Practical Folklore, Monday 2nd period

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Welcome back, everybody," Jon began. "My apologies for last week. This week, I thought we could begin with something a bit more nebulous than the others: witches. I'm aware we have at least some people on the island who identify as witches, and there may be more I'm unaware of. Traditionally witches are women with some form of magical power; beyond that, there are a number of possibilities for narrowing it down."

He shrugged. "Honestly, in my version of Earth, witches were mostly women that knew a bit of science and didn't like being bossed around by the church, and therefor got painted in the worst possible light so as to make it easier to kill them with impunity. It's possible some had actual power, but given the rate of experiences with the Fears, I'm guessing the vast majority did not. Other worlds, of course, may have different ratios of actual power to innocents men hated.

"In folklore I'm aware of, witches are often depicted as old women, generally living alone, and run the gamut from helpful to horrendous. The one rule of thumb seems to be that you don't want to treat them poorly. Which can be generalized to 'don't be a bastard to old women', which seems like a decent rule anyway."

Said the man who pissed people off on the regular. In his defence, he often didn't mean to! "So, let's discuss witches. Are you one, do you know any, does your world have them or stories of them? What other applications can you think of other than to treat people well?"

Comments

Re: Class discussion

[napking]

Since Gray couldn't very well ask, 'Okay, do you know your friend can turn into a cloud of apparently very sexy smoke, or no?' he went with an apologetic, "I'm not sure I should say any more about my brother's sex life," even though the amount Bellamy would care was so small it could not be measured by modern science.

Did Arden have a crush on Grimm? Was that what was going on here? "It was completely no strings attached," he assured her. "Bell doesn't like to hook up with the same person more than once or twice anyway." Not because he was a fuckboi, but for safety reasons, but Gray didn't want to explain that right now.

Re: Class discussion

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Skipping that question was greatly appreciated, because then Arden would break the Detente herself by first groaning, then banging her head against the desk, and then using her callstone to call Grimm and shriek about not just breaking the Detente but choosing to do so at Arden's school.

Fortunately, Arden missed the conclusion that Gray had come to, which saved her from flailing. "Oh, god, no worries about that," she assured him. "Grimm's not looking for anything more than a hookup, either. Uh, I don't think she knows how to have any kind of relationship that doesn't include an agenda." And, okay, the trace of bitterness there probably wouldn't convince Gray that there wasn't some kind of crush situation happening there. "Mostly, I'm just making sure that anything Grimm did over the weekend doesn't end up blowing back on me."

She dropped her eyed and gave a diffident shrug. "Like, you're cool and you and your brothers seem tight, since they showed up for you--" Gray might not be Envy, but he could probably still hear the buried longing in Arden's voice about that "--and I just don't want any problems. You know?"

Re: Class discussion

[napking]

"Oh, there definitely won't be any problems," Gray assured her. "If things got awkward with the friends of everyone Bellamy ever slept with, none of us would have any friends left. And Raiden would be really sad because he couldn't be friends with Jane or hook up with Eric any more." That would be so sad. "We're cool."

Re: Class discussion

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

They were cool and it sounded like Grimm had had even one (1) ounce of discretion, so Arden didn't have to feign the relief in her smile. "Cool," she said. "Thanks."

Re: Class discussion

[napking]

Grimm had had zero (0) ounces of discretion, but Gray was blissfully unaware that was any kind of problem, so he just smiled back and told Arden, "Don't worry about it."