.”

Thompson shifted nervously in his seat, but he did as he was told. A few minutes later, they had driven past a tall wooden fence and into a yard that was filled to the brim with wrecked cars and other devices that had long since lost their ability to be used.

Wendy turned around again and looked down at where Ford was crouched. “Mr. Pines, we’re here.” She paused. “He, uh...I don’t know if he remembers you, but--”

Ford shook his head. “If I come out into the open now, he’s going to fly into a panic and force himself to forget again with the memory gun.”

The teens exchanged looks at that in confusion.

“Memory gun…?” Dipper trailed off. “There was something about that in the Journal, but...didn’t you say that was destroyed?”

“I’d hoped it was. However, considering Fiddleford’s present state, I…” Ford ran a hand down his face. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions run rampant. “I don’t think that now is the best time to talk to him.”

Thompson seemed to take that as the signal to start backing out of the junk yard, but then a loud shriek came from somewhere outside the van.

“LET ME GO YOU VARMINTS!”

Ford’s head shot up at the old man’s scream, eyes widening. Before Thompson could punch the van back any further or bring it to a halt, Ford had pushed the side door open and barreled out of the van and into a small group of red-robed individuals, kicking and punching them back with a lot more force than was to be expected from most men his age.

Ford positioned himself between the bearded, hunched over, trembling figure and the red robes, scanning them quickly. When he saw one of them pull out what looked like a gun with a light bulb on one end, he lunged for him and flattened him against the ground.

Ford’s knee slammed down on the man’s hand, shattering the gun-like device.

Crack!

The yell of pain that came from the man a moment later indicated that Ford had broken his hand as well.

“How dare you!” one of the robed figures yelled. “That was from the founder -- our only remaining--!”

“Can it!” Ford barked back. “I’ll hit you so hard you’d think you’re the founder if you don’t get back!”

The man Ford had tackled scrambled out from under him, cradling his hand close to his chest as the others gathered around him.

“I wish we could unsee this,” one of them complained.

“You can’t unsee anything; those memory guns don’t work forever,” Ford snapped in reply. “The memories can and will come back, given the proper triggers.” He waved them off. “Get out of my sight, before I make you regret even more coming after this man.” He made a rather dramatic show of reaching for his blaster.

The red robes scattered, running out of the junk yard in a mad, scrambling panic, screaming at the tops of their lungs, “It is unseen!”

“Not anymore, you crazed lunatics!” Ford shook a fist after them, but they were already out of sight. He relaxed his stance and sighed, shaking his head.

“...Stanford?”

Ford turned his head a little at the nervous lilt in the voice behind him. He closed his eyes and sighed before turning around completely to look down at the man whose life he had just saved.

Fiddleford McGucket stared back up at him with wide eyes, looking Ford up and down as though he was searching for something. “I-Is...is that really you?”

Ford hesitated. He could very well turn and run and get the kids out of the junk yard with him at this moment -- he didn’t want to talk to Fiddleford now, but...if he had a chance, while he still remembered….

Ford sighed again and dropped down into a crouch, causing Fiddleford to scramble back a little at the movement. “It’s me, Fiddleford.”

Fiddleford stared at him with a disbelieving expression.

Ford fidgeted a little under the other’s gaze, adjusting how his trench coat furled out behind him. “I, uh...I destroyed the portal yesterday. I couldn’t before because...well, you were right, Fiddleford, and I ended up trapped on the other side. I did manage to find a way home without...without you know who getting through.”

Fiddleford sucked in a breath sharply at that, his eyes widening.

Ford’s gaze wandered away from his old friend and to what looked like a shack made out of scrap metal. Was that where Fiddleford has been living for the last thirty years? “He won’t be able to get into this dimension anymore; I’ve made sure of that.” He paused. “I don’t expect you to forgive me for everything that happened between us. At this point in time, I’m just...I’m glad to have seen you. I’d understand if you didn’t want to--”

Suddenly there was something -- no, someone -- colliding against his front, causing Ford to lose his balance out of surprise as Fiddleford slammed into him.

“You big idiot.” Fiddleford’s voice was muffled against Ford’s sweater as the two of them lay on the ground. “You big, idiotic idiot.” He lifted his head and looked at Ford, who was watching him with a saddened expression.

“I know,” Ford replied. “And I’m sorry for it.”

Fiddleford rapped his knuckles against Ford’s side, but the action didn’t have much force behind it. “You’re more muscle-y than I can remember.” He sounded slightly surprised.

“Thirty years on the run can do that to a man.” Ford paused, then reached up a hand and rapped it against the side of his head.

Clang clang.

The noise caused Fiddleford to stiffen up.

“I’ve taken precautions against the demon,” Ford explained. “He can’t get into my mind; no one can tamper with it, in fact.”

Fiddleford blinked owlishly a couple times, then reached up himself and rapped against Ford’s head, getting the same sound. He pulled his hand back quickly. “Ford, what happened to you?”

Ford looked away from Fiddleford at the question. “I suppose...I learned my lesson the hard way.”

“Well, I gathered that. You Pines are all too stubborn for yer own good! It’s like everythin’ has to be pounded into yer skulls before you learn anythin’!” Fiddleford started pounding his fists against Ford’s head, producing a cacophony of noise.

“Ow ow ow!” Ford pulled his head back and put his hands between his head and Fiddleford’s hands. “I may have a metal plate in my head, but that doesn’t mean that doesn’t hurt!”

“Good! Cause it means I can still pound more lessons in if ya don’t listen!” Fiddleford shot back. “Have ya made up wit’ yer brother yet?”

“Wha--”

“ ‘Cause I can remember him bein’ nice ta me more ‘n a few times, an’ if yer gonna keep on bein’ stubborn, then I’m gonna reinvent the memory gun an’ wipe out the incident that got you two feudin’ in the first place!” Fiddleford’s voice was slowly getting louder. “I know family feuds, an’ if ya don’ do somethin’ now, yer gonna end up splittin’ yer family in two fer so long that they’re fightin’ just fer the sake of fightin’, and then where are ya gonna be, huh?!”

The junkyard fell silent at that. Ford had a guilty sort of look on his face as he turned his head to look away from Fiddleford again.

“So go back and talk to him ya big lug!” Fiddleford started pounding on Ford’s head again, causing the other to react by pushing the bearded man off and scrambling to his feet. “Go on, git! An’ the next time I see ya, it better be wit’ yer brother!” He shook a fist at Ford in a threatening manner, but there was a spark in his eyes that said he was equally humored and angry.

Ford scrambled back to the van and climbed in, shutting the door behind him and dropping into his previous position between the seats as Thompson backed out of the junkyard and drove out of town. None of the kids looked at Ford; they must have heard most of the conversation.

Ford sighed and put his head in his hands, then felt a pair of hands on his back and glanced back.

Dipper and Mabel gave him reassuring sorts of smiles.

“If there’s anything we can do to help, Great-Uncle Ford,” Dipper said, “you can count on us.”

“Yeah.” Mabel nodded in agreement. “Anything to get you two to hug it out!”

Ford stared at the two of them with a sort of uncertain expression, then gave a quick little smile in response before returning his attention to the front of the van.

He wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen now, or if the kids were in fact able to help him. He had been thirty years too far gone from this plane of existence, and it showed.

Ford found himself quietly dreading the amount of time he was going to have to spend adjusting back to his home Earth.

[chimepunk]

What novels or book series would you recommend?

oh fuckin boy dude so many. 90% of what i read is either gay or scifi/fantasy or both, and some are technically for a younger audience but still great, so thats what most of this is which hopefully you’re cool with here goes

this got super long so i’m putting it under a cut. bolded titles are the ones that i’m super recommending, though i love them all

novels

the coldest girl in coldtown by holly black - vampires! a trans character! a bi character! one of the most novel approaches to vampires in fiction that i’ve seen! 10/10 would recommend

the darkest part of the forest by holly black - again, holly black is one of my favorite authors. this one’s got faeries (the proper vaguely unsettling kind that i’m all about) magical music, girls embracing their sexuality, girls being knights, interesting sibling dynamics, and a super cute m/m pairing

les miserables by victor hugo - ok yeah, it’s like 1400 pages long and historical fiction, but i love les mis a lot ok. it’s gotta be on this list just because it owns my ass. it’s like a old drunk french man trying to tell you about the june rebellion but he keeps getting distracted by things like people’s personal lives, the intricacies of the parisian underworld, and how much he wants to fuck the sewers. it’s wonderful

the night circus by erin morgenstern - magical circus that mysteriously appears for days at a time and then vanishes? a competition between young magicians drawn out for years? a wide variety of fascinating side characters? (i will say that the synopsis available for the book is somewhat misleading, as it’s actually less about our two protags and more about the circus itself. but that’s what makes it so enchanting)

the song of achilles by madeleine miller - retelling of patroclus and achilles story to be explicitly romantic. will make you feel like you’re floating on clouds and then rapidly crush your soul. sort of a happy ending? but it’s still a tragedy. their ending is the same as it was in the illiad so if you’re not prepared for that then maybe don’t read

good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett - a demon who’s not very good at being a demon and an angel who just wants to collect his books in peace thank you very much try to sabotage the end of times. absolutely hilarious

fairy and folktales of the irish peasantry by w.b. yeats - the best collection of irish faerie stories by one of my favorite poets. if you like creepy and tricky faeries i would def recommend checking these out

rootabaga stories by carl sandburg - another collection of folktales, this time inspired by the american midwest. kinda weird, kinda zany, very neat

the poison eaters by holly black - a short story collection of faery stories that are sometimes creepy, sometimes touching, sometimes gay. my personal favorite is about a library science student who finds a book collection where the characters come out at night and interact, but they’re all really great

series:

alex rider adventures by anthony horowitz - teenager gets recruited by MI6 as a spy, has incredibly high success rate, gets pretty fucked up along the way but damn those one liners tho, maybe have some self preservation alex? just a thought

all for the game by nora sakavic - about a fake sport called exy that’s kind of like indoor lacrosse but more violent. contains: crime families, found families, an aspec protag, girls kicking ass, unhealthy levels of sass, wonderful slowburn m/m that you can’t even see coming for a long while, and a happy ending for everyone!! i came for the gays and ended up reading all three books in two days. also you can get the whole series for less than five bucks on kindle! (note: tw for rape, physical abuse, torture, ptsd, child abuse, drug use, alcoholism, some use of slurs, mentions of past self harm, mental illness)

artemis fowl by eoin colfer - more faeries, but this time they live underground and are way more technologically advanced than humans. the first book focuses on our anti-hero trying to catch one and steal their gold, and they quickly become allies and solve faerie related cases together!! one of my favorite series growing up, and i cried in the middle of the hallway at school when i finished the last book

camp half-blood series by rick riordan - does rick riordan write a lot of mythology books? yes. do i love them all? yes. neurodivergent kids! kids from a huge range of racial and ethnic backgrounds! queer kids! collect them all! ft. greco-roman mythology and a lot of stupid jokes

emelan series by tamora pierce - ok this is easily one of my favorite series of all time. non-western high fantasy setting (picture greece/turkey, china, tibet, mongolia, scandinavia, etc type settings), following four young mages who have unique kinds of magic as they train and grow their skills and become powerful in their own right. only one of the kids is definitely white (jury’s still out on sandry), one is a lesbian, one is ace, one is pan, all four are raised by a loving f/f couple, body diversity, one of the best found families i’ve ever read, feminism, discussion of racism, classism, cultural identity, war, and so much more. it’s so so good and so under-appreciated please read all of the emelan books 

the dark is rising sequence by susan cooper - full disclosure i have not finished this series yet but i’ve re-read the first book a million times. it’s a neat take on arthurian mythology, with dark forces trying to take over and kids getting shit done

diviners by libba bray - psychic teenagers in 1920s new york! i’m a slut for prohibition, but these are also super fun and have likable and real characters, and doesn’t only focus on wealthy white people having parties which is nice. the occult! government conspiracies! historical references! genuinely scary situations! it’s rad!

the enchanted forest chronicles by patricia c. wrede - i adore this series so so much. it’s about a princess who’s father keeps telling her that she can’t have hobbies like fencing or cooking or conjugating latin verbs because they’re unladylike and insists that she marry this doofus prince that she couldn’t care less about. so she runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon and proceeds to send away all the princes that try to rescue her. it’s genuinely funny, has a really neat magic system in the later books, great female friendships, cats, dragons who have no time for your gender roles, and wizards who are the most ridiculous group of antagonists you will ever see

the infernal devices by cassandra clare - i really really do not like the author of this series but it also broke me so it must go on the list. if you’re familiar with the mortal instruments or shadowhunters on freeform, it’s set in that universe in the 1870s in london and it’s very steampunk and very angsty and it made me cry a lot

the kane chronicles by rick riordan - see: camp half-blood series but egyptian

fablehaven by brandon mull - oooooh fuck me up i love this series. this is another one meant for slightly younger readers but all of brandon mull’s series are so wildly imaginative and i’m a slut for world building so. the premise is basically that there are secret preserves all over the world that house magical creatures, and five of these preserves have vaults with artifacts that when brought together make a key to this massive demon prison. an evil society called the society of the evening star is trying to get the artifacts to open the prison, and a different group who is allied with the preserves called the knights of the dawn is trying to get to them first to prevent this from happening. there are dragons, light and dark powers, crazy convoluted vaults to get through, and some really cool creatures and characters

beyonders by brandon mull - this guy again! this one’s about a parallel world called lyrian that people on earth can only get to through small liminal windows, and usually can’t get back through. the story follows two kids, jason and rachel, who get stuck in lyrian and end up becoming major members of the resistance against the evil emperor maldor. just like fablehaven, the world building is insane and you’ll fall in love with all the characters. this is yet another series that made me cry in the middle of class when i finished it

the kingkiller chronicle by patrick rothfuss - this is series is long as all fuck and the last book isn’t out yet but it’s my #1 favorite series of all time. i found out about it bc a cashier at a local grocery store held up the line to write it down for me and i never went back. parts of it are achingly, hauntingly beautiful, other parts are hilarious enough to leave you in stitches, others make you want to pull your hair out. there’s sass, recklessness, beautiful and deadly girls, an overwhelming love and emphasis on the importance of music and storytelling, magic that’s more like science, ethnic adversity, student loans, a thing that might be a cow or might be a dragon depending on who you ask, and more quotable lines than you could dream of. the audiobook by nick podehl is also fabulous, and lin manuel miranda is producing and adapting it for the screen and maybe stage at some point in the future!

a modern faerie tale by holly black - guys. i love holly black. almost everything she’s ever written is on this list. this one is fairly self explanatory by the title, but it’s gritty and dark and has those lovely creepy faeries that she’s so great at writing. also a surprising m/m couple in the last book, both of whom are characters in the other two installments. (tw for drug use/addiction, brief sexual assault, and probably other things that i can’t remember right now)

the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater - also in my top 3 favorite series of all time, i cannot begin to describe this series. i first read it while up in the nc mountains which improved the experience to a surprising degree, but it’s stuck with me for the last several years. basically 5 teenagers go in search of a dead welsh king, but along the way there is magic, psychics, ghosts, a sentient forest, dreams becoming reality, curses, teenage shenanigans, classic cars, swearing, church, kisses and not kisses, illict hand holding, a baby crow, bisexuality, a death list, hitmen, and nicknames and it will consume your heart before you know what’s happening to you (tw child abuse, implied sexual assault, substance abuse, dissociation, mentions of past suicide attempts, body horror, gore, and disturbing scenes esp. in the last book)

six of crows by leigh bardugo - a team of criminals band together to break into an impossible fortress, fall in love, con an entire city, and get rich. set in the same universe as the grisha trilogy (which is also good but not as good as soc), this is basically a heist followed by a con, but pulled off by ruthless teenagers and with the help of magic

curseworker trilogy by holly black - crime families, magic that can only done through touch so everyone wears gloves, moral ambiguity, and a twisted romance. one of holly black’s best and most underrated series

baccano! by ryohgo narita - this is a japanese light novel series which has been adapted into an anime, but is much more extensive in print. the plot is extremely convoluted, but an absolute ride spanning several centuries, although the bulk of it is in the 1930s in nyc and chicago. there’s an elixir of immortality, crime families, trains, a solipsistic assassin and his mute assassin gf, serial killers, a demon with a catch phrase, murder, explosions, adorable couples, gambling, a gang leader named jacuzzi who is always terrified, killer corporations, and much much more

no.6 by asuka asano - another japanse series, this time focusing on two boys, one who grew up in a utopian city, the other who grew up outside the walls after the city destroyed his life. they meet when they’re 12 years old, and several years later, they’re reunited when the outsider rescues the city boy from arrest. they, along with a pimp and a nonbinary dog hotel owner, try to expose and overthrow the government. also ft. drag performances, mice who like shakespeare, killer bees, and boys falling in love.

the merlin saga by t.a. barron - my favorite take on arthurian mythology, chronicling merlin as he comes into his power. there’s a vividly magical island, giants, amulets, talking trees, stones that will try to swallow you, a swamp witch, celtic deities, huge wicker hats, poetry, new kinds of fruit, people that are also deer, and human’s long lost wings.

[phantompsychic]

((Headcanon time!))

((This time the subject is:))

Itsuki’s MO and Squad

((So since I just posted a thread on Itsuki, Will’s phantom thief alias, I realized I explain basically very little about how Itsuki works, so here’s some quick points:

Just like any phantom thief, Itsuki sends calling cards. His is a card with some nice spring tree petals on it. The words are the same every time: Please look forward to our visit by [date]. -Itsuki イツキ

The date he gives is a simple deadline. Anytime between shortly after sending the card to the date he can come to steal what he wants.

How does he deliver the cards? His Xatu, of course! Xatu simply Teleports the card to the target--or a place where he knows the target will see it. Gets the criminals all spooked when they’re having cereal and a card just literally pops out of nowhere. Important thing to note about his Xatu’s Teleport though: she can’t Teleport things where she hasn’t been herself. The only time this can be overridden is if the person she is Teleporting has strong visions or memories of the location as it stands now.

So how can Will always manage to send the cards to where he wants? He cases the target, of course! Will can always at least get to the general area of where a criminal is and work from there. He does his own little bit of investigating, really. Makes sure the target is legit. Figures out the weak point he’s gotta find and steal to bring the dude down. This is where his jobs as an Elite and a magician are very helpful--they provide crucial cover for him to go places and explore. Before, he was a traveller, so he had an easy excuse. Now it’s a bit harder but workable.

His Pokemon he uses are also very important. Xatu and Delphox both can see the future and thus are able to help him avoid potential issues that may pop up. That’s why his plans are so foolproof and he’s always seemingly able to avoid any surprise, he literally can see what they’re gonna do. There are some minor flaws with this though. For one, Xatu only tells what she wants to, as mentioned previously, and her priorities differ from Will’s. Delphox, while she can see the future, cannot see EVERYTHING so well like Xatu can, and she cannot see the past either. So late developments may slip by and catch them off guard.

Delphox isn’t just good for seeing the future though. Her fire attacks provide valuable help when he needs to breach through pesky thick steel that he’d otherwise have issue breaking. In addition, she’s very wise, having been a hermit before she met Will and saw potential in him. Delphox takes a bit of a teacher role to Will as a result, offering him good advice and bringing his ego down when he gets too cocky. Whaps him with her stick if she has to.

Xatu, in addition to seeing the future, can help Will fly and glide when needed or Teleport right into the target’s location. He can bypass tons of security just by casing a joint properly.

Malamar is the aggressive one. With Contrary, after a couple Superpowers, she gets dangerous. Her tentacles can slice through most things, and her Hypnosis powers allow Will a lot of opportunities for confusion since she can hypnotize anyone they want to be their quick pawn to divert attention. She can also use hypnosis to get information for example.

Reuniclus is also strong enough to crush rocks, but not quite as strong as Malamar can get after a few Superpowers. Though Malamar is Physical and Reuniclus is special. Regardless though, Reuniclus is on his team for a special reason, and that is Reuniclus’ synchronizing power with Will. As stated in dex entries, Reuniclus can form ‘networks’ with other Reuniclus, increasing their psychic power when they do. With Will’s natural ability to do a similar thing by pooling and amplifying powers by touching them, if he were to link hands with his Reuniclus, she becomes TERRIFYINGLY strong. Their powers essentially overlap, so put em together and their power just explodes. If needed, Will can use this boost for himself but, he rarely sees a reason to. Mostly, he has Reuniclus use the boost to just MASH through obstacles if things get too tough or lift extremely heavy things. Now when Will does use the boost, it’s normally to increase his levitation or things like the range of his Psyshock attack. But he never uses it to have his powers do more damage. Even though that’s a consequence of synchronizing so he’s gotta be careful.

So the plans always shift based on what he needs to do to get the target, but generally, Will cases a joint, sends calling card, takes evidence, reveals it to the world. The only way to STOP this MO is if the target just confesses themselves publicly. Then Will would not go through with the heist.))