#the space they create for us to be ourselves

[flowers-of-io]

Tithe (to) me baby one more time

This post is my personal attempt to understand Season of the Witch, and potentially defend my hypothesis that at its core it doesn't make sense. I may yet change my opinion on this as I write and research, because here at flowers of io dot tumblr dot com we do real science and do not let ourselves be blinded by prior assumptions, prejudice, and bitterness. Maybe there is yet something there that I don't see.

Disclaimer: This essay is nearly 4k words long and has not been beta read, so any typos, tangents and formatting issues you may find here are my fault only and I preemptively apologise for them. Please tell me if anything is unclear or worded weirdly! I haven’t written a longer lore analysis in a good while and I may have got a little rusty.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at how Hive tithes, tributes, and willpower actually work!

1) Anthem Anatheme

Over three years ago in this post I wrote a bit about anthem anatheme, which is the way both worms and ahamkara feed. I did not explain it well, though (and I was being very comically exasperated over Truth to Power), so let me try again.

From the Merriam-Webster:

First appearing in Old English in the form antefn, anthem derives ultimately from Greek antiphōnos—a word meaning "responsive" that is a combination of anti-, meaning "over" or "against," and phōnē, "sound" or "voice." The Greek root gives a hint as to what the musical form of early anthems was like. Originally, anthems were devotional verses sung as a response during a religious service.

French anathème and English anathema is the formal exclusion from the community of Christians (in the New Testament) or the Catholic Church (in contemporary canon law). The original meaning of the word was a little different, though. I'll quote the Wikipedia article because I don't think I'd be able to word it better than it is explained there:

The word anathema has two main meanings. One is to describe that something or someone is being hated or avoided. The other refers to a formal excommunication by a church. These meanings come from the New Testament, where an Anathema was a person or thing cursed or condemned by God. In the Old Testament, an Anathema was something or someone dedicated to God as a sacrifice, or cursed and separated from God because of sin. These represent two types of settings, one for devotion, the other for destruction.

Anathema derives from Ancient Greek: ἀνάθεμα, anáthema, meaning "an offering" or "anything dedicated", itself derived from the verb ἀνατίθημι, anatíthēmi, meaning "to offer up". In the Old Testament, חֵרֶם (chērem) referred to both objects consecrated to divine use and those dedicated to destruction in the Lord's name, such as enemies and their weapons during religious wars. Since weapons of the enemy were considered unholy, the meaning became "anything dedicated to evil" or "a curse".

Combining these two meanings would give us something like ‘a hymn of offering’, the ‘offering’ part having a derogatory ring to it.

In the most recent Destiny loretab on the topic (Queensfoil Censer) Anthem Anatheme is explained as "a manner of subjecting reality to one's will, similar to a Lightbearer's ability to affect paracausality", and this is in line with the prior, much more vague definitions that we've had. It is both the invocation and the act of changing reality to match your will. It does have a similar vibe to aiat, which I wrote about here: "Ahamkara drive power from the space between ‘what-is’ and ‘what-is-desired’. Stating ‘aiat’ creates this connection between ‘what-is’, ‘why-it-is’ and the space in between: ‘why-it-is-?’."

It is also what worms and ahamkara feed on. The reason ahamkara "tweak" the wishes they grant is precisely to widen that gap between how the universe was before the wish and how it will be after it - the impact it will make on the universe - how much it will change.

2) Tithe to Power

Worms feed in the same way, except they are not the ones invoking Anthem Anatheme, and instead it is their hosts who do that. Contrary to the popular belief, worms do not feed on *killing*, per say--but killing is one of, if not the most efficient way of reshaping universe according to your will. Toland says: "This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent".

The worms sort of... cede the ability(?) to invoke Anthem Anatheme to their hosts, and so also it is the host who gains power from that — the worm feeds, yes, but there is also something else there, something I don't quite understand but it's tied to the Darkness, Ascendant Plane, and Taking. The power that allows you to will things into existence, to define and dictate the rules. "Nothing will ever exist except by your consent".

Ergo: the more powerful—or rather... impactful, or influential—entity you kill, the bigger is the space of their absence; the more sustenance the worm gets, and the more power you gain — because you've asserted your will over them, you did not permit them to exist. As Toland explains: "Oryx inhabits a world where power is truth. To win is to be noble, and to be real. [...] The echoes of Oryx go forth to ask a question: are you the truth?"

So what I will be referring to in this essay as power is the total sum of your impact on the universe, which (thanks to your worm's paracausal abilities) gives you paracausal abilities. Willpower given shape, sort of. That is the foundation the entire Hive system is built on: magic, runes, philosophy, everything.

Now, I used to think tribute and tithe were two different things, but they are apparently used interchangeably in the lore: "The Worm within demands tribute. Now you shall kill what you can and take what killing you need to grow—or for your own purposes, if you dare—and tithe the rest to that which rules you. Thus, tribute will ascend the chain and the excess shall pool at the height, as unlike a river to an ocean" (Truth to Power: Injection). This entry is supposed to quote Oryx in the Books of Sorrow, but it doesn't repeat the words exactly, and omits something very interesting (and confusing). In Carved in Ruin, where Oryx dictates his law, he actually says: "You Thrall, each of you will claw and scream, and kill what you can. Take enough killing to feed your worm, and a little more to grow. Tithe the rest to the Acolyte who commands you."

"Take enough killing to feed your worm, and a little more to grow" seems to suggest the Hive-host and the worm feed on the same thing, or at least that the same thing that the worms feed on is what allows the Hive to grow. The whole shtick with the worm pact was supposed to give the Krill power over their own flesh and the world around them, so we can presume they grow physically as they attain more (will)power - to will their form to change. The lore about it is very vaguely worded though, and a lot of this is my own interpretation, so don't take it as indubitably true.

What I want to make extremely clear, though, is that neither tribute/tithe nor (will)power is a physical thing. Of course the power you have can manifest as paracausal abilities, but it's like with hitting something really hard with your fist - the stronger you are, the more impact you will have on what you're hitting, and the effects are very tangible, but your physical strength itself is not an, I don't know, physical object. It's the potential energy in your muscles I'm struggling to word it better, but I hope you understand the metaphor. The more you affect the world, the stronger your paracausal muscles get, so to say.

The way I understand the logic behind tithing, then, is that in the Hive pyramid scheme you transfer some of your power to your direct commander because they have power over you. Your will is subservient to the one above you, so they demand a cut of its potential growth. It's a way to organise the Hive society, really, because without this system in place everyone would be mindlessly killing each other to survive, while now the ones in command have an incentive not to slaughter all their soldiers if those soldiers are a source of power. It's delicate calculation - is it more beneficial for me to kill my underling and gain the entirety of their power in a single slurp, or allow them to live and transfer to you a percentage of their own power gain? How risky is it to leave them alive, in case they get too powerful and strike against you? But then again - the more power they gain, the bigger the percentage that you get. Is it worth to kill them now, or wait for them to get more powerful, so you can then gobble up a larger meal? It's like fattening a pig but the fatter it gets the more it is able (and willing) to kill you. At which point does the risk outweigh the potential future gain?

2.1) Nature

This part of Hive gods lore also ties into the way aiat works, and the whole thing with definitions and essences that I wrote about in that essay, so I won't go into this right now. What is essential to remember for the purpose of this post is that the Hive gods emulate their natures, or are their natures, and by invoking those natures they can be fed power, summoned into a given place, and even brought back from beyond the grave. I’ll just put a few lore quotes that sort of explain this concept, or at least illustrate it. It will be important later.

You must obey your nature forever. In your immortality, Aurash, you may never cease to explore and inquire, for the sake of your children. In your immortality, Xi Ro, you may never cease to test your strength. In your immortality, Sathona, you may never abandon cunning. (IX: The Bargain)

.

Oryx made war on the Ecumene for a hundred years. At the end of those hundred years he killed the Ecumene Council on the Fractal Wreath, and from their blood rose Xivu Arath, saying, “I am war, and you have conjured me back with war.” […] He drove the Dakaua Nest into a trap, and they were made extinct. From their ashes rose cunning Savathûn, saying, “I am trickery, and you have conjured me back with trickery.” (XXIX: Carved in Ruin)

.

In each act of His power Oryx seeks to incarnate the self-sustaining, immortal suzerainty that He worships. The power that He uses to wash his Taken clean and etch them into useful shapes. (Echo of Oryx)

.

He is not a simple thing to kill. He wants to be isomorphic to conquest, to triumph, to killing and death.** He is a syllogism, now, but in time He hopes to become an axiom. (Oryx: Rebuked)

.

[Xivu Arath, hear me.]

[You are war, and I conjure you with war and blood.]

[A gift for my favorite sister.]

(Empress: CHAPTER 5: NEW GODS)

.

MY HOME IS WAR. MY VOICE IS A BATTLE SONG. FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED WAR, YOU HAVE WORSHIPPED ME. I AM HERE TO CLAIM MY TRIBUTE. IT IS OVERDUE. (Empress: CHAPTER 6: BATTLE SONG)

3) Season of the Witch

So now let's talk about the premise of Season of the Witch.

We don't know what Savathûn's plan was exactly; we didn't get a scene of Immaru dictating it to Eris or Ikora, only scraps of it mentioned by various characters. But the gist of it, pretty much, was this: Eris plugs herself into the tithing system through the ritual in the first cutscene, and we - using the Acolyte's Staff, which contains worms - transfer the power we generate through killing to her. I say generate because I'm not sure we would've been able to actually use that power (for example, to create a throne world) if we're not connected to the system, but then again Hiraks had done it somehow, so idk.

Another thing, which I hadn't caught while playing the season, but either @winnower-winnower or @the-goldendragon pointed it out to me when we were talking about this, is Eris' nature as the god of vengeance. Every act of violence done in revenge against the Hive and/or the Witness, either by her hand or ours, should technically give her additional power.

So what was the goal of all of this?

Well, apparently the whole point of Eris becoming a Hive god and plugging into the tithing system was that she could become more powerful than Xivu Arath and beat her at her own game. And how would she get all that power? Why, by killing, of course! That's the sword logic, right? Nothing is permitted to exist except by your consent. That's power. And Eris already has so much power, as the hand wielding the blade which ended both Crota and Oryx, and possibly Nokris, and Hashladûn, and Alak-Hul, and countless other Hive. She did not perform these feats alone, granted (something that very cool sword logic cutscene seems to have forgotten), but she was the inciter, guide, and main motivator for them.

And this is all true, except for the one small detail which is exactly the reason why Xivu is (used to be?) such a compelling antagonist: this is not how you beat her at her own game.

3.1) Xivu and War

Remember imbaru? Remember how Savathûn made an entire power-generating scheme based around the idea that she, the god of cunning, cannot be outsmarted or outwitted, and every wrong guess about her would only feed her power? It was conveniently forgotten for the duration of The Witch Queen, an investigation-based campaign, but it HAD BEEN a thing.

And Xivu Arath had done her homework, and copied this idea. If she is war, then every act of war will invoke her and so give her power.

I AM THE WAR YOU CRAVE. PURPOSE ETERNAL. A LEGACY IN BLOOD. WHEN YOU DRAW BLADES, YOU DRAW ME. YOU CANNOT RESIST WITHOUT INVOKING MY BANNER. (Immolant Pt. 2)

And earlier seasons remembered this! The whole reason why Rasputin sacrificed himself was because Mara had enlightened everybody on the idea that Xivu would've gained power from any act of war and slaughter, regardless if it'd been against ours or her own soldiers. She'd set herself up to be struck against, and it would've been a power factory for her. Rasputin had no other choice than to fold and disable the weapons entirely. That was his sacrifice, that was what set him apart from the god of war in the end.

Season of the Deep had some insight on that too:

Zavala: Rasputin proved we can't beat Xivu Arath in direct conflict, but..

Sloane: Zavala, I tried every which way to fight her when Titan went dark. I never managed to put a dent in her plans. Just survive.

Zavala: So it is truly it. [sighs] And all that's left is for us to accept it.

(Deep Dives, Week Six)

And my absolute favourite:

Sloane: This report is interesting. Xivu Arath intended to use Rasputin's Warsat network as an unwinning scenario. We fire the Warsats on her army, she gains power through death. She fires the Warsats on the City, everyone dies. We only achieved victory through defeat. Through a... moment of sacrifice. It makes me wonder about our approach to defeating her.

Lord Saladin: Winning without fighting. Philosophers of war have contemplated this very thing, both in our culture and, as I've learned, those beyond Earth.

Sloane: How do you defeat the undefeatable? That's an interesting problem.

(Salvage, Week Three)

...But then we got Season of the Witch, and it turned out the way to defeat the undefeatable is simply to hit it harder.

Okay, but why shouldn't it work? I've said before Eris was extremely powerful by herself, and with the plan to boost her with our tithes, she'd be even more beefed up on sword logic. Why couldn't she hit Xivu Arath harder?

Well, for the simple reason that Xivu gets power from war--all war, or at least all war against herself. Even disregarding the sheer disparity in power at the start, the billions of years of tithes that Xivu was ahead of Eris, this idea was doomed at the start, because for every ounce of killing-power we passed over to Eris, Xivu got the same amount of tribute. We were making war on her, for Eir's sake, what else were we expecting?

Same goes for the idea that we cut off the tribute Xivu was getting from her powerful lieutenants like Ir Uulxal and took it for ourselves/Eris. Yeah, that's probable, but at the same time we were powering Xivu up by making war on her. That had been the whole point of her as an undefeatable antagonist.

I've heard people argue that what we were doing in Witch wasn't direct violence against Xivu, so it didn't count as war. And to those people I say that hybrid warfare is a thing. Seriously, my country neighbours both Russia and Belarus, and I don't want go on an IRL tangent but claiming the only act that count as war is the direct clashing of blades is some extremely medieval thinking. It's like saying the Cold War wasn't a war. Planning, plotting and strategising how to destroy an enemy absolutely is war, gathering power in order to destroy the enemy is war, trying to outmaneouver and outplay the enemy tactically is war. If the point is aggression or counteraggression, if there is An Enemy, it is war.

I'm willing to accept Eris got some amount of power from Xivu invoking her nature of vengeance in her acts of war against us, but still, it would be ridiculous to believe that would've been enough to match and surpass the might of Xivu herself. I'm sorry, it's simply unrealistic. In her acts of vengeance Xivu did not alter the universe in any meaningful way, she just threw a few beefed up Taken at us and that was it. If she'd, idk, kicked Venus into the Sun in her vengeful rage, then maybe we could've talked about Eris gaining a substantial boost of tribute, but as things stand there was barely anything to go by.

3.2) Savathûn and Death

Alright, but what about that extremely sexy assassination of Savathûn that Eris performed after the final mission? The game said that this was the source for the missing chunk of power Eris needed to defeat Xivu! Savathûn had been super powerful, right? Why wouldn't that be enough?

There are two problems here, and let's tackle the smaller one first. We don't really know how powerful Savathûn was after she had been raised as a Lightbearer, exactly. The tactical obliviousness of the entirety of Witch Queen to imbaru suggests post-rez Sav is no longer in the tithe system and cannot gain power through the Hive magic means because she doesn't have a worm anymore. That doesn't mind she isn't powerful, and that by deposing her one wouldn't make an enormous change in the universe, but we don't know if she can get more powerful anymore. SotWitch reintroduced the imbaru engine, but doesn't elaborate on what it even does now that Sav doesn't have a worm, or how it works.

And now the bigger problem: Eris did not claim Savathûn's power when she killed her.

This whole system is based on Anthem Anatheme, remember? Making ripples in the universe. Creating spaces between what-is and what-is-wanted. What Toland says after we kill Ascendant Oryx puts it well:

Dwell a moment on the weight of what you’ve done. Contemplate the story you just ended. Will you ever do anything that screams down the millennia? Will you ever hammer your will on the universe until it rings and rings and rings? Oryx was an awesome power. Show reverence. (Oryx: Defeated)

There is a reason why the Grimoire card unlocked by killing Oryx in Regicide is called "Oryx: Rebuked", and the one we get after killing him in King's Fall is "Oryx: Defeated". We did not defeat him in Regicide. We put a dent in his plans, sure, we weakened him, but we did not kill him. That's the point of Ascendance, of throne world and oversouls and other means of hiding death: they make you harder to kill permanently.

Ghosts are funny, because they serve pretty much the same purpose. They hide their Guardians' death. The Guardian isn't dead as long as their Ghost lives. That's our conditional immortality - we depend on our Ghosts just as Ascendant Hive depend on their throne worlds.

Death doesn't stick unless it's permanent and irreversible. I'll even risk the claim that the power Mara generated (and would've assumed, has she been in the tithing system) by indirectly causing Savathûn's death—immense power—was removed from her tally, so to say, in the moment of either Savathûn's resurrection, or when she got her memories back and decided she was still herself and not a new person with a clean record.

Eris couldn't have claimed Savathûn's power for herself without killing Immaru, just as she couldn't have taken the power generated by Oryx's death if he'd been killed in the physical world only. This wasn't an "interesting sword logic stunt", this was a suspension of logic priory established in-universe and it infuriates me to the point of pulling out hair. There is no way this can work. If it DID work, Ascendant Hive would've created power batteries for themselves by killing each other in the physical world and coming back to life as if nothing had happened eons ago. The Books of Sorrow go out of their way to point out that Savathûn and Xivu's deaths in star by star by star were "true deaths" and that's why Auryx was able to claim his sisters' power.

This is either a lazy retcon serving to nerf a character too powerful for the narrative to handle, or the writers not understanding how their own universe works. It's infuriating, it's stupid, and it does Xivu Arath so dirty I struggle to find words for it. It strips her of the most compelling part of her as an antagonist. And down at its core, it's a lack of creative courage. Did her undefeatability make Xivu Arath an extremely difficult antagonist to handle? Of course!! But when you write characters like that, you should be brave about it. You should commit. And as things stand now, it appears the creators had been challenged by their own story and instead of picking up a fight they backed out and changed the rules. They were been defeated by their own creation. Which is, of course, a note of praise to how good the creation was, but in the end it leads to a sad conclusion. Bungie can no longer handle the story they're telling; and whether that is because of the seasonal model, or the speed at which they've forced themselves to update at, or a lack of communication in the writing team, or any other reason, I sincerely don't care. The result remains the same either way.

#i like my lore with coffee #destiny 2 #hive #the darkness #season of the witch #xivu arath #eris morn #aunt savathûn #eris morning #little war sister #worm #worm gods #ahamkara

[a-polite-melody]

Separatism is never the answer. All it does is make all of us more vulnerable, and create spaces full of isolated people who are much more easily manipulated and abused by bad-faith actors.

Queer unity is important for all of us.

#my post #lesbian separatism created a space for radfems to indoctrinate people #baeddelism was used to isolate and eventually abuse other trans women #we are stronger together than we are apart #we are more likely to be harmed if we divide ourselves into factions that distrust one another #(yes this is a post in response to what’s been going on in the transandrophobia and transmisandry tags)

[lycankeyy]

I'm getting to the point where posts bitching about fandom culture annoy me more than annoying fandom culture because so often these people complain about the most niche things as if they're a big problem. I'm assuming the issue occurring here is that they're talking about one specific person or a small group of people but are being vague so those people don't figure it out. And I'm always like yeah that's kind of annoying the two times I've ran into it? Why does this have so many notes???

Not to mention people are like. Really specifically mad at people who are annoying or harass people about stuff but always phrase it like they're just mad at the original thing, resulting in people thinking the General Thing is bad. This happens with shipping a lot?? Like yes there are weird and irritating shippers. Not everyone who enjoys shipping is a fetishizing annoying freak who's willingly ignoring the text though? A lot of people just ship for fun. And it's not that deep. I really hate how intertwined shipping or headcanons have become with believing people have "zero reading comprehension" when it's literally just people having fun. Unless there's people getting actually hurt its not an issue and it sure as hell doesn't make someone dumb. You have made it so that a lot of people on the Neurodivergent Fandom Website believe that neurodivergent people having fun makes them stupid and/or irritating innately Good Job I guess ?

#im not saying that last part as a gotcha or to imply people are being intentionally ableist #i think people's brains just switch off when they hear about fandom drama and forget fandom is a very neurodiverse space #not even just ppl with autism or adhd. theres a lot of schizophrenic people in fandom. people with learning disorders #dissociative disorders and everything else along those lines #you are annoyed with the culture we created for ourselves on a website you admit is mostly used by neurodiverse people #and i just want people to acknowledge that because at the end of the day #if you hate fandom culture so much that you have a discourse tag for it maybe /you're/ the one who needs to reassess your priorities #like is this an actual problem in fandom or did you just run across an annoying blog in the tag today #get over yourselves LMFAO #💛 #long post tw

[babysundoll]

I like to think that because Earth exists in the kirby universe its seen as an ancient planet that once thrived and has fallen because humans went extinct but because they evolved to travel and colonize other planet's it caused this massive universal society where every planet and every civilization can communicate and travel between one another and ultimately influenced the war between the GSA and Nightmare and the studies used from Earth helped advance either side with what support they needed.

And because a universal civilization was started by these aliens from one planet, that took everything for themselves if they could, they were seen as "special" because of how they dominated and absolutely detroyed everthing without any physical abilities, only technology, and other civilizations would study them and use what they learned from them to advance their own technologies. They also considered Earth to be a special planet because of what was created there and it was debated if the artifacts created by humans should be kept there or taken to be studied even though humans have intended for their artifacts to be studied because we have shown we want to be remembered and so other aliens would travel to Earth to look at the material things created there, not just money or vehicles or art, but also the media humans created.

Media such as films, music, photographs, social media platforms, video games, etc, etc,. And Nightmare was someone who went to Earth often to look at the artifacts because he was really impressed that these little bags of meat that could easily be killed were able to have so much power from using only their brains. He wanted to study the media these aliens created so he would take films he saw interest in back to his base to watch and find out what humans made to give themselves entertainment from their bloodthirsty for colonization minds and you'd find him sitting in his TV room watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

#even though humans are the devil were definitely gonna be remembered until the end of everything #i love the thought that when alien civilizations come to study us there eventually gonna see what we've created #i hope that all the media thats ever been created will be put in a vault for protection and at some point some little space guy will #come around stick a cd in a cd player and listen to no tears left to cry by ariana grande #we made be destroying ourselves but at least we make good music and movies #kirby #shiver star #nightmare wizard #GSA #galaxy soldier army #kirby 64

[sapphia]

The thing I love about Hbomberguy’s latest video essay on plagiarism is it really gets to the root of why someone plagiarises, which in turn reassures the audience of the soundness of their own creative process and that of the creatives they love. He spends so much time praising and analysing the difference between derivative works (non-negative) and plagiarised works that it reassures and broadens the knowledge of other creatives and of the audiences consuming their works, which in turn helps assuage any unconscious reactionary feelings of “But this other creative I love does something slightly similar”.

As someone who writes, and as someone who went through the churn-em-out of the modern university degree system and all the plagiarism anxiety that comes with that, the topic of copying and mimicking other creatives is a heavy and ill-understood topic in so many spaces. The education system, at least in my country, went from encouraging rote-learning and copying by rewarding those who best memorised answers previously learned (e.g. exam answer schedules, memorising the wording of pre-practiced essays) to encouraging original thought in extensively-written about topics for essays. It’s very hard not to feel like you’re plagiarising when you’re one of 300 first year law students writing about a a topic from one very in-depth source that you’ve studied in class and three smaller ones, and Turnitin has put in your mind that the MOST important thing you can do for this essay is not to pass it, but to reword it well enough not to get caught up in this plagiarism detector. And I can recognise my behaviours in what Hbomberguy identifies - I remember minute-before-the-deadline essays where I was guilty of padding out my biography with sources from my sources, and can think of phrases or techniques of writing I’ve read in books that I sometimes worry might come through in my writing in a way that feels like stealing.

Plagiarism anxiety is real, and it’s fed by a lack of understanding around what plagiarism is and where it comes from. Hbomberguy is so right for complimenting a bunch of lame youtubers for the enthusiasm with which they openly bounce off of other people’s ideas. This collaborative method of creating where ideas are taken and passed on due to love of the craft can feel derivative eventually - but taken within a body of work where the creator is riffing or paying homage to and not merely regurgitating others success is at the heart of where any meaningful success and love for the medium lies. Creators need to be coming from a place of genuine enthusiasm and respect - it’s when they dont, when they’re looking down on others, that we see these behaviours emerging.

And that helps identify the urges within ourselves, and know more firmly whether what we’re doing is tribute or theft, including the many not just acceptable but positive ways of referencing back to sources and inspiration. It helps us tell when we ourselves are genuinely trying to pay homage and when we are treading the more murky waters of unfair attribution. So thanks Hbomberguy for dumbing down this topic in the most relatable but inaccessible-by-length way possible, as per usual.

#continually impressed with the way he manages to add to conversations tbh #hbomberguy #breadtube #video essays #james somerton

[vaspider]

In defense of retellings & reimaginings

I'm not going to respond to the post that sparked this, because honestly, I don't really feel like getting in an argument, and because it's only vaguely even about the particular story that the other post discussed. The post in question objected to retellings of the Rape of Persephone which changed important elements of the story -- specifically, Persephone's level of agency, whether she was kidnapped, whether she ate seeds out of hunger, and so on. It is permissible, according to this thesis, to 'fill in empty spaces,' but not to change story elements, because 'those were important to the original tellers.' (These are acknowledged paraphrases, and I will launch you into the sun if you nitpick this paragraph.)

I understand why to the person writing that, that perspective is important, and why they -- especially as a self-described devotee of Persephone -- feel like they should proscribe boundaries around the myth. It's a perfectly valid perspective to use when sorting -- for example -- which things you choose to read. If you choose not to read anything which changes the elements which you feel are important, I applaud you.

However, the idea that one should only 'color in missing pieces,' especially when dealing with stories as old, multi-sourced, and fractional as ancient myths, and doing so with the argument that you shouldn't change things because those base elements were important to the people who originally crafted the stories, misses -- in my opinion -- the fundamental reason we tell stories and create myths in the first place.

Forgive me as I get super fucking nerdy about this. I've spent the last several years of my life wrestling with the concept of myths as storytelling devices, universality of myths, and why myths are even important at all as part of writing on something like a dozen books (a bunch of which aren't out yet) for a game centered around mythology. A lot of the stuff I've written has had to wrestle with exactly this concept -- that there is a Sacred Canon which cannot be disrupted, and that any disregard of [specific story elements] is an inexcusable betrayal.

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us as individuals, as social groups, and as a society. The elements we utilize or change, those things we choose to include and exclude when telling and retelling a story, tell us what's important to us.

I could sit down and argue over the specific details which change over the -- at minimum -- 1700 years where Persephone/Kore/Proserpina was actively worshiped in Greek and Roman mystery cults, but I actually don't think those variations in specific are very important. What I think is important, however, is both the duration of her cults -- at minimum from 1500 BCE to 200CE -- and the concept that myths are stories we tell ourselves to understand who we are and what's important to us.

The idea that there was one, or even a small handful, of things that were most important to even a large swath of the people who 'originally' told the store of the Rape of Persephone or any other 'foundational' myth of what is broadly considered 'Western Culture,' when those myths were told and retold in active cultic worship for 1700 years... that seems kind of absurd to me on its face. Do we have the same broad cultural values as the original tellers of Beowulf, which is only (heh) between 1k-1.3k years old? How different are our marital traditions, our family traditions, and even our language? We can, at best, make broad statements, and of inclusive necessity, those statements must be broad enough as to lose incredible amounts of specificity. In order to make definitive, specific statements, we must leave out large swaths of the people to whom this story, or any like it, was important.

To move away from the specific story brought up by the poster whose words spun this off, because it really isn't about that story in particular, let's use The Matter of Britain/Arthuriana as our framing for the rest of this discussion. If you ask a random nerd on Tumblr, they'd probably cite a handful of story elements as essential -- though of course which ones they find most essential undoubtedly vary from nerd to nerd -- from the concept that Camelot Always Falls to Gawain and the Green Knight, Percival and the grail, Lancelot and Guinevere...

... but Lancelot/Guinevere and Percival are from Chrétien de Troyes in the 12th century, some ~500 years after Taliesin's first verses. Lancelot doesn't appear as a main character at all before de Troyes, and we can only potentially link him to characters from an 11th century story (Culhwch and Olwen) for which we don't have any extant manuscripts before the 15th century. Gawain's various roles in his numerous appearances are... conflicting characterizations at best.

The point here is not just that 'the things you think are essential parts of the story are not necessarily original,' or that 'there are a lot of different versions of this story over the centuries,' but also 'what you think of as essential is going to come back to that first thesis statement above.' What you find important about The Matter of Britain, and which story elements you think can be altered, filed off or filled in, will depend on what that story needs to tell you about yourself and what's important to you.

Does creating a new incarnation of Arthur in which she is a diasporic lesbian in outer space ruin a story originally about Welsh national identity and chivalric love? Does that disrespect the original stories? How about if Arthur is a 13th century Italian Jew? Does it disrespect the original stories if the author draws deliberate parallels between the seduction of Igerne and the story of David and Bathsheba?

Well. That depends on what's important to you.

Insisting that the core elements of a myth -- whichever elements you believe those to be -- must remain static essentially means 'I want this myth to stagnate and die.' Maybe it's because I am Jewish, and we constantly re-evaluate every word in Torah, over and over again, every single year, or maybe it's because I spend way, way too much time thinking about what's valuable in stories specifically because I write words about these concepts for money, but I don't find these arguments compelling at all, especially not when it comes to core, 'mainstream' mythologies. These are tools in the common toolbox, and everybody has access to them.

More important to me than the idea that these core elements of any given story must remain constant is, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, that a story knows what it is and does it on purpose. Should authors present retellings or reimaginings of the Rape of Persephone or The Matter of Britain which significantly alter historically-known story elements as 'uncovered' myths or present them as 'the real and original' story? Absolutely not. If someone handed me a book in which the new Grail was a limited edition Macklemore Taco Bell Baja Blast cup and told me this comes directly from recently-discovered 6th century writings of Taliesin, I would bonk them on the head with my hardcover The Once & Future King. Of course that's not the case, right?

But the concept of canon, historically, in these foundational myths has not been anything like our concept of canon today. Canon should function like a properly-fitted corset, in that it should support, not constrict, the breath in the story's lungs. If it does otherwise, authors should feel free to discard it in part or in whole.

Concepts of familial duty and the obligation of marriage don't necessarily resonate with modern audiences the way that the concept of self-determination, subversion of unreasonable and unjustified authority, and consent do. That is not what we, as a general society, value now. If the latter values are the values important to the author -- the story that the author needs to tell in order to express who they are individually and culturally and what values are important to them* -- then of course they should retell the story with those changed values. That is the point of myths, and always has been.

Common threads remain -- many of us move away from family support regardless of the consent involved in our relationships, and life can be terrifying when you're suddenly out of the immediate reach and support of your family -- because no matter how different some values are, essential human elements remain in every story. It's scary to be away from your mother for the first time. It's scary to live with someone new, in a new place. It's intimidating to find out that other people think you have a Purpose in life that you need to fulfill. It's hard to negotiate between the needs of your birth family and your chosen family.

None of this, to be clear, is to say that any particular person should feel that they need to read, enjoy, or appreciate any particular retelling, or that it's cool, hip and groovy to misrepresent your reworking of a myth as a 'new secret truth which has always been there.' If you're reworking a myth, be truthful about it, and if somebody told you 'hey did you know that it really -- ' and you ran with that and find out later you were wrong, well, correct the record. It's okay to not want to read or to not enjoy a retelling in which Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere negotiate a triad and live happily ever after; it's not really okay to say 'you can't do that because you changed a story element which I feel is non-negotiable.' It's okay to say 'I don't think this works because -- ' because part of writing a story is that people are going to have opinions on it. It's kind of weird to say 'you're only allowed to color inside these lines.'

That's not true, and it never has been. Greek myths are not from a closed culture. Roman myths are not sacrosanct. There are plenty of stories which outsiders should leave the hell alone, but Greek and Roman myths are simply not on that list. There is just no world in which you can make an argument that the stories of the Greek and Roman Empires are somehow not open season to the entire English-speaking world. They are the public-est of domain.

You don't have to like what people do with it, but that doesn't make people wrong for writing it, and they certainly don't have to color within the lines you or anyone else draws. Critique how they tell the story, but they haven't committed some sort of cultural treachery by telling the stories which are important to them rather than the stories important to someone 2500 years dead.

****

*These are not the only reasons to tell a story and I am not in any way saying that an author is only permitted to retell a story to express their own values. There are as many reasons to tell a story as there are stories, and I don't really think any reason to create fiction is more or less valid than any other. I am discussing, specifically, the concept of myths as conveyors of essential cultural truths.

[cy-cyborg]

This is just a not-so friendly reminder to non-disabled people, especially authors, people in fandoms or in media analysis circles: Cripple/crippled is not just a fancy way of faying "badly injured". it's not an adjective you can just throw in to spice up your sentence because you used "injured" or "disabled" too many times in that paragraph, or because you feel like it gives your writing some extra "oomph".

Cripple is a slur.

A slur the physically disabled community has been asking people not to use for DECADES, since at least the 1970's (50 years). It's a slur with centuries of abuse behind it, centuries of being used to justify physically disabled people as less-than, centuries of demonisation, mistreatment, ostracization, and murder.

Some people within the physical disability community are reclaiming it, that's where movements like cripplepunk (also known as crip-punk or C-punk) come from. That's fine, I'm not talking about that. I love the cripplepunk movement and everything it stands for: being unapologetic about our disabilities and not changing ourselves for the comfort or convenience of able-bodied folks. But the people who use it in that context understand the history of the word, they know how it was used to hurt us, and they understand that not everyone in the physically disabled community is comfortable with the use of the word, especially those who were around when someone being labelled as "crippled" was seen as a valid reason to treat them as less than human. They understand the impact of the word.

But If you, as an able bodied person, casually uses "cripple" in your work, at best you are showing your disabled audience that you haven't been listening to us, at worst, you show you don't care about weather we feel safe in the spaces you have created.

And for able-bodied authors specifically, even if your character is physically disabled, I'd still recommend avoiding it unless you're prepared to do a LOT of sensitivity readings from multiple sensitivity readers. I've been physically disabled since I was 1 year old, I learned to walk for the first time in prosthetics and have been using a wheelchair since I was in school, I have no memory of life as an able-bodied person, and even I don't feel comfortable using the word cripple in my work.

It's a loaded word, with a lot of implications and a LOT of very dark, and for some people, very recent history. It's not a sentence enhancer to just throw in willy-nilly. Please.

#Writing Disability with Cy Cyborg #disabled #disability #disability history #ableism #physically disabled #cripple punk #cpunk #actually disabled #physical disability #visibly disabled #visible disability #writing disability #writing #writing community #writeblr #writers of tumblr #authors of tumblr #media analysis #write #c slur #language

[inkskinned]

i keep thinking about hobbies and how i often spill over myself to pick up new ones. i have adhd, i end up trying something for like a month and then just getting far enough in it that i move on, satisfied.

and that should be fine; but it's never fine.

i am a pretty decent artist; but i can't just make art for my dnd campaign, i should be selling dnd maps and character designs and scene setting pieces. i can't just make my friends matching earrings, i need to get an etsy and ship them internationally and take bulk orders. i make pretty good props and decorations and use them to throw my friends parties - but i should be running a party planning business and start taking paying clients and networking and putting my skills to actual use.

for some reason, i never figured out the specifics of pottery. it was a fun class and i enjoyed myself - and still, i'm embarrassed, years later, that i put in all that useless effort. everything i make has to be stunning. stellar. i should have applied myself more. maybe i'm too lazy. maybe i'm broken and selfish and needy. actually creative people would have kept going; they would be bettering themselves at every possible opportunity.

we find ourselves in this trap, even accidentally: we need to commodify our time, because it is a commodity. if we spend our efforts and our time not earning, isn't that the same thing as burning free money? and god forbid you ever take up a hobby that ends up being more expensive than you thought. you sit in your car and you look at the receipt and in your head you hear a conversation that isn't even happening - your mom or your friend or your partner all saying oh great. not this shit again. it's always something with you, and it never actually means anything.

i have realized this horrible thing, recently - i'll get excited to start a project, pick up a new hobby. and then i just... stop myself. i start thinking about the amount of time it will take, and how it'll look in my monthly budget. what if i can't even produce a good enough final product. sure, it's exciting to think about how i could make my friend her own custom dice. but i'm just polluting the earth if i don't get it right. better not bother. better not try.

restless, i get caught in the negative space. the feeling that oh god, i want to create. and that horrible sense - yeah, but i don't have the time to just put to waste.

#hobbies #writeblr #what stage of weirdness to write about hobbies on my hobby writing blog #although i know OBJECTIVELY i am a creative person #i often forget to label myself that bc i don't feel im an ARTISTIC person bc i don't do anything like that professionally #writing doesn't even feel like a hobby i think that surprises nobody for me to be like #it would be easier for me to stop . like. breathing. #which feels cheesy and trite but listen im running late for a meeting and all i really want to say is like #i couldn't even consider writing my hobby bc it makes my skin crawl bc it makes it sound like it's not important to me #bc we really devalue hobbies. like entirely. #it HAS to be a job. it must #also idk if this is clear but i personally get stuck in this space where i CANT create bc i am putting so much pressure on myself #to make it RIGHT #and im like ... idk i only have an hour #so probably shouldnt get involved in this thing

[andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel]

Dear Good Omens fandom friends,

can we please agree to keep our sand in our sandbox?

We have a great sandbox. It's big and full of people building castles and villages and roads and stuff. Some of that is big and complicated and detail-oriented, some of it is strange and weird and funny, some if it is off-the-rails in any and all senses of the word. All of it is lovely. Some of it tries to rebuild Neil Gaiman's sandcastle as faithful as possible, either to build onto it or to try and find out where the secret rooms might be hidden. Some of it looks a lot like his but has its own little turrets and courtyards and gardens added everywhere. Some of it looks completely different and doesn't try to hide it. Some of it isn't even meant to be taken seriously and just exists to make people laugh. But there is so much of it that everybody can find something for themselves; and if we don't we just find a free space and start shifting sand ourselves.

Neil Gaiman has his own sandbox. He has built something brilliant and beautiful in it, and he is currently busy building another storey onto it. He doesn't want anybody to see the new part before it is finished, and I know that sometimes the excitement of finally wanting to see it is hard to bear.

But that is why we have our sandbox. To make our own stuff until he reveals the rest of that sandcastle we all love so much. To pass the time, to have fun with it, to meet new people and find more brilliant little sandcastles. Never again will there be as much creativity, as much activity, as many people around in this sandbox than there is now, in the time before the last bit of his castle is revealed. I am sure most of us will be delighted and surprised at what he will have created. Some will be disappointed because they were expecting his sandcastle to look different, some will be disappointed because they saw a castle in our sandbox they liked much more, but most will be delighted because after all we came up with he will still have managed to surprise us.

Our sandbox. His sandbox.

The two are separated for a reason.

Because if you keep throwing sand into his box to get his attention, or keep trying to get a good look at what he is doing over there, or keep yelling at him to look over to ours and tell you which one looks like the one he is trying to make, or which one is the best, or how stupid one of the others looks (last one would also make you a dick), you are quite simply risking the new part of his sandcastle to collapse. Or for him to have to remake it in a way he didn't plan to, or simply dislikes, or that we will all dislike.

And just because he is glad we are enjoying ourselves and proud that his work inspired us to create all these things, doesn't mean he wants to see (all of) it. Some things he definitely wouldn't want to see; other things the creators definitely don't want him to see.

I'm proud of our sandbox. It's huge. It's brilliant. It's creative. It's collaborative. And it's ours.

Have fun in it. But keep it apart from his. Keep out of his. And keep him out of ours. Stop trying to drag him over. He has stuff to do. Important stuff. Stuff I, for one, am waiting very impatiently for.

And he will never show us the parts of the castle that aren't finished yet, no matter how often you ask. And just because he is making an effort to be funny about it doesn't mean we aren't annoying him when we keep asking.

#neil gaiman #good omens #good omens fandom #good omens fanwork #good omens fanfic #good omens fanfiction #good omens 3 #good omens season 3 #good omens theories #good omens theory #good omens speculation #good omens speculations #good omens predictions #good omens season 3 theory #good omens season 3 theories #good omens season 3 speculations #good omens season 3 speculation #good omens season 3 predictions #good omens 3 theory #good omens 3 theories #good omens 3 speculation #good omens 3 speculations #good omens 3 predictions #nikku.txt #nikku's posts

[marimoscorner]

Consumerism & Witchcraft

Written by Marimo (he/they)🌿

I’ve seen a turn for the better in some witchy spaces regarding consumerism in the past few years, but overall it still tends to be an issue for us as a community. I’ve decided to try and breakdown the pitfalls I’ve noticed in my own journey, in the hopes that it will inspire and assist others. I’ve also provided alternatives and ideas on how to make small changes in our practice to help us better protect the Earth, stick it to the failing system and still acquire our bits and bobs we love so dearly.

As always, I am no authority on any subject nor am I perfect—but we’re all learning as we go, so let’s dive right in 🌿

A Preface

There are some things that should be made entirely clear before we begin:

You are not a bad person for wanting an aesthetic

You are not a bad person for unknowingly falling into pitfalls. Only if you continue to purposefully do so after knowing better

You are not a bad person for consuming content/objects or for not always making the most sustainable decisions. At the end of the day, we can only control our small part of environmental impact, while the rest is left up to the major corporations that make more pollution than any of us ever will

You are only human. Show yourself some grace and understanding that the internet so lacks.

My Experience in Consumerist Hell

I have fallen victim many times to consumerism in witchcraft. Starting my journey at the ripe age of about ten years old and heavily in the broom closet, I was quickly drawn in by the shiny rocks, the brand new candles and scents, the promise of new tarot decks and pendulums and other fancy, shiny new equipment. I was consuming an online aesthetic along with my ideals, and it distracted me from starting my journey by learning well.

I began to spend my birthday and holiday money on the aesthetic of things. While, granted, I still did buy a few literary resources now and again from my local secondhand bookstore—I was stubbornly ignoring the sage advice to learn and understand first before diving in headfirst.

I purchased statues, crystals, too many tarot decks to use. I purchased osteomancy bones I later returned to the earth, for I had not done enough research to know that that animal was mine to practice with. I had a tankard full of incense sticks, and even a growing pile of books that would not be read. While I liked to consider myself crafty with my homemade Maypole and various hand-bound Grimoires, something was becoming apparent: this was all a distraction.

The aesthetic I was partaking in was providing me with a false sense of progress and practicality.

When I’d go to do a tarot reading, I’d become far too overwhelmed with choosing a deck to read in the first place. When making an offering to a deity, I’d feel pressured to also bolster the altars of all the other deities I’d set up, and with my wide pool, the connections felt muddy. Often times I’d be off-put on a project or spell because I knew I needed to film it and it needed to look nice.

In the long term, I don’t have many of these items today. I’ve sold and donated a vast breadth of them. Feeling overwhelmed costed me a few years retreat from my craft to recuperate. However, what has stuck with me is the knowledge I picked up along the way.

So, What’s the Issue? TL;DR

I’ve noticed a few issues here in making these mistakes myself.

Consumerism absolutely distracts you from learning and your craft

Overconsumption leads to environmental damage. If everyone hoarded supplies, there would not be enough to go around. And with what gets thrown away every year…it paints an ugly wound on the Earth

We damage our learning abilities by not allowing ourselves to be anything less than perfect

The need for aesthetic creates barriers to entry within the community and creates a divide of haves and have-nots

You won’t be able to truly follow your individual path if you are only consuming and not creating for yourself

Consumerist culture promotes appropriation. Metaphysical stores carry items from closed practices (such as white sage and palo santo, or coyote bones) because someone is buying them. Don’t be that person, and find alternatives relating to your own culture instead

Consumerism can influence your spiritual decisions based upon monetary inclinations (where some may sacrifice a quality ingredient over a higher quantity of a lower quality ingredient)

So, what can we do?

Firstly, I want to clarify that I am not against collecting, nor am I against maximalism or the beautiful visual aesthetic we carry as a community.

I am an artist a very visual person and understand the longing for a beautiful home and workspace. However, this aesthetic shouldn’t come at the cost of irresponsibly harming the Earth or another community.

Thus, I’ve compiled a list of small things that I will be incorporating into my practice to make it more mindful and sustainable. I hope that you’ll join me in a few of them.

Minimize Supplies. While I used to have a huge selection of stationary for my Grimoire, I now limit myself to a simple pencil and watercolor set if I’m feeling artistic. This helps me actually use my Grimoire for study, rather than to keep perfect. It’s also friendlier on my wallet!

Thrift Supplies. There are plenty of perfectly good items that get donated daily. You can get high-quality candles and holders, old crystal bowls for altar offerings, spare crafting supplies, fabric for alter cloths and even clothing if you so wish—all for a fraction of the cost new and while saving the planet just a little bit more. Hell, you can sometimes even find good silver!

Share Supplies with your Community. You can create a sort of barter system with other witches in your area. Perhaps you create a sigil for them, and they provide you with a candle spell. Play to your strengths and grow together!

Look for Creative Outlets. Do you really need to go buy an altar statue that’s been mass-produced? Or can you give your deity the personal gift of a drawing, painting or even hand-modeled or hand-carved rendition? This will also deepen your connection to your craft and your magic, and make it more meaningful and stronger. If you really like something, though, go for it!

If you aren’t the artistic sort, consider supporting an artist before going to a large company. While I haven’t purchased from them myself, Blagowood on Etsy has beautiful deity statues carved from wood by their small team in Ukraine for a comparable cost to the standard mass produced metal statues. I consider this extra labor of love going into these pieces and those of similar small companies to be much better energy for my practice. I myself may put out some art prints and other handmade supplies in the future, but I will likely spread them around my community first.

Try Secondhand Books. While not available in every area and further still not as available for witchcraft and occult books, you may strike luck! Not only are secondhand books less expensive, but you’ll be supporting a local business. That’s not to say you can’t buy firsthand books, but some searching around may be beneficial to the earth and to your wallet in the long run.

Be mindful of where you source supplies and decor. If you are a fan of taxidermy decor, make sure that you source cruelty free. Bats can practically never be sourced without cruelty, so if a shop carries them, I’d be mindful of their other specimens. The same goes for if a shop decides to forgo a culture’s wishes and carry supplies sacred to them, such as white sage or dreamcatchers. Supporting folks who turn a profit off of others’ suffering is not something many would wish to include energetically in their craft.

Search the Wild for Tools. Find sticks, flowers and other plants out in the forest. Learn how to rockhound in your area for crystals. Your craft will be more powerful the more connected it is to the land you are surrounded by. Be sure to reference guides for safety and legality!

Get Creative with Purposes. If you are having difficulty finding exactly what you need by thrifting or searching, make another tool multipurpose if it would do the job good enough. Find supplies that are easy to source and work as substitutes for other ingredients (ex. Quartz as a stand in for other stones)

Spend more time Doing. Go out into the woods (safely) and advance your connection to the earth instead of worrying over the perfect item for your collection. Your craft will benefit

At the end of the day, all of this is your decision. Take what you like, and leave what you don’t. Even if we don’t agree, I thank you for your time and open mind. I will continue updating about how I incorporate these steps, and I will also hopefully post more on witchy crafting in the future.

I wish you well, and hope you’ll decide to follow along on our journey!

#pagan #pagan witch #paganism #witchblr #witchcraft #marimo writes🌿

[shiftinglea]

You are God.

If you're in the LOA community, you've probably heard this saying all the time: "There is nothing impossible to you. You are God."

While some part of me agreed with it, I still didn’t feel like a powerful God who can create whatever he/she desires.

So I started questioning, “Am I truly God?”

My curious and doubtful mind led me to finding the answers that made everything clear to me. I finally understood what I am, where I came from, and what my purpose is here.

So, am I God? Are you God? The answer is yes, of course, you are. Here's how it works:

Once upon a time, there was The God, the original creator of everything, including you and me.

God is everything seen and unseen. It’s the great Divine that is the source of everything.

God existed in the space of nothing and everything, the void you might call it. God knew that it was the Great Divine, the Creator.

This God not only wanted to know itself as a Creator but also to experience it. How can you experience something if you exist in the space of nothing and everything? You just are.

So, The God created this Universe to experience itself as a creator.

The Universe was created, and then God divided itself into infinite parts so that he/she could experience itself experientially as humans and any other species that exist.

These parts are what we call souls. You. Me. All of us. We are all parts of God. We are God. There is no separation between God and you. God is experiencing itself through you.

Since we are all part of God, we also have the same abilities as God. We were truly created in the image and likeness of God, not physically, but our essence, our powers are the same because we are the same. We are made of the same stuff

And we can create whatever we choose. We can recreate ourselves anew at any given point. In fact, you are already doing it. Every moment of your existence, you are choosing who you are. Your state, thoughts, feelings, and actions show it.

You are God. Remember that. We all forget it before coming to this physical world. It’s all part of the plan. But now it’s time for you to remember that. If it weren’t the time, then you wouldn’t have discovered LOA, manifestation, etc.

It’s impossible to not be God. But it’s possible to not know that you are. So now you know.

#loassumption #loa tumblr #loa blog #void state #neville goddard #i am state

[makingqueerhistory]

How to Read Now: Essays

Elaine Castillo

How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories. Smart, funny, galvanizing, and sometimes profane, Castillo attacks the stale questions and less-than-critical proclamations that masquerade as vital discussion: reimagining the cartography of the classics, building a moral case against the settler colonialism of lauded writers like Joan Didion, taking aim at Nobel Prize winners and toppling indie filmmakers, and celebrating glorious moments in everything from popular TV like The Watchmen to the films of Wong Kar-wai and the work of contemporary poets like Tommy Pico.

At once a deeply personal and searching history of one woman's reading life, and a wide-ranging and urgent intervention into our globalized conversations about why reading matters today, How to Read Now empowers us to embrace a more complicated, embodied form of reading, inviting us to acknowledge complicated truths, ignite surprising connections, imagine a more daring solidarity, and create space for a riskier intimacy--within ourselves, and with each other.

(Affiliate link above)

#queer #lgbt #queer history #queer books #lgbt books

[tattooyeol]

I love my mother and father in law .. but after spending five days at their place i am also ready to scream. And go home

#like i gneuinyl like them and think theyre nice people. but theyre also frustrating over a longer period of time #theres a lot of cultural differences that i know i just have to accept and im fine with that. but they also create irritation eventually #also i guess its just sometimes feel like my husband is a piece of rope and me and my mil are standing #with either end and trying to tug the rope to our side idk #its jtaut like... lady you have your own husband and this is mine. im tired of the subtle powerplay #and i know ots not intentional. like she just feels very entitled to him because hes her son #but im his wife and heavily pregnant and i am tired of needing to assert myself constantly #its like shes still unintentionally trying to be the primary woman in his life. but shes jsut not anymore #anyway... she just take up a lot of space in general. but its confusing bc shes also very kind and attentive #and just wants to do right by her family #but like. the way she cant even let us go groceryshopping by ourselves without trying to butt in. i know shes trying to be helpful #but it just reads like a lack of confidence in us as functioning adults #i think it's difficult bc i come from a family where my parents have always been extremely good at respectong us kids as our own ppl #and trusted us to be capable with age appropriate tasks etc #its insane to me that he has lived on his own for years and she still thinks he needs help filling up his pita for lunch

[bangchansgirlsblog]

my dear! I'm your fan, I love your writing. Thank you for taking us out of our reality and allowing us to enter a world of our own! Could I make a request for a crazy idea I had? An anguished Y/N and Chan fight and he tells her to leave and leave him alone. When Y/N leaves in a daze he doesn't see the car and is run over. In the end I trust you. =) If it doesn't bother you and you can fulfill my request, I would be very happy!

Can we turn back time?

Warnings: blood, tragic, angst, accident.

Summary: ^^ Requested

A/N: hey baby :) not the best :/ butttt I hope you like it. Sorry for any grammar mistakes.

**

Her heart was beating at a fast pace. Why was he not understanding what she was trying to say?

“You always come home late Chan! I thought I could have this one night. This one night to ourselves but you chose to go drinking instead?!” She poured her heart out as she stared at her idol boyfriend.

“Please Y/n now now okay? I get you wanna talk but can I please just go to bed? We can talk about it tomorrow,” he pleaded as he put down his black leather jacket on the couch.

His curls sat neatly on his head and his black shirt fitting him perfectly and his jeans neatly ironed.

“Chan it feels like you don’t love me anymore!”

“Well maybe I don’t, okay?!” He got up and yelled. His anger was now full on visible as he aggressively slammed his hands on the table.

She stood there looking at him shocked. Tears pricking through her eyes. What was this mess?

His eyes softened as looked her scared figure. “I- I didn’t mean too,”

“Save it Chan.” She sobbed. Her hand was fiddling with her promise ring that Chan has gifted her on their 2 year anniversary. It was the most beautiful ring that she has laid her eyes on but as time went on she realized it was just a ring it was a stress reliever because anytime she was sad, frustrated, mad or confused she would play with the ring on her finger.

“Why can’t you see the things you keep doing hurt me Chan?” She sobbed and looked up at him. Praying that somehow she can find answers.

“I-“ he took a deep breathe trying to keep his own tears in, “I’m failing okay? Can you just leave me alone? Please?” He took a shaky breath before taking a step back and grabbing his jacket.

“Am I a burden now?” Her chest tightened. Chan couldn’t look at her. He had no courage, no strength.

“I’m going upstairs,” he simply said and walked past her.

She wanted to stop him, beg him to hold her, beg him to be there for her but the pain in her chest told her otherwise. She looked so silly, like a kicked puppy.

She wiped her tears and walked over to grab her shoes before leaving her house totally forgetting her phone and keys.

**

It was dark and cold. The sun had officially set and people were either out having dinner or rushing home from work.

Y/n couldn’t help but feel bad as she watched the couples sitting outside restaurants talking and laughing.

She felt empty, she felt deceived. Chan was the perfect boyfriend. He made sure of it but when they started becoming a hit he started slowly pushing her to the side leaving her at home and going out to drink and party or he would be locked up in the studio trying to make new songs.

She was lost without him. She had created her whole routine off of him and now she would wakeup every morning feelings lost not knowing what to do.

Her mind was runnning so fast that she couldn’t keep up. The tears in her eyes were were blurring her vision as she took quick steps to the park.

It wasn’t far. That was always her safe space. Everytime she would get overwhelmed or exhausted she would run away and hide behind the big old oak tree down by the river next to the park.

It was a little foggy, she couldn’t see anything but Chan’s loud voice kept playing in her head until she heard a loud screech. She looked to the side but it was too late. A painful scream left her body as she watched the car crash into her body.

She didn’t feel pain all she could hear was a ringing sound then a few sirens before everything went quiet.

**

“199 what is your emergency?”

“I-I crashed into someone, help! Please! I don’t know what to do-“

“Okay sir is she breathing? I need you to calm down and tell me what happened,”

“Y-yes she’s still breathing, I- I was driving and she just stepped infront of the car, I don’t know! It wasn’t my fault,” he sobbed as panic was filling his chest.

He looked down at the frail body, blood was everywhere and yet he still didn’t pass out. He tried to put pressure on the area that was bleeding the most but it wasn’t working. Blood was still gushing out of her.

She looked familiar tho, he thought.

“Sir, I’ve sent an ambulance. I just need you to keep breathing and tell me if she stops breathing. Keep your hand on the wound,” the dispatcher kept telling him over and over again.

“Oh God this is a lot of blood. Please God, please don’t let her die,” he whispered as he looked up at the car that was parked by them.

It felt like hours until he felt like who could breathe. He heard the sirens. They were here. The paramedics were finally here.

**

“C’mon Y/n please pick up,” Chan cursed at himself as he walked back and forth in the living room.

He was now in sweatpants and a hoodie. His hair wet from the shower.

When he had come downstairs he saw no sight of Y/n and at first he thought that maybe she had gone for a breather so he decided to do some work knowing that she wouldn’t pick up his phone even if he had tried to call so he just chose to distract himself.

He felt guilty for the fight they had. It was chewing him alive but he knew it was his fault and he needed to make it up. As time kept passing by; 30 minutes turned into 2 hours.

He started to feel uneasy so he decided to try her phone but she wasn’t picking. He called all the boys at the dorm asking if she was with them but they said they hadn’t seen her then he called her bestfriend and she too hadn’t seen her. That’s when the panic started to set in.

He called her phone over and over again while making sure to text her too. He rushed upstairs to grab his crocs and that’s when he saw her phone on the night stand table.

“Shit, Y/n,” he groaned and rubbed his eyes before grabbing his car keys.

He put on his crocs and rundown the stairs and that’s when he got a call from his manager.

“What is it Soon-hoo, I can’t really-“

“Chan we need to get to the hospital now,” he said in a panic. Chan’s blood went cold as he could hear shuffling in the background.

“W-what is it? What happened?!” He managed to say.

“It’s Y/n Chan,” Chan’s senses came to a hold. Everyhting around him felt like it was moving in slow motion, “she got run over Chan, I’m coming to pick you up,” their manager said as he started the car.

All Chan could hear was a ringing sound as he stared at the blank floor. Tears running down his cheeks as his heart was beating faster.

______

Don’t forget to reblog😋

#skz imagines #skz comfort #skz x reader #skz angst #skz fluff #skz x y/n #skz x you #bangchansgfblog #skz stay #skz drabbles #straykids #straykids x reader #stray kids angst #stray kids comfort #bangchan angst #bangchan x reader #bang chan x reader

[celestialtarot11]

How to Protect Yourself from Unwanted Spirits/Entities

Hi friends! 🤗🫶 right away I’m going to say if you’re getting into channeling of any kind, you need to learn to protect yourself from malicious, trickster or unwanted spirits/entities. Its absolutely necessary, not a choice. Our energies can easily be manipulated and used if we don’t protect ourselves! At the end of the day, I learned all of this through experience, but I am not a professional! Please do your research outside of this post.

👎 Lets talk about what not to do 👎

Do not provoke, harass, or invite malicious spirits/entities, or spirits/entities you think you are aware of. Not only will this piss them off, but you are willingly allowing them to have control over your energy, mind and emotions. If you don’t know what is out there, do not provoke it.

Making friends with spirits/entities you haven’t vetted

Vetting is a necessary tool and practice to make sure what you’re talking to is consistent, real, reliable, and overall: safe. If you’re rushing into a spiritual connection without vetting it, you don’t know what you’re talking to and what it’s capable of. You also aren’t aware of its intentions towards you/others.

Ignoring intuition

Have ya’ll seen those horror movies where the main character ignores its intuition? Okay, well in a sense you NEVER ignore your intuition and gut feelings. Biggest mistake you can make is ignoring visuals, feelings, emotions, visceral responses in your body when talking to a spirit/entity. Pay attention to yourself and your intuitive responses. That’ll tell you enough.

👍 Lets talk about what to do 👍

Cleansing, Banishing, and Warding

Do your research into these 3 methods. Cleansing removes any and ALL energy, including positive energy. After cleansing you want to fill your space with peace. This can be done with incense, singing bowls, crystals, spells, sigils, mantras, herbs, etc.

Think of cleansing as a way to remove any dirt and buildup that happened over time, any muck. You can’t get in properly if you don’t remove the muck.

Banishing is a stronger form of removing spirits/entities and unwanted energy. Involves a combination of movements or spells to remove the spirit/entity.

Warding is simpler in the way you create sigils to protect the space. Commonly used on windows, door openings, all corners of the bed. Cleanse first, do not ward yourself and the spirit/entity in the room with you. You can also use herbs to hang by door openings or entrances.

You can also use your voice! Use the power of your voice to command your spiritual boundaries. This can be done by saying “you have no access to my energy, body, or mind.”

The difference of all:

Cleansing clears energy.

Banishing drives spirit/entities out.

Warding prevents outside unwanted energy from coming in.

Do ask for help if you’re unsure

Reach out to someone experienced or understands this type of work, having their expertise will help greatly. Read books on spiritual protection to accumulate knowledge. Do your research. Always stay informed!

Cast a circle of protection before communicating with a spirit/entity

The circle is meant to help with creating a healthy distance between you and the spirit/entity. Always have one. Always close it. Do not leave the circle as that can break it, so make sure you have what you need in it. When done, break the circle and cleanse/ward if needed.

Call upon other Deities/Guides/Angels you trust for protection

The more backup the better.

How to know if you are dealing with trickster spirits/malicious entities

Your intuition/bodily reactions to communicating with said spirit/entity

We all inherently communicate with the spirit world differently. Learn to trust how it comes to you. Whether that’s through visuals, feelings, emotions, bodily sensations, aroma, or all. For example, if your body is feeling exhausted, lethargic, and you know you just cleansed your space, the spirit/entity is pulling on your energy.

If you are experiencing visions of unwanted imagery, it may be how the spirit/entity is communicating to you. Pay attention to what it shows you and how you feel in response. If it’s showing you the images to scare you, ground yourself and close off the session. Cleanse again and ward.

If you’re experiencing sadness, anger or paranoia, and haven’t had that before the spirit session, or do not experience this on the daily, please close the session as the spirit/entity could be inducing these symptoms.

Your body will talk to you. Listen to it first before listening to something you don’t know about.

Inconsistent responses

If you ask the spirit/entity its age, and receive no answer, or different answer each time, it may be trying to mess with you. For example if it told you it was 22, and later said it was a child, either its a different spirit/entity completely, or its messing with you. Always VET to avoid getting in bed with trickster spirits/entities. If its story does not match what it originally said, be concerned.

Actively hurting you/harming you

If the spirit/entity is slamming doors, throwing things to get your attention, or is physically hurting you or others, it’s time to perform stronger rituals/spells to protect yourself. If you begin to experience insomnia after meeting the spirit/entity, or sleep disturbances, its time to cleanse and protect yourself. Sleep disturbances are very common with trickster spirits/entities, and its one way it to increase levels of fear/paranoia through sleep deprivation. Please be careful!

Not every spirit/entity will be malicious or have malicious intent, but it can be draining to deal with or experience. It’s why these methods are put into place to protect ourselves.

Best crystals I have used to help against spirits/entities:

🪻Amethyst calms and relaxes me if I’m encountering a difficult energy. It also creates a protective sheild around the user when interacting with spirits/entities or doing spirit work.

☁️ Clear Quartz amplifies the energy of other crystals, making them overpowered 👍 it is also protective and allows for better communication, and allows for “clear seeing.” Seeing through intentions, motives, and desires.

🖱️ Selenite is gentle and yet an amazing crystal for purifying energy. Anything negative and unwanted will transmute for peace and love.

🤍 Black Tourmaline is powerful and important for protection. It repels negative energy and grounds you, giving you stability.

🪻 Hematite grounds and protects as well, and absorbs negative energy and creates stability.

Thank ya’ll for reading. Please like comment and reblog so this reaches people! 🤗 remain safe & protected!

#devi post #astrology community #astrology #tarotcommunity #divination #tarot deck #tarot #witchcraft #tarot reading #tarot community #pick a card #astrology observations #astro posts #pick a pile #astro notes #astrology notes #pick a picture #tarotdaily #asks

[honourablejester]

I just want to dwell a little bit on the raw awe that the Webb telescope pictures evoke in me. We built a thing, we spent 20 years building a thing, and we flung it over a million kilometres away, and the thing we built takes … pictures of infinity. Pictures of 13 billion years in the past, pictures of the birth and death of stars, galaxies colliding, snapshots of other worlds. Lightyears of distance, aeons of time, glories almost beyond imagining.

This is a thing humanity can do. We can pool imagination, we can pool resources, we can devote decades of our lives, to building a camera that can photograph infinity. We can reach out, fling a piece of ourselves, our ingenuity, our dedication, our collaboration, our imagination, and create a lens so that we can see, we can touch …

There are people who say that pictures like this make them feel small, so tiny in comparison to the vastness that’s out there, but we touched that vastness. We took its picture. We put our palms on the panes of infinity. We flung a tiny tiny fragile machine, a collection of mirrors and motors and shields and fuel, out into the absolute vastness of space, more than a million kilometers distant, and took a picture of a dying star orbiting its partner two thousand lightyears away.

I mean, yes, we are tiny, we are incomprehensibly tiny, and so is everything we do and everything we build. But all that shows is that something so tiny can still do that. Can reach that far. Can witness that much.

We are incomprehensibly tiny and an incomprehensible miracle, that we can be so tiny in all this vastness, that everything we witness in these pictures aligned in such a way that we could form, and that in response, as tiny as we are, we can think and imagine and create on a scale that can … witness the universe right back. Touch it. Focus its light into an image of a billion, thirteen billion years ago. Share that image with a billion other minds.

We can see wonders. Absolute wonders. On a scale to beggar meaning. What more purpose do we need than that?

Sorry. Just. Sometimes science does something that just … wraps a whole fist around your heart and just goes … this is what wonder is. The wonder of the universe. And the wonder of us. This is what wonder feels like. This is what awe feels like.

This is what it feels like to be tiny. This is what it feels like to be infinite.

I love the stars so much.

#space #james webb telescope #humanity #science #wonder #these pictures make me feel SO MUCH