#and the most in-depth manual I've ever seen

[devilrose]

Lillie

[vixen-tech]

if you want to -- maybe AUTO with a botanist reader? i just think it'd be so interesting how it would play out !! u dont have to, so only do it if u want to!!

🩹 anon

To be Loved, To Maybe be Changed (Auto x Botanist!Reader)

Oh that certainly is a concept!! It's a great one for Auto to, this put an entire storyline in my head that I think justifies breaking out the oneshot format rather than headcanons. Which works out great because I think out of all the Ai's I've written for, he would need the most 'set up' from how not-sentient he's protrayed in Wall-E. Anyways grab a snack floks this is a long one

It had been many generations since the Axium returned home to earth. Humans, robots, and the all important plant finding themselves back on soil, populating the deserted planet once more.

Things have changed since then. The human body began readapting to earth's gravity, the majority of buildings around the landing site have been fixed up and inhabited, and most importantly: the city is covered in plants. Grasses sprout between broken walkways, invy weaves its way up repurposed skyscrapers, gardens spill out of every available alleyway, a gaint tree stands where that first plant took root all those centuries ago. Each year it seems the sky gets a little more blue.

The ever diversifying flora had captivated you ever since you first had the words to describe it. As soon as you had a say so, you began studying it. Dispite the flourishing growth, any sort of plant husbandry was still something of a lost art. You lived off of the ancient manuals and beginners guides that eventually made their way out of the Axium's archives.

Yet even those could only do so much for you when most of the crops that had evolved from that first seedling had taken forms a far cry from their original pre space-age forefathers. It became your life's mission to learn how to best take care of these new cultivars and of course, spread the knowledge (and hopefully passion) for botany that you had gained throughout your life.

That was what fueled your visits to the Axium. Still parked at the foot of that monumental tree, it had been transformed into something of a community center. With most of its facilities still running and new services offered everyday. You often came to drop off your experimental findings, teach classes, and check to see if other botanists had done the same. Why you began exploring the depths of the halls that one fateful day, you still don't know.

The spaceship was massive, clearly a crowning jewel of its time. To this day many rooms remained unused and largely blocked off. The bustle and warmth of public spaces giving way to dust and insect nests as you roam through areas no longer needed. Bathrooms too far from the people to warrant upkeep, storage rooms that were once filled with replacement parts for the robots that now walked side by side with humans. And at the end of your journey, the captain's quarters.

The door was practically sealed shut with age, and the room behind it was hardly any better. The air attacked you with a cloud of dust once you finally managed to shove open the door, and no matter how much you rubbed your eyes there still appeared to be an almost foggy looking quality to the room.

That's when you found Auto.

He was still dangling from the ceiling above a control panel you doubt still worked. You had seen and befriended many robots before, they were just as common as humans in the city nowadays with remarkably little tension between them. Recognizing that the innert steering wheel in front of you was once one, your heart ached. You were no mechanic, but surely you had to at least try to get him up and running again. What can you say, you were always a bit of a bleeding heart.

After carefully detaching him from the ceiling you carried what was essentially an inanimate hunk of metal all the way back home with you. People stared, sure, but they kept any questions or judgments to themselves as you made your way home.

Your residence was rustic, to say the least. A fairly rundown shack renovated into a makeshift greenhouse. Produce and flowering plants alike overflowed from their neat rows of pots on benches. Some were for you, more were to sell, all were part of research in one way or another.

You loved walking through your own little botanical garden to get to your living quarters. The moment you pass through the front doors you're always hit with a wave of earthy freshness. The smell of petrichor and pollen greeted you (and your new... friend?) just as it always did. Never once failing to make you feel at home.

Your living quarters themselves were similarly homey. Not drastically bigger than a hotel room, it's a modest living area with a kitchen tucked in the corner and two doors along the wall. One leading to a compact bathroom, the other your bedroom. Some may call it cramped, but to you it's cozy. You spent most of your time in the greenhouse anyway.

That might have been the only day you mourned your lack of space. As if he were a friend you had to drag home after a night of drinking, you placed Auto on the couch. Promising to yourself that you'd do your best to fix him up. You'd probably have to give him some wheels to, since you ripped him from the ship. Well, your life could always use some more excitement.

--------------------

Your knowledge of machinery had definitely improved over the past few weeks. On all accounts you were extraordinarily lucky that he was in such good shape. Age had rendered most of his circuits unusable, but isolation kept them from becoming unrecognizable. Night after night you would come home with a new part and with surgical delicacy, swap it out for its damaged counterpart.

You had heard stories from the time of the Axium. You knew of the 'evil autopilot program that tried to trap humanity in space'. You knew that you were probably trying to fix said evil autopilot program. It may have been the weeks of one sided bonding, but you didn't buy it. Surely at worst he was just following orders. And who knows, maybe with some free will he might be able to turn over a new leaf.

--------------------

"What happened?" His voice was striking, deep and inhumanly regular in a way that was still seen a trademark of artificial speech. He was upright on the wheeled body you attached him to, the red eye (camera?) at the center of his face seemed to scan you up and down before doing the same to the room around him.

The cocktail of pride and anxiety had yet to leave your chest. You attempted to explain, "Well I fixed you-"

"Before that." He interrupted. Slowly wheeling himself to the living room window, still unsure of the new addition you had made to his body. "Where are we?" He added.

You should have been prepared for that one. "We're on earth, in my house." You watched with apprehension as he stared out the window. The steering wheel that made his outer body clicked back and forth as if he were swaying in thought.

"Earth is habitable." His voice lacked strong inflection, you were unsure if he was asking you a question or stating the fact to himself.

"It has been for a long time." You said as gently as you possibly could. "You were... on that ship for centuries, a lot has changed since then."

If he was listening to you, he made no effort to show it. Instead continuing to look outside as if he were zoning out in thought. "There are plants", he observed.

The view out that window wasn't remarkable by any means. Just some grass and a few odd trees before the city's skyscrapers blocked your line of sight. But the mere mention of plants was always enough to get you excited. "Oh if you're interested in plants you should see this." Gesturing for him to follow you as you opened the door to your greenhouse.

He paused for a moment before trailing behind you.

--------------------

Auto made for a strange guest. With no astro-cruise to run he spent a considerable amount of time staring at you while you worked. It was only as you were measuring the pH of your plants' soil that you began narrating your work to him. It started as a way for you to simply diffuse the tension and explain why you were so invested in the vegetation.

He made for a good wall to rant to. You didn't have many close friends and certainly none as into botany as you, most other botanists spent as much time with their garden as you do. But thankfully, no matter how much you asked if you were being annoying, he would repeat that "The information is important, please continue." All while focused on whatever orchid you made the subject of your newest lecture. You did make it clear that he was free to leave at any time.

He never did.

--------------------

Your first trip to the Axium since Auto's reactivation was an awkward one, at least on your part. When you announced that you needed to go to drop off your latest batch of research he requested to could come with, one of the first things he asked of you since waking up.

Perhaps you shouldn't have been surprised, Auto had barely took a step outside your home. Relying instead on you and whatever books or documentaries you had to fill him in on what the world had become. Who were you to deny him some fresh air?

Although you had grown much more comfortable around him you were still anxious to hear what he thought of everything. And as always his judgment came in the form of definite reports. It was all "Humanity is stable." Or "Plant life is flourishing." If he had any semblance of opinion, he didn't tell you about it.

He didn't behave much differently on the Axium, continuing to trail you like a lost duckling and thoroughly scan the surroundings. It wasn't until you met up with a fellow herbalist that he spoke a word.

They asked you about a specific project you were working on, a new crossbreed of a medicinal herb of particular interest to them. However, as it wasn't the purpose of your trip you didn't have any of its records on you. You were about to apologize and tell them so until Auto informed them, "The crossbreed has shown accelerated growth but a greater sensitivity to sunlight." The herbalist thanked both of you and walked off.

Even though you shouldn't have been shocked to learn that he was actually storing the information you spat at him, it was still nice to know that he cared to some degree.

"Thank you, Auto."

"You're welcome."

--------------------

The days have gone on much the same since then. You had never sought out an adventurous life. Often you go out the greenhouse in the morning and find Auto observing the various moths and flies that had evolved as pollinators alongside the new flora. "Morning Auto!" You would cheerfully greet.

You never fully understood why he stayed, but it didn't matter to you at this point. He was here and he made no effort to go. You had more than enough room in your life for him anyway.

"Good morning."

And so another day starts.

[eccentric-nucleus]

the devs in the wildmender discord have been begging for game reviews b/c of steam ranking algorithmics stuff so i'm debating actually writing one (w/ my bf's steam account lol) but that involves actually putting my thoughts in order about the game

i mean i guess i've played it for 200+ hours so there's not really a question of me getting my money's worth out of it. it's just that... there's very clearly a mechanical push-and-pull happening. this is a gardening game. to make the plants have any level of 'reasonable fidelity' they made it so plants drop seeds and sometimes those seeds will germinate and sprout into new plants. but because plants grow so fast and there aren't really any things that kill plants, most players have their gardens totally overcome by unrestrained growth. the devs have had to patch down plant spread multiple times, first by making biome-specifying plants not produce their own seeds (so they don't spread biome plants out into infinity) and then by lowering the rate of seed germination and making germinated seeds start out as 'tired'

also, 'tired' is a weird corner of the plant simulation. the way plants work is they'll grow to maturity and then start producing & dropping seeds on a timer. after a few rounds of seeds they'll become 'tired', which slows the timer, and a few rounds after that they'll become 'exhausted', which means they won't produce seeds anymore; they essentially become decorative (you can remove tired & exhausted statuses by manually fertilizing them)

all of this speaks to a plant simulation system that can't really deal with the chaos of nature. which on some level is fine; ecological simulations are notoriously complex, and wildmender already has one of the more in-depth plant life simulations i've seen in a commercial game. but the more involved it gets the more clear it is that there's something vital missing, & i don't even know really what that would look like? it's not like i'd want to see pest insects in the game, although that would be interesting

(there's a whole aside i could make here about how 'nature' is treated as inherently productive in the game. all the plants you get do something; all of them 'improve' the area somehow in a way that makes it more suitable for human exploitation. there's no... massive tangles of gorseberry brambles that slows you and damages your health if you try to move through them, but provides critical habitat for birds. the one plant that's annoying (tumbleweeds) you only ever see in the dead, tumbling form. invasive plants are considered simulation bugs, instead of nature taking its natural course. this is a game about maximizing your productive forces. and in fact, as above, when the natural growth processes in the game as it currently exist end up making something annoying to the player, it ends up getting nerfed to be more suitable.

i think ultimately this is a flaw in the fundamental concept of 'cozy', 'wholesome' games, so it feels bad to pick on the game for that; that's not even something the game is trying to do! it's just something i don't like. this is a game where you can half-cut down a tree to harvest wood. and, like, sure it would be neat if the game used its semi-procedural tree models to actually implement pollarding, but that would make it more visually clear that what you're doing is managing an industrial tree farm rather than tending a garden.

basically, i like the game despite its 'cozy' aesthetic and not because of it, so i'm maybe not the target audience here.)

all of that is a lot of words that are only vaguely aligned with what the game is actually about, though. like the game blurb says, it's a 'gardening' game, not a serious afforestation agroforestry simulation. but i really do wish the plant simulation was more involved. more plants, more variants, more complex soil simulation (add in soil acidity! give me hydrangeas that bloom in different colors!), more complex biome specifications. other animals, preferable ones without instrumental uses and ideally ones that make the landscape actively obnoxious. i want to have to avoid a lake because there are roosting geese there that will attack. maybe just packing a lot more Stuff into the game would help with the feeling of it being overly-simplistic? but maybe that issue is more deeply-rooted and also impossible to really solve, in part b/c my complaint here is so vague and unclear.

that's a lot of demands for a small indie game, tho. anyway i found it to be worth the $25 i spent on it.

[mrs-gauche]

Hello, would you mind sharing what program you use to create gifs? They are so gorgeous but everything I can find is a much lower quality. ❤️

Hey there! :) Thank you so much!! I feel so flattered and I really appreciate the ask! <333 So, I've actually seen quite a lot of people asking how I create my gifs in the tags or comments over time and even though it kinda feels like being an illusionist revealing their little magic tricks, I'll try my best to show what my process is and why it often takes me a lot of time (and tears of frustration) to get footage like this. 😁

Generally speaking, all my screenshots and gifs are taken with the DAI Cinematic Tool or so called "flycam" (here’s a link to download it, older links don’t seem to work anymore), which basically allows you to move the camera freely within the map or a cutscene and let's you change some settings, like contrast, saturation, depth of field or lighting for example.

Outside of the flycam settings, the only mods I use for my gifs are animation or clothing mods, like for example the invisible weapons mod, the Trespasser armor for Solas or the "no frown face in idle animation" mod. (Fun fact, I don't use any cosmetic mods that change face textures/facial features. All my gifs and screenshots are vanilla Solas as he looks without mods. 🙂)

There are people who have done a far better job than I could ever do at giving an in depth tutorial on how all the controls and features of the flycam work (like here, here or here!), but the best advice I can give and that I've seen, is actually to simply mess around with it until you get the hang of it and figure things out as you go. 😁 To be honest, although I've always loved taking screenshots and gifs for myself, I've only gotten into using the flycam tool more seriously like a year ago and the way I take my footage just sort of evolved over time by, again, just messing around and experimenting a lot. So there might be a far more efficient and easier way to do this, but that's just the way I do it and how I like it. 😁

That being said, since there's still a lot more to it than that, here's a step by step process using an example under the cut. 🙂

1.) Ok, so the first thing I'll do is to make sure to have the right setup in order to take the footage.

For that, I basically use a split screen to have both the game and the DAI Cinematic tool windows open at the same time. This, for one, allows me to use the "freeze time" feature of the flycam (putting the entire game on hold/pausing it) at any given time, which is especially helpful when capturing cutscenes.

This doesn't work with every cutscene though, because there are scenes that will actually continue to play while pausing it.

(Cutscenes like these are the most difficult to capture, because without pausing it, you'll have to take your footage in "real time", so to speak. Meaning that you’ll only have a few seconds (or even LESS 😂) to capture the right moment. So what I'm doing then, is to basically go through the cutscene repeatedly using the flycam to watch it over and over again, until I have sort of memorized how a character will move at what time/in which place, in order to move the flycam to the right spot.)

The split screen also allows me to use this little trick, where I can just click outside the game window, so the game will continue to run but I can still move the flycam without moving the characters in-game.

The second most useful tool I use is an Xbox controller with USB adapter to connect with my PC. The cool thing about flycam is that it can be manually controlled with a keyboard and/or a console controller. This is incredibly helpful in navigating and moving the flycam *much* more precisely than with just the keyboard controls. But even when setting the movement speed of the flycam at the lowest, it's still super difficult to navigate the camera "cinematically", since it usually moves very fast and abruptly and is super sensitive to even the slightest "nudge" to the controller’s joysticks (which can also lead to some people getting kinda dizzy or even cause headaches when using the flycam). The key here is to move the joysticks and push the LT/RT buttons as delicately and slowly as possible, to create the effect of natural camera movement.

And this is actually the main reason why it often takes me many many many attempts to get the perfect shot, because most of the time the flycam will just.. go off if you're not super careful and delicate in your navigation. 😂 And with cutscenes, you also only ever have one chance to get it right, since otherwise you will need to reload the scene over and over again and redo all your settings (not to mention cutscenes that are unskippable in order to get to another.. The amount of times I had to sit through The Dawn Will Come, I tell ya 💀) So you see why it can take *a lot of time*. 😁

2.) So with everything set up, it's now time to choose a scene/location, camera position/angle and decide what are the most suitable settings. A lot of this is actually about experimenting with different settings. I personally don't really have a standard setting I prefer, as it always kinda depends on the scene, but here are a few settings I use a lot:

The things marked in red are what I use most often, everything else really depends on what I think looks best for each individual scene, so all of this can still differ a lot. Again, it’s all about experimenting here, which to me personally is actually the most fun part in this. :)

(My advice, don’t mess around with the MISC settings too much, because this is what upscales the game’s resolution and will be heavy on your computer and can cause the game to crash if you combine it with a heavy blur factor for example. (-1) is the default. I usually scale it up to 15 - 20 in cutscenes or even lower if I want to do a super enhanced close up shot. To avoid a crash, I advice to simply scale down back to default after you’ve taken your screenshot.)

Here are a few examples for how the flycam settings and a little bit of editing can transform a scene:

Ok, so we’ve chosen a scene and the right settings, now it’s time to actually capture the footage you want to gif or screenshot. Here’s a step by step process using a cutscene of Cole’s personal quest as an example:

So this is the cutscene as it's played without flycam or any changes to the settings in-game:

The same cutscene from a different angle using flycam, paused with the "freeze time" feature I've mentioned: 

Choosing lighting, saturation, contrast, depth of field, fog, tonemap settings.

Step by step:

End result compared with no settings: 

Set the flycam movement speed to (1). Disable "freeze time" feature, play the cutscene, while simultaneously moving the left joystick of the controller veeeery slightly to the right and the right joystick to the left.

(Of course, make sure to always have your screen recording program running in the back. The most frustrating thing that can happen is if you manage to capture THE perfect moment and then realize it wasn't recording. That's actually why I have something called ShadowPlay by Nvidia Geforce Experience, which always captures the last 30 seconds of your screen.)

3.) So! Now that we have our footage and the most difficult part is done, I will pick my favorite shots and put them in a video editing program. Here I need to crop it (cut away the split screen), cut the footage down to the moments I want to gif, slow it down to about half the speed (more or less, depending on what looks the best for the scene) and then lastly, edit it slightly with a few filter effects. After all that's done, I will export the footage to MP4 video format.

4.) Finally, I will import that video into photoshop, change the image size, choose the right number of frames, adjust the delay time of the frames (if needed) to partially slow it down/speed it up and make some final tweaks on brightness, contrast and color balance. Export it into gif format and make sure it's not crossing the MB size limit for gifs on tumblr. Aaaand it's done! 🙂🙂

As I said, it took me some time to figure all this out myself and the process really evolved over time as I was trying out different settings and experimenting with the flycam. :)

With Inquisition being almost eight years old now and having played it so many times many of us know most of these scenes by heart, what motivated me to do this and what I try to do, is to simply look at this game from a perspective that no one might have seen yet (and to make the wait for DA4 maybe just a little bit more bearable 😂) and even though it can get very frustrating at times, I still have a lot of fun creating and I think the end result is really worth the struggle! 😁 <3

(Also, I just really love Solas. lmao <3)

I hope this helped for better understanding, I know I skipped over many of the technically details of the flycam, but the links I put in at the beginning will do a far better job than me to explain them, so please check them out as well. :)

All this being said, I can’t wait to make gifs of *actual* new content when DA4 finally arrives!! I’m brimming with excitement at the prospect of next gen graphics and... improved camerawork, animations and cinematics, because tbh although I love Inquisition despite all its flaws (and it looks amazing for a game that came out in 2014!), I can definitely see the restrictions and difficulties the poor camera guy at BioWare had to face, while using the Frostbite engine for the first time. 😂

[spiritroots]

Hi Yejide. Recently, I've been feeling a calling to explore root workin' and ancestral veneration. I've been raised Baptist and still maintain a relationship with Christ, but lately I've just been feeling this internal pull to honor my ancestors. I don't know exactly how or where to start. My entire life, I've been raised to believe that doing any kind of root work is witchcraft and inherently evil. How did you decolonize your mind and break out of that fear?

Hi anon (: Welcome to the struggle! I’m happy for you that you’re feeling the ancestral call, and I hope some of this very long response (+1.4k words, I counted lmao) is helpful in one way or another. 

First off, I want to emphasize a couple different things. For one, hoodoo/rootwork is NOT the same as witchcraft at all. It can be overlapped with witchcraft and/or it can be referred to as a form of witchcraft by black folks who wish to call it that, which is a perfectly valid, personal terminology choice. However, historically, rootwork/hoodoo derives from the various ATRs (African traditional religions) that were practiced by black slaves brought to the US. 

ATRs are not witchcraft either, they are traditional religions practiced by peoples indigenous to Africa that deserve the same amount of respect as any other religion in the world. The negative stereotypes about them are based on racism and attempts to dehumanize African peoples and their descendants in the diaspora who practiced their ancestral traditions. Any time you start to slip into that way of thinking about ATRs, remind yourself that they are religions as deserving of respect as any other religion.

Most African slaves in the US were forced to practice various denominations of Protestant Christianity and abandon their traditional religions or face severe punishments - even death. Hoodoo/rootwork is largely the result of many different practices and beliefs from ATRs combined together and syncretized with Christianity. It is a folk magic tradition that was developed not only during slavery but also largely within the black church. The ties between hoodoo and Christianity are very deep. You don’t have to be Christian to practice rootwork, but it’s not at all un-Christian to practice it either if that’s something you’re interested in doing. (Since you mentioned you still maintain a relationship with Jesus, I figured that might be something you’d wanna look into.)

The majority of traditional rootworkers in the US have always been and still are Protestant Christian. It’s traditional in hoodoo to pray to Jesus during workings, and it’s said that Moses himself was the very first rootworker in history. Why? Because the original Christian rootworkers viewed rootwork as powerful prayers, asking for the help of God to heal, protect, and sometimes issue divine judgment. Hoodoo wasn’t traditionally seen as witchcraft at all, and in fact, has long been used as a method for fighting against witchcraft. Many of the most respected and famous rootworkers in history were also preachers and pastors. Some consider being a good church-going Christian as a pre-requisite to being a rootworker. The Bible itself, especially the Book of Psalms, is traditionally viewed as a powerful source of hoodoo magic.

Now, I’m not sure if you were already aware of any of this or if this information is helpful to you, but I think it’s important for anyone studying hoodoo to understand this side of its history whether you want to connect with these aspects of it or not. If you’re curious at all about my personal journeys of dealing with Christian views on witchcraft and also decolonization within my magic and religious practices, see the mini-novel I ended up writing at 3 am for this ask under the read more line below 😂😂😂

[ Ask me anything ] [ Buy me a coffee ] [ Spirit Roots Shop ] [ About Me ]

It took me about a solid ten years to get to where I am now with decolonizing my mind and breaking out of Christianity-related fears around magic practices. I’ll still always be in the process of decolonization for the rest of my life, but within the past few years, I’ve made some big strides that I’m very proud of for myself. As I hope most of my followers know, I’m not a witch and don’t identify as one for personal and historical + cultural reasons within the context of Africana traditions. BUT that being said, for much of my life I did identify as a witch and actively study witchcraft for a very long time.

I declared myself a Wiccan at the age of thirteen, which was inspired by watching Charmed, yes, but that didn’t lessen the seriousness of it for me as being an actual religious path and practice I wanted to commit myself to. Being an only child who told my very liberal parents everything, I quickly confessed this to them expecting acceptance and happiness for me. Unfortunately, their Christian knee-jerk reaction alongside concerns about a thirteen-year-old learning about witchcraft, fertility rites, and sex-related rituals was enough for them to give me an ultimatum to stop being both a Wiccan and a witch.

That sent me deep into secrecy about it for around a solid 8 years or so - essentially all the way through high school until I had more independence in college. During that whole time, I always felt like I was genuinely a witch and Wiccan and no other religion fit me, but I was too scared to practice because of my parents’ reaction and them having “banned” it. I remember that constant longing mixed with fear of being a witch in my heart while feeling like it would never actually be accepted by anyone in my life.

During college, I finally realized that I could practice it more actively without worrying about my parents anymore. I remember going through all the stages of testing the waters with that, the ex-Christian pangs of guilt and intrigue, the concerns about what Drew and my friends would think and then being the cool and edgy witchy friend after finally mustering the courage to tell them. It was like I could finally be who I always knew that I was inside, but it had required a long process of unraveling the shame and the guilt and the fear, too.

Now, to be totally honest with you, I wouldn’t consider ANY of that decolonization. That was really just my journey of breaking away from a mostly Christian upbringing (my Jewish roots didn’t really play an anti-witchcraft role at all tbh) and finding the freedom to more openly be a witch and deepen my practice of witchcraft and of Wicca. Beginning to decolonize for me was a whole other journey that started soon afterward.

Fast forward to after I started studying Wicca in enough depth as a college student that I realized it really wasn’t for me and ended up converting to Buddhism instead. In a roundabout way, it was converting to Buddhism that sent me down a very different path. I was and still am a very devout Buddhist, but even though the buddha dharma is universal, Buddhism as a religion is deeply rooted in Asian cultures which is not a part of my heritage. As my Buddhist practice deepened over time, so did my longing for ancestral traditions and practices. This is what got me started with ancestor work and studying hoodoo, which is what eventually led me to an interest in ATRs and Ifá in particular. Even reconnecting with my Jewish heritage and identity was a part of this journey to tap back into my ancestral practices and spirituality.

The more I learned about these Africana traditions, the further away I got from Eurocentric ways of thinking about spirituality and magic. Converting to Buddhism from Wicca began my big push away from Eurocentric frameworks, and getting involved with hoodoo and Ifá only cemented that even further for me. Yes, witchcraft can be defined in whatever way one wants so I’m not saying people can’t practice completely non-Eurocentric witchcraft - some people absolutely do that. But for me personally, leaving the concept of “witchcraft” and the identity of “witch” behind completely was even more liberating than reconnecting with it in the first place had ever been. This was a huge part of my personal decolonization process for many different reasons.

That’s all a very long story and explanation, but that’s essentially my point. It can literally take decades to undergo the personal journeys necessary for unraveling and growing beyond what you were raised to believe and what society impresses upon you. Growing up in a very Christian household and in a Western society that enmeshes you in Eurocentric ways of thinking makes it extremely difficult because that’s all your surrounded by for most of your life. 

Unfortunately, there’s no handbook or manual guide for all this. It’s very challenging and difficult. One thing I wish I had had more of through all of it was support from role models and mentors to understand better where I was going and where I wanted to end up. Maybe if I had, these journeys might have been a bit shorter and smoother. If you can, find communities and mentors who can help you grow, but also always listen to your instincts and your own intuition. I wish you the best of luck on your way <3

[itunesbooks]

Final Cut Pro X 10.4 - How It Works - Edgar Rothermich

Final Cut Pro X 10.4 - How It Works A Different Type of Manual - The Visual Approach Edgar Rothermich Genre: Digital Media Price: $24.99 Publish Date: June 24, 2018 Publisher: DingDing Music, Inc Seller: DingDing Music " Final Cut Pro X 10.4 - How It Works " explains the new version of Final Cut Pro X (version 10.4.3) in great details with lots of graphics and diagrams that are not found in any other publication or any videos. This is a completely revised and extended version of the previous best-selling books "Final Cut Pro X - How it Works" and "Final Cut Pro X - The Details" with in-depth explanations of all the new features like Roles and Lanes, Captions, 360° Video, plus unique illustrations on how metadata-based audio works in Final Cut Pro.  Unlike the previous two books, "Final Cut Pro X - How it Works" and "Final Cut Pro X - The Details", this new book, "Final Cut Pro X 10.4 - How it Works", covers the entire content of Final Cut Pro X on 1008 pages.  This book provides not only the easiest and fastest way to learn Final Cut Pro X, the user will also understand its unique concepts and functionality. In addition, the 400-word Glossary, hyperlinked throughout the book, allows you to read the book regardless of your level of experience. "I wish all the manuals on software were like yours!" - Giovanni C. "You have the gift of making difficult concepts understandable" - William B. "Your style is the most informative and clear I have ever seen" - Mark D. "Great stuff Edgar! I bought your other Logic GEM books and love em..." - fform "Thank you so much for your fantastic guides; I've learned so much!" - Brandon B. "I love your manuals."  - Eli.  UNDERSTAND , not just LEARN That is the motto of the book series "Graphically Enhanced Manuals" (GEM). They're a new type of manual with a visual approach that helps you UNDERSTAND a program, not just LEARN it. No need to read through 500 pages of dry text explanations. Rich graphics and diagrams help you to get that "aha" effect and make it easy to comprehend difficult concepts. The Graphically Enhanced Manuals help you master a program much faster with a much deeper understanding of concepts, features, and workflows in a very intuitive way that is easy to understand http://bit.ly/2EvAYnN