#my grimoire is a binder now i guess

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Mournwillow Spell Creation (episode 1)

So yesterday at work, I started working on some things and thoughts about Mournwillow.

Let's break the card down, shall we?

This is a 3 power, 2 toughness Plant Skeleton Creature with Haste and a Delirium trigger. When it enters the battlefield and you've achieved Delirium, creatures with power 2 or less can't block that turn. This provides a great early-game swinger who can storm past early-game creatures and lead your early-game army. Or get you past a bunch of 1/1 Tokens later in the game if you're dealing with the Endless Squirrel Loop.

Delirium is a fun mechanic where you need 4 or more card types in your graveyard (aka the discard pile) to do something. Card types include Artifacts, Creatures, Enchantments, Instants, and Sorceries, along with other card types that aren't used anymore. The Plant and Skeleton parts of this card are Creature subtypes; subtypes don't count in the Delirium trigger.

So how do I translate all of this into a spell?

Let's start with the card cost and the tools. I would use a Black-aligned source, a Green-aligned source, and a third source to pay for the "cost" of the spell. I picked out bones (or bones made of clay and charged with Black energy), baneful plants (Green), and a speed booster of some sort (it could be speed powder, coffee, or caffeine more broadly) to represent the Haste and cover the last source we need. (Speed boosters tend to be Red-aligned, so...oops?)

After looking at these and studying the card art, an idea started pecking at my brain. So I also included a taglock for the target and a binding agent (string, twine, yarn, et cetera; ideally black or green).

I decided that this will be a poppet-based baneful spell, a 1 and done hit-style spell. I would tie everything together and leave it somewhere to either decay or scare the target, thus tying in the Delirium.

At this point, I abruptly realized that this was reading like those little dangly things you see in The Blair Witch Project, so I ended up stopping so I could have a whole ass conversation with my coworker/branch manager for several hours about the progression of horror through the past few decades and I had to explain the entire Five Nights at Freddy's lore and what a creepypasta was. It was unhinged.

So what do we have to do today?

Well shit, I dunno. I guess I could go into my correspondences binder and get examples of the plants we could use. Or figure out alternates for the bones/bones made of clay. But I feel like the "bone and plant" combination would be the best.

Please know that my correspondences binder is compiled from various books and blog posts, most of which are UPG-based. It's also not a complete compendium of every type of plant to exist.

It's very easy to find plants associated with Green. Frankly, anything that isn't artificial is associated with Green. Here are some that stand out:

Blackberry root: BG, bad luck, baneful magic, cursing, and death.

Blueberry: UBG, bad luck (bark), baneful magic, cursing, and discord (bark).

Cactus: BRG, baneful magic (needles or spines), pain magic, and strife.

Elm: WBG, baneful magic (slippery elm or elm wood), cursing (slippery elm), and death (elm wood).

Juniper: UBG, baneful magic, binding, and shadow.

Nectarine: UBRG, baneful magic, and hexes.

Paulownia: UBG, baneful magic, camouflage, and trickery.

Peach: BRG, bad omens, confusion (decayed or rotted), and death.

Smoke tree: WBG, baneful magic, infertility, short life, and weakness to illness.

Sumac: UBRG, baneful magic, binding, and cursing.

Walnut: WUBRG, bad luck, death, and infertility.

This gives us a lot to work with, but I think I'll pause here for now until I decide to put it together and try it out!

Cool Links

Mournwillow on Scryfall: https://scryfall.com/card/emn/187/mournwillow

The MTG Colors section of my Tumblr grimoire: https://jasper-grimoire.tumblr.com/tagged/section%3A%20mtg%20colors

#jasper post #pop culture #pop culture witchcraft #pop culture witch #pop culture magic #pop culture magick #magic the gathering #mtg witchcraft #mtg witch #mtg magic #mtg magick #spell work #mournwillow #jasper and co build a thing through polls

[cottageshadowwitch]

A Look Into my Witchy Journal Part 6

It's like a week late but here's this month's overview.

I've decided to work with fixed weekly spreads instead of the (sometimes) irregular daily loggings. If I remember, I'll post about how that worked out for me and if I have a favourite spread yet.

If it feels like I can organize my practice better that way, I'll set up my whole WiJo in that way for next year. I might have already guessed at how many pages I need minimum and decided on which notebook to buy for this. At least I could convince myself to not buy it yet, so there's that.

I did buy a cheap set of notebooks to... design a Yearly Grimoire of sorts? I don't know, it feels like @2022grimoirechallenge is to be blamed (affectionally) for that in ways that I can't voice right now.

But maybe other witches and partakers of this year's grimoire challenge have noticed a spike and/or change in their practice as well?

There may also be thoughts about a second themed grimoire. All on top of the Grimoire in a binder in which I record "everything".

#bullet journal #bujo #bujoblr #bujo spread #journal spread #plannerblr #bulletjournal #book of shadows #bos #chapter: journal #witchy queue

[marrys-dream-world]

If we’re bound to be something, why not together? (chapter five)

Read on AO3

First / Previous / Next

Notes:  I know I'm late, but consider: I've been having a bad time. It's going to get better from now on, probably, so I'll be able to post as often as I was before. Thank you all for the lovely response this fic is getting. Day 5: Milk. @ladynoirjuly

After Friday, joint patrols became a regular thing once again.

“It’s convenient.” She told Alya, the day after they agreed to it. Chat Noir had been really excited, the voice coming from the communicator cheery and bouncy. “We need to meet, anyways, to talk about the grimoire and- shut up, Alya.”

“What?” Her best friend said, not even trying to hide her grin. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you were thinking it.”

“Thinking about what? Your weekly date with Chat Noir?”

Alya was so busy laughing that she didn’t doge the pillow Marinette threw on time. 

Their next joint patrol is a shorter one, but just because she needed to go over some information she managed to piece together through various discussions with Wayzz and looking at the grimoire until her eyes felt like bleeding. Per their study session, Chat Noir had shown himself very focused and managed to find details she didn’t catch herself (his high productivity may have been factored into how low hers was because of… distractions). So, as she picked up the hidden notes she left on their favored rooftop, she heard Chat Noir click his tongue.

“Y’know, my lady, I don't think we should do this here.” He said, crossing his arms. “It’s too out in the open and, honestly, my back was killing me last time we did something like this.”

“What do you suggest, then?” She asked, trying to not sound snappish. Running around town to find akumas was tiring and school hadn’t been easy, either. But none of that was her Chaton’s fault and her back had hurt too.

Chat Noir grinned. “I know just the place.”

“The place”, as it turned out, was the bar of the Gran Paris Hotel. 

Her partner was all smiles as he led her there, dragging her to the counter with a hand on her limp wrist. The place was mostly empty, just a curly-haired lady sitting by the large widows who didn’t even do a double-take as she spotted them. She watched, wide-eyed, as the bartender greeted them with ease, only seeming slightly surprised at seeing her.

“The usual, Mr. Noir?” The man asked, as if he was not about to serve a drink to an obviously underaged superhero. 

“Make it two, please.” Chat Noir said cheerly and her mouth hung open. “Catching flies, bugaboo?”

“Don’t call me that!” She said, voice sounding weak even to her. The bartender brought out two glasses.  “I just… didn’t expect that of you.”

Her partner frowned. “Expect what of me?”

Before she could answer, Chat Noir was handed a glass. Her shout of protest died on the tip of her tongue as she saw the liquid he was starting to sip.

“Is that… milk?”

“Yeah.” He said, placing it on the counter. “What else would it be?”

“Nothing.” She said quickly, taking her own glass and sipping the cool liquid. Maybe cold milk was what she needed after a rough day, maybe Chat Noir had a point. 

“It doesn’t look like anything.” He said suspiciously, before his green eyes lit up. “Could it be… my lady thought I was going to drink alcohol?”

“No!” She half-shouted, turning red. It certainly sounded as unconvincing to his ears as it did to hers, if his smirk said anything.

“I can change that up if you want.” He raised his hand. “Mister, can I get a-”

“Stop that and I’ll bring cookies to go with the milk next time.” Ladybug said rapidly before her partner did dumb stuff to prove a  point. She would know, she was the queen of doing that. 

Amusement danced in his eyes. “Deal.”

She huffed. “Why do you come here just to drink milk, anyways?”

“I like the change of scenery, makes me feel like a grown cat.” Chat Noir said, taking a sheet of paper from her binder and looking over its contents. “It’s not like I can actually drink anything else here, not that I want to. Besides, I like drinking milk whenever I am-”

He cut himself off, glancing at her before turning his eyes back to the paper.

“So yeah, I like it here, it’s quiet, too.”

“Whenever you’re what?” She said, tring to catch his gaze again.

“I’m sorry?”

“You like drinking milk whenever you’re what?”

Chat paused for a second, before sighing. “Lonely, I guess. I like drinking milk when I’m feeling lonely.”

Hitting her chest with a hammer would have been kinder, less hurtful. Ladybug couldn’t stop looking at her partner, the usual life of the party and detainer of all eyes wherever he went, now hunched over and avoiding taking his sight away from the paper in front of him. It was weird for her to think of Chat Noir as someone who could get lonely, all her images she had managed to come up with about his civilian life filled with friends and family. And more recently, though she didn’t say it proudly, of him and his mysterious girlfriend. 

“He said it was your usual.” She pointed out softly, wanting him to deny. Wanting it to not be true.

Chat Noir laughed, humourless. "That 's true.”

Well, that wouldn’t stand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

He shook his head. “Sorry, my lady, but it’s identity-sensitive.”

“It doesn’t matter!”

Her words slipped out before she could think them through, nothing new. Chat Noir turned to her, his shoulders now straight as if he had been given an electric shock and cat ears standing up, too. The piece of paper he had been holding fell from his limp clawed fingers. 

“My lady… are you saying?” Chat Noir started, breathless. 

“Not now.” She said carefully, wincing as the hope faded from his eyes. “But maybe soon? I have the akuma charms now and Tikki has been saying that I should trust myself and- ugh.”

Ladybug groaned. Why did she have to ramble so much? Her partner’s conflicted doe eyes didn’t help. 

“I want you to know, Chat Noir, you’re my partner.” She said, honestly and watched as a slow smile spread on his face.

“My lady…”

“So if you say anything that gives you away, it’s okay. I mean, I think we should go slow, but it’s not that serious. Secret identities aren’t more important than you, anyways.”

“I… Thank you.” He said and she thought his eyes were shining a little more than normal.

“You can talk about your problems, then, if you want.” Ladybug said kindly and he sobered up, quietly wiping at his eyes. 

“My mother is, er, gone. She’s gone.” Chat Noir stumbled in the beginning, but his tone ended up somber. “And now my father’s best friend, who I see a little like a mother too, is very sick and I don’t know when she’ll get better. When I can see her.”

“Oh, Chaton.” She said, throwing away any inhibition and hugging him. He responded immediately, clinging to her. 

“My father is really stressed about that. It’s not his fault, really, but I wish he wasn’t so… angry all the time. I feel like I can’t talk to him.” He continued, voice wet. Suddenly, he jerked away. “Sorry, you probably don’t-”

“No, of course I do.” She said, looking him straight into the eye. “You can tell me anything, anytime, Chaton. If you ever feel like that again, send me a message right away, I’ll find you as soon as I can.”

“My lady…” He started, eyes watery. Chat went back into her arms, burying his head into her neck. “Thank you.”

She didn’t answer, only hugged him tighter. They didn’t study much that day. 

#ladynoirjuly #ladynoirjuly2021 #ladynoir #ladybug #chat noir #my stuff #ml fic #if we're bound to be something why not together

[windvexer]

Witchcraft asks 4, 7, 10, 11, and 14?

4. Do you practice openly or in secret?

Mostly in secret since I began practicing, but I have always been open with some friends and friend groups about my divination. Now I am relatively open with my practice. I kind of just did it all at once. Everyone seemed to know ^-^;;

7. Candles or incense?

Hmm. Hard to choose. I guess I find more utility in incense than candles. But I do like fire.... butttt incense.

10. What is your favorite element?

Hmm. I don't have one. There's rarely ever a situation where I call on just one element. Usually when invoke them I call on all four in quick succession. They're all very useful and their subtleties apply well to different situations. And I just don't vibe the hardest with any particular one. We all vibe together, equally :)

11. Do you keep a grimoire?

Yes. I keep a small leather A5 binder composed mostly of printed pages for information I often reference and long ritual formats I don't want to memorize. I also include painted "altar pages" or spell cards which I can remove and use as needed.

14. What is your favorite form of divination?

Energy reading. I am very good at it :)

#pecking round the coop #answered

[queerwitchyblissful]

Baby Witch Here:)

Hiya! My name is Hayden, I’m 16 and I go by he/they. I have blue hair (that’s important). I’m new to witchcraft and don’t identify with a magickal religion (paganism, wicca, etc.) I want to work with crystals, herbs, plants, and candles as of right now. I keep a sorta grimoire, it’s just a binder with a bunch of info about different crystals, herbs and candles so far. I still have a lot to learn and I’m really excited to start this journey:) So I guess, if you post about....

Crystals

Herbs

Candle Magick

Baby/Beginner Witch stuff

Plants/Green Witch

Spells + Rituals

White Magick

Witchy Aesthetics

If you are a fellow Queer Witch:)

Meditation!! (Idk how to meditate and wanna learn lol)

Divination

Altar Inspo (or how to make one)

Or any other witchy stuff, especially green witch stuff!

please!! like and reblog so I can follow some new pages!!

#witchblr #witchcraft #beginner witch #baby witch #green witch #witchlife #magick #white magick #rituals #spells #crystals #divination #cleansing #tarot deck #tarot witch #witch aesthetic #witchyvibes #grimoire #sigils #soft grunge #candle magick #magic #paganism #wicca spells #witch altar #crystal magic #altar inspo #meditation #higher self #queer witch

[the0ther-side0f-dawn]

also

when i finally have the money to get a good durable book for a grimoire then my first page is just going to be the quote from a HB that [i cant remember exact words but] ‘a witch doesn’t whine when things dont go her way. she makes them go her way.’

#i really want my grimoire to be a lifelong thing and not require multiple books #so it needs to be either a really well crafted and pretty hefty book #but im thinking a good quality and wide binder would be better? bc it can add pages #and with binders you can add sleeves and pockets to included samples and stuff without damaging the paper #and ah it probably looks like my interest in witchcraft is entirely fueld by my tv interests #but my whole life is fueled by my tv interests #i started starting chemisry at uni bc cosima (i wanted to do analytical chem tho) #and then i changed to public policy bc of parks and rec #and most of my life is based around my love of twtwb #and idk i actually wasnted in the past so much interested in witches til now? #but i had been interested in witchcraft for a very long time #but im only now just learning bits about it #and it doesnt have to involve spells and deities #its a lot of the time about 'intentions' which i guess are like vibes and karma? #and i can get down with that #and also like kitchen witchery to do with herbs and stuff #like that all fits within the realms of what i consider to be realist and possible so idk

[rowans-road]

12.3.18

Heyo so my roommate was talking to my suitemate and I and she mentioned I hate my name. My suitemate was like "really?" And I was like "yep, and any variation thereupon". And so my suitemate was like "is there something you'd rather we called you?" And I was like "eh." And my roommate. Was like. "Wait no i remember you told me this- R something, right?" And started trying to sound it out so I said "Rowan."

And yeah then I had to go like "ah but it's too much effort and legal name changes are expensive yadda yadda" but. Several facts.

My suitemate is more, shall we say, trans savvy, than my roommate. She suspects probably at least a little. I leave a nonbinary pride bracelet on my desk so like it isn't that hard to guess if you know stuff? Idk how much she knows. But yeah.

More importantly? THEY WOULD CALL ME ROWAN Y'ALL. THEY WOULD.

A big part of why I'm so nervous about socially transitioning like, at all, is potential conflict. Having to debate with people. Having to fight them. But apparently it's as easy as saying you hate your name sometimes? Like I know there would still be hard parts. But. Maybe this could be a thing.

I still need to try out the name Rowan. I don't usually just hang out with one friend for very long and I'm not sure who I should ask to help me.

My options are my genderfluid friend who lives really close who I see regularly but don't know as well as all the others, my friend who is absolutely the most loving and supportive ray of sunshine in the world who I hardly ever see and confessed to having a crush on which has not made things awkward but I half avoid her sometimes which is bad, and my friend who calls me every day but lives super far away and who I never see irl and who might slip up and tell some mutual friends of ours because they live together.

All three of them know I'm nonbinary, but only the first actually like, gets it. Because he is too. Idk. I trust all three of these people and love them so much but it's scary, you know? It's one thing to admit you view yourself a particular way and stuff, but it's quite another to ask other people to view you that way too.

Oof. Complex things. I'll stick with narrating my life as Rowan for now, I think. Here's a paragraph of me talking about things that actually happened but in the third person and switching pronouns every sentence because I am a confused wreck:

Rowan got their new binder today! It sort of fit him, but it was harder to get on which concerned her a bit. Xe wants to be safe, but xe isn't sure what xir size is. So, Rowan's going to try it out tomorrow and see if they snap their ribs and die! Fun times!

Yeah so I think I prefer they/them? Out of these? Idk.

Yikes. There's also like. Do I prefer they/them enough to make up for the intense anxiety correcting people and coming out and everything would induce? I don't know. I don't know how to tell, or who to tell, or what to do. I don't know where to go from here. I'm still working through accepting myself completely for this, accepting that I'm not faking and that I deserve to live my happiest life. I really probably should go to therapy and talk it out, agh.

Well, in completely different news, I started a Book of Shadows! It's a crappy blue notebook I was gonna use for class. But it's mine. And I've decided to become a witch. I'm already not gonna get along with people who aren't open minded, why not make it worse?

No, that isn't why. It's because I connect with it. It fills the gap of connection between myself and the world at large that most people fill with religion - I can't believe in religion, but I can believe in the power of belief. That's what witchcraft comes down to, apparently. Energy interacting between things, granted power by association, manipulated by visualization and intent. That's what it is to me. And my practice will have a heavy focus on crystals and herbalism, which I have always loved.

So, yeah. Started my book of shadows, started collecting resources to fill my grimoire with. I'm going to avoid rituals and spells for the most part for now, and stick to sigils and crystals. It will be fun, and deep, and good.

I wrote a name sigil for myself already. I didn't do it in a conventional way, but by intuition. I hope that makes it more powerful.

Ahh. It is getting late. Farewell, friends, and sleep tight.

#name change #oof #new binder #gosh i love gc2b #baby witch #picking pronouns #they them #nonbinary #actuallynb #nonbinary story #nonbinary journey #nb

[elsewhereuniversity]

The Deep Library's Repairs Workshop (previously named Exe Bindery)

Crossposted to AO3 and to my tumblr Part one of ? The New Binder of Books

The Deep Library has existed since long before the University ever did. The Exe Bindery, as it was warmly called among its ancient staff, is even older. Some the legends say the first largely known books were badly made copies of Exe Bounded books.

Although now most of the minor repairs can be (and are) handled by the librarians and circulation staff, more extensively damaged books are left into a particular corner of the library. It can be found on the first floor of the Deep Library, between two sections that are like day and night. It is said the Repairs Workshop’s staff likes to go into the quiet of the night to come and take the damaged books left on the floor, just at the corner that borders the two sections. The librarians try to leave them to their own devices as much as they can once books are put there. All-too-dangerous manuscripts, cooked-and-burnt-to-a-crisp grimoires, previously-lost-and-newly-found artefacts, as-fragile-as-dust tomes, long-forgotten non-bound leaves, oil steeped cookbooks, and strictly-forbidden mouldy arcanest volumes are also left in their cares. Some are shelved in their own Workshop, others are brought to be eaten by the Bookwyrm, a few are digitalized, even fewer are compiled and copied into fac-similes.

The staff of the Repairs Workshop is free to go as they please, usually. They do not even have nametags and are often few in numbers. In recent decades, this number dwindled as years passed.

Some times ago, there was an incident that disappeared all of the remaining staff of the Repairs Workshop.

The Deep Library took upon their  shelves to look for new staff, and even handled the repairs for a while, by sending out a few strangely formed thoughts and not-so-fictional characters and creatures into the workshop. They asked a reference librarian they knew to put out a piece of code on the dark net. Who told them you could find anything in here? Either way, they set the code to evolve on its own. And then they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Until she arrived.

She had bypassed all the protocols and security measures of the never-seen before firewall that she had found deeply embedded in the dark net’s code itself. At this exact moment, she found herself transported before a virtual door with the symbol of infinity into a zero at its center, door that she promptly opened.

A big somewhat smiling eye of a cat appeared out of thin air in her vision field.

The Deep Library, for the first time in a very, very long time, sighted. “THREAD LIGHTLY, CHILD,” they voiced in a low growl, the words echoing throughout all the Library.

And thread lightly, she did. Well, in a sense: her own.

Defying all protocols, common and uncommon senses, she decided to advance barefoot, with no silver nor iron on her person, thinking it’d only serve to weigh her down. As far as salt goes, she had none in her pockets, for the same reason and she only wears black silk clothing.

She had read a great deal of books before but none could taste and smell as uniquely as the ones found here. In her endless hunt for knowledge, she had worn down books so quickly in her childhood and adolescence that she had decided to learn how to better care and handle them and even going as far as learning how to properly bind and restore them, later on.

She knew her trade at great lengths after a decade or so of work, but when confronted to the books of the Deep Library, she had put her hunt of reading for knowledge on pause, focusing only on reading the reports of the Repairs Workshop.

The Reports* told of all the kinds of repairs done on all the kinds of books. Not only that, there was also tales of ways of binding books the Exe Binders had to come up with, to secure leaves the Old Folks left behind, for relatively safe reading.

Then she immerged herself in work, having settled her workplace in one of the deepest floors, just above the cave of Bookwyrm, that she had quickly befriended, just like the other creatures of the Deep Library. She regularly went copying bits of prose and poetry off the giant Bookwyrm’s skin, onto stable parchments for her own personal archives.

She was given more freedom than any of the previous staff of the Workshop. Eventually, the librarians and day pages of floors above started spreading rumours about her.

Rumours reached Circulation’s ears quickly and, for once, she decided to see what was all the fuss about and to meet her . Only to constantly bicker with her about her bypassing and breaking every rule, protocol and security measure.

Circulation’s heated relationship with the New Binder [this is set quite a while after their first meeting]

You’ve seen yourself that she always breaks the rules and protocols. No matter what you tell her. Which infuriates you. Because these are here for a reason. Security, most of all. The health of the librarians, the security staff, the pages, the Other Librarians, the Bookwyrm, the creatures of the library and the rest of the staff, as well as the library itself and its books is paramount to you. And her blatant disregard could cause a catastrophe…

You’ve also noticed that the rumours are true.

Some of the rumours went :

“If you hear her steps coming towards you and your pace quickens away, she’s bound to find you.” This one particularly applies in your case. Her steps, despite her being barefoot, have a very distinctive ring to it. Maybe because of the blue fungi trail she leaves behind? Maybe because of her limp? Maybe it is just because she has inherited the Repairs Workshop and, as such, always have to carry books everywhere she goes? Either way, you could always hear her steps well before you even saw her. And some times, your subconscious wants to get away from the steps. You do not know why, but something screams danger in your head and your feet follows the other way. But, no matter how far away you get, she always finds you. She often asks you to accompany her for a bit. She seems to enjoy your presence and talks of her work.  And leaves you some of the books she repaired recently. You tell her it’s not exactly your job as Circulation Manager to re-shelve them but you nonetheless take them. She tells you to read them. You argue.

You learn much later she only asks you.

“If you find yourself lost, you must absolutely never follow in her glowing footsteps. Only their echoes.” Sometimes, you get lost on your round of the deep floors and, usually, you just have to follow your intuition but this time, you couldn’t find your way back. So, just this once, your curiosity got the last shred of self-control you hold on to and you decided to follow her a bit, the glowing footsteps drawing you, enticing you, inviting you to ever get closer. Which nearly got you eaten by tiny fungi, the glowing blue somehow stopping at your left foot, the silver and iron rings worn at the ankles still clinking against each other, the sounds of which saved you and also woke you up.

Another rumour is more worrying, in its tone taken by the ones spreading it. “She’s a Tongue Twister.”  

You ask some of the Fair Folks you’re friendly enough with what is it, having never once heard the expression applied in such a way towards a human before. No one answers you. All seem to blankly stare at you when they hear the question. When you look at them carefully, you detect a faint fear in their quick glances towards each other.

You try to investigate further and only are met with this wall of stares and glances. The Gentry genuinely fear her. When asked, the Binder also stares at you, seemingly not understanding.

At first, you push a little but, seeing as she and the Gentry both don’t want to talk about it, you leave it alone after a while.

Until you overhear Fair Folks whispering:

“- She took a bet with us and won it all, you know?

- I hear you can’t even bet with her in a game of words.

- You shouldn’t make a contract with her either. Or even talk to her at all.

- Dirty, dirty, human Tongue Twister.”

This only serves to make you more curious and you come to her and ask her directly about the bet. A deep sadness overcomes the Binder’s face. She gets angry, snaps at you, telling you, “You shouldn’t have. No! You shouldn’t!” On an impulse, you take her in your arms. After a moment, she calms herself and tells you that “yes, well before coming to Elsewhere University, she took a big gamble, knowledge for knowledge, in a double game of cards and words.” “I wasn’t expecting much, two of the ones I was playing against were known for their outrageous cheating, even among the Gentry. Against all odds, I won everything the other players had. I was immediately called out a Tongue Twister by these two. They were jealous I won the Universal Tongue, which would’ve permitted them to cheat even more. So, for a while, I just travelled around, because it gave me the ability to speak any language. But, like with almost everything, it left me bored. So I stopped using it, except for reading. Ever since I’ve been here, I can feel the Gentry fear me. But I didn’t know any of the rumours. Until you came along. I guess the rumours must’ve been spread by the Twins, who didn’t seem to understand why I hadn’t used it to cheat.”

She’s been said to be mute before but you know better: she ever rarely feel the need to speak with her own voice, getting by using signs language instead. You are one of the very select few she speaks with. She has an ever changing sweet coarse voice.

As time passes, you come to fall for her, to love her even. When finally you tell her as much, s he quickly turns towards you, spinning on her feet. “Me too.” A grins on both your faces.

After an umpteenth argument about protocols and rules that just left the both of you somehow bitter, you ask, out of deep concern, why she doesn’t wear silver or iron, or even just salt. “You must understand,” starts a hushed voice, “I have to thread lightly.” A haunting pause then, “Or Else….” You get it immediately. “Or Else…” Yes. “Or Else…” You understand it all too well. “Or Else…” The Deep Library had made an Unspoken Contract with her as well. “Or Else…” Just like you.

x

#nephaba #stories #the library #exe bindery #the new binder of books #circulation #romance #deals #the gift of tongues #or Else #submission

[fernthewhimsical]

📖🖌🌙Your Artsy Grimoire🌙🖌📖: My grimoires

Welcome to the start of a new series of posts: Your Artsy Grimoire! After I posted my own Artsy Grimoire and a few of its pages I got a lot of love from you all, as well as some questions about techniques and how I worked. So I figured: why not start a series?

What will be in the series, you ask? I’ll start with supplies, what I use and how you can use them too. I’ll also show how I build my pages and make tutorials of techniques for you to use in your own Artsy Grimoire. Think tips and tricks for colours, lettering, crafting techniques, the works!

So today I wanted to talk to you about my grimoires. Plural? Yes! I got a lot of comments on my grimoire pages of people who ‘just’ use a notebook or binder as a grimoire or BoS. Well, guess what? Me too! So beyond the break I’ll show you how I (dis)organise my information and how I decide what to put into my Artsy Grimoire!

This is my actual trusty grimoire/book of shadows. Glamorous, I know! This is where I save information that is important to me and my craft. Where I save the articles and lessons that I write and where I keep my magical diary (even though my last entry there was 2014…shh). I keep this dropbox organised and this is what I use most, next to my trusty books of course! Because it’s in the cloud I take it with me wherever I go and can add bits and pieces of information and thoughts on the go. I love it! 

This pile of disorganized binder-rubble are all filled with witchy and pagan information. The giant white tome is the ‘handbook’ from my witch’s circle along with all the homework (the assignments, not my answers to them). The black one is currently empty. Yellow is for sabbats, purple for rituals, purple 2 for our circle, green for a herbarium and real for misc info; from tachyon healing to angelkin to BDSM and pagansim to the Goddess Kali. The A5 binder was my previous BoS and is filled with badly handwritten notes on everything I find interesting. The little plastic folders hold info I got at different courses I followed. I mostly use the ‘handbook’ and the misc info binder, since I have the rest digitally, but I love al of them dearly.

Other than these I have notebooks, legal pads and binders everywhere where I have some pages with notes. Random thoughts and ideas get written down on whatever I have with me, and then I forget to take it out and actually put it into one of the binders shown above… So everytime I come across one of those pages it’s like finding a little witchy gift. “Right! I had that one too!”

Last but not least: my Artsy Grimoire! Being a crafter by trade being creative is the most important thing on my pagan/witchy path. I craft things, I make things, I draw things and I write things. All of this is ritual and worship to me. Which is why I view making a page in this grimoire as a ritual, which sometimes can take up to a week. I’m very picky about what I put into it, which is why so far I only have three pages! 

When I started this grimoire I asked myself; what do I want out of this book? I made a list:

- I wanted it to be personal - I wanted it to be filled with colours and art - I wanted it to be about things which were important to my path - I wanted to use as many crafting techniques as I could - I wanted to play

This made it clear for me what kind of book this would be: a sort of Pagan Art Journal. At the end of this I would (hopefully) have a book filled with pagan art and personal correspondences. Which brings me to my next point: this book will never be my main source of information, I have my articles and books for that. This book will be for me to be creative and for me to write down my own personal correspondences and thoughts. 

So that’s all I have to rant about for now. Next time I want to start on basic supplies! If you have any questions or remarks, or if you have topics you want me to cover in this series, let me know in the comments or send me an ask!

#witch #witchcraft #witchblr #pagan #paganism #grimoire #grimoire tips #your artsy grimoire #personal #wiccan #wicca #book of shadows #bos #spellbook

[myselfinserts]

“This is a thing called a present.”

Eri arrived not too long after the metallic menace had been taken out. The first thing she did was check on everyone, starting with Renegade. While the robotic arm worked perfectly, she offered to reverse his injury if he wanted. 

He had thanked her for the offer, politely declined, and asked to see Odette once classes had let out for the day. The teachers were all a whisper about it. The support student were curious, but none of them dared to try to find out what was going on. The rest of her friends asked to come along, but she’d asked to be left alone with the Technonaut for a bit. 

And so, she met with Reginald Gladstone after class let out, and followed him to the little cabin out past the dorms. The two went inside, and Regi immediately made a b-line for the master bedroom as he put his hands into his pocket. 

“Come on. We’re going to the lab. I need to show you something.”

Odette followed Regi to the door in the closet. She'd been there many times before. Every time he took her aside for tutoring in coding, they would go to his lab on the UA grounds. The students had taken to calling it "The Renegade Cabin", and none of the teachers seemed bothered to try and change it. Often she'd find herself there when in need of something a little closer to home. Mither had opted not to use it when she joined on staff, even after having kids, because of the lab. And before she'd started school, Odette had been shown changes to the living area. It felt less like Elspie, and a bit more like Paris. So sometimes, if she needed time away from the other students badly enough, she'd often find herself in the Renegade Cabin.

And now, she was back again, standing in front of the door in anticipation as Regi handed her a small, garnet crystal on a silver chain. Odette held it up to the light, turning it slowly in her hands as she looked through it. She could just make out small gold lines in between the shimmer.

"Is this what I think it is?" she asked.

Regi smiled. "Go ahead and try it."

After a moment more of analyzing it, Odette took the crystal and inserted it into the hole beside the door, giving it a slight twist to the right. The panel light up with a soft blue, and her name appeared on the digital screen. The door to the lab opened with a soft hum as R.A.I.N.E.E.'s voice called out softly.

"Welcome Lady Odette."

"You are not serious right now." Odette stared at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind. "You're giving me access to your lab?"

"I talked it over with your parents and the school. It's your lab now."

She looked at the open door, shaking her head in disbelief. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Slowly, she stepped inside, walking down the stairs to the bottom.

The lights came on as soon as they both entered. A little hologram of R.A.I.N.E.E. sat on the edge of one of the work benches, humming softly as they looked around the room. Odette noticed that it was cleaner than last time. Photos of the family were in protective frames on the walls near the entrance, with Amarylis’ signature black poncho hanging on a mannequin in the corner. It’d been painted a soft white, easy on the eyes and perfect for drawing on in an emergency. The coding-dance board was newer, with red detailing as opposed to the usual blues and greens. She could make out the doors to the training area, the changing room, the storage areas. There was a door marked ‘Emergency Exit 1′, which she knew lead to the teachers’ dorms. The second emergency exit door lead outside the grounds. 

The lab had everything she’d need. Tools, testing grounds, supplies, what was essentially a super-computer compared to her old set up back in her room. It was so much. And he was just giving it to her?

“Uncle Regi, what is this?” she asked. 

He smiled. “This is a thing called a present, Odette. A gift from me to you.”

“No, I get that. I know that. I don’t understand why. I’m still a student.” She crossed her arms. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t understand why you’re giving me this lab.”

Regi shrugged and walked over to the photos. His eyes wandered over all of them before settling on one. It was of him, and her papa, both sitting at a work bench. Working intensely on what appeared to be a variation of Salt Apple. Oddly, his hair appeared shorter in that photograph. Odette had seen it once or twice, but never got an answer when she’d asked about it. 

“A long time ago, before you were born, your papa and I were working on a project together.” His metal fingers lightly touched the frame, both matching the gleam of the glass. “There was an accident, caused by a villain who’d snuck in. Étienne was physically unharmed, and I got the brunt of injuries from it. Though we didn’t both come out of it unscathed. Our friendship nearly died that day.” His shoulders seem to relax more, his voice soft and nostalgic. “At my lowest point after that incident, I has seriously considered quitting. But your papa dragged my ass out of the lab and we sat down and talked. Must have been hours. If he hadn’t rented out the restaurant for the night we’d have been kicked out from all the fighting.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Hard to imagine you and papa fighting. Debate, yes, but fight?”

“It was complicated,” Regi chuckled. “I’m sure he’ll tell you the full details of what happened someday. I’m only telling you the bare bones of it.” He turned back to look at her, and the man in front of her seemed completely different. Tired, but happy. As though he had no regrets. “That day, we talked everything out. And we made a promise. I’m not allowed to quit until he does, and he’ll try to be more...gentle, for lack of better words.” He glanced at his metal hand, lightly opening and closing his fist thoughtfully. “It’s why I turned Eri down on getting my arm back. This arm you and your papa made for me is a symbol of two important things I can’t let go of.”

“...And what are those two things are?” she asked slowly. 

He smiled. “The first, the promise Étienne and I made that day. The promise I was afraid I’d have to break. And two-” Regi looked her in the eye, a proud gleam in his stare “-the hope of this world and the future of support design.”

Odette scoffed. “The what?”

“You’re planning on taking over from your papa someday, right?” He smirked. “Aiming to surpass him and become the best? As much as I believe in you, I know it’s going to take longer if you’re limited to only the school work spaces. A mind like yours needs a little more space.” Regi flicked open the wrist of the arm, automatically bringing up a holographic screen with lines of code. “This is the Labradorite Code I’d been working on the last two years, isn’t it? I’ve only shown you it once, and yet you managed to memorize and complete it with no issues. Neither I or your papa managed that.”

She shrugged. “It’s not that impressive.”

“On the contrary, it rather is.” 

Regi walked over to another door near the far end of the lab. It was one she hadn’t seen before. Had it always been there? Regardless, Regi held up his own crystal, lightly tapping it against the keypad beside the door. Odette took the hint and used her own, sticking it in the hole and turning it. The door slid open slowly with a soft hiss, revealing a small library of various books and disks along the wall. Some were obvious; a stack of video games and cds, comics and films, shows she’d never even heard of. There were also a lot of novels and binders among the stacks as well. 

“In here are copies of my old study papers,” Regi explained. “I’ll leave you to go through and see what they are, but they are yours to use as you see fit. The copies of the Coding Grimoires are in the safe behind the anime section, along with a few other things that might interest you.” He lightly pat her head before turning to leave. “Some areas of the lab aren’t accessible with your crystal until you reach those areas in your study, but everything else is fair game. Go on and have fun. Oh, and Odette?” He stopped for a second, looking back at her one last time with a loving smile. “Thank you for helping me keep my promise to your papa. I’m so proud of how far you’ve come. I look forward to seeing the next rising star shining in the sky.”

She smiled back at him, standing tall. “I’ll be sure to impress.”

“I expect nothing less.”

Odette woke up to the scent of a home cooked meal coming from the kitchen. Normally this wouldn’t surprise her. She was used to this coming from the kitchen back home. But this wasn’t home. This was The Renegade Cabin on campus. Quickly, Odette reached for her phone and was about to call, when she saw the texts.

> Hey mind if I come over tomorrow morning? I’ll make you breakfast. 

> Sure. Just text me when you get here. You still have a key, right? So you can let yourself in.

> Okay, sounds good. See you in the morning then! Good night!

> Good night, Clement. 

...

> Hey, I’m here. I’ll get started on breakfast. Hope you don’t mind omurice.

Ah, that’s right. Clement was coming over. 

Quickly, she got up and dressed in a red flannel top and dark jeans. It was Saturday, so there were no classes to worry about. Just homework. But Odette had a lot more to do. She didn’t want to go back to the dorms, but she’d have to in order to retrieve all her things. She’d only packed enough for the night. There was a lot to move and very little time. 

Once she was dressed, she hurried out and over to the kitchen, surprised to see the dining table already set for breakfast. Clement was dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, his usual hat replaced by a small headscarf to tie his hair back. She tried not to laugh at it. 

“You look like a rabbit with that on,” she said.

Clement glanced over his shoulder, smiling brightly. “Good morning.” He looked up towards the headscarf, chuckling fondly. “I guess it does. My hat needed a wash and I ran out of hair ties, so sis lent me one of these.” He turned his attention back to cooking, quickly preparing to flip the omelets. “Breakfast should be done soon.”

“Sounds good.” Odette went over to the fridge, smiling when she found it already stocked. She reached in and pulled out the orange juice. “Did Renegade tell you what happened yesterday?”

“The entire campus already knows. I’m really happy for you.” He carefully finished plating the food, turning off the stove and taking the omurices to the table. “Kumamaru and Fujisaki said the class should be finished moving dorms themselves by lunch, so if you want, the new Hero kids can give you a hand.” 

“You not going to help?” she teased.

Clem smiled. “Nah. Wish I could, but I can’t do much heavy lifting right now. Anything more than my cat is too much. I have three weeks left of physical therapy and then I have to start hitting the gym to get my strength back.” He looked back at the stove briefly. “I can still cook though, so after breakfast I’m heading back to the dorm to make a big soup for the class to eat at lunch.” 

“I see...”

Clem looked at her, smile melting to worry. “Odette? Are you okay?”

Odette felt a pit in her stomach. She’d felt something similar after seeing her brother’s injury. But this was different. There was a twist in it she didn’t recognize. It was brief, but she could see for a moment the dazed, injured lad from the sports festival again. The unconscious, broken rescued student in the hospital bed. 

“Odette?”

“You are never to do anything like that again. Do you hear me, Clement Gladstone? I don’t ever want to see you broken like that again. So help me, I’ll....”

Clem’s eyes went wide in confusion before the realization set in. He went over to her, taking the juice from her hands gently and setting it down before wrapping his arms around her. 

“I promise,” he said softly. “No more recklessness. No more danger. No more attempts at heroics. It’s over now. I won’t make you worry like that ever again.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. “Glad we’re on the same page. It’d be disappointing if you died. Especially after all the hard work I’ve been putting in to repair your father’s support item.”

“Thanks for that. I really appreciate it. I’ll try not to die before then.”

Odette glared at him. “Wrong. You’re not allowed to die until I say so.”

Clem smirked. “Is that a threat?”

Odette returned the smirk, lightly tilting his chin up and placing a quick peck on his cheek, right near the corner of his mouth. Clement’s eyes went wide in shock as a vivid blush coated his face. 

“It’s a promise,” she stated bluntly. “You’re not allowed to be reckless and won’t die until I say so. Do that, and I’ll be as honest as I can with you. Within reason.”

Clem blinked a few times before managing to smile again. “O-okay. It’s a promise then.”

“Glad we’re in agreement. Now.” She pulled away and went back to getting a drink. “We should eat before breakfast gets too cold.” She took her seat and proceeded to dig in. She had a lot of work to do, and she wasn’t going to waste a second. 

Clem took his seat and started cutting into his omurice. “Hey...do you...want me to come over and make dinner tonight?”

“I have a lot of work to do today.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose two hands would be better than one, if you’re offering. Can we have some kind of pasta?”

His violet eyes brightened. “Sure. How does lasagna sound?”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

She nodded, turning back to her breakfast without another word. 

She had a lot to do today.

#myselfinserts #mybnhaocs #friends ocs #the au of class #days of future class #odette gets spoiled and she deserves it #Anonymous

[sylvaetria]

Hey Richtor, did you ever post anything in your resources about tips for storing and organizing spells and supplies?

Yo anon.

Most of what I have for storing spells is all about grimoires and the like - compiling them in books or folders or digital archives, etc. I talk about that (how one might organize spells for a grimoire) specifically in [this post].

I’ll try to throw together a quick list of tips for things for you, though, because yeah, don’t see a lot of that.

For spells:

Firstly, decide if it matters to you. Because for some people, they’re happy to flip through their stuff looking for things, but me, I like being able to find what I need when I need it super fast. If you don’t wanna put any time into organization like that, that’s fine, it doesn’t need to be that way; your grimoire, you do you. So decide, first of all, if you care about spells being in a particular order or categorized or whatever, and then go from there.

Me, personally, I try to keep things grouped by intent. So, I try to keep all the protection spells together, followed by cleansing, then banishing, etc. I do it in a order of importance that I find significant; the more “frivolous” spells go in the back of the book, and curses at the very very back. But that’s just my personal preference; you sort (or not sort) however your magical heart desires.

If you want to be able to arrange your spells exactly as you want, a three-ring binder is a good choice; if you want aesthetics for your grimoire, they may not seem the obvious one, but they’re wonderful for their ability to allow the moving of pages to wherever you deem necessary, and also discreet if you need that. There are also those binders that kinda look like sweet magical textbooks, I think they’re on Etsy, if you’ve got a bit of extra budget to spend on something like that. Otherwise, Sharpies and sigils can go a long way to making any book look magical, but that’s an entire other post lmao.

Another good system for storage is loose leaf paper in those accordion folder things. Whatever they’re called. These mother fuckers:

Again, not exactly the best for aesthetic, but super great for easy labelling to find exactly what is where. You can rearrange things at a whim, and not worry about having to tear a page out of a fifty dollar leather-bound book because you misspelled a single word. (Me, I cry.)

For most other books, it could be useful to keep a table of contents somewhere at the front or back, or wherever you can, if you happen to add spells in whatever order you find them in, and not section them off based off intent or purpose. I see a lot of bullet journal style grimoires with a theme much like this, so if that piques your interest, I’d suggest doing a search on bullet journals. Particularly, I believe I have a post about bullet journaling, magic-styles, somewhere... Boom, [here].

We haven’t even started on digital grimoires yet. Probably the easiest to organize and maintain, in my personal opinion in any case. It can be online or off, in a blogging platform or on a cloud, saved as a word document on your phone or PC, broken up into separate files and folders... Almost endless options for this one. And the best part? Password protection. (I’m a tech kid.) I could honestly go on and on forever about this particular point, but there are so many options, feel free to try some yourself if you’re looking for a discreet, easy-access and organized way to sort your spells.

If it helps anyone, I have four binders, like four or five notebooks, a blog, a OneNote, and folders on my computer all dedicated to witchcraft. This blog literally acts as a digital grimoire for me - it’s also why I spend so much time tagging and hating it, so when I need to find something for my own reference, I have that easy access. I have a huge list of herb correspondences in its own cute little notebook, just because it would take up so much damn space in a binder on its own anyway. My tarot spreads have their own notebook, as do a set of very detailed interpretations for the card meanings, because some of my books are, super lacking to say the least. 

So, like, it’s clear I put a lot of time into my witchy notes and how I keep them, but that is just me. If it sounds like too much work and you don’t wanna bother, honestly don’t. I do it because it satisfies me, because I feel it adds to my craft, because I enjoy it. That’s what it should be like for all y’all too. So, again, if you don’t feel like having your stuff in any particular order or manner is relevant to how you do your magic-y biz, seriously don’t bother - your grimoire is no less a grimoire (or whatever term you use to call a book of magic) because it’s not organized, or doesn’t look witchy, or you just write the notes and not bother with designs. I will say it as many times as it takes to run it into the ground - you do you in your own magic.

For supplies:

This one I might have less to say on, because my stuff is, heh, not so organized lmao. 

I guess mostly, again, it comes down to what works for you, or whatever keeps your supplies safe from harm.

Some people keep boxes for their supplies - I’ve painted a shoe box and kept witchy biz in it. If you want to line it or not to keep things safe, probably depends on you or what you plan to put it in.

Sometimes things don’t need to be stored - if you have space and you are able, you can leave them out on a shelf or even tucked into a drawer. Seriously, wherever you can put them, wherever they will be safe, I think that’s mostly what matters for that.

Crystals might need the most special treatment, especially more fragile specimens. I know, when I moved, I had to wrap all my crystals into shirts and socks to make sure nothing damaged them on the way. And, quite frankly, they’re still all like that. Mostly because I don’t have a lot of other place to put them right now, but it really is keeping them protected too. So while it may not look the most witchy, it’s pretty damn functional.

Labels are helpful, particularly with herbs that look veeery similar. 

On the topic of herb containers, as long as the herbs are dry, they are safe to store in whatever container you want to put them in. I have herbs in a mixture of glass jars, plastic containers, and sandwich bags. So yeah.

Like I said, not really so much experience on supplies - most of my stuff is practical, not necessarily done because it looks good but because it works. And a lot of my more important supplies are just, chilling on a shelf. I know not everyone has the ability to be so open with their craft, but based on my scope of perspective and experience, I can only talk about things that I have done or encountered, and so I may not be able to give accurate advice for every situation. You know? 

Regardless, I hope that helps you anon! If you have any more questions about more specific things I may have mentioned here, feel free to shoot more asks. Hopefully I will be on a bit more frequently here, now that I can see again, though my PC is still, so, so slow. Good luck!

#witch tips #grimoire #grimoires #grimoire tips #organization #long post #anonymous #answered ask

[eyesaremosaics]

Hey, Megan :) The High Priestess, The Hierophant, Temperance, The Hanged Man and The Tower :)

Hi sweetheart! How are you? Happy new year! Let’s see…

The High Priestess: How did you first discover your path?

My path as a witch/spiritualist? It has always been in me. My mom says I was a very wide eyed and psychic child. That I used to unnerve people sometimes. She said when I was 3, I sat and described the entire process of how the Native American’s made pillows. In great detail, with no prior concept of their culture or anything.

I could see auras, spirits, (was always having conversations with people who weren’t there. Mom said I would pause, listen to the inaudible response, and then reply to whatever it was I heard. Prophetic dreams, with all my past lives…. Because of this, mom put me in a psychic pre-school. Many people avoid me because my energy and intensity, forces people to look at and evaluate themselves on a deeper level–which most people don’t like to do.

Mom used to crush herbs, make her own incense, and would cast spells with me at a very young age. Probably 6 or seven… But she taught me how to perform ritual magic when I was a bit older 11 or twelve (and could be trusted with dangerous tools such as fire). My best friend at the time, went to a catholic school, she was defying her parents in secret, though she was genuinely interested in learning about paganism .

We both did a lot of research, and began practicing together. She would come over every other weekend to perform a ritual. It was a fun time. After that I practiced almost every day on my own. My first relationship was with a girl, and her mother was also a witch. Together we would cast spells, dance around each other giggling in my room… Very soft memories. Sad how nothing stays.

Still practice, I meet friends every once in a while who enjoy it as well. My friend Diane and I used to get together to manifest desires with creative visualization using ritual magic. One of the spells we cast, was for me to find an apartment (during the tech boom when prices were sky high), within a few days–I signed a lease.

I cast a spell to bring love to my friend Teresa, within a week she reconnected with a former acquaintance, who has now been her live in boyfriend/life partner for the last 4 years. I find it easier to manifest for others, yet only manage it for myself in desperation. Strange.

So I guess I was sort of born into it. It’s in my blood, my ancestry.

——

The Hierophant: Best advice you’ve ever received from a witch?

“Be sure to say goodbye and close the board of you use the Ouija oracle.”

I don’t mess with Ouija anymore. The last time I participated in a seance, it was Halloween at the speakeasy. I had been in the parlor reading tarot for hours. Took a break to head into the boss’ office to see what my friend Holly was up to. The room is an emerald green, lit with art nouveau lamps, dark oak furniture and flickering candles. Holly excitedly beckoned me in.

“Join our seance.” She asked me cheerfully. I told her that I don’t mess with the board. Last time my friend Talia and I did it, something followed me into my dreams saying in a demonic voice “I am going to take you and everything you love”, it hid in my closet feeding off me while I slept. No joke. I woke up to the feeling of something watching me. I felt something sitting in my closet. The creepiest feeling.

She assured me that she takes it very seriously, and that she always closes the board or banishes the negative entities. I hesitantly agreed. Two patrons were seated on either side, Holly across from me. She asked if there were any spirits present. Instantly I felt a needle go through my solar plexus. Suddenly I could ’t breathe, and broke down into hysterical tears. Out of nowhere. When she asked if it was a good spirit. The planchette went to “NO”. The pain worsened. And I collapsed on the couch, hyperventilating. Whatever it was, it felt my sadness. It burrowed inside me and ate it like candy. Gives me the chills just thinking about it.

She told it to leave immediately, and forced the planchette to the word “goodbye” on the board, before turning it over. She had to burn sage for a few minutes to get me to stop shaking. Fuck that. I don’t mess with Ouija, but my message to you is this: it is so important to close the board.

If you don’t, you leave the portal open.

————

The Hanged Man: Which area of witchcraft are you least familiar with?

Hmm… Black magic I suppose. Hexes, jinxes, curses. I have studied them, grimoires, satanic rituals but never attempted to use any. My interest in the dark arts is all academic, morbid fascination. I would never invoke that sort of darkness into my life, I am far too sensitive.

——-

The Tower: Have you ever cursed someone?

No. Unless you count the voodoo doll I made of this boy who bullied me in the 4th grade. I had just seen “the craft”, and my friend and I thought we could torture him. It was made out of binder paper stapled together haha. Needless to say, we did not do it right. It was foolish child’s play.

When I got older and seriously studied the occult, I quickly realized that I wanted no part of black magic. I am a firm believer in karma, and the threefold law. The threefold law states: do harm to none. Any harm you cause will come back to you threefold. My pagan girlfriend that I mentioned earlier, cast a curse on an ex boyfriend who broke her heart. A few days later… He got hit by a car while skateboarding. He survived, but was hurt pretty bad. Within the years/months following this incident, her grandfather died of tuberculosis, her cousin commit suicide, and her brother died of an overdose.

You could say it was all coincidence, but I don’t like creating bad karma. My soul is too old and wise for that. I created enough bad karma in my past lives, my mission is to repair the damage, not create more. I feel very strongly about that.

#asks #wicca #paganism #spiritualism #the occult #witchcraft #witch #ritual magic #ouija board #ouija #ritual

[thegodthief]

Do Magick: Day 1 – I Wasn’t Ready (But I Did It Anyway)

To get to the quick of it: The notebook wasn’t complete. What was originally envisioned as a dedicated note book became something else by the end of the last day of preparation.

It had become a grimoire.

The first few pages were a walkthrough of the ritual in step by step order but only naming the relevant passages rather than writing them in line. Then a page listing the tools I was starting out with, and the rest of the page intentionally kept empty to list modifications as they arrive. Following that was a handwritten copy of each and every prayer and incantation referenced in the initial “How To”.

In ink.

And block lettering.

Because I need to be able to understand what the hell I wrote down during the early morning hour that I will be performing the ritual as that is the only time during a twenty-four hour period I will be guaranteed solitude and silence from others in the house.

At the end of the third hour of continual but intentionally slow-paced writing, I realized what the book had become. I already had a high-level understanding of why the Book of Oberon was (dis)organized like someone had dropped a binder full of notes and hadn’t bothered to reorder the salvaged pages. But now I was experiencing it.

I had only intended to copy one version of “Hail Mary” because “who needs more than one, anyway?” I copied two. I had meant to fill the pages after the incantations with day-by-day notes of the experiment. I found myself adding other “little things” to copy over from the Book of Oberon to keep closer at hand during the experiment.

If I had all the prayers and incantations in digital format, either by blog posts or text files, why not just print them out and make a mini-pamphlet?

When I made my first mistake in the thin brown book, I understood why.

The word was supposed to be written with red ink. I had become distracted and had continued using the black ink I had started the sentence with. When I realized my error the moment the word was completed, the pain that arced through me made me cry out. It wasn’t just that I had marred a (relatively) perfect surface. It was that the book had become a mirror, and I just scratched it.

The act of writing out the words also wrote them to memory. I had practiced them before when I was marking the timing and choosing how best to fill the limited time I had for the ritual. But now as I wrote them, I not only chiseled the sounds to my tongue, but the very sight of the words were now burned into my sight. To say them was to call the shape and color of each letter into my mind where it would be expressed in my own silent way.

I could not allow myself to memorize the visual error even though it would have no effect of the sounds coming from my mouth. I hashed out the wrong colored word, muttering an unkind rebuke against it under my breath. I paused, listened to instinct and crossed myself, took up the proper color pen, and continued transcribing the prayers.

When I saw I had “only” two incantations left to inscribe late last night, I was happy. When I saw that one of them was the meat of the ritual, and more wordy than all seven of the Planetary Day Prayers, I was disheartened. I could either finish the notebook, or I could be awake enough in the morning to perform the ritual before getting ready for work.

But I could not have both.

I printed out the “conjuration most necessary” and the modified “License to Depart” and tucked it into the notebook to bring with me into the circle in the morning.

Fear kept me in the bed for a short time after the alarm went off. Thunder in the distance reminded me that obligations still have to be met.

I found the difference between a walk-through and a rehearsal. Steps that seemed right in a thought exercise had me getting in my own way when actually doing them. I made mental notes to further modify the list of steps in the notebook.

I chose a candle rich with the scent of mahogany and cedar for this first attempt. It’s nothing like frankincense, but it reminds me of old churches with wood plank floors that creaked as you softly stepped to the pew and how the wood paneling would warm during services to release the scent of all the oils used to polish it over the generations. It’s a solemn scent, a sacred scent.

When I lifted the lid and set it aside, my room became thick with the scent. I could only imagine how much more the scent would pervade if I actually lit the candle.

I looked as foolish as I felt as the show went on without an audience or a response. I had remained standing for all the incantations, but after completing the “conjuration most necessary”, I sat down at the chair contained with me in the circle. The table with the also encircled Book of Oberon bearing the shewstones remained just outside of my space.

I did not have a prepared speech for this inactive moment. I expected nothing to happen, and unfortunately, nothing is what I prepared. So I spoke to the shewstones instead.

I admitted my ignorance and my hubris. I admitted where I was missing and where I was too focused. I spoke of this action being a direct result of the Birto working and that I could be easily misled due to my eagerness to challenge my beaten in fears of Christianity and its trappings.

“So, I guess I’m trying to say… I need to know if I’m on the right path with this. I need to know if this is how I start.”

I did not realize my eyes had closed until I failed to open them. I did not realize my hand was stretched over the shewstones until I failed to pull it back.

But in my false sight, I saw the room bright and clear. Each item was where I had left it.

Except the candle, was lit.

The scent changed from heavy mahogany and cedar to something that gripped me softly in my chest. I watched with false sight as the smoke from the lit candle bent towards the shewstones and wound around and between them as if it could not make up its mind which stone to steal for itself. The smoke then turned up and wound around and between my fingers. The warmth of the smoke gave it a sense of firmness and flesh and I had the sensation of something softly shaking my hand in greeting.

In the sizzle of the false flame, I heard a voice.

«It’s a start. But you are not halfway. Keep reaching.»

The false flame extinguished itself and my eyes opened without any will from me.

My allotted time for “wonders” had ended. I spoke the License to Depart followed by Psalm 54 and the “cutting” of the circle.

As I went about my day, I wondered if my excitement and eagerness for anything to happen caused me to see as I did. After all, Birto himself said that the only reason I saw him was because others in the group exercise had done all the proper work and I was riding in their wake. But the more I reflected on what happened when my eyes closed, the more I felt secure that this was my “thing” after all.

This evening, after work, I finished transcribing the “conjuration most necessary”, the modified “License to Depart”, and a modified “book blessing” into the thin brown book. It took three hours to finish it. Technically, it is a complete set of prayers and actions for the specific purpose of summoning [Patient Caller]. But with the listing of the Planetary Prayers and the book blessing, it has purposes outside of its initial scope.

I set out to summon a spirit and am winding up writing a personal grimoire.

Funny how magic works, isn’t it.

#DoMagick #Long post #Patient Caller

[mogwitch]

Ok so I tried the Ultra Organised Grimoire in a special beautiful perfect notebook but trying to make sure everything went in the right place was too stressful so in fear of ‘ruining’ it I never really did anything in it. I tried having several different books so that I had one for each category instead but that was ALSO incredibly stressful. Sometimes things felt like they belonged between two different books and I ended up with like 40 different books for different things and that also stopped me from doing anything with it. I tried the ring binder file grimoire but I just didn’t enjoy that as much and ended up only using it for tarot spreads so now that’s my tarot file. I tried a digital grimoire but I rarely turn on my laptop so that didn’t get worked on much. I tried the online grimoire but it quickly started to feel impersonal and too public and I missed having the feel of a BOOK in my hands.

So taking my card of the day’s advice instead of trying to make it perfect or putting off putting anything into my grimoire or putting off trying to make a new one until I found the “right” notebook, I did what I've been thinking of for a while now and just grabbed the biggest old book I have that I’m never going to read and started modifying it. Not even planning out HOW I was going to mod it, I’m just going with whatever comes to me next.

Masking tape over the spine to cover the title. Stitched along the top and bottom of that to prevent it pealing away. Stitched in a ribbon that I cut up. Coloured the tape with black chunky sharpie but it makes this like dark coppery metallic look and it was super nice so I decided to go over the rest of the cover so it’s not just plain black anymore. When that’s all dry I’m going to make some sigils to put in silver or gold or bronze sharpie on the cover or spine or both idk maybe both maybe all 3 colours maybe I’ll cover it in sigils maybe I’ll glue stuff on it. Probably want to add something to keep it closed when it inevitably bulks out. I’m trying to be more free with this one because perfectionism is one of my biggest downfalls in all areas of life tbh. It’s fun tho as soon as I started stressing about something not being perfect I purposefully made it more imperfect to try to fight that so when I started to stress that the stitching was uneven I made it more uneven, when I started to stress that the pages weren't going to be perfect thick crisp handmade paper I turned the book upside down so the front cover is the back cover and now the pages are not only marked and not parchment quality they're also upside down. Gonna use gesso over the pages so I can write/draw/paint/whatever and you'll still be able to see through the gesso but it makes a better surface plus it'll have that messy aesthetic lol. It’s going to be a bit of a messy one all round really but I DO have a very large and pretty paperblanks hard cover blank notebook coming in the post (cos I already bought it) so I’m going to use that one too for maybe some of the more I guess “formal” feeling things I want to put in. But this one is going to be my main book.

I’m a bit of a compulsive spender and honest to f almost paid around £540 earlier today after barely a few minutes thought for one of those big beautiful professionally made tomes just for the aesthetic knowing full well I’d never be able to set a pencil to it for fear of ruining it because if I had one of those it would have to be absolutely PERFECT so I’m glad I went in 100% the opposite direction.

#my post #I'm so happy with this #grimoire