#...*very concerned stare*

[songsofbloodandwater]

🔥 witchcraft - in response to your unpopular opinion repost

Oh it's long, but here's what's recently been doing rounds in my head:

I'm with the gatekeepers. But sometimes people don't "gatekeep" correctly from my point of view, and then from their point of view, I am "too gatekeepy". When it's not about "more or less" gatekeeping, it's about how we go about it and who's doing it.

I often encounter situations where people don't respect nor properly protect things that need to be handled with respect and protection, and nuance, for the safety and general well being of everyone involved. In most cases, it's because they don't even know what they're trying to protect, or who, or why.

Gods Bless Nuance. It's completely gone from some very influential witchcraft people's vocabulary and behavior. And it irks me every time.

Like yes, sure, you can do magic without thinking too long and hard about the hows and whys that make magic work in general, and work specifically for you. But that's only going to take you so far as the "tried and true recipes" can take you, and in that case, you’re definitely not fit to teach or preach. You can't try to define, name, or explain to someone else something you don't thoroughly understand. And you certainly can't pretend to gatekeep the "Mysteries" if you've never fully submerged yourself in Them either. Not read about them! no matter how many books! Not taken a masterclass! submerged yourself fully, experienced them first hand, without the intervention or "guide" of others. Only when you've fully learnt to stand on your own. And that includes knowing when to say "this isn't my expertise, i'll refer you to someone else" or "I don't know". Standing on your own doesn't mean know everything and do everything, it means, what you do, you do properly. What you've learnt, you've fully internalized and know how it is applied. What you were given, you've made your own. You've earnt your stance.

The roles of teacher and gatekeeper in magic, in my opinion, always come together. When you're choosing what to preach and who to teach, you’re choosing what and who makes it through the Gates and more importantly how they do so.

Which means, if you're not fit to teach, you’re not fit to be at the Gates making Big Decisions about any tradition or the place of any person on either side of the gates. Specially not traditions that you don't belong in, but no, not even your own. You should still be in a teacher-student position and trust in the guidance and gatekeeping of your Elders or Teachers.

Not everyone is fit to teach, and most people online aren't. They're simply sharing their own experiences. But in the process, they often share more than they actually should, and more than they're fit to teach. Which ends up in all the misappropriation and bastardizing of practices, beliefs, entire cultures and religions on the greedy hands of people that should've never even been able to peer into them.

But students often underestimate the value and sacredness of what little has been shared with them in their journey. Specially in the beginning, when they don't know the whole truth to that specific concept, belief, practice nor the tradition as a whole and thus can't see the place of it in the bigger picture, or their own place as a practitioner, or simply don't have the maturity to take that weight in and act accordingly. They also vastly underestimate the sheer damage that incorrect handling and disrespect can do to a magical tradition and all the people in it, or to an initiatory, occult or "closed" religion, specially those magical practices belonging to disenfranchised and marginalized groups, and even to the people outside the culture, magical tradition, witchcraft tradition or occult religion, as they're reading or watching the student being inexperienced and incorrectly handling or inaccurately explaining something incomplete and out of context, to an even more lost audience, and thinking that's all there is to it. Missing the context of the message and who it was given to, and why. Missing the cultural context of the practice and all the ways that people coming from other cultures or traditions can fundamentally misunderstand it. Missing the theorical beliefs and cosmology behind why these truths are what they are, how and why these practices stem from them. Not just harm intellectually to that witchcraft tradition, the very real harm (physical, mental or spiritual, or all of the above) that anyone involved in that situation can incurr in if they don't learn to do certain things properly.

There's an alarming amount of so called "professionals" who are taken by others as authorities on certain magical traditions, and continously share bits of the "new findings" they're making, or the progress they've experienced personally... only to capitalize from it. Then completely detach themselves from the consequences of their actions. How can you share something you've learnt personally, and teach others how to do it themselves, if you haven't even fully internalized that lesson yet? if you haven't familiarized yourself enough with those spirits? what makes you think that what you're teaching, scratch that, selling, is actually something that is yours to teach or sell? what measures have you taken to ensure your own capability to teach this, who vouches for you and why? what measures have you taken to ensure you give due honor to the elders, the spirits, the Ancestors, and to the people who make up the body of this culture and tradition? and I don't expect just pretty words on a presentation if you're capitalizing off of a marginalized culture, I want really solid ways in which the profits of this work, class or else, will be going directly back to the original keepers' hands. I want them front and center at all times.

But even if it's not a marginalized culture or tradition. Even, no, specially when it's something that you created on your own, and had no one to lead you or teach you how it's suppossed to be done safely, the limitations of it, the reasons why it worked for you specifically and why it could or couldn't work for others. Hell, having no one there to challenge your biases. Witchcraft practitioners are often too quick to try to generalize an idea they had, a lesson they've learnt or a practice they've developed, in order to share it online with others, and sometimes, specifically in order to have something new to sell. Which opens a whole 'nother can of worms.

When you find all of that mess... with a cutesy instagram caption telling you to check out this New Offering! available only for U$D 200, for a limited time! That's just the cherry on top. Enjoy "learning" from someone who's practically a newborn to the relationship with those spirits, and has never had any of their biases or mislearnings checked. There's more chances that you'll be the one teaching them than anything else. And paying tens or hundreds of dollars ontop. The blind leading the blind.

TL;DR: If you're charging people hundreds of dollars for consultations and work, doing witchcraft profesionally, you can't claim to "never want to be seen as an authority". You can't literally place yourself in a position of authority, reap the benefits, pay your bills, but disregard and detach yourself from the responsibilities that come with your words and actions. Just because you know something doesn't mean you can share it, just because you learnt how to do something doesn't mean you can teach it, and you probably shouldn't either way. Witchcraft is often too personal and too culturally-historically tied to you specifically as a person, to your experiences in a tradition or lineage, and it's irresponsible, actively harmful, to generalize concepts, beliefs, practices or entire religions, for a wider audience in order to be able to capitalize off of them. "But I'm a witch and I got bills to pay" is never a valid answer to any of this. There's proper ways to learn and teach things in each tradition and culture, and they should be respected, in order to protect both the tradition and the people who wish to be, or are already, involved in it.

[gongyussy]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 113

“I seem to have been taken hostage.” Batman’s words almost had Superman panic if not for the wry tone, a tone which the others didn’t know if their freaking out was to go by. Clark sighed through the comms, tired after battle and honestly wanting to go to bed now.

“I’ll be right over, what child has latched onto you now?” He asked while switching to a more private channel. 

“I can already hear you making fun of me…” Wha- Oh. Clark bit his lip to keep himself from laughing as he took to the air. ���They appear to be a pair of twins with…” 

“You gotta’ say it Bruce, you gotta’,” Clark couldn’t stop the chuckle when he saw his friend on the top of a building, cape curled around his form in a way usually reserved for the robins. 

“... with dark hair… and blue eyes…” That was it. Clark absolutely lost it in laughter. 

[whumpitisthen]

Two whumpees who are scared of each other:

Neither of them want trouble

They are both so afraid of being near the other they avoid each other constantly

They flinch away at the slightest touch like one person and their mirror image

They are strangers, they do not trust each other, they have been burned too many times in the past and they will not be burned again

They stare at each other from a distance, not daring to actually interact

They want to avoid a fight so bad that they won't even say a word

Whumper loves seeing them together because it's amusing how similar they are

Their uneasiness around the other is promptly forgotten when Whumper arrives

Whumpee can't have friends; Whumper doesn't want them to, and we all know what happens when Whumper sees Whumpee doing something they don't like

If hungry enough, they can be bribed with food to spend time in the other's vicinity

Non-human whumpees?! Two puppy boys being very nervous with pulled back ears and big sad eyes hiding behind their owner's legs

One Whumpee lives here and in theory should be more confident than the other one, seeing as they aren't the one in a strange unknown place. That confidence flees as soon as the Other Whumpee takes even a single step in their direction. They do not want to fight, they just want to keep an eye on them at all times.

They flinch back and the other one flinches back too. They cannot stop doing this

Caretaker basically has to pretend with each of them that the other doesn't exist. If they mentioned that their counterpart is in the room right across from them, Whumpee would not be able to sleep.

They sleep as far away from each other as the room they are kept in allows, backs to the wall, staying awake until they can't anymore

I think Whumper should collar them and bind them together with a short length of chain. For enrichment purposes... For me

One of them starts to finally unwind and gently tries to connect with the other. The other does Not react well. They are both scared again

One Whumpee has a lot of scars — must be a fighter -> scary

The Other Whumpee has no scars — must be a Really Good fighter -> scary

Whumpee looks just like the Other — must be just as desperate and unpredictable/their whumper must be just as bad/they must be at a similar level of strength as them, no guarantee to win if fight breaks out -> scary

One whumpee is scared because they have been tortured into perpetual fearfulness — the other has never been tortured, but sees how bad Whumpee has it, and being the newest addition to Whumper's collection has them just as terrified

Whumper forces them to interact. The forceful, scary nature of their meetings sets back their otherwise slow natural warming up to each other by miles, having the worst kind of counter effect. Seeing the other reminds them of that time Whumper made them sit and hold hands for hours with the threat of punishment if they disobeyed

They both escape. They see each other across the street. They freeze and stare, thrust back in time, stuck in their old frightened and cautious headspace. Their caretakers are perplexed.

[marcobodtlives]

Mikasa and Annie on a Girls Trip™️ but it’s just them kicking people in the shin and shoulder throwing full-grown men.

(Reiner and Jean on Boys Trip™️ but it’s literally just them getting into a slap fight in the forest then sobbing over their murdered boyfriends)

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

You know how girls have this sixth sense or guts feelings about a guy having ability to be dangerous person or like 'oh this person can be fucked up' . Do you think this is what happen with those 20 girls rejecting shinichiro sano? Like if it was 3-5 I can say bad luck ? But 20? I know most of the fandom say the girls are blind or shinichiro flirting skills are well bad enough making him desperate or it is him being a leader of the gang in Japan where it is seen in negative image. But c'mon universally teenage girls love a bad boy image. I don't think out of those 20 girls didn't find shinichiro sano attractive with all these qualities. I love Shin but 20 rejection in reality straight up a red flag?

20 appears as a funny hyperbole at first, and it sure was used for comedic effects but I agree Shinichiro has unsettling flaws (to say it nicely). Transposing the number '20' to real life could appear off.

Shinichiro is indeed a delinquent (and the leader of a whole gang of them, who reached Japan's number 1 spot - that's not nothing) and is seen by all the characters we know as an endearing idiot with a heart of gold. And yet no girl fell for it. Good for them, they deserve better than making the experience of being with Shinichiro. They wouldn't have known what they'd have signed up for..

Shinichiro is a red flag in himself once you see pass the 'perfect brother, perfect friend' mask. He is a 'good person' but only because his life didn't make it so he saw a point to doing 'mean things' - he's not against the idea, we know about Original Timeline. 'It's because he didn't have Mikey anymore!' I don't think one's morals should be dependent on another's well-being. (I eat that shit up everytime in fiction, and I love messed up characters, Shinichiro fits both and I love that, and i love him, but it'd be daring to say he's a good person knowing everything he did - and knowing we ignore a lot more stuffs). Sure he was a 14 y/o but he still named his gang after an irl ultranationalist organization (knowing how Japan hides and denies its past, I wonder how he knows about that), he brought his 8 y/o brother to a gang meeting when he was 18, his idea of bonding with Izana was showing him how to act like a delinquent, etc. Original Timeline makes him even more of a red flag but considering the additional factors behind his behavior at that time, it's possible to think (and whether it's right or wrong I don't know, interpretations vary and sometimes Shinichiro is very hard to grasp, I have troubles with him at times) his behavior there wouldn't ever manifest had it been not for this exact situation of losing Mikey (and what was left of his family on the way).

And yeah, Shinichiro would never be as violent, impulsive and hostile as when Mikey dies - but those things didn't stem from nowhere. There's definitively crumbs of it even when Mikey's doing well. He's got trauma he refuses to address (parents' death, parentification, ...) which.. I can see as cradle for some toxic positivity - being portrayed as perfect, good and kind until OG timeline, we only ever see him smile until he loses Mikey. And when he tries therapy it doesn't work.

One thing you can't take away from Shinichiro though, is that he's earnest, he has not an ounce of malice in him. If he deceives people (by making them believe he's perfectly imperfect) it's not intentional because he himself sees himself as the image most see him as. That's worse in some way, because he really is unaware of how harmful he can be - he's a red flag but he sincerely thinks he's good, he never purposely intends to hurt anyone. He loves to help out his loved ones and he'd probably do the same to strangers, but he also sucks at assessing their pain or any kind of repercussions in any given context (ex: treating Haruchiyo's 'slashing his friends because they badmouthed Mikey' incident lightly, abruptly disbanding Black Dragon and seemingly not doing anything for Takeomi's distress, downplaying Sanzu's scars, ...). He's an enabler, too. If a loved one were to say '[x] makes me happy!' then he'd let them to [x] even if it actually harms them - he wouldn't see how that can be wrong, since they're happy.

The fact they were so much makes me doubt of the seriousness of his feelings I have to admit. While he has a lot of love to give and is genuine in his interactions with others (unless they're twisted by denial, ie: OG timeline Shinichiro acting happy and fine), it appears as if he's just desperate to have a girlfriend - without caring who it may be. It seems very shallow, does he even know the girls? If they don't know him it'd explain a bit why they didn't accept. If we restrain those love confessions to his Black Dragon years he has confessed to five girls each year - almost one for each season, one every 2 month and a half or so on average. That's fast lol.

After that we could talk about the possible reasons why he was so eager to have someone; ranging from 'typical teen wishing to acquire relationship experience' to 'thinking he needs to provide his little siblings with a mother figure because he can only fulfill the father figure role' by way of 'needing to save the family's face after their father's cheating get spread' but.. I don't want to develop them more, and they aren't really the topic at hand here.

Another issue that could arose from a relationship is that he'd put Mikey and his family first before anything else - that's a hard true and that needs to be accepted quickly too, no girl could ever be his number one priority no matter how desperate he sounds to have one.

One may say his inability to get girls is a difference between him and Takemichi — the fact Takemichi got Hinata as a girlfriend because she fell for him, got Emma to almost sleep with him, and got Yuzuha to have a crush on him. But we're used to comparing those two silly guys and thinking they both function the same way and by so, Takemichi being an idiot but still good at heart, Shinichiro can't possibly be a red flag. It's the kind of thing the story doesn't make you instinctively overthink, I think. We have clues on how Shinichiro is as a person once we scrap the surface of TR and starts to dig, but we really have nothing about how he'd be in a relationship, how he'd act toward a significant other - and picturing him as another Takemichi is just something that the story makes us do throughout the entirety of it so it feels logical for a time to give Shinichiro the same traits.

[mettywiththenotes]

Tomura and Izuku doing self imposed challenges: Tomura reaching max only by using evil boops and Izuku reacing max only by using super boops, somehow whoever reaches it first wins lmao

LOL I love this idea

Tomura doing evil boops with the League and Izuku doing super boops with the class

And then they find each other's accounts. Now it is a battle to reach max in their own ways. They are locked in to get the highest super/evil boops first

I can imagine Izuku sending his results to Tomura with MAX - LOL and being like "I win >:3" but then Tomura sends his which are TUM - BLR and being like "get on my level >:3c"

[delphi-shield]

every day i grow closer and closer to starting a self-ship blog

[itsalwaysdark]

and when i live on my own ill be able to decorate like real life decorate ive never gotten to do that in real life b4

[pharawee]

When the annual iqiyi vip sale is going on but now they geoblock even that. 😭😭

[2dieavirgin]

im so glad im not a straight woman. nothing against them but hopefully they'll get released from their own rules that they keep imposing onto themselves in the name of girl feminism. or whatever.

[orcelito]

This just in, local struggler severely overestimates how much they can eat yet again. Left with half a bowl of ramen and a sad, sad heart

[liliallowed]

me being stressed overstimulated and paralysed: I want this to stop

my brain's autocorrect: did you say you want to kys?

me the alexithymic: am I having the bad thoughts?

[lawrussoauto]

frantically trying to open a mysmes chatroom in the middle of school like an addict

[hazepearl]

[jrueships]

that's right babygirl. never upset daddy.