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ailoda · 4 months ago

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ᯓ★ favourite writers

@luveline

@whirlybirbs

@pellucid-constellations

@aquaticmercy

@wkemeup

@intrepidacious

ᯓ★ favourite fics

Undisclosed - @pellucid-constellations

Desperate to outrun a secret that could cost you your life, you seek refuge in a small mountain town. Its deep forests and small cabins make it the perfect place to hide, but the travel website hadn’t mentioned anything about the quiet, burly lumberjack that wouldn’t leave your thoughts. No one had warned Bucky about you either.

I remember this being one of the first series I read after coming back to Tumblr. I wasn't one for Marvel AU’s at the time, as I preferred to read canon or adjacent fics, but I took a chance on this one and it completely changed everything. I absolutely loved it. It has the perfect amount of fluff and angst, and a plot to rival some of my favourite published work. The story and background are so well-placed and developed that it was too easy to fall in. I devoured this in I think two days - non-stop reading until I finished. It completely opened me up to AU’s. I come back so often as a sort of comfort read, and no matter how many times I’ve read it, I still get excited and devour it like I’ve never read it before. One of the first fics I thought of when compiling my 2024 favourites.

Just One Kiss - @sarahwroteathing

Bucky Barnes has been chasing after you since he was ten years old, but you’re determined not to give in. How long can you hold out when all he’s asking for is just one kiss?

This was the first 40s!Bucky fic that I read and is to blame for my 40s!Bucky obsession that has lasted all these months. I was completely enthralled from the first paragraph, and it stands as my favourite 40s!Bucky fic and easy my top 3 series overall. I religiously come back when looking for a comfort read or for getting my 40s!Bucky fix. It's amazing how well the characters (both canon and not) have been interpreted and developed, and as simple as the plot feels, it just works so well. There's no need for any plot twists or big moments to push the story along; the characters and the way they all naturally feed and contribute to the overall plot are more than enough. It's written so well that, despite reading it well over 10 times, I still feel all the emotions and feel just as empty finishing it as I did when I first read it. I really wish this was a printed book that I could have on my shelf; that I can always reach for and never be deleted (pls don't ever delete it!). It’s the cutest fic that has me laughing, crying, and kicking my feet no matter how many times I read it.

Twin Flames / Two Sides of The Same Coin - @anonymityisfunwriter

Grumpy x Sunshine Series

I couldn't decide on one - they both HAD to be included. These are to blame for my falling completely in love with fan fiction after a decade away. I hadn’t had Tumblr in so many years and decided to re-download during my Masters for some escapism, and boy did this deliver. The dynamic is amazing - the way they bounce off each other is a testament to the amazing writing and character development. The way they manage to create a sunshine!reader with so much backstory without it feeling childish or forced is, again, a testament to the amazing writing and planning, and just…*chef’s kiss*. Despite taking some plot points from canon films, I really enjoyed how these scenes didn't feel boring or repetitive. Similarly, I love how the reader is able to fit in seamlessly into scenes that we had already seen and bounce off an already established dynamic between Sam and Bucky. The thought and effort that must have gone into the reader's character development, never mind the series as a whole, is so evident. I have re-read and re-read these for months and will continue to do so until the end of time.

By Any Other Name - @wkemeup

When Agent Barnes is assigned undercover within Hydra, he finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife to the head of Hydra… you.

I re-read this quite recently and it felt like finding an old song that you loved hidden in your playlist. I've now re-read it twice in the span of a week, it's just so good. This fic stood out to me partly because of its writing and interesting and well-thought-out plot, but also because of how well-written I feel the reader is. The reader is multi-faceted and far from one dimensional, which I've found is a barrier for me reading these types of fics. While the reader embodies typical traits associated with feminine protagonists in this genre - such as submissiveness and other conventionally 'feminine' attributes - these are not portrayed as weaknesses in the typical sense. What I mean is that they are reframed to be strategic strengths. She wields her femininity and perceived lack of power in a wholly make-dominated environment to her advantage. At the same time, her 'true' strengths compliment these qualities, creating a balanced and complex character that also has room for the development we see throughout the fic. A defining aspect of the reader's personality that I really enjoy is her self-awareness; they know when and how to act, and when to hold back, making her a compelling and empowered figure in a story and genre where that is so difficult to achieve.

From the Void, with Love - @whirlybirbs

Watch two forever-lovers fall in love again.

This was my first Loki series, and boy was it a good one to start with. I'm not one to read Loki fics usually as I can never usually find ones that entice me, but I was so happy to have stumbled upon this! A testament to the planning and writing ability was the way the reader’s involvement in the TVA storyline was interweaved without it feeling unnatural or forced. I love how the inner-workings of the reader's mind is included, and how their thoughts and feelings are so seamlessly interwoven into scenes without it feeling clunky or taking away from what's going on. I also really enjoyed the comedic elements, particularly the thoughts and reactions the reader had to things happening and how they bounced off Loki's dialogue so well. I found myself laughing so many times. It's one of those fics where you wish you could go back and read it for the first time again.

When It All Falls Apart - @bucky-bucket-barnes

The fate of the universe was in your hands. Bucky and you had been sent to retrieve the soul stone, a seemingly simple task. Unbeknownst to you, there was a hefty price to pay for such an exchange. You’re able to return to Earth, but it’s soon apparent part of you was left in Vormir.

This has to be one of my favourite fics of all time, but I also hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It feeds my deepest, most love-deprived soul. I personally feel that angst is so challenging to write and write well. Part of why I feel that way is because I feel that good angst needs to convey emotions and feelings effectively because it's about expressing the character's inner world and guiding how they feel to drive and guide the plot forward. A difficult aspect of this is ensuring the reader feels and understands the character's emotions rather than letting their own feelings cloud their perception and misinterpret the character's rationale and journey - keeping the story's emotional trajectory clear and true to the characterisation you have set. This is something that this writer can do so so very well. I cried the first time reading it, and the emotions still hit me after reading it over and over again. If anyone watches K-Drama’s, this has Uncontrollably Fond vibes. Such a good read if you’re looking for that heart-ripping angst.

My Own Soul’s Warning - @aquaticmercy

You, an immortal being, fall in love with the very mortal Bucky Barnes. You would do anything for him, even if it meant you had to strike a deal with Death herself.

This is another fic that I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. I fell in love immediately. It's the fic that cemented @aquaticmercy one of my favourite writers. Well, that and the fact that they have some of the most intriguing and well-thought-out plot ideas that I've seen. It's difficult to choose a single fic really, but I cannot not choose 'My Own Soul's Warning' - it's a difficult one to compete with for me. The writing is one of the best I’ve read and the flow and feel of the story is second to none. It seems that with every new addition to this story, it just gets better and better (which I thought was impossible). They are able to narrate feelings and emotions so beautifully that it's impossible to not feel what the reader is experiencing. One of my favourite aspects is how they are able to think of things I would never have even thought of, and how they are able to write and explain these things and communicate feelings so well. Another aspect as to why this is so beautifully written, and why @aquaticmercy is a favourite, is when a writer can - without being explicit in their writings - craft a story where the depth of emotions is palpable without needing to be spelt out, leaving readers to grasp and feel them on their own. Where the reader is feeling more than their own emotions and feelings in response to the story, but also what the writer has curated and intended them to feel. Being able to do this without explicit writing is so difficult, and part of the reason why they are one of my favourite writers in general. I've tried to explain my deep feelings for this fic in a way that hopefully makes sense, but it's difficult to write everything I love because there is just so much to say. I am in love and we are married.

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patrice-bergerons · 2 years ago

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Quick FAQ on Tumblr, "Value", and the Proposed Crab Day

Motivation: I see a lot of misinformation circulating on the dash re the proposed crab day and I wanted to offer a simplified and judgement free perspective using core principles of finance.

Q: We keep being told that tumblr's been making nothing but a loss for years, and yet, if it is so unprofitable, then why is no one is shutting the website down? Is it really in need of our money if it's already owned by a multi-billion dollar corporation?

This is in fact not as much of a paradox as it appears to be because "value" in corporate finance terms is a function of present and expected future profits (adjusting for the fact that profits you expect to be earn in the near future are worth a lot more than equivalent profits expected to be earned much later in time).

This means that you can have a company or a product that is currently making a loss (i.e. costing a lot more to run than the income it generates) and it might still be worth some (or a lot of) money as long as you expect it to generate enough profits going forward. Uber for example has been making a loss for years and is still valued at billions of dollars because people think it will eventually generate a lot of profit.

Q: What does all of that mean for tumblr, specifically?

Given how unprofitable tumblr has been historically it's actually a pretty good sign that management has a plan to try and make it profitable because it means they haven't thrown in the towel yet!

But if they fail or if they decide that no matter what they do tumblr will remain unprofitable, then they wouldn't have much business incentive to keep running it. This is why participating in crab day or spending some money on tumblr in general is a good idea, if you can afford it and if tumblr is a service you would like to keep enjoying into the future. And if the answer is no to either of those questions, that's ok too--don't let anyone guilt you on this.

Even more questions-and-answers under the cut! My inbox is also open for any (good faith) questions you might have.

Q: But we all use tumblr religiously--isn't that enough?

Not quite. Tumblr's current state means that the existing userbase is not enough to make the site profitable. For that to change, either the existing userbase needs to become more profitable, or tumblr needs to get a lot more new users--or have a combination of both.

Q: Can crab day really solve all this?

Once again, not quite. A one time cash-injection is not equal to sustainable income, which is what tumblr ultimately needs. This means tumblr will still need to court potential new users and that entails some change to the design and/or the perception of the site. (I love tumblr but guys, if we are real for a second, last time I told my coworkers that, they asked me if I also had a myspace account.)

Q: So why participate then?

Because it will still help. While some change is inevitable and necessary, if we the existing users put our money where our mouth is, it would send a strong signal to management that we value the service they offer and that they should take our preferences into account in designing the site's future also. Also some cash, even if it is a one time deal,

Q: I heard people who came up with the idea are transphobic Christian fundies--do you really want to associate with people like that?

I don't. But who the blogs behind this idea, as people, are has no bearing on the merits of the idea itself.

#crab day #save this hellsite #im gonna say something i never explicitly have #and ask that you rb this if you agree with it #finance is confusing! and the more we get the message across #the better i think #for keeping tumblr around for a long time

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sophieinwonderland · 9 months ago

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Reminder That System Medicalism is a Religion: Exhibit A, @theinfernalcollective

This is pretty typical sysmed rhetoric.

And in typical sysmed fashion, has no sources to back it up whatsoever! As always, sysmeds rely on an argument by assertion. Facts just aren't on their side.

Never have been, never will be.

So they give a couple sources.

First is the DSM which doesn't say trauma is needed in all cases of DID, only that it's associated with trauma. It makes no such claim for OSDD-1 being associated with trauma at all. And on top of that, doesn't even mention the word system. Which is pretty big since most endogenic systems don't have a dissociative disorder and don't claim to.

Basically, it's a nothing source that doesn't back up what they claim it does.

As for Dr Candy Fox...

There's no evidence she actually said this.

And she has yet to respond to the message I sent her website. (Because yes, I did send her a message on her site to see if she actually agreed with this.)

But based on the context, it seems pretty obvious she would have been talking about dissociative identity disorder, not "being a system."

Now, before going any further into this conversation, let's take a step back and remember The Infernal Collective asking the anon to name a single psychiatrist, obviously expecting they wouldn't be able to.

How did THAT go?

Oh right, it's how it always goes when you meet a sysmeds' goalposts!

Did you expect anything different?

"This psychiatrist saying you can be plural without trauma doesn't count because he's talking about transgender people."

"And also the screenshots of his peer-reviewed book that was published by the American Psychiatric Association are posted on a site I don't like."

So when linked to an email from a dissociative expert, someone with 40 years of experience treating dissociative identity disorder, they again retreat to just... not liking the website the image is posted on?

And again, their source for Dr. Candy Fox was just something they allegedly heard in person during evaluationMeanwhile this is an actual email, with one of the foremost DID experts in the world!

Also, for the love of the gods, Transgender Mental Health does NOT say "transgender make plurality." Actually read the thing!!!

But hey, now that I'm done with that particular conversation and got what I need to make my point, I'll confess! All these anons were me!

Reminder, again, their source was "my doctor said it, trust me bro!"

And while I only named a couple doctors over the course of that conversation, I could have dropped so many more!

The fact is, it's not hard to look at a link and read the screenshots therein. Here, I'll even post the pics!

And in case you're thinking that they just trust Dr. Candy Fox's opinion so much and hold her in such high regard...

Nope.

But then...

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BASING YOUR BELIEFS ON?

Because it's not psychiatry. You can't cite a single doctor anywhere who has said you can't be a system without trauma!

System Medicalism is a Religion!

Sysmeds, like transmeds, do not base their bigotry in science or rationality. They do not follow the opinions of experts.

It's a religion to them! The Church of the Holy Trauma believes that Trauma and only Trauma has the might to bestow plurality upon the few chosen. And their faith is so unshakable because they've been told this by random uneducated nobodies on the internet, and it just feels true.

And because their FAITH in this idea is so strong, no amount of studies will change their mind. No amount of doctors coming forward to support endogenic systems. No amount of literal brain scans will convince them endogenic systems are real. As the saying goes, you can't reason someone outs of a position they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

In the end, sysmeds continue to be an anti-science hate group with a religious devotion to their ideology of hate.

And this whole disaster is just another example of that.

#syscourse #pro endogenic #pro endo #systempunk #syspunk #system punk #multiplicity #endogenic #systems #system #sysblr #plural #plurality #actually plural #actually a system

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what-even-is-thiss · 9 months ago

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This is rather personal so I completely understand if you don't want to respond to it, but how do you manage being transgender in Christian spaces?

I have so many very close trans friends who I would love to invite to church and whatnot with me, but I'm always very concerned about possibly putting them in dangerous and uncomfortable situations.

I do my research before entering most Christian spaces I’m unfamiliar with. I most often stick to ELCA spaces because the organization as a whole is queer positive and I know what symbols and terminology individual congregations use to indicate they’re queer friendly.

I think what’s good to remember is that individual congregations and organizations within the same denomination can have different policies. Like there’s some individual ELCA churches that are homophobic and some individual Baptist churches that are queer positive.

If you don’t know how an individual space feels about queer people it might be worth just asking the pastor or priest. Also in a church setting there’s a difference between being tolerant, accepting, and affirming.

Tolerant means they don’t like you at all but they won’t kick you out. Accepting can often be a we’ll accept you and even be friendly but we might still quietly think it’s wrong. Affirming means they’re positive about it. Yes it’s okay that you’re gay and we don’t care that you’re gay at all. We might even celebrate it.

Different denominations might also have symbols they use on websites or church signs to mark themselves as a queer friendly spot. The ELCA has reconciling in Christ (RIC) congregations for example that use this symbol:

If that symbol is on their website or posted somewhere in the church that means the congregation has voted to have an official policy of being welcoming to lgbt+ people.

Other denominations might have different policies about it. I know from living in urban Texas for a while that affirming Baptist and Methodist churches don’t generally have subtlety about it when they’re enthusiastically pro lgbt because they’ve got a reputation for being nasty towards the gays and so when they’re accepting they tend to advertise that so people know.

When in doubt though, ask. And judge for yourself whether their answer is good enough for you. Some people are fine going to a church that just quietly ignores their gayness but other people want full acceptance and affirmation upfront.

When you invite your trans friends into religious spaces do your homework first and give them an idea of the full picture so they can judge for themselves. Some people will walk stealth into the mouth of conservative hell and some people will wanna wear a rainbow flag during the service. Just make sure your friends know what they’re walking into.

#religion mention #roman said a thing

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psicheanima · 8 months ago

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i got intrigued by the fact that you did a senior paper on the witches from madoka - can you please tell us some more about that? i love when academic work ties to personal interests.

I can do you one better. You can just read it. Screenshots as it’s from a website. This is the actual final. I can’t include my analysis portion in an image because there’s a ten image limit on mobile. So it’s under the cut. And please be gentle, because I wrote this when I was 18.

Icebox Cake

Icebox Cake is the alternate name for the pastry Charlotte. This is of course a reference to the witch Charlotte, who the poem is about. This story is a direct adaptation of Charlotte’s canon backstory as revealed in the Magia Record Game. Charlotte is the only witch in this collection with a concrete backstory, and the only one who we know the real name of — Nagisa Momoe.

Nivelles Charaxinae

Nivelles Charaxinae is a reference to both this witch’s namesake and her design. The witch this story is about is Gertrud, named after the saint of gardens, Gertrud of Nivelles. Charaxinae is a reference to the type of butterfly that is in Gertrud’s witch form. The names of her roses in her diary entries are names of saints. I wanted to give her roses human names to show they are the true ‘humans’ to her, but also maintain a degree of disconnect. I think like Gertrud’s namesake, saints are the least human human you can be.

In case your words are all that’s left of me…

In case your words are all that’s left of me… is the only poem with a completely made up title. Though I want the ending of what happened to HN Elly, the witch of this story, to be up to reader interpretation, her feelings of having no real presence besides her online one was something I wanted to make very clear, so that’s why I chose this title.

The usernames are all references to songs sung by Marguerite in Faust. Faust is a work with immense impact on Madoka, having numerous references both visually and story wise. Most notably, quotes from it are littered in every witch labyrinth. Keeping with the theme of this poem being the odd one out name wise, HN Elly actually has another name— Kirsten. This is after Dorothy Kirsten, who famously portrayed Marguerite, which is why I paid tribute to her role.

POESIE SCHMECKT GUT

I based most of my references off the real life women the witches are named after. It shows most in POESIE SCHMECKT GUT. The namesake of this story’s witch, Elsa Maria, is Elsa Asenijeff. POESIE SCHMECKT GUT was a publishing firm for one of Elsa’s books. The base storyline is based off of Elsa’s unhappy arranged marriage, and the religious and star theme was already there in Elsa Maria’s labyrinth.

Guernica

This poem is all about visual art from the point of view of a girl who doesn’t really understand it, so I was a perfect person to write this. All the references were surface level, sort of awkwardly shoved in ones to famous pieces and artists. The title is reference to one of Piccaso’s most famous pieces, an extremely meaningful and striking abstract about war. For this witch, who is named Izabel, who does nothing but copy others, I couldn’t think of anything better to name her story, because I knew she herself could never find value in Guernica.

It’s raining again today. How long will I continue to be unlucky for?

There’s not a lot to say about this one, but I think the witch that it’s about, Patricia, would like that. The story is pretty self explanatory, but it’s one of my favorites because of that. The title is reference to a line in her labyrinth.

2 parts Absinthe 1 part Brandy 1/2 part Gin 3 parts Vodka 1 part Crème de Mûres

This witch, Roberta, is pretty special. First off, she’s an adult witch, the only in the series. She’s said to be fond of alcohol, which I tried to portray in the lack of grammar and punctuation, like you’re listening to the incoherent thought stream of the intoxicated. The title is the ingredients to her namesake, the Aunt Roberta cocktail, which is the strongest drink in the world.

Source Title: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Source Creators: Atsuhiro Shinbo & Gen Urobuchi & Shaft Productions

Year Published/Produced: 2011

Setting: The series mainly takes place in the fictional city of Mikakihara Japan, 2011. The rest of the series takes places in the otherworldly “Labyrinths”, dark mental landscapes based on the inner feelings of the witch they belong to.

Plot Summary: The series follows a middle school girl named Madoka Kaname, who is approached by a creature named Kyuubey to grant her any wish in exchange for becoming a “magical girl” and fighting against witches— supernatural creatures that kill humans. Eventually, it is revealed witches are fallen magical girls who fall into despair and that Kyuubey purposefully creates this magical girl to witch cycle to feed off their sadness, as his species uses said emotion like energy to fight otherworldly creatures far away, to prevent the destruction of the universe.

In the end, Madoka becomes a magical girl to wish for all magical girls to get happy endings— which erases witches from existence, including herself, as all Magical Girls eventually become witches. This creates a paradox through which no one remembers her anymore, except one person, the girl who had wished for her not to live a normal life more than anyone.

Key Character Descriptions

Charlotte— The witch of sweets, it is her nature to be tenacious. Charlotte used to be a ten year old girl named Momoe, who became a witch after falling in despair at the death of her mother.

H.N. Elly— The box witch, it is her nature to be covetous. Her labrynth and cards all imply that she was an internet addicted shut-in turned internet-famous idol, who cracked under the pressure of constant performance.

Elsa Maria— The shadow witch, it is her nature to be self-righteous. Due to her religious imagery, many theorize she was driven to despair after finding out the witches she slayed as a magical girl used to be fellow humans. However, I based my story on her on the life of her namesake, Elsa Asenijeff.

Gertrud— The rose garden witch, it is her nature to be distrustful. Nothing is known about her backstory, so I constructed my adaptation for her based on the info we do know about her, such as the fact that “she holds roses dearer than anything else” and that, “she loathes the thought of humans trampling her labyrinth”.

Patricia— The class representative witch, it is her nature to be an onlooker. It has been said she used to be a normal, serious girl who was overlooked by her classmates. In the show, her wish is for her school life routine to go on forever, which is what I based my adaptation for her on.

Izabel— The artist witch, it is her nature to be vain. In her prior life, she was an artist suffering from a creative block who yearned for others to notice her. It is said that every art piece she produced was something “that you have probably seen somewhere before”.

Roberta— The birdcage witch, it is her nature to rage. Before she became a witch, she was a party girl living a life of surface level relationships, specifically with men, but secretly, she was disgusted by all of them. Her wish was for friends who wouldn’t dislike her.

Cultural Themes

The fear of being alone is a major theme in Madoka Magica, as depicted through the struggles of various characters. Sayaka Miki's desire to win the affections of her crush, Kyousuke, despite his lack of care for her efforts, highlights her fear of being unloved. She becomes obsessed with trying to gain his love, ultimately leading to her downfall.

In a more subtle way, Mami Tomoe's yearning for companionship also highlights the theme of fear of being alone. Despite her cheerful and big sister-like front, Mami is revealed to be deeply lonely and craves companionship. She reaches out to other magical girls in an attempt to alleviate her loneliness, but her efforts are paid in dust.

And of course, the biggest example of this is Homura Akemi's refusal to let Madoka die. Homura goes to great lengths to protect Madoka, trapping herself in a time loop to prevent Madoka from becoming a victim of the magical girl system. Her actions are driven by her fear of losing Madoka and being left alone in a world without her, to the point where she would even let the universe itself be destroyed to save her love.

Through these characters, the series explores the visceral human need for connection, and the disastrous consequences that arise from the lengths we will go to to obtain it.

The central message I want to explore in my adaptation is the prior lives of monsters. Through these stories of monsters before they "became" monsters, I want to delve into the idea of how the creatures of Madoka Magica, framed as so inhumane the literal art style changes for them, used to lead extremely human, flawed lives before the show portrayed them. Using a simple, fairytale-like style of writing and multiple types of writing, like receipts, reviews, and diary entries, I want to portray the mundaneness of their lives, and just how involved in the world they were. That they were real little girls, with real lives that impacted the things around them.

Motifs

The most common motif in Madoka Magica is fairytale motifs, specifically Eastern European fairytales. Witches, little girls tempted by strange creatures, candy houses. One character, Sayaka Miki, even has her entire story based on the little mermaid. She loves a boy, he doesn’t love her, she sacrifices everything for him anyways and then turns into a huge, mermaid monster. I aim to invoke this through my style of writing, taking a simple yet whimsical approach.

Why Madoka?

I like almost everything about this anime. The characters, the love they have for one another, the Czech fairytale-like art style, and that despite the dark themes, the story never supports falling into the darkness yourself. One thing I dislike is that the short 12 episode length, while making the series very “complete” also serves to stunt the potential of a majority of the characters. As the series relies on the connections these characters have, it would have benefited very extremely from a longer run-time to show us the chemistry between the girls and their loved ones, as the lack of screen time can make these deep bonds seem rushed and superficial. I want to try to convey the importance of those deep bonds in my work, but like I said, it’s a matter of time, not passion, so my adaptation can’t fix this issue.

Adding sequels and prequels has, in my opinion, sullied the impact of the original work. Madoka Magica is an intensely popular brand, and thus, is extremely profitable. Making spin-offs for the short series seems obvious from a business point of view. But a majority of these spin-offs are just made simply from this business point of view, and nothing else. One example of this is the most popular spin-off series for Madoka, "Magia Record," which takes place in the same universe with a new, expansive cast of characters. The show feels like a cheap imitation of the original series. Instead of trying to explore new interesting themes or go into depth on the topics brought up in Madoka, it’s just trying to recapture what made it so special without truly understanding why it was so special in the first place.

One of the primary cultural fears explored in Madoka Magica is the fear of death, specifically the death of the ones you love. At the end of the series, it is revealed that Madoka’s aloof best friend, Homura, is actually in love with her and has been stuck in a time loop trying to prevent Madoka’s death, which proves unavoidable. The finale deals with Homura stopping the time loop and accepting her crush’s death, and that the world will move on without her, and so should she. The series tells us death is natural, it happens to all of us, and we cannot stop it. But we can honor the ones we loved and lost and step into the future as they would want.

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paper-beats-writers-block · 1 month ago

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The Marauders, Modern Facism, and Me.

This post is mostly for me, but if it makes you feel something too that's a bonus.

tl;dr for those with a TikTok attention span: The Marauders lived through their own version of the rise of facism. Use their story as not only inspiration, but as hope. Their passion and their love is what killed facism in the end.

The extended cut:

My name is Ren, and I live in the USA. Not just the US, but a red state in the midwest. And I am fucking terrified.

As well as being terrified, I have also really really struggled with being a part of the marauders fandom. Being a subsector of the HP fandom still means being in the HP fandom, and that's a hard thing to swallow right now for a lot of people for extremely good reason. We don't want to associate at all with Jackass Rowling, but we don't want to let the meaning and memories we've made of the content surrounding the series go, because that's a terribly hard thing to do.

I found the marauders at the ripe old age of fourteen, right after I had finished the HP series. I checked the seventh book out of my high school library on the last day before everyone left for quarantine on March 12 of 2020. After finishing the books I was scrolling pinterest and came across a piece of art that happened to be a cover of a marauders fanfic. The art was a link from pinterest, and it took me to wattpad, and that's how I found fanfic. They were the self insert characters "twin of sirius black" "the not like other girls female fifth marauders" and I probably read like twenty of them in a week. In the recommendeds of one of these stories, it took me to a full blown series of the marauders, clocking in at 2 million words+, and the author is still updating. and they're INCREDIBLE (the first four books (900k+) are on ao3 if anyone is curious let me know). I read all seven books at the time over my freshman year spring break.

I read for escapism, as many do, but I started to put these characters in every aspect of my life so I wouldn't be alone. I spent most of that summer in my bedroom researching on the HP website and plotting out a massive multi year fic that I started and never finished, and likely will never finish. But that one fic series I read did a lot for me. It gave me hope, and it gave me comfort. It gave me inspiration to write a series of my own and to plan and think and be creative. The most important thing that it did, though, was talk me through what it was like to be queer.

Third year Remus falling for his best friend and not having a clue in the world what to do about it, and Lily setting the best example I could ever ask for of how to react to that. Sirius realizing it right back a few months later. I spent my whole life in catholic schooling. I had never even heard of gay people. I read about Nico di Angelo when I was ten but it flew right over my head. and I had no idea yet, but Just like Remus, I was also in love with my best friend. Because of this series, I managed to skip the unskippable cutscene of most religiously-raised queer kids--the shame that usually comes with being a queer kid. Most of my high school friend group was queer. Nearly all of my college friends are. And I'm in a happy relationship and going on nearly three years with the same best friend I fell in love with at fourteen.

Onto the modern fascism part. America. land of the free, home of the brave and the dreamers. *scoffs* Tarrifs, billionaires, deportations, nazis, police brutality, inflation, and more horrible awful things that I didn't name. And that's just in my country. There's so much hate everywhere all the time and it just feels like bad news after bad news. I've spent the past few days bedridden with a sprained ankle with no motivation but to doom scroll and it only made me more depressed than I already am.

But what I was too young and naive to understand at fourteen, I have a better grasp on now being a few months from twenty: they grew up during the rise of wizard facism and wizard nazis. And when they left school, they fought like hell against it. They stood up for each other, they let their community stand strong. They lost friends and family, and people they trusted betrayed them, but they didn't lose every shred of hope they had. And even more than that, they still showed up for each other. They had meals together. They got drunk together. They celebrated birthdays and engagements and weddings.

We the Facist Fighters have already lost countless people. We the Facist Fighters have already been betrayed by the people that we trusted. But I am choosing to be inspired by these characters created by a jackass and make them my own--our own--instead.

"We buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for." -Dan Savage. This quote was originally about the AIDS crisis, but it can, and I believe should, be applied both to the era of the wizarding war of the 70s, and now, in the real world 2020s.

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ckret2 · 1 year ago

Note

I need to know: how you think bill would be in chat if he ever got the priviledge to get a phone or use a PC?What social networks would he use?

Types in all caps at all times. Punctuation optional. If someone asks him to turn off caps he instead doubles the font size. He can do this even on sites/apps that don't allow you to change the size. He won't say how.

Considering this is 2013? He's probably a pioneer in spreading misinformation and bullshit on twitter. He's one of those "MANIFEST LOVE and $$$ get your DREAM JOB through the POWER of the LAW OF ATTRACTION" cultish New Age grifters making money off a website selling self help PDFs. He's building an internet cult.

Anyone who knows him IRL gets to hear him laughing about how stupid his followers are. However it sounds like he kind of buys some of his own New Age BS to a degree that worries people.

He gets in stupid drama and then spends all night digging up something to cancel his opponent over and sic his followers on them, not because he thinks he's justified, but sheerly for the thrill of the hunt. It makes him feel powerful. His twitter has been banned four times. People run webpages dedicated to documenting his heinous bullshit. He reads them regularly.

He's waiting til 2014 when bitcoin prices drop to like $50, buying as much as he can, spending six years waiting, and selling them in 2020 for like $69,000. He runs a blog telling people to buy crypto. He can actually foresee when the prices are going to peak and fall. He doesn't share this info. He makes bank himself and gleefully ruins everyone else's finances with no regrets. (He would encourage Mabel to buy and tell her exactly what day to sell.) (He would not tell Dipper when to sell.)

He hangs out in doomsday prepper forums so that he can make up new conspiracies and see if he can make everyone even more paranoid.

He's got a youtube channel that's a mix of all of the above BS. New Age self-help buy-crypto buy-gold our-universe-isn't-real access-the-higher-planes doomsday conspiracy mishmash. You can imagine the viewers he attracts. He disdains them all and tries to make them worse on purpose. Never shows his face, every video is a slideshow of psychedelic & pseudo-religious art (mostly stolen) with a voiceover and mystical-sounding music.

Mabel gets him on tumblr, because if Mabel has any social media of course it'd be 2013 tumblr, and probably a deviantart. She's posting her art and really badly photoshopped gif edits of her favorite cartoons and musicians, and generally acts like a normal person online.

Bill's tumblr is completely divorced from all his other horrible online activity. All he posts is cryptic rhyming couplets and terrible local photos of things that fascinate him. The photos could be anything from a car with a really sweet flaming paint job to a stunningly beautiful double rainbow over pine-covered mountains to a literal pile of dog shit because he thought it was interesting how it was drying out unevenly. Once he gets investigated for arson because he posted a picture of the house in flames within three hours of the crime. (He was, in fact, guilty, but he wheedled an alibi out of friends before they knew what he was being investigated for.)

He has like eight followers. The only content he reblogs is Eye of Providence images and pyramid images, which he tags #LITERALLY ME and thinks he's hilarious for; and also every single thing Mabel posts without exception until the end of time.

#anonymous #ask #bill goldilocks cipher

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thecallofthecrow · 9 days ago

Text

Okay, We Gotta Talk Real Quick

MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING: RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE AND HATRED, MISINFORMATION, AND QUITE HARMFUL RHETORIC

Before you doomscroll further down this post, please take your eyes on to this article written by the New York FUCKING Times and who they platformed: https://archive.is/7ESf2

Go on, take your time, I'll wait, I got all day.

Well, maybe depending on who people side with I might not.

Oh, you're finished? Well allow me to retort.

It's not Paganism's fucking fault for Donald Trump.

"Oh look at Kuro getting political all of the su-"

Bitch I'm only getting political because the fight was brought to us. If I'm not gonna stand up for my own then who is? You? The guy/girl/enbie next to you having their rights taken away day by day by a movement that is moving forward at an accelerated rate to the point where people are so scared?

Right, now that we have that out of the way...

Okay, so, we caught heat from the New York Times, and one particular man by the name of "David Brooks" who interviewed one "Tom Holland" (no not that one, your sexy man is safe with Zendaya). Put both of these assholes on your "shitstirrers looking for an infight" list and put them both on your "return to sender" list.

Now, I might be filled with a bit of Crow Mama's battlefury, or Adsagsona's (arguably righteous in this case) fury at the very idea that her follower (ya crow here) could be targeted by psychos like these in the coming storm ahead.

I live in a Blue State now, hooray! What's not hooray is if other people who are Blue don't stand up for us and disavow this kind of rhetoric instantly, because most of us who are walkers of this path ain't got shit to do with any of this. And now we're catching heat from a supposedly righteous website and news editorial for... Trump?

Okay, let's take a step back.

How about we argue the points themselves since I've found Christians - particularly Catholics and the less chill branches - hate when you do that. I'm going to be taking quotes from the article, so trigger warning again for strong religious intolerance, AND HELL MAYBE SOME OTHER SHIT I MISSED, IDFK. Do however keep in mind that this was an opinion piece and may not reflect the values of the other writers of the New York Times, but they platformed these shitters so it's fair fucking game now motherfuckers.

Point 1.

"If there is one word to define Trump’s atmosphere, it is “pagan.” The pagan values of ancient Rome celebrated power, manliness, conquest, ego, fame, competitiveness and prowess, and it is those values that have always been at the core of Trump’s being — from his real estate grandiosity to his love of pro wrestling to his king-of-the-jungle version of American greatness." ~ David Brooks, Paragraph 2

Okay, so, Pagan values? Ancient Rome? Do you think... Do you think modern Pagans are like, into that shit for one? There are Roman and Gallo-Roman Pagans who celebrate their deities but what the fuck do you mean we "celebrate the values of power, manliness (lol I know more female Pagans than men for one), conquest (???), ego (okay that one can be fair in certain circles and covens), fame (lol), competitiveness, and prowess?" You think we're going around trying to take Constantinople back or something? I mean, that was done under checks notes Constantine, who decriminalized Christian practices in Rome and is largely responsible for the Christianization of Rome.

There's an argument to be made that they did take over the Gaul regions while still practicing Pagan practices, but they were pretty chill with just uniting their gods together and sending them on their way. A LOT OF FUCKING PEOPLE DIED TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN, and don't get me started on what that did to the Celts and the Western Germanics, but that's a problem for later.

Power

Our own power. The power within us, and our brothers, sisters, and enbieren. Those who cannot fight for themselves. We stand for those people and ourselves, and manifest our power within ourselves.

Do people abuse it? Fuck yeah, I see people reblogging curse content all the time (and I worship the lady associated with a lot of those curses) but you don't see me going out of my way to overpower the government for the sake of some holy righteous mission for my Goddesses.

I'm just some Crow loving asshole who runs a Tumblr blog out there to help baby and middle tier witches trying to find their way, and give a bit of advice here and there. Like, fuck, man, I use my power for the good of other people, whatever power I have.

Manliness

Like I said in the quote, I know waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more female witches and general pagans than male. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but a lot of Pagans these days that are kicking around are either Wiccans, ex-Wiccans, or descended from Wiccans. Wicca wouldn't be where it is without those brave women who kicked reason to the curb and chose their lane to fight and stand in. They chose the lives they decided to live. And even today, a male witch like me is looked at almost as an oddity.

Do I know male witches who have manliness as one of their virtues? Yeah, but that doesn't dominate their personality. I see more Deus Vult Christians who idolize manliness than witches and pagans. And trust me, I know a lot of them.

Conquest

Point me on a fucking map to a place Wiccans, Pagans, Witches, you name the Pagan branch that has been taken by us. Oh, you can't, can you? That's right, because we ain't about fuckin' conquest you fucking blathering idiot. And you're only talking about the Roman Pagans who follow that particular sect, but we'll get to the Hellenists later who you throw under the bus in the same fucking breath you blithering narcissistic psycho.

Ego

Okay this is the only one I refuse to argue against, because let me be real with y'all for two seconds, you feel me?

WE AS A RELIGIOUS SUBSECTION HAVE A PROBLEM WITH LETTING SOME OF THE MOST EGOTISTICAL JACKASSES RUN THE NARRATIVE.

Okay, storytime. When I was a Hellenist (no shade to you guys, alliances and pantheons change, let the process happen) I was gaslit constantly by a pseudocoven that was more like a group of the worst fucking people my ex and I knew, and they were CONSTANTLY making claims they couldn't back up about being the very essence of deities and shit.

You can say "but Kuro you claim to talk to your Goddesses what does that make you?" Insane. It makes me In-fucking-sane, but if you're a follower of this blog you're well aware of my mental fucking illnesses by now. I could be talking to Goddesses, it could very well be my imagination. I call it communing and channeling. Because I believe it.

Does that make me some "super special awesome privileged witch that gets to only talk to his Goddesses?" No, they probably commune, and I know they do if we go back to Izzy from the Morrigan's Oracle (follow her on YouTube!) she communes with The Morrigan and Brigid. She also communed with Kali. Shit if I know who else my Goddesses talk to (although Adsagsona is a little more predictable because she sticks to me like glue and has me do stuff for her every day because I'm probably her only modern worshipper, let's be real). I'm not special just because I connect with my Goddesses. You could probably do it too if you try. You might be doing it and not know it.

My partner put it best, "I'd call anyone who claims to hear Angels or Jesus, or God insane just as I call you insane (lovingly)." We're all fuckin' crazy here, every one of us that follows a religion. What matters is what you manifest and that you manifest good for the world, and that it returns to you.

Fame

I don't really know any non-authors (who don't go by pseudonyms) outside of Tumblr who are really "famous" outside a certain frame or subset of communities. Back where I lived there was this shop that was well liked and stuff, but they barely made it to get their lease for another year through community support. This was in a red state, so YMMV but there are no "famous Pagans" really that are of any relevancy outside our relatively small circle.

Competitiveness

Bro who the fuck are we the Pagan Olympics? Are there competing Green Witches seeing who can grow the best plant (I mean plant shows but that's beside the point). Do we have curse offs? See who can fucking curse the other person better? Where is this value coming from? Nowhere, that's where.

Covens can get bitchy, and they might have spats with "Rival Covens" but that's like, nothing, and I would say a large majority of Pagans these days, in at least the US, are solitary practitioners or family practitioners.

Prowess

Bro do you like, not want to be good at stuff? Is a Christian value laziness or something because last I checked every goddamn worthwhile human being on this goddamn rock wants to be good at something. Nothingburger statement.

Point 2

Holy shit, are we just now getting to Point 2? I feel like I've written a longer post than the NYT on this shit already, gods damn.

"The pagan ethos has always appealed to grandiose male narcissists because it gives them permission to grab whatever they want. This ethos encourages egotists to puff themselves up and boast in a way they find urgently satisfying; self-love is the only form of love they know." ~David Brooks, Paragraph 3 (Oh sweet Brigid we're only on Paragraph 3, Goddess above).

The "PAGAN ETHOS"

Bro we can't agree on shit, and half the shit we agree on is contradicted by someone else. The "Pagan Ethos" at this point seems to be "Survive another fucking day in a rapidly growing place that doesn't want us," and that's just the US. There is no "Singular Pagan Ethos" that at least I know of. Bro, what Pagans are you talking to? Who is feeding you all this? Go to another fucking church cuz your Pastor has either drank a little too much of the Satanic Panic Kool Aide or this is some overt psyop made to make us feel unsafe, and I'm leaning towards the former.

There are many paths we as Pagans walk, and each is individual to their own practice. To say there is a Pagan Ethos is to say there is a singular path where there is none. We aren't a massive sect, we aren't a massive force, we are a small minority of religious people following individually guided ways of life that differ from each other. I see like fifteen curse reblogs a day and I say nothing and move on cuz that's not my path (As much as Sona wants it to be).

In short, there is no "Pagan Ethos." If you wanted one, take the Wiccan Rede by the way. How does that go again? Oh yeah, that's right.

"Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An ye harm none, do what ye will."

That's the short of it.

Point 3

"The pagan culture is seductive because it lures you with images of heroism, might and glory. Think of Achilles slaughtering his enemies before the walls of Troy. For a certain sort of perpetual boy, what could be cooler than that? But there is little compassion in this worldview, no concept that humility might be a virtue. There is a callous tolerance of cruelty." ~David Brooks, Paragraph 4 (this is taking too long).

Pagan culture and cruelty being in the same paragraph is hilarious. Everyone I've met aside from the pseudocoven has been pretty chill. No one aggressive or mean, aside from my buddy's mom who is uh, her own can of worms. She's also a Lugh worshipper, and he flat out told me to fuck off so uh...

To the Underworld with me I suppose. An Morrigan gets a little laugh every time I tell the story.

Anyway, humility is totally a Pagan virtue. We are but specs on this earth and, as far as I know, are trying to make things better however we can. We know we are not gods (well some of us do LOL). We try to give back to Earth the best we can.

And don't get me started on the Druids, that's like, their whole thing. Modern Druidism isn't like, animal sacrificing and shit. Hell, most Druids will tell you if you see a dead animal part in a forest, leave it the FUCK alone. Let nature take back what she grew and all that.

So like, where is this whole herosim, might, and glory thing come from?

Heroes and Heroics

So, being a Celt Pagan myself, we have quite a few tales of glory and adventure. Being a worshipper of Rhiannon, I got that Mabinogi strapped to me the whole way through. It's very confusing, give it a read! It's moderately easier to understand than House of Leaves :D

Jokes aside, we tell tales of virtuous, and often hubris driven heroes and caution ourselves to live better lives than them, and hope we never enter their shoes, but to put it bluntly, be prepared to put your tale in history.

Let's take me, your local schizophrenic who is the last person you should be taking advice to on positive mental health qualities!

I'm pretty much prepared to die at every given corner, but I'm paranoid as fuck, as are many Pagans who read that article right now. Trump's people comin' for us, now the other side.

"Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right! Here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

~Stealers Wheel, 1972

And I don't mean this as an "Orange Man Bad" post, I honestly think Bo Burnham (I'll shut up about him eventually I promise) put it best;

"Every politician, Every cop in the street Protects the interests of the pedophilic Corporate Elite!" ~Socko (as played by Bo Burnham), ""INSIDE", 2020

Don't trust a fucking word any politician says ever. You'll stay safer that way and you won't feel betrayed when a news paper column platforms a psycho and another psycho trying to spread misinformation and lies about you and yours in the name of stopping the opposition. I think every politician - left, right, middle, whatever - is out for their own personal gain so while I'm framing a lot of this as anti-Trump keep in mind, I'm an unhinged lunatic who hates every politician who does nothing but stand by as my people get hurt and do nothing about it because their fake lies and pretty prayers don't protect shit when it comes to people in the street being hurt, killed, or worse.

Stay your own ally. Take care of your community. Vet people. Don't trust these motherfuckers and their pretty lies. Okay next section.

Point 4

"Tom Holland is a historian who wrote several fine books of classical history, like “Persian Fire.” Gradually he became more and more appalled by many of those ancient pagans — those Caesars who could slaughter innocent human beings by the hundreds of thousands while everyone thought this was totally fine." ~David MOTHERFUCKING Brooks trying to gaslight you that everyone was just cool with the stuff Caesar was assassinated for, Paragraph 5 oh my god why am I even entertaining this at this point?

Caesar

Complicated figure in Roman history, blah blah blah got fucking stabbed by a bunch of people in the biggest proof that group projects are carried by a few people who are actually dedicated to the bit in history. Fun fact, Caesar was attacked by a bunch of people, like, the assassination was public and a lot of people were involved, but only a few of them actually stabbed him. Fun facts.

So you're making us believe that Roman Pagans were just like, cool with Caesar slaughtering "thousands" of innocent human beings without a complaint, not even one in the complaint box.

"Oh, slow day in Rome huh? What? Caesar went and personally slaughtered thousands of innocent people? Fuck yeah, fuck those bitches. High Roman Five." ~Some Roman Figure Living in David Brooks' head as a voice through history.

You think people were so chill with him killing "thousands" of "innocent human people" and that the assassination was COMPLETELY UNRELATED to his policies huh? Is that really the hill you're going to die on? Alright, let's cut the bullshit and get to the facts.

Tom Holland is a historian who wrote several fine books of classical history, like “Persian Fire.” Gradually he became more and more appalled by many of those ancient pagans — those Caesars who could slaughter innocent human beings by the hundreds of thousands while everyone thought this was totally fine.

Rome Under Caesar

I'm gonna try to use the least amount of sources as possible but we're getting into history so there's a lot of accounts and sources, HONESTLY you should probably just read Caesar's Wikipedia page and follow the sources here because it'll be 9999x less schizophrenic than this, tbh.

According to fucking history.com (https://www.history.com/articles/julius-caesar-ancient-roman-dictator-importance for those curious) Caesar did a lot to shape the world after him, and honestly, motherfucker had it coming for a lot of reasons but we'll get to that.

Appointed Governor of the Northern Territory of Gaul in 58 B.C.E. No biggie by itself but he then proceeded to expand Rome's control all across Europe, including the very way to the Atlantic and parts of the English Channel. Obligitory fuck France.

55 B.C.E (count backwards in B.C.E. remember?) he literally built a bridge across the Rhine in 10 days because he was a madlad whose madlad capacity could not be contained.

So let's ask you, David Brooks, are these Gauls the innocents he was slaughtering? I mean they weren't bothering no one (ignoring each other, the Western Germanics, each other again, goddamn they just wanted smoke) but they were Pagans so THAT'S probably not the problem you have, because they were ancient Pagans and according to you any innocents were just killed by Pagans so Caesar good for controlling those bitchass Pagans right? Right? No? Okay, let's continue.

3. Civil War by crossing the Rubicon that was the entire opposite of Civil because Caesar was just kinda like that. You're standing at the Rubicon River dividing Gaul and Rome and some motherfucker just brings an entire legion across it. What are you going to do? Well, fight across Spain, fucking Greece got involved, North Africa somehow found itself in the middle of it, prompting Pompey to retreat to North Africa where uh.

They weren't fucking wanted so you guess what happened to them.

So, if we're keeping track, David Brooks, that's a lot of dead Pagans. I mean leading an entire legion of Pagans across the Rubicon to slaughter a bunch of Roman Pagans and force them into North Africa (which you don't give a single fuck about don't even try to pretend). Then there was a battle in Greece in 48 B.C.E. that forced Pompey to retreat, again, to Egypt, but ya know, Egypt in the olden days. So you don't care, right? No innocents dead yet according to you. We on the same page? I'm not seeing where you're finding all these innocents you're complaining about him slaughtering. According to you, they're all Pagans so who cares, right?

4. Pompey was assassinated at the behest of Ptolemy XIIi., BECAUSE HE WANTED HELP AGAINST CLEOPATRA VII. Hmm very interesting. I wonder how that turned out for him.

Oh uh, Ptolemy was defeated in 47 B.C.E. because Caesar's forces showed up, then put Cleopatra and her 12 year old half-brother in charge, but she was in the HBIC so who cares, right? Pagan on Pagan violence according to you. Then Cleopatra gave birth to Ptolemy XV who was joked to be Caesarion WHICH prompted Cleopatra and Caesarion in 46 B.C.E. to move to a villa on the banks of the Timber River, where Caesar visited his lover frequently in apparently violating the law, but that was a Pagan law so who cares, right David Brooks? Thus it was bad and you don't care.

5. Okay so we're getting to the Dictator part in a minute but uh, there's some interesting history with Celo after that but we'll get to it.

46 B.C.E., he declared himself according to HISTORY.COM by the way as "Dictator for Life." Yeah. That's a doozy. You know, just declaring yourself the eternal ruler of a place, sure couldn't go horribly wrong, right? When in history has a despotic ruler who treats his subjects as mere afterthoughts ever gone wrong. Now I see you looking up what happened before the Bolshivek Revolution (February Revolution - the Russian Civil War, from 1917 to fucking 1922 by the way) and I'm just gonna keep it short and say the Emperor of fucking Russia wasn't a great guy no matter how much the Russian Orthodox Church argues for it and I'll take that to my fucking dying days.

So, back to Caesar-

"Your Tumblr post is longer than the fucking OpEd you're criticizing and you're only on the fifth paragraph, can we not speedrun this?"

It's my hyperfixation and specialty and I make the rules.

Back to Dictator for Life Caesar.

Did some stuff like granting stuff to retiring soldiers and redistributing land to the poor and canceling debts. Pretty popular stuff if you ask me and I fail to see where the innocents were getting slaughtered this? Isn't the whole Christian thing, especially US Christianity, about being good to people who give something as sacred as their lives up for their nation and giving to the poor? That's a pretty good move, but it sure as fuck kicked up a hornets nest against the elites.

To quote Socko again,

"No shit."

So, he minted coins with his image, made his birthday a public holiday, and literally, and you can fact check this, ruled Senate from an actual fucking, and I mean ACTUAL FUCKING Golden Throne.

UHH. I'm starting to see some problems with this guy but we haven't reached the murdering innocents parts.

6. Wow a calendar. Cool. So, cool facts again, Rome ran off a 355 Lunar Calendar. Pretty baller if you ask me, because running things off of the moon is pretty cool and ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Goddess above here comes the Julian calendar with Sosiggenes. Fuck you man. 365 1/4 days with a leap year every four years? Man, maybe I should hate this guy MORE than I do. I mean that's pretty fucked up, changing shit off a lunar calendar, something that as we know is very important to Christians, a lunar calendar, based on the moon, the moon they have nothing to do with, the moon they don't worship gods of, the moon that-

Yeah I'm overdoing the bit. I am convinced through my own mental illness that Caesar did this just to piss me off thousands of years later. Fuck you and your calendar Caesar and Sosigenes, shove it. This all officially went into effect in 45 B.C.E. on Jan 1st. Sound familiar? Yeah we fucking use that shit but it had to be edited because by the 1500's that shit was 10 days off the seasons, which is kinda bad from the predominantly agricultural forces of the world while the New World and THEIR Pagans were more worried about, I dunno, fucking the invading colonialists and Spanish Inquisitions. Priorities people. So since people were so butthurt over a poorly thought out calendar system that was stupid from the get go and mattered only in Europe at the time, Pope Gregory XIII modified the calendar by just saying "You know what? God says fuck those ten days and only one out of every centennial years would be leap years." And to show how butthurt the Eastern Orthodox Church was about Pope Gregory XIII's decision, some parts of it still use it.

Oh and they renamed the birth month of Caesar, Quintuilis, to Julius which became July. So that's why we shoot Fireworks off every July 4th and traumatize people with PTSD, animals, and all sort of other people with mental illnesses and disabilities every year /jk kinda sorta it's complicated.

7. So, so far Caesar has killed other Pagans for the sake of killing other Pagans because they didn't want him in charge and gave stuff to soldiers and the poor. Where's the problem here, David Brooks? Note he didn't include a source on Caesar just mindlessly slaughtering "thousands of innocents a day and no one cared" because OpEds can obviously be filled with as much misinformation as the publication is allowed to get away with. And goddamn do they run the gambit in this.

Yeah, he went pretty nuts later with all the honors and crazy shit, having statues erected in his honor in temples which actually probably pissed off more of the Pagans than anyone else. And David Brooks' definition of innocents only seems to include Christians affected rather than the Pagans who were killed cuz.... They were in a war? Over land? Classic shit every world leader, but especially the Vatican has pulled for hundreds of years. So why do you care when CAESAR does it, eh? He's done more to piss off the political elite and rich and- ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Okay. I see.

Anyway, so they ended up killing him, on the Ides of March, or the 15th of March for those of you who aren't history buffs or care about stupid bullshit no one has cared outside of history obsessed people and Roman Larpers who forgot that Caesar was largely uh, not a Christian at all or even existed at the same time that it was popular in Rome. Mark Antony played everyone for fools, because the public really liked Caesar so when I said no one gave a shit earlier I was kinda wrong. The public turned on the conspirators and drove them out, but they still got the fuck away with it so point stands.

Caesar and why David Brooks thinks he just murdered swaths of innocents for no reason

Good question, next question.

Point 5

"The callous tolerance of cruelty is a river that runs through human history. It was dammed up, somewhat, only by millenniums of hard civilizational work. The pagan ethos — ancient or modern — always threatens to unleash brutality once again. The pagan ethos does not believe that every human was made in the image of God, does not believe in human equality, is not concerned about preserving the dignity of the poor. It does not care much about the universal feelings of benevolence, empathy and faithfulness toward one another, which, it turns out, are absolutely required for a democracy to function.

We seem to be entering a pagan century. It’s not only Trump. It’s the whole phalanx of authoritarians, all those greatness-obsessed macho men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It’s the tech bros. It’s Christian nationalism, which is paganism with worship music. (If you ever doubt the seductive power of paganism, remember it has conquered many of the churches that were explicitly founded to reject it.)

If paganism is a grand but dehumanizing value system, I’ve found it necessary, in this increasingly pagan age, to root myself in anything that feels rehumanizing, whether it’s art or literature or learning. I’ve found it incredibly replenishing to be spending time around selfless, humble people who are still doing the work of serving the homeless, mentoring a lost kid who’s joined a gang. These days I need these moral antidotes to feel healthy, resilient and inspired."

~David Brooks, again forgetting to take his meds that day in Paragraphs 7-9

I sped up the process a bit but also because all three of these paragraphs are reliant on each other to make their point or get really ANY point across, because David Brooks is a terrible fucking writer. I wonder who that reminds me of. Someone who rhymes with dadrawobdabro. Couldn't be me.

Authoritarianism and Christianity

So like, did we completely bypass Caesar and swing forward to Vladamir Putin and Xi Jinping and Donald Trump like we're completely missing the parts where a very Christian Rome fell apart due to infighting and also a few barbarian hordes here and there? Like holy fuck, yeah, XI Jiping can get fucked and so can Putin but like, what does Putin identify (poorly) as? According to Theos (https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2022/02/16/essay-on-vladimir-putin for those interested, but fair warning for your witchy eyes you're gonna be bombarded the fuck out of Christian shit in your ads for the next million years so stay vigilant), he's part of the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Moscow Partiarchate which in Russian is "fuck you I'm not copypasting that." This shit goes back to Valdamir the Great and the clergy at, wow, would you believe that? Constantinople, wow, full circle. Where else did you see Constantinople in this post?

So what other Authoritarian Leaders are of some Judeo-Christian Religion hmmmmmmmmmmmm? Oh, most of them. Wow, surprising, it's almost like there's a pattern, or I haven't taken my meds and I'm just seeing things where there aren't. Which if you look at history and my med schedule you'd know obviously I've taken my meds and that history has been filled with Authoritarian as fuck leaders claiming to be some sort of Christian outside of like, Japan in some places, China because they're weird, and the good old USSR who claimed I guess that Religion was wrong until it wasn't the tactic anymore, the Iron Curtain fell (ask me about my opinions about the USSR I SWEAR I'M FUN AT PARTIES), and an ex-KGB GOOD BOI Putin took office as RUSSIAN ORTHODOX MIND YOU.

It's almost like religion can be used as a tool to control narratives and paint people as enemies and assign any moniker to them to dehumanize them and make them the obvious enemy you need to rise up against. Post 9/11 it was Muslims, now it's Pagans fucking apparently according to the New York Times. Yeah, that New York Times. You know, the New York Times, the same one that publishes actual articles about things depending on your political leanings that you'd be inclined to read if you're of a personal persuasion or stupid enough to pay to read a website for the same news you'll probably see summarized and discussed far more fun and less civilized on /pol/ if you take ANY of that seriously, Reddit if you're feeling like seeing someone call someone something close to a slur but skirting the rules as close as possible, Twitter if you just want to watch the world burn like Heath Ledger's fucking Joker, or a Tumblr written by a schizophrenic Pagan if you really have nothing better to do.

You want someone to blame for this fucking Tumblr post that isn't me because I have better things to do than read hate comments when I'm working on shit in the lab? Email the New York Times and get mad at them, not me.

"Increasingly Pagan Age"

This is an issue of what the Japanese call "Shittobukai" or 嫉妬深い if you can read moon runes. It translates loosely to "Deep Jealousy" and is used freely in Mori Calliope's song "Holy嫉妬" (Holy-Shitto for those who are not Japanese or well versed in the complex systems of kanji like your dumbass friend Kuro who spent hours when he first heard the song and kept looking for the right word for what it meant) (also wow Mori Calliope? Kuro's not cool anymore, he listens to Mori Calliope.)

People are looking for different paths, not just Pagan paths mind you, in the year of their lord 2025 C.E. Some go Muslim, some go Jewish, some people pick Hinduism, and others pick other paths like atheism, agnosticism which I will sit here and argue for hours is it's own territory of it's own, or shit like Buddhism or Taoism. Fuck, I have the equivalent of the Taoist bible sitting on my desk because it teaches you to be more chill and doesn't interfere with my religion. Buddhism, Taoism, stuff like that doesn't interfere really with religion so much as it offers you another lens to look at it through.

There are Christian Buddhists. There's probably a Hindu Taoist somewhere, IDK, they don't post much on English Twitter so I wouldn't know? Or Tumblrs I follow for that matter? IDK, find your own path.

Point being, we're in an age where the Christian domination that has lasted hundreds of years is coming to an end as they are losing their majority more and more every day. So who else to blame but those damn Pagans? Clearly every Christian lead off the path who becomes a Muslim, Jew, or Atheist was caused BY A PAGAN, right David Brooks? That's your logic? It's not like we're growing by that much. Paragraphs 7-9 make it sound like we're fucking becoming a majority when by far there are not as many western Pagans as there are Hindus. We are a miniscule minority. In America, only 3% of people identify openly as Pagan, ya Crow kinda included but I've been forced temporarily for a bit back into the Broom closet for reasons, partly because my partner's mother is a Presbyterian pastor and coming to visit with a man from I believe Cameroon who is also heavily Christian aligned. I don't even think my partner has told her she's an atheist let alone that I'm a Pagan, and honestly Sona is saying some scary shit about what she's going to do if her mom gets some idea to look into the office closet (she quite frankly doesn't want her in the same space as her bell, as in the office, so she's a little unhinged today but she had a good time with me taking pictures of East Coast flowers, but we missed the blooming season sadly, so next year Sona, I promise, Partner wants to go show me the DC blooms and you'll love it aside from, well, being in DC).

So, yeah, that's an open 3%. Give or take a few percent due to people stuck in the broom closet for a VARIETY OF REASONS, we'll be generous and say 5% or 6%. I'm feeling generous and say there are double the amount of identifying Pagans in the US, David Brooks, because by now I've outwritten your shitty article and I'm only up to Paragraph 9 of your's. I need to give you SOME advantage.

However, ha ha! By giving you this generous offer of 6% I have made your points seem utterly deranged and deluded, which honestly you didn't need much help with but I might as well push that little bit further! You're threatened by 6% of the population and blame someone you outnumber by 57% according to the Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religious-landscape-study-religious-identity/) for the worsening of the country and, to go a little further into your article to get some of the guff out of the way, that Jesus is needed to save your over 60% majority from the evil 6% of Pagans. Unless you're like, severely dyslexic and think that says 666% of Americans are Pagan, so allow me to make it clear - I am giving you six (6) (vi) (六) percent. I know you can't read kanji, or probably another language other than the very American English you know, which don't feel bad, because I can't either, but at least I went to the effort of putting it out there for you so you don't get confused, because you are clearly blind if you think the world at the reported 3% or my supposed doubled amount by counting broom closeted pagans which there are DEFINITELY not that amount of but again, it's about generosity. You feel that Jesus is needed to save you in these times of an "increasingly Pagan world" when we are barely a dot on the map compared to you. Get some fucking perspective you total psycho path.

Point 6 (six) (vi) (六)

"For the Romans, the cross was a symbol of their power — their power to crucify. The early Christians took the cross as their symbol, too, but as a symbol for compassion, grace and self-sacrificial love. Christianity is built on a series of inversions that make paganism look pompous and soulless: Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The last shall be first. The poor are closer to God than the rich. Jesus was perpetually performing outrageous acts of radical generosity, without calculating the cost.

The Judeo-Christian ethos showed the world something loftier than paganism. As G.K. Chesterton put it in “The Everlasting Man,” “One of the strange marks of the strength of Christianity is that, since it came, no pagan in our civilization has been able to be really human.”

Judaism and Christianity confront paganism with rival visions of the good. The contrast could not be starker. Paganism says: Make yourself the center of the universe. Serve yourself and force others to serve you. The biblical metaphysic says: Serve others, and you will find joy. Serve God, and you will delight in his love."

~David Brooks, once more losing his fucking mind over the Romans in Paragraphs 12-14

"Shitto-Shitto-Bukai, just ain't worth the time so kick it." ~Mori Calliope

So, now you're blaming Jews? What happened to Caesar and his Pagan ways being the reason Rome sucked? Oh, I guess that doesn't help your narrative here, so you dropped it for fucking Jews. Okay, so I'm not their friend any more than I am you are, or you are theirs, so I don't reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally give a shit?

But then you ally with them for "Judaism and Christianity confronting paganism with rival visions of the good." So I guess it's water under the bridge. I really don't know what you're smoking David Brooks, but you must be getting the good shit from the dispensary you spend your money you drew from that second salary from the Facebook thing at (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/david-brooks-nyt-facbeook-income-b1812701.html for those curious about good old Davie Brooks).

Then you go ahead and throw us under the bus and say we are self-serving and wholly self-absorbed when that couldn't be the opposite of the matter. Are you aware of what lengths I go to to revere and worship my Goddesses? I go out of my comfort zone because of the Morrigan and better myself to better serve her. For Brigid I try to aid nature and make it beautiful, was inspired to aid the growth of plants and the health of the earth for her sake, for Rhiannon I began breaking down why I feared the night and found some hard truths, but she repays me in kind with guidance on staying calm in stressful night situations and in kind I became less hostile to people who mean me no harm at night in my neighborhood, thus helping the neighborhood as I stopped feeling the need to take a bat out and threaten anyone I saw. For Sona, I take beautiful photos of things she's never seen, and with my broken, battered body do things for her pleasure to show her a side of the world, a whole entire new world to her, that she's never seen. I go out and sit on a rock and talk to her, much like you talk to Jesus in your prayers, but to someone who has gone unworshipped in hundreds if not thousands of years man. I gave her a bell, a meaning, a reason to keep going, a promise of spreading her joy to various parts of the continental US because for now I can't get on planes easily.

Do your prayers to Jesus and Big G God for likely things that would make you happy have any less meaning or joy or pleasantness than me with my disabled body getting on the fucking ground to take a picture of a tree Adsagsona was enraptured by? You seem to think so. It wasn't out of self service. It was to make my Goddess happy, how you make your God and your Lord happy every day through your actions, through your prayers, so you say. But no, I'm the bad guy because Orange Man in Office and obviously that couldn't have happened if God was willing. It had to be my Goddesses, the Gods and Goddesses my friends and fellow Pagans worship, the fault of an "increasingly Pagan world" because "God would never let this happen if he had anything to say about it."

You make excuses for why a coin toss election lost without the realization that man has free will, and people with similar beliefs to you, who, by the way, make up a large majority of the country instead of the "6%" of Pagans that probably voted Blue anyway, voted FOR ORANGE MAN. When do you accept blame and repent for the supposed sins of your brothers and sisters who you refuse to blame for Orange Man instead of innocent Pagans, those same innocents you claimed Caesar slaughtered by the thousands and the Roman populace "didn't care?"

Point 7

"You may be a person of faith or a person of no faith, but which moral atmosphere do you want to live in? The cultural atmosphere you immerse yourself in will slowly form who you are. I don’t fault those pagans for sucking down all those muscle-building diet supplements, but I know the kind of nourishment I need these days for the strength of my mind and the health of my soul.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Something’s going on in our culture. The decline of religious participation, which was so rapid between 2010 and 2020, seems to have stopped. There has been a relative surge in religious interest among young men. According to research by the evangelical Christian polling group Barna, 66 percent of Americans say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus — a 12-percentage-point jump since 2021.

Similar things may be happening in Europe. In France the Catholic Church saw a 45 percent increase in new catechumens this Easter compared with last year, and it has baptized more than 17,000 people, the highest yearly number of entrants in over 20 years. According to an April report by the Bible Institute, the percentage of British adults age 18 to 24 who attend church at least monthly increased from 4 percent in 2018 to 16 percent today, including a 21 percent gain among young men. I’ve been predicting a revival among the religious left, but that seems not to be happening. The Christian resurgence in Britain is not among the progressive mainline denominations; it’s primarily among Catholics and Pentecostals, with two million more people attending church than six years ago."

~David Brooks schizoposting about fucking muscle-building diet supplements for some reason? Is this about fucking Alex Jones or did you just get out of the psych ward? No shade if you did, been there, but come on man this is insane. Also Paragraphs 15-17

Contradictions

So, you're saying this is an "increasingly Pagan world," then in the same article contradicting yourself by saying both the amount of Christians have gone up and Church attendance is actually higher than it has been in some time (since 2021), and I'll take you at face value on that because the only person I can ask is someone I really don't want to nor knows why I would be asking (Partner's mother, who doesn't know about the Pagan shit and needs to NOT know). I also don't want to bother bringing more sources than I need to and most of the stuff will be hearsay and if you can pull numbers out of your ass then I can too.

Well let me give you some numbers too. The stores of Pagan owners in the US are doing fine, and the one back home I'm not naming not out of shade for them but for my own anonymity got another year on their lease by working hard for their dream and are launching Oracle decks this year they made themselves with their own art and own meanings to their own cards. They worked hard at this. I'll probably be buying this Oracle deck just to support them, and guess what David Brooks? Instead of the generous offer your website tried to give me for a subscription to the New York Times, I'll just go ahead and buy a personalized hand-made grimoire by that shop just to support them, as a personal "fuck you" from me to you and a "thank you" from you and your cronies at the New York Times to the Pagan community. We'll even count it as your apology, so yet again I'm being generous and giving you and them a two-for-one! Isn't that great?!

There's like six Pagan shops in my immediate area. They aren't suffering. In fact, they're doing great. They've been here, they're staying here, the community here has been great and welcoming so far, even though they are not by any means organized. So fuck you, David Brooks. I'm done playing nice. Now we're coming out with talons out, baby.

Point 8 (HOLY FUCK IT'S ALMOST OVER)

"This movement was already underway before Trump was elected to a second term. It’s a response to a series of gods that failed: The belief that science and tech could solve our quest for meaning. The belief that we can live like hyperindividualists and still experience a sense of communal belonging. The belief that the right B.M.I. could lead to purpose and peace.

Are we on the cusp of a new religious revival? The evidence is still much too flimsy and fresh to justify that kind of sweeping assertion, so color me skeptical. I think it’s more accurate to say that there is currently a great spiritual yearning in the populace, which the religious institutions have not yet risen to meet.

But I do think we’re on the cusp of a great cultural transition. On the one hand, the eternal forces of dehumanization are blowing strong right now: concentrated power; authoritarianism; materialism; runaway technology; a presidential administration at war with the arts, universities and sciences; a president who guts Christianity while pretending to govern in its name.

On the other hand, there are millions of humanists — secular and religious — repulsed by what they see. History is often driven by those people who are quietly repulsed for a while and then find their voice. I suspect different kinds of humanists will gather and invent other cultural movements. They will ask the eternal humanistic questions: What does it mean to be human? What is the best way to live? What is the nature of the common humanity that binds us together? As these questions are answered in new ways, there will be new cultural movements and forms.

As the theologian Dallas Willard put it, there has been, over the past decades of neglect, a loss of moral knowledge. We came to a spot in 2024 in which 77 million Americans took a look at Trump’s moral character and didn’t have a problem with what they saw. But the consequences of those character failings are becoming evident in concrete ways.

New winds are going to blow."

~David Brooks, ending his schizoposting about 3% of the population by deflecting things on humanists, paganisms, tech, and so on in Paragraphs 19-24.

Okay, okay. We're finally at the end. Fucking finally, I can do something better with my time, holy motherfucking shit. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT.

Failed Gods

I'm just going to go for the throat on this one, and say that out of those 77 million voters that voted for Trump, a lot of them identify, pretty fucking blatantly, as Christians and good God fearing citizens of the United States of America and Jesus' Strongest Warriors. Do you know how many crosses, fish, and other Christian iconography paired with either a Trump 2024 bumper sticker or MAGA hat?

Trick question, I have numbers and I'm actually going to use sources because you are a piece of shit who can't be bothered to cite anything.

(https://baptistnews.com/article/how-trump-and-harris-fared-with-faith-voters-in-2024/)

This is Baptist news. Same warnings about your search history, ads, and some really fucking weird shit they say in the article. They break down the Christian vote by for some fucking reason White Born-Again's and just Whites in general.

They don't even like Trump, they have an article on their front fucking page that says we're "Living in the Upside Down from Stranger Things" 100 days into Trump's presidency. And they said according to them, 76% of White Christians, which by the way, David Brook is a White Christian, just take a look at his face on his article as my source. Fuck's sake man, your own demographic lost 76-24. That's like if the Chicago Bulls won a game against the LA Lakers by 152-48. With half-senile Jordan as their lead and Prime Lebron facing him down (I'm using NBA instead of WNBA even though that has better examples for reasons, don't ask). Dude, you lost not just by double, not just by triple, but by 3.16 times Dude you lost nearly pi times the amount of votes of your own demographic and you're blaming 3% of the populace for it. What the fuck man? No, seriously, answer me, what the fuck?

I want you in my comments, David Brooks, explaining how 3% of the populace is responsible for your own demographic, not counting Black, Latino, or otherwise Judeo-Christians, losing 76% to 24%. Are you kidding me dude? This is ridiculous.

TL;DR - Fuck you David Brooks. Let me leave you with words I was told a long time ago by someone so much wiser than I.

"Instead of looking for enemies without, look within." You might find a lot more of them that way.

With All the Love IN MY HEART For All of my Pagan Siblings and fellow Little Crows and Little Birds Catching Strays from the New York FUCKING Times, Kuro.

P.S. I cannot stress this enough, fuck you David Brooks and fuck your publication for publishing you. You are not a good Christian and maybe you should start acting like one.

#witchblr #paganism #witch blog #black cats #pagan witch #witch #tarot witch #channeling #spells #witch aesthetic #New York Times #witches of tumblr #history lesson #world history #european history

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lonelyroommp3 · 13 hours ago

Note

i do want you to elaborate on eposette and how you would write the exr dynamic if you had to

omg okay i've been sitting on this ask for days trying to muster up the urge to be a cunt. my big issue with eposette is that it always has a bit of an "eat your vegetables" vibe to me - not necessarily in the ship itself, because i think it has good and interesting bones as a dynamic even though i personally am not interested in it at all as a shipper - but certainly in how people approach it. i'm always left with the overwhelming impression that because the les mis fandom is soooo heavily focused on men people become self aware about this - which is a good thing - and then rapidly overcompensate by fixating on a female character (e.g. musichetta got a load of this in 2014) or a femslash ship (this is always eposette, because they are the only two female characters the fandom can, for $1, name who isn't already breaking boundaries for feminism by being in - checks notes - a throuple with two guys).

and then the ship is frequently not done especially well because, yknow, fanonbrain knows no gender and just because you're progressive enough to include women in your fanworks doesn't mean you're immune to ooc writing, reducing them to stereotypes, or making them the hypercompetent foils to the men who it's really abundantly clear are still your main focus. BUT there's now the added side effect that caring about this ship becomes fandom shorthand for "caring about women, full stop" and DISLIKING this ship for any reason practically makes you a violent misogynist. i was seeing so fucking much of this in the shipping showdown - like "oh they've got to win because they're lesbians", "misogyny website" when they were getting beaten by an m/m ship, etc. and it was so tiring

however, i will say to the credit of the shippers that introducing the stealing mechanism within the tournament did lead to some fanworks that made me think oh thank god, there ARE some clever and talented people out there who actually care about this ship because they like these two characters and have put genuine thought and care into portraying their relationship, and as much as i'm personally pressed about eposette stealing the quarter finals from valvert i am also extremely relieved and mildly humbled in my bitchiness that they eventually made it to the final on genuine fannish merit and not from people just clicking the lesbian button for the sake of it, because i really thought that was what was going to happen lol

anyway onto e/r and what i personally would prefer to read, i just want stuff that actually reflects their canon relationship. like i think especially in modern aus, where everything becomes a bit more grounded and relatable, the quasi-religious nature of grantaire's devotion gets easily downplayed into "he just has a really big crush" and to me that's boring. i also want to see more fanworks really leaning into the stakes of the whole thing - "they died holding hands" is an e/r mantra so frequently repeated that i think it's almost lost its meaning because oh my god sometimes i'll read the book or watch an adaptation and go hey what the fuck. they literally DIED HOLDING HANDS. and again for me i feel like very few modern au fics in particular reach that level of catharsis when they finally get together. in all honesty i am not a fan of fics where enjolras is actively pining for grantaire in return except in VERY specific circumstances that i will go into shortly, i just really really really love that of;pd gets to be The moment where they finally share a moment of mutual respect and love and it literally only lasts about 30 seconds start to finish because then they both DIE. that's ROMANCE and it's that level of tragedy that makes the ship so compelling to me and which i feel like very few fanworks successfully replicate. and whatever i guess a lot of people saw that death scene and thought "god i wish i could exist in a world where they just fell in love normally and were happy" and fair play to them but it doesn't interest me in the slightest

(back when i was like 15 i had this massive sweeping concept for a reincarnation AU fic that was mainly centred around enjoltaire and a big part of the overarching conflict was like. on the one hand you have an enjolras who has not only suddenly remembered this absolutely horrific trauma he went through, but he's also suddenly developed this enormous new level of respect - and, frankly, love, although how quickly he identifies that feeling for what it is is up in the air - for grantaire that he would never ever have thought possible in his past life. but on the other hand grantaire, because one dying moment of heroism is not quite enough to rewire years of unhealthy practices, largely copes with his trauma by falling back into his old patterns of drinking and being a dick PLUS there's this weirdness with the enjolras dynamic because this new, traumatised enjolras isn't the beacon of idealism and hope grantaire pinned himself to in the past. and i think to answer your question if i had to write an e/r fic THAT would probably still be the approach i was drawn to)

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the-nosy-neighbor · 5 months ago

Text

Religious Language and Symbols in Welcome Home

Edit: i have posted all or some if this under the post "wally is my homeboy." I couldn't find it when i searched, but found it later.

I am going to be pulling from personal experience on this one. My experience growing up was with a Baptist church, so be aware that this is the flavor of religion I will be discussing. I’m not religious, and I don’t care to insert myself in another person’s religious life or beliefs. But: thinking about how we got the cross cufflink, I started thinking about the religious language that is used in the Baptist tradition.

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get here, but there is a lot of language that is used in Welcome Home that is also used in Christianity.

THE CALL

I am going to start abbreviating Baptist Christianity to “BC.” So, in BC, God gives you a calling. A calling is some message, verbal or non-verbal, sometimes even just a feeling, that lets you know what God would like you to do. In particular, people are called to be a preacher or a preacher’s wife, or deacons, etc. I can’t imagine the numbers of people who have attempted to receive a clear message from God. I never felt any kind of calling, though I did know people who have had that experience.

BC uses phone language into their own discussions of religious experience to describe “the call”, like:

Jesus is calling, will you answer?

Answer the call

Jesus calling, how well are you listening?

There are also biblical references of God calling people to him.

When we think about this in the context of WH, we are literally being called. We have had multiple phone calls from Wally, and maybe even one from home (if the one audio clip counts as a call.) Wally can call and talk to us, and share his thoughts, but we are unable to talk to him. We have seen others who are getting the call, but can’t pick up. Q, and presumably The Question Answerer, do answer the call, though we get the feeling that they considered it either foolish or a big mistake. They are constantly hearing the ringing of Wally’s call.

As for us, the audience us, Wally is pretty consistently reaching out to us. He talks to us when others can’t hear him, which in this metaphor makes us on the level of a prophet. We have special access to his communications. Q and QA also have special access, but we seem to have an even stronger connection, hearing text that they are either ignoring or can’t legitimately hear. We also seem to have caught on to Wally’s attempts to communicate through the website much earlier. Q has asked or mentioned before that we can hear it, too—but we have seemed to be in regular contact with Wally before Q managed to figure out that something was happening on the website. Could be denial, I suppose.

Q and QA hold a special position with Wally that we don’t, however. They get direct contact from WH’s reality (whatever we are calling that—area, dimension) while we only have access to what Q shares with us. There are multiple references to documents and/or artifacts that we don’t have access to, such as additional books and records. The only other person so far that has had access to these materials is QA, and they were quickly driven insane by the contact. Well, according to Q they were insane. I always thought that what happened there is that QA, as an archivist, is documenting the strangeness that has taken over the exhibit space, but there are clues that point toward QA starting to doubt that they are experiencing reality anymore.

It is possible that insane is not the correct terminology here, because prophets are often considered to be experiencing things on a plane that normal people can’t comprehend. History is full of stories of prophets and people driven mad through exposure to the full experience of god’s form or voice. Fiction is full of characters who face the consequences of experiencing the full power of a supreme being: mortal Semele asks Zeus to see his true form and is vaporized, Paula sees Castiel’s true form and her eyes are burned out in Supernatural, Christian God tells Moses seeing him in his glory would kill him. (for just some random examples)

Our favorite, TV Tropes, has a lot of examples of this concept of going mad due to exposure to truth, whether it be from God, a god, or an eldritch horror: “Go mad from the Revelation.” We have definitely seen this in the form of QA’s breakdown, which Q somehow pretends not to understand, despite being in the same position (but with somewhat different results). Q says they aren’t sure what breaks QA, but at the same time, describes sitting in front of a TV for 3 months, not realizing that it was longer than a day. It seems like Q and QA are both existing in a spectrum between religious fervor and Lovecraftian horror. Wally doesn’t appear to be God at this point, but it doesn’t mean he is full Lovecraftian horror either. It’s like we haven’t landed in one place yet, so multiple possibilities are open.

Wally signs off, “always know that I love you, very much.” That language is very reminiscent of descriptions of God’s love (New Testament God, anyway.) Closely related to this idea is that Christians generally believe that Jesus lives in their hearts. There appears to be textual references to this, but interpretations are different. Some take it more literally, like you have a personal, physical connection to God through the spirit, heart, chest. Some think of it more like a metaphor, God is your heart, a kind of emotional connection, as we consider the heart the seat of love. There are a wide variety of references to Jesus/God in the heart:

Accept Jesus into your heart (this is the saying for being “saved” in the Protestant tradition)

God’s home in your heart (straight up comparison there)

Home is where the heart is (is actually related to the bible)

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love".

“Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.” “if a man loves me…we will come unto him and make our abode with him.”

God’s home is the church language

Wally is also strongly associated with the heart. He has hearts on his shoes, and Home has a heart underneath. (Barnaby also has heart paw pads, but not sure this is relevant at this point. Julie has been shown to have heart pads of her feet, too, I think.) Wally is consistently telling us that he loves us and that we are important to him.

In the Homewarming record, Howdy says “ It’s about warmin’ the home through their heart!” which is a pretty 1 for 1 reference. You find Wally’s recording about not being able to see you despite us drawing his eyes by clicking the 3 heart drawings. (And there are several doodled hearts around.) A drawn heart takes us to the sound clip of “you-1.” “Can you see me? That’s okay if you can’t. Don’t worry, I know you’re there. You know I’m here too. I will talk to you.” We have a picture of Wally painting Barnaby’s heart pad.

On r/welcomehomeneighbor, u/irrelevant_advices suggests that maybe the heart marks those who are possessed/influenced by Home. This is the best theory for that drawing that I think I have seen. He is painting it blue, which would make it harder to see. Maybe it is a reference to joining the religion or cult, with the heart being Wally’s home/Home’s home. The reference to Wally living in Home seems less random when thinking of it in this religious way.

On r/welcomhomearg, u/Lunami714 posts Wally’s hidden phone clip, and we know that this clip has a heartbeat throughout, louder and fainter.

Wally says “on this funny phone of mine,” funny because it is a direct line to us, we get the call

Wally tells us he knows us and sees us.

The phrase “let me in”

(to be continued)

#welcome home #welcome home theories #welcome home arg #wally darling #welcome home theory

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alatismeni-theitsa · 7 months ago

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I have some questions abt hellenic polytheism and how its practiced. I myself have been practicing it for a while, but something I noticed while researching about it is a distinct lack of actual greek people in online social media spaces. It was first brought to my attention after seeing a reddit post and youtube video explaining how using “hellenismos” is considered cultural appropriation. After that, Ive noticed how the main sources Ive used about hellenic polytheism isnt really from the people whos culture were trying to practice. AKA non greeks.

I would like to know your explanations on the basics of hellenic polytheism like altars/shrines, khernips, prayers, devotees, tarot/oracle cards, pendulums, kharis, and offerings. There might be some knowledge that I got wrong and need to change, like maybe the way I give offerings needs fixing and I need to give more perishable offerings like food than handmade crafts like art for apollo. And maybe theres a spicic way to do it and not just place it on the altar. Other than websites like hellenicfaith.com, r/hellenism is usually my main source with a grain of salt because of the strange lack of greeks in discussions, and although my friend who is also practicing hellenic polytheism gives me a lot of advice, their main sources are tiktok and. Well, I dont think I need to explain why thats a bad source. (Their main justification is “of course tiktok isnt that serious” and “it comes from the pagans themselves”)

Also, Im also curious on your thoughts about people who practice in secret.

I hope this isnt too long, I just wanna make sure Im using a better source than reddit because, well, its reddit. Not the most reliable source.

Hello! If you don't mind I will also address two more questions I got on the matter, since I feel they are related to yours. They are the following:

Hello all! You did very well to seek Greek sources because you are essentially dealing with a foreign culture and it's not right to assume it looks just like your local one. I will guide you as much as I can but I am very open to being corrected by knowledgeable Greeks and xenoi alike because I am not an infallible scholar. As always, my posts are open to additions in case I missed something.

Let me start by saying I believe it's important to focus on the living Greeks as well, in parallel to your studies of ancient religious texts. Not only were our ancient people diverse with various opinions but... they are also dead and cannot speak anymore. So, it's the alive Greeks who now handle and pass down the culture. If something gives the ick to modern Greeks, it probably goes against what the culture considers appropriate or strange.

Greeks will get "the ick" even if they are not well-read on ancient Greek customs, because the Greek culture largely holds its philosophy when it comes to worship. Disclaimer: This is not an unbroken rule, as some of our cultural elements have shifted or changed, as it happens to all cultures around the globe, and also because a Greek does not know everything. But it's good to keep that general statement in mind.

An example of a practice not seen favorably by Greeks nowadays is some Western women practitioners covering their heads because of Hellenic Polytheism. The ancient faith may demand it but the veil was forced a lot on Greek women and collectively we believe it doesn't make any sense to wear it, even in scenarios of faith tied to our culture. Now, that doesn't mean that it's any of our business if a Hellenic Polytheist wants to veil but it'd be good for this person to have knowledge of the history and rights of Greek women, and really evaluate why they want to veil beyond "the ancients did it", since Greek culture is largely disagreeable to that practice now. Find a larger discussion on veiling here.

Also please capitalize the first letter of Apollo's name because this shows proper respect ;)

Let's dive into specifics a little bit. Our culture was and is practical and anthropocentric. It takes into account reality and environment, as well as human nature.

For the anthropocentric aspect: Yes, there are general guidelines because we are talking about a tradition here but no one will take your head if you do it a bit differently. As for the practical aspect: if you give non-perishable items to the gods by putting them on their altar, in 10 years you won't have a space in your house to stand. If they are non-perishable you have no reason to remove them. Because if you remove them is like taking back offerings that were meant for the deity.

The offerings of Greeks in Polytheism and Christianity included perishable items such as food, candles/oil lamps, flowers, incense, libations, etc. And since they go bad you have a reason to remove them. But you also don't want any waste on the streets or in your house. Even the sacrificed animals were meant to be eaten, and the Greek communities believed that the smell of roasted meat made the gods rejoice. In some cases, offerings that were left outside were meant to be consumed by the homeless and travelers. Everything has a purpose and a reason within that specific community. (Flowers not so much, they are just ornamental)

It's not that you cannot or should not offer non-perishable items to the gods. I'm sure a few don't hurt anyone. Just keep in mind that if the offering is a non-perishable item it is/was usually offered to the temple, so the priests can sustain themselves and continue doing their religious service on behalf of the community. We are talking about coins, clothing, jugs, animals, or whatever else.

Continuing on the matter of offerings. A small rant on how clueless some people seem to be about offerings. It would be weird to knit a winter scarf for a god and then wear it yourself because that's not how dedication/devotion works in the Greek context. Also, leaving that winter scarf on the altar doesn't make sense either because it's just… impractical in the Greek sense. You are wasting a scarf, to put it plainly. But if you make something for one deity then give it to the deity, don't wear it yourself.

I'll tackle a few more specifics now. I think you already know what they mean so I will give my opinion on them rather than explaining them. I think my opinion is shared by many Greeks.

hellenismos -> I am not sure if it's appropriation but it's surely inaccurate. Here is why, for those who wonder, with some suggestions on how to call yourself. (hint: Hellenic Polytheist is fine)

on how to be respectful and accurate: I always recommend reading as many ancient Greek texts as possible the view of the gods directly from the ancient worshipers themselves. You can read whatever texts interest you, including plays. Plays are my favourite source, to be honest. Understand on your own what the text says. The Hymn to Demeter is focused on the pain of a mother, which is pretty obvious, you are under no obligation to hear Kate the TikToker who insists on something different. You don't have to hear YouTubers who tell you Zeus is an asshole when ancient texts show us the opposite, and give a good context on why he does what he does.

altars/shrines -> The altars I've seen are usually fine, so I think western polytheists have this down. The ancient ones would be more homogenous but in our era the religion is unorganized so it's up to the individual to create an altar. Greeks still have altars in their homes as a continuation of our polytheist practices and they also have some variation. Generally, all good here.

khernips -> χέρνιψ literally translates to "washer of hands". It's a Greek practice to have clean hands before touching any sacred objects, either in Dodekatheism or in Christianity. We do not always follow it but it's important. Our old custom is also to wash hands, face, and feet before entering our Christian temples (that's why there are κρήνες outside many of them) but that's not practiced anymore because our hygiene is overall better and we already visit the temple while clean.

The cleansing part will feel natural for most Greeks and not unfit for the whole procedure. You can also cleanse items with water if the purification ritual says so. Don't lose sleep over it. Remember practicality. Khernips is just water with which you wash your hands and you can do it before a meal, like we do today. It is meant to keep you clean but doesn't bear any spiritual force - it's not like the holy water of Christians which is imbued with divine power. It's just water included in a practice that helps the religious person get ready for spiritual time.

Also! Khernips doesn't mean that you wash the whole body! It's second part, νήβω / nivo = rub is connected to cleaning body parts. For the cleanliness of the whole body we used/use "λούω / λούζω". Fun fact, on of the greatest christian temples Hagia Sofia, had a reminder outside the gate with the same verb, and it was an anagram. "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ", meaning "wash your sins, too, not just your face". This anagram is found in other Christian sites, as well.

prayers -> Any prayer is good. There are only a few ways a prayer can go "wrong", since there's not a subscription for that. For example a prayer has to usually praise the magnanimity of the deity, even if you are just doing it to ask something, but words from the heart are also fine. Zeus won't smite you if you include him in a phrase without praising him first.

devotees -> Afaik this was a rare phenomenon in antiquity and it's only nowadays that Westerners decided that everyone is a devotee, which looks weird to Greeks because being a devotee doesn't work exactly like Westerners do it. You don't get to pick one god, talk 99% of the time about that god, or worship just them and not recognize the whole pantheon, or just give little attention to them.

Ancient Greek towns and people had gods they were closer to, for sure, but from what I know they didn't have the same concept as modern foreign worshipers today. They were not "αφιερωμένοι"/devoted, unless they devoted their life to a deity by serving in their temple. The devoted/devotees were not everyday people.

The everyday people felt closer to some gods in the way someone can have a saint or a prophet that they align themselves with, that they feel like they can see themselves on them, or that these gods see them, or that they are related to their struggles, or have given them some sort of protection. A cultivator of vineyards will probably feel closer to Dionysus, while a fisherman to Poseidon, and a warrior to Ares. It's the same for Christian Greeks, since each of the saints has one domain and we call on them depending on our needs.

I mean, it's okay if modern people want to make new things, but we should also be clear on the nature of the ancient practice.

tarot/oracle cards, pendulums -> They are unrelated to the practice. They are just recent elements of western spiritual fascination, and the ancient Greek religion is already complete without them. If Apollo chooses to reveal himself through tarot he may as well reveal himself on a toaster xD A toaster is as related to the ancient Greek religion as much as tarot cards.

kharis -> Some Westerners overhype foreign words that are, in reality, very simple terms. Kharis is just "the grace of god" and the concept is similar to the grace spoken in Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Kharis is not lost if you forget to wash your hands once, or if you are afraid that the item you placed on the altar is not good enough. You don't have to tiptoe around it, it's not something incomprehensible and mystical.

miasma -> Nobody asked for it but I am delivering it anyways because I see many new people to the religion treat miasma like they are 5th-century Greeks who will be punished by the plague if they menstruate too close to the altar. I've seen endless discussions online about what miasma is and all the detailed ways that you can avoid it, and how to cleanse everything and... as a 21st-century practitioner you are not supposed to be that fearful. In the Πλυντήρια festival, the statue of Athena goddess was washed clean but also cleansed metaphorically by people's sins. And you can cleanse your statues as well of course but not with the mindset of considering yourself unclean. Do not follow every advice from ancient people who thought women unclean when menstruating. Ironically, this post and this post from r/hellenism have a good approach to this. As one user says:

people who practice in secret -> I don't have particular thoughts for them. If they must hide their spirituality for reasons beyond their control, it's natural for them to do so. I wish them the best in their spiritual journey.

Take a look at my F.A.Q. page, and more specifically on these questions:

Can I worship the Greek gods as a xenos (non-Greek)?

What do Greeks think of people outside of Greece worshiping the Greek gods?

Reading List / Book recommendations on Greek Mythology

Are the Greek gods assholes? // What’s up with gods coupling with mortal women?

Also, when it comes to the practices of the ancient Greek religion, Google Scholar is your friend. Read a variety of scholars and please include Greek ones on your reading list. Western academia focuses a lot on what the myth means to The West today, while Greek academia focuses on what the myths meant in their time. Some classical students report that studying classics in Greece VS in the US can be night and day, and they got a more authentic feeling from the knowledge they gained from the Greek classes.

For gods, festivals, and rituals in Greece, I have some recommendations below, if you’d like to take a look! (The links open directly to them so you can read them for free)

Let it rain’, or ‘rain, conceive’: Rituals of magical rain-making in Ancient Greece, a comparative approach. In Roca, Z. et al. (eds.): European Landscapes and Lifestyles: The Mediterranean and Beyond. Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas 2007: 285-304.

Cosmos 17 (2001), 197-251 Rituals of Magical Rain-Making in Modern and Ancient Greece: A Comparative Approach by Evy Johanne Håland

http://en.arch.uoa.gr/fileadmin/arch.uoa.gr/uploads/images/evy_johanne_haland/cosmos_17-2_haland.pdf

p.s., I call Christian temples "temples" because that's how we call them. We use ναός very frequently for our religious buildings.

I hope I covered your questions so far 💙😊 See you around, and have a great day!

✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺

If my posts have helped you in any way, consider buying me a coffee or giving a Paypal donation. I spend many hours per day on questions and posts, so that would support me a little.

#answered #greek mythology #ancient greek religion #helpol #hellenic polytheism #hellenismos #greek gods #deity worship

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anim-ttrpgs · 1 year ago

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Hey I know you’ve probably said or before. But what’re some of the playable Supernatural folk in ANIM.

Firstly, just to be clear, A.N.I.M. is the design team, while Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the TTRPG currently in its final week of crowdfunding (ends 2:00 PM CST on Friday May 10th)

As for the supernatural folk, even though most PCs in Eureka end up being mundane, there’s quite a lot of options for supernatural characters, which we have talked about before, but we never miss a chance to talk about them again!

This will be a brief overview that will barely even scratch the surface of the depth and nuance we’ve written in to most of these abilities. If you’re interested in learning more, why don’t you just download the fully playable, free prerelease version of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook available on our website and our itch.io page, and go to Chapter 8!

There are ten of what we call “Mage traits.” A “mage” in Eureka is something you could think of as kind of like an X-man. They are otherwise normal people except for one single inexplicable power. Some of these include pyrokinesis, telekinesis, lightning powers, supernatural speed, supernatural beauty, and even the option to play a “psychic detective” who can receive clairvoyant revelations based on clues.

These powers tend to come with few if any downsides, besides the fact that the character can only have at-most one of them. There is also a slight investigation point penalty.

Then, there’s the playable monsters, of which there are five, each of which is fleshed out to the point that they are entirely unique gameplay experiences.

First up is the vampire.

Playing a vampire is a unique challenge because of their rather large list of weaknesses they must contend with in everyday life. The sun, while not instantly lethal like in Hollywood vampire movies, does strip them of all their powers, and they must contend with a compulsion to count large numbers of small objects, an unwillingness to enter private residences uninvited, difficulty crossing bodies of running water, an aversion to garlic, and more! They must of course also drink human blood to keep their Composure up, as they do not gain Composure from eating or sleeping.

These weaknesses are more than made up for by incredible stealth, combat, and mobility options. They can move nearly silently, travel through shadows as if by teleportation, are superhumanly strong, nearly unkillable, can walk effortlessly on sheer surfaces and ceilings, and can “remanifest” into a variety of forms, such as the classic bat, a wolf, an enormous monstrous bat form, and even mist! There’s also a religious angle with them but that is too complicated to get into with just a brief overview.

Next up, the wolfman.

The wolfman is like a Hollywood werewolf. They can transform from a mundane human to an anthropomorphic wolf(however you choose to interpret that) or a very large regular wolf. In either wolf form, they can only be permanently killed by decapitation or by silver weaponry.

My favorite thing about them is the fact that they transform involuntarily on the night of the full moon, or when they hit 0 Composure. In this state, they will rampage uncontrollably, attempting to devour just about anything that moves for a period of time. The fact that it can come out at the worst of times is so awesome it makes me super excited to hear about in future sessions.

Then there is the witch.

The witch is actually a regular human and has no supernatural weaknesses except for the fact that their powerful witchcraft takes more of a toll on their body than the supernatural powers of other playable monsters.

The first thing a witch can do is place a variety of terrible curses on people, a few examples of which include turning them to stone, putting them in a supernatural slumber, or turning them into animals.

The other thing witches can do is cycle throughout all the different Mage traits. They can only have one at a time, but if a Mage trait exists in the rulebook, they can have that trait when they need it, which basically represents their ability to cast a wide variety of different spells in addition to those curses.

My actual favorite thing about the witch though is their ability to enchant certain objects to make them fly, which is not limited to just broomsticks, although broomsticks are of course a classic.

Then there is the fairy.

The fairy was a tough one to translate into Eureka because of the sheer number of different things attributed to fairies in historical folklore. We had to come up with a sort of “generic fairy” that gets the gist of fairies across while leaving room for a player to get way more specific if they are so inclined.

The fairy shares the witch’s ability to place curses on people and cast a variety of different spells, but also can take pieces of people’s identity, such as their names, and/or spirit them away to the fairy world, from which they may never return.

This is offset by the fact that they cannot lie, as well as a few other folkloric fairy weaknesses.

Finally, one of the fan favorites, the thing from beyond.

(Fanart by @umbraldame)

The thing from beyond is kinda like if you wanted to play as something inspired by The Blob and The Thing.

Imagine a color-changing “blanket” of flesh and teeth that can fold itself up into the shape of a human, change colors to mimic the right colors including clothing, and mimic human speech. It wants to be your friend, and eat you, which, to it are not mutually exclusive.

The thing from beyond can do anything a thin blanket of flesh could do when unfolded, such as squeeze under doors or camouflage themselves against surfaces, and also fold themselves up to mimic just about anything, including specific humans. They tend to have a default human persona, but can get very specific with their mimicry if they want, which gets easier the more of that specific person they have ingested. A small sample of blood or hair could give a bonus, but eating the entire person makes mimicking them effortless.

Eating a person also allows them to absorb bits of their memories, which means they can get to know bits of what their meal knows, which is represented in mechanics by them getting bonus investigation points for the duration that they are digesting their latest victim. If the victim knew anything about the current case they are investigating, that means even more investigation points.

Here’s a fan comic about that, if you’d like to see it in action.

And here’s a post about the themes of monstrousness in Eureka if you’re interested.

You can play as all of these things and more in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, which is in its final week of kickstarting right now! Crowdfunding closes at 2:00 PM CST on Friday May 10th, so lock in your copy now while you still can!

youtube

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

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thatssomuchlove · 7 months ago

Text

Fic-o-Ween Day 1

For Fic-o-Ween 2024 put on by @noots-fic-fests! All characters by @lumosinlove

The first (and hopefully not only) chapter inspired by the Mafia AU invented on the Hazelnoot discord server:

Sitting on the couch in his apartment living room, Leo was interrupted from struggling not to let his eyes skip lines during a very suspenseful moment in his book when he heard a loud crash from the kitchen. He jumped up and swung around the door jam to see all his nice pans on the floor…again.

His roommate looked up at him with wide eyes from where he stood by the coffee maker, “I swear I didn’t touch it!”

Leo sighed, “It’s not your fault, Finn. That rack keeps falling down because apparently these wall anchors do not hold their advertised weight!” He huffed. The cabinet space in their tiny New York apartment was abysmal, so hanging up his pans like they do in those fancy kitchens with marble counters or copper detailing seemed like the best option.

“Could also be these shitty walls,” Finn chirped and tapped the wall behind him.

“Yeah, that too,” Leo returned Finn’s grin and could tell he was also thinking about how well they can hear the music from the online Zumba class that one of their neighbors attends religiously. “I’m just going to have to get a stud finder at the hardware store. You have a drill, right?” Finn grimaced and shook his head. “Then a drill set, too.”

Finn clapped a hand on his shoulder as he brushed by with his travel mug, “I would offer to go with, but I’m headed into the office.”

“What? Finn, it’s Saturday.”

“A journalist never rests!” And he was out the door.

Leo looked at the small tear through the dry wall from the anchor being ripped out forcefully and sighed again. He stacked his pans on a clear spot on the counter and went to collect what he needed for a walk to the hardware store.

The bell on the door jingled overhead as Leo entered the shop. The closest one he could find on maps seemed to be a family-run place without much information on the page at all—just the open hours and a handful of reviews, no website or pictures of the inside. Leo would have to agree with kathybee309, it was surprisingly warm and inviting as soon as he stepped inside. He couldn’t see the check-out counter from the door, but clear, handwritten indices at each aisle directed Leo to the stud finders. He was holding two options in his hands, trying to think of a reason he shouldn’t just get the cheapest one, when a soft voice spoke up to his right.

“Are you finding everything you need?”

Leo noted an accent and looked up quickly only to almost drop what he was holding. The employee that spoke to him was decently shorter than him and had a combination of curly chocolate hair, bright green eyes, and prominent muscles—truly the way his heavy apron cinched around his waist and barely covered the width his denim-wrapped thighs was criminal—that had Leo a bit weak at the knees. “Umm, hi, yeah I think I’m um good,” he stammered. “Just,” a nervous laugh, “trying to decide.” Leo held up the stud finders and tried to make his smile friendly and not as painfully awkward as he currently felt.

The store employee walked closer to him and examined the options in his hands before meeting his eyes again. At this distance Leo could read his nametag: Logan. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, I’m just trying to hang up my pans. The darn wall rack keeps falling out, so I decided to go a little more heavy duty than dry wall anchors.” He held up one of the stud finders and tried to joke, “need some studs.” Logan gave him a smile, small and breathtaking.

“Well, they’ll both work for that, but this simpler one should be sufficient,” Logan tapped his finger on the cheaper one. Yeah, Leo would say that they were working just fine considering the person in front of him. “Is that all?”

“Yep,” Leo nodded, no thoughts in his brain.

“Trés bon, you can follow me back to check out.” Logan jerked his head back the way he had come and started down the aisle. Leo hurriedly put the other stud finder back and trailed after Logan, almost tripping when he noticed the way his ass moved in those tight jeans. He kept his eyes fixed on the back of Logan’s head for the rest of the short walk to the register.

It wasn’t until Leo had closed his apartment door behind him that he realized that he completely forgot about the drill. He leaned against the door and cursed quietly. At least this time he would be prepared for the hardware store hottie and maybe not make quite as big of a fool out of himself.

He had decided to give it a day, with the hope that Logan would not be working so that he could avoid further embarrassment. The other half of his brain really wanted to see the hot employee again, convinced that this time he would be able to successfully flirt.

“This is a terrible idea,” Leo murmured under his breath as he rounded the sidewalk and came upon the beautifully carved dark red-brown doors set into the corner of the building.

He beelined to the drill section upon entering and luckily didn’t have as much trouble choosing this time. He came from a Milwaukee household. His eyes bugged out a bit when he saw the prices, “Jesus, that’s expensive.” Good thing his new job paid pretty well.

“We actually have a sale going for those right now.” Leo jumped at the voice behind him and turned to see a familiar, unfairly handsome face.

“Logan, hi,” Leo recovered quickly and came to the conclusion that he would have been far more disappointed to not see Logan today.

“I feel a bit at a disadvantage with you knowing my name when I don’t know yours.”

“Oh lord, where are my manners? My name’s Leo,” and he reached out to shake Logan’s warm, callused hand. He couldn’t squash the urge to explain himself, “I realized yesterday that a stud finder is a little useless without a drill and screws .”

Logan turned to the opposite shelves and scanned them for a second before picking up a box of screws. “These should work well for dry wall and studs.”

Leo offered a winning smile, “What would I do without you?” and took the box from Logan, quite possibly deliberately brushing their fingers together.

Logan looked up at him for a beat too long before stepping back. He cleared his throat, “Just doing my job. Do you need anything else?”

After taking a quick survey of what was in his hands—drill, drill bits, screws—Leo responded, “nope,” and followed Logan to the counter. In effort to keep the conversation going as Logan was ringing him up, he commented, “the front doors are gorgeous.”

“Merci. That was a long project, but one of my favorites. I can’t stand painted front doors.”

Leo chuckled, “Neither can my mama.” He looked behind him in the direction of the front of the store, “I can’t believe you made them,” turning back to look at Logan again, “y- that’s incredible.”

He was rewarded with another small smile, but this one had a tinge of something sad, “Oh I didn’t do them on my own. I was mainly helping my father. This whole store was his passion project.”

“Hell of a successful passion project, I bet I’d be astonished to see what he could accomplish with his day job!”

Logan’s smile twisted confusingly wry, “His day job wasn’t as important to him,” then that same sadness again, “But we’ll never really know what all he could have done, he passed several years ago.”

Trying to temper his shame of talking with Logan about his dead father with the fact that Logan brought him up, Leo erased the shock off his face and brought one hand up to squeeze Logan’s shoulder, “I’m sure he feels at peace knowing you are carrying on the legacy of what he loved.”

“Well, he’s not the only legacy-carrier, are you Lo Bear?” a voice called, and a young woman emerged from the back. Leo dropped his hand. If he hadn’t already guessed that they were related from her statement, he would have known just by looking at her. They could have been twins, but her green eyes were piercing through him where Logan’s were a warm, solid weight.

Logan, with color on his cheeks, huffed, “Leo, this is my sister Noelle.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Noelle.”

“Likewise,” she cocked her head at him. “What brings you here this fine Sunday morning?”

“Oh, just trying to hang stuff up in my kitchen. Not enough cabinet space.”

“An eternal struggle in Gryffindor.”

Leo chuckled, “Yeah, I’m finding that out.”

“Did you move here recently?”

“Yes, actually I moved here only a few months ago.”

“For a job?”

Leo was starting to get slightly unnerved by the accuracy of her guesses but tried not to let it show, “yes ma’am.” Logan had finished putting his things into a bag and pushed it his way while glaring at his sister. He looked between the siblings for a second before politely saying, “well I’ll let y’all get back to work. It was nice to see you again, Logan.”

Logan turned back to him and his gaze softened, “come back any time, Leo.”

As soon as Logan heard the sound of the door swinging shut behind Leo, Noelle jumped up and hastily looked around the store, but it was empty. She turned back towards Logan, who furrowed his brows at her.

“Thank god I was here today. You need to be more careful, Lolo.”

“Quoi?” Logan looked around in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“Are Jackson and Evgeni here?”

“Ouais, of course. What’s going on?” Logan’s eyes started darting around the store and his fingers gravitated towards the handgun strapped to the underside of the counter.

“Nothing right now.” Noelle flashed him a quick smirk, “I thought you were just flirting with a customer and wanted to come out and see, but then I got a good look at him. The tall blond cutie pie is not what he seems, he’s the newest detective on the Gryffindor police force.” At Logan’s wide eyes, she tacked on, “Ouais, the ones who would have us in handcuffs if they even so much as caught a whiff of what’s going on.”

“Merde,” Logan breathed out. While he wouldn’t have pegged Leo as a cop in a million years, he could see how his underlying air of quiet confidence would make him an effective detective. Still, he seemed too genuine to be at the shop secretly sniffing around for a case, and Logan had a good bullshit detector, “I will be more careful, Noelle, but I don’t think that’s why he was here.”

“I trust you, Logan, just don’t let that pretty smile blind you.” Noelle ruffled his hair and stepped back, “I’m gonna head back to Maman’s. I love you.”

“I love you too, Nolly.” Logan waved goodbye and waited until she was out of sight before he sat down with a loud exhale, running a hand through his hair.

He wished that knowing Leo was, in essence, his enemy had halted his fantasies about the man altogether, but it had unfortunately and predictably only intensified his desire. It was unusual for him to feel a connection with someone so quickly, without really knowing them at all, but Leo was special somehow, just like… Logan shook his head.

Why was such a seemingly sweet guy working for such a corrupt system? Why did Logan have the urge to trust him anyway? He opened his laptop and set to find out everything that he could about Leo, the new detective at GPD, for his family’s safety, of course.

#no other reason #hehe #mafia au #cubs #hazelverse #ficoween2024

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