#and the wikis all just said plague doctor

[bedpolls]

Doctor Paracelsus from Darkest Dungeon

Please reblog for a larger sample size.

[aroace-poly-show]

ok here’s my hammer tier list. my thoughts under the read more

ball peen: s tier. funny name. made me laugh really hard. what more do you need. ok actual description its used for metal working in the peening (hehe) process (surface hardening through impact). its got a rounded head on one side and the other side has a flat side thats sometimes used for chiseling or striking punches (making a hole through a hard thing). but it is in s tier bc of the name.

___ hammer or as i dub it maraca hammer: s tier. maraca hammer. not all of them have the loose steel shot inside tho some are just made of a different material (rubber or durable plastic) that helps like. dampen the force of a hit so it doesn’t bounce back as much. its good for working in tight spaces + preventing accidental damage. would be a tier but the fact theres the maraca version with the beads inside (that serve the purpose of like spreading out the energy of the force of the hit) that you can hear gives it s tier to me

framing hammer: b tier. fine hammer. a type of claw hammer its got like a little bumpy grid on the head that helps it keep a grip while its hitting but it also leaves a mark on the wood it hits. the woods is usually a part of the frame of the structure (as said in the name)and theres a different type (a finishing hammer) to make wood that goes on the outside look nicer so it doesn’t really matter. gets the job done solid hammer

claw hammer: a tier. like the most basic hammer. the kind of hammer you think of when you think of a hammer (unless you think of a mallet). used for wood working mostly bc its not suited for metal stuff, but its got other general uses. a classic. where would we be without you claw hammer

( ‼️ animal death mention ‼️) cow hammer: e tier. can’t find a picture. used for animal slaughter. fallen out of use bc of animal welfare objections. probably kind of cruel way to do that. also just seems really inefficient. makes me sad.

drilling hammer/lump hammer: b tier. a smaller kind of sledgehammer. more light weight with a smaller handle. useful in light demolition work or like cutting stuff with a chisel. also used in scouts stuff!! for like tent stakes and similar things.

gavel: s tier. i think we all know what a gavel is. judges use in it court its the little hammer they bang for stuff. s tier bc i’d have a lot of fun with it if i had it

geologist’s hammer: a tier. its in the name, geologists used it to open up specimens and shit.finds pretty rocks so thats why its a tier. wooo

warrington hammer: s tier. its a kind of cross peen hammer. giggling. fun name unlike the ball peen tho its used for wood working. thin side sets a nail flat side drives it in. can be used for other stuff like fixing a bent nail. more precise than a claw hammer

mallet: b tier. rubber roundish head. bunch of different kinds. didn’t feel like reading every single time since i’m already doing that for the hammers so. b tier

rock climbing hammer: a tier. the wiki page for this is very barren but not much explanation needed i think. its for rock climbing, specifically aid climbing, for putting in and taking out pitons and the like. useful for Not Falling and Dying. but also it looks like a plague doctor mask and its silly and i like it

sledgehammer: a tier. BIG HAMMER!!! also distributes force over a bigger area. but BIG HAMMER!!!!

soft faced hammer: b tier. like dead hammer its for not causing as much damage as normal hammers. but no maraca. no fun colors like it either.

spiking hammer/spiking maul: b tier. used for striking nails into the railroads. cool! idk i dont have a lot of feelings on it and i dont know how much more i can fit in a tier lmao

splitting maul: c tier. more of an ax than a hammer tbh. used for splitting wood.

stone mason’s hammer: b tier. one side has a little thinish part part and the other part is flat. can be used to cut bricks and stones and stuff and chisel without an actual chisel. also used by geologists!

upholstery hammer: b tier. its in the name. used for upholstery. often has a magnetic side for picking up tacks. has kinda been replaced by the staple gun though

hammer drill: c tier. more of a drill but behaves enough like a hammer for me to allow it i guess. im less interested in the mechanically powered ones ngl

jackhammer: a tier. very cool actually. combines a hammer and a chisel. not fun if its nearby bc its loud and annoying but cool if i’m just passing by. used to break up rock and concret and shit. brrrrrrrrrrrr

steam hammer: a tier. now that is a solid mechanical hammer i think. actually hammery. used for shaping forgings and driving piles.

trip hammer: S TIER. I LIED THIS ONE IS A GOOD MECHANICAL HAMMER. variety of uses like for processing grain in agriculture crushing metal ores in mining and in forges formaking iron into workable iron bars. old as fuck too. unfortunately replaced by the power hammer. 

power hammer: a tier. extremely similar to the steam hammer. replaced the trip hammer which makes me sad. but its still cool

nail gun: d tier. that is a gun.

staple gun: d tier. that is also a gun.

[oraclememehacker]

The Totally Comprehensive Guide to my timeline of Wakaba Isshiki

Since Wakaba, as much as I love her to death, doesn’t really have much info about her because she’s the embodiment of dead mother syndrome, I have decided that it’s up to me to fix this. Now, this is based on my own way that I write her, and I want to differentiate her from Futaba. Because, according to the megaten wiki, her personality is basically the same as Futaba’s and while I will have her behave in some ways to Futaba, that doesn’t make for a really compelling character. So with that said, let’s begin.

Wakaba Isshiki was born on April 5th, 1971 in Yokohama, Nakai Ward. Her mother was a stay at home mother, dropping her job in order to take care of Wakaba. Meanwhile, her father was a scientist who had recently started to work in the emerging microprocessor revolution. Both of them had extremely high expectations; not just for themselves, but for their daughter. They were worried about the legacy they would leave, and decided to go for a child. And that’s what they got.

When Wakaba was born, it was a relatively normal birth, aside from being a little bit quicker than normal. The joke was that she was ready to come out. However, Wakaba was plagued with a series of micro seizures as a newborn thanks to some fluid buildup in her skull. The doctors were able to suction out the excess fluid and everything was fine.

This however was a source of possible changes to her personality, though nothing was ever really verified. As a young kid, she was made to do a lot of things at an early age. She showed that she had the capabilities of doing chores and such easily. She would go to the grocery store and had the ability to give the cashier money accurately without prompting.

Even as a child she wasn’t particularly talkative. As she was learning to read and went to school, her nose was buried in a book because it was all fascinating. The words seemed to fly off the pages and she was able to analyze things really well. She could also easily remember stuff in ways that nobody else seemingly could. It was quite an impressive ability, and she just figured the other kids weren’t really trying that hard. 

Knowing the how’s of stuff wasn’t enough, she wanted to know why things worked. That seemed to be a more difficult question to answer and that just caused her to look into a book even more. Her parents didn’t really encourage much in terms of socialization, because they were enamored by how intelligent she was. Her grades were always immaculate, she asked smart questions and even sometimes corrected them on things they thought they knew.

That didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally have a silly side to her. She would sometimes mess around and do experiments for fun that would usually result in something blowing up or something bad happen. That was usually when her parents scolded her, even though they also recognized that she was just a curious child trying to learn about the world.

As she continued to grow up, she made a couple of friends in middle school, and they would remain friends up to high school. She knew however these friendships weren’t going to last, because of pressure from her parents to keep up her high expectations. She knew that she wanted to be a scientist just like her father. However, not too long after she graduated at the top of her class in high school, tragedy struck.

Her mother died of a sudden heart attack. This put quite a strain on Wakaba as it was the first time she had really dealt with any major grief in her life. She knew that her mother wouldn’t want her to grieve for too long, and eventually she did manage to push on through and got accepted into a prestigious college. Her goal was to be a researcher and look into many things. The idea of having a lab where she got paid to test things out really excited her.

During college, her father was killed during a knife attack. Apparently, her father tried to fight back and ended up with a knife to the gut that ended up being fatal. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts she wasn’t able to attend the funeral, to the chagrin of her relatives who wouldn’t let her let that down, despite apologizing profusely.

After several years she ended up getting her masters degree in science. She was incredibly proud of herself, and was getting popular due to her showing of intelligence within the scientific community, and ended up falling in love with someone whilst getting her masters degree, who shared a lot of her same passions. 

At first, they seemed to get along really well, everything was going great. However, after a night of passion and lust, that’s when everything would change. As she was preparing to start work on getting her doctorate, she would find out that she was pregnant. It was a simple lapse of judgment on her part as she wasn’t particularly ready to have a child at that time. But at this point she was stuck with it so she didn’t really have much choice.

Her partner however, didn’t want anything to do with this possible baby. As she was warming up to the idea of having a child, he was getting more and more hostile towards her, including threats of violence. He was not having anything to do with this child. She insisted that he at least help out in some way since it was only logical and that would always just get irate. Eventually she just cut him out of her life and had her child.

As a result of this, she never mentioned Futaba’s father to Futaba because it just wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want him to possibly show back up and threaten the both of them again. Now that Futaba was born, she didn’t have the time to do her doctorate so, she stopped what she was doing for the time being in order to take care of Futaba. She continued her research work whilst taking care of Futaba.

Futaba was the toughest challenge of her entire life but seeing that little bundle of joy grow and get older and find that joy of reading like she did as a child warmed her heart. Despite her being a challenging child, Wakaba loved her to death. During this time, she stumbled across the research of a lifetime, and what would ultimately lead to her death. She stumbled across the cognitive world.

Or at least, the theory that such a world existed. As she was looking over some classified stuff, she found out about this world and she was dumbfounded. None of it made any sense and yet it was here. And she was able to come up with a theory of how it would work. So, she went to the government and requested a bunch of funding to help her research. She was invested in this now.

That’s when they would bring out a middleman that would look into things and make sure that she was using her money effectively. That being Sojiro Sakura. The two didn’t exactly have the greatest of introductions as Wakaba was just annoyed that the government decided to force a middleman into this. She just wanted to be funded and that was it.

But, after a bit, she started to trust the man a bit more. She invited him over to her house so he could see Futaba, the true pride and joy of Futaba. Futaba was scared of him initially, thinking he was psychic after supposedly reading her thoughts. In reality she had just said some predictable stuff that he was able to guess. That made her mess with him a bit and would hold it over him for a bit.

Sojiro was someone who offered to help her a lot, as he ended up being really smitten over her. To him she was incredibly gorgeous and he wanted to be with her. But she was still holding that professionalism over him. However, she did find that he was cute and if it weren’t for the fact that he was working for the government and a possible conflict of interest if they were together, she’d have gone on a date with him.

Over time, her research into the cognitive world took over her entire life. It was a slow and gradual thing, but she knew the potential of this and was willing to lose her life over this. She knew the possible dangers of it, and as a result refused to let Futaba ever know about it. Even if that meant scolding her a lot. Unfortunately, she was starting to get overwhelmed with everything and was finding it increasingly difficult to take care of Futaba.

She had Sojiro help out from time to time, looking over her when she was busy, though that didn’t always happen. Her workaholic habits that she always had were really rearing its ugly head. This resulted in a lot of late-night work and sometimes she didn’t get any sleep at all. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize this was making Futaba upset and making her think that her own mother didn’t care for her.

The thing that sealed her fate, however, was as she was looking into some things, she found out about Masayoshi Shido. He was an up-and-coming politician who was willing to do anything to gain more power and control. He didn’t quite have the power that he would come to have, but apparently he was starting to look into her research a bit. Therefore, he was looking into him as a counter measure.

As her research was getting more intense, Shido and Wakaba would end up butting heads. He came into her research lab one day and told her straight up that he knew what she was doing looking into her, and that if she didn’t want something bad to happen to her, that she would stop. Of course, she had a stubborn streak to her and she wasn’t going to let that stop her. If anything that just made her more defiant.

One night, as she was having some drinks with Sojiro she told him that something was going on and she had a bad feeling that she might die in the strangest of ways. It was such an out of nowhere statement, combined with the fact that she was shit faced drunk that Sojiro didn’t exactly take the statement seriously. He just looked at her with a baffled expression before laughing it off, saying that she was just drunk and not thinking straight.

That made her make a comment that took him off guard, and it was one that hinted at her being bisexual. But she just laughed that off and took another drink. The threats from Shido grew more intense, and she wasn’t going to let that stop her still. Her research was so close to being complete. The ultimate goal was to find a way to the cognitive world and see it up close and personal. She knew so much about how it worked, even coming up with theories about how to suppress a palace by faking one’s death.

Meanwhile, during all of this, her own shadow was growing in influence; her obsessive workaholic nature ensuring that she would eventually grow a full-on palace once she used this to start hurting people. This is when Akechi would come in and find where Wakaba’s shadow was. It was her full obsessive and workaholic nature in full display and even more so. When Akechi went in to kill Shadow Wakaba however, she just asked that Futaba be left alone.

And unfortunately, that’s when Wakaba would end up meeting her demise. Out of nowhere, after an argument with Futaba, she felt something suddenly. Her mind swam for a bit and then that was it. Her shadow had been killed, and she was left in a catatonic state. She was just running on instinct at that point, and she ended up walking in front of a speeding car, getting killed instantly. In theory however, there was a chance she could’ve come out of this state, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Wakaba, just like her parents, died in a tragic way, and her death created an uproar in the family, as there was many of them who were jealous of all of her success and wished her the worst. Some of them were relieved that she was dead. However, upon the fake suicide note being read out at her funeral, that’s when all hell broke loose. They all blamed Futaba and therefore, nobody wanted her.

There’s so much more that I want to say about Wakaba and her childhood and what not. However, I can’t put that all in one post. I have to give you all something to look forward to after all! Some of these things may change as I develop Wakaba more. However, for the time being this is the general timeline of Wakaba’s life and what not. Hope you enjoyed!  

[quob-the-creature]

Part 1 of Many. I'm sharing all of the art I've hardly shown to anyone all these years... Because people kept telling me to and I realized they're right.

This is some of the earliest art I've done on my iPad, all from June 2017... This is the hardest stuff for me to look at lmao 😭 Wide Cy is cursed... I have no idea what happened to Moko's hair... And please never bring up mid-life crisis Altair ever again. I'm being vulnerable right now 1st pic: I think the first thing I did when I got this iPad was start doodling people from Pinterest photos. I remember I was just trying to test the pen pressure and feel of everything. These sketches still hold up - I've always liked the blue lady especially.

2nd pic: I wasted no time getting into THR stuff. I don't know why exactly, but I always like to draw my characters in a sort of... clinical way? Like I'm an alien studying them and I've got them standing vacantly on a turntable, writing a profile about all their basic info. I guess we all kind of do that with fictional characters. It must have something to do with all those fan wikis I scoured as a kid... "Name, Age, Height, Weight, Gender, Aliases, Status, etc..." It's kinda creepy. Anyway, you'll see in the next pic that I start doing the height lineup thing.

3rd pic: Yeah... Cy is buff. That was just a thing back then. I was still adapting to digital color, and I think I was just having fun drawing directly on a screen for the first time.

4th pic: I had such an interest in glam-rock hair at the time, but I didn't really give them glam-rock clothing? All my characters look like their hair got eaten by a vacuum cleaner and released. Oh, Altair... if modern Altair could see this Altair... he would snatch the photo like "We do not speak of this."

5th pic: This is a character concept I did for a friend to help her visualize one of her characters, Adisa, who - if I remember correctly - worked in a graveyard and helped revived souls transition from death to a life of undeath. That was always a cool idea to me.

6th pic: Mokos. My bisexual is showing. She a cutie thoooo~~

7th pic: My husband said this one looks super kinky... lmao. Yeah... I was obsessed with burlesque at the time. When you grow up in a small midwestern town and your femininity is repressed, apparently you cope by imagining yourself as a yassified plague doctor.

8th pic: Heheheheh... If you know the Veluts - the alien species I designed that drive a good portion of my story's plot - you'll probably look at these noseless baboon people and not make the connection. Well, for me in 2017, this was a major advancement from the earliest version of the Veluts, who were then called the Sasahi, and were literally just Large Humans with elf ears and an addiction to body modifications. I realized at this point that they should be more distinct from humans, so the first baby step for me was giving them a slightly different evolutionary history.

I know this was all kind of self-deprecating, but I've been avoiding sharing my stuff for years because I am simply... shy. I have never been confident sharing my art, ever, in my life. I'm taking the leap, and hopefully as I keep doing this, I will become a little more confident. :) Follow me for more batches of old art coming soon, and watch the progression of my characters, stories, skills, and honestly, my personal life too. Feel free to ask me anything!

[hopelesshawks]

Basic Instincts Part 12- Day Off

18+ Hawks x fem!pro hero reader

Summary: Hawks was your first friend, your first kiss, and your first love. You were the same for him. But you’re not little commission trainees anymore, you’re full fledged pro-heroes now with all the baggage and sacrifice that entails. Things are different now, and when the two of you end up accidentally mated, well… they’re about to get even more different.

Masterlist Help Lulu <3

You toss your phone to the side with a sigh, happy to have at least one thing handled. You have faith that Tamaki and Tokoyami will keep your secret at least. The door to your bathroom opens and out emerges Keigo, now clad in sweats and an old shirt he’d had to rip the back out of to accommodate his wings. Steam billows out after him as he finishes drying his hair before having one of his feathers carry the towel back into the bathroom to be left with the rest of your laundry. He flops onto his back on the bed, wings splayed, before shifting to move his head into your lap. Your hand immediately moves to comb through his feathery locks. Funny how some habits never die. “How’re you feeling?” you ask. “Better. Head still hurts but nothing I can’t handle,” he replies, his eyes fluttering shut in contentment as he leans into your touch. “You know this isn’t sustainable right? We won’t be able to hide a mate bond from the commission forever, especially if we have to contend with separation sickness,” you point out. “I know. We���ll have to figure out a way to break the bond,” Keigo agrees. “On top of figuring out what the Liberation Front is up to,” you sigh, biting your lip nervously. “Hey none of that,” he chides as he shifts so his head is no longer in your lap. “C’mere,” he commands, reaching out to you. You roll your eyes but comply easily, allowing him to pull you into his chest. “When’s the last time we had a day off?” he asks. “Never,” you reply. “When’s the next time you were planning to take a day off?” “I’d take a day off if I needed it!” “No, you wouldn’t.” “How do you know?” “Because you’re just like me.”

He’s not wrong.

“Ok what do you suppose we do then?” you ask. “I say we order takeout and have a lazy night in,” he declares. “You know we’re just going to end up working at the end of the night anyway,” you point out, an amused smile slipping onto your face. “Yea probably, but we can at least try to be normal people just this once right?” “Yea... you’re right. Fuck it why not.”

And that’s how you found yourself grabbing as many blankets and pillows as you own and dragging them into the living room. You assign Keigo nest duty, a job he eagerly accepts even if he plays off his excitement. In the mean time you head to the kitchen in search of tea and take out menus. You find a menu for a yakitori place and decide to order from them while you get the hot water going. By the time you return to the living room, two mugs in hand, the couch has been pushed back in favor of a massive puddle of blankets in front of the tv with plenty of pillows distributed throughout. You also realize Keigo had somehow stumbled on your collection of plushies when you notice your cartoon-y stuffed plague doctor and ghosts have been distributed around as well. One plushie is still in his hand though and it makes you stop short.

Keigo is glaring daggers at the Deku plushie in his hand. You’re surprised the damn thing doesn’t combust under the force of his anger. “Why do you have this?” he asks, his hand starting to clench around the poor stuffed doll. “Kei are you.... jealous? Of a doll??” you ask incredulously. “No! I’m just wondering what’s so special about Deku,” he pouts. “Oh my god,” you groan as you move to the center of the nest so you can at least set the mugs down. “What? I can’t help but notice you don’t have plushies of any other pro heroes,” he argues. “Ok first of all,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, “it’s not even mine. I hold onto it for a friend. And second, if you must know, the only pro hero merch I have is actually a Hawks hoodie.” All traces of his prior jealousy disappear as he looks at you in wonder. “Really?” “Yea, it’s old though, from your first ever merch drop,” you admit, getting slightly self conscious now. He stares at you and you can tell there’s something he wants to ask. As if reading his mind you sigh “you want me to go put it on don’t you?” “Yes very much so please.”

You return in the hoodie made to look like the jacket and shirt of his hero costume, scarlet wings printed on the back to complete the look. “Happy?” you ask and the soft grin he gives you in response makes your heart flip in your chest. “Very. Now come over,” he smiles. You roll your eyes but listen anyway, coming to join him in the little blanket nest and accepting your mug of tea when he offers it. He flips the tv on as you settle against his chest but then a thought occurs to him again. “Wait if the Deku toy isn’t yours, whose is it?” he asks and you groan. “Can we drop it about the stupid plushie?” “No, now I’m curious.” “If I say you’ll be mad....” “No I won’t.” “You will.” “Just tell me!” “It’s Stain’s.”

You can practically hear Keigo’s brain short circuit.

“Did you just say Stain?”

“Yes...”

“As in hero killer Stain?”

“Yes.”

“The one who died after the attack on Hosu City.”

“I don’t know how else to confirm to you that you’re indeed thinking of the right person.”

“I have so many questions,” he sighs. You know you probably shouldn’t but you can’t help but joke “He’s my emotional support villain.” “He murdered several pro heroes in his supposed quest for justice,” Hawks points out. “Yes and I’m not saying that was ok but you have to admit he had a point about the commodification of heroism, although I think the fact the HPSC is run like a Fortune 500 company is more at fault than heroes themselves. He’s interesting to debate with and after meeting Deku and watching Ingenium ‘reform’ himself or whatever, I think Akaguro realized it’s the system he should’ve been targeting and not the people themselves,” you explain. “Oh my god you two are on last name basis?” Hawks asks exasperatedly. “Like I said, emotional support villain. I don’t know I just kinda wish there’d been a way to reform him and turn him into a hero or at least not a villain while he was still alive. You know?” you shrug. Keigo thinks of Twice, of the tutoring sessions he gave him, of his loyalty, and of his final moments. “Yea I know what you mean,” he concedes, pulling you a little bit closer. You can sense the shift in Keigo’s mood immediately so you squeeze his arms where they’re wrapped around you in a show of support. You decide to lighten the mood so you pipe up “You’re not going to ask why Stain has a Deku plushie?”

“Wait, yea what the fuck?”

“I bought it for him for his birthday and called him a fanboy. He stopped talking to me for a week.”

Keigo absolutely fucking cackles at that and it should be the most unattractive thing you’ve ever seen but you love it.

Always have, always will.

A/N: I know Stain didn’t actually die after saving Midoriya in Hosu but also I had forgotten he didn’t die until I looked up his wiki page to get his name and the name of Hosu City and by then I was already too married to the idea to change it lmao. This is a sillier chapter but I felt like it was needed after last chapter was pretty intense

Taglist: @oliviasslut @theycallme-becky @vibesdontlie @superhermit @thechroniclesofawriter

[dungeonsandkobolds]

Can you give me one advice? I had and idea of an undead necromancer but I'm a bit confused with the race and perks. There is no such thing as undead race in 5e, right? Should I pick some undead creature's stats? Or should I give her all regular human traits and imply her being undead only through RP?

I also wanted to share some pieces of her backstory if it's okay.

She used to be a doctor and her hometown desperately tried to fight a plague. Her whole family died by the time she found the cure. Or, to be honest, hints of it. She cured herself but it was kinda late. So looking at her you'll notice that she's kinda... Rotting. Her heart hardly beats and her bones are exposed somewhere. She continued her studies and at some point turned to dark magic. She's qualified undead now :D And she became a necromancer. And lost her mind. Just a little bit.

And I can't come up with a name for her :( I thought about something like Ophelia or Judith.

Such a good question! I’ve encountered this problem myself as DnD core content isn’t really hmmmm... undead friendly? to say the least (i could write an entire post about how i think the way necromancy fits into the DnD universe is a little odd and could be the basis for an interesting campaign lmao) 

So there’s a couple of ways you might be able to do this depending on how much homebrew/non-core content your DM allows in their campaign - and for stuff like this always check with the DM first 

1. Your first option is to do exactly what you said - take the race your character would’ve been when they were alive and make them undead, not changing any stats 

2. Wizards of the Coast has an Unearthed Arcana Revenant sub-race (that you can add onto any race) which might be kind of what you’re looking for? Revenant does come with it’s own set of in-universe lore so it might not be exactly what you have in mind 

https://media.dnd.wizards.com/upload/articles/UA%20Gothic%20Characters.pdf

3. You could look into some homebrew races! You might be able to find exactly what you’re looking for - however homebrew isn’t always balanced/some DMs don’t allow it so always double check! Here is a good list of some of the undead races people have already made

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_Undead_Races

Your character sounds awesome already!!!!!! Such a cool concept!!!!

Let me know if you have any more questions about the advice i’ve given/if you need any clarification!

[grimoireofgreen]

Lavender

Common Correspondences  - Happiness, Love, Peace, Purification, Longevity, and Protection

Lavender (Lavendula) is an herb native to the Mediterranean.  It is also known as spikenard or nardus in Greek, named after the Syrian city of Naarda.  It’s Latin name translates to the phrase “to wash”.  This name most likely stems from the use of lavender in cleaning clothing, and in fact, washer women were called Lavanderies.  This is not the only lore we see lavender being linked to cleanliness though; from Biblical references to plague medication, lavender definetly has its place as one of the most popular plants in the past as well as the present.   Let’s dive into this versatile and useful herb!

During the plague, lavender had an integral part to play. It was an herb valued as an antibacterial, antiseptic, as well as a natural insect repellent.  The combination of these things made it a powerful aid against the plague.  Plague doctors would keep some lavender (and others herbs) in the “beak” of their masks.  In addition, they would also use lavender tied to the wrist to ward off fleas and use it right against open wounds to help cleanse the sores and protect from further infection. From this we can draw the “as above, so below” argument that lavender’s reputation as a strong antiseptic leads to it’s protective, purifying, and life prolonging properties in magic.

One of the surviving applications of this is Four Thieves Vinegar.  It was said that in the time of the plague, there were four thieves robbing from the bodies of the dead and dying.  To protect themselves from the disease, they would use an herbal concoction traditionally with white vinegar, wormwood, wild majorum, meadowsweet, sage, cloves, rosemary, and lavender.  Eventually, these thieves were caught.  In exchange for their lives, they gave up the recipe to their success.  Modern myth calls for only four ingredients to be added to the vinegar to represent each of the thieves.

Other folk medicine claimed lavender would reduce stress and induce sleep, a practice still in place today.  Modern science has actually found that lavender reduces blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate, all which can result in feelings of drowsiness and relaxation.  Repeating the argument was used previously, we can see why we use lavender for happiness, peace, and sleep.

But there is more to lavender that just its folk medicine uses.  There is rich lore around this herb as well. As I had mentioned, lavender has many ties to its use in washing.  In ancient Egypt it was used in baths, perfumes, and in mummification.  It was boasted to be the perfume Cleopatra used to seduce Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, contributing to its correspondence to love.  On its other side, it was also said that the snake that killed Cleopatra concealed itself in a bush of lavender. 

In Christian lore, we see lavender (or as they refer to it, spikenard) with a role early on in the story.  It is said that Adam and Eve brought it from the Garden of Eden after they had been cast out.  But the lavender we know and love did not come until much later.  The scripture says that lavender gained its scent from the Virgin Mary laying baby Jesus’ clothes to dry over lavender bushes.  His divinity was said to transfer to the plant granting it its lovely aroma.   Another Mary (Magdalene)  was said to have used spikenard in the famous washing of Jesus’ feet.

“Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.” - John 12:3

So as we can see the lore and applications of lavender extend across religion, culture and medicine.  All of those applications and stories lend to how we view and use this wonderful herb today. I hope we all walked away with a little more understanding to the modern magic of lavender!

Until next time!

~The Herbal Grimoire~

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavandula, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_thieves_vinegar, https://jerseylavender.co.uk/2017/09/07/lavenders-biblical-roots/, https://www.thepracticalherbalist.com/?s=lavender, https://yourehistory.wordpress.com/?s=lavender

[claudiafekete]

This is another ordinary story of “how xxx fandoms changed my life” -

- or maybe not. you decide. I want to write it down.  trigger warning for politics, discussion of sexual violence, mild gender dysphoria It’s also horribly long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

When I first came to tumblr, I had just graduated from APH. Short for Axis Power Hetalia. I learned about it in the form of manga. For years it was my everything - I learned what fanfic or fanart meant and I learned the basic online etiquette. As I grew in years, it accompanied me.

Until it didn’t.

Shortly after I fell into solangelo.

It’s a fun story, how I picked up PJO years after years of absence. My brother was whining about something written in Magnus Chase. “What do you think the Norse Gods were going to do to Percy that Annabeth was crying?” He demanded. I expressed my confusion. He kept on with his different theories and I made the decision to look it up online later.

My online search of Percy Jackson’s fate soon revealed something unknown to me before: solangelo. The first canon gay ship I ever knew. Therefore, at the ripe old age of 19, I threw myself into this endless hole called “tumblr” for the first time.

It was the most LGBTQ+ friendly place I had ever been. I joke you not. It was also the place where I was taught not only how a healthy relationship should look like, but also how sex should or could be like.  You don’t learn anything healthy about sex in Chinese or Mandarin using fandom, at least during the years I was in them. There were rigid 攻/受(roughly translated as top/bottom) stereotypes that everyone rushed to squeezed their characters into them. A lot of time though both person might ship A with B, they wouldn’t interact because one thought A should top and another thought B should top. Their different topping designation resulted in depictions of the characters’ personalities so dramatically differed that you couldn’t recognize them as the same characters.  Other than the refreshing relationship dynamics, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard offered me a chance to take a look at my gender identity. I had known that theoretically non-binary people existed outside of binary gender, but I hadn’t known how one might live as one or describe themselves as one. I’m not trying to claim that Alex Fierro’s story is the only story of non-binary people. I’m trying to say that it was the starting point for me to make exploration and find the label  “agender” for myself.

I stayed in APH for 6 years. I had expected to stay in solangelo for longer.

Entered June 2019 with its whispers and anxious demonstrations. Entered folks pouring into streets in Hong Kong. Entered tear gas and facemasks and sticks and a bullet scarcely missing the heart and journalists beaten by police. Entered young students not of age disappearing mysteriously. Entered people dressed in white attacking citizens and not arrested by police. Entered dead bodies that were probably “被自殺 (being suicided)”.

Entered a city falling into the hands of tyrants next to your door, and you didn’t know how to help. You didn’t know what to do with yourself with your clean and spare hands. You were so far away from the frontline, you were angry and helpless and hopeless for that.

It was the first time I witnessed, first-hand, how the Chinese government directed the discussion online, so that it seemed as if there were random mobs who were disturbing the peace of Hong Kong and possibly taking money or being trained by US.  “Bullshit. Would there still be so many kids hurt on street if we have received any kinds of training for this?“  Of course, the majority of Chinese people inland wouldn’t hear that. Hong Kong is a former colony. Any calls of outrage toward the present government must be made by disillusioned young people who were unaware of colonization and imperialism. 

That was why I took refugee in Good Omens. I needed to run some where to stop myself from scratching myself to blood. I needed to some works for these clean and spare hands to do so that they wouldn’t pick up something destructive, such as a knife.

If the PJOverse fandom had felt the best place on earth, well, the Good Omens fandom lifted me into paradise. 

I’ve never seen so much kindness being showed under one tag. The creators and actors were all kind and interacted with the fans in their own ways. We were encouraged to do everything, anything, to build art with it however we liked. We as fans were recognized. We were seen. We were ... cared for. It was overwhelming, in a good way.  For that, I would be forever thankful to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and Michael Sheen and so many others in the production. I would be forever thankful to artists who liberated body types and freed the ties between gender expression and genitals. I would be forever thankful for the fantastic creators out there.

Would it seem as if I’ve only cherished the mutuals I met in Good Omens fandom? It wasn’t my intention. There are friends I keep in touch long after I fell out of love with APH. There are mutuals I got to know through solangelo and I feel, I hope that we are friends. Everyone who has chat with me I do my best to remember. (Though I do left conversation in weird places, become so ashamed of my incompetency that I do not continue them.)

What I’m trying to say is, as good as the solangelo fandom was, I still ran into biphobic posts here and there. It was only once or twice – but it was a constant reminder that being bisexual didn’t seem “valid” to some of the other LGBTQ+ members out there. Who cares what cis-gendered, heteronormative people said? Bullets that shot from friendly fire hurt the worst.

Besides, with a large and vibrant fandom like Good Omens, it’s easier to feel less alone and more… seen.

Damn right. Even after writing more that 5000 words in English it is still so easy to fall back into the comfortable nest of mother tongue. I can read simplified Chinese characters as well as the traditional Chinese characters I grow up using. There probably will never be getting the accent right but soundlessly devouring words in front of a screen? I excel at that.

That was what’s happening when the days rolled into January, 2020. I flew to US as an exchange student and exchanged long letters with a young Chinese woman I met in Good Omens fandom. I’ve never felt so alone in life. English as in creative writing has never come more naturally for me. The words burst in my head and arranged themselves freely on screen or on papers. I’ve never felt more hopeful about my writing ability.

The days rolled into March, 2020.

The first time my mom told me to come home over home, I laughed. The second time, I frowned. Before she pleaded me for the third time, I had grabbed a ticket.

I hadn’t imagined the disease plaguing China and its neighboring countries would affect the whole world.

You lived the rest of the story. I fled back to Taiwan.

 That was where Doctor Who came in. Or David Tennant. Such a strange time. For fourteen days I was the only living human in the house. I watched Casanova – or was it later? Hamlet definitely came before that. Then I could live with my family again. I handed in my homework and wrote in a different language than the people around me were speaking. My parents were working. My little brother was in school. When there was no one to talk to me I either read or watch Doctor Who to pass the time. I fell for Thirteen. I fell for twissy. Falling fast and hard and completely won over by their glamour.

I started internship. There were some small breaks where I could catch an episode or half, but never as much time as before. I dipped into fandom wiki and found that no matter how much research I did, there would always be details I overlooked simply because I could not afford hours watching all the episodes. No matter how hard I squeezed my schedule for time, no matter how much I devoted myself to the series, it would never be enough.

So I gave up, and let it go. For the first time in quite a while, I willingly gave up something for the simple reason of “I want to live a more comfortable life”.

 Came summer. Damp air combined with biting heat and piles after piles of biochemical terms made life agonizing. An ordinary kind of pre-pandemic “agonizing” which felt like a luxury in a world that was ending.

Hong Kong fell.

It was bound to happen. Once I heard protestors fought their way into the legislature I knew, for almost an year I knew, nothing good would come out of this. CCP would never allow its subjects acting out of hand. With such open despise to the authority, CCP would take nothing but a full conquest at the end of it.

See where we are now. As long as you’re “interfering” the political climate “inside” China, it doesn't matter which nationality you hold or where you were or how long it has been since you made the statement. “According to the law”, China can come for you. No, better, it can tell your country to hand you over. What a clever empire. What a graceful empire.

What a horrifying empire.

With the news I spiraled down fast. I kept away from the young Chinese woman I was exchanging letters with, I kept away from any kinds of Chinese social media, and the worst of all, I kept away from Good Omens, for it was sweet and kind and hopeful, for it reminded me of a time where fighting seemed to make a difference. I was empty and exhausted and a husk. Something must come out to fill the void. Someone needed to paint me in colors so that the world wouldn’t notice I was fading away.

I was surprised at who took the brush.

 After ten years, the first man I ever have a crush on strolled back into my life.

He was over thirty, but I always pictured him in his early twenties. Dark hair, eyes of grey or silvery blue. Loud laughter that sounded like a bark. Swift and elegant. Intelligent. Prideful. Stubborn. I embraced him as I’ve done ten years ago as a little child.

When I looked past him, I saw someone else.

Worn, weathered, with wry humor. Attentive and considerate. Tortured by the world yet never stop giving out kindness. Countless scars. Grey hair unfitting to his age. I didn’t pay him much attention ten years ago. This time, I looked.

Let me introduce you Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, my very first crush and the man who is too much like my last crush.

 2020, a month before Fall semester started, I trekked cautiously, timidly back into Harry Potter fandom.

The fandom of August 2020 was very different from fandom of 2010. The lack of author, for one – it became mandatory to denounce the author’s transphobic statement and other bigotry setting. I’m glad that everyone is doing their best to make it a friendly place for minority groups. Though I’m afraid, by making it a white or black situation with short statements and no discussion, it wouldn’t really help people understand why she is wrong in this. However irrefutable the author’s guilt seems to us, it is not something obvious to those who are unfamiliar with the subjects.

But it does feel good to see blogs and fics with the introduction such as “If you support the author’s transphobic bullshit this place does not welcome you”. It feels reliving.

The second was, I found the type of work I’m actively pursuing changed.

Back when I was young – when I was so little I didn’t even know what the word “fandom” meant – I read Character x OFC and some M x M. During the APH period I read an alarming amount of M x M and countless historical AU. When digging through solangelo, beside the canon divergence stories, simple AU like coffee shop grabbed my attention. Coming out stories were my comforts. The best of Good Omens fics were either in canon verse discussing desires, bravery, humanity and mortality, or setting in an AU with the promise of sweet, fluffy endings. Doctor Who almost always focused on Time and Space. Love was twisted and so often tainted by anger. Monster and god were very alike.

I came a full circle back to the Marauder era, and found myself not looking for heroes, but for young fighters struggling desperately in a seemingly hopeless war. I looked for people who were frightened but never, never ever going down without a fight.

I used to find characters and events unfolding in foreign places, now I want  characters who are close to what I am or what I want to be.

---

So, that’s it, my grand journey through multiple fandoms and basically a journey of self-discovery. It’s messy, sometimes painful, but always with so much joy blooming along the way.

Something doesn’t change. I’m still obsessed with words. I’m still a sucker for happy ending. I’m still wishing someone will come and love me the way I need to be loved.

Something does. I stop imagining that some magical power will come into my life and solve everything. I stop looking for others to save me from myself. I start believing that though wounds hurt, some of them do teach us to be a better person.

Long ago, I saw my friends and I as rabbits, without proper weapons to defend ourselves. That wouldn’t do. I thought. For my friends I’ll grow into a snake with fangs to protect them. Maybe I have grown into a snake. Maybe I haven’t. But I do hope I won’t stop fighting for those I love, with those I love.

I hope I won’t give up.

[pagesofkenna]

Raven Queen spoilers because my players never asked in our post-game AMA but I’m dying to talk about her (this is all homebrew canon stuff - for my players who might be worried about this spoiling stuff for future games I... doubt the nature of the divine will come up a ton in future games? but read at your own risk)

so I made the Raven Queen a major figure in a campaign I just recently finished because I was frankly annoyed with how CR1 handled her and I wanted to try to do her justice myself, idk if I did

she’s a benevolent goddess of death who watches over souls transitioning into the afterlife and fights against those who would unnaturally extend their lives (not necessarily the undead because, like, whats a skele harming anyone? its just bones. she’s way more concerned with people trapping souls against their will - she’s basically the god of Making Sure Peoples Souls Dont Get Trapped)

but something I loved about her story as given on the forgotten realms wiki is that she’s a newer god, and she doesn’t have any memories of before she was a god. so like, there’s probably a canon answer, but I remember reading that maybe she was a great elf queen who achieved godhood, or maybe she was created by the gods to fill a role, or something but who knows right

y’know who else deals with memory issues? the Archfey, who created a barrier around their realm that makes people lose their memories when they leave

the Archfey in my homebrew world are another category of gods (instead of just celestials vs fiends I divided my pantheons up into the different playable races) who created the Feywild to be close to their mortal children (all fey creatures but also the elves and gnomes). in fact, I named that campaign ‘Echoes’ because I wanted to deal with both the Feywild and the Shadowfell - two planes that are an echo of the Prime - and also because I wanted memories, and the echoes of forgotten memories, to be a major theme in the game

so for the Raven Queen, that meant she was once a member of the Archfey pantheon, who crossed the barrier around the Feywild and lost her memories. she was always meant to be the goddess of death so, memory-less, it made sense to set up shop in the Shadowfell (which all souls pass through on their way to the afterlife)

I put a bunch of little clues to this in my campaign. for one, all the Raven Queen templeworkers in the Shadowfell are Shadar-kai, or shadow elves, as opposed to the Eladrin elves in the Feywild. also, while in a temple to the Archfey in the Feywild, my players found a small hidden extra altar that had a Shadowfell flower sitting on top

but one of my favorite bits was when I described the Raven Queen’s white mask, one of my players said they pictured a plague doctor’s mask - with a beak like a bird, right? so i went with it, and when they got a raven companion as a gift from RQ herself, its name was Thyme - one of the plants that you’d put in the beak of a plague doctor’s mask, and with the sense of smell being the best way to regain memories...? kind of a stretch, but if they’d asked about other birds’ names, I would have had to start pulling out other scented plant names

I didn’t want the whole campaign to just be about the Raven Queen, so I didn’t do as much with her as I could’ve, but she’s still one of my favorite god characters and I’ll probably be coming up with more lore for her if I ever get a chance to use her again

[urbanfantasypodcast]

Haunted Histories: Waverly Hills Sanatorium

             [Cross posted on Urban Fantasy Blogging at Wordpress.]

Welcome to Urban Fantasy, a blog filled with content on haunted locations, urban legends, and cryptid histories. This is our first post on Haunted Histories and first up is the Waverly Hills Sanitorium in Louisville, Kentucky (my birth state)! For those who have no idea what a sanitorium is or why this location is on the list, let’s start with a rough overview.

A sanitorium is, typically, a place for people with a long-term or chronic illness. Waverly Hills in particular took care of those who were considered to be infected with a ‘plague’ in the time it served as a sanitorium, which was roughly 1926 to 1961. This building saw thousands of deaths, and not many of them were peaceful. First, though, let’s take a step back and talk about the plague that Waverly Hills dealt with.

When we talk about plagues that have wiped out millions of people, our thoughts tend to land on “the Black Plague,” but many would be surprised to know there’s a plague far more deadly. It’s been called “the plague of all plagues,” the “White Death,” and many more, but most tend to know it as tuberculous, or, TB.

First, what is TB? Tuberculosis is a dangerous infection that infects the lungs and, essentially, destroys them. Simply put, “Tuberculosis (TB) bacteria are breathed in through the nose and mouth and can enter the lung [and] Tuberculosis is spread through droplets put in the air by infected people who do not cover their mouths and noses when they cough” (1).

This isn’t just a disease that only affects certain parts of the world, either. “Tuberculosis (TB) is a global disease, found in every country in the world. It is the leading infectious cause of death worldwide” (2). While the disease was far more deadly back in the days when Waverly Hill was open, it’s still a deadly force, even today.

Dr Mario Raviglione, the WHO's tuberculosis director, said, "Tuberculosis and HIV are now competing to be the number one cause of death from infectious disease in the world. … Tuberculosis now ranks alongside HIV” (3). This is a terrifying disease that still plagues us and can lead to a gruesome end - which is where the haunted part of this history comes into play.

Waverly Hills Sanitorium was built in Louisville, Kentucky, and in 1900, “Louisville, Kentucky had the highest tuberculosis death rate in the country. This was due to the fact Louisville is such a low valley area and before development, was basically all swampland and perfect breeding ground for the Tuberculosis bacteria” (4).

As someone who lived in this state for 22 years, I can promise that’s not an exaggeration, either. The Ohio River and warm, muggy valleys and swamplands played as the perfect breeding ground for this plague, infecting thousands of people in its time. Being an airborne disease, there was little that could be done to stop such a rapid spread, especially when this was before the cure had even been found. It was a deadly, terrifying disease, and to put it into proper perspective, “[b]y the dawn of the 19th century, tuberculosis—or consumption—had killed one in seven of all people that had ever lived” (5)

It’s been said that tens of thousands died at Waverly during the height of the epidemic, but this is more of a lie than a myth. Overall it was estimated that over 8,000 people died on Waverly’s property, including worker suicides (6).

This also includes patients who underwent surgeries such as deflating a lung and removing ribs to give the lungs “more room to breathe” all without anesthetics (6) to those from when Waverly Hills was turned into a geriatric care center in 1962 that performed horrific experiments on the patients for non-existent conditions (7).

Now you’re starting to see where the haunted comes into play. Waverly Hills has seen more death and torture in its walls than can be fathomed. Suicides by depressed workers who could no longer handle the countless deaths, soldiers from World War II who were infected with illnesses that could not be fought, patients with TB who had no cure besides “fresh air and sunlight” and often died on the hour every hour, and elderly patients who were rumored to undergo torturous procedures such as shock therapy, lobotomies, and many others “treatments” all met their end in this building.

Haunted happenings have ranged from hearing voices telling people to get out to the smell of baking bread in the kitchens, to the sound of children laughing, to the sights of gathered shadow people. Yes, countless children died within the halls of Waverly Hills, as well.

A small part of the reason this Sanitorium saw so much death was that it functioned much like a miniature city. It was originally purchased by Major Thomas H. Hays in 1883 and was used as a home and school for his daughters before the city purchased the building and land to use due to the rapid increase in TB patients (8). As such, the land already had its own farm that was converted for patient use, but as patients increased, so did the need for more amenities.

“Waverly Hills had it’s own post office, water treatment facility, grew it’s own fruits and vegetables, raised it’s own meat for slaughter and maintained many of the other necessities of everyday life. Everyone at Waverly – patients, nurses, doctors and other employees had to say ‘goodbye’ to everything they knew on the outside world. Once you went to Waverly Hills, you became a permanent resident “on the hill” (9).

This was a horrifying reality, and “In 1916 a pavilion for children was opened at Waverly Hills. A schoolroom in one end of this building accommodating approximately 40 children, furnished with necessary equipment…” (10).

For many, many people, Waverly Hills was the last place they ever saw, and it was filled with death, decay, and the knowledge that they would likely never leave. It’s hardly any wonder the building is haunted to this day; especially in the area known as the Death Tunnel or “the Body Chute.”

This underground tunnel runs from the front entrance of the main building to the bottom of the hill and was originally over 500 feet long. It was used as a heating duct, originally, and to climb the hill safely in the winter, but during the TB years it was used to transport the dead so they wouldn’t be seen by any other patients in an effort to bolster morale. This means this tunnel saw thousands of dead bodies, many of them only deceased for a few hours or less by the time their body made the trip. Countless people today have said that the tunnel is “haunted by those who made their last journey through it” (11). It was to the point that a movie was named after it, Death Tunnel (2005), and filmed at Waverly Hills.

Interestingly enough, the reason the haunted hospital is so run down and broken is due to one of its last owners, a man who wanted the building condemned so he could build the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ (that’s Kentucky for you). “He let vandals come into the building and tear it up. After breaking windows, porcelain sinks, toilets and doors, they began spraying graffiti on every available wall. The owner then dug around the foundation, in some places as deep as 30 feet, to try and make the foundation crack” (4). Needless to say, the man failed in his endeavor.

In 2001 Waverly Hills was sold to the current owners, Tina and Charlie Mattingly, who are paranormal enthusiasts and offer tours around Waverly Hills, all proceeds going to fix the building up and restore it.

As you’ve read, Waverly Hills Sanitorium was a place filled with tragic death and loss, but it’s important to keep in mind that it was also a place of healing and hope! This building was originally made to help people heal, and they did their best for the time period they were in. The building stands vacant, now, but, well… There are different meanings to the term vacant.

If you get a chance, I highly recommend exploring the building and trying your own look in spotting any who might be left behind. It’s not uncommon to hear children playing or to see nurses and doctors still making their rounds and checking on patients.

Just be careful of the underground tunnel that travels down the hill. There’s more than one place for a tunnel to let out, after all.

Did you enjoy this post and learning about Waverly Hills? Considering dropping a few dollars into my tip jar at https://ko-fi.com/mjanderson or pledging monthly to my Patreon where you can gain access to posts in progress, exclusive content you won’t see anywhere else, and so much more, all at https://patreon.com/mjanderson!

For even more reading about the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, check out the work done by the Buzzfeed Unsolved team in their own exploration of the building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXhLlWQtdt0

https://www.buzzfeed.com/unsolvednotes/notes-for-unsolved-waverly-hills-sanatorium

Sources in Order of Appearance

[1]https://books.google.com/books?id=5mCn7y_B16sC&pg=PA88&dq=what+did+tuberculosis+do+to+the+body

[2]https://www.tballiance.org/why-new-tb-drugs/global-pandemic

[3]https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34658015

[4]http://arch.thomas-industriesinc.com/Bldg_WaverlyHills.htm

[5]https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/plague-gallery/

[6]https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/kentucky/waverly-hills-sanatorium-ky/

[7]https://www.historicmysteries.com/waverly-hills-sanatorium/

[8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium

[9]https://www.therealwaverlyhills.com/about

[10]http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~waverlymemorial/history/newspapers/waverly_herald/History_wh/history_p12.jpg

[11]http://mentalfloss.com/article/17263/haunted-hospital

[Some Photos]http://www.lovethesepics.com/2013/10/waverly-hills-sanatorium-1-of-the-scariest-abandoned-hospitals-in-america/

[doctornolonger]

(Edit 2020: Please note that this post only reflects my understanding at the time of its writing, not necessarily what I still think!)

In the final Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Gallifrey Chronicles, Lance Parkin was tasked with bridging the gap between the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures, which were coming to an end, and the BBC Wales television show, which was coming to a beginning. To achieve this, he revealed that the Eighth Doctor’s amnesia, which had plagued the books since The Ancestor Cell, was caused by a copy of the Time Lord Matrix stored in his head.

Fan consensus has long held that, following the novel’s cliffhanger ending, the Eighth Doctor used the Matrix copy to resurrect a perfect copy of Gallifrey – not a copy of Gallifrey as it existed seconds before its destruction, but a Gallifrey rewound 70 years or more, to before Romana II’s regeneration – just in time to enjoy his Big Finish adventures and see the whole thing destroyed again. This is one common placement of The Infinity Doctors, the mysteries of which are explained as the Eighth Doctor “reinitializing” his history after restoring Gallifrey and taking care of it for a while (which is blatantly not what happens in the novel, but hey, we can’t have everything).

I’ve always rather loathed this explanation. The idea of Gallifrey being created and destroyed multiple times really rubs me the wrong way, as does the way huge portions of the plot are left to happen off-screen. (Just my opinion, of course.) Plus, Parkin has explicitly said that this placement of The Infinity Doctors isn’t at all what he originally intended, and while of course the Author Is Dead, I maintain that the Author’s Intention Is Still Pretty Cool.

Thankfully, over the past two years, the crew on the Doctor Who Discord have managed to concoct an alternative explanation for the placement of The Infinity Doctors, which is

backed-up by quotes from Parkin and rigorous analysis of the material,

now built into the Tardis Wiki, and

slowly propagating throughout wider Wilderness fandom as the New Consensus View.

And mercifully, the same folks have made a similar alternate explanation for what happens after The Gallifrey Chronicles.

It was my friend Neptun who noted that, despite the NuWho-aligned intentions of The Gallifrey Chronicles’ commissioners, if you consider the book on its own merits (without trying to shoehorn in NuWho, Big Finish, The Infinity Doctors, or anything else), it serves equally well as a lead into the vision of the post-War future that Parkin had been hinting at over his last several books.

After all, there are several points where The Gallifrey Chronicles seems to go out of its own way to remind the audience about the Needle plotline. Of course there’s the Doctor’s father, who was working with Needle folk in Unnatural History and the unpublished Enemy of the Daleks, and Larna, who visited the Needle in The Infinity Doctors. Then the Doctor has a vision of the four surviving elementals, who (as we know from the Miranda comic) constituted the core of the Imperial Family. Even better, one of the elementals is clearly the Emperor of the Needle, and he’s flat-out described as the Doctor!

Given all this, it’s explicitly the better supported reading. How did we get from “the Doctor has a giant Time Lord database in his mind, including Time Lord ghosts and stuff” to “he rebuilds an entire planet” in the first place? And even if he were to try to more straightforwardly resurrect the Time Lords, where would he do it? Not only was Gallifrey destroyed, it was wiped from the timeline; there aren’t any ruins to visit. He’d have had to terraform Hausiform a whole new planet.

(Or, if I’m allowed some canonwelding, he could have circumvented that need by finding a surviving cloneworld, like one of the Nine Gallifreys. What if his first, ultimately unsuccessful attempt took place on one of those? That would explain the strong resemblance between Gallifrey Eight in The Taking of Planet 5 and the Imperial Family’s “Throneworld” in Hope. Notably, both of those novels were written or cowritten by Mark Clapham, a frequent Parkin collaborator and co-creator of the 42nd Doctor… But that’s a tangent for another day.)

No; rather than wasting precious energy and rebuilding a whole new planet from scratch, the Doctor settled the Time Lords on an existing structure. Something compatible with Time Lord technology, and big enough to store a huge population. Something like Savar’s infinitely-stretched-out TARDIS, the Needle.

The oliphaunt in the room, of course, is that the version of events where the Doctor tries (and perhaps fails) to resurrect Time Lord civilization on the Needle, then rules as Emperor of the universe for a thousand years before being assassinated and dying, is completely incompatible with NuWho. (And why shouldn’t it be?) But that’s a discussion for another day!

[icefir-windbreaker]

All-Stars -Story Mode- [CHAPTER 4] Pt.4

Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.5

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Meeting a Giant

Nikolai ran from the pack of Hellhounds til one of them came out of nowhere but he had the Olympia shotgun in his hands so it’s not hard for him to shot it’s head off with a splatter of blood on his face and kept running till he finds a bar.

He sprints towards it, opens the door, goes in and shuts it behind him as he watched the dogs from Hell ran away, completely passing by the bar where the Russian is hiding in.

Nikolai panting, trying to catch his breath from the running he endured, ‘’It never ends…’’ He breathed out the words, as he found a chair for him to sit down on and let his legs rest.

‘’They are like a plague, they can never stop nor rest after this. How long will this go on?’’ He continued as he reloaded the shotgun.

‘’But Nikolai can never stop as well, I need regroup with the others if they made it here as well.’’ he stated as he got up after he felt his legs had rested enough to last a week. Just when he was about to the leave the bar, he heard footsteps came up behind him, so he turned around as he fully expected there be a zombie but instead he saw a giant that is much taller than him.

Holy heck….

He looked up at the giant with wide eyes as sweat began to form, thoughts flooding his mind on how big he is and frighted with one thought he could easily beat someone up to a bloody pulp in that size!

A Giant looked at Nikolai, looking confused as he never seen him before but he looked like he had gone through a war, so in the Russian voice he said ‘’What is little man doing in bar?’’

Nikolai looked puzzled, puzzled till he spoke back ‘’Trying to survive from the hell pigs that are trying to kill me, are you?’’, ‘’Heavy is doing the same but my gun, Sasha, is out of ammo!’’ the now-named Giant replied.

Nikolai continued to be puzzled by this giant, he’s Russian like him and in need of ammunition to continue to fight off the undead. Nikolai looked up and said ‘’If I could find you ammo for your gun, Heavy, can you help me find my comrades?’’ as he pointed at the door.

Heavy smiled big and said ‘’Thank you! It’s in the starting room just not too far from bar, we can able to crush little zombies no problem!’’

Nikolai heartily laughed at the giant’s response as Heavy said ‘’What is your name, little man?’’ to Nikolai. ‘’Nikolai Belinski.’’ He introduced himself.

‘’Good to meet you!’’ Heavy said as he gave Nikolai a pat (more like a hard whack-like pat) on the back at full force, the Russian grunts in pain and nearly fell down from that force from the giant.

Nikolai was in pain but managed to stay on his feet, he looked at Heavy and said ‘’G-good to meet y-you too…’’ with a smile.

Heavy nodded as he patted on his back again this time gentle than the hard one that storke Nikolai. ‘’Alright then! No longer fooling around than before, time to get to the starting room!’’ Heavy proclaimed as he got a shotgun and the minigun while Nikolai brushed himself off.

‘’Let’s get going Nikolai!’’ Heavy yelled as he goes out of the door with the sergeant followed close behind him out of the bar.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Richtofen, Medic and Pyro ran for what felt like 3 hours as their lungs were screaming at them to stop as Hellhounds are still chasing them with the barking and growling. That’s when Takeo and Sniper came in and ran into them in a clashing course but stood their balance and kept running for their lives.

Then they reached the one room that Medic, Pyro and Sniper can idefinity, the room that had respawned them from deaths countless times before in each war game in the Gravel Wars: The starting room. Medic pointed at it as he yelled ‘’Zhere! Zhere! Get in get in!!’’ while everyone ran in the room as he cheered happily ‘’Yes! Yes! Ve’re safe! Ve’re save!’’ then the sliding garage door closes behind them after they entered the room.

‘’Notice zhe door? In the gravel war, our enemy team would never come in unless one of our team’s lose!’’ Medic said as he pointed at the door leading to the outside, ‘’Are you sure?’’ Takeo asked.

‘’Of course I am sure! Engineer designed it to be zhat vay!’’ Medic answered the question quickly as they shushed quietly immediately after they heard the growling of the dogs as they rushed by the room when they continued to run to find them.

They remained quiet for the remaining 5 minutes before Medic said ‘’Are…. Are zhey gone...?’’, then a banging came on the door, almost immediately after the Hellhounds are gone. They pointed their weapons at the door thinking it was a zombie that’s banging on the door but a scared voice that almost sounded like a scared girl yelled ‘’Let me in! Let me in right now! Please please!!’’

‘’Scout?!’’ Sniper said as he ran at the door and opened it before others could stop him, the boy with the cap and a blood-splattered bat rushes in almost pushing over the Australian in the process as he fell on the floor.

‘’Scout vhat are you-’’

‘’SHUTTHEDOORSHUTTHEDOORSHUTTHEFRICKIN’DOOR!!’’ Scout screamed in terror as he stoots away from the door a little bit, Sniper shuts it just in time before a single undead dog would set a paw in the starting room, barking and growling.

‘’Bloody hell! Where have you been!?’’ Sniper demanded as he watched the door as Scout gets back on his feet and looks for another weapons.

‘’I dunno man!! I was scared to death when I found them and they find me hiding behind the wall! All I know dat those dogs are dead! DEAD AS NAILS SNIPER!! And they started chasing me like I was a cat or somethin’!’’ Scout yelled as he found a scattergun in the locker, Richtofen and Takeo can hardy understood what Scout was saying when he spoke so quickly.

‘’Mind herr Scout tell us again with a slow tone please?’’ Richtofen said as Scout yelled ‘’THEY WERE ALL ZOMBIFIED! I had never saw them like dat a day in my life! Of course I had handled robots in the past but NOT like DAT!!’’

Sniper cockly smiled softly when others were looking at Scout like he had gone crazy, He had been annoyed by his teammate from Boston before but now the Hellhounds are doing him a flavor. ‘’Maybe that’s karma for not guarding the intel from the BLU Team last month.’’ Sniper said as Scout shoot glared at him while he chuckled under breath.

‘’DON’T start! Don’t even chuckle… I was stabbed in the back by a frickin’ BLU Spy after my guard down for just a second!’’ Scout barked at the Australian as Takeo raised an eyebrow at the young man with the scattergun and said ‘’Why would that be related to this-’’

‘’Don’t bring it up please.’’ Scout said.

‘’Can I set Scout on fire now Doctor?’’ Pyro asked the Medic, ‘’Patience Pyro, patience. It’s not the right time for zhat now, remember zhe zombies zhat are-’’ Medic answered before the lights went off ‘’AHH!! ZHEY TURNED ZHE LIGHTS OFF!! Zhe flashlights! Zhe flashlights!!’’ he said as his teammates got out and turned on their flashlights nearly blinding them.

‘’What are-’’ Takeo asked before being interrupted again by Medic saying ‘’It doesn’t matter right now but zhey now going to do some-’’ then the lights went on as everyone was caught off guard again by this, ‘’ZHEY TURNED ZHE LIGHTS BACK ON!! FLASHLIGHTS OFF FLASHLIGHTS OFF!!’’ he screamed at his teammates as they turned off their flashlights off as Scout said ‘’Geez Doc! You don’t need to yell it out to us.’’

‘’O-oh sorry, I was just surprised, just after a long time in zhe Badlands vhile zhe Gravel Wars vas going on just makes me feel at edge at times.’’ Medic said sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. ‘’It’s true ya know,’’ Sniper said, ‘’Really mate, it can do that to you when you spend a long time in the Gravel Wars.’’

‘’Ve had it much vorse zhan zhat.’’ Richtofen said as Takeo nods in agreement, ‘’Well, I guess we are not that different at all from each other after all.’’ Sniper said as he smiled.

‘’Not like we had just met two random strangers here.’’ a voice came from behind with a French accent, that made everyone jumped out of their skins as they wrapped around to find Spy standing there, smoking a cigarette.

‘’Spoi!!’’ Sniper said, ‘’Don’t do that! You nearly gave all of us a bloody heart attack!’’ he continued as Spy chuckled ‘’Moi? I just couldn’t resist.’’

(Steam Profile Background from Team Fortress 2 Wiki)

‘’Who is this?’’ Takeo said as he got out his sword, ready to fight the Spy. Spy was prepared to do the same with his knife til Sniper stopped him as he got between them while he said ‘’Just ignore him mate, he’s Spy and he’s on our side thankfully.’’

That made Takeo calmed down a bit but hesitatingly sheaths his sword away back in it’s sheath. ‘’From what I can tell, you are from Asia if I am correct.’’ Spy asked, ‘’Japan, of course Spy but I rather not hear it from the likes of you.’’ Takeo replied as his eyes are filled with suspicion already.

‘’I was trying to be friendly to the newcomers.’’ Spy says as he takes other drag of cigarette while he walked while he spoke ‘’Like all of you, I don’t remember either and other thing that we are in the new situation other than the usual run up but anyway, it’s good to meet you both, Dr. Richtofen and Takeo.’’

Both Takeo and Edward were surprised when Spy said their names, how did he know their names when he just met them?

‘’How did you know vho ve vere?’’ Richtofen asked, ‘’He’s a spy, he is like a secret agent and get information from random people or somethin’ like dat.’’ Scout explained as he found ammo for his scattergun.

‘’Like how you wanted to ask her out on the dial tone after you got the intel.’’ Spy said as he walked by the two, ‘’Go to hell, Spy.’’ Scout replied as Takeo raised an eyebrow at Scout when Spy mentioned ‘’her’’.

‘’”Her?” Who?’’ he asked, ‘’Mrs. Pauling, the one who hired us, Mercenaries and Scout’s-’’

‘’Shut it!’’ Scout said as a tint of pink dusted him while Spy chuckled a nice amount under his breath, he just like to mess with Scout whenever they are in a time like this.

Takeo can tell just by judging that they dislike each other but couldn’t shake that these two have similar features like a father and son would have but he had forced himself to shrug it off after a thought of asking Spy or Scout questions later after this ordeal is dealt with.

‘’Vell,’’ Medic said as Pyro had rummaged through one of the lockers til they found a polaroid camera on the shelf, examine it in their hands with curiosity. ‘’Since ve are all here together in zhis situation like zhis, ve need to find zhe others und zhen get to zhe lobby and discuss vhat ve do next zhere.’’

Pyro turns on the camera and watched the lens opened up then held it far from their face with the camera facing them while Takeo said ‘’How many were you mercenaries in this forsaking place?’’

‘’There were least nine of us, how many were you, mate?’’ Sniper answered, Richtofen looked at him with a worried look. ‘’4 of us, I am not sure if they are in this fortress.’’

‘’Don’t worry man, if they are, rely on me to find them-’’

‘’Scout, please,’’ Spy intervened, ‘’If we would let you go out alone, they would mistakenly think that you are one of them and-’’ and that’s what Spy said before being interrupted by Soldier screaming ‘’INCOMING!!’’ and then-

*Flash*

*KA-BOOM!*

Pyro had taken a picture of themself holding up two fingers in a peace sign while Medic was blown back and Takeo shielding himself from the explosion as rubble and metal sherds of what’s left of the door flies across the room in the most epic fashion that anyone had ever seen.

‘’SOLDIER!!’’ Six members of RED yelled in unison as Soldier looked at the room, dumbfounded after a thought that the door is locked. ‘’Soldier boy, why would you do that?!’’ Engineer yelled at him as he put the rocket down while he said ‘’Dempsey told me to knock down doors if they’re locked.’’

‘’That’s NOT what I meant Soldier!’’ Dempsey exclaimed as he places his hand to his forehead in irritation and annoyance. ‘’In war, I could never use doors and always had to blow them up if I had to.’’ Soldier said as he rubbed the back of his head in both pride and embarrassment.

‘’You imbecile!!’’ Spy yelled angrily at him after seeing that he had just destroyed the door that had protected from the rival team and then zombies. It was their only chance to survive the undead, ‘’You’ve doomed us all!’’

‘’Yeah, not cool man, not cool.’’ Scout agreed with Spy as Dempsey walked in and go towards Richtofen and Takeo that are getting up from the floor and dusted themselves off from the explosion that Soldier had caused.

‘’Where the hell have you two been?’’ Dempsey said as he patted on Takeo’s back as the Jap coughed. ‘’We were wondering the same as you Dempsey, have you-?’’

‘’Made new friends already? Yep. This day hasn’t gotten any stranger than this.’’

‘’Stranger? Vhat do you mean by zhat Dempsey?’’ Richtofen questioned the marine, ‘’Some freak bag with a dice for a head that I have just met today, I wish I finally gone insane but he was there in person.’’ Dempsey said.

‘’Sounds like you really did gone insane man,’’ Scout said as he pushed himself off the floor, Dempsey snapped ‘’It’s not like that! He literally had a dice for a head, a tuxedo and a smug grin on his face!’’

‘’Oh… I can see zhat you are painting a picture of a… Cartoon.’’ Medic said, thinking that the Corporal had actually gone crazy along with the others. ‘’A Cartoon!? No I-’’ Dempsey asked, ‘’It’s something that k- Ugh! Never mind that! We need to get to the lobby!’’ Sniper said as he pointed out the door.

That’s when he heard Heavy’s voice bellowed from the destroyed entrance ‘’Here we are!’’ with Nikolai behind him, ‘’Wait, is that your…?’’ Nikolai asked as he points at the others in the room.

Heavy looks at the Respawn Room and took the moment to take in what had happened to it before yelling ‘’What happened to the Starting Room Doktor!?’’

‘’Azk zhe Soldier about zhat herr Heavy.’’ Medic answered as he glanced over to Soldier with a glare. ‘’I thought it was locked!’’

Nikolai looked at the team of red mercenaries then glances other to his allies, surprised and glad to see them still in one piece, he runs over to them immediately.

‘’Are you all alright?’’ Nikolai worryingly asked to them, ‘’We are alright, Nikolai, we’re relieved to see you are alright too.’’ Dempsey replied.

Team looked at the four men and Sniper said ‘’There were four of you?’’

‘’Yeah, since after Northern France, when zombies came out of-’’

‘’Was there anyone that had survived back in France?’’ Spy questioned as he detects there was something suspicious about the four.

‘’Nein, zhere are just 4 of us when Vorld Var I was still on and-’’

‘’You four were from the first World War?’’ Engineer said, wide eyed as he looked at Richtofen, who nodded as he said ‘’It is true, from vhat I can tell zhat you now zhink zhat we really have gone insane right now.’’

There was silence fell down upon the eight men in red, sharing glances at each other then at the group, then finally Scout said ‘’Are you sure that you didn’t gone to medieval times? Those times are totally insane but fun, ya know.’’

‘’Well, no we- Wait.’’ Takeo began with this sudden ‘shift’ to this conversion, ‘’Why would you ask something like that Scout?’’

‘’Well, hearing somethin’ like that,’’ Engineer spoke up in this conversion, ‘’It reminded us of the time we were medieval times and that… Now seems to be long ago now.’’

This caught the crew off guard, they actually believed them?

Dempsey then said ‘’How were you in-’’ ‘’Soldier had angered a wizard and sent us back to those medieval ages, it was crazy in that time but it was fun actually, drinking rum and having a feast while music is playing is quite wild but still... It was quite fun while it lasted before we got back to our present time.’’ Engineer explained.

They just couldn’t believe what they were hearing, Scout let out a nervous laugh and said ‘’Heh… Well uh… We’re kinda same now when hearing is other-timeline-or-world-or-whatever.’’

‘’We are the same through this madness,’’ Takeo stated, Engineer looked at the Jap with a look of ‘’I guess we are never alone after all’’ on his face and said ‘’Well now, now we know we’re not the only ones who had an other-worldly experience.’’

‘’Did ya’ll had the same experience with the wizard?’’ Scout asked, this caused to Engineer looked at him with an angry glance ‘’Scout.’’

‘’Vell, nein,’’ Richtofen said ‘’Ve had been from timeline to other zhanks to zhe teleporter but zhere is another zhing zhat had helped us get to ozher dimensions.’’

‘’And what is this thing that you are talking about?’’ Spy questioned Richtofen as he hold a cigarette just between his fingers.

Richtofen looked down for a moment then at his comrades, one of them Dempsey who looked at him and asked ‘’Did you still have it?’’

That made Richtofen realized then searches through his pockets till he felt something metal and round, he knew what it was and pulled it out of his pocket, an artifact that looked ancient yet it looked like it had been cleaned recently.

Summoning Key

Richtofen sighed in relief seeing that had been with him still, Medic and Engineer looked at the object with fascinated eyes and wonder.

‘’Ooh… Vhat’s zhat you had in your hand?’’ Medic questioned as he pointed at the artifact with such curiosity. ‘’Zhis is zhe artifact named ‘’Astoth Arbzorark’’ now in translated english; Summoning Key. It is the most powerful artifact ever to exist.’’

‘’Ever to exist?’’ Medic said ‘’How did you managed to find it somewhere?’’

‘’It is a long story zhat I vill save for later after zhis, since we’re all here now.’’ Richtofen said then Spy suddenly started ‘’All but one of us at least.’’

‘’Hmm? Are we forgetting someone in your group?’’ Nikolai asked, RED Team took time to think and then they realized they are indeed missing someone on their team.

‘’Demoman!’’ Soldier yelled with the realization, ‘’We have forgotten all about him. Men! And he’s still in the lobby!’’

‘’Uh… Why would he still be in the lobby with or not with reason, Soldier?’’ Scout asked as he looked at him with a confused expression. ‘’I think he is taking a nap in the dome rooms at the lobby just before all of this started,’’ Soldier said, others looked at him with a dumbfounded look.

‘’That drunken bloody Scottish…’’ Sniper muttered under his breath with annoyance, slapping his hand on his forehead as he know Demoman would passed out drunk and he is praying ‘’He can’t fall asleep drunk in a time like this…’’

‘’Why would he be napping? That’s a bad timing for this.’’ Nikolai said with concern, crossing his arms as he looked at Soldier. ‘’Because he is an alcoholic.’’ Soldier answered as he stretched at the back of his head.

‘’Like my other self but in a different light.’’ Nikolai whispered to himself, Sniper looked at him with a questionable look ‘’What was that mate?’’ ‘’O-oh, nothing comrade.’’ Sergeant stuttered out an answer.

Sniper looked at them with suspicious look on his face, he thought ‘’There’s something strange about these wankers…’’ as he crosses his arms, he had learned from the truth about his parents and now these men from WWI with a strange powerful artifact. He needs to find out what they really are on the inside but not right now.

Then one thought occurred in his mind, Sniper looked at everyone and said ‘’Mates… Have we forgotten something?’’

‘’Oh,’’ Medic began ‘’Vell, zhere vere zombies und…’’ he stopped as he realized, others began to realize as well and turned to face the broken door, to find to their horror; there were a horde of zombies are coming to their way.

‘’You guys had a hard time with these zombies before?’’ Scout asked, ‘’Yeah, back in the digging site and a lot of run-ins in different places and right now actually.’’ Dempsey said as he reloaded his pistol.

‘’Alright then.’’ Spy muttered, then they all opened fire on the incoming horde as they all ran at them, Scout kept firing his Scattergun at the zombies as Heavy reloaded his minigun and listened to the barrel spinning.

‘’Sasha, you have a lot of killing to do.’’ Heavy said as Nikolai and Pyro looked at him after they heard the noise from the minigun then at each other with worried expressions when Heavy pointed at the zombies.

Nikolai yelled ‘’Heavy wait! Let us get out of the way!’’ as he and Pyro ran out of the way just in time before Heavy unleash a hailstorm of bullets on the horde.

The giant had mowed the zombies down as limbs are blown off by bullets and heads were ripped apart to nothing but some of it remained like some kind of a qroste painting. Heavy begins to walk forward as his teammates and 3 other men stepped away to make way for Heavy as he makes a path of destruction in his wake.

‘’Waah, WAAAAHH!!’’ Heavy taunted at the undead’s attempt to get him as he laughed ‘’Cry some more!!’’ he bellowed as others continued to attack.

Shooting and reloading their weapons as the dead kept coming in numbers.

Eventually, the numbers begins to decreased as zombies are showing up less and less as they kept firing bullets and explosives at them. Then they stopped coming.

[nightfuryobsessed]

So I believe it was @clanwarrior-tumbly​ that was talking about the Egos as SCP’s and I ran with it XD

Some of these SCPs are my favorite (Marvin’s, Sean’s, Chase’s, and Henrik’s) and others I actually had to go looking through the SCP foundation wiki so it was very fun to go looking around

Explanation about the SCP’s and my decisions on them under the cut

Sean is SCP-999 aka the tickle monster, it’s the gentlest and kindest SCP out there so naturally, he’d be trying to hug and love another person

Robbie is the SCP-008 or the zombie virus, pretty explainable, but keep in mind, because SCP-008 is the virus itself, Robbie would be 008-A or something like that

Henrik is the SCP-049 or the plague doctor, again, pretty self-expletory

Now, here’s the different one, Chase would be SCP-042 aka the horse without wings. This horse was once a Pegasus who has lost its wings. This SCP actually just does not want to be there at all, it’s actually been documented to have laid on its side on the ground which is a huge no-no for horses

Jackie would be SCP-122, a nightlight is meant to protect children from nightmares and dangers, though that doesn’t always mean that they don’t call the dangers to the child (for all those Antihero Jackie people)

Marvin would be 1762 or ‘Here Be Were Dragons’ This is a bit of a long story, so I’ll give you the link

Bingsepticeye would be SCP-105-B, a very special polaroid camera. This actually has to be combined with the main SCP so for now, Bing is just a normal camera, one that would not be used very often, if at all

Anti is a very primitive knife or the SCP-034. This knife is actually very dangerous as it’s very sharp, but other than that, it’s mostly just looks come at me Anti

JJ would be SCP-068, or the wire stick figure. Enough said

Shawn is SCP 067, or a very beautiful fountain pen. The pen never runs out of ink, it’s perfect for artists, but the ink normally corrodes other fountain pens very quickly. It’s actually got a very interesting story so I’ll just let you read the rest

[jellidile]

Black Hellebore (Duke Bavlenka)

Well here it is! My long-awaited Duke Balvenka fic! It is one sided(?) and also, a Hanahaki fic!! https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hanahaki_Disease There is a link which describes the premise fairly quickly! If there are mistakes please let me know!

One-sided love is never easy. Especially when you die at the end. Magda understands just how hard it is, though she finds solace, in her own way.

The Duke didn’t see joy in the balls of Finsel anymore. Each repeated song reminding him of his wife and the happy days spent with her. He’d lost any connection with Lou. Who, is his grief he’d forgotten to treat as his daughter. He could still remember his wife weakly yelling at him. She begged him not to spend Lou away. She wanted to see her when the time finally came. But in his misery at the thought of losing his wife he lost himself.

Now looking around the ball the newly reinstated Ellenstein family heir sat alone on a bench. The Duke scowled into himself. She looked identical to his wife, one of the main reasons he loathed to talk to her. Stealing another glance Nyx was sat beside her. She coughed into a handkerchief and held her head. She seemed much paler than usual. Nyx made sort motion to get her up, but, the Ellenstein stayed. Shaking her head and giving a smile. Later on the Duke himself sat down by the bench the Ellenstein girl had moved. But as he sighed looking to the floor something caught his eye. There between his feet was a black petal. He picked it up keeping it out of view from the other nobles. Everyone knew about the disease. How it would strike up just when you least expected it. And would fade the second the victim was happy in a relationship. How doctors had found a way to remove the plant growth in the lungs was beyond him, but he himself was appalled with the results. An inability to love, a removal of emotion. In extreme cases, total memory loss of a person’s affections. His eyes scanned the room and found her with a black bloom in her hair. She was talking to the only Sakan the Duke had an ounce of respect for. He huffed, surely her disease was cured now, if it was even there at all? But as he watched them speak, she began to hack into her handkerchief again. A petal the same colour as the one in the Duke’s hand fluttered into the air. And he watched as she plucked it from the air and rushed out the door. He sighed. Surely the girl’s mother wouldn’t let this continue for much longer. But there was a pang of pity, he was appalled with the results of forcefully curing the disease, he would never wish such pain on a person so naive as her. Guilt, covered his shoulders too. She looked just as frail as his own wife right before she died.

Magda barely managed to make it home through all the coughing. The pain in her chest had gotten worse and she could barely breathe. Her mother was at the table when she burst in and fled to her room. She knew she’d left petals on the floor but she had to go. She had to pull out the flowers in her throat. Closing her door she sucked in a small breath before putting her hand as far as it could go down her throat. She gagged as she grasped around the stems. She wanted to scream at the pain when she pulled. A sickening snap brought several inches and blooms out. She cough and cried throwing them across the room. He mother told her not to fall in love. But she didn’t listen. She didn’t listen and was going to die for it. He mother pounded on the door as she coughed,

“Magda! Magda are you alright?” An entire flower fluttered from her mouth. It was all too graceful for the pain she was in. Her mother opened the door and openly sobbed,

“Oh sweet child… How long?” Magda fell into her mother’s arms,

“Months.” Her mother shook her violently,

“You can’t stay like this Magda! We have to remove them!” Magda could do nothing but cry,

“Please don’t mother. I can’t live like that. At least I’ll have flowers when I go like this.” Her mother shook her again,

“You’ll have to live with it! I will not let you die Magda! Not when our dreams are coming true.” Magda feeling another fit coming on hoarsely screamed at her mother shoving her out of her room,

“Perhaps we don’t have the same dreams mother!” she slammed her door and locked it. Then collapsed onto the ground hacking. It was too late for her, but she had to do one thing first.

Perhaps it was the way he radiated loneliness to her. Or how his stance wasn’t as proud as it could been. When everyone else said anger but she could only see regret. The Grand Duke always seemed just the tiniest bit reserved, yet everyone else said he was stern. When Magda first saw the Duke, she couldn’t help but want to see him. When he shooed her away she only felt her resolve grow stronger. When Nyx spoke glowingly about her father Magda wished she could see his smile. When Lou spoke of his harsh exterior being put in place after the death of his wife. She found herself wishing to comfort him as it seemed no one else would. She didn’t know when her feelings turned towards love. But sometimes she’d find herself blushing at the thought of his voice. Other nights she’d wonder what it would be like to be wrapped up in his cloak on a cold night. The stinging pain in her chest did not alarm her. She thought it was only because her heart was beating to fast for her body. The constant tickle in her throat was a common cold. The petals on her pillow were gifts from the maid. All could be explained until she spoke to Gonzalo one evening,

“Hello Gonzalo how are you?” he looked grim,

“Hello Magda.” He looked pale and thin. Seeming to rely on his cane,

“Are you alright you don’t look well… Should we sit down?” Gonzalo nodded. As they sat he began to hack, and she was horrified, as a petal slowly flew through the air. Gonzalo gasped and bowed his head as Magda caught it in her hands. She recognized it. She’d seen the striking blue petals in the Jorcastle garden. A blue hydrangea. She stared up at Gonzalo worry eating at her core,

“Are you okay?” Her world seemed to stop then. As Gonzalo explained the symptoms and their dramatic conclusion. How it stemmed from unrequited love. How being cured was more miserable than dying with flowers in your lungs. How the earliest signs were a harsh stinging in your chest. Gonzalo confessed his love for Alan. Much like the flowers, his love was heartfelt and strong. He was content with dying. He’d accepted it when the petals began to pour. Magda felt a tickle in her throat and when she coughed up a singular petal all her fears welled up inside her. She’d never felt closer to Gonzalo as a friend that night. That night when she coughed up the first petal, and Gonzalo whisked her away to the garden. That night when, through tears, she confessed her love for the Duke to an unbiased ear. That night when she felt more understood and cared for than she’d ever felt when Gonzalo asked if they could leave together when the time came. Gonzalo’s condition worsened slowly. While Magda’s spread too fast for her liking. She often visited Gonzalo in an attempt to distract her worried mind but it always drifted back to the sad eyes of the Duke. Many thought it was her trying to seduce him, but no one dared retort when Lynna began calling people out for their rumours.

How shocking it all was when Lynna walked in on Magda’s visit to find her crying a coughing flower petals. It must’ve been shocking for Lynna too, seeing as her brother was doing the same thing. Magda sat uneasy as Gonzalo explained. Begging Lynna to keep it a secret from Tilla. Lynna too, had become like a friend to Magda. Not outright showing it, but little things like keeping nosy nobles from hounding her when she needed to cough. Or distracting dukes and duchesses when Magda truly needed to leave because of her condition.

It all came crashing down when she received a letter from Lynna only weeks before. Gonzalo’s condition was critical. He could breathe and talk but he could barely move. Every twist and stretch of his chest had him doubled over in pain. There were very specific instructions for Magda, when she was in the same boat. Tears in her eyes she went to visit him. She swore she would follow through.

Things had only gotten worse. Without Gonzalo at the balls Magda couldn’t help but feel alone. She constantly needed to cough but couldn’t for fear of looking bad. Her mother was pressuring her to maintain appearances as she had just put the family name back on the map again. The patron demanded intel from her. The balls demanded grace. Through all of that her love for the Duke grew stronger. Especially when, while being hounded by nobles, he appeared. Sternly he told them to leave her alone and when he commanded her to talk to Lou, she noticed the regret in his eyes. She shouldn’t have asked but,

“Of course Grand Duke. If I may, are you alright? You seem exhausted.” He didn’t glare. With a shake of his head and a firm head tilt the conversation was over. Still she knew the sadness that plagued him felt like a constant weight. A heavy cloak to even the strongest men. She knew all too well the weight he must’ve felt constantly.

Magda sobbed into her hands as she wrote. She wrote down her feelings into her diary and she’d just finished writing two very important letters. Opening her window, light rain dotted her arms. The soft pitter patter almost eased the pain in her chest as she called for the maid. Slipping the letters under the door she spoke clear instructions,

“The letter addressed to the Jorcastle’s must arrive there within the hour. The letter to the Bavlenka’s need only arrive.” She could barely stand as the stems tickled her throat. They were growing faster now. An another full bloom fell from her mouth and Magda sighed. The flower was apparently called a Black Hellebore. They were flowers thought to clear away evil when displayed in a vase. And they were poisonous. Magda assumed that’s why she was falling ill so much faster than Gonzalo. He’d confessed he’d been suffering for close to a year or so. Whereas Magda had only been sick a handful of months. Though it pained her to, she walked to her closet and began looking through all of her dresses. She wanted to look serene when her mother found her in the morning. Slipping on her black dress adorned with stars on the bottom, she found black socks, long black gloves and her favourite necklace. Stumbling back to her bed she lied down and after she coughed them out, Magda put a few of the Hellebore blooms into her hair. On her bedside table laid a small amber vial. She hastily wrote one last letter. Staring at the amber glass, she shivered. But with the light rain outside her window, and the thought that she wouldn’t be alone tonight, she popped the cork and drank. Blowing out her candle. Magda fell asleep.

In the morning Finsel was quiet. There was nothing but the shrieks of two horrified mothers. The Duke sighed. He knew two nobles had died last night but no one would tell him who. It wasn’t until Zoe appeared on his doorstep, shaken,

“If you’d be so kind Zoe, I’d like to know who passed on.” Duke Olineaux shook his head,

“Give me a moment, so I can find the words. The news still shocks me.” It was a few tense moments. That were interrupted by Nyx’s scream. Bavlenka was up in an instant as his young daughter burst into the reading room in hysterics. She latched onto her father and sobbed loudly,

“It’s not fair father! I don’t understand, it’s not fair!” the Duke rubbed her back awkwardly. Looking to Zoe, the other man looked grim. Nyx provided half an answer,

“Haven’t you heard? Magda is dead! She was so bright! I, I wish I hadn’t left her. If only-” the Duke recognized the words. Crouching down he grabbed Nyx’s shoulders and stared into her eyes

,“Do not speak like that Nyx. Thoughts like that only lead to endless regret. You did all that you could. Her decisions were her’s and fate’s alone.” Nyx sniffled and nodded as her father escorted her out of the room. He would be with her in a moment. Harson walked up to the Duke and placed a letter in his hands,

“From the… Ellenstein’s.” He stiffly walked away. The Duke hummed to himself, why would the old Ellenstein send him a letter? Looking back to Zoe, he finally got the second half of an answer,

“Gonzalo.”

“What?” Zoe huffed,

“Gonzalo Jorcastle also died last night.” the Duke felt he already had the answer,

“What of?”“Hondo people call it Hanahaki. It’s the…” He made a gesture of coughing up something. Bavlenka nodded in understanding. Not many words passed between the two men, except,

“Open the letter.” Zoe was monotone. The Duke huffed,

“Why?”

“Because Eliza sent you a letter the night of her daughter’s death. You owe it to her to read it.” there was a begrudging grumble as the Duke opened the letter. First of all, although he usually never did, he looked at who’d given the salutation. It was not Eliza,

“It’s from the girl…”

“What?”

“You heard me Zoe.”

“I did, but what does it say?”

“Dear, Duke Bavlenka. I write you in hopes that I can die with a clear conscience. So that I may die, without regrets. I have no doubts you will write off my death as a girl foolishly in love with someone she’d only met once. You wouldn’t be wrong. But I was a girl who fell in love with someone who so desperately looked like they needed a shoulder to cry on. I know not if it is fair, or right to tell you, but I was in love with you. I fully understood the consequences of my feelings but I hoped that even if you could never love me I might see your eyes clear of pain and regret. I always saw a hidden pain within you. A hopeful fool thought I could at least have made you smile. When Lady Nyx would speak of your laugh I yearned to hear it. What fun balls would be if only you could see the fun in them too. But my feelings grew past a childish wish into something more intimate. I wondered what it would be like to be held in your arms. But you needn’t know anymore, those are dreams only my heart can know.

I dreamt Grand Duke of things never to happen, and yet only one wish prevailed. I wished you could be happy again. I saw how dull your eyes were and it saddened me so. Perhaps you have been told this before, but, the sky is always brighter when the rainstorm passes by. It seems you always keep a rain cloud at arm’s length. I implore you, abandon that rain cloud and your regrets and look up to the sky. A new day is waiting for you if you would only go out to see it.

Finally, though it is up to you, please take care of my mother. I fear for her as I write this alone, with only candlelight by me. My eyes are full of tears and I can barely see the words I write. The clock is chiming now. Gonzalo will be waiting for me. Sincerely,

“Magda Ellenstein.” The room was silent between the two dukes. Zoe bowed his head. Where Bavlenka could only stare in disbelief. She was blunt to say the least. The words of her letter hitting him hard. They echoed the words of his wife, how much she reminded him of her. He sighed placing down the letter in front of him. Speechless was one word to describe him. As he sat thinking about the small girl he could only sigh. He stared outside, mainly to the sky. And for once the sky seemed to be a brighter blue than usual. Deep and dark, yet light and pure.

And in the back of his throat, there was the smallest tickle.

[vantekay]

brain on fire by susannah cahalan

summary of the book: The book narrates susannah's issues with an autoimmune disease that goes about a month or more before being discovered  in her system. the book opens with her awaking constrained to a hospital bed. she begins to thrash around and pull at the restraints in an attempt to free herself, unaware of why she is in the hospital in the first place. what susannah is unaware of is her past month of living in the hospital and her experiences of psychotic behaviors, hallucinations, seizures and extreme paranoia. prior to these changes in her health and overall mood, susannah worked at the new york post as a journalist. her eventual diagnosis is made more difficult by various physicians misdiagnosing her with several other possible reasons as to why she is acting the way she is, such as "partying too much" and schizoaffective disorder. eventually Dr. Najjar is brought in to assess susannah and finally diagnoses her with what has actually been plaguing her for the past month of her life (for the sake of not ruining the book, because what made you want to keep reading was the fact that you didn’t know what was wrong with her and when it is finally revealed it is a wonderful feeling so I will not be disclosing the autoimmune disease they finally diagnose her with) using a simple clock drawing test that is typically used to diagnose patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. susannah draws the clock with all its components, except she has squished all of the numbers onto the right side of the clock instead of spreading them out like a normal clock face. this leads Dr. Najjar to conclude that the right hemisphere of her brain- the hemisphere responsible for the left side of our body, is inflamed and therefor causing her to act out as she has been- with extreme paranoia, sudden body stiffness, seizures, psychotic outbursts and extreme shifts in mood and being mute at times. from this point on the book follows susannah’s road to recovery and her life after being cured from the autoimmune disease. she reveals that it wasn’t easy, and that month of her life is a huge mystery to her as she has no recollection of her memories during that time period and she uses that as a way to improve her life. she also reveals that she knows she will never be 100% like she was before her disease, but she knows she can be better and stronger than she was before. Cahalan uses the rest of the book to talk about how she started an organization in hopes of helping other people with this strange and rare autoimmune disease that- as Dr. Najjar discloses often goes unnoticed and undiagnosed in patients- find out what is wrong with them and help them get the proper help they need to recover. 

(paraphrased from this wiki article)

genre: memoir

number of pages: 252 (273 including her notes , acknowledgements, illustration credits, about the author, and topics and questions for discussion pages)

my review of the book + the movie below the cut

I absolutely loved this book. it took me about three days to read but if I had had more free time I definitely would have finished it within one day flat. I never wanted to put the book down, and the way susannah writes about her experiences is both intriguing and heartbreaking at the same time. it’s amazing to be able to be in her head, as if you are almost experiencing the same emotions, thoughts and more that she does throughout the course of the book. I think that’s about all I have to say about the book, surprisingly haha but I really just wanted to talk about the movie a little more, since I was a little disappointed with it and wanted to share my reasons why. it was still a good movie and it does heighten some of what susannah experiences throughout the course of the book but the movie did not do the book justice. 

the movie was released in 2016 and is an hour and a half long. the beginning of the movie was pretty good. it portrayed susannah’s decent into madness pretty well, starting out with the visions she was having, the bright lights that were making her sick, the first seizure she has in the middle of the night and her increasingly poor performance at work as her mental health deteriorates, but after that the movie starts to take a turn for the worse- as in it doesn’t portray the helplessness and loneliness susannah experiences during her time in the hospital and all of her episodes in there. the one scene I was majorly disappointed in was the scene when her father comes to pick her up from her apartment and have her spend the night at his house so he can keep an eye on her. in the book, susannah has a massive breakdown at dinner, believing that her stepmother is calling her names despite her mouth not moving (her hallucinations and paranoia being the creators of this outbreak). in the movie they add a scene here where susannah breaks the dinner plate and screams, accusing Giselle, her stepmother, of talking bad about her and then she pushes herself into a corner where she screams over and over that her father is trying to kidnap her and that she needs to leave. while this part in the movie is heartbreaking to watch-it is not what happens in the book (which is to be expected, I know that not every scene can be shown to the authors every want and desire but it would have been nice to see this scene as it was in the book which I will now explain). in the book, after her father and giselle finish eating, susannah goes back and forth from asking her dad to stay with her because she is scared of being alone to screaming at him to go away and then apologizing and asking him to stay again. susannah reveals in the book that while she sat with her father in the living room for this period of time she said something awful to him that it made him cry, something that she does not remember and something that her father has consciously chosen to forget about. after whatever it was she said to him, she orders him to go upstairs to his bedroom. she then begins to hear pounding sounds from upstairs (auditory hallucination) and then heard giselle pleading for her life. she was hallucinating that her father was beating giselle because of what she had said to him moments prior to asking him to leave. because susannah now believes that her father is going to kill her next, she attempts to leave her fathers house, banging her fists against the front door. her father comes down the stairs to see what is wrong with her and in response, since susannah believes he is going to hurt her, runs and locks herself in the bathroom for the rest of the night. 

in my opinion, this scene would have been a bit better to include than the one they actually implemented as it truly shows the extent of susannah’s psychotic behaviors up until she was hospitalized but there is nothing that can be done about it now. 

alongside some scenes that I believe should have been added, I was disappointed with the way the rest of the movie progressed. in the book, it is definitely easier to write about days within a couple of pages but it is harder to portray days within a typical movie’s time-span without losing the interest of the audience however, the movie made it seem like susannah just hopped from one doctor to the next without any days in between and then magically met Dr. Najjar- the one who would finally properly diagnose her. in the book, there are many tests that are run in between, many more manic episodes that susannah encounters that would have been interesting to see portrayed in the movie and many other doctor consultations and possible diagnoses that were left out. the movie pretty much went from- okay well our daughter needs to be hospitalized, none of these doctors are diagnosing her properly, oh look here’s a really well known and smart doctor who knows what he’s doing, oh he finally found out what’s wrong with our daughter and then that was it. the movie shows susannah returning back to work after 7months and how she gets her first real story at the post. in the book, susannah writes about how she needs to relearn everything that she was unable to do during her month in the hospital like speaking normally, acting normally and even walking. she writes about her experiences of attending many different social events and how she feels during them, how her family reacts to seeing her post hospitalization and everything else. it would have been nice to see this happy ending in the movie in contrast to the abrupt way it ends in the film.

overall, the book and the movie are good. the book is well written and overall very easy to get lost in, trying to understand susannah’s feelings during this time in her life and watching her come out of it stronger than before. its uplifting and a good read. the movie was also well directed and had a very good cast, in my opinion. the characters did a good job of portraying susannah’s family and friends but there are still discrepancies throughout that made the movie a bit of a letdown.

god this is long I’m so sorry sksks but this was fun! to those of you who actually read all of my nonsense, I hope you enjoyed it and have potentially found a book that you would want to read for yourself! I’m excited to be doing this book rec’s and reviews and I hope you all enjoy them as well :)

[thescarletlibrarian]

*Screams with rage that 17th c thing referred to as “medieval” because we can’t talk about the MULTIPLE plague outbreaks in the 1600s that contributed to it being the most deadly century until WWI, along with inter-religious warfare between forms of Christianity as well as other religions; the Spanish Inquisition, witch hunts, and religious persecution all over the place including in Europe by BOTH protestant and catholic authorities; and constant calls for crusades because oh, shit, the Ottomans are on the move again.

Heaven forfend we stop calling it the “Age of Reason” and the “Enlightenment” and dumping its shit on medieval Europe in particular, making sure to cover up slight details like the first diploma-granting university still operating being in 8th c. Morocco, attached to a mosque because that’s where education happened, including medicine, music, logic, etc., and the modern university system still being riddled with baggage from the 12th c cathedral schools that went from training priests in said subjects as well as theology and philosophy, AKA “the Queen of the Sciences” to structured education systems, or the friar William of Ockham, yes THAT Ockham, writing about theology alongside physics because there was no goddamn struggle, or indeed differentiation, between science and religion, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian scholars ALL applied Aristotelian logic to everything, obsessively, especially religion (LOOKING AT YOU, AQUINAS, 13th c monk). For starters. Or Isaac Newton writing piles of theological works in between alchemical shit, while 13th c Francis Bacon was learning more about nature and and the rules of God’s world through observation and messing around with it instead of armchair-applying Aristotelian rules and figuring it’s logically valid so it must be true. No, the Black Death in the 14th c was caused by people staying filthy despite bathhouses all over the place, and being religious fanatics and flogging themselves and burning witches and Jews instead of scrubbing everything with vinegar and requiring incoming ships to drop anchor, dump their stuff in an off-shore warehouse, and all of it and them sit there for four weeks to make sure there wasn’t any plaguey shit brought into the city, which is where we get the word QUARANTINE.

That’s just off the top of my head, I only checked a couple dates on wiki, but I know there’s boatloads more examples. Including the goddamn plague doctor masks, although those are about the only thing the 17th c did get right, when it wasn’t setting up structurally nationalist monarchies and inventing the useless nobles and frivolous courts model where everyone just gossiped, gambled, and got it on. LOOKING AT YOU, LOUIS XIV! Also Peter the Great, I see you over there trying to curb your boyars’ power, don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to with that navy building.

IN THIS HOUSE we read the goddamn sources written by Catholics and Muslims saying “hell, yeah, sex is fun, god invented that shit for a reason, but if you want a kid better make sure a male and female both orgasm to get the seed mixing started, and it is on BOTH of you to make sure your spouse has a good time if it is your spouse. Use contraceptives if you don’t want a kid, boy-girl pairs. The other combinations can’t make babies even without them, even though some of them stick together and are basically married, so are definitely having fun for reasons other than reproduction. Don’t miss out, here’s all the different ways you can put one persons bits in/on/around-against/whatever. You don’t have to, but just so you know all these extreme details about how everything works.

IN THIS HOUSE we get extremely pissed off by stereotypes misrepresenting the medieval era when that shit was far more common in the 17th c in particular, by a bunch of 17th-18th c angsty, guilt-ridden Anglophone Protestants repressing some very weird issues and go on tumblr rants about it. Even though the wine window thing is pretty cool and I want a gelato one.

Look up some names and “the 17th c crisis” as it is known to historians on Wikipedia and follow the links and sources around. If you want to know more you can ask, this shit is literally my job to know/talk about, but that means I’m only willing to do so much for free, so this is what you get unless you’re willing to pay for a Consulting Historian. In which case, please do ask and we can discuss terms (also credentials). Looking at you, Immortal Husbands shippers and fic writers. You know who you are.