#sooz writes things

[bearsandbeansart]

He’s gone to the one place he knows he can be alone; the roof above his balcony. Servants won’t think to find him here. Maybe Zuko won’t either. So he sits alone, and without his tiger blades. Jet thinks if he sees them, the temptation might be too great. Mixed with the rotten churning of his mind is a steep homesickness; not just for the familiar territories of his homeland, but for the simpler time of living in the trees of Gaipan Forest. The struggles faced there, though more tangible and threatening than anything here, are something he’d much rather come up against than this.  “Jet?” A voice from below. Of course. Jet scowls, and says nothing, but remains where he is. 

It's cool if you don't like Jetko, just please keep those opinions off this post.

[stesierra]

Guys, I'm working on a new writeblr intro that explains what my books are about but it's taking me a while because I write too much. In the meantime, here's the first chapter of my adult fantasy trilogy. Maybe a little less thrilling than my YA and NA stuff.

If you want to be added or removed from my writing taglist, please let me know. I keep asking if people want to be removed because I'm pretty sure no one wants to be inundated with this much writing.

The Halfway Revenant

Chapter One

Mindral Thideet said, “Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll pay you what it’s worth.” If it was worth anything. She had her doubts. The junkman’s armful of old pages and books stank of mildew and piss, almost strong enough to drown out his body odor.

The junkman bared his crooked teeth and slapped his ragged prizes down on her table. “Got a lot of good things this time, areh. Valuable things. Worth dozens of facts. A book of them, even.”

“We’ll see, aran.” Gingerly, she drew the pile towards her. It stank even worse up close. The white Nimina light overhead illuminated faded letters and torn parchment pages. Some them were so wrinkled they looked about to fall to shreds. Water stains covered others, and the ink had bled so badly they were completely illegible. This was no treasure trove. But she’d pay the man something, no matter how useless his information. That was what kept the junkmen coming to her door.

The junkman sniffed and rocked as she sorted through his odds and ends. His pupils filled his bright eyes as though he sat in the deepest darkness, a sign he was coming down from a sooz high. Only an idiot bargained under the influence, and idiots didn’t last long in the city of knowledge.

She shoved the loose pages aside and opened the first of the books. Missing pages greeted her, and spines warped with age. Where had he gotten these? At the bottom of a trash heap?

“You’re so pretty,” the junkman slurred, staring at her with those drugged eyes.

“I’m perfectly average,” Mindral said. “And if you want to get paid, you’ll keep your compliments to yourself.” It was true. Her dark olive skin and gray eyes fit in perfectly at Shaneh. She’d cropped her black hair short, as was the fashion. Her sharp face and modest curves seldom drew attention. No, she’d earned her place here with her brain, not her beauty.

She sorted through the books, dismissing one after another, until at last she stumbled across an unfinished journal. The cover hung by a thread, and water damage had warped the pages and blurred the writing, but none of the leaves were missing. Only a good family could afford paper pages dyed pure white.

She flipped to the front, looking for a sign of the writer’s identify. In the upper right corner, a neat hand had written, “Property of Kuldeev Nimina. Reward for return.”

A lump formed in her throat. No one would reward her for returning this book. Kuldeev Nimina, a famous recluse and researcher, had split his head open at the bottom of Delshet Canyon a little over two years ago.

It was a fate she courted every time she went gliding. Sometimes she thought about him and all the other careless folk who had smashed into the floor of the canyon when she got ready to glide, but the air called to her, and she couldn’t stay away.

“What are you going to pay me?” the junkman asked, bumping against her table. “You want that one. Don’t you?”

She scooted her stool back. “I’ll give you a page of facts. No more, no less.” He wouldn’t remember them, not high on sooz. If he was lucky, he could read.

“Good facts?”

“Enough to buy a whole month of meals.” Or a few servings of sooz.

He flashed yellowed teeth at her. “Deal.”

She shoved her new pile of junk aside and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. As she painted words on it, she pondered her purchase. She might be underpaying for the journal. A genius inventor like Kuldeev might have mentioned nuggets brilliance in his private journal. He’d been one of the Niminas to design the far-writer, allowing letters to be sent from here to the capital city in the blink of an eye. This journal could be the most valuable thing she’d found that year.

Oh, the Thideet family wouldn’t dare steal Kuldeev’s research and claim it as their own. The Niminas would destroy them if they ever found out. But the Thideets could sell the journal back to the Nimina family for a pretty penny.

The junkman shambled away with a sheet of facts clutched in his meaty hand. Mindral turned back to the journal. She needed her next big break, and perhaps this was it.

She was squinting down at the blurred writing when Shad said from the doorway, “More junk again? You’re going to be buried under it if you buy any more.”

When she glanced up, her cousin grinned at her. His features were softer than any other Thideet’s, and he towered over them all, but his gray eyes marked him as a member of the family.

She snorted. “We have room. Why haven’t you gone home yet? Or did you plan to bring me dinner?”

“You’re not the only one who can stay late,” he said. “And I only bring you lunch because you forget the whole world once you get into the books. Buy your own dinner.” He sauntered forward, a sheet of paper folded in his hand. His blue linen tunic and trousers cost three times as much as her knee-length undyed frock. Shad took pride in showing off the family’s wealth. Mindral liked clothes she wasn’t afraid to stain.

“What’s this?” she said when he slapped the letter down on her pile.

“From the far-writer.”

“I can get up and check it myself, you know.” But she unfolded the page and peered down at it.

It wasn’t much of a letter, just a note. It read,

Mindral,

Your silence over the last year has not gone unnoticed. Two long letters only, with only minor contributions to the family’s wealth of information. I find myself questioning why I have you posted to Shaneh at all. You have many cousins who would jump at the chance to lead our work in the city of knowledge.

Unless you soon prove yourself useful in this post, I will recall you back to Nahiroun. The Mahtiar family has expressed interest in a marriage alliance. A wife and mother would serve the family better than a researcher who rests on her laurels.

Find something to increase the family renown by the end of summer or join the caravans and return home this fall.

With all due respect,

Jahmind Thideet

With all due respect. Mindral knew exactly how much respect her uncle thought she was due. She flung the letter onto the junk pile, where it belonged. “Did you read this piece of shit?”

Shad blinked guileless eyes at her. “Would I do that?”

“You check the far-writer twenty times a day, looking for gossip. I know you read it. What do you think of it?”

His face sobered. “I think he’s serious, Mindral. I know you two always butt heads, but he’s never threatened to send you home before.”

Mindral put her head in her hands. “One slow year, and he thinks I’m a failure. The ten years I’ve spent here mean nothing to him.”

“He’s a hard man.”

“He’s a bastard.”

Shad grinned. “Don’t talk about our grandmother that way.”

“I will if I want to.” She brooded over her pile of trash. “I’ve got to find something to make him happy. But nothing makes that man happy.” She already spent every day trading for useful information, searching the family archive for lost works of genius. Things hid in the archive that no living human remembered. The Thideet family was too minor to have a vote in the oligarchy, but it was old. It had been at the city of knowledge for a long time.

And the junk piles were always another source of knowledge. Everyone in the city knew to bring the things they couldn’t sell elsewhere to Mindral. She’d pay at least a few tidbits for them. Even if Jahmind considered it a waste of time, Mindral had made some of her greatest discoveries among the junk. Kuldeev’s journal might be one of them.

“Go home, Mindral,” her cousin said. “You can make a brillian breakthrough tomorrow.”

She glanced at her enchanted bracelet. The color said it was just before dusk, and her stomach threatened to eat its way out of her abdomen. “You first.”

“I only stayed this late to bother you.”

She rolled her eyes, scooped up the journal and a generous armful of the junk pile, and slid everything into her bag. “Fine. Let’s head out.” She shrugged on her folded glider and backpack and left Jahmind’s note behind. Let it be lost among the trash, where it deserved to be.

As they left the old stone building, they squeezed between bookshelves and crates stuffed into every available space. The Nimina lights flickered out one after another behind them. The crystal orbs only glowed when someone was around to benefit. Mindral wasn’t sure how the Nimina family had enchanted them to do that, for the workings of the lights was one piece of information that wasn’t for sale. The country of Sakhder was full of such enchantments, kept private property by patents and closely guarded secrets.

The ancient archive door shut behind them with a creek. She locked it, the last of thirteen Thideets to leave for the day. A blast of hot spring air stripped away the dusty scent of old books, and she took a whiff of the smoke that drifted up from the cookfires on the levels far below. Up here on the highest level, archives and museums marched along the cliffside road for miles. The ancients had carved the buildings from limestone, decorating them with family emblems and symbols of the four gods. The basalt cliff stretched out over the street to keep off the rare rains. The mud nests of omicats clustered under the overhang, like the nest of cliff swallows. In the dim light of dusk, the omicats flocked back to their nests, tucking all four paws and both wings in, so that only their cat-like heads and the tip of their tails stuck out of the openings. Their high-pitched mews echoed out across the canyon.

“Come on,” Shad said. “I’m starving.”

Mindral ambled away from the archive, glancing across the empty air towards the other side of the city, where she lived. Far, far below, the dark blue Narjeh River ran, but Mindral wasn’t afraid of heights. She loved the thrill of standing on the edge, a thousand feet above the earth, and knowing she could open her glider and fly all the way down to the canyon floor.

Something red streaked down from the overhanging ceiling, and Shad cursed as it buzzed his head, missing his ear by an inch. The creature flew straight towards Mindral, its four clawed paws outstretched, and thumped into her chest with a chirp.

Mindral grinned. “Pitra, what have I told you about harassing Shad?”

The omicat flatted her over-large ears and bared her needle-like teeth. She climbed Mindral’s frock, up to perch upon her shoulder, and fanned her leathery wings against Mindral’s cheek. The omicat stretched no longer than Mindral’s hand from pink nose to the tufted tip of her tail.

“That thing is a menace,” Shad said, rubbing at his short hair. “I’ve told you a dozen times. It’s probably diseased. I found a document yesterday that listed a dozen diseases people can get from bats.”

“Pitra isn’t a bat.” Mindral offered the omicat her finger to sniff.

He frowned at her. “She’s got the wings of one, and she’s just as wild. Everyone knows you can’t tame omicats.”

“That’s why I don’t try,” Mindral said, patting the creature on the back. “She comes to me because I helped her once. And you’re wrong. A bat’s wings are like an outstretched hand, with skin between the fingers. Omicats have wings supported by a single, long finger.”

He threw his hands up. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have rabies! Hasn’t anyone told you that when wild animals get too close to people, it’s because they’re sick?”

“Are you sick?” Mindral asked Pitra, and the little creature yawned in her face. “See, Shad? Nothing to worry about. Don’t you want dinner?”

“Whatever,” he muttered and turned to trudge away from the archive. Mindral followed.

The city of knowledge was like no other city in the world. Not only did it have omicats roosting in the ceiling, it was vertical, made of ten layers carved into both sides of a towering, sheer-sided limestone and basalt canyon. Enchanted bronze pipes climbed the canyon walls, bringing fresh water from the river to the city above. Enchanted columns reinforced the layers, preventing erosion and collapse. The city’s layers were not deep, each composed of a road and three rows of three-story buildings, but they stretched for twenty miles. At the last census, the ten layers contained twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and sixty buildings—counting shops and archives—and forty-three thousand, five hundred and fifty-two citizens. Mindral knew because it was her business to know as much as possible. Besides, the fact was usually enough to buy a snack from the food vendors.

Not far from the archive, a rope bridge spanned the gap between the two walls of Delshet Canyon. Two hoists down to the lower levels stood beside it. A short line waited to use them.

Shad headed towards the line, and Mindral bumped his shoulder and said, “See you tomorrow.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Ride down with me. Show me you’re sane.”

She grinned at him. “Sane? Pitra and I are going flying. What could be saner than that?”

“Anything,” he snapped. “At least that thing has wings. You’ve just got a flimsy glider.”

She touched the device folded on her back. “This glider is the finest of its kind. Built of copper and sailcloth and featherlight wood. Enchanted with feathers for lift and maneuverability. I can sail all the way down to the canyon floor, if I want to.”

“I don’t care if the Niminas themselves enchanted it. It’s madness.”

She gestured out towards the open air between the two sides of the canyon. “But it’s such beautiful madness. Look!”

Down below, people swept past each other on wings of canvas and wood, heading home from work in the fastest and most dangerous way.

Shad stared down at the sight. “Someday, you’re going to step off the edge and collide with someone else. And then you’ll go splat down at the bottom.”

“Worrywart,” she said joyfully. “I’ve never gone splat.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” he muttered. “Look, I’ll walk with you.”

“Going out of your way?”

He folded his arms. “If you have to glide home every day, at least I can make sure you make it.”

They strolled north along the road, passing researchers from other families as they left for the night. They all bowed their heads and called her Areh Thideet. She remembered only some of their names but offered a polite “areh” or “aran” to each. As they walked, young teenagers accosted them, advertising for other families who had information or inventions to trade.

A good half of them worked for the Cheref family. They proclaimed the wonders of the family’s transcription device, which could make a thousand copies of a letter in under an hour. Mindral smiled politely but ignored them. As if she—and everyone—hadn’t heard all about the transcription device. Its invention had launched the Cherefs to key family status, earning them a vote in the oligarchy. They had achieved the aim of every lesser family. If Mindral ever made a discovery great enough to cause such a leap in power, she could take over as head of the family and make Jahmind marry whoever she chose.

Mindral petted Pitra as they bypassed another hawking teenager. She told Shad, “You’re silly for walking all the way with me. You’ll just have to walk back.”

He sniffed. “Someone has to look out for you.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Less mature. Who came in drunk last week?”

She lifted her chin. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you definitely didn’t have a hangover two days ago. We two are the most serious researchers Shaneh has ever seen.”

He laughed, and she counted it as a win.

By the time they reached the point opposite her neighborhood, the sky had dimmed, welcoming the night. Another rope bridge connected the east and west sides of Delshet Canyon, edged by two hoists.

Shad said, “Ride the hoist down. Be a sensible, sedate woman for once.”

Mindral grinned at him. “Oh, Shad, that’s not me.” And she stepped to the edge of the street instead and climbed up onto the low guard wall. The eighth level, her goal, stood at least seven hundred feet below. The people on the road down there looked like a trail of ants.

“Ready, Pitra?” she asked her small companion. The omicat chirped and spread her wings on Mindral’s shoulder.

Shad shook his head and took a step towards the edge. “Why do you love falling to your death so much? You’re supposed to be smart.”

“I really will see you tomorrow,” she told her cousin. “Don’t fret. And I love gliding because it’s the only time I feel really free.”

“You’re crazy,” he told her.

She grinned and spread the wings of her glider. As Pitra leaped from her shoulder, she pushed off into empty space. Gravity seized her, and she dived, streaking through the air like a hawk. Pitra flew beside her, mewling in delight and dancing around her like a leaf blown on a breeze. The wind ruffled her hair and whipped up her frock, exposing the breeches she wore beneath.

As always, when she flew, delight swelled in her heart and sparked in her limbs. If a job had existed where she could spend all her time in the air, she would take it in a second. But her family considered gliding nothing but the indulgence of a dare devil. Unbecoming of a serious reseacher. Only Pitra shared her joy. Only Pitra understood.

As she neared the eight level, she aimed for one of the many rope nets set up to catch air travels. She landed in center, catching the ropes with her hands and feet, and clambered out. The wings of her glider folded away just as Pitra swooped in to land on her head.

“Shoulder, please,” she said sternly and put a hand up to help the omicat climb down to her usual perch. “What have I told you about landing in my hair?”

Pitra chirped and rubbed her pink nose into Mindral’s ear. The omicat always cuddled close right after they’d flown together. She loved it just as much as Mindral did. Mindral shot her a loving smile, but the fragrant air called to her empty stomach. The many food vendors that camped along the road on the eighth level always scented the air with smoke and frying meat, and today it was particularly strong. She followed her nose to her favorite, Parasham Sohem, a mountain of a man who appreciated the value of her information.

For once, no one lined up for Parasham’s food. He bent over his dung fire, stirring a pan perched on a three-legged stand. A dozen skewers of fresh pork roasted beside the flames, glistening with their own fat. Parasham’s bald head and round face glistened, too, with prodigious sweat.

Mindral leaned close and inhaled the sweet smoky scent. “Parasham, my friend, tell me what’s for dinner.”

Parasham straightened, rubbing a hand across his thin eyebrows. “Noodles and sour chicken for you, if you pay for it. Friendship only earns so many free meals. Nothing for that menace on your shoulder.”

She offered him a winning smile. “I paid you last week. And Pitra isn’t a menace. She’s got the manners of a key family areh.”

He shook a fat finger at her. “Last week’s information bought last week’s meals. If you want another dinner, you’ll have to trade information or goods. And don’t tell me that creature’s harmless! Six omicats already swooped in and stole a skewer of meat from me not half an hour ago!”

“But Pitra wasn’t among them. She was with me.”

He snorted. “So you say! The vermin all look the same to me. Do you want food or not?”

“I do. I’ll trade information. I found an old recipe for lentil cakes in our archives. If I give it to you, that’s worth six meals and six cubes of meat for Pitra.”

“Four,” he countered.

“Five, and I won’t go lower, Aran Sohem. I can find food elsewhere.”

“No need to get formal,” he muttered. “Fine. Five meals and five cubes of meat.”

She recited the recipe to him, and he listened with the keen attention and perfect memory that made every salesperson in Shaneh a success. Then she held out a hand. “Meat cube first.”

He grumbled but pulled a piece off one of the skewers of pork. It wasn’t cooked through yet, but Pitra would prefer that anyway. Mindral presented the morsel to her companion, who sniffed it and took a cautious lick.

“Does that thing have a problem with my cooking?” Parasham asked, folding his brawny arms.

Pitra snapped her head forward and snatched the piece from Mindral’s fingers. With a flutter of wings, she flew away, taking her treat off to some private place to enjoy. “Not at all,” Mindral told the cook. “Now my turn.” She dug her ceramic bowl out of her pack, and he shoveled noodles and chicken into it until it overflowed.

She walked home, sniffing at the steam that curled up from her pungent meal. Black chickens strutted along the road, and white ducks waddled besides it. A small pack of branded dwarf pigs gobbled up the waste piles the food vendors had left behind.

Beggars lined the path, hoping for handouts. One snatched at her foot and said, “Areh Thideet, Areh Thideet. Have pity.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You know me?” The beggars knew almost nothing, which was why they were beggars.

“Everyone knows you, areh. You discovered the Fardooz Codex, which everyone thought lost for all time. Get me a meal, and I’ll tell you secrets I have overheard about the key families.”

She stepped beyond the man’s reach. “If you had reliable information, you could trade it to the cooks yourself.”

“The Nimanas and the Cherefs are building an alliance through marriage,” his neighbor insisted. “The cooks don’t believe us, but I know you will.”

“Which Nimina? Which Cheref? The Nimina family thinks the Cherefs are upstarts and wouldn’t marry into them if their position depended on it. I won’t buy you a meal for that.”

The beggars’ faces fell.

Pitra swooped down to land on Mindral’s chest, digging little claws into her frock. The meat cube had vanish down her gullet. Mindral smiled at her and told the beggars, “I’ll tell you how to make an onion and garlic sauce you can trade with the cooks. You can cite me as a source. If you think you can remember it correctly.”

She hurried on after that, eager to get home before her food got cold. To Pitra, she said, “Are you coming inside with me tonight? Or are you going back to your nest?”

The omicat chirped and scaled from one shoulder to the other. She stayed clinging to Mindral as she headed back into the buildings that lined the street. Two rows in, beneath Nimina lights hung from the rock overhang, she reached her dwelling. Like everyone else, she’d shuttered her small windows against the late spring heat. The locked door awaited her, framed by a few carvings of Harvad, the god of curiosity. She bowed her head to his image, that of a sun crowned with many eyes, and told Pitra, “Last chance to stay outside for the night. What do you say?”

The omicat nestled down against her neck, her soft fur tickling Mindral’s skin, and began to purr.

A Nimina light blinked on as Mindral entered, and her silver fan, enchanted with peppermint, rose water and the wings of dragonflies, blew cool air in her face. Pitra launched herself from Mindral’s shoulder and fluttered over to land on the overflowing stone bookcase, which held tomes borrowed from the archive.

“Don’t scratch that,” Mindral said. “You’ll break your claws.”

Pitra must have agreed, because she leaped to the neighboring writing table and dug her little claws into the wood. The scratches blended in with all those the omicat had made in the past.

Mindral stepped in and put her bowl down on her small dining table. Pitra joined her, rattling the bronze spoons and knives, and batted at her great indulgence, her spice kit. She rescued it before the omicat could smash the tiny bottles filled with cumin and tumeric and saffron. Mindral didn’t cook, for like most people in Shaneh, her dwelling lacked a fireplace or chimney, but she liked to add a little variety to her purchased meals.

“Behave yourself,” she told the wild omicat. Gently, she set her glider down by the table, like the treasured object it was. Her backpack of documents she dumped out on the writing table.

“Prrow,” Pitra said, rolling onto her back to knock the spoons off the table. Mindral didn’t bother to pick them up. She slurped the chicken and noodles up from the edge of the bowl, puckering her lips at the sour sauce.

When the bowl was empty, she took it outside to the communal water faucet and rinsed it before ducking her head in the stream. A real bath would have to wait until she had time to haul water to her room. Tonight she had research to do.

Back home, she discovered that Pitra had curled up on her pillow, her tiny leathery wings outstretched, and fallen asleep. She’d have to wake the omicat to go to bed, but that was fine. Sleep wasn’t important when she had research to do.

She shoved the junk pile aside and settled in to read Kuldeev’s journal.

#

Very early in the morning, near the end of the filled-in portion of the journal, Mindral stumbled across a drawing that spanned an entire page. Kuldeev had illustrated an unusual apparatus. It looked something like a table, with four legs and a thick top, but two slots in the sides held carefully sketched pieces of paper. Mindral raised her eyebrows. She told Pitra, who was still snoring on her pillow, “This looks just like the Cheref family’s transcription device. You know, I went to see it once, out of curiosity. You wouldn’t believe what they charge to use it.”

The omicat lifted her head and blinked sleepily at Mindral.

“You’re right,” Mindral said, as though the creature had answered her. “Who cares about resemblance? It’s the enchantment that matters, and the Cherefs will never let that slip from their fingers.”

Yet the opposing page read,

I have devised a notion that I am sure will please Laminda: an enchantment to duplicate written pages without the labor of a scribe. I am still working out the fine details, but I have the general form of the instrument and the and the components I will use for it. Ink and paper, obviously. Fine vellum marked with praises of the four gods of knowledge, to give the ability to transfer the ink to paper. The feathers and tongue of a raven, for the ability to mimic. The wings of a butterfly, to allow transformation. The hairs of a horse, for speed. Spider webs, to bind all the magic together. I am testing a few more ingredients, but I am confident I will have a working prototype within the fortnight.

Mindral blinked down at the journal. “Pitra, you won’t believe this. Kuldeev was working on his own transcription device before he died. He even lists some of the ingredients. This is huge.”

The omicat rose from her pillow, stretching out its tiny forelegs, and mewled questioningly.

Mindral jabbed at the partial recipe. “If this contains the details on how to make an alternative transcription device, the Niminas will pay a fortune to get it back. They can put out their own version and put the Cherefs out of business. Jahmind will sing my praises.”

Pitra jumped up on the table and sat in front of the journal, her tail wrapped around her forepaws. She gazed into Mindral’s eyes with great interest and then yawned.

Mindral couldn’t stifle her own yawn in return. “I can’t go to bed yet,” she mumbled. “There’s got to be more information on the device in here.”

After a dozen pages, she found another mention.

I was approached today by a man from a minor family who knew of my duplication instrument. I have no idea how, for I have written about it nowhere but in my private notebooks and this journal, and I do not speak of my research to anyone. Even the rest of the family does not yet know of my current work. But this man knew. And how he insulted me! He offered me a ridiculous sum of gold for my work and my silence, expecting I would let him steal my discovery if only he paid me enough. Hah! As if gold means anything in the city of knowledge. Even had he offered me a thousand books of lost wisdom, I would refuse. My work is sacred to me. I will share it with the world only when it and I am ready, and when I do, my name will be on it.

Mindral frowned and rubbed at the edge of a page. “I don’t know about this journal, Pitra. Something’s wrong with this story. First Kuldeev was designing an alternative transcription device, and then someone tried to buy it off of him? Who found out about it and how?” She shook her head. “I should just box it up and send it home with the last of the caravans. Jahmind will know how to strike a deal with the Niminas.”

But she didn’t box it up. She couldn’t stop now, not so close to the end. Kuldeev’s final entry said,

I have been robbed! Some fiend broke into my house and rifled through my things, stealing every notebook and jotting of research I had. This journal was only spared because I keep it at the bottom of my laundry hamper, where visitors will not stumble across it. I suspect the man who approached me last week of this violation. I can recreate much of what I lost, but that is not the point! Someone means to claim my work as their own, I am certain of it. I go next to the far-writer, to complain to Laminda. The Nimina family will not tolerate such abuses! Any family who publicizes an invention stolen from me we will crush. And I will tell Laminda to watch the family of the man who desired to buy my work from me. We will uncover the guilty, and they will pay.

Nothing more followed. Mindral paged back to the head of the entry and read the date. Kokufeh 3rd, year 3969. In summer, on the very day Kuldeev had smashed his head open at the bottom of the canyon.

Mindral shut the book and stared down at it until Pitra sat upon it and batted at her chin. Then she told the omicat, “I think Kuldeev was murdered. I think the Cherefs did it.”

This was such a such a shocking statement that Mindral glanced around, as if she expected to find eavesdroppers lurking in the corner. But only Pitra heard her words, and the wild animal responded by fleeing to the door, where she scratched, demanding to be let out.

Mindral rose on unsteady legs and went to open the door. Pitra zipped out through the opening and vanished, leaving Mindral alone with her terrible suspicions and no idea of what she was supposed to do about them. She couldn’t take the journal to a Nimina to share what she had discovered. Kuldeev had been the only Nimina to live in Shaneh for the last decade. All she could do was pass it on to Jahmind, who could pass it on to the Niminas back at Nahiroun. But that didn’t seem like enough. Kuldeev had been murdered in Shaneh, and if there was information about who had done it, it was here, not back at Nahiroun.

Pitra was gone, but Mindral still said aloud, “I could find out who did it. I could get proof. The Niminas would reward us.” This could be the big discovery that Jahmind had demanded.

She wished she could go back to the street and call Pitra back, for she desperately needed a hug. But the animal was wild, not a pet, even if it did seem to be her friend. She hid the journal under the clean clothes in her wooden trunk, next to the useless gold she’d brought from Nahiroun ten years ago. Then she curled up on her reed-stuffed mattress and fell asleep with her head pillowed on one arm.

In her dreams, she searched for murderers, but they turned on her when she found them, and she died alone at the bottom of Delshet Canyon, her body broken in two.

@anonymousfoz

@moremysteriesthantragedies

@elizababie

@sm-writes-chaos

@bellascarousel

@janec23

@palebdot

[ilikereadingactually]

The Way Home

The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

oh, i cried, i cried!! Peter Beagle's writing has such a tenderness to it, comforting even when awful things are happening. people love each other in his books. Schmendrick and Molly Grue love each other, and they love Lír, and they love Sooz, the girl whose pov we get to see these two stories from.

Sooz is everything i ever want in a pov character, she's earnest and observant and brave and she loves without hesitation. Dakhoun, who appears in the second story, has taken up residence in my heart. these are stories about the family who choose you, and the family you choose by that example. they are stories about will, and care, and acceptance.

and of course, there's magic! magical creatures, magical deeds, but also the kind of magic that feels baked-in, it's just there in the ground, rising here and lowering there like the water table, giving and taking and bargaining. i've loved The Last Unicorn for a long time, so this book felt like home.

the deets

how i read it: i read most of this book sitting on a bench outside the bookstore waiting for my friends to be done shopping, and finished it when i got home that night! it's small for a hardcover which i really like, big heavy hardcovers are hard for me to focus on because i can't get comfy with them.

a line i liked:

She moved like summer water in the sun, and she knew where she was going, and she was exactly where she should be, beside me. When I reached out for her hand, the old rough sorrow of her fingers rasped mine, and I held on with all the strength I had.

try this if you: are into classic European-style fairy stories, love bittersweet endings, delight in simple, lyrical prose, or if you, like me, have The Last Unicorn imprinted on your bones.

[yeonchi]

Before I review the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials later this month I want to touch on my motivation to review the RTD2 era.

The context of these Instagram comments is that in June, RTD posted a selfie of himself at a solidarity rally for the SAG-AFTRA and WGA (actors and writers) strike. User jacknibbletmaine made the comment on the left image telling RTD to "stop shoving [his] personal politics down everyone's throats and focus on telling good stories", leading to RTD telling him to "fuck off" and the visceral reply from audredaudiovisual. A separate commenter, starwhovian, shared the comment on the right image asking RTD where the "respect" was. All three comments were deleted and their commenters presumably blocked, if starwhovian's later tweet is any indication.

Look, let's face it, pretty much every Hollywood-type individual, writers and actors alike among others, are all left-leaning virtue signallers with sticks up their asses when it comes to interacting with people who say they want "good stories". If the events of the past decade haven't proven this then I don't know why the three commenters are acting like this is a big surprise to them.

(On an unrelated note, I have seen something similar happening with Sooz Kempner in the recent multi-platform story Doom's Day.)

Then again, I can sympathise with the notion of telling "good stories". Among other things, shows like Doctor Who (among other things) have been seen by fans as a form of escapism from reality, including politics. I can't say the same for the rest of Hollywood, but for Doctor Who at the very least, it has had political messaging embedded into the episodes but people didn't tend to notice it much because it was done more subtly or they didn't have the context to realise what the messaging was about. I think the reason why the political messaging didn't work in the Chibnall era was because it unsubtly addressed current-day politics by lecturing to the audience, satirised Donald Trump (and the US in general) with an expy who might as well be a satire of Joe Biden, and worst of all, they didn't make the stories around them entertaining enough to be satisfying.

And yet, people who have called this out (sometimes in harsher manners than I have) are demonised by what are typically the left-leaning side of the fandom. They have even praised RTD's "handling" of this situation, which I think is antithetical to what a fanbase should be, which isn't necessarily being inclusive to "bigots", but not being exclusive to anyone.

It's been over a decade since the first RTD era ended. With all the work RTD has done since then, I believe that the RTD2 era will have more political messaging. It's just a matter of how he handles it compared to how it was handled in the Chibnall era. This is the metric that I'll be measuring the era by this time around. Don't get me wrong, I've had fun writing the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews and I will continue to write reviews for the RTD2 era, it's just that I'm curious about how the politics will be handled.

I won't be doing prelude and epilogue posts for future series like I did with the Chibnall era. Hopefully I'll be able to cover everything I need to cover within the reviews themselves, not that I'll cover every article I see anyway.

Catch up on my thoughts on the series so far with Doctor Who 10 for 10 (especially Series 4) and the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews, otherwise I'll see you at the end of the month when we kick off the RTD2 era with the first of the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials, The Star Beast.

[badlucksav]

I'm fashionably late (as always) but today is Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day, so I need to gush about some very incredible, talented people, some of whom I'm very lucky to consider friends. This is probably going to be very lengthy, so if you don't want to see me scream about how amazing these lovely people are, I suggest you keep scrolling.

I've been in fandom for just over 2 years, and I've met some incredible people along the way. Here's what I love about them:

@neurologicaldamage as one of my oldest fandom friends, I have long enjoyed screaming excitedly at each other over new ideas or plot developments in existing fics. It was a thrilling ride waiting for each update of "These Scars of Ours". Your angst is the most exquisite type of pain I will gladly subject myself to over and over again.

@authorjoydragon JOY! My beloved multishipper. You are one of, if not the, biggest reason I have blossomed into the fully fledged multishipping trash that I am today. Your fics are like the sweetest, fluffiest piece of cake I can enjoy. I can't even remember the first fic I ever read from you. I definitely remember "Accidental Rendezvous" though, and I am forever honored you commissioned me for it! @orangepanic you took someone who wasn't even that into the LoK fandom and gave her a whole new OTP while she was on hiatus from Zutara. You are the captain of Irosami, and I am humbled to have become your first mate on this wonderful little ship. I have adored everything that I've read from you so far, but I am deeply enjoying "Hotman" and "Starvation Paradise", as well as your new gift for me, "There Was Only One Bed".

@homeagainrose Not only are you a talented writer, you are also an endless well of knowledge that has become invaluable to me (and many others, I'm sure). "Summer At the Swimming Dragon" is everything, and my excitement is palpable every time you update it. But of course, everything you write is superb (also a big fan of "Hello Sailor").

@asajjvxntress You were one of the first Zutara writers I stumbled across. It was "I've Got A Dark Alley" if memory serves, and definitely contributed to my love of modern AUs. I fell in love with "New Girl" and then watched the show, which is now one of my favorites and it's all because of you! Your output feeds our ship so well, and we are honored to have you.

@myargalargan O Captain, Our Captain of the lovely Sukka ship. Your writing is so darling. Sukka is so wholesome, but somehow it feels even more like that when you write them. You take a side pairing and make them a main pairing. "Our Little Remedy" was much anticipated, and I must thank you for introducing all of us to...you know *wink wink*.

@krastbannert My dude, the way you write is so...hauntingly captivating. Even on your happiest fics, there's always this slight air of melancholy that I just adore. The way you get into a character's head is so amazing, too. It feels like you've cracked them wide open and studied them to understand them as well as you do. "Brave Soldier Girl" captured my attention with just one chapter. @heavensenthearty you give 100% to everything you do with your writing. You have such a poetic way with words. It doesn't feel like first person works often with fanfic, but you always make it work perfectly. @its-sooz-again Where do I begin? The pairings, the topics, the characters you explore are sometimes things I never would have thought of, but when I read you writing (or look at your art) I think, wow, this just makes sense. I've always loved Jet, but you've given him such a profound sense of humanity for me that has deepened my love for our favorite traumatized orphan of war. "The Break in the Bend" lives rent free in my head.

@lone-star-ranger you write some of the best fluff! The way you seamlessly weave canon into AUs, AtLA with LoK, Azula with Star Wars, is incredible. You've gifted me so many wonderful fics and have truly become my first mate on the S.S. Yuten, for which I am always deeply indebted to you. "Perks of Matchmaking" is short and sweet, and I'm forever honored that my gift for you inspired a fic that you gifted to me. I've rambled on long enough, and thank you if you've made it this far. Here are some honorable mentions who deserve all of the praise, but I'll be here all night if I try: @siambre, @marijayne-writing, @barelyaware, @mycomfortblanket, @boomerangguy, @thatoneguy56fanfic, and so many others! Thank you for all that you do.

[krastbannert]

Top five fave fics?

These are in no particular order.

something like a storm by @ultranos. I have a feeling Nos is tired of me tagging them in these things, but it is, genuinely, one of the best fics I've ever read.

All You Wanted by @its-sooz. Just an...incredible, mindblowing, emotional look at the relationship between Azula and Ursa, as seen by Zuko, and with one of my all-time favorite endings to a fic.

those wings in your spine by theherocomplex. An incredibly well-written, angsty character study of one of my favorite characters. Something about the writing is just...incredibly, incredibly beautiful. It just flows and it's wonderful.

Arsonist's Lullabye by silveriris. Angsty, and spicy, and fluffy, and heartbreaking - and yet with an end that somehow seems to say that tomorrow isn't written yet, and that the way we thought things would go is never guaranteed, for worse...or for better. (It's a series, not a single fic, but eh.)

Captains of the Sky by @thiscryptidischronicallyyours. Cryptid took a headcanon I talked about, and made a masterpiece. I did not expect this, but it is...so insanely good and so emotional. I was stunned when I read it, and I'm still stunned, every time I think about it.

[thelocalmuffin]

For Day Twenty-Six, I wanted to write Ginasusa and put the RNG in and got prompt 27-as a suggestion. Hope you all enjoy. You can check it out on AO3 too.

Knock, Knock

Without another warning, the door opens as a young woman steps inside. Susato turns to see Gina coming inside the Sholmes Suite, closing the door behind her. It’s a bitter cold day and she’s holding her jacket close. She’s shivering in place, her frame shaking as she tries to lean on the wall. She must have been caught up in the blizzard.Susato frowns, grabbing a blanket and placing it on Gina. She leads her to the couch.

“Good evening, Miss Lestrade.”

“Hi, Sooze.” Gina smiles weakly. “Fanks.”

“What brings you here so late?”

“It was real cold and I couldn’t see through the snow, so I stopped by for a spell.” Gina sighs. “That storm is real bad. Ya don’t mind, do ya?”

“No, of course. Let me get some tea for the both of us.” Susato goes back to the kitchen, turning on the gas stove.

“Where’s Oddo…or anyone else?”

“Oh, everyone else is asleep. I have no idea how they do it. I haven’t been able to sleep for a while.” Susato admits with a sigh. “It’s really cold in the attic and though I keep trying to maintain the heat in the furnace, it’s not enough. So I came down here for a cup of tea.”

“Oh, did I scare ya?” Gina frowns. “’M sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just relieved it wasn’t someone trying to break in.” Susato admits, pouring the tea and bringing it over. “I just wasn’t expecting visitors so late in the evening. Well, you are welcome to stay if you’d like. I know Mr. Sholmes wouldn’t mind.”

“I fink so.” Gina hums with a smile. She looks down at the teacup. “Oh, wut tea is this?”

“It’s a vanilla chamomile blend. I was hoping that Iris was right that it can help with sleeping.” Susato takes a sip of the surprisingly sweet blend.

“Yeh, that sounds good.” Gina takes a sip, sighing. “Kinda sweet, but at least it’ll keep me warm.”

The two watch the snow fall. From the inside, it’s actually a rather pleasant thing to enjoy.  Tomorrow, the reality of the smog and dirty snow will be clear in the light of the day, clinging on the snow. For now, it's just lovely to watch it fall. The tea has also done its job of warming Susato up internally. She grabs the cups and teapot, sitting back near Miss Lestrade and getting a blanket of her own. She’s not going to bother to try to sleep in the cold attic again.

“You warm enough?”

“Eh, not really.” Gina admits. “I heard a kiss gets people all warn ‘n cozy, though.”

“Heehee.” Susato giggles at the cute attempt of flirting Miss Lestrade tried. “Very well.”

She leans over, kissing Gina’s cheek without any warning with a soft smile. Her face brightens up, bright red as Susato grabs a blanket and snuggles up next to her. “Well, wouldn’t you know it? I think you had a point, Miss Lestrade. You are a lot warmer.”

“Uh…yeh.” Gina stutters, turning her body away. “G’night, Sooze.”

“Goodnight, Miss Lestrade.”

**

I’m still taking a couple prompts! If you’d like to send them over, feel free to send me an ask and let me know what ship you want with these prompts.

[edmorrish]

Sound Heap

I’m launching a new podcast and I’m really excited about it. It’s called Sound Heap and the idea is that John-Luke Roberts hosts a selection of clips of the week’s best podcasts. All of these podcasts are, of course, made up. 

https://podfollow.com/1569675977

John-Luke improvised the podcasts with over thirty different comedians, each of whom would do ten-minute excerpts of half a dozen different ideas over the course of an hour on Zoom*. We then took those recordings and whittled them down to just the absolute gold, and put a voiceover over the top to tie it all together and contextualise it. Paddy Gervers and Rob Sell at Torch & Compass wrote us some jingles and a theme (the rest of the music is from the Epidemic music library), and we made it sound like a real podcast - we’ve made the chatcasts sound like chatcasts, the documentaries sound like documentaries, and so on.

What’s exciting is that blend of the loose, spontaneous comedy and the tight, edited production. It’s a best-of-both-worlds, cake-and-eat-it approach that allows funny people - people like Mark Watson, Josie Long, Kevin Eldon, Katherine Parkinson, Bilal Zafar, Sooz Kempner - to just be funny, while also taking out the thinking-out-loud footsteps that are sometimes necessary in improv to get from one good bit to the next.

Podcasting has overtaken Radio 4 as the dominant home of UK audio comedy, in volume at least, but the BBC still sets a benchmark that independent podcasts can struggle to match, for fairly obvious reasons; a Radio 4 comedy with a budget of ten thousand pounds an episode can afford actors and studios and sound designers, of course, but also to pay writers and producers for the time to think and craft the programmes. Few independent productions can match that for resources and cut their cloth accordingly - sitting and chatting with a friend for an hour and cutting out the dull bits doesn’t take as much time, effort, or resource as writing a sitcom or sketch show, rehearsing it, recording it, and editing it. And even the resources that come from the BBC (or Audible) don’t particularly speed up the time it takes to do that, which is why single-authored audio comedy runs in series of four to six episodes every twelve to eighteen months.

Sound Heap attempts to bridge that gap; we asked very little time of our guest comedians, no more than they’d take to do an interview podcast. And they did no prep - we emailed them the titles of the podcasts we were thinking of doing the day before but they were under no obligation to think about it until John-Luke started the “podcast”. But then we did what we’d do for a funded production - whittled and edited and mixed. (We received funding from the lovely people at Auddy which meant that everyone got paid, but we would have done it anyway; it would just have been Paddy and Rob making music when they had time, as a favour, rather than us being able to pay them. And it meant that John-Luke and I were able to fence off time to make it, rather than squeeze it in between paid jobs; as I said, the main thing a budget buys you is time). I think there are lots of very good funny-people-chat podcasts, but they’re not a particularly adventurous form of audio, and having grown up on the produced silliness of The Goon Show and The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, it’s been brilliant to find a format that allows for that sort of structure and sound design to be placed on afterwards.

I keep telling people, “I can’t think of anything like this”, and I stand by that. The sheer range of voices means we’re not asking you to suspend disbelief and accept a comedian as two different characters (apart from John-Luke, and we are asking you to suspend your disbelief in other ways...). And that allows us to jump from parody documentary to parody chatcast to parody solocast, with sound design accurate to the genre, in a way that provides maximum variety - it’s a sketch show! - in a way that’s quite rare. But as I was typing this, I was thinking of something Armando Iannucci said to me when I interviewed him for a documentary, about how when he joined the BBC Radio Light Entertainment department**, there was a sort of “set” way of making radio comedy: 

“One or two people went into a room and wrote something - they were probably men - and they would come out with a script, and a producer would say ‘Oh, very nice, very nice’ - I hated that phrase, ‘nice’, in my head that meant ‘not funny’... A studio would be booked for two or three hours, and actors would come in and read out the words from the page, and then sound effects would be added, or indeed played in live, if someone had access to a horse or anything like that nearby. And then if it was a thirty-minute programme, maybe they’d record thirty-one minutes to be on the safe side, and then they’d cut things down.”

 - Armando Iannucci, The Frequency of Laughter, 2014.

That way of making radio comedy is only sustainable with a budget. For people trying to make things without the backing of a commissioner, you need to find ways to do things for, essentially, free. This limits the amount time you have, and the creativity that you have time to apply. And then I remembered what Armando went on to say, immediately after that, in the same show:

“...so On The Hour was a sort of reaction to that. It was a kind of experiment in looking at doing what was fundamentally a sketch show, but seeing if we could do it in a different way so that it didn’t sound like all those sketch shows. So it was about, if we were recording a thing that was meant to sound like a news report, actually recording it like a news report, which is get three or four people to play the parts of different characters, give them the gist of the funny stuff they’re meant to say but ask them to say it in their own words, have someone ask them questions, and so on. So you end up recording about an hour and a half of these three interviews, and then, like any news editor, going away and cutting that hour and half of stuff down to a report that lasted three or four minutes. It was asking, ‘what is the style of the joke we’re trying to tell would it be improved if we did it in that style?’.“

- Armando Iannucci, The Frequency of Laughter, 2014.

So, in trying to create a new production style that straddles the low-fi independent production methods of making original audio in 2021 and the high standards set by the greatest of audio comedy down the years... we’ve ended up copying a Radio 4 show from 1991.

Sound Heap is available wherever you get your podcasts; the first episode is out next Wednesday, 2nd June.

*Actually Cleanfeed, but we used Zoom so they had eye contact.

**My former employers.

[stdennard]

Hi Sooz!!! First of all, congratulations on your growing family. I’ve been following your journey on Insta and Twitter but I don’t always know what to say since it’s such a big thing. I’m sorry for all you’ve had to do and go through to get here but I’m really happy for you that you’re here now. ❤️❤️❤️ Do you have a general timeline for when Iseult’s book is likely to come out? I ask as I need to pace myself while I reread everything for the millionth time and count down the days!

Thank you!!!!! 😊😊🥰🥰

So here’s the deal. I’m not finished drafting Iseult’s book. I’m getting there, and I have a lot written. But it’s not complete yet.

Baby Cricket is due in May. I will have this book done by May.

My *guess* though is that my publisher will want to keep me in the same season I’ve always been in, which is winter. So my *guess* is that the book won’t come out until early 2021. That allows them time to produce the book on their end without rush + allows me to have my baby and deal with new motherhood before I need to start promoting + touring.

This definitely wasn’t what I wanted--making readers wait, I mean. But I needed the extra time after 2019. It was a hard year personally, as I’m sure you already know from following me.

Plus, Iseult’s book has been technically challenging in a way I did not anticipate. Literally the most technically challenging of my career. For reasons I won’t get into, I have essentially had to cram 2 books into one (though, don’t worry: Iseult’s book isn’t the last in the series).

I have started and restarted and written and rewritten and outlined and re-outlined so much trying to find the Right Story that would allow me to basically cover ALL the plot points and character arcs of 2 books....in 1 book. While also not making the book massive. (Because, as you also know from following me, I despise needlessly long books. Why write double the scenes when you can just make each scene do double...or even quadruple the work?)

That was a long answer, I know. But it’s one I want to share as the year closes and I now have a clearer idea of what 2020 will be bringing.

Thank you for asking and thank you for being patient. 💚

AND, because it’s Christmas and I feel bad making everyone wait for this book, here’s a teaser. It’s the opening lines of the book:

~~~

The Rook watches from an oak branch.

His feathers rustle. His beak clacks. It has been a long time since he saw the Sun and the Moon come together.

It has been even longer since he saw them heal a Well.

A hundred people attend, arranged in stiff rows around the wide pond. Some have weapons, most have uniforms, and all have bored scowls. Behind them, long dormant beech trees stand sentry. Six—always six.

Snow fell in the night, a light dusting that has turned the pine forest to fragile white. But it never touches the Well, nor the mossy flagstones surrounding it, nor the beech trees waiting to come alive.

The people call the Sun ‘Domna.’ They call the Moon nothing at all. Both girls wear matching brown shifts that come to their knees, but this is where their likeness ends. The Sun, with her golden hair, is annoyed and does not try to hide it; the Moon, with her black hair, is impassive, all her feelings and thoughts kept tucked away behind lucent nothing.

She reminds the Rook of someone he knew long ago. Someone who broke the world just to make it new again.

~~~

(I’ll tease more as the year progresses!! And the full prologue + first chapter will be at the end of the US + UK paperback editions of Bloodwitch, out in May.)

[bearsandbeansart]

After a million years, I've touched up the third chapter of The Break in the Bend and it is back up on AO3.

In which, Jet gets used to being one of Zuko's advisors, is still figuring out what he and Zuko even are, and learns the identities of those responsible for his parents' deaths.

[thisvaryingexistence]

My thoughts on Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection

So I finally saw the Code Geass movie last night and OH MAN DO I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS.

First of all I think I should start this out by saying this series came into my life at a very weird time I’d say. I first watched the show when I was in 7th grade (13 years old) and I don’t know why but it stuck with me. As soon as the last episode finished I immediately hit start on episode 1 (ah the good old days when Bandai had all the episodes on Youtube) to see what I was missing my first viewing. Since then I have easily watched the series over 10 times over both in English and Japanese. The show (and the fanfiction let’s be real here) got me through a lot of tough times. In my freshmen year of high school, I really took a turn for the worst and seriously thought I would die before I turned 15. That was when I met @projectcluclu and she (along with the show) became a really key part of my life. Her fics really made me fall in love with the pairing Lelouch and CC even more than I already had been with before. The pairing itself became a real comfort for me and just. TLDR: Code Geass is really important to me.

Writing now as a junior in college (20 years old), I could still say this series has my heart. Have I grown older now and seen many other things (mostly not anime related things)? Yes. Do I notice the endless plotholes in the story and how certain characters I once hated are actually okay and the characters I thought were flawless could actually be rather despicable? Yes again. But this story as a whole still makes my heart go BOOM. 

NOW TO THE MOVIE!

So when I first heard they were making a movie I rolled my eyes. I get it was an anniversary and the show had had many other specials before such as Lelouch’s Birthday, Nunnally in Wonderland, etc. However, this one was going to make or break this show. The creators seemed to know this and pulled something I laugh so hard at but at the same time THEY KNOW THEY GET TO MAKE THE CAKE AND EAT IT TOO. After realizing that “oh shit. We really did have the perfect ending. Legit half the viewers are going to be upset no matter what we do” they decided. “YOU ALL CAN THINK WHATEVER YOU WANT. This is an alternate reality.” Now, to me this was a cop out for sure. They knew no matter what they did, someone would be upset. Even I joked around with my sister and said if Lelouch got with anyone else but CC in the movie I would burn all my Code Geass merch. Still, the war still goes on from the original show whether he is dead or not. The creators wanted the ending to be ambiguous, but couldn’t even handle the inner-fandom war when the ending first happened over 10 years ago that they were like HE IS DEAD STOP FIGHTING. 

All that being said, I obviously knew I had to see this movie. I’ll admit the spoilers that it was a CluClu ending did give me a slight push to hit buy tickets on my online order, but I knew it was important to my sister and I. We drove an hour away to go see it and the theater was actually pretty damn packed. We anticipated being 2 of like 7 people there but it was FILLED. It was pretty cool to here people talking about the timeline under their breath and getting excited about the movie. So the movie. My God I laughed so hard. Like tears were streaming from my face. First, I saw it in English. I love my Johnny Young Lelouch so much and Kate Higgins as CC is great. Everyone else had the same voices as well but. It literally appeared everyone but CC forgot how to say Suzaku’s name and called him “Sooz-a-koo.” Legit sounded like fucking Shinjuki. The first time LELOUCH said it I was like who he is talking ab- OMFG ARE YOU KIDDING ME. My sister and I were in tears and I was shaking so bad. The new characters got me confused. Where the fuck was this big ass nation in the show? (Obviously non-existent as this is an alternate universe”) But I was like what is geass did anyone at the studio actually figure it out? In the show they got nowhere close to explaining it, but we got a very good understanding on what it does, it’s limitations, who had it and why, etc. This movie was like oh you have geass?! CHECK MINE OUT! The princess (at least I think she was a princess) was weird? That scene with her and her brother in the bath after she saw her prophecy was fucked. I laughed so hard again as everyone around me was saying WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? With these new characters, why is Cornelia now the head of them? 

My brain did not take it seriously and just laughed at how crack-fic this movie was. They showed almost every character and it was beautiful and almost bought me to actually cry no matter how weirdly they were placed and who they were placed with. Like why was Schneizel with Rakshata?? In a daycare place?? Why?? Ohgi and Viletta’s wedding though. My heart exploded Lloyd and Rakshata dancing? I approve. THE BABY? I approve. 

The main characters. I know it has been ten years and it could be seen, and there were definitely moments where they were, out of character. One thing I saw a lot of before I saw it was that CC was out of character because she cared so much for Lelouch but to me? I think she was pretty in character. It had been a long time for her and Lelouch. As soon as Lelouch died, Shirley bought his body to CC and she had to take care of him as they looked for his lost consciousness. I imagine she was a bitch in the beginning to him but quickly realized she did this. 

She did this.

She is the reason Lelouch is alive at all.

This is why I believe she was in character. It shows how she is not a stagnant character from the beginning of the story. When first knowing about her in episode five of the series, it was clear she was a stone cold bitch who made her own rules for her life (which makes her CC my favorite character so I’m not saying this as a bad thing). As the show moved forward, we saw her at her most vulnerable and how as a child she was desperate for someone to love her. After her own geass story and her immortality, she saw quickly it must have not been in the cards for her and how she was “utterly alone.” Even as she and Lelouch started to become closer to each other, she was rather distant. I don’t think she really let it show how important he had become to her until her backstory episode 15 of R2 when she would not let him take her immortality. Even when she was dying, mind you the only reason she went after Lelouch in the first place, she was crying at the thought of leaving. In the penultimate episode of the series, she and Lelouch had a very touching scene that Kallen had to ruin, but she voiced her care for him. Therefore, in the movie when it shows her caring so much for him, I do not find it out of character for her. It was already shown in the show and sound episodes that she was not sure what she thought her feelings for Lelouch were and she was confused and frightened by them. She was afraid she ruined his life by giving him the power in the first place, and she was selfish enough to do it again by reviving him knowing full well he intended to die for all the things he did in the rebellion. 

I teared up at the trailer watching CC cry trying to find Lelouch in C’s world. You could tell that man is her new “meaning for living” so to say and she realized how close she was to losing him again. I teared up when they were in the knightmare and Lelouch was about to issue a surrender. She pulled her gun on him similar to episode 7 of the show and told him this was not the Lelouch she knew and bought back. That moment of shaky tears and words made Lelouch into his self again. They are the missing pieces the other has always lacked. They are better off together and they know it. Another reason why the scene at the end hit so strong when he told her he would follow LL and abandon the name Lelouch. He was stating how he was ready to let go of his past and begin a new life with her. Her face welling up and crying. Those scenes of them together were my favorite parts of the movie for the obvious ship reason but also for the fact that I felt more connections to the original story and the characters seemed to be staying true to their old selves. 

Lelouch. He was pretty much in character. I do believe leaving Nunnally to make her own choices and let her grow up is something he would do. After all the lessons CC told him about keeping people you love at a distance. He was a little more flirty than usual but again? The scenes that mattered the most, he was Lelouch. 

Suzaku. Excuse me Soozakoo was a pretty much his character from R2. Kind of a douchebag with a heart of gold. His scenes with Lelouch were very very in character and really touching.

Kallen was a little out of character. The one scene that touched my heart is when she cried (which by the way was fucking hilarious because the English cry was so bad) when Lelouch kept staring at her with his dead eyes. That was a really beautiful scene and I could admit that even though I despise the two of them together.

Everyone else was pretty much thrown in with no explanation. Ohgi apologizing to Lelouch made 0, no pun intended, sense. Cornelia leading this new nation? This new nation of a whole? How did Lelouch know where everything was and how to work this foreign computer network and equipment? Why was mostly everyone else not phased by the fact that Lelouch was alive? So many things were not explained in this movie.

THE ANIMATION. The characters were beautiful as ever but damn. Sometimes they left blobs and mouths moving and it was so funny. The close up shot of the camels had me laughing in my seat.

THE ENDING. And I mean the post-credit ending. I feel like the creators found this famous fanart of Lelouch and CC:

And were like LET’S GO WITH THAT! They were pretty much dressed like this and looked like they were having a wedding type thing? But they gave a weird vampire feel which was hm. Okay? 

Overall, this movie was what it was. An anniversary movie to give the fans and give some more spotlight on Lelouch and CC’s relationship. In the moments it had its key characters, it was beautiful. Hell, it was all beautiful. However, it really did feel I was watching a crack-fic fanfiction in HD. That being said, I would not change anything about this movie. My heart is so full and I was smiling the entire time. So glad I got to go see it! 

[aonrivers]

Elder-Futhark Runes

Runes are closely related to Norse Mythology; specifically, Odin – the King of the Gods. Odin had become jealous of the Norns and their great knowledge. The Norns are known as the fates and, most of the time, used the Well of Urd to gain their wisdom. And if there's one thing you should know about Odin is he loves wisdom. Odin had even given his eye away in order to gain knowledge, so when he learned that the runes only showed themselves to the worthy – he went to the extreme.

Odin went to a branch of Yggdrasil (pronounced: Ing-Dra-Sell) and hung himself upside down over the Well of Urd, then pierced himself with a spear. As he hung there, he called to the runes, but they did not show. As Odin dangled over the well, the other Gods would stop by and offer him help with food or water, but he refused the help. Which eventually was in his favor because on the ninth night of hanging, the runes appeared to him in the well. The runes accepted his sacrifice and revealed their true forms to him, providing him with their knowledge and secrets.

Because of Odin's actions, he was not only able to learn the meaning of the runes, but was able to learn their magickal aspect as well; such as: healing, making charms, using the symbols on weapons, making friends stronger and safe while making his enemies weaker.

This story also feeds into the theory of 'The Hanged Man' in the Rider-Waite tarot deck. This man is depicted as Odin.

In the Elder-Futhark, there are 24 runes; 25 if you count the blank rune. Each rune has a meaning and a letter associated with them. Runes have been around since 150AD and is actually a Germanic Language. These symbols were used as a form of writing before the Latin alphabet was adapted.

An example of using runes to spell the word "RUNES":

Often, you'll hear runes associated with the word "Futhark" (pronounced Foo-Thark), which is Scandinavian and is the first six letters of the runic alphabet.

Besides the Elder-Futhark, which this booklet will be using, there are three other types:

Anglo-Saxon which has 29 symbols and over the years have gained 4 more; making it a total of 33.

Marcomannic Runes which is a mixture of the Elder Futhark and Anglo-Saxon.

Younger Futhark which is a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, but only have 16 symbols. They are also curvier and missing "arms" and "legs".

There are many things you can do with runes. You can ask yes or no questions, lay them out the same way you read tarot, throw them on a table and read the ones facing up. You can also use runes for magickal purposes; for example, when creating a charm for protection, you can write Algiz to enhance the magickal properties.

Before using your runes, the first thing you need to know is runes hold energy; and this is why you need to put your energy in them. You can do this by constantly holding them when you can, carry them with you, sleep with them under your pillow.

Remember to do this if you have bought your runes. Creating your own runes already has your energy in them, but store bought runes made by machines or another person has a different form of energy in them.

It's also important to take care of your runes. Remember that wood runes can soak in water and stone runes can break so be gentle with them. To keep them together, use a pouch or a box. And no matter what material they are, always remember to cleanse them!

You can cleanse your runes by:

Laying them in the morning sun or under the moon.

Burying them in soil for a few days and dig them back up.

Let natural water run over them – not tap water, there's too many chemicals.

Pass them through smoke of incense or sage.

Blow on them

There are multiple ways to cast your runes, but before we go into this, don't forget to call in protection. It is always a good idea to call in your guides when performing any time of divination. Then when you're finished, thank whoever you asked to help and protect you. (Spirit loves to be thanked.)

First, we will start with structured readings, or casting runes like they're tarot cards. When you do this, you may run into the issue where you pull a rune and it's sitting in your hand at a weird angle. To correct this, just turn the rune at a 90-degree angle so they're in your hand or in its placement vertically. If you place your runes facing down, turn them over like a page (right to left). Then begin to read them.

Here are some examples of structured readings:

Pull 1 for the day

Lay three runes in a row for past, present, future.

Pull 5 runes and place three runes in a row for past, present, and future; one above for what influences you, and one below for what's beneath you or holding you back.

Read the runes in a Celtic-Cross layout like you would with tarot.

Next, we will go over unstructured readings AKA tossing the runes. You may cast your runes on either the floor or a table; or even into a circle. In the back of this booklet, I created a "runes map" for myself when casting, it's just to give it a little structure while still letting the runes do what they need to do.

You can cast all the runes at once or take a handful and toss them. When they land, make note of where they land and how they land. This will give you a more in-depth reading. Any runes that have falling face down can be removed from the reading – the runes don't want you to know these secrets or they're not affecting your situation or question at the moment. The runes facing up are the ones you want to be conscious of – they have meaning in your life at this moment.

When you toss your runes, here is what needs to be taken in account (view screenshot below):

The runes closest to you are related to your situation.

The runes farther away is further into your future.

Runes that are closer to each other affect one another.

Closer to the center means the sooner the event.

Runes turned to the left (3) are saying that something is being forced, or it's too aggressive – or you're living in the future.

Runes turned to the right (5) are telling you that not enough effort is being put into something. Maybe you're too passive or living in the past.

Reversed, or facing the wrong way, (7) means there's a strong influence, or a negative force involved. There's also opposition which means the symbol is reversed horizontally.

Upright means there's a strong influence as well but it's a positive force involved.

Rune face down (1) means you're not meant to know.

Overlapping (6) means the runes are related so read them as a pair.

If there are three in a row (3, 4, 5), read them as past, present, and future.

Yes or no questions can also be answered by the runes. Ask your question then pull a rune. If the rune is pulled angled, rotate at a 90-degree angle then place down on the desk. If the rune is face down, turn right to left to see what it says.

If the rune is upside down – the answer is NO

If the rune is right side up – the answer is YES

Because some runes like Gebo or Isa are the same either way you look at it, go by your best judgement. There are also runes like Kenaz where the symbol normally opens to the right (<), if it's looking to the left (>), then the answer is NO. Because of these neutral runes, you can pull 3 runes – 2 out of 3 is your answer.

How I read my runes:

I hold my runes in my hand and breathe into them three times.

As I move the runes in my hand, I have the person place their hands underneath in a cupping formation.

I then drop the runes into their hands and ask them to ask their question, setting their intention, then when they're done, I place my hands underneath theirs and they drop the runes back into my possession.

I toss the runes and begin to read.

If I don't use the map I have added to the back of the booklet, I use the same idea when casting into a circle.

If there are runes with symbols faced down, I remove them from the reading area.

When I finish, I collect the Runes and blow into them again three times. I say thank you and place them back in my bag I carry them in.

RUNES MEANINGS:

As I said before, there are 25 runes (including Wyrd (pronounced "weird" or "word") and each have a meaning and letter associated. Below you will find these runes' names, how to pronounce them, the associated letters, the God or Goddess the rune is sacred to, the upright meanings (just think opposite when reversed); and in some cases the magickal purpose of that rune. (We will not be using Wyrd, just remember it means "leave it up to fate".)

1st Rune - FEHU

Pronounced: "fay-who"

Associated Letter: F

Sacred to: Freya the Goddess of fertility and love

Meaning: fortune, money, happiness.

2nd Rune - URUZ

Pronounced: "oo-rooj"

Associated Letter: U

Sacred to: Thor the God of Thunder and Lightning

Meaning: luck, sudden changes.

Magickal Uses: enhance healing.

3rd Rune - THURISAZ

Pronounced: "thur-ri-saz"

Associated Letter(s): TH

Sacred to: Loki the God of Trickery and Shape-Shifting; Thor the God of Thunder and Lightning

Meaning: protection, faith, right time at right place.

Magickal Uses: protection and defense against adversary.

4th Rune - Ansuz

Pronounced: "aan-sooz"

Associated Letter: A

Sacred to: Odin the Ruler of Gods and the God of Wind and Spirit

Meaning: stability, order, changes, blessings.

5th Rune - RAIDHO

Pronounced: "rrye-doe"

Associated Letter: R

Sacred to: Thor the God of Thunder and Lightning

Meaning: movement, travel, end of conflict.

6th Rune - KENAZ

Pronounced: "kay-naz"

Associated Letters: C, K, Q

Sacred to: Heimdall the Underworld Watcher

Meaning: creativity, knowledge, quest, sheds light on issues.

7th Rune - GEBO

Pronounced: "gay-bo"

Associated Letter: G

Sacred to: All Gods and Goddesses as it is a gift to them.

Meaning: good fortune, gift, union.

8th Rune - WUNJO

Pronounced: "wun-yo"

Associated Letter: W and V

Sacred to: Odin the Ruler of Gods and the God of Wind and Spirit

Meaning: happiness, wishes granted, success.

9th Rune - HAGALAZ

Pronounced: "ha-ga-laz"

Associated Letter: H

Sacred to: Heimdall the Underworld Watcher and Mordgud the Keep of the Underworld's Icy Bridge

Meaning: destruction, disruption, controlled crisis.

10th Rune - Nauthiz

Pronounced: "now-theez"

Associated Letter: N

Sacred to: Norns the Weavers of Fate and Nort the Goddess of Night that Gives Birth to Day

Meaning: desire and demands, hardship coming

11th Rune - ISA

Pronounced: "e-sa"

Associated Letter: I

Sacred to: "intensity" as it intensifies any rune associated with it.

Meaning: frozen in place, standstill

12th Rune - JERA

Pronounced: "yay-rra"

Associated Letter: J and Y

Sacred to: Freya and Freyr the Bountiful Couple

Meaning: continuity, time and change, conception and success.

13th Rune - EIHWAZ

Pronounced: "eye-hwaz"

Associated Letter: Ê

Sacred to: Odin the King of the Gods who gathered the dead souls for their journey to Valhalla or the Underworld.

Meaning: death and rebirth, defense and protection, reliability and strength

14th Rune - PERTHRO

Pronounced: "perth-row"

Associated Letter: P

Sacred to: Frigg the All Mother.

Meaning: follow your intuition, luck, unknown results, revelation

15th Rune - ALGIZ

Pronounced: "all-yeese"

Associated Letter: Z

Sacred to: Heimdall the Underworld Watcher

Meaning: defense, shelter, and protection, victory and success, no news is good news.

Magickal Uses: add to charms and talismans for protection; you can also use it to protect yourself and your property.

16th Rune - SOWILO

Pronounced: "so-wee-lo"

Associated Letter: S

Sacred to: Baldur the Beautiful God of Joy and the Solar Wheel

Meaning: success and victory, positive changes are coming.

17th Rune - TIWAZ

Pronounced: "tee-waz"

Associated Letter: T

Sacred to: Tyr the God of Heavens and War

Meaning: victory, achievements, compassion, courageousness.

18th Rune - BERKANA

Pronounced: "bear-ka-na"

Associated Letter: B

Sacred to: the Earth Goddess

Meaning: new beginnings, personal transformations, birth of an idea or child.

19th Rune - EHWAZ

Pronounced: "aye-hwaz"

Associated Letter: E

Sacred to: Freyr the God of Fertility, the Summer Sun, and Erected Men

Meaning: momentum, moving locations, teamwork, loyalty.

20th Rune - MANNAZ

Pronounced: "ma-naz"

Associated Letter: M

Sacred to: Odin the All Father and Heimdall the Underworld Watcher

Meaning: devotion, willingness to change, unselfishness, find the middle ground.

21st Rune - LAGAZ

Pronounced: "la-gooz"

Associated Letter: L

Sacred to: Njord the God of Wealth at Sea

Meaning: reflect and consult the heart, follow instincts.

22nd Rune - INGWAZ

Pronounced: "ing-hwaz"

Associated Letter: Ng

Sacred to: Ing the Earth God and Freyr the God of Fertility

Meaning: harmony, unity, love, listen to yourself and live in the now.

23rd Rune - DAGAZ

Pronounced: "da-gaz"

Associated Letter: D

Sacred to: Heimdall the Underworld Watcher

Meaning: transformations, breakthroughs, new day, major changes, balance.

24th Rune - OTHALA

Pronounced: "oo-thee-la"

Associated Letter: O

Sacred to: "heritage"

Meaning: home, stability, inheritance, family.

Recommended books:

"A Practical Guide to the Runes: Their Uses in Divination and Magic" by Lisa Peschel

"Runes in Ten Minutes" by Richard T. Kaser

"Runes: The Ancient Magical Secret to Diving Your Future" by Shamira K. Leigh

"Runes: Theory & Practice" by Galina Krasskova

"The Runes Workshop: A You Know Intuition Workbook" by Jennifer Halls

Recommended sites:

http://norse-mythology.org/runes/

http://sunnyway.com/runes/

http://www.crystalinks.com/runes.html

http://www.runes.info/artindex.shtml

[cosmosogler]

hi guys. peeled myself off my bed in time to leave for physical therapy. i had a good hard workout and then i biked down to the office, where i worked and worked. i said hello to everyone as they popped in and out, and talked to sooz about how stressed she is, and jake told me a stupid joke that i loved. i can’t remember what it was. i enjoy that i have successfully turned my office into a checkpoint that my classmates tend to hit whenever they pass down the hallway. i put a lot of work into that.

i was going to get lunch with them after their class and before my psychiatrist appointment, but then they kept me waiting for 20 minutes. harrison and taylor came down and then taylor said he wanted to stop by his office to pick something up before we left for krishna lunch. so harrison and i waited in the lobby for another 10 minutes, and then i got angry, because i no longer had time to sit and relax and eat my lunch. so i marched off to the plaza myself, and harrison followed me. 

the food was pretty good. would have been better if i wasn’t shoveling it in my face as fast as i could. taylor showed up eventually, as harrison and i were finishing up. he’s very... sleep deprived. more obviously than i am. then i hurried to the bus stop and got over to the psychiatrist’s office. my medication dosage got increased... i don’t mind. i think they are starting to do that thing where they stop working after a year or two. i have been on this combination for over a year, now. hard to tell for sure, right now. we’ll see if the higher dosage helps. 

i went back to the office and worked more. i actually did work with tia and harith, for the first time in over a month. it felt great! harith explained the problem to me and i bumbled through the answer and checked it with him and then helped tia at the spot where she’d gotten turned around. we finished the problem in like, just an hour and a half. it was Efficient. it wasn’t a hard problem but i was really happy to just be, like, combing through my class notes and using what i knew from class to propose solutions and then troubleshoot them. you know? instead of having a classmate just tell me how to do it with their assignment. 

yeah... i walked my bike home in a downpour. when i got home, snoopy startled me. her eye looked terrible. i have to take her in to see the vet tomorrow morning. rebika said she’d give me the class notes if we did anything interesting. i saw on the schedule we were just covering a section i’d already read in the textbook. i can tell snoopy’s in a lot of pain, even though she’s playing with her cookie dispenser (oh my god??? she finally learned how it worked) and sitting in a happy position and making purring noises. she keeps her eye kinda closed unless she’s actively looking at something and the drainage is a nasty color. 

i also worked on homework for an hour and i graded for an hour. i’m finally halfway done with this section after putting it off for over a week. hopefully the second half won’t also take 4-5 hours. i finished the em homework due tomorrow, too. still haven’t finished homework 8 (due two weeks ago), but i’m 2/3 done. i need help with the last question.

overall today, between the 6 hours of work sessions and the traveling to / attending appointments and the cooking and taking care of housework and inching forward progress with the comic, i put up a sustained effort for almost a full 14 hours straight. it was... good. i finished everything on my to-do list AND an extra item (finishing up the em assignment). hopefully tomorrow won’t be too rough. i won’t have a lot of time to grade, between taking snoopy to the vet and class and writing club. and, you know, it being friday night in general and i’ll want to rest.

i never rest. 

my psychiatrist said something that kind of concerned me today. she said i might not have felt happy when raul asked me about my writing (which i wanted to happen so bad) because, while i really wanted it to happen, i wasn’t emotionally prepared for it to actually happen. it was really frustrating and disappointing. i was disappointed with myself. she said that’s a skill i have not developed at all. she asked what might happen when i go to give my presentation to get my doctorate and the committee takes a great interest in my project. 

like, with raul, with my comic, i could talk about it forever. i have all the information in my head and i know it. but when he was asking stuff, or talking in general, i just... didn’t know what to say. that happens REALLY bad when i try to talk about it in front of multiple people in club. 

in undergrad when people asked about my research, if i felt comfortable about it i could launch into an hour-long explanation of moessbauer spectroscopy or nanoparticle propulsion and the brownian motion tracking program i wrote. if i hadn’t been emotionally prepared to talk about it, though, i know i would have clammed up. even though i knew what i was doing and i knew what i was talking about. 

it happens in class, too, with my professors... when i go to ask for help or i want to talk about my tests or something... i suddenly have nothing to say. i stutter around my advisor and my answers to his questions get stilted and meandering- and i LIKE my advisor!

i like raul and when he wants to talk about something i care deeply about i suddenly start mumbling and i get a horrible headache! amazing.

i even get like that with compliments. even compliments that i know intellectually should mean a lot to me and are things i worked really hard on. i can’t hold on to them because they turn into garbled nonsense the minute they hit my brain. 

it’s frustrating. i feel like i can’t express myself because i’m not having the reactions i want to have, when i finally get things i want to get (appreciation, attention, whatever it is). i just feel all scrambled.

might help to not be sleep deprived. that could help. if only i could sleep.

[krastbannert]

top 5 painters

Vincent Van Gogh. My all time favorite artist, ever. His landscapes, especially, are what does it for me. He's just...yeah. He's a brilliant artist, and I love his work.

My little sister. I don't have any of her art on-hand to show (I don't know that she has any kind of online presence), but she's been painting for...probably just under 8 years, whenever she can get canvases, and she's gotten really good. A few years back, she freehand painted a Mickey Mouse for our grandma - who loves Disney and Disney movies - that literally looked like it could have been made by Walt Disney himself. I was amazed, and I haven't given her nearly as much credit or as many compliments on her art abilities as she deserves.

Alan Bean. Aeronautical engineer turned naval aviator turned astronaut turned painter. There doesn't seem to be a better life story than that, and his art has that sort of 50s/60s retro science fiction look to it that I absolutely adore.

Anna Coleman Ladd. Technically a sculptor, but I don't care. It's close enough. Working with British sculptor Francis Derwent Wood, she did something apparently very rare: create hope. During the First World War, facial injuries were fairly common; over 20,000 were recorded. Anna and Francis created facial prosthetics for veterans by the hundred, and while the number they helped may have just been a drop in the bucket, for those they did help, they changed the world. It's hard to think of a higher calling than that.

@its-sooz. You're a phenomenal artist, definitely one of my favorites, and have been for a long while now. Everything I've seen you make has just...it's blown me away, really, from the random art I saw you make to the 52 pieces in a year thing to the tarot cards, it's all just been...yeah. I don't have words right now. Your art is just absolutely outstanding, and I love it, quite a lot. (And the fact that you do that while writing mind-blowing fanfics just...well, it blows my mind😂.)

[loudsoulgentlemen]

Sunday Word

Baby Jesus.

What Are You Working On Today?

Solving The Universe.

Do You Write?

Write.

And I'll Tell You.

So He Wrote. And Jesus Asked:

If Your Righting Can You Be Wronging.

Cause As Far. There Is Right And Left.

But, As Me.

There Is Right Left Front Back Up Down.

I Am Solving The Universe.

It's Important!

GOD!

*

***

JEsus!

The Pots Out Of Water.

They Cant Be Out Of WAter They Always Have Water.

So He Picked A Pot And Went To Fill It With Water For His Mum.

How Can They Be Out Of WAter?

This Is A Dessert.

And That Was The Joke.

:)

***

EverBody Is Thinking About Climbing Mountains. I Am Solving That.

Go Through The Mountain OnTo My Elevator.

Could Be Quite God

I Just Need Rope A Stone Leverage And Fulcrum.

Ascendtion.

Could Be Expensive.

Could Be Alot Of Money.

Changes The Way We See Mountains!

Go Through The Mountain

And Let GOD!

A New Way To Look At Things.

They Are Not Our Limits!

There's MORE!

I AM SURE THERE'S MORE!

.

Yes Jesus.

***

If SomeOne Is Pretending To Be SomeOne You Love

Is It Right To SAy ThEy Work For SomeOne You Love?

It's Just Destiny. Throwing His Hands Out

Yes Jesus.

***

CAn You Make A Carriage WithOut Horses?

Why WithOut Horses?

Its Still The Same Path.

O.O

***

If You Can Tell Your Mother WithOut Scaring Her Your Back. What Would You Say?

I Miss Your Cooking.

And She Will Cook.

.

Jesus.

***

Have Any Of You Ever Wondered...

Who Were Jesus's Friends When He Came BAck?

Its A Good Question. Trust Me.

And Where Did He Go?

Where's The Bible?

What Did He Do?

Who Did He Live With?

How Long Did He Rest?

Obviously He Completed His Mission.

We Are Here TodAy!

.

JEsus's MiNiStry!

***

My Friend. If I Give You This Cookie I Am Giving You Half Of Me.

For I Am Hungry Too.

But You Look More In Need.

Thank You Jesus.

First Trip? o.O

***

Did You Ever Think.

The First Man To See Water.

I Drink That. So Scary. So Huge.

Did You Ever Think He Knew. He Floats?

How Long Did He Take To Figure ThAt Out?

Curious Questions.

Dont You Think?

Why Dont You Have Any?

Your Either Superior Or Inferior.

Havent Made My Mind Up Seeing As You Found Me.

That It'Self Is A Merit.

:)

***

Jesus. Seeing As You Know EveryThing.

Do You Smoke Maruana.

And The Pipe.

Helps Pass Time On Days Off.

As Much As Days On.

Also Medicine. For The Soul.

Who Would Hate Drugs?

DreadFul People Who Needs Them.

See. Question Answered.

Do You Need More?

Yes.

Go To The Store. I Have Plenty.

Ehe! You Are Definately My Type. I'll Keep You.

Quick To UnderStand The Devastation Of The World From Bad People. Excellent.

It Would Sooze.

It Would Become Standard.

The Parties Would Be Better.

Who Would HATE ThAt!?

Dreadful People.

But Your A Force For Good.?

Are They Not Available?

O.o

THAT WAS YOU!?

THAT 'IS' ME!

GOOD People STILL Around. :)

Your Minstry! He Bowed In Respect.

***

A Children Of A Nation Move With Their Rights.

The Children Of A Great Nation Are Not Even Questioned About Their Rights.

World Over.

When Is It Going To Happen?

That You Become A Great Nation?

Will You Be Allowed As Them?

How Long Will You Have To Fight?

Will They Allow Your Rise?

Frought And Fight Frivel And Straightened.

Allow Us Our Rights!

Good Men.

They've Done.

Why Not On Us Still?

How Did They Enslave The Nations While Allowing Them Their FREEDOM!?

THEY ARE GREAT!

A FORCE FOR GOOD!

UNCOMMON!

THAT IS WHY THEY ARE ACCEPTED!

THEY ARE BENEVOLENT.

A NEW NATION SHALL RISE.

IT TOOK TIME.

World Over.

Will They Be Patient

Or WILL They FIGHT!

Time Is SomeThing We Dont Have.

Unless Your Immortal.

And Even Then The Boredom Stands Still As You Wrongly Wait Instead Of Forcing The Issue.

Literature Darling.

Goons Of All Goons.

Marching EveryDay.

World Over.

How Long Does It Take?

For A New Nation To Rise.

A New GREAT NATION To Rise.

If World Be Fair. Many Have Risen.

They Have Not Stayed.

Crumbled And Shackled.

Is The Race For The Top War.

Why Are They Not Welcome?

Where Are All The Good Men?

With The Good Women Sir.

You Want Us To Take Away Good Women So Good Men Will Work.

Think Maths Peasant. Think Maths.

Dont Just Pull And Push The Diagram Thinking This Is The Way Forward. THINK!

You Have Paper.

Models Are Premature And Faulty And Delicate As First Best Made. The Only Way You Prove A Model Is To Let It Work. GOD!

Do You UnderStand?

Yes. JUST DO WHAT YOU WANNA.

EXCELLENT.

Next Order Of Business.

The Limitations Of A MAn.

None. But Their Own Imagination.

Next.

Good Women Good Men.

Why Should A Good Man Be With A Bad Woman. And Why Should A Good Woman Be With A Bad Man?

DISCIPLINE!

No no Child. You've Been Hurt.

Do Not Seek To Destroy What You Dont UnderStand.

This Alone Is God.

Who Doesn't UNDERSTAND WOMEN!?

AT THIS AGE!?

EVERYBODY!

AT THIS UNION!? MY UNION MADE? EVERYBODY!

You Live With A Bad Woman Long Enough She Becomes A Good Woman.

Your Woman.

Simply Said.

Thank You Jesus.

***

Why Is Laughter A Laughing Curse?

Cause They Could Be Looking At You Looking At You.

HAhaha.

Great Answer.

The Swing Of The MAss Could Be Left Or Right

Front Or Back

Up Or Down.

Is Laughing A Curse?

A Jolt. Not A Curse. Perhaps A Curse.

A Silver Tongued Devil?

Quite Gruesome!

It's Either His Innards Or His Outards.

Master Of Ceremony.

Obvious.

Unloved.

If Attacked By His Virute.

Beautiful IF HeartFelt?

Explain The Human Condition?

He Either Loves You Or He Doesnt.

And In This Love, Envy, Jealousy And UnderStanding And Standing.

Allow Laughter.

Misery Of Things.

You Are Still One?

O.o

Yes Jesus.

No!

.

Say It!

Yes Baby Jesus!

It Is Both Rocking And Frivellous! HAha My Son Haha

HAhaha!

GREAT JOKE!

I DO HAVE A FEW!

As Of Age.

And Wisdom.

;)

***

GOD!

***

Sanila. My First Wife Is About To Arrive. Watched 'Up'. I Just Can't Believe We Go Together ThAt LONG! O.o . o.O ! Scary. And Comforting At The Same Time! I AM A GOOD MAN! *Smiley! YOU ARE A GOOD WOMAN! *Smiley! SAy HEllo To The Kids Who Else Are You Gonna Be Friends With As SMart As YOu!? Your Wife? Your Husband? Hahaha! EXACTLY :) O.O :)

! ! .. ! ! . . ! !

[flowers-n-clouds]

Rune Casting

I recently got my Amethyst Runes and started getting more into it. It was pretty hard to find some good information online, so I thought I’d share with you guys what I found! I just write down what I have in my book of shadows, and this is just what I found, so there may be things that I wrote wrong or that doesn’t fit your believes. I request you look up on this subject yourself too, but this right here might give you a head start.

Runes are symbols which may be used in divination. They are very old and there are many theories as to how or when they originiated, but it’s well known that they were used in Europe.

The word itself comes from the old norse word “Run”, and the old german word “Runa”, which translates to “whisper” or “secret”. Runes are closely tied to Odin and according to ancient germanic people they were created by him.

The runic alphabets are called “Futhark”, after the first six runes, which are Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raido and Kenaz. While the elder furthark has 24 characters, just like our alphabet, there are also other versions of the Futhark which range from 16 to 33 characters.

Now to the Meanings!

I have to say, I had a really hard time looking up the meanings of every rune. While some runes have the same meaning everywhere, others seems to have a different meaning every time. I chose what was either mostly named or felt right for me. Feel free to share what you found out about them, or how you use them in the comments below!

Every rune is associated with a letter of our alphabet, so I decided to include them and write them right beside the name. I don’t have the sources to post pictures of every rune (nor the space), but you can easily look them up youself online and get in touch with them.

Fehu - F

“Fay-who”

The Cattle - Wealth, Prosperty, Financial Matters

Uruz - U

“Oo-rooze”

The Aurochs - Strength, Courage, Vitality, for that matter also Health and Recovery

Thurisaz - TH

“Thoo-re-saws”

The Thorn or The Hammer - Destruction, Anger, Violence, sometimes a Warning or Protection

Ansuz - A

“Awn-sooze”

The Deity or The Antenna - Wisdom, Communication, Thoughts, Words, Signals, Learning, but also Truth or a Leader

Raido - R

“Rye-tho”

The Wagon - Travels and Journeys, maybe even an inner journey

Kenaz - K

“Kee-naws”

The Torch - Light, Inspiration, Creativity and Knowledge, but for other also Hard Work

Gebo - G

“Gay-bo”

The Gift - A Gift or Generosity, but for another matter also Love, Marriage or Partnership, by seeing the love of another person as a gift

Wunjo - W

“Woon-yo”

Joy - Happiness, Harmony, Comfort, as well as Victory o Productivity

Hagalaz - H

“Haw-gaw-laws”

The Hail - Destruction, Force, Disruption, Chaos, Drama, Hazard, Fury, Anger, can be associated with The Tower from the Tarots Major Arcana

Nauthiz - N

“Now-teese”

Need - Constraint, Neccessities, Distress, Delay, Patience

Isa - I

“Ee-saw”

Ice - Stagnation, Standstill, Frozen, Stuck

Jera - J/Y

“Yare-awe”

Harvest - Rewards, Success, Accomplishments, also associated with Earth

Eihwaz - EI

“Eye-waws”

Yew - Either Reliability, Stability and Trustworthy, or Constricted, Protection, Pain, Perseverence (by looking at it like a bow). The meanings are pretty split with this one.

Perth - P

“Per-th”

The Cup - Destiny, Fate, Magic, Mystery, The Unknowable

Algiz - Z

“All-geese”

The Elk - Protection, Self Defense, Shield, Standing Up For Something

Sowelu - S

“Soe-wee-loo”

The Sun - Good Fortune, Power, Energy, Health

Teiwaz - T

“Tea-waws”

Týr - Victory, Justice, Honor, Higher Spiritual Power, or Focus and Responsibility

Berkana - B

“Bear-kaw-nah”

The Birch - Birth, Beginnings, Fertility, (Personal) Growth, Nurture, Family

Ehwaz - E

“Ay-waws”

The Horse - Transportation, Movement, Travel, maybe also Trust or Loyalty

Mannaz - M

“Mawn-naws”

The Self - Person, Human, Man, Identity, Culture, Individual

Laguz - L

“Law-goose”

The Water - Lake, Sea, Ocean, mostly the Flow, also Intuition, Proohetic Dreams and Feminity

Inguz - NG

“Een-goose”

Seed or The God, Ing - Common Sense, Internal Growth, Potential, Fertility, Success, Masculinity

Dagaz - D

“Thaw-gause”

The Day - Awareness, Breathrough, Transformation, Evolving, Growth, Changes

Othila - O

“Oa-thee-law”

Ancestral Property or Homeland - Property, Home, Family, Legacy, Possessions, Inheritance

The Blank Rune

No one really knows how or when it came into the set, but at somd point, the blank rune has been occasionally beed added and used in a reading. Using the blank rune or not is personal preference. It can be useless to you or help you, it’s your choice whether you keep it or not. If you do, it should be read and used based on intuition. Consider it’s placement and the relation and connection to other runes. Some runes sets doesn’t even include the blank rune.

It may represent Odin or Fate.

Please note that these are just the names of the runes that I prefer, there are a lot, lot, LOT more other pronounciations or names for each rune, but adding them in here too would be too much.

Runes also have reversed meanings, but that is sonething I haven’t got into by now. Just research for yourself a little bit, learn some more and stick to what feels right to you.

Now to casting them. There are many different ways to cast runes. You may simply pull runes out of a bag with your eyes closed, or you dump some or all of them on the ground. You can do simple Tarot Spreads with your runes or look up different ways to use them.

You can use the runes in magic as well! You may use fitting runes in a spell, or write with then in your book of shadows, or draw them on your altar, wand, etc. There are many things you can do with runes, just take your time and get closer with them!

I hope you liked this little lesson and that it may help you an your way.

Lot’s of love your way, Laura 💕