#Which is listed like everywhere

[istillseeeverything]

the fact that most of the bigender tag is just discourse. Just kick me in the nuts man

[tenofmuses]

Free Witchcraft Resources for Beginners

A couple months ago I made a post shouting out the fact that witchcraft doesn’t require any money to get started (or to be practiced, for that matter), and I had a few people ask me about what they can do that’s free, especially as a beginner, so I wrote up this post. I was lost and broke when I was getting started with my craft, and it was really difficult to find tips for beginners that weren’t just “buy these things!” I’m hoping this will be useful for people who are looking for a place to begin.

So. You’re interested in witchcraft and would like to find out more. Maybe you keep seeing those “crystals/herbs/books/etc. beginner witches should have” posts, and you’re frustrated, because you want to begin your practice, but don’t have the money for those supplies. I was once in that spot, and even now that I’m five years into my practice, I have rarely purchased any of the supplies witchtok deems to be fundamental. Here are some places you can begin instead. Let’s get started!

Info continues below.

Foundations

By foundations, I’m referring to things that aren’t explicitly witchcraft, but that I have found very beneficial within my own practice.

1. Before anything, I recommend asking yourself a simple question: why do I want to practice witchcraft, and what do I hope to get out of it? You may not know for sure yet, and your answer will likely change over time, but having some intentions going in can be helpful when you’re in the early stages of research. When I was starting out, I felt very overwhelmed by the amount of info out there, so if you have a bit of an idea of what you’re specifically interested in, that can be helpful to get you going.

2. Meditation: not all witches meditate, but a lot of the skills you develop through meditation can be helpful within witchcraft. You can try out secular meditation (apps like Balance and Headspace, as well as Insight Timer—the former has a mix of secular and spiritual meditations), or you can find a witchcraft-specific guided meditation on YouTube. For neurodivergent folks out there, I recommend looking into active meditation, which I’ve found to be quite beneficial for myself.

For me, it’s always important to remain grounded when I’m doing any spiritual practice, and meditation is a good skill you can work on to help with that. I also find that having a background in meditation can be really helpful later down the line when/if you are attempting visualization and/or astral projection, witch’s flight, and so forth.

3. Journaling: another thing that isn’t specifically witchcraft-related, but is an important skill to harness, on my opinion. To me, it’s crucial to be in touch with what I’m feeling (especially when it comes to doing spellwork), and journaling is one great way to do that. If you’re stuck and don’t know where to begin, look up witchcraft (or general) journal prompts on here or somewhere else. A lot of the ones that come up will be shadow work, which can be intense, so only do what feels comfortable for you.

I’d also like to note that automatic writing/drawing is an entirely free option if you’re interested in communing with spirits or deities. Essentially it involves getting into a trance-like state (usually in a dark room only lit by candlelight or similar—this is to avoid distractions) with a piece of paper and pen, and you write or draw everything that comes to your head without thinking about it. And then you go back and see what sort of messages you may be receiving. It’s a bit hard to explain and I’m not very experienced in it myself, but it’s something worth looking into if it sounds interesting to you!

4. Look at what you have, instead of what you don’t: a lot of beginner witch resources will list specific items that you should have, without really explaining why. And without that knowledge of how/why having an item is important, you might find your Must Have crystal sitting unused on a shelf somewhere. So instead of focusing on the items you want or feel like you should have, look at what you do have. Are there plants or herbs in your house/yard that you feel drawn to? Do you have a collection of cool rocks and stones? How do these items make you feel?

For me, a large part of my craft is my belief in Animism (the belief that all living things have innate spiritual qualities, like a soul, spirit, or specific energy) and this can play into the way you interact with the natural world if it’s a belief you also subscribe to. Try and feel the presence of a plant to see if it gives you any specific feeling. It does? Great! Now you have a correspondance for that plant. And it’s even better than the correspondances you’ll get in a book because it’s based on your own personal connection and intuition. That’s what is most important.

5. When in doubt, use your intuition. You might find a source that says cinnamon should be used for protection. Another will say it should be used for abundance spells. What matters the most is what you think about an herb/plant/stone/colour, or whatever else you may utilize. I recommend to start keeping a list of what you associate these things with. It can take awhile to build up a personalized list, but once you have one, it’ll be a lot more useful than what a correspondances book says to do.

6. Scour your pantry and get cooking: are you wanting to try out a spell but you haven’t bought the ingredients? Look in your pantry. You may be surprised by how many commonly used witchcraft herbs you find in there. And if you have been starting to associate certain herbs or spices with specific feelings or energies, that’s a great way to get started with creating your own spell.

You can do a spell in many ways, but when I was starting out, one of my favourite ways was to incorporate a certain herb or spice into food I made. Say you’re making a soup and maybe you want a bit of protection, so you add some ground pepper with the intention of that pepper protecting you as you stir it into the soup. Same goes for any other ingredient you’d like to use. A little intention goes a long way!

7. Dedicate your actions, time, or energy: if you’re interested at all in working with deities, ancestors, and other spirits but don’t have the time/space to build an altar—or maybe you aren’t sure how involved you want to be with this part of witchcraft—you can devote an action to the entity. This can be simple. For example, when I worked with Apollo, I would use taking my meds and vitamins as an act of devotion to him. This is an offering. And offerings can be anything you want them to be. They don’t have to be expensive or fancy!

It’s also important to note that you do not need to work with deities or spirits to be a witch. You don’t even have to believe in them. Many witches are atheists or don’t work with any deities at all. But for those who are interested, simple offerings can be a good place to start.

8. Practice energy work: in my view, energy work is the most important skill to learn for your craft, since so many things build off of it. And with energy work, you don’t need to spend any amount of money on it. All you need is yourself, your intuition, and anything else—I mean that quite literally, you can practice feeling the energy of other people, pets, trees, buildings, foods, socks, your favourite pen, and whatever else you think of!

Once you get to know the energy of the things around you, you can more effectively utilize them as tools within your practice (this builds off of the intuition point I made earlier).

For example, as a child I lived in a house that was surrounded by cedar trees. It was a place where I felt very safe. To this day, when I see or smell a cedar tree, I feel safe and protected. You can read this any way you’d like—to me it’s both a spiritual and psychological phenomenon—but this is one example of sensing energy.

As a witch, you can practice that skill and use it to get to know the tools you’d like to use within your own craft (the things that connect to you personally, not what you’re told you should connect with). This isn’t an easy skill by any means, so if it doesn’t come naturally to you, that’s perfectly okay!

For more on this subject, I recommend two books: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer (more on animism in particular) and Psychic Witch by May Auryn (lots of exercises to practice working with and sensing energy).

Where to Go for Learning

After you’ve thought a bit about some of the above, or skipped it altogether if it doesn’t suit you, you’re probably wanting some good resources that will actually tell you how to do the witchcraft thing. But before that, I want to reiterate again that this is your practice, and you should only do what you are interested in. So take what you want and leave what you don’t.

I’m going to point you in three primary directions for learning good information: books, podcasts, and YouTube.

But first, I want to issue a massive disclaimer for the YouTube information (and some books, for that matter). You should not have one sole source for your information. Books that have bibliographies are always the most trustworthy sources. And even though I trust the information coming from the YouTubers I’ll mention—especially because I’ve read similar information in several witchcraft books—don’t take their word at face-value. Be critical of what you’re told. Believe what you believe. This is a skill you’ll learn over time. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it will get easier to discern what’s good info vs. bad info, over time.

Before you get started, I highly recommend watching this helpful video by HearthWitch with info on how to vet your witchcraft sources: link.

Books

In my view, books are the Best source of information, period. Anyone can publish an article or video online, but not everyone can publish a book. So there tends to be a bit more reliable info in witchcraft books.

As far as knowing what book you should begin with, there are lots of lists out there for beginners, and I recommend just looking at one of those lists and picking what sounds interesting to you. Take what you like and leave what you don’t.

Most of the YouTubers I’ve listed below have videos recommending books for beginners.

If you’re interested in British folk witchcraft, I started out with Folk Witchcraft by Roger J. Horne and it was a brilliant beginners guide that I recommend to anyone who is interested in that branch of witchcraft.

As always, while you read witchcraft books, be critical of the information you are presented with. Unfortunately, lots of witchcraft books (especially the classic ones) can be rooted in concepts like bioessentialism, colonialism, and racism. My recommendation is to not take any author’s word as gospel and to use your critical thinking skills when reading witchcraft books.

Where I live, books are EXPENSIVE. And when you’re just starting out in your practice, you might not have the money or ability to go out and buy a book just yet. Maybe you’re still unsure if witchcraft is right for you. Or maybe you’re in the “broom closet.” Whatever the reason, here are some free places to find books.

1. The public library: a bit obvious, but a great resource to look at, because you never know what your library might have. Libraries are the best. And entirely free!

2. Library apps like Libby or Overdrive: especially helpful if you don’t want to bring home a physical witchcraft book, or if your branch doesn’t have any copies of what you’re looking for. You can also get some audiobooks on there.

3. Archive.org: aka the web archive. Entirely free and entirely legal, this works as an online library service where you can check out a book for a bit of time right from your computer. Sometimes you can download PDFs as well. I’ve found a lot of my favourite witchcraft books on there, so if you have a specific title in mind, search it there.

YouTube

First, as a bit of a caveat before recommending you to watch YouTube videos on witchcraft: in my view, books are the best source of information for any witch, as they are able to contain a large degree of nuanced and research-informed information. But books aren’t a simple solution for everyone, and I’ve learned a lot from informed YouTubers over the years (in fact, like many witches, I was first exposed to witchcraft via Harmony Nice on YouTube!).

I’m including a list here of witch YouTubers that I personally recommend because I have found that their content aligns with information I have read in books and other research-informed sources over the years, and because I find them to be generally reliable.

I want to note here that this list is rather biased, as I tend to watch witchcraft YouTubers whose practices mirror my own in some ways. So most of these practitioners have practices informed by European folk witchcraft, and are not very diverse as a result. If any practitioners have further recommendations to add on, especially for practitioners of colour and practices that are different from mine, please do so!

My recommendations:

ChaoticWitchAunt: folk witchcraft, specifically in the Italian tradition, some great beginner content, info on working with saints and spirits.

TheWitchOfWonderlust: death magic, spellwork, great beginner content, lots of excellent info on working with spirits.

HearthWitch: truly a well of information on British witchcraft, beginner videos on any topic you can think of, q&a livestreams, and there’s even a video on vetting witchcraft sources that I really recommend for beginners.

The Redheaded Witch: folk witchcraft and folklore, spirit and ancestor work, daily witchcraft ideas, some beginner videos.

TheGreenWitch: such an excellent resource for herbal/green witchcraft, videos on spellwork, ingredients, tools, and more.

Mintfaery: lots of beginner information, videos on working with the fae, nature witchcraft, and lots of fun witchy days in the life.

Ella Harrison: German folk witchcraft, great beginner resources, including some more niche traditional craft topics like witch’s ladders.

The Norse Witch: info on Norse witchcraft and Heathenry, Norse paganism, and some content about astrology.

simplywitched: lots of great everyday witchcraft content, pagan witchcraft, more vlog style.

Warrior Witch Nike: witchy book reviews, paganism, deity work, some astrology content.

Mhara Starling: the place to go for anyone interested in Welsh witchcraft and folk magic related to Wales.

Alwyn Oak: lots of witch’s guides, especially relating to sabbats (those popularized in Wicca), forest witchcraft, gorgeous videos.

Ivy The Occultist: chaos magick and lots of interviews with practitioners from a variety of paths/backgrounds.

Shadow Harvest: personal day in the life witchy content, some videos looking at working with dark goddesses and deity work in general.

Note: some of these YouTubers have written their own witchcraft books geared towards beginners, so if you enjoy their videos and want to learn more, check those out.

Podcasts

The Astrology Podcast: not specifically witchcraft, but if you want to learn about astrology in detail, this is an excellent place to begin. Link goes to YouTube.

Books and Broomsticks: all kinds of good info, especially pertaining to folk magic, witch guests invited on to share more about their own practice. Link goes to Spotify.

Southern Bramble: A Podcast of Crooked Ways: a variety of witchcraft related topics, interviews, and discussions, often revolving around folk magic and traditional craft—interviews show different traditions. Link goes to Spotify.

New World Witchery - The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft: what it says on the tin; various topics and conversations through an American traditional/folk magic lens by the author of the (amazing) book with the same name. Link goes to Spotify.

Salty Witches Podcast by Cat & Cauldron: traditional witchcraft through a modern lens, another podcast that has a wide variety of topics covered. Link goes to Spotify.

—

As always, if anyone has any additional (free!) resources to add onto these ones, please do so.

Good luck to all of the beginner witches who are embarking on their spiritual journeys, and I hope some of these tips have been helpful! :)

-Em

[a-lilac-lyric]

Vote for who you think would be most likely to die for narrative reasons!

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Something I've noticed but only just now been able to put into words, is that a lot of the people who are like "I could never fall for cult shit, I'm too smart", and "I would never be bigoted against marginalized people, I do all the Right Social Justice Things" also seem to be incredibly convinced that if they ever listen to what anyone they believe is harmful is saying to really try and understand it, not even to agree with it but literally just to understand it, that they'll be "brainwashed" into believing the harmful shit is good and being a harmful bigot.

That cognitive dissonance there, that "I'm immune to propaganda because I never ever ever look at propaganda of any kind, not even to learn to recognize how it works" - radicalization relies on that.

Long post about this below the cut.

It's how people fall down the te/rf, the incel, the far-right pipelines. It's how people who consider themselves "leftist" become anti-porn, anti-sex-work, pro-censorship. It's how people who are otherwise progressive go from a baseline level of ableism, antisemitism, intersexism, radi/cal feminism, etc, that hasn't been unlearned, to spewing violent bigotry against these groups thinly veiled as "justified resistance" against "fakers" and "able-bodied" people, against "zionazis" and "genocide apologists", against "tmes" and "TMRAs", all while the people they're attacking are none of these things.

No one is immune to doing this is some way. There is no axis of marginalization that makes you harmless, in part because there will always be people in your own marginalized group that you have privilege and power over along another axis of marginalization. There is no identity that makes you only a "victim" and never the one doing the harm.

But radicalization, bigotry, oppressive systems, they rely on this doublethink of "I can't do harm" and "if I listen to those who are Categorically Harmful, they will Seduce and Turn me into being One of Them and Doing Harm". Because then all anyone has to do is convince you that the Other is inherently a Harmer, and that therefore fighting them makes you inherently Harmless.

This is especially true when the victims (not necessarily victims of the alleged aggressors, but inarguably actual victims of horrific acts), have very little power to speak for themselves about who is really doing the harm.

Sexual assault victims and especially CSA victims are a rhetorical tool in arguments about censorship and queer people, despite many of us being anti-censorship and either queer or allies. Victims of foreign wars and oppression, particularly with limited access to communication, are used for racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia - despite often actively telling people that those bigotries make things worse for them too and don't help. Disabled people have the symptoms of our disabilities used to excuse the behavior of people who are liked and condemn the behavior of those who are not - disabilities are only genuinely disabling to others for as long as its convenient for them to be.

I don't really know what drives it? Is there at some level a recognition of a fear that maybe, actually, the moral cause you've championed for so long actually made you one of the Bad Guys, because of puritanical culturally christian thinking that is only worsened by the punitive, bloodthirsty mindset of social media nowadays? Everyone likes to watch whoever's been assigned Main Character of the Week get "justice" fighting in the coliseum, always aware of the eyes on us waiting to shove us in too.

It would make sense - it's not just a fear of hurting people, but that if you admit to doing so, "both sides" will descend on you like ravenous wolves. It's a fear of Being Hurt, from people who have already been hurt far too much. I've endured many types of trauma, and can say with confidence that online harassment and dogpiling is as horrific as any of them.

Is it just basic fascist ideals that haven't been unlearned, that the "enemy" is both weak and strong? That they can't get to you because you're not reading all that, because you know better than to try and understand your enemy, but that if you ever did they'd immediately corrupt you completely?

I don't know. But the reason it works is because if you think the people you're fighting will convince you if you listen, once you're convinced you should be fighting them, you'll see every last drop of blood spilled as righteous. This, all while radical groups and bigots rely on you not knowing or examining how propaganda of any kind - helpful, neutral, or harmful - actually functions.

I don't know what to do about this. I know I've unpacked harmful beliefs a dozen times because I actually listened to people. I know another dozen times, actually listening to people has only further shores up my own beliefs - but critically analyzing what they are saying, weighing it against my own knowledge and experience, giving it a space where yes, I genuinely evaluate it's validity.

I think that's what scares people the most. It's "well but then, aren't I saying that [bigotry] could be valid?"

The thing is, that's not really what you're evaluating. You've been successfully tricked, indoctrinated into believing that if you question "is this actually bigoted against that group", you're actually questioning "is it okay to BE bigoted against this group".

This, too, I believe is coming from a place of cultural christianity. Questioning whether something is "sinful" is itself "sinful". Critically analyzing the way you apply your beliefs is conflated with critically analyzing the underlying beliefs themselves.

And of course, there are times when critically analyzing beliefs themselves is important, also something tantamount to being seduced by the "devil". That is how the "enemy" is treated in secular spaces - an all powerful force waiting to corrupt you at every turn and steer you away from the Good Progressive/Leftist Path. Generally though, these questions are not "is bigotry actually okay", so I'll leave a wider discussion of these for a different post.

I will say, though, that I do think not having devoted any analysis to the above is part of what makes that conflation possible. Disabled people arguing against other disabled people for exercising their right to bodily autonomy in a way that affects no one else because it's "unhealthy" despite disability itself being based around abled standards of health, trans people treating other trans people as dangerous and/or oppressors on the basis of bioessentialism and/or gender essentialism, plurals arguing in support of the historically violently pluralmisic psychiatric institution and using it first and foremost to support their right to self-determination, rather than said right being inherent...

How much of this is simply based in, rather than valuing autonomy, rejecting bio and gender essentialism, and prioritizing self-determination, simply relying on things like "the logic of disgust" and what "feels" right, despite those "feelings" and "instincts" being largely guided by the bigoted socialization we all grew up with?

Of course, some people might genuinely have chosen to explicitly prioritize an oppositional value - conformity over autonomy, authority over self-determination, assigning inherent moral value to identity over decoupling morality from inherent traits.

But given the inconsistency I've seen, these people seem to be rather few, and those that do exist are almost refreshingly honest even when fundamentally opposed to my very existence. They typically don't make convoluted justifications for their actions, nor contradict the very values and beliefs they claim to uphold, nor undercut the causes they claim to stand for.

But everyone else... it goes back to something that I've seen talked a lot about in discussions about censorship.

It is important to read and analyze things you disagree with, and listen to people you believe are harmful. Even if you're right a hundred percent of the time - a true rarity especially nowadays when there's so many "ins" for indoctrination into bigoted and oppressive systems - doing so will only make you better able to fight bigotry. It'll also serve to make you able to either deradicalize, help deradicalize, or minimally avoid hindering deradicalization of, bigots and other radicalized people.

And it's also important because yeah, some of the Harmful people you think you Can't Harm in your Moral Crusade to Protect Innocents, you're harming. Full stop. No one escapes socialization in our societies unscathed. No one enters the wider world as a blank slate, sure, but no one enters the world without ignoring systems we benefit from and the harms that maintain those systems.

You have to be willing to be wrong. You have to be willing to admit you've hurt people. As someone with moral OCD, yeah, it fucking SUCKS. As someone with BPD and depression, we've split on ourselves (in the BPD sense, but also sometimes the DID sense) and been suicidal over it.

So we're not saying you have to be examining this and yourself every moment of every day. There's times where you won't be able to and that's okay. Those are generally the times it's important and healthy for a good portion of people to step back from social justice movements and activism anyway and rest - but in cases where it's not helpful, it seems that often people will still narrow their focus to issues which most directly impact them anyway, which does help reduce harm.

But people justifying lateral aggression and oppression by utterly rejecting the material reality and oppression of marginalized people, because of that depersoning and positioning of said people as ontologically Harmful? If you're viewing any identity as inherently, categorically, Dangerous and Bad before anything else, ironically, that framework makes you significantly more likely to do harm.

This gets complicated, of course, with nonmarginalized identities. But people don't exist on only one axis - and if we're actually using intersectionality theory as it was intended, acknowledging that each identity interacts with each other identity to form a complex, multifaceted, cohesive whole, well... even people with many axes of privilege may still be marginalized, sometimes significantly. There are severely disabled nonqueer people who have essentially no power over queer people, abled children who have little to no power over disabled adults, white trans people who hold power over all nonwhite trans people - and drive transphobia even as they uphold colonial gender standards and white supremacy.

And of course, this all gets even more complicated with rhetorical tricks used to obscure that identity is the actual thing being attacked.

People are convinced that it's not antisemitism to attack "zionists" while making the one and only criteria for whether someone is a "zionist" whether they are Jewish, all while weaponizing "antizionism isn't antisemitism" as a shield. If what you're attacking is the privilege of "being transmisogyny exempt"* it doesn't matter if you're basing that on someone's identity regardless of their actual experiences with transmisogyny or even whether their identity matches your idea of what that identity entails (for example, intersex people who were assigned female or male at birth).

*Obligatory disclaimer that we are not blaming any specific gender for doing this. We have seen this from everyone from multigender to transmasc to transfem to maverique people to plenty of other people.

Heck, if you attack a "non-marginalized identity", whether or not said identity is actually non-marginalized or has any power over you, that obfuscation isn't even necessary. If neurodisabled people are all able-bodied and always have physical access everywhere and are basically not even really disabled anyway, then how could it be lateral ableism to attack them for pushing back against those false and ableist narratives of their experiences?

If Jewish people are all genocidal Israeli oppressors, then you can go straight into "actually jewish people aren't oppressed and are basically powerful - and controlling the media - and the US government - and are babykillers anyway - and are stealing organs from Palestinians - and you've dove headfirst into blatant antisemitism. But wait! According to you, it's not, because you don't hate theoretical Jewish people, only any Jewish person that doesn't kowtow to you and sycophantically uphold literal blood libel and conspiracy theories.

And if you stopped listening as soon as I said something that you thought conflicted with your existing beliefs - about the tma/tme dichotomy, about Jewish people and zionism, about neurodisabilities being disabling and not all neurodisabled people being able-bodied, etc etc ad nauseum - then this post is about you.

Because you heard someone say "this harms people, you are harming people if you do this" and went "nuh uh I'm not listening actually you're the harmful ones", if you "interrogated" your beliefs without actually listening to what people who are calling them harmful are saying, or at most by decontextualizing and maliciously misinterpreting their arguments to reaffirm your own biases and cognitive dissonance...

You're who I started writing this post about in the first place.

I have laid out, frequently and extensively, the interrogations I have done of myself and my beliefs to come to the conclusions that the things I claim are harmful, are. I've actively looked for logical fallacies and ethical violations. In some places, I've found them, and been forced to re-examine my views. When this has happened, sometimes it's changed those views, and sometimes I simply shored up the foundation by removing the bits that were themselves not supportive or dangerous.

I've apologized and owned my mistakes. I've had the privilege to not just apologize, but undo the harm I did. I've gotten to work to repair not just my relationship with people and their trust in me, but the wounds - and work against the larger structures that I had acted as a single finger of.

And more than anything, I'm sure there's still harm I'm doing or will do that I'm not yet aware of. Out of over seven billion people, there might be several dozen who are not currently, passively or actively, participating in some kind of harm at some level. I can basically guarantee that if you're reading this you're not one of them. This is not because we are inherently harmful, but because we exist within harmful systems that make it impossible to exist without doing so.

"No ethical consumption under capitalism" as an example. Many of the things you might have zero control over right now.

The point of this is not "you are bad" - quite the opposite, in fact. It's "you are complex, and doing harm doesn't make you bad". It's "attempting to never do harm will often make you more likely to do so, and will certainly hinder or outright prohibit attempts at effective harm reduction". It's "the sooner you accept that you will do harm and evaluate that from a neutral standpoint, the sooner you can focus on doing less harm where it IS possible".

But to do this, the very first step is - you have to be willing to listen. You have to understand that you're not going to suddenly be brainwashed into being a hateful bigot because you critically analyze whether something is bigoted or harmful. You have to understand that if you're not willing to try and understand even the most truly harmful, awful people, that you ironically WILL be susceptible to being turned into a bigot by anyone who convinces you that someone else isn't worth listening to.

You have to understand that not listening - is actually just listening to the people who have a vested interest in telling you what others are saying. Who really benefits from controlling the flow of information that way - because it's not you or other marginalized people, I guarantee it.

...

One addition: Yeah, I'm literally the person that has my partner screening my notifs for harassment and hate rn. So this all might seem ironic.

The thing is, you don't have to respond directly to someone who you feel is harmful. In fact, especially if you're triggered or otherwise in a heightened state, I'd say it's often better not to. When triggered especially, you're literally less able to process and integrate information and critically analyze stuff.

It's actually usually better to do this in your own space and time. Privately or with trusted people is best, though yes this sentence alone makes me a hypocrite because I absolutely do this shit publicly and that's absolutely something I should be working on that I'm... not, really.

Anyway yes there's always exceptions, yes there's times where it becomes important to actively seek out people to talk with and find recommendations for reputable educational sources and ask good faith questions of people, yes, even regardless of who is actually doing harm. Sometimes asking those questions is key to deradicalizing them and sometimes it's key to your own deradicalization and sometimes is just makes you able to realize that you all are crab bucketing and you can start helping each other instead.

But while I'll admit to hypocrisy on the "public vs private processing" front, I very much am not on the "listening to people" front. I've had to put some trust in my partner to help me with this because of trauma lately, but as she's documenting any harassment anyway, I can go back to reference it later. And if there's literally anything other than literal slurs or fakeclaiming or similar, she is good about letting me know. So... yeah, I might miss something on the individual level, but I am still doing the work of listening to - seeking out, if I have to - people opposed to our beliefs and such.

[cacchieressa]

@bossymarmalade tagged me so here we go:

list your 10 favourite albums of all time and tag 10 people to list theirs

Achtung Baby - u2

Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

Ten - Pearl Jam

August and Everything After - Counting Crows

Handwritten - Gaslight Anthem

America Beauty/American Psycho - Fall Out Boy

Garage Hymns - Empires

Lungs - Florence + the Machine

1989 - Taylor Swift

Honorable mentions to: Born in the USA, Joshua Tree, Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty, Metallica's Black Album, I do not want what I haven't got by Sinead O'Connor, most of Vienna Teng's discography, Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, Just like Blood and King of Cards by Tom McRae, and Superunknown by Soundgarden.

I never tag anybody but you should all feel free to do this!

[your-fav-rocks]

wait whats the fake malachite vs real malachite thing? Im curious now

Buckle up.

Let’s start out with some photos of genuine malachite!

Here are the easiest characteristics to look for in real malachite:

Lots of different greens, but NEVER black. You can get some pretty dark shades of green, but you don’t see pure black on real malachite.

Banding in organic shapes! Swirls, waves, rings and stripes are seen throughout the stone.

Now let’s look at some of the worst cases of fake malachite

Compare the characteristics here to the real malachite

There’s maybe three different greens at max, and a LOT of black.

The banding is very uniform. The photo on the far right has a few rings, but even then the rest of the stone looks like a goddamn zebra

Suuuper often you’ll see that ugly fake stuff being sold as genuine. Let’s take a look at a few more examples!

Real malachite :D

Fake malachite >:[

There’s a few other ways to tell if a malachite is real, but they aren’t something that you can determine by looks alone.

Real malachite:

Cold to the touch for a bit! I have trouble with the touch test because my hands are super cold all the time tho lmao

Dense/heavy, due to its copper content

Has a green streak when a streak test is performed on it!

Fake malachite:

Usually won’t be cold to the touch for very long, especially if it’s made of plastic or resin

Very lightweight compared to the real deal, again due to commonly being made of plastic or resin

Can you even do a scratch test on resin?? I’ve never tried

Now that you know how to tell the difference, go to Michael’s and tell me if their malachite beads are real I’ll give you a hint, they aren’t

If anyone has further questions let me know! I’d love to answer :>

[markiafc]

to fulfill my promises to @ananeiah and to expound on @seventh-fantasy's post, there are many conceptions of enlightenment. because buddhism is a massive and old religion with a very robust canon, enlightenment goes by many names, it's articulated and imagined in many different ways. let's play the game of how many of them are adopted by the show...

popular metaphors that embody enlightenment include a refuge, a flame going out, or a firm island - because this world is often described as an ocean. all human beings are floating in the 生死苦海 sea of rebirth and suffering. to escape it, one must make their way to the island or to get on a boat. mahayana buddhism (aka. chinese buddhism) is literally named 大乘 the great vehicle, the primary idea being that enlightenment = to board a vehicle of transport, it will take you away. however, buddhism doesn't just envision this as an ambiguous vehicle. 乘 the vehicle specifically refers to a 船 boat.

the mortal world and the cycle of suffering is a sea and the way out is enlightenment, envisioned as a boat.

an extension of this is the concept of 彼岸 the faraway shore (alt tl: the further shore, the distant shore, the other shore, or at times the opposing shore). it draws on the same notion of 苦海 the ocean of suffering. to achieve enlightenment is to swim to shore, where there is finally safety and stability, free from suffering. this is why the euphemism for enlightenment is to 度到彼岸 reach the faraway shore.

此岸 this shore, is this ever-changing world full of agonies. you wade across the 苦海 sea of suffering, and reach 彼岸 the faraway shore. this is enlightenment.

as @seventh-fantasy depicts in this post, the final shot of ep 40, and as seen in the bonus ep 40.5, this is where llh is. ep 40 ends with the camera moving further into the distance, moving further into the sea. and the bonus ep 40.5 makes it clear again that lxy/llh has found his way to a different beach. llh has crossed the sea to another beach. he is on another shore, the 彼岸 faraway shore, far from 东海 the east sea where everyone else is.

let's look even closer at this.

enlightenment is also conceived as a place: 淨土 the pure lands, 极乐世界 the realm of greatest bliss, and so on. one of the geographical markers of this idea is 西 the west. this "land" accessible only to the enlightened (佛 buddhas, 菩萨 bodhisattvas, and 阿罗汉 arhats) is also dubbed 西方淨土 the western pure lands and 西天 the western heavens, etc.

enlightenment is imagined to be westwards. the opposite direction and away from 东海 dong hai = the east sea. where the story began and lxy famously plunged into; he fell into the 苦海 sea of suffering located in the 东 east. from this starting point, llh makes a meandering journey to his final location in the show. he makes his way 西 west, towards enlightenment, and reaches a 彼岸 faraway shore, the enlightened "after" and what is beyond.

now that we're on the topic of the pure lands, it's worth mentioning that this concept is furnished with a lot of descriptions in buddhist sutras. it is a beautiful, glorious land brimming with lotuses. because, of course, the lotus is yet another ubiquitous image that represents enlightenment.

the lotus position is crucial to the buddhist practice of prayer cultivation, especially in 禅宗 zen buddhism that is built around the central practice of prayer. lotuses are motifs in buddhist art, and buddhist myths (the legend goes that lotus flowers bloomed under the buddha's feet when he took his first steps as a child). people practicing buddhism are referred to as 莲友 lotus friends, 芬陀利花 the white lotus is a synonym for the buddha. lotuses are also integral to buddhist canon; the pure lands are detailed to have seven 宝莲池 treasure lotus ponds. every buddhist has their own lotus waiting for them in the pure lands; it is believed the more you cultivate, the more your bud in the pure lands grows/blooms.

of note, every living thing residing in the pure lands are made from lotuses. in fact, buddhist canon states that the enlightened are reborn inside a lotus bud, similar to an incubation. their new body is reconstituted from lotuses and they emerge anew when the bud blooms. crucially, it is also stated that every enlightened in the pure lands will have 莲花座 a lotus seat. this is a vehicle of transport, usually likened to the magic carpet from one thousand and one nights. it is described as 随心所欲、飞翔自在 something that acts after your heart's desire, something that flies free. the lotus seat is about boundless, freeing travel.

this isn't comprehensive at all, there are tons of other ways lotuses come up throughout buddhism. but the connection to the show is straightforward and self-explanatory. the primary motif in 莲花楼 mysterious lotus casebook is the lotus - a famous marker for buddhism itself. one of the dominant illustrations of enlightenment, the cultivation process to achieve it, and enlightened entities themselves.

the buddhist notions of rebirth are similarly heavily intertwined with the lotus. it is your body; you become it, it becomes you. from then on, you are surrounded by its image and its presence. you even have a lotus vehicle that becomes your main method of travel, a mode of travel defined by carefree contentment. sound familiar? llh's identity and his living carries major markers of enlightenment. it is one of the primary concerns of his character arc.

quick detour. a prominent moniker for enlightenment is the setting of the sun, as yet another epithet utilized by the drama.

detour over. crazy connections time.

discussions of death and suicide is, to my knowledge, particularly prominent in japanese buddhism. but as a whole, a significant portion of buddhist canon and a good number of buddhist media deals with this too. dying as a means to get closer to enlightenment, equating death and enlightenment, the subject of suicide itself. characters seemingly pass away and become enlightened, or characters strive for death with this express purpose as death is connected to enlightenment. this is true. one does not necessarily cause the other, but the concepts are interconnected in buddhism. it comes hand in hand, dissecting one means dissecting the other and vice versa.

most buddhist texts and masters do not condone a direct correlation, suicide is not the way to enlightenment. there is no buddhist value to killing yourself. but the key exception lies in one of the most important buddhist texts: the lotus sutra.

"These include several themes dealing explicitly with death, such as how suicide was committed to speed up rebirth in the Pure Land based on the sanctioning of voluntary death as a superior form of sacrifice in Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra ..." [1]

the chapter 23 in question talks about a bodhisattva who turns himself into a human candle and burns himself up, in offering to the buddha. there is more to the story, but it mainly functions as a lesson about cultivation and enlightenment.

in the canon about buddhist suffering, there lies a subset dedicated to physical pain and torment. there is a heavy focus on our 5 senses, specifically (that's a whole separate topic i won't go into here). very briefly, to suffer is to experience the world through our 5 senses. to live as a human being is to suffer in a sensory way.

buddhism aspires to transcend this flesh and blood suffering. so annihilation of one's body is an essential step to achieve enlightenment. usually, this theory centers natural death and decay. you accept that you are always aging, your senses will lose their edge, your body is always subject to illness, injury and other failings. let the body waste away, it will do so regardless.

hence, the human body is set on a course of gradual deterioration. this suffering is processed through our 5 senses and is defined by them. in the face of this, the lotus sutra is the only notable buddhist text that looks kindly upon "voluntary death" to transcend it.

similarly, llh accepts the effects of bicha on his body. it mimics the natural decline of the human body, accelerating the degradation of his senses, his immune system, and his physical capabilities in general. his experience of this form of suffering is also emphasized through a period losing his sense of sight. it is a very buddhist torment. but at the end of the day, it is still a man-made, unnatural cause generating this effect. accepting this is not the same as accepting 生老病死 death via age, sickness and other natural processes.

llh embodies the sentiments and themes in the lotus sutra when he consciously chooses to let bicha run its course. he chooses to die, it is a "voluntary death". let this destroy his body. let this suicidal choice (though its more nuanced than simply suicide imo) free him from buddhist physical suffering. thus bringing him closer to peace, a version of himself that will be happier.

finally, enlightenment is about ambiguity.

凡人 the common people are incapable of comprehending enlightenment. it is understood that the human senses and the human mind is too inept and unrefined, too clouded by illusions, to grasp it. there are a million ways to express it, depict it, and name it. but there is a consensus across buddhism that these are simply aids for the common student of buddhism, and they are not accurate to the truth. at the core of enlightenment is an abstraction, an inherent unknowing.

it is, by definition, a departure and a continuation. it is a removal from this world and a transition into another place, another realm. all at once, the phenomenon straddles a greyness between an ending and a beginning. it is unclear whether the enlightened has left, or is it the common man who is so lacking he cannot recognize or even perceive the enlightened? in the theory of enlightenment, buddhism accounts for both factors. but we will never know for sure.

where do the enlightened go? where are they, where have they gone? these are questions buddhists often ask and explore, and it is also the question that the remaining cast engages with. what is enlightenment, exactly? there is a suspicion, some notion of what must have happened. it might be death, it might not be. only the enlightened can answer this, everyone else is left without clarity.

in the end, the seekers get close to the answer but there is no real fruition. and so the search lasts indefinitely.

that, too, is part and parcel to enlightenment.

as for how enlightenment narratives function, i leave you with this.

"Nirvana provides the full stop (period) in the religious story; it gives what one might call, to use Frank Kermode's well-known phrase, "the sense of an ending" - that is, a real ending and not a mere breaking off. Such an ending is only possible within a narrative.

[...]

Nirvana, I want to suggest, is a moment within a discursive or practical dynamic, a formal element of closure in structure of Buddhist imagination, texts, and rituals. One might say that nirvana has primarily a syntactic rather than semantic value: it is the moment of ending which gives structure to the whole. The fact of narrative structure and closure provides a meaningful and satisfying resolution, although in itself nirvana has merely the formal value of a closure marker.

[...]

Earlier I called nirvana the full stop (period) in the Buddhist religious story; now I can add that it is a full stop in an eternal story, a full stop which brings closure to individual lives in a master text which itself can have no final ending." [2]

Sources:

Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World: Chikamatsu's Double Suicide Drama as Millenarian Discourse by Steven Heine ↩︎

Nirvāna, Time, and Narrative by Steven Collins ↩︎

[tempe-brennans]

break up with my boyfriend?

[ringsidedishes]

i still can't believe despe won

(this will be the only thing i'll talk about for etc etc)

[solemntitty]

i'm having an 'it's a banana michael' moment

[fluffydancer618]

Day 2

Boy-oh-boy, this guy is the only one who won in my carnival game. Sure hope they just peacefully take their prize and leave without stealing something really important from me and starting the chain of events out of my (and in the near future their) control

[bunnihearted]

🏠🐇☁️🥛

[nomaishuttle]

prev post well i scrolled once and realized it IS a moshi monster huge win for the moshi monster artstyle recognizers of the world

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[apollo-cackling]

urban fantasy never has been a very compelling setting to me idk. it can't (or in my experience doesn't ever) go as achingly real as literary/contemporary fiction (the death of vivek oji, ocean vuong's books, bloom into you), but it can't go as fully fantasy as proper high fantasy (malazan, this one MG series I remember loving... the Tapestry?, etc.) so it's like ehhh?

[guinevereslancelot]

reached out to a kitty breeder 🥺🙏