swallowtail-ageha · 1 year ago
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So i watched the ep one of netflixvania out of morbid curiosity after reading my mutual @beevean 's rants about it and said by someone who is almost completely fandom blind regarding the games and between the fedora tipping type of atheism (i think that the authors have actually never met a priest before), the needlessly edgy way gore is drawn (i am not opposed to extreme gore, i am a dorohedoro fan, it's just that it's obvious that it's drawn more in a "look how serious and mature we are" instead of being well integrated with the story) and the overall excessive vulgarity (did they really need to drag the goatfucking and the sibling incest jokes for that long?) I think that it's a bad series even if you don't consider the fact that it's a bad adaptation
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mrsvalentinefucker1 · 10 months ago
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Catholic Priest! Medic x Fem!reader
A/N:It’s 4 am. So there is probably grammar mistakes and sentences that don’t make sense but it’s tumblr so.
You had been harboring sins you weren’t even sure the priest would even care to hear. Though there was two main priests, you always took a preference to Father Ludwig.
Father Mick wasn’t bad but for some reason Father Ludwig always occupied your attention.
You hated to admit it but you had definitely had some.. unpleasant thoughts of Father Ludwig. Thoughts that an active child of god should never have of someone from the church.
You hated to have them but you couldn’t help it, Father Ludwig was so charismatic, passionate and even though it was his duty.. he listened to everything you had to say.
You decided you had to absolutely confess these sinful thoughts to Father Mick.
You marched down to the church, slid open the curtain and sat in the confession booth.
“Father please forgive me for I have sinned.”
The man didn’t respond, but you knew it was safe to speak
“I’ve been having lustfull thoughts. I don’t know how to stop.. I feel so much for this person but he is a member of the church. I know as a child of god I should never have these thoughts but I can’t help it..”
“Who is it?” The man spoke back
You paused “Father Ludwig.”
“My child, why do you think telling me this is going to fix anything?”
“If I confess than god can help me forget all of these sinful things.”
“You will never be free from sinful thoughts. The important part is that you repent of having them in the first place..and especially that you don’t tell the one you’ve been fantasizing about, your thoughts on them.”
Your heart sank.
“Father Ludwig?”
“Yes my child?”
“I’m so sorry. I had no ide-“
The curtain slid open as the tall man looked down at you.
“Father?”
“Yes my child?”
“Please..” you looked down at the priests growing tent in his pants and then at your feet “don’t look at me like that.. you don’t know how much of an effect it has on me”
“Your sins, they are between you and god. Not me and you, you know that right?”
“Of course I do.”
“So, technically speaking you can sin as much as you want and as long as you repent, you will be fine.”
You looked back up at him “what does that mean?”
The priest grabbed your wrist and forced you to stand.
“Y/n, what did these thoughts consist of?” He held your hands in front of your chest
“Father I can’t tell-“
“Tell me. A man of the church is directly giving you that order.”
“Yes Father” you looked down and took a deep breath “I have thoughts of you taking my virginity- in the confession booth..” you looked up to see his cold gaze “I don’t want to have these thoughts but I do.”
“Interesting.”
You looked into the man’s eyes for a second until he turned you around, pressing your chest and face against the confession booths hard surface.
“Y/n, promise me you’ll repent after this.”
Your heart was racing “I- I promise”
Father Ludwig held your arms behind your back with one hand as he used the other to undo his zipper. Taking his growing cock out of his pants and pumping it a few times.
You looked back for a second until he shoved your head back into it’s previous place
He lifted the ankle length skirt you had on up to your waist and peeled back your soaked Lacie panties.
“My. How could a child of god have such filthy thoughts..” he said as he began to slid the tip of his cock up and down your wet folds.
“Please..”
“With time you will get your reward. Patients my child.”
You only whined at his words. Your heart pounding and your face burning. You grinded against his throbbing cock as he slid it up to your hole before he slipped only the head in.
You winced. The pain was already too much
“It will hurt.. but trust me, okay?”
“I trust you Father.”
“Good girl.”
He began to massage your clit while rocking his hips back and forth until you were able to take the whole head of his cock into your tight pussy
Ludwig moaned in pleasure and so did you.
You began grinding onto his cock, begging for him to slip more of himself into you.
“I can only imagine how long you’ve been thinking of this moment. Tell me Y/n, how long has this been a dream for you?”
“Ever since I began coming to this church.. as soon as I saw you look at me during prayer”
He remembered that moment quite well, he was admiring you and you just so happened to link eyes with him. Never in a million years did you or him think it would lead to this moment.
“Please. More..”
Ludwig chuckled as he gripped your hips with both of his large hands and forced his entire cock into your cunt. A little bit of blood seeping out as he did so. Your head shot up from the sudden pain but quickly subsided when he started massaging your clit again.
“What a naughty girl, Y/n”
You moaned shamelessly into your arm as he began pounding into your wet pussy. Your eyes crossed and your mind was in the sky, you could barely make out what he was saying from the searing pleasure you were feeling. You were sure your legs would give out from how rough he was fucking you.
The priest grabbed your throat, holding you to his chest as he whispered into your ear.
“I hope you’re enjoying this Y/n”
You nodded the best you could “I- I am!”
He chuckled “good girl”
The man began toying with your clit once more
“I’m close sweetheart.. are you?”
You nodded as you bit your lip.
“F-fuck! Yes.. please.. gonna cu- uhm”
He began fucking you harder than before. Your cunt began tightening around him as he gripped your hips and throat harder. You were sure you were going to pass out as your orgasm hit you. Your legs gave out and you were grasping at his hand around your constricted airway
The man let out a deep moan as he finished deep inside of your virgin womb
He let go of you and fixed himself up. He liked the state you were in after he had his way with you. He pulled your panties back up as his cum seeped through them. Then pulled your skirt down. He opened the confession booths curtain only to be met by Father Mick. A visible tent in his pants from what he had heard.
“Not very godly to be doing this in the church Father Ludwig.”
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lilhub · 7 months ago
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So. What's up with the duplicate statues in Eden?
If you've played Sky: Children of the Light and gone through The Ascent, you may have noticed these statues:
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And you'll know that the Vault has the same exact statues:
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Now the question we're asking here is why.
Of course, I have a theory in regards to it that ties into a couple of other theories, but it's gonna be long and probably a little complicated, so buckle up.
TL;DR will be at the bottom of the post for a simpler(and less all over the place) explanation!
Now, I'm going to start at the beginning with something that may seem completely unrelated:
Take a look at the top of this broken building in the Battlefield.
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Does it look familiar? It should.
It looks like the vault masks.
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That's odd though, isn't it? The Vault Elder is, well, the Vault Elder. They belong in the Vault.
To that I say: what if they weren't always there?
What if that building used to be their temple?
Almost every other Elder has their own building that serves as their temple and little else; why would the Vault Elder be any different? They're certainly just as important as every other Elder, so why would they be singled out?
Some more evidence for the broken building being an Elder's temple?
Look here, in The Seed's spirit memory:
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The spirit was a medic that treated and aided soldiers on the battlefield, and this displays them in a Medic's tent. Where? In the broken building.
Other than it being the arguably safest structure aside from the Vault, there's...no real reason for it to be here of all places. They could have had it anywhere else; this is in the thick of the fighting, after all, the entire map is called the Battlefield for a reason. But there's a reason it was here.
Why?
Well, the Elder's temples are sacred. They're holy places, not to be trifled with, even in the midst of a war, they're like churches. And what was guaranteed if you took shelter in a church?
Sanctuary.
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Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee its outside will be particularly safe from conflict, especially toward the end of the war. Survival began to matter more than walls, I suspect, and it's clear from the Lookout Scout's memory sequence that even then, this place was broken down; potentially from Dark Dragons, potentially from the Ancestors. Unfortunately, we currently have no way of knowing for sure.
On the topic of placements and symbolism in the Battlefield map, though: there's also all of this imagery of the King leading up to the Wasteland Elder's temple.
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Let me suggest to you the following as an answer to why:
Eden was not always the primary residence of the King.
Before you grab your torches and pitchforks, hear me out. The Eden Castle was not always there, and this is explicitly shown in the Aurora concert during Warrior, but also the fourth quest in Season of Passage:
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No castle.
Now, what does this mean for the King? Well, logically they should have them residing in the otherwise safest place in the Kingdom—like, perhaps, a Vault.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Let's go back to the statues.
Many theorize that they're graves, due to the fact that there's one in each temple and when you sit, you're taken to the respective cutscenes that feature the Elders in their limbos. I disagree.
I think they were communication lines. Every Elder will need to contact one another at some point, and other than the Windpaths, there's really no shortcuts through the realms; thus, the statues function as telephones in a home network, if you will. If one person picks up the line while others are having a conversation, they can listen in as well.
Who needs to have a way to contact every single Elder?
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The King.
A ruler needs to be able to conveniently contact the others that help them run a kingdom, especially at a moment's notice, and phones don't exactly exist in the Kingdom. Thusly following the path of logic here, wherever the King is, there should be each statue for each corresponding Elder.
Once the castle became the primary residence of the King, now that the Vault Elder was no longer close by, there was a statue added to the arrangement; this also explains why it's just sat in the middle of them instead of up with the rest.
There is one other thing, though.
What's up with the Wasteland Elder?
After all, if the Vault was the primary residence of the King, and the statues support that, then why and how does the Wasteland Elder come to inhabit that building?
I have a few thoughts on that too.
Let's take a look at the Wasteland Elder, for starters.
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They look like a soldier. Which is no surprise, really, seeing as they were in charge of what is now the Wasteland, and the war that seems to have primarily taken place there.
I have another thought though.
The King needs a guard, or more accurately, the Prince does. Sure, there is plenty of power when you are the King, but before that they was a Prince, and there are always precautions that should be taken with the future ruler of your Kingdom.
From what little we see of their character, the Wasteland Elder is protective. Defensive. Willing to do anything to safeguard what lay beyond that gate. They had to learn from somewhere. That instinct has to come from somewhere, because they clearly have worked themselves to the point of absolute exhaustion in their efforts to safeguard that gate.
To this, I ask you: what better protection is there for a Prince than a Star?
Of course, once the Prince becomes a King, and Eden is more than adequate as a safe spot for them, this Star needs to be put somewhere else.
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And the Wasteland still needs a protector. After all, the Dark Dragons at this point must be becoming a problem, and Darkstone production is likely growing larger and larger by the day; the people need someone to keep them safe and reassure them that all will be okay.
Who better than a Star that already knows everything about protection and defense? Who has the necessary experience? Who has likely had to manage other guards that helped protect the Prince?
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TL;DR: Before the fall of the kingdom, while the King was still a Prince, before the Castle was built the Prince resided in the Vault. And before the conflict in the Wasteland, the Vault Elder's temple was the broken building we now see in the Battlefield. This explains both the King imagery leading up to (what is now)the Wasteland Temple(which also doubles as the entrance to the Vault) and the symbol atop the broken building that resembles the Vault masks.
During the period of time before the Prince became the King, the Wasteland Elder was assigned as their protector, explaining their intense need to defend the Vault 'til their last breath. Afterward, once the Prince becomes King, they are reassigned as the Guardian of the Wasteland, charged with overseeing its people and the Darkstone production taking place there.
Because of the fact that the King resided in the Vault and the Eden Castle, there are versions of each Elder's statue in both places due to them potentially being communication lines instead of graves. Or, at least, they used to be communication lines and were turned into graves for the Fallen Stars after the Fall of the Kingdom. This also explains why each statue takes us to that specific Elder's limbo space; they still, technically, function for their intended purpose.
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Of course, this is all just one huge theory made up of a bunch of smaller theories and doesn't have the greatest evidence but. Alas! I am prone to overthinking details in the Funny Light Game.
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semidecentpoet · 8 months ago
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What gets me ab western mainstream news coverage of the genocide in Palestine—besides the obvious lack of morality—is that it’s, frankly, shit journalism.
(For context, I’m a journalism major with a focus in print reporting. This is literally what I’m going to school for.)
(Forgive me if this is slightly disorganized. Harder to write when I’m pissed.)
My instructors tell me ab the importance of active voice over passive voice all. The. Time. There’s a difference, for example, between “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed” and “Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians.”
More recently, I’ve had instructors tell me to be more skeptical of official sources (e.g. police), fact-check their claims and get alternative sources whenever possible.
But, from what I’ve seen, a lot of outlets seem to just take Israel’s word as fact without searching for further evidence. For example, when Israel made that claim—with no real evidence—ab the 40 beheaded babies and it was everywhere. And then they said they can’t confirm shit, and now these outlets have to backpedal.
And of course, on top of the blatant misuse of language (beyond just active vs passive voice) and the false/unsupported reporting, there’s the lack of reporting.
I don’t see western mainstream outlets quoting the assholes who call Palestinians “human animals.”
I don’t see them pointing out the sickening abundance of social media posts of Israelis celebrating the genocide, of IDF posing in front of the rubble of what once was Gaza or with the undergarments of the Palestinian women and girls they raped.
I don’t see them setting their headlines ablaze with the countless historic holy sites Israel has destroyed, mosques and churches alike that were some of the oldest in the world. (But when Notre Dame was on fire—)
I don’t even see the context of the more than 75 years of Israel’s bullshit leading up to now.
Where is the coverage of the entire families Israel have wiped out? Where is the coverage of how Israel treats its hostages? Where is the coverage of the Palestinian people’s injuries, physical and mental, and the reason for the lack of proper medical aid?
Countless children in Gaza have to undergo amputations in unsanitary environments without anesthesia. Where’s the coverage?
Who is asking Biden the important questions? Like, if you’re trying so hard for a ceasefire, why has the United States vetoed United Nations resolutions for an immediate ceasefire three times since Oct. 7? Why a temporary ceasefire instead of a permanent one?
How ab Israel’s attack on Rafah during the Super Bowl?? Rafah the designated safe zone?? While airing a $7 million ad?? During what is arguably the most famous and most-watched sports event in the U.S., which has given billions of dollars in support of Israel’s genocide?? How are these outlets not blowing up????? This is a U.S.-funded slaughter during a national event???? Is this not newsworthy enough for you??????????????
Maybe they include some of these things in their articles. But when and if they do, is it a full-fledged story or just a brief?
Is it toward the top of the page or buried lower? (Journalists typically use the inverted pyramid style, which means the most important information in a story is at the top.)
I understand that, as journalists, we have to be objective. But this is not objective reporting. It is clearly biased in favor of Israel. If it were any other country, any other people under siege, this would all look a lot different.
On the topic of objectivity, I’ve heard a few arguments along the lines of, “We can’t pick a side.” But is there truly more than one side to this crisis?
One instructor of mine has said that “both sides” is a false dichotomy, meaning there are rarely ever exactly two sides to any given issue. Sometimes that means there are more than two sides, and sometimes that means there is really only one.
Coincidently, an example he gave of only one side was the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Even though there are assholes who say otherwise, it was real. It happened. It was wrong. There’s no other way to look at it.
Ik that journalists bending objectivity and imposing morality in reporting is a relatively recent and controversial debate within the media industry.
But.
If we do some actual goddamn reporting—take the numbers and the quotes and the experiences caught on video and add them all together—we start to paint a pretty clear picture of who is the victim here. And who is responsible for the atrocities.
Just bc our government supports Israel does not mean Israel perspective is on equal footing with, much less more important than, Palestine’s.
When Palestine’s death toll is roughly 30 times that of Israel’s, there’s only one side.
This is some pretty shit journalism.
I’d look forward to hearing from other journalists/student journalists what they think ab coverage of the genocide.
Personally, I’m a little heartbroken that some of these outlets I’ve looked up to and dreamed ab being a part of someday have been so lacking in their coverage—to say the least. Especially since journalism is so important and is supposed to be a major means of holding people in power accountable for their actions.
Life’s bitter irony, I suppose.
Free Palestine.
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dr-chosenberg · 3 months ago
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On my recent rewatch I felt the inspiration to design my headcanon for what Dr. Potterswheel's late wife might have looked like! Born Marie-Thérèse Praxineaux, her maiden name is based off of the Praxinoscope which is an animation device that came after the Zoetrope
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Voice: https://youtu.be/2MaiJtecGmI?si=H6h5nLCUQsk9039K
CW: Dr Potterswheel's gore fetish, infection, death, miscarriage,
She moved to Moralton because you know The War and was shunned because of the rumors around town of her being a foreigner and France being a place of sin and lust. The librarian there gave her a job because she assumed no moralton man was going to be interested because of her reputation and took pity on her. Oh another reason the moraltons hate her lol, France is a majority Catholic country. Marie was part of the minority there that was Protestant but obviously the Moraltons didn’t care.
In comes a young Quentin.
He was studying for his medical school exams and often came in, staying the often inaccurate statesotan medical books for long hours. Sometimes when it was just the librarian and the two of them she would avoid him at all costs, not wanting to further her reputation.
He was aware of Marie-Therese, she was pretty and always helpful when she knew where to find a book he needed.
One day some kind of accident happened, not serious enough that she was in any real danger but enough that she needed medical assistance. Maybe a bookcase fell on her and she needed some stitches?
M-T was not one to speak up or make a fuss, but Quentin had a handsome deep voice and spoke with so much authority. He did his best to reassure her she would be ok and in a sense it coaxed the words right out of her. She had a way with words and could describe her pain like she was painting a picture, I like to think she enjoyed writing poetry, but you and I both know that’s not why it attracted him so intensely.
Despite the town doing its best to shun her she still attended church every Sunday and every Sunday Quentin would inquire about her wounds progress and ask to see it. One day a few weeks after her wound had healed they were conversing and Marie-Therese joked sadly that they could no longer be seen together as she didn’t have the excuse of being his practice patent.
At which point Quentin proposed. It wasn’t the most romantic affair to most, he said it matter of factly as he does most things. But that was ok, she would have the bedside manner and the way with words for them both.
Their relationship itself….well they had a foot up on many Moralton couples as they were truly in love. Many would consider Marie a fool as he was not the most romantic man. He was soft when she would fuss or worry (think about the way he spoke to Bloberta when she said her wound was bad) but when she really took issue with something he wouldn’t get more emotional, but even less, she found herself at times disheartened at the way he would dismiss her worries and talk down to her. She insisted to her newfound housewife friends that they just didn’t know him like she did, which was *sort* of true.
She honestly didn’t mind his “preferences” she assumed that taking charge was what a husband was meant to do in the bedroom, and that a “little” pain was just what a good Christian woman had to put up with after a life of chastity. When she had other wounds and he would take a bit too much of a vested interest she thought it was just his way of showing he cared. She never understood why he would discourage what he called “unnecessary” medications like, allergy meds, antacids, etc. always feeding her a line about the lord helping those who help themselves.
She tried her best to become more like the other wives of Moralton, she even took up sewing and embroidery. She made a comment once about how she was just like him, sewing up patients. He stroked her head and smiled, “How cute. You’d worry yourself sick if anything important was counting on your little stick ‘n’ pokes.”
Things got better when they got the wonderful news that Marie was pregnant. Her pregnancy was very rough, unlike anything Quentin had ever seen. He would comfort her by telling her of the many strong mothers he had seen in his career so far, if she couldn’t handle the pain of the pregnancy how could she handle the birth? The smile he would give her when she would nod in agreement was all the soothing she needed.
She was nearing the worst of it when she used the last of her energy to embroider a handkerchief for him, with his initials on it. Sometimes he would use it to clean her face when she would cough up one thing or another, or wet it to soothe her forehead.
Of course she wasn’t *just* facing pregnancy complications, she had caught a whole other sickness entirely, an infection. The days went by and Quentin got more desperate. Out of love for his wife? Out of a need to prove his abilities as a doctor? Who knows. He would never admit fault for anything let alone a patient, he sure as hell wasn’t going to take the blame for losing the woman he cares for. He tried everything, except actual medical science.
Finally he relented and began to give her painkillers. I believe it would be more in character if he didn’t tell her. Visitors from the town and a young Reverend Putty suspected it but she was none the wiser. She used to say things like, “Ma moitié having you pray for me and care for me is so healing, I am feeling better already.”
When she could form full coherent sentences.
With the way medicine was at the time while some painkillers are safe for pregnant women these probably weren’t, but they weren’t what took her. It got to the point that she wasn’t herself anymore but spent her days lying in bed in a haze, barely awake.
She swore sometimes that she could see Quentin there at her side, watching her, even feel him stroke her hand. But when she got her eyes to focus he wasn’t there anymore.
One day Quentin went in for a morning check up and the sheets were covered in blood. He had lost his wife and his child in one fell swoop.
It was a horrific scene but she looked so serene. So comfortable. She was clutching his handkerchief.
Notes:
This takes place with the assumption that Moralton is not modern day, I headcanon Quentin to be around 50
This was fun, nothing is set in stone truly as this was part of a stream of consciousness conversation with my friend @cheonsa-n I’m fully up for criticism if anything seems out of character. I’m also happy to explain the reasoning behind certain choices!
I don’t personally buy the idea that Quentin killed his wife on purpose, a man with Quentin’s disposition who actually committed a murder wouldn’t resort to almost stabbing the man who accused him of it, that’s how you get people to think you killed your wife on purpose lol.
I hope you guys enjoy what I came up with. Their relationship isn’t fully this way as he was attracted to her and subjected her to some of the same treatment we saw Bloberta go through, but their marriage in my mind had a bit of a Madonna-whore complex flavoring to it. I also believe this is somewhat of an origin story for his habit of treating everything with almost exclusively painkillers. Marie-Thérèse couldn’t be saved but she was, as Quentin puts it, very comfortable when she passed.
In the AU where she lives she still suffered a miscarriage and Clay calls Dr. Potterswheel a babykiller instead. She is still as sweet as the day she and Quentin met but she isn’t particularly keen on giving Orel the time and attention he needs either, it’s too painful. When she does give him advice she tends to advise him to wait things out and not rock the boat. She tells him that good things come to those who wait.
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thelampisaflashlight · 11 months ago
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The Cloudy Sky to Your Sunny Day Pt. 1
[Sunny has never really had a home before. The Sunny angst I mentioned ages ago. Not suitable for younger audiences.] Below the cut.
It's weird, Sunny feels, watching her pack leave the abbey without her.
She's barely known them more than a year, and yet... they're all she has.
All she really knows.
But that doesn't mean she regrets her decision to stay behind, not even a little bit.
After spending most of her first year on the surface bouncing from city to city, Sunny's ready to see what else life has to offer.
At home that is.
And she's not alone in that regard; Looking over at Aether, who's a little misty-eyed but smiling as he watches their friends leave, at least she knows someone else is in the same boat.
Kind of.
Aether's retirement wasn't exactly planned -he'd be on that bus right now himself if he had it his way- but necessary.
Not long after the first leg of the tour, the older ghoul's vessel had begun to rapidly deteriorate for seemingly no reason at all, resulting in a prolonged stay in the infirmary as the staff worked day and night to determine what, exactly, had caused the once lively ghoul to a shell of his former self.
Omega -Aether's mentor and a senior member of the ministry's medical team- couldn't give an exact diagnosis.
"His condition," he had stated gravely, "doesn't have a name, but it is not uncommon in quintessence ghouls. I, too, developed the same illness at one time."
"He has to rest and avoid overexerting himself... Which means, of course, he cannot go back on tour... In fact, with how weak his vessel has grown, I feel he will need to remain on leave indefinitely."
Sunny watches Aether settle onto the low rock wall surrounding the front flowerbeds, letting out a deep sigh.
"Aether-" she starts, but stops herself when Aether pats the stone beside him.
"Sit." he says, "You should take it easy, too."
She hesitates for a moment before taking a seat.
"How are you feeling today?" he asks, and it takes everything she has for Sunny not to blurt out the exact same thing in return.
Why's he asking her how she's doing when he's the one who-
"It's not a contest, Sunflower." Aether says, clearly picking up on her reluctance, "So... how are you?"
Sunny frowns.
"I'm going to miss them." she admits, but when Aether hums in agreement, she can't help but feel a twinge in her chest.
A rotten feeling is starting to pool there around her heart, not that she'll say it out loud.
Something jealous and bitter that's gnawing on her ribcage, and she can't even push it aside now, not when she has plenty of time to unpack it... she just doesn't want to.
"...I'm going to go get some work done today, so I'll see you around lunch?"
Aether pats her knee, "Sounds like a plan."
Truth be told, Sunny's never really had a chance to really stew in her more negative emotions.
Despite all the, well, "Hell" she went through in the pit and the trauma of clawing her way through the portal, she's always kept a smile on her face... for the most part anyway.
It's much easier to squash down those ugly feelings and pretend like she's okay.
Fake it 'til you make it, ya know?
But lately that's been hard, especially when faced with the fact that she is so easily replaceable.
That they were so easily able to find someone smaller, cuter... better... with such short notice.
She doesn't hate Aurora, but her heart had selfishly wished that it would have been at least a little more difficult for the church to find someone else to fill her position.
"So that's how it is." she can recall thinking, "I'm not really that important in the end, huh?"
The others in their pack hadn't even been nearly as upset when she announced she was staying behind as they were when Aether told them.
Sure, they'd known him for longer -for years- but she thought... she thought they were at least a little close by now.
"Whatever," she tells herself, "it's fine."
But it's not.
It's not fine.
Not really.
Sunny's stubborn, she knows; She has too much pride, doesn't like to admit that she wants -needs- to be wanted.
And maybe that's it.
Maybe that's the reason no one does.
They can smell it on her; The desperation.
.
.
.
"I don't get why I have to do this." Sunny says, picking a pebble from the tread of her boots with nimble fingers, "I mean, like, I'm good. Aether's the one you should be talking to."
"I do talk to him" Omega says, leaning back in his office chair, hands folded in his lap, "but that doesn't mean I can't talk to you as well."
"Okay, but, like, I don't need..." Sunny gestures broadly at the room their in, at the motivational posters, the cool toned pastel walls, and the basket of fidget toys beside her, "...whatever this is. I don't- Nothing's wrong with me."
The older ghoul tips his chair back towards the desk and reaches down to open a drawer, removing a thin, yellow folder; Her name is written on the cover in looping cursive handwriting.
"...What's that?" she asks, frowning at the folder, feeling a bit anxious now, "Seriously, what is that?"
Omega holds up a hand, "Nothing yet."
"Yet-"
"Every ghoul that is summoned, transferred to, or born here in the abbey has to go through certain evaluations in order for us to get an idea of who they are and how to best meet their needs." the larger ghoul slides the folder over to Sunny, "You can open it if you'd like."
Sunny picks up the folder and opens it.
"It's kind of... empty." she says, thumbing through the sparse paperwork, "...Why's that?"
"Well, we never really got to speak before you left on tour, which I apologize for. Normally, I would have come and interviewed you right away, got you settled in and given you time to adjust to everything first, but, instead, you got thrust right into the thick of it." Omega explains, "Now that you're going to be home for a while, I thought we might meet now and then to talk about things."
"Things?" Sunny questions, "Like what?"
"Anything you want." Omega offers, "Things you like, things you hate, how you're feeling that day..."
"That's what diaries are for." Sunny huffs, tossing the folder back onto the desktop, "Why would I talk to you about that stuff?"
"Because a diary can't talk back, and while I think journaling is certainly a healthy outlet for your thoughts and feelings, if that's the only way you get them out, it might be beneficial to have someone you can speak to without fear of being judged." Omega says, "And that's what I'm here for."
Sunny clicks her tongue.
"I don't even keep a diary, so..." she waves her hand dismissively, "...Like I said, nothing's wrong with me, so I don't think I need to do this."
"You keep saying that." Omega points out.
"Saying what?"
"That nothing's wrong with you." he says, "Do you think there has to be something wrong with you to be talking to me?"
Sunny shifts in her chair, the toe of her boot squeaking against the glossy hardwood floor as she adjusts herself, "...Kind of."
"Why is that?"
"Psh... 'Cause, like, you don't see a therapist if something's not wrong with you." she mumbles, "And being here means I'm probably, I dunno, nutty or weird, or fucked up somehow and I'm not seeing it or somethin'..."
Omega takes out a small notepad and a pen.
"Let's talk about that then..." he says, "Unless you want to start somewhere else?"
Sunny draws her feet up onto the chair, propping her chin up on her knees.
"I dunno..." she furrows her brow, "...I just feel like, because I'm here right now, I'm... it's like I'm in trouble somehow, and I don't like it."
"And, like, I dunno, I don't like feeling like people can tell I'm different somehow, 'cause I don't feel different, and I thought, ya know, I thought I was doing okay, but I guess not..." she continues, "...I don't even know what I'm doing here, like, in general. I... I'm not in the band anymore, and I wasn't even in it for long, so I should just leave..."
"Do you want to leave?" Omega asks after a moment, and Sunny looks up at him, red eyes drowning in tears yet to spill over.
"I don't want to go...!" Sunny hiccups, "I don't want to go! I want to stay! But I'm not- I'm nothing if I'm not with the others, but I can't, I don't-"
She pulls in a shuddering breath, sniffling.
"No one's going to make you leave, Sunny." Omega assures her, slipping her a packet of tissues, "This is your home now. Whether you're a band ghoul or not. Look at me; I've been here well passed my tenure in the band, there are some ghouls here that have never plucked a string or sung a single note, and they're still here. You're still here."
"But I'm..."
Sunny isn't sure what she wants to say.
She opens and closes her mouth, then looks at Omega, eyes wide.
"You sneaky motherfucker-"
.
.
.
Sunny nibbles on her pizza slice, trying her best to savor each bite.
There's something about crying that always makes her hungry, and when Aether offered to order a pizza for them to split, she couldn't pass up the idea of red sauce and cheese.
"So, how did your work go?" Aether asks, wiping his mouth, "Get to do anything fun?"
Sunny shrugs, "Went okay, I guess... I had to work with this guy on some paperwork. Boring stuff, not worth getting into."
Aether nods, "And the guy?"
"What about him?" Sunny tilts her head.
"What was he like?"
Sunny thinks back on her conversation with Omega earlier and looks down at a stray green pepper on her plate, picking it up and eating it before responding, "He was... kind of annoying."
"Oof, hopefully you don't have to see him again any time soon then." Aether scoffs, taking a sip of his water.
"Hn, actually, I'm going to be working with him a bit more." she says, recalling the note Omega had written on his calendar about their next scheduled appointment, "And I have to do this... writing assignment."
"A writing assignment?" Aether muses, "Really?"
"Yeah, uh, I have to do it daily. It's for... research!"
"Oh? That sounds more exciting than you made it sound earlier." he chuckles, "What are you researching?"
"We..." Sunny coughs, "Weather patterns."
"Weather patterns?"
She nods.
"I'm supposed to track the weather. Ya know, cloud... cloudy days, and... sunny ones."
"Ahhh, I see." Aether yawns, "...Goodness, I'm sorry... eating makes me sleepy anymore."
Sunny yawns, too, "Dammit, Aeth-"
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dreadfutures · 9 months ago
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there's something here ok
my mom used to be a bigot. she was abusive and alcoholic and had self esteem issues that she self medicated and took out on the world. she hated homeless people, hippies, liberals, anti gun activists, didn't believe in climate change.
in 15 years she has changed a lot. She carries a bag around full of food and blankets and water to give to the unhoused. She always has cash in her wallet to give to people on the street. She believes in climate change and votes green. She changed her mind about guns.
I can talk to her without worrying I'm going to be judged just for being antiwar. Her biggest priority isn't whether or not I'm going to church but whether I'm helping people and being kind.
I feel like I can tell her about (some) things about my childhood, and my relationships, and I'll be heard and respected. That is more than before, where I felt like I had to lie about every aspect of my life to avoid a berating and harassment.
She apologized to me once three years ago for my childhood and I don't care. It means more to me that she was at a place personally where she could apologize, than anything else.
Nothing makes up for how I was made to feel growing up. But I never needed her to be a part of my healing. It happened, and I deal with it in my own way, divorced from her. I don't need anything from her except the answer to my ONE WISH growing up: I wished she'd grow up, and be kinder, and be more secure. Even then, when I hated her, I knew that what would be good for ME would be to get away and become the person I wanted to be; what would be good for her, my family, the world, would be for her to BE BETTER. I was so angry because to me, I KNEW she could just BE BETTER, KINDER, than this, but it felt like she refused to do the work. It made me SO ANGRY. And so hopeless.
It took almost two decades. It was not a pleasant 15 years for her I'm sure. But she did it.
She is a different person than the one who hurt me; the person who hurt me is the same person who always had the potential to be better.
There's something here.
My old therapist and I talked about compartmentalization and how it's boxing things up and shoving them under the bed. We discussed how that's not what I'm doing with this approach. When I say the person my mom is now deserves to be treated independently of the person she was. I think it's the only way to have a community. We have to meet people where they're at, and if they want to and are able to engage with community the way the community engages, then. we should.
I had cut off my family almost completely when I moved away for college. They just continued to prove that they weren't going to engage with me in a healthy way, and they weren't people I wanted in my personal community. I told them why I didn't want to be around them.
And I was fine; I found my community, identified my needs and found ways to meet them with the resources and people I wanted in my life. There are unique pains in that, too, but they're just different pains than the agony of dealing with family like that. Fixing them wasn't my responsibility; getting out of a situation where I was suffering, was something in my power.
If my mom hadn't genuinely changed, I wouldn't engage the way I am now. But she could, and she did. The rest of my family is also better but for reasons I still hold them at a distance. There's something to that, too. and all of it just. really validates an important part of my world view that needed strengthening. Hope without evidence of possibility feels like a vain exercise. But this one example solidified something in me. There's something there.
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sub-at-omicsteminist · 2 years ago
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Why are you atheist??
I’ve been staring at this ask for a while now since it’s such an odd thing to just ask and I was trying to figure out when I’ve ever mentioned religion so I can answer in response to what they’ve seen but I don’t know when I’ve mentioned it.
I’ve never been a person of faith, I remember in year 2 (6/7 years of age) I was at a school Mass and I realised everyone else around me believed what was being said whereas I thought what was happening was just another story. I’ve always took religious teachings as stories to teach morals and guidance but I never took them literally.
I used to attended a Greek Orthodox church on Sundays and I’m christened Greek Orthodox and I didn’t mind it because the priest was a lovely person. He would say things like Science is the pursuit of understanding Gods creation and he would talk about how important education is. But the thing that stood out to me was he once said being trans isn’t a sin, it’s the journey God planned for that Individual. So when I was younger I wasn’t aware of the more homophobic and transphobic sides of religion.
It wasn’t until I started attending the Catholic secondary that I realised that some people used religion to back up ideas of hate and I became very anti Christian and stopped attending church because as a young Queer kid the bullying and being told I’m going to hell all the time really got to me.
My mum also became very unwell, she has a chronic illness amongst many other disabilities so I also thought if there is a God he doesn’t care because why would he make a child watch there mother slowly die and loose her mind and become abusive.
I loved talking to my friends about their religions though, I’ve always been fascinated with beliefs and faith because I’ve never had any. I partook in Ramadan one year to support my friend who was finding it hard and their family invited me to Iftar and I really respected how important their faith must be for them to do this because it was very difficult. Another experience I won’t forget was watching my friends mum create a Rangoli because she put so much care and attention into it and it is still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen because of that care that went into it.
But it wasn’t until I was 17 I started recognising not all religious people are oppressive, some people use it for oppression but if you take people individually who believe in it that’s not a bad thing.
But there are still things I don’t like, for an example at my secondary we were put into religious houses and mine was house Vanier, turns out that guy was an awful person. His name is Jean Vanier if anyone wants to look him up but it’s just disgusting. Also the priest at the Catholic Church closest to where I live was found out to be preying on children, I have no idea what happened to him in the end but it was a big deal in my town. I also live near some Jehovah’s witnesses who for a month straight harassed me after pride because I assume they saw me coming home with pride face paint and stickers on and I had leaflets about sinning coming through the letter box constantly, and even now they still bang loudly on my door to preach when I’ve explained me, my mum and dad all have diagnosed ptsd and find it distressing. My RE teacher also told our class how he pressured his friend who was SA’d into keeping her baby and he was so proud of himself and it made me feel sick, he did loose his job because he told a student they’ll die and go to hell if they take the pill even though they were taking it for medical reasons.
That’s the part of religion I hate, it’s those individuals I hate. I don’t hate religion or people who practice religion but I hate the fact those things happened.
One of the kindest adults in my life was the school Chaplin, she told me she prayed everyday for my mum to get better and she prayed for me during my exams. I spent a lot of time in the chapel because it was quiet when I was having panic attacks and she used to just sit with me and talk me through them.
I’ve lost track of what I’ve written but
I’m not anti religion. Me not being a religious person isn’t anti religion. I’m anti people using religion as an excuse to be horrible to others.
I’ve just never had any sort of beliefs, in my mind everything is just a coincidence. I don’t believe in an after life, ghosts, superstitions or anything like that either. But that’s who I am and I don’t think that should offend anyone. But I also know I could be wrong and I can’t tell anyone their religion is wrong or right because I simply don’t know that.
I think I prefer the term agnostic (a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God) over atheist because it’s as simple as I don’t know but I don’t think anyone is wrong for having faith.
But also I want to add I’m a white person talking about religion and my experience, all over the world people have different experiences so it doesn’t actually matter what I say. I’m just answering an ask and if you ever want to talk to me about religion I’m always happy to.
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relicarios-de-dor · 10 months ago
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I think it's important to say that I lived in a time when Tumblr was a no man's land, that being said, if for some reason you want to poke around in my more archaic posts, you'll see some really bizarre things. following….
I'm a woman, a chaos, born in the 90s, pansexual, currently in a long-term relationship with another woman. I'm a neurodivergent person, chronically d3pre5sed, anx1ous, b0rd3r, b1p0l4r, with unspecified t.a - explaining: I had a no eating period and when happened i puk3d; then I had a very compulsive period and so it has been; su1c1d@l (but medicat3d nowadays), a cvutt3r (now I get tattoos ¯⁠\⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯), and I recently discovered that i can say "religious tr4uma"✨ instead os explainig why i don't like religion/church people. ps: I'm not talking about faith.
This year I graduate as a psychologist! lol ⁠ (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠;) I love my profession but it scares me so much… anyway〈("≧⁠∇⁠≦⁠).
Before medication I felt more creative, I used to write and draw more easily; I like art therapy, I miss the liberating feeling. I still draw from time to time but nothing original and I rarely write - this year I'm going to try to do it again little by little.
I have 2 dogs and one is very old, she held me to cry when I needed it, she knew exactly when I wasn't well and she didn't let me go… I rly don't deserve this 4-legged angel.
I like dorama, kpop (annyeonghaseyo Stay imnida!)+, yuri/yaoi ⁠(͡⁠°⁠ₒ ͡⁠°⁠), talk abt sexuality and kinkies ⁠(͡⁠°⁠ₒ ͡⁠°⁠); YES, PLS ASK ME ABT PSYCHOLOGY, I'LL LOVE TALKING ABT IT!!!, I love rambling abt random questions of existence, criticizing patriarchy, male chauvinism, sexism, white men and Karens embarassing themselves just cuz it's free, anyway…
If you read all of this, identified yourself in some way and followed me… pls PLEASE feel free to come and talk - it will take me a while to answer you cuz I'll panic, but I'll answer! promise! (◍⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠◍ ⁠)❤
So making clear: I am NOT pro an4/m1a, sh, any other things related to the mental health conditions I mentioned above (⁠٥⁠↼⁠_⁠↼⁠). The things that are written here are personal vents.
welcome!
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rosethorndragon · 1 year ago
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I feel like I'm going mad. Like guinuinly being driven there.
At the end of May, I hit my stress over flow, ready to drive myself naked to a crisis center to insure I get assistance. I was talked down from it, was told things would be done to help me lower my stress, and was able to to talk to a school provided therapist while taking summer classes.
Fall semester is about to start and none of the things that were discussed to be done as a stress reduction came to pass. All for good reasons. One reason not directly discussed was money. A reason I objected to 7 new cats because kittens are cute. A reason I wanted to not do a thing for them upstairs because my parents brought that literal pile of shit on themselves despite my well reasoned protest. I am left to clean up after 17 fucking cats because I am the one capable of doing so.
I am also, by virtue of not being elderly or disabled, the only one appearently capable of fucking cleaning this house. I despise cleaning. I am perfectly fine cleaning up after myself, but my dad makes cleaning exhausting. Proof in the house is fine when my dad isn't in the house. One of the things that never came to fruition was twice a month having a cleaner come in and do some deep cleaning to relieve the stress that puts on me. I thought I was finally heard. But no. Or if I was, it isn't important she's just lazy, she'll be fine.
Insult to injury us my grandmother. There is no dna shared with her, but my dad's wife considers her like a mother to her. And her kids are shit. One recently had to own up to her fuck ups and I am willing to admit she has changed from the woman who rented a house that was reliant on her mother's social security to pay for it, leaving her handicapped mother to get a part time job while my dad still paid for part of her medication. Her son didn't do this, but was in the same fuck up as the first daughter and still hasn't fully resolved the situation making him unable to provide for his mother. The youngest daughter has a legit brain injury, her husband just had to get an amputation because of a bone infection, and her husband's parents are the reason why the bone got infected because they are all the anti-work evil bosses type directly to their son.
The eldest daughter is the worst. Because there is considerable distance between us, that cunt has been able to lie about what contributions to her religious community's were hers, and what was ours as an offering of help as a starter. She had to have all the glory, you see. She had spent all this money for a church production, and the congregation was so grateful. They paid her back the money she "spent" on it and never knew someone outside of their precious religion paid for it. This is when I decided I hated her because that means that suspicion of grandma being overly drugged so they could use her money was likely true. And it was, as events later panned out. But my dad's wife doesnt want to make this related conflict public.
But because this cunt still has good religious standing and is known to be a lier, ibfeel trapped. My dad doesn't want to force grandma to pay for anything rent wise despite inflation affecting our food because he primised. His wife doesn't want file for control of her "essentially adopted mother" finances power of attorney wise because grandma is still competent and capable of making her own decisions and she doesn't want to be controlling like that eldest cunt of a daughter; despite the fact we now have to confront the fact grandma has a shopping addiction and keeps buying shoes and things she isn't going to use especially after the pandemic and went from no credit cards to 3 maxed out cards. And she is right because cunt face up north would pitch a fit and lie like she did during the 2021 Freeze where everyday she talked to her mother and then tell people who know grandma but don't zoom call her regularly that cunt face was "so worried" and "didn't know if her mother was safe" so we all know that cunt is just waiting for an opportunity to spin a story, claim we are committing elder abuse and have worried, well meaning people call the police on and try and claim power of attorney to do what she did before and start using her mother as a piggy bank, again.
But that means that we are all theoretically aware of our current financial situation, and grandma wants me to take her to spend $200 of not her money to get her nails done and if i say no and why it will "get blown out of proportion" and "you are terrible at communicating that, just leave it to me".
Well, y'all have done such a great job communicating that she appearently thinks the other card being used to pay a vet bill was something other than "start tightening those belts". I've tightened my spending as bunch as I can. I am being denied mental health support over it. I am being denied things that will probably improve my physical health over it.
I cannot any more. If the only functional way of communicating i have is silence and being less than ellegant/blunt/mean, then yall need to be ready for my meanness being heard by cunt face because I'm hitting the boil over point again and mean is all I got when I'm at rage.
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sharky857 · 2 years ago
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"uve got questions and ive got answers" for all the questions of ur farmer u havent answered yet.
Well... *awkwardly glances at the utterly empty ask box* This is gonna take a while. :°D
Better add a break too.
Not really, but Melly low-key wishes she could have time to learn some sewing, so that she wouldn't need to constantly rely on Emily.
Living on a farm, Melly prefers a simple deodorant.
She's never really cooked (nor baked) before moving to Pelican Town, but after that Melly's been gradually getting the hang of it. And also digging it.
See above. :3c
No tattoos.
Considering that the only way to get this badly injured in Stardew Valley is by being nearly rekt by monsters in the wild, if Harvey were not an option, she could probably turn to Linus, Marlon + Gil, and/or possibly Gunther.
Not unusual, but Melly's afraid of storms.
Books. She feckin' loves reading.
Follow medical advices very diligently and take all the due rest until feeling well again.
Probably not moving to the valley sooner.
Can "books" be considered as "addiction"? 😆
She might have an accidental sense of style, and regardless of the former answer, the latter is gonna be a "no"; Melly feels like the "wear whatever you dig our of the dresser" kind of stylen't.
Not as much as novels, but it's a close second place.
Do they have a hard time opening up to people? Oh, totally. :°D
Regular sense of humour, probably. 🤔
She doesn't have nor want kids. At least for now.
Depends on what the "something" could be, exactly.
Not so easy, unless the other part tried and started to drill in her head "1001 reasons why aroace-ness don't exist and you're just a broken thing who hasn't experienced the things enough to have an actual opinion over them". In which case, that's a sure ticket to "GTFO-land", one-way only. 💀
Might not feel that easy due to Melly's extreme shyness and introversion, although things can get better once she warms up to the other.
Guess she does, although you'd barely catch her at the Yoba Church Sunday Mass™.
Melly considers both equally important.
"OH FUCK NO!" (Twas Melly)
As later as possible, preferably in her sleep. :°D
Not really, although she has a mild, underground beef with Pierre.
She's in charge of a whole farm, so her routine is usually on the line of: wake up -> breakfast -> tend to animals -> check on crops -> lunch time -> see some friends if got time -> do some shopping for the farm if needed -> tend to animals again -> dinner time -> book/fic time maybe? -> sleepsie
I don't think she even has any "hero". 😅
Being hopelessly shy means that all of Melly's (first) encounters happened by chance. The most memorable one with some writer by the sea. And one may say that that one in the end has had an unexpected effect. *vague gesture at some pendant*
Not as much as she is a bookworm, but wouldn't mind to play from time to time (videogames).
If Melly were real, she would be like a doppelganger or something :°D
Melly would rather leave being famous to Elliott alone, thank you very much. :°°°D
I would give her the power of teleporting, so she could do her things faster. Melly would give herself the power of invisibility, so she could go around Pelican Town without worrying about stumbling across someone she wouldn't want to meet.
Melly would probably wish she wasn't this shy, while at times very low-key wishing she wasn't so repulsed by sex to the point of feeling slightly nauseous at the thought of it.
She never really considered TTRPGs until Melly herself and Sebastian started to opened up to each other. Now that she has some familiarity with Solarion Chronicles, she would pick a healer.
She would cry a waterfall for days.
Melly believes in planning things out to try and avoid as manys etbacks as possible, but she also knows that sometimes fate can be a pain in the @$$.
The hell will freeze over before Melly would ever try to kill anyone.
Uh... *glances all the way back to question #20* There you ahve it, I guess. 😅
Sometimes she would have a recurring nightmare, but it's too unsettling/triggering to write. 😓
Nah.
She would try, then probably hand it over to the "Adventurer's Guild". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Melly absolutely treasures her mistakes.
Oh, y'know... The usual. English, italian, Dwarvish...
Depends on what the source of the stress is.
In no particular order: Elliott, Leah, Abigail, Sebastian, Maru, Evelyn, Linus, Harvey.
She strongly believe in planning out, sooo...
Maybe, but awkwardness caused by interacting would make it hard for Melly to lie efficiently.
Never really pondered this. 🤔
*whispers* Whuddafaq would you even do to set her on a rampage of those proportions? :°°°D
No real troubles with her friends, while would rather avoid any "enemy".
She's out there living her best life in her widdle farm, with no worries about the rest of the world.🥺 #wish-that-were-me
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headspace-hotel · 3 years ago
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the phrases “go outside” and “touch grass” having cropped up recently is an…interesting Internet phenomenon
Has anybody thought about the weirdness of the Internet of all places being seen as insular?
almost anywhere on the internet is, in many ways, probably one of the LEAST insular communities you’re a part of anywhere. The internet allows access to a huge number and variety of people, and if you live in a rural area, more so than practically any real life community. The comments section of a YouTube upload of one of AC/DC’s songs is probably more diverse than the city I live in or the college I attend.
Like??? I’m talking to people from dozens of countries right now. I’m WAY more “outside” than I am when I’m actually outside (in rural Kentucky).
However, almost everybody can agree that there’s a real phenomenon where some opinions and issues only make any sense at all or seem important in insular internet communities that don’t matter to the larger world. They disagree wildly about what these opinions and issues are, but they agree that they exist.
I think the wild disagreement might be a hint to the nature of the phenomenon of being Very Online.
I ask myself: Is anyone really…whatever the opposite of Very Online is? Internet access is definitely not necessary for developing ideas about how the world works that seem completely bonkers to 95% of the population.
I mean, I was homeschooled and belonged to a homeschool group where like 2 people believed in evolution and maybe half were vaccinated. People are remarkable in their capability to build insular communities that have ideas in their heads about most of the world that are very wrong. (There’s a corollary to “very online” called “very not online,” and it’s characterized by, among other things, never having talked to someone from a country with socialized medicine.) I have had some truly wild experiences with people who think ridiculous things because they haven’t actively tried to listen to people with dissimilar experiences.
Every small town or rural isolated church is, in its own way, a tidepool where people come up with weird ideas about what the ocean is like. People in those communities find things like “gay people are all so promiscuous they have hundreds of sexual partners in their lifetimes on average” believable partially because they don’t have actual experiences to refute it.
I would even argue that EVERYONE has things that are a normal part of their understanding of the world that most people would find absolutely wild.
But also?? A lot of the things people point out as “Very Online” takes are actually literally just things that the person has only been personally exposed to online.
For example, “people drink soda to help with adhd symptoms” was so widely ridiculed a while back when it’s just…a logical and uncontroversial medical Reality that stimulants are used to treat adhd and that caffeine is a stimulant. Why do people think this is an idea only people who never leave their houses could have? Because much of the discussion of ADHD they have seen has been online. Why is that? …well, ableism, for one.
Anyway, the reason” go outside” never seems to be a helpful contribution to an argument is because there is no single universal experience of the “Real World,” nor is any one person’s Real World experience necessarily more “representative” of the way the world “really works.”
And this is why you get people saying stuff like “There aren’t any non-binary people in the Real World! That’s only on the internet!”
Maybe you don’t know any non-binary people in real life, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Your mistake is that you think everyone you talk to online is in tide pools, and you are in the ocean.
You are not in the metaphorical ocean! Your limited real world experience is a tide pool too!
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cellarspider · 3 years ago
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Hi PLEASE rant about medieval European medical books being shit
I'm six months late responding to this. Mea culpa.
Disclaimer at the top: I have an undergraduate degree in Medieval Studies. After that, I moved over to genetics. That means I have no professional experience in the field, and I'll happily take any corrections, particularly those that can feed me delicious citations.
So, European medieval medical manuals were shit. There's a number of cultural and geographical reasons for this, particularly the rarity of autopsies, the low status of surgeons, how medical education worked, and the inaccessibility of many good source texts. I'm putting the rest of this under a break, because this got long.
So, starting with some things that are fairly common knowledge: Autopsies were rare in Europe during the medieval period, though they weren't necessarily banned. Two different church edicts are often interpreted as frowning on the practice, which probably contributed to some reticence to perform them, particularly in religious institutions. This also means any work that was done was less likely to be documented and distributed, leading to a paucity of written scholarship and guidance for students. However, the 13th century Holy Roman emperor Frederick II actually required those studying medicine to attend a human dissection... to be held at least once every five years.
Why is dissection important? Well, there's a really basic reason: you need to know what bodies tend to look like before you can treat them. And not only that, a thorough dissection can help you understand how parts are connected, and therefore how they might function. Cultures that more freely engaged in dissections had an advantage over those that didn't. You could still make some progress even if it was banned--Ancient Rome forbade the practice, but animal dissections and comparisons to human anatomy gleaned from treating injuries helped advance medical science.
But the social standing of medical professions affects how much credence will be given to a doctor's observations, and how widely their work will be shared. Lots of people have heard about the barber-surgeons, a profession which continued into the 1700s. No, I'm not joking.
While doctors maintained a relatively respectable status, there was a general disdain for surgery. Again, this is a problem, because it means a doctor is going to be looking at the body as a black box: stuff goes in, sickness comes out, we don't know how or where it comes from. So surgery was left to barbers, who owned razors and had steady hands. They wrote down very little, and relied on local apprenticeships to learn the trade. This can be great for passing on what a local master knows, but you're unlikely to discuss and collaborate much with other surgeons. Thus any advancements to technique stay very, very local. And they don't end up in medical manuals.
So, what about those doctors? They definitely wrote things down, but the manner in which they were trained led to some real issues in what medical texts were available.
One common practice to prove one's education was to reproduce the essential parts of an older, respected text, adding one's own annotations. In a time before printing, this was a way to preserve information, and to render old text more comprehensible to contemporary readers.
But there are problems with that. The biggest one being: what gets identified as vital information to preserve? Take Galen, for example: He was the most famous physician of classical Rome, and his works were widely reproduced throughout the medieval period. He was considered the undisputed master of his craft for centuries, venerated for his knowledge.
And there's a lot to admire about his work--as a physician for gladiators, he's one of those people who had access to comparative human and animal anatomy despite the ban on autopsies. He understood the difference between motor and sensory nerves, and the differing effects of spinal cord injuries based on their location. He did cataract surgeries. He set up a hospital with early sanitation practices, including the use of fire to sanitize tools, and keeping food preparation at a distance from medical work.
Unfortunately, Galen also fucked up--he became an early major advocate of bloodletting. He subscribed to the theory of the four humors. And his animal models sometimes led him astray on human anatomy. His ideas about the soul and how it interacted with health were very bound up in roman philosophy.
And a lot of his fuckups were thought to be more important to medieval physicians than his work in surgery and sanitation. So, that was what got most carefully preserved, iterated upon, and collected as essential knowledge for physicians. Sure, you might have access to the works of Galen, but what you actually had was basically a pamphlet mostly composed of his worst work. And it's got Galen's name on it, so it must be authoritative.
But there had to be more available than that, right? Well, not really. The lack of faithful reproduction extended to most other texts, and was compounded by a further problem: A lot of texts simply weren't accessible within most of Europe. In the split of the Roman Empire into East and West, the Eastern Romans ended up with a whole pile of useful medical texts. And this becomes vital to their preservation. Both because of their preservation of texts... and because of their proximity to the Muslim world.
Abbasid scholars translated and preserved Greek texts to a far greater degree of accuracy than was practiced in most of Europe, starting in 750. Arabic speakers had a better idea of what Galen had done than people who could read Latin. Some of his texts were only preserved in Arabic! And there was dialog with his work rather than veneration, with scholars debating and experimenting to test his assertions.
Active scientific inquiry was taking place. For example, Saladin's personal physician, Sephardic Jewish scholar Moses ben Maimon (AKA Maimonides in European sources) cited Galen frequently, and went on to make advancements on description and treatment of asthma, diabetes, hepatitis, and pneumonia.
And this meant that when translators in Byzantium and Italy started to get their hands on Arabic texts, it was revolutionary. Ancient knowledge they'd lost, and modern scholarship they'd never had. Translation sites like Salerno became academic powerhouses.
This leads to one text in particular I studied in my undergrad, the 12th century Practica Chirurgiae of Rogerius Salernitanus (variably known as Roger Frugard, Roggerio dei Frugardi, or Rüdiger Frutgard, depending on who you ask). His work showed some incredible understanding of neuroanatomy and practical technique for wound care, which I've rambled about before. His medicinal poultices and draughts were complete crap, but boy, did he understand emergency care! He quickly became an authoritative source.
...And so one of the copies I looked at had annotations from a student of his works. I distinctly remember a passage where Rogerius talks about how to diagnose cerebral edema in a closed head injury with a skull fracture: if the wound produces a certain sort of liquid, then you have a build-up of fluid in the brain case, and you need to relieve pressure.
And then this bozo student of his leaves a note there saying that if there's a full moon, the liquid might froth. And left all sorts of helpful notes about imbalances of the humors.
So not everything was solved by that point, but it was slowly starting to be less shit.
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fantomette22 · 2 years ago
Note
Wait what is your headcanon about Maria's twin???? If I got that right?
Hm… yes you got it right. In one of my headcanons I imagined that Maria used to have a twin sister. 
This would be the short answer, but I supposed you’re looking for a more complete explanation. I will try to write it below. Even if I don’t get into too much details, I sure have a tons of others things to say about Bloodborne universe/ world building.
(About the conditions of life and the importance of the old blood in it)
So thank you for asking! You give me a good reason to share all of this x) And talking about this headcanon.
Like some might be aware I have tons of different hc & interpretations. Some who directly contradict canons and even each other. It’s more like silly AU/fic stories. 
Exception to my main big hc/story, even if I don’t believe it actually 100% happened that way. But I’m trying to make it fit as much as possible into the lore and original material. (It’s MY hc and for now, nobody is going to tell me if I’m right or wrong so…)
This ideas/stories just came in my mind, and I express most of them by just talking to myself. Not sure if everyone does that or if it’s only a neurodivergent thing. Some days I really wonder… Anyway.
Before getting back to the main subject I got to talk about two things really fast. 
One subject that I would want to express, if I ever write a story on Bloodborne it’s “how the use of the old blood really did help people and improve their life”. Why it became so much essential and when they realize it was too dangerous and should be stopped it wasn’t possible anymore.
After decades of progress and researches a lot of persons would prefer to try to find a compromised than stopped everything and just get back austerity (hello really life environmental issues struggle ?! wow I didn’t indeed this comparison at first),The risk of a big regression, a civil war perhaps and it would still be around in some kind of black market I’m sure. 
(yep all of this inspired by Laurence theme song alone…damn).
Yes, the old blood and all this mess probably killed thousands of people (especially if we addition everything until the event of the game) but it probably saves a ton of persons as well (a poisonous miracle cure…) In the begging at least/gold era at least.
Like you know Bloodborne is mostly based on the XIX/19th century (1801-1900) and the Victorian era (after 1837). A lot of people used to die of various illness we don’t have anymore. The infantility death rate was really high too. People got a lot of health-related problems. Pasteur (the guy who create the rabies vaccine), the vaccination and a lot of new medical protocols appeared at the end of the century. That’s also why at this period people and society had a different view on death. They were closer to it and have way of dealing with it that would be weird or even disturbing today. (See my post on the doll).
But this doesn’t seem match the universe of the game. Maybe they did have better quality life. It looks like it. But we know nothing about the political/ social/health context before the blood show up. We can’t be sure it was exactly like the XIX century and people could had 5 siblings, but they all died or was it more like us today or even a mixt of both.
The characters we know only seems to be only child or have like only 1 sibling. That mean advanced society who already did their demographic transition. Or all their family passed away. What’s sure is that it’s a more egalitarian society lol.
Maybe life conditions in Bloodborne were much better than actual 19thcentury but I saw a cool post (but don’t remember where) that say that in order for the church to basically lead Yharnam politically, some wars/epidemy/famine would have happened earlier. 
That’s why I thought it would be interesting to hc characters to have family members/friends/people they know, who had died before hand, of shitty illness. Or even if they didn’t know the persons, they have at least friends /relatives, who lost close people to them. That would really solidify the importance of the healing church/ old blood instead of just “oh an epidemy of ashen blood show up the church heal them”. I do believe they gained a lot of popularity/influence/ power over this. 
SO, because of this and another dumb thing, I think it would be great to made Maria had a sibling (a twin sister), who passed away when they were both really young (preschooler age?) + all the family drama that would occur. And it would serve my narratives even better. in my main hc/story. Because, guess who else I hc having a little sister who passed away as well ?? 
Gehrman (I had this one for a while now…you see what I did there ?! ).
I mean he did survive almost everyone so pretty sure he lost he’s entire family at one point…
(I have a lot of quite different interpretations of their relationship as well. Depend the au/hc but I’m not going to expand on that or I’m never going to finished lol, maybe another day). So let’s just say in my main hc, at the beginning she remind him more of that part of his life. After a few years alongside her, his view on her changed.
If you know FF7 remake dlc and Yuffie and Sonon, well at the beginning it’s kinda like them XD but of course they’re characters with really different personality. It's more about their general bond and dynamic as a duo.
There’re other characters I think/hc who may have lost relatives too.
Also, one day I thought about how Maria would react to the Doll. I believe she would have really differents & mixt reactions at the same time (I won’t go into details!). One of them would be “Oh I always wanted a sister…” And I think if they were to interact that would be the relationship they would have.
(But yep I believe the doll is a part of Maria too. In the hunter Nightmare it’s a nightmare version of herself aka the worst version of herself. I believed she was actually in between the 2 !  That the real Maria was both and neither at the same time. If that make sense. But who knows… that’s just my interpretation).
And to finish, the wildest AU that come to my mind who solidified the idea of a twin sis. Remember how the doll and the Gehrman’s apprentice were supposed to be 2 different characters originally ?? I thought : hey that would make a “funny” AU if the Doll was based on Maria’s twin sister lol. Anyway forget about it. Also some people think/thought that the doll might still be based on more than 1 person/… that’s interesting
So Hm yeah I hope that i offered an explanation on the "Maria had a twin sister headcanon" ! ^^’
I don’t even have a name for her… (if someone have ideas XD). Not even sure it it’s true or false twins as well. But I do have a preference for identical twins, I think. Don’t asked me who was born first either I don’t know. Oh… actually, Maria not being the first born would make sense… a lot of sense…
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lokilickedme · 3 years ago
Text
The Way
I’m writing horror again.  I guess it’s that time, you know, that time that has nothing to do with Halloween or the seasons or whatever, that time when it just hits me for some reason.  And just like I always do, I’ll say I don’t know why.
Even though I know why, and you know I know why.
Because the truth is always so much weirder and worse and more disquieting than any excuse I could make up for it, and sometimes I just feel the need.
Today I felt the need, and I couldn’t make it go away.
And so I sat down, and words I didn’t want to write were written.
.
8592 words I would rate this Mature 18+ if it was a fic, strictly because of the subject matter.
Warnings: Death, mostly.  Religious trauma, brief descriptions of abuse, mentions of mental illness, domestic violence, grief, familial dysfunction, religious abuse, emotional abuse, medical conditions, brief mentions of drug use/abuse, mild gore in reference to corpse decomposition, psychological unease and mild terror, child abuse (mental/emotional/psychological), brief allusion to physical child abuse, cult references, loss of faith, attempted murder, possible actual murder.
A Note:  I love you guys, you’re always so quick and willing to be helpful and offer advice and suggestions and such, and I adore that about you.  But on this piece of work I ask that nobody offer any theories about what happened to my brother - medical, criminal, or otherwise - and please no suggestions on things we could do to pursue investigation, that ship has long sailed.  It’s been 23 years and he’s a cold case.  We spent years trying to sort it out but in the end it’s just something that happened, and we moved on because we had to.  There are a lot of open ends, a lot of question marks, a lot of suspicious details that never connected to anything - and we tried, we truly did.  If anyone out there knows the truth, they’ve never shown themselves to us.  We do have our theories, but my brother was a secretive person living a life none of us knew about, and the people he knew weren’t people we knew.  Everyone involved is either dead or moved on or got away with whatever it was they did, and there are only three of us who still care.  It’s over.
Until today, I’ve never put these events into words.
It was something I needed to do, finally.
This is PART ONE.  There may not be a part two, unless doing this ends up making me feel better.
Please feel free to comment if you wish.  As you can see, pretty much nothing triggers me.  I just ask that you please refrain from the type of comments noted above.
And thank you.
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This is, regrettably, a true story.  Nothing has been changed but the names, because the dead don’t like being talked about, and James was just enough of a shit to haunt me for it.
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They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking But where were they going without ever knowing the way
They drank up the wine And they got to talking They now had more important things to say And when the car broke down They started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today
Their children woke up And they couldn't find them They left before the sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them But where were they going without ever knowing the way?
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today
You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today
- The Way, Fastball, 1998
.
That was the year James died in his sleep.
Or that’s what they say, anyway.  Asthma, the likely cause based on his medical history, our first and least disturbing assumption.  Undetermined, the official determination based on the hastily scraped-together autopsy, the best that could be done under the circumstances.  We tell people he had breathing problems, and they nod their heads and agree because they knew he did, and now he’s been gone so long that nobody asks.  Most of the people who ever met him have long moved on or disappeared or died themselves, or just remember him as the enigmatic middle son from the Keithley family that nobody really knew very well.  You know, the odd one, the one that showed up at meetings maybe once a year and smiled nervously but didn’t really talk to anyone and always seemed anxious to leave?  The one who died under mysterious circumstances?  That one.
He left the way he always came in.  Quietly, unexpected, without anyone being aware of either his entrance or his exit.
But me and mom know some things, and she’s not talking.  She probably never will.
So maybe it’s time I did.
December 1998.  I’d gotten married two years previous and moved back to the family land with my new husband.  He hated it there, but we had an affordable place to live.  It wasn’t bad.  He’d tell you otherwise.  The land never sat right with him, but I’d lived there too many years to see it.  I’d been fifteen when my father uprooted his large family from the city and hauled us out to the great back door to nowhere, and even though I’d left several times to wander elsewhere, I always came back.
I didn’t realize why at the time, at any of the multiple times.  But now I know.  That place gets you, and it holds you, and unless you’re goddamned devoted to staying gone you will always be pulled back.  It took me till I was 49 to funnel the necessary amount of devotion away from the religious dedication I’d had jackbooted into me and turn it toward getting out, but against a great number of overwhelming odds I finally did it.
But this isn’t about that, not yet anyway.  This is about my brother James, and how he went to sleep one night and found his own way out.
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It was snowing, had been for days, a bit unusual but not unheard of.  The part of the state we lived in was notorious for extended ice storms and we knew a bad one was coming, but until it hit we played in the snow like it was a gift and we were deprived children who knew it was all going to be taken away soon.  My brothers and I were adults but you wouldn’t know it, watching us sneak around in the woods staging elaborate commando attacks on each other.  James was the best of us, a stealth king who could stand in the middle of a room for an hour without a single soul seeing him.  Perception bias, he said.  Your brain ignores me because I obviously don’t belong, like those puzzles where you circle what’s wrong but it takes you forever to find them.
He crept around in the forest scaring the shit out of people, dropping his long tall self out of trees, appearing from nowhere to administer a well aimed snowball to the face of whoever happened to cross his path and then disappearing just as quickly.  We called him a wraith and it wasn’t a good natured jibe.  We meant it.  He made people nervous.  He was the stealthy kind of quiet you associate with danger, and he knew how to do things an average person doesn’t ever have any need to know.  It was a quiet cool that we admired him for, because none of the rest of us had it.
The religion we were raised in kept a tight lid on us, but me and James, we never really let it get into our bones.  We were the smart ones, in retrospect.  I went through the motions by force of habit and a sense of self preservation, doing what was expected and demanded of me, following the rules and making myself a perfect example of a young member of the church so I wouldn’t bring shame on the congregation and my family.  But mostly the congregation.  It was always more important than anything else.  And I had behaving down to an art form, but mostly when people were looking.  Usually also when they weren’t.
But sometimes, not quite.
And then I prayed for forgiveness about it later because God was supposed to forgive you if you asked him to, right?  The tenet of willful sin being unforgivable never took root with me even though that was what the church conditioned into us through fear and constant repetition.  They said it from the stage two nights a week and again on Sunday to hammer it home.  Two nights a week and again on Sunday my head silently disagreed.  God’s not like that.  And then I did the praying for forgiveness thing even though I knew I was right, because I was disagreeing with the church, and the church was God’s channel here on Earth, wasn’t it?  I committed a mortal sin at least three times a week on that subject alone, and though the dread of divine punishment was hardwired into me, I never could reconcile the concept of a loving and forgiving God destroying me simply for knowing better.
I’m not sure the comprehension of an overwatching deity ever actually established itself in James’ brain.  A moral code, yes.  But isn’t that what God is, really?  Maybe he understood more about God and forgiveness than the rest of us.  But he was considered an unapproved fringe member of the church because he couldn’t suffer people and noise and being looked at and he refused to preach, and he was soft-shunned as a result.  Because if you weren’t all in to the point of being willing to die at any moment for your faith, you were as good as faithless.
And faithless meant condemned.  And the congregation couldn’t be bothered with condemned people, regardless of their reasons for not having both feet in the water.  The first and only option on their list was to put the person out and let them find their own way back once they realized they had nobody left in the world who cared about them.
James escaped that somehow.  He was supposed to be shunned whole scale, but he wasn’t trying to convince anyone to leave the faith and he presented no threat to anyone’s strength of belief, and so far as anyone knew he’d committed no grave sins other than disinterest.  So the rule that dictated we cast him out was bent enough to allow him to remain living on the family land, though at one point during a fit of overzealous righteousness my mother had tried to have a family meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to let him stay.  I refused to vote and when I walked out of the house the meeting fell apart.
I’ve never forgiven her for that.  Her son’s life being put to a vote with her presiding over the proceedings, vengeful and unfeeling and devoid of compassion on behalf of God himself.  It takes my breath away, the anger, still to this day.  The only thing I ever truly learned from my mother about parenting was a long and intensely detailed list of what not to do to my own children, and I suppose I should be grateful for that.  It’s a bitter thank-you to have to give, but it’s something.
We knew James as much as he would allow us to, and not an inch further.  Which meant the extent of our knowledge of him pretty much stretched to include the singular fact that he was different.  What that meant, I still don’t really know - but it was there from the day he was born, that slight off-ness, the oddly off center calibration that you can’t really see so much as sense in a person.  I know now he was likely on the autism spectrum and he walked through life seeing and reacting to everything differently than most of us, but that wasn’t a thing back then.  You were just weird, or you weren’t.  And I’m not convinced that was a bad thing for him, strictly speaking.  But in the confines of our religion and our family’s devout and sometimes violent dedication to it, it took its toll almost daily.
He stood out, and he was very much a person who didn’t want to.  He wanted to fade into the background, to not be seen, to not be known.  And our religion didn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense, because we were commanded to be bold bearers of The Word Of God, and no exceptions were made.
None.
I’m going to stop calling it a religion now.  I beg your indulgence as I shift to calling it what it is, because calling it a religion is an insult to actual religions that don’t destroy peoples’ lives with callous indifference and murderous glee.
We were raised in a doomsday death cult.  There’s no other name that fits.
And we were trapped in it and its ugly cycle of neverending mental and emotional manipulation and abuse until we were adults, and some of us are still bound to it.  My oldest brother worked his way up to the upper levels of oversight in the local congregation and was solidly entrenched in it until his death, which is a story for later.  My youngest brother, the last remaining living blood sibling I have, is still deeply in it to this day and will likely never leave it.
I took the hard way out, three years ago, by walking away.
James, though.  He took the easy way.  He simply closed his eyes, and he was free.
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December 22, 1998.  Three days before Christmas, though that meant nothing to us.  The cult told us Christmas was a filthy demonic pagan ritual that was condemned by God, so to us the season was just a nice chilly time of year with lots of time off from work.  We’d had an unusual amount of snow, the most we’d had in years.  The roads were impassable and everyone was home except my husband, who worked close enough that his boss at the glass shop came and picked him up that morning with chains on his tires.  Lots of windshields had shattered from the sudden violent cold that had struck the previous night and Scott had the only glass shop for sixty miles.
I think it must have been around noon, and likely my mother had sent my dad up the hill to see if James wanted to come down for the lunch she was making.  He and his wife had split up against the strict rules of the church after a few years of suffering through an ill advised marriage, an important detail to this story that will come into the tale later, and he was alone up there at the top of the hill a lot.  Sometimes he forgot to eat, or he got so busy that he just didn’t bother, so our mother always made something for him because even though he was in his 20′s he was still a kid who needed looking after and her zealous fervor against him had died down with time.  I think he let her believe he was helpless because it worked in his favor and there was always lunch waiting for him in her kitchen as a result.
He was different, he wasn’t dumb.
We all lived on the hill back then with the exception of our youngest brother.  He’d moved to the city with his new wife not long prior.  The locals jokingly called the place a commune, and I guess they weren’t completely wrong.  Thirty-eight acres of wooded land far beyond the city limits that we’d painstakingly spent years carving a livable space into, with five houses, all built from the ground up and inhabited by an extended family of well known culties from a well known cult.  It’s almost comical, looking back on it, knowing now how they kept an eye on us for years to make sure we weren’t doing anything weird up there.
They should have run us off with pitchforks and burning stakes at the very beginning.
Things might have ended differently for us if they had.
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My grandparents lived at one end of the property, an old couple as simple and solid as salted soup, devoutly religious and devoted to the cult and very much cut from the can survive anything and probably will cloth like so many old country folks of their generation.  They were waiting out the end of days up there in their little wooden house, expecting the final hour of this old system to come long before their own demise.  I liked my grandmother, she had a sweet smile and fell asleep every time granddad started talking about the Bible and she paid me five dollars every Wednesday to drive her into town to get groceries, and years later, when she was dying, she told me she’d had a dream where she met my unborn son.  I was four months pregnant and didn’t know yet that I was having a boy.  She died before he was born, but to this day, fifteen years later, he tells me he’s sure he met her, he just can’t remember when.
I was scared of my grandfather.  Not terrified, but there was nothing grandfatherly to him and I always suspected he never actually liked kids much.  He’d once told us a story about the great Fort Worth flood that wiped out most of the city when my mom was a baby, and how he had told my grandmother to let go of my 2-year-old mother while he was struggling to get them across a rushing flooded creek in water up to their shoulders.  My grandmother couldn’t swim.  We could make another Ruthie, he said.  But I couldn’t get another ‘Nita.
He said it proudly, like he was to be admired for his choice.  I was young when he told that story, but it settled into me that this was evil.
Even when he was old as dirt and dying of a brain tumor in hospice care, he made me uneasy.  I was never close to him.  But for some reason, in his final days, he forgot who everyone was except me.  I had been living in another state for years and he hadn’t seen me since before the tumor started taking his life.  But when I walked into the room he turned his head and looked at me, and he mouthed my name.
He couldn’t speak.  I don’t know what he was trying to say, struggling with words that nobody could hear.  And I felt bad.  I didn’t want to be the last person he recognized.  My cousins adored him and had spent the last few years constantly at his side, and they were angry, maybe justifiably, that I was the one he reached for.
I didn’t want that at all.
I don’t believe he was a bad man, but he never spoke of anything except the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, and it was as tiresome as it was terrifying.  Granddads are supposed to be fun.  Ours quoted doctrine at us in a deep loud commanding voice that you couldn’t interrupt and you couldn’t tune out, and once he got going you had to just settle in and wait for him to run out of zealous steam.  And then he would suddenly stop and command grandmother to turn on a John Wayne movie and bring him some ice cream, and it was over until the next time.
I know my mother resented him.  She knew grandmother was the one that had refused to let her go, the one that had held onto her even though she almost drowned by the simple act of holding on.  She knew her father had been willing to let her wash away and drown.  That he thought she was interchangeable with whatever baby they would have next.  How she could spend her entire life with that knowledge and not be deeply affected by it was something that never made sense to me, but now, when she’s in her 70′s and I’m in my 50′s, I finally understand.  It affected her.  She’ll just be damned if she’ll let anyone see it.  And she had stood there in that hospice room watching him mouth my name with resentment burning in her eyes, though she would have rather died than let anyone know what it was for.  He’d forgotten her weeks ago.
The house in the center of the hill was mom and dad.  The homestead.  The house we’d all lived in together, that we’d built with our own hands, the first thing that marked that wild overgrown hill as a place where people actually lived.  A long path through the woods connected it to the grandparents’ house, and it was the epicenter of everything in our lives.  James and I had lived in the upstairs rooms of that house until we both moved out and married our respective mates years later, a reprehensible act on our part that was never okay with my mother and that she never forgave either of us for.  She’d wanted us all to stay.  We can all live here together until the New System comes, she always said.  That’s how the Bible says it’s supposed to be.  We can all keep each other safe and on the right path until the end comes, and then we’ll all be here together forever.
A decade later when I sat up on the hill watching that house burn to the ground, there was as much relief as grief billowing into the sky with the black smoke.  It was the end of an era, and it was far beyond time for it.
Nobody saw it but me.  James was dead, had been for years.  Robbie was dead now too.  Dad was gone, so was granddad.  Me and my youngest brother David were the last two left of the kids, but he had moved to a neighboring city when he got married and he has never seen things the way I see them.  We were of different generations, we weren’t raised the same way, and he’d never experienced the abuse I lived with for the first half of my life.  And he had dedicated his own life to the cult with all the honesty and lack of guile that I didn’t have when I’d made my own dedication vows at the too-young age of sixteen.
It was the end of an era, but apparently only for me.
James’ house was up the hill, past a clearing where my dad used to keep old cars that he cannibalized for parts.  Our oldest brother Robbie, long married with kids of his own, lived at the bottom on the farthest corner of the land.  And my house was on the slope to the west, built on the spot where we’d cleared off an old half-fallen homestead from the late 1800′s, dutifully paying no mind to the fact that a grave was nestled into the slope, right where the yellow daffodils grew.  The cult told us superstition was tied up with the demons and false religion, so we didn’t have the built-in human instinct that tells most people to stay the hell away from certain things.
We just pretended it wasn’t there, and put no importance on it.  It was just an old grave.  The soil was good and the garden I planted next to it did well, though those strange daffodils always wound themselves through everything I put in the ground.  My husband said something wasn’t right about it, but I didn’t pay any attention to him.  He hadn’t been raised as devout as me.
My dad knocked on my door around lunchtime and I opened it.  He backed up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, the fancy leather coat the dealership had awarded him when he was designated a five-star Chrysler technician and given the state’s first and only license to work on the new Vipers that had recently rolled off the prototype line.  It was a cool jacket.  Made him look like the old pictures my other grandmother had shown me of him from the early 1960′s, when he was young and very much a product of a fancier era.  He’d never stopped greasing his hair back and was still so thin that he and I wore the same size jeans.
I’ve never understood the look on his face when I opened the door.  To this day I can’t sort it.  It wasn’t a blankness like so many people who’ve seen death wear without awareness.  It wasn’t grief.  It wasn’t even shock.
He was sorry.
Those were the first words out of his mouth.
I’m sorry.
I stood there, not knowing what he was sorry for.  It was cold.  I couldn’t push the screen door open very far because of the snow blocking it.  And my father was standing at the bottom of the steps James had helped my husband build, his hands shoved down far into his pockets like a penitent child about to get in trouble, telling me he was sorry.
James is dead, he finally said.  He’s in his house.  I went up there and he’s dead.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now - just now, this very moment in fact, I know that I was the first person he told.  He came straight from James’ house to mine and told me my brother was dead.
I don’t know what I said back to him, I just remember sitting down on the top step and feeling the cold bite of the snow through my pajama pants.  There’s a vague recollection of putting my face in my hands, and the embarrassing knowledge that I did that simply because I didn’t know what else to do.  And dad just stood there, nervously stepping from foot to foot in the snow, because he didn’t know what else to do either.
I think I asked How at some point.  He said he didn’t know.  He had something in his pocket but to this day I don’t know what it was.
I don’t know if it was important.  Something tells me it was.  Or maybe it was just the eternally present handkerchief he always kept on him.
I’m sorry, he said again.  He seemed to feel like it was his fault somehow.  I’m sorry.
What do we do?  I asked him.  I’ve never felt more blank.  What are we supposed to do?
I don’t remember what he said, other than he was going to get my older brother.  I remember thinking that was a good idea.  Robbie would know what to do.  He always did.  Brash and blustery and bigmouthed, he got things done while other people stood around debating how to do them.  He would get on it, whatever needed doing.  He would figure it out.
I went back in the house and dad walked away, headed down the path through the woods that connected my house to Robbie’s, hands still shoved deep in his pockets, the big retro vintage Chrysler emblem on the back of his jacket the last thing I saw before I pulled the screen door shut.  I stared down for a minute at the mound of snow it had scooped into my livingroom, still with no clue what I was supposed to do.
No clue at all.
I kicked the snow back outside and shut the door.
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It’s an odd thing, watching the coroner’s van drive away with someone you know inside it.  Someone you saw just yesterday.  Someone who was alive.  Someone who should still be alive but isn’t, somehow.  And since there’s really no way to earn a ride in a coroner’s van without dying, there’s an awful unsettling sensation to it that you can’t get away from.  The last time I saw James he was laughing that devious little laugh of his, his eyes red and bloodshot from the ever present asthma he’d suffered with his entire life.  I don’t count the sight of the coroner’s van leaving the hill via our long steep driveway with his cold corpse tucked into a black zippered bag, because I didn’t see him.  I never saw him.  I didn’t see him dead in his house and I didn’t see them carry him out, I didn’t see them put him in the van.  I didn’t see him later, when it was all over with.  And if I try hard enough I can imagine that van empty, with that long black bag tossed crumpled in the back without a body in it, and James somewhere else living his life however the hell he pleases.
I hold onto that.  Some days it helps.  And some days I think I see him, walking by the side of the road or getting out of a car in the post office parking lot, and it makes me happy thinking he escaped.  I see him in every hitchhiker, in every wandering traveler making his way down the interstate, in every tall thin man I glimpse from the corner of my eye as I go about my business in town.
He’s out there.
I hope he’s happy.
The ice storm hit the next day.
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For the next two weeks we were stuck on our hill.  Power out, no electricity, no heat, no lights, roads iced over and impassable.  We all piled up in mom and dad’s house, quietly grieving James, trying to stay warm.  Most of the state lost power for days, including the city 150 miles away where his body had been taken to the state coroner’s office.  There was no apparent cause of death, so the state ordered an autopsy.
His body had just been placed into cold storage to wait its turn when the power grid went down.  And then, by some unholy stroke of nightmarish luck, the facility’s generators failed.
Nobody could make it in to work because of the ice.  By the time someone finally got into the morgue the cold storage had been down for four days.
Six bodies melted, including James.
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No viable autopsy could be done, though they tried their best I suppose.  The end report was obtained two months later.  It was mostly inconclusive due to the long delay and resultant decomposition of tissue.  There was apparent scarring on James’ heart, but it was old scarring and had nothing to do with his death.  His lungs were scarred as well, but that was no surprise, he’d had severe asthma his entire life.  There was no determinable cause of death, no inflicted trauma, no presence of illicit drugs as far as they could tell from the limited toxicology report they managed with what they had to work with.
No reason.
He’d simply died.
It seemed fitting, to me at least, that the end of him be enshrouded in an unsolvable mystery.  He was a secretive person, intensely private.  He would have loved knowing nobody had a clue what happened to him.
And so we drew our own conclusion as a family.  He’d had an asthma attack in his sleep.  There had been an inhaler next to his bed, but it was new and still in the box.  He simply hadn’t woken up to use it.  Dad didn’t participate in the drawing of this conclusion, his input kept stoically to himself, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.
We pretended not to see it.
He and mom braved the last of the ice a few days later to make the 150 mile drive to see James one last time.
They came back different.
You couldn’t tell it was him, my mother said.  He was melted, literally.  It was like one of those science fiction movies where they melt you with a laser beam and you turn to goo.
Dad had nothing to say.  He went to bed and stayed there until the next day.
You can go see him, mom told me.  I’ll go with you if you want to go.  But I don’t recommend it.
I decided not to go.
And so I never saw my brother dead.  I never saw any proof that he was gone.  He just wasn’t there anymore.  There was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes were sent home weeks later, and I went on with my life with the image in my head of James, alive, somewhere else.
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Dad was different from that day on.  He’d always been stoic, terse, strict.  My childhood had been spent in fear of him, an eternal dread of making him mad and feeling his temper erupt keeping me from showing any hint of a personality during my formative years.  The cult had forced him to abide by the violent tenet of Spare the rod, spoil the child and there was never any risk of me being spoiled.
James being gone flipped a switch in him.  He was nicer suddenly.  Mellow.  Kind.  After the trauma wore off his humor discovered itself and he was funny.  The dour angry demeanor fell off and revealed a man that I was sad never to have known before.  He and I became friends.  I could sense in his new attitude toward me that he regretted how he’d raised me and respected the way I’d always stood up and been my own person despite it.  But my mother was falling off the deep end and for all the newfound easygoingness of my father, she counterbalanced it with an extremism born of the religious fervor of a mother determined to gain enough favor with God to see her dead child again.  And she was going to make sure the rest of us did too.
We all had to get good and straight on the path, get completely right and stay that way, or we’d never see James again.  He’d be in the New World and we wouldn’t, and how would she explain that to him?  She and I worked together in a law office at the time and as she became more unhinged and unpleasant, I reacted by becoming more outgoing and accomplished.  Our boss changed my work designation from receptionist to Executive Assistant and started teaching me how to do everything from filing papers at the courthouse to photographing accident scenes.  I no longer answered to my mother, the office manager.  I answered directly to the boss.
That didn’t go over well.  She was a control freak with heavy untreated trauma, and the one person in the world she felt the most obsessive need to control was suddenly no longer under her thumb in a workspace where she considered herself the supreme authority.  She countermanded every order the boss gave me and tried to load me up with general office chores that left me no time to do the important assignments he’d given me.  I had no choice but to tell her she wasn’t my superior anymore.
She chose that day to have her nervous breakdown over James, jumping out of my car at a red light on the way home and storming angrily through a shopping mall with me trailing frantically along behind her, yelling for security to arrest me while I tried to get her to calm down.  I ended up telling her she wasn’t the only person who lost James but that none of the rest of us were allowed to experience our own grief because we were too busy catering to hers.
She sat down on a bench outside the sporting goods store and glared at me with a cold hatred I’ve seen on very few other faces, ever.
I knew it would be you, she hissed at me.
That moment changed our relationship forever.  It changed me forever.  That was the day I decided my life was my own, that she not only didn’t have authority over me at work, she didn’t have authority over me anywhere else either.  She could no longer dictate my actions, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings.
For this she disowned me.  It was the first of several disownings over the next few years.  I got used to it.  We went to work the next day like nothing had happened, and I didn’t do a single thing on the task list she slapped down on my desk.  It was a metaphor for the rest of my life, but I didn’t know it yet.
My husband and I moved out of state a couple of months later, away from that hill, away from her increasingly controlling paranoia and bitterness, the first of many small steps toward freedom.
As we were driving away with our trailer full of personal belongings behind us, he said one thing that I tried to argue against, but that somewhere deep inside I knew was probably right.
That land is cursed, he said.
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A few weeks before we moved my youngest brother came to town and we went into James’ house together.  It was exactly like it had been the day my dad found him.  The only thing that stood out as different was the bare mattress on the bed - the men from the coroner had wrapped him up in the sheet he’d been laying on and took it with them, leaving just the naked springform mattress James had bought for Jessica right before her final breakdown and their subsequent separation.
It took me a while to go in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment I walked into the house that I was going to end up there.  I needed to see it, the place where James had closed his eyes and left us.
There was a small puddle of dried blood near the foot of the bed, brown and stained into the fabric.  James always slept backwards, with his head at the wrong end.  The blood had come from his nose.
I touched it.  I don’t know why.  It was dry.
He was gone.
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David and I laughed a lot that day.  James had been funny in a way that was distinctly him, quiet and of few words, but those words had always counted.  And as we sorted through his things and talked about him and moved some of his stuff into boxes to be stored away, I felt as much awed respect as befuddlement at what was around me.  He’d never been a conformist, which I knew was why the cult had never gotten a firm grasp on him.  He was unknowable and therefore unbindable.  But his house was proof that he didn’t conform to any human expectations either, and nothing in it made sense unless you’d spent time around him.
There was an engine in the bathtub.  I’m not sure what it went to.  Another engine, in the beginning stages of disassemblage, rested on a blue tarp in the center of the livingroom floor, obviously the last project he’d been working on.  There wasn’t much furniture - his wife had taken most of it when she left and it would have never entered his mind to replace any of it.  Jessica’s cookware was in the kitchen cabinets, unused, some of it still in the original boxes, some not even fully unwrapped from their wedding shower years before.  Jessica didn’t cook, she microwaved.  David asked me if I thought it would be okay for him to take a glass Pyrex measuring cup because he’d broken his.  I told him to take it.  It had never been used.
I didn’t want anything, but knew I needed to take something.  One of my husband’s solo CDs was sitting on the entertainment center and the cover, the cover I’d designed, caught my eye and brought me to the CD player to pop the tray open.
Inside was a CD single of The Way.
It was the only thing I took.
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My husband told me some time later that my dad and older brother had altered the scene before the police arrived.  After the phonecall from me his boss had rushed him home and he’d gone up to James’ house without my knowledge.  He’d thought it strange that he’d had to step around at least a dozen empty compressed air cans scattered haphazardly around the place as he entered, like they’d been used and tossed aside one after another.  There had been several more on the floor around the bed.  My father had told him to go back down and see how mom and I were doing, and when he returned to James’ house after the coroner’s departure, the cans were gone.  Other than that he said things seemed different, but he couldn’t say quite how.  Just not the same.
He told me my dad didn’t call the police until after he and Robbie had been in there at least an hour, alone with the body.
It’s not something we’ve talked about often, because there’s no satisfactory explanation for it that either of us can come up with.  My mother says they probably didn’t want the police to assume the cans meant he was huffing compression fluid and accidentally killed himself, because Look at the shame and reproach that would bring on the congregation if anyone thought such a thing!  We all knew he used the compressed air to clear the valves on the engines he was working on, all mechanics do, it’s common.  Wouldn’t the police have accepted that explanation?  Dad was the only one that spoke to them.  They wrote down whatever he said, and then they left, and then the coroner came and took James away and that was that.  My father, the most upright straight-and-narrow devoutly dedicated man I’ve ever known in my life, misled the police for a reason that he took with him to his own grave.
The only other person in the world who knew the truth about it took it to his grave too.
At the same time.
In the same car.
Four years later, on October 18, 2002.
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The big garbage bag of empty air cans and whatever else that was removed from James’ house that morning had been stashed in my dad’s garage and stayed there until a few weeks after he and Robbie’s joint funeral, when my mother asked my husband’s old boss to come and dispose of it.  Scott was a man who knew people who could do things.
The evidence, whatever it was evidence of, vanished.
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The mystery around James never dissolved and eventually no one talked about it anymore, I guess because there was no way we could ever truly find out what happened without him here to tell us.  There were a lot of details that we could never find a way to weave together into anything that made sense and a lot of it was probably inconsequential anyway.  There was a girlfriend that he’d tried to keep hidden from us, a woman that was quite a bit older than him who wasn’t a member of the cult and therefore needed to be kept a secret.  In the end she had convinced him to stop hiding their relationship and he’d bought her a ring.  We met her all of twice before he died, and within days of his passing she left town with her brother and never came back, taking whatever she might have known with her.
James’ ex Jessica had sneaked onto the hill and broken into his house to put a dead raccoon in his kitchen sink a few days prior to his death.  We were shocked when he told us she trespassed on the land often without anyone knowing, and my mother made my father fix the electric gate down at the road so that it wouldn’t open without one of three clickers in the possession of herself, my father, and me.  James would have to come to her house and get hers any time he needed to leave the hill, an arrangement he agreed to because Jessica stole things from his house all the time, she would absolutely take a gate opener if she saw it.
He told us the gate wouldn’t keep her out though, and that she didn’t come in that way anyway.  The only way to protect ourselves from her was to lock her up and he doubted even that would do it.
He died less than a week later, and twenty three years later we still don’t know how or why.
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We never felt safe on the hill again.  Jessica was deranged in the worst possible way, we’d known it for a while, and James was her obsession.  She’d threatened to kill him multiple times and had tried twice.  We hadn’t known this, because James, big strong stoic Clint Eastwood type that he was, wasn’t about to tell anyone he was violently abused for years by a skinny little woman that everyone believed was not much more than a meek dormouse with shyness issues and a case of painful awkwardness.  But we knew she was evil.  We just didn’t have any proof.
The first thing my mother said after the initial emotional breakdown of finding her son dead was Jessica did this, I don’t know how but I know she did it.
I believe she was probably right.  But if Jessica was anything she was wily and devious with a strong survival instinct and an uncanny ability to lie convincingly and draw sympathy onto herself.  She’d convinced us for years that she was the perfect combination of sweetly harmless and endearingly clueless, but that only lasted until the day she called 911 screaming that James was beating her and then threw herself face first into a tree in their front yard and sat, calmly singing and coloring in a coloring book on the porch with blood running down her forehead, waiting for the police to arrive.  The act she put on when they got there was one for the Academy, but the officers didn’t buy it.
James calmly rolled up his sleeves and showed them his scars where she’d burned him and slashed him with a kitchen knife.  He pulled up his shirt and pointed out the marks she’d left on him with her teeth and nails.  He hooked a finger into his mouth and showed them the empty hole where she’d knocked one of his teeth out with a baseball bat.  One of the officers asked him why he hadn’t killed her and buried her somewhere on the land already.
She left in the back of the squad car, and my mother took James to the courthouse to get divorce papers started two days later.
Jessica came to his memorial service when we finally had it, several weeks after his death.  She wasn’t invited but we couldn’t keep her from coming.  She wore black like a widow and created a dramatic disruption complete with loud wailing and declarations of undying love, and afterward she stood to one side of the room, smirking at us with the kind of icy malice that you only see on the dangerously deranged, and then usually only in the movies.  Several people commented in hushed voices, asking why she’d been allowed to come.  At one point she started wailing They killed him!!, but everyone with the exception of her mother ignored her.
Her mother, who was still in our congregation, flitted around the room chatting with everyone, sobbing her heart out like it was her own son we’d just memorialized.  She was an ER nurse and had been famously fired from her job at the hospital for taking locked-cabinet medications home by the purse load.  She claimed she put them in her pocket to use on her shift and forgot to return them to the cabinet before leaving.
Jessica had been staying with her for a while.
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We fed the crowd at mom’s later that afternoon with my husband and his boss guarding the gate, making sure she didn’t try to come into my mother’s house.  The police were called preemptively, and because this was a town of 300 with not much of anything else to do, a squad car was dispatched and stationed near the inlet to the main drive.
Jessica showed up not much later, like we knew she would.  She drove past the police and parked a few yards down from them in plain sight, just sitting there by the side of the road, far enough away from our property that we couldn’t legally do anything about it.  The officers got out and talked to her, warned her not to cause us any problems, and she fed them a woeful tale about being banned from her beloved husband’s memorial service and denied the right to say goodbye to him.
The officers knew there was no body at that service to say goodbye to.  They also knew her.
My husband came up the hill and told us she was down at the road and that Scott was blocking the driveway with his truck to keep her out.  I told my mother it was time to file a restraining order against her.  She was living in fear and Jessica was known to be trespassing on our property frequently.  No, she told me with tears in her eyes but not a sign of distress on her face.  It was a look I knew, because my mother rarely showed emotion unless she was angry and the rest of the time it was this cold detachment.  That would bring reproach on the congregation because everyone knows what we are.  I can’t do that.  I won’t let her win that way.  I won’t let her cause us to bring shame on God’s name.
God’s name.  I took it in vain that day.
More than once.
I was leaving in a few weeks, moving a thousand miles away.  My husband and I weren’t going to be there to help her keep an eye out, and thirty eight acres of heavily wooded land is impossible to protect and easy to sneak onto from a hundred different directions, James had shown us proof of that.
God will protect us as long as we do the right thing and leave it to him, she said.  He knows what she is.
I think it was just a coincidence that nothing terrible happened in the following weeks, because my faith was getting tenuous and a lot of prayers were going unanswered.  But Jessica quietly disappeared back to her own world after a couple of infuriating weeks of putting herself in our paths every chance she got, and not long after that my husband and I moved away, and as we left the driveway for what we thought would be the last time he sighed and shook his head with the exasperation of a man about to say I told you so.
“That land is cursed,” he said.
I tried to disagree, though I don’t know why.
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Less than a mile up the road we passed a man walking.  He was tall and thin and covered in the dust of a long journey with a ratty backpack strapped to his back, and as we passed him I caught his reflection in the side mirror.
It was James, I knew it in my heart every bit as strongly as I knew it couldn’t be.
He was walking away from the hill, toward the west.  The way we were going.  And I swear on whatever holy relic you wish to place under my hand that he raised his head and met eyes with me in the mirror, and he smiled.
.
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today
.
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maryisis · 3 years ago
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Amanita muscaria- My sharing on cultivating a healing and empowering relationship with a magical mushroom, my Self and  Life.
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(All photos by me)
Overview and Introduction
This beautiful mushroom has allured human beings for who knows how many millennia. Archaeological evidence shows that people carried this mushroom from the Eurasian continent over the Bering strait to North America during the last glacial era, which shows how important this mushroom must have been to them.
There are so many examples of this iconic mushroom being woven into humanity’s evolution- from ancient cave art etched in stone to carved stone statues of various indigenous cultures to frescoes painted on the walls of Christian chapels to the stained glass of Catholic church cathedrals.  This mushroom, no doubt, has played a significant role for humanity, just as many of the other powerful and healing plant and fungi allies: cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, just to name a few. Just like a lot of things, over time, knowledge can be lost- and I could also say hidden or withheld from the populace. Over time this magical and majestic mushroom became misunderstood, judged and yes, feared.    
A seeker of truth will discover how knowledge has intentionally been kept from people, in the efforts to preserve an elite group of peoples’ power, and in other words, to prevent people from empowering themselves. This is what propaganda is for, and now, arguably, even our mass media is being utilized for this. “Fake news” is a real thing.
Many people are still emerging from the brainwashing of the “war on drugs” propaganda, that was unleashed on the American population, which unfortunately created a lot of stigma around psychotropic and entheogenic plants and fungi. It is now fairly common knowledge that the pharmaceutical industry had a major role in creating the majority of drug dependencies that led to the “opiate crisis” and now they’ve created even more drugs (such as methadone and naltrexone) to help us get off the other “bad” drugs (heroin, and other opiates). Terribly, these “drugs to help us get off the drugs” are actually even more difficult to get off from. I’d say, now there’s a full on “benzodiazepine crisis” going on.  Last year, when I finally got myself a primary care doctor, and I shared with her that I had been really struggling with anxiety, can you guess what was her response to that was? “I could prescribe you some medication to help with that.” I never returned to her.
It’s obvious that so many people are in dire mental and emotional support but sadly the hamster wheel reality that so many people are living in makes it very difficult for people to slow down and get the support they need.  Yet, I will say that once a person makes the decision to change and take charge of their own healing- support can and will show up from all directions. The reason why I know this is true is because I have experienced it myself. I believe that we are all here for a reason and the universe wants each and every one of us to stand in our power. As the saying goes, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way….”
Now that much more traction is being gained in the tremendous value of “entheogenic/psychedelic medicines” through scientific studies as well as the recognized value of indigenous wisdom ways, it seems that the knowledge of this powerful red mushroom has found its way back to our lives. As we the people, who evolved over thousands of years in close relationship with these powerful mushrooms and plant allies of Earth, is in not exciting to think, what role could this amazing mushroom could play for us now, in a society so filled with anxiety and depression? For several generations now, so many of us “civilized folk” have been disconnected from the medicines of earth, having been misled by a societal system that would have us rather be dependent on synthetically produced pharmaceutical drugs, to treat the conditions that often stem from the sick society in which we are living.
I feel it is crucial to emphasize here that in this “psychedelic renaissance” we must be careful with the way we approach these medicines of the earth. To approach them with the same mindset that “I want to take this thing to fix me and make me feel better” and not embrace the self-responsibility that it actually requires “to feel better” is actually disrespectful and devaluing of the self and the medicine. As a newly trained addiction recovery and integration coach, I am passionate about empowering people to be a conscious co-creator of their reality- to find ways of cultivating more connection in their life to self and nature, through ritual and embodiment practices. The precious medicines of earth can most certainly help us in our healing, but it is through our intentional efforts that we actually earn the peace and healing that we seek. We may be “creatures of habit,” but we are also courageous creatures with great potential to change!  
 Now, back to Amanita muscaria. In the last few years, it’s as if a veil has been lifted from our perceptual lens of this mushroom- more and more scientific studies are emerging about the active chemicals in this mushroom that can aid in anxiety and depression among other things. And there’s also the interesting folklore that has become more commonly known, even in our narratives around religious traditions, such as Christmas, and the relationship of the reindeer and jolly ol’ Santa Claus! There are numerous books and articles that can be found at our fingertips through the internet (which I will source at the end of this paper.) And there are online forums about it- On Telegram, YouTube, and I just discovered Reddit, and I’m sure there are many more. How far down the rabbit hole you want to go , is up to you!   Even though we have been told for generations to fear this powerful and beautiful mushroom, the time has come for the truth to be revealed.
A more Personal Introduction….
Before I delve into my own story of how my life was so positively influenced by this mushroom, the “good biology student and teacher” in me desires to share about this mushroom’s bio-chemistry, ecology and ethno-pharmacology, so as to give a well rounded understanding to a person not knowing much about this mushroom. (Disclaimer: This is in no way a “scholarly essay” or research paper as I will not be properly using citations. I’m no longer in college after all, I am in the school of life. However, I will provide sources when I directly quote or use specific information and I will provide a list of resources at the end of this paper.)  
My educational background is in the Natural Sciences, having received a Bachelors of Arts from University of Hawaii at Hilo in Natural Science with a minor in Biology. Mycology was one of the fields of study that fascinated and inspired me in such a deep way- beyond my logical and analytical mind. There was something mystical to me about mushrooms. When I found out at age thirteen that there were mushrooms out there that could open up other dimensions of reality, I thought to myself “Where can I find them!?” (It didn’t take me long to.)  
I am an avid “mycophile” (lover of mushrooms) and I study mushrooms with a passion- I love trying to identify mushrooms and I derive great joy looking for mushrooms in the forests. I have also developed what I can only describe as a psychic connection with mushrooms, in the way that I actually have felt “guided” by them, to places where I can find them. I have woken up in the morning with the Amanita muscaria whispering into my consciousness “Come find me, I’m here….” As I will expand more upon later, the deepening of my relationship with A. muscaria began when I was really needing support and anxiety had begun to really diminish my quality of life. Thats when I went into the forest to find the mushrooms. It make me think of the quote of the Sufi poet Rumi: “What you seek is seeking you.”
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About the Fungi
I remember learning in my mycology course how mushrooms are merely the “fruiting body” of a species of fungi- a body that mostly lives under the ground’s surface, as mycelium- which are a network of fungal threads called hyphae. By sensing the optimal conditions, the mycelium will then begin the formation of the mushroom, which will emerge from the ground (except truffle, which stay underground!) containing the spores, to then be dispersed into the environment. Fungi play such an important role in our ecosystems as they are “decomposers.” In the great circle of Life, we cannot leave out Death, because all that dies shall break down in composition, to become nourishment for more life! Yet, there are some fungi that have evolved away from their decomposing abilities and have come to depend on their symbiosis with trees, such as the Amanita genus.
Amanita muscaria has a symbiotic relationship with as many as 20 different tree species, including pine, oak, spruce, fir, birch, and cedar.
This means that the mycelium of this fungi grows along the roots of the tree, making mineral nutrients and water more available to the tree, while the fungi uptakes sugars from the roots of the tree. This relationship is known as a “mycorrhizal network.”  
The genus Amanita contains at least 400 species, a couple of which are the most known deadly mushrooms in the world, and some species of which are considered the most delicious to eat. A really unique signature of the Amanita’s morphology is the way it grows and emerges- from an egg-like sac called a “volva.” As the mushroom emerges, pieces of the volva can stick to the cap of the mushroom, like warts, as seen so clearly in the cap A.muscaria.
The Misunderstanding of this Mushroom
Amanita muscaria has been deemed “toxic” and “poisonous” and even “deadly” - all titles which are misleading and also simply not true. There are various reasons for the spread of this misinformation. Here, I will highlight on some scientific facts:
Because the Amanita genus contains some of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world, and people are afraid of being poisoned, this mushroom got lumped in with the “deadly’s.” What makes the deadly amanitas deadly is that they contain “amatoxins” and “phallotoxins.” Amatoxins are also found in two other genera of mushroom (Galerina and Lepidiota). To clarify here, Amanita muscaria does NOT contain either of these chemicals.
Because this is a powerful mushroom with potentially psychoactive effects, fear and curiosity can arise in many people. The fearful will likely stay away from it, and even stomp on the mushrooms when they see them (and that just hurts my heart!).  And even for the curious who venture to ingest this mushroom just for the sake of wanting to know what it will do to them, may end up having a very unpleasant experience, or they may have a profoundly enjoyable experience, OR they may have no experience at all! As I will discuss later on, relationship and intention are important when deciding to ingest psychoactive mushrooms and/or plants.
Because people have reported feeling sick and vomiting from ingesting this mushroom, it has been deemed “toxic.” There may have even been a death from a person who choked on their own vomit from having ingested this mushroom - but even in that case,  the mushroom itself was not the real culprit. Now, let’s get deeper into the chemistry….
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS & BIOCHEMISTRY
The active ingredients of Amanita muscaria, are Ibotenic Acid and Muscimol. Muscimol is derived from ibotenic acid by decarboxylation. Ibotenic acid is an analogue of the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate is one of the most abundant amino acids in the body. It  also serves as a metabolic precursor to the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) According to one scientific study, people who suffer from depression may have had lower levels of GABA present in the brain. According to another 2019 study, GABA has anti-microbial, anti-seizure, and antioxidant properties and may help treat and prevent conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and insomnia. (source:https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326847#medical-benefits) I mention this because, muscimol binds to the same site on the GABAA receptor complex as GABA itself, as opposed to other GABAergic drugs such as barbiturates and benzodiazepines which bind to separate regulatory sites. (source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscimol).
Re-stated: Muscimol mimics the chemical GABA, which is a neurotransmitter responsible for calming the mind and easing anxiety, among other benefits.
So, could this mushroom be like “nature’s benzodiazepine,” yet safer because our bodies will not become chemically dependent? I feel it is not as straight forward as this and I would never want to diminish this mushroom by comparing it with a pharmeceutical. Also I feel it is more mysterious, requiring respect and even reverence, to the approach of “using”- or how I would rather refer to it as “working with” - this powerful and potentially healing mushroom. (more on that topic in the later section on “Cultivating Relationship”) There are other species of Amanita that contain these chemicals of importance (and in higher amounts) as well, which look similar to A. muscaria and those species are: A. pantherina (known as the “panther cap” or “false blusher”) and A. regalis (known as the “Royal Fly Agaric”)  
IBOTENIC ACID
“Ibotenic acid is an unstable compound; consequently, during extraction and subsequent processing large losses can occur. Also, in dried mushrooms the ibotenic acid content decreases gradually.” (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1970-01-01_4_page005.html). This compound, when “decarboxylated” (heated to a specific temperature) becomes muscimol. According to studies, it has been shown that the highest percentage of this compound is found in the top yellow layer of the mushroom cap, just below the thin top colored skin. The concentrations of ibotenic acid are higher in the fresh mushroom, and when consumed (in the mushroom’s more raw state) can have potent effects that are responsible for the more “unpleasant” effects : nausea, vomiting and/or gastro-intestinal upset. And yet, it should be noted that there can also be very pleasant psychoactive effects as well- euphoria, and various other sensory altering effects.
MUSCIMOL
“Muscimol can be found in all Amanita species in which ibotenic acid occurs. However, since it is easily derived from ibotenic acid through the loss of water and CO2, which can occur during extraction or on paper chromatograms, one cannot say positively that it is a genuine compound in the mushroom.” (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1970-01-01_4_page005.html). And so, interestingly, it may be that this compound is only found in the mushroom because it was created/converted from the ibotenic acid.
I have witnessed a certain level of “judgement” of ibotenic acid,  being unfavorable to ingest and that the goal before ingesting is to convert as much of it as possible to muscimol, however, it has been argued that ibotenic acid plays an important role in the benefits of ingesting this mushroom- and that you can never really convert ALL the ibotenic acid anyways.
From what information I have gathered is that “ibotenic acid” has gotten a bad reputation and is considered by many to be unfavorable- which is why people take extra steps to decarboxylate the mushrooms so as to convert the ibotenic acid to muscimol.  One of the possible reasons for the “bad rap” is that it has actually been referred to scientifically as a “neurotoxin” but this was  because of a particular study’s outcome: it was found to cause brain legions when injected directly into the heads of rats.  When we ingest this mushroom, it obviously would not have the same effect as being injected into our brains, and so therefore, the title of “neurotoxin” is not accurate and is misleading.
Cultivating Right Relationship
As I shared a little bit earlier, prior to cultivating my deep relationship with A. muscaria I been struggling with anxiety, an over active mind and very debilitating control patterns that developed over the past couple years (due to personal and relational circumstances). I believe in the healing power of plant medicines and that they are amazing tools that can help us in our healing, and to interrupt addictions and our "normal" patterning (which is often times dis-functional!). However, we as individuals play the most important role in our healing- I truly believe the power is in our hands to become the “CEO’s of our own Health and Wellbeing,” as a nutrition coach mentor of mine says. It is our responsibility to put in our efforts to INTEGRATE the insights and new mind states we gain from plant medicines into our lives- so that we don't just become dependent upon another “substance” to shift our undesirable feeling state. We do this with courageous acts, by making the needed life changes to decrease stress and to nourish the conditions for our wellness and by cultivating nervous system regulating practices such as EFT/tapping, breath work, and so many others.  
I do not believe that any medicine or substance outside of ourselves can be a  "magic bullet" or "cure- all.” I believe it is crucial to be in "right relationship" with all medicines. That all being said- I greatly appreciate and value the plant medicine world and am vary cautious of the pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors which do NOT heal, but only treat the symptoms, and often cause more ill side effects and dangerous chemical dependencies. It is important to remember, “Big Pharma” profits from our un-wellness.
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Working with A. muscaria
There are many ways one can work with A. muscaria. I will describe a way that I feel cultivates a relationship with this mushroom that is respectful and reverent of the mushroom, which may potentiate its healing benefits.
One can begin by working with it on the energetic and psychic level. I was guided by my curiosity and intuition to work with this mushroom, and have felt a joyous connection with this mushroom since I first saw it out in the forest. The elated feeling I would get from the mushroom actually was the indicator to me that I needed to learn more about it and so, my studies began.
It is important to do your own research- don’t just take my word for granted. I started finding and reading lots of articles, watching videos and I took a workshop from the Fungi Academy, featuring a woman who goes by the name “Amanita Dreamer.” I started to feel more and more confident that ingesting A. muscaria was not dangerous but could actually be in divine alignment for me. I started to align with certain people out there who’s perspective and knowledge of A.muscaria I found very helpful. (See resources at end.)
After the first big Autumn seasonal rains soaked the earth up where I live in northern California, I remember the day that I woke up and I just knew they were out there in the forest. I actually felt their presence in my psychic field. It had happened the season prior also, and so, my energetic connection had been developing for at least a couple of years before I felt it was time to actually harvest them.
Before harvesting I had already learned that the active ingredients are in the caps and the potency is most prime when the mushroom is relatively “young,” before the cap has fully flattened out.  I would always leave the older mushrooms so that their spores could be released into the environment. When harvesting, I did so with reverence and gratitude.
When I brought the mushroom caps home, I dehydrated them at about 130 degrees until “cracker dry” as Amanita Dreamer refers to it. I then scraped the gills out from the cap, since the gills don’t contain the desired active ingredients. Note: Its easier and less of a mess to scrape them out once dried. I saved this scraped out contents into a jar to then release back to re-spore the forest.  The scraped out caps went into another jar. I kept these dried caps in jars on my altar and connected with them energetically until the day came when I knew it was time.
Potency varies from mushroom to mushroom and so when it comes to ingesting them, the most reliable way to get a consistent dosage is to ingest either the powder of the ground up mushroom caps (via tea or capsule) or from a tincture. I personally wanted to work with the caps whole so that I could see them with their beautiful color and not grind them up. I did indeed notice how one gram of dried mushroom caps varied from day to day, while micro-dosing. I actually enjoyed that mysterious aspect. For example, one morning a noticed much more of an effect, to where I actually needed to lay down- and it was a very healing and learning experience for me in slowing down and receiving.  I also have tried breaking off pieces from multiple different caps to get a more average range of potency and weighing out my desired dosage that way.
Because I resonated with it, I decided to follow the guidance of Adam, a fellow A. muscaria advocate and magical herbal alchemist who runs balticalchemy.com. I started with 1gram in the morning and 1g at night, making a tea. I break apart caps onto a small scale to weigh out and then steep the mushroom pieces in my tea for up to 10 minutes. I then have a ritual of sitting down at my altar and speaking my words of gratitude to the mushroom tea and my intentions while they steep.
Making a respectful and reverent "daily practice” or ritual with this mushroom, and any plant or mushroom medicine, is very important to me and is an important, integrative part of any "microdosing protocol." This is where and how we RE-PATTERN and RE-PROGRAM ourselves. And this is how we also cultivate right relationship with our medicine.
I drink down the tea, with heart open in gratitude for the opportunity to commune with this mushroom. I also eat the mushroom pieces within it the tea.  I actually like to speak directly to the spirit of the mushroom, my gratitude and my prayers. I like to also do some EFT(Emotional Freedom Technique)/"tapping" and bodily stretching/movement and then I go about my day.
I usually feel the effects within the hour. Sometimes I feel a warmth in my heart space, or a warmth of peace and/or bliss sweeping through my body. There are many other subtle effects I have noticed and I feel it is important to keep certain things sacred and inside as it is my own mysterious journry I am on, which will be unlike any one else’s.
So far, My only experience in consuming a larger amount was in an Amanita muscaria ceremony which I attended and my experience was pleasant. Not only did we consume a strong tea of it but we also smoked it! That was rather harsh and I did not particularly like that but smoking of the top layer of the mushroom cap definitely does have an affect which can be described as childlike elation. I did notice my sense of taste become much more vivid and my perception became slightly warped. I definitely had a lot of energy which continued into the next day where I noticed how I was “talking a mile a minute” 😆
 Read more below about my own experience with micro-dosing ....
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My Micro-dosing Testimonial
I noticed the positive benefits in only a few days- My anxiety, fight/flight sensations, worrying mind/thoughts- were simply GONE. My whole reality shifted just from being able to feel CALM again in mind and body. I realized how much a dis-regulated nervous system ("anxiety") was negatively impacting my perception of reality. A.muscaria also helped me to re-configure my long time habitual relationship with cannabis. I made the decision to completely stop smoking cannabis the day I began working with A.muscaria, which has also contributed greatly to my increased energy and clarity of mind.
Before this tremendous positive shift from A.muscaria, I could barely sit still. My outlook on life was very despairing and filled with self-doubt.   I have rapidly regained a positive outlook, more motivation and self-confidence and more focus. I have also been getting more sustained sleep through the night. I have felt more light hearted elation, and peace than I have experienced in the past couple of years.  
In summary, this beautiful mushroom has played a pivotal role in assisting me to get my nervous system back into a regulated place, after suffering the repercussions of being in “fight or flight” mode for an extended amount of time.don’t necessarily and I consider it to be such a powerful catalyst for me in my healing and coming into clarity and alignment with my truth. 
Amanita muscaria has become my most beloved ally from the forest, showing me that I too have so much to offer to this world once I stand in my power, with my innate wisdom, mystery, beauty, truth and love.
Resources- (I encourage you to do your own research!)
Websites:
1. www.amanitadreamer.net
2. www.reindeeramanita.com
3.  https://fungiacademy.com/
4. http://www.amanitaceae.org/
5. https://jgi.doe.gov/retracing-roots-fungal-symbioses/
6. https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/blog/harnessing-the-therapeutic-potential-of-muscimol-349541
7. https://www.mushroomstone.com/
8. https://themushroomcap.com/product/the-fungal-pharmacy/
9. https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/09/14/mysterious-ancient-mushrooms-in-myths-and-legends-sacred-feared-and-worshiped-among-ancient-civilizations-2/
10. https://www.balticalchemy.com/
11. https://harmonyacresfarms.org/
Books:
Fly Agaric: A Compendium of History, Pharmacology, Mythology, & Exploration,
by Kevin M. Feeney
The Fungal Pharmacy by Robert Rogers
Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast- a comprehensive guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California. Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz
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