#Or maybe Cedar just uses a BlackBerry or something similar

[lonelyfresita]

I'm sorry but HOW DOES CEDAR USES A CELLPHONE?? My girl has wooden hands, does she has gloves that have those thingies in the tips of the finger that phones occasionally respond to? Like, she would need to put them on every time she uses her phone tho...I'm confused. Is the technology in Fairy Tale world like... magic enough to recognize wood as a type of skin? Because I'm certain that Cedar is not the only wooden girly out there, but if tech is like racist in the real world, would there be tech racism in Fairy Tale world?????? It's 10:00pm, I cannot have this type of dilemma when I'm getting comfy to sleep, I won't be able to sleep at all now!!!

[volchi]

Hearth Magic

Lately I have been very fascinated with fire cooking, and the potential for spellwork using the fire, pan and food itself. The advantage here is the consumption of the spell; you can put people under your control, empower them, weaken them, heal them, by having them literally put the magic inside them and carry it around with them so you dont have to snoop around hunting for taglocks for malefic curses or have the disadvantage of somebody needing to carry a protective charm on them which they may be likely to lose.

I was heavily inspired by a post made by @/qedavathegrey detailing the practical similarities between witchery and cooking. I cook frequently over a fire so I was wondering if I could lay a trick over bread or pastries using fire. So anyway:

First you need to know how to cook over a fire. I dont fuck with charcoal briquettes! And a lot of potency from the spell can come from the type of wood you use. For example:

Apple or sugar maple wood for love workings

Mulberry wood for spells intended to make others obey you

Cedar wood for ancestor work

Oak wood for jovian and abundance work

Pine wood for protection and empowerment/healing anxiety

And so on. In these types of spells I would use fires from materials that are as natural as possible. In some places "living fire" or fire that you started by rubbing two sticks together is very powerful in spellwork. I don't know about you but I am absolutely not able to start a fire by doing that, so if you cannot start the fire like so I would at least breath on it to stoke the fire. While making the fire you can also raise a lot of energy -- it's a pain in the ass so making a fire while pissed off can't hurt for a curse.

Also if you don't have a bunch of different types of firewood at your disposal, you can also add things to the existing fire to help it power the spell. For example, herbs, objects and things such as written psalms, sigils, tarot cards and playing cards can be thrown in. One possible method for herbs close with water could be to gather the herbs, wet them, and put them into tinfoil with holes poked in it so that it is constantly steaming as the fire is burning. (this also keeps bugs away. :) Around the area that you are starting the fire, you could also draw a circle in the dirt for extra protection during the spell. The whole idea is to enchant the fire so that whatever you cook with it will also be tricked.

When you're actually cooking the food, it takes a little while to adjust to using a fire so i would give it a few tries. I always use my cast iron cauldron, and you ALWAYS cook over the coals unless you're like boiling water or something. Don't fall for the cute little larpy pictures of people cooking over the high flames! You'll end up with half of your food burnt to shit, half of it ice cold and ALL of your pan completely black and charred.

Also you don't really want the coals to touch the bottom. Because it will burn. It just gets way too hot. My cauldron has little legs to keep it high up but if yours doesn't you'll want to suspend it from a chain or prop it up between 3 rocks, maybe a little metal grill.

If you're cooking soup or frying something you just need coals on the bottom, but if you're making bread or cake you'll want to actually preheat the cauldron like it's an oven, and shovel coals on the lid too. My bread keeps getting burnt on the bottom so maybe put more coals on the top. Bread holds up pretty well to cooking over a fire actually, in my opinion because it's wild and temperamental just like that fire.

And, once you're done cooking, if you laid a malefic curse over the food you can also save the salt used to clean the cast iron for future curses. :)

Anyway here are a few possibilities!

Blessing/Protection Strawberry Pie (for safety and ease at sea)

Start a fire from pine wood. Into the fire, put herbs St John's Wort, Angelica root, Hawthorn, Blackberry thorns etc you favorite combination of empowerment and luck herbs with "fuck off" herbs. To tailor it for protection at sea i will also be adding psalm 64 and swallow feathers.

It's for one person so we'd be making a mini tart, let's say strawberry rhubarb because of strawberries being sweet and lucky. You could also use blackberry for its protection. Or any medley of berries. Into the tart you can also slip some powdered/tinctured st johns wort, chamomile, etc lucky or soothing EDIBLE herbs. maybe not too much to change the flavor? but funny tasting witch tarts seem to be part of the charm LOL

So to cook a small tart you'll need a small pie tin, and you'd need to preheat the oven itself to about 350 fahrenheit. Maybe lift it off the bottom so it won't burn. You can blind bake the pie crust if you want. Its small so i would put the pie crust in with the filling, brush with egg and sprinkle some sugar, and cook for 15 minutes.

When it's done, you can whisper psalm 64 over it or what corresponds with your intention, and whoever eats it will be protected.

Otnovo --

Good Old Fashioned Love Spell Bread

This one is folksy and not a hundred percent ethical but it's just for educational purposes and I'm not your mom so. Make a fire from apple wood or maple wood. To this fire add sunflower petals, apple peels, orange peels, rose petals and ferns.

In the bread, if you can, mash in a (whole, fresh) mole heart in the liquid, maybe make it a beer bread to mask the meat flavor, or maybe make it stuffed bread and mix the mole heart with spiced pork or chicken, it's all up to you! If you don't have mole meat just lying around you can add coriander to the bread and similar love herbs and spices (take care that it doesnt taste like shit)

Preheat the oven by shoveling coals underneath but mostly on the lid and let it be for 15 minutes. It should be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the bread in, cook it for 20 minutes, and give to the person you are interested in.

Those two were examples so let me know how they work if you do them, obviously this method heavily depends on what you have accessible to you so just use what you got! Happy spellwork :)

[natashalierushman]

Batfamily headcanon: Air fresheners.

Okay, so for anyone who has ever encountered a belfry of real live bats you will know, bless their lil hearts, but they reek - like we need to get out of here asap because it smells like the room has been drowned in ammonia bad... 

So, batcave. Bats. 

If you try to tell me Alfred Pennyworth and Bruce Wayne with their extensive cleaning routines/ wealthy lifestyles/ just bruce in general tbh, don’t have buckets of upper class febreeze you are lying and I will not stand for it.

They all have favourite scents as well. And I bet each batkid picks a new air freshener for the batmobile as Dick makes it sound like a robin tradition. 

Dick I personally think would go for the giant jelly bean air freshener or sugary cotton candy like scents. They remind him of the circus and have bittersweet but happy memories. So much of robin for him at the start was for his family so this would another way of keeping them around. The cave always smells like sweets or strawberry soap when he’s around. It also is nostalgia without really setting him off, you know he needs quiet time or is seriously contemplating something when he starts to light scents like grass and the outdoors and the sea. When he wants to mess with Bruce he hides all these jelly beans in different places like vases or in batman’s utility belt, or just uses them as paperweights for case files. Bruce is presenting to the justice league and is trying to get one up on Clark and Hal and just pulls out a giant strawberry jelly bean. 

Jason would like more cloying incense smells or old books. It’s a combination of his old life and his new and brings home comforts together and with stronger smells he’s also present and lets other people know he was there as well. He’d use them as occasional bookmarks until the smell completely ran out before getting a new one and even then he’d hold on to old favourites. Maybe Dick hides one for him in the robin outfit after a few months of being at the manor and then after that it’s free reign. After his return all his safehouses have faint traces. After a while, everyone in contact with Roy starts to notice he also smells like incense. 

Tim would be more tentative starting out his air freshener collection. I think he would like smells like cedar or woods or citrus, smells that remind him of forests and being outside and feeling free. I think he’d like the cool ones shaped like trees as well. It takes a while for him to feel comfortable leaving them around for Bruce to find. Maybe Dick and Tim find a collapsed stall on patrol selling some and Dick inducts Tim into the tradition. The day he’s adopted by Bruce he leaves that same one Dick gave him finally on the rearview mirror. (...+Kon smells like cedar not that that as anything to do with it...)

Dami I think other people would assume he likes all the really spicy scents and I think he’d like the cinnamon smells. But he really secretly likes the delicate scents that are more gentle and make him feel safe. Scents like chamomile and jasmine and oranges. In his own space now he can finally explore what it’s like to be a child and have a family unit and some of the spicier smells he may like but more for the nostalgia for his mother. Damian needs to be needed and really he just wants people to love and be loved by and I think him displaying more subtle delicate smells is his non-verbal way of being more vulnerable. When dick was his batman he put a jasmine scented one on the batmobile after a difficult patrol and realised he had a home here with him. 

Steph goes for purple when she can. but rather than being drawn to sickly or artificial scents (she and Dick frequently squabble over acceptable “sweet” smells) she likes dark berry scents and blackcurrants and smoky tones that smell like campfires. She doesn’t have as much time to make her place as robin but after she’s gone Bruce always keeps a purple berry freshener in a drawer by his desk. When she’s back she always leaves blackcurrent or blackberry throat soothers in Tim’s pockets or wears berry scented lip balm. 

Cass would like the soft ones. Similar to damian but she likes scents like cotton or blankets or baby shampoo. They’re warming and soft and not jarring for her when she’s overwhelmed. On her more energetic days she likes mango smells and some fruits but also loves them for the bright colour and yellow. (purple and yellow being complementary colours has absolutely nothing to do with this at all...) She likes leaving some of them in her really rogue hiding places and hoards them in small batches. 

Babs doesn’t like too thick scents often as I think she’d get headaches. But she’s also such a sap she has candles and fresheners she lights to remind her of others. She always has a jelly baby scented candle she lights when she’s missing dick. He sees it once accidentally and is an emotional but adorable mess. Cass and Steph get her mango and blueberry candles respectively as thanks for being their mentor and as a batgirl ritual of their own. One day babs wakes up and a small black candle is waiting on her windowsill. 

They like to find sterotypically english scents sometimes for Alfred for fun like Earl Grey tea scents or fresh rain and he always stops whatever one he’s currently using and uses that one instead. He always knows whose been in the manor depending on the scent and bakes their favourite cookie in response. 

Bruce keeps them all pressed in a book or in a box and none of them know because he’s a fucking closet sap. 

@captaincarol-s thanks for helping me with this xx