#…that fears and persecutes people with magic! and it makes total sense that this likely began with the arrival of the andals!

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

magic in asoiaf is genetic. and that is intresting. and the fact that grrm doesn’t shy away from the implications of this makes me love asoiaf even more.

because it’s very understandable that these people who could ride dragons would see themselves as more gods than men. it’s understandable that the practice of sibling-sibling incest would become common in order to keep this ability in the family/to not lose said ability. it’s also understandable that these people would see their race as superior because they are able to do these things that others could not.

it also makes complete sense that this human civilization collapsed in a horrific magical event due to their own hubris because they saw themselves as gods when they were always only men.

and that is peak world building.

some more peak world building is that the noble houses of westeros also clearly gained power and held onto their power through the use of their magical abilities inherited from their ancestors.

a godlike existence like Garth the Green being the ancestor of all the oldest and most noble of the reach houses makes perfect sense for this world!and it also makes sense that the lords without this ancestry are discriminated against in this region that still holds onto the values their society cultivated in the past in order to maintain their magical superiority, even though most of these noble and old houses no longer exhibit these abilities.

and it also makes sense that these people no longer have access to these abilities as they no longer practice the religion that was centered around these powers; plus their blood is simply diluted at this point as these houses have married into a different ethnic group so often that the magical gene just doesn’t surface anymore.

but the fact that it still matters if you can trace your ancestry back to Garth the Green? peak! peak! peak!

george does such an excellent job showcasing the stagnation of westerosi society here because why should it matter if you’re connected to this magic guy if magic is no longer commonplace? however, it also makes total sense that the ruling class of the reach still harps on and on about this as it’s how they maintain the status quo and differentiate themselves from those they consider lesser now that they no longer have access to magic themselves.

and this is also why it’s very important that the Starks still retain the blood of the first men. because the first men interbred with the children of the forest and other elder races, which is what gave these humans these powers. it’s also worth noting that before the direwolves connected with the Stark children, none of our current Starks were able to awaken their abilities by themselves, which shows that even now they are very far removed from their ancestor who’s genetic makeup gave this bloodline these abilities. and it makes sense that the Starks experienced this slow magical decline because magic itself was declining in the world after the doom of valyria.

another reason for this decline is because Andal culture started heavily influencing the North and slowly changed the way magic was perceived. so now in the present, a warg/skinchanger/greenseer has become something to fear being because that’d make you different and therefore puts your life at risk, which means that there’s now practically no safe environment to cultivate these abilities and no secure way to pass down any knowledge you do have about said abilities.

i can’t help but be reminded about how Jon Snow has rejected his nature and how that has led to the stagnation of his abilities, and then i think about Arya and Bran and how their new environments have led to an astonishing growth in their abilities, which shows that it’s not just genetics that matter, environment is also just as, if not more, important.

i bring all of this up because magic being genetic in asoiaf is not as problematic as people try to make it out as. in real life, sometimes people just have genetic gifts. some people can become olympians, and some people are disabled. some people are born 10 times smarter than the average human, and some people believe that covering their faces in lemon juice would turn them invisible. that is reality. and in this universe, some people have access to magic and some don’t, and it’s all based on genetics. it’s unfair! and that makes it realistic.

not everyone gets to ride dragons and not everyone gets to travel back in time, and that grounds asoiaf, which is what grrm was going for.

and how these societies have organized themselves in response to these genetic abilities and the dangers they pose makes absolute sense. on one hand we have the valyrian freehold, which was a magic hotspot and the people who lived there used magic to propel their society to new heights, and on the other hand we have the seven kingdoms that demonize anyone too different, and all magic practitioners are different from normal humans.

and the fact that george decided to go this route with asoiaf is so juicy to me cause:

we have characters like Varamyr and Euron who use their abilities to commit great evils and we know that their powers have influenced the way they see and interact with others. on the other hand we have characters like Dany who use their abilities to fight against evil violent institutions. and through characters like her we learn how vulnerable fledgling magic practitioners/characters with these abilities are to these older and more dangerous institutions and individuals who are perfectly aware about the knowledge gap between them and these younger characters and know exactly how to exploit them.

so, while it’s understandable that the fandom is uncomfy with the practices and values that grrm has written about, this isn’t bad world building by any means. it’s logical and well thought out. and i truly enjoy that grrm doesn’t shy away from writing about the more worrying aspects and implications of magic being a matter of genetics. i also like how the seven kingdoms and the valyrian freehold are kinda extremes on the matter of magic and how this is/was detrimental to both of these societies and at the individual level. a horrific magical firey doom is not any better nor any worse than a slow drawn out icey decline.

imo, what is important to remember is that in the world of asoiaf, people with magic are the ones who are discriminated against (bc most POV characters are in Westeros and magic is a no no there). so they are the ones who are in danger if they out themselves as magic users. now, it is true that some societies are more tolerant (Qarth is a great example of this and Valyria before the doom was likely the most tolerant to have ever existed in this world), but as of now most societies simply aren’t. remember jojens warning? he didn’t pull that out of his ass. bran would’ve been in a lot of danger if he came out and told the wrong people about his dreams/abilities. also, jon’s assassination may have been partly motivated by the mutineers fear of wargs. this is the life-threatening danger magic practitioners are in for simply existing in an intolerant society.

tbh the reason i typed all this up is because it’s very annoying when people try to ignore the reality, which is that the dragonbond depends on genetics. now, i’m sure there are other ways to ride a dragon, as dragons are magical animals so of course there may be a one in a million chance of a dragon allowing some rando to ride it, but this doesn’t change the fact that there is such a thing as a genetic ability that gives these certain humans the ability to form a connection with a dragon.

(another example that i can’t help but remember is that melisandre was able to get ghosts approval by using some of her tricks. of course there could be other reasons for ghost to have done this, but the most likely reason is that ghost simply fell for melisandre’s trick and this influenced how jon saw mel. but this doesn’t change the fact that melisandre will never have the kind of bond jon and ghost have because melisandre is not a warg. this is also another example of how vulnerable fledgling magic practitioners are to older ones.)

so, sorry not sorry that george decided to create a realistic representation of what a society would look like if only certain bloodlines were able to ride dragons <\3.

[thelostgirl21]

I keep seeing posts about a "love triangle" between Geralt, Jaskier and Yennefer; sort of wondering who would be "in the middle" ...

... and here I am, picturing them in a full polyromantic and polyamorous relationship together, having each developed their shared as well as unique connections with each other, raising and protecting Ciri together, each bringing in their own unique set of skills to share with the girl.

That's not to say that the polyromantic/polyamorous relationships where there's a "middle", and two of the three partners aren't really into each other romantically and/or sexually, are wrong or not valid.

On the contrary.

But after what I've seen in Season 2, I can fully imagine Jaskier and Yennefer being involved together directly, without needing Geralt to maintain the interest and connection in their relationship alive.

After all, it's been rather well established that this version of Jaskier is drawn to strong and autonomous people in general, and that he genuinely falls in love with virtually everyone he meets, rather than seek to "trick them" into having sex with him under potentially false pretenses.

His antagonism towards Yennefer came largely, in my personal belief, from his very first significant memory of her.

Waking up to find Yennefer half naked by the foot of his bed - threatening him to get what she wants through sheer power and superior strength - literally assaulting him by grabbing him by the balls - after ordering him to "do some scales for her" to test his voice, is bound to start any potential relationship on the wrong foot.

Not to mention that singing is intimately tied to Jaskier's identity and self-esteem. So, making him sing under duress (rather than because he wishes to express himself, and willingly share that part of himself with others) and grabbing his genitals like that, made him perceive her as a threatening predator / monster.

Hostility comes generally from fear.

And he doesn't even try to hide that he doesn't trust her, and wishes Geralt would keep his distances from her because she is a terrifying witch.

He even watched her openly manipulate that knight for her own gain on the dragon hunt - her interest in him entirely devoid of any sincerity or emotional connection.

"Sometimes, the best thing a flower can do for us is die", she was taught.

Then suddenly, she comes to him humbled, without magic, on the run, among those persecuted for having eleven blood, and - though still very capable and potentially scary in her own way - no longer acting predatory towards him.

They are HUGGING!!!

She is now a prey needing his help and protection; and asking him for it, rather than trying to take it by force from him.

It does not make their prior encounter okay per say... But like Batey said, Jaskier is both an absolute genius and a total idiot.

I think he did get a sense that, when they first met, she was hungry and desperate to fill a certain void within herself; and that there was a more complex, deeper story beneath her behavior and who she was that he knew very little about.

Jaskier can now afford to look at her and truly listen without fear, as she shows vulnerability and respect for who he is and what matters to him as well.

She's even the one implying that there's more to him than "being a bard", and that he'd find a new purpose if he could no longer sing or write songs.

She's grown, he's grown, they have a deep mutual understanding of loss, and feeling unwanted...

They do not need Geralt in the middle to relate to each other, care about each other, and even grow to love each other.

And yeah, I think that Jaskier's teasing is also a way for him to move past the primal fear she once inspired him, come to term with those feelings, and move past them.

He seems to be a big believer in second (third, fourth...) chances, and leaving room for people to learn from past mistakes and misbehaviors, and grow.

So yes, she did overstep important boundaries and terrified him at first... But now he's learned that she's also able of risking her own life for those she cares about, and she came back to save him despite no longer having her magic, thus putting herself in significant danger.

If that had been the version of Yennefer he'd first encountered, Jaskier would likely have tried saving her from the djinn himself.

Geralt saw the cracks through her façade because she never was a predator to him.

The hunger she felt and void she was trying to fill? He understood where it came from, and saw a kindred spirit in her.

The initial connections may have been Geralt <--> Jaskier, and Geralt <--> Yennefer...

But Season 2 evened the power dynamic between them to offer us Yennefer <--> Jaskier; and it was beautiful, and phenomenal, and felt very genuine and organic...

And I just want them to be happy all three together now, for some reason...

[samwisethewitch]

Paganism and witchcraft

Thanks to many, many centuries of misinformation, paganism and magic are inextricably linked in pop culture. Progress has been made — the word “pagan” is less likely to make people think of dark rites, blood magic, and ritual orgies in the twenty-first century than it was in, say, the seventeenth century. Even so, if you tell someone you identify as pagan, you’re bound to eventually get the question: “So, are you, like, a witch?”

The answer, like so many things in paganism is that it depends on the pagan.

Before we get into modern pagans and their views on magic, I think it’s helpful to understand the historical roots of the association of paganism with witchcraft. And for that, we have to travel back to the Middle Ages, when Christianity was already well-established as the dominant religion in Europe, and the Catholic Church was well on its way to becoming a hegemonic superpower. The beginning of the witch hunts was just around the corner.

In her book The Study of Witchcraft, Deborah Lipp claims that two very different understandings of what it meant to be a witch were both at work in the medieval witch trials.

The first concept of witchcraft, which Lipp identifies as the “folk witch,” was much older and much less Christian. These were people who used dark magic, such as hexes, to cause harm and mischief. Though they may not have been called “witches,” folk witches or witch-like figures have existed in virtually every culture in some form. Examples include British witches, Irish changelings, and Navajo skin-walkers. The one consistent feature of these diverse creatures is an association with magic and a tendency to cause harm. They were seen as a threat to the community, and these types of witches were persecuted long before the rise of Christianity.

(For what it’s worth, the fact that witches were disliked by ancient pagans doesn’t mean that all magic was. Most of the ancient cultures that inspired modern paganism also had their own magical practice, and in many cases magic does not seem to have been controversial or taboo. But again, those who used magic for good would not have been considered witches before the twentieth century.)

The second concept of witchcraft identified by Lipp is the “Satanic witch,” which is an exclusively Christian concept. These people were heretics of the worst kind, members of a cult of Satan worshipers who had sexual relations with demons and plotted against the Church. They were a threat to the faithful Christians in their community.

The only unifying factor in these definitions is a sense of deviancy. Both folk witches and Satanic witches were people who deviated from the norm. It’s no coincidence that those accused of witchcraft were often those who broke societal norms in some way, such as single mothers or women who owned property.

These two distinct definitions of witchcraft would collide in the Middle Ages, with those who were tried for witchcraft often accused both of causing harm to the community by blighting crops or killing animals, and of worshiping Satan. It was commonly believed that these witches tormented the community with evil powers given to them by Satan.

But what does all this have to do with paganism?

While it’s possible that some of the people executed for witchcraft in Europe were secretly practicing the old pagan religions, they definitely wouldn’t have been the majority or even a significant minority. Supposed witches were almost always accused of worshiping Satan, not pagan gods. Most of the people who were accused, tried, and executed for witchcraft were probably accused for social reasons, not religious ones. Most if not all of them were probably not witches as we would recognize them today.

The accusation of devil worship is one that medieval “witches” have in common with pagans. Many of Satan’s names were originally the names of pagan deities, such as Beelzebub (a Philistine god), Moloch (a Canaanite god), and Dagon (another Philistine god). This association of Satan with pagan deities reflects real-world political conflict between the Hebrew people (and later the early Christians) and the cultures who worshiped those deities. Like the label of “witch,” this serves a political function and creates a clear “us vs. them” mindset.

However, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that medieval Christians thought that witch = pagan, or that they thought pagan = devil worship. During the conversion period (several hundred years before the Middle Ages), it seems that Christians largely viewed pagan gods as just that — other gods who were in competition with their own. There are records of Christians and pagans living in relative peace in some parts of Europe — something that surely wouldn’t have been possible if Christians believed that all pagans were devil worshipers.

Fear and paranoia regarding Satan and his followers didn’t become a large part of Christianity until the Middle Ages. Before that, Satan was a relatively minor figure, less the embodiment of evil and more of an annoyance. He was even used for comic relief in religious plays! It was in the Middle Ages that Satan began to take on a more prolific, antagonistic role. Again, this coincided with the Church becoming a hegemonic political entity.

I’m by no means an expert on European history, but it sure seems to me like the witch hunts and Satan paranoia of the Middle Ages were more about controlling the people and punishing deviance than about genuine religious conviction. Just saying.

By the time the witch hunts began, paganism (a.k.a., pre-Christian religion) had all but died out in Europe. Worship of the old gods had either ceased entirely or had been incorporated into Christianity in the form of regional tradition and superstition. Thus, “witches” were accused of worshiping Satan who, at the time, would have been a much more recognizable figure than Jupiter or Anubis.

So, to make a very long story short, there really isn’t a historical connection between paganism and witchcraft, except for both of them having been in conflict with Christianity at some point. It’s important to remember that witchcraft (in this case defined as harmful magic) is a concept that predates Christianity and that witches were treated with suspicion in pagan as well as Christian communities.

That’s not to say the two aren’t connected. In fact, modern paganism is much more closely linked to witchcraft than its historic counterparts.

If you read enough older books about paganism, especially Wicca and other neopagan religions, you will likely find references to “the Burning Times.” This is an exaggerated, largely fictionalized, and thoroughly disproved narrative that was popular with early neopagans, including Gerald Gardner, the father of Wicca. The “Burning Times” refers to the idea that, in the Middle Ages in Europe, the witch hunts were a genocidal attack on self-identified witches and pagans, in an attempt to wipe out these ancient belief systems. This is almost entirely false.

Belief in the “Burning Times” requires belief in Margaret Murray’s witch-cult hypothesis, which has been almost totally discredited by historians and archaeologists. Murray believed that the medieval witch trials were an attempt to wipe out a widespread pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. Murray claimed that this witch cult spanned much of Europe and worshiped a horned deity, who was referred to as the Devil by Christians.

Again, Murray’s theory has been completely discredited. There is no evidence whatsoever of a continent-spanning pagan religion, much less one that survived into the Middle Ages. If a book, website, or teacher refers to Murray’s theory or to the “Burning Times” as if they were historical fact, they are not a good resource for your study of paganism. Remember, paganism had been largely displaced by Christianity before the European witch hunts really got going!

But Murray’s theory, although false, has still had an impact on our modern understanding of witchcraft and paganism. As previously mentioned, Gerald Gardener was inspired by Murray’s ideas and incorporated some of them into Wicca. Noticeably, the Wiccan God often appears in prayers, poetry, and artwork as the Horned King, clearly inspired by the god Murray wrote about. Wicca was also the first pagan religion to make magic an integral part of ritual, thus marrying paganism with witchcraft.

The rising popularity of Wicca, and of self-identified witches, has helped destigmatize the label. Wiccans are, for the most part, lovely people who strive to use magic only for good. This is very different from the historic understanding of a witch as one who causes harm, and it’s been great PR for the witch archetype.

Nowadays the word “witch” can refer to anyone who practices magic, although some magic practitioners choose to use different labels. “Witch” no longer has connotations of evil, mischief, or malicious intent. The witch’s pop culture makeover has also been aided by popular fiction that portrays witches in a positive light, like the sitcom Bewitched, the Harry Potter franchise, and the TV show Charmed. This new definition has caused thousands of people, pagan and non-pagan alike, to use witchcraft and the witch label as a means to empower themselves and improve their lives.

Modern pagans may or may not identify as witches. Personally, I am both a pagan and a witch — but my paganism and my witchcraft are two different parts of my spiritual identity. For other pagans, witchcraft and magic are an essential part of their religious practice.

Say it with me, now: it all depends on the pagan!

Resources:

The Study of Witchcraft by Deborah Lipp

Witches, Sluts, Feminists by Kristen J. Soleee

The British History Podcast, “94 — Dark Age Beliefs”

Irish History Podcast, “Kilkenny Witchcraft Trial of 1324 (Part I)” and “Kilkenny Witchcraft Trial of 1324 (Part II)”

Wicca For Beginners by Thea Sabin

[panharmonium]

I would like to add Gwaine to the list of friends Merlin had. Especially in the 3/4 seasons he really was ride or die for Merlin, they shared intimate details with each other, they truly trusted each other. There were instances where the show alluded that Gwaine knows about Merlin's magic and is fine with it.

hi there!  i’m assuming this is in response to the post i reblogged about will and lancelot being merlin’s only “real” friends?  

i’m actually happy to write about this, now that the question has been posed - it’s been a while since i wrote anything long about gwaine!

fair warning in advance: i don’t personally classify gwaine the same way i do will and lancelot, and that’s what this piece will cover in more detail, but these are just my own thoughts, and it is totally cool for everybody else to have different opinions.  my take is my take, but it does not have to be everyone’s take - if people wanna scroll past because this isn’t their vibe, i don’t mind in the slightest. :)

so, without further ado - i LOVE gwaine, and i have written extensively about how amazing his relationship with merlin is (some examples here, here, here, and here, if anybody’s looking).  he is the most likely of all merlin’s living friends to ditch arthur in the name of addressing merlin’s needs, which is super important, and he also has a much healthier friendship with merlin than arthur does (in my own personal opinion, of course, which nobody is obligated to share).  he definitely does go ride or die for merlin in S3/S4, i agree.

but my own thoughts on this particular point are still the same as they were in that original post.  i tend to hide my clarifications/explanations in the tags, so they might have flown by, but i’ll just copy/paste the relevant bit here for ease of access, as some background for the rest of this post.

re: will and lancelot were merlin’s only ‘real’ friends:

#what this does not mean: merlin has no other friends!  merlin doesn't have meaningful and important relationships with other people!   #what it does mean:  #every single one of merlin's other relationships is undergirded by the sickening knowledge that those friendships are conditional   #every single one of his other relationships is accompanied by the constant undercurrent of 'they would hate me if they knew'   #merlin knows his friends 'care' about him   #except they don't really; because it's not truly him they're caring about   #they care deeply - about someone merlin made up   #about a facade.   #in the most basic sense   #those relationships aren't Real   #the love merlin feels for the people in them is real   #but you cannot truly be 'friends' with somebody who doesn't even know who you are   #you cannot be loved without being known   #you certainly cannot be loved without being safe

obviously i suppose a person’s thoughts on this would be different if they headcanoned that gwaine knew about merlin’s magic, and that’s fine.  i personally do not believe canon indicates or supports that, but i’m not out to convince people to abandon their own fanon interpretations of things; i’m happy just hanging out in my own space talking about my thoughts.  me writing meta is the virtual equivalent of me talking to myself in my room - if other people have different conversations with themselves, that’s fine :)  i don’t mind if other folks organize their thoughts about things differently.  

in accordance with that - everybody please feel free to continue on with your own interpretations, and ignore mine if mine do not appeal to you!  if people are interested about how i organize my ideas on this, though, they are essentially as follows:

1) a cage fighter, a class traitor, and a fake sorcerer walk into a tavern

ok, to start with - here’s a graph.

(...who tf starts a meta post with ‘here’s a graph’ lol i just drew a venn diagram for the first time since like...middle school...i LOVE fandom, man, this is RIDICULOUS)

anyway

this is a very rough interpretation of how i think about gwaine, lancelot, and will:

to address some of these elements individually:

lancelot and will give merlin something that gwaine can’t - safety, authenticity, the comfort of being known and seen for real, a respite from constantly qualifying every friendship with ‘they would hate me if they knew’

lancelot and gwaine, likewise, give merlin something merlin wouldn’t be as likely to get from will (if will were still alive, i mean) - an understanding of merlin’s devotion to the Crown, a supportive ally in the fight to promote arthur’s reign and keep arthur/camelot safe

will and gwaine, for their part, are more likely to tell arthur to go fuck himself, if it’s important for helping merlin, and that’s a different kind of support that merlin also really needs.

and will, on his own, gives merlin something that neither lancelot NOR gwaine can provide, which is a friend who isn’t connected to or even particularly interested in arthur pendragon (merlin has nobody in his life like this, not after will dies) - somebody who knew and cared about merlin before merlin had any proximity to arthur, before this whole ’destiny’ issue reared its merciless head.

everybody in merlin’s life matters to him and gives him something important.  gwaine is STUPIDLY important to merlin.  the love there is real.  but in canon, because gwaine is not in the know, gwaine is still one of the people from whom merlin feels compelled to hide himself.  gwaine is right up there alongside gwen, arthur, elyan, percival, etc - every other person who merlin loves, who merlin nonetheless constantly, back-of-his-mind fears, ‘they would reject me if they knew.’

the above is part of why i personally have never been too interested in ‘so-and-so knows about merlin’s magic’ canon-imaginings.  there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and i’m sure people must have tons of fun with them - and in an AU context maybe i would have fun with them too - but as hopeful interpretations of actual canon, they don’t appeal to me.  merlin’s near-total isolation and desperate, constantly-frustrated desire for real, honest love is an inalienable aspect of his character for me, one i can’t separate from who he is and why he does the things he does and why he eventually ends up in the place where we find him towards the end of the show.  

2) i just want someone to see me for who i am

i have seen a bit of sentiment out there along the lines of ‘merlin should have told (x person) about their magic’ or ‘(x person) obviously doesn’t have a problem with sorcerers,’ but i guess i personally don’t think it’s as clear as all that, and i think me saying it is would be doing merlin a disservice.

merlin’s desire to be seen/known/accepted is literally the most base urge he has.  if he truly thought he could tell somebody safely, he would.

i think merlin knows the people in his orbit well enough to know how they feel about sorcery, at least in a general sense.  and even if they aren’t bloodthirsty bigots like uther, they aren’t exactly welcoming magic with open arms, either.  at the most basic, elementary level, merlin understands something that we don’t like to think about: none of his friends ever challenge arthur on the sorcery ban or express any dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and, even absent outright bigotry, this fact speaks loudly enough in and of itself.  merlin’s friends might not be out clamoring for sorcerers’ blood, but they aren’t criticizing a society that criminalizes sorcery, either, and they are never shown to have a problem with the way things are, even though the way things are is wrong.

The Way Things Are is, in fact, unjust.  it’s oppressive.  and allowing that state of affairs to continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, when you have access to the king’s ear and aren’t personally in danger of being persecuted, indicates that you’re okay with the injustice.  that you’re comfortable with the oppression.  that you don’t see a problem with the status quo, and that you're unbothered enough by it to let it be.

it doesn’t matter that merlin’s friends have never straight-up said ‘boy, magic sure is evil’ onscreen.  they never say that camelot’s policies are wrong, and that delivers a clear enough message on its own.

3) it is not a crime to fight for your freedom

to bring this back to gwaine specifically, since that was originally the focus of this ask -

for me, for all that i adore gwaine, and for all that i think he was, for the most part, an INCREDIBLY sound, healthy relationship for merlin, the truth is that gwaine is as much a part of this problem as everyone else.  does that mean i personally think gwaine would have summarily dumped merlin if he’d found out merlin had magic?  no.  but i don’t think it’s as uncomplicated as maybe we wish it might be, and i think merlin has every right to be as uncertain of gwaine on this issue as he does of everyone else.

for one thing, like i said before, even gwaine, who used to have fewer qualms than any of the knights about pushing back on arthur’s BS, has never said a word about camelot’s injustices, or ever acknowledged that the laws of the land are unjust to begin with.  

for another, there are specific moments that kind of make you wonder.

5.05 (’the disir’) is a good example of this - when gwaine finds osgar in the woods, the two of them have this exchange:

you are a sorcerer, a heretic, and a murderer.  

the rhetoric of this sentence frames all three of these things as equivalent entities - criminal ones.  

to pick this apart more carefully:

a) sorcerer

it’s worth noting here that we’re never told osgar has done anything worse than evading arrest for the crime of being a known sorcerer.  when leon mentions him in the council meeting, the conversation consists solely of the following:

“as you know, a few days ago our garrison in the forest of breckfire intercepted the man who goes by the name of osgar.”

“the sorcerer.”

“the same.  they were trying to apprehend him when he used his powers to escape.”

and…that’s it.  osgar’s crime, as far as we know, was simply being a sorcerer (and then, after that, attempting to escape an unjust arrest, thereby killing a knight in the process).  there’s no mention of any other activities that would have warranted his arrest in the first place, other than the possession of magic.

but magic, even on its own, IS a crime in camelot - and gwaine levels the accusation at osgar as such.

b) heretic

that’s a hell of a word to throw around, if you think sorcery is chill.

“heretic” isn’t a mild accusation.  "heretic” has vitriolic severity behind it.  people are accused of heresy when they’re perceived to be in brazen defiance of what is (in the eyes of the accuser) unquestionably right and correct.  “heretic” is like…it’s like blasphemer.  the connotation is not just that something is bad, but that it’s sinful.

for gwaine, either osgar’s association with sorcery and/or his defiance of camelot’s army makes him a heretic.  and that’s not something a person who is down with sorcery or supportive of a magic-user’s struggle for freedom would say.

c) murderer

if gwaine were cool with sorcery, we would expect him to understand that a sorcerer who resisted arrest for the crime of being a sorcerer isn’t a murderer.  

it’s like kara said in 5.11 - it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are.

camelot has been killing sorcerers for decades.  osgar mortally wounded a soldier (not an innocent civilian, i might note) who was trying to imprison him.  he was resisting the armed forces of an oppressive state.  that’s not murder.

somebody who understands that camelot is an oppressive regime wouldn’t think of this as murder.  they would understand that it is not a crime to protect your own life when the state has literally been trying to exterminate your people for years.  and even if osgar had been engaged in rebellious activities against the state (which as far as we know is not the case - nothing like this is ever referenced!), they would understand that people with magic have long been overdue for a righteous uprising.  

but gwaine is a little more like arthur, in this moment - he sees the “wrong” that osgar has done (in the form of sir ranulf’s death) without seeing the thousands upon thousands of wrongs that camelot visited upon the magical community first.

4) you can’t go armed into a sacred place

the rest of this episode is similar.  gwaine pays just as little heed to merlin’s warnings as the rest of the knights, when merlin admonishes them that the disir’s cave is sacred.  gwaine doesn’t relinquish his sword or take special care upon entering the cave.  in fact, he is the one who outright interrupts the disir while they’re speaking - as they’re telling arthur a series of hard truths, that he’s persecuted magic-users, “even unto slaughter;” that he’s desecrated their space: “you come here, to the most sacred of the sacred, to the very heart of the Old Religion, with weapons drawn - trampling hallowed relics - treating our sacred space like you do your kingdom - with arrogance - with conceit - with insolence - ”

and gwaine cuts them off, pushing to the front of the group and shouting at them “enough!  you speak of the king!”  and that’s when the fight starts, when mordred gets stabbed.

someone who was fully accepting of magic, or who knew anything about it at all, would not have behaved this way.  they would not have bristled at hearing how arthur’s regime unfairly persecutes the magical community.  they would have known that it was true.

5) i just want to be myself

the above is just one example, but it’s a clear enough one to illustrate what i mean.  gwaine IS an amazing friend to merlin.  he does treat merlin well.  and merlin loves him to death.  but gwaine is NOT totally chill with magic.  i’m not saying he actively hates it, but he is not, from what merlin has witnessed, entirely safe.  merlin loves him, but he can’t be himself around him.

and i do think that pains merlin terribly.  all these people who he loves so much, and every time he’s with them there’s always that whisper: ‘this is a charade.  all the love in my life is a lie.  they only like me because they don’t know me.  if they knew who i really was, this would be over.’  

and we wonder why he never tells anyone.  we tell him he ‘should’ have told gwaine, gwen, morgana, arthur, like it would have been easy, or even possible, for him to ever consider putting himself in a position where he could lose what precarious, partially make-believe connections he has.

merlin, in the later seasons, when he worries about his magic being exposed, isn’t afraid of being executed.  he’s afraid of becoming even more alone than he is now.  and he has good reason to feel that way - even people who appear to put him first aren’t fully on board with the thing that makes him who he is.  and merlin knows this.  he’s seen it.  none of his friends are out fighting for people like him at court.  some of his friends shake their heads and assure arthur “you are a good and just king” when arthur expresses concern that maybe the disir are right, maybe he has indeed transgressed.  some of merlin’s friends used to buck the system in defense of the powerless, but now they defend the regime even when the accusations levelled against it by an oppressed population are true.

merlin knows that revealing himself is a kind of risk that could very plausibly end with him utterly disowned.  every single friendship he has is subject to this justified fear, this bitter knowledge.  merlin has every reason to doubt the soundness of his relationships.

and, circling back to the thing that started all these musings - the only friends who never made him feel that way were will and lancelot.

that’s all i mean when i say that will and lancelot were merlin’s only “real” friends.  i wish there were a better word to use than that, because i really don’t mean it like…as if merlin’s relationships with other people weren’t…valid, or important, or based on true love and care.  they were.  but there’s just not a better way to express that will and lancelot were the only people who ever even knew who they were friends with, who saw merlin for exactly who he was and said “i love you still.”  they were the only ones whose friendship was something merlin didn’t have to be afraid of losing solely for existing.

i always think of morgana’s line in 2.11 - ‘i don’t want to be brave.  i just want to be myself. i don’t want to be alone anymore.’

around everyone else, merlin has to be brave.  he has to keep up the pretense, which means even when he’s surrounded by friends, he’s completely isolated.

with will and lancelot, though, he could be himself.  with will and lancelot, he wasn’t alone.

6) post-script

i really appreciate being given the opportunity to muse to myself about this in more detail - i actually needed to think through some things regarding gwaine anyway, for writing purposes, and this was actually really helpful in organizing my brain.  so thanks, anon, for the prompt!  

i know my answer probably runs counter to your own interpretation of things, but as i said, this is just my own personal outlook.  i typed it up because the message got me thinking, and because i know i have a couple of friends who might find it interesting, but my thoughts apply only to me, and i do not mind at all if folks think about these things differently!  nobody is obligated to agree with anything i write, or give it any further thought, or even read it at all - we’re all going to engage with this story in different ways, so if anybody finds that this isn’t their cup of tea, please feel free to scroll on by, and keep having fun with this show in whatever way makes you happiest! :)

[duckie-baby]

let's talk about s02e08: the sins of the father.

let's talk about how this could've been a pivotal point in arthur's character arc, if the writers of this show weren't fucking cowards.

let's talk about how it was completely unfair on merlin's part to lie to arthur, because arthur deserved the truth goddamnit and it wasn't merlin's place to take that away from him.

of course, this is later justified by merlin saying that he knows arthur and that he wouldn't be able to live with himself or the guilt of it if he had gone ahead and killed his father. and of course, like every other potentially life-changing event, all of this is never mentioned by the show again.

magic is damned even further in arthur's eyes, uth*r threatens everyone who knows the truth into silence, vaguely implies that he's totally chill with his son fucking his manservant as long as they're all of the same anti-magic ideals, the episode ends in all smiles.

but whew! at least arthur's been protected from the harsher sides of reality, once again! god forbid this character gains any sense of self-awareness!

my point is, if all of this was to keep arthur from killing daddykins bc it would weigh on his delicate conscience, to preserve the Goodness Of His Character As A Man And King, why the fuck should merlin have to lie to him about it?

consider, instead of:

Morgause is lying! She's an enchantress. She tricked you. That was not your mother you saw. That was an illusion. Everything...everything your mother said to you...those were Morgause's words.

we could have had something along the lines of:

What your father did was wrong, Arthur, but is this man the man you want to be? The king you want to be? Would you be able to ascend the throne even as your father's blood glistens, still fresh, on your sword? Would you be able to live with yourself if you made this decision?

if he kills his darling father anyway, honestly, Good For Him. he has every right to. uth*r went through with a dangerous spell despite knowing the risks, then commited genocide in its name whilst lying about his reason as to why.

uth*r has commited genocide.

he is not a good king or father either, as proven several times throughout the show. he deserves no mercy, no pity.

but the choice should've been arthur's to make. this scene should've been a testament to arthur's character.

if he kills daddy dearest anyways but then feels Super Guilty about it later, we know he wouldn't have made a good king. you can't head a country when you're prone to making drastic decisions without thinking them through bc you were throwing pissy fit at the time.

so if he still goes through with it, he must not been shown to regret it.

but say he does let uth*r live. maybe for whatever love remains for the man who raised him. but he renounces him as his king, as his father.

arthur starts publicly going against his policies and decisions. bc if uth*r could have been so wrong about this alone, what else is he wrong about? arthur refuses to carry out his orders if he believes it’s against the interests of the people.

raising taxes? how about No. oh, he can’t knight commoners? just Try and stop him. he learns to trust in the counsel of merlin, gwen, morgana, people who we know interact direct directly with the citizens of camelot and want what’s best for them; builds his own circle. he routinely breaks out prisoners from the dungeons he believe have been punished unjustly.

especially the people who use magic. he openly speaks out against his father and his persecution of it.

uth*r can try and stop him, alright. but there is a clear rift in the kingdom now, two distinct factions. those who believe in the king that arthur will be, and those who believe their loyalty is still to the current monarch.

and look at these people, from the execution scene from s01e01:

look at their faces (and also hnfvbdjh colin morgan and his obscene fucking cheekbones jesus christ). they don't seem to appreciate uth*r saving them from the evils of magic much. how many of them have lost their friends and family to his crusade? how many of them remember a time when magic was still allowed in camelot and the kingdom flourished?

these people will stand with arthur pendragon.

yeah. the ones who still believe in uth*r’s authority are few and far in between. and they know where they can shove it.

arthur learns. about magic, about its history, the old religion. merlin finally reveals his magic to him, so does morgana. he goes to the druids and he falls to his knees and he begs for their forgiveness. morgause begrudgingly allies herself with him, seeing his determination to right his father’s mistakes. he still struggles with the little boy within him who just wants his only parent’s approval, sometimes. but he is slowly but surely becoming his own man.

arthur becomes king long before he takes the throne. uth*r is forced to watch, a meaningless figurehead, as everything he worked to achieve comes undone at the hands of his own son. no attempts to make the viewers sympathise with him. he is angry and miserable and wasting away and there is nothing he can do about it; and it’s exactly what he fucking deserves.

and merlin? merlin finally realises kilgharrah’s word isn’t gospel. morgana is redeemed before she ever loses herself. but they must learn to trust each other again, bc merlin left her to face her fear and self-loathing alone when she needed someone more than ever (you might be cute, merlin, but not enough to get away with THAT). he finds himself taking young sorcerers who don’t know how to control their power under his wing (gilli, daegal, oh god the endless opportunities here), including mordred. MORGAUSE TEACHING MERLIN AND MORGANA MAGIC.

he and arthur are equals now, partners in destiny; the world is theirs.

and for the love of god, give me villains whose entire personality and motivations don’t boil down to I Hate Uth*r Pendragon And Also His Son.

give me kings who are afraid of camelot’s growing power, give me bandits and slave traders who realise they have no place in arthur and merlin’s albion. give me uth*r apologists scrambling to maintain their position in court, hell, give me anarchist organisations if that’s what it takes to spice things up a little.

give me the golden age of albion we were promised.

of course, all of this requires characters acknowledging and growing from their mistakes, and making their actions have lasting consequences — so i suppose it really is a bit too much to ask of the writers.

[djiange]

I am so obsessed with your art. It is easily the most beautiful art I have ever seen. The emotion that you capture! The minimalist black lines with the insanely good colouring and the slight grain. The Lust, Caution art has been on my mind for DAYS! You are an artistic genius. The expressions, the pallete... The way you worded it was so beautiful. I know you said it would be difficult to write a fic about this, but please consider it. You have a way with words even if you don't think it! XXXX

Thank you so much!! I’ve been trying to stick to the "less is more" principle and keep the visual components simple but expressive. Glad you liked it!

And I'm really thrilled you found the Lust, Caution AU intriguing! It's prolly my favorite AU I came up with so far. BUT I gotta say creative writing in English is a pain in the ass and I decide not to bother myself with writing something plot-heavy like this AU... so I guess the fic won’t happen, sorry about that. 

Though I highly recommend Eileen Chang's original novella and Ang Lee’s film adaptation! The story’s premise is similar to Operation Anthropoid—with the background set in WWII, Morgana's counterpart who was a radical leader of a student resistance organization, recruited her fellow student Merlin's counterpart who had a slight crush on her, to be a part of their assassination of Arthur's counterpart who was a high-rank official in the puppet government under the fascist invaders' control—but Chang introduced an alternative narrative that deviated from the grand accounts of salvation and revolution in the tide of time when all the values tended to be futile and individuals were torn by the uncertainties of chaotic modern society. 

I know Merlin is a medieval show but—I don’t think the creators did this intentionally since it’s a family-oriented show—its narrative is pretty 20th-century-ish tbf. It is more of a cautionary tale than a heroic epic, catching a glimpse of paradoxes in modernism. Both Merlin and Lust, Caution cast off the metanarrative by bringing into focus specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience. There is for sure an urgency of eradicating magical persecution and renouncing muggle supremacy, but the story isn't about liberation or redemption; it’s about love.

Merlin neglects his duty of Messiah, betrays his own kin, and disregards his moral compass; instead, he endorses an oppressive regime, protects two tyrants who purge magic while exploit magic when they see fit, seals the imbecile man-child king in this fantasied bubble of honour and justice, and never actively promote the process of top-down reform of law enforcement or penal system, like deconstructing the profiles of criminals so that the causality between the crimes and identities would be enfeebled, or telling Arthur what JFK said in Berlin: "Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free." (I always find it super funny that despite Merlins inconsistency and hypocrisy he genuinely believes his deeds can be justified by "I have no choice." If Merlin considers that Sophia and other guest villains deserve death or poisoning Morgana in Season 2 is a must-do (i.e. killing the killer or trading another's life for "the greater good" is valid), then he should have killed Uther long time ago. He never really lacks for choices; he just won’t accept the ones that likely breaks the shell he creates for Arthur.)

Merlin does all these in the name of love (not specifically in romantic/sexual sense, of course). And deep down he only knows too well it's unfair or unwise, but he simply suppresses the sentiment and pretends it's exactly what he wants. He would always stand by Arthur's side, especially when Arthur is on the opposite side of the righteous. The reason that love has been portrayed in various media of art from time to time isn't that it's morally positive; on the contrary it's beyond reason, conscience or aesthetic. It represents the profound dialectics in humanity, which makes the evil melt in tenderness and despair, and the good lost in callousness and mania.

Also, what hurts more is that Merlin doesn't even choose love over justice; he chooses his short-sighted obsession over everything, including the possible romance. While he says he doesn't want to put Arthur in that position, he doesn't do it for sparing Arthur from the pressure of choice-making; he doesn't dare to offer Arthur the choice to not choose him. Merlin makes the choice for both of them; he chooses this delusional, delicate balance between them for the fear of losing control, of losing Arthur (in every possible sense). If he loved Arthur like a normal love interest instead of this death drive planted deep in him, he'd have seen (or cared) people suffering in every passing second and helped Arthur see it too rather than being totally a slave of passion.

[arcadialedger]

Merlin: BBC’S Epic Tragedy

WARNING: EXTREME EMOTIONS LIE BELOW PROCEED WITH CAUTION

_________________________________

Oh, Merlin. How I love you. Where do I even begin to describe just how deeply this show impacted me-- how it reached into my heart and made me feel as though only the great epics can. 

One day in the summer of 2016, I was looking for something to do. I was tired of only ever rewatching Doctor Who, and I wanted to try a new show. MY best friend, @shadowqueendiangelo​, had recommended BBC’s Merlin, so I decided to turn it on. 

Little did I know the emotional experience I would go through over the next five days as I marathoned the shows five seasons. Little did I know what this story would come to mean to me as a melancholic catharsis. 

So why did I react so strongly to Merlin emotionally? Well, I’m an INFJ, and I have always said that Merlin is THE show of the INFJ-- both the character himself and the feel of the show in its entirety. It’s deep, contemplative, introspective. IT, UNLIKE MOST FANTASY TELEVISION-- IS CENTERED ON EMOTION. 

But most importantly? The story is a giant tragedy-- to almost Shakespearean levels. One could even argue that, with five seasons, the structure of the show was inspired by Shakespearean tragedies. 

So what makes Merlin a tragedy? 

Even before he was bound to fate, Merlin is the story of a boy who was forced to hide who he was from everyone around him-- even his loved ones. He grew up without a father, his mother viewed his powers as a danger to be hidden and concealed. 

*Merlin totally needs to talk to Elsa but that’s a discussion for another day

The point is, from the moment he was born-- MERLIN WAS TRAINED AND MENTALLY PERSUADED TO BE AFRAID OF WHO HE WAS. Merlin’s life before he leaves Ealdor is a tragedy in itself. He is a boy who is forced to live his life as a life against his will, and due to things out of his control. THIS  ITSELF IS ENOUGH TO MAKE HIM ASHAMED OF HOW HE WAS BORN, AND EMOTIONALLY DRAIN HIM. This facade has overtaken his entire life. 

Then he comes to Camelot, and the real tragedy of his life begins. 

From the moment he steps foot in Camelot’s walls, Merlin is not only in constant fear of his safety, forced to work for a king who he knows would persecute him if he knew the truth of his identity, and continuously forced to lie to all of those around him-- ALL CONTROL AND AGENCY OVER HIS OWN LIFE IS IMMEDIATELY TAKEN OUT OF HIS HANDS BECAUSE HE IS BOUND TO FATE. 

Further, Merlin goes on the form the strongest bonds he has ever made in his life. He meets Arthur, his other half, the other side to his same coin.

And for years he has to live with the fact that the foundation of that friendship is built on a lie.

That he must always hide who he truly is from his best friend who he loves. 

For years he has to live with the fact that if his greatest friend knew the truth about him, he would have him killed.

Close as they are, this will always get in the way of their friendship, until Merlin tells Arthur the truth in 5x13-- shaking, sobbing, and terrified of what his friend will think of the true him. 

BECAUSE WHEN YOU LOVE SOMEONE, IT’S SO HARD TO HIDE YOUR FULL SELF FROM THEM. AND MERLIN IS FORCED TO DO THIS DUE TO A GENERATIONAL PREJUDICE WHICH HE KNOWS, DEEP DOWN, THAT ARTHUR IS GOOD ENOUGH TO SEE THROUGH. 

The thread of that hope is what keeps Merlin going. 

Being forced to lie to, manipulate, and hide your true identity from a loved one is enough of an emotional burden as it is. However, Merlin is not only just forced to live this sad reality. He is forced to do it WHILE SERVING A KING WHO WOULD HAVE HIM KILLED.

Yet, despite knowing that Uther would have him executed, Merlin finds a place in his heart for Uther. Why? Because Uther means so much to Arthur. And that, alone, is enough for Merlin to not only find faith in the king, but the strength to emotionally support Arthur when he loses him, when they fight after learning the truth of Arthur’s birth, etc. That’s incredible. 

Merlin is carrying such a heavy emotional burden already, yet he gladly takes on the weight of all of those he cares about. Because, like the INFJ he is, Merlin will always look our for others while neglecting to take care of himself. Thank goodness for Gaius for providing some support when it comes to his-- not that Gaius’s own insisting on keeping Merlin’s magic a secret and following his destiny doesn’t take its own emotional toll. 

The first moment of the show that I cried, and perhaps my personal favorite episode of the show, is season 2′s The Last Dragonlord. Here, we not only start to see the full depth of Merlin and Arthur’s relationship, as well as Merlin’s undying loyalty to Arthur, but WE WATCH MERLIN BRIEFLY MEET THE FATHER HE ALWAYS LONGED TO KNOW, ONLY TO LOSE HIM MOMENTS AFTER.

To have that thread of hope-- that promise-- snatched out from underneath you-- is nothing short of devastating. Merlin never got the chance to know the man who not only loved his mother but gave him the magic which has for so long ruled over his life. 

Make no mistake, Balinor gave Merlin is a sense of being, an identity. For once, Merlin wasn’t alone. He had a source, a place, a home. He had someone who could know his true and full self and was also like him. 

Then he is forced to watch his father-- that promise, that hope, that newfound sense of identity and reassurance-- die before him, having sacrificed himself to save his life. And even worse-- MERLIN IS NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO GRIEVE, BECAUSE ARTHUR CANNOT KNOW BALINOR WAS HIS FATHER.

The sense of loneliness at this moment is astounding. Merlin is left alone, forced to internalize overwhelming grief and sorrow. He has to hide the suffering of one of the greatest losses a person can endure. 

Yet Merlin continues on-- keeping faith in a king and a kingdom which despises the truth of who he is. He continues on FEELING WORTHLESS AND NOT BEING RECOGNIZED FOR ALL OF THE GOOD THAT HE DOES BECAUSE NOBODY CAN KNOW THE TRUTH.

The fact Merlin still does so much, despite getting no reward for what he does outside of Gaius, is astounding. It’s part of the human condition to need proper acknowledgment of the things we do. It’s against our nature to give and give and give, and get nothing in return. 

Yet, that is exactly what Merlin does. He gives and gives everything for Arthur, for his destiny, and expects nothing in return. Only his own moral soundness. 

It’s because Merlin is so selfless, he does nothing for himself. He works for Arthur. But more importantly, everything he does is for the purpose of his destiny. As stated before, MERLIN HAS LITTLE TO NO COUNTENANCE OVER HIS OWN LIFE. His purpose, and the actions he must take, have been predetermined, as they are a remarkably heavy burden to carry.  

One of the saddest little moments in the show is when Arthur states “You can’t hide anything from me, Merlin, and Merlin responds with four simple words

Merlin is so sad in this moment-- his smile and ton so bittersweet-- because his friend has such faith in him. And Merlin wants to be better-- he wants to be able to live up to Arthur’s word and tell him the truth like they both deserve. But due to preconceived circumstances he just can’t. All of Merlin’s pain, loneliness, and suffering are written by history and prejudices from before he was born, and that he is taking the weight of every day. 

Merlin suffers from emotional trauma because he is forced to lie to his loved ones-- make no mistake. He beats himself up due to something out of his control. 

And time and time again? Merlin loses the few people who knew the truth about him. That he didn’t have to lie to. 

Balinor. 

Lancelot. 

Freya.

The only people Merlin doesn’t have to be ashamed in front of, with whom he is not in a constant moral crisis of identity and honesty, ARE TAKEN FROM HIM BY THE CRUEL HANDS OF FATE. Repeatedly, Merlin’s destiny seems determined for him to be alone outside of Gaius. 

Now, outside of the tragedy of Merlin’s entire existence and emotional turmoil, we move to the tragedy of Arthur’s death. 

Merlin is a servant to both fate and Arthur. He would give anything-- anything-- for Arthur Pendragon. And, in season 5, we see Merlin TRY AND FAIL TO WORK AGAINST FATE AND SAVE HIS FRIENDS LIFE. Yet, destiny seems determined for Merlin to lose the one thing he still truly cares about, the person he loves most and who has driven his purpose most of his life. 

The friend he was done everything he can to save, and he can’t even let him know. He can’t tell him how much he cares. 

The idea of this working against fate first arrives in season3, in one of my favorite episodes-- The Crystal Cave. Here’s we see the entire overarching concepts and themes of destiny in the show, as well as the final season and descent to Arthur’s death-- presented and condensed into an episode-long concept, in which Merlin tries to stop Morgana from killing Uther-- FOR ARTHUR’S SAKE.

Merlin could have easily let Morgana kill Uther, and life would have been so much easier for him. MY God, life would have been so much easier. Arthur would be king, as Merlin has always wanted, and Merlin.

Yet Merlin is once again, selfless, and doesn’t allow either Uther or Morgana to die BECAUSE HE CANNOT STAND THE SIGHT OF ARTHUR’S GRIEF. ONCE AGAIN, EVERYTHING HE DOES IS FOR ARTHUR’S BENEFIT AND NOT HIS OWN. 

We see Merlin, one last desperate time, try to get Arthur to see the good in magic with his decision to heal Uther in The Wicked Day. This is thwarted, however, by Morgana, and Arthur’s hatred of magic is solidified. 

Then we hit season 5, which is just a swan song and spiral of depression, as Merlin is just so, so desperate to save his friend. 

This entire season is, indeed, a swan song to Arthur’s death, but more importantly, a testament to the power of fate, as everything Merlin does ONLY LEADS CLOSER TO ARTHUR’S DEATH.

His choice to not tell Morgana about his magic in season 2, which might have saved her from evil and therefore spared Arthur

His choice to save Morgana, which could have stopped his death in battle had he let her die in season 3.

His choice to not trust Mordred, which Merlin thought was protecting Arthur, but only assured Mordred’s turning and Arthur’s death at the tip of his blade.

As in all tragedies, all roads lead to one inevitable fate, which Merlin is so desperate to stop. The destiny in stone, however,  cannot be rewritten. Every decision Merlin makes ultimately leads them closer to the inevitable fate of Arthur’s death. And thus, Merlin is trapped into a corner of loss. 

And thus, after his best friend-- the man he loves most-- is finally able to know who he truly is, Merlin loses him too. And the tragedy of Merlin’s life is complete. Fate asked him to endure an impossible burden and gave him little in return. 

So why do I love Merlin? It’s poetic, emotional, and yes, beautifully tragic. It delves deep into the heart, mind, morality, and relationships. It warns against the overbearing power of fate.

And I guess I have always been one for the melancholy, dark, and sad. In that regard, I’m a bit of a masochist. I love to linger in the deepest, darkest emotions I can find. 

Depth, nuance, and pure, unfiltered sadness. That is what makes Merlin an epic tragedy. That is why my heart feels heavy and bursts with an ocean of bittersweet love and nostalgia whenever I think about it. 

That is what makes Merlin special. 

[ariwilder]

It’s not over until the Fat Lady sings | Part VI

Pairing: Penny Haywood x Jacob’s Sibling

Summary: It’s over. It’s your final day at Hogwarts. It’s time to say farewell to your friends and soon enough the start of new adventures.

Part I  |  Part II  |  Part III  |  Part IV | Part V | Part VI

You cannot recognize the direction in which you are walking with precision. All the jungle looks exactly the same to you. Tree after tree, vine after vine. Unlike Professor Oliveira, who navigated the jungle with such ease as if it were her home, you found yourself constantly fumbling with the uneven terrain, Penny constantly bumps against your back as a result.

Rakepick and Professor Oliveira come into a halt. You feel Penny’s body press against you again before she settles on holding the sleeve of your robe.

“Visitors first, por favor.”

It’s a tent under the disillusionment charm. You are pleasantly surprised. You had only read of this but never actually practiced it yourself. You knew very few people from the top of your head who could hold such charm for an indeterminate amount of time.

Rakepick goes first. You step aside to let Penny pass through. She looks at you as if you had suddenly grown another magical head. You can only assume she had never been inside a tent with an

Undetectable Extension Charm before.

“Just go,” You whisper. Noticing her hesitance, you take her hand into yours and lead the way.  

It isn’t spacious or anywhere fancy unlike the last tent you were in with your parents while on the last Quidditch World Cup. Unlike you, a true and loyal fan of Maximus Brankovitch, most of your vapid family members spent most of the five days of the that last Quidditch Final inside it.

On the back, there are two doors. At simple inspection, a small kitchen, with a stove and a breakfast bar with four wooden stools. All sorts of unknown plants perched in apparent order occupy the squared dining table. You feel Penny squeeze your hand before letting it go. The plants on the table are the first things that pick her interest.

“Do you know any of these, menina?”

Penny’s blue eyes shine in excitement, “Cordia verbenacea, for ointment against powerful magical scars, euphorbia tirucalli or naked lady can mimic almost any disease, and an awakening potion with Trichilia catigua can stop you from batting an eye for days.”

Maria Aparecida Oliveira smiles widely, almost feverishly, her resemblance to a cat, uncanny.  

“Maravilha, maravilha,” she grabs both of Penny’s hands into her bony ones, “Do you enjoy potion making, dear?”

“I love potion making.” Her words carry emphasis, a doting mother talking about her child. Her blue eye glaze over. It is not very often that you see Penny’s eye shine with such excitement.

“Perfect! I sense, you and I will enjoy working together my child, very good, very good.” she pats

Penny’s hands before letting them go.  

Her tawny eyes are magnetic, neither of you can take your eyes of Professor Oliveira. It is almost as if you feel compelled to look at her. Her eyes a magnet, the unnatural feeling of it made a shudder run down your spine.  

A sudden thunder erupts through the tent, the familiar sound of a magical apparition. No one speaks as all heads turn to the entrance. The surroundings turn suddenly still, the idea that you had just escaped a persecution is fresh in your mind.

You unexpectedly feel the pointy but heavy pressure of a wand behind you. You even your breathing; the last thing you want to disclose to a potential enemy is fear. That much, you do know.

“Quem são?” the voice is deep and masculine. You are instantly confused. Despite having your eyes set on the door, your eyes did not manage to notice a single indication of movement.  

“I don’t understand you.” you speak through gritted teeth.  

The situation unnerves you. Penny stands motionless beside Professor Oliveira, her grip tight against her own wand, so tight in fact you can recognize a perceptible quiver. Rakepick, on the other side of the room, looks uninterested in your direction with no apparent intention of coming to your aid. Had this been a set up all along? What are you supposed to do in a situation like this? You are not prepared for an ambush…

“Nico! Eles são aliados, uncover yourself.” Professor Oliveira’s voice is loud and clear.  

You turn your head the moment you feel the pressure of the wood disappear from your back. Before you, the silhouette of a tall black man starts to materialize from head to toe. It is almost as he had been hiding under an invisible cloth. He towers over you; his deep sunken dark eyes connect with yours.  

You tense your grip around your own wand instinctively.  

“Nicolau Zumbi,” he nods in acknowledgment.

“He is my assistant; it is a couple of years since he is out of school, not much different from yourselves.”  

Professor Oliveira speaks casually, as if this stranger had not just threatened you with his wand.

Something in you screamed you to run, to escape, but your feet would not budge. Fear, strong and foreign, paralyzes you. A couple of steps from you, Penny Haywood looks unusually pale.  

“Excuse me, I did not know.” His words are morose, but his English, unlike his companion’s, is easier to understand albeit American sounding.  

“You have to understand, crianças,” you feel her bony hands on your shoulder now, warm against your tense muscles, “the Amazônia is a sacred area, home to a restricted number of botanical and  magizoological species, only wizards with a special permission from the congresso are allowed here.”

“Do we have permission?” Penny ventures, still pale but noticeably more relaxed.

Oliveira’s laugh is loud and melodic, unlike any other laugh you had heard before. You can only assume the tent is charmed with a silencing spell as well.  

“Paty, are your children unaware of the way you work?” she can’t hide the laughter from her words as your attention shifts to your ‘mentor’. Rakepick doesn’t look humored, and remains nonplussed to your reproachful stare.  

You know Patricia Rakepick is self-serving and narcissistic, but jeopardizing your life without your acknowledgement is beyond utilitarian. Machiavellian. A total disregard of Penny and you as individuals. Had she told you from the beginning you were about to immerse yourself in an adventure bordering on illegal in another country, perhaps, you would have given it a second thought. You feel ashamed about these thoughts, considering the amount of dangerous misgivings you got your friends and yourself into as a student. Yet, the fear in your heart, for Penny on the most part, is real.  

Your body finally moves a step forward on Rakepick’s direction. Her impassive stare challenges you.

You feel Professor Oliveira’s bony hand tense over your shoulder. It is Penny who finally stops you, however, with a gentle hand over your arm.  

She does not have to say it, her hand, always gentle carries a firm ‘don’t do this’. You sigh through your nostrils in frustration. This is too much information for you to remain calm a minute longer.  

“You are probably tired from the trip; we can talk about this tomorrow, if you excuse me.” Her words are final as you watch Patricia Rakepick disappear behind one of the doors inside the tent leaving you dumbstruck.  

“Nico, offer them tea, querido, it is a long trip, after all.”  

“That would be lovely,” Penny chimes in as she calmly guides you towards one of the wooden stools in the kitchen.  

You drink your tea in silence. You are frankly not convinced of trusting these people but you are beyond livid to think properly. You don’t really listen to what Maria Aparecida Oliveira has to say.

“This is an ancient brew of tea, far from magical but particularly recomforting”, she says.

Her words rapidly drift in the distance in and out of focus as words of retellings of her own travels and adventures go through deaf ears.  

“You’ve been silent.” Penny’s words are a whisper, conversely loud in the silence of the tent.

You settled on the opposite room to Rakepick. The room is empty, except for a desk and a candle. With you, two sets of blankets and pillow. Oliveira sent you to sleep after the tea, of which you did not drink a single drop.

You have had been so busy racking your brains about the situation you failed to notice Penny had not fallen sleep. Granted, sleeping on a flat floor does not make it any easy. The weather is so mild and humid you had to doff your travelling cloaks altogether by the floor.

“We should be sleeping.” You turn on your side to look at your friend.

You can barely identify Penny’s laid down figure over the brim of the dimming light emanating from the candle on the desk. If anything, it makes her look even more beautiful to you.

“Yet, you are not.”

“You aren’t either.”

“You should’ve drank the tea, it had valerian root.”

You wrinkle your nose in distaste. As long as your britishness is concerned, you cannot recognize other tea than Earl Grey, even if your life depended on it. As for Penny, there is no day she does not surprise you.

You cast a silencing charm under your breath.

“I don’t trust these people.” You confess lightly.

I don’t trust myself or why I allowed you to tag along, is an addition that remains on your lips. Other than anger, guilt has taken a permanent spot on your stomach.

You feel Penny move closer to you before whispering your name. The tip of the fingertips of her nearest hand interlaces with yours.

“Do you trust me?” she is so close you can feel the hotness of her breath over the humid air.

“Yes,” it is a certain truth, “do you trust me, Penny?” your eagerness betrays you. Your decision-making has disappointed you, and you fear, Penny as well.

“You are one of the most talented sorcerers I have met, of course I trust you.” She pauses, “it is my decision to be here, okay? Please, don’t fret about it. We’ll figure everything out. Like always.”  

Your pounding heart finally comes to a lull as you feel your stomach relax instantly at her words. It is almost as if she has been reading your thoughts all along, she knows you that well.

You get a glimpse of her tender smile as you see the light finally wane into total darkness. Her warm hand, however, remained over yours, right until slumber finally befell you.

.

.

.

Tall brightly colored buildings surround you. It is nothing like you ever seen before. You don’t know why but a raising feeling of panic quickly takes over you. You are following someone, or is someone is chasing you, you are not quite sure. The tall brick structures are separated, only, by narrow and dark alleyways, making it feel like a maze.

You look up only to see towering smoke intertwining with the dark sky. You hear shouting in the vicinity, your wand is firm on your hand, ready.

Are you looking for someone? Why do you feel so panicky?  

Someone crashes into your shoulder with force, almost knocking you into the floor.  Bony hands grab you by the shoulders only to go into a fervent rant.

“Isso é culpa da Macumba! Corra ou morra! É uma maldição!”

.

.

.

A light shake on your shoulder wakes you from your slumber. You open your eyes blearily to meet a mane of bright straw colored hair. Penny is kneeling over you, her usually braided hair combed into a bun.

You want to smile at her but your body feels unusually clammy, as if you’d been coated by the thick saliva of a Cerberus.

“Maria told me to get you, we are leaving soon.”

Your throat feels unusually dry despite the humidity. You can even feel your white shirt pressing against your chest nastily. The thought of using Aguamenti on yourself crosses your mind briefly.

“Thank Merlin.” Your skin is not used to tolerating climates like these.

You take a fast look around to notice the room as empty as you found it. The wooden desk with an extinguished candle on the corner. Penny’s blanket neatly folded beside you. You look up to find Penny handing you your traveling cloak, folded as well, and with an unusual soapy smell.

“I might’ve scourgified it.” A light blush graces Penny’s cheeks before she leaves the room with a quiet, ‘hurry up’.

The image of what domestic life with Penny would be like pushes the recent memory of your dream on the back of your head as you decide on a change of clothes under your recently washed traveling cloak. It is a bit embarrassing for you to accept, you have completely forgotten the last time you had cleaned it yourself.

You exit the room to find Maria and her assistant, Nicolau, packing the last of their herbs and flowers into a big rectangular trunk. You share a scowl with an anxious looking Penny, who quickly reaches your side.

“Where is Rakepick?”

As far as you are concerned, your alliance to her, your mentorship, has suffered an important blow. You never really trusted her, not really, but suddenly abandoning you in the middle of nowhere with strangers didn’t look too good in your book.

“Paty is doing a Portkey, we been waiting for you. We cannot wait more and not compromise the mission.” Maria’s calm answer contrasts to your briskness.

You see her draw a golden pocket watch from under her green cloak. You notice it is not much different from Rakepick’s own, if not the same. As in on cue, one of the white porcelain teacups you had drank from just a night before starts to glow a intense blue hue.

“We have to leave now."

"One.”

You share glances with Maria.

“Two.”

You and Penny share glances.

There really is no other choice. Remain the middle of the Amazon or find out what exactly are you doing in Brazil. You can’t help but give her a lopsided grin. Sometimes, you can be really dense. And forgiving. And naive. And trusting. If something is ever going to get you killed is your sense of adventure and curiosity.

“Three.”

You see Penny reach for the teacup with you before you feel the now familiar feeling under your navel. Your stomach churns on an empty stomach and unforgiving bile. It is not much different from the adrenaline pump you feel everytime you ride over a broom at max speed. Your thrill for the unknown might one day be your great dismissal.

Not today.

A/N: I'm sorry for the delay. Real life got in the way. I had my very own end of the (school) year promotion, and also fell sick. I wrote all of these on off chances I had at work, mostly. Hopefully, it won't show. Happy reading! And off to action we go on the next chapter! Remember you can also find it in Ao3. Link on my fanfiction masterlist.

[geek-and-nerd-are-not-the-same]

Magic as a metaphor for queerness in Merlin..

The kingdom doesn’t outright hate it, but many fear those who use it.

All the magical individuals have some characteristics that make them not so heteronormative. Merlin is lowkey gay if not pan considering how often he checks out dudes and obviously would die for his Arthur. But he does get interested by woman, the way he did for “Kara.” Morgana likes Arthur, but like a brother. She seems to show more interest in Gwen imo, but I also get lots of ace vibes from her. And especially considering her relationship with uther, I think that may play a big role in how her sexuality has developed. He’s raised her since she was 10, but looks at her and treats her as if she was a future spouse (well, more like concubine..) She in turn loves him but doesn’t, and seems very uninterested in physical relationships. But she’s very close to Gwen, and especially touchy feels with her (but obvi in a non predatory/creepy way. She seems to show affection with physical touch. Anyhow) Nehm... the hot priestess of the old religion. (No clue how to spell her name though >.<) She was a total lesbian queen. Like god, I would bow to her in a heartbeat she was such an bamf. Sad she died, but made sense for the story.

Ooh!! Another thing. Families happen and all, but the families that are really close are the families who accept each other. Whether that’s complete acceptance and love like Merlin’s mama had for her baby, or like the familial ties the magical people make with one another, that kind of relates to like how queer people who have been kicked out/disowned by their families make their own families with those who accept and actually love them. Take gaius for instance. His family is never shown (maybe bc he’s so old and under the king’s service, maybe he couldn’t maintain his family connections. But) it also feels like he had to make his own family. He can relate to the closeted people bc he, like me, has to his keep parts of himself from those he cares about dearly so they won’t hate or not trust him. Would my family know I’m queer, then I wouldn’t be able to have the relationships I have with my sisters, and I would lose the relationship I have with my parents. Uther is like my parents: he’s misguided bc of something he doesn’t understand and trying to think of the safety for ALL his kingdom, yet he ends up hurting them. Especially the ones he most loves. He forced gaius to betray his fellow magical brethren, all while thinking gaius agreed and that he was doing good. But he hurts his people, and constantly cuts at gaius. Like when the not Voldemort was defeated, uther took this as proof that all sorcerers were evil and for more reason, he had to go and destroy/kill them all. Gaius is a loyal and close friend to him. Merlin has saved his son time and time again. But if he knew they had magic, he would kill them immediately. In my family, my mom makes hurtful comments about queer individuals bc of her faith in Christianity, never realizing how much it hurts me at times. She definitely knows when it angers me though bc I always get into arguements with her about it. I don’t think I’d ever openly admit I’m queer to her bc I don’t want to lose my sisters, or the relationship I have with her (no matter how closed off I may have to keep it these days). I love her, and I don’t want to lose her or her trust. Likewise, gaius loves and cares for uther, and so he will not risk betraying his true identity of a warlock/sorcerer to him.

I’m trying to think in regards to other “good” magical people, but almost all instances of magic are from bad guys trying to get revenge unless it’s Merlin using magic for the sake of someone else. But again, when he uses his magic, it’s for people he cares about. And magic is very closely tied to Love it seems. The very first episode even seemed to support that since the woman came to get revenge for her son, whom uther had executed. The beetle magic man who managed to kick gaius out did it bc of love and revenge for his murdered family. All magical creatures and individuals want a Camelot where magic can come back, and no one will be persecuted for it. Some of them are going about it in totally wrong ways, but you can’t really petition or talk a tyrant out of being a dick so I get it.

But especially considering how coded Arthur and Merlin’s relationship is, and how it’s emphasized over and over again that only once Arthur is king will there be able to be a Camelot of justice and equality for everyone, I can’t help see magic as a metaphor for queerness.

But I’m barely in the first few episodes of s2, and still have ways to go. I don’t know if my theory will stand up. (Or if this is an old thought that has already been dissected to each individual cell long ago. Sorry if I’m just throwing old water back into the well.) anyways, back to Merlin!

[shinigamiryuksblog]

I would love to!

Okay, then.

I got my permission to tell the story, however, the Shinigami I will be talking about doesn’t wish his name to be mentioned. Therefore, I will refer to him as ‘X.’

X used to visit the human world and observe humans to get rid of his boredom. One day, he decided to go to a highschool to see what humans learn during the process of their education. He visited a random one, then he encountered a short, frail boy being bullied by other students. X had always thought schools were supposed to be a safe environment which provided efficient knowledge to kids and gave them the opportunity of either exploring their personalities or learning to accept others with different traits. Therefore, he was quite surprised and disappointed to see somebody being bullied and excluded just because they had a unique appearance and they didn’t share common interests with the other kids.

The boy was pale. He had big, blue eyes matching with his long, wavy blue hair. He had a tiny, upturned nose and pinky lips. He didn’t look anything like his peers, in addition to that, his personality was as unique as his appearance. He used to read many books and underline his favorite sentences with colorful highlighters. He used to have a notebook which he had written poems, drawn pictures and glued the photos he took. He had a wonderful mind filled intelligence and creativity.

That boy was the first human to actually attract X’s interest and it wasn’t only because X had compassion to the boy, it was also because the boy was so pure, innocent yet so unaware of the inner beauty he had.

X followed the boy for a small amount of time and found out everything about his life. He had lost his dad at a very young age and he had an abusive mom. He had always been excluded, never been loved and never been accepted with the way he was. That’s why he had always been introverted, also considered himself as a person who didn’t deserve to be loved. However, he aspired to find true love and learn how it would feel to be loved mutually. Even though his faith faded more as each day passed, he had never completely lost all of it. The fact that the boy managed to stay strong no matter how many hardships he had to deal with in his life got X attached to him more and more.

Other Shinigamis, including me, were curious where X was and what he was up to. Most of us had tried to contact him, but X didn’t care about his surroundings since he was completely blinded by the boy’s existence.

One day when the boy got beaten up by the bullies again, X felt the anger burning his entire body. He couldn’t stand watching an innocent human being persecuted. He couldn’t stand seeing the boy crying for help and everybody else ignoring him, just watching him and laugh. It was selfish, cruel and absolutely unfair.

The boy eventually got out of the school and ran as fast as he could. Meanwhile, X was following the boy, trying to think of a way of helping the poor being. X was nothing but a stranger who secretly observed the boy, that’s why he doubted if he should kill the bullies without having the boy’s permission. He desired to meet the boy and show him some knew what kind of a sorrow he had been dealing with. He wished to tell the boy he was understood by somebody.

The boy eventually arrived to the beach, sat on the sands, wrapped his arms around his knees and begun crying loudly. It was only the midday, and surprisingly, no one seemed to be around. X took a deep breath and listened to the boy talking to himself and wishing somebody could see how much in a pain he was. X, again, thought that interfering the boy’s life without his permission wouldn’t be the best solution, then suddenly a better idea came into his mind: he could give the boy the opportunity of changing his own life.

He took out his Death Note and dropped it to the sands. The boy recoiled because of the sudden voice he heard. He swiftly got up and looked down at the sands. He was confused to see the Death Note. He was sure the note wasn’t there when he first arrived to the beach. He knew that he would have noticed something as abnormal as a black notebook with the title of ‘Death Note.’ With a confused expression, he looked around to see if somebody had accidentally dropped their notebook. Meanwhile, the boy was totally unaware of the existence of the Shinigami standing beside him.

After examining the Death Note with a curious look in his eyes, he eventually took it, then X became visible to the boy. He hadn’t expected such an ugly, phantom looking creature to appear right after he picked up the note. He initially went back a few steps as a reaction, however he couldn’t say anything, and a few moments later, he found himself standing without moving a muscle as if he was frozen. He gulped as he noticed his heart begun beating faster than usual. Fear had taken the control of him. He wanted to run, scream and call for help, although, something inside him didn’t let him do anything but stand there with a terrified expression. X told the boy that he was completely harmless and all he wished to do was to help him.

The boy intented to talk, but he only managed to stammer a couple of words and whatever he said didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t able to think or say anything. Meanwhile, X told that he observed the boy for a short amount of time and witnessed whatever he had been through. He added that the notebook had a magical power to kill whoever he wished. The boy’s hands were sweating and shaking. He wasn’t able to hold the Death Note anymore. Once he dropped the note, X took it and handed it to the boy. However, the boy didn’t take it. He told he wouldn’t have had any difference than the bullies at school if he attempted to murder them by using the Death Note. X argued that the boy could have forgotten about his memories of him killing the bullies by giving up on the ownership of Death Note, although, the boy didn’t accept it anyway. He told that even if he forgot about his memories of killing all those people, it wouldn’t change the fact that he was a murderer. X wasn’t surprised by what the boy told him, he was impressed indeed.

They didn’t talk much while walking home, because X had warned the boy about Shinigamis being only visible to the humans who touched the Death Note, so if they talked, the other humans wouldn’t have been able to perceive what was going on and they might have thought the boy was talking to himself.

Once they arrived home, the boy asked questions such as how X found him and why he decided to give his Death Note to the boy. After answering the boy’s questions, X told him about the rules of Death Note just incase he decided to use it. However, there was a rule neither X nor the rest of the Shinigamis didn’t know. The rule was, if the owner of a Death Note does not use their notebook to kill someone within 21 days, they suddenly lose their memories both about the notebook and the Shinigami who followed them.

It is almost impossible for Shinigamis to know every rule of the usage of Death Note and we learn most of the rules through our experiences. That’s exactly what happened in this story. The boy and X had become friends, in addition to that, X had viewed the boy more than a friend (and was never able to open up about his feelings), however, even though the boy had the best days of his life and finally felt that he was genuinely loved and understood by somebody, he eventually forgot about all of his memories.

The only thing left about their friendship was the picture of X that the boy had drawn in his notebook. Every time he looked at the page which the picture of X was drawn, he felt like the creature somehow seemed familiar, however he could never figure out why.

[best-ghoul]

So, Goth Logic, right?

So, some background. Welcome to GRAVEN MOON, which takes place in a place called Dis. 50 years ago, we killed our gods, and magic’s fucked, a magic pandemic is turning people into magic mutants called Cambions all over the place, and everyone persecutes the hell out of them, as bastards do. Not every means of fighting back against that involves a Scorching Ray between the eyes, though that remains a popular option, some have decided to cultivate mystique.

The development of Alchemy and Occultism (”Young Magic”) is recent in Dis. Fantasy settings tend to throw things like “10,000 years old magic” like it’s nothing, but in Dis, few practiced magical techniques are older than your grandma. Half of it’s total bullshit: Cambions are improvisers, and a lot of them have decided the best way to stay safe is to work spooky and look like you’re a bitch who knows how to cast a death curse. Lawyers wear suits, Cambions don spikes.

“Modern” Disian spellcraft is informed by the frontiers of technology as much as it is plumbing the depths of the ageless deep calculus of the universe, and wizards in Dis are improvising and discovering, constantly. With the utter failure of magical tradition and no central authority, you get a lot more Theosophists, spiritualists, magicians and hucksters than your Gandalfs or cloistered academy magi.

Thus, Cambions define their craft from the ground up, and that includes presentation. Being isolated, vulnerable, and regarded with suspicion, leaning hard on their strangeness is a key factor in ensuring that the laity doesn’t prey upon the so-ferociously-Othered Cambion. Highly charismatic ones use it to become a part of the community, and most will at least lean on it a little to make sure people keep coming to get children augured, ancestors contacted, or artifacts appraised.

It offers protection, if only through cultivating a sense of mystique: an intrigue to buffer the fear of confronting someone in contact with the unknown. It’s part of the reason the Long Faire Night is so fashionable (and picked a circus as the business model): it’s a survival technique too!

Pointy hats are still worn, but that’s Fey fashion and you’re in Human Territory. Din tend to wear big ol’ boxy crowns with veils, and Humans go for capes to mark their spellslingers.

There used to be cloistered Magi in their great schools (particularly in the Ingenious Isles), but after the Gods were slain, a great amount of old, ritual magic, has been abandoned, purged, or simply doesn’t work anymore-- there’s no central force to appeal to, and no ancient powers to invoke. The academies are hospitals, museums, and office buildings now, and the Magi have almost completely died out by now.

It’s sad out of context, but  these were also divinities calling for mass mortal sacrifice by the end. Fuck ‘em, we did the right thing. ...Right?

To that, I’d ask, are you glad to be Undead? Have you eaten?

[heartmindalignedspirit]

1. You don’t give a fuck. The most amazing and notable quality of witches is that they’re in touch with a level of intuitive and imaginative power which gives them an inner authority. They’re being moved by their own genius and not by any external dogma or force. They may use a wide variety of traditional or institutional tools, but they’re not dependent on traditional or institutional authority for their power. They’ve woken up the magic within their own hearts and it’s alive and throbbing. Witches are often offensive to – well, just about every body. Witches tend to offend both the sensibilities of conventional, non-magically oriented types of people and also of people involved with magic who have rigid ideas about what magic should look like. Just about everyone gets alarmed in the presence of an actual live-wire witch. Among these we can count my controlling, holier-than-thou ceremonial magickian ex-boyfriends. (Hi, gentlemen! Don’t you worry ’bout me, my magic is rolling along just great even though I don’t ever do the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram! Mwah! Hope you’re still enjoying living with your mom! Yes, Bali is great this time of year, and I don’t at all wish you were here! xoxoxoxo, Carolyn) So if you find yourself still very committed to magical practice and to spiritual development and you have next-to-zero interest in fulfilling anyone else’s expectations of what your magic or spirituality should look like, then you may just be a witch. 2. Seriously, you do not give a fuck. In your life you’ve probably had plenty of experiences of people freaking out at you about your signature strange way of being in the world, and while this is sometimes sad or challenging, ultimately you don’t care. You’ve got work to accomplish – art to make, people to heal, houses to build, rituals to craft, stories to write – and you just don’t have time to be constantly soothing people who expect you to adhere to some standard other than your own genius and inner authority. This may mean that eventually you go into stealth mode so as not to continually create alarm, but you don’t go stealth because you’re hiding or avoidant. You do it because you’ve got things to accomplish and only a limited amount of time here in the third dimension. 3. You make people nervous. No matter how toned-down you allow you are in your dress or demeanor, you still make people nervous just by your very presence. There are things that can be done to mitigate this, but it’s probably unavoidable. For folks who are looking to external authorities to tell them what’s good and beautiful and okay, the presence of you, an inherently wild someone who is wholly reliant on her inner authority, is disturbing. Your presence is disturbing because others can sense there’s something about you that’s unpredictable and uncontrollable. You’re not being ruled by the conventional programs, so you’re not immediately legible to people who still allow themselves to be ruled. 4. Folks tell your eyes are “beautiful” – what they mean is that they’re penetrating. Most people don’t have the words to describe your eyes. They just notice that there’s something compelling and different about them. That something is that your eyes see. You can look at someone and see what programs they’re running, see where they’re blocking themselves, see what they’re attached too, see how they mishandle their own sexual energy and power, see their potential for liberation. It’s just evident to you when you look at someone because you’ve done that liberatory work on yourself already. 5. You can always tell when someone is full of it. See the above. Your penetrating vision is a kind of psychic perception. You can see how people deceive themselves because you’ve unravelled many of your own self-deceptions. You can hear when someone is bullshitting because you can perceive that the whole of their being is not in full resonance with their words. 6. You’ve been actually persecuted at least once in your life. Because you make people nervous and you don’t give a fuck and you probably did not start out in stealth mode, it’s very likely that if you’re a witch you’ve attracted actual persecution at some point. This could be persecution in the form of cruel harassment and teasing in childhood, or persecution in the legal and professional realms as an adult. Often it’s persecution in the form of malicious gossip from former friends who couldn’t keep up with your magical growth and then felt envious. Kindness and compassion in the form of brahmavihara cultivation are great antidotes to energetic persecution, and so are traditional protection spells and an ongoing practice of developing your communication and relating skills. 7. You encounter tons of synchronicity, and it doesn’t always lead to peachy places. Witches are basically tantric bodhisattvas; they have a soul-commitment to liberate themselves and all beings as fast as possible, ideally in one lifetime, using alchemical transmutation. This means that they’re on the karmic fast-track and life very often comes super-fast and hard to them. This means that following even gorgeous synchronicities can sometimes lead bad witches to apparently dark places – and that the visit to the dark and dirty places is totally part of the trip. In other words, life is not a “love’n’light” New Age bowl of cherries for witches – it can, at times, be a tour of the hell realms. 8. Your disapproval visibly hexes people. One reason that you make people nervous is that you have so much personal power that if you dislike, insult, or disapprove of them – they’ll feel it, hard. Their day will be ruined, and maybe their whole confidence. When people get hexed by a cross word or look from you, they lose connection with their own best direction. They look dazed because they’re up in their heads, spinning scared thoughts around. Folks are so affected by your disapproval for the very reason that they can sense your perception is penetrating. This is the “evil eye” that’s been so feared in so many cultures across history. Of course you would resent and fear someone who had the power to crush your confidence with a glance because you know they see you clearly. So as a witch, it’s a good idea to continually cultivate awareness of and to transmute your own resentments and fears so that you’re not walking around spattering everyone with mean ju-ju just because you don’t feel good that day. 9. You’ve experienced your raw magnetism in action. You know you’re hot stuff. You’ve had abundant experiences of your own magical ability to magnetize amazing romantic partners and friends and other beautiful things. There’s times when people just come up to you and tell you how fascinating you are or how deeply moved they felt by your work. You’re magnetic and you’ve got reams of proof, so just accept it already. 10. Your experience of the fourth dimension is more vivid than most people’s experience of the third dimension. “The fourth dimension” is a short-hand term for the world of spirit and emotion and desire and vibration and feeling and intuition and imagination. It’s all the unseen stuff that can have the power to dramatically affect the seen. On the whole, witches have a much easier time navigating fourth dimensional realities than they do with third dimensional realities. The third dimension is hard, literally. It includes matter: table legs that you can stub your toes on, cars that can crash if you steer them the wrong way, water that leaks through roofs, bills that have to be paid. A major challenge for witches is integrating their fourth dimensional prowess with third dimensional day-to-day reality. The third dimension is more difficult for us than it is for others for the simple fact that large amounts of our minds and hearts are usually occupied by the fourth dimension. We witches have less processing power to devote to third dimensional issues, and so we have to make it a deliberate part of our spiritual practice to deal with material reality – hence, practical magic.

[jeremyfrechette]

The "Californication" of America

The "Californication" of America

If you have any doubts to the depraved depths progressives what to submerge America, look no further than the once Golden Republic of California. Inundated with 1.3 trillion in debt despite possessing the highest sales tax and marginal income tax rates in the U.S., California is now attempting to borrow from itself to pay outstanding retirement pensions. Why? When counties and cities continuously offer exorbitant employee benefit packages - the over 20,000 residents currently collecting 6 figure pensions - while the taxable revenues/incomes of private businesses and corporations are fleeing suffocating regulations in record numbers, somebody’s trying to eat Prime Rib on a McRib budget. Not to pour salt into insolvency or double dip those $15 minimum wage fries waving in the Western horizon, but Illegal aliens and their dependents cost Californians $25.3 billion per year according to FAIR's 2017 report: The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on California Taxpayers. The state's 3 million illegal immigrants and their 1.1 million US–born children cost the average California household — headed by a U.S. citizen — $2,370 annually. And what special allowances have been granted to those struggling, natural born families who pay must foot the bill of the Democratic Party’s foreign voter adoption and affirmative action estate? Mind your white privilege; even if you’re not white, live paycheck-to-paycheck and still can’t afford to rent a cupboard in San Francisco's Pacific Heights.

Enough about redistribution and devaluing a sentient being’s “worth”. Let’s talk about how California residents can now knowingly infect another person with HIV without informing their partner of their status, but state workers (including teachers and social workers) can be fined or even jailed for using the incorrect “gender” pronouns. In some educational institutions where gender-queer conditioning of elementary kids has becoming mandatory conditioning masked as sensitivity cognition, grade school students themselves can be reprimanded for not indulging their peers’ non-binary, role playing fantasies. In other words, ignore your genitals and reject your biological birth, liberate hate by wearing a dress, because little is more abnormal than just letting kids be kids without the inherited baggage of "sex" obsessed malcontents. But never fear, calling for the assassination of the President, beating peaceful pedestrians expressing political dissent or slandering any patriotic Republican as a Nazi bigot, is both commonplace, if not admirable, on enlightened college campuses and now in the “non-discriminatory” workplace.

Not to invoke the irony of future mugged constituents, California lawmakers recently passed Proposition 57 mandating early release for all “non-violent” criminals”. And what exactly constitutes a non-violent crime worthy of such leniency? Oh, just the rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving sex acts with minors, and assault with a deadly weapon. And here I thought legalizing child prostitution was but another attempt to normalize pedophilia among Hollywood benefactors lecturing Middle America about equality and tolerance. Once you breech and discredit one ethical boundary - those societal foundations of gender, family, faith and love of country - people will literally defend the most senseless, soulless acts for their existence is defined by limitless pleasure, perceived entitlement and a glaring inability to think for themselves. "Progress" isn't derived by forcing people to handicap their success, bake a sacrilegious cake to the extortion of financial ruin or purposely exposing innocent children to perverse Gay Pride parades and profane feminist rallies. Progress is realizing living the lifestyle of your choice, the literal sanctity between right and wrong, should never require confiscating the rights and dignity of others solely to validate/advertise one's bombastic beliefs.

With such inane reasoning masquerading as good government, it is of little surprise Governor Jerry Brown declared our immigration laws moot by further investing in sanctuary cities and attempting to obstruct ICE officials from apprehending known fugitives. When you’re more distraught over than the safety and so-called rights of non-citizens than the death of a 32 year-old woman murdered by a man deported 5 times, prudence and justice are antithetical anomalies. Not only are California illegals now eligible for driver’s licenses, they can legally vote in an election if they are officially registered to vote. And what does it take to register to vote in the great state of California? A driver’s license and a personal guarantee you’re a citizen. Yes, you heard me correctly, the legitimacy of our elections, the survival of our 241 year-old republic, is now based entirely on the honor system; or if you prefer perspective over subjective bliss, foreign invaders who consciously broke our laws without a hint of regret, only to be congratulated with a complimentary door prize, the honorary American oppressed immigrant mindset, of leftist socio-economic contempt.

I take umbrage with any self-respecting American, God forbid elected civil servant, who is completely indifferent to the estimated 3 million unlawful votes cast in 2016 simply because they believe small town America values and the electoral college should acquiesce to the moral degradation and militant activism of urban epicenters like San Francisco, Los Angeles or Chicago. Considering California alone accounted for over 10% of Hillary Clinton's final vote total, a 3.4 million difference that exceeded her 2.86 million final popular vote lead, I'm confused as to how those Donald Trump supporters representing over 90% of American territory - or precisely 3,084 counties of all 3,141 U.S. counties - should take a knee with Colin Kaepernick to empower a regressive state that dismisses the rule of law, mocks rural America and remains visibly contentious towards any concept of electoral sovereignty.

There’s also another term for those politicians who willingly subvert the immigration process and disregard our voting statutes to their personal and civic benefit? It’s called sedition, dereliction of duty, treason. If I may, when did defiant trespassers become “Dreamers” and doorbells a humanitarian crisis? Have millions of aspiring Americans from across the globe, for well over a century, not honored the afforded requirements for securing the privilege of becoming a U.S. citizen? Conspiring to invalidate prescribed protocols ratified to ensure legal and orderly naturalization – those measures explicitly enacted to protect America’s citizens and welfare - makes about as much sense as giving convicted felons the right to vote because of “felon disenfranchisement”; i.e., the admitted hearsay of political opportunists salivating over the fact 60% of released California convicts are minorities who deserve the opportunity to vote Democrat.

The same bureaucratic terrorists who forced 53 dairy farmers to go bankrupt and/or relocate to saner pastures due to absurd regulations on cow farts are somehow entirely satisfied with the unsubstantiated word of an undocumented, unvetted immigrant. Surprised? Not unless logic and liberalism share a nonflammable unitard. And while peace activists remain adamant U.S. citizens must undergo extensive background checks to exercise their constitutionally affirmed right to bear arms – naturally excluding those potential militants illegally entering a sovereign country in a post 9/11 world – their unflinching “non-partisan concern” for human life magically ceases at the recognized borders of radical agents like Iran and North Korea; inhumane, totalitarian regimes that globalists duplicitously believe possess an inalienable right to develop nuclear weapons despite vowing daily to destroy Western Civilization. So what’s the common denominator? Rampant, unabridged, unapologetic anti-Americanism.

When voting is no longer our most sacred duty and the integrity of our elections becomes a racist endeavor, as denoted by California’s refusal to investigate massive vote fraud uncovered in November, America becomes a second class citizen unable to defend itself in its own home due to fear of “offending” the same guests who would outlaw our flag, silence free speech and ban the national anthem if given only a fleeting chance. In essence, any policy that strengthens or reaffirms America’s independence, influence and economic vitality is an affront to the liberal narrative America must surrender its identity and founding Constitutional charter for being an evil empire built upon greed and White supremacy. Or in historically accurate terms, a superior culture displacing an ethnocentric population which supplanted other nomadic societies via the auspices of war, commerce, adaptability and/or technological superiority. Whereas California and New York are hopelessly lost to the left’s orchestrated demographic coup d’etat and ideological conditioning of their respective populaces, states like Virginia, Colorado, and Michigan are not far behind.

Regardless of one’s political persuasion, you don’t have to be a historian or even watch the History channel to understand America was erected as a free republic for a moral, self-sufficient people acutely aware of the triggers of tyranny, poverty and religious persecution. Individual liberty, limited government, transparency and accountability were never optional amenities on an academic drug trip to worship the Lenin Statue in Marxist Seattle. These autonomous attributes represented conceptual necessities whose only negotiable features were the exact method and expected integrity of implementation.

Unfortunately for the idyllic state of California, squatting on the world’s sixth largest economy and boasting vast untapped natural resources, its propensity for dysfunction and waste is only superseded by its systemic rejection of America itself. Whenever West Coast socialists are not charging working families and commercial transportation the highest fuel taxes in the nation, environmental terrorists who cannot differentiate between ecology and political alarmism are manufacturing water shortages and sparking unnatural disasters with pseudo-scientific regularity. Fixing the error of your naive ways is near impossible when rogue political fantasy displaces sound judgement and the Constitutional authority of your native country. How else can controlled thinning of excessive forestation designed to reduce the risk of uncontrollable wildfires, similar to the recent devastation which devoured 9,000 homes/buildings and 250,000 acres of habitat, be equated to "clear cutting" or raping the land?

It is also of little surprise California elitists, aka doomsday legislators seeking another excuse to tax common sense, believe Global Warming is not a natural, cyclical occurrence predominantly caused by solar fluctuations and the temperature of the Earth's core. Never mind Antarctic ice levels are far greater than 30 years ago and New York is not submerged beneath Al Gore's "unnatural science" grade point average, if you believe a .03 reduction goal in global temperatures in a century's time at an eventual loss of 2.5 trillion in annual GDP is a winning strategy, than counting cow farts and banning combustible engine cars by 2040 is your golden ticket to getting assaulted on Bay Area Rapid Transit for reading 1984 without a permit. But never fret, Sacramento City Council approved a motion to pay gang members for the conscious decision not to kill one another; or in layman's terms, obey the law and stay in school. And to think millions of decent, hard working Americans are ineligible because of their offensive civilized "privilege". 

Although it's mathematically impossible to pinpoint exactly what alternative universe California Democrats reside, our Forefathers would have called for a second armed revolution long ago. No, Really! Whether or not progressives approve of President Trump is a moot point if their own policies and authoritative abuse do not adhere to the prescribed constitutional checks of adopted statehood. Likewise, embodying the fight for state sovereignty by no means justifies endeavoring to become like those impoverished, inept nations your exploding illegal immigrant population is instinctively fleeing. It's hard to fathom how the once "Go West" mantra of American pioneers that catapulted California into an unprecedented wave of prosperity, proud nationalism and a vibrant centrifuge for diversity, has dissolved into an immoral state of cultural Marxism that believes government is god, gender is a fluid state of mind, exploitation a form of education, and patriotism an unjust form of racial oppression. 

It is obviously no secret the once predominantly “Red” stomping grounds of Ronald Wilson Reagan has been turned bright blue by an unprecedented wave of immigration and indoctrinated anti-Americanism. That was and always has been the goal of the radical statist quo. Where this nation was forged as a beacon of hope and opportunity for millions of law-abiding aspiring citizens seeking a better life, California has descended into counter-intuitive cesspool that preaches victimization over accountability, reverse discrimination over equality, intolerance over intellectual diversity. No matter how pure your intentions or how strong your faith in the nature of human volition, you cannot coexist with partisans so obsessed with maintaining political supremacy they would gladly surrender their own country to those who tirelessly seek our demise or break any rule to control our lives out of some misplaced sense of social justice that gives no such credence to their own failures and hypocrisy; most, notably, those corrupt, foreign governments globalists so foolishly favor to the liquidation of civility and the downfall of mankind.

While no American wants to witness the secession of California, or more profoundly the dissection of America's legacy and the abandonment of our fellow right-minded countrymen who represent the powerless minority, how long can you spare a cancerous appendage before it spreads, poisons your soul and ultimately takes your life? Will apathy reclaim our revisionist classrooms or assuage the sponsored anarchist war on police and freedom of speech? Once again, the left’s goal is not to coexist under the ideological umbrella that was and is America. Their unrelenting mission is to whitewash history, ensure conformity and redefine America by eradicating all borders, natural human distinctions – symbiotic gender roles and the family paradigm - so the concepts of liberty, individual achievement and morality quickly become outdated manifestations that can no longer threaten the secular supremacy of a progressive state. The systemic decay of California is as much a symbol of our failure as a society, as it is a dire warning to every governor and undaunted patriot that still believes God is the liberty of salvation, character does not fear consequence, and raising respectful, responsible children is by far our greatest contribution to humanity; that indomitable virtue of a free nation born from the bounty of a Judeo-Christian seed but distinctly American creed. If this transcendent republic has any chance to coalesce and preserve the timeless wisdom of a handful of visionaries marked for death by the tyranny of a crown's crest, I believe hope resides in the heartland of an industrious people - a summoned Convention of States faithful to independence and the merits of intelligent debate - still rightfully proud of their heritage and ever cognizant of the evil contempt and complacency breeds.