#ideomotor response

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI “art” and uncanniness

TOMORROW (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on TOMORROW (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.

I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some important caveats to that position. For starters, I think it's unequivocally wrong – as a matter of law – to say that scraping works and training a model with them infringes copyright. This isn't a moral position (I'll get to that in a second), but rather a technical one.

Break down the steps of training a model and it quickly becomes apparent why it's technically wrong to call this a copyright infringement. First, the act of making transient copies of works – even billions of works – is unequivocally fair use. Unless you think search engines and the Internet Archive shouldn't exist, then you should support scraping at scale:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And unless you think that Facebook should be allowed to use the law to block projects like Ad Observer, which gathers samples of paid political disinformation, then you should support scraping at scale, even when the site being scraped objects (at least sometimes):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

After making transient copies of lots of works, the next step in AI training is to subject them to mathematical analysis. Again, this isn't a copyright violation.

Making quantitative observations about works is a longstanding, respected and important tool for criticism, analysis, archiving and new acts of creation. Measuring the steady contraction of the vocabulary in successive Agatha Christie novels turns out to offer a fascinating window into her dementia:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research

Programmatic analysis of scraped online speech is also critical to the burgeoning formal analyses of the language spoken by minorities, producing a vibrant account of the rigorous grammar of dialects that have long been dismissed as "slang":

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373950278_Lexicogrammatical_Analysis_on_African-American_Vernacular_English_Spoken_by_African-Amecian_You-Tubers

Since 1988, UCL Survey of English Language has maintained its "International Corpus of English," and scholars have plumbed its depth to draw important conclusions about the wide variety of Englishes spoken around the world, especially in postcolonial English-speaking countries:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice.htm

The final step in training a model is publishing the conclusions of the quantitative analysis of the temporarily copied documents as software code. Code itself is a form of expressive speech – and that expressivity is key to the fight for privacy, because the fact that code is speech limits how governments can censor software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech/

Are models infringing? Well, they certainly can be. In some cases, it's clear that models "memorized" some of the data in their training set, making the fair use, transient copy into an infringing, permanent one. That's generally considered to be the result of a programming error, and it could certainly be prevented (say, by comparing the model to the training data and removing any memorizations that appear).

Not every seeming act of memorization is a memorization, though. While specific models vary widely, the amount of data from each training item retained by the model is very small. For example, Midjourney retains about one byte of information from each image in its training data. If we're talking about a typical low-resolution web image of say, 300kb, that would be one three-hundred-thousandth (0.0000033%) of the original image.

Typically in copyright discussions, when one work contains 0.0000033% of another work, we don't even raise the question of fair use. Rather, we dismiss the use as de minimis (short for de minimis non curat lex or "The law does not concern itself with trifles"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

Busting someone who takes 0.0000033% of your work for copyright infringement is like swearing out a trespassing complaint against someone because the edge of their shoe touched one blade of grass on your lawn.

But some works or elements of work appear many times online. For example, the Getty Images watermark appears on millions of similar images of people standing on red carpets and runways, so a model that takes even in infinitesimal sample of each one of those works might still end up being able to produce a whole, recognizable Getty Images watermark.

The same is true for wire-service articles or other widely syndicated texts: there might be dozens or even hundreds of copies of these works in training data, resulting in the memorization of long passages from them.

This might be infringing (we're getting into some gnarly, unprecedented territory here), but again, even if it is, it wouldn't be a big hardship for model makers to post-process their models by comparing them to the training set, deleting any inadvertent memorizations. Even if the resulting model had zero memorizations, this would do nothing to alleviate the (legitimate) concerns of creative workers about the creation and use of these models.

So here's the first nuance in the AI art debate: as a technical matter, training a model isn't a copyright infringement. Creative workers who hope that they can use copyright law to prevent AI from changing the creative labor market are likely to be very disappointed in court:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sarah-silverman-lawsuit-ai-meta-1235669403/

But copyright law isn't a fixed, eternal entity. We write new copyright laws all the time. If current copyright law doesn't prevent the creation of models, what about a future copyright law?

Well, sure, that's a possibility. The first thing to consider is the possible collateral damage of such a law. The legal space for scraping enables a wide range of scholarly, archival, organizational and critical purposes. We'd have to be very careful not to inadvertently ban, say, the scraping of a politician's campaign website, lest we enable liars to run for office and renege on their promises, while they insist that they never made those promises in the first place. We wouldn't want to abolish search engines, or stop creators from scraping their own work off sites that are going away or changing their terms of service.

Now, onto quantitative analysis: counting words and measuring pixels are not activities that you should need permission to perform, with or without a computer, even if the person whose words or pixels you're counting doesn't want you to. You should be able to look as hard as you want at the pixels in Kate Middleton's family photos, or track the rise and fall of the Oxford comma, and you shouldn't need anyone's permission to do so.

Finally, there's publishing the model. There are plenty of published mathematical analyses of large corpuses that are useful and unobjectionable. I love me a good Google n-gram:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fantods%2C+heebie-jeebies&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

And large language models fill all kinds of important niches, like the Human Rights Data Analysis Group's LLM-based work helping the Innocence Project New Orleans' extract data from wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

So that's nuance number two: if we decide to make a new copyright law, we'll need to be very sure that we don't accidentally crush these beneficial activities that don't undermine artistic labor markets.

This brings me to the most important point: passing a new copyright law that requires permission to train an AI won't help creative workers get paid or protect our jobs.

Getty Images pays photographers the least it can get away with. Publishers contracts have transformed by inches into miles-long, ghastly rights grabs that take everything from writers, but still shifts legal risks onto them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

Publishers like the New York Times bitterly oppose their writers' unions:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/new-york-times-stop-union-busting

These large corporations already control the copyrights to gigantic amounts of training data, and they have means, motive and opportunity to license these works for training a model in order to pay us less, and they are engaged in this activity right now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/technology/apple-ai-news-publishers.html

Big games studios are already acting as though there was a copyright in training data, and requiring their voice actors to begin every recording session with words to the effect of, "I hereby grant permission to train an AI with my voice" and if you don't like it, you can hit the bricks:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

If you're a creative worker hoping to pay your bills, it doesn't matter whether your wages are eroded by a model produced without paying your employer for the right to do so, or whether your employer got to double dip by selling your work to an AI company to train a model, and then used that model to fire you or erode your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

Individual creative workers rarely have any bargaining leverage over the corporations that license our copyrights. That's why copyright's 40-year expansion (in duration, scope, statutory damages) has resulted in larger, more profitable entertainment companies, and lower payments – in real terms and as a share of the income generated by their work – for creative workers.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, giving creative workers more rights to bargain with against giant corporations that control access to our audiences is like giving your bullied schoolkid extra lunch money – it's just a roundabout way of transferring that money to the bullies:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism/

There's an historical precedent for this struggle – the fight over music sampling. 40 years ago, it wasn't clear whether sampling required a copyright license, and early hip-hop artists took samples without permission, the way a horn player might drop a couple bars of a well-known song into a solo.

Many artists were rightfully furious over this. The "heritage acts" (the music industry's euphemism for "Black people") who were most sampled had been given very bad deals and had seen very little of the fortunes generated by their creative labor. Many of them were desperately poor, despite having made millions for their labels. When other musicians started making money off that work, they got mad.

In the decades that followed, the system for sampling changed, partly through court cases and partly through the commercial terms set by the Big Three labels: Sony, Warner and Universal, who control 70% of all music recordings. Today, you generally can't sample without signing up to one of the Big Three (they are reluctant to deal with indies), and that means taking their standard deal, which is very bad, and also signs away your right to control your samples.

So a musician who wants to sample has to sign the bad terms offered by a Big Three label, and then hand $500 out of their advance to one of those Big Three labels for the sample license. That $500 typically doesn't go to another artist – it goes to the label, who share it around their executives and investors. This is a system that makes every artist poorer.

But it gets worse. Putting a price on samples changes the kind of music that can be economically viable. If you wanted to clear all the samples on an album like Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back," or the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique," you'd have to sell every CD for $150, just to break even:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Sampling licenses don't just make every artist financially worse off, they also prevent the creation of music of the sort that millions of people enjoy. But it gets even worse. Some older, sample-heavy music can't be cleared. Most of De La Soul's catalog wasn't available for 15 years, and even though some of their seminal music came back in March 2022, the band's frontman Trugoy the Dove didn't live to see it – he died in February 2022:

https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/de-la-soul-trugoy-the-dove-dead-at-54.html

This is the third nuance: even if we can craft a model-banning copyright system that doesn't catch a lot of dolphins in its tuna net, it could still make artists poorer off.

Back when sampling started, it wasn't clear whether it would ever be considered artistically important. Early sampling was crude and experimental. Musicians who trained for years to master an instrument were dismissive of the idea that clicking a mouse was "making music." Today, most of us don't question the idea that sampling can produce meaningful art – even musicians who believe in licensing samples.

Having lived through that era, I'm prepared to believe that maybe I'll look back on AI "art" and say, "damn, I can't believe I never thought that could be real art."

But I wouldn't give odds on it.

I don't like AI art. I find it anodyne, boring. As Henry Farrell writes, it's uncanny, and not in a good way:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-language-models-are-uncanny

Farrell likens the work produced by AIs to the movement of a Ouija board's planchette, something that "seems to have a life of its own, even though its motion is a collective side-effect of the motions of the people whose fingers lightly rest on top of it." This is "spooky-action-at-a-close-up," transforming "collective inputs … into apparently quite specific outputs that are not the intended creation of any conscious mind."

Look, art is irrational in the sense that it speaks to us at some non-rational, or sub-rational level. Caring about the tribulations of imaginary people or being fascinated by pictures of things that don't exist (or that aren't even recognizable) doesn't make any sense. There's a way in which all art is like an optical illusion for our cognition, an imaginary thing that captures us the way a real thing might.

But art is amazing. Making art and experiencing art makes us feel big, numinous, irreducible emotions. Making art keeps me sane. Experiencing art is a precondition for all the joy in my life. Having spent most of my life as a working artist, I've come to the conclusion that the reason for this is that art transmits an approximation of some big, numinous irreducible emotion from an artist's mind to our own. That's it: that's why art is amazing.

AI doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have an intention. The aesthetic choices made by AI aren't choices, they're averages. As Farrell writes, "LLM art sometimes seems to communicate a message, as art does, but it is unclear where that message comes from, or what it means. If it has any meaning at all, it is a meaning that does not stem from organizing intention" (emphasis mine).

Farrell cites Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie, which defines "weird" in easy to understand terms ("that which does not belong") but really grapples with "eerie."

For Fisher, eeriness is "when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something." AI art produces the seeming of intention without intending anything. It appears to be an agent, but it has no agency. It's eerie.

Fisher talks about capitalism as eerie. Capital is "conjured out of nothing" but "exerts more influence than any allegedly substantial entity." The "invisible hand" shapes our lives more than any person. The invisible hand is fucking eerie. Capitalism is a system in which insubstantial non-things – corporations – appear to act with intention, often at odds with the intentions of the human beings carrying out those actions.

So will AI art ever be art? I don't know. There's a long tradition of using random or irrational or impersonal inputs as the starting point for human acts of artistic creativity. Think of divination:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/31/divination/

Or Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies:

http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html

I love making my little collages for this blog, though I wouldn't call them important art. Nevertheless, piecing together bits of other peoples' work can make fantastic, important work of historical note:

https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/famous-anti-fascist-art/heartfield-posters-aiz

Even though painstakingly cutting out tiny elements from others' images can be a meditative and educational experience, I don't think that using tiny scissors or the lasso tool is what defines the "art" in collage. If you can automate some of this process, it could still be art.

Here's what I do know. Creating an individual bargainable copyright over training will not improve the material conditions of artists' lives – all it will do is change the relative shares of the value we create, shifting some of that value from tech companies that hate us and want us to starve to entertainment companies that hate us and want us to starve.

As an artist, I'm foursquare against anything that stands in the way of making art. As an artistic worker, I'm entirely committed to things that help workers get a fair share of the money their work creates, feed their families and pay their rent.

I think today's AI art is bad, and I think tomorrow's AI art will probably be bad, but even if you disagree (with either proposition), I hope you'll agree that we should be focused on making sure art is legal to make and that artists get paid for it.

Just because copyright won't fix the creative labor market, it doesn't follow that nothing will. If we're worried about labor issues, we can look to labor law to improve our conditions. That's what the Hollywood writers did, in their groundbreaking 2023 strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Now, the writers had an advantage: they are able to engage in "sectoral bargaining," where a union bargains with all the major employers at once. That's illegal in nearly every other kind of labor market. But if we're willing to entertain the possibility of getting a new copyright law passed (that won't make artists better off), why not the possibility of passing a new labor law (that will)? Sure, our bosses won't lobby alongside of us for more labor protection, the way they would for more copyright (think for a moment about what that says about who benefits from copyright versus labor law expansion).

But all workers benefit from expanded labor protection. Rather than going to Congress alongside our bosses from the studios and labels and publishers to demand more copyright, we could go to Congress alongside every kind of worker, from fast-food cashiers to publishing assistants to truck drivers to demand the right to sectoral bargaining. That's a hell of a coalition.

And if we do want to tinker with copyright to change the way training works, let's look at collective licensing, which can't be bargained away, rather than individual rights that can be confiscated at the entrance to our publisher, label or studio's offices. These collective licenses have been a huge success in protecting creative workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Then there's copyright's wildest wild card: The US Copyright Office has repeatedly stated that works made by AIs aren't eligible for copyright, which is the exclusive purview of works of human authorship. This has been affirmed by courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Neither AI companies nor entertainment companies will pay creative workers if they don't have to. But for any company contemplating selling an AI-generated work, the fact that it is born in the public domain presents a substantial hurdle, because anyone else is free to take that work and sell it or give it away.

Whether or not AI "art" will ever be good art isn't what our bosses are thinking about when they pay for AI licenses: rather, they are calculating that they have so much market power that they can sell whatever slop the AI makes, and pay less for the AI license than they would make for a human artist's work. As is the case in every industry, AI can't do an artist's job, but an AI salesman can convince an artist's boss to fire the creative worker and replace them with AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

They don't care if it's slop – they just care about their bottom line. A studio executive who cancels a widely anticipated film prior to its release to get a tax-credit isn't thinking about artistic integrity. They care about one thing: money. The fact that AI works can be freely copied, sold or given away may not mean much to a creative worker who actually makes their own art, but I assure you, it's the only thing that matters to our bosses.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

[charmedhypno]

Charmed! Inktober 2023 Day 13 Goose Bumps

You may be familiar with the phrase "a goose walked over my grave", which is an old timey way of saying "I've had chills unexpectedly and I'm not sure why".

Did you know that getting goosebumps unexpectedly is what is known as an ideomotor phenomenon? We encounter this kind of ideomotor response in hypnosis when a hypnotee moves a part of their body without conscious control; many hypnotists ask for their hypnotee's subconscious or unconscious mind to respond if it is paying attention by causing something like a finger movement -- and for the hypnotee that movement that they did not consciously indicate can be a powerful tool in helping them accept that they have been hypnotized.

You will have the opportunity to see or even experience this for yourself at Charmed!2024! Early Bird (which is not a goose, probably) registration ends with Inktober, that is, October 31, and until then it's just $95 for 4 days worth of hypnosis-related activities!

You can register here:

https://bit.ly/46JXxjW

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

ok i didn’t know there are so many official types of apraxia!! :o last time i searched it up years ago there wasn’t this much info!! (organized list see below)

source

[id: a screenshot that reads: “There are several kinds of apraxia, which may occur alone or together. The most common is buccofacial or orofacial apraxia, which causes the inability to carry out facial movements on command such as licking lips, whistling, coughing, or winking. Other types of apraxia include limb-kinetic apraxia (the inability to make fine, precise movements with an arm or leg), ideomotor apraxia (the inability to make the proper movement in response to a verbal command), ideational apraxia (the inability to coordinate activities with multiple, sequential movements, such as dressing, eating, and bathing), verbal apraxia (difficulty coordinating mouth and speech movements), constructional apraxia (the inability to copy, draw, or construct simple figures), and oculomotor apraxia (difficulty moving the eyes on command). Apraxia may be accompanied by a language disorder called aphasia. Corticobasal ganglionic degeneration is a disease that causes a variety of types of apraxia, especially in elderly adults.” end id]

an organized list of types mentioned here:

buccofacial / orofacial apraxia: causes the inability to carry out facial movements on command (such as licking lips, whistling, coughing, or winking)

limb-kinetic apraxia: the inability to make fine, precise movements with an arm or leg

ideomotor apraxia: the inability to make the proper movement in response to a verbal command

ideational apraxia: the inability to coordinate activities with multiple, sequential movements, such as dressing, eating, and bathing

verbal apraxia: difficulty coordinating mouth and speech movements

constructional apraxia: the inability to copy, draw, or construct simple figures

oculomotor apraxia: difficulty moving the eyes on command

& it says Apraxia may be accompanied by a language disorder called aphasia!! aphasia not a type of apraxia but i have both i didn’t realize there is connection!!!

different places have different definitions of difference (or lack there of) between dyspraxia and apraxia. this website say dyspraxia milder form of apraxia. but some places specify apraxia is full loss of skilled performer movement and dyspraxia is partial difficulty. other places say dyspraxia refer to general movement and apraxia refer to speech mostly (don’t really agree to this bc this is only thinking about apraxia of speech).

specifically DCD (& dyspraxia) is definitely developmental but apraxia can be brain injury related i think :o but there is also childhood apraxia of speech, which, hence name again, childhood, developmental (if you get it later in life it would be called acquired apraxia of speech)

so: difference between apraxia/dyspraxia/DCD, still a bit of mystery for me, don’t take my word for it

[rachellaurengray]

Exploring Pendulums: An Insight into Their Use and Effectiveness

Inspired by a recent question from a client, this post explores the world of pendulums—those intriguing tools that swing from a chain and offer answers through their movements. In the midst of exploring this topic, I’m reminded of my own journey with pendulums, which started quite unexpectedly.

A Personal Journey with Pendulums

A few years ago, I was given a pendulum as a gift by a close friend who was deeply interested in metaphysical practices. At first, I was skeptical. It seemed too simplistic to provide meaningful insights. But one evening, feeling a bit lost about a personal decision, I decided to give it a try. To my surprise, the pendulum's responses were not only clear but also resonated deeply with me. That experience sparked a fascination with this tool, prompting me to explore its use further and understand how it might be working.

What Is a Pendulum?

A pendulum is a simple divination tool consisting of a weight suspended from a chain or string. When held still, the pendulum can swing freely. Users ask the pendulum questions and interpret its movements to gain insights or answers. The pendulum's movements can be classified into different directions, typically representing "yes," "no," or "maybe."

How to Use a Pendulum

Cleansing: Before use, it's essential to cleanse the pendulum to remove any negative or residual energies. This can be done through various methods such as running it under water, placing it in sunlight, or using smoke from sage or incense.

Programming: Programming involves setting intentions and establishing a connection between the user and the pendulum. Hold the pendulum and clearly state what each direction or movement represents. This step ensures that both the user and the pendulum are aligned in their communication.

Asking Questions: Formulate clear and specific questions to avoid ambiguity. Hold the pendulum still and ask your question. Observe the pendulum's movements and interpret them based on the programming you established.

Is the Pendulum a Legitimate Tool for Divination?

The effectiveness of pendulums as divination tools is often debated. Here are a few perspectives:

Psychological Influence: Some experts suggest that pendulum movements can be attributed to the ideomotor effect, where subtle unconscious movements by the user influence the pendulum. This explanation posits that the pendulum reflects the user's subconscious thoughts rather than an external source of guidance.

Energetic Connection: Others believe that pendulums work by tapping into a higher or universal consciousness. They argue that the pendulum acts as a conduit, allowing the user to access information beyond their immediate awareness.

Personal Experience: For many users, the pendulum's effectiveness is validated by personal experience. If a user finds consistent and meaningful answers, it reinforces their belief in the tool's validity. Personal intuition and interpretation play a significant role in this perspective.

Tips for Effective Use

Practice Regularly: The more you use the pendulum, the more familiar you will become with its movements and the nuances of interpreting them.

Trust Your Intuition: Pendulums often work best when the user trusts their intuition and remains open to the information received.

Document Your Results: Keeping a journal of your pendulum sessions can help track accuracy and provide insights into your own interpretative process.

Pendulums can be a valuable addition to your divination practices, offering a unique way to access insights and guidance. Whether viewed through the lens of psychological influence or energetic connection, their effectiveness often comes down to personal belief and experience. By understanding the mechanics behind their use and remaining open to different interpretations, you can better integrate pendulums into your spiritual or intuitive practices.

Reflecting on my own initial skepticism and subsequent experiences, I’ve come to appreciate the pendulum not just as a tool, but as a gateway to deeper self-discovery. For those exploring pendulums for the first time or seeking to deepen their understanding, this tool can be a fascinating journey into personal insight and intuitive growth.

[holycatsandrabbits]

Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: The Mysterious Ouija Board: Who are you talking to?

The Ouija began as a benign religious practice of Civil War-era Spiritualists, who were seeking to contact beloved family members who had died or met the more horrifying fate of vanishing into the theater of war. The board’s darker reputation began with the 1973 movie The Exorcist, which showed demonic consequences for playing.

The truth, of course, is that the planchette’s movement is caused by the ideomotor response— it’s our subconscious speaking, not spirits. Maybe not spooky, but still really cool (and okay, maybe a bit spooky). But if we’re going to seek writing prompts from beyond the veil, we need the scary stuff. So have a seat and dim the lights… let’s find out who we’re talking to.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts from beyond the veil, such as:

It’s all in your head. So what if we decide the Ouija can’t actually place calls to regions beyond? But what if it’s also not the ideomotor effect moving that planchette? Now we’re talking psychic powers. Telepathy is a common Ouija explanation: the idea that when a group asks a question, somebody there knows the answer and psychically transmits it to the group, who then moves the planchette by the usual subconscious means. The flip side of that is telekinesis, where somebody moves the planchette using the powers of their mind, whether consciously or not. You could have a character discover their own psychic powers of either type by using a Ouija board, or they could already be adept at using their gifts. What kind of answers do they want the board to give?

Ao3 ~ DannyeChase.com ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Ko-fi ~ Newsletter

Image credit

[charaunofficial]

Hoo. Okay.

Frisk does not require an Ouija Board to contact Chara under normal circumstances.

As the entity solely responsible for all the narration and check text in the Underground, Chara's chattiness is a well-known quantity.

Chara is currently experiencing abnormal circumstances (being trapped in the void) which render them unable to contact Frisk, and vice versa, even with the help of tools.

The Ouija Board relies on the ideomotor response to draw answers from the participants' collective unconscious expectations, and does not actually contact ghosts.

Channeling this much talkative energy through the low-baud interface of an Ouija Board would be like pulling teeth; one might as well ask a pendulum to emit the answer in binary ASCII. (And pendulums rely on the same reflex as ouija boards do.)

It is unknown if we can even contact this Chara's Frisk right now.

Also, pre-emptively: Both Chara and Frisk are in fact nonbinary.

* This is all correct.

[funeral]

Differing conceptions of the integration of stimulus, response, and effect information, and the role of action effects. White, unfilled arrows indicate the temporal sequence of events; black arrows indicate effects of, or interactions between, these events. Broken circles indicate which events become integrated in the learning process.

Ideomotor Theories of Voluntary Action Control

[willsimpforanyone]

Buzzfeed unsolved X Sanders sides

Virgil (nonbinary) is the sceptic that is a little too easily convinced

Logan is the real sceptic, easily figures out what makes the creepy sounds (trans man)

Patton (trans man) is a terrified believer that is just trying to keep it all together

Roman (genderfluid) is the enthusiastic believer who drags everyone on ghost hunts

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

"Roman please, you're going to figuratively pull my arm out of it's socket if you tug any harder," Logan sighed at his enthusiastic friend who was holding very tightly to his hand. Roman, blue 'he/him' pronoun bracelet clearly display, was pulling him to the porch of the presumably haunted house, closely followed by Virgil with their camera and a very nervous Patton.

"You really don't need to clarify, we know I couldn't actually pull your arm out of its socket," Roman rolled his eyes, but eased his grip on Logan's hand, slowing his pace so they could walk side by side.

Virgil aimed a kick at Roman's feet. "So what are we actually doing here? Is it ghosts or demons this time?"

"Both, actually," Roman turned back to swipe at Virgil's head. "There are at least three ghosts, and a demon in the attic."

Patton squeaked. "Uh, hey, um, you didn't say anything about a demon, Ro..."

"Roman, I wish you would stop saying things like they are irrefutable facts. There has been no definitive proof that ghosts or demons exist." Logan rolled his eyes, but Roman was undeterred.

The group had been allowed one night in the supposedly haunted house, and Virgil had been commissioned to film the events that could take place. They were secretly grateful that they didn't have to be in the actual video footage at all if they didn't want to be, but outwardly complained that they would get tired of holding the camera, that this house was stupid anyway, they didn't even believe in this crap.

Roman hesitated at the door, and Virgil smirked. "What, getting scared?" They pointed the camera at their friend. "Big Bad Roman is scared of the front fucking door."

That was enough to get Roman to swing open the door and stroll on in like he was merely popping in to a coffee shop. Logan followed, unbothered. Patton clung to Virgil, and the pair entered together.

The bag Roman slung on the table made a loud thud, and when opened he produced an EMF reader, divining sticks, a ouija board and a few other things that he laid out neatly on the table. Logan raised an eyebrow.

"I'll admit, you do seem to be passionate about this, no matter how idiotic this quest may be." Logan picked up the EMF reader and scrutinised it. "I'm not sure if I can call your methods scientific, however. You do understand this entire night is going to yield results only supported by pseudoscience?"

Patton took the EMF reader from Logan's grasp. "Now now, be nice Lo-Lo, this is something Roman is excited about and we should be supportive. And, if we're- lucky? Or unlucky, I'm kinda hoping we don't find anything- we might hear or see something that is definitive proof of ghosts!" Patton smiled encouragingly at Roman, who grinned back.

Virgil was fiddling around with the camera. "Hey, who did I give the batteries to? This one is empty."

"But-" Roman stared, frozen. "That was a new battery, wasn't it?" He took out a new battery from the front pocket of the bag and handed it over. Virgil shrugged, and simply swapped the batteries over, unwilling to admit that it was indeed a new battery, and that they'd double-checked it just before they arrived at the house.

"W-well, we'd better get started, right?" Patton's voice was higher than normal and he'd detached himself from Virgil only to reattach himself to Logan, finding comfort in the unceasing scepticism.

Roman handed out torches to both Patton and Logan. "Indeed, let us at last embark on a quest to uncover the secrets this house holds, let us walk among the dead and speak to those belonging to days gone by!" He grabbed Virgil and started dragging them upstairs. "Come, my friends, adventure awaits!"

The enthusiasm held by Roman was the driving force for the rest of the group as they followed him all the way up to the attic. Patton gave a nervous laugh as Roman placed the ouija board down and gestured for them all to sit on the floor. "Are we sure about this, Ro? I mean aren't ouija boards supposed to be really... scary?"

Virgil smirked from under their fringe. "That's the point, Pat- they communicate with those beyond the grave." They wiggled the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the camera at Patton and laughed lowly, darkly. "You never know, maybe the demon will possess one of us."

"Please cease from scaring him, Virgil, my arm is starting to hurt from where he is holding it," Logan glared at Virgil, and Patton guiltily let go, opting to sit next to Roman.

"You'll save me, right Ro?"

Roman put his arm around the slightly smaller man. "Indeed I will. Never fear, my dear friend, for it will take more than a mere demon to frighten me!"

Eventually, all four of them were situated round the board- Virgil was exempt from being involved as they were filming the scene, but the others all had two fingers on the plancette that was placed in the middle of the board.

"...do we introduce ourselves? It would be polite, right?"

"Patton, there is nothing to be polite to- demons do not exist."

"Oh hush, Specs-tre... you get it? Like spectre? Like a ghost?"

Virgil sighed, exasperated. "Can we get on with this, please? My arms are starting to hurt."

They decided on spelling out their names, with only minor mistakes, and waiting to see if there was any kind of response. Roman and Patton were eagerly leaning over the board, while Virgil and Logan exchanged glances.

Very slowly, the planchette began to move. Roman scowled at Logan. "If this is you trying to trick us, I don't appreciate it."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "I am not trying to trick you, I am merely sitting here like you two."

Roman turned his gaze to Virgil, who scowled back. "How can I have anything to do with it, dumbass? I'm not even touching the board."

The planchette had moved from the middle of the board where they had put it after spelling their names to the 'G', and was moving to what seemed to be the 'O'.

Inhaling shakily, Patton looked at the camera. "V, I think it might be saying 'go away'."

Virgil quickly wiped the look of worry off their face- they were supposed to be a sceptic, after all- and nodded. "Yes Patton, the demon is antisocial and wants us all to fuck off." They spun the camera around as if looking for a demon. "Understandable, have a nice day."

"Virgil, will you please deign to keep the camera on the board, I fear Roman is going to start yelling any minute otherwise." Logan's even voice brought all attention back to the board, where the planchette was just moving off the 'A'.

Roman looked like he was about to burst. He let out a breath he'd been holding. "Everyone shut up, this is the most evidence we've ever got!"

"This isn't exactly evidence. The planchette moving is due to what's called the 'ideomotor effect', simply meaning your body talks to itself. It's an example of involuntary, unconcious physical movement." Logan was now the focus of attention. "Patton has planted the idea that the so-called 'demon' is trying to spell 'go away', so it is likely the planchette will react to your unconcious movements to spell out those words."

Sulkily, Roman sat back, leaning on both his hands. "C'mon teach, you can't just... take the magic out of this like that."

Logan looked surprised. "I... I'm sorry Roman, I just thought it would be interesting to know the actual science behind the board, especially since we're filming it." He looked sincerely apologetic. "I apologise for taking the metaphorical 'magic' out of this activity."

Roman sighed, but smiled slightly. "Don't worry about it." He fiddled with the pronoun bracelet, and switched it to a green 'they\them' bracelet. "You know, I don't believe the ghosts are biting tonight. I suggest we leave and perhaps try again another day."

Patton nodded enthusiastically. "Yes please, can we please leave, I keep feeling like we should leave, let's leave-" He scooped up the ouija board, only pausing to move the planchette quickly to 'goodbye', and stuffed it in Roman's bag.

The procession downstairs was slightly less upbeat than the procession upstairs had been, but Roman was determined to not make Logan feel bad. "Besides," they said, arm slung around Logan. "I doubt demons would be very respectful of pronouns." Virgil stifled a laugh.

"Yeah, nobody wants to talk with disrespectful demons." The group reached the door and they turned to look at the house once last time. "Fuck off demon, we don't need your transphobia!"

Patton panicked for a second and clapped his hand over Virgil's mouth. "Virgil! It'll hear you!"

Roman laughed heartily. "Don't worry, Pat, I agree with Casper the Unfriendly Ghost here. Who cares if the transphobic demon hears, I refuse to bother myself with the opinions of demon who can't even talk back to us."

Walking back to the car, Logan was nudged gently by Roman. "Hey, teach, you can't say there's absolutely no way the planchette was moved by a demon or a ghost, can you?"

About to retort that yes, he could say that, Logan looked at Roman's face, their eyes showing just a little bit of hope. "...no, I can't say for certain that the planchette wasn't moved by a supernatural force."

Perhaps it was foolish, but seeing Roman's face light up was worth it.

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

i love the sanders sides and i love buzzfeed unsolved so here ya go, have this brain child, hope you enjoy- you're welcome to ask for more!

[bargainbinwizard]

I’ve been messing with this Ouija board a few times now but I’m having trouble getting the spirits to actually ‘talk’. You know how I’ve written before that one of the angel spirits might be trying to spell her name? I think it might be just gibberish...

I’m either not getting responses or I’m getting gibberish answers or the planchette stops moving. I did cleanse the board the best I could yesterday but today it’s still not cooperating.

I think the problem is with me. I think I’m not energetically ‘clean’ enough to  properly channel their energy and the spirits are having trouble communicating through me since it all works with the ideomotor effect.

My new solution is to somehow cleanse myself first before attempting this board again. Fasting would make sense but is too extreme. I guess I should bathe and then energetically cleanse myself(?) Combining those three methods might help too but fasting is still too extreme.

Maybe cleanse myself and be energetically pure first and then cleanse/ward the room before the session? Somehow use energy work on myself to help bring the spirits’ energy through me?

[capnjay21]

A House is Never Still 4/6

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and here is chapter four! thank you so much for all the support so far, this chapter actually has one of my favourite sequences I’ve written for this fic. but I’m not telling which it is!

again, heaps and piles and many fancy vases full of gratitude for @hollyethecurious​ for creating this amazing aesthetic, without which this fic would not exist.

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

starting a tiny taglist since I got a request for one, so I am ~tentatively~ tagging a handful of people I think might want to read this - NO obligation to, and feel free to drop me a message to say hell nah if you would prefer! I won’t be offended in any way, shape or form! 

@snowbellewells​ @carpedzem​ @kmomof4​ @optomisticgirl​

AO3 | one | two | three

-/-

4 – an unearthly hand

Present Day

The clouds parted for the first time since Killian’s return to Storybrooke on the day he brought Regina to Brooke House, lifting the feeling of grey that had cast its blanket over the town. For days, it had warmed itself in open doorways, prowled after townsfolk around street corners and crept beneath windowsills, and Killian was relieved to be granted something of a reprieve from the fog of autumn in New England.

The house stood, as it had the day before, in the north woods just a brisk, ten-minute walk away from the well-trodden track of the White Pine trail. He didn’t need the faded pieces of string to guide his path to the house anymore, and it had become so present in his impression of the town that he had forgotten that Brooke House, as it looked at that moment, had not always been there.

Regina had stopped twenty paces from the door, expression unreadable but for her parted lips.

It seemed almost unusual to see it in the sparkling sunlight of the morning, like something had been taken right out of it. Here it was white brick and rotted wood and barren, where at night it positively brimmed with something far more than any one person could comprehend. Even at a shell of its normal, terrible self, Regina had taken a little time to process.  

“It really is here,” she had said finally. “How about that.”

She said how about that the same way you would say it if you found out an old classmate had gone on to become a movie star, or you discovered your local grocery store was lifting its embargo on branded products.

Not like a house that was sometimes there, sometimes not there, was today, decidedly, there.

It had been a bit more of a laborious journey than he was used to, but Killian’s Chevelle could only take them so far and he had a lot of equipment to bring with him today, cramming everything he could as delicately as possible into his rucksack. Regina, too, had brought a duffle bag full of materials, and Killian could spot the heavy corner of her book of shadows poking out from within, begging to be noticed. The previous times he had visited Brooke House he hadn’t been properly prepared, but this time around Killian was determined to leave the house with something he could quantify, rather than just the deep, sick dread that had left with him every other night.

He had entered the house ahead of her, the novelty of its return long since worn away, and moved into the living room just to the right of the hallway. It was far brighter in the light of day, the long, Victorian windows allowing a brilliant glow from the outside, and Killian could now even spot a few holes near the top of the front wall where the mortar had crumbled away, as dapples of sunlight trickled directly in from above painting yellow specks on the floorboards. Even still, he was not entirely comfortable being there. He walked twice around the edge of the room, every unexpected creak making his heart lurch uncomfortably into his mouth, and even once whispered Emma’s name out into the dust.

Nothing stirred.

Today it was bricks, and rotted wood, and bare.

He was just setting his camera atop its tripod when Regina finally entered, the heels of her boots clicking loudly on the old wood.

“It’s like walking back into high school,” she commented drily, clearly taking in the discarded scarf, the Apollo chocolate bar wrapper. “Is that my Ouija board?”

She looked almost indignant, as if Brooke House were an old friend who had borrowed a CD and never bothered to return it, but Killian wanted her attention focused elsewhere.

“Here, come and feel this.”

He led her by the hand (amid protests) to the centre of the room, a ring of dust slightly newer than the rest just barely visible on the floor. It was the place he had been standing the night prior, when Emma had dug her nails sharply into the back of his jacket.

“Palms out. Doesn’t it feel colder here than the rest of the room?”

Regina looked unconvinced. “Maybe a little.”

“It is,” Killian insisted. “I’m sure of it. Stay right there.” He darted back to his rucksack and pulled out two identical aluminium rods, bent at a right angle six inches from one of the ends. When he returned, he held them out to Regina so she could hold the shorter end, and although she pursed her lips in displeasure, obligingly she took them. “Hold them loosely, like this.” He adjusted her grip to match.

Regina looked unamused. “And what, in God’s name, are these?” She arched an eyebrow. “I better not get struck by lightning.”

Killian returned to where he had been squatting by the camera, tilting the tripod so it could capture the spot Regina was standing in. On the infrared display, she was a warm scarlet and gold storm.

“They’re dowsing rods.”

“You’re joking.”

“Couldn’t be more serious. Hold them steady – like that.” Regina reluctantly obliged. “Tell me if they move.”

Killian had experienced limited success with dowsing in the past – it had been shown to him by a farmer in Iowa who had used it to find buried metals and ores underneath the ground, and admittedly actually had a lot to show for the results. Killian himself had been sceptical, and given how intermittent his own successes were, there was no way to tell if they could be attributed to any real sense of divination or sheer blind luck. Still, he wanted to throw everything in his arsenal at Brooke House.

“I don’t have to tell you about the ideomotor response, do I?” Regina said flatly. “Unconscious involuntary movement. Dowsing is bullshit.”

“Says the woman brewing potions in her living room,” Killian shot back. “I mean it – even if it’s a little, tell me if they move.”

Satisfied with the positioning of the camera, he plugged in his tablet and left it set to record before returning to his rucksack. After some deliberation, he reached for the electro-magnetic field reader he had tried to cushion in the bag with a thick scarf. It was blocky and old, and looked like something that had been lifted from a 60s Star Trek set, but it had become one his most valued instruments over the years.

Regina had been craning her neck to see what he was holding, and once she realised, she let out a noise of frustration.

“Killian, if you wanted an EMF reader I would’ve brought mine – at least it’s not a hundred years old. And that’s clearly a single axis meter.” Single axis meters were notoriously more difficult to use than a tri-axis, as they required significant coordination in order to measure the information recorded across all three axis ,while also trying to move the instrument to gather more data; a tri-axis allowed for much more detailed data acquisition. You could only point Killian’s meter at one thing at a time, slowly, whereas Regina’s could probably handle something far more intricate.

Even so, Killian had far more faith in his own device.

“Believe me,” he informed her, “this is better.”

He could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“Where did you get all this stuff anyway?”

“Ebay, mostly.”

She scoffed. “You look like a quack.”

Killian laughed. Quack was probably the most positive way Regina had ever described him. “And you’re listening to a quack,” he pointed out, “so what does that make you?” He glanced over to see her still standing where he had left her, holding the two dowsing rods outstretched. It didn’t look like they had moved. “Let me know if they cross.”

He was just tweaking with the settings on the EMF reader when Regina carried on.

“Where’s David today, anyway?”

She said ‘where’s David today’ as if she were enquiring which films her old school friend had starred in, or when branded products would be making their way onto the shelves at her local supermarket. Mild disinterest and a characteristic neutrality. She didn’t fool Killian for a second.

She carried on. “I was sure we’d be joined by the witless wonder in no time.”

Killian had sent David just one text message last night, a simple I’m sorry. David had read it, and not replied. He had to remind himself it was better off this way.

“He’s… busy.”

Regina looked surprised. “It’s been three days. How have you already fallen out with him?”

Killian tried to make his shrug as blithe as possible. “It’s a gift, I suppose.” He could just add David Nolan to the long list of people in Storybrooke who really didn’t want him to be there. Deciding finally that the dowsing rods weren’t getting anything from the cold spot, or perhaps weren’t getting anything from Regina, he crossed back over to her and swapped them for the EMF reader. This was something Regina was far more familiar with, and immediately began spinning slowly in place even as she wrinkled her nose disdainfully at the antiquated design.

“And, why, exactly, are we here?”

“We’re looking for Emma.”

Help me, Killian. Let me out. Please.

He had thought it over constantly over the last day. Maybe those words hadn’t just been spoken by that dark, terrible spectre of the house. Maybe that had been a little of Emma, their Emma, bleeding through. He had to find out for sure if there was anything but darkness left, and these were the only ways he knew to look for ghosts.

“We’re looking for Emma,” Regina repeated, in a strange tone.

It gave him pause, so he turned to look at her. She looked unfairly doubtful, and it made irritation flare within him. “The house is here, isn’t it? Where it wasn’t before. It stands to reason she could be here too. David saw her. So did Ruby. You said it yourself, something is changing. Why can’t it be her?”

He’d seen her, he wanted to say. But something held him back. Something private and longing and scared beyond his wits.

“Why can’t it be her?” he repeated, a little more forcefully when she didn’t immediately reply.

Regina bit her lip, as if trying to work out how best to proceed. She took a few steps forward, the wood underneath her boots creaking loudly.

“You and I both know… Emma wasn’t the only thing there that night. In the dark.”

Black lightning. Her wrist stained red, angry welts erupting across her forearm. Eyes as dark as obsidian.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

A wave of nausea rose within him.

“Is it wise for us to start messing with stuff we don’t understand – again?” To her credit she looked like the suggestion made her almost as miserable as it did him, but her nature dictated she give voice to the thoughts that cut everybody to the quick. “I mean, what if this is something else, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?”

So good of you to come and see me.

First David, then him. After all, Mary Margaret hadn’t reported any ghostly sightings, and neither had Regina – and she had practically drenched herself in the supernatural.

Killian shook his head, clutching the dowsing rods tightly.

“But what if it is Emma?” he said finally. The crux of the thing was that he could never ignore her, no matter how sensible the suggestion that he do so. He knew he looked weak, that the confidence he had projected toward Regina since returning to town had crumbled and he must look stupid next to her now, seventeen again and blithering and hopeful beside her world-worn pragmatism. “We have to try.”

He begged her, pleaded with her silently to support him.

Regina was quiet for a long moment, and the EMF reader let out a low zinging noise from where she was pointing it. After a while she sighed.

“Alright,” she said briskly, and Killian visibly sagged with relief. “But I’m going to need much more sage.”

-/-

October 24th – Five Years Ago

“Killian, it’s creepy here,” whined Mary Margaret. “When can we go?”

Emma watched as Killian laughed from where he sat across the room, drawing something onto the floorboards in thick, black marker.

“I’m sorry, Mary Margaret. Just indulge me a little longer.”

Brooke House wasn’t nearly as scary the second time Emma had visited it. They had come virtually straight from school, the sky starting to fade from bright blue to soft pink, but while Emma still didn’t exactly relish the idea of being there after dark, it had lost something of its harshness from the last time she’d been there. Somehow, by bringing Regina and Mary Margaret too, expanding their nervous trio out into a confident fivesome, it took power away from the old walls of the house. Regina had laughed when they showed her the spinning wheel, kicking it into an aggressively fast spin while they all gaped and cried for her to stop. Mary Margaret had removed the sheet from one of the armchairs in the sitting room, declared it looked comfortable enough to sleep in and confidently sat herself down – only for a large spider to creep out of the seams of the cushion, and crawl onto the edge of her dress.

Her shriek had nearly brought them all to tears, and Emma hadn’t been able to move or breathe for laughter for at least ten minutes.

Ever since Killian had asked them all to come to the house, and David had taken great pleasure in informing them it was probably haunted, Regina had been saying she would bring something to match the occasion, and she did not disappoint. Currently she, David and Mary Margaret sat on the floor (the latter with her skirts bunched up around her, casting nervous, fearful glances around for anymore creepy crawlies) surrounding what Regina had called a Ouija board. Emma recognised it only as something she’d once seen on television.

It was an old, polished wood surface ornately decorated, with all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9 beautifully calligraphed across the top. The symbol of the sun had been drawn in one corner, and a crescent moon in the other. The board came with a planchette, a triangular pointer with a glass circle in the centre to allow you to see the characters underneath. The idea, as Regina explained, was that spirits were supposed to speak through the board, by directing the planchette around its surface to spell out words and wishes.

All three held the tip of a finger on the pointer, and Emma watched with mild interest as it inched across the board. It was all bullshit anyway, but it did add to the atmosphere.

“Mary Margaret, you’re moving the pointer,” Regina scowled.

“I am not,” she replied, affronted. “David’s moving it!”

“I’m not! I swear I’m not!”

Regina brushed her hair from her face impatiently. “At least wait until we’ve asked it a question.”

“Where’d you get the creepy board, anyway?” Emma asked.

“My mom was keeping in in the attic, I found it last year when I was looking for Christmas decorations. She was so pissed when I brought it down, made me put it straight back. I always knew she was a bit nuts.” Regina grinned smugly. “So obviously I had to get it out again now the occasion called for it.”

David cleared his throat loudly, drawing their attention back to the board. “Let’s start.” He raised his voice, projecting it around the room and inserting as much grandiose as he could muster. “Are we alone in this house?” The planchette slid across the board, and David sounded out the letters it landed on. “N… O. It said no.”

“David, you’re clearly moving it.”

“I’m not!”

Leaving them to bicker, Emma turned her attention back to Killian. He had finished what he had been drawing on the floor, and was now scattering salt in a circle around it. Completely entranced in his work, his attention flickered between the salt in his hand and a few battered pieces of paper he had lain flat against the floor. Emma recognised one of them as the one etched with doodles and a few scribbles that they had found in Liam’s toolbox. Somehow, that only increased her feeling of unease.

“Hey,” she said, after crossing the room to sit beside him, hugging her knees to her chest. She was careful not to let her trainers disturb the circle he had made. She also wondered if Archie knew where all the salt at the group home had gone. “You okay?”

He had joked around with them while they let the others explore the house, but had soon retreated to his work. Which, Emma now realised, was a five-pointed star drawn on the floorboards in thick black marker, with each tip touching the edge of the salt circle.

“Yeah,” he replied, flashing her a smile. “I’m almost done.”

Emma bit her lip. “Remind me what it is you’re hoping to achieve? Do you really expect to, uh… summon some kind of ghost?” The look he gave her was unimpressed, but Emma shrugged. He hadn’t exactly given them a lot of clues. “What? I was there with Belle, remember? ‘Do you believe in magic?’”

Emma most certainly did not believe in magic.

The five-pointed star and the circle of salt were telling her something else about Killian, though.

“All I want is to understand. To just – get in his head, I don’t know. He was working on this house for weeks, but it looks like all he did was start peeling off the wallpaper. And why did he go and see Belle? Why did he –?”

Drive his car into a ravine? Emma couldn’t count the number of times Killian must have asked himself that.

He shook his head.

“It has to have something to do with this house. And look, these were in his toolbox.” Killian stepped carefully over his handiwork so he could crouch beside her, showing her the piece of paper, curling at the edges. “He drew the pentagram, right there.” He pointed out an image identical to the one Killian had just drawn on the floor. “I was doing a little research into the symbolism, and a lot of Satanic cults use it for, uh, stuff.” He trailed off unconvincingly, and Emma tried not to look the equal parts amused and creeped out that she felt.

“And like he’s done here, I’ll light a candle at each point. The notes he’s actually written are brief so I just had to interpret as best I can – ‘salt circle’ and ‘curvy dagger’. Did you bring your fishing knife like I asked?”

Emma leant forward so she could reach into the back pocket of her jeans to retrieve it. She held it close to her chest for a moment, thinking about all the comfort it had given her back when she was a kid – in a world where she could control so little, she had liked how powerful it made her feel. The first time she had showed it to Killian was when they were fourteen, and his eyes had grown so round that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from giggling.

After a moment of hesitation, she handed it over.

Another of David’s noisy questions out into the room drew their focus.

“Will I become rich and famous one day? Oh – Y… E… S.” He smirked triumphantly. “Well, better start sucking up to me now guys.”

Mary Margaret laughed. “It’s for talking to spirits, stupid, not predicting the future.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Regina purred. “Will David get a smack if he keeps moving the pointer? Yeah?”

There was a loud thump as she swatted him on the arm.

“Looks like it tells the future just fine.”

“Regina!”

They joined in the laughter with the others, the indignant surprise on David’s face just too funny to ignore; he protested loudly at all attempts of maltreatment, and started entreating the spirits in the house to retaliate on his behalf.

“They think this is a joke,” Emma said quietly, careful to keep her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear her. “Please don’t let it get to you when… if this goes nowhere.”

Killian had started wandering down a dangerous rabbit hole – she just didn’t want him to get hurt.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her, as he started placing candles at the five corners of the star. “Summoning an evil spirit? I have my expectations really low.”

“E…M…M… Emma, it’s spelt your name!” Mary Margaret squeaked.

Emma rolled her eyes, growing more tired by the minute of the game Regina had started. “Cut it out.”

“C…O…M…E.”

David narrowed his eyes at Regina suspiciously. “You’re moving it, right?”

Regina glowered back. “No, you are.”

“Guys,” Killian called over, “I’m ready.”

They left the Ouija board where it was, planchette resting atop the E, and came over to join them in the centre of the room. Killian directed each of them to sit at a point on the star, David and Mary Margaret giggling to each other but trying to keep a straight face, before he followed the line of the circle with some matches, lighting each candle. David jokingly blew on his, causing the flame to flicker wildly, and Emma shot him a warning look.

She only wanted them to take it seriously for a few minutes, just for Killian.

“What exactly are we trying to do?” Regina asked, looking bored as she played at dabbing the tip of the flame with her finger.

Emma had been about to bark a rebuke, but Killian beat her do it with an indulgent grin.

“We’re trying to get results.”

“I think I saw this ritual on an episode of Ghost Hunters,” Mary Margaret whispered excitedly. “See, the wife had murdered the husband, but they found a second body buried under the…” She seemed to sense the atmosphere starting to shift to something a little more sombre, and let her sentence trail off.

Killian stepped outside the circle to take his place at the final point of the star, placing the knife carefully in his lap once he was settled. Then they waited.

For a beat, nothing happened at all. The candles flickered in place, they exchanged uncertain looks. The shadows inside the sitting room had grown longer the closer the sun inched behind the trees, and it made the dappled light from the star in front of them look a little more ominous now that daylight was fading.

Regina huffed loudly. “Now what?”

“Erm,” Killian scratched the back of his neck, “I don’t really know.”

“Maybe we should hold hands?” David suggested quickly.

Emma felt that suggestion was probably more to do with the hand he would be holding than wanting to increase their chances of success – and she knew Killian agreed from the amused glance he sent her, but they consented all the same. Mary Margaret blushed as she slipped her hand into David’s.

Killian’s hand in Emma’s was warm, and a little clammy. It didn’t feel like it had the day of her birthday, when he had walked her back to the Nolan house from Granny’s. They had held hands the entire way, continuing to talk with enough forced nonchalance that they both knew the other was also clearly trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, hiding their smiles with glances out into the road. Then, it had made her feel dizzy with possibility, the gentle move of his thumb on the back of her hand sending her stomach spinning with delight.

This afternoon it didn’t thrill her the same way. She could feel how nervous he was in the slight tremor of his hand, and as she glanced at Regina on his other side she could tell the other girl could feel it too. Whether it was a sense of compassion for him or a desire to just get it over with, Regina slipped smoothly into control.

“We’re talking to the spirit in this house,” Regina said clearly, firmly, looking up into the ceiling. “Are you there?”

They all waited with bated breath.

“Can you hear us?”

All at once Emma was struck by the old, kind face of Belle Gold, wide eyed and fearful.

He found – he found a house, in the woods – and he thought it might make him strong.

Something thumped inside her chest. Like static from a radio, she could hear something crackling at her ear, but every time she turned her head toward the sound it disappeared. Twice she cleared her throat to try and speak but no sound came out. She knew, she knew, but she didn’t know how she knew, and Killian had turned to look at her, concerned, as her hand tightened on his.

“The knife,” she blurted out, and he raised an eyebrow. “It should be in the middle.”

Killian didn’t question her, merely stared at her curiously as he let go of Regina’s hand to slide the knife into the centre of the circle. It clattered against the floorboards before rolling to a stop in the middle.

But it felt – wrong.

“Wrong,” Mary Margaret echoed. Her eyes were closed.

David, too, had shut his eyes, and after Killian had once again completed the circle, Emma did the same. Regina didn’t speak again. Emma sensed she felt the same as she did; they had asked whatever they meant to ask, and it would be cheap to do so again. Only for show. Outside was nothing but stillness, not a sound to drown them out – in fact she had only become conscious of noise in the absence of it, and she now wished she had been playing closer attention to what it was that had stopped dead when they formed the circle.

They had been heard.

“I’m here,” Killian whispered quietly, so quietly Emma couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Find me.”

It had grown colder, gooseflesh beginning to erupt along her arm. Everything began to feel much farther away, as if her ears had popped, and a faint buzzing replaced the quiet that had blanketed them before. Oxygen was taking longer to reach her lungs, like the pressure in the air had changed. She could feel hair rising from the back of her neck and the thought suddenly entered her mind with a shuddering fear that she was about to be struck by lightning.

A rumble sounded from above, the rumble of something trapped beating against impossibly old doors.

The wardrobe.

It was all – wrong.

Come.

Listen.

Static zinged through her grip on Killian’s hand, and they both yelped and broke apart.

“What?” David spoke first, but the other three were all giving them baffled looks. Both Killian and Emma nursed their injured hands with matching grimaces. “What happened?”

“Electric shock,” Killian answered, shaking his hand out. “Bloody hell, ouch.”

“It’s the weather,” Regina offered. “I saw the forecast earlier. It always gets like this right before a storm.” Finally tired of the whole affair, she blew out her candle with an air of finality. “I think we can safely say this house is not haunted.”

Emma was willing her racing pulse to slow, trying to process what the fuck had just happened, but everyone else seemed to be carrying on as if nothing had occurred at all. David was helping Mary Margaret brush cobwebs from her hair while she asked if he wanted to come over to the Blanchard’s for dinner. Regina stood up and began to pack up the Ouija board. Killian stared at the flickering wick of his candle, looking despondent and a little frustrated. All like nothing in the world had taken place.

“Wait,” Emma said, looking around them all at confusion. “Are we really not going to talk about what just happened?”

They all turned to stare at her.

Killian was the first to reply. “What do you mean?”

“The – you know. It went quiet. The, uh, atmosphere.” She realised with frustration that it was amazingly difficult to describe, that breathlessness. The sense of standing on the edge and peering out into the dark. “You said it,” Emma pointed at Mary Margaret, remembering now that the girl had spoken. “You said ‘wrong’.”

Mary Margaret frowned. “No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” When Mary Margaret again shook her head, Emma grew indignant. “You did!” She hadn’t goddamn imagined it, so why was the other girl bothering to deny it?

“Emma, she didn’t say anything,” David said cautiously. “Nobody said anything until you guys did.”

When she opened her mouth to retort Killian put a hand on her arm. It made her hesitate long enough for them all to brush past the moment.

“This place is creepy,” Mary Margaret declared, “and I’ve got to get home. David, are you coming?”

As Mary Margaret collected her stuff, David looked torn. Emma merely smiled at him weakly, but nodded her head – he should go. She was just… she was overtired. She probably shouldn’t have stayed up so late the night before studying for their calculus test on Monday. And she was letting the feeling of that house, of Killian’s hopefulness in that house get to her, and she’d let herself get carried right along by something else altogether.

They finished helping Regina pack the board away, but Emma stayed behind to help Killian clear up, promising to see the others at school the next day, and David that night once he got back to Ruth’s. The pair of them worked mostly in silence, using the old bucket and sponge Liam had left and a bottle of water to wipe the black marker away from the floorboards. Even amongst the disrepair of the house, it felt dishonest to leave the markings on the floor.

Or perhaps they just didn’t want to leave any permanent evidence of their being there.

“I believe you,” Killian said quietly. “I didn’t hear her, but I believe you. I think these things have to affect all of us differently.”

And by ‘these things’, he meant the supernatural. Ghosts. The movement of the planchette across Regina’s spirit board.

Things Emma definitely, categorically did not believe in.

Right?

She dismissed him. “You only think I heard something because you want me to have heard something.” It wasn’t true belief in her, it wasn’t because he knew her to be honest or trusted her. It was because something else was what he had come here for, and her ramblings had been his only glimpse of it.

Killian’s wanting, longing, was palpable in his every hopeful inhale.

“That’s unfair.”

Emma chose not to reply.

“What else did you feel? In the circle?”

“Killian, stop.” She made sure her voice was firm. “You promised not to let this get to you. We tried, okay? Nothing happened.”

They had been heard.

“But you said –”

“I didn’t hear anything, alright? Just forget it.” She stalked over to the window and picked up her rucksack. If she said it forcefully enough to him, she could make it just as true to herself. “Do you want to grab some dinner somewhere?”

She knew she sounded irritated, and Kilian didn’t respond, just watched her from the centre of the room. He was not impressed with her brushing him off, clearly wanted to continue down that line of questioning, and was waiting until she felt ready to talk about it. Suddenly irritated with his saintly level of patience, Emma huffed.

“Fine. Stay here by yourself. See if I care.”

Without waiting to see if he would reply, Emma barged out of the front door and stomped down the rotted steps without another word.

-/-

But she couldn’t sleep that night.

Every time she shut her eyes, drifted near enough to something dreamless, images so vivid they felt more real than the bed she lay in assaulted her. Killian’s disappointed expression from the centre of the room, expectant, waiting. The scrape of the pointer across the board. The knife, lying still in the middle of their circle. Firelight flickering. Regina blowing out her candle with a whoosh that seemed to extend for minutes at a time.

The nothing she had felt as she sat and breathed in the circle. That terrible, absence of anything.

She had realised too late that she had left her fishing knife in Brooke House. It was altogether likely that Killian had picked it up, and after a quiet dinner with Ruth she considered going around to the group home to retrieve it from him. Instead, a wave of annoyance had risen in her. If Killian had picked it up, he should have brought it round to her. And after the brief spat they’d had before she left the house, she decided, really, he should be the one putting effort in for her. Her resolve had strengthened, and she had announced to Ruth that she would be going to bed early.

She had lain awake for a few hours, ears pricked for any noise downstairs. David had come home a little later than expected, had spoken with Ruth for a long time before retreating to his own room. Ruth had stayed in the living room for a while, likely catching up on a few chapters of the novel she had been reading, before Emma heard the creak of the stair indicating she, too, had gone to bed. Killian had not come round. Still the night wore on, and Emma found herself no closer to sleep.

Downstairs the refrigerator hummed, and the electric heater on the landing rumbled, with the occasional clank she had grown used to. On her first night, all the odd sounds of the Nolan house had unnerved her. Much like tonight she had stayed awake for hours, worried she would never be able to sleep, certain the Nolan’s would want to send her back before too long, missing Killian terribly. The further her anxiety had skyrocketed, the more restless she became.

Tonight the noises included the sliding pointer, the squeak of Killian’s pen on the floorboards, Mary Margaret’s quiet whisper, wrong.

In Brooke House, something clattered in the attic. The wardrobe doors bumped and groaned.

Emma’s eyes flew open.

Something was trying to get out.

Her heart began to thump wildly.

Come.

Listen.

She threw back the duvet and reached for her trainers.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself stood in front of Brooke House.

Emma stumbled backwards, as if she were just now falling back into her own body and her knees felt weak with the strain of it, and dry leaves crunched underfoot. She was wearing her trainers. She was also still wearing her pyjama shirt and shorts, but had thrown a hoodie and a coat on over the top. Her legs were bare, and cold. In one hand she held a torch and the other was clenched into a fist at her side.

Why had she come here?

Something loud crashed inside the house, a shadow darted across the upstairs window.

Yes, Emma remembered now. She had come for her knife.

She always felt safer with that knife.

Climbing the front steps, slowly, her shoes sounded more muffled than usual. Before she had a chance to touch it the front door creaked open, beckoning her to step inside. She felt foggy, all – all lost, and what time was it, anyway? A dazed search of her pockets told her she hadn’t brought her cell phone. Why had she left without it? Why couldn’t she remember?

The by now familiar creak sounded from the landing. Emma was halfway up the staircase before she remembered setting her foot on the first step.

For a moment she felt Killian’s hand resting on the small of her back again, ready to steady her if she lost her balance, and she began to lean backwards into it – before it vanished and she had to jerk herself forward to avoid toppling down the stairs. Her hand was so tight on the banister that her knuckles had turned white. Right, Killian wasn’t there. Killian was at home, asleep.

Emma was in Brooke House.

The second floor was lit with tendrils of moonlight, dirty white and shapeless, crawling up the walls and stretching across the floor. The creak sounded again, and Emma gently opened the door to the room with the spinning wheel. As expected, the spinning wheel lay turning slowly on its axis by the soft press of the pedal underneath, except this time a man sat there, steadily feeding in pieces of straw until they came out as spun gold twine, which then pooled into a basket at the end. His face was obscured by the shadow of the windowsill, but he raised a hand in greeting before returning to his work.

She shook her head to try and confirm what she was seeing, and realised with a start that the door to the spinning wheel room was closed, and her hand was still poised above the handle. Had she opened it at all? She couldn’t remember. The old wood of the spinning wheel groaned behind the door and, firmly this time, Emma swung the door open inwardly. The wheel spun slowly – but on its own. Gone was the man, the spun gold, the straw. Only the empty dark and the dancing moonlight remained.

An odd noise jerked her attention away from the wheel, just as the light from her torch winked out. Now concerned, Emma smacked it against her palm a few times to try and knock the device back into working, but it did not respond. The sound came again, and to her ears it seemed like –

No, there it was again. She was sure.

It was a giggle.

High-pitched and delighted, something was laughing at her.

“Who’s there?” she said. Or did she?

She might have said: “I’m coming.”

Uncertain which she had said and which she had not said, Emma reached the end of the corridor and stood on her tiptoes so she could begin to scrabble with the door to the attic. The metal ring which would allow her to pull it down was just out of reach, but after she asked politely the panel dislodged from the ceiling by itself, and with it came the ladder. She rose one cautious step at a time, up into the black, and tried to remember why she was there.

Her knife, yes. She was coming for her knife. She had been just thirteen when she took it, lifting it from a set of tools a dockworker had left abandoned while he helped unload a seiner, and it had made Emma feel so dangerous to be holding it that she had immediately cradled it with both hands before making her escape. The blade was deadly sharp, far sharper than any knife she had seen in the group home or otherwise, and she had cut her hand while examining it later.

It had reminded her of herself. All along she had been afraid that one day someone might fall on her, and get hurt on all her sharp edges.

Another banner year, right?

What?

We’ve all got ghosts here.

As she reached the top her pulse began to race, and her heart turned her head and waited for her body to catch up. She ignored the desk, the vials, the shattered glass on the floor; like a string had been tied to the centre of her chest, made of hope and sadness and something wild, it propelled her forward to the darkest corner of the room. There, tucked into the downward slant of the roof, stood the wardrobe. It rattled in place, as if someone were stood behind and shaking it back and forth, and she could feel it.

She could feel it wanting, could feel it longing for her, and she longed for it right back. Breathless and exhilarated, she crossed the room in three short steps and knelt before it, hands reaching for the ornate handles on the doors. Darker swirls of colour spun out from the handles and almost seemed to move, curling delicately around her fingers.

Yes, they whispered, come.

Listen.

Emma tugged open the doors.

Which was the last thing she could remember before she found herself in her bed at the Nolan house, blinking against the hazy light of morning.

Once realisation struck Emma bolted upright, glancing wildly about her room. Her trainers were tucked against her dresser, her coat hung on the back of her door. There were leaves in her hair. Once she registered it was morning she scrambled for the clock at her bedside, which read 6.03am. Almost time to wake up for school.

Had she – had she dreamed it? The house?

It was already beginning to turn foggy and fade, the corners curling in on themselves with greater speed the more she tried to remember, like clutching at the tendrils of a dream that was vanishing out of sight. Everything was as it was.

Except for the knife.

Emma blinked, realising her left hand had been curled around the hilt of a very strange, very ornate knife – no. Dagger.

The hilt was black as pitch, and cool to touch, but the blade was what interested her the most. It’s edge was curved, as if it were blurring in and out of sight in the nature of a mirage, and was ornately patterned with twisting black shapes reaching all the way to its desperately sharp point. It was heavy, and unlike anything Emma had ever seen before.

But perhaps what intrigued her the most was the name emblazoned across it, written in an almost medieval cursive.

Weighty in both heft and emotional damage, Emma could scarcely believe it. What did it mean?

For written on it was a name she recognised. One they were all familiar with.

Liam Jones.

-/-

2nd May 2015 – Seven Months Later

David was the last to arrive by a couple of minutes. Although the air that night was cool, the day had been hot, and he was still dressed in the same t-shirt and shorts he had been wearing earlier. Killian couldn’t be more grateful for the drop in temperature – he could remember a time he had been a fan of the immortal summer, of scorching afternoons and ice cold drinks, it made him think of fly fishing in the lake in the middle of Memorial Park or setting off cheap fireworks by the docks that fizzled and burnt with the whole year’s lost potential. Last year he and Emma had borrowed Archie’s car and driven all the way to Portland, just so they could track down a lobster restaurant a traveller stopping in at Granny’s had told them about. They spent the entire afternoon searching until, tired and hungry, they’d picked up a few sandwiches from a convenience store and perched at the edge of the harbour, watching the boats roll in, and roll away again.

The whole day had been a bust. Killian couldn’t remember it being anything but perfect.

As the days stretched and he found himself looking for her amongst the sun-soaked streets of Storybrooke, summer became just one more thing he wanted no part of anymore.

“Is this going to take long?”

Mary Margaret’s voice jogged him back to the present, and Killian quickly jerked his head around to check nobody else was nearby. They had met at their usual spot, just a little ways into the north woods. Far enough that they would go unnoticed by any stray observer near the edge of the forest, but near enough that the distant sound of cars zooming past on the street could still be heard. Most of them were reluctant to venture any farther in now, if it could be avoided. Especially after dark.

Regina scoffed. “Why, are we keeping you from something?”

“My mom doesn’t like me being out late anymore,” Mary Margaret replied defensively. “I had to sneak out my window.”

“Well, our apologies for the inconvenience.” Unsurprisingly, Regina did not sound that sorry at all.  

“Would you just stop?” David groused.

“Guys, please,” Killian interjected, wanting to cut them off before they could start getting too snippy. He turned his attention to Regina. “By the way, are you alright? I hear Humbert gave you a hard time yesterday.”

Regina had been collected from the school gates by Sheriff Humbert, in full view of everyone. He liked them to be observed when he decided to bring them in for another interview; it was one of his favourite tactics.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she shrugged. “It was the same questions as always.”

Why were you out in the woods? When did you see her last?

Is there anything you’re not telling us?

Smooth, long exhale.

Nothing, Sheriff Humbert.

“Good,” Killian answered, nodding slowly. “That’s good. And you, Mary Margaret? Did you get a chance to look for the house this week?”

They had been taking it in turns for the last few months, always making sure that they weren’t spotted together heading down the White Pine Trail, to investigate the place Brooke House had once stood. Ever since the first time they had been caught by Sheriff Humbert there, they had realised the man had started watching their every move in the weeks that followed Emma’s disappearance. Killian, especially, had scarcely been able to get away with taking an unusual route home from school without the sheriff picking up on it. The more time marched forward the less observed they felt, but they still stuck to the same precautions just to be sure.

It had been seven months since Emma had disappeared. Graham Humbert never let him forget it.

And with Emma, Brooke House had also vanished. Nothing stood at the end of the orange string trail Killian had once left anymore, only silence and torment.

Finding it again had to be their best chance at finding her. It was just that these days, finding felt a lot more like waiting.

Mary Margaret hadn’t answered him, so Killian flicked his eyes over. He could see her eyes were averted, jaw clenched. One of her shoes kept stringing up a restless beat on the floor for a few seconds at a time.

“Mary Margaret?”

She let out an almost irritated sigh. “No, Killian, I have not gone looking for the damn house.”

Killian blinked. “And what’s with the tone?”

“I have to study,” she burst, “I have AP tests in two weeks, and if I don’t pass I probably won’t be able to go to college. And instead, I’m disobeying my parents, standing in the middle of the woods and thinking about how much I don’t know about environmental science.”

Regina looked the way Killian felt; completely dumbfounded. “You’re thinking about exams right now?”

“It’s not just exams, Regina,” Mary Margaret insisted. “It’s my life. I want to make something of it one day, and I suggest you do the same.”

Something still had settled between them, as if Mary Margaret had started to lift the lid on something they had sworn to keep closed, and even the night around them was stiffening with anticipation. It was sacred ground on which their harsh words steered them, and it was impossible to discern where the line could be drawn between how to move forward, and how to avoid moving backward. At times they seemed to be the same thing, but somehow it was impossible to think of them the same way.

Emma had wanted to pass her exams too. Desperately, in fact. It had been so important to her that she be able to push off into the rest of her life in better straits than how she had been brought into it, and to that end she had often stayed up long into the night studying at the group home so she could avoid the noise and the steady stream of interruptions that came during the day. It was that which had prompted her to accept Ruth’s offering of a fostering, even after deciding long ago never to hand her heart out again to somebody she was sure would just return it later.

Killian had encouraged her; he had hoped she might find more at the Nolan house than a quiet place to work, and she had. She had found David, and with David came Mary Margaret, and Regina had fallen in as easily with them as she had with Killian and Emma years earlier. They had been a haphazard band, and for a year everything was warm and gold.

That was over now, and they had begun to splinter.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

He heard her, always. Always, always.

“What about Emma?”

It was David who spoke, and he looked stricken to have even needed to say the words.

What about Emma? Was holding onto this, meeting clandestinely in the middle of the night to yet again swap how little progress they had made in getting her back – was this moving forward? Or was this trying so desperately not to move backward that they couldn’t keep their focus on anything ahead? Brooke House was never there when they looked for it. But Killian didn’t care about school, anyway. He’d had enough credits to graduate at the end of his junior year, before all of this. Every AP class he’d taken he had since dropped. Archie had barely been able to convince him to go to school for much of the year.

It didn’t matter to Killian, not a whisper; but was it okay for this to matter to someone else?

“Emma is gone,” Mary Margaret said, quietly. As if scared that they might hear her and yet desperate for them to. “And it’s…” She sucked in a sharp breath before continuing. “It’s devastating. But it’s – it’s been seven months. We have nothing. And more importantly, the police have nothing.” Killian could tell from a subtle movement in her fist that she was trembling. With fright, anger, sadness. Who could know for sure? “Finding Emma, if she can be found, should be up to them.”

Killian felt as if he’d been slapped. “How can you say that?”

“It’s their job, isn’t it?” she bit back. “And the more I think about that night… the more we feed into that – that hysteria, or – or whatever we thought we saw – the less help we’re being to them. The police, I mean.”

Killian felt his temper rising. He knew what he had seen – they had all seen it, although for reasons Killian couldn’t fathom, it had become a matter of spirited debate between Mary Margaret and David, and he and Regina.

“We never should have lied,” Mary Margaret continued firmly. “We should have told them everything from the start, about the house, about all of it.”

“They would have told us we were crazy,” Regina pointed out. “Hell, I would have called you crazy if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

“But at least I wouldn’t feel like this!” Mary Margaret’s voice cracked on the last syllable, and the bite in her expression had crumpled. She was all melancholy, draped in it like an old cloak, where in their group she had always been warmth. Everything was twisted now, like none of it could ever be light again. “Like I have this weight, poised above my head, and I’m just waiting for it to – to fall and crush me. And it hurts.” She clutched at her throat, eyes wide and sad. “And I’m breathless, and scared. All the time. And sometimes – sometimes I don’t realise I’ve forgotten that it’s there, but then I look up –”

David had taken a few steps closer to her, and put his arm around her shoulders. She curled into it and buried her face into his chest for a few moments, shaking, while he murmured something neither Killian nor Regina could hear. They couldn’t find the words to interject.

After a few long moments she gathered herself, her fist clenching into David’s shirt.

“It’s this lie,” she said fiercely, speaking into the solidness of David’s form, sounding as wretched as she looked. “And this feeling that if – if we’d just told the truth then they would have found something, and they would have found her.”

The accusation was softly cushioned, and gently aimed, but Killian felt it with the keen force of any blow.

“They wouldn’t have found her,” he answered evenly. They couldn’t. “It’s up to us.”

She let out a bitter laugh. “Of course you would say that.”

Killian’s temper flared. “Excuse me?”

“It clearly doesn’t bother you, Killian, but I’m just saying – if I could do this again I wouldn’t lie.”

I wouldn’t tell the lie you told me to tell.

The lie he had told them tell to protect them.

Humbert’s hard expression flashed in front of him.

Your friends say she was with you when she went missing. That you were the last one to see her.

“I wouldn’t either,” David added quietly.

Disbelief marred everything, it made everything black as tar – was this really what it was all coming to? Rounding on him?

“And what would you have told them?” Killian shot back. When David grimaced he pressed on. “No, really, I’m interested to know what you would have told the sheriff about the haunted house and the magic dagger.”

“Stop that,” Mary Margaret snapped, “it’s not magic.”

“Then how the bloody hell do you explain it? Explain this?”

With intent, Killian reached into his jacket and pulled out the dagger. Its curving edges glittered dangerously in the dim light, and in a movement so quick he might have imagined it he thought he saw Regina reach out a hand to take it, before snatching it back. The intricate pattern engraved onto the blade was one he had memorised from long nights spent staring at its edges, begging for it to reveal its secrets. The inky black writing crafted beautifully on top spoke of everything they had lost – the truth they all knew, and the only tangible proof that forces greater than themselves were at work.

The name carved across it was clear: Emma Swan.

Like a spell, it brought with it an almost supernatural quiet. Mary Margaret had begun to weep silently, and she shrugged away from David’s touch this time. Regina watched but did not speak. David couldn’t bear to do more than glance at the dagger, a pained expression on his face clear before he turned to look out into the forest.

“This is how we know she’s still out there,” Killian insisted fiercely. “We can’t give up now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

For a little while, the only noise was Mary Margaret, trying to suppress a gasp or wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. After some time, she sank down to perch on a nearby log and Regina joined her, threading their fingers together tightly. In the distance Killian could hear the rumble of the road, the sound of an engine increasing in volume before skittering away. Although reluctantly, he slipped the dagger back into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the blade was cool against his chest even through the fabric of his shirt. A cold comfort, but a comfort all the same.

“The truth is,” Mary Margaret began quietly, staring at the mossy ground at their feet. “I want to grieve. I loved Emma. I want to treasure her memory… I want the chance to miss her.” She lifted misty eyes and looked at each of them in turn. “But it’s impossible around all of you. For you she’s still here. But I want to keep moving forward.” She brushed a hand across a tear-stained cheek. “Will you – will you let me do that?”

With quiet strength, she dug the stake into the earth. Beneath it, they cracked.

She stood. There wasn’t anything else to say.

She looked impossibly guilty, and Killian searched for something to say that would deliver her from that, but all of it felt brittle and fake. The honest truth was that he loved her and wanted nothing but her happiness, but he might never forgive her if she walked out of that clearing now.

Mary Margaret looked to all of them, but it was Killian’s gaze she sought most eagerly. He couldn’t give it, staring stonily at the ground instead.

“I’ll… I’ll see you.”

She didn’t say at school, since he wouldn’t be going anyway and they both knew it. Recklessly, he thought that without it there might not be another excuse for their paths to cross. If she wanted to keep moving forward and leave all this in the past, then Killian would not be going with her. Dry leaves crunched as she departed, slowly receding until the only sound was the breeze whistling by.

“I’m not giving up. No way.”

It was Regina who had spoken, and Killian felt a wave of unreserved tenderness for her.

Her face softened, and she stepped over to lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“She’ll come around.”

She wouldn’t, but it was easier to pretend.

After Regina had gone Killian sat on the damp earth underneath him, leaning his head back to stare through the canopy. The trees had clustered together here, dark shapes towering over through which he could spot the stars winking in and out.

David shifted from where he stood. “Are you okay?”

Killian let out a long breath, one that he felt like he had been holding onto for a number of days. His chest felt tight, and he could feel a familiar tugging sensation behind his nose as the stars started to swim before him.

“Belle died. Yesterday.”

David let out a soft expletive. “I’m so sorry, Killian.”

“It was peaceful,” he nodded to himself, like it made everything fine. “In her sleep.”

Belle had been a great source of comfort for him. She talked in circles and remembered very little, but she remembered Liam and often asked after Emma, and had lived a deep and fulfilling life she loved to tell him about. It did her good to talk, the nuns had said, which was why they let him come. Every character in all of her stories was long gone now, but it didn’t cause her any pain. She spoke only of the joy in having known them and the colours with which they had brushed her soul. It didn’t matter how lonely it looked now, or how sad everyone else thought she must be to be alone; she had assured him many times that she was lucky, and wanted for little else.

He wanted desperately to feel like that, even if only for a heartbeat.

Sometimes, she had said with a smile, the best books have the dustiest jackets.

“It just feels like everything is slipping away.”

Mary Margaret, Belle. Liam. Emma. Everything he touched was dust.

Don’t tell me – it’s hot cocoa, with cinnamon, and you’re about to hand it over.

A hot tear spilled down his cheek and he angrily swiped it away.

He cleared his throat loudly, mostly to try and cover the sudden rush of emotion, but he knew that David had seen it. “Sometimes I can’t help but think… maybe it’s all in my head, you know? The more I think about that night the hazier it gets.” Like trying to remember a dream after you’d woken from it, every single day more details faded into nothing. “I just hear her.” That final, startled scream. It would never leave him, he just knew it. “All I can hear is her.”

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

“Me too,” David admitted quietly. “I hear it too.”

“I’m leaving,” he said suddenly, and with the confession came a twinge of relief, and he forgave himself a little more for it. “Right after graduation. I have to find an answer, and there isn’t one here.”

He’d go as far as needed, for as long as it took. He’d walk the stretch of the Earth if he had to.

For a moment David looked crestfallen, but he mastered it quickly. “I understand,” he said. And he might think he did – but David would never be looked at the way Storybrooke looked at Killian. In their eyes he would never be blameless, not the way the David Nolan was. Emma was his sister; she was just Killian’s victim.

“I’d go too,” David continued, “but my mom… it’s just hard, you know? I feel like there’s so much she doesn’t know. And I couldn’t…”

“I know,” Killian assured him, “it’s alright. I wouldn’t ask you to come.” It was something he would rather do alone.

A few moments of stillness passed, before David let out a low whistle.

“So. Right after graduation, huh?”

Killian nodded. June twenty-third, 18:00.

There was a bus to Augusta that he had promised he would not miss.

-/-

Present Day

As night fell, Killian again returned to Brooke House.

He had already spent much of the day there with Regina, taking readings, burning herbs and mumbling variations on familiar incantations from her book of shadows. There were a few key vocabularic differences, but the intention behind a few spells seemed similar to some he had seen from the coven in Pennsylvania. Just once they had let him sit in on a cleansing ceremony, a practice of healing for the soul, and he could recognise some of the actions as Regina guided him through a ritual for cleansing the air in the house. Smudging, she called it. But by the time they had departed in late afternoon, visibly nothing had changed within the house.

After grabbing a quick bite at Granny’s Killian had spent the remainder of early evening categorically working through all the other data he had been able to gather over the course of the day; and not one instrument had indicated anything outside of the realms of a normal abandoned house. In fact, most of the anomalous readings one could expect from a long period of constant use (a sudden spike in electromagnetic radiation, a noise in static on a recorder where there had been none aloud) were completely non-existent. Brooke House was as silent as the dead other than the sounds he and Regina made. It were as if they were measuring nothing at all.

No doubt, that was its intention.

He expected much to be different in the dark.

Again, he left the dagger rolled up in his scarf in his car, not wanting to bring it any closer to Emma – or to whatever Emma was. They were clearly linked, the spectre of the house and the dagger, and he had to believe that somewhere buried in there was his Emma. She retained the same memories, even if she warped them for her use. She recognised him. It was her name on the dagger.

He had taken the dagger to three different psychometrists over the years, seeking insight. Each one had only been able to tell him that its origin was evil, that its master was lost.

Even Killian could have surmised that much.

“Emma?” he called, as he stepped over the threshold. Only creaks of old wood answered back.

He lingered briefly in the sitting room, checking his old tape recorder that he had left running, tucked under the sheet of one of the armchairs as gently as possible. He wanted to avoid the possibility of muffling any sound while also trying to prevent its detection from any nefarious spirits that chose not to make a sound while he and Regina were there. All he needed was some kind of proof that something in the house moved when it was left to its own devices. In the morning he would return for it and listen for any erroneous sound.

As if reading his thoughts, an audible thump came from above him. He headed back out into the hall. For now, Killian decided to pocket the recorder and return it after he’d come to say what he meant to.

Again Killian called Emma’s name, mounting the stairs slowly. Once he reached the top he spotted the flash of white fabric trailing along the floor, disappearing into one of the rooms on the landing. Aside from the room with the spinning wheel that never faltered, Killian hadn’t spent much time in the other two rooms. One was a bedroom and the other a study, boasting only a desk and a wall lined with ancient, brittle bookcases, the tomes atop them turned grey with age with faded and illegible titles. It was into the study that he had seen her go, so Killian opened the door cautiously so as not to startle her away.

The bottom shelf of the bookcase nearest the door had collapsed, the books falling into a haphazard clump onto the floor. A dust cloud still lingered so he imagined it couldn’t have happened too long ago; he wondered if that was the noise he had heard from downstairs.

Emma stood with her back to him, the rustle of pages the only indication that she was moving. Then, without warning, she swung her right arm back and hurtled the book against the wall. The binding tore with a snap, and in pieces it clattered down onto the ground. Killian, reluctant to become a target for one of those heavy missiles, cleared his throat to announce himself, but quickly tucked the tape recorder subtly into one of the bookcases as he did so. He didn’t want her to catch it on him.

Emma turned, her jade eyes sharp in the gloom. As always, they cut right through him.

“Have you decided?” she said, her voice as heavy as stone.

Killian didn’t answer immediately, but tried to look at her more critically. What was he seeing? Just what he wanted to see, or something more?

Regina’s warning repeated itself over and over. What if this is something else, just taking the shape of Emma? And appealing to those made most vulnerable by the sight of her?

“Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?”

They had been at Brooke House all day, there was ample opportunity. Not a creature had stirred out of place, as if the house had been holding its breath and waiting for them to leave. That meant one of two things – Emma did not think Regina could help with what she wanted, or there was nothing of Emma to show.

Emma lifted a shoulder in a half shrug and turned back to the bookcase. She picked up another book, and began lazily flipping through its contents.

That, too, found itself tossed to the edge of the room.

“I didn’t feel like it.” She reached for another.

“Come here,” he said, before he felt he’d truly made the decision. “Let me look at you.”

She turned slowly to stare at him; it was clear in her expression that she was unaccustomed to receiving orders, and was flirting with the idea of being furious, or going along with it. Keeping her eyes locked on his she discarded her final book, letting it flutter onto the floor, and started to walk towards him. It felt distinctly like being stalked by a predator, and he resisted the urge to step back when she came to a stop in front of him, looking up.

Instead he steeled his resolve, and lifted his thumb and forefinger to her chin. Her skin was glacial to the touch, pale and smooth. Like marble.

Applying a little pressure, Killian turned her head first to one side, then to the other. She allowed him, her eyes continuing to follow him intently. Up close, she looked human. With a little more colour in her cheeks she would look just like he remembered her. Would it even be possible, he wondered, for him to conjure up something so near to perfection? Was he capable? Could he really have imagined this?

“I’m so sorry,” he sighed sadly, brushing his fingers along her jaw, stilling them when they reached the tip of her neck.

Emma tensed underneath him. “What for?”

The list was unending.

“All of it.”

Something flickered across her expression, but it had moved too quickly for him to notice it. A blackened petal dropped from the circlet around her head, and became tangled in her hair. Without thinking, Killian gently tugged it loose.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

A cold hand came to rest over his. Then, to his surprise, she lifted herself onto her tiptoes and leaned forward. Too shocked to move, Killian froze in place as she reached him. Like the rest of her, her lips were icy to touch, and moved gently against his like the purl of the ocean against the sand. His eyes stayed open but he could see hers had fluttered closed – she looked unarmed. Gentle. Like a girl.

She pulled back because he did not know how to keep her, and he could feel now that he was trembling. He was cold, his heart ached with grief, and he was furious.

That was a kiss that he had been saving, and she had taken it.

He opened his mouth to rattle off a rebuke, but something in her manner had changed. Her brows had knitted a little closer together, her lips parted – even her eyes looked as if they might have dulled from their usual startling shade.

Recognition fluttered across her features. She blinked slowly. “Killian?”

Killian’s heart began to hammer against his ribcage. Hope stuttered to life with every beat, but he tried to remain cautious. Something was different, he was sure of it, and now he wished he had been paying closer attention to her before so he might able to more clearly see now what had changed.

He watched her warily. “Emma?”

It happened in painfully slow motion. Her eyes glazed over, she turned herself away, something that had been out of alignment clicked back into place. In an almost unnatural way her head tilted, and began to stare at him with those new, wide eyes.

Her lips curled in a snarl. “That’s enough of that.”

A rush of air blew past him and she was gone, but Killian, exhilarated and almost breathless, couldn’t let her go.

“Wait, I –” He caught her in the hallway, her hand resting on the door to the spinning wheel room. She whirled around to face him expectantly, eyes ablaze. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”

The corner of her mouth curved upwards, a smirk rising into place.

Killian swallowed. He’d been at her mercy since the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Just… tell me what you need me to do.”

[fierceautie]

Koo Energy is a health tech company located in Yio Chu Kang, Singapore. They attempt to treat physical and mental health in children and adults. They use organic cotton with sleep therapy, distilled water and infrared rays. It claims to treat anxiety, behavior, detoxification, response, sleep, speech, temperament and toileting. They believe the cause of mental and physical issues is the accumulation of heavy mets in the body, especially the head. They claim that their treatments promote cell regeneration. "The human body’s ability to replace worn out cells with shiny new ones is key to the long lifespans we’re so used to. There are a couple of things we keep all our lives, like the visual cortex, but almost everything else wears out and gets replaced, at least for part of our lives. And some things, like our hair and nails, just grow and grow and grow.We’ve gathered together scientists’ estimates of how quickly different types of cells grow. Many of these ages have been established using a technique called bomb-pulse dating, which uses the traces of atomic radiation we each carry to determine how old cells are."They offer autism and adhd seminars as well. There is very little information available about the company Koo Energy. Koo Energy's Belief About AutismThey believe that autism is an advanced and more complicated form of ADHD. They believe that toxic heavy metals are present at higher levels in the midline cerebral canal and gathered in uneven layers. They believe it all has to do with the amount of heavy metals in the canal and in what positions they are accumulated. With Autism, the additional layers of mercury interfere even more greatly with metaphysical and electrical energy communications trying to cross the canal. They say exposure to mercury and other heavy metals cause autism. They do not come out and say vaccines cause autism BUT all the details of the anti vaxxer rhetoric is there. Koo Energy believes in order to cure ADHD and Autism, they must:provide glucose to the brainflush out heavy metals and other toxinsheal brain tissuecalm the mindsupport healthy neuron signal transmissionstrengthen central nervous systemTypes of Reactions They disclose. This means "it's working":Mild:constant fartconstipatoncoughdark eye circleear dischargeeye tearingmouth ulcerrunning nosestomach acheweight gain/lossModerate:acne of face or neckbad breathbody odorbruises of the back or limbschest tightnesseczemamucus dischargemuscle painnight sweatpimples on back or chestwounds on back or limbsIntense:blood dischargediarrheafevernose bleedsred bumpsvomitingTypes of TreatmentSleep therapy with organic cottonKoo energy believes all mental and physical health issues can be healed through sleep. The extra energy with boost the self healing ability. They believe that batches of heavy metals in the head are discharged into the blood, rounds of detoxification symptoms with appear one after another in order to "purge out heavy metals from the body." They say some children take 6-12 months to fully detoxify. Some are longer.  They claim once heavy metals have been cleared from the "midline canal" with koo energy sleep therapy, learning is possible. They have the slogan "Health issues? Just sleep." Sleep therapy includes the assessment, koo energy healing mat and the consultation.  They don't sell the healing mat separately because the assessment gives you customer their opinion of their health and "discuss the healing journey ahead." The healing mat is made of organic cotton. They say the purpose of the intensive consultation is detoxification. This requires "your management." A team of consultants keep track of the clients progress. The consultations take several months to complete. What is Organic Cotton?Organic cotton is cotton that is grown wihtout using synthetic chemicals as pesticides or as fertilizers. This method promotes biodiversity and biological cycles. In the United States, cotton grown at plantations that meet the requirement of the National Organic Programme (NOP), US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considered organic. Organic Cotton has no genetic difference from inorganic cotton. The only difference is chemicals being used or not being used. That is it. There is no healing benefit. It's a good fiber for textiles. THAT IS IT. Koo Energy's proof is growing beans on a regular mat opposed to their healing mat. It is unknown the growing conditions for the beans and how well controlled the environment is. This has no scientific value. Far Infrared RayThe far infrared ray is the same infrared radiation used in infrared saunas. Several studies they link on their website showing it is the same as sauna infrared. Koo energy calls it the ray of light. They claim it:oscillates water moleculesproduces gentle heatincreases skin temperatureexpands micro capillariespromotes blood circulationimproves metabolismeliminates body waste, toxins and heavy metalsassimilate nutrientsactivates cell function regenerates cells. What infrared radiation actually does:Infrared heaters emit light experienced as radiant heat. It is absorbed by the surface of the skin. These saunas heat the body primarily by conduction and convection from the heated air and by radiation of the heated surfaces in the sauna room. Because of this, the infrared sauna isn't an actual sauna by Finnish sauna societies. This is because of the application of the infrared electromagnetic field spectrum to the human body.According to the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNRP), the risks of Infrared therapy are:thermal injury, an injury can be present even if pain is not felthyperpigmentationscalingtelangiectasias (widened tiny blood vessels are visible on the skin)Reduced DNA repair efficiencyCan promote skin cancer initiated by other triggersThickening of the skinRetina damageEye lens damage, leading to cataractsHyperthermia (core body temperature is too high)Water HealingWater healing is the belief that drinking high energy water will promote healing. They assess the energy level with a dowsing rod. A clockwise rotation means a positive reading. A counterclockwise rotation means a negative reading. Each turn of the dowsing rod is an energy level. What is Dowsing?Dowsing is where a person walks over land while holding two L shaped rods in their hands parallel to each other and when they walk over a patch of underground water, the rods magically cross. This technique was invented over 450 years ago. It was probably thought of as witchcraft. Another name for this practice is "water witching." In modern day and after the development of the of the scientific method, it is understood that the phenomenon is caused by the ideomotor effect. This is the same effect that makes the pointer on a Ouija board move without anyone touching it. This effect is when just the act of thinking of something causes muscles to move seemingly "on their own" or "reflexively" without consciously deciding to move. Energy Water Ball:This is put in the distilled water to "increase energy." It produces infrared rays that cause resonance vibration. "The resonance is transmitted to clusters of water particles.This effect causes the gradual separation of individual molecules of H2O, thus producing de-clustered water, also known as koo energy Water.​Due to the nano size, koo energy Water penetrates into each cell, providing hydration even to deep layers of skin. This facilitates detoxification of cells, thereby stimulating their regeneration and auto-regulation. This enhances skin renewal and strengthens its natural defence mechanism.Drinking koo energy Water can instantly hydrate the body, relieving symptoms of dehydration that may include tiredness, headaches, and stiff joints."The claimed benefits:penetrates into cells due to nano sized clusterfacilitates detoxification of cellsstimulates cell regeneration and auto regulationenhances skin renewal and strengthens its natural defense mechanismprovides hydration even to deep layers of skinrelieves symptoms of hydration including sore throat, tiredness, headaches and stiff jointsWhat is Distilled Water?The composition of water varies widely with local geological conditions. Groundwater and surface water is never pure water. Water contains small amounts of gases, minerals and organic matter of natural origin. Distilled water is water almost or completely free of dissolved minerals as a result from distillation, deionization, membrane filtration, electrodialysis or other technology. Distilled water is not appropriate for consumption because:demineralized water is highly aggressive and if untreated, its distribution through pipes and storage tanks would not be possible. The aggressive water attacks the water distribution piping and leaches metals and other materials from the pipes an associated plumbing materials. Distilled water does not taste goodPreliminary evidence showed that some substances in water could have beneficial effects on human health. The adverse effects of consuming distilled water are:direct effects on the intestinal mucous membranes, metabolism and mineral homeostasis or other body functionslittle or no intake of calcium and magnesium from low mineral waterlow intake of other essential elements and microelementsloss of calcium, magnesium and other essential elements in prepared food. possible increased dietary intake of toxic metals. Energy level of each type of water: The energy measurement has no scientific basis as explained above. The energy of distilled water from a water distiller is +53. The energy of distilled water from water distiller with koo energy ball (sitting in the water for 5 minutes) is +93. Energy of distilled water from water distiller with koo energy ball (sitting in the water for 1 hour) is +205. Energy of bottled distilled water is +35.Energy of bottled distilled water with koo energy ball for one hour is +108. Energy of tap water is -0.4Energy of tap water with koo energy ball for 10 minutes is +5.1.Energy of brand k ionized alkaline water is +13. Tried to make contactWhen I tried to make contact to ask them some questions, this came up:message that a consult was not available. Sources:https://ift.tt/393aZ5Zhttps://ift.tt/315nslohttps://ift.tt/3rb0bZVhttps://ift.tt/310hoKghttps://ift.tt/394K6yGhttps://ift.tt/2NI11Q9

http://www.fierceautie.com/2021/03/quackery-exposed-koo.html

[mostlysignssomeportents]

K-Zombies

When you and your friends put your fingers on the ouija board planchette and it starts moving around, there's a chance your friends are just yanking your chain - but just as possible is that your friends are experiencing the ideomotor response.

That's when your unconscious mind directs your muscles without your conscious knowledge. The movement of the planchette doesn't tell you what's going on in the spirit world, but it does tell you something about the internal weather of your friend's psyche, fears and hopes.

Our narratives are social-scale planchettes, directed by mass ideomotor response. When a fake news story takes hold, it reveals a true fact: namely, the shared, internal models of how the world really works.

Fake news is an oracle, in other words.

https://locusmag.com/2019/07/cory-doctorow-fake-news-is-an-oracle/

There's no spirit-realm directing planchettes. Supernatural phenomena are nonsense, in all their guises. Mediums are fraudsters or deluded - and so are soothsayers who claim to be able to predict the future. That goes for fortune-tellers and futurists alike.

A shocking number of self-described "rational" science fiction writers share the delusional view that they can predict the future. These pulp Nostradamii point to "predictions" of sf that have "come true" and claim to have an inside line on the world of tomorrow.

Sf *has* an important relationship to the future, though! It can be a planchette: all the futures imagined by all the sf writers are a kind of mutation-space, and the fitness factor that determines whether a story thrives or sinks is whether it captures public imagination.

Sf writers and readers are a means for society to reflect back, amplify and examine our unarticulated hopes and fears about our *present* technology. Sf doesn't predict the future, but sf readers and writers do an excellent job of predicting the present.

And since the present is the standing wave where the past is being transformed into the future, knowing about the present can be a source of insights into what's coming - and not just because sf reveals what's going on in the present, but also because it influences it.

People who are captured by imaginative, futuristic parables about the problems and possibilities of technology acquire a set of intuition-pumps for coping with the future when it arrives, reflexive views and actions about what the future demands of us.

Gene Rodenberry didn't predict the Motorola flip-phone. Rather, when a generation of Motorola designers and engineers were asked to make a mobile communications device their minds immediately flew to the Star Trek communicators they grew up with.

Thinking of fantastic fiction as measurement device and influence machine is a productive way to pick apart the meaning of literary trends.

As I wrote in my intro to the bicentennial re-release of FRANKENSTEIN, the rise and fall of Shelley's book tracks to the rise and fall of fears related to the book's various themes:

https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1974387

So what are we to make of K-zombies? Korean pop culture is experiencing a golden age of zombie movies, games, comics and other media.  

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-02-23/zombies-are-everywhere-south-korea-fears

Zombies have a lot of different themes, of course, and some are easy to map to the current situation: the fear of contagion and the need to distance yourself from loved ones who have become infected. The parallels to covid hardly need explaining.

But the K-zombie phenomenon predates the pandemic, and zombie stories aren't merely contagion stories - they're often stories about the lurking bestiality of nearly everyone around us.

That's behind stories like The Walking Dead, about the propensity of all our "normal" friends and neighbors to transform into an insensate, rampaging mob. These zombie stories are a throwback to the "cozy catastrophes" of John Wyndham and co:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#wyndhamesque

These are stories of racial and class anxiety, of xenophobia and the literal othering of someone who *seems* to be just like you but is actually a secret monster. Again, on a divided peninsula, it's not hard to see how stories of lurking otherness would catch hold.

Zombie stories are also stories about the fragility of social cohesion: stories about how we're never "all in this together" and how, when the chips are down, it'll be "the war of all against all." That, too, feels very zeitgeisty given recent South Korean politics.

South Korea has an ugly, authoritarian past that is at odds with its founding myth as the "good Korea," the "democratic Korea." But the post-war reconstruction of the country by the US elevated an elite to a position of near-total authority and impunity.

They abused this power in ghastly ways, running forced-labor camps for poor people and people with disabilities, with rampant physical and sexual abuse. Families who lost their loved ones were traumatized to learn that they'd ended up in the camps.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160423131643/https://bigstory.ap.org/article/c22de3a565fe4e85a0508bbbd72c3c1b/ap-s-korea-covered-mass-abuse-killings-vagrants

These forced-labor camps (which continue in a slightly modified form to this day) supplied slaves to chaebols, the conglomerates that represent the country on a world stage. Unsurprisingly, the leadership of these companies is also grossly corrupt:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2052871/samsung-chief-jailed-for-2-5-years-over-corruption-scandal

Korea is also riven by messianic cults, and the leaders of these cults have close ties to the Korean political class, an incredibly politically destabilizing fact that has caused recent Korean governments to collapse:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37971085

South Korea, in other words, isn't just haunted by the spectre of aggression from the north - but also by the possibility of internal rupture. It has a huge, authoritarian secret police force that has been caught secretly meddling in electoral politics.

Far from reining in this spookocracy, the South Korean political class has tried to hand them even MORE powers, with LESS oversight. Today is the fifth anniversary of the Korean opposition's filibuster to stop the worst of these.

(Seo Ki-Ho, a politician with the affectionate nickname "Milhouse" for his resemblance to the Simpsons character read the Korean edition of my novel LITTLE BROTHER into the record during the filibuster!)

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/26/south-korean-lawmakers-stage-filibuster-to-protest-anti-terror-bill-read-from-little-brother/

This othering is also sharply illustrated in the country's culture of misogynistic voyeurism, which goes beyond "upskirt" videos and includes a roaring trade in videos captured with hidden cameras in toilets, changing rooms and hotel rooms.

It's hard to overstate the reach of this practice, and its political salience: it has provoked a vast mass-movement of women and allies demanding an end to the practice and a reckoning with institutional sexism:

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/culture/net/2020/10/21/voyeurs-are-selling-photos-of-women-at-the-protest-online/

Zombies aren't ever just about contagion - they're also always an expression of a deep anxiety that your neighbors aren't what they seem, that in a pinch, they'll turn on you, and not just because they've been infected, but also to protect themselves and their comfort.

US zombie booms always have an element of this: 1950s (reds under the bed); 1980s (red menace redux); 2000s (immigration "crisis"), etc. It'd be amazing if the only thing driving K-zombies' popularity was the pandemic, or even less plausibly, a mere aesthetic coincidence.

[lamortexiii]

Cryptic Mystic: Ouija & You

We’ve all heard of ouija boards. Maybe you played with one as a kid. Maybe you come from a place where they are forbidden. Why do certain cultures view this divine board as deserving of high praise, while others are terrified of it? Maybe you should be terrified, or maybe… if you know what you’re doing and you’re careful... you may have found exactly what you’re looking for. Get ready to explore the catacombs of ouija stemming from its origins to what we know it as today. Strange encounters, myths, mediums, and tales of yore; we will dive into some of the mysterious happenings that surround the Ouija board.

Before the Ouija board there was the “talking board.” The talking board is a descendent of automatic writing, also known as psychography, in which a person thought to have psychic abilities is able to write words without consciously thinking about it. Automatic writing can be traced back to China as early as 1100 AD. The Chinese termed this activity “fuji” or “planchette writing.” A planchette is the heart-shaped tool used as your guide when engaging with a Ouija board. Similar practices have been found in various countries around the world.

During the spiritualist movement of the late 1800s mediums began using this technique as a part of their ritualistic practices. This became especially popular with those who had lost loved ones during war and those who had served in the war and lost combat buddies. Due to the skepticism of legit mediumship, talking boards slowly became associated with part of this skepticism.

A businessman from Baltimore, Maryland named Elijah Bond discovered talking boards one day and decided to make a patent on the boards and planchettes, turning them into the “family fun game” we know today as sold by toy companies. His patent was granted in 1891, and the mass manufacturing of talking boards began. The name “Ouija board” and its origins are up for speculation. One story from one of the manufacturers of the original boards said that he learned the name “Ouija” by using a talking board, and that he was told this means “good luck” in an ancient Egyptian language. After his experience he began terming the boards as Ouija boards, and that is supposedly how we know them today. Another story suggests that an employee of Bond named William Fuld coined the name Ouija from a combination of French and German words for “yes.” The actual origin of the name is a mystery, but these are the most popular stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. To be completely honest, I always thought there was a cool story behind the term. Nope,  just boring old businessmen trying to make a quick buck. *hard eye roll*

Scientists have an explanation for the phenomenon that takes place whenever someone engages with a Ouija board. Their theory is that the movement of the planchette across the board is caused by an ideomotor response. This is a psychological response in which someone makes movements unconsciously. The unconscious mind is thought to produce answers in a way that psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual's normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions. Many studies have shown that participants move the planchette around the board themselves involuntarily. Don’t ask me how they measure an involuntary movement versus a voluntary one - I don’t know. I have to challenge this theory, as there is much we do not know about the world around us, and the many worlds around this one. In the early 1900s as research continued to be conducted on this phenomenon, many more skeptics surfaced as Ouija boards were used by con-artists for financial gain. This progressed to Ouija boards being associated with cults in the 1970s. If you were seen using a Ouija board in that time you may be thought to be a “devil worshiper,” because Christians began to spread the word that whenever people were using these boards they were talking to demons rather than entities from another realm. In more recent times, Ouija boards have been burned alongside Harry Potter books as being considered witchcraft.

I have a few noteworthy encounters with Ouija boards that I feel are important to share with you. The first was when I was about 12 years old. I was at a friend’s house. We used the board in their home between 5 of us. Most of the kids were goofing off and not taking it seriously, so I lost interest. That is, until my friend’s younger brother started freaking out. A terrified look spread across his face as he told us that he had seen a dark figure pass behind us in the room. We all thought he was joking, but then he got up and started screaming. Because of all of the commotion, my friend’s mother noticed what we were doing and ordered that we take the board out of the house immediately. We weren’t supposed to have the Ouija board in her house, but one of the kids had managed to sneak one in. Two of the kids that had brought the board to the house left with the board and took off down the street. My friend’s little brother followed them. My friend and I hung back for a few minutes, but then decided to take a walk around town. As we got to the end of the alley that was beside her house we noticed her brother and the other two kids by the soda machine at the corner store. There was a small fire burning in front of them. Within the fire was the Ouija board. My friend screamed at them, “what the fuck are you doing?!” We were both a little upset that they were going to the extreme of burning it. Her brother told us it was his idea after what he had seen in their house, and that he was not joking with us. We let them be, and continued to walk around town for about an hour. When we got back to her house I couldn’t believe my eyes. On the front porch sitting on the edge of a bench was the Ouija board in perfect condition. There were no burn marks, scratches, or dirt. It looked as though it hadn’t been touched. We immediately went to my friend’s brother and our other two friends who were playing video games in his bedroom. My friend begged to know what kind of trickery they were pulling on us. They swore they didn’t trick us and that they had burnt the board and threw the small remnants in a dumpster. No one ever figured out how the Ouija board ended up in perfect condition back at their house, but my friend did end up keeping it under her bed to hide it from her mom. We would bring it out every now and again, just not in front of her brother.

Another time, when I was 13 I was at another friend’s house. She lived with her mother and her boyfriend in the projects. There was a spare bedroom in their unit that her older sister had used to stay there for a while before she got another place to live. One day when I was hanging out at my friend’s place she asked me if I wanted to break out her Ouija board. I knew that she was big into witchcraft and dark arts, and she was a good friend, so I trusted her judgement. This was much different than the time with my other friends because this time it would be just me and this friend, and she was familiar with her Ouija board. While I was there I remember she made a circle of salt around us, and dropped some sort of oils around while she recited an incantation. She called this “blessing the board,” and said it would protect us from anything evil that may be present. Shortly after we started we got a hit. We talked to a man who said he was murdered in the 1800s and thrown in a nearby creek. The reason he was murdered is because he was accused of sleeping with a married man’s wife. He claimed he was innocent. When he died he was in his 20s. He was a local to the area. After we were done talking with him, my friend closed the board and did a different incantation before we were finished. It was an interesting experience that gave me goosebumps. This experience was much better than my initial one. I did question whether or not my friend was moving the planchette, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and trusted that she wasn’t and that the experience we had was a legit encounter with something not of this world.

Personally, I believe there is something more to Ouija boards that is powerful. I believe Ouija boards to be yet another mysterious unknown that we only know a fragment about. Think about it - where do ideas come from? What or who planted the seed for this thought; this idea that spiraled into what we know today as the Ouija board. If you notice, it came in stages and progressed into the modern board that we know today. Some documentaries have made mention of the ancient Egyptians holding key knowledge to how this world and other worlds work, and that this gift was bestowed on them from the Gods or “sky people.” One of the theories of how the Ouija board got its name has potential origins in ancient Egypt. Could it be that other life forms set this idea into motion all of those years ago, knowing what automatic writing would eventually turn into? Could it be that the power that we experience when engaging with a Ouija board is somehow related to extraterrestrials? Is this why there is a strong emphasis on the sun, moon, and stars within the drawings and carvings surrounding Ouija board decor? One thing is for certain, there is much more to the Ouija board than meets the eye. This practice has been around for thousands of years. We would be foolish to not at least question the “what if’s” that surround some of the mysteries of its origin and capabilities. As I always say, at the end of the day you choose what you want to believe.

Cryptic Mystic Blog by PsychVVitch

www.LaMorteXiii.com

[luckylq-blog]

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In summary, I spent nearly forty years of my life trying to accomplish things make something of myself so I'd have a healthy self worth and never achieved a healthy self worth with that approach. Among the many things I did, I even learned how to use a pendulum to improve self worth. It's called the ideomotor response.

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[magickrosegalaxy]

Cursed Ouija Board Story ft. The Sientific Method

so here's the continuation of the ask i sent you like forever ago. i'm probably gonna do all the scariest stuff in bullet points because it's a loooot. this experience was literally my spiritual awakening because beforehand i was agnostic and i left this believing in **something** because i couldn't deny what i had seen.

******note: i am by no means making moral judgments against anyone who practices dark magick or engages in curses. similarly, i am not condoning the use of it because each witch's craft is unique. i am simply stating one experience i had being at the hands of a very powerful curse at the point of my spiritual awakening and ignorance of witchcraft and the spiritual realm

******trigger warning: suicide/depression/anxiety mentions

Question/Hypothesis

• the board appeared in my friend's cousin's basement with no apparent sender or owner. they automatically were like "nope!" but my friend and I, both very agnostic at the time, decided we weren't scared and took it off their hands.

• we at first decided, like good scientists, to conduct an experiment because, after some cursory research on the psychology behind Ouija boards, we found the most pressing and interesting theory regarding ideomotor action to be worth our interest. this theory basically asserts that one's hands subconsciously flinches towards whatever letter one thinks will be next. when applied in a group, it leads to the "pulling" effect many people describe while playing. to test it, we had four people blindfolded on the board, asking a series of questions to one spirit or another. a fifth person would watch and record the letters. of course, these responses were gibberish and most of our participants lost interest. that should have been the end of it.

• my friend and i decided to do more research into the occult reasoning behind the magic of the Ouija board (since any scientific investigation requires a balanced literature review). upon this reading, and consulting some friends of ours in the occult, we discovered concepts of energy and energy work and how the channeling of energy, or lack thereof, affected the ability of spirits to interact with the board.

Experiment

• we then created a new study, involving the two of us: in this study, we first practiced team and solitary energy work for weeks. then, we decided to go all out-we lit candles, surrounded ourselves with flowers and crystals, placed the board in a dimly lit basement with one solitary light hanging over the board to read. this is where things got weird.

Observations:

where things get kinna weird

• we began getting fully coherent answers from a spirit called Nana. it claimed to be a wandering spirit guide who often visited my friend's house. we asked for a sign of her presence. at this point the light over the board flickers once. we were excited our new study was yielding fascinating results; however, this was just the start of these "signs."

• we continued to use the board regularly. as our energy working abilities grew, both of us could feel the power emanating from the board in waves. in any particular place for too long, it would begin causing manifestations of signs of depression and anxiety, most notably excessive fatigue. whoever had the board would feel constant exhaustion. i know on several occasions i would simply pass out if i stayed with the board for too long. for this reason, we began taking turns keeping the board to give one another a reprieve from its effects.

• we continued talking to Nana, and we also conversed with a second spirit, claiming to reside in my friend's house. it was dark, and it expressed desires to cause us harm. When speaking to Nana, she would warn us to stay away from the other spirit at all costs. i still refuse to say its name.

Where things get really weird

• the more we spoke with Nana, the more her presence became known, in both of our lives. while using the board to talk to her, at several different points, the light over the board would completely go out until we said goodbye, we would hear scratches on the walls, footsteps throughout the basement, dogs barking, and at one point she even pushed my chair. these sessions became progressively more intense while she still begged us to come talk to her because she was lonely.

• no matter how many times we cleansed and blessed, the evil energy emanating from the board, Nana, and the second spirit would never cease and began to manifest in our lives. in my friend's life, things would mysteriously move around his house. his clairvoyant abilities also developed for the first time. he would see two figures moving around his house at all times. one figure was the face of an old woman surrounded by a bright white light, while the other was a dark, robed figure walking in the shadows.

• my life was a separate story. the board began draining me no matter how much physical distance i put between us. i would begin falling asleep and having no memory of how i got to bed or when. i felt constantly anxious and afraid. a spirit began causing havoc from my attic. my dog would wake me up at 3am every morning barking at the door to my attic and fall asleep promptly at 3:15 each time as well. people would see dark clouds of energy floating around my room, i had dark visions and dreams. i would also hear voices in my room screaming my name before falling asleep at night. it even affected other family members in the house. my step siblings began seeing the dark robed figure from my friend's house and a wrinkly pale spirit who watched my stepbrother through the crack in his door. one night, it woke up every member of my family. it moved everyone's doorknob handle in the middle of the night and had my stepsister and i chasing a phantom noise throughout the house for much of the night. my life became a living hell.

• despite this, the board's power grew. it began being able to know names of players before being told and other very personal information, as if it could see into the soul. it also drew a ZOZO spirit which tormented my family's ancestral home for a time because we tried to use it there. this one caused suicidal ideation for anyone who stayed in the house which became very dangerous for my family.

Closing Down the Damn Experiment

• at this point of escalation, we decided it best to starve the board the way two very new witches knew best. we would perform both Catholic and Wiccan cleansing rituals on it, with incense, crystals, etc. to draw out all negative energy. we would also perform daily latin prayers over it and keep a symbol of the Holy Trinity placed on it at all times. we kept it away from all from whom it could draw energy. we kept it locked away and safe. that's how the board has stayed since. locked away, starved, and waiting for someone to find it again. we aren't sure if it would be best to destroy it or keep it in a safe, clean space free of use.

• after that, the supernatural occurences slowly ceased. i would stop falling asleep randomly, sleep soundly, and my dog would stay quiet throughout the night.

• my friend and i now live in constant vigilance now to protect us from spirits who may want to harm us. we have both begun to find our way within our craft. the world feels different now and i feel changed because of what i went through

Conclusion

i'm a scientist at heart so i couldn't end this without the results of my findings. i found sufficient evidence to support the ability of Ouija boards to have substansial spiritual power and significance. while this may not be the finding of every witch or person, i have found this to be true in my personal experience and hope me sharing this event will help other people better understand what they're dealing with when it comes to these guys. i know it's one thing to read it, but an agnostic person **experiencing** the actual things that happened was terrifying and could have easily cost my life because i was playing without full knowledge of the power and brevity of Ouija boards or the spiritual realm. the experience helped me learn that dark magick, while fascinating, was not my path. please be careful! i want everyone to stay safe this spooky season!! <33 sending my love and support to all magick practitioners out there

sorry for the long read!! i hope it satiates your desire for spooky stories this Halloween! if you have any questions feel free to dm/ask

[mysteriousplanchette]

As far as I can tell, this is an Italian version of Rutter’s “Magnetoscope,” which was an early test apparatus for measuring “human electricity” or “Od Force,” the latter term borrowed from Anton Mesmer. But is it producing writing? Experiments like these (such as Mayo’s ‘odometer’ pendulum) were important early observations of what became known as the Ideomotor Response. #spiritualism #mesmerism #odforce #hypnotism #pendulum #animalmagnetism #science #occult #psychic #ideomotoreffect radiesthesie #radiestesia https://www.instagram.com/p/B4uajBPFy8H/?igshid=17mcsanxle96k