#about glad

[gladstones-corner]

A Brief History of Gladstone

I'm going to break some of my own rules here. 

Normally I don't talk too much about myself as an individual—mostly out of paranoia, but also because it's less relevant to the material I usually discuss. 

The exceptions are the Ask Games, of which I tend to enjoy interacting with you more than talking about myself.

At any rate, what follows is a brief history of who I am. 

I'll skip over most of the details and just say that I'm Mexican-American. I've spent most of my life on the United States East Coast, with brief stints in Germany here and there. 

I've always been into magic of some kind or another. I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the first books I remember owning is Wizardology. The little fortune deck it came with still brings me such joy and nostalgia.

I began seriously practicing magic when I discovered Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft at about 12 years old. I practiced in secret, given that my mother would react...strongly if she knew. It was during this time that I took the magical name Gladstone.

I studied Wicca and Witchcraft until I was about 18. In college I discovered Modern Magick (notice the trend with the big blue books?) and began studying ceremonial magic. 

Shortly after, I discovered Liber Null and Psychonaut, effectively beginning my studies in chaos magic. I practiced both ceremonial and chaos magics seriously until around 23 years old. 

At that time, my wife and I moved to Germany so I could study abroad. During that period, I briefly studied the Left Hand Path and adjacent schools of magic, but never dove deeply into any of it. 

Still 23, I returned back to the United States and resumed training in Wicca and chaos magic. I also picked up a copy of The Druidry Handbook and began studying Druidry.

However, having been changed for the worse by my studies abroad, I struggled to adjust back to normal life without copious use of magic. 

I gained a lot through this use; in fact, I gained just about everything I could want in my life at that time. But my abuse of magic eventually took its toll. 

At 25 I had a complete mental break. I gave up everything—my religion, my magic, even all my journals. All my materials went into a box and collected dust in my closet for months. That was, until I needed a new job. 

I built the ritual quickly, but made sure to remain firmly within the territories of Wicca and religious Witchcraft. It worked really well—I was back on my feet in no time, and I'm forever grateful for that. 

But I was warned in a dream shortly after: find a worthy path, or you'll land back at rock bottom. 

So I did. I created this blog, discovered all of you guys, and here we are. At the time of this writing, I am 26. I am a polytheist, occultist, and magician.

Today I am forging my own path. It's looking so far like a form of ritual magic, distinct from—but firmly embedded within—my larger religious worldview. I study all the paths I can, because each one contains something I can learn from, adapt, and use to help others. 

That's pretty much it, so far. Hopefully I'll continue to learn and grow. 

Thanks for reading. Blessed be~ 

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[sillyguy-supreme]

white americans when you tell them that the idea of climate change as an impending disaster is a reductive first world perspective because it’s a tangible reality for many in the global south already:

[perrieedwards]

i feel like people are skimming over the uk riots in a way that makes me want to tear my hair out. muslims in the uk are in active danger. immigrants in the uk are in active danger. refugees in the uk are in active danger. people of colour in the uk are in active danger. asian communities in the uk are in active danger. black communities in the uk are in active danger.

there are massive far right riots throughout the country right now and people like fucking elon musk and nigel farage are inciting it and still have a platform to speak. people have used three young girls deaths, people's genuine grief in southport, to try and gain traction for their own racist bullshit and it's working.

a lot of refugee charities have been forced to close leaving many people without support, homes, funding, food, etc. if you aren't able to donate please consider sending a message via the conversation over borders campaign! it will send a hopeful, welcoming letter to a refugee in the uk. there is also a guide to staying safe here.

please do your own research and donate to refugee charities, anti-islamophobia charities, mosques who are trying to rebuild after being destroyed, counter protesters, here are some i've heard positive things about but the list is extensive; southport strong together (support for the southport victims and their families), southport mosque rebuilding, riot repair fund, middlesbrough vulnerable residents, nasir mosque rebuilding, hull help for refugees, bristol welcomes migrants,

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[sunfudge]

'Revenge is bad' to YOU. i love when a character destroys everyone who wronged them. i love when they get to bite and maim and tear and rip and scratch and kill. Sorry ur catholic about it but i'm different

[lizzibennet]

chappell roan’s got this sudden very huge burst of attention and since then she has

shown up to jimmy fallon in full drag

shown up to her concerts in even zainier outfits than before

worn a nun costume to one concert and when people were uncomfortable she was like good. toodles!

very clearly stated she will retreat from the public eye if she feels threatened by her fame

put very firm boundaries in place, not caring how that might make her look in today’s ass backward society that thinks artists owe everyone everything

she really is trying the hardest to do this in her own terms, in this industry that pretty much allows no wiggle room when it comes to being as big as she’s gotten. it’s clear to me she doesn’t care about maintaining the level of notoriety she has now, she cares about connecting to the subset of people who her art has always been aimed at and that is it. and i find it so admirable! it must be really hard to get what every artists out there is trying to and not let yourself get influenced by it, but she is remaining steadfastly herself. it’s so refreshing and it makes me like her so much more

[mrtequilasunset]

Listen man, you guys can't be like "you guys need to be normal about asexuality" and then turn around and get weirdly judgemental when you find out someone doesn't have sex by choice. Like that's weird that some of you do that.

[hoofpeet]

Doing a full pivot in 2025 into dedicating this blog to Between the Lions fanart

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Post patrol family game night goes awry ...

Meme reference under cut

[quemirabobo]

The funniest shit about asexuals is that all of us grew up consuming media that talks on and on about sexual attract and desire, with a pretty hypersexualized culture and people talk about it a fucking lot too. And what is that we all collectively think? "Yeah, that's clearly an exaggeration, nobody actually feels like that! The whole world it's pretending, that's the only possible explanation..." Like sure buddy, that's a very logical way of thinking, the entire world is acting, don't think too hard about it

[moonscape]

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

I just wanna say bc I KNOW you're somewhere on tumblr, to the teenage girl who attended Take Your Kid To Work Day at an office building in Ontario, Canada circa 2013 and had a conversation with a middle aged woman in which you showed her your Black Veil Brides fanart and fanfics and ship content and told her about different fanfic tropes including a/b/o verse bc she happened to know who Panic! at The Disco and Fallout Boy were and thus you felt the need to show her your bandblr ship art, that was my fucking mother and I had to clarify all that to her including looking my mother in the eye and trying to explain a/b/o verse without sounding like a lunatic.

It's been 10 years and I still regularly sent evil energies in your direction. Since you'd be probably two years younger than me and thus legally an adult now, please know if this post reaches you it's on sight.