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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 9 months ago

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03/08/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast&CrewSightings; DavidJenkins;RuiboQian;Samba Schutte; Alex Sherman; Rhys Darby Cameo; Fan Spotlight; SaveOFMD End of the Line Statement; SaveOFMD Billboard News and updates; Watch Party Reminders; OFMDCrew Gratitude Event; Kudoboard Reminders; New Kudoboards; Fundraiser Statuses; Articles; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Tonight's Taika

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

= David Jenkins =

Chaos dad poked his nose out to send us some lovely and encouraging words. "Your power is noticed and admired, Don't doubt it. Ever."

= Ruibo Qian =

Our Pirate Queen Ruibo Qian had so much love and support to send today.

= Samba BTS =

Samba's keeping us fed with little bits of BTS each day, thank you Samba. Full Video here courtesy of @daria-meoi

= Alex Sherman =

Oh Alex, our 'Ass Tonight' Guardian Angel. I love that he's just over here liking all our unhinged stuff on top of the usual porn.

== Rhys Darby Cameo ==

Our wonderful crew-mate @_irene_adler and the Our Flag Means Daddy crew got us a wonderful bed-time story from Rhys. Please check it out on Cameo.

== Fan Spotlight =

Thank you @melvisik for continuing to give us lovely collectibles for all our cast & crew. Tonight is Fred Armisen!

== Save OFMD Crew "End of the Line" Statement ==

"Like our inimitable captain Stede Bonnet, we aren’t ready to give up just yet. We are devastated by the news from David Jenkins that attempts to find an alternative home for Our Flag Means Death have "reached the end of the road", but we want to keep fighting—not just for Our Flag Means Death, but for all the shows cancelled before their time. Shows that people put their heart and soul into. Shows that create life-changing experiences for their fans." Please read the rest on the website here.

== Save OFMD Crew Billboard News ==

== OFMD Gratitude Event ==

Join the OFMD Crew on Saturday March 9th, 11 AM PST / 2 PM EST / 7 PM GMT / 8 PM CET, follow OFMDCrew on Twitter.

== Watch Party Reminders ==

03/09/2024 there will be a watch along with the German premiere of OFMD Season 2!

@OurFlagRTL at 1PM EST/4PM GMT/5PM CET #OurFlagRTL.

Feel free to watch in any language you like! #SaveOFMD#LongLiveOFMD

= Wrecked =

Wrecked Season 1 Catch Up Party Starts Tomorrow at 8 am CST / 2pm GMT on the #RhysDarbyFaction server, feel free to reach out if you need access.

= Coming & Going =

Tomorrow 3/9, 9pm cst - 1030pm cst / (3/10) 3am gmt - 430am gmt on the #RhysDarbyFaction server.

We know it's awful, we're getting drunk and having a laugh.

== Kudoboard Reminders! ==

= Taika =

Kudoboard Link

The board will stay up until March 12th, and we will share the link with him on March 13th. The Kudoboard is monitored prior to approval to prevent trolls from jumping in (so if you don't see your additions right away, that's why!)

== Cast & Crew Kudoboards ==

In addition-- thank you to @sharpenyersword on Twitter for setting up ALL THE KUDOBOARDS!

Go send the cast and crew some love folks!

David Jenkins

Nathan Foad

Con O'Neill

Ruibo Qian

Leslie F*cking Jones!

Matthew Maher

Samson Kayo

Alex "Ass Tonight" Sherman!

David Fane

Fellow OFMD Fan Crew!

== Fundraiser Statuses ==

Many fans are turning their grief and feelings of poison into positivity. Since this post by @gentlepanpirate was posted this afternoon around 1:45 MT, the eSIMS and Sanitary Products for Gaza has gone up 12%. Do you have a few dollars to spare? Everyone doing just a few dollars will move it up fast. If not no worries, please consider sharing the link instead!

givebutter.com/OFFP3

= In Soup Now =

In Soup Now in honor of Kristian Nairn's favorite charity Team Haven Belfast, is at 17% Great job everyone working on helping feed unhoused neighbors. Can't donate? No worries! Please consider sharing the link!

https://givebutter.com/OFFP3

== Articles ==

Lot of articles tonight yall. Remember that every one of these shows you made an impact. It sucks cause a lot of them say "failed to find a home" which isn't true, we were robbed of one. But they still matter. The fact that they wrote anything at all shows we've been making waves. You still have power, as Chaos dad said. They didn't take that from you.

Our Flag Means Death Creator David Jenkins Confirms Show Has Reached the End of the Road

Our Flag Means Death Fails to Find New Home After Max Cancellation — Read Creator’s Statement

'End of the Road': Our Flag Means Death's Fate Confirmed by Creator

Our Flag Means Death Creator Addresses Chances of Series Return

‘Our Flag Means Death’ Creator Raises White Flag on Former Max Comedy

‘Our Flag Means Death’ Creator Says It’s “The End Of The Road” After Comedy Fails To Find New Home

Our Flag Means Death Is Officially Done After Not Finding New Streaming Home

Series creator: No new home found for canceled 'Our Flag Means Death'

Our Flag Means Death Creator Confirms The End Of Cancelled Max Show

Our Flag Means Death creator couldn’t find a new home for the series, which is now officially on its way to Davy Jones’s locker

Our Flag Means Death season 3 not happening, creator confirms

Our Flag Means Death creator “officially confirms” show cannot be saved

Our Flag Means Death Canceled After Two Successful Seasons

Our Flag Means Death officially over as the queer series fails to find a new home

El creador de ‘Our Flag Means Death’ dice que es «el final del camino» después de que la comedia no logró encontrar un nuevo hogar.

Our Flag Means Death creator says it's officially the 'end of the road' after show fails to find new home

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH IS OFFICIALLY OVER, CREATOR CONFIRMS SEASON 3 FAILS TO FIND NEW HOME

Unfairly cancelled show fails to find new home: ‘It’s the end of the road��

Heartbreak in the High Seas: Our Flag Means Death Officially Sails Into the Sunset

== Love Notes ==

Hey lovelies.

I know some of you found out the news later than others, and it's still very raw for you. I'm sending so much love your way, I know you had less support than some of us when you found out and that's got to feel terribly lonely. I've talked to some folks who were fine yesterday, and not okay today, and vice versa. Just know we are here luvs, we are here, and we're happy to talk. We're all going to be grieving for a while. So please be kind to yourselves. Give yourself some grace, it's okay if you can't do much right now. It's okay if you don't finish that gif set, or that artwork, or that fic. It's okay if all you do is get by today. You are doing enough. It's okay if you need to have distractions so you're doing twice as much as you did before. Distraction can help a lot with nervous energy. Give yourself room to be creative, and to let your mind wander, it could use a break. Take some time to laugh if you can. Laughter really can be healing. I wish I had some advice for tonight. I wish I had some better words of encouragement, I know it's all very hard right now for everyone.

Please just know a few things, and you've heard them before, but I need to hear them once in a while so I'm going to say them to you.

You are loved.

You are worthy.

You are enough.

You are beautiful.

You are kind.

You are exactly the way you should be.

You are loved.

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Just som giggle from our two guys to hopefully bring a smile to your face.

Daily Darby Courtesy of @fandomsmeantheworldtome

Tonight's Taika Courtesy of @IBrokeCharacter on twitter.

#daily ofmd recap #daily ofmd recaps #ofmd daily recaps #ofmd daily recap #ofmd #s3 renewal #our flag means death #rhys darby #save ofmd #taika waititi #samba schutte #david jenkins #ruibo qian #alex sherman #chaos dad #ofmdfancrew #saveofmdcrew #adoptourcrew #longliveofmd

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therentyoupay · 3 months ago

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How many languages do you know?

💕 english is my first language but i speak both spanish and english at home! i've been studying spanish for 20+ years, i speak spanish exclusively with my husbands' family (they only speak spanish!), and am comfortable getting my point across on most everyday-life things. i read in spanish for fun/to study (i forced my husband to read la sociedad de la nieve with me when we both got obsessed with the movie on netflix, even though he's not a reader at all haha), and we have a house rule about always watching movies in the language in which they were created EXCEPT FOR SHREK, which we both agree is extremely well done and just as funny (if not even funnier) in spanish. we do a lot of code-switching for the most part, and whenever we have kids, we'll follow the One Parent One Language plan, except for when we're out at restaurants, because we always ONLY speak spanish while going out to eat, it's just habit at this point. 😂 i once tried to write fic in spanish back in the early 2010s while living in spain but i felt that i didn't have all the vocab that i needed to give my writing the same vibe as in my first language, so i haven't tried writing fic in spanish since... (maybe i should??) for now i content myself with reading larivera's (@laurakrivera) spanish fic!! however, my academic!professional!spanish is much more developed than my fic!spanish writing style, lol, so when i publish my non-fiction book in english, i will work on writing the spanish translations myself (and force my husband to help me lmao)

i learned japanese fundamentals (e.g., basic vocab/phrases, word order, hiragana, katakana, some core kanji) when i was 12 (like most inuyasha-obsessed kids, maybe?? 🤣) and i learned a LOT when i lived there for a year and a half as an adult! but i never took any formal classes, it was all self-taught and in the streets (LITERALLY lmao, shoutout to the people of tokyo). i wasn't allowed to speak japanese at all in my job, so i turned to apps like hellotalk to practice and make friends who really wanted to engage in language exchange. (duolingo didn't add japanese as a language option until after i came back! 🤣😭) so i was just out there in the wild, picking it all up as i went along. i understand a lot more than i can speak, but i could probably hold a pretty convincing conversation with someone for 2 minutes before it became clear that i'd exhausted my limited repertoire. 🤣 i'd get by with a lot of discourse markers and reaction expressions and いいね! and 本当に!? and そうですね 😊 before i fell off the track completely lol.

i did 3 months of german on duolingo to prepare for a conference i presented at in austria a few years ago! helped with everyday basics, but i'm not currently investing in this language right now since i don't have many opportunities to use it in daily life like i do my other languages.

also just started learning korean literally five days ago. still working on the vowels. 🤣 i'm learning for friends, for potential work opportunities, for K-POP joking joking or am i, and also i'm a big believer in the philosophy of keeping the mind fresh and getting excited about Being "Bad" at Something every once in a while, as i purposefully Try New Things to ward off complacency, keep my brain happy and sharp, and remind myself that i can Do Hard Things. (of course, once you start to learn so many languages, your metalinguistic and metacognitive pattern-seeking skills really kick in, so approaching korean is a lot different than how it was in my other language learning experiences, so far 🤣) stay tuned, i guess haha!!

i guess you can see why i'm so obsessed with the idea of elsa being a serial polyglot/multilingual queen in basically every universe i write her in, not only because it fits with her upbringing/education/oryal duties but also i feel like elsa would appreciate all instances in life in which she could exert control over her surroundings by finding patterns and "rules" in languages and finding beauty in expressing so many meanings through so many different avenues when she herself had so much trouble expressing herself at all for so long should i write a one-shot about elsa's multilingualism as it pertains to NO KRIS NO STOP YOU HAVE WORK NOW KRIS NO

#therentyoupay personal #therentyoupay ask #sanfangirl-cynicalromantic #thank you for all the gorgeous asks AS ALWAYS YOU BEAUTIFUL BRAIN

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piracytheorist · 2 years ago

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Episode 5 German dub!

Anya: *asks to play in the castle* Loid: *savage mode activated*

"No. You can forget that."

"The government has better things to do than [watch over the castle] so you can have some fun in peace."

That's a rough translation, again I'm only conversational in German, but I like seeing how the dialogue transfers and adjusts in different languages.

Anya and Franky: A caaaaaaaaastle! Loid: Why are you flipping out too?!

"I am excited to see the chaos you'll create."

Again, I love the adjustment. Franky went full-on chaotic for the role and we love that for him.

HE SAID "HASTA LA VISTA BABY" I AM CRYING 🤣🤣

Loid, stuttering: "G-give the princess back." That Twilight fanboyTM: "I can't believe I'm experiencing such a performance live!"

I actually snorted a huge laugh there. Twilight is barely holding back his embarrassment and his fans are ready to pass out from excitement. Whatever language you experience that in, it's fucking hilarious.

O_O Do you actually use the word "shit" in German? Even the spoken dialogue used that. Is there a cultural difference between a German saying "shit" and "Scheiße"?

(I'm actually interested in this because the translation of "fuck" is... kind of a common, less heavy curse in Greek. It's almost equivalent to "Damnit", to the point where you'd hear it in TV shows airing around 9 pm. "Fuck" for me, in English, is heavy. "Γαμώτο"... is a word we say daily, like I'd use "Damnit"... Even "shit" is heavier than that one.)

(As for the translation, I couldn't catch the spoken dialogue. I think the subtitles say "Shit, she's going really hard on it.")

The "Euch" there catches my attention, because afaik it's the kind of "old", "fairytale-like" way of using formal you. Loid's still in the act of saving a princess so he uses appropriate pronouns - all other cases of formal you in the dub have the typical Sie/Ihnen that's used nowadays. That was an interesting detail.

(The translation is just "I'm here to save you, princess Anya.")

"Isn't that one zero too many?"

Hahahahahah. There will be a lot more zeros incoming :)))

I'm getting into it, to be honest. I had my reservations but this episode was real fun. Maybe it's because I also love this episode but still. I'll definitely watch more and let y'all know my findings.

#nette watches sxf #sxf

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djacks001 · 2 years ago

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The Holocaust

The summer of 2022 marked the 80th anniversary of the first Nazi deportation of Jewish families from Germany to Auschwitz.

Welcome to candlelight Narratives, Today I am speaking on a really hard subject, one of the darker moments in world history, please don’t let these atrocities go forgotten as History likes to repeat itself.

The word Antisemitism means prejudice against Jews.

In 1879, Wilhelm Marr a journalist originated the term antisemitism, denoting the hatred of Jews, and also hatred of various liberal, cosmopolitan, and international political trends of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The trends under attack included equal civil rights, constitutional democracy, free trade, socialism, finance capitalism, and pacifism.

The Holocaust is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism with the persecution and murder of six million Jewish men, women and children by the Nazi regime. The Nazis, came to power in Germany in January 1933, they believed that Germans were "racially superior" and wanted to create a “racially pure” state. Jews, deemed "inferior," were considered an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

During that time German authorities also targeted and killed other groups, including their own children at times, because of their perceived racial and biological inferiority: Gypsies, Germans with disabilities, and some of the Slavic peoples (especially Poles and Russians). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

Because the Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” groups, children were especially vulnerable during the nazi regime.

Sadly Calculating the numbers of individuals who were killed as the result of Nazi policies is a difficult task. There is no single wartime document created by Nazi officials that spells out how many people were killed in the Holocaust across Germany much information about the tragedy has been forever lost to time, Some stories were passed down while others never got to be shared.

“Kristallnacht: what happened on the night of broken glass?

Herschel Grynszpan carried a revolver and thoughts of revenge with him as he walked through the streets of Paris on the morning of November 7, 1938. The 17-year-old German refugee had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany. From the day Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Antisemitism had become encoded in the governmental policies of Nazi Germany. For years, Jews experienced state-sponsored discrimination and persecution, and Grynszpan had seen enough.

The young man who had emigrated to France two years earlier walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. When Grynszpan was informed that the ambassador was out on his daily walk, he was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, is your document!”

Hitler sent his personal physicians to Paris to treat vom Rath, but two days later the diplomat died from his wounds. The Nazi regime found the murder to be a welcome excuse to launch a vast pogrom against the Jews living inside its borders. Until then, Nazi policies toward the Jews, such as boycotts and deportations, had been primarily nonviolent, but that all changed in the hours after vom Rath took his last breath.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels orchestrated a “spontaneous” reaction to the political assassination. He sent a teletype message to state police stations and secret service headquarters with detailed instructions on organizing and executing a massive attack on Jewish properties. Goebbels ordered the burning of Jewish houses of worship, businesses and homes. He ordered the storm troopers to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold—“especially the rich ones”—and to prepare the concentration camps for their arrivals. Firemen were told to do nothing to stop the blazes unless the fires began to threaten Aryan-owned properties.

Starting in the late hours of the night of November 9, 1938, and continuing well into the next day, Nazis in Germany and Austria torched approximately 1,000 synagogues and vandalized thousands of Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered during the violence, and approximately 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Following the night of terror, the shattered windows of vandalized Jewish businesses littered the sidewalks of Germany and Austria, which led to the rampage being known as Kristallnacht, German for “crystal night.”

After ruining their property and their temples in a murderous attack, the Nazis then made their victims pay for all the damage from the “night of broken glass.” The insurance companies paid the Jews in full, but the Nazi government confiscated all the money to pay back the insurance companies to prevent them from bankruptcy due to the catastrophic losses. The Nazis also fined Germany’s Jews $400 million for their “abominable crimes,” including the killing of vom Rath in Paris. Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, said the sanctions would ensure “the swine won’t commit another murder.”

Foreign countries issued statements of condemnation. Hugh Wilson, the American ambassador to Germany, was summoned home for “consultations” and never returned. In spite of the words, though, most countries, including the United States, kept their restrictive immigration policies against European Jews in place, and there were few ramifications for the Nazis.

A week following the assassination in Paris that was used as a pretense for the state-sponsored “spontaneous demonstration,” vom Rath’s coffin, draped with the Nazi swastika flag, was paraded through the streets of Dusseldorf as thousands of mourners raised their arms in salute of the murdered diplomat. Grynszpan was transferred from prison to prison in France until the Nazi invasion during World War II when he was extradited to Germany where he was incarcerated in a concentration camp. His ultimate fate is unknown, but he may well have been among the 6 million killed during the Holocaust, the genocide was foreshadowed on the “night of broken glass.” in November.

Although the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of Jewish men and women, for many places where those tragic events happened, no images are known to document the crime. Surprisingly, there’s not even photographic evidence from Berlin, the Nazi capital and home to Germany’s largest Jewish community.

The lack of known images is important. Unlike in the past, historians now agree that photographs and film must be taken seriously as primary sources for their research. These sources can complement the analysis of administrative documents and survivor testimonies and thus enrich our understanding of Nazi persecution.

“JANUARY 30, 1939

Amid rising international tensions Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler tells the German public and the world that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry.

Inspired by Hitler's theories of racial struggle and the supposed "intent" of the Jews to survive and expand at the expense of Germans, the Nazis ordered anti-Jewish boycotts, staged book burnings, and enacted anti-Jewish legislation. But it was the nationwide pogroms (Kristallnacht) in 1938 and the outbreak of war in 1939 that marked the transition in Nazi racial antisemitism toward genocide. To justify the murder of the Jews both to the perpetrators and to bystanders in Germany and Europe, the Nazis used not only racist arguments but also arguments derived from older negative stereotypes, including Jews as communist subversives, war profiteers, hoarders, and as a danger to internal security because of their inherent disloyalty and opposition to the Reich.”

Jewish Deportations continued until the war started to look bad for the Nazis as the Soviets and The Americans made a push towards Berlin. Some Germans even into the Nazi ranks aided the Jews in escaping the reach of The Third Reich, Many books, and a few movies have been made about these events. As the Allies closed in on the heart of Germany. The Final solution was issued by the Nazi Party leading to the outright murder of most survivors in the work camps because Nazi leadership already knew what gruesome end awaited them all. They had watched Mussolini in Italy tortured and killed. Their former Ally The Soviets were closing in with vengeance and the only defence force remaining were The old or members of The Nazi youth, After Adolf Hitler Committed Suicide Many remaining Nazis surrendered while some Fled Germany altogether.

Investigating photos of Nazi deportations

Between 1938 and 1945, more than 200,000 people were deported from Germany, mainly to ghettos and camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.

To make pictures of Nazi deportations accessible for research and education, a group of universitys in Germany and the Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research at the University of Southern California launched the #LastSeen. This effort aims to locate, collect and analyze images of Nazi mass deportations in Germany. The deportations started with the forced expulsion of around 17,000 Jews of Polish origin in October 1938, right before the widespread antisemitic violence of Kristallnacht, and culminated in the mass deportations to Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe between 1941 and 1945.

The mass deportation targeted not only Jews, but also people with disabilities as well as tens of thousands of gypsies.

the #LastSeen Project has three main goals: first, gathering all existing pictures. These images will then be analyzed to identify the victims and perpetrators and recover the stories behind the pictures. Finally, a digital platform will provide access to all the images and unearthed information, both enabling a new level of study of this visual evidence and establishing a powerful tool against Holocaust denial. I am making this video to hopefully inform someone who may not know or perhaps remind those who know that this sad time in history did in fact happen and we must keep informed to prevent anything of the sort from happening again with any luck

When the project began, the partners were skeptical of whether they would find a significant number of never-before-seen images of mass deportations.

But after addressing the German public and querying over 1,700 German archives, the group has sense received dozens of unknown images, more then doubling the number of German towns, from 27 to over 60, where now they have photographs documenting Nazi deportations.

Many of these photos had been collecting dust on shelves in local archives in Germany while some were found in private homes. In the future, the project hopes for discoveries in archives, museums and family possession in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, South Africa and Australia. We know that liberators took photographs with them from Germany at the end of the war, and survivors received them later in various ways.

The project has already located photos in the United States. In two cases, survivors had donated them to archives, Simon Strauss gave an image to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum depicting the deportation in his German hometown of Hanau. He wrote on it, “Uncle Ludwig transported.” The second photo was at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, which had received the hitherto only known picture from the Nazi deportation of the Jews in Bad Homburg.

Naming and recognizing victims

The identities of deportees and perpetrators in the existing images are often unknown. Most photographs show groups of victims whom project staff aim to identify so they and their stories can be acknowledged. This is very difficult, since there are seldom close-up shots.

This is but one example of how scholars desperately need the public’s help to recover the stories of countless unidentified victims of the Nazis.

I hope this presentation proves to be informative, Thank you so much for watching the video. If you enjoyed please like and subscribe to show your support. Later guys.

Sources:

Berenbaum, Michael. "Holocaust". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Sep. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust. Accessed 2 October 2022.

The Video is right here: https://youtu.be/RcqMJJ_MhIg

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bellatrix-lestrxnge · 1 month ago

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Bellatrix's clever eyes centred on Antonin while he spoke, scrutinising and consuming in one brightly sparkling stare. Her gaze was heavy despite its mischievous intent, electric blue tinged with darker shades of ire. He spoke a lot, this friend of hers. Half the time, she wondered if he meant the words he said or if he even believed them himself. He studied her like an experiment, but she dealt him an equally meddling blow, testing his theories and examining him through sheer, unadulterated entertainment.

"I cannot be emulated, Antonin," she said to avoid all doubt, her tone as honeyed as liquid sugar. Whatever trickery he was inflicting upon his unfortunate witches would result in only a poor shadow. Bellatrix was a candle that burned fiercely and omnipotently, imbuing the darkness with ever deeper and more terrible shadows. Any attempted replication would be a pitiful copy. She held him a moment longer with her bristling stare, then softly laughed and glanced aside as she downed the rest of her drink. "You do like to take the complicated route, don't you? Let me get this straight: are you asking me to advise you on your love life?"

Placing the empty glass elegantly onto a table, she returned her arm to the back of the couch. It draped heedlessly, outstretched towards the wizard as her long nails tapped with mindless restlessness against the upholstery. This was turning out to be quite an interesting end to the night. She'd spoken the question frankly, yet the repeated motion of her fingers and the curve to her lips told a mirthfully agitated story. Antonin had revealed a different side to himself. She couldn't recall him ever appearing so... forlorn, she supposed. His plan did work, as his submission did somewhat take the joy out of tormenting him. Wretched wizard. But she still wasn't going to let him get away with it.

Like a cat in sight of fresh cream, she curled herself forward and slid a hand against his chest, her free fingers moving to seize her dagger from its hiding place - strapped against a pale thigh - then to raise it purposefully against his blood-stained neck. Her other palm pressed harshly, pinning him there with a savage force that he could surely overthrow with brute strength. But she was fast and merciless. He wouldn't dare.

"Don't ever try to test me." Her eyes bore into his, a deadly smile on her lips. "Rodolphus and I like you. It would be a pity to fall out over a little joke turned too serious." If he ever patted her again, she'd cut off his hand. Releasing him with a merrily sly laugh, she moved back to her spot and took to teasing the tip of the dagger into the couch in place of her nails. "The Rosiers are my cousins, you know. Leta is pure and requires preservation. Do not destroy her." A pointed glance. "I don't know the Borgin girl. Your ideas are interesting. But I don't think that strength of character can be trained or taught. It is innate. It is developed through conscious effort of the individual. You cannot force a Poodle to become a German Shepherd. If you must use magic to create your dream witch, then she will only be worth it if it's your fantasy to control a monster. Is that what you want?" Tilting her head, her smile grew broader, dark hair cascading lower across a shoulder stained by their night's battle. "Do you consider yourself an artist, Antonin? Or a puppeteer?" Perhaps both. "As for the more functional matters: if you require guidance with mental magic, I am not unskilled. It is part of my daily work at the Ministry, after all. Alecto also has some expertise, I believe. Perhaps some others in our circle too, though it might be unwise to bring too many into your plot."

It only proved him right the way she took in the gore that adorned them. Their own and those of their pray thankfully far more of the latter. They were interesting his friends that had coupled themselves. Though if he was honest he could find interest in most in some way or another, though with Bellatrix and Rodolphus there was less application required, less involved of experiments as they were interesting enough to observe on their own and they understood or seemed to enjoy being watched taken in in their element or adapting to whatever they were thrown into. “Don’t misunderstand me. I think you are worthy of being watched, and have many qualities that I would try to impart into those who I could. Maybe it is a selfish thing, or a prideful one, but I think a practice worth doing. The problem is getting the subject to take to the emulation.” He knew the words were just a barrier to perhaps buy him time or see if she took to the thing long enough to understand or even advise. “What I mean is my plans are several fold and both personal and not. I am recruiting you as I said for what you do best. There is a place we need secured. Before we can do that I need to practice some mental magics, to extract information and cover our trail. There have been perhaps a few hiccups, but I think I have ideas in place. We’ve captured a scape goat who we might let loose once properly programmed. Or leave disposed of whichever proves simpler. As far as the personal things. Well.” He watched the woman who might feel slighted. Bellatrix was dangerous in her own right, but he thought her capricious nature made her both more and less so. He would tell her what was going on if for no other reason because he thought her response would be both worthwhile and amusing. “I find myself wishing I had someone as devoted, loyal and driven as you and Rodolphous seem to be. Yes I think many people have admirable traits and I find myself curious what one must be born with and what can be added or taught. Though if you have to use magic to make someone into the thing of your desires is it really worth it? I think not, such a thing would likely make the traits unreliable at best as they could be undone by magic and it would just add worries that they might be.” He watched Bellatrix trying to gauge her interest if he failed to hold it in at least a cursory way she might become dangerous afterall or at least mischievous “Being more specific I find myself a bit adrift. With several partners, and trying ot assess what of each is a thing worth keeping, imparting to the one I wish to be the last or seeing by contrast what I can live without. Is it wrong to consider a person a control, or are people so varied it would be something separate.” Antonin grew introspective at his own questioning it was almost unsure if he was reasoning with hyimself or explaining it all to Bellatrix. “Serra Borgin, she is interesting because of how simple she is and acts I think. Young, fickle spoiled, but teachable,moldable. Leta Rosier, she is a different animal. Governed by emotion, hard working as Serra is not. Though both are ambitious the way they reach for their lofty goals couldn’t be more different. To complicate matters I am drawn in the direction of casual daliances. Perhaps because it softens the blow of being too imperfect for a union and not allowing myself to be forced into one. I think it is a missed opportunity to overcome something, but not enough that I would seek it out. I find the last generation too out of touch, worrying more about status or power. Even my own parents with their trials care more about strength than compatibility, and I have yet to find a woman strong enough to bring me to heel with magical power alone, and even if there were such a specimen, what would keep her from regretting the match predicated on strength.” He deflated slightly more into the couch, a different tiredness settling in something more inevitable than weariness of the body.

“Alright if you’re going to play a prank I won’t be more vulnerable than now, but I still want your advice and nothing too bad that I can’t hear it.” He hoped if he made it too easy she might dislike the idea more, it was boring to have prey that you knew wouldn’t fight back, and he was honestly tired, more than that he wouldn’t risk getting into an altercation with those whom he valued. It was too much a risk one or both would be put out of commission and that wasn’t a risk he could take without reason, at least right now.

#thread;antonin #antonin;1

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emmythespacecowgirl · 2 years ago

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Could I request a ship?

I have short dark brown hair and brown eyes. I have pearl earrings currently. I am 5'6. I am also ftm and gay.

I am currently learning German and Ukrainian. I play the cello (I would say that I'm pretty decent at it). I want to join the paratroopers soon and maybe get a doctorate degree in the medical field. I like writing books, reading, and drawing. I am very interested in history mainly the 20th century. I also know how to cross-country ski and love the winter.

My MBTI type if I remember correctly is INTJ. I love procrastinating and do well under a lot of pressure. I'm also very stubborn and awkward with talking to people so I don't have many close friends. For some reason, I have a sort of knack for doing things well, even if it's the first time I've tried it and that might be because I listen really closely to stuff to make sure I'm doing everything correctly. I need a straightforward path and a list of things I should do to get something done.

I have depression, anxiety and maybe (I say maybe because it's undiagnosed) maladaptive daydreaming, which basically means I daydream too much that it's a problem. Any small words of affection or reassurance sends me through the roof and makes me happy for the rest of the day (idk why). I also get angry very quickly and forget things quickly.

I am converting to Judaism so that’s cool. My sense of clothing style is just me pretending I’m in the military, pleather jackets, heavy jackets that are either camo or dark green, aviator sunglasses, a lot of neutral colours, fancy dress shirts/blouses, combat boots (which I currently do not own so just tennis shoes or winter boots), I have a few BoB pins which I have created on my own :) I like wearing t-shirts in winter under my jacket just because. The t-shirts usually have designs like aeroplanes, space, and museum shirts. I also have a collection of shirts from places I’ve never been cause I think it’s hilarious. I do a lot of things just cuz I think they’re funny.

I keep a lot of stuff in my pockets “just in case”. I impulse buy, which is a big insecurity of mine. People intimidate me easily so I usually wait to get approached to start a conversation. I like watching adventure shows like extinct or alive or expedition unknown.

I would say that I have a very dark sense of humour and am almost always sarcastic when talking to my friends (also I love irony). I have an interesting music taste, most any song I listen to goes onto my liked songs on Spotify heh. I sometimes slip into a British accent or one that isn’t mine at all.

I tend to get myself injured a least once daily. (this is a not a problem for me anymore)

Wow can I just say that you sound like the most interesting person?! I feel like we would honestly be friends irl. I also really need someone to teach me how to cross-country ski, bc I’ve never done that before 🤭

I ship you with:

Lewis Nixon from Band of Brothers!

Ship theme song: Real Love by The Beatles

Y’all make the most interesting couple!

You both know a lot about really obscure stuff

Two Encyclopedia Bitches In Love💕

He finds your dark brown hair and brown eyes so sexy

The two of you know soooo many languages

He loves when you speak Ukrainian to him

Since that is one language that he hasn’t quite picked up yet

Meeting you during the war in Germany and he thinks your German at first because you speak the language so well

Lew was raised on classical music

So he loves sitting down with a glass of Chardonnay while you play your cello

Is very supportive of you entering the medical field

You probably meet at a field hospital during Bastogne

I feel like you two will have a huge shared library of books together

Lew is a lover of pop culture and history

He can spew weird history facts at you all day

And he loves that you probably already know all of them🤭

You love to ski?!

This dude will literally buy a Swiss mountain chalet just so you can both going skiing together in the winter months

Intj and entp personalities are very complimentary just saying

Y’all nickname your house Procrastination Station

Literally, all Nix ever did during the war

Besides drink

Was work under pressure

But he’ll never push you to do anything you don’t want to do

Nix lives in a very laidback manner

And he’s glad that you do, too

This man hates to be rushed through life

Nix was that Gifted And Talented kid in school

So he relates to your ability to do things perfectly the first time

Those first few years after the war were tough on you both

Nix had a lot of baggage coming out of the war

So he understands your need to be alone

And for escapism

Nix has a way with words

And he’s getting better at showing his true affection and fondness for you through kind reassurances

He’s a great gift giver

And an impulse buyer like yourself

So your home is probably loaded with boxes of random stuff Nix just picked up for you during the course of his day

Nix isn’t really religious

Nor is he that spiritual

But he’s supportive of your conversion to Judaism

He thinks it’s a very interesting culture

He has no problem with introducing you to new people

Since he knows it can be difficult for you to approach others

In fact, he’s quite good at making connections for others

Nix loves your sense of humor

It gels perfectly with his own

You never fail to make him laugh when he’s having a bad day

And for that he is eternally thankful

#<3 #my work #the pacific ships #bob ships #ships #lewis Nixon

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catboymingi · 4 years ago

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things i have done today:

write like 4k words somehow

scream in @midnightseonghwa s dms about mingi for several hours straight

made @deonghwa question the sanity of the german people by showing that we have a single word spanning 80 letters (79 historically but in this house we stan spelling reforms)

#kuu antics #Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft #:)#you are all very welcome #very very welcome #germans on the daily be like i am going to create a word that is so long

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ogsherlockholmes · 3 years ago

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Watson was a woman? (Commentery)

FINALLY, I read the ‘Watson was a woman?’ argument, written by Rex Stout in (I think) 1941. Thank you to @221-beehives for sending me the link to it (https://nerowolfe.com/pdf/stout/home_family/BSI/Watson_was_a_woman.pdf) and someone else did tell me about it but I’m sorry, I can’t find who it was. Anyway, I’ve wrote about my opinions on it because I have many.

First of all, since the report is quite long, I’ll try to summarise it.

Stout says that he was rereading the Sherlock Holmes books, and he became confused because Watson would describe a lot of his personal life with Sherlock, but never about either of them going to bed. Then, he came across this quote from A Study in Scarlet:

‘It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning.’

Apparently, Stout thinks that these are only the words of a wife, leading him to the conclusion that Watson is a woman. He goes on to find more quotes that could only indicate a wife and husband relationship. Then (I’m quite confused on this section if I’m honest), Stout begins to order the stories in an order that doesn’t make a lot of sense. When these cases are put in order, the beginning letters reveal a name: Irene Watson. Stout believes that this is Watson’s actual name. He says that A Scandal in Bohemia was Watson’s way of confusing the audience of his identity, and was also a description of Sherlock and Watson’s marriage.

I’m sure Arthur Conan Doyle is rolling in his grave.

I can’t read the paragraph beginning ‘I was indescribably shocked’ without laughing. The HORROR this man from 20th century is going through when he reads about two men living closely is hilarious. It shocked him to the point that he individually analysed each of Sherlock’s cases to prove his theory that Watson was a female.

My favourite part is when he says: ‘Imagine a man asking another man to play him some of Mendelssohn's Lieder on a violin!’

You don’t have to imagine, because Watson (male) asked Sherlock (male) to play it. I did some research on Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and he was a German composer (specifically romantic) that created a series of lyrical poems called ‘Songs Without Words’.

According to Stout, Sherlock and Watson living their intertwined daily lives together is an example of man and wife: like how Watson complained so much about Sherlock smoking, a typical cliche in a relationship from that time.

Stout states: ‘And we have been expected to believe that a man wrote those things!’

Yes, a man did write those things. However, are we expected to believe that a man wrote those things in a platonic sense? That, I can question.

I love that this essay is basically supporting all the Johnlock evidence that we, today, look for in the ACD books. It is virtually just converting their relationship into a heteronormative layout to make it more appropriate for society, but in doing that, you are saying the relationship is in now way heterosexual.

It’s hilarious to think that this man literally started panicking about a relationship between two men and tried to genderbend one of the characters to make it more comfortable. A perfect example of fragile masculinity.

Stout also claims that Sherlock’s story on how he survived was ‘simply gibberish’ and that ‘it is impossible to believe that he would insult his own intelligence by offering such an explanation even to an idiot’. Therefore, he believes Watson invented the story since Sherlock only told him ‘My dear, I am willing to try it again,’.

Sherlock’s explanation is a bit haphazard because ACD didn’t plan on resurrecting him, but Sherlock most likely told the truth, or at least partly.

The second part of the essay is confusing to say the least. I might not be the best person to talk about this because I didn’t understand it that much, but I’ll try.

First, Stout puts the cases in chronological order and numbered them. For some reason, he believes seven is the most mystical number, so he squares it, resulting in him choosing the 49th case ‘Illustrious Client’. He then selects the fourth one, because of integers (?). Basically, he continues this strange system, again resulting in IRENE WATSON.

Stout says that Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes are in love, but since Watson is Irene, Watson and Sherlock are in love. And that they got married.

Stout. Thank you.

He ends by saying that the evidence of this relationship ‘fill two volumes’ and that I do agree with: this is a lot of Johnlock evidence, it’s basically the entire series.

This was the WILDEST essay I’ve ever read, and to think Stout stood up and made a speech about this, proving that Sherlock and Watson were in a non-platonic relationship. Then it evidently backfired, he’s just established them in a relationship.

He admits that it’s sketchy- at least he’s self aware.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (not Irene Watson) had a really strong and intimate relationship, which, from my knowledge, was not commonly written about between men during that time. You can not doubt that relationship, since it’s not even subtext: it’s blatantly obvious. Some people might try to take this away from them in the strangest ways, as Rex Stout has demonstrated, but it can not happen.

They were just two Victorian husbands, confusing men for decades on their relationship.

(Please add your opinions if you want)

#I haven't posted in a while so have whatever this is #I wrote sherock multiple times during this if anyone is interested #Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlockholmes #john watson #watson #johnlock #rex stout

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jeglaerenorsk · 2 years ago

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Hey peeps ☺️ I want to hear your thoughts on LANGUAGES!

I really like Hebrew, Italian and Greek.

But none of them are useful for my day to day life or spare time. So I want advice.

I am pregnant, I know some Swedish, Danish and Arabic(only oral Arabic), when I started this blog I was decent level of travel Spanish and could read news in Spanish.

I have family who speak French and Spanish but together we speak Norwegian & English.

Quite a few of my friends do speak Arabic so the baby will definitely hear Arabic a lot but also Arabic mixed with different languages.

English baby will learn naturally at school and just life. Norwegian too. We learn a third language when we are 13 and can pick between Spanish, French and German (and some schools have more languages too to pick from).

But I'm thinking I want to give my baby best possible beginning of language learning. I have been raised around languages from all over world and even though I don't speak many languages fluent, I understand many words from many different languages and it has meant a lot.

French is smart language to pick but I personally struggle so much with pronunciation and I'm the opposite of a Francophone 😅 and people I know who speak it are often very arrogant, that they are better because they know French which I don't like. But it gives many school and work opportunities and can be good for travel too, especially Africa and France.

Spanish, this will be easy for me to atleast participate in teaching. But I only have family who I see maybe 4 times a year that speaks it around me. And traveling to South America is not very likely financially for me with the baby so then it means Spain and I don't know if it's worth it... I don't see it as a language in my country that will help my baby for work or education. Only for entertainment and vacation.

Then it's Arabic, I think I definitely will teach my baby it because it's good to know when spoken, only risk is of course understanding when someone talks bad. It can be good for work and daily life because baby will know many who speak it and in most of Europe you will now be able to find someone who speaks it if you are lost.

Chinese (mandarin). If I'm thinking of the future then of course I believe Chinese is maybe smartest language to learn. But I don't have friends or someone close from China. And I'm not very into their cuisine. It's a very different culture from mine and way of thinking but again, China is the future, it will prepare my baby for the future to learn their culture and language. On the other hand, I will not have money to go to China and I don't know anyone who could help to practice the language.

Russian is also a language I like and internationally and some part of the country it's useful. But not for education. And it's difficult to find people where we live, to practice with because it's not practical where we live. And it's not likely to travel much there either.

I want my baby to learn another way to read and write other than the Latin scripture. But Greek and Hebrew are not useful for work (like of course it depends what kind of work but if it's about the future and not history then I believe it's not useful)-but I do enjoy music from there and enjoy listening to their language. Italian is good for travel and Greek is good for travel, but again, it's only in their respective countries its spoken, it doesn't create many opportunities 😓. So I want help and advice.

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kiruuuuu · 2 years ago

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Siege-o-ween ‘22, Day 6! 🏚️🩸

It is I again, dearest readers, with my seasonal offering of fic, prompted by @dualrainbow‘s annual Siege-o-ween event! My thanks goes out to the one source allowing me to force some writing out of myself - thank you for organising this, dearest mods 💝 My prompt was “there’s a body in his trunk, what do I do?” which immediately screams of mayhem, so who best to cause experience it but my chaotic recruits? (Recruitverse, spook and chaos, Rating T, ~6.5k words)

“Do you think we’ll get to see a body?”, Shay asks apropos nothing into the middle of Gian’s and Jojo’s heated discussion over the benefits of wearing two different kinds of shoes.

“Unlikely”, Ivan speaks up, the simple motion of breathing in enough to press Jojo even further against the door of the tiny car. As it’s a British model, Shay was their only choice for a driver, meaning Gian as second tallest joined him in the front, which leaves the German squeezed in next to Ivan Ivanovic’s bulky frame in the middle and Valenti on the Russian’s other side, having a similarly uncomfortable time. “House was cleared out days ago. Sledge is just setting up safe house now.”

“That’s what Thatcher claimed, at least”, Valenti mutters, eyes glued to the navigation app. “Take a left here. I don’t see why they need all of us for a supply run.”

“Exactly!”, agrees Shay and switches on the right indicator. “It’s weird. And you even got your phone back for this.”

Jojo grimaces, not appreciating the reminder – Sledge must’ve suffered a bruised ego on a mission or something, judging by how he’s been hounding them recently, a vendetta which culminated in their phones getting confiscated for a week. It’s the fifth day now and Jojo is pretty sure at least ten people will assume he’s dead, even more will be convinced he’s ghosting them and leave quite unfriendly messages, and the backlog on all his dailies will be unmanageable.

“Left, Shay.”

“As scant as it is, I still harbour the hope they will involve us in their next endeavour and this happening turns out to be a briefing.”

“Yes! You’re right, who cares if we a see a body if it means we’ll get to create some”, Shay lets some of his latent psychopathy slip through (likely a manifestation of Brittany-related withdrawal) and makes a right turn.

“Hey! Left! I said – Shay, the other left! How do you not get lost in Hereford?!”

“He does. All the time”, Jojo cuts in helpfully, with Gian nodding. “It’s not a huge detour, is it?” He cranes his neck to glance at the smartphone but realises soon enough Ivanko is just too fucking wide to allow for any kind of wiggle room.

“I am trying to be as small as possible.”

“Great job with that, you’re sitting on half my leg”, Valenti barks at the poor Russian. “It’s a miracle you’re not fully in my lap right now. Left here, and I’m tapping your shoulder, Shay, so you know which direction to go, okay? This one. This is left.”

“Without knowing what to expect, somehow these woods appear to me the perfect hideout for a group of scoundrels”, Gian muses, eyeing the scenery flying past the window. They’re far out, on their way at first surrounded by nothing but empty fields and tiny huts, now past the tree line and rattling through badly-maintained roads while the twilight of the setting sun peeks through tall conifers. If Jojo’s current mood hadn’t defaulted to ‘generally annoyed’, he would probably feel a little… boxed in.

Well. Even more than by Ivanko’s frankly ridiculous physique.

“If you are so uncomfortable, you could sit on my lap.”

“What?! Under no circumstances, ever, would I do that. Why don’t you ask Jojo, huh?”

It’s obvious where this is going, and Jojo is not above taking the bait. He ignores the warning half-look he receives from over Gian’s shoulder and shoots back: “Because you’re a lot shorter than me. You’ll fit better.”

Before Valenti can explode in rage, their ever-harmonious American quickly offers: “We can switch places, if you prefer. I do not need the extra space.”

“Absolutely not, I’ll suffocate with you two back here!”, Jojo protests. “Why can’t I ride shotgun?”

“I could sit on your lap and we could try driving the car at the same time”, Shay suggests joyfully and for a brief moment, Jojo pays no attention to Valenti’s furious outburst and Ivan’s low rumbling voice and Gian’s attempted appeasement. Instead, he imagines putting his arms around a slender torso and his cheek against a warm back and closing his eyes, and just experiencing peace, a peace so soothing, so -

And then he spots something, something small by the side of the road, and shrieks at the top of his lungs: “DIANA!!”

Instantly, Shay slams on the brakes, causing at least two people to hit their heads on something as the vehicle screeches to a halt. Right next to a startled corgi.

“Not every corgi is Diana, you moron!”, Valenti snaps at him, rubbing his forehead.

“Well this one fucking is, I’d recognise her anywhere. Sweetie! Diana! Darling, here!”

The dog’s head whips up at the sound of his voice, and by then everyone must’ve noticed the tartan bandanna, because suddenly they’re all yelling at Valenti to open the door and snatch the precious pet so they can rescue her. Sledge probably brought her with him and she ran off and got herself lost.

Sighing, Valenti does as he’s told and half spills out of the car when he opens the door to pick up the most beautiful girl in the world, wagging her butt with excitement now that she’s recognised them. That’s when they hear the voice.

“Oi!”, someone yells, a figure jogging towards their car. “What are you doing?! That’s my dog! Fucking stop!”

It’s not Sledge. It’s not Maestro. In fact, it’s nobody they know, so they waste no time dragging the Frenchman back in, slamming the door shut and urging Shay to step on it. Which, to his credit, he immediately does.

“Who was that?”, Gian wants to know, seeming worried.

“Sounded like girl. Teenager. Sledge has no children, yes?”

But before anyone can reply, a loud bang makes them jump and forces a curse out of Ivan Ivanovic. Jojo whips around and has no trouble spotting the large crack in their rear window. “The bitch fucking threw a rock or something! Shay, stop, we have to get her. First dognapping, now vandalism?!”

“I do not think it is advisable -” Yet Shay cares not about Gian’s opinion, opting instead to perform another emergency stop, prompting even more cursing this time. There’s someone standing in the road, they can see her clearly now, and she does not flinch when the car whooshes backwards towards her. She’s still shouting at them.

“Give her back, she’s not yours! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

Valenti shoves the gently confused Diana into Ivanko’s hands who utters no protest when Jojo takes her off him, and then the spiel repeats once more: open the door, pick up the girl, drag her inside, close the door, keep driving. Except this time, their new passenger seems less inclined to comply.

“I’m gonna kill you! I’ll kill you all!”, she threatens, probably trying to flail wildly with little success – they’re four people on the back bench now and breathing is quickly becoming a luxury. Jojo’s sole focus is the fluffy animal in his arms and he’s shielding her with his life, only just managing to press out a quiet: “Get in his fucking lap, Valenti, so help you God!”

To expedite the process, Ivan simply unbuckles the Frenchman and pulls until he slips free, now wedged between the two front seats. The back bench breathes a collective sigh of relief.

“Would you please put on your seatbelt?”, Gian softly addresses the kicking and screaming teen.

“Shay, take a right here. Uh, I can’t reach – hey, can you stop yelling and tap his right shoulder?”

“What is wrong with you?!”

“You’re the one who stole a dog”, Shay accuses her right back and somehow, through sheer luck, actually makes the correct turn.

“No! You did! I don’t know who you are. Where the hell are we going anyway?” When she reaches for the phone, Valenti instinctively jerks away, causing the device to slip out of his hands. He juggles it for a few seconds while the girl tries to grab it herself, and Jojo figures there’s no reason to get involved when Ivanko is right there with his scarily accurate coordination and lightning reactions – only his arms are firmly wrapped around Valenti’s midriff and his cheek is pressed against his back (and wait a goddamn minute), so eventually, the phone plunges straight underneath Shay’s seat.

The two combatants dive after it, knocking their heads together and trying to kick each other’s shins, Valenti nearly folding in half until Ivan loosens his iron grip and allows him a more horizontal position, and Jojo decides that if Valenti accidentally kicks Diana, he’ll sink his teeth into Valenti’s calf.

“Oh! Over here!”, Gian suddenly calls and they all yelp when Shay jerks the steering wheel for a turn so sharp it could cut glass.

“There we are”, says Shay after he’s parked, sounding proud of himself and apparently oblivious to the mayhem in the back. If he looked into his rear-vision mirror, he’d be greeted with a friendly face, happily panting: Jojo is holding their precious cargo up so she wouldn’t get squished while simultaneously trying to get away from the boot right next to his face.

“Great”, mutters Valenti from somewhere beneath the seats.

After the seven of them have piled out of the car, they stand in awe before the building looming over them.

“If I ever had to describe a murder house”, Jojo grumbles, “this would be it.” Windows boarded up, the dilapidated house (which barely deserves that title) looks anything but welcoming, rotted wood groaning ominously in their direction. The only thing missing is some crows cawing from the gables. It’d be the perfect location for a Halloween party, cobwebs and spatters of reddish-brown here and there already included. Jojo is pretty sure it’s actual dried blood.

“This is Sledge’s car, right?” Shay points to the much nicer-looking vehicle next to where he parked their run-down rental, a hand-me-down provided by Rainbow for their current task.

To their surprise, it’s the girl who pipes up with a confident: “It is, yes.”

“You know him?”

She makes a face at Valenti. “Duh. Diana is his dog, of course I know him. He’s friends with my dad.”

Oh. Ohhhh. The five of them exchange a few glances, some of which reproachful, relieved or concerned. Looks like she didn’t kidnap Diana after all. “So… you were just walking her?”

Another eye-roll. Which, fair enough. “Yes. He let me take her for the day because he said it could be dangerous if she stayed. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Who are you again?”

Gian’s politeness kicks in and he introduces all of them with their full names and nicknames before Valenti can stop him – might not be the best idea to let her know who exactly it was who stole her off the street, but Sledge would find out anyway. He always finds out. “And what might your name be?”

She hesitates for a second before replying: “Lottie. Just call me Lottie.”

“That’s an odd name”, Shay blurts out without a filter, as usual, earning him a hard stare and a: “Like you lads can talk.”

“Let us meet with Sledge and get this over with.” Ivan Ivanovic, ever fearless, is the first to approach the foreboding structure, the corgi happily trotting after him. They have no real choice but to follow.

The briefing they received was short: Rainbow wanted to install a safehouse not too far from the base and Sledge had been assigned the task of ensuring it’s liveable as well as properly stocked and secured. After not having heard from him in a day, Thatcher assumed he’d need some supplies and instructed them to check on the Scotsman and deliver some cans of food, ammunition and other paraphernalia. So now they’re here. In this creepy-ass house.

Jojo jumps when the first step up to the porch creaks loudly under his foot and receives a jab in the side by Valenti, frowning at him. “Don’t be dramatic”, the Frenchman grumbles at him.

“You don’t think this whole thing is kinda weird? It’s not like Sledge to cut contact. There are no fresh tyre tracks, so he hasn’t moved his car recently. And then what the girl said – it’d be dangerous?”

“My name is Lottie.”

He’s about to snap back just as he enters the house proper, and simply falls silent entirely. What little sunlight is left crawls through badly-covered windows and holes in the ceiling, illuminating what can only be described as a scene of battle. Furniture is overturned, broken and splintered, carpets ripped, walls riddled with holes of various sizes. Except for a multitude of foot- and handprints as well as some wiped-down areas, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. One room over, the ceiling is largely missing so Jojo catches sight of parts of the roof itself.

And, most alarmingly, there’s more blood. This time, it’s not old at all, looks pretty fresh actually, pooling and dripping through the cracks at the top of the stairs to the lower floor – and if Jojo is not mistaken, there are marks on the steps as if something (or someone?) had been dragged down into the basement.

“Looks like this is a murder house”, Lottie says what they’re all thinking.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, is Jojo’s contribution, and Gian: “Language!”

It’s Shay, of course, who decides to yell for Sledge at the top of his lungs, which is the moment Ivanko decides that no, they’re not actually going to stay here, thank you very much. He bodily pushes them back out the door and announces: “This is situation. We will bring girl to safety and then ask Thatcher for further orders.”

“She’s safest with us”, claims Valenti and sounds like he genuinely believes himself. Everyone ignores Lottie’s quiet: “I can defend myself, you know.”

“If he’s not in the house, where could he be?”

Jojo doesn’t know whether to hug Shay in moral support or enlighten him on the possibility that Sledge might be getting gutted as they speak. “We should still check it out. She can wait outside with Diana while we clear the house. Maybe this is nothing.” Despite his words, he can feel his adrenaline level rising by the second. The blood looked real. There’s definitely something going on here.

“Waiting outside may not be the safe option”, Gian cuts in, face pale. He’s pointing towards their car and it takes them a moment to spot it, but he’s right: all four tyres are flat. “We barely turned our backs. There might be someone watching us.”

Instinctively, they move to surround the two civilians (though they have to keep shifting legs to stop Diana from wandering outside their protective circle), brows furrowed. All levity is gone and Jojo catches himself checking his belt for a gun. Neither of them brought one, of course, why would they need it? “Anyone armed? We should’ve insisted on a bloody pistol at least. Fuck.”

Heads shaking all around. “I have pocket knife”, Ivanko shrugs. “But my fist is deadlier than tiny blade.”

“You think Sledge brought something? We could smash a window.”

The Russian offers Valenti an amused half-smile. “I think his wrath would be worse than whatever is going on here. But good idea about his car, I can probably open trunk.” He trudges over to the vehicle in question, making the rest of them huddle even closer, and kneels down to fiddle with something. Jojo has picked a few locks in his life though he can’t for the life of him imagine how this is supposed to work – and a few seconds later, the trunk opens with a quiet click.

“Woah”, comes from the girl in their midst.

Wordlessly, Ivan Ivanovic blinks at the contents of Sledge’s trunk, not visible from where they’re standing. Valenti lets out an impatient: “And?!”

Still refusing to respond, the Russian rises to his feet, brows raised. And just stands there. This doesn’t bode well.

“Nothing of use”, he finally says, voice suspiciously even.

“Oh for the love of -” Valenti breaks away from the group and narrowly stops Ivanko from closing the tailgate. The two of them stand there, staring at whatever it is – Ivan stoic, Valenti with his mouth open.

Sighing, Shay is the next to join them, and he at least uses his words: “Huh. There’s a body in Sledge’s trunk.”

Oh shit.

Gian opens his mouth just as a bullet hits the ground next to their feet, and Valenti’s frantic inside is wholly unnecessary seeing as they act faster than their brains can catch up: Jojo grabs Diana off the floor and dives after Gian who’s dragging Lottie with him, and two seconds later they’re all back in the menacing murder mansion, breathing hard and trying not to let it show too much.

“Search for weapons and a good hiding spot, I’ll call Thatcher.” Valenti is already accessing his speed dial while Gian assures an increasingly worried Lottie to remain calm. The dog in Jojo’s arms is struggling, yet he will not put her back down and endanger her precious life.

Shay and Ivan spread out, the Irishman rifling through the ceiling-less room while the other man checks out the kitchen, everyone side-eyeing the stairs in case they get unexpected company.

“Come on, pick up, old man”, mutters Valenti as he wanders around, phone glued to his ear. Jojo can hear the dial tone and has never cursed Thatcher for his refusal to properly use smartphones more. “Shay, make sure you don’t -”, and then he’s suddenly cut off by a shriek and metal rattling, and the last thing Jojo sees of Valenti is the look of terror in his face as he suddenly falls upwards. Almost in slow-motion, their only phone, their lifeline is yanked from him by gravity, and though Shay, the hero, dives towards it, he’s too slow. The device clatters to the ground and slips through the floorboards probably straight into the basement.

When Jojo steps into the large room with its impossibly high ceiling, it’s immediately obvious what happened: someone must’ve placed a trap of some sorts, a thick chain is wrapped around both of Valenti’s legs and he’s dangling in the air several metres above ground, struggling to break free.

“What the fuck”, says Jojo. Not even Gian complains about the cursing this time.

“We cannot rule out possibility whoever is here wants to harm…” Ivan indicates a half circle for ‘rainbow’ so Lottie doesn’t hear anything she’s not supposed to hear, and presumably because it’s funny when Shay is lagging behind in the conversation.

“Personally, I believe the likelihood to be low. This location has yet to be associated with us.”

“Yeah”, Jojo agrees with Gian, “I don’t think that’s it.”

“Oh, you mean Rainbow?”, Shay chimes in, beaming. “Well, we can ask Sledge when we find him. Right now, we should get the phone back and untie Valenti.”

Neither of them dared to ask whether the body in Sledge’s car was the man himself, but Shay’s unshakeable optimism is contagious – he saw it and seems to be wholly convinced their superior is somewhere in the building, so it couldn’t have been him who’s dead. Right?

Right.

“Good plan.” Valenti’s voice is strained as he dangles from the ceiling, having given up and letting his arms hang down like leaves from a sad plant. “Two of you should go into the murder basement to see whether you can find my phone. The other two take Lottie and Diana and come upstairs to help me. If there’s a crazy axe murderer hiding anywhere, it’ll be downstairs with all the blood, so you should be fine up here.”

“Reassuring”, mutters Jojo. “I’m not letting her out of my sight, so I’ll go up. Hang in there.”

“I shall do the same.”

“We will check out basement then. I found no useful weapon but chair leg, so it will have to do.”

It becomes clear pretty quickly that whereas Jojo is concerned with Diana’s safety, Gian was actually talking about the girl for some reason which suits Jojo just fine. He’s been training his body for exactly two purposes: impress hot guys and carry dogs, and one out of two is not bad. They all wish each other luck before they split up and the second Jojo sets a foot on the stairs leading to the top floor, he runs face first into some spider webs.

“Relax, this is nothing I haven’t heard from my dad before”, Lottie assures Gian who looks like he wants to stuff something in Jojo’s mouth to keep him from cursing any more.

They fall silent at an odd noise coming from their destination and exchange a few warning glances. No doubt if anyone else is occupying the house, they’ll be well aware of the recruits’ presence by now yet have decided not to show themselves for what can only be assumed a sinister reason. Gian is leading them with Lottie following closely behind, Jojo at the back – whichever direction they might be attacked from, the teen won’t be the first to suffer.

Wallpaper is peeling off revealing discoloured stone, stirred-up dust covers the insides of their lungs and an unpleasant smell is creeping into their nostrils. There are footprints of various sizes which betray more than one person who’s been here. Still no sign of Sledge. A narrow corridor greets them upstairs with an uncomfortable amount of entryways branching off, gaping frames without doors. Without speaking, Jojo passes the now well-behaved corgi to Lottie, in case he’ll need his hands, and they sneak forward peeking into each room they pass. It’s a similar chaos to downstairs and Jojo idly wonders whether Sledge has actually done anything with this place yet.

A muffled scream comes from downstairs, causing them to twitch, nerves raw, fingers itching to do something. Gian shakes his head: didn’t sound like a signal of distress, probably an involuntary reaction to something. If they needed help in the basement, it would’ve sounded differently and Jojo nods in agreement. Still, he doesn’t like it, not one bit. The hairs on the back of his neck are standing up and he expects something to happen very soon. He makes sure they keep away from windows as much as they can; who knows who shot at them outside, whether it was at least two people making sure their tyres were flat so they couldn’t leave, who might be trying to pick them off one by one.

It’s quiet again. Gian is visibly tense, as is Lottie who seems to be petting Diana to calm herself down instead of the good-natured dog.

The hallway makes an L shape and as they round the corner, they’re confronted with a reassuring sight at the end of it: though the floor is missing towards the back, they do see the upside down Valenti greeting them with overt relief. Jojo notes that he can’t spot where the chain is fastened keeping the Frenchman suspended, however, so they’ll have to take a closer look.

On the way to their helpless friend, they peek into the last remaining door yet only spot a large pile-up of furniture and deem it safe enough – they don’t have any time to waste, the earlier they’re out of here, the better. Cautiously, Gian inches towards the ripped-up floor from where it’s a drop straight down into the living room, and inspects the metal wrapped around Valenti’s calves. It soon becomes obvious that he’s too far away to reach him – and before either of them can decide what to do next, a sudden noise freezes Jojo’s blood in his veins.

This time, it does sound like a scream for help. And it’s coming from none other than Shay.

“Fuck”, he hisses and turns around; screw Valenti, he’s not in immediate danger as it is, and he suddenly hears the footsteps, only much too late – fast, heavy footsteps, and then he collides with what might as well have been a solid wall. Stumbling back, Jojo can’t believe his eyes: a massive figure has emerged from the one room they couldn’t check properly, of course, he should’ve known it’d bite him in the ass. It’s a mountain of a man, clad in blood-stained clothes with a hockey mask and a fucking chainsaw and if this sight hadn’t instantly activated Jojo’s fight-or-flight response, he’d have laughed at how cliché it is.

Right now, he doesn’t think it’s cliché. He thinks he may actually die today.

With an animalistic roar, the man revs up the chainsaw and begins advancing towards them, and all Jojo can think about is how to get Diana out of here, and Lottie too maybe, and that he can’t remember what the last thing he said to Shay was. Charging a giant with a functioning chainsaw must be about the stupidest thing he’s ever done, but it’s the only chance he’ll get: if he uses the element of surprise, the others might be able to escape.

Valenti is yelling something as is Gian, yet Jojo hears nothing, ducks under the first, slow swipe of the deadly weapon and grabs the man’s arm, tries to slam him against the wall and barely manages to even stumble him. A furious growl comes from the throat of the beast but it’s enough time for Lottie to slip past – Gian must’ve had a hand in her instant escape, or she’s much braver than she ought to be. Once she’s out of Jojo’s peripheral vision, he’s kneed in the side and nearly goes down from the blow before another hand joins his own in pinning the murderer in place.

“Go”, Gian pants, “Jojo, go.”

He doesn’t have to say it again. Together, they shove their attacker back and book it, Jojo in front nearly slipping on bits of loose cardboard or plaster or whatever strewn around, not looking back to see whether they’re being pursued. He’s sure of it anyway. He rushes down the stairs just as he hears another blood-curdling scream behind him. He can’t go back. Civilians first, always, they know the risk.

Always.

Turning a corner, once again he runs into someone and takes a second to recognise Shay who looks much worse for wear and roughly how Jojo feels right now: terrified, dishevelled, wide-eyed. “Ivanko’s gone”, he stammers, barely intelligible, “he just – he fell down a hole and I couldn’t – I don’t know what happened, I heard you guys and ran -”

Jojo spots Lottie right behind Shay, which is something at least. Diana wags her tail slightly. For a second, Jojo’s vision almost goes black with how incredibly relieved he is to see his best friend alive. “Do you have the phone?”

Shay holds up the device, screen cracked. “Still works. Can we go outside? We could get shot at.”

Good point. Jojo’s mind is racing. There’s no world in which he’s subjecting a teenaged girl to the dangers of a psychopath with a chainsaw, but it’s also unthinkable to run outside when there’s the threat of getting gunned down instead. “I’ll go first. If I’m fine, you follow after me. I saw another cabin on the way here, if we make it there and call for help, we should be good.”

“What about the others?”

A simple shake of the head. Too risky. They can come back once they’re sure Diana and Lottie are safe. Shay accepts his judgement with a curt nod and hurries after the German, stopping a bit short of the front door, eyes glued to where their attacker might emerge. Jojo takes a deep breath, slams the door open and -

And, uh.

… and nearly hurts himself trying to make sense of what he’s seeing.

Two smug grins are directed at him, plastered on familiar faces of familiar figures leaning against the car that brought them here. “Hi”, says Smoke, and winks at him.

Jojo doesn’t get it immediately, the adrenaline rush too powerful, so he blurts out: “Be fucking careful, you loons, you could get shot!”

“Or murdered by a crazy man with a chainsaw?”, Mute replies, joyfully, and it’s slowly sinking in.

He can’t fucking believe these guys. “Wh – are you serious? Did you do this?!”

“That’ll teach you to mess with our equipment.”

And it looks like Smoke would have more to say, except Lottie appears in the doorway and squeaks out a delighted: “Dad!”

It takes about one second after catching his daughter in his arms for Smoke to switch from surprised to deeply, utterly homicidal and Jojo connects the dots much too late, once more.

Of course. He knows Smoke’s daughter is called Charlie, which is likely shortened from Charlotte, which can also be shortened to Lottie, and she even said her dad is friends with Sledge. It makes so much sense now. No wonder she got permission to walk Diana.

No wonder Smoke is staring at him like he wants to use Jojo’s guts as Halloween decorations now. They kidnapped his daughter and brought her straight to a murder mansion. This is worse than the time they accidentally kidnapped Diana. This is so much worse.

Looks like today will be the day Jojo dies after all.

Behind him, Shay speaks up, confused: “Wait, if they’re all fine, whose body is in Sledge’s trunk then?”

~*~

Thatcher looks so fucking done.

His office is absolutely crowded as it’s not meant to hold ten people, so they’re all awkwardly seated in random places. There’s a dead house plant tickling Jojo’s neck but he’s not going to risk complaining. Thatcher’s threat of tossing his tea at the first person who speaks without permission does not feel like an empty one, seeing as he’s shaking with silent rage so much that he’s nearly spilling his Twinings. He takes a sip, places the cup on his overflowing desk, and fixes them with a level stare, one by one. The recruits first, then Smoke and Mute, then Sledge (and Jojo has never witnessed the man look this sheepish before), and Charlie gets a grim half-smile which she reciprocates to the best of her abilities. Though she’s unlikely to receive a bollocking, even she fidgets with something, clearly unnerved. Thatcher’s presence does that to everyone, especially when he’s mad.

And he’s very mad.

“I don’t even bloody care what happened”, he starts and silences several people with a single look as soon as they open their mouths. “But you idiots seem to, so it’s my duty to clear it up. What even led to this nonsense?”

Sledge is the first to speak up, voice even and composed. He seems ready to face judgement. “I was told the recruits had faked their time sheets. Recorded all kinds of exercises without ever doing them.”

“We didn’t!”, Valenti explodes instantly. “What?! We’d never do that! We have never done that!!”

“Shut up, Jean. And why did you not come to me to talk about it? That’s a serious accusation and, if true, a serious offence.”

The Scotsman hesitates. “We would have had to throw them out.”

Jojo’s jaw drops. Not because it’d be news to him that a misdemeanour like that could be the end of their career in Rainbow, no, that part is crystal clear, but – if he understands correctly, the implication is -

“And you wanted to avoid that?”

“I wanted to avoid that, aye.”

By now, all five recruits are gaping at their superior in disbelief. With how much Sledge has complained about them in the past, how they feel like he’s picking on them specifically, this is absolutely unthinkable. He wanted to protect them.

“I thought we could scare some sense into them. A wake-up call, if you will.”

Thatcher is rubbing his temple. “I will not, thank you very much. Besides, that would be a show of so much favouritism. And what do we not do, Seamus?”

“Show favouritism.” Sledge’s voice is small now, much smaller than his imposing physique. Looking back, Jojo doesn’t know why he didn’t recognise him right away. It was probably the chainsaw which hindered coherent thought in the moment. “Also, we do not threaten our recruits with running chainsaws.”

“Astute. James, Mark, is that what you told Seamus because you know he’s got a soft spot for these bellends?” The two nod wordlessly. “Is it actually true?” They shake their heads. Thatcher sighs. “So what made you set this all up? Revenge for what?”

“They broke one of Mark’s jammers and buried it in the woods so we wouldn’t find out”, Smoke replies, pouting. “And they used my guns without permission. Didn’t even clean them. Plus they stole one of my babes! I still don’t know where it is.”

“We didn’t do that either, that wasn’t us! The jammer was Kapkan, the guns was Jacob Griffin-”

“Shut your gob, Jean! If you can’t wait your turn -”

“He’s right though.” Mute shrugs. “I checked the cams earlier. It wasn’t even them.”

At this, Valenti jumps up from his chair, clearly ready to sling some choice words at the two SAS operators, and only with difficulty does Gian manage to gently drag him back down. They’re all still reeling from the revelation that Sledge actually cares about them, now it turns out they’re not even in the wrong. Even better, they are the ones who were wronged! This has never happened before so neither of them knows how to deal with it: Ivanko is frowning in incredulity, Gian accepts the truth with a stoic expression (probably happy to take the high road), Shay is still open-mouthed and Valenti seethes silently. Jojo is just amazed at this turn of events. They’re going to milk this forever.

“You’re telling me you traumatised these poor lads for no reason?”, asks Thatcher, now dangerously quiet. “Them, and Charlie as well?”

“Wait, wait, wait”, Smoke cuts in angrily, “they endangered her. After randomly kidnapping her. If we’d known she was there, we obviously wouldn’t have -”

“But you did.”

“- besides, they completely fell apart, left three of them for dead, that’s great teamwork -”

“I think it’s your turn”, Thatcher finally addresses the recruits. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

The five of them look at each other and then begin recounting the events from the previous day, trying not to embellish or put themselves in a better light than appropriate – each of them re-tells part of their story, adding to each other where necessary, while Charlie nods along and confirms their version.

It’s extremely satisfying to watch Smoke’s lips get thinner by the second while his better half shoots him annoyed looks.

“They didn’t make her feel very safe though”, Smoke tries one last time. “She gave them the name she’s only supposed to give suspicious people so I know something’s wrong.”

“Who do you think made me feel safer, the blokes literally ready to die for me, or Seamus attacking us like Jason Voorhees?”, his daughter snaps at him.

“Charlie, I’m really sorry”, Sledge mutters and looks it, too. She gives him a brief nod of acknowledgement.

“I don’t think I need to tell you that picking up random children off the street is wholly unacceptable and if these were different circumstances, you’d be getting a right bollocking for that. But since what the lads did to you was so unbelievably out of line, you get to choose their punishment. Unless you gloat about it, Jean, then you lose that privilege immediately.”

This is Christmas come early. Smoke might as well have bitten into a lemon, his face is so sour, and Mute rolls his eyes resignedly, but they know better than to contradict Thatcher on this. They made him an unknowing participant, which is likely why he’s being so strict with them – plus he seems to have a soft spot for Charlie. And Jojo is beginning to understand why.

Valenti turns to the other four and whispers: “I have an idea. Do you trust me?”

“Do you still trust us?”, Jojo shoots back. “We left you to die while hanging from the ceiling.”

“I mean, it was uncomfortable, but you did what you had to.”

Shay beams at him, Gian seems to share his sentiment, and even Ivan Ivanovic nods. There’s a warmth spreading in Jojo’s chest he usually experiences when he’s drunk and looking at his found family for a bit too long. “Yeah. We trust you. Go ahead.”

Triumphant, Valenti turns to a bored Thatcher and announces: “We’ll take an IOU.”

“Fuck”, grumbles Smoke right before Mute elbows him in the side, probably not for the cursing but rather because all this must’ve been his idea.

Jojo understands immediately: this is so much better than anything specific – the three SAS ops must now live in fear that at any moment, they could invoke their IOU for any reason. It’s a blank cheque. It’s nothing but pure power over the chaotic duo and even Sledge himself. It’s brilliant.

“Sure, whatever.” Thatcher waves them aside. “And you three better honour it, you hear me? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if they refuse, you come to me, Jean. Alright?” Either resigned or gleeful nods all around, so Thatcher informs them: “And now you all better fuck off before the caffeine wears off.”

Together, they squeeze into the corridor outside with Smoke staring daggers at them, ignoring his daughter doing the same at him. Sledge, who seems to have aged by about a decade, heaves a deep sigh. “Reckon I owe you lads a drink tonight, on me.”

“We gladly accept”, Gian speaks what they’re all thinking. “Thank you for the kind offer.”

“Thank you anyway”, Ivanko adds, “that was most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

Behind them, Smoke, Mute and Charlie are trudging off, the little gremlin still ranting about something until Mute simply leans down and silences him with a smooch. Jojo quickly turns away lest the yearning befalls him again. It seeks him out more frequently these days.

As if on cue, Shay asks: “But what about the body? I still don’t know who that was.”

“Shay, dearest, it was fake”, Jojo informs him as they start walking down the hallway. “Everything was fake. Didn’t you get that?”

“Actually, the body was real”, says Sledge with amusement in his voice and just as the other four erupt into chatty disbelief, Jojo wonders how he managed to even get this job in the first place.

Not that he’d trade it for anything. Not at all.

#rainbow six siege #fanfic #oneshot #recruitverse #smoke #mute #smoke/mute #charlie #sledge #thatcher #diana #I threw my lovelies into this together #this takes place before the most recent recruitverse pieces #but it's pretty much a standalone

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samwisethewitch · 4 years ago

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Magical Journaling

When we think of a witch’s tools, we usually think of cauldrons, brooms, and jars filled with herbs. But for modern witches, one of the most powerful tools available is a blank journal. The journal can be an altar, a workspace, a diary, and a grimoire all in one.

Creating a Magical Journaling Practice

One of the benefits of this type of magic is that it doesn’t require a lot of tools and materials. However, there are a few things you may choose to include:

A journal, notebook, or binder. Having a physical journal for your magical practice can help to ground your magic into the physical world. Find a journal or notebook that speaks to you — this could be a composition book from the dollar store, or an elaborate leather bound journal. I highly recommend using a physical book, but if you are unable to keep a physical journal dedicated to your witchcraft, you can absolutely keep one in a Google Doc, a Microsoft Word document, or the Notes app on your phone.

Colored pens, pencils, or markers. These are a great way to include the magic of color in your journal. (See this post for info on magical color correspondences.) Writing your spells in a color that matches your intention can add an extra layer of power.

Stickers, photos, and drawings. This adds a visual component to your written spells. Just like you add things to a physical ritual based on their magical correspondences, you can use images of those things to add energy to journal spells.

A Daily Intention-Setting Ritual

This method of magical journaling is based on an exercise from Lisa Marie Basile’s book, The Magical Writing Grimoire.

In the morning, before you start your day, write your intention for the day ahead. This should be written in the present tense, and phrased in the positive — it’s about what you are doing, not what you’re stopping or trying to quit. Your intention can be anything, mental, emotional, or physical. (For example: “I am opening myself to love in all its many forms.”)

In the evening, before you go to bed, write down what you worked on that day. This can be anything you did that you feel nourished you, and it may or may not be related to your intention from the morning. (For example: “I used mindfulness meditation to become aware of my own vastness.”)

Living with intention makes you more aware of your actions and can be a form of magic in itself. You daily intentions can become positive affirmations that you can repeat throughout your day, drawing strength from the words.

Using a Journal to Cast Spells

You can cast spells on the page of your journal, with nothing more than a pen and paper.

There are four basic parts to every spell: your will, your intention, focused energy, and a ritual action. All of these components can be brought into a journaling session. Your will is your personal magical and spiritual authority — you use your will simply by being aware of it. Your intention is a clear statement of what you want to get out of your spell — in journal magic, this is typically written on the page. By directing your attention to what you are writing, you are focusing your energy. And finally, a ritual action is any act performed in a ritualistic manner — in this case, that act is writing.

When casting a journal spell, it’s best to do your work in a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed. You might choose to light a candle or burn incense to help set a spiritual/magical mood, or you might not. I recommend meditating on your intention for a few moments before you begin, in order to help focus your energy.

What you actually write is up to you. It could be a simple, straightforward statement of intention, a detailed description of what you want, or even a poem. Feel free to experiment with different methods to see what feels right for you.

Journaling with Sigils and Runes

You can incorporate sigils, runes, and other sacred symbols into your journal, or use them as spells by themselves.

I’ve talked a little bit about runes in a previous post, but here’s a quick refresher: “runes” typically refer to the symbols used in Germanic alphabets before they were replaced by the Latin alphabet. The oldest Germanic rune system, and the one most widely used in magic, is the Elder Futhark. Other Germanic runic alphabets include the Younger Futhark and the Anglo-Saxon runes, which are both descended from the Elder Futhark. There are other alphabets that are used for similar purposes in magic, like the Irish Ogham. The use of these symbols in magic comes from the ancient idea that writing is inherently magical. Both the Germanic runes and the Ogham alphabet were believed to be sacred by the people who originally used them. Because of this, the runes aren’t merely letters — each symbol has a set of spiritual meanings associated with it as well.

The nice thing about runes is that, for the most part, we have a good idea of what they meant — so learning the runes can be as simple as purchasing a book and memorizing meanings. They’re also tied to ancient belief systems, which makes them a potent source of magical power.

You can use the runes in your magical journal in a couple of different ways. You can draw the appropriate runes in the borders around your spell, or write them over your spell in a different colored ink to add their power to your words. You can also use the runes alone as a form of magic. For this, speak or chant the name of the rune as you write it, and then spend a few moment focusing on it, visualizing your goal, and charging the rune with your intent.

Sigils are a little bit different. Unlike runes, sigils are created on the spot, so the meaning of a sigil is usually only known to the person who designed it. This means that, rather than learning established meanings, you’re creating a new magical symbol with a unique meaning every time you draw a new sigil. Because of this, sigils are directly linked to your will, which makes them powerful conductors of magic.

Here’s a common method for designing a sigil: Write a word or phrase that represents your goal or desire. Cross out all the vowels and/or all repeating letters. Now, use the remaining letters (the ones that haven’t been marked out) to create a design, adding artistic flourishes as you see fit. It’s okay to get creative with this, and it’s okay if the shape of the letters isn’t obvious in the final sigil. For example: if I wanted to create a sigil to manifest wealth, I might start with the phrase “I have more money than I know what to do with.” I then cross out all vowels and repeating letters, leaving me with, “v r y k w d.” Using the shape of these letters as a starting point, I create an artistic design that carries the intention of the original statement.

Sigils are usually used on their own to conduct magic. Draw the sigil in a color that matches your intention (for my wealth sigil, I would use green). As you draw, focus on your intent and feel your energy moving through the pen, charging the sigil. You can leave the finished sigil in your journal, tear the page out and place it on your altar, or display it somewhere you’ll see it often.

Sigils are especially useful for witches who need to keep their practice a secret, because they can be disguised as simple doodles.

Resources:

The Magical Writing Grimoire by Lisa Marie Basile

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith

Runes by Kylie Holmes

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helpinghanikan · 4 years ago

Text

Hot Date

Pietro Maximoff x Reader

Sum: It shouldn't have to be said that SHIELD researchers aren't allowed to date their wards. But that doesn't stop the romantic tension from forming between you. The real question is, whose feelings will be most affected when the tension finally boils over?

Anomalous weapons supervisor was typed out on your paychecks, but babysitter would be a better description. Diplomas, experience and more resulted in your butt on bleachers. Watching the important people play around with powers few in this world understood.

Whoever designed this area probably didn’t know who exactly would be using it. It had the basics; a track for running, mats for sparring and weights for lifting. With more off the wall items thrown in that might be useful to the superpowered individuals using it. Like the massive metal balls being lifted and lowered by the red magic of your charge. Or one of your charges at least.

‘Wanda seems to have complete control of her powers. Whether these powers are coming from her mind or some sort of muscle in her hands has yet to be known.’ You type out just intime to get a guest sitting to your right.

“Can I get an autograph when your book is finished?” Pietro has been working on his accent, so had Wanda. As much pride as the two had they were still looking to adapt. But there were still hints of it on certain words. Especially when he’s this close not really trying.

“Only if I get to sign those tits.” Obviously, a joke, but you still had to take a quick glance to the camera. Just in case you get dragged into a meeting and this comes back up about your unprofessional comments. Not that it would stop your work.

“I can live without the signature,” Wanda’s voice, although distant, echoed in the wide space. “You’ve spelt many things wrong anyhow.”

Few people could say they were as close to the Maximoff twins as yourself. Even after the discovery of an alien/god, of the defrosting of a super-solider and the destruction from a billionaire people were wary of the twins.

It was through simple respect that Wanda had warmed up to you. You hadn’t talked to her with artificial kindness, didn’t look to the guards when her voiced raised even the slightest. No, you had asked how she was (the room was too hot for her), if she needed anything (just wanted to know how much longer she was going to be questioned), if she liked coffee or tea (tea is preferred), and how she was doing, really doing (she was tired, you all were).

It was another story for Pietro. Only trusting you after Wanda obviously saw you as a friend. Taking his own time to warm up after getting the same genuine experience you offered rather the blunt questions and stupid statements. It was the dinner you invited them to that sealed the deal. Nothing brings people together more than a lot of meat, the warm feeling of alcohol and a quiet afternoon with a food coma.

“What have you written?” Pietro asks, your laptop now in his hands.

There’s no point in trying to stop him when he snatches things. A child who had to move fast for food and safety makes petty theft a hard habit to beat. Not to mention Wanda already knew everything that went into your daily reports with a blink of her eye, it was seemingly only fair that Pietro got to know to.

“Same stuff I was doing yesterday, and the day before and the day before that and the-.”

“Yes, yes, thank you!” Pietro says, used to the child like taunts and knowing to stop you early.

With nothing of interest on said laptop he turned it back over to you. Taking his place leaning against your shoulder as you begin to work once more. Only speaking up to ensure you add in the correct description of his improvement.

These reports were supposed to be done without the twins knowledge. You were supposed to be a spy on the side of the government. Although it was blamed on Wanda’s mindreading in reality you had never tried to hide them. These friendships were genuine, resulting with the man practically putting himself in your lap to try and keep your attention.

"How much longer do we have to do this ‘training’?” Although a grown man Pietro could act like a little boy sometimes. When he’s done, he’s done. Taking whatever actions needed to get through his current situation and move on.

“For as long as the door is closed, Pietro.” Wanda has set the metal down. Taking slow steps to reach her brother and friend. “She would likely go faster without you hanging on her.”

There is no smooth way to say this; Pietro is a big spoon. Any chance he gets a hug or to hold someone results in being overwhelmed in lean muscle. Pietro was the only warmth during those impossible cold nights as newly orphaned children. His legs and arms creating a shelter that protected his chosen from any harm from ever happening. You were one of chosen now, which explained the face made at having to get up.

“Alright kids, let’s head home.” You say, slapping the laptop closed for effect.

You were one of several who kept an eye on the twins throughout the day. Wanda and Pietro pretended not to notice how certain employees just happened to always be in the hallway when walking through. Or the little cameras that were hidden in plain sight among the decorations in their quarters. And that’s not including all the mom aged agents “just checking in” at random times, complete with the sing song voice and overuse of the word “sweetie”.

On any other day you would have followed them into their quarters. Give them a recommendation for the TV and even stay awhile to watch it with them. A chime from your phone changing the day’s proceedings. It’s only a second-long hesitation that announces this change to the twins.

Pietro says your name in a tone different than the one earlier. It’s a tone of concern that snaps your head up at him. Wanda hanging around the quarter’s entryway, staying close enough to be apart of the conversation.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, now with your attention.

“What? Yeah, yes, I just got a…you know, a hot date.” You turn your phone to face him. Not long enough for him to read the entire message but enough to know that you weren’t completely hiding anything “I’ll see you guys later. Brush your teeth before going to bed, I’ll know if you don’t.”

Before Pietro or Wanda could give a retort the door slid shut.

“Who were they talking to?” Pietro asked the only other person in the room.

Wanda didn’t answer. Rather tilting her head towards her brother. Rolling her eyes when he asked “what? Wanda, what?”

Although officially a desk agent there were times the field required someone of your talents. When this happened, all other duties had to be dropped in exchange for an outfit change and a fancy car shared with your accompanying field agent. Natasha has been your designated agent since the first field mission and could now be considered a friend.

It would seem the babysitter had become the baby. Including having your clothes laid and being helped into them before reaching the car.

“You’re an heiress looking for some expensive decorations and I am your lovely assistant and translator for the evening.” Natasha says, holding the under-suit’s legs open for you to slip into. “We’ll show up fashionably late. You are incredibly rich and important and better than all of them. So, don’t make eye contact with anyone, and try not to say anything, they’re below you.”

Unlike fulltime field agents you weren’t trained enough to go without serious protection. Not just in the form of an accompanying agent but also in a (jokingly called) bullet proof onesie. So, fitting it was essentially a bullet-proof wetsuit that stopped at the knees and elbows. Making the clothes to wear over it something with long sleeves, past the ankles and covers the neck. Sunday school appropriate for this event.

“Can I fake an accent? Like, German?” It was a dumb question for you to ask, but the ride to the gallery was already taking longer than it should.

“Hmm, Let’s hear it.” Natasha doesn’t look up from her phone but still sounded interested.

“Vell-,”

“Stop.”

Very special pieces were being auctioned off tonight. Invite only without any advertisements to say what’s up for grabs to outsiders. Although the windows were blacked out and authorities were paid off (but obviously not enough) supposedly nothing for sale was illegal. But if that were true you wouldn’t have found a seat in the front row.

The language of the night was deeply European. One or two words you could maybe guess what they meant but there was no way you could name it. Nat knew it though; it kept her ears perked to the room and her mouth right next to your ear for most of the night.

First items up were the typical rich people arty stuff; vases and paintings that probably represented something to someone if you squinted. Those went for a year’s paycheck in minutes. It was after the third portrait of some lady now long dead that Nat placed a hand on your back, just below the neck.

“Next up is ours,” she whispered. “you’re doing good and you’re doing great.”

The entire night was spent with better manners than an office setting could ever be. Back straight, eyes forward, and no one is allowed to make eye-contact. It’s only when the target was wheeled in that your mask was starting to slide.

Genuine HYDRA blueprints for a titanium prosthetic. White ink on blue paper with decades old coffee stains and tiny tears, spread up and out under protective glass like a butterfly. Although Mr. Barnes had a serious upgrade with the Vibranium he now used. But these blueprints showed just how advance the original was for the time.

Sitting forward as it’s wheeled by wasn’t enough to authenticate the prints. Something you easily communicated to Agent Romanoff with just a look.

It was a bad idea, it called why too much attention, but Agent Romanoff whipped her head towards one of the several employees of the auction. Curling her finger at them to get them over and in her speaking line.

She speaks quickly, and with an edge to her voice, to the employee. With only a few words back that same employee returned to his post and spoke to the next man in charge.

“They going to invite a few of us up to inspect the piece,” Agent Romanoff whispers, “You’re going to have to be fast, we’re going on stage.”

Others in the audience made their way onto the stage when invited. Agent Romanoff ensures that you are somewhere in the middle of it. Heels and heavy shoes making creating white noise for your work to be done.

In all HYDRA’s documents, blue-prints and almost everything else their symbol was hidden throughout it. A little game of where’s the octopus in two places. A large, but translucent, icon covering the center. And a smaller one in the bottom right-hand corner, hidden behind the creator’s signature. Reproductions never had the smaller symbol, but the stains and fingerprints ensured you were right.

Later, during the debrief, you would be lectured about the importance of subtlety and espionage. But how was the look you gave Agent Romanoff any different than how others were looking at their people?

After that (completely natural and not at all suspicious) nod Natasha’s arm was around your back. This was part you were suddenly feeling ill. This was the part your assistant/translator/arm-candy would escort you out with just enough urgency and demands for the bathroom that you’d be gone before everyone was in their seats. Apparently this was also the part a sudden security guard fires twice into your chest.

“Watch your head.” Although not yelling Agent Romanoff’s voice was firm.

It's hard to say which was scarier; the bullets aiming firing for your death or how calm and professional Agent Romanoff was about it all. Although, few rounds were actually fired inside the auction hall.

Agent Romanoff shot an arm out to the first security. Pushing his gun up and inward quick enough to catch his jaw and take him out of the game. Agent Romanoff keeping the downed man’s sidearm for herself.

That was really the only bit of action you clearly saw that night. When things go wrong in the field it’s the agents job to remove their ward from the situation with minimal injuries. As the researcher your job was much simpler; don’t die. “Keep your head down, use your arms to protect yourself and trust your agent.” Was hammered in during field training. With this mantra running over and over you weren’t in the position to watch the mess happening all around.

“Someone, call the police!” It takes a second to realize it’s Agent Romanoff yelling this. In a panicked, almost shrill, voice that practically screamed ‘we’re being victimized!’

With all the guests now properly riled up it was easier to exit the building. Allowing the oncoming mod to carry the two of you out of the building without much more fuss from security. Trying to kill an agent was one thing but killing a rich connected person (or worse their spouses) would be on an entirely new issue.

Someone stepped on your foot. Another put an elbow in your rib harder than the bullets. And a third open hand pushed you, and your agent, right out the door and onto the street. It was only through the strength of Agent Romanoff, and your handling of flats, that this mission could be considered successful.

The blueprints were already being tracked and followed by the time you’re stripped down to underwear. The pretty clothes had to be taken removed, the makeup wiped off, hair undone, and the bullet proof onesie had to be taken away. Simple tank-tops, shorts and a coat were worn on the journey home. By the time it’s all off, and you’re finally walking into the apartment, it shouldn’t be surprising how you looked to others.

“Have a good time?” It takes a second to realize it’s just the roommate asking the question.

It’s expected that any roommate a SHIELD employee takes on would also be with SHIELD. The two of you weren’t in the same division or even security level part of why living together worked out so well. She was in the know enough to hear you complain but enough in the dark to keep any secrets from getting out.

“Yep, had a real banger of a night.” Although a friend and technical coworker you couldn’t disclose too much about the missions. At least not until the green light is given by the higher ups. Instead, you can only give the people something to speculate about. “Can’t wait to see what the bruises are going to look like tomorrow.”

Spoiler alert: the bruises looked like hickeys. Something noticed by Roommate but keeping quiet about it in exchange to heading out early. Ready with the latest thing to share with the office mates.

Just like any working environment gossip is always somewhere underfoot. After being dragged in by someone who couldn’t leave it at home it’s then latching onto everyone who came close enough to hear it. Most ignore it, others listen then forget and others drag carry it further into the workplace. Until researchers leaning against the wall talk too loudly and Pietro catches a few too many words.

“Who were they talking to?” Pietro asks once the housing area’s door shut. Quickly clearing things up with the use of your name.

“I’ve haven’t seen them yet.” Wanda doesn’t care enough to close her book but does enough to look up.

“No, yesterday. Before they left, someone messaged them. Who was it?”

Wanda shrugs and returns to her book, but there’s a smile there.

“You know who it is,” He says, now on beside her. “Tell me.”

“I can’t say for sure,” She’s smiling again. Only a slight glance at Pietro. “but I think he may be very handsome.”

The siblings argued as siblings do. With Wanda teasing as sisters do. All of this could be heard before you even made it to the door. Standing at its threshold to listen as the two go at it.

“Natasha will tell you the same, Pietro.” Wanda says, probably aware that you were in hearing distance. “And she says he can do more than simply be handsome.”

Although you say nothing Wanda grins at you.

The gossip overheard is just words without evidence. Just enough to get Pietro thinking but not enough to create any serious emotions. But the “evidence” to create those emotions was now standing in the room. Small marks darker than your natural skin was peaking out from the lower neckline.

To you, they were simple bruises, nothing worth trying to hide, even something to brag about to the other desk workers. To Pietro it was marks of another person, something that pursed his lips and marched away from. Doing so slowly, to be sure that both you and Wanda were aware of how upset he was.

“I missed something.” You say, setting everything down on the counter.

Wanda has a habit of sneaking into other people’s minds. The mission, the shots and the everything was slowly being filed through in the back of your head. A pressure at the base of your neck screaming that there was an intruder.

“Stop it.” You snapped, but Wanda only smiles back.

“How was your ‘hot date’?” She finally asks.

“Is that what he’s…sonofabitch. Pietro!” There are only three rooms in this section of the compound. One being Wanda’s, another Vision’s and the third Pietro. Making it easy enough to find the pouting grown man.

“What?” He asks upon your entering.

There isn’t a response on your part for moment or two. Spending that time going to the room’s corner. Standing on tiptoes to find that switch that definitely doesn’t exist on the camera. Shutting it down for the time being before turning to start your explanation.

“You can turn that back on.” He says from his place on the bed. “There’s nothing bad we need to talk about.”

“So, you don’t wanna hear about how I was shot in the tit?”

Manners were out the window at this point. Pietro openly looking towards your chest. Back up to your face, and back down to your chest. “You were shot? They look more like…”

“They’re not hickeys, I was shot a few time through a suit.” Frustration was starting to build up. It was overflowing when you finished with “You really should know about being shot.”

The hurt on his face screamed. He didn’t look away but stayed staring forward right at you. “Pietro, I’m so…I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“It hurts,” He says. “Being shot, it really hurts.”

“I’m sorry.” Even as you walk around to sit beside him Pietro stares at where you were. Listening to your apology but not saying much else. Until he dares to lean against you. Something more than cuddling with a friend this time around. “I get it, I get you’re scared and all that. And I really like you, Pietro, I like you more than I am allowed to.”

It’s hard to say who started the kiss, but it doesn’t really matter. It was happening, and it was so much more than a something between friends.

“When that camera comes back on this didn’t happen.” You say in a moment of separation for air.

“What happens when the camera goes off again?” He asks, thumb rubbing over the bruise.

#reader insert #pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff x reader #quicksilver x reader #Pietros' alive au #One shot #Fluff kinda #Angst kinda #This is based on that window between 2012-2016 when everything was happy for the Avengers #Requested on my AOW #Not used to writing these kind of stories

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meirmakesstuff · 4 years ago

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1/2 Hi Meir! I saw your answer on WWC, and since you mentioned you're professionals, I figured I'd ask directly: I'm writing a second world fantasy with a jewish coded people. I want to be clear in the coding but avoid the "if there's no egypt, how can there be passover?" so I called them Canaanites. I thought I was being clever by hinting in the naming that the whole region does exist, but I've since read that it might've been a slur in fact? Do you have any advice on this?

2/2 I did consider calling the group in question Jewish, but aside from how deeply Judaism is connected to the history of the Israelites, I haven't used any present-day real-world names for any other group, (I did use some historic names like Nubia). I feel like calling only one group of people by their currently used name would be othering rather than inclusive? Or am I overthinking this?

Okay so I want to start out with some disclaimers, first that although WWC recently reblogged an addition of mine to one of their posts, I am not affiliated with @writingwithcolor, and second that the nature of trying to answer a question like this is “two Jews, three opinions,” so what I have to say about this is my own opinion(s) only. Last disclaimer: this is a hard question to address, so this answer is going to be long. Buckle up.

First, I would say that you’re right to not label the group in question “Jewish” (I’ll get to the exception eventually), and you’re also right in realizing that you should not call them “Canaanites.” In Jewish scripture, Canaanites are the people we fought against, not ourselves, so that wouldn’t feel like representation but like assigning our identity to someone else, which is a particular kind of historical violence Jews continue to experience today. I’ll get back to the specific question of naming in a moment, but because this is my blog and not WWC, and you asked me to speak to this as an educator, we’re going to take a detour into Jewish history and literary structure before we get back to the question you actually asked.

To my mind there are three main ways to have Jews in second-world fantasy and they are:

People who practice in ways similar to modern real-world Jews, despite having developed in a different universe,

People who practice in ways similar to ancient Hebrews, because the things that changed us to modern Jewish practice didn’t occur, and

People who practice in a way that shows how your world would influence the development of a people who started out practicing like ancient Hebrews and have developed according to the world they’re in.

The first one is what we see in @shiraglassman‘s Mangoverse series: there is no Egypt yet her characters hold a seder; the country coded Persian seems to bear no relation to their observance of Purim, and there is no indication of exile or diaspora in the fact that Jews exist in multiple countries and cultures, and speak multiple languages including Yiddish, a language that developed through a mixture of Hebrew and German. Her characters’ observance lines up approximately with contemporary Reform Jewish expectations, without the indication of there ever having been a different practice to branch off from. She ignores the entire question of how Jews in her universe became what they are, and her books are lyrical and sweet and allow us to imagine the confidence that could belong to a Jewish people who weren’t always afraid.

Shira is able to pull this off, frankly, because her books are not lore-heavy. I say this without disrespect--Shira often refers to them as “fluffy”--but because the deeper you get into the background of your world and its development, the trickier this is going to be to justify, unless you’re just going to just parallel every historical development in Jewish History, including exile and diaspora across the various nations of your world, including occasional near-equal treatment and frequent persecution, infused with a longing for a homeland lost, or a homeland recently re-established in the absolutely most disappointing of ways.

Without that loss of homeland or a Mangoverse-style handwaving, we have the second and third options. In the second option, you could show your Jewish-coded culture having never been exiled from its homeland, living divided into tribes each with their own territory, still practicing animal, grain, and oil sacrifice at a single central Temple at the center of their nation, overseen by a tribe that lacks territory of their own and being supported by the sacrifices offered by the populace.

If you’re going to do that, research it very carefully. A lot of information about this period is drawn from scriptural and post-scriptural sources or from archaeological record, but there’s also a lot of Christian nonsense out there assigning weird meanings and motivations to it, because the Christian Bible takes place during this period and they chose to cast our practices from this time as evil and corrupt in order to magnify the goodness of their main character. In any portrayal of a Jewish-coded people it’s important to avoid making them corrupt, greedy, bigoted, bloodthirsty, or stubbornly unwilling to see some kind of greater or kinder truth about the world, but especially if you go with this version.

The last option, my favorite but possibly the hardest to do, is to imagine how the people in the second option would develop given the influences of the world they’re in. Do you know why Chanukah is referred to as a “minor” holiday? The major holidays are the ones for which the Torah specifies that we “do not work:” Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, and the pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot. Chanukah developed as a holiday because the central temple, the one we made those pilgrimages to, was desecrated by the invading Assyrian Greeks and we drove them out and were able to re-establish the temple. That time. Eventually, the Temple was razed and we were scattered across the Roman Empire, developing the distinct Jewish cultures we see today. The Greeks and Romans aren’t a semi-mythologized ancient people, the way the Canaanites have been (though there’s increasing amounts of archaeology shedding light on what they actually might have been like), we have historical records about them, from them. The majority of modern Jewish practice developed from the ruins of our ancient practices later than the first century CE. In the timeline of Jewish identity, that’s modern.

The rabbinic period and the Temple period overlap somewhat, but we’re not getting into a full-scale history lesson here. Suffice it to say that it was following the loss of the sacrificial system at the central Temple that Judaism coalesced an identity around verbal prayer services offered at the times of day when we would previously have offered sacrifices, led each community by its own learned individual who became known as a rabbi. We continued to develop in relationship with the rest of the world, making steps toward gender equality in the 1970s and LGBT equality in the 2000s, shifting the meaning of holidays like Tu Bishvat to address climate change, debating rulings on whether one may drive a car on Shabbat for the sake of being with one’s community, and then pivoting to holding prayer services daily via Zoom.

The history of the Jews is the history of the world. Our iconic Kol Nidrei prayer, the centerpiece of the holiest day of the year, that reduces us to tears every year at its first words, was composed in response to the Spanish Inquisition. The two commentators who inform our understanding of scripture--the ones we couldn’t discuss Torah without referencing even if we tried--wrote in the 11th and 12th centuries in France and Spain/Egypt. Jewish theology and practice schismed into Orthodox and Reform (and later many others) because that’s the kind of discussion people were into in the 19th century. Sephardim light Chanukah candles in an outdoor lamp while Ashkenazim light Chanukah candles in an indoor candelabrum because Sephardim developed their traditions in the Middle East and North Africa and the Ashkenazim developed our traditions in freezing Europe. There are works currently becoming codified into liturgy whose writers died in 2000 and 2011.

So what are the historical events that would change how your Jewish-coded culture practices, if they don’t involve loss of homeland and cultural unity? What major events have affected your world? If there was an exile that precipitated an abandonment of the sacrificial system, was there a return to their land, or are they still scattered? Priority one for us historically has been maintaining our identity and priority two maintaining our practices, so what have they had to shift or create in order to keep being a distinct group? Is there a major worldwide event in your world? If so, how did this people cope?

If you do go this route, be careful not to fall into tropes of modern or historical antisemitism: don’t have your culture adopt a worldview that has their deity split into mlutiple identities (especially not three). Don’t have an oppressive government that doesn’t represent its people rise up to oppress outsiders within its borders (this is not the first time this has occurred in reality, but because the outside world reacts differently to this political phenomenon when it’s us than when it’s anyone else, it’s a portrayal that makes real-life Jews more vulnerable). And don’t portray the people as having developed into a dark and mysterious cult of ugly, law-citing men and beautiful tearstreaked women, but it doesn’t sound as if you were planning to go there.

So with all that said, it’s time to get back to the question of names. All the above information builds to this: how you name this culture depends on how you’ve handled their practice and identity.

Part of why Shira Glassman’s handwaving of the question of how modern Jewish practice ended up in Perach works is that she never gives a name to the religion of her characters. Instead, she names the regions they come from. Perach, in particular, the country where most of the action takes place, translates to “Flower.” In this case, her Jewish-coded characters who come from Perach are Perachis, and characters from other places who are also Jewish are described as “they worship as Perachis do despite their different language” or something along those lines (forgive me, Shira, for half-remembering).

So that’s method one: find an attribute of your country that you’d like to highlight, translate it into actual Hebrew, and use that as your name.

Method two is the opposite: find a name that’s been used to identify our people or places (we’ve had a bunch), find out what it means or might mean in English, and then jiggle that around until it sounds right for your setting. You could end up with the nation of the Godfighters, or Children of Praise, The Wanderers (if they’re not localized in a homeland), The Passed-Over, Those From Across The River, or perhaps the people of the City of Peace.

Last, and possibly easiest, pick a physical attribute of their territory and just call them that in English. Are they from a mountainous region? Now they’re the Mountain People. Does their land have a big magical crater in the middle? Craterfolk. Ethereal floating forests of twinkling lights? It’s your world.

The second option is the only one that uses the name to overtly establish Jewish coding. The first option is something Jews might pick up on, especially if they speak Hebrew, but non-Jews would miss. The third avoids the question and puts the weight of conveying that you’re trying to code them as Jewish on their habits and actions.

There’s one other option that can work in certain types of second-world fantasy, and that’s a world that has developed from real-world individuals who went through some kind of portal. That seems to me the only situation in which using a real-world name like Jews, Hebrews, or Israelites would make sense. Jim Butcher does this with the Romans in the Codex Alera series, and Katharine Kerr does it with Celts in the Deverry cycle. That kind of thing has to be baked into the world-building, though, so it probably doesn’t help with this particular situation.

This is a roundabout route to what I imagine you were hoping would be an easier answer. The tension you identified about how to incorporate Jewishness into a world that doesn’t have the same history is real, and was the topic of a discussion I recently held with a high school age group around issues of Jewish representation in the media they consume and hope to create. Good luck in your work of adding to the discussion.

#Ask #kermab #Meir Makes Stuff #Writing #jewish representation #Fantasy Writing #fantasy fiction #Mangoverse #Meir Makes Long Posts

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goldemas1244 · 3 years ago

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Heyyyy I have a question :3

Do you have any headcanon/s for these character : Scraptrap, Scrap Baby, Lady Dimistrecu, the three daughter of Lady D, Heisenberg and/or Molten Freddy ? :3

You don't have to do all the proposition, you can choose what character you want to do :3

Have a good day/evening and stay safe ! :3

*Cracks knuckles* \(^v^)/

You already know I'm doing all of them! Thank you for the ask! Headcanons under the cut!

FNaF6

Scraptrap

He loves rice and would do anything to get his paws on it. Fortunately, the pizzeria is quite close to a Chinese restaurant so rice is easy to get.

He orders a rice-based menu at least three times a week, so the owners aren't at all that surprised to see a tuxedo-clad zombie-rabbit come in and ask for their signature fried rice with buttered lobster on the side.

Since he like to dine-in there, he usually asks Michael to give him a bath in exchange for pizzeria improvements. Michael usually shrugs and gives him a well-deserved bubble bath and his tuxedo.

He likes it when Michael gives him head pats and rubs. It makes him feel loved and appreciated.

He has a pet pigeon named Fernando Buschmann. It's German and likes to listen to the violin.

He likes ASMR and memes. ASMR makes him go feral with murderous intent while memes make him question the modern generation.

He has social media accounts, all named "Willton-Moldover". He usually posts cosplays and furry art on them and has 93 followers on his Reddit profile, 1.5 million followers on his Instagram, 550 followers on his Tumblr, 35 on his Snapchat, and 3.95 million on his TikTok.

He also has a YouTube channel with 10.784 million subscribers called "Willton-Gameover". He plays videogames one-handed and roasts popular YouTubers and famous people. He would never roast Keanu Reeves though, because Keanu Reeves is precious bean.

Due to his popularity he gets a lot of hate mail and private pics. He doesn't like them at all so he blackmails the people who post them. And if the media and police are involved? Well, he has a strong fanbase that's not going down as well as a good alibi so that works out well for him.

Yes, his fanbase also knows of the Fazbear Murders, and he admits to it but frankly, he's shown them the approving ghost kids (who've bonded and gamed with him) so that's no big deal. Only Cassidy hates him, but it's usually constipated anger.

He's bisexual and has an ENORMOUS crush on one of his favourite game characters, Karl Heisenberg. Something about that man reminds him of himself and Henry, although he's not sure what. Still, don't let that distract you from the fact that he owns a nude Karl Heisenberg body pillow, CAPCOM official.

Scrap Baby

Her favourite Monster High doll is Draculaura. She doesn't understand how pink goes well with black but oh boy, pink goes so well with black.

She knows how to skateboard like a pro. Despite her weight, her trusty skateboard still stands and, if she falls, she's always got her skates to spare. She likes to impress the boys at the skatepark with her ability to perform even the most difficult of moves with ease.

She's subscribed to fifteen different tabloid subscriptions. She likes to read them and criticize the stupidity of the human race, like her father. Hey, it's hereditary.

The lights in her boobies glow in the dark. They also glow whenever she gets tired.

She likes reading furniture and gardening catalogues. She's judgy of the prices though and usually becomes a full-on critic with Lefty listening.

She owns a crab named Mr. Tootie. No I will not elaborate on the name. I'll only tell you that it's taken a liking to kazoos and party favours.

She's listed as the No. 1 Best Fan of her father's social media accounts. Michael's in nineteenth place but don't worry, he's as emotionless as a mushroom.

She likes to make origami lotuses. She's such a pro at it that she's even got a mini-stall at the pizzeria: 1 lotus for 50 cents. It's a lucrative business, and it's still growing. Oh, and she switches to other origami works of art every week such as origami guns and origami nine-tailed foxes.

She's the Restaurant Rescue manager. Usually she saves kids from trouble. For this reason, yes, she's commonly seen in the pizzeria itself. Kids love her though the claw worries the more irksome parents.

She's a professional Karen dealer. Karen comes to see the manager? She's hypnotically talented in weaving her words through the toughest of craniums so don't be surprised if a Karen walks out with a new viewpoint of life.

She performs on stage on the occasion, which usually gets her a lot of fan love. She cherishes everything good they give but ignores the problematic everythings. Problematic stuff? Oh, she's good friends with the police chief.

Molten Freddy

He loves noodles. Give him a bowl of ramen and he'll shut up for the entire night. Enter him in a noodle-eating competition and his high metabolism rate means absolutely non-stop spaghetti.

He misses Bon-Bon very much. To the point where he's even tried to make a scrap version of him. Sadly, it doesn't work. He cried that day.

He dies inside whenever he finds out there's a spaghetti shortage in Utah. Poor Molten.

He's a bit wonky, but if he tries to play with you or get into your personal space, don't get mad at him! He's just lonely and wants someone to talk to and play with.

He likes to play Exploding Kittens. It's the only card game he's good at. It's also the only card game he owns.

He sees Helpy as a little brother and boops his nose on a daily basis. He also likes to reenact The Lion King with him (It's the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiife~). Hopefully Helpy doesn't mind.

He knows a lot of jokes in a lot of languages. So German-speaking Molten Freddy wouldn't be too far away from expectation. His favourite jokes are in French though; the wordplay is just immaculate.

He's good in French, English, German, Russian, and Malay. He's currently learning Japanese because he's a mega weeb.

His favourite cartoon is Charlie and Lola. He just likes to see the sibling shenanigans as it somehow reminds him of the good old days.

His favourite shows would be prankster shows. He especially loves the ones that give him new and creative ideas. He doesn't like the scary ones though. They make him feel unsafe and give him anxiety.

Surprisingly, he has a distinct taste for opera. He can modulate the remnants of his voice box to perfectly sing I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General. This both pisses off and impresses Henry to an extent.

Resident Evil 8

Lady Dimitrescu

She might act like the opposite but she really loves Heisenberg as her little brother. His determination, strength, speed, dexterity, and workaholic nature impresses her, who can't even fit through a doorway. She sometimes wishes she's as short as him too.

She's an avid collector of glass, porcelain, and anything fragile. It's a good reason to always be careful where you tread in her lair. She'll make you swallow every last shard if you don't.

She's an avid romance fanatic and is very loving towards the romance novels she owns. All those books you see in the in-game library? They're her collection of lesbian romances that she's collected over the past decades.

She doesn't like hats and prefers to stick to the one she wears in-game. She DOES have a collection of hats though. Last anyone counted, there were over fifty, one or two for each decade she's lived through.

She files her nails on a constant basis and owns an ornately decorated nail-clipper. Hygeine is of the utmost importance. She doesn't want to be compared to that filthy Heisenberg.

Despite her size and carefulness she keeps losing her stuff. Over the course of a week she could misplace three wine glasses, two reading glasses, and fifteen bottles of wine.

She's an expert at dodgeball and golf and even owns a lifetime access to the most prolific Country Club in Romania. With permission from Mother Miranda she goes there every year for the yearly party. It's one of the times she gets to see modernity (and Ed Sheeran) at its finest.

She loves bands from the 1920s and 1940s. However, she gets bored of them occasionally and switches them to something more modern, like Ed Sheeran. Seriously though, what is up with mums and Ed?

She's into executions and torture methods. So it's no surprise that she's a HUGE fan of Horrible Histories; even if she can't watch the show, she'll binge-read the books over and over again. She's even had the chance to encounter (and receive an autograph from) Terry Deary. They have sworn a bond not to tell anybody about this.

She loves exotic animals like anacondas and jaguars. She may or may not have owned a 10ft long Saltwater Crocodile (which was also about 5ft wide).

She's an incredible physicist and mathematician. She's also created many original formulae but unsurprisingly, she doesn't tell anyone about them, for fear that either more people may know of her, or that she may be wrong.

Dimitrescu Babes

They can devour an entire human being in mere seconds as flies. It's sort of like the scarab beetles in The Mummy movies. However, unlike the beetles, they are able to strip the bones as well. They leave nothing behind.

They all know how to play the piano with varying levels of success. Daniela can already play professionally while Bela is still stuck on Grade 5.

They love to listen to their mother when she tells them stories. Gotta hand it to 'em, when you're a fly, you know how to enjoy life in its most simple of moments.

They all love being around the hunky Soldats of Uncle Karl. Fortunately, they don't know of the rebellious plan to conquer Miranda.

Bela is bisexual, Cassandra is asexual and pansexual, and Daniela is demisexual.

It gets hard when you're a fly during the summer. If it's not the lizards, spiders, and other predators, it's the heat. Because of this, despite the material waste, they have invented the world's first blood-powered air conditioner.

The three girls have never ever ever touched a stove or oven in their life. They HAVE touched the hot end of an iron though. A good reason to not touch a bloody oven. Alcina has though, but doesn't tell them that.

They love puppies! Uncle Karl brought them a baby labrador. For the rest of the week Alcina had lost quite a bit of favour from them. Not that they minded of course. IT'S A PUPPY.

They don't like snow one bit. Not just because it's cold, but because it's too white. Too bright. Too shiny. They just can't focus on their prey!

They like to go over to Auntie Donna to play with Angie. Well, you know what they say, crazies attract the crazies, and the crazy has attracted the crazies.

They also like to go to Uncle Moreau's because he's the only one in the village with a PS4. Usually they'd spend about three-quarters of a day playing his games and eating his cheese.

Karl Heisenberg

He owns a dark blue armchair named Junkyard. Despite the name, he loves it dearly because it was a gift from Alcina for his twenty-first birthday. It became part of his final transformation too. Right under the hat.

He's a little blind in the right eye, much to his annoyance. It was a minor accident with Sturm; another reason for him to hate the uncontrollable wretch. He'll never live that day down.

Somehow, he sees better in the dark, which is why he wears such tinted glasses. He also wears them to hide his expressions, since, more often than not, he tends to end up wearing his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions in his eyes.

He's under a lot of pressure so it's no surprise that he breaks down in his factory when he knows he's alone. And by break down I mean crumple into an exhausted heap on the floor. Not even his Soldat Jet squad can wake him up until he's had a reasonable eight hours of rest.

He bathes once a day, every evening, but only three times a week. Perfume, tobacco, and cologne keep care of the rest.

He's the only Lord with a daily contact with the outside world due to his electrical abilities. Don't tell Miranda, but he can electrically CONNECT TO GOOGLE AND THE ENTIRE INTERNET IN GENERAL. He likes to play funny YouTube cat videos in his head when Miranda's having a boring meeting. It's also how he finds out that Chris is a boulder-punching asshole.

He does stimming! He likes to tap his fingers on his desk and the metal rails in his factory. He also buys stim toys from the Duke and keeps them in a well-kept box. His favourite is a non-ripping squishable toy duck. He also sings to chill out.

He's absolutely in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, and may have once believed in the pizzeria's existence. Come on, he's a mutated Overlord with magical magnet powers. Children souls stuck inside animatronics isn't too far-fetched of an idea. His favourite characters are the Funtimes and the Scraps, mainly because of the blueprint complexity. He HAS tried to replicate the animatronics in his spare time, but he's usually too busy with his Soldats so the project gets scrapped. He loves The Living Tombstone's songs and remixes though.

He doesn't like William Afton at all (though he marvels at his survivability). William's nature and habits remind him of Mother Miranda. He DOES however enjoy Michael Afton and often thinks how it would be absolutely amazing to have that resilient being in his Soldat army.

He's scared of what lurks below the watery depths and fire. Ironic because his brother is a literal fish and he works in one of the most hazardous fire-conducting environments. He's also scared of heights, though he doesn't get airsick.

He once died due to a killing electric shock whilst working on Sturm. It's the only time he's felt that sort of pulsing agony and also the first time he's had the confirmation that yes, Hell is real and yes, he'll end up in quite a dark pit in it. Or it could've been an electric dream, who knows? Anyways his soul apparently ran towards the opposite direction of the flames and he woke up alive after the passing of FIVE ENTIRE WEEKS. Oh boy did Alcina get worried when she couldn't find him.

Thank you for the ask! I hope you enjoy!

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