fandomhigh | Dealing With Other People's Trauma, Tuesday 9/2, 3rd period

Dealing With Other People's Trauma, Tuesday 9/2, 3rd period

Stark was standing at the front of the room looking serious. Serious except for the rather absurd hat that he’d woken up wearing and had been unable to rid himself of thus far.

“Welcome,” he said once everyone had arrived. “I know some of you. Not all. I’m Stark. Just Stark, though some people decided to call me James.” It was easier just to go along with that, honestly.

“I don’t usually wear this hat. It just…appeared this morning. The island does things like this, sometimes. You’ll get used to this eventually if you haven’t already done so.” Probably, anyway.

“So. We’ll do introductions in a moment. Always good to start with those especially when there are new people on the island.” He nodded to the new faces.

“But first, a small introduction to what we'll be doing here. Or what I hope we'll be doing here, in this class. The idea of it,” he said, looking around, “is to recognize that we've all had different experiences. Not all of them positive. And that can cause problems.”

Oh, the understatement of it all.

“So we're going to try to not make things worse for other people. We'll try to be kind, when we can. We'll try to learn how to be gentle with others when they need it in certain situations and at certain times.”

Stark paused then and looked around. “I don't know anyone who hasn't been hurt, hasn't been traumatized in some way. It's good to remember that. Now, having said that…i suppose the rest of you ought to introduce yourselves?”

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"They answer to...I think they're called Lords of the Chambers? Or something?" Again, Fae didn't come up that often, so Arden's grasp of their politics were shaky at best. "My best guess is that they knew that with the rest of the Otherside agreeing to the Détente, there was no way they could ignore it, not without having every elf, djinn, vampire, and were after them."

The witches probably wouldn't do much, because they tended to be pretty chill, overall.

...Except for the necromancers. But, uh. Not bringing that up.

Elf was just a slightly derogatory word for fae, so that part was confusing, Arden, but he forgot about that one word later, because, "Someone got the djinn to agree to something? I--wow. I guess that would do it." Maybe. No one really knew how the djinn's power stacked up against the fae, and the impression Erasmus got was that no one, including the fae, wanted to find out. "From what I know of the djinn I can't imagine it, though." Them agreeing to anything, that was. Also because, "No one's seen one in centuries, I think."

Oh nooooo. Elves were very different from the fae. Entirely different species and neither one would appreciate getting lumped in with the other.

"Really?" Arden asked. "That's so weird. There are way more djinn around than fae where I'm from. I mean, they can travel to different planes if they wanted to, so I guess they don't have to follow the Détente if they didn't want to, but that would mean conceding Earth to the elves and they'd rather dance in a meteor shower than do that."

A pause and then she asked, you know, super casually, "What other types of Othersiders do you have? Witches? Weres? Vampires? Demons? Elementals...?"

Okay, well, 'there are way more djinn around than fae where I'm from' was absolutely terrifying, Arden, Erasmus hoped you knew that. "How--how many djinn? There aren't--I don't think anybody knows how many were made, but...not that many, I think?" Twenty-seven. There were twenty-seven djinn total in his world.

"Oh," he said in response to her question. "Gaia. Let me think. Of course we have witches--and warlocks," who were way better than witches, or at least his Pops was. But also they hadn't created the djinn, so they had that going for them as a species. "And werewolves and vampires. All kinds of shifters, really. Pixies, like I said." And one frost pixie-Pallas cat shifter hybrid, but he didn't know about that bit of madness yet. "Ogres, trolls, fauns, sirens, dwarves..." He trailed off, then added, "And necromancers, like me."

Edited 2025-09-03 15:44 (UTC)

Just wait until you found out that Arden's mom was a djinni! And that she had two more on speed dial, even if she wasn't really talking to them right now.

But no Elementals, at least not that he'd listed off. "Warlocks?" she asked. "I mean, I know sorcerers are evil witches that have started harvesting life energy from living beings, and that if witches make a pact with a djinni for soul magic become lich lords and can raise zombies or whatever..." She glanced at him quickly and then away. Look, whatever reason he'd had to make a djinn pact was his business, not hers. ""Pixies, ogres, trolls, and all those other things you mentioned, along with minor demonkin like incubi and succubi, are all just considered fae in my world." She shrugged. "Elves, djinn, and vampires are the major power players. Weres are up there because they're the most numerous, and then everybody else is just..." She shrugged. "Trying to get by, I guess."

"Warlocks are--no. No, no, no. So, okay, witches are female," Erasmus began patiently, "and warlocks are male. And they have some differences in their magic and all, and warlocks get a bad rap, but that's because of a few bad actors, really." A few really bad actors, granted. And listen, witches had created the djinn. They just had figured out PR since then. "And priestesses raise zombies. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the djinn. In fact, no one with any sense has anything to do with the djinn if they can help it, because they always figure out a way to kill their master eventually. For priestesses it's part of their religious training or whatever." He deliberately did not know all that much about that because he didn't want anyone to think he was nosing around their respectable, professional version of magicking the dead and get mad at him.

"And pixies, brownies, ogres, all of those, those are all different species. Not kinds of fae."

He still hadn't explained where the heck necromancers came into this.

Edited 2025-09-03 16:26 (UTC)

"All of that is totally weird and entirely not how it works in my world," Arden said, shaking her head in amazement. "Well, okay, the djinn killing their masters is pretty accurate, but even that's not always true. Duke sometimes gives people his real name just to see what they'll do. He's got time, after all. But, where I'm from, 'witch' is gender neutral. Witches are--probably human? I don't think anybody's entirely sure if they're humans but with powers, or something slightly different. Witch magic is hereditary, and as long as two witches have children their child will also be a witch. But, genetics aside, witches draw on the energy of life around them to, like, influence the world or whatever. Usually in small ways, I think, but that's maybe just because the witches that follow the Way take their energies just from plants? I don't know what the limits are..."

"Okay, that sounds totally weird to me," Erasmus told her. "I mean, if a witch and a warlock have a kid together, that kid will always be a witch or a warlock, depending on sex, but, um, they don't--they don't really interact any more." Because of the djinn! "But if they have a kid with a human, the kid will also be a witch or a warlock. Usually." He sort of hunched his shoulders for some reason.

"And their magic isn't the, um, drawing on energy thing. I don't really know how witch magic works but it's more, like, creating? Growing? And warlock magic is...my Pops explained it to me once as weaving. Like they can weave the threads of magic in the universe together in certain ways, or tear them apart."

"That doesn't sound like any of the magic people have back home," she said. "Vampires have glamour, fae have different types of wild magic, elves and djinn split Aether, witches have life magic..."

Elementals had power over the elements...but Arden wasn't ready to talk about that yet.

"So, you're a warlock?" she said instead. "Because your dad is?"

Oh, Arden.

"No, I'm a necromancer," Erasmus said patiently, and not like he was happy about it. "Because my father is. Sort of. Sometimes when a warlock and a human have a son together, they get...someone like me, instead of a warlock son. No one really knows why."

"...Isn't necromancy just a type of magic?" Arden asked. "Like..." She stopped, frowning, and tried to parse that all out. "So...being a necromancer isn't that you weave the threads of magic together and affect dead people, it's a completely different thing, like how warlock weaving magic and witch growing magic are different?"

So. Fucking. Weird. All of this was just so fucking weird.

Good thing she hadn't tried to say that last bit out loud.

"Right. We're all different. Necromancers are...I can't really talk for necromancers, actually. No one knows that much about us, and I don't know any others. Someone--" several people "--told me there's one on this island, but I haven't met her--" Her! "--yet. But from what I do know I think the only thing we all have in common is that our powers have to do with the dead." That and the paltry human lifespan.

"Oh, Professor Vess," Arden said with a nod. Just wait till he found out she was also immortal. Erasmus had clearly gotten the fuzzy end of the necromantic lollipop. "Yeah, being a necromancer is her whole, like, thing."

Arden guessed. She really didn't spend a lot of time with Professor Vess, what with the kinda creeped out by her. But not because of the necromancy exactly more just her whole...vibe.

You know, it was probably for the best that she wasn't saying any of that out loud.

"Uh, she lives out in this giant, creepy mansion in the woods with her fiance. And works in her weird magic shop on Mondays." Which Arden knew about by virtue of her radio shift.

"That's her house?" Erasmus asked, startled. "I mean--I went for a walk on Sunday and I saw it." He did not mention why he'd been out there. He didn't want to seem creepy. "That's...nice." It might also explain a lot about why she got to have this nice life with a house and a job and a fiance, if she had even less ability to sense the dead than Erasmus and the graveyard that was obviously around there somewhere didn't bother her.

...what?

Somewhere, Liliana was feeling incredibly insulted right now.

"Yeah, but it's way different inside!" Arden hastened to explain, because clearly that was what Erasmus's concern stemmed from, right? How it looked like it should possibly be condemned? "Inside, it's all expensive and decorated and clean and stuff. I think she likes the outside to look like something out of a horror movie to, like, either keep strangers away or because she thinks it's funny."

"Oh," Erasmus said, trying not to sound wistful. "That sounds nice..."

Probably it was to keep strangers away. Most necromancers didn't have a father around to ward their houses like Erasmus did, and, well. Vandalism was a problem.

Again, Liliana was feeling insulted. Vandals? Daring to attack her property?

"They throw parties pretty regularly," Arden offered. "Uh, I think the most recent one was in June? Celebrating their engagement. And they're open to the island, if you ever want to go. Same with the ones that Professor Stark and Captain Rogers throw."

"Oh, well," Erasmus said. Awkwardly. "I'm not gonna count my chickens before they're hatched, y'know?" Especially when it came to Professor Stark, since he was thinking of the other Professor Stark, you know, the one he'd mistaken for a serial killer.

Arden wasn't sure if it counted as counting chickens when the fliers literally went up around town, but she very much remembered being the awkward new kid who wasn't sure if she was actually invited to any of the adults' parties.

"Well, if you're ever unsure about something, text me? And I can try to help sort you out," she said. "I can put my info in your phone, if you'd like?"

"Really?" Erasmus asked, and pulled out his phone to hand it to her. "That would be great. Hey, if you're ever in the third floor common room, me and Riri--she's one of the other new students--we started this whiteboard thing, trying to make sense of all the, uh, weird stuff around here." Good luck with that, guys. "And you probably know a lot more weird stuff than we do. I mean, because you've been here longer." Not because your world sounded super weird, although maybe also that.

He had forgotten that he'd had the option to not live in the dorms, yes.

Arden snagged his phone and started to enter in her information, including her address. "Oh, I don't live in the dorms, I live in the boarding house on the other side of town," she said. "Midnight Manor. A...friend. Of mine. Set it up. Before I got here."

"Oh!" Erasmus exclaimed. "I...forgot that was an option." Because he had assumed none of this was going to come to fruition in the first place. "My bad."

"It's your first week in Fandom," Arden said with a sideways grin as she handed his phone back to him. "You could forget your name this week and everybody would understand. And I'm allowed in the dorms, but only with a short-term invite from a resident. So I could contribute to the whiteboard, but it'll probably be easier if I just text you stuff. Oh! Has anyone told you about radio yet?"

Yeah, Erasmus and Riri had talked about it in their conversation in the dorms, but the squirrels weren't that great at summaries.

Erasmus texted Arden, Hi, this is Erasmus, and nodded. "The squirrels, right? I asked Professor Atreides if they were enchanted, but she didn't know."

"They're drunks is what they are," Arden said. "Nosy drunks. Believe me, I do radio every Tuesday morning about stuff that happened on Monday, I know full well how nosy they are. And spiteful. Did lady Ghanima tell you how to avoid 'em, too?"

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