#me looking at the pitiful handful of non-STEM courses I took in college: is this a potential source of referential internet jokes

[utilitycaster]

Wizard Breakdown Tracker #3, episode 133

Greetings and salutations to the exercise I have set upon myself, which is to say deciding the relative mental stability of Wizard NPCs who have been subjected to the Mighty Nein. My intent is to do this at least until Trent Ikithon has fucked off this mortal coil and/or been thoroughly deposed and humiliated.

As a reminder Caleb Widogast is a member of the Mighty Nein and a PC and therefore excluded from these calculations. Wizards who haven’t been seen or heard from lately and about whom I don’t have anything funny to say about will not get a full blurb, but as they re-enter the main narrative so will they re-enter the list. Currently, this is the Essek Thelyss Show ft. Trent and the Volstruckers with guest appearances by Yussa and Allura.

Currently sidelined: Oremid Hass, Known Gem Wizard Hotsauce Lutefisk (I am going to reuse this stupid joke name for him until it doesn’t make me laugh at my own joke anymore, which will probably be never), Pumat Sol (who I hope is having a great day), Ludinus Da’leth (who I hope is not but in true laissez-faire rat bastard form, probably is).

Vess D wasn’t there/morning time in Eiselcross or at her job or anywhere/they snuck in and took her life/and we noticed that her spellbook’s gone and that she’s covered in red eyes.

Trent Ikithon: Okay with the caveat that it’s been a very long time since I saw the entire movie and our only update is Artagan taking a moment from his busy schedule of traveling the globe in the direction of the sun such that he is always technically day-drinking to tell Jester that Trent’s biding his time, I’m getting real Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame Frollo vibes. Except instead of Catholicism and lust, it’s nationalism and an unquenchable thirst for power and control, and also he does not feel guilty in the slightest. He’s not at Hellfire levels yet but he will get there and I am slightly disappointed that due to the constraints of a D&D game we do not get an even more fucked up version of the song Hellfire.

Conclusion: 6/10. Slowly stepping it up. Also here’s the great thing: while we know Caleb is going to come after him next, he doesn’t, and the Nein didn’t tell any world governments about the threat of the city unless you count the Tal’Dorei Council via Allura, which means for all intents and purposes they just disappeared into Eiselcross...except Trent also knows Caleb disappeared for five or six years once before and reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. If Caleb weren’t dedicated to the noble goal of ending the Volstrucker program ASAP, he could just chill for a year or so and then pull a really stellar Surprise Bitch move and maybe just get Trent’s heart to explode.

Essek Thelyss: He got a good night’s trance and weird physical affection from a giant ape Caleb and he was healed by Caduceus and he had a serious conversation with the first true peer and one of the first friends he’s ever known about how high-level wizardry may not necessarily corrupt absolutely. And, of course, soup. I mean they are about to head into a terrible battle but he’s at full health and spells and he’s a valued member of the team and his friends love him SO MUCH.

Conclusion: 5/10. There is a distinction between a breakdown and being in a very high pressure situation, and he got some nice moments of respite this week. With that said do I think that post-battle, should he survive (HE BETTER) a whole lot of anxiety will come crashing back? Yeah.

Astrid Beck: With Trent in a holding pattern he’s got to be turning up the mind games on her; I have to imagine he suspects and then she suspects that he suspects and it’s a whole mess, but I’ve said that already. But also just like, in general, I think her speech to Caleb back when he first contacted her was genuine in many ways and specifically I think she was likely to have been Trent’s New Golden Child and then suddenly that got yanked out from under her for still more mind games; I think her difference in demeanor between that meeting and the dinner was partially Trent being present, but partially her having realized in the interim that she will likely never have anything to show for two decades of pain and doing terrible things and nonstop bullshit.

Conclusion: still keeping her at 8/10 until further notice but like. Astrid’s having a bad time.

Um actually Eadwulf is the monster? The hero’s name is Grendel: Okay meanwhile here’s my totally unsupported Eadwulf headcanon of this week which is that he meanwhile always knew he was not the favorite and probably never would be and while I doubt he ever had particularly noble goals I would not be surprised if he had an exit strategy. Personally I hope he tries card-counting in that casino in Ank’harel and gets kicked out posthaste and then tries being a wizard/some kind of divine caster multiclass in Vasselheim and also gets kicked out but finally becomes like an old-school hermit figure somewhere in the woods of Issylra and Campaign 3′s party runs into him.

Conclusion: also keeping him at 4/10 until further notice.

Allura Vyesoren: It’s time to acknowledge that this episode covered a span of like...8 hours? And presuming the Nein are sort of trying to keep a normal sleep schedule, maybe, and using a comparison of Eiselcross being at a comparable time zone to say, Nicodranas, and it’s 5 hours into the night for them, and we know that around mid-day for Nicodranas was early morning for Emon...honestly she’s probably relaxing with a glass of wine. Unless Wensforth contacted her.

Conclusion: I’m going to let Allura have a good day. She’s at 2/10 because the threat of Aeor will be in the back of her mind but also she’s seen a bunch of idiots kill dragons and Vecna and they didn’t even have a wizard.

Yussa Errenis: Experiencing a great disturbance in the Astral Sea, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and then just like, kept doing that.

Conclusion: I decided to really go all out last week on the infinity jokes and left myself nothing to go on, huh. Anyway this breakdown goes to 11 (out of 10).

#me looking at the pitiful handful of non-STEM courses I took in college: is this a potential source of referential internet jokes? #critical role #critical role spoilers #wizard breakdown tracker #your musical references were no body no crime by Taylor Swift ft. Haim and obviously Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame #which is a weird pairing tbh

[lilithsgayadoptednephew]

Holy Hands

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!   Not Rated Graphic Depictions Of Violence F/M, Other Complete Work

Chapter List

Chapter 20

Lucifer was on Earth, all of them were, they had to be. Michael had searched the entire Devildom for every last imp and he still hadn't found them. Unless they had decided to live on the moon they had to be on Earth. The only issue with that was he was strictly forbidden to interfere with human affairs directly. Since the brothers had to be human to be on Earth, they counted as "human affairs".

This did not, however, stop him from paying a visit to the quaint planet. Just to spy on the poor fugitives.

He was lucky to have spotted two of the seven brothers among the indistinguishable sea of humans. Lucifer's closest brother in power Mammon, and his weird anger spawn Satan. They walked the streets of the insignificant town with the human Lucifer was so fond of but Michael had already forgotten the name of.

Watching them from a safe distance, angel form carefully hidden, Michael couldn't help but wonder why this human? Why in the trillions of humans throughout history had this one caught the eye of Lucifer? What was so special about them?

0It hadn't taken long for Satan to catch the worst case of cabin fever. He practically begged MC to recommend someplace nearby where he could read or think or go. Just somewhere that wasn't in ridiculously close quarters with his brothers. MC in turn offered to show him around the town, excitement evident in their offer at the prospect of introducing their friend to their home. As long as he didn't try to throw hands with a six year old or something.

Mammon demanded to go as well. He needed to get out and talk to people if he wanted to scam them out of their savings. That's the excuse he used anyways, the added bonus for him being he could shaparone and make sure Satan didn't try any funny business with MC.

So that's how the trio became the most obnoxious window shoppers the world had ever seen.

Mammon was caught several times trying to swindle the local elderly population by selling them 'de-aging potion'.

"Look, it'll make you young again. See me? Betcha can't tell I'm a couple million years old right? I don't look a day over 20 and neither will you!"

It was water in a mason jar.

Satan was... picking fights. Well more like he took every small remark or slight as a direct insult. No Satan the small child who just said you're mean and your name is evil was not deliberately throwing your honor into question. Chill out.

"Satan what's the one rule I made for this trip?"

"...no throwing hands with a six year old–"

" No Throwing Hands With A Six Year Old, I can't believe I have to write this down for you."

Satan didn't know why he was so touchy, maybe he was a bit high strung because of That Feeling. All day he'd felt on edge, as if something was very wrong.

As if they were being followed.

Michael watched the brothers happily go about their traitorous business in mild interest.

Despite the various ills, the day went well. MC did some shopping to replace what Beel had eaten. Mammon managed to make a few pity-dollars. And Satan seduced the librarian into giving him a library card even though he didn't have any form of identification. They were in high spirits as they made their way home.

##TW violence/catcalling##

"Woah! Heeeey bitch you want somma this?!"

The shout went unheard by MC out of habit, but it stopped the boys in their tracks.

The watchful angel hummed to himself. This was a strange behavior he hadn't witnessed in humans yet.

"Look over here baaaaby!" The boy was maybe college age, and he called to MC from the other side of the street. A large group of friends snickered and goaded him on.

"Are you sure you want to die today?" Satan asked as if enquiring about the weather. MC seemed to catch wind of a danger the brothers didn't.

"Satan come on, they're not worth the energy." They placated. Satan started to back down.

"Oooh tough guy huh?" The catcaller continued to taunt. "Whatcha gonna do pretty boy?"

"You have 3 seconds left to live." Satan stated too calmly as he started advancing across the street, Mammon flanking him immediately.

Michael quirked an eyebrow at the brothers actions, both so quick to defend a humans honor. Meanwhile the human just continued to dissuade them.

The mindless oaf who'd taunted the former demon brothers into the fight reeked with sin. Michael picked out lust and greed as the strongest. All of it stemming from pride of course.

Interesting, he settled down to watch.

MC waited silently for the other shoe to drop. The boys were picking a fight without realizing they weren't demons anymore. Without realizing they were very outnumbered.

MC wanted to summon Lilith's bow, but they didn't know if it could be used on humans without killing them. An angelic weapon probably wasn't made to be merciful to something as weak as a human.

Satan felt the familiar feeling of blood pounding in his ears. His skin was on fire as the coil of anger in his chest wound tighter.

"Oh you wanna throw down? Right now tough guy come on!" The punk yelled, his friends preparing to back him up. The coil wound a little tighter and Satan couldn't wait for the snap.

He reached his target, and was immediately on the ground. He didn't register how he'd gotten there until he felt the throbbing pain on the back of his head. He got back to his feet and saw red. Swinging hard at the nearest enemy he went down fast again. This time he couldn't stand back up.

Every time he managed to get to his knees he was knocked down by someone else. There were so many he couldn't possibly compensate. Instead of snapping, the coil in his chest just kept winding tighter and tighter the angrier he got.

He had no magic or strength to call upon to demolish the assailants. all he had were his own two hands and they weren't enough to stop the coiling. They weren't enough to express the wound up ball of pure fury within him.

Something had to give. And Satan realized with a start that he couldn't force them to bow. He'd completely lost track of Mammon and he laid on the ground being kicked now. The coiling still there with nothing to break it.

##end of TW##

MC watched the boys immediately fail and decided, to hell with mercy. Summoning the weapon from their ear they prayed for something non-lethal.

A wicked golden taser appeared in their hand.

Rushing the huddle of punks MC reached the closest one and jammed the taser into his back. He convulsed violently for several seconds before falling to the sidewalk. The others backed off and stared at MC.

"What the fuck!!?"

"You got a tazer?!"

"They got weapons now..."

They dispersed after similar calls and MC helped the boys to their feet.

0Michael stared in disbelief as the human manipulated the Celestial weapon. Where had they gotten one? And how had they gained it's loyalty enough for it to shift on command? There were archangel elites who hadn't mastered their weapons with such precision.

On top of that they had intimidated those insects into submission with hardly a show of force. The angel narrowed his eyes at the somber expression the human wore as they helped Lucifer's brothers up. Their hair curled slightly on their brow, their eyelids shaded their eyes with a quiet respect as they helped Mammon to his feet. Saying nothing as to not aggravate his injured pride.

Lucifer picked a very interesting human indeed.

Suddenly their eyes met his, a gaze so sudden his stomach flipped up into his throat. Had they seen him? Ducking behind a building he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. His heart was pounding in his chest. He wasn't afraid, he was excited.

0That's funny, MC could've sworn there was something on the other end of the street. But it glided away as soon as they'd looked.

Creepy.

0Luckily they weren't too injured to get home. When they walked in the door they were greeted with the sight of Asmo doing Levi's nails and decided not to question it. MC called Acacia from the backyard and had her help clean up the two idiots. She wasn't very pleased but got the first aid kit to help Mammon.

Mammon cringed hard as Acacia rapped his sprained wrist. He couldn't believe they'd sucked so hard in that fight, being human was the worst.

"Too tight?" Acacia's question pulled him out of his self-deprecation for the moment.

"Nah I'm fine, stupid human bones snap so easily." He grumbled. He felt his face heat up at the smirk and eye roll Acacia threw his way. He still felt pretty crumby for losing to a bunch of humans, but it was hard to dwell on it when there was a pretty girl tenderly bandaging his wounds.

Satan was beet red as MC held the ice pack to the swollen lump on his head. He was still angry and there was nowhere to put it. As one of the most powerful demons in the Devildom, it was easy to blow off steam. No one dared to cross him and he could easily flatten those who did. As a human he didn't have those options, the playing field was level.

He was powerless to release his frustration and that just made him even more angry. It was an unbreakable cycle.

"We gotta go back and kick their asses." He said bitterly to the ground. MC laughed out loud one barked laugh and shook their head.

"I think your failure here is enough friend."

"I'm serious, I can't just let this stand. I'll bring the others and I'll bring weapons, I'll make them pay. " He growled.

"Satan let it go, we lost." It wasn't MC who answered, but Mammon.

"Give up? Mammon I can't just–" Satan clutched at the air with his hands as he wrestled with his words. He knew he was talking nonsense, but he couldn't just accept he'd never get his vengeance.

"Hey" Mammon crossed the room and spoke at Satan's level. "I get you're mad but you can't win em' all."

"You don't get it! I'm not just mad I'm going to commit a war crime"

"Satan I do get it"

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" The younger brother jumped to his feet, his anger forcing his voice to a scream. Anything to alleviate the coiling just a little.

"Look at me man." Mammon grabbed his brother by the shoulders and stared him down. Satan heaved panted breaths as he tried to compose himself. "How often do I screw up?"

"What does that have to do–"

"Just answer me dickweed. How often do I screw up?" He repeated firmly.

"...more than a standard drill bit" Satan smirked.

"Yeah whatever," Mammon rolled his eyes. "And how often do I get shit about it from you guys?"

"Every day since I met you?"

"Exactly!" He shook Satan's shoulders. "I do get it. You feel like you're a rubber band! And every failure and humiliation pulls you tighter and tighter but you never get to snap. Cause there's nowhere for it to go."

Satan blinked in surprise.

"You can't 'cause every time you try to release it you fail and that just makes you more embarrassed which makes you angrier which makes the rubber band. Stretch. Tighter." He punctuated his last words by violently shaking Satan.

"Knock it off!" Satan slapped Mammon's hands away. He had a really good point though. He wasn't exact on everything but a lot of what he said was like he'd climbed into Satan's head and stole his inner monologue.

"We're human now, you gotta get another outlet for this…" Mammon waved his hands in a vague motion. "This energy. Cause you can't expect to win every time anymore. We lost that luxury."

The room went quiet after that.

#obey me! #obey me fanfic #Holy Hands

[nehedar]

A synchromystic birth story

In 1986 I was a 5 year old living in North Miami Beach, and going to kindergarten. I dreamt that my mom was late picking me up from school and I was left alone on the playground. Noticing some movement in the tall grass at the edge of the playground, I saw a lion weaving in and out and decided to explore that area. (brave, right?)

I wandered in the grass, and soon began to hear two women screaming for help. I followed the voices until I got to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a fountain, like a large cement birdbath, the screaming was coming from the fountain. As I approached I saw with horror that inside the fountain was my teacher’s head and my mom’s head, each cut in half and sewn back together. They both looked at me and screamed at me to separate them. I felt such pity and horror but I knew that if I were to separate them, they’d both die.

I woke up crying and upset, naturally and went into my parents room, at which time my dad told me that I could learn how to control my dreams. He gave me the instructions to “find my hands.” He gave me a rudimentary lesson in lucid dreaming that I would develop throughout my life, first lucidly dreaming around 7 and developing from there.  It’s a work in progress.

In the meantime, I pondered the meaning of the dream, always mystified by the lion and fountain which seem like such strong, symbolic images for a five year old’s mind to construct a story out of. I loosely translated it as being torn between my mother and the outside world, represented by Mrs Cohen, my schoolteacher.

In October 2001 I was 20. I was living in a dorm room at Stern College in NYC and my mom had also moved back from Zion, Illinois to her native NYC as well. Only my youngest sister was living with her at the time.

My mom and sister weren’t getting along. My sister who was 12 at the time called me frequently and told me the problems they were having that mostly stemmed from my mom’s inability to find a job and sleeping all the time. My sister had little confidence in my mom’s abilities to care for her.

I had found them a therapist and was doing all I could, assuming it was normal relationship, emotional, and economic problems, until one night while my sister was complaining, I heard my mom in the background clearly slurring with an odd tone in her voice.

I told my sister to put her on the phone and when I heard her voice, I immediately got a very strong feeling that my mom had a brain tumor and was going to die.  I know that sounds made up, but it’s true. I remember that moment clear as day. I was in my dorm room at the time, smoking a cigarette out the window. I sat down and took a breath, realizing that the next step was getting her to the hospital.

The next day I had been excited because Maya Angelou was speaking at my school, but I skipped the event and headed to Brooklyn, to my mom’s apartment while my sister was at school.

When I got there, the door was open, and there were papers on the floor. I walked in and sat on the futon and fended off the cat’s attacks while I stayed, nervously wondering where my mom was.

She stumbled in the door soon after with one shoe on her foot. We called a car service and went to the emergency room. She had no insurance at the time but would be set up with Medicaid.

She was very dazed in the hospital. The clearest memory I have is of her reading French signs and slipping into French.

By the time she was seen, they didn’t want to keep her. Maybe they thought she was on drugs, or just mentally ill, but my friend was able to convince them to keep her. They left her in what I can only call a “cell” with no furniture, where they left her sleeping on the floor.

I was left with the assumption that my mom was having some kind of serious mental breakdown for a day or two but one day at work I got a message to call a doctor at the hospital. 

Someone had ordered a CT scan which found a large tumor in her brain that needed immediate surgery. The extraction biopsy would tell us the nature of the cancer. 

It was Chanukah when I came to visit my mom in the hospital post-op. When I first saw her, I gasped a little bit because the dramatic scar on her shaved head looked so familiar, the way the stitching had appeared years ago in the dream. 

They broke the news to me that she had an aggressive stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme, that would surely kill her soon. It could be as early as a couple months away. 

My mom didn’t want to die, she wanted to be a guinea pig for natural medicinal approaches to curing cancer. So my grandmother (who was also dying with non hodgkins lymphoma) gave me $10,000 to spend on these experimental efforts. 

I was doing what my mom wanted, but I still regret not just getting her high at that time. That was her favorite thing to do. Of course nothing we did worked. The best time to start something like that is before the surgery, and we would have needed vast sums of money to have the ability to take her somewhere that could care for her.

One day while my mom was in the hospital, I had a dream where the chime of an email arriving sounded from the basement of the house where I was living.

I went down to the basement and found there was a rainbow gathering in there.  I figured that my life was so stressful, I had created something to give me a sense of peace and calm in my dream.

But when I woke up from the dream I figured, might as well check my email.

In my inbox there was an invitation to a rainbow gathering in Emilia, Italy, which happens to be my name.  I felt a little shaken up by such an intense invitation (It made sense that I’d be on a rainbow gathering email list, but don’t remember getting any other invitations other than that one).  

I went  to the rainbow gathering, which made my mother really proud. I had taken her to her first rainbow gathering the previous summer and she had the best time of her life. She actually considered that her brain tumor had been caused by the shocking difference between the depression she’d lived with in her home life, back in Zion, Illinois, and the bliss she felt at the rainbow gathering.

She hung on through the summer but not much longer.  On June 20th, I was approached about signing a DNR by the hospital. June 20th was my 21st birthday and it just so happened that was the exact age I had to be in order to legally sign it.  Me and the social worker shared an otherworldly chuckle about that. 

She died on September 8th 2002, more importantly on the second day of Rosh Hashana.

I muddled through life for a while after that, pretending to want to go to school, but really just enjoying the dorms’ midtown location so I could work on my music in the city. I had been an orthodox Jew since the age of 18 but chose to exclude any personal concern about the Jewish kol isha law from my practice after I began writing songs. The first song I recorded and the first video I made was called Mama and feature old home movies of my mother and her mother (who died 3 months prior to my mom’s death.)

A year or two after, I brought lice from a rainbow gathering to the dorms at Stern. I shaved my head to protect my roommates and classmates after trying unsuccessfully to manage it on my own. A rumor started that I did it to protest agunot. I didn’t discourage the rumor. That year when it was time for high holiday services, I was pressured to wear a wig, borrowed from a married neighbor, so I wouldn’t bother the congregation. I felt a clear message that my mom, whose yarzeit it was didn’t want me to put up with this crap. I haven’t really been open to shul since.

I got married in 2012 and was pregnant the next year, at which time I began to experience a lot of grief about my mother not being present for my pregnancy.

My mother had 6 kids, the last 2 at home, and always said she loved being pregnant and giving birth. I on the other hand, hated being pregnant, being poked and prodded and just wished I could talk to my mom about it.

I wrote a song about it called “Come in to the Light” which was a call for my mother’s presence to surface and watch and guide me through the pregnancy.

I enlisted a video artist to make a video to accompany the song and I talked to her about my dream imagery. She asked me for a photo of my mother, and she surprised me by flashing my mother’s bright smile at the end of it.

In the last trimester of my pregnancy I was looking for work and a friend put out a call for a temporary worker to help sign synagogue members up for high holiday tickets. The synagogue happened to be my mom’s favorite synagogue B’nai Jeshurun in the Upper West Side.  On the same block as the synagogue were 2 carvings on either side of an apartment building with actual fountains where the water came out of a lion’s mouth into fountain below.

I stared at this, utterly disbelieving what I was seeing. I wondered if I had ever visited NYC with my mom when I was very young, been to the synagogue with her and seen the lion and fountain which might have explained their presence in my dream. My dad told me that I had never been to New York with my mom.  I felt as if the present was affecting the past. I took this picture on my last day of work.

I left that job on my due date, but didn’t give birth until 10 days after that, which happened to be the anniversary (yartzeit) of my mother’s death. I had a hard time in labor, mostly due to the meanness, bullying and dehumanization of the mechanized, medicalized birth industry, and the particular hospital and practice that I gave birth at.

I didn’t want to use pain medicine, as my mom hadn’t used it.  But the hospital wasn’t accustomed to non medicated women, let’s say. At one point, tired of the combative standoffs I was having with hospital staff, I asked for it.

When the anesthesiologist began her speech about what she was going to do, I felt no option but to politely as possible ask her to stop talking immediately. She left the room and didn’t come back. I was able to get through the transition phase of labor because at one point my husband whispered in my ear “Your mom would be so proud of you.” That triggered the image from the end of my video that the artist had snuck in, of my mom’s radiant face to pop into my mind and remain there fixed, as a focal point. 

UPDATE: In 2020, (my son is almost 6 years old) I learned my doula has the same birthday as my mom (8/28). That same doula, super “randomly” had worked in the same position as me at the synagogue the year before.

https://youtu.be/WN_ITpDmJKE?t=263

#synchromysticism #birth #story #bir #syncronicity