witchcraftandweirdshit

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

ok but legitimately i think the reason why kids aren’t taking internet safety seriously is because the people who are telling us not to put our personal information out seem so out of touch. no one acknowledges the possibility of meeting very real teenaged friends online, they always say that everyone you meet is a 40 year old white man in disguise. because they aren’t acknowledging things we know are true, it becomes a lot easier to dismiss the rest of what they’re saying as well. internet safety lessons absolutely must keep up with the times and acknowledge the internet’s capacity for good if you want kids to take to heart warnings about its capacity for bad.

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

Shadowgast shippers:

🥉The fandom

🥈Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, and Dani Carr

🥇Matthew Mercer and Liam O’Brien

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

look man. look

essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now

more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:

"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.

essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.

essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.

astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.

essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."

because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"

it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.

the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."

astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.

god. this moment is just so fucking good

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Some Professor Widogast thoughts:

So, you know about how weird it is to see a teacher outside of a school setting? That’d definitely be a thing with the Academy students, but at least for most of the Professors it was at normal places like the market or at Balls or whatever. Not Caleb, though, or well yess also then but also other times.

Like you’re a fancy rich kid, you go to fancy wizard school, and you’re doing a rebellion by sneaking out to this underground club with these crazy new age bards and a bar and a fight ring. You feel so badass and then you get there and your Transmutation 101 teacher is there, drunk, getting playfully grinded on the left and right by a purple tiefling and a married halfling that’s husband is dancing on her- and you just leave. Just right away. You don’t even have time to notice Expositor Lionnet trying to get to second base with her wife right behind them.

One student is from a prominent land owner in the Zemni Fields, their family goes to Blumnethal’s festivals to set up stands to sell wares and have a good time. They go to a fight pit that they hear is really cool, they have a keg stand and everything, and they get there and their teacher who’s pushing 40 and teaches their ‘Advanced Components 205’ every Wednesday is doing a keg stand, being held upside down by a blue tiefling and a half orc dressed like they stepped out of smut book with a sea theme, while two scary looking lesbians and and Halfling in sundress cheer him on. And when they let him down, the whole group immediately jumps into the fighting ring and destroy the competition even though the Halfling looks like they are too drunk to see and none of them are in decent gear. The group gets bored right away, start a three way shoulder war/chicken fight, which goes to hell right way because they all try to cheat. The Monk has their Professor in some sort of leg lock when the student’s father drags them out.

A student’s family goes on summer vacation to Nicodranas. To their horror, they find out that Professor Widogast and his friends don’t believe in bathing suits when they go to the beach.

The best part? Everytime something like this happens, nobody believes it.

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

It's come to my attention that a good portion of the younger generation has not been made aware of one of the greatest and most hated PILLARS of millennial society.

So I apologize, but I must take on this task. A new hand must touch the beacon. The knowledge must be passed on. The chain can not be broken.

So.

The Game.

The following are the rules of The Game:

there is no winning The Game

once you know of The Game, you are always playing the game

the point of The Game is to not think about The Game

if you think about The Game, you have lost The Game, and must announce this to those around you - causing them to also lose The Game

A "reset period" of roughly an hour or two before loss announcements is common in colloquial rules to allow yourself and those around you to properly temporarily "forget" about The Game, however that is not an official rule.

Go forth, you next generation, and I am sorry.

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

Yeah, a lot of what bothers me about fantasy settings (especially D&D) is that people try to run wizards like they're academics, but their only exposure to academics is authoritative professors telling them The Truth, so they don't realize that all academics are always 5 seconds away from trying to strangle each other over questions like 'does time really pass or does it just seem to pass'

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[witchcraftandweirdshit]

Got my #Pride #Oreos from the #ProudParent campaign and they are so beautiful. I’m so excited to share them with my friends. @oreo @pflag https://www.instagram.com/p/CGvxo6_F-d8/?igshid=1w9z01dmp3ptd

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

Drizzling

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

I recently left my abusive wife. My daughter and I need a place to stay. I am couch surfing right now, but it’s not stable for her. I got a job working from home (thank goodness), but don’t start until July 6th. I found an apartment, but I don’t have the money for first month and a deposit. I $3,000 to move in. I need a stable environment before going to court to keep custody.

Cashapp: $nickitheb

If anyone can help us out it would be greatly appreciated.

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This is my least favorite feeling in the world. Say something....say anything. #bpd #quietbpd https://www.instagram.com/p/CBCZWAglya8/?igshid=1hjb1fl8zplkn

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But the truth is I’m kind of tired of pretending that I was the guilty one I wasn’t feeling up no one but you, yeah. Lessons that I just can’t seem to learn I never thought you’d leave me two for two. #jessiereyez #ankles #thesebitchesdontmeasureup https://www.instagram.com/p/CA15B88F2Cg/?igshid=1aihawmi2vxag

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Just another day trying to make it through. #nohairdontcare #baldgirls #workflowselfie #imessential #essentialworkers https://www.instagram.com/p/CAX25aRl0p7/?igshid=1o0k4iy9t7if7

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

The recent home haircut has taught me how cold it can be in the mornings without a hat on. #baldgirl #nohairdontcare #mask #imessential https://www.instagram.com/p/CAWWbDzFqvC/?igshid=65h9p2erhbft

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

the biggest april fool’s day joke is always the fact that it’s april bc i swear to you yesterday was mid-february

[witchcraftandweirdshit]

today at work a customer’s card didn’t go through so I asked them to try again and it worked that time and I mixed up saying “there we go” and “there it goes” and I ended up saying “there we goes" and I just