#and then it actually took me literally no time at all to find primary sources that literally spelled it all out. lol.

[steevejr]

always very interesting when people rush to say the ‘green skinned witches with pointy hats aren’t offensive actually and heres why!’ by saying the green only happened because of wizard of oz and also witch hats are silly and fun lol also witches aren’t real actually they’re just make-believe characters from fables so like who would this possibly be offensive to? while completely and totally ignoring the entire antisemitic core of every aspect of the witch caricature 🤨 who do you think they were persecuting then if witches aren’t real ?

let’s not think any deeper into why pointy hats and brooms and devil imagery is part of medieval European folklore, ok guys? 😌 it’s just silly folklore ❤️

[preludicrous]

why i believe the prison break storyline was also sigma's entrance exam

the long overdue post that i teased literal months before posting it (sorry i am a college student and quite overworked)

[ massive spoilers for the mersault arc of bsd, including s5e11 of the anime and recent manga chapters. ]

sigma is alive

first of all: sigma's not dead.

sigma's not dead because his character arc is nowhere near over, and from a writing perspective, it doesn't make sense to kill him without drawing that out to some kind of conclusion.

for someone who had a pretty major role in recent arcs, whose entire characterization in the story has been set up around a deep need for belonging and a "home" and people who don't want to "use" him, the plotline so far sure hasn't wrapped up his story in any satisfying way. as far as it appears right now, he just kind of... touched fyodor and died. is that really it for him?

especially after he finally starts to reject fyodor's manipulation, and finally makes choices for himself, like the choice to side with dazai?

no, i'm not convinced he's dead- bsd's very guilty of fake out deaths, and there is no reason for me to believe that sigma's actually dead when his arc is still clearly unfinished.

sigma joining the ADA makes sense

in the mersault arc, it is established that sigma wants to join the ADA. fyodor even says it point blank to him, and he doesn't deny it. he thinks about the ADA and how they're "not using dazai, and dazai isn't using them". they are a group of people who care about each other and take care of each other of their own agency, no pun intended.

as i mentioned above, sigma's entire character so far has been revolving around belonging and how he wishes to find a home. a home suited for a bizarre gifted like him with no past, who doesn't understand why he exists. in many respects, a lot of the agency members share similarities to sigma in the sense that they also didn't understand their place in the world.

atsushi's an orphan who was told he should just "die in a ditch somewhere".

dazai's an empty man who sees no purpose in existence.

ranpo was a genius surrounded by monsters, and he could never comprehend why the world was so illogical and strange.

the character whose backstory is the most similar to sigma is yosano. like sigma, she had a powerful gift. like sigma, she was used for that gift. mori took advantage of her healing to create an undead army against her will. the difference is that yosano despaired, while sigma is resentful - yosano isolated herself since there was no way for her to live without being used for her gift, while sigma is bitter regarding the unfair nature of the world that he is continually used.

in the end, yosano is found by the agency and ranpo. ranpo says this:

the ADA is a place where ability users are valued for their personhood, not their ability. for sigma and yosano, who have only ever been valued by others for their powerful abilities, the ADA is the only place they belong, the one place they can live freely as full people rather than just vessels for their abilities.

sigma wants to join. it's the perfect culmination of his arc. he'll finally have a home, a place to belong. in his first decision he makes of his own free will, he chooses to help the ADA. plus, his ability is information exchange, which couldn't be more perfect for detective work.

it ties up all the loose ends neatly.

sigma's entrance exam

so, if the title didn't make it clear, yeah. i'm pretty convinced that sigma's entrance exam was the mersault prison break. i mean, he clearly wants to join the agency, and dazai's compared him to like half of the members already.

the armed detective agency fandom wiki has some information on entrance exams. (i know, i know, not a primary source, but I don't have that much free time to go source hunting for a tumblr bsd theory...)

we also have a few example of entrance exams that we can use as a reference: namely atsushi's, kyouka's, and dazai's. from these, we can synthesize a few defining characteristics of entrance exams.

(i made a table because i'm a pretty visual person, and this is a good way for me to organize information!!! this is essentially an adapted affinity map for my fellow nerds out there)

some key elements of entrance exams administered by the ADA include:

a perceived (real or fake) threat: in atsushi's case, this was the "bomber"; in kyouka's case, the moby dick; in dazai's case, whoever was responsible for the disappearance and subsequent murder of the yokohama visitors.

the threat's victims involve civilians/innocent people: for atsushi, the terrorist had naomi as a hostage; in kyouka's case, the entirety of yokohama was in danger; in dazai's case, the kidnapping/murder victims were all civilians.

the ADA candidate MUST (is pushed/forced/pressured/required to) play a major role in the resolution of the threat: atsushi must neutralize the bomber; kyouka is the only one who can stop the moby dick; dazai plays a very large role in stopping the azure messenger.

(optional) sacrifice: atsushi jumped on a bomb; kyouka crashed her plane.

(optional) a way to ensure the candidate's safety: for atsushi, the fact that it wasn't a real bomb; for kyouka, fukuzawa's ability and demon snow.

the ADA candidate is kept in the dark: atsushi was NOT told they were completing an entrance exam, or that the ADA even had such a tradition. kyouka knew she was doing an entrance exam, but wasn't ever fully explained the stakes; i.e. nobody told her that after passing she would be able to free herself and control demon snow.

the entrance exam is administered by a more senior member: dazai or kunikida, with the approval of fukuzawa.

now consider if dazai were administering an entrance exam for sigma during the mersault prison break. let's see if the key elements are present:

the threat: fyodor

the victims: the entire world

the candidate's pivotal role: sigma must touch fyodor to learn fyodor's ability

the sacrifice: sigma risks his life and touches fyodor, despite having been told that fyodor's ability might also work through touch, i.e. he risks dying

the failsafe: n/a, as far as we know currently (i can see an argument for chuuya but i personally find that's a bit of a stretch)

the secret: sigma has not been told that this is an entrance exam (neither has the audience)

the examinator: dazai

pretty neat. at least, no inconsistencies - and, considering the bigger picture, it makes sense.

a lot of things in the mersault arc also make sense under this interpretation. why did dazai pick sigma instead of a more "useful" escape tool? for recruitment. why did dazai promise and insist upon saving sigma? for recruitment. why did dazai shove sigma off the elevator even though he knew chuuya would break their fall and they weren't going to die? for recruitment.

it feels like a much better ending for sigma than just being... dead.

screenshot compilation

conclusion

you're so right.

[girl-in-the-mirrorbluenight]

Okay I've been thinking about this pretty much all day since I saw the hbomberguy and then todd in the shadows video i just have so many thoughts. While I wouldn't necessarily call myself a Video Essayist™ (I've only made a few over the years) as a youtuber and someone who has made video essays i definitely have more experience than the average person. There are so many things that stand out to me about this whole debacle i dont even know where to start.

First I want to just give a little insight into the process for making video essays from people who've never given it a shot and just how absurd it is to do the type of plagiarizing James has done. Video essays take a fuckton of research, even for pretty simple topics, but on top that you also have to make them with the medium of video in mind. it's really not enough to just take an essay you would write for a class and read it out loud. the flow is different, you have to have accompanying visuals, often background music, etc. They're a beast to make. My Twisted video for which i used literally two sources for my research (Sondheim's books and the musical Twisted) still took days of thorough reading, note taking, watching the musical, watching the musical again, watching the musical and taking notes, cross-referencing my notes, etc. For videos that synthesize multiple sources or are covering multiple pieces of media, that time goes up exponentially. Then there's writing, recording, gathering clips (often one of the most difficult parts depending on how obscure what you're talking about is), and editing. Even for a silly video like my Glee video, I still had to do a ton of research to make sure I was getting things correct, and that was a funny tier list about freaking Glee! There is just no way you could come up with a thorough analysis by just copying and pasting. Which brings me to my next point.

I think James may have thought (or more likely rationalized) what he was doing as analysis based on like the vaguest definition. When you do any kind of analysis, what you're doing is taking research from multiple different places (news articles, primary sources, existing analysis, etc.) and coming to your own conclusions, whether that's a synthesis of those different sources, or applying it to a specific thing like a movie. Really simple example is my Twisted video where I take Sondheim's writing and apply it to a specific piece of media (in this case Twisted). I'm using existing work but coming to my own conclusion. In the Spies Are Forever video, I took existing research about the Lavender Scare and the Hays Code, including primary sources from the time period, and applied it to the musical Spies are Forever. What James seem to do is take a bunch of existing scholarship, copy and paste it all together and then come to a "conclusion" that was not actually his own original thoughts but either "facts" he completely made up or something that didn't do anything to actually link his other "sources" together. I can see why it has the veneer of analysis, but making up a random "fact" you think might be true is not the same as a drawing a conclusion based on research.

I also think Todd made a really good point in the part about England's propaganda campaign against Italy around 9:30 that it's just really bad video making to not include examples of images from this so called propaganda campaign. I have a ton of examples of news clips, government reports, etc. in my SaF video about the Lavender Scare because...it was a real historic thing that happened! If something was supposedly so widespread and not even that long ago, you can probably find evidence of it somewhere. Kaz Rowe (who is also linked in the queer creators playlist on hbomberguy's vid) talked about this a lot in their video about tiktok misinfo where people often make these outrageous claims but the thing is if something so outrageous happened (like people constantly shitting on the floors of versailles), other people at the time would probably be talking about it somewhere. It's a big red flag when someone makes such bold claims and has no evidence to back it up.

Putting this last section under the cut because I go talk about WWII, Nazis, and HIV/AIDS a bit (watch Todd's video for some more context) so if you don't want to see that post is over here.

Lastly I wanted to talk about something else Kaz brings up in a lot of their videos when talking about historical topics and that is the tendency to dehumanize people of the past, often as unwashed, unintelligent masses who would just do any ridiculous disgusting thing because they were so stupid and disgusting. There are a lot of things to criticize about the people of the past and their actions obviously, but we cannot forgot that they were in fact, people. Real individual people with their own lives and dreams and ambitions and individual opinions and they have never been and never will be a monolith. Claiming anything is broadly true of "the victorians" or "the ancient egyptians" or whatever other vague historical group you want to talk about is usually a lot more nuanced than "they all thought or acted in this one particular way". I'm certainly not a historian and i've only done one history focused video but James Somerton seemed to make a lot of broad historical claims in his videos that I think fall into this trap.

The one that stood out most to me in Todd's video was the claim about Nazi body standards which is a whole mess in general that Todd goes into for a while, but the way he talks about WWII soldiers was just like...weird. Besides the fact that a lot of his claims about Nazis seem to be bordering on glorifying them and their aesthetics (gross), I think we should remember that WWII was less than a century ago. There are still over 100,000 surviving WWII vets in the US. My grandfather who was in the Army during WWII (he didn't serve overseas but he was an enlisted soldier I can literally look up his enlistment records in the national archives online) was a real person who I obviously knew personally and who died fairly recently. To think he enlisted because he was jealous of German fitness or whatever and wanted to prove how tough Americans are is an absolutely hilarious thing to think if you knew him. I'm sure there are as many reasons for enlisting as there were enlisted soldiers. When James talks about even as relatively narrow of a group as "WWII American soldiers," he's still talking about a very large group of real and diverse people and to make such broad claims that "most" or even "a lot" of them were just so taken in by strong german physiques or whatever is frankly insulting. I haven't watched the entirety of James video so maybe he does address this at some point, but from the clips I've seen it seems very generalized and implies some level of racism when WWII soldiers in fact included a lot of racially diverse people. IDK, i think if you're a supposed historical researcher and you're making a video about WWII and you don't know about groups like the Tuskegee Airmen or the Navajo Code Talkers, that's on you. I don't want to discount some of the really horrible shit that American (and obviously other countries) soldier's did in the war and how many of them held disgusting views (even my grandpa who I love dearly was not the most politically correct person to put it lightly) but Jame's claims are not criticizing any real ideology or the consequences of them, they're oversimplifying complex and harmful historical ideas and attributing them to something he pretty much made up. I'll also give you a little hint about something. When people fall into Nazi ideology, it's because they ultimately agree with the ideology, not for some surface level aesthetic reason of "fitness" or whatever. They are antisemitic, they are racist, they are eugenicists, plain and simple. They don't just think the Nazis are cool except for all their beliefs. I also think (and again I could be missing a part of the video here) the hyper focus on the Germans and the Soviets and not mentioning Italy is at the very least an oversight too. Mussolini, like Hitler and Stalin, had a pretty big campaign of promoting an ideal strong race which he tied to ancient Romans. Like this was also a country controlled by a fascist dictator that American soldiers fought in idk it just seems weird to me to leave it out. (okay edit i looked up the transcript and he does talk about Italian fascism a little bit but only about how Mussolini rose to power, nothing about his ideologies or anything really related to the main topic of body image).

And one more thing on that note that bothered me a lot. I think his claims about HIV/AIDS is probably the most well-known here on tumblr and has been pretty thoroughly destroyed by this point, but I do just want to say one more thing about it which is that AIDS isn't gone! I feel like they way he talks about it from what I've seen of this video makes HIV/AIDS sound like a problem of the past now that we have drugs for it, but that is just not the truth. There are still tens of thousands of new infections in the US each year and way more globally and yes, people do still die from it. I just don't like when people talk about AIDS as if it's this problem of the distant past, a separate era that people went through in the 80s rather than an ongoing epidemic that still does not have a cure. Safer sex, clean needle usage, and getting tested are just as important now as they were in the 80s and 90s and don't forget that.

[archduchessofnowhere]

BOOK REVIEW: Sisis Weg by Martina Winkelhofer

Empress Elisabeth took a break from court life and dared to escape her assigned role, something that no woman of her time, certainly not of her rank, was allowed to do. Until the death of her eldest daughter, Elisabeth was a product of her environment: the good daughter, the devoted wife, the submissive daughter-in-law. She tried to live up to expectations even in her darkest hours, until her body and psyche sounded the alarm. She knew that in this environment the wounds would not heal. She allowed herself long journeys and stays away from the imperial court, and it did not take long for her transformation to begin: from fragile emperor's wife to self-confident empress. From a woman determined by others to a woman determined by herself.

There are already literally dozens of books about Sisi, and most of them have nothing new to say. So when yet another book written by an author that claims they're presenting "the real story" behind the Sisi myth appears, one is naturally distrustful. But only reading the preview of this book made me realize that historian Martina Winkelhofer actually had something new to say about Elisabeth. This book has been in my TBR for the past two years, and tired of waiting for a translation I just went ahead and used an automatic translator to read it. And guess what: this is one of the best books about Empress Elisabeth that exists.

Martina Winkelhofer's biography starts with Elisabeth's birth and finishes with her return to Vienna in 1862, after being away from court for two years. Something that distinguishes her from other Sisi authors is that instead of presenting a novel-like narrative about the empress' life, she adresses on the text the different sources that we have available, and isn't afraid to state frankly that there are thing we simply lack enough information to know for certain. Speaking of sources, she draws almost entirely from primary sources, and not just letters, but also court protocol documents, which brings the Viennese court to life in a way no other book about Elisabeth I've read before achieved.

This is also the Sisi biography with the most sympathetic and balanced depiction of Archduchess Sophie I've ever read, presenting the complex relationship between mother and daughter-in-law without vilifying either woman. Not only Winkelhofer adresses the problem regarding the sources (Elisabeth's statements about her mother-in-law come from after Sophie's death, and Sophie's correspondance and diary entries avoid mentioning any conflicts or quarrels within the imperial family), but also she understands both that Elisabeth was a very young girl who lacked the skills to understand court schemes and was deeply intimidated by the hierarchy at court - and therefore, by her mother-in-law, and that Sophie ultimately had no ill intentions towards her daughter-in-law, but simply couldn't understand why Elisabeth couldn't fulfill her role as empress as tradition demanded.

Another of my favorite things about this book is the attention Winkelhofer paid to Elisabeth's staff. The working and living conditions of her servants is often highlighted. There is a whole chapter focused on Elisabeth's secretary Leopold Bayer, a bourgeois man that was responsible of controlling and organizing the empress' household and was so effective at his job that years after his retirement his system still worked perfectly. Perhaps if you want to read only about Sisi you'll find this chapter, as well as all the other instances in which Winkelhofer focuses on the staff, uninteresting and disruptive, but I loved it. So many authors seem to think that the people responsible for cleaning, cooking and keeping royal households running weren't glamorous enough to deserve even a mention, so it was very refreshing to see how here it was an important part of the text.

To be honest, my biggest complain about this book is that it ended. This biography finishes when Elisabeth returns to Vienna in 1862; Winkelhofer is going to release the second part of her biography in October, but I wish she had just released it as a single-volume book, because if there is a historical woman you can get away with writing a 600+ pages long book is Elisabeth. And while the book is well sourced (over 500 footnotes!!!), she often made more general claims about the general lives of the aristocracy with no citations. Since Winkelhofer has written books specifically about the lives of the aristocracy before I trust she knows her stuff, I just wish she had referenced further literature on the matter. Also because I'm a Queen Marie of the Two Sicilies girlie, it disappointed me that Winkelhofer didn't mention her two weeks stay in Vienna in 1859, nor how her role during the Siege of Gaeta was one of the things that stressed her sister during 1860.

Overall this is a fantastic book that paints a complex and interesting picture of how the child Elise became in the young Sisi and then in the Empress Elisabeth. Let's hope that an English translation is happening soon!

[negative-speedforce]

Tell me one weird fact/hyperspecific detail about each of your OCs?

Siv: Was born (created?) with 6 fingers on her right hand, which Eobard had removed so that she'd be as normal-passing as possible, despite it being unneccesary.

Jay: Implanted a series of chips into his non-dominant hand in order to be able to control his wheelchair remotely using only hand signals

Cassandra: still only uses Facebook like some kind of grandmother

Hailey: Cannot be in proximity to Siv when she's in eldritch mode for too long because Siv's eldritch powers make it difficult for her to maintain her physical form.

Arya: Claims they have difficulty both reading and writing human languages, but they're actually just dyslexic

Ember: Has two teacup chihuahuas, named Gucci and Prada, that they carry around in a tiny pink handbag. Prada and Gucci pictured below-

Gina: Would have made valedictorian if she hadn't died at the end of the school year

Esme: Started her career as a model at 15, much to Eobard's disapproval.

Cat: Is wanted by the governments of 14 different countries for her hacktivism

Kyle: Has four bullet scars in his back from a particularly nasty situation in which he was helping an abuse victim escape her boyfriend. Needless to say, the shitty ex got electrocuted.

Max: Found out Siv was alive because they took the same pole dance class because he wanted to be able to give Kyle a very special birthday present

Eric: Spent most of his childhood and young adulthood under Apartheid, and has significant trauma from it, leading to him being very protective of his children

Jacob: Met Eric while on a study abroad trip to South Africa in college

Khalil: Watched his uncle disintegrate himself by overloading on magic and that's why he fears using his own

Antonio: Once killed 4 cops by telekinetically shattering the glass of several skyscrapers around him, and subconsciously creating a tornado of broken glass to protect himself

Reggie: Accidentally caused a week of panic for her parents when she tried to shadow travel for the first time and ended up getting stuck in the shadow realm, leading to her parents believing she had been kidnapped

Ameerah: Has been the victim of "Millenials and Gen Z can't read cursive" because the bank teller at a bank she wanted to rob couldn't read "This is a robbery".

Rania: Torched Eobard's lab after finding out what he had done, before confronting him. It was definitely a nice surprise for him to come back to, all of his life's work and research reduced to ashes.

Meredith: Built the text-to-speech/speech-to-text system that she uses to compensate for her deafness at the age of 8.

Kelsie: Has been mistaken for Poison Ivy due to her plant-based powers, despite Poison Ivy being literally GREEN.

Cory: Has a highly successful TikTok account where she posts about Decora-kei fashion, which is her primary source of income.

Director Hawke: Killed her daughter when she found out what she was doing, because she considered her a "deviant-sympathizer", whatever that's supposed to mean.

Torryn: Has both meta-powers (psychometry/seeing an object's past by touching it), and magic abilities, though they're quite weak, considering that his closest Witch ancestor was his 3rd great-grandfather.

Onnie: Despite being an extremely powerful speedster, she prefers to drive places, because most of her clothes are extremely expensive, and she doesn't want them to be destroyed.

Pippa: Goes through a villain arc because she is so sick of being walked all over due to her kind and forgiving nature (also a bit of Negative Speed Force corruption via Onnie might have a part to play in it)

Jessi: Has a net worth of nearly a billion dollars, from both legal activities (her music career) and illegal activities (being a mob boss)

Hyun-Ki: Is a classically trained countertenor, and can hit an A6 on a good day (plenty of warmup and sleep, lots of water, etc). However, he primarily uses his lower register to sing because he got bullied in high school for his voice.

Marie: Had her least favorite coworker assimilated because she was fed up with him constantly insinuating that she was a traitor or spy because she's half Romulan and got in deep trouble for that (it was totally worth it)

Liah: Was almost the first Cardassian Bollywood star, but chickened out and joined Starfleet because she hated the attention. She still occasionally performs for her coworkers.

Qiara: Learned how to harness starlight in order to supplement her own energy reserves because her powers are significantly weaker than the average Q

Soraya: Can't stand Ferengi, since they're always really creepy to her despite her being a starship captain.

Thalia: Spent 3 months institutionalized after killing her Master to save her squad, due to reckless choices including stealing and crashing the Chancellor's speeder on a whim

Reyna: Matchmade her former Master and the guy that her stepmom tried to force her to marry

Athena: Is still somewhat illiterate due to only learning to read when she was in her mid/late teens and managed to get her doctorate in biology by transferring all her textbooks onto audio files

Laila: Is a massive tea snob. Don't give her some crappy bargain tea, she will in fact kill you for that.

Pyrrha: Had to be taught how to swear due to her extremely controlled upbringing. A stormtrooper who said "heck" in front of her was subject to execution.

Aldrich: Speaks like the protagonist of a Bronte romance, due to being British and being turned during the Regency Era.

Samira: Her father, who is an Imam, was surprisingly supportive of her desire to marry a vampire, and married them in secret, because he would rather his daughter have a forbidden romance than be miserable because she couldn't marry the person she loved.

Matt: His joints are in worse shape than they probably should be, because his stepfather is EXTREMELY traditional and believes he can just macho his EDS away, putting him through intense training.

Vanessa: Is quite literally invulnerable (at least for the next few years) due to all the changes that Venator St. James did to her with his experiments, and needing time for her original DNA to reassert itself.

Dolores: Got a job at the Red Cross and had her fangs filed down so she could pass in normal society as human. She feeds on the rejected and expired blood bags, i.e. the donor had a bloodborne illness or it expired or something.

Sohelia: Despite her vampire heritage meaning that she would be naturally more vulnerable to sunlight, thanks to *melanin* from her mom's side, she's surprisingly resistant, and is only as vulnerable as your average Northern European person (aka steps in a sunbeam and gets a bad burn)

Victorie: Occasionally creeps people out with her usage of modern slang, which she technically shouldn't know because she's been isolating herself for 200 years, but knows because of her ability to dreamwalk

Kayla: Was fully conscious while committing all the atrocities that HYDRA forced her to do after capturing her post-CATWS, due to them forgoing the brainwashing and instead choosing to control her via an implanted chip

Dori: Is usually seen as unnaturally pretty/handsome (depending on which form they're in) because they used their shapeshifting abilities to rid themselves of any perceived flaws.

[secrets-of-everwich]

03-1 Proof of Something Strange

[Click]

{Callie}

Hello, this is Callie Hewitt on the 3rd October 2021, and I have some amazing news. We’ve had someone – finally - write in to the podcast!

{Voice}

Callie, I’m right here.

{Callie}

Even better, they’re here in the studio! Mr Morris, you said you had some… Interesting information about something?

{Mr. Morris}

Callie, you can just call me Ash? Like you normally do? Or Asher will be fine? I literally see your brother like every day.

{Callie}

Yes, but this needs to be professional, Mr. Morris.

{Asher}

Remind me how many listeners you have?

[A Pause]

{Callie}

Ok, Ash, what did you see?

{Asher}

Well… Ok, don’t think I’m crazy or whatever. I probably am but I wasn’t gonna tell anyone but then you overheard me talking to X and then you dragged me into doing this so.

{Callie}

I won’t judge! You think I’d be doing this if I cared what people think?

{Asher}

True. Ok. Well. Yesterday, as you know I was visiting the haunted house because it was Rin’s birthday and I wanted to do something fun! And, then X asked me to come with him – he wanted to show me something, or so he said. And, then we went into the basement – we left Em and Rin to go on the- Why am I telling you that, you were literally there?!

{Callie}

We need it for the record, remember?

[Callie clears their throat]

{Asher}

Oh yeah! We left Rin & Em to go on the show tour with you. Xavier took me down into the basement. It… Wasn’t fun. We walked down, the lights were growing dimmer. They’re like those old-style festoons but they were really flickery, I never like lights like that, but they’re really good for stage lights because they’re-

Oh, sorry! Well we walked down the steps, and I nearly fell because the steps are really – and I mean really – breaking like they’re really worn down and slippery, so I nearly fell down and X had to catch me… So anyway we got down the steps and I was really cold because you know it’s October and it’s freezing because it’s autumn. And it was a basement. Ugh I don’t want to do this, I just want to forget about it, you know I hate spiders!

{Asher}

{Callie}

Asher, Xavier won’t talk to me about this. And if I talk about it, it doesn’t seem as… Professional. I need you to tell me!

Um… If that was meant to be persuasive it wasn’t really… Working…

{Callie}

Please, Ash?

{Asher}

Fine! We got down there, it was freezing, and… Spiders. Lots of them. They were green too. All crawling along the walls and the floor. They didn’t totally cover the stone walls, but. They were there. I tried to tell X that I didn’t wanna be here anymore, and I wanted to leave, but he said there was more I needed to see.

[A long pause]

He, um, opened the door.

[Another pause]

Callie, please I don’t want to do this.

{Asher}

{Callie}

Literally nobody will listen. I still only have 1 listener, and because they’re anonymous I’m still not unconvinced it isn’t Xavier putting it on mute and just playing it so I get a single listener.

[Sounds of a chair moving, getting fainter] Nope, nope, that’s even worse, nope.

[Sounds of a door opening and slamming shut]

{Callie}

ASH! [Getting fainter] Come back!

[Sounds of a door opening]

[A long pause. Radio static]

[Sounds of a door closing]

[Getting louder] Well, that’s just great. Our only primary source has left. I could try Xavier… But he’s already said no. I don’t know where the key is to the basement, so I can’t go check myself. God, sometimes I swear this town, or someone in it, is deliberately trying to make this harder for me.

Actually, how did X get into the basement at all?! The door’s never left unlocked. I’ve asked mum and dad, they don’t know what’s in there, and they definitely don’t know where the key is. Did X find the key? It wouldn’t be the first time there’s been something hidden in the bookshelves, like that jou- Like nothing I’ve found. I’ll have to ask X if he still has the key. And if he knows where it is.

[Click]

[Radio static for a moment]

[Click]

He doesn’t. He found it on Friday evening, went down there that evening to check it out, took Ash down there because he needed to know he wasn’t insane and locked the door behind him, and put the key in his pocket. It is no longer in his pocket. He has no idea where it is. I emphasise my previous statement about the whole town is against me finding the secrets. But, I’m determined to find them. It’s not like this is a new thing – I’ve been interested in the secrets of Everwich for years now. Anyway, since our primary source has left the building, and another potential primary source will not talk to me, I guess that’s it for this episode. Thank you for listening, that’s it for today’s Secrets of Everwich with Callie Hewitt!

[quieter] Nope, that’s not it either.

[Click]

[Click]

{Voice}

[Very faint, recording keeps glitching out]

Drat-

[Click]

[horce-divorce]

as someone who has been all but fucking abandoned by doctors to manage my extreme and severe nerve damage pain from my rare disorder on my own. every time someone brings up cannabis hyperemesis syndrome to me makes me more insulted and irate than the last.

especially because the last several times I wasn't talking about vomiting. I was talking about preprandial PAIN. that began when I was NINE YEARS OLD. ie pain after EATING. that is RELIEVED. by SMOKING.

1. onset of CHE must be AFTER several YEARS of continuous cannabis usage. the reverse is true in my case. I did not start smoking cannabis until several many years AFTER onset/worsening of pain and other symptoms like vomiting. cannabis RELIEVES these symptoms and is in fact THE ONLY THING THAT DOES THAT and NO! gabapentin didn't do fuck all for me!!!!!

2. CHE is characterized by vomiting, pain & other symptoms occuring AFTER YOU SMOKE! and symptoms that get better when you stop! FUCKING FASCINATING! that is, again, the exact opposite of true for me!!!!

3. People with CHE find relief in hot showers???? Lmfao my POTS having ass could never but ESPECIALLY when I'm nauseous are you fucking kidding me? That would actually kill me!!! What is actually going on with cannabis hyperemesis???? like. that is weird as fuck.

(source btfw. since apparently doctors love referencing shit they cannot fucking read)

so not only do the 3 MAIN DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA blatantly not apply to my case, I have seen DOZENS UPON DOZENS of other doctors, do you really think none of them fucking thought of ibs, anxiety and cannabis hyperemesis syndrome? because lol, lmao, I promise you, each and every single doctor I've ever spoken to went out of their way to mention those each MORE than once.

The fucking university that diagnosed me with MALS, a rare disorder characterized by pain so severe it caused panic attacks, has a strict no opioids policy, and apparently I'm not a candidate for MALS surgery until I'm dying already (they literally told me id have to be on a feeding tube first. that is a whole separate posts worth of bad information). they literally told me to go smoke weed and fuck off. they left me on my fucking own. and it took me TEN (10) YEARS to get diagnosed. It took me a DECADE To get to the point where I was told "yeah we know exactly what you have and that it's insanely painful and causing a lot of nerve damage. umm smoke weed about it since you love doing that so much? bye"

so I do what they ask of me, I take my care entirely into my own fucking hands and I learn everything I can and *I* painstakingly stay in top of the latest research about my condition, and *I* find ways to manage the pain, and *I* document my results, and *I* am my own fucking full time carer since this pain is so disabling it cost me my 20s. Only to have every SINGLE fucking one of my doctors turn around and disrespect and disregard ALL of that fucking work I do to ask me "have you considered not smoking weed, in the interest of me doing a bad and lazy job?"

literally how fucking hard is it to give someone- WHO HAS ALREADY PROVEN THEY ARE COMPETENT ABOUT THEIR DIAGNOSES!!!!! Ok!!! So we are not talking fucking hypotheticals here, we are talking 'i have a piece of paper from the university next door that says I have this and I am actually explaining what it is TO the doctor' okay??- THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT ABOUT MY OWN EXPERIENCE. which btw, is the PRIMARY evidence you even HAVE to work with and do your job. basic lab results will only tell you so much.

why is it so FUCKING HARD to get medical professionals to treat disabled people like we are fucking people!!!!!! they act like it's so hard. like we're asking them to go fucking above and beyond or something with this shit.

this was far from being the worst thing about that visit btw I just am sitting here seething at 4am checking off every single box on the Shitty Healthcare Provider Bingo Card in my brain and I'm going "AND ANOTHER THING!" ableist as fuck, check- she literally called autistic people assholes in the context of, "not EVERYONE with autism is the stereotype, like, an asshole and into trains or whatever"- and then suggested to Bel that his widespread joint pain is probably from being clumsy and hurting himself bc he's autistic.........). disregarded everything we said, check. repeatedly recommended a bunch of irrelevant and ineffective medications or options (such as "quitting smoking weed") that we have already tried, check. brought up a legitimate related issue (hypoglycemia) that she then glossed over and told us nothing about, check. made HELLA assumptions instead of just fucking asking us things- she started going into this spiel about how, like, you know getting diagnosed doesn't mean you'll get a CURE, right? :/ And we both had to be like ummmmmmmmm. I have a vascular compression and fucking nerve damage I need to know about that shit happening inside my body. That's not about getting a cure it's about making sure all my organs get enough blood and that I GET ADEQUATE MEDICAL CARE, INCLUDING PAIN MANAGEMENT.

This is why Bel and I go to all our appointments together these days. I can't imagine how fucking awful this would've been if we'd met with her alone, so she could've just steamrolled over us 1-on-1 in private.

I fucking hate doctors this is why nobody ever wants to go to the hospital. Not only does it cost an arm and a leg, we are paying to get fucking disrespected and disregarded, and then they're all confused about why their patients have shitty dispositions. Fuck you

[rowanoke]

I'm home now. Went to the bar after work. I actually had to run home first to drop off some stuff I bought at work.

As soon as I got to the bar, I took my seat, ordered a drink, and my fucking nose started bleeding

This is my 7th nosebleed in exactly 1 month. My first one of the dry season was Nov 17th at like 2pm, and my 7th one happened Dec 17th at like quarter after midnight.

It lasted about 40 minutes. About half as long as the average among those 7. One of the shortest. It was just a trickle of blood, really. Puke you'd see when a character has overused their psychic powers.

For 5/7 of these nose bleeds, my nose has gushed and sprayed blood like a horny anime protag. And other than those 2 that were just a trickle of blood, they all lasted over an hour.

To be honest, I'm a little afraid of what could be causing my nose to bleed so much.

I know it's not the most reliable source, but Google says I should be worried if my nose bleed lasts more than 20 minutes or happens 6 times in a month. None of my nose bleeds have lasted less than half an hour, and I'm at 7 now.

Idk if something is wrong with my nose, and is making it bleed constantly, or maybe I have something like hemophilia or leukemia.

I don't have insurance, or a primary care physician to talk to about this. Several emergency and urgent csre visits that were over $2k usd, some of which were billed at over $6k usd. I have literally tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt.

I know something is wrong. I can feel it. I'm frequently lightheaded, and I've almost passed out several times. I've been lethargic, and haven't had much of an appetite. I'll start shaking at random throughout the day, which I've noticed has happened when I have a panic attack since I was like 13, but without the other signs and symptoms of a panic attack, just the shaking.

Anyway. My physical and mental health have been rapidly declining over the past month, and now I'm in my first depressive episode since like, March or April of this year.

If you saw my post at my lunch, you might have seen that I had already cried 3 times in the first half of my shift. In the second half, after my lunch, I only cried twic.

The last few days for me have felt like the embodiment of Murphy's law. What could go wrong, has gone wrong.

My boyfriend and I are fighting right now, and they won't be staying with me from Christmas to new year's anymore. Also I won't be seeing them on Christmas anymore. Tbh I don't know if we're going to stay together through new year's. Part of me feels like we'll break up before then.

My fucking apartment complex towed my car a few weeks ago and I didn't find out until like the 15th, meaning the lot that impounded my car - which charges by the day - had already billed me at $290 and I won't be able to get a ride out there until Tuesday (which is gonna cost me like $350 at that point, and I have to pay them to tow my car back because it's not even fucking running right now so I can't drive it home)

TW: Suicide mention, self harm mention

Tonight I've thought about suicide for the first time in... probably 8 or 9 months. Like, actually thought about it, not just "I'm gonna kill myself lol" which happens any time something mildly inconvenient happens.

I thought about self harm tonight. For the first time in a l o n g fucking time. The last time I self harmed with a blade, which is what I was thinking about tonight, I was 17. It's been over 6 years since I've done that, but the cold kiss of the blade was calling my name tonight.

I've always hated the holiday season.

I'm from a split family made of split families. Growing up, I went to probably 5 or 6 Christmases per year on average. Each one with different members of my absurdly large family, unrelated to the other groups but all connected through me.

I never felt like I belonged at any of them.

Maybe it's because I'm autistic.

Maybe it's because I'm just bad with names and faces

Maybe it's because I grew up among so many households, I have hundreds of family members, but I only met most of them a handful of times, some of them only once or twice in my life.

This year for Christmas my best friend and I are gonna get drunk and watch anime.

I love her. We used to date. Then we fucked behind our S/O's backs, and then we learned how to be friends. We really just had to fuck once to break the sexual tension.

But anyway, her family is going to Florida or something without her. And I'm not going to visit my boyfriend anymore.

I actually made plane with my best friend first, then cancelled on them to go visit my boyfriend. They even said they would give me a ride to the train station so I could catch a train across the state Christmas morning.

But since my boyfriend and I are fighting now, we're not doing that. I won't be seeing them for the rest of the year.

So I but them my best friend up and she's cool with just picking up our original plans where we left off. She's the best.

She's been telling me, literally for months, that my boyfriend isn't the right one for me. That I should find someone who wants the same things as me, instead of someone who I have to compromise with. Win-win instead of lose-lose.

I don't know what I want right now. Literally 3 or 4 days ago I was so happy. My boyfriend got us promise rings and did like a proposal at the park while we were taking Christmas photos and it was the single most romantic thing anybody has ever done for me.

And now I'm having second thoughts about the whole relationship.

Any time I try to have a conversation about my feelings or boundaries in our relationship, I feel like there's a 50/50 chance they'll either give me a hug and tell me they'll happily do that for me, or they'll get really upset and we won't talk for 2 or 3 days and it will be really tense for like a week. I really don't feel safe or comfortable bringing up those conversations because I never know whether they'll give me a hug or the silent treatment.

We started out as polyamorous, then we were in an open relationship (free to have other sexual partners, but not romantic partners), and we're currently completely monogamous until we sort some things out

Except that my boyfriend still has another sexual partner that they're seeing and have refused to stop. They said it was a personal boundary of theirs and not to even ask them to stop, so I haven't. But I'm really not comfortable with it. And they were with him today, and that's what lead me to being a whole mess today

That alone is making me question things. Add on top of that that I don't feel safe bringing up boundaries with them... I don't know if we'll make it until the end of the year at this point...

On an unrelated note, I'm 2 days into 5 nights of closing in a row. I normally only work 2 or 3 days in a row, and normally only close on Fridays and Saturdays, so it's already weird enough closing instead of going in at noon Mon-Wed, but also 5 nights in a row?

I was this 🤏 close to calling off work tn and it was only the second shift of five.

I hate my fucking job and I resent the fact that I have to work in order to justify my fucking existence under capitalism.

I just want to spend all day browsing the web and learning way too much about niche topics and playing and making video games

But even though I have a fucking degree in game design and 10 fucking years of experience with C++ I have to work at fucking cvs because I can't get a job as a designer.

I don't think I posted about it, but I've been putting in applications to like, all of the game studios in Michigan. Of the applications I sent in, only one made it to the point of the design test, and I didn't make it past that.

I've been looking for a job as a game designer for 8 months now and haven't even been able to get an interview.

My relationship is falling apart. My dead-end job isn't going anywhere and I can't get a job in my field. I hate the holiday season. My whole life feels like it's crumbling before my eyes.

Fuck.

Fu k fuck fuck fuck fuck fu k fu k f uck dcuk fuck duck fu k fuck duck fuck fuck fuck duck fuck fuck fuck fuck fick fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck duck fuck fuck fuck fuck fick fuckfuck fuck fuck fuck

[24kmagiic]

All of your wips sound so interesting!! But about 4 & 6!

Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it.

Kitty's Car Wash - Bonlijah

The warm Virginian sun beaming on her face felt good after being cooped up in an air-conditioned building for three hours. Her newly acquired job at Kitty’s was immoral at best, but it paid the bills. The looks she often got from locals once they found out where she worked, usually left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. ‘No respectable woman should ever have to earn a meal working there’, she’d hear them say. But she needed to eat and couldn't be picky.

Everyone’s imagination of Kitty's far exceeded what actually took place, but you couldn’t tell her grandmother that. According to Sheila Bennett, it was a whorehouse and you couldn’t convince her otherwise. Bonnie barely escaped a public flogging from the woman by explaining that she only worked the cash register and directed cars through the line when business got going. Sheila begrudgingly accepted this and ceased her complaints once Bonnie brought home the first check. They could eat for a month with the tips alone.

Bonnie hated the idea of parading around for a ton of chauvinistic pigs, but those pigs brought in the bacon so she kept her painted mouth shut; smiling whenever they shamelessly flirted with her. The flirting usually took place while their significant others were within earshot. The gall of these bastards; and the woman that stuck around and subjected themselves to such bullshit!

Bonnie wondered on her first day if this was a job she could see herself doing for an extended period of time. It was only supposed to supplement the income of her primary job until the recession ended but low and behold, her primary employer decided to sell his business and leave his employees high and dry. Kitty's was now the sole source of income until she could find something better. It was either that or shadowing Matt Donovan down at the Mystic Grill until she caught on to bartending. The tips would have been great but seeing everyone in her graduating class get shit-faced day after day wasn’t something she was willing to sign up for.

No. She’d rather travel over to Grove Hill, a neighboring town just west of Whitmore, where no one knew her personally. Grove Hill was interesting. The town was seedy at night but picturesque during daylight hours. It was where the good people of Mystic Falls, Whitmore, and Fells Church came to do their dirt in the cloak of darkness—a red light district if you will. There were several strip malls and fun activities for families on The Hill and The Valley could be known quite literally as the shadow of death. There was a strip club, a pawn shop, a liquor store, the local ‘trap’ house, an hourly ‘hotel’, and Kitty’s Car Wash.

No one lived in Grove Hill, at least no one she knew. People came there for a good time, whatever their definition of the word may be, and left with a smile on their face. Bonnie showed up for her paycheck and always tried to leave before sundown.

The first half of her six-hour shift was spent ringing up the customers once they received their car wash. She liked to think that her charming personality was what sold the cheap air fresheners she was forced to market, but judging by the lustful gazes of the men that came through, it had more to do with the thin fabric of her bikini top, coupled with the sub-zero temperatures inside. When she was sure no one was looking, she used her hands to warm her aching nipples, convinced that the store owner did this on purpose.

“Mr. Mikaelson,” she called once she arrived outside. The owner of the black Bentley was an odd one. He always visited Kitty’s but never partook in its pleasures. Most men couldn’t wait to make their way past the black tarps but this guy preferred to sit outside on the bench until his car was ready. He always got the basic package which Bonnie thought was a waste of time.

Mr. Mikaelson lifted his head and raised his brown eyes to meet her green ones. She smiled at him as she made her way over to where he sat. He stood to meet her as he slid his phone into his suit pocket.

“Please, Elijah,” he said with a small smile. Even if she wanted to use his first name, she was bound by the company’s policy to refer to all of the men as ‘mister’ or ‘sir’. What an eye roll.

“Your car is ready, Sir.” Elijah smiles. No matter how many times he corrected her, she refused to use his name. He smiled down at her and found himself lingering a bit too long at the loosely attached name tag that hung on the corner of her bikini top. He knew her name but always made a point to ‘check’ anyway.

“Thank you, Kat?” Bonnie nods at him. The name still sounds foreign to her ears but she’s quickly adapting to the pseudonym.

“My pleasure, Sir.” She responds. Her tone to the untrained ear may have come across as suggestive, however, they all had their roles to play at Kitty’s Car Wash. Elijah regarded ‘Kat’ with a lingering look before pilfering his keys from her dainty little hand. Bonnie watched his retreating figure and took her post near the car wash’s entrance to finish out her shift.

**I cut it here but there's not much after this. My goal for this story was to have it be some sort of murder-mystery where Bonnie is a witness to a heinous crime and Elijah swoops in to help with his many resources. I ran out of inspiration but if anyone wants to take this on, by all means...**

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of All The Gin Joints - Klonnie

Of all the Gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into hers. She can feel him, smell him, taste him, almost. Niklaus fucking Mikaelson. A ghost from her past. She doesn’t have to lift her head to know it is him. She’s grown in her power enough to remember what his oppressive nature feels like. Annoyance is the first emotion to rise to the surface. Her fear of him over the years grew from terror to hate; from hate to annoyance and eventually, apathy.

“Thought you were dead,” she mutters against the lip of her cognac glass before taking a sip. She knows he heard her. He’s standing at the entrance approximately fifty feet from where she’s seated, but she doesn’t bother to repeat herself. She counts in her head the number of seconds it takes for him to clear the room. Her finger taps the glass, in sync with her counting. She measures her breathing as she waits for him to appear. His power grows as he closes in and her counting slows to a stop once he is standing over her shoulder.

“Should we do this somewhere else?” His voice feels similar to being dipped in steaming hot grits.

“Here is fine,” she asserts, motioning for him to sit across from her. When he comes into view, Bonnie begins to assess the face that haunted her over a decade and a half ago. He was void of his usual arrogance. Whatever brought him here was serious and he obviously knew where to find her meaning he’d been stalking her. He was good; made sure to stay hidden and off her radar, almost. The dreams that plagued her at night weren’t just dreams. They were premonitions.

Premonitions of his return and whatever b.s. he brought with him. His face had hardened but remained unchanged, aside from the shorter haircut he sport now. His style of dress was a bit more thoughtful now, as if he actually considered what came out of his closet and didn’t just roll out of bed like in the past. His white skin had a rosy tint to it as if he’d been in the sun a bit too long, however, considering that it was cooling down this time of year, Bonnie surmised that he must have fed recently.

“Did you kill them?”

“Bloodbag, no time to hunt.” There was no delay in response as he corrected her assumption.

“Caroline isn’t with me so why are you here?” Her jab earned no reaction from him. Caroline Forbes was the furthest thing from his mind and had been for years.

“My daughter is dying from a curse placed on her by an ancient evil entity that is haunting her and you are the only person on earth I believe can stop it.” His was concise; something she appreciated.

“So you’re here to threaten me into saving her life?” Bonnie knew how this game went. She has danced this tango with him several times and was not interested. Klaus considered her for a moment.

"I'm here as a father, not an enemy." The exasperated tone made Bonnie reassess the man before him. He looked beaten. Like life had served him one hell of a dish and he was too tired to fight back.

The thought unnerved Bonnie.

She took another sip of her drink before squaring her shoulders. A child was in need; no matter who the child's father was, she could never turn her back on one. So, without hesitation, the words she never thought to utter to Klaus fucking Mikaelson left her lips.

"How can I help?" He released a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding but didn't hesitate to get to the meat and potatoes of the situation.

Klaus gave a wry smile and stared at nothing in particular, just beyond her shoulder. When his eyes settled on her, they were icy and filled with resignation.

"I need you to kill me."

Fuck.

This called for another glass of Gin.

**I truly wish I could finish this, maybe one day. I have no clue what inspired me to even start this lol.**

@cancerian-woman

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

I’m on mobile, so ya know, but for @five-rivers @floralflowerpower and I just checked, lemme amend to @uwuplasmiusuwu

This is Fathering a Phantom

It was a bright summer day in Amity Park, Danny Fenton was in the grove - no one wanted to say “Amity Park Park” - doing a handstand while braced against a tree. “See? I told you I could do it.”

“You’re not using your powers to float into that position, are you?”

“Sam, I am offended that you would imply that I, of all people, would cheat at things with levitation.” Danny laughed, flopping down onto his belly in the grass. “Appalled, really, how dare you?”

Laughing, Tucker ripped up a handful of grass from his side and sprinkled it down into Danny’s bird’s nest of hair. “No of course, you are the most noble in character there is. As we have seen, you are a superhero through and through. Complete with bedsheet cape.”

Danny groaned while the three of them laughed and shook his head. “Alright, listen.”

“You, wearing black and white alone, looked at me and asked if I was willing to wear bright primary colors, Danny.” Sam patted his shoulder blade and Danny rolled his eyes. “A ghost asked a goth to wear bright colors. You shall never live that down.”

“There are pastel goths,” Danny countered with a pout. “I checked, there are goths who wear bright colors. It’s a mindset, not a fashion statement.” Tucker draped yet more grass on Danny, who turned to stare at his best friend and deadpanned, “Dude that’s kinda gay.”

Tucker snorted and laughed himself back into the tree they were sitting in front of. “H-how exactly is that gay?”

“Grass, in flower language, represents homosexual love,” Sam supplied.

Tucker covered his heart with a hand and gasped loudly. “Oh goodness me, I, a bisexual nerd, cannot be gay good sir and madam, that is simply unacceptable. Truly, this is the end of my world.”

“I will write you a gorgeous eulogy seasoned with memes,” Danny said, patting Tucker’s thigh as the latter flopped over, putting on his best ‘dying’ act. Then a chill completely at odds with the summer sun shining down on them went up his spine and out of his mouth as a cloud of icy mist. “Shit.” Danny braced for impact, a dome of green light erecting itself over the teens just in time for five missiles to strike it and explode.

When the smoke cleared and Danny transformed in a flash of light – pale skin tan, snow white hair, glowing green eyes, black and white jumpsuit, all the staples of half dead teendom – Danny locked on to his attacker. A large, mechanized man with flaming green mohawk was grinning down at him like a predator baring teeth to prey. “You’ll have to survive to his funeral first, whelp, and I assure you that’s not happening. I’ve gotten a few upgrades since last we fought, and The Hunt is on.”

While Skulker popped out a new cannon, Danny turned to check on his friends, both of whom were pulling out their own Fenton ecto-pistols. When he turned back there was an explosion of golden light and the screeching of tearing metal, and Skulker was missing half of his mech before Danny could even quip at him. Danny dropped his shield, turning to stare at the source of light with everyone else, and found his jaw had dropped very literally to the ground.

Something that could be a bear mixed with a goat, an electric eel, and at least three kinds of birds was aiming a bow at Skulker, an arrow made of golden light already knocked and shining brighter with every second. Each feather was a different color, oscillating in intensity, but overall, it was both hard to look at and impossible to look away from. “Hi there,” the ghost said with a voice that could have been a thousand people speaking in tandem. “You are going to leave in the next five seconds, or I am going to traumatize these children by showing them just how one Ends a ghost. Four. Three.”

Danny had never seen Skulker fly away so fast, especially with only one turbine to boost himself. He couldn’t even blame him, not with the burning fountain of energy beating their kaleidoscopic wings in front of him, aiming at Skulker until buildings were in the way. Danny charged up an ectoblast of his own even as the arrow dissipated. “Well, ever since all this ghost stuff I didn’t believe in guardian angels. Get lost in the Zone?” Much to Danny’s pleasant surprise, the angelic ghost laughed.

“Gods, your aura is screaming ‘fight me,’ did you know that?” The ghost turned to Danny and all the animal features melted into each other until Danny was looking at what could almost pass for a regular human being. Blond hair, brown eyes, some weird old-timey robes, and a single pair of feathery wings that reflected the light catching them like crystal glass. In the next moment, Danny was being dragged into a tight embrace, cut off from the world by arms and feathers alike, and he blinked several times, tense as a bowstring.

“I’m gonna need you to back up before I zap you,” Danny said with his hands up and a buzz traveling from his chest toward his fingertips. The ghost backed up, hands held up where everyone could see them, and wings half folded around him like a cloak.

“Apologies, my response to seeing kids almost getting hurt is to hug them. I should’ve asked first.”

“That’s very true,” Sam said with narrowed eyes. “Who are you, exactly?”

“Yeah, we don’t get many new ghosts around here who know how to speak English,” Tucker said. “Or any who help us.”

The strangely human looking ghost took a deep breath, eyes glowing from brown to golden-orange and clasped their hands together in front of their face. “Well, that explains a few things I’ve observed of you in the past two minutes. Right, so, first thing’s first; hi, I’m Tobias Lumano, you kids can call me Toby. He/him and all that.”

Danny shook the hand extended to him, ignoring the fact that a hand was held out to all three of them. “Danny, Phantom currently.”

“Tucker Foley.”

“Sam Manson. What exactly did you observe of us?” Sam still held her pistol, ready for a fight. Toby chuckled and shook his head.

“Well, Danny here is screaming ‘fight me,’ with his body language and if all you’ve ever met are hostile adult ghosts then that makes sense. You’ve got that Still Warm feel to you, like you’re only recently dead. Which makes the rumors about you impossible, of course, cause I’m pretty sure none of you are even close to being adult humans unless people look a lot younger per quarter of their life in this Realm.” Toby settled with his wings crossed over his chest, relaxed but not quite limp, and Danny cocked his head to the side.

“How do you even see with those glowing in your face all the time?”

“What about Danny screams ‘fight me,’ exactly? He’s totally chill right now.” Tucker gestured at all of Danny, bobbing idly up and down on some kind of current that he had yet to identify.

“Oh, my dear summer child, ghosts communicate in ways that non-psychic humans cannot perceive fully. You see this?” Toby brushed a feather against Danny’s glow and the teen made a face, drifting away from the odd sensation. The glow stretched with his movement before Toby backed off. “That’s your aura, little man, and it’s currently positioned in a way that’s sort of giving the finger to everyone around you. How long have you been liminal if you don’t know about your aura?”

“How long have I been what now?”

“I think he’s talking about you being half ghost,” Tucker said, whipping out his PDA and tapping away at the screen. “We’ve never actually heard a term for it before other than Sidney Poindexter calling Danny a halfa. No offense to Poindexter but that’s a really dumb name.”

Toby laughed, covering his face with a hand, and shaking his head. “Right, ok, you’ve got a lot to learn, but I think I can help with that.”

“We should probably take this discussion somewhere a bit more private than the open park,” Sam hissed. “This is supposed to be a secret, remember Danny?”

Danny rolled his eyes and turned his head around 360 degrees. “There’s no one here right now, Sam.”

“Well, if you’re keeping this a secret then yeah, you should probably find somewhere secure to talk about this at.” Toby rolled his eyes and became translucent, spreading his wings and circling around the three of them. “Here, you take this feather and just break it when you feel ready to talk with me. I’ve got some things to figure out around here.” One such feather fell into Sam’s hand, taking on the hue of several leaves in a gradient, and Toby winked at Danny before vanishing entirely from view.

[ciceroprofacto]

Well it's putting the cards on the table time apparently. I heard once about a rumor that basically said that you didn't do the research for soa, nor did your wife. That some Tumblr user(s) actually made ("an important") part of the research. I think the ones that told me that hate you or something.

So I just wanted to know - is that true? Because well, even i sometimes thought that it was almost impossible to make that amount of research by oneself. Or even two people. Both in so, so busy careers and being successful in those careers.

Look, it's not as if I believed it's completely impossible. I mean, I've been building a world with my bf for some years now, and just a month ago we discovered that its political laws are incredibly similar to spartan ones... without any of us having ever studied ancient politics before.

So anyways. Have a nice day!

ugh. I've seen this one (or a variation of it) before and I have some questions.

what's this 'important part' of the research that I didn't do?

and if not me...who's doing it?

seriously- who? I'd love to call them up. I was begging for help when I first started- what do y'all think that obnoxiously-long timeline post (made January 9th 2017) was? it's literally titled as a call to action...and it barely got feedback at the time. it took 6 chapters for @madtomedgar to pick me up and help with editing until I got my footing and then @denialandavoidance picked me up. if anyone can be credited with helping me, it's them- which is why they are credited on those chapters. but, I will say, and they could attest (though this is so far below worth our time...), the legwork was always there on the details. I just needed touch-ups, fact checks, and proofreading.

on that- did we just...scroll past the years of posts where I was discovering details for the timeline and sharing them...some of that process was pretty public? unfortunately, a lot of it was also just in my notes and on the chapter drafts because I was more worried about writing the story than showing my work...because it's a fanfic. I couldn't imagine anyone would need me to prove that I'd researched.

which- what is the bar here for citations? the closest thing I've done to a bibliography has been the recent meta posts I'm making on the reread, but the idea of including that on the work itself is nightmarish. even my meta post leaves a lot out, and you'd end up with ~2k words of notes on each chapter. that ruins the immersion, distracts from the plot, and worst- adds extra effort on my part. I just won't do it. sorry. I'm not making money off this, I'm not being graded on it. it's a fanfic.

even if I tried, a full-bibliography isn't going to have all the records for every nitty-gritty detail that's included in the story. I wasn't adding footnotes on my drafts as I went along. I just wasn't. my method was to keep it as simple as possible, and a bibliography wasn't the priority, just getting the information. I basically just had a timeline that was like an agenda for each day and I was backfilling it with details from all the books and journals and primary source documents I was reading. anytime a date would come up in a source, I'd add it to my notes. anytime there was a gap or I had specific questions, I'd dig around until I could fill it (or I’d make something up because it’s fiction). though most of my sources were publicly-accessible (we stan Wiki in this house), I don't even have access to everything I used back in 2015-18. I was in college and had access to academic databases, my library, and @john-laurens was also still in school with similar accesses, and towards the end of 2016, started helping me find specific details. google could get me 90% of the way there, but the really detailed day-to-day stuff was in letters and journal entries.

it seems a lot like how someone might research to write a biography, they'd just be more thorough about annotating their sources since their goal is to publish...I might not be doing it for the same reasons, but why is it so hard to believe I could?

anyway- no. that's not true. I've had contributors. the people I've mentioned above have helped me directly and they're credited in the work because of it- though I would still emphasize for the context of this question, their help has mostly been as editors, occasionally fielding specific questions or giving me source recommendations. any contributions other than theirs would come from posts that are public on this blog, but I truly, genuinely, can't think of any that have already been incorporated or would warrant recognition...

if someone feels like I've missed something they gave me, they're always welcome to take it up with me.

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

[citadelspires]

P1 - Given how great you're track record's been for doing hypothetical interactions of Amphibia kids with the Duck kids and Owl House kids, let's try doing the Duck kids meeting the Owl House kids and who they'd like the best. I'll exclude Violet for this for the sake of evenening things out 5 to 5. I'd assume Luz would get along best with Dewey (both jump into adventure), King with Louie (could see em teaming up for a scheme), Willow with Huey (eh, more leftover interaction but can work)

Screenshot of second half of the ask provided. Text: P2 Gus with Webby (would totally ask each other lots of questions about their species), and Amity with Lena (both got abusive figures they stood up to and would totally talk about their crushes on Luz and Webby LOL). Would love to see you take on Duck kids and Owl House kids interactions.

First of all I’m very pleased to hear you find my track record on these posts good, they’ve been really fun to write and it makes me really happy people like them! Second I am so sorry it’s taken so long to get to this ask, it’s a really in depth one and it took a long time to write, I hope you’ll find it was worth the wait!

Aight! Oh and one last thing real quick before I get into it. I hope you wouldn’t mind me adding Violet back in, partially due to the fact I love her, but mostly because there’s actually another owl house character I think works significantly better with Louie than anyone else and I really want the chance to talk about that. Saving that one for last hehe. This’ll be another long one, writing below the cut.

Luz and Webby So I do like a lot of the possible interactions brought up by your suggested grouping but my mind went in a few different directions. I’ll start with Luz, who would fit in best with another excitable adventuring partner, as pointed out, but I think the best fit for her in that regard would actually be Webby. While Dewey would no doubt get along great with Luz, there’s a special element to the potential relationship between Luz and Webby that really elevates the potential of their friendship to another level, that being: they both want to eat a hamburger.

An aspect of Webby I wish the later seasons of the show got into a little more, but is definitely something I would consider a core part of her character, is the fact that she got held up in the mansion her whole childhood, with no opportunities to interact with the world around her, have all the adventures she wanted, and most importantly to just be seen as the kid she wanted to be. And while Luz was technically able to go out into the world, the place she found wasn’t one that was willing to see her, or give her any of the chances she longed for. Both Webby and Luz fully understand that feeling of being trapped in your own life, of finally getting the chance to break out and just doing your best to make the most of it. I think there’s a lot the two could gain from spending some time together.

(Also, to borrow the bit about gushing about their crushes but from the other end, these two would totally get sidetracked talking about their respective crushes and also trying to play wingman for each other. It’s a massive comic disaster in both cases, but somehow both Lena and Amity manage to find it endearing).

Amity and Violet Okay wait lemme explain. While the two of them don’t have a whole lot in common at first glance, I think they would genuinely get along extremely well. While a lot of Amity’s focus on school came at the force of her parents, you cannot honestly expect me to believe that girl isn’t a studious nerd on her own anyway. Heck even outside the realm of studies she throws her full dedication into literally every single thing she does. Remind you of anyone? Beyond just being extremely intelligent Violet is clever and ready for anything. She takes everything in stride and always has a plan, she can go from “we were sleeping over and you said everybody get on the plane, so we got on the plane” to “I brought an axe” in a minute flat.

I like to think the two of them would have a mutual respect for each other based on their respective intellects upon first meeting, but as they become closer friends they find they can move from more serious respect to a casual enjoyment of each other. I would go as far as to say that both of these characters really value dependability in a friend, and that they each provide a lot of that. To wrap back around to the stuff about intelligence I think Violet could provide a lot of insight to Amity as far as showing her that pursuing studies and academic heights of her own volition can be something that she can just do because she wants to, and that’s no excuse for unhealthy parental relationships. Getting along so well with someone like Violet only to see that her parents are actually really loving and supportive, that would be really eye-opening for Amity I think. For Violet’s part she could get a lot of help from Amity as far as her pursuit of the secrets of magic goes. I suspect Amity would be much more interested in the study of her magic than Violet would be able to get Lena to tolerate lol.

Bonus Round: Amity would absolutely be a senior junior woodchuck and she would love it you cannot convince me otherwise. She starts quoting the JWGB around the owl house kids and they all look at her like she’s crazy.

Lena and Willow I feel like this one might seem a little out there at first but trust me on this one. Initially Lena doesn’t think too much of Willow, being as close as she is to Webby she knows liking flowers and cute things doesn’t mean Willow is automatically to be taken lightly but she feels like she’s got a good read on her that she generally prefers to avoid trouble and turns down opportunities for violence, which isn’t really Lena’s deal. Over time Lena figures she was right about her first impressions as Willow doesn’t seem to take many opportunities to expose some hidden power, even when Lena knows the people around her kinda deserve it.

She learns to adjust her opinion when she finally does get the chance to see Willow in action and realizes that girl is more powerful than any of the other kids she’s met in the boiling aisles bar none(yes this is my genuine opinion of willow if you don’t think she could kick your ass you’re wrong). It’s at that moment where she starts to pay more attention to Willow and notices a lot more of the strength she puts into all the little things, how much she cares for everyone and everything, and it does a great deal to show Lena that maybe having super strong magic powers isn’t mutually exclusive with being kind and gentle. And maybe gentle isn’t her thing but still, it’s nice to know.

For Willow’s part she’s just happy to make more friends. Especially if the opportunity arises, as I like to think it would, when they’re close enough friends, that Lena would start to hint around asking questions about how Willow remains so casual and nice with the ability to do so much damage, and Willow takes the chance to help Lena figure out her magic a bit more, and learn how to better appreciate it as an aspect of herself she doesn’t have to be scared of. (I mean come on Lena never really learned how to do any of it except barely kind of from Magica of all people she could really  use something like that).

Huey and Gus Now there are some certain things about Gus that would drive Huey absolutely nuts. His lack of primary and reliable sources for any of his information being a big one, but at the end of the day I think he’d enjoy Gus’ desire to learn in the first place. Gus would probably be a little dubious about Huey’s “sources” and “citations” but if it helped him get more info on the human realm he’d certainly go for it in the end. In that way the two balance each other out pretty well. Gus is studious and intelligent but he’s a little off the wall, he’s got a big creative streak, and he’s really excitable. Huey is really really good at facts and analysis but he lacks the strength in imagination that Gus has. Huey is able to take all the grandiose concepts Gus is able to think up and help make them actually happen. Gus has that specific brand of an adventurers soul matched up with the fact he’s not actually the type to get into danger and fights, meaning he’s able to drag Huey out of his comfort zone a little and help him reach new heights with his mind that his struggles with creativity prevent him from reaching, while managing to not make him feel like he’s actually in danger. I actually believe the two of them together could get some really incredible stuff done.

What I’m saying is that with Huey’s help Gus could absolutely complete his tunnels under Hexside.

Dewey and King Now this, this is the pair who would go incredibly well together, at the detriment of literally everyone around them. If there is one person King “I Will Rule Everything” Clawthorne should not be exposed to its Dewey Duck. Within minutes of meeting each other the two of them would immediately have so many bad ideas. Between Dewey’s insistence on being the best and most daring adventurer while putting his name on everything and going down in history & King’s trying to rule everything and everyone, the attempts to raise the stakes would be constant and the two would spend literal hours endlessly trying to one-up each other. All in one day they search for legendary treasure, discover an entirely new civilization, try to take over said civilization, create a new species just to name it after themselves, and build statues of themselves in the middle of Bonesbourough. And that’s all before lunch.

Louie Here it is. The one I waited till the very end for out of sheer excitement. I even kept the second name out of the heading thing. That’s how secretive I’m trying to be about this. See, there’s one character in the owl house that works so well with Louie it’s practically canon. Their interactions have so much potential, they each bring so much to the table, I just couldn’t Not talk about it. And yeah, I know this ask was specifically asking about the owl house and ducktales kids, but I just couldn’t resist talking about the relationship between Louie and Eda.

A con artist from another world who was so successful she became nationally famous? There’s no way Louie would pass up an opportunity like that. For his part I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already managed to set up another underworld identity in the boiling aisles, or at the very least that Eda could totally have been to the ducktales realm and heard of his one there.

Either way I’m convinced the two of them would start planning a heist as soon as they figure out who each other are. Eda is a little prideful and wants to show this kid he can’t out-con her, but Louie knows what he’s doing just as much. Honestly with the two of them combined Eda wouldn’t have to worry about losing her stand for a long time. Over the course of their planning and seeing Louie in action Eda begrudgingly gains some respect for the  kid, and while Louie was definitely just using her as a learning/profit opportunity at first, he’s pretty susceptible to getting attached.

For Louie, it’s the fact that she actually respects him for being good at what he does. Even back with his family who all love and care about him and all that he still feels like most of them don’t really get what he does or see what’s special about him, so having someone who made a whole life of it be even a little proud of him feels really nice.

And of course, at the end of their heist when they finally have the money in hand, and Eda just casually hands over his half, he stares at her like she’s crazy.

“You’re just.. Giving it to me?!”

“Well, yeah. That was the deal wasn’t it kid? I mean if you really want I definitely have a few ideas for it.”

“No! Uh, no, thanks, I’ll keep it. It’s just that you really remind me of someone, I guess I was expecting something else.”

[beautifulterriblequeen]

B2:S - Chapter 3

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be Lujanne, Callum, Rayla, Ezran, Bait, and Soren goodness!

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

Lujanne having excellent fitness for all her walking around the Moon Nexus, and she's so energetic that Callum has trouble keeping up with her! She seems like those active grandmas who almost never stop moving, who have a lifelong supply of endless stamina. It makes me wonder if Lujanne will need that level of fitness for some upcoming conflict.

Callum feeling really hungry over not eating grubs and then still deciding he'd rather be hungry. It makes me wonder all over again how Lujanne got to the point where she eats grubs, considering that other Moonshadow elves we know of back in the Silvergrove don't. I still love my hc that the giant leech ate all of Lujanne's moonberry bushes and she's taking her revenge. Whatever's going on there, Callum is definitely not at that point yet.

When Lujanne asks Callum how he knows she's real, he thinks to himself that he'd put up with just about anything from someone who was going to teach him magic. That's a great parallel and foreshadowing for Viren's student/master relationship with Aaravos! And it's telling that neither student gets exactly what they hoped to get. Lujanne doesn't actively teach Callum any spells, because she believes he can't learn Moon magic at all. Aaravos does offer Viren power, but it takes him to some very dark places - literally and figuratively - and the cost is terribly high.

Callum sees a moon shape among the ruins, and Lujanne explains that the Moonhenge layout is an intricate rune that uses the structures themselves as part of its symbols and power. That's apparently a thing even with ordinary Moonshadow villages like Hollow Wood in the east, which is the coolest idea I've seen in a while: city planning as magic runes!

Yes, that's the same shape as the pendants Ethari made for himself and Runaan. Protection? Home? Feelsiness? A sense of safety and belongnig for all cycles and seasons?

Wonder what this Moonhenge rune stands for, then, and how much of this landscape is included in that rune. I bet it's more than we think!

But it makes sense now, how toppling the stone pillars would disable the spell the druids would cast to connect with the Moon Nexus lake. Breaking the infrastructure of the Moonhenge breaks the rune.

There's a physical sensation involved with the visuals that Historia Viventem brings up! When that one ghostly druid walked through Callum, he felt icy cold. Like in ghost stories. I really wonder about what exactly Historia Viventem is doing when it activates. It shows truth, "what really happened here?", so it must have some kind of time-related element, maybe tied to how the moon always repeats the same cycles or something. But it also seems to draw on the spirits of any living people involved in the flashback, because Callum could physically feel that wispy shape passing through him. So very interesting!

Orrr... is that all wrong, and there's something else at work with this spell than time? Maybe the world beyond life and death can act as an imprint of the things that have happened in the living world, and the spell that Lujanne (and later Callum) casts taps into that place, with perfect recall. I'm looking really hard at the sentence that says "dozens of translucent elf ghosts" and "phantom Moonhenge" and "lost in their own world" here.

Lujanne says more here than in the show about the world beyond life and death, being her mysterious Moonshadow-mage self. She says that "beyond" and "between" might both apply to where this other plane of existence is, and she doesn't much care which. With all the relativity swirling around this place, and not much in the way of empiricism, it's sounding like perhaps multiple conflicting ideas might actually coexist in such a place, allowing more ideas to fit there than we might normally believe is possible. Which is a fascinating bit of worldbuilding. Basically, every headcanon anyone has ever had about the Moon Nexus could all be true at the same time, for all we know.

Oh oh oh, Callum coming in soft with a secret wish! He takes one look at the Moonhenge and immediately thinks of finding a way to see his mom again! Poor boy, my heart! I'd say that could be another interesting parallel with Viren, but then, who wouldn't hold that sentiment?

Oh my, is this another breath of life into Ye Olde Ley Lines headcanon? Lujanne mentioning the Nexuses again, so soon after talking about the runic design of the entire Moonhenge, makes me wonder if the six nexuses are in fact giant runes. On Earth, the places where ley lines cross are called nexuses, and there are those who believe those points got marked with ancient structures, like Stonehenge and many many others. If Xadia were crossed with magical lines which naturally formed nexus points where they met, and if powerful magical runes were built across those entire areas, well. That would be cool beans, fams. Can I smack a map of Xadia and release a spell like Luz Noceda does? Because ngl that is my first instinct here.

Lujanne has got to be missing some grandkids to spoil, right? The way she's always whipping out cake and ice cream for Callum, and she's so grandma-ish about it. Headcanon about her being Runaan's mom aside, she is canonically lonely and she's very sweet to Allen and Ellis and I think she's missing whatever family she once had in the past. She may never get to have that family back, so she's finding a new one among the humans who live nearby, and I think that's sweet. Found family isn't just for the young.

But Ellis is straight up gonna be her fave, I bet, because she didn't turn up her nose at Lujanne's illusion food!

Ezran and Bait have a lot more to their relationship than was visible in the show, and I'm so excited by it! Ez can tell by looking at Bait's colors that he's not truly jealous of Zym, even if he's really grumpy about the dragonling taking up his favorite human's time.

And Ez thinking a lot about his dad and the things he's taught him. They're soft leadership material, and I love that so much! "Pick your battles" and the importance of encouragement. Ahh, my heart. Ezran, you're going to be such a good king.

But wait a second: both times that Bait gets extra grumpy in Zym's first training session, Ezran has just mentioned something about flying. Guys, I think Bait wishes he could fly, really badly. And that's his biggest problem with Zym, and with Ezran teaching Zym to fly, instead of Bait who doesn't have wings so. Bait is so old that his secrets have secrets, and I'm really curious how flying fits into them now!

Rayla, Dramatic Assassin: "I need to patrol for dark forces." That's what Lujanne called the source of the purple wisps that found them. I wonder if that's an official term all Moonshadows know, or if Rayla is just taking her cue from a veteran Moon mage. And I wonder how far Rayla is falling into the apparent pattern of "one mage, one assassin", since she does spend a lot of her time patrolling without being asked.

When Callum tells Lujanne that he was bad at prince stuff, and she asks if he didn't give up and got good at those things anyway, it's an opportunity for Callum to embrace subverting his parents' expectations in favor of seeking his own path, which is a primary theme of the show. But Lujanne is a couple generations older than Callum, at the very least, and I have to wonder what her upbringing was like. Is her version of success the one she took? Was she bad at magic once too, but she persisted? She is very soft and doesn't want to kill anyone.

Maybe Lujanne had dreams of doing something else with her life, but she felt she had to pursue the destiny that others handed to her, so she studied magic as hard as she could, and she did get good at it, but using it to defend Xadia from humans is not what she wanted to do with her life. Whether there's a parallel between her and Ethari on that point, there's one between Callum and Ethari, I think. How much of your life are you willing to let others direct for you?

LISTEN I WAS DYING AT THE EAR BREAD SCENE OKAY

This is my new favorite Soren and Claudia moment ever. Soren loves him his bread, okay. Even as earplugs for Claudia's sleep ocarina tune. The fact that it's "super effective" makes me think of a Pokemon defense. The fact that he learned it at camp, where he also learned about Moonshadow Madness, is hilarious. Later on, Corvus doesn't know Soren by name, but I still love the idea of Corvus being a kind of Strider-esque camp instructor, filling the ears of his young charges with all kinds of useful tactics like ear bread for magic spell songs (which actually seemed to work as intended), and warnings about the enemy elves' blood-themed tactics (which may or may not come back around in BH)

I thought they were gonna go in a kind of deep direction when Soren still wanted his ear bread back, but then he just. Eats them. Just noms them. I love this kid. Give Soren all the bread!

[secrets-of-everwich]

03-1 Proof of Something Strange - Plaintext version

[Click]

{Callie}

Hello, this is Callie Hewitt on the 3rd October 2021, and I have some amazing news. We’ve had someone – finally - write in to the podcast!

{Voice} Callie, I’m right here.

{Callie}

Even better, they’re here in the studio! Mr Morris, you said you had some… Interesting information about something?

{Mr. Morris}

Callie, you can just call me Ash? Like you normally do? Or Asher will be fine? I literally see your brother like every day.

{Callie}

Yes, but this needs to be professional, Mr. Morris.

{Asher}

Remind me how many listeners you have?

[A Pause]

{Callie}

Ok, Ash, what did you see?

{Asher}

Well… Ok, don’t think I’m crazy or whatever. I probably am but I wasn’t gonna tell anyone but then you overheard me talking to X and then you dragged me into doing this so.

{Callie}

I won’t judge! You think I’d be doing this if I cared what people think?

{Asher} True. Ok. Well. Yesterday, as you know I was visiting the haunted house because it was Rin’s birthday and I wanted to do something fun! And, then X asked me to come with him – he wanted to show me something, or so he said. And, then we went into the basement – we left Em and Rin to go on the- Why am I telling you that, you were literally there?!

{Callie}

We need it for the record, remember?

{Asher} Oh yeah! We left Rin & Em to go on the show tour with you. Xavier took me down into the basement. It… Wasn’t fun. We walked down, the lights were growing dimmer. They’re like those old-style festoons but they were really flickery, I never like lights like that, but they’re really good for stage lights because they’re-

[Callie clears their throat]

Oh, sorry! Well we walked down the steps, and I nearly fell because the steps are really – and I mean really – breaking like they’re really worn down and slippery, so I nearly fell down and X had to catch me… So anyway we got down the steps and I was really cold because you know it’s October and it’s freezing because it’s autumn. And it was a basement. Ugh I don’t want to do this, I just want to forget about it, you know I hate spiders!

{Callie} Asher, Xavier won’t talk to me about this. And if I talk about it, it doesn’t seem as… Professional. I need you to tell me!

{Asher}

Um… If that was meant to be persuasive it wasn’t really… Working…

{Callie}

Please, Ash?

{Asher}

Fine! We got down there, it was freezing, and… Spiders. Lots of them. All crawling along the walls and the floor. They didn’t totally cover the stone walls, but. They were there. I tried to tell X that I didn’t wanna be here anymore, and I wanted to leave, but he said there was more I needed to see.

[A long pause]

He, um, opened the door.

[Another pause]

Callie, please I don’t want to do this.

{Callie} Literally nobody will listen. I still only have 1 listener, and because they’re anonymous I’m still not unconvinced it isn’t Xavier putting it on mute and just playing it so I get a single listener.

{Asher}

[Sounds of a chair moving, getting fainter] Nope, nope, that’s even worse, nope.

[Sounds of a door opening and slamming shut]

{Callie}

ASH! [Getting fainter] Come back!

[Sounds of a door opening]

[A long pause. Radio static]

[Sounds of a door closing]

[Getting louder] Well, that’s just great. Our only primary source has left. I could try Xavier… But he’s already said no. I don’t know where the key is to the basement, so I can’t go check myself. God, sometimes I swear this town, or someone in it, is deliberately trying to make this harder for me.

Actually, how did X get into the basement at all?! The door’s never left unlocked. I’ve asked mum and dad, they don’t know what’s in there, and they definitely don’t know where the key is. Did X find the key? It wouldn’t be the first time there’s been something hidden in the bookshelves, like that jou- Like nothing I’ve found. I’ll have to ask X if he still has the key. And if he knows where it is.

[Click]

[Radio static for a moment]

[Click]

He doesn’t. He found it on Friday evening, went down there that evening to check it out, took Ash down there because he needed to know he wasn’t insane and locked the door behind him, and put the key in his pocket. It is no longer in his pocket. He has no idea where it is. I emphasise my previous statement about the whole town is against me finding the secrets. But, I’m determined to find them. It’s not like this is a new thing – I’ve been interested in the secrets of Everwich for years now. Anyway, since our primary source has left the building, and another potential primary source will not talk to me, I guess that’s it for this episode. Thank you for listening, that’s it for today’s Secrets of Everwich with Callie Hewitt!

[quieter] Nope, that’s not it either.

[Click]

[Click]

{Voice}

[Very faint, recording keeps glitching out]

Drat-

[Clic]

[dmsden]

The Theme in My Coffee - Incorporating themes into worldbuilding

Hullo, Gentle Readers. This week’s Question from a Denizen comes to us from an Anonymous source...which is a shame, as they didn’t give me any way to contact them, so I can’t enter them in my Van Richten’s contest. But they’ll win an answer, anyway. They ask, “Hey there! I just started writing my own campaign setting, and I'm having trouble incorporating themes into my worldbuilding. Do you have any tips?”

I absolutely do, Anonymous. I actually wrote about using themes in your worldbuilding waaaaay back in my old Worldbuilding articles, especially #s 1 and 3. If you don’t have time to go digging, however, I can definitely touch on some of those elements here. Always good to revisit things from before.

I like to have some themes in mind from the very beginning, and I had several in mind when I began work on my Shards of the Shattered Pact campaign world. I wanted to tie it around the themes of Broken Trust, Homesickness, and Ruins of the Past. I also wanted to tie it to the new lore that was coming out of 4E’s little sneak peeks we were getting. Even before I fully knew what the campaign’s story was going to be about, or even before I had 4E in hand (to say nothing of 5E, which we play now), I began to build a skeleton out of those themes.

For Broken Trust, I developed the idea of the Conclave of Seven Kingdoms...a loose alliance of nations that bonded together against a common foe one thousand years in the past. This included two human kingdoms, an eladrin kingdom, an elven kingdom, a dwarven kingdom, a halfling “kingdom”, and a goblinoid kingdom. This last choice was party due to Eberron, which had really sold me on the idea that monsters that were traditionally evil didn’t have to be. I did want to be able to use goblins and the others as enemies, however, so the main element of broken trust started there. The goblinoid kingdom had betrayed the others, ending the bloodline of a legendary line of kings in betrayal and death. This shattered the Conclave. One of the human kingdoms had never gotten on well with the dwarves of goblinoids. The elves and eladrin had their own differences, stretching back all the way to when the Drow had come into being. The Seven Kingdoms were destined to fracture, really, and they did so spectacularly.

Broken Trust manifested in other ways in my world’s history and geography. A continent had been literally shattered when a group of allies went to war with each other. Many tieflings, feeling betrayed by the parents that had made the pacts that led to their forms, had turned their backs on the immortal legacy their parents had tried to secure for them. Slavers from the Underdark could come up out of nowhere. It was not a place where trust was easily given any more.

Homesickness might be better defined as Diaspora. Very few races in my world live where they used to live. Orcs had forced the halflings to abandon their shires for swamp land, where they had become bayou-dwelling folk. Hobgoblins had once ruled an empire that nearly spanned a continent before the coming of the Eladrin (themselves in Exile from the Feywild) forced them back. Humans came from across the sea, feeling betrayed by their kings. Dwarves fled out of slavery to build new homes in the mountains of the north. Dragonborn sadly left their ancestral lands after a magical disaster had left them a terrible, haunted desolation. For good or for ill, very few races lived where they’d been born.

Ruins of the Past manifested in various ways. With the Seven Kingdoms fractured, kings largely withdrew into their power centers, often leaving long stretches of land to return to wilderness. Although villages like Seowyn’s Crossing might give fealty to a Baron who in turn gives fealty to a Duke who in turn gives fealty to the King of Summerlund, the truth is that the King is many hundreds of miles away, and a plea for help is unlikely to make it anywhere in time. The ancient Universitas Magesterium, one of the most powerful schools of magic, lies broken underneath a lake that their own magics created, and strangeness sometimes crawls from the waters. Outside of the “points of light” of civilization, the world is strange and wild and often desolate. Ancient builds have fallen back to ruin, and terrible things have taken over those places.

Beyond these modern ruins, there are more ancient ones. Hobgoblin fortifications dot the landscape, ruins left behind when their rule was broken. Ancient halfling, human, and eladrin fortresses are now ruled by orcs who took them in conquest. In places haunted by war, undead soldiers wait to scream their guilt at the living who find evidence of their failures of duty. And, most ancient at all, the ruins of the mysterious Old Ones, possibly the first living race in the world who have long since vanished, dot the landscape, often hiding terrible, magic-mutated monsters and fabulous treasures.

As I create new elements of the setting, I try to see how it might fit into one of my three primary themes. Often, this adds a sad or bittersweet element to the setting, and that suits me fine. Most of my favorite stories are bittersweet ones, such as The Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, and Sandman. I like stories where not everything goes right and where something must be lost in order to make things as right as they can be.

I hope this helps, Anonymous. If anyone ever has a particular theme they’d like me to look at and come up with some ideas for, I’d be happy to take a look. Until next week, may all your 20s be natural.