ghosthunters central

A home for all the minutea for my Hamilton ghosthunters AU. Inspiration, art, world-building, ficlets, etc. This is mostly a tool for me, but feel free to browse or follow if you'd like!

[team-shithead]

How does Theodosia join the gang? Does she join? (Also how long is the AMA open for as I know I’ll have more questions if I have time for a reread)

The AMA is open indefinitely, since I’m so slow at responding to asks!

This one I had to dig deep into my memory for, haha! I knew she definitely showed up eventually--she’s mentioned in some far-future stories--but I couldn’t remember the exact circumstances. Luckily, I had some notes and was able to piece it together!

This is another two-part-ish answer. There’s some more about the circumstances around this summer in the next response.

This bit’s not super plot-spoilery, tho, so no cut.

The second summer that the gang is in Morristown, one year after the events of everyone must breathe until their dying breath, Washington is tapped for a project over the summer break and encourages everyone else to go out and secure some projects or internships themselves, since there won’t be a ton of work coming through the lab. Burr uses the opportunity to take an internship in the city at an unnamed organization, but I think it had something to do with a parapsych journal, but one that gave equal weight to skeptics? Theo works in the same building and is engaged to one of the editors at the journal (or whatever, some higher up in whatever org Burr is at), but she lives in Mountain Lakes, so they ride the train together every day, to and from the office. (Her fiance works late and lives in the city, still.) Over the course of the summer they become friends--Burr feels like he can open up to her and sort of be himself because she has literally no strong feelings on parapsych, despite being engaged to some dude who’s real deep into it. 

Anyway, they get very close over the course of the summer and Burr falls fully in love. Theo is also catching feelings and they fool around a bit, but when she decides to end her engagement, she makes it clear to Burr that it’s not just because of him--there are a lot of things about her fiance that she found incompatible with her own dreams once she thought about it. She tells Burr she wants some time to just be with herself and that if he was still interested in six months, he should call her.

Burr, being a giant fucking nerd, literally circles the day on the calendar and, of course, calls her immediately once that day arrives.

Theo and Angelica, in particular, get on like a house on fire once they meet, and she and Eliza commiserate about being the only non-parapsych nerds in the friends group.

[team-shithead]

Hi! Last week you posted that you were going to be opening up the @team-shithead inbox for any questions people have about your ghosthunters series, so something I've been wondering about for a while is what caused John's dreams in the ficlets "july 12," "august 27," and "november 24" that you posted on tumblr a few years ago? No worries if this is too big of a spoiler, you don't have to answer it. :) Anyway, I really love your ghosthunters series, and I hope you have a great day!

H’OKAY. This gets into some major spoilers for not the next long story, but the one after that. Like, I’m basically going to outline the entire plot of it below the cut. If you’d like to not have that story totally spoiled in the event that I do actually write it, you might want to skip reading this post!

The next big story, the one that introduces Angelica and Eliza, I’m going to call Fall One. The one after that I will call Fall Two, just for the sake of making this post easier to follow.

So, building on the last two asks, we’ve established the following:

1. John is sensitive to parapsychic energy and thus has instinctual responses to hauntings which are very helpful in the field but have physical side-effects in his bad headaches.

2. Modern parapsych classification of hauntings is actually wrong--there is, in fact, a type of entity that can cross over from another dimension via tears in our own. These are very rare.

3. Not based on the last ask, but through some of the bonus materials I’ve posted on this blog, you’ve probably noticed that Eliza is a medium, which is a different type of parapsychic ability that allows one to communicate with spirits. She is not, however, working in parapsych--she’s a preschool teacher. But she occasionally uses her ability to assist Angelica in her work, and later, Alex and John and the gang.

In Fall Two, for irrelevant reasons, Alex and Angelica get into a big catty fight that’s loud enough that John and Eliza decide to leave the house and go get lunch in order to avoid it. They decide to walk a back way through the woods to cut up to the main road and discover, while wandering, an abandoned house. They both get a weird vibe from it, which is weird for Eliza, who doesn’t usually pick up on the energy of hauntings the way that John does (though he’s still, at this point, not consciously aware that he has this ability). John suggests they peek inside real quick to see if it’s worth further investigation and Eliza uneasily agrees, mostly because things with her and John are always just slightly awkward and she’s enjoying spending time with him and wants to maintain the camaraderie they have going on this afternoon.

Inside the house, things are immediately bad. The atmosphere is just heavy and wrong and the house is covered in mirrors. As soon as they decide to turn around and leave, they get trapped inside it. Eventually, they get through to someone (Burr, actually--Alex and Angelica are still arguing and Laf and Herc are at some previously established thing) and the gang breaks them out. They head to see Washington to tell him about what happened and start to do some research into the house. Eventually, they put together that the house is connected to the journals that they discovered in everyone must breathe until their dying breath (and figuring out away to make those journals relevant to that story so that I could plant them and have them available for THIS story was fucking wild), the ones about demons and a weird cult. 

Some more research leads them to discover the cult believed in demons/forces from other dimensions and discovered a way to bring them to ours via the use of mirrors. They botched the ritual to send the thing back, however, so now it’s trapped in this weird in between in the house, except that it’s now also tied itself to John and Eliza, who have these parapsychic abilities that make them more open to that kind of connection. 

The gang figures out how the ritual was botched the first time and returns to re-do it correctly. John and Eliza are tasked with a part of it that directly involves the mirrors, and when things go sideways, they’re trapped in a circle of mirrors with this thing (it is visible in a circle of mirrors). John tries to distract it in order to allow Eliza time to finish the ritual, but in the process, the creature tries to pull him into the mirror dimension with it. Eliza is able to save him, but not until after he’s been halfway pulled it.

SO. All of that happens. And part of the consequences of John being pulled into the mirror dimension is that his mind is basically an open channel to these dimensional disturbances. It’s helpful in their work, because he can use that sensitivity to find and deal with these tears in the dimension, but it also means that sometimes, especially in dreams, he picks up on strong emotional currents from other dimensions, especially those that involve him and his family. Like, for example, his death or the death of his husband or son.

And that is where John’s dreams come from, haha

I think all the rest of the questions I have to answer are more plot lite, but thanks for reading all this nonsense so far! If you have more questions, you can keep sending them!

[team-shithead]

i've been so curious for YEARS since i read the entire team shithead series: what the fuck was actually going on in the house from the air grows cold around me and you??? will they ever find out??

Sorry for the break there, folks! Life got much more complicated over my vacation than I expected it to be! I am very tired!

But! more questions!

So, I’m working off the assumption that everyone read the last post about John’s headaches. That sort of lays the groundwork for why he, in particular, was so affected by the house. And what is actually going on in the house is beneath the cut! (Warning for really pointlessly detailed worldbuilding, I guess)

It’s established very early on in the canon of this series that there are three types of ghosts--residual hauntings (stone tape theory, basically), manifestations (ghosts that harmless or don’t realize they’re causing harm, but can interact with the world around them), and entities (malevolent ghosts whose intention is to cause harm). All ghosts are spirits of people who have previously been living. Several times, the gang refers to older, disproven theories around the existence of demons/forces from beyond our world that are not tied to a deceased person, but come from a nebulous “somewhere else.”

Well, in the future, they are going to discover that those disproven theories actually hold some weight. There are places in the world where a tear is formed between our dimension and that nebulous somewhere else, and occasionally, things can slip through those tears. They’re more powerful than the spirits that ghost hunters in our world are used to, and their weaknesses are different. If they stay near the tear, they can feed off the energy from that other dimension. If they don’t, they can feed off of the energy of people or of other hauntings.

The house in the air grows cold around me and you is the site of a tear. It was in the basement, which had been sealed up by past owners in an attempt to stop the strange goings on in the house--even the laypeople who owned the place in the past could tell the energy was weird down there. The disturbance was extra powerful because it was feeding off both the tear where it came from and the sediments/energy in the ground that were fucking with all their equipment. It had different effects on everyone, draining their energy as well. Alex was tired, obviously, and Washington was hearing things. Deane was on edge in such a way that it made him irritable and short tempered. John, through his abilities, was more directly connected to it. The energy of the other world/tear was messing with his head and throwing him off balance. In the last post, I said John was like a human EMF detector, but it’s more than that--it’s more than just the energies put off by ghosts in our dimension that can effect him. He can pick up things their equipment can’t.

In the end, he was able to turn that energy back on the disturbance using Alex as a conduit, which didn’t entirely close the tear, but forced the thing back through it. And I’ll talk a little bit more about WHY he could do that in the next ask.

[team-shithead]

My next question (and last for now) are we gonna be finding out anymore about the headaches John gets on cases? I would love to see the boys go on more cases and have that side explored some more. I lied I have another question (sorry!) is Maria Reynolds gonna pop up? I am so excited for the Schuyler sisters to turn up it’s got me wondering who else is going to make an appearance at some point. (I don’t know if you can tell but I am super excited about this!)

Okay, this is a bunch of different questions, so I’m going to split them into different posts! The first is about John’s headaches and I’m going to answer that one first and under a cut because two other questions I got directly relate back to this, so I want to get all of the base details out before I go into the intricacies of the more specific questions.

So, I THINK at some point, the idea of parapsychic empaths comes up in one of the stories, in a very dismissive, “These don’t really exist, olden times ghost hunters just didn’t understand the difference between different types of mediums” sort of way.

Except they DO exist. They’re just very rare. And John is one.

The idea is that a medium is a person who can see or communicate with ghosts to various degrees. A parapsychic empath is a person who’s sensitive to the energies of spirits, kind of like a human EMF meter. Here’s a copypasta of the notes in my doc first establishing this in my notes:

Mediums can sense the presence of spirits as if connected to their "minds"--perception by feelings and emotions/etc of a spirit.

John can feel the actual fluctuation of the environment brought on by spirits--magnetic fields, etc. He can pinpoint where something is, but can't talk to it/tell what it's feeling/thinking. Eliza can communicate with spirits and feel their presence via emotional unrest, but can't pinpoint exactly where a spirit is unless it shows itself to her.

So, John’s not had a super lot of experience with actually haunted things prior to starting at Morristown--if you’ll recall, he didn’t really study parapsych in undergrad, just participated in some on-campus clubs that didn’t actually see a ton of action. That first case they’re on together as practice before their exam is his first experience completely submerging himself in a haunting and his body is experiencing how it reacts to spirits for pretty much the first time. As time goes on, it gets used to it and he stops getting headaches unless something very intense is going on, which we’ll get to in the next couple asks, haha.

The other thing is, of course, this is why his photography is so good--he knows where to point the camera because he can tell where the energy is coming from. Alex comments at some point early on that most photographers take hundreds of pictures because they’re more or less shooting blindly, but John knows exactly where things are happening and is thus able to capture it much more crisply and efficiently.

The next two questions I’m going to answer (maybe not immediately because I think my roommate is almost done cooking dinner and we’re gonna eat it while watching Ghost Quartet) are about, specifically, John’s prophetic dreams and what happened in the house during “the air grows cold around me and you,” but if you have further questions on this topic that don’t fall under those two categories, feel free to ask!

[team-shithead]

I am so excited and I have so many questions. I have nothing but love for this AU and your John is my favourite (I love all the other characters too especially Molly) What did Johns dad say to him on the phone call that started his downward spiral. I would love love love to have Johns point of view for that. I know that a lot of it was cause by Johns self guilt and loathing but it does sound like his dad may have said something to upset him. I❤️ this au and I would wait forever for an update

This one isn’t super spoilery, so no cut! 

I’m honestly not 100% sure what exactly Henry Sr says to John on the phone that starts his spiral. The general gist of it is that he expected a call from John the day before, on the anniversary of Jamie’s death, and was surprised he didn’t get one. From Henry’s PoV, he worried that maybe something had happened to John to keep him from calling--I’ve said it before, but we only get John’s PoV of his relationship with his dad and the reality is a little kinder than it is in his head (something I think all of us who struggle with depression and anxiety can relate to!). Henry might not approve of John’s life aspirations, but he knows that John’s work can be dangerous and he’s aware that John remains very fucked up about James’ death, so his first thought was that John had been hurt or injured, either accidentally or on purpose, and that’s why he missed the call.

When it became clear that John hadn’t called for other reasons, his relief melted into frustration that John worried him like that in the first place, plus disappointment that John had blown off this important date. 

The actual content of his words was probably something along the lines of, “When you didn’t call yesterday, I assumed something had happened to you, but it appears you’re fine and something else kept you from calling.” 

So, like, not the most compassionate thing, and as they continued their discussion, I’m sure they both got shorter with each other, letting their various emotions around this very fraught topic color their reactions. Nothing about it was particularly stand out or evil, but John has also been carrying guilt about this topic for many many years at this point, and has spent the whole summer low-key waiting for the other shoe to drop since things were going so well--it was inevitable that something was going to cause him to crash and having it be this thing that is so important to him and that he carries so much pain around was really just a perfect storm of misery. Henry didn’t need to say, “I can’t believe you got your brother killed and now you didn’t even bother to call me!” in order for that to be the message that John read in his words, you know?

I hope that makes sense and answers the questions!

[team-shithead]

ama

Hey, folks!

I 100% meant to post about this on Thursday to start my four day weekend and then got wrapped up in prep for a DragonCon-replacement cocktail hour and forgot, then spent most of yesterday falling asleep standing up. But I’m here now!

To recap, last week I said I was still planning to write some stuff in this universe, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to post it. In the meantime, all spoiler bets are off. You can ask any questions you have and I’ll answer them, regardless of spoilers, though I’ll put anything too spoilery under a cut so folks who might want to avoid big things can do so.

So yes, I’ll answer basically anything, at this point. I have D&D this afternoon, so I’ll be afk for a while, but I promise if you send a thing, I’ll try to get to it before this time next week at the very very latest.

Thanks, and thank you for being so patient with me 💜

[fourteenacross]

There is at least one other message like this in my inbox from the past twelve or so months! And I honestly have had every intention of responding to them, but I always was like, “I should wait until I can put some thought into an answer to this!” and then…never did!

But, as I’m coasting through a bunch of asks today, I figured I can give it a swing, even if it’s not as detailed a swing as I’d like. (That metaphor is nonsense, I know.)

First off, you have all been super polite–all the comments on the fic, all the asks, all the messages have been super duper polite in asking this, which is honestly surprising to me! Not that I think badly of anyone, but I’ve had experiences of other WsiP where people act much more entitled and are even actively angry about a lack of updates. So, just to make that clear, the reason I haven’t responded to these messages isn’t because I’m mad at you for asking, you’ve all been incredibly kind throughout this entire process, from the very sweet, personal comments folks have left on the stories to the encouraging messages and even into these requests for updates.

Secondly, I kind of went into this in answering another question earlier, but I do low-key intend to come back to the series at some point? I have a LOT of chunks of this series written already and a lot of mythology scribbled in notebooks and GDocs. There’s definitely more to the story. Can I give you an estimate on when that will be? Historically, those have not even been close to reality, so I feel like it’s better for all of us if I don’t try–it’s just likely to lead to all of you being disappointed when that time comes and goes with no updates.

Mostly, though, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for all of the enthusiasm and kind words over the past few years. It really means something to me that so many folks have reached out to say that these stories mean something to you. I 100% did not intend to write like, half a million words of Hamilton ghosthunting AU and I definitely 100% did not intend to write something that resonated so personally with so many people. The fandom I was in before this was very, very large compared to the state of Hamilton fandom when I started posting this story in 2016, and, frankly, the conceit was so bizarre I never expected anyone to decide to sit down and sign up to read 100k words of fic right off the bat, you know? But consistently, people have made time and space in their lives to delve into this very strange verse and send me sweet and touching and thoughtful feedback.

I’m happy I’m able to make this thing that people are so enthused about! I’m happy you’ve all found meaning and resonance in this little world I’ve created. I wish I could be one of those cool fic writers who can just bang out 20k word chapters on a regular schedule until all of the words of the story are out of my head and on the page, largely because I do honestly want to share the rest of this world with you all, if only as a gift for all the kindness you’ve shared with me over the past four years. (And that’s almost exactly four years, by the way! The first chapter was posted on 9/1/16.)

Anyway, I’ve gone on for far longer than I intended to! Mostly, I want to say these two things:

1. There will hopefully be more some day! I’m sorry that it hasn’t happened yet and I don’t have a better estimate of when it will happen for you!

2. Next week, I’m gonna open the @team-shithead inbox for any questions people have about the rest of the series. In the past, I’ve been cagey about spoilers and such, but I’ll answer basically anything and put any major spoilers behind a cut. I realized last week, while re-reading a favorite old WiP that has a final chapter of outlines and notes for what the author was intending going forward, that there are probably people out there who would still read updates in the future even if some of the secrets have already been revealed.

SO, thank you all again for your patience and kindness. Sorry I don’t have a better update, but I hope you know how much I appreciate all of you 💜💜💜

[team-shithead]

ALSO, that Christmas with Martha is when Alex finally learns all about John’s shameful secret ability to play the ukulele, which he learned to impress a shitty hipster dude he had a crush on in college. (I can’t remember if that’s been mentioned in any actual fics yet.) He is literally the last person to find out--Eliza, Molly, Laf, Angelica, and I think even Burr have known for forever and were all sworn to secrecy. 

[team-shithead]

Hey! I’ve read the whole series back-to-front three times since I discovered it almost a week ago (I’m gearing up to make it four times in one week) and I was just wondering - do Alex and co ever meet any of John’s siblings before his dad starts trying to mend bridges? If so, how?

Awww, that warms my cold, frozen, February-in-Boston heart :’)

Alex does eventually meet all of John’s siblings AND his father before Ella is born, but Eliza is actually the first person to meet any of them. This is like, eventually in future stories, but at the G L A C I A L  pace I am writing, who knows when we’ll get to them.

So, BASICALLY, after The Shittiest Summer Ever, John’s guilt from forgetting James’ death has him pulling back even further from his siblings, but mostly Martha as he’d already basically been cut out by Henry Jr and Mellie still lives at home. He feels, predictably, even more guilty that he’s afraid to talk to her because of how guilty he feels.

At the beginning of December, Martha reaches out because she’s going to be in New York and wants to see him and he freaks out a little. He doesn’t want to tell Alex because Alex has a very black and white view of John’s family and has made his opinions clear in the past, so he tells Eliza. Eliza ends up going with him to meet up with Martha as a kind of security blanket, but things with Martha go really well and they reconnect for realsies.

They talk fairly regularly over the next year or so, and after next Thanksgiving, Martha ends up inviting John and Alex both to Christmas at her fiancé’s family’s house. They go for a week, from a couple days before Christmas to a couple days after. Alex and Martha, of course, get on like a house on fire. The rest of John’s family is invited for Christmas Day proper, and Henry Jr makes a big deal of ignoring John completely whenever they’re in the same room. John’s father is cool and distant and only stays as long as is polite. Mellie, John’s baby sister who’s about sixteen at this point, likes Alex in theory, but mostly just wants to spend some time with John, whom she hasn’t properly seen in years at this point, and is a tiny bit resentful that Alex is always hovering next to him.

And that’s pretty much how it stays--whenever Martha is in New York (her fiancé has family there, so it’s not infrequently), she comes out to Morristown for a couple days to see him, or he goes into the city to grab lunch with her. Mellie starts emailing John more frequently and eventually, when she leaves for college, gets to see him a couple times sans father. Henry Jr struggles with John vs. his own feelings of inadequacy for a very long time, and Henry Sr only really starts to mend fences once Ella is born, several years in the future.

[team-shithead]

hello please rank the shitheads on our patented Dumbness Scale. (well, rank them again. for The People.)

WHAT A GOOD QUESTION THIS IS THAT I DEFINITELY HAVEN’T ANSWERED BEFORE.

Some general rules about the Dumbness Scale for the uninitiated (which is………..literally everyone who wasn’t in my car on Saturday):

The more self-aware you are, the less dumb you are.

If you think you’re not on the dumbness list, you are probably pretty close to the “Most Dumb” end of the list.

The shitheads’ Dumbness Scale exists in universe as a series of post-it notes in a particular order on the wall in Washington’s office. For a long time, no one can figure out what they indicate until one day Laf is meeting with Washington and he switches some around the the lightbulb goes off in Laf’s head. He manages to keep it secret for all of five minutes before he excitedly explains to everyone how he cracked the code.

Martha is Displeased when she finds out about it, for sure.

In order from Least Dumb to Most Dumb (on average, they shift around sometimes):

Herc

Eliza

Molly

Burr

Laf

Angelica

Alex and John in a constant tie for last place*

* Alex and John are the rare exception to both rules one and two–they are very self-aware regarding their dumbness, but deffo belong on the bottom of the list and know it.

Laf, Molly, and Burr switch places most often. Alex and John switch places least often. The summer that Peggy stops Alex from Making Bad Choices ends with Washington making a post-it for Peggy, putting it about six inches above the top of the list, and then taking Alex’s post-it and putting it in the bottom drawer of his desk all by itself.

[lesbianherstorian]

“wild geese” from dream work by mary oliver, may 1986

[elodieunderglass]

this poem comes up when needed

[carseatheadrest]

Car Seat Headrest - Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales

[teenagecrush]

[fourteenacross]

ghosthunters AU masterlist

The number one thing I am told about this series when people start reading it is that they saw it around for a while beforehand, but it seemed too long/intimidating to start. So here’s a tool to help with that. A truncated summary with links to all the stories in order! That hopefully makes it less intimidating and *cough* easy to recommend if you are in the mood to do that *cough*.

The ghosthunters AU is a series set in a world where ghosts exist and studying them is a serious and respected science. Alexander has been studying the science in question since he was a young boy, and the blog he runs about it is so useful/popular that he was able to crowdfund his way to America to attend university. After getting his BA, he starts a PhD program in Morristown, New Jersey, where he meets John (a former trustfund kid and photography prodigy who’s cagey about his past), Lafayette (a French native and audio expert who’s been all but adopted by their mentor), Hercules (a part-time sixth year student and all around techhead), and Burr (a chemist who has a frustrating habit of opening himself up to ideas posed by skeptics). They all work under George Washington, the most respected parapsychologist currently working in the field. Alex and John fall in love and deal with the ups and downs of their first serious relationship, and everyone has the post-college growing pains you’d expect. There are some ghosts and a lot of feelings and kissing.

The series is made up of large anchor stories that push forward the plot, interspersed with smaller stories that focus on characters and relationships. Stories are rated T-E, those most the E stories include only a scene or two of explicit material that’s clearly labeled.

i saw the whole story unwind - ~133,000 - some content rated E - Alexander moves to Morristown, meets the gang, and falls in love. Includes a lot of backstory, a lot of relationship development, a lot of sarcastic banter, and some ghost-hunting.

Opening Break - ~3,500 - G - Alexander meeting the group from Hercules’ point of view.

Remote Capture - ~3,500 - G - Alex discovers John’s secret Instagram.

Not Your Average Bear! - ~1,800 - T - Alex gets some bizarre new equipment in the mail and John has some fun with it.

we’ll have to muddle through somehow - ~8,500 - T - John has weird feelings about the holidays and discovers that Lafayette does as well.

Birthday Shots - ~2,000 - T - Alex and John attempt to remember the events of Alex’s birthday through the haze of a hangover.

the air grows cold around me and you - ~27,000 - M - Alex and John go on a trip to a haunted house to help out Washington and deal with a spirit more powerful than they could have predicted.

Communicable - ~24,000 - T - The boys take turns getting sick and John  has a lot of feelings about taking care of Alex.

Commercialism, Merit Badges, and Liquid Courage - 8,000 - T - Alex plans a Valentine’s Day date and John works on actually talking about his feelings.

but i won’t go far away - ~12,000 - E - John’s sex drive disappears temporarily, so he suggests that Alex consider opening up their relationship.

Ghost Included (we hope) - ~3,000 - T - John finds a haunted chair on the side of the road.

the constellations aligned - ~10,000 - M - After one of von Steuben’s queer grad student house parties, John does something impulsive.

a way to hang the sun up in the sky - ~9,500 - T - After John plays babysitter on a case, Alex can’t stop thinking about their future together.

Truth or Dare, Jungle Juice, and a Linen Closet - ~8,500 - E - The boys play Truth or Dare at one of von Steuben’s parties and then have sex in a closet.

well-deserved recognition - ~3,500 - T - Alex wins an award, but is too busy to actually accept it.

everyone must breathe until their dying breath - ~150,000 words - some parts rated E - Alex and John are left alone in Morristown for their first summer together, but while the first few weeks are fun, John has a breakdown halfway through that colors the rest of it in dark ways.

Q&A Saturday - ~1,000 - G - Alex’s online fans speculate about his relationship with John.

et cetera - ~26,000 - T - Eighteen short ficlets in one collection.

This is post is possibly a) even more overwhelming to folks or b) very egotistical, but there you have it.

[fourteenacross]

fyi

Tomorrow’s update might be later than usual–I still have to do a final edit on part of the chapter and it’s porny, so I can’t do it at work like I usually do. I’m gonna try my best to finish it on my lunch break and have it up before quitting time EDT, but I can’t make any promises.

(It WILL go up tomorrow, though. Just not at like, 9am like it usually does.)

[team-shithead]

@lisapizza: https://www.target.com/p/jack-o-lantern-halloween-family-t-shirt-collection/-/A-53747663 kait how old are the kids the first time eliza makes the family shirts like this??

@fourteenacross​ : The first time is Philip's first Halloween, when he's about nine or so months old. Some local historical society is having some kind of Halloween something and Alexander is one of the people speaking. Eliza really wants to support him, but Philip's costume hasn't come in the mail yet, so she's scrolling through Pinterest for something quick and easy she can do from home and knows that Philip has an orange onesie, so she makes some stencils and throws it together in an evening after work. John also has an orange t-shirt, so she decides to steal it and make one for herself, too, so they'll match, but when John gets home he says, "Did you make me and Philip matching pumpkin t-shirts?" And he seems SO genuinely chuffed by the idea that she says, "Uh...yes, I totally did, to wear for Alexander's thing on Friday. I made one for myself too, unless you think that would be too much?" And he says, "No, of course it's not, it'll be cute as shit." So she Amazon Primes a women's orange shirt and makes another one.

@lisapizza: 😍😍😍😍😍

@fourteenacross: And they all wear them to the thing and Alex is first so pleased to see them all there supporting him and being cute as fuck in their group costume, but then kind of sad that HE doesn't have one, so Eliza, of course, makes him one too.

fourteenacross: So they all wear them the next two years (with Eliza making new ones for Philip each year) and then, of course, once Ella is born she puts Ella in one of Philip's old ones.

lisapizza: yesssssss

fourteenacross: And they keep up the tradition for an embarassingly long time. Like, Philip starts to think it's dumb when he's about eight, but they still persevere, and by the time Philip is thirteen and Ella is eleven, they're ready to mutiny, but Alex loves a fucking hill that he can die on and Philip is thusly not surprised that when he goes away to college five years later, his October care package includes a homemade orange pumpkin t-shirt. What DOES surprise him a little is that he sees on Ella's social media what day the family is wearing them and wears his that day too and sends a selfie to everyone back home.

lisapizza: 😍😭😍😭😍

[michaelwwilson-blog]

Decent fog around the suburbs of Perth this morning. June, 2018.