stardust in my eyes

It went well! At least 100 people attended, families dogs a solid portion of Glasgow's trans community. There was a really lovely atmosphere, nice weather and a very cheerful celebratory vibe.

Arrived early to find the crowd already gathering, so the kick got off to a prompt start. Following some introductions from everybody and some cheery folk music from our flautist (my wife!) we got on with the kick.

I think we got good contact, the top of my boot making a good solid noise on impact. Very good atmosphere all round, people stayed to chat for a while. Were it not January it would have been an excellent opportunity for a picnic.

7am: the pressure is getting to me; I wake up and drink half a bottle of diet iron bru from my bedside table; roll out of bed, and psych myself up in the mirror - "you can do this my little pogchamp" I say to myself over and over until I decend into a stupor.

8am: I play an hour of Okami on steam to replenish my chi levels

9am: I look at my balls for a while

10am: I spend 20 or so minutes trying to decide what to wear before realising it's the subartic in midwinter and I'm going to have to dress for -2C° regardless of what I choose and opt of my trusty black Schott thermal padded winter flight jacket and a pair of loose, warm Uniqlo trousers to give my testicles room to breathe.

11am: crashing out, texting my friends to arange a substitute kickee, an understudy, anybody so I can just become one with the crowd and not go through with it

12am: the homies have arrived, I'm drinking redbush tea in a small cafe by the park; god is in his heaven and all is right with the world

12.15: "you must be here to watch me get kicked in the balls?"

12.40: a circle emerges, from within the circle a palpable energy focuses like a lens down unto me and I feel like I'm gonna pee my pants a little

12.50: cheers begin, several complete families with dogs arrive - more friends appear and assort themselves into a gathering of 'real heads' ready to watch my groin be dessicated by the firm lace of a women for woman woman with a foot loosed through the gates of war as Augustus saw fit the dispatch and return of his troops from far corners through the blessings of Janus.

12.55: I think I left the stove on

1pm: Short introductions are made, grace is shown, beautiful flute music accompanies the gathering

The iconic opening paragraph, “Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair… (et cetera).”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!”

“I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT… BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!”

“Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.”

“And Loopin was masticating to it!”

As great as those are, I’d like to throw a spotlight on what I think are some of the underappreciated parts of this classic work of fanfiction.

Ebony puts blood on her Count Chocula cereal instead of milk.

Enoby is canonically a weeaboo and speaks to her friends in Fangirl Japanese.

Harry’s scar is now a pentagram instead of a lightning bolt, so either he found some sort of spell to alter the appearance of the scar or he actually took the time to carve a pentagram into his forehead.

There is an OC named either Tom Riddle or Tom Rid who works at a “punkgoff” store in Hogsmeade and has absolutely nothing to do with Voldemort, he just happens to have the exact same name.

Tara somehow got Fred and George mixed up with Crabbe and Goyle.

The reason Snape doesn’t like Harry in this fic is because Snape is Christian and Harry is a Satanist.

Marty McFly literally appears out of nowhere to help Enoby travel through “tim” with his “tim machine.”

Chapter 11 ends with Hagrid singing along to “a gothic version of a song by 50 Cent.”

Voldemort inexplicably speaks in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.

Voldemort wears high heels.

Draco has a flying black Mercedes-Benz and a black MCR broom.

Snape has a Dork Mark on his penis.

Speaking of penises, Draco is apparently “hung like a stallone.” I guess Tara is a Rambo fan?

The Hedwig/Voldemort sex scene, wherein Hedwig is a male human instead of a female owl, for some reason.

Dumbledore flies around on his broomstick while holding a loaf of rye bread. At least, that’s what I think Tara meant by “Sudenly a gothic old man flu in on his broomstick. He had lung black hair and a looong black bread.”

Oh yeah, and Dumbledore is an Avril Lavigne fanboy, because of course he is.

James Potter’s “goff” nickname is Samoro, because Tara erroneously believes this to be the masculine form of the name Samara.

Draco’s singing voice is described as “a cross between Gerard, Joel, Chester, Pierre and Marilyn Manson.”

Tara’s brief feud with her editor Raven, as chronicled in the author’s notes, may or may not have had something to do with Raven borrowing Tara’s sweater and not giving it back. IDK, it’s unclear.

Voldemort smokes a “gothic blak Nightmare b4 Christmas cigar.”

McGonagall has the best insults, like “horny simpletons” and “mediocre dunces” and probably some others I’m forgetting.

Dobby only appears once in the entire fic and literally all he does is watch Snape and Lupin have sex, and then run away crying.

Sirius is referred to as Harry’s dogfather, and not gonna lie, even if it was a typo I think that is a genuinely clever pun.

The Hogwarts janitor may or may not be Chuck Norris.

Tara accurately predicted how Harry would defeat Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. No, really. “nd den hairy wil have 2 kommit suicide so voldimort will die koz he will rilly be a horcrox!!!!!111”

This line: “Snap stated loafing meanly. He took out a kamera anvilly.”

And this one: “‘Crosio!’ I shited pointing my wound. Snoop scremed and started running around da room screming.”

“Azerbaijan”

“Hoes of Wax”

“Tom Bombodil”

“Cornelio Fuck”

“Professor Slutborn”

“Preacher McGongol”

“Lumpkin”

“TaEbory”

“The Bark Lord”

See, part of the conceit of the PotC trilogy is that all myths are true. Nearly every supernatural element in the franchise has a root in some real world mythology or pirate lore, although some of them are mashed together.

Another thing is that they take place at the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, and the more the map gets filled in, and the more the Royal Navy takes power, there less room there is for the mystical and supernatural in the world. This is explicitly called out in At World's End with the death of the kraken:

Barbossa: The world used to be a bigger place. Jack: The world's still the same. There's just... less in it.

The only way to access the world of the supernatural is through the supernatural itself. You can only get to the Isla de Muerta with Jack's compass that points to whatever you desire, or if you already know where its is. You need Tia Dalma's map to find the edge of the world. To access the supernatural, you need to already be immersed in it.

yizhi seeing this man and going "fuck everything i've heard about him i'm going to climb him like a tree"

zetian paraphrasing my immortal "i'm bi and so is ebony" @ yizhi's behavior and going well, he lost his mind over a hot murderguy, that checks out, this is perfectly normal bisexual behavior