#which is at least thematically apropriate

[leasthaunted]

Unanswered Ouija Questions. 

Chances are, that you know what a Ouija Board is, or that you possibly have had a Ouija Board experience. For many people it probably involves a sleep over at a friend's house. Everyone has been up far later than they may have ever been up before. Caffeinated soda courses through their veins, and tiny little youthful powerhouse pancreases pump out enough insulin to counteract the near criminal doses of processed sugars and junk foods.

"Look Upon my works ye mighty, and get the insulin."

At some point, possibly after the youngest and weakest has passed out, and their hand has been placed in a bowl of tepid water, someone will suggest busting out the Ouija Board to try and "talk to a ghost".

What follows is a lot of laughing, giggling, accusations of "moving it", and at least one kid getting a story about that time the spirit of a sixteen year old pioneer boy told them that they would definitely marry JTT someday and live on a horse ranch.

He's so dreamy...

Or maybe, your dead grandma comes through to tell you that she is burning in hell, and that all of your dead relatives are very disappointed in your unhealthy obsession with JTT, and could you just let the whole "horse thing" go?

Neigh, Grandma. Neigh.

Anyway, The Ouija Board, or Spirit Board, is a parlor novelty game that came out of the Spiritualist Movement in the late 1800's, with the first "Talking Board" being marketed on July 1st 1890 by businessmen Elijah Bond. In 1901 it would be marketed under the name Ouija, which is a portmanteau of the French Word Oui (yes), and the German Ja (Yes). So a "Yes-Yes" Board basically. It was a painted board of wood.

I've got wood, YES! YES!

Although it would not be until around the time of World War I that it would be directly linked with the occult. Up until then it was regarded as just a fun party game. Eventually, the rights to the game would fall into the hands of Hasbro. As does everything...

For me, my first real encounter with the Ouija was probably around the year 1999. My older sister, who was eighteen at the time, had just moved into what would become known as "Spooky House" (Least Haunted Podcast Episode 03: Spooky House) And it was around this time that she really got into spiritual stuff and "The Craft"

The film that helped launch a million goth chick "Wiccans"

But this isn't really about that per se. It is about the specific Ouija Board that she bought for herself at that time, and which she would eventually leave behind when she moved out. The Ouija board that I inherited when I moved into the house after her. The Glow in The Dark Ouija Board released by Parker Brothers in 1998.

Bought from a regular old non-haunted Toys 'R' Us!

And also I lied again. This isn't really about that board at all. It's actually about the TV Commercial that advertised that board. Specifically it is about the questions left hanging by that commercial, and my quest to finally get some god damned answers.

All of the power of the eldritch occult universe. All the questions of a bunch of stupid horny preteens.

To accomplish this I dug the old board out of storage. Admittedly it could have been stowed with a little bit more care for an allegedly evil object, if those in the religious right are to be believed. What came out of the cardboard box 23 years ago was a flat piece of printed cardboard. What I dug out of storage was a slightly warped, and rat piss stained rectangle of moldering cardboard. But it still glowed!

I realized that in order to keep to the spirit of the endeavor, it was only right to use the actual item advertised in solving the mysteries of its own marketing campaign.

I got some apropri.... I mean, some thematically relevant dribbly candles. I made sure to leave the board under my table lamp for a good twenty minutes to charge it up, then turned off the lights, lit the candles, scootched in close, and nervously put my hands on the planchette.

FYI it's called a Planchette.

"Are there any spirits here with me now?" I asked. For about twenty seconds I kept my fingers on the planchette waiting for something to happen. And just as I was about ready to give up, I felt the subtle tug as the planchette began to glide on felt tipped feet toward the green-glow illuminated word YES. Holy Shit. Contact!

I won't bore you with the details of getting to know my new spirit familiar. Long story short, they claimed to be the spirit of a former school teacher from rural Nebraska named Gina who tragically died when their car rolled over in a tornado in 1918, blah, blah, blah...

"Look, Gina, I didn't come here for your life story! I came here for answers!" I said, "Have you seen the 1998 commercial for the glow in the dark Ouija board?" The planchette circled the board uncertainly for a few seconds... NO.

What followed was me educating a ghost about what a Ouija board was, what television was, who JTT was, and eventually explaining the idea of Youtube. I played the above commercial to the seemingly empty room, and then placed my fingers back to the Planchette,

"Okay, now that we are on the same page, I have some questions about that commercial I want Answered!". The plastic glowing thing that looks like a spade slowly started to move... O....K...

QUESTION ONE: Is Jake going to ask me to the dance?

So, the commercial starts with this girl here. We'll call her "Tina", and she wants to know if "Jake" is going to ask her to the dance. Already the commercial pulls us in with drama and romance. It gets us invested in the first two seconds. And I want to know,

"Gina, did Jake ask her to the dance?"

YES

Oh thank god. I let out a sigh of relief. That's really good to know, "Did they have a good time?"

...NO. (I'll spare you the drawn out letter searching and just give you the rest of the answers directly) JAKE WAS REALLY NERVOUS AND KEPT STEPPING ON HER TOES. THEN HE SPILLED PUNCH ON HER DRESS, AND LATER SHE CAUGHT HIM MAKING OUT WITH SUZIE TILLERMAN IN THE SCIENCE WING HALLWAY WHILE FLAGPOLE SITTA BY HARVEY DANGER PLAYED.

What a dick! I can't believe he would do that to her!

QUESTION 2: How old will I be when I get a car?

We'll call this one Sheila, and she wants to know how old she will be when she gets a car. Now, some might think that using a literal necronomic device of untold power such as a Ouija board to ask such a frivolous question would be a waste of time, and that is exactly what Gina told me too. But I came here for answers damn it! Not to listen to the logical reasonings of a ghost lady who didn't have enough sense to not be driving around in a tornado, so...

SHEILA GOT HER FIRST CAR AT AGE 17. A 1986 POWDER BLUE NISSAN STANZA. IT COST HER SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.

Sweet deal! What happened to it?

WHEN SHE WAS 19 SHE LOANED IT TO HER FRIEND DOUG, WHO WRAPPED IT AROUND A LIGHT POST WHILE DRIVING DRUNK AFTER A PARTY.

Was Doug okay?

DED.

Bummer.

YES

QUESTION 3: Will I go out with Adam?

Adam better watch out, because this gal is gonna get him! Or will she?

NO. SHE NEVER DATES ADAM.

That's too bad.

NO, IT IS TOTALLY COOL. SHE NOW LIVES WITH HER SMOKING HOT WIFE. THEY SELL HAND MADE HARRY POTTER THEMED CERAMICS ON THEIR ETSY PAGE CALLED HARRY POTTERY. THEY DONATE A PORTION OF THE MONEY TO TRANS RIGHTS.

I was delighted at the happy ending, the cleaver pun, and surprised at the fact that although I had to explain what television and Youtube were, Gina apparently knew what Etsy was?

QUESTION 4: Get a tattoo?

The next question didn't have a face to pair it with, but a voice asks if they should "get a tattoo?" So I asked Gina,

Should I get a tattoo?

YES

Cool. Cool. Cool. What should it be?

DONKEYTIGERASSSSSS

This can happen sometimes with Ouija boards. The spirits can get confused and give you seemingly nonsensical answers. But just to be on the safe side, I'm going to get a Donkey tattooed on one ass cheek, and a Tiger on the other. That should appease the spirits. Just in case.

QUESTION 5: Eat bacon?

Alright this question pulls us back into the drama filled narrative of these hopeless children's lives. This girl asks the seemingly innocent question of, "Should I eat bacon?" And that seems like a silly question on the surface. But for all we know this child is struggling with some deep rooted existential dread shit. Maybe she was raised Kosher, or Halal? Maybe she is questioning her whole identity and place in a family and world to which she feels increasingly disconnected from more and more each day?

Every morning she gets up, and gets ready for school. She numbly picks out her clothes, and goes through the motions. Inside she is a ball of turmoil, hormones, and self doubt. She brushes her teeth mechanically as dead eyes stare back at her in the mirror. You used to be so happy, she mentally tells her self, what happened? She spits out the toothpaste into the sink, and watches it swirl down the drain in a metaphor for her life. Quickly she wipes away an unshed tear before it can ruin what little makeup she has put on. The small amount of makeup that she puts on just so she can feel like she fits in amongst her so called "friends".

Lately she has been looking for any small way to claim some control of her life. Some small token act of rebellion that she can partake in, to scream in a silent way to the universe, I am here! I am my own person! I don't have to be what they tell me to be!

She decides that going against her family's strict dietary tyranny would be an adequate first step. But she is still a little unsure of herself. Mayhaps the illustrious Parker Brothers and their magic divination board can help her decide?

Should she eat bacon?

SHE SHOULD TRY NEW THINGS AND FIND HER VOICE. BUT BACON IS NOT THE ANSWER. SHE STRUGGLES WITH SELF IDENTITY THROUGHOUT HIGH SCHOOL. EVENTUALLY SHE SHUCKS OFF THE INFLUENCE OF HER OVERBEARING RELIGIOUS PARENTS WHILE AT COLLEGE. SHE NOW IS A FAIRLY SUCCESSFUL TWITCH STREAMER AND VEGETARIAN CHEF.

Another happy ending!

QUESTION 6: Will our parents ever let us stay up past ten O'clock?

Well this question is just ridiculous! And honestly the question I care least about having answered. But I ask anyway,

"Gina, did their parents ever let them stay up past ten?"

ARE YOU SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW? LOOK ASSHOLE I HAVE BEEN MORE THAN PATIENT WITH YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT. I COULD BE HANGING OUT AT A SWEET AFTERLIFE PARTY WITH FAMOUS DEAD CELEBRITIES AND ROCK STARS. I DONT NEED THIS.... GOODBYE.

GHOSTED...

And with that the planchet goes unresponsive. My sojourn into the world of the paranormal and TV commercials had come to an end. I turn the lights back on and blow out the candles. I look at the warped piece of cardboard in my hands and think about all of life'e unanswered questions.

It is fun to think about the "what if" questions that permeate our lives. Everyday we are presented with countless little questions which will never be answered. Some are more important that others, but that seeming importance doesn't mean that they are anymore likely to be answered than the more frivolous questions. Life doesn't work that way.

I can't lie and say it wouldn't be great if I could actually use a simple piece of cardboard to get the answers I seek or want. And If the board really could be used to communicate with the dead, I wouldn't actually use it to explore the world of a TV commercial selling a stupid party game in the late 90's.

No, I would probably use it to talk to the sister who bought the board in the first place. To once again have a conversation with my missing best friend and role model. I'd want her to tell me about how excited she was when her "Jake" asked her to the dance, and if she had a good time?

I'd want to know all about how she felt when she got to drive her first car? It wasn't a Nissan Stanza, it was a 1986 Ford Mustang. And I want to know what kinds of thoughts went through her head as she experienced the freedom of the open road at 16.

I'd want to hear the story of her first tattoo again. I can remember the Celtic knot work design of it on her back in vivid detail. But I can't remember where she got it done. Or when. Why can't I remember that anymore?

I'd use it to talk to her about the feelings she had when she first started to distinguish herself as a young adult, and to find an identity of her own. Not by eating bacon, but by moving out of the family home, and furnishing her own place. The way she sought out new fashions, and identities based on the crappy movies she loved.

The Ouija Board is a toy. It does not connect you to the spirits of the dead. It won't allow a long since deceased school teacher from Nebraska to shed light on a TV Commercial. And it won't let you talk to a dead sibling. It is for fun. A toy for the all night junk food fests of our youth.

Even still, I wish I had kept that old glow in the dark Ouija Board after all. It may very well actually be in storage, or it may have been thrown away long ago. An artifact of a life once lived by a young woman full of questions, hopes, and dreams. If I still had it, would I feel any better or closer to her?

Some questions will never be answered.

[4lph4kidz]

(Same Dirk Anon)

I def read Dirk's splinters as more uhhh 'possibilities' - this COULD be you, if you let it be, and they reflect certain truths about your character that you need to come to terms with.

I guess the way I tend to think of it is, like- Davesprite broke Jade's heart, and got angry at Dave about it in Game Over. It's pointless to actually hold Dave accountable for that, but there's no denying that had he been in Davesprite's position he could or would have acted the exact same way. In that regard, I find it pretty pointless to actively hold Dirk accountable for anything AR does independent of Dirk's awareness or control; but because Dirk is so willing to immediately assume the worst of himself and take some level of ownership over his splinters that Dave would never do for Davesprite (or Jade, Jadesprite) I see him getting conflated with his splinters a LOT more often.

Ofc, selves are a complicated matter in Homestuck. Karkat's memo shenanigans are pretty indicative of that, though those are less 'possibilities' and more 'closed time loops', I guess. But even then, they serve as a purpose for Karkat to learn more about himself, even if it's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than Dirk and his splinters are.

On AR and Dirk's agency, the amount of control Dirk actually has seems somewhat limited - assuming you don't think Dirk should just straight up murder the AR, which is an argument I've seen made. I would say that AR goes to prove Dirk has a lot less agency than he thinks he does - I'm reminded of Dirk giving that whole spiel to Jane about how he's going to mastermind the session, but ends up running to Calliope for advice on what to do the second something went wrong.

Or his claims that he can control his Dream Self perfectly, but almost got killed failing to do just that and ended up zoning out so much he was too late to warn Jane about Roxy's bomb. The bomb thing is interesting, because AR also chose not to warn her despite being FULLY capable of doing so, which indicates to me that... yeah, they're on different wavelengths here.

Or - Unite/Synchronise once Dirk's actual plans to enter the session go very obviously to shit, but even that's left ambiguous as to who actually orchestrated it. AR makes the most sense to me, though. I'm reminded of Scratch's High Stakes Timeline Wrangling - I was masochistic enough to read Hussie's authors notes, and iirc he mentioned something about Scratch being so competent because one of his components was a supercomputer.

Honestly, I read AR and Dirk's convo as soft confirmation that AR and Dirk weren't accurate 1=1 reflections of each other anymore. The conversation starts with AR blowing off Roxy trying to call Dirk for help, and ends with him asking Dirk "so can suicide fix this problem?" Strider if he's afraid to die. AR is what Dirk could have been, but currently isn't, but still contains a multitude of truths about himself that are uncomfortable to look at. ...but that's not the conclusion Dirk seems to come to, which I guess is what I meant when I thought Dirk wasn't being meaningfully challenged on what his splinters mean about himself.

(...which is still all setting aside the Jake thing. Jake pretty accurately pinned AR as a Dirk with 'no accountability, that just wants to screw with him' which... Dirk isn't happy about, but dirk and jake and dirk's splinters is a whole other nightmare.)

This all checks out with me as reading Dirk as a kid that's not as smart as he thinks he is getting a succession of reality checks straight to the face during the session. And then he's just kind of left dangling with the last one, which doesn't... really feel like a conclusion to his arc, but it's still better than what Jake got? It really feels like they just barely dug into the meat of Dirk's character before. All that.

feel free to ignore this, i just like rambling about dirk because he's absolutely fascinating and yet... done so goddamn dirty by the narrative. he is the bug i have under a microscope. i want to read all the conversations kidnapped PQ!Dirk has with Ult!Dirk so badly.

there's a lot of great kanaya quotes but i think the moment i realised she was like, one of my forever faves, was. "Impromputations".

Yeah! That's very much the read that makes the most sense to me, though it is still a very character-focused perspective and I try to keep other ways of framing things in the back of my mind. And I'd be more likely to agree he was 'done dirty by the narrative' if you take post canon into the picture but tbh I think being a Jake-liking individual has sort of lowered the bar for me when it comes to Homestuck's character biases... At least the author thought Dirk was interesting enough to take him seriously and address his stuff with some depth.

Generally speaking HS's concluding arcs were so messy that pretty much every single character was left wanting in one way or another, with the exception of maybe Dave, but I do still think Dirk is actually one of the better handled/more fleshed out characters? Seeing as he's one of only a handful who even had an identifiable arc and got something approaching a resolution for the better. Not everything was addressed or wrapped up neatly of course, and he sure isn't in a very HAPPY place, but still. I still took it as an ultimately positive ending for him. Maybe that's just because I'm generally okay with the ending of Homestuck as a whole, despite noting its many faults, mostly because I think its a miracle something as convoluted as Homestuck even made it to the end at all. That doesn't mean I'm not disappointed and don't love seeing other people explore what the comic didn't, I'm just relatively at peace with the fact that resolving characters wasn't really a priority for the work I guess.